Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider has never interested me as a character.  Yes, his flaming skull looks pretty cool, but that's where the intrigue ends for me.  When Ghost Rider was released in theaters back in 2007, I thought it looked terrible, so I never watched it.  Despite some harsh reviews, the movie managed to make over $200 million worldwide.  You would think a sequel would be a no-brainer --- and it is, no matter how dumb the first film looked --- but Columbia Pictures was hesitant.  They ended up giving the go-ahead, but only after the budget had been cut to less than half of the first movie.  Normally, I would take that as a sign to stay the hell away from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  But then I noticed that Neveldine/Taylor were directing.  The directors of Crank and Nic Cage, working together at last?  That is a recipe for some serious Lefty Gold.

...and the flamethrower urine scene clinched it.  Let's get Ghost Ridden!  Wait...that came out wrong...

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance does not, in fact, begin with the title character.  Instead, Moreau (Idris Elba) has arrived at a monastery to warn the monks of the dangers they face.  The monks are providing shelter to Danny Ketch (Fergus Riordan) and his mother, Nadya (Violante Placido --- a wonderful action movie name).  Well, they were.  Some bad dudes showed up and killed the monks; though Danny and Nadya escaped, Moreau knows that they will be caught before the solstice, unless something drastic is done.  Naturally, his first thoughts went to the Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider: when "drastic" isn't drastic enough

Moreau tracks down Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) and offers to have his priest buddies remove the Ghost Rider curse from Blaze if he manages to keep Danny and Nadya safe.  What's the deal with them?  Well, the devil (Ciarán Hinds) wants Danny for some nefarious purpose.  Do you need more of a reason than that?  It really shouldn't matter, as long as it gives us an excuse to see Ghost Rider puking metal on a bad guy.

Flaming pee is great, but molten puke is almost as good

The acting in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is about what you should expect from the people behind this movie.  Nic Cage is predictably ridiculous, so your enjoyment will rely heavily on how much Crayzee Cage you can handle.  I thought he was actually fairly solid, balancing some lightweight angst with unintentionally funny scenes where he is fighting to keep the Rider from taking over his body.

I wish this shot made the final cut

Was he actually good?  God, no.  He was suitably silly enough for the script; there is a big difference.  Violante Placido doesn't really do much.  She whines about her son and wonders why bad things happen to characters who have the devil's baby.  In other words, her character is in the film to add a pair of boobs to the cast, and in that, she succeeded.

...AND booze?  Double success!

Idris Elba was okay.  He handled a French accent well enough, and his character's love of wine added some cute moments.  Little Fergus Riordan was decent as a child actor, which can be translated as "he wasn't irritating."  Ciarán Hinds was a solid choice to play the villain, but I would have liked to see him be more obviously bad.  His devil was a pretty sorry-ass lord of darkness.  His lead henchman wasn't any better, either.  Blackout (Johnny Whitworth) starts out as a none-too-terrifying thug, but he is transformed into this:

Johnny Winter?

He now had the power of decay and the ability to do some sort of thing where people can't see him and I guess he moves fast or something.  I didn't quite get that bit, but I caught enough to reconfirm my belief that albinos are too powerful and evil to not register as lethal weapons with the government.  Anthony Head appears at the beginning of the movie and almost immediately dies off-screen.  Rounding out the notable cast is the always peculiar Christopher Lambert, who allegedly underwent several months of sword training to prepare for his role as the guy who fell asleep at the frat party.

It was a very literate fraternity, apparently

Why would Lambert need months of sword training for only a few minutes of screen time?  That's a good question.  A better question, though, is "Why would Lambert need sword training after all those godawful Highlander movies?"

The direction of Neveldine/Taylor fit surprisingly well with the script for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  They kept the pace going pretty quickly, and most of the downtime was filled with unintentional humor:

Example: the devil smelling a fart

...or intentional humor, like Ghost Rider pissing flames or enjoying Kajagoogoo.  I don't always like the work of Neveldine/Taylor, but they did about as much as they could to make this movie entertaining, given the script.  Granted, making it "entertaining" doesn't negate the fact that this is a stupid, stupid movie, but at least it doesn't take itself seriously.  The script, though, is pretty wretched.  David S. Goyer wrote the story and co-wrote the script, but he didn't do either very well.  This screenplay is either littered with holes, or the editing process was wretched.  When you consider some of the odder moments in the script --- A punk rocker with a hippie van?  The devil can't get enough followers to fill more than a few rows in a stadium? --- I think it's pretty obvious that the writing is at fault.

Please tell me that the Rider will hunt Goyer down for his sins

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was never going to be a legitimately good movie.  Never.  It could have been close, if it had been rated R and let these crazy co-directors do whatever random stuff popped into their heads, but this is about as much fun as I can imagine having with a Ghost Rider movie.  They fixed some of the small things from the first movie -- Cage's hair looks real this time and there's a lot less self-pity --- and also had fun with some ridiculously over-the-top additions (like the Ghost Rider construction vehicle).  The special effects looked pretty good, and that's even more impressive, given their slashed budget.  Even when you consider all that, this is still on the lower end of comic movie adaptations, thanks to some uninspired campiness and poor writing.

 ...but that's only if you take this movie seriously.  If you want something to enjoy after a few drinks, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a solid choice.  It gets a Lefty Gold rating of

John Carter

You've probably heard about John Carter's box office performance, even if you didn't care to see the film itself.  It was a bomb.  A dud.  A disaster.  Disney announced that, between the production budget and advertising costs, it lost $200 million by making John Carter.  I'm not exactly sure how that math works, since every source I have found pegs the budget at $250-300 million and theatrical and DVD sales combining for nearly $300 million, but I suppose that advertising could account for the significant difference.  Even accepting John Carter as a financial failure doesn't mean it's actually a bad movie, though.

An alien with a prosthetic leg on her back doesn't help, though

I don't normally focus much on the advertising campaigns for movies, but check out these trailers for John Carter:

This is the teaser trailer from July 2011, which was shown before some that Summer's biggest blockbusters.  An interesting choice of music (Peter Gabriel covering the Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage") gives this a moody, romantic feel.  Opening with the title character apparently dead and a direct reference to author and Carter-creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, it continues with some scenes reminiscent of Star Wars ("Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" and destroyed settlements on Tatooine) and flashes of battles, Victorian dress, and an homage to movie Westerns.  And then Taylor Kitsch jumps very high, which is enough to impress the disembodied voice of Willem Dafoe.

And his disembodied voice is hard to please!  Remember Spider-Man 2?

This trailer feels like an idea salad, where a bunch of stuff was thrown in together and presented by a very serious French waiter.  Well, at least the weird tattoo design for the logo is kind of cool.  If I had to guess, based only on this trailer, I would assume that John Carter was a science fiction romance with swashbuckling overtones.  Not the most bankable idea, but an early March release date means several weeks without any serious competition in theaters.  It might not "wow," but it didn't look stupid, at least.

Okay.  Let's see what we have in January 2012.  Some sort of arena battle, some large-scale battles with aliens, and a rousing ripoff Braveheart-style speech.  With the added gravitas from a symphonic version of "Kashmir," this looks like an epic sci-fi action movie.  Well, except for the exasperated look on Taylor Kitsch's face when he's fighting the bantha white bear-thing.  I wonder what happened to those romantic overtones?

Huh.  Attempt #3, aired less than two weeks before the premiere, appears to be dropping the epic pretensions for an all-out science-fiction war movie.  John Carter uses chains, swords, rocks and guns to fight a variety of evil.  The last set of scenes didn't make a whole lot of sense, though, as it was obviously spliced from different parts of the movie.  Why would they do that?  Why would they keep changing their focus with this ad campaign?  How bad can John Carter be?!?

John Carter is the tale of (surprise!) John Carter.

Because 13 seasons were not enough

The movie opens with the announcement of Carter's death to his nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara); after the funeral, Burroughs is given his uncle's journal, from which the rest of the tale is told.  In the post-Civil War Wild West, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) hints at his tortured past while a military muckety-muck (Bryan Cranston) lists some of the reasons the audience should think Carter is a bad-ass (great solider, awards, etc.).  While Cranston is doing this, John Carter is undermining his legendary value by getting the crap kicked out of himself, over and over again.  And then (more or less), he wakes up on Mars, where the lower gravity gives him incredible leaping powers and super-strength.  He is quickly taken in by the barbaric Thark tribe (or race, or species...it's not too clear), a large, four-armed and green-skinned group, led by Tars Tarkas (voiced by Willem Dafoe).  Soon after, John Carter notices a battle between spaceships; it is between the humanoid cities of Helium and Zodanga (obviously), so the Tharks don't really have a dog in the fight and are willing to ignore it.  Not John Carter.  Not when he can save a chick in a Princess Leia metal bikini and have her turn out to be Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins) of the great city of Helium. 

Metal bikinis: the most exploitative protection available

At this point, all John Carter wants is to go home and continue getting hit over the head by Bryan Cranston's men, but Dejah's plight gradually grabs his attention.  It turns out the the leader of Zodanga, Sab Than (Dominic West), has somehow gotten his mitts on a superweapon and could destroy the mighty city of Helium.  He will pardon the city if he can build a truce between the two eternally-warring nations by marrying Dejah.  She refuses and runs, because the freedom of the individual is paramount over the livelihood of millions.  But it's not that simple!  There is a secretive group of beings, the Thern, who are pulling the strings of Martian history from behind the scenes, and they are the ones planning the wedding of Dejah and Sab Than.  Why is a clandestine Martian race with powers above and beyond everyone else putting so much effort into a royal wedding?  I blame residual William and Kate fever.  Whatever the reason, the wedding must happen.  But can the Heliumiites trust the Zodangarians?  What about the Tharks?  And what's up with the Therns?  And how does a former Confederate solider with mad hops fit into all this?  Most importantly, when did "jumping high and far" become an invaluable weapon of war?

You'll need to look harder than that to figure it out

The acting in John Carter isn't bad.  It's not great, but it is certainly on par with other epic sci-fi tales.  Taylor Kitsch doesn't exude charm or charisma, but he makes up for it by doing his best Batman Bale Voice impression.  There are moments, though, where Kitsch shows a bit of promise --- usually when he's not doing epically serious things --- and is fairly likable.  Unfortunately, those bits are too far between, and his overall performance is pretty bland.  Honestly, my favorite scenes for him were when he kept trying to escape Bryan Cranston in the beginning.  Lynn Collins' role was pretty stereotypical --- a tough princess with a soft heart --- and she didn't add much to the role.

Plunging necklines don't count?

Dominic West continues to play only awful villains on film, and his work here is along the lines of everything else he's done in the big screen.  Think slimy and sleazy, and you've got the picture; it's too bad, really, because he's fantastic on The Wire.  Mark Strong also plays a role typical for him; he's a bad, bad man with little regard for life.

"It's only acting if I'm faking it"

The rest of the live-action cast doesn't do much.  Bryan Cranston's talents are wasted with his bit part.  Daryl Sabara is barely in the film.  Ciarán Hinds could have been replaced with a frowny-faced emoticon.  James Purefoy had a few lines and Art Malik was onscreen barely long enough to make me think "Oh hey, True Lies guy...!"  And then there are the Tharks.

Still prettier than Dafoe

Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Thomas Hayden Church, Jon Favreau, and David Schwimmer are some of the recognizable names in the voice cast.  Granted, Schwimmer and Favreau are just cameos, but that's still more talent that you might expect from CGI-based roles.  I have no problem with any of the voice actors.  I always like Dafoe's voice, so he stuck out the most for me, but it was decent work, all around.

While the acting wasn't great, I've enjoyed movies with worse acting.  The direction in John Carter is one of the weak points for the film.  Co-writer/director Andrew Stanton didn't really know where he wanted to go with this film.  It certainly has epic aspirations.  It certainly wants to shows some romance.  It also wants to have huge CGI battle sequences.  And yet, at its core, this is ultimately a family-friendly adventure movie, along the lines of an Indiana Jones.  There are a few scenes with slapstick comedy (Carter learning to walk on Mars), there is a cute pet (the super-fast dog-thing), and the hero takes more than a few humorous lumps (especially in the beginning).  These pieces don't meld together, like ingredients in a soup.  They are like jigsaw pieces that were re-cut and assembled by a stubborn child, regardless of where they actually fit or if they make sense.

Example: epic rescue scene or mowing a space lawn?

Stanton's failure is not complete, but kind of like the Star Wars prequels; yeah, it sucked, but there were a couple of cool ideas.  The aliens and the world of Mars were well-developed enough so that I was not constantly reminded of the many films that have borrowed from this material in the last 40 years.  It just wasn't very interesting.

Even the actors can't stand this script

The plot is over-dramatic.  The acting is not very compelling.  The script is mediocre at best, with an unhealthy dose of unneeded complexity and unintentional hilarity.  My favorite line in the whole film is "Beans.  The first item ***dramatic pause*** is beans."  That wouldn't have been a deal-breaker, but the action scenes were pretty tame, giving this movie absolutely nothing exceptional to stand on.

Except the costume choices

The ultimate sin of John Carter is that it is pretty boring.  Is that the fault of the source material, as some have claimed?  I don't think so.  There's enough in this movie that almost works to make me think that it could have been the flagship title that Andrew Stanton obviously hoped for.  Had it played up the adventure angle more and the dramatic epic-ness less, this could have been a fun sci-fi pulp romp.  But it is presented as an epic, and it just doesn't work.  This is one of those films where you watch it and are constantly reminded how much it cost to produce.  I don't think I've seen a movie since The Adventures of Baron Munchausen where I was so frequently surprised by the ratio of the film's scope to the size of it's inevitably tiny audience.  It's a failure, but it's not all that bad.  Which actually makes it less fun to watch, unfortunately.  It's not cool enough to legitimately enjoy, but it's not bad enough to enjoy while drunk.  It's just...John Carter.  And that is a stupid name for a movie.

On a closing note, I never realized how many things I like have been influenced by Burroughs' work.  Never mind all the film influences (Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar, etc.) --- one of my favorite comic book issues growing up was a direct homage, and I never even realized it!  Here's the cover to Excalibur (Vol. 1) #16:

Metal bikinis?  Check.  The title "Kurt Wagner - Warlord of ?"  Check.  And the story involves four-armed aliens, a beautiful princess, and a strange hero destined to rule them all.  It's not exactly Alan Moore or anything, but it was a fun issue that still holds up.  It's one of the few times where comic book Nightcrawler was as cool as X2: X-Men United Nightcrawler was, and it's cute seeing a character (Kitty Pryde) who is uncomfortable in a metal bikini.  Good work, Chris Claremont.  Now take a look at one of the many covers made for The Warlord of Mars:

Man, Frank Frazetta could paint.  It's not a big deal by any means, but stumbling across this image and the nostalgia it sparked in me almost made me care about this intellectual property.  Almost.

Woman in Black

Alternate title: Clingy Bitch

Now that the Harry Potter series is over, it will be interesting to see how the acting careers of the wizarding kids will progress.  The first of the Big Three to star in a movie with widespread theatrical release in America is, unsurprisingly, Daniel Awesomeledge Radcliffe with The Woman in Black.  Aside from wanting to see if Harry Potter can play a muggle, is there any other reason to see this film?  Well, it is one of the releases from the recently resurrected Hammer Films, the same studio that released the Lee/Cushing Dracula films of the 60s and 70s.  In these times of crappy remakes and Saw sequels, it's surprising that a British Gothic horror story can be successful (and this was pretty profitable), but if anyone is going to make an entertaining British horror flick, it would be Hammer.

Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) has been a widower ever since his wife died giving birth to their son, about three or four years ago.  You'd think he would have the hang of it by now, but no.  Kipps has been moping around literally for years --- even his son always draws Kipps with a frowny face --- and his law firm has had enough.  If he can't pull his own weight, he will be fired.  His last chance is to settle the estate of the late Alice Drablow in Creepytown, UK.  Alice lived in a house that was isolated 3/4 of the day by the tides of the local marsh, and apparently left a ton of official documents lying around there. 

Yep.  That looks like Gothic horror to me

Even if the house wasn't isolated, Kipps would have felt ill at ease; the locals are not very subtle with their wish to have him leave town immediately and without visiting the Drablow house.  Kipps eventually makes his way to the house and it turns out to be gross and unsettling.  How unsettling?  Rooms full of porcelain dolls unsettling.

Porcelain dolls are creepy and they want your soul.  Fact.

After a few hours on the property, Kipps catches a glimpse of a woman wearing black; at first, she is in the graveyard (always nice to have one in your front lawn), but when he goes out to investigate, he notices that she is watching him from inside the house.  When Kipps heads back to town that afternoon --- and, for the record, he didn't seem to do a whole lot of lawyering that day --- he is immediately greeted by a young girl who has drank some lye.  It...didn't agree with her.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident; it seems that dozens of local kids have committed suicide in this town over the past several years.  But why do the townspeople blame Kipps for the girl's death?  And what does this have to do with the woman in black?

Gothic horror is certainly not for everyone.  Personally, I'm not a big fan of the sub-genre, and The Woman in Black generally adheres to the traits common to the style.  If you sit down to watch this, be prepared for a fairly slow-paced plot, period piece costumes, an emphasis on suspense and atmosphere over gore, and a healthy respect for the paranormal.  As far as the style goes, The Woman in Black is a pretty solid example of how to do it right in the modern era; if they had traded some of the anticlimactic "gotcha" scares for some more disturbing images, I would call this an excellent exercise in Gothic horror.

If that face in the window gives you the heebie jeebies, you might be a Gothic horror fan

Daniel Radcliffe was solid in his first post-Potter starring role.  He doesn't erase your memory of his childhood work (perhaps a different haircut or a beard would have helped), but darn few things will.  Brain Bleach would be a catchy name for one.  The lead in atmospheric horror movies is typically supposed to slowly react to the rising eeriness, hopefully in a manner similar to how the audience would react.  Radcliffe doesn't "wow" you with his skills, but his reactions felt genuine enough.

A hatchet to face possible ghosts?  Stupid, but I'd grab one if I could

Ciarán Hinds has the biggest supporting role, but it's a pretty huge step down in screen time from co-headliners Radcliffe and Dread to Hinds.  He was adequate, but nothing more; aside from having to look embarrassed a few times, Hinds was just there to act as a personification of rational thought.  British character actor Roger Allam had a small, weenie-ish part, and Liz White made faces at the camera as the dreaded titular woman.

The Woman in Black is only the second film directed by James Watkins, but it was a pretty good effort.  He made a successful film with Daniel Radcliffe looking worried in every scene; it is tough to make a decent horror movie in general, but one that focuses almost exclusively on a single character is a lot harder.  The pacing could feel dreadfully slow in the first half of the film, but Watkins was wise enough to show several deaths to spice things up.  I will say, though, that The Woman in Black has more child suicides in it than any other movie I have seen.

They can't fly

One of the trademarks of the Gothic horror movie is the reserved nature of the characters, and I thought Watkins succeeded in using those subtle degrees of visible emotion to emphasize the slow build of the story.

Despite generally liking most of the ingredients in The Woman in Black, I didn't like it all that much.  Part of that is because I generally dislike Gothic horror --- give me a machete-wielding maniac any day --- but there were just too many small things that bugged me in this movie.  From a directional standpoint, I thought the off-screen wailing of the mothers who lost their kids was a bit melodramatic; I get it, grief isn't pretty, but couldn't they have lines less cliche than "My bay-bees!  Waaaugh!"  From a story standpoint, I don't see why all of this had to happen.  SPOILER ALERT: The townspeople believe that going to the house will inevitably lead to meeting the woman in black, who will inevitably then kill an apparently random child for some reason; okay, fine, I can follow that logic.  So why would anyone in the town agree to drive Kipps there?  And why doesn't he just grab all the papers from the house and take them back to London, so he can go through them in an honest-to-God office, instead of a dusty haunted house? 

Probably not for the helpful notes on the walls

And how does the woman in black operate?  If you see her once, she kills a kid, if you see her twice she kills another kid?  If so, then this movie ended about six child deaths shy of the supposedly inevitable total.  And let's say that Kipps has come to terms with the possibility that he is facing some evil spirits --- why does he keep locking doors, despite frequent evidence that locks mean nothing to ghosts?

A: Because he hasn't figured out windows yet, either

And, perhaps the biggest plot hole of all, if the townspeople are convinced that something is killing their children, why don't they movie away?  Despite all of that, The Woman in Black is a nice little suspense/horror flick.  It's not for all tastes, but it is a nice atmospheric supernatural tale.  I would specifically recommend this to people who fall for "boo" scares, don't like gore, and are creeped out by ghost children and/or child deaths.  If you're looking for excitement in your horror fix, I would look elsewhere.  Still, this is a solid effort from a film with a small budget.

If found it interesting that much of the promo work for The Woman in Black featured old timey photographs with the eyes scratched out, some with the caption "What did they see?" 

Okay, pretty creepy.  However, that isn't fully addressed in the film.  Now, you might argue that the answer to that question is ni the title of the movie; I can buy that argument up to a point.  But what about the kids?  The logic in the film states that the adults are the ones responsible for the seeing-thing.  Interestingly, the kids' eyes are left unscratched in the actual film.  In fact, the scratched photos look more like the faces are being attacked than just the eyes.  Weird, huh?  What an odd choice for the film's advertising team.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I have seen every James Bond movie at least four times (except Quantum of Solace).  I mention that to point out just how much I enjoy spy movies.  I have also read most of the original James Bond books, as well as several spy novels by Robert Ludlum and John le Carré; I mention that to prove that I understand the difference between a James Bond movie and an actual spy film.  The reality (according to the fiction I have read) of espionage is that unremarkable people patiently do a lot of work as subtly as they can, with potentially Earth-shaking results.  When I saw the first trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy --- based on one of the best action-free spy stories ever --- and saw the excellent cast, I knew I would be in for a treat.  A subtle, quiet treat, but a treat nonetheless.

Above: an action sequence in the film, shown in real time

Control (John Hurt) is dead.  The former head of British Intelligence (AKA SIS, AKA MI6, AKA --- in le Carré's books, anyway --- The Circus) died in disgrace.  Convinced that there was a high-level mole feeding information to the Soviets, Control approved a mission to bring over a defector from the Eastern bloc that allegedly had hard proof as to the mole's identity.  The mission was a failure; the MI6 agent, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), was identified and shot (not dead, though), and an international incident was born.  Control and his right hand man, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), were forced into retirement.  The rest of Control's elite inner circle of intelligence men simply moved up a few rungs and have been ruling ever since.

First new rule: reclining seats for the Q-Bert room

After Control's death, Smiley is approached by someone in the British government to investigate a claim made by a Circus operative, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), that there was a mole in The Circus; the incident that made Tarr suspicious happened after Smiley was sacked, so it seems that A) Control was right all along and B) Smiley couldn't have been the leak, since he had no access to Tarr's situation.  Smiley is tasked with finding the double agent amongst the Circus elite, but doing so without The Circus' knowledge, and without direct access to The Circus himself.  That may sound difficult, but that's because it is.  And also because Control was certain that the mole had to be one of his inner circle.  He even assigned them each a code name; "Tinker" was Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), "Tailor"  was Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Soldier"  was Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), "Poorman"  was Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and "Beggarman" was Smiley.  Even the most trusted spies in The Circus were suspect.  But if we know who Tinker, Tailor, and Solider are, who is Spy?  That's what Smiley's trying to find out.

...and probably who's on the receiving end of this shot

The acting in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is very low-key, but also quite good.  I really liked Gary Oldman's portrayal of Smiley; it is difficult to make a deliberate, contemplative character come to life on film, but I thought Oldman's Smiley was brilliantly cold and calculating, but also jealous and lonely.  His performance was more inaction than action, but I think that's what draws you in.  The rest of the cast (which is pretty huge) is good, but the silence of Smiley is really what this film is about.  Tom Hardy was good as the spy equivalent of a blunt instrument with awful, awful hair. 

Shouldn't spy jackets conceal things better than this?

Rivaling that hair was Mark Strong's combover, although it was nice to see Strong playing a non-villain for a change.  It turns out that he's still fun to watch, even when he's not evil.  John Hurt was probably the most explosive character in the movie, which seems a little odd, given that he's in his seventies, but just imagine him being loud and cranky and you'll get the gist of his performance.

"Get off my lawn!"

The other fairly emotive character in the film was current holder of the coveted "Most British Name" award, Benedict Cumberbatch.  His character was understandably nervous, but I felt he was a little too high-strung at times.

I just like saying his name.  Try it: Cum-ber-batch!

The rest of the cast was made of fine, establish British actors.  Colin Firth is the most noteworthy, but I thought Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds also gave solid performances.  I also found it interesting to see Konstantin Khabenskiy in a film released in the West that was not directed by Timur Bekmambetov; Khabenskiy basically played the stereotype of a hard-drinking Russian jerk, but he's pretty good at that.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first major English-language film from director Tomas Alfredson, and I think he was a good stylistic match to the source material.  For some reason, most of the Swedish directors I have seen have excelled at slowly-paced, subtle films, and that's exactly what this story needed.  I liked how quiet and claustrophobic this movie felt at times, and I thought Alfredson did a great job with the actors.  My only problem was how dense the narrative was.  I like that Alfredson didn't dumb the story down or over-explain things, but this is a movie that demands your attention --- and if you're not sure that it makes sense, you're going to need a few viewings and a flow chart to make a definite conclusion. 

Because Smiley sure as hell won't tell you

As much as I enjoyed this subtle, complex film, I wasn't as blown away as I had hoped.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is definitely a solid movie, but it's not the sort of movie that I want to re-watch in the immediate future.  It's very, very slow --- and I think that pace fits the story well --- so I will need to be in just the right mood to watch this again.  There's isn't anything about the film that I downright disliked, but (aside from the overall consistent quality) there wasn't anything that I positively loved, either.  Oldman was great, but his role is almost an anti-presence in the film; who he isn't spending time with and what he's not saying aloud are kind of his defining traits.  While that was artfully done, it's not the sort of performance that amps me up.  Still, this is a very cerebral spy drama.  It might not exactly "thrill," but it is one of the best examples of what espionage is (probably) truly like.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

I've never been a big fan of Roger Ebert, but I do "Like" him on Facebook; while I frequently disagree with his opinions, he posts a lot of interesting links to essays and other cool websites.  Another thing Ebert likes to do is call out some of an actor's best work on their birthday; for Helen Mirren, Ebert suggested The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.  I had never heard of the film, but the more movies I see Helen Mirren in, the more I like her, so I gave it a shot.  I'm the sort of person who likes to be surprised by movies, so I usually don't research them before I see them; in the case of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, I probably would have liked a heads up.  This movie is a little artsy-weird.

How can I say such a thing?

Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) is a British mobster (or a thug with underlings, if you don't like that term) with some unique passions.  He loves money, he loves food, and he loves...well, the third one is better left unsaid for now.  He has plenty of money, so he indulges his second passion by owning a fancy French restaurant, even though he doesn't appear to truly like much French food.  Unlike most fans of fine dining, though, Albert likes to force his opinions and tastes upon everyone else.  The film opens with his head chef, Richard (Richard Bohringer), being publicly humiliated --- stripped naked, beaten, peed on, with excrement smeared on his body and shoved in his mouth --- for contradicting Albert.  Everything that Albert does to "improve" the restaurant is gaudy and classless, and he only appears sophisticated next to his boorish underlings. 

His actions even make that claim questionable at times.  Albert and his posse impose themselves upon the restaurant every night, making it a terrible place to work and/or eat.  Accompanying Albert is his wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), who is sophisticated and does appreciate French cuisine.  Why is she with such a brute?  Well, it appears that she has given up escaping or changing Albert, and has resigned herself to ignoring her surroundings as much as possible.  One night, though, Georgina makes eye contact with another restaurant patron, Michael (Alan Howard), and something changes.  No words are exchanged at first, but they begin a passionate affair, right there in the restaurant, under Albert's nose.

Passionate affairs apparently aren't always fun or glamorous

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a film steeped in directorial intent.  I haven't researched it, so I'm not exactly sure what director Peter Greenaway is commenting on with this movie, but I'll hazard a guess that it has symbolic meanings (and, given the time period and country of origin, probably has something to do with Thatcher).  That's fine and all, but I'm going to concern myself with the film out of the context of the times.  The first thing that struck me about this film is how strange it looks.  The visuals are simply striking.  There are only a few sets in the movie, but they all have their own color scheme and lighting; the restaurant is red, the bathrooms are a spotless white, and the kitchen has kind of a greenish hue.  The sets are enormous; the kitchen looks like a warehouse and the bathrooms are large enough to play soccer in. 

GOOOOOAAAAAAAL!!!

The costumes change as they leave one set for another, too --- and when they don't change, it is supposed to evoke a subtle reaction from the audience.  The film is ripe with symbolism, but of what?  Gluttony?  Passion?  Disgust?  Complete bullshit?  You can make a solid argument for any of these.

I think it is indisputable, though, that Greenaway worked well with his cast.  Michael Gambon --- a classically trained actor, with many Shakespearean credits to his name, along with some Harry Potters --- is thoroughly reprehensible as the boorish Thief of the title.  He's so rude and gross and vulgar that it is easy to forget what a dignified actor he typically is; that's some damn fine acting, right there. 

Bibs: not classy

Helen Mirren was also excellent in a very brave performance; not just any actress would be willing to spend so much time on screen completely nude, especially one that was in her mid-forties at the time.  Her work as the Wife justifies that excess, though.  Her moments on screen with Gambon are filled with self-loathing, but she transforms that into passionate desperation with Alan Howard; she is so convincing in these scenes that her turn toward the end of the film seemed absolutely effortless.  I also liked the vocal style of her shameful monologue to Howard --- it is so hard to speak half-phrases on film naturally, but hers were very believable.  Alan Howard was pretty good as the Lover, providing substance to a role with little dialogue, but I wasn't as impressed with him as I was with Gambon and Mirren. 

***no dialogue***

I was indifferent to Richard Bohringer's Cook.  I'm not quite sure why his character was important enough to be mentioned in the title, but I might have missed something.  Tim Roth is fine as Gambon's most noteworthy henchman, but the character is pretty dumb, so Roth's performance just seemed adequate.  Ciaran Hinds played a supporting character that actually had a bit of a dramatic arc, but he was so far removed from the main plot that it had little impact on the overall story.  There are a few other recognizable faces in the crowd (punk rocker Ian Dury and Harry Potter alum Roger Lloyd-Pack), but they were just role players.

There was a bit of controversy when The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover was first released --- the MPAA was going to rate it X, so the filmmakers decided to release it unrated (the modern equivalent would be NC-17), which meant that only adults could see it.  With such an edgy rating, you would think that this film reeked of sexual and violent excess.  It really doesn't.  Yes, there is a decent amount of nudity; Mirren, Howard, and Bohringer all have full-frontal scenes.  These scenes are not meant to be erotic (most of the time), but sad and desperate.  There is violence in the movie, but nothing too gory.

Evil Dead 2 did it so much better

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover received its rating because the sex and the violence had very disturbing, emotional, and frightening undertones.  Oh, and there's some gross fecal content, too.  This is definitely an adult film, but don't mistake that for an exploitative one.

There is a lot of artistic merit in this film, but the big question remains: is it good?  I acknowledge that this film has many technical achievements in film style.  I compliment the main two actors on their excellent performances.  Heck, I even like the surreal settings and soundtrack.  But did I like it?  Not a whole lot, but I think I appreciate it.  The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a hard film to sit through because it is uncomfortable to watch; if you have a different viewing experience, then I would probably not feel comfortable around you in social situations.  And that's fine (the film being uncomfortable, that is), since that was clearly the filmmaker's intent.  Thankfully, that intent stops before the film becomes unwatchable and/or too pretentious for words.  Still, it's a pretty strange trip, and not a very fun one at that.  I think I would have enjoyed the film more if the bizarrely theatrical sets were less obvious; every time I looked at the classical painting in the restaurant, or the enormous size of the bathrooms, or the hobo town appearance of the kitchen, I found myself distanced from the story, and that's a problem for me.  In strictly technical terms, TCTTHW&HL is an impressive piece of work, but it's a piece of craftsmanship that that won't appeal to many.