The Films of Todd Haynes: Far From Heaven (2002)

Far From Heaven (2002)

Directed by: Todd Haynes.

Written by: Todd Haynes.

Starring: Julianne Moore (Cathy Whitaker), Dennis Quaid (Frank Whitaker), Dennis Haysbert (Raymond Deagan), Patricia Clarkson (Eleanor Fine), Viola Davis (Sybil), James Rebhorn (Dr. Bowman), Bette Henritze (Mrs. Leacock), Michael Gaston (Stan Fine), Ryan Ward (David Whitaker), Lindsay Andretta (Janice Whitaker), Jordan Puryear (Sarah Deagan), Kyle Timothy Smith (Billy Hutchinson), Celia Weston (Mona Lauder).

 

If Todd Haynes Far From Heaven was nothing more than an homage of the 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas that so clearly inspired it, it would still be a great film. As is usual with Haynes, he pays meticulous attention to detail, and along with cinematographer Edward Lachman (marking their first collaboration together – Haynes has yet to use a different cinematographer since) – has stunningly re-created the look of those films to a T. The bright, bold, garish colors, the people always dressed up, no matter the time of day or night, the seemingly perfect suburbia, that is actually filled with decay. The dialogue that is sometimes shockingly on the nose, and the performances that do not try for naturalism – for a sort of heightened reality. There isn’t a trick that Haynes and company miss in Far From Heaven. In many ways, what Haynes has done in Far From Heaven is make an almost exact replica of those Sirk films – except he has made one that is far more explicit than Sirk ever could have dreamed of making. While Sirk’s films would always hint at topics like homosexuality and inter-racial romance – in ways that seem obvious today, but somehow slide by many when they were made – Haynes’ film deals with them directly. This, by itself, would make Far From Heaven a wonderful film. But it’s only part of what makes it, ultimately, a masterwork.

 

The film stars Julianne Moore as Cathy Whitaker – a happy housewife in 1957 Connecticut – with two perfect children (a boy and a girl, naturally) and a perfect husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), who goes off to work in advertising, and comes home to picture perfect vision of domestic tranquility that Cathy has made for him. They have been used as the couple in some of his ads, and there is even a magazine piece being written about how perfect their life is. In the early scenes in the movie, everything seems perfect – yes, she does have to tell the children to watch their language when her son as “Jeez” – but, you know, boys will be boys. But gradually, we start to get hints that perhaps not everything is quite so perfect. At a get together with her girlfriend – over daiquiris – the women cannot help but giggle, and whisper when talking about how often their husbands insist on “it” – and a look of confusion momentarily comes across Cathy’s face, before she puts back up the mask of fake happiness. We soon realize why – as Haynes follows Frank through the shadows of the night, as he enters a movie theater by himself, and watches as men head off together into the balcony – and then when he stops in at a bar, frequented only by men, all of whom give him the side-eye, sizing him up. The domestic perfection is broken, once and for all, one evening when Cathy goes to see Frank at the office – to bring him his dinner, since he has to work late, and discovers that he is not alone. Frank confesses his transgressions – but vows to “beat this thing” and heads off to the doctor. Unable to talk to any of her friends about her true feelings, Cathy finds herself spending more time in the company of Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert) – her black gardener, and a kind, thoughtful and gentle man. When the magazine profile comes out, and it mentions that Cathy is “kind to negroes” all of her friends giggle and treat it as a joke. As she is seen more and more often in his company, it ceases to be a laughing matter.

 

There are many things that make Far From Heaven work – the meticulous craft being one of them, especially the beautiful cinematography of Edward Lachman, and the score by Elmer Bernstein, who brilliantly recreates the score of the era. The art direction and costume design are also perfect – not perfect in the way that is accurately reflects the 1950s, but perfect in the way it accurately reflects the art direction and costume design of the 1950s. The performances here are crucial as well. I often get annoyed when performances are called “brave” – especially when it just means that straight actors played gay characters (which isn’t brave) – but the performances here really are brave. The actors in Far From Heaven really risked looking like fools, trying to recreate an acting style that had been out of fashion for decades before they even started acting. Not only that, but there is a real danger that in recreating that acting style, even if they got the surface level correct, that they would miss the emotional underpinnings of the material. That makes it all the more impressive that the actors are able to make these characters seem real even under the deliberate artifice of the surface. Moore’s performance here is a masterclass in subtlety – as for the entirety of the movie, her character tries to keep on the mask of fake happiness, but lets it slip occasionally, when she is confronted with the reality of her situation. In the one moment that Haynes truly breaks from the dialogue of the 1950s – and Frank says “Fuck” – the look of Moore’s face is as if she has been slapped – the shock, and hurt and dismay is written there, even more than when, later in the film, Frank actually does hit her. Then there are moments – when she is with Ray – when she is happy, and it’s a slightly different look than her fake mask of happiness – it’s genuine. It is a stunning and brilliant performance – equal to the best work of her career. For his part, Quaid is able to the play the square jawed, Ward Cleaver part to perfection, but again, he lets his mask slip – to allow the audience to see how frightened and insecure he is. Quaid has never been better. Haysbert seems to have the easiest role of the three – the Rock Hudson role as it were (Hudson often starred as the portrait of male perfection for Sirk) – but it cannot be easy not to appear completely stiff in a role like this, and Haysbert pulls it off brilliantly. Add in great support from Patricia Clarkson – as Cathy’s best friend, whose liberal leanings have their limits, and Viola Davis, as Cathy’s maid, who sees more than she lets on, and you have one of the best ensembles you could ask for.

 

On its surface level then, Far From Heaven is brilliant – a masterful homage to Douglas Sirk, that is actually better than anything Douglas Sirk ever made (and I love Douglas Sirk). But I also think that Far From Heaven does do some things that run a little deeper than Sirk. This is a film that begins with absolute artifice, and then delves beneath that surface a little bit, before ending up back at the level of artifice again at the end. The film’s ending could hardly be described as happy, although it almost seems that way. Also, I find it fascinating that Haynes opts to stay with Cathy’s point-of-view throughout the film. Haynes is a gay after all, and yet in his study of homosexuality in the 1950s, he elects to stay focused on the more passive role of the wife, rather than the man fighting against what society has convinced him is evil. Like in Safe, where Haynes introduces a supposedly gay character (Peter), who we think may be a savior, and then turns him into a villain (maybe?), it’s a subversion of expectations – keeping our sympathy with Cathy, instead of Frank, that is a fascinating choice. This is also, strangely, a film I find far more sexual and erotic than Haynes’ previous films – which are much more frank in their depiction of sexuality than this one is (up until Carol, which is one of the most erotically charged movies ever made). There is an undercurrent of sexual energy in Far From Heaven which is hard to pin down, but is most definitely present.

 

In short, Far From Heaven is a masterpiece. I loved the film when I saw it back in 2002 – but perhaps I didn’t quite understand just how good it was. Watching it for the first time in perhaps a decade, I was stunned by how great it is. An absolutely exquisite film.

Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Directed by: Dave Green.

Written by: Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec based on the characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman.

Starring: Megan Fox (April O'Neil), Will Arnett (Vernon Fenwick), Laura Linney (Chief Vincent), Stephen Amell (Casey Jones), Noel Fisher (Michelangelo), Jeremy Howard (Donatello), Pete Ploszek (Leonardo), Alan Ritchson (Raphael), Tyler Perry (Baxter Stockman), Brian Tee (Shredder), Stephen Farrelly (Rocksteady), Gary Anthony Williams (Bebop), Peter Donald Badalamenti II (Splinter), Tony Shalhoub (Splinter – voice), Brad Garrett (Krang - voice).

Nostalgia for things one liked as a kid has a way of turning ugly, or at the very least, giving us a lot of crappy movies and TV shows. Is there a reason other than nostalgia for Netflix to bring back Fuller House? That, at least, is ultimately harmless. It gets ugly when some men (and yes, it’s almost always men) treat the movies and shows they loved as children as if they are somehow Holy texts – so that when George Lucas makes a Star Wars movie you don’t like, some will say with a straight face that George Lucas “raped” their childhood. Or when a remake of a beloved film from the 1980s decides to – for once – try something completely different, and cast four women instead of men, people lose their damn mind and spout a bunch of misogynistic bullshit online. For the most part, I try to stay away from such nostalgia – mainly because I now realize that much of what I liked as a kid was never very good – it just appealed to me a kid – something that dawns on me often when I’m bored and settle in to watch a few minutes of Teletoon Retro. The one exception I make is for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – a series that I can whole heartedly admit  was never very good, but that I loved so much as a kid that I don’t think I’ll ever quite be able to let them go. The 2014 cinematic reboot of the franchise wasn’t particularly good, but the 8 year old in me loved it. The sequel, Out of the Shadows, is better than that movie – not good, just better – but once again that 8 year old loved it. The movie is goofy and silly and unabashedly made for 8 year olds – which I don’t necessarily think, is a bad thing. After all, who the hell else wants to see a movie about teenage mutant ninja turtles?

The plot of the movie is the kind of goofy stuff of a Saturday morning cartoon show – with the turtles first trying to stop their arch nemesis, Shredder, from escaping from prison, and then once he does, trying to arrest him again. But he’s not their only problem – as the film also introduces not one, not two, not three but FOUR new villains – the powerful Kwang, a giant brain inside the torso of a robot, who wants to rule world, and everything else, two idiot criminals – Bebop and Rocksteady, who will eventually become a rhino and a warthog, and tech genius Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry). I particularly liked Perry’s work here – he’s clearly having fun with the role, and although he goes over the top into cartoon-y  at times, it works in the movie. The same can be said for the other major new addition – Stephen Amell as Casey Jones – a hockey mask wearing cop, who becomes an ally for the turtles. Megan Fox is back as ace reporter April O’Neill – although I don’t think she does any reporting until the very last scene in the movie (still, she’s a female journalist, in a movie, who doesn’t sleep with her source, which basically makes her the greatest female journalist in cinema history). Fox fits into this world well. For some reason, Laura Linney is in the movie as well – but oddly the film doesn’t really do anything with her.

But who are we kidding, no one goes to a Ninja Turtle movie for the human characters – you want the turtles and the action sequences – both of them are, sadly, a mixed bag. I’m not a huge fan of the look of the turtles, but after two films, I’ve at least gotten use to them. The real problem is that other than Michelangelo, the other turtles are not very well defined – even in the very broad strokes you would expect in a film like this. Leonardo, in particular, has no discernable personality – I think because each turtle is only allowed to be ONE thing – and his is to be the leader, and that isn’t much a personality trait. The film essentially copies a few of the plot points from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel - 1991s The Secret of the Ooze – once again, ooze does play an important role in the plot, and once again, Leonardo and Raphael argue with each other (you can tell how much I loved these movies as a kid, that I haven’t seen that film in well over 20 years, and I still remember a hell of a lot of it).

The action sequences have their moments. There is a car chase that turns into a fight sequence which is the best one this series has offered so far. The finale is another one of those large scale sequences with a bunch of huge stuff flying through the air above – a la Avengers or X-Men Apocalypse – and those never do much for me.

I cannot in good faith recommend the movie. It really isn’t all that good. And yet, while I was I watching the film, I couldn’t help but view it through the eyes of that 9 and 10 year old me who sat in a darkened theatre and loved the first two Ninja Turtle movies all those years ago. That me would have thought that the movie was great. And for current Ninja Turtle fans who are now that age, I’m sure they’ll feel the same way. The 35 year old me knows that the film isn’t good – but that hardly matters. I think everyone is entitled to enjoy something from their childhood well past the point they should have outgrown it. It’s when that love of those childhood things turns ugly that we have a problem.

Movie Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Directed by: Burr Steers.

Written by: Burr Steers based on the books by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

Starring: Lily James (Elizabeth Bennet), Sam Riley (Colonel Fitzwilliam Darcy), Bella Heathcote (Jane Bennet), Ellie Bamber (Lydia Bennet), Millie Brady (Mary Bennet), Suki Waterhouse (Kitty Bennet), Douglas Booth (Mr. Bingley), Sally Phillips (Mrs. Bennet), Charles Dance (Mr. Bennet), Jack Huston (Lt. George Wickham), Lena Headey (Lady Catherine de Bourgh), Matt Smith (Parson Collins), Emma Greenwell (Caroline Bingley).

I think it’s fair to say that Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice – probably her most loved novel – doesn’t need zombies for the story to work. The novel, and several filmed versions of it, work just about perfectly – the characters are witty and clever, there’s drama and heartbreak and comedy and romance, and anything else a reasonable reader/viewer could want. Yet, I also have to admit that having seen several different versions of Pride and Prejudice on screen – including several “updates” (like Bridget Jones or Bride & Prejudice), zombies are pretty much the only thing that hasn’t been added to previous screen versions before, so what the hell, why not? There’s not much point in a straight adaptation any more – completists love the BBC Miniseries with Colin Firth, and those who want something more compact could not want a better version than Joe Wright’s 2005 version with Keira Knightley’s best performance to date. Telling the same damn story again, with no zombies, would serve little purpose. So even if Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sounds like something a room full of advertisers would come up with – you know, give the women all that romance crap, and all the men zombie action, and everyone will want to see it – I was at least hoping that the movie would be a fun distraction. And that, it almost is.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is how much writer/director Burr Steers really does try his best to get Austen’s original novel on the screen – just with some zombies. I can easily imagine the talented Lily James as Austen’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet in a more traditional telling of the novel – she is feisty and funny and headstrong, and plays the role pretty much straight – which works here. Sam Riley’s Darcy is a stick in the mud for the most part – but then Darcy normally is, until the end, and even if Riley is never quite able to elevate his game – to make his Darcy more than a dullard, he gets most of the performance just right. Bella Heathcote is quietly quite good as Jane Bennet – pining after Bingley, but this time not quite needing him. Best of all may be Matt Smith as Parson Collins – an idiot to be sure, but such a lively one, that even as he says some horribly offensive things, he does such with such vigor, you like him anyway. The costumes are fine, the period details works, etc. Yes, as I said before, another version of Pride & Prejudice is probably not needed – and even if the scenes where they play it straight do not rise to the level of the best versions of the story, they work well enough that the film is a pleasant way to pass the time.

The real problem is that the zombie stuff never quite fits in with the rest of the movie. I understand that the humor of the movie is to introduce the living dead into the prim and proper world of England society – where everyone is so polite that a woman like Elizabeth speaking her mind is considered gossip worthy, so how the world reacts to something like zombies should be good for some laughs. I also get how the Bennet sisters were proto-feminists, so having them be zombie ass-kickers actually makes quite a bit of sense for them. And yet, the presence of zombies is basically a one joke concept – one that is never really explained either – and after the initial shock of seeing the sisters kick ass, there isn’t much room for the movie to go in this direction. It doesn’t much help that the action sequences are not really well staged.

As a writer/director, Steers never quite gets the tone of the movie right – he may well have been able to make a version of Pride & Prejudice – and perhaps, he could have made a decent zombie movie – but he doesn’t blend the two together very well. It’s always one or the other – and when he tries to do both at once, the movie is at its weakest.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies never really works as well as it should. It has a goofy premise, and really, should have whole heartedly embraced the goofiness that’s inherent in it. That’s not to say the movie is horrible – anything that has this much of Austen’s original, and a very good cast in it, cannot be entirely bad. But it’s not good enough either. Perhaps it’s time to just stop adapting Pride & Prejudice at all. There are although Austen novels after all.

Movie Review: Tale of Tales

Tale of Tales

Directed by: Matteo Garrone.   

Written by: Edoardo Albinati & Ugo Chiti & Matteo Garrone & Massimo Gaudioso based on the books by Giambattista Basile.

Starring: Salma Hayek (Queen of Longtrellis), Vincent Cassel (King of Strongcliff), Toby Jones (King of Highhills), John C. Reilly (King of Longtrellis), Shirley Henderson (Imma), Hayley Carmichael (Dora), Bebe Cave (Violet), Stacy Martin (Young Dora), Christian Lees (Elias), Jonah Lees (Jonah), Laura Pizzirani (Jonah's Mother), Franco Pistoni (Necromancer), Jessie Cave (Fenizia), Guillaume Delaunay (Ogre).

 

Matteo Garrone’s international breakthrough film, 2008’s Gomorrah, was a film documenting the modern day Mafia in and around Naples, which wanted to portray their actions with documentary-style realism. The film was a hit around the world, and won Garrone the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. His 2012 follow-up, Reality, won that same prize at Cannes – but wasn’t nearly the hit its predecessor was. I have to say now, though, that a few years removed from both films, it is Reality that has stayed with me – its observations about celebrity culture and reality TV, the realism edging into fantasy as the film progressed, and its fine lead performance (by a convicted murderer), stuck with me more than Gomorrah’s undeniable anger and power. His most recent film, Tale of Tales, complete the journey from realism to fairy tale of Reality, as Garrone as adapted three tales from Giambattisa Basile, an Italian writer, who was an inspiration for the Grimm brothers. The darkness, violence and sexual underpinnings of those original, well-known Grimm fairy tales are all here in Tale of Tales and foregrounded. The film has a wonderful visual look – it’s clearly been done on a budget, but I love the special effects just the same. Yet, despite the great look, and a very talented cast, the movie never really goes anywhere. At Two hours, fifteen minutes, it’s a good hour too long for the very slight trio of tales Garrone is telling, and the film ends up going around in circles, before ultimately coming to its very obvious conclusions. There is talent and inventiveness in every frame of the film – it just doesn’t lead anywhere.

 

The trio of tales Garrone tells here all involved royalty (where precisely these kingdoms are, I have no idea, but apparently they are very close to each other). In one, a Queen (Salma Hayek), is so desperate for a child that she cannot conceive that she is willing to sacrifice anything to get one – including sending her husband (John C. Reilly) to fight a giant sea monster, so she can consume its heart and get pregnant. The virgin she needs to prepare that heart though also eats some of it – and so the two women, the Queen and the peasant, end up with nearly identical, albino offspring – who are best friends, no matter how hard the Queen tries to keep them apart. In the second story, Vincent Cassel plays a womanizing King, who thinks only with his penis. There are two old sisters in his kingdom, and one day he wakes up next to one of them – and is so disgusted by what occurred, he has his guards throw the old woman out the window – before she hits the ground however, she is saved – and transformed into a beautiful young woman – exactly the kind of woman the King who tried to kill her wants. She doesn’t seek vengeance however – but his love, and gets it, at the sacrifice of her sister. In the third, another King (Toby Jones) become so obsessed with his pet flea – that grows to the size of a hippo – that he allows his daughter (Bebe Cave) to be married off to an ogre – who suffers greatly in the early days of that marriage, and tries her best to escape it.

 

The “message” all of three fairy tales are quite clear – in each, someone sacrifices or ruins what should be pure love, chasing after something else. If the Queen accepted her son’s friendship with his doppelganger, everyone could have lived in happiness – instead, she forces her son to make some choices that he doesn’t even realize he is making. If the sister just accepted the love of her other sister, instead of chasing after a king who tried to kill her, the shocking last act of her sister would never have occurred. And if the King had spent more time with his daughter instead of his giant flea, she wouldn’t have been married off to and raped by an ogre. No one said fairy tales had to be subtle – and these ones certainly are not.

 

Of the three of these, really only the story of the King, his flea, his daughter and the ogre works from beginning to end. There are enough twists and turns in the story – enough strange images, and action, to sustain most of its running time. Jones is in fine form as the crazy King, and newcomer Cave is excellent as his traumatized daughter, who still finds the strength to fight back. And well, I have to say, I’ve never seen a giant flea before. The story of the two sisters and the womanizing King works least – probably because it sets up its stakes early, and then just keeps on repeating them over and over again – dragging things out for so long, only to reach the exact endpoint we’d been expected for a long time. The Queen and her son, falls somewhere in the middle – there are good moments, and a fine finale, although that comes surprisingly early in the film.

 

A bigger problem may be how Garrone cuts between the stories – which he does with little rhyme or reason. He may have been better served to simply let all three stories play out one at a time, and build to their climaxes (this also may have helped him realize they all run way too long). Instead, we go back and forth between the three stories seemingly at random. There is a real art to cutting between stories like this – the only real rule is that there has to be some kind of logic in how you do it – similar plot points, emotional points, etc. (the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer’s underrated Cloud Atlas does this wonderfully well). Garrone doesn’t get it.

 

The result is a movie I wanted to like – there is so many interesting visuals throughout the film, and I love dark fairy tales – but ultimately couldn’t. The damn movie just goes on and on, with no real point to it all. If Garrone had, say, added a fourth story, edited them all down into one, 90 minute movie, with one story following after another, he really may have had something here. Instead, he has a giant mess.

Movie Review: Hush

Hush

Directed by: Mike Flanagan.

Written by: Mike Flanagan & Kate Siegel.

Starring: Kate Siegel (Maddie), John Gallagher Jr. (Man), Michael Trucco (John), Samantha Sloyan (Sarah), Emma Graves (Max).

 

No one is going to claim that Mike Flanagan and Katie Siegel’s Hush is an overly ambitious horror movie. It isn’t. It is a typical home invasion thriller, where Siegel’s Maddie, is trapped in her large house, in the middle of nowhere (in a forest) as a mad man (John Gallagher Jr.) torments her from outside the home. We all know, at some point, either he’s going to get inside that house, or she’s going to go outside, and the two will have a conflict. We also know who is likely to survive. The one original touch to the movie is that Maddie is deaf and mute – so it’s kind of a play on Wait Until Dark, where Audrey Hepburn played a blind woman in a similar situation. Original, Hush is not. Yet, dammit all, if this film doesn’t work. It’s only 80 minutes, and that time zooms by. Flanagan proved, like he did in his last film, Oculus, that he knows how to direct a horror film, knows how to play with the audience, pull exactly the right strings at the right moments, and ratchet up the tension until it is unbearable. Even though I don’t think Flanagan has made a great horror film yet, based on these two films, it’s only a matter of time before he does.

 

Hush premiered at SXSW and then almost immediately ended up on Netflix. That’s probably a good choice for a movie like Hush – which even if it had gone to theaters, would have found most of its audience on Netflix – where it is a perfect film to play late one night, when you’re bored - I started it around 1 a.m. – and it delivered precisely what I was looking for at that time of night. Hush is the type of horror film that works best if you don’t know too much about the plot – or the twists – so I won’t spoil anything below.

 

What I will say is that the two lead performances in the film are very good. Siegel wrote the movie with Flanagan (her husband), and she created a good role for herself in Maddie – a woman has to find unknown resolve to fight for her life. Her attacker thinks her disability makes her an easy target – and he’s wrong. For his part, Gallagher, is menacing as the unnamed Man who delights in tormenting her. He has been quite prolific in the past couple of years, and he’s quietly building a solid resume – the nice guys on The Newsroom and in Short Term 12, the seemingly nice guys who may be a creep in The Heart Machine and 10 Cloverfield Lane, etc. He is less convincing as an out and out creep here then in the past, but he has his moments.

 

There really isn’t much more to say about Hush without giving away the whole game. You shouldn’t watch Hush expecting a new horror masterpiece – even in terms of home invasion films, it doesn’t inspire the pure, visceral terror of something like The Strangers (2008) – a film I remember not many people other than me liking at the time, but which has grown in esteem in the years since. Hush is a film that moves like clockwork – it’s exactly what you expect it to be – and as long as you know that going in, than Hush delivers what it promises.

The Films of Todd Haynes: Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Directed by: Todd Haynes.

Written by: Todd Haynes and James Lyons.

Starring: Ewan McGregor (Curt Wild), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Brian Slade), Christian Bale (Arthur Stuart), Toni Collette (Mandy Slade), Eddie Izzard (Jerry Devine), Emily Woof (Shannon), Michael Feast (Cecil).

 

Todd Haynes is a director whose film often reach Kubrick-ian levels of control and perfectionism. If anything, over the course of his career, he has been accused (wrongly in my view) of being too cold and detached – valuing the beautiful surface of his movies more than anything else. If there is one film in his filmography where no one could accuse Haynes of that, it would have to be Velvet Goldmine – which is a beautiful mess of a film. The film doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, sure, and it seems to spiral off in dozens of directions at once, never really settling on one for very long. The calm, authorial control that marks most of Haynes film seems completely lost in this time hoping, study of glam rock. The film is never boring – although whether it’s very good or not is very much open to debate.

 

The film is about Glam Rock icon Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who creates an alter ego for himself – calling himself Maxwell Demon – and becoming an icon for gay teens the world over. But as Slade gets bored of being Maxwell Demon, he stages a splashy, onstage murder of that alter-ego – resulting in a scandal that pretty much kills his career and he disappears from view. 10 years later, in 1984, one of those gay teens who idolized Slade, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) is a journalist who is assigned to try and track down what ever happened to Slade. His journey follows the structure of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane – including many shots that deliberately echo the “greatest movie of all time” – just to show you how much ambition Haynes really has here. As Stuart interviews those who knew Slade – his overly ambitious wife Mandy (Toni Collette), an old manager who was among the first Slade abandoned, and eventually another rock star – an American named Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), who professional and personal connection with Slade rose and fell dramatically.

 

It is obvious who the film is inspired by – with Brian Slade being a stand-in for David Bowie, and Curt Wild an amalgamation of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed (with perhaps a little Kurt Cobain thrown in for good measure). But you probably shouldn’t read too much into the real life comparisons – as I think Haynes is using it as mainly a jumping off point more than anything else. Surely, David Bowie is more talented than Slade ever was, and not nearly as shallow or superficial (watching it just a few weeks after Bowie’s death, the film really does feel like a kind of fuck you to Bowie, which stings a little bit). Not that Velvet Goldmine is all that kind to any of its characters – but at least the Curt Wild character is presented as an original stage presence and musician, whereas Slade is seen as someone who goes whichever way the wind is blowing at the that time – grasping onto whatever is popular and then stealing from those who got there first. Rhys Meters basically portrays Slade as a pouty, spoiled brat destroying those he comes in contact with. McGregor is clearly having fun playing the out of control Curt Wild – especially on stage when he screams and strips and antagonizes the audience. For much of the movie though, Curt is seen as not quite a full character – this could well be because of the differing points of view the film adopts – that do not include his until the end, but it hurts his character a little bit. Christian Bale doesn’t fare much better – you may get to see his face, unlike the reporter in Kane – but other than establishing that he is gay – and apparently at every major concert and incident in the film as an observer – there’s not a whole lot else to play. The best performance is by Toni Collette as Mandy Slade – the hanger on wife, who hangs on even after he’s disappeared for years. Collette rips into the role in the flashback scenes, and seems just beaten down in those 1984 scenes.

 

All of this may sound like I disliked Velvet Goldmine – and I really didn’t, I just don’t love it either. The film is visual feast – starting with Sandy Powell’s brilliant, over-the-top costumes, and extending to the excellent production design and cinematography. Haynes also used music – of course – to great effect (even if Bowie wouldn’t let any of his music be used), he re-creates other songs for the era in a brilliant way. The film sexual frankness is rather refreshing – evoking the unabashed freedom of a time before AIDS when things would come crashing down. Brian Slade may ultimately only be a petulant child, and then a sellout, but what he meant to people like Arthur was real.

 

Haynes’ approach in Velvet Goldmine is similar to what he would do – with far more success – in his Bob Dylan movie, I’m Not There (2007). That film looked a real life, enigmatic character, and kept that enigma intact, by presenting many different sides of Dylan – some real, some imagined. It doesn’t work as well in Velvet Goldmine, in part because no matter who is telling the story, Slade seems like an asshole, and in part because Haynes seems to lose the plot thread entirely at some points – chasing the film down various rabbit holes and asides, that are entertaining in their own right, but don’t quite add up to very much.

 

Velvet Goldmine has become a cult favorite, because of course it has. It does have a delirious effect that is hard to beat, and its enthusiasm is infectious. Ultimately though, the pleasures of the film are fleeting, vanishing as the end credits start to role.

Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse

Directed by: Bryan Singer.

Written by: Simon Kinberg and Bryan Singer & Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris.

Starring: James McAvoy (Professor Charles Xavier), Michael Fassbender (Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven / Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy / Beast), Oscar Isaac (En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse), Rose Byrne (Moira Mactaggert), Evan Peters (Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver), Josh Helman (Col. William Stryker), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Scott Summers / Cyclops), Lucas Till (Alex Summers / Havok), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler), Ben Hardy (Angel), Alexandra Shipp (Ororo Munroe / Storm), Lana Condor (Jubilee), Olivia Munn (Psylocke), Tómas Lemarquis (Caliban), Hugh Jackman (Logan).

The X-Men movies have come along at a fairly steady pace of about one every other year for 16 years now – X-Men: Apocalypse marks the ninth film in the series (yes, Deadpool counts), and as the series has progressed, it has become more and more clear that in terms of continuity, this series is simply flying by the seat of its pants. This puts a film like X-Men: Apocalypse in a weird situation, because if you haven’t seen the other films, than so much of the film’s most likely won’t work at all – like seemingly every comic book movie right now, this was is ridiculously overstuffed with characters, many of whom don’t get much of a chance to do anything in the film, but because we know them from other films, it still works. And yet, because we know them from other movies, a lot of what they do in this movie doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. Sure, it makes sense in the context of this movie by itself – but not the larger picture the series is painting. Character ages are one thing you can play with a little bit, and you have to play along (none of the characters who were in X-Men: First Class and this film look 20 years older than they did in that film – and I have no idea what kind of life choices William Stryker is going to make to age him into Brian Cox in a mere 20 years), etc. But it’s more than that – its character relationships that don’t make a lot sense in future films because of things that happen this time around. In general, I have a fairly high tolerance for this type of thing – I’m like Bruce Willis in Looper, deploring Joseph Gordon-Levitt not to try and deconstruct the timeline too much, so they don’t spend hours in that diner diagramming everything with straws. But it really has become a distraction here – and it’s enough to really make me appreciate just how thought out the Marvel movies are – where film to film, everything makes sense.

Anyway – leaving aside the continuity questions for now - X-Men: Apocalypse opens in 1983. The title villain (played by Oscar Isaac) is an agent mutant – the world’s first – who has been asleep under his tomb in Egypt since 3600 B.C., but is brought back to life by a cult that worships him. Apocalypse is an all-powerful villain – who can transfer his consciousness from one body to another, and pick up powers along the way. For some reason, this all powerful being still needs to have four underlines to do his bidding for him. The first mutant he meets upon waking is a young Storm (Alexandrea Shipp), who he enlists as his first “Horsemen”. He will eventually add other “new” additions Psylocke (Olivia Munn) – who is stuck with a rather silly bathing suit costume throughout, Angel (Ben Hardy), as well as Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – whose decade in seclusion following the events of Days of Future Past, which made him the world’s most wanted mutant, ends in tragedy – and his renewed commitment to destroy anyone who isn’t a mutant.

The movie also re-introduces some younger versions of characters who were in the original film – Scott Summers aka Cyclops, Jean Grey aka Jean Grey (seriously, why doesn’t she get a cool name) and Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler, who all find their way to Xavier’s School of the Gifted – where they will eventually team up with Charles Xavier, Mystique, Quicksilver and Hank McCoy to be the ones who have to stop Apocalypse and his minions.

X-Men: Apocalypse isn’t a disaster like Batman v. Superman earlier this year. The movie is entertaining, for the most part, and even if the talented cast is either asked to do the same things they have done before, or nothing much at all, they are for the most part still quite good. I do wish that the films would either find something new to do with Magneto – who once again suffers loss, and wants vengeance, until he decides not to, again (not to mention that the film indulges in more fridging of female characters, just to motivate a male character). Fassbender is more than capable of doing this role in his sleep – and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t, although it’s still far from the best use of his skills. Jennifer Lawrence’s ark as Mystique has been strange – she has become a much larger character than Mystique has ever been before, and that’s clearly to take advantage of Lawrence’s increased star power since she was originally cast. Yet it must be said that Lawrence, more often than not, seems bored by the role. But even that is preferable to the films treatment of Oscar Isaac. Isaac is one of the very best actors in the world right now – a character actor capable of movie star performances as well (or vice versa), the film smothers him in makeup and CGI, and then digitally alters his voice often throughout the film. Apocalypse is given to speechifying throughout the film – which wouldn’t be so bad if he something more to say.

It is admittedly cool to see some of the powers on display in the film. Nightcrawlers teleportation is put to great use her, and Quicksilver has an amazing showcase sequence saving many of Xavier’s students for example. The only problem is that Nightcrawlers powers were already brilliantly showcased in the opening scene of X2, and Quicksilver had a very similar showcase in the last movie as well. It isn’t that they aren’t handled well – it’s that it’s slightly disappointed that they decided to do the same thing again.

I also don’t think that the movie earns its more serious moments either – in particular, a visit to Auschwitz seems like it’s in bad taste – especially since they don’t actually deal with the implications of the site, but instead just use it for another special effects set piece (it may not be as bad as the stars of The Fault in Our Stars making out – to applause no less - Anne Frank’s house, but is not that far off either).

Overall, X-Men: Apocalypse works well enough, often enough that even as it clocks in at nearly two and half hours, it’s still a relevantly interesting way to spend an evening at the movies. But it does seem like the film spends a lot of time setting up future installments, and not enough on the story and characters in this installment. It isn’t as bad as X-Men: The Last Stand (which this movie takes an obvious, if still funny, shot at). But given the heights this series has hit before, it still ranks as a disappointment.