Richard Crouse interviews Carla Gugino on starring in the action film “San Andreas”
Gugino on women in action films: “In the 1950s women did draw at the box office then a lot of things changed but I think we’re coming back to the place where one does not preclude the other. You don’t have to just have men kicking ass and women being passive because that is not something today that women relate to. Women are not passive in general.”
Thomas Hayden Church is a former sitcom star best known as the lovably dim-witted mechanic Lowell Mather on the show “Wings” before making the leap to big screen stardom as a comedic sidekick to Paul Giamatti in the Oscar winning wine movie “Sideways.”
His latest film, “Whitewash,” sees him leave the comedy behind to take on a darkly psychological role that pits him against the snowy backdrop of Northern Quebec.
In the film’s opening moments we witness the event that shapes the remainder of Bruce’s (Church) life. A wild, drunken ride on a bulldozer through town leaves a man (Marc Labreche) dead. Panicked, Bruce hides the body in a snow bank and hightails it for the deep woods in an effort to avoid the police and clear his head.
The cold rugged wilderness provides a backdrop for Bruce as he pieces together the events of the past few days and flashbacks on exactly how he wound up in this situation.
There are moments of dark humor here as Bruce struggles to survive, physically and mentally, but the tone of the film is bleak. It starts with an accidental murder and never strays far from the primal necessities of Bruce’s life.
Church is in virtually every scene and delivers an extraordinary, minimalist performance. He doesn’t appear to be doing much, but subtly rides the lines between sanity and insanity, between absurdity and logic, leaving the viewer off balance as the film veers between the present and flashbacks. It’s Church’s performance that adds colour to “Whitewash’s” bleak story and ice white surroundings.
The dynamic between Labreche’s character Paul and Bruce fuels the story, building slowly to the film’s climax.
“Whitewash” is quietly suspenseful, melancholic that won’t be to everyone’s taste, but is an elegantly told story of redemption and survival.
Based on the true story of Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) attempts to convince cantankerous “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers (Emma Tompson) to sell him the movie rights to the story, “Saving Mr. Banks” may be the only documented case of a writer holding an entire studio hostage.
Walt Disney made a promise to his daughter that would take twenty years to fulfill.
The young girl loved the magical nanny Mary Poppins, and wanted her father to bring her to life on the big screen. Trouble was, writer P.L. Travers wanted nothing to do with Disney.
“These books,” she said, “don’t lend themselves to chirping and prancing.” Fearing his adaptation of Poppins would careen “toward a happy ending like a kamikaze,” she tried to explain that Mary was the “enemy of whimsy and sentiment.”
Still, Disney wouldn’t take no for an answer and that’s where “Saving Mr. Banks” begins.
In a last ditch attempt to woo her, Disney flies Travers to Hollywood to work on a script with songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B. J. Novak) and screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford). The idea is to shape a movie that everyone can live with, but Travers, a pinched women whose withering remarks leave welts, is uncooperative.
(Side note: If she really was this contrary in real life, one has to wonder how the controlling Travers would have felt about having her actual life portrayed one screen.)
As the movie unfolds a psychological drama reveals itself in the form of flashbacks to Travers’s life as a child in 1907 Queensland, Australia. Turns out her contrary nature with the filmmakers comes from a deep seeded desire to protect the memory of her father, bank manager Travers Goff (Colin Farrell), a loveable scamp who drowned his inner torment with a sea of booze, and was the inspiration for the “Mary Poppins’s” patriarch, Mr. Banks.
“Saving Mr. Banks” is a serious movie about a whimsical movie. It also has darker underpinnings than you might imagine about the origins of “Mary Poppins.” The glossy Disney sheen casts its glow but the tone of the film is downbeat. Travers is a tough cookie, but heartbreakingly so. She’s a little girl lost, the product of an unhappy childhood that haunts her into adulthood.
It’s a character that could have been a flat line, a portrait of an unhappy woman with a perm-scowl and a bad attitude, but as Thompson allows her icy façade to melt Travers takes on dimensions. By the time we realize that Mary Poppins is not there to save the children but the troubled father the movie starts to pluck the heartstrings but because of Thompson’s skill it doesn’t feel manipulative.
Hanks is effortless as the folksy Disney. He hands in a quiet but lovingly rendered portrait with some real heart and lots of nuggets of wisdom.
Ditto Schwartzman and Novak, who breathe life into the creative process with enthusiastic performances and Paul Giamatti as limo driver Ralph. It’s a supporting role that doesn’t forward the story much but does add some nice light moments that seem to blunt some of Travers’s more deeply set psychological issues.
On the minus side “Saving Mr. Banks” hopscotches between time zones in Hollywood and Australia, a contrivance that slows both stories down, dividing the focus and keeping the audience off kilter for the entire running time. It’s a tough balance and the film doesn’t quite pull it off, but makes the uniformly excellent performances to cover the movie’s languid pacing.
There’s a key line near the beginning of “12 Years a Slave, “ the new drama from “Shame” director Steve McQueen. Shortly after being shanghaied from his comfortable life as a freeman into a life of slavery Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) declares, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”
Based on Northup’s 1853 memoir the movie is an uncompromising story about will, suffering and injustice.
The film begins in 1841 in Saratoga, New York. Northup is a respected member of the community, an educated family man and talented musician. His journey into hell begins when he accepts a gig to provide music for a traveling magic show. While on the road he is sold into slavery by two unscrupulous men and shipped from the safety of the northern states into the south’s servitude.
Torn from his wife (Ashley Dyke) and two kids (Quvenzhané Wallis and Cameron Zeigler) he is sold from plantation to plantation, all the while hiding his education and literacy in an effort to deflect the attentions of his overseers and owners.
No matter how bad his situation, and it is dire, he never gives up his will to live and his dream of making his way back to the north and his family.
Unflinching in its portrayal of brutality, “12 Years a Slave,” is a grim document of man’s inhumanity and twisted justification—“A man can do whatever he wants with his property,” spits Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender)—that serves as a primer of pain and cruelty suffered by those pressed into slavery.
Powerful situations and performances abound.
An excruciating lynching scene is all the more powerful because of McQueen’s quiet, unblinking camera. As Northup struggles with a rope around his neck McQueen pulls back, showing the complete diorama, with people going about their day, children playing and white owners gazing passively at the man as he fights for breath. It’s an unforgettable sequence that hammers home the horror of how commonplace this unspeakable behavior was.
The movie is ripe with such scenes that bring the true terror and pain felt by Northup. Its not easy viewing but it is effective, brought alive by interesting work from Paul Giamatti as a slave trader who says his sentiment for those he buys and sells, “extends the length of a coin,” Benedict Cumberbatch, Northup’s first and kindest master and Fassbender, the personification of cruel and unusual.
Paul Dano, Brad Pitt and Lupita Nyong’o also add much, but the core of the movie is Ejiofor’s passionate work as a man forced into unimaginable circumstances. Simultaneously vulnerable and defiant he delivers a deeply layered performance that is sure to earn him the notice he has deserved for years given his work in movies like “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Children of Men.”
“12 Years a Slave” is a harrowing, stark movie that is equal parts educational and devastating.
Gravitas literally drips off the screen during “Parkland,” director Peter Landesman’s impressionistic look at the three days surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Somber music spills from the soundtrack, people fret and pray while Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley pontificate on “one of the more horrible days in American history.”
Trouble is, there’s no story.
Instead, it’s a character study of the folks, from the doctors and nurses at Parkland Memorial who tried to save JFK’s life (Zak Efron, Colin Hanks and Marcia Gay Harden) to secret service and law enforcement officers on the scene (Billy Bob Thornton, Ron Livingston) to Lee Harvey Oswald’s family (James Badge Dale, Jacki Weaver) to the reporters who broke the story (Mark Duplass) and the man who took the most famous images of the shooting, Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti).
It’s a sprawling cast who all vie for enough screen time to make an impact in this fast moving but ultimately ineffective study of the time.
The period details are all in place, and Giamatti, Dale and Thornton shine, but former journalist-turned-director Landesman’s lack of a point of view adds nothing to this often told tale.
The success of the 1966 cartoon The Grinch Who Stole Christmas triggered an avalanche of Yuletide themed movies from producers eager to cash in on the spirit of the season. Every year a new one comes out and for every hit there are a Santa’s sack of stinkers like Jingle All the Way and Surviving Christmas.
A year ago a new teaser trailer appeared in theatres to whet people’s appetite for a movie called Fred Claus. It was a lighthearted, fun clip featuring Fred (Vince Vaughn) and his brother Santa (Paul Giamatti) playfully yukking it up for the camera. It was a funny, warm scene that helped drive memories of the odious Christmas with the Krumps from the section of my brain that catalogues Xmas movies.
The casting of these two unlikely actors playing brothers seemed inspired and the supporting cast included no fewer than four Oscar nominees or winners. It seemed like a winner. Unfortunately, like so many previous failed holiday themed movies Fred Claus is naughtier than nice. It’s as though The Grinch, not satisfied with stealing Christmas from Whoville, swooped down on this movie and stole all the humor.
Vaughn, playing the title role, reprises his usual fast talking character—he’s part charmer, part con man who dreams of opening his own business, an OTB Parlor. Trouble is, he’s $50,000 short of the start-up money, so to raise money he dons a Santa hat, creates a fake charity and hits the pavement, silver bell and donation bucket in hand. After a dust-up with some other sidewalk Santas he winds up in jail with only one option for bail—his brother.
Fred has been estranged from his sibling (he’s an independent Claus or perhaps even Claustrofobic) ever since Nick cut down his favorite pine to make the first-ever Christmas tree. Wouldn’t that make them hundreds of years old, you ask? Why yes, apparently when Nick was made a Saint his entire family was frozen in time—they never age. Since then Fred has been living under the shadow of his younger brother.
St. Nick not only antes up the bail, but agrees to loan Fred the $50,000 he needs to open the OTB if he comes to the North Pole and works for the cash. Of course Fred agrees, and during his trip to Santa’s home turf befriends a lovesick elf (suffering from low elf esteem no doubt), and throws the whole operation into chaos to the point where Christmas is almost cancelled. By the end of the movie, however, everyone has learned valuable lessons about the importance of family, co-operation and acceptance.
Fred Claus earns a big lump of coal in almost every department. I don’t know what happened between the time the teaser trailer hit the multiplex and the film was released, but all the charm captured in that one scene we saw a year ago—which isn’t in the movie by the way—has been sucked out of the final product. Even the film’s funniest scene, a Siblings Anonymous meeting with cameos by Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton and Stephen Baldwin is poorly paced and not as effective as it could be.
The problems start from the top down. Vaughn’s inborn edginess works well in something like the R-rated Wedding Crashers but falls very flat in family fare; ditto his patented mile-a-minute patter. Director David Dobkin uses Vaughn’s size—he’s 6′ 5″—to good effect, however, taking every opportunity to hang the actor’s long legs over the edge of the tiny elf beds, but apart from some of the physical comedy Vaughn seems to be on auto pilot.
Co-lead Giamatti, tries hard but doesn’t fare much better than Vaughn. Crammed into a Santa suit (with disturbingly swollen hands) he resembles an overstuffed Christmas goose. It’s a shame; Giamatti is a great actor capable of much, much more than this. I wonder if his acting teachers at Yale ever imagined him delivering the line, “Ho, ho ho! I’m not gonna listen to no!”
Fred Claus uses the worst kind of manipulative holiday motifs to try and force the audience to care about these cardboard characters. There’s the orphaned young boy searching for a family, the bad-boy looking for redemption and the grinchy businessman. These stereotypes are the staple of every Yuletide story from A Christmas Carol on up and can be effective, it’s just too bad they weren’t put to better use here. Fred Claus exactly the nightmare before Christmas, but if you spend your money on this one, yule be sorry.
In “The Ides of March,” George Clooney (who also directs) plays a Democratic Party candidate. He’s the kind of guy who would make the top of Bill O’Reilly’s head pop off. He’s pro-ecology, anti-oil. He wants to tax the rich and legalize gay marriage. If he leans any further left he’ll topple over. Although Clooney has spoken out about many of these topics in real life, hasn’t made a left wing fm. Instead he’s made a warts and all political movie.
The movie focuses its story on Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), an idealistic campaign manager who will do anything to win, as long as he truly believes in the candidate. He is devoted to Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), a candidate in the Democratic primary. The first hour is spent getting into the campaign, learning the machinations of a big league primary run, the behind the scenes. Clooney sets up the themes of the piece–loyalty, ethics and the hard edge that comes from playing in the bigs–before taking a right turn–story wise, not ideologically–into different territory.
I’m not going to give away the twist, but it is really then that the movie picks up steam. The first hour is good stuff, great acting from Paul Giamatti, and P.S.H. and a fascinating, if occasionally dry look at life in the political fast lane. Then comes the blackmail, the meetings in darkened stairwells and double crossing journalists.
Gosling impresses as he makes his way from idealism to stark realism, and Clooney looks like he was born to sit in an oval office, but it is the supporting cast who really shine.
Giamatti and Hoffman reek of the backroom. They play opponents but are cut from the same cloth, men who are two steps ahead of everybody else in the room.
“The Ides of March” takes a bit too long to get to the game changing moment, but when the acting is this good, it’s worth the wait.
The Illusionist is a strange story that is part The Usual Suspects, part Masterpiece Theatre. Set in turn of the century Vienna, the story mixes political intrigue, love and magic into a sparkling confection that mesmerizes the eye and the mind.
Ed Norton plays Eisenheim the Illusionist, a stage magician who possesses powers greater than any of his contemporaries. He is tall, elegant and mysterious. In one elaborate trick—which is based on an actual illusion performed by the legendary Robert Houdin—an orange tree grows on stage, bears fruit and for the finale, two butterflies fly from the tree carrying a handkerchief previously borrowed from an audience member.
When the magician baffles and embarrasses a member of the royal family—who also happens to be engaged to his childhood sweetheart—Eisenheim’s act comes under the scrutiny of the power hungry Inspector Uhl, played by Paul Giamatti. Like Eisenheim’s magical orange tree the story blossoms before our eyes, but keeping it’s inner workings under wraps. There is more going on here than meets the eye, and director Neil Burger skillfully juggles the murder mystery, mystical and magical elements of the story.
Edward Norton hands in his usual adroit performance as Eisenheim. Smooth and polished, his portrayal of the magician is powerful, with the only major problem being the bizarre accent he uses. It may be historically correct, but it sounds too mannered and prissy.
In a story full of wonder, it is Paul Giamatti who really amazes. As Inspector Uhl Giamatti completely sheds the Joe-Schmo persona that marks his most famous roles and delivers a polished portrait of a power hungry man who will not let the truth stand in the way of climbing up the political ladder. He plays a policeman, who ironically, steals the movie from the rest of the cast.
The Illusionist is a rarity, an independent period piece. The film was made on a budget, and was budgeted at a fraction of what a comparable Hollywood film would cost, but you would never know it. It is a sumptuous looking film about the nature of power and the power of people to believe in something they don’t understand.
Lady in the Water is a story originally conceived by Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan for his children. It’s a modern fairy tale about an unassuming building manager, Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), who saves an ethereal young woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) from danger only to discover that she a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the perilous journey from our world back to hers. Heep and the tenants of the apartment complex work together to protect their new delicate friend from the scrunt, a deadly creature who is determined to prevent her from returning home.
The Lady in the Water is easily the oddest and most audacious film of the summer blockbuster season. Shyamalan is one of the most successful directors of the last decade, having huge hits with films like The Sixth Sense and Signs that were heavy on atmosphere and surprising plots twists but in Lady in the Lake he plays it straight, more or less. Don’t expect a twist at the end—the last Shyamalan film, The Village, was ruined for me because I spent the whole movie anticipating the twist and never connected with the plot—but the story isn’t exactly clear-cut.
The viewer is asked to follow a fable that unfolds slowly, and is filled unusual characters and strange mythology. It’s the soul of the movie and it will either work for you or it won’t. I thought the mythology was a bit too contrived, and a little bit too much like watching a long game of Dungeons and Dragons, complete with narfs, beasts, guilds, and healers. The intricate fable slows down the story, getting in the way of the moral—that people should consider their purpose on earth—and gets increasingly ludicrous as the movie plods along.
The main reason to watch is to see good actors doing good work. Paul Giamatti hands in another likeable performance that shows why he is one of the best actors working in mainstream movies today. Bryce Dallas Howard as the title character has a naturally brittle otherworldly look that works very well. In supporting roles Bob Balaban is amusing as an self-important film critic (is there any other kind?) who meets a nasty end—I’m sure Shyamalan enjoyed writing that part after the lambasting he took on his last film—and the director himself takes on his largest (and most ego stroking) part to date as a writer destined to become a prophet of sorts.
Lady in the Water is a frustrating movie. It’s not awful by any means, it has good performances and it looks beautiful, but it isn’t really successful either. What’s missing here is a strong hand in terms of interesting story telling. At it’s best it is a refreshing attempt to steer a summer blockbuster into more interesting ground, but at it’s worst does what all bedtime fables are supposed to do—put you to sleep.
Richard Crouse interviews Carla Gugino on starring in the action film “San Andreas”
