Nightmare Alley (3/5 Stars)

“Nightmare Alley” was directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) and adapted from a novel that had earlier been made into a movie in the 1940s (I haven’t seen it). Ostensibly it is a horror film, but it felt more like the devolving efforts of Tim Burton, that is, much competent and loving attention is paid to the macabre look of the film, the creepiness of carnivals, the moodiness of 1930s-1940s noir style and fashion, but not so much to the underlying emotional landscape. In other words, Nightmare Alley looks like it might be scary, but it isn’t.

The movie looks very good on paper. It has a large talented cast including Bradley Cooper and Rooney Mara in romantic leads, Cate Blanchett as a psychiatrist/femme fatale, Willem Dafoe as an unscrupulous carnival operator. In supporting roles are Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, and David Strathairn. It has great production design and costumes and in general, looks really good. The writing is at its most interesting when carnival techniques are explored. In particular, the David Strathairn character is a mentalist, that is a person who can read other people’s minds (and perhaps communicate with ghosts). Mentalists cannot actually read minds, but like magic in general, sometimes the technique and artistry of how they appear to do so is just as interesting or even more so than the act demanded to be believed. Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) shows up to the carnival as a no-name drifter. He does odd jobs until he becomes involved with Pete (David Strathairn) and his wife Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette). Soon they begin to teach him the art of mentalism. These details, and later scenes in which Stanton Carlisle performs a mentalist show in front of a well-heeled audience in Chicago, are the best in the movie.

What seems to be the problem is that the movie has no hook. As such, the plot progresses without anticipation and/or suspense. We are presented with Stanton Carlisle, a man with no background, and must take him as he is. As he is a poor drifter, my first inclination is to want him to gain a living. Stanton Carlisle starts learning and performing mentalism, first in an emergency situation and then as real bona fide act. The movie appears to frown upon this, with a character or two making vague suggestions that he don’t get into the ghost part of the business. My first inclination is that I support him in his new venture. Stanton woos a fellow circus performer Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and proposes that they ditch the carnival and move their mentalism show to Chicago where they will make lots more money and live in a nice hotel. The movie appears to frown upon this. Bruno, the strongman in the carnival, (Ron Perlman), tells Stanton to stop being so friendly with the girl and that he is watching him. My first inclination is that Molly works for a carnival. She should take this opportunity to make more money with Bradley Cooper, who is nice enough, good-looking and ambitious.

It is hard to say, but I’m not sure the movie was aiming at my first inclinations. I think Guillermo del Toro wanted instead some sense of growing dread that the whole thing wouldn’t turn out so good. If this is the case, I think he miscast Bradley Cooper, who wasn’t giving off “bad guy” vibes at all. Moreover, when things do go wrong, they don’t quite seem to have the proper motivation. Like, I don’t understand what Dr. Lillith Rader’s (Cate Blanchett) motivations are, or why Stanton, if he is assuming she is untrustworthy, would trust her so blindly. I also didn’t get why Stanton starts drinking whiskey after swearing that he never touches the stuff, or after all the inevitable bad things happen, why Stanton doesn’t just start over. I mean, isn’t he at the end of the movie exactly where he was at the beginning. Why are there no options? Why doesn’t he just move his mentalist act to Canada? Perhaps there are explanations but I did not pick up on them.

The movie seems to want to say something about a certain set piece of a carnival show: the geek. This is a guy that goes in front of everyone and bites the heads off of chickens. The geek we see is unkempt, dirty, and wild. I thought for certain he may have a mental disability. Instead, it is explained that he is an alcoholic that Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe) surreptiously got hooked on heroine. (If this is the case though, why can’t the geek speak a language. Here his ability to communicate is limited to grunts and screams.) In this way, the movie appears to be saying that even Stanton Carlisle. who once successfully swore off drink, worked hard, wooed a beautiful girl, and performed as a perfectly fine mentalist, could subsequently become so degraded by life as to become a carnival geek. I’m sorry, I don’t buy that, which ultimately means, that I didn’t get the whole point of this movie. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

The Shape of Water (4/5 Stars)

“Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, for You are everywhere.”

Legend has it, writer-director Guillermo Del Toro read that the above poem somewhere, perhaps in an old Islamic text and forgot who said it first and could not find after looking. Then he wrote a movie around it.

“The Shape of Water” is a striking combination of movies, part “Creature from the Black Lagoon” part “Amelie”. It centers upon a single middle-aged woman named Elisa Esposito who happens to be a deaf-mute and works as a janitor in a top secret government in the midst of the cold water. The big bad American government, represented incarnate by a man named Richard Strickland, played by Michael Shannon at his most type-cast, has captured a fish-man from a river in the Amazon. The fish-man’s strange abilities, for breathing underwater and regenerating itself, persuade the government to perform experiments and/or pointlessly torture it. Elisa, played by a fine Sally Hawkins, falls in love with the fish-man.

Writing this after the fact, I can’t think of a logical reason why Elisa would fall in love with the fish-man other than their commonality of being outsiders (deaf people are outsiders, right?). But during the movie, I felt it. This has much to say about the style and direction of Del Toro and the masterful craftsmen he employs. Technically, the movie takes place in Washington D.C., but it feels like Paris at its most romantic. The color palette is brown and wet and green and warm. There is french accordion music playing in the background.

But mostly I believe the love story because I believe Sally Hawkins. I expect it is a tough role to pull off. She has to make us believe she finds the fish-man, played with extensive make-up by Doug Jones, attractive. She does so. She also has to be deaf and sign all of her lines. This she does also with a confidence that makes it seem like she is completely fluent in sign language. It is her greatest performance and her best opportunity for one since “Merry Happy”.

The romance is also helped by the sinister forces that aim to keep the lovers apart, and thus encourage the audience the root for the love as it stands against hate. Norah Ephron once remarked that there were two kinds of love stories, the Christian and the Jewish as she would put it. The conflict in the “Christian” type of story comes from without as in the case of “Romeo and Juliet” (whereas the conflict in the “Jewish” type comes from the imperfections of the lovers themselves). “The Shape of Water” stands directly in the “Christian” form of love story. It is almost taken for granted that the fish-man loves Sally Hawkins and the other way around. What drives the story is the evil Richard Strickland.

It may simply be my affection for the actor Michael Shannon, but I feel for Richard Strickland in this movie. Think about it. Every single character in this movie is an outsider but Richard Strickland. Sally Hawkins is deaf. Her friend and work colleague (played by Octavia Spencer) is black. Her neighbor (played by Richard Jenkins) is gay. The empathetic scientist who works at the lab (played by Michael Stuhlberg) is communist. The fish-man is a fish-man. Michael Shannon, the true-blue patriot who believes in positive thinking and 1950s conformism and commercialism, is all alone. Every other character who isn’t playing a bit role is an outsider.

Are minorities really minorities when they outnumber the supposed majority? Can a movie stand for non-conformity when the supposed conformist is the one character not conforming to the rest? Sure it can. This is America. Anyone can be whatever they want to be.

The Rum Diary (3/5 Stars)

Weak story. Needs more rum.

Before making a movie, it helps perhaps to make sure that the recurring themes that drive the storyline do not contradict and undercut each other. What we have here are two tales. One is a comedy about an alcoholic journalist (i.e. Hunters S. Thompson before he got into hard drugs) played by Johnny Depp that has just landed a shit job working for what seems to be the only newspaper in Puerto Rico. His exploits include being kicked out of a hotel for drinking 162 miniature rums from the hotel room mini bar in a week, stumbling through his workdays with a perpetual hangover, and taking a healthy dose of that magic CIA interrogation serum that later on in the sixties (this takes place in the fifties) would be known as LSD. The second story is one of heroic journalism. The young and naïve journalist played by Johnny Depp is taken on by the rich corporate executives of Union Carbide (an inspired name choice for the more or less fictional corporation here) who want him to write "journalism" that basically subs as advertising for rich land developers and plays down the detriment done by said developments to the poor indigenous population.  Apparently taken aback by the injustice done between the classes, Depp puts on the righteous journalist hat and talks about fighting back. But this journalist isn’t very effective you know because he is a complete drunk. So therein lies the problem. You have a comedy about an unapologetic drunk that isn’t very funny because we’ve introduced the serious business of class warfare and you have a drama about the plight of the poor that isn’t very dramatic because the hero of the story spends more time drunk than actually solving the problem.

It is unmistakable that Johnny Depp and the makers of this movie admire Hunter S. Thompson a great deal. The subtitles at the end of the movie claim that out of the ashes of this particular failure one of the best journalists of like ever was born (that is somewhat paraphrased but you get the idea.) I guess, maybe. I haven’t read “The Rum Diary,” but I have read Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” That book is arguably a masterpiece. A masterpiece of what is another story. A masterpiece of fiction? Sure. A masterpiece of journalism, umm...no. Thompson was a journalist in, I suppose, the loosest sense of the word. He did not care about the facts, never met a deadline, was drunk or high most of the time, and never bothered to try for objectivity. The great thing about “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” for me at least, was the audacity of it all. Here you had a story about a couple of guys that were doing massive amounts of drugs, spending vast quantities of money they didn’t have, completely destroying the property of others everywhere they went, harassing (even raping) women, openly flaunting almost every law of public decorum sometimes to the face of police officers, and most of all, getting away with it all, completely and unapologetically. It is an unflinchingly awesome story and I bet would make a great movie. Its just that every time a Thompson book becomes a film the makers (Terry Gilliam with “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Bruce Robinson with “The Rum Diary.” Both star Johnny Depp) have not been able to match the wildness of the book. In this particular film, there is way too much concern for the Puerto Ricans. Hunter S. Thompson wouldn’t give a shit about dirty disheveled children with raggedy clothing. It is true that Thompson excelled at satirizing nasty, indulgent, and overweight American consumers and there is a brief scene in this movie at a bowling alley that gets that exactly right, but just because somebody hates the ruling class doesn’t mean that they sympathize with the downtrodden. Hunter S. Thompson was a well-written sociopath, not robin hood. To portray him as the latter has the detrimental effect of dampening and diluting the trademark style that make his books such incredible reads. 

If I had the choice, I wish this movie would have spent a lot less time with the rich people (Aaron Eckhardt and his pretty wife Amber Heard) and a lot more time with the other drunk journalists. I was pleasantly surprised by a turn here by Giovanni Ribisi, as the nastiest of the nasty drunks. He is almost completely unrecognizable from his role as the insufferable corporate boss in “Avatar.” Michael Rispoli has the Dr. Gonzo role minus the law degree. Johnny Depp does a very good Hunter S. Thompson impression, but unfortunately is about 30 years to old for this particular role. The book was written by Thompson during his very first stint as a journalist. He was in his young 20s. Johnny Depp is almost 50. He looks out of place in all the job interviews, introductory rum drinking, and flirtations with Amber Heard (who is my age). It must be said that Johnny Depp looks good for his age, but he still looks his age. We young people don’t have such fat faces.

All in all, this is an okay movie. There are no bad scenes. It is well acted and well told. But apart from several inspired lines of vocabulary uttered by Johnny Depp, it is not all that memorable. It would have been stronger if they added more rum.

Let Me In (4/5 Stars) October 6, 2010

“I must be gone and live or stay and die. Love, Abby” 
That’s a quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ a play that a twelve-year-old boy named Owen is studying at his school. It is used though by Abby in a post-it left by Owen’s bedside after a chaste night the two spent together. But it isn’t simply a sentimental romantic line. It literally is true. If Abby stayed with Owen until the dawn, the light of the sun would cause her flesh to catch fire and she would be burnt to a crisp, dead. Abby is a vampire. She’s also twelve, but she has been twelve for a very long time. 




“Let Me In” is a remake of a haunting Swedish horror movie titled, “Let the Right One In.” (see previous review). Watching this movie made me proud to be an American. We did it. Go USA. ‘Let Me In’ is on the same par and arguably even a little better than the original. The writer/director Matt Reeves has done an admirable job of keeping all that was great about the first movie especially its tone, atmosphere, and deliberate pacing. But he has also added many little details here and there that round out the character of Owen, makes clearer the relationship between Abby and her “father,” and creates much more effective scenes of violence. On top of that, we have two great performances by Chloe Moretz (500) Days of Summer) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road). But let me be clear. I don’t recommend watching “Let Me In,” instead of “Let the Right One In.” I recommend you see them both. They are especially interesting from a craft perspective. Effective storytellers need not always agree on exactly how to tell a story. The differences between these two movies are not better or worse. They are simply a matter of taste. The story itself is worthy of multiple interpretations. Just like Shakespeare. I wouldn’t mind seeing another remake of this movie. 

Poor Owen. He lives in suburban nowhere and it is the midst of winter. His parents are going through a divorce and spend all of their time arguing with each other on the phone. The class bully and his buddies have singled him out for ritual punishment. He has no friends. When he isn’t at school and in a state of perpetual terror, he is at home completely alone and bored out of his mind. He spends his free time binging on “Now and Later” candy and acting out revenge fantasies in the mirror. And then Abby moves in next door. She shows up one day in the empty and dreary courtyard where Owen usually sits alone. This is an Event. It’s not exactly love at first. It’s more like Robinson Crusoe finding Friday. She is another kid his “age,” seemingly the only other one in the entire apartment complex. And she is quiet and she is sad. Just like Owen. Perhaps they could be friends. 

I remarked in my review of “Let the Right One In,” that the story reminded me of Hitchcock in that it keeps the audience in a state of moral twilight. Watching this movie, you can’t tell if what you are hoping will happen is the right thing to be hoping for. Owen as a character couldn’t be more sympathetic. You can’t help but feel for the kid. Abby, by definition, is a mass murderer. But strangely, because she is Owen's only friend, she is also sympathetic simply by association. In one scene, Owen asks Abby if she will go steady with him. I heard several people in the theater audibly sigh as if they were watching the cutest scene in the world. But pay attention to the implications and take notice of your feelings when you watch this. Sure, it’s nice that Owen has fallen in love, but is it a good thing for him to fall in love with a vampire who needs blood to live? The single best scene in the movie (which isn’t in the original) comes shortly after Owen realizes that not only is Abby a vampire but that her “father” was his age when he first met her. Owen calls up his own father and asks him, “Do you think there is such a thing as evil? Can people be evil?” His father is distracted and less than helpful but take notice of what Owen is really asking: Can the only person in the world who is kind to me be completely bad? Would you be able to forgive a killer if they were your only friend? What about the last scene? Is it mass murder? Is it an act of kindness? Could it possibly be both? How do you feel about what happened? How should you feel about it? 

The A-list for children movie stars is a very short list. Child Actors are understandably notorious for not being incredibly reliable or professional. So, a child who proves that they can carry a movie is special indeed. Here, both Chloe and Kodi have proven they are very capable of pulling off challenging roles. (This romance is iconic. I wouldn’t mind having the picture shown above as a wall poster.) Every casting director who has a difficult part for a child will surely notice them. In fact, Chloe has been cast as the lead in Martin Scorsese’s next movie. Welcome to the A-List.

Burn After Reading 09/15/08

The problem with this comedy is that it doesn't know where its priorities are. Out of the great ensemble within, there is only one purely comic character. His name is Chad and he's a absentminded gym employee played by Brad Pitt. Unfortunately he is the last character introduced and the first one to leave, prematurely at that. As far as I'm concerned, they should have made that guy the main character. He's profoundly more interesting to watch than anybody else. 
There's a bare bones feel to the entire movie. The plot may be original, and yes I haven't seen anything like it, I'll also concede that it has its moments, but it still isn't anything really special. Clocking in at a long hour and a half and ending arbitrarily (some may say lazily) it lacks any real bite or a fever pitch that usually accompanies your average Coen brothers movie. What this movie is, if anything is a weird footnote in the career's of its very accomplished cast. The Coen's have just won the Oscar for best picture, Swinton has just won an Oscar, Clooney has just been nominated, Brad Pitt is a huge star, and Malkovich and McDormand have always been well respected. Put that together with a supporting cast including the likes of J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins plus the great cinematographer Roger Deakins and it's a wonder how this movie could be so forgettable.
There are basically two plots that interweave. One features the misplaced memoirs of Osbourne Cox, an ex-CIA man, that falls into the hands of gym employees (McDormand and Pitt) who try to blackmail him. The other plot line has to do with several extra-marital affairs involving Swinton, Clooney, and McDormand. The first plot is consistently funny. The second is completely vacant of laughter and hangs around taking up space, draining away the life of the movie, and wasting time in general. Swinton may be a good dramatic actress but she is completely lost here, not that the script gives her much help. The largest laugh along this story line comes when Clooney is impressed by the white pine floor of McDormand's apartment. It's a random throwaway line that is funny simply because it has no connection with the scene. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It often doesn't in this movie. There's a complete lack of jokes in some scenes. The cutesy dialogue may garner a giggle, Clooney may mug and gain a snigger but there simply isn't enough material here. And I don't care who's telling a penis joke, the Coen brothers or Rob Schneider, there needs to be some sort of context to it before it becomes funny. Come on Coen brothers, you're better than that.