SYNOPSIS: In “The Shrouds,” a new film from David Cronenberg, and now playing in theatres, a grieving businessman is drawn into a world of jealousy and conspiracy when he markets a new, high-tech kind of interment designed to console those left behind.
CAST: Diane Kruger, Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt. Written and directed by David Cronenberg.
REVIEW: Technology has invaded every aspect of our lives, and now, in the new David Cronenberg film “The Shrouds,” it invades death as well.
Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a wealthy businessman still reeling from the death of his wife Becca. “When they lowered my wife into the coffin,” Karsh says, “I had an intense urge to get in the box with her.” In response he invents GraveTech, essentially a service that allows grieving loved ones see inside the graves of their dearly departed family members as they decompose in their shrouds.
Located next to a theme restaurant called The Shrouds, the cemetery features the latest in boneyard tech. Controlled by an app, the graves come complete with a monitor on the headstone. “It’s basically kind of a camera in her grave,” says Karsh. “It comforts me.”
As Karsh makes plans to expand his business to Iceland and Budapest, a group of activists desecrate nine of the high-tech graves, including Becca’s final resting spot. That attack becomes the catalyst for the film’s action, sending Karsh into a murky world of conspiracy, jealousy, hallucination and obsession.
“The Shrouds” may be the very definition of a movie that is not for everyone. “How dark are you willing to go?” Karsh asks at one point, and the answer is pitch black. A study in grief without a whiff of sentimentality, this is an uneasy, and occasionally queasy, representation of the pain of loss.
Cronenberg, who lost his wife Carolyn to cancer after 38 years of marriage, says he was inspired to write “The Shrouds” by his own experiences with grief. And while the movie bears his trademarked fusion of psychological and physical elements, of technology and flesh, and his clinical approach to the material, the movie still pulsates with vulnerability. The setting is surreal, but the story’s underlying motivation is personal, motivated by the thorny act of grieving.
“The Shrouds” is Cronenberg’s most personal film and is as complicated, and occasionally confounding, as the act of grief itself.
“Damaged,” a new crime drama starring Samuel L Jackson and Vincent Cassel, and now streaming on VOD, is a feature that feels like episodic television, right up to a cliffhanger-y ending that should come with a “To Be Continued” end credit.
When Edinburgh, Scottish police discover a body killed in a ritualistic fashion—the victim’s arms and legs are dismembered and left in a cross formation—they bring in Dan Lawson, a brilliant Chicago police detective with a drinking problem, who investigated a series of murders with the same MO years before.
“Kills five seemingly random people in Chicago,” says a Captain Ford (Mark Holden), “then lays low for six years. Do you think it’s a copycat?”
“We never published any images of how the body parts were laid out,” Lawson says. “I want in on this.”
Upon arrival, he’s told the Scottish police have never seen a case as violent as the gruesome remains left at the crime scene. But Lawson has. Five years before this same serial killer murdered his girlfriend.
As Lawson and Scottish Detective Chief Inspector Glen Boyd (Gianni Capaldi) chase down clues, the red herrings and twists keep the killer just out of reach. By the time Lawson’s former partner Bravo (Cassel), now a crime writer who designs security systems on the side, shows up, there are more bodies, including one that makes the case even more personal.
“Damaged” is a pastiche of serial killer movies with a mystical “DaVinci Code” flavor and some very charming Scottish accents. Despite the extreme situation—cops working on the murder of their loved ones—the movie follows familiar police procedural beats.
Jackson is reliably good, and it is fun to hear him do a toned-down riff on his “Pulp Fiction” Ezekiel 25:17 speech, even though for the rest of the movie he mostly recites lines straight out of Police Speak 101. Lines like “I didn’t come here to sit on the sidelines,” or “What is wrong with this picture?” bring a generic feel that permeates the rest of the film.
Truth is, there’s nothing wrong, exactly, with “Damaged.” First-time feature director Terry McDonough, has a ton of episodic television under his belt, shows like “Killing Eve,” “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad” and knows how to keep the action moving along, but there’s nothing here that feels really fresh.
“Damaged” has star power and a twisty-turny plot, but feels like a small screen diversion.
Who says the “Alien” franchise is dead? Ridley Scott may have exhausted the storytelling possibilities of the original franchise but don’t tell that to Kristen Stewart and the annoying T.J. Miller, stars of the new thriller “Underwater,” a.k.a. “Aquatic Alien,” new this week on VOD.
Stewart is Norah an engineer working on a rig at the bottom of the ocean. She and the crew of nautical scientists, (Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, Gunner Wright and Miller) are at the mercy of the watery depths when an earthquake destroys their subterranean laboratory. As they fight for survival they discover they may have woken a fierce enemy. “This better not be some ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ crap,” says Paul (Miller).
On the ocean floor no one can hear you scream but we can hear lots of heavy breathing as the cast grunt their lines into their deep-sea diving suits.
“Underwater” is an ocean floor people in peril flick with loads of wet, claustrophobic atmosphere but little in the way of actual thrills. The earthquake happens in the opening minutes of the film, throwing the characters into danger right off the bat so we don’t get to know anything about them other than their “never say die” attitude and Norah’s wondrous ability to squeeze through very tight spaces before the bad stuff happens. There is no emotional connection, just characters navigating the murky depths with the occasional jump scare thrown in. The final showdown with the deep-sea beast has a certain majesty to it but by then echoes of better movies like “Alien,” “The Abyss” and ”Leviathan” have done in the film’s chances of making an impression.
Lots of movies have mined similar territory but the ones that stand out add something interesting to the mix. Unfortunately “Underwater” brings nothing new to the outer space/underwater monster genre.
Visiting family can be trying. Memories can be stirred up and old wounds opened. But I will guess that no matter how surreal your stopovers with the clan may be, they likely aren’t as melodramatic as Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) visit home after a twelve year absence in Xavier Dolan’s “It’s Only the End of the World.”
Louis is successful and gay, a playwright travelling home to see his family, people he barely knows anymore. Terminally ill, he’s determined to visit on his own terms to prove he is, “until the very end the master of his life.” Instead of open arms he walks into a seething mass of hurt and anger from his relatives, manic mother Martine (Nathalie Baye), short-tempered brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel), frazzled sister-in-law Catherine (Marion Cotillard) and Suzanne (Léa Seydoux) a younger sister he barely knows.
Based on Jean-Luc Lagarce’s play of the same name, “It’s Only The End Of The World,” unfolds episodically, like a series of beautifully performed but melodramatic one act plays. An awkward conversation here, an argument there, punctuated by Dolan’s stylistic flourishes. Slow motion and close-up after close-up showcase the interesting and rather exquisite faces of the cast but lend a claustrophobic feel to the film. As the walls close in on Louis the constant up-close-and-personal bickering grates on the audience. Why doesn’t he just pack his bags and leave? Why don’t we? Either way, it would put an end to the on-screen caterwauling.
There are some touching moments in “It’s Only the End of the World,” but they occur mostly in flashback. In the present day the film portrays a clichéd view of family dysfunction that is neither as revealing nor profound enough to maintain interest. If it’s family trouble you want, go visit your own folks. At least you’ll get a home cooked meal out of the deal.
In the latest Jason Bourne movie, Matt Damon will punch, kick and spy master his way to the top of the box office charts.
His previous Bourne films, Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum, were all hits commercially and critically.
Damon says he owes a great deal to the fictional character.
After the early success of Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan and The Talented Mr. Ripley made him a star, a string of flops cooled his box office appeal.
“Right before The Bourne Identity came out,” he said, “I hadn’t been offered a movie in a year.”
Then his career was Bourne again.
“It’s incalculable how much these movies have helped my career,” he told The Telegraph. “Suddenly it put me on a short list of people who could get movies made.”
In the spirit of “one for them, one for me” for every film like The Martian or the new Jason Bourne, Damon has attached himself to smaller, riskier projects.
He lent his star power to The Good Shepherd, a low budget film directed by Robert De Niro. It’s a spy movie without the bells and whistles we’ve come to expect from our favorite undercover operatives.
There are no elaborate chase scenes a la James Bond or even the great scenery of the Bourne flicks.
In fact, the only thing The Good Sheperd shares with any of those movies is Damon, who plays Edward Wilson, one of the (fictional) founders of the CIA.
Despite mixed to good reviews — USA Today gave the film three out of four stars—and winning the Silver Bear of the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, the movie barely earned back its production costs at the box office.
Ninety per cent of director Steven Soderbergh’s job on The Informant! was casting this mostly true tale of a highly paid executive-turned-whistleblower who helped uncover a price fixing policy that landed several executives (including himself) in jail.
It’s a tricky balancing act to find an actor who can keep the audience on-board through a tale of corporate malfeasance and personal greed, who can be likeable but is actually a liar and a thief, but Damon is the guy.
The Informant! skewed a tad too far into art house territory to be Soderbergh’s new Erin Brockovich-sized hit, but Damon’s presence kept the story of accounting, paperwork and avarice interesting. Reviews were kind but A Serious Man and The Twilight Saga: New Moon buried the film on its opening weekend.
Damon teamed with John Krasinski to produce and co-write Promised Land, a David and Goliath story that relied on the charm and likability of its cast to sell the idea that fracking is bad and the corporations who dupe cash-strapped farmers into leasing their land are evil.
It’s hard to make talk of water table pollution dramatic but Promised Land makes an attempt by giving much of the heavy lifting to Damon.
Done in by middling reviews and “sobering” box office receipts, this earnest and well-meaning movie might have been better served in documentary form.
With an Oscar on his shelf and more than 70 films on his resume Damon is philosophical about the kinds of films he chooses to make, big or small.
“If people go to those movies, then yes, that’s true, big-time success,” he says.
“Jason Bourne,” the first Matt Damon led film in the series in nine years, proves that actions speak louder than words. Damon speaks a mere twenty-five lines of dialogue as he kicks, punches and crash-boom-bangs his way through this spy thriller, letting the action do the talking.
Damon’s fourth go-round as amnesiac superspy Jason Bourne begins with him tormented by his violent past. Most of his memory is intact, but he’s eaten away by guilt for the terrible things he did as a government programmed killer. “I remember,” he says. “I remember everything.”
To get his ya-yas out he goes all Fight Club, bare-knuckling any and all contenders but he’s drawn back into the international spy game—the movie never met an exotic location it couldn’t use, whether it’s Berlin, Reykjavík, Athens, London or even Vegas—after his former-handler-turned-hacker Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) tells him of a collaboration between CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones, whose face is one forehead wrinkle away from becoming a caricature of an old man) and Silicon Valley kingpin Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed). They’re working on Edward Snowden’s worst nightmare, a new program called Ironhead, a system of full spectrum surveillance; watching everyone all the time.
Wanting Bourne out of the way Dewey uses every newfangled asset at his disposal—like state-of-the-art global surveillance—to find the agent before turning to the old ways and bringing in an assassin known as, appropriately enough, The Asset (Vincent Cassel) to take care of business. “I’m going to cut the head off this thing,” says Dewey.
Flitting about the edges of the intrigue is the CIA’s cyber ops head Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), who helps Bourne in an effort to keep him away from The Asset’s deadly gaze. “Bringing him in is the smart move,” she says. “There’s no bringing in Bourne,” Dewey says. “He needs to be put down.”
Cue the carnage.
If nothing else “Jason Bourne” proves once and for all that you can’t keep a good man down. Shot, beaten, dropped from a tall building or whatever, he’s the Energizer Bunny of international spies. He just keeps on ticking. We expect that from Bourne and we also demand feral fighting scenes, crazy car crashes and action, action, action. Make no mistake, there’s plenty of Bourne battle and bloodshed and some of it is quite exciting but it doesn’t have the finesse of the earlier films. Director Paul Greengrass’s signature handheld you-are-here style is in place but doesn’t feel as fresh as it did in the other films. Often frenetic instead of pulse-racing, the action sequences are frequent but not as memorable as the magazine-in-the-toaster gag from “Bourne Supremacy” or “Bourne Ultimatum’s” hardcover book punch. Still, you might not make it quite to the edge of your seat, but the combo of action and intrigue will shift you out of a reclining position.
“Jason Bourne” has its moments. Damon brings a grizzled power to the role and Vikander is a welcome addition, even if her motives are sometimes are hard to understand. There are interesting messages about online personal rights versus public safety that would have been moot in 2002 when the series debuted, a labyrinthine plot occasionally weighed down with unnecessary exposition and an unhinged Vegas climax—Bourne must really hope that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—that would not be out of place in an Avengers movie. I just wish the ending felt less like an Avengers scene—with cars comically flying through the air—and more like a Bourne moment.
According to Hollywood a bonk on the head can empty a mind of all its memories. Experts say amnesia doesn’t work that way, but nonetheless it’s an age-old movie device. But then Hollywood would also have you believe that robots from outer space will one day take over the world and Russell Crowe can sing French show tunes.
That sense of disbelief will be crucial to your enjoyment of the new Danny Boyle film “Trance.” A big buy-in is required to accept the far-fetched plot devices to this intriguing, but intrigue-heavy movie.
After an elaborate art heist goes awry a valuable Goya painting ends up missing. Not in the hands of the thieves, or the police. The only person who knows where it is Simon (James McAvoy) but a head injury wiped his memory. To recover his memories—and the painting—criminal mastermind Franck (Vincent Cassel) hires Dr. Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to hypnotize Simon and unlock his memories. Lines between reality and memory becomes blurred, however, as Dr. Lamb probes deeper into Simon’s unconscious mind.
“Trainspotting” director Boyle presents the hypno sessions in an interesting way—as though the viewer is in the nether world between reality and the recreation of Simon’s memories. It’s disorienting filmmaking that disguises what’s real and what isn’t, which is important for a thriller with this may twists and turns. Occasionally, however, it feels as though there are too many bends in the story.
I won’t elaborate—no spoilers here—but the old saying, “Buy the ticket, take the ride,” applies here. This is Boyle pushing the boundaries of the genre and audience acceptance to the edge.
For instance if you can buy in that Cassel and his gang are the most patient violent thugs ever or that femme fatale Dawson is Reveen the Impossibilist on steroids, then “Trance” will provide some thrills. If not, why not pull out that VHS of “Trainspotting”?
“Black Swan” is the sort of psychological thriller that doesn’t get made anymore. In a time when most filmmakers are playing it safe, pumping out movies that try to appeal to every single member of the ticket buying audience, Darren Aronofsky has followed up the Oscar nominated success of “The Wrestler” with the kind of emotional noir film that Brian DePalma and Roman Polanski excelled in 30 years ago.
Natalie Portman plays Nina, a “beautiful, fearful and fragile” ballerina who dreams of dancing the lead in “Swan Lake.” When she gets the chance the duality of that role — she’ll play both the pure Swan Queen and the sensual Black Swan — begins to bleed into her real life. Consequently it pushes her already brittle psyche to the limit.
As the pressure on Nina builds, so does the paranoia and Aronofsky subtly (and not-so-subtly) drops clues that Nina’s world is two parts perception and only one part reality. Slowly the psychological and body horror builds toward an operatic climax that redefines over-the-top.
I’ve kept the synopsis purposely thin. This is a thriller and as such much of the pleasure of the film will come from learning the details of the story when Aronofsky wants you to. I can tell you Nina is pushed and pulled by an overprotective stage mother (Barbara Hershey), a faded prima donna (Wynona Ryder), a demanding director (Vincent Cassel) and a neophyte dancer named Lily (Mila Kunis). Beyond that, you’ll get no spoilers here.
“Black Swan” benefits greatly from frenetic but beautiful camerawork that is as wonderfully choreographed as any of the dance sequences and the performance of Natalie Portman.
Aronofsky has pulled good performances from everyone — Kunis’s earthiness is a nice counterbalance to Portman’s otherworldliness — but he has pushed Portman to places we’ve never seen her in before. She’s in virtually every scene of the film, and even during the dance scenes, just when you think she isn’t doing her own pirouettes — when the camera cuts from her face to her feet, or when we see her dancing out-of-focus in a mirror — Aronofsky then pans up, or snaps into focus, showing us the dancing is not a cheat.
Neither is the performance. She has physically transformed herself into a twirling 95-pound bun head. But beyond the waifish appearance she throws herself into the emotionally complex role. Echoing Catherine Deneuve in “Repulsion” her grip on reality slowly disintegrates until there is nothing left to hold on to. It is riveting and brave work that sets a new benchmark in her career.
It’s easier to end by summing up what “Black Swan” isn’t. It isn’t understated, it isn’t strictly a horror film, nor is it just a ballet film. It is a wild, primal melodrama that resonates because of the fearless and unapologetically strange work of its star and director.
