Movie Review: The Green Fog

The Green Fog **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson.

 

Every Guy Maddin movie is a like a trip inside of his very strange mind – a mind which sees connections in all sorts of them, where the ridiculous and sublime can co-exist. It is the mind of a movie obsessive – and Maddin’s films often use stylings of older films – silent films in particular – to tell deeply strange stories of deeply strange people. The Green Fog is a different sort of film for him in some ways – and yet it is very much a film that I can only imagine him making. The film is entirely found footage – all from movies and TV shows shot in San Francisco, for the most part with the dialogue cut out. Even when there is dialogue in a scene, Maddin and his co-directors (and editors) Evan and Galen Johnson – cur the dialogue – and just the dialogue out – meaning we see right up to the split second sound is going to come out, and right after it does. It is a very odd experience to watch. The structure of the movie is to retell Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo using only these clips of movies that are no Vertigo, but shot in the same city. If, like me, you’ve seen Vertigo more times than you can count – you can spot all the references, or at least most. You also may well be able to tell many of the movies being used here. And yet, it’s fascinating to see the film. Some will (and have) dismiss it as just a goof from a really talented, movie mad director like Maddin. The film, like everything Maddin does, has an undeniable, wicked sense of humor to it. But it’s more than that. It makes you look at Vertigo, one of the greatest and most talked about and written about films, in a different, new light.

 

It takes a little bit of time for you to kind of sink into a film like The Green Fog. It doesn’t operate like most films do, and even if (like me) you know the basic premise of the film before you watch it, you may not be prepared for just what Maddin is doing here – and the very meta way in which the film operates. Vertigo is, of course, a lot about watching – and so watching The Green Fog is about that as well. But now, we’re watching men watch women, and recall watching Stewart watching Novak in Vertigo, as we are watching these new people watch others. Maddin has some fun at times with this – so Rock Hudson watching a film reel as “evidence” becomes him watching a N’Sync video for instance with all of the seriousness you would expect when you watching something for evidence. Or when Michael Douglas from Streets of San Francisco watches Michael Douglas (naked) in Basic Instinct and tells him he’s looking good. Or when we get to the part of Vertigo when Stewart is basically in a catatonic state, and Maddin just plays minute upon minute of clips of Chuck Norris staring off into space. The Norris sequence is the best in the movie – in part because it is so funny, but also because it works. Drained of the sound, and the context of whatever the hell Norris is supposed to be doing in that movie, the clips work entirely in the context of what Maddin is doing.

 

The Green Fog is a massive feat of editing, and it is amazing how well it works. To be fair, it doesn’t really work as a film unto itself (at least I don’t think so – I wonder what someone who doesn’t know the concept of the movie, or have never seen Vertigo would make of this film – something I can never really know). It is an exciting film, a film that makes you reconsider the films it uses, the film it is referencing, and perhaps film itself – or at least the way we watch it.

Movie Review: The Boy Who Harnassed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Written by: Chiwetel Ejiofor based on the book by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer.

Starring: Maxwell Simba (William Kamkwamba), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Trywell Kamkwamba), Aïssa Maïga (Agnes Kamkwamba), Lily Banda (Annie), Noma Dumezweni (Edith Sikelo), Joseph Marcell (Chief Wembe), Philbert Falakeza (Gilbert Wimbe), Lemogang Tsipa (Mike Kachigunda).

 

Chiwetel Ejiofor is an undeniably great actor – from the film that I first remember him for, Stephan Frears’ great, underrated Dirty Pretty Things, to his Oscar nominated turn in 12 Years a Slave, and nearly everything else he’s been in, Ejiofor has a distinctive screen presence. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is his directorial debut – and while it certainly shows that Ejiofor could be a great director, it is not a great film. The remarkable true story of William Kamkwamba, who with little education and few books, essentially taught himself to be an engineer – and build a windmill to help his poor, farming family in the African country Malawi, is the type of inspirational story that gets movies made all the time. And yet, as writer and director, Ejiofor barely seems interested in that story – he’s more interested in the day-to-day realities of life in Malawi, the government corruption that hurts the people, the climate, the weather, etc. and everything around William than in William himself. This, by itself, didn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing – acknowledging the darker reality around an inspirational true story is usually a good thing. The problem is that the film feels like it’s being pulled in two different directions – that Ejiofor feels he has to give you the feel good stuff to get you to watch the rest of it. As such, neither side feels full developed.

 

The film opens with William (newcomer Maxwell Simba – a very talented young actor) going off to school, as his father Trywell (Ejiofor) stays at home to work the fields that he has farmed for years – up until recently, alongside his brother who died in those same fields. Their village is poor – and getting poorer since the big tobacco plantation has moved away. That tobacco company is back though – they want to buy the village trees. Trywell and the Chief (Joseph Marcell – best known as the butler from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and very good here) don’t want to. Those trees are the only things that will protect them against flooding during the rainy season. But the rest of the town doesn’t listen. And you know what happens when the rainy season does come. That is followed by a drought – that threatens to leave the whole village starving. Trywell cannot afford to pay for William to continue his schooling – but a teacher (who happens to be in love with William’s sister – although they keep that love quiet) and a librarian help William at least get some books. William is a naturally gifted engineer – he’s figured out ingenious ways to drain as much energy as possible from batteries, and does a lot with what most people view as garbage.

 

A lot of the movie is pretty good – without ever really becoming gripping. Part of the problem is that Ejiofor’s heart seems to be more with his own character than with William. Trywell is clearly the most complicated and conflicted character in the movie – a stubborn man who has always tried to do the right thing, who is now paying for that because it has left him defenseless. He most assuredly is not a perfect character – he seems like he may be in the beginning – but Ejiofor gives him a lot more shades of grey to play, something he doesn’t allow in any of the other characters. Everyone else seems to basically be one thing or another. Simba is a talented actor, and his confidence and determination is admirable – but your kind of wish that the film gave him something more to play. Were there moments of self-doubt? He doesn’t even seem all that sad when some fairly big upheavals happen in his life.

 

The movie’s reason for existing would seem to be William building that windmill to help his poor community be able to farm even during the dry season. But the film pretty much backloads that, and it’s really only the final 20 minutes or so that it becomes the focus of the movie. In that time, Ejiofor the director hits all the notes you expect him too – but in part because it feels so shoehorned in, it doesn’t quite hit you the way it should.

 

It really does feel to me that Ejiofor wanted to make a film about people like Trywell, in a place like Malawi, and felt that the only way that he would allowed to do so is if he wrapped it up in this well-known, feel good story. Ejiofor has the instincts of a filmmaker – but here, he may have picked the wrong vehicle to tell the story he really wants to tell.

Movie Review: Greta

Greta *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Neil Jordan.

Written by: Ray Wright and Neil Jordan.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Greta Hideg), Chloë Grace Moretz (Frances McCullen), Maika Monroe (Erica Penn),

Colm Feore (Chris McCullen), Zawe Ashton (Alexa Hammond), Stephen Rea (Brian Cody).

 

I’m not sure if Neil Jordan’s Greta is actually a good version of the creepy stalker film that was so popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, or if it has just been so long since I’ve seen one of them that I couldn’t help but enjoy every delicious, over-the-top moment of this film. It certainly doesn’t hurt matters that Isabelle Huppert plays the title character, or that she does so with such demented glee it’s impossible not to have a blast as you watch her perform. Or that even in the scenes with Huppert, the film focuses on the beautiful faces, clothes and apartment of her prey – Frances (Chloe Grace Mortez) and her best friend Erica (Maika Monroe), not to mention the gorgeous home of Greta herself. The movie takes place in Manhattan, and I shudder to think how much any of the places or clothes we see in this film would actually cost – certainly more than a waitress like Frances could afford, or for that, recently widowed, piano playing psychos like Greta. But all of that is part of the charm here – the film is completely, utterly ridiculous, knows it, and completely embraces it. Nothing is more deadly in these types of films than when the filmmakers and cast take it far too seriously.

 

So in the film, Mortez’s Frances is grieving the recent death of her mother, while living with her rich friend Erica in a “Tribeca loft” and waitressing for money. She finds a designer handbag on the subway, and decides to return it to the woman herself – walking up and ringing the doorbell of Greta – who welcomes her inside. She’s a recent widow, and her only daughter is off studying in Paris. She rattles around her beautiful old house, playing classical music and being lonely. The pair settle into a pseudo mother/daughter relationship. That is, of course, until Frances figures out that Greta is insane – and tries to cut her out of her life. But in the tradition of these movies, Greta will not be ignored. She does a lot of really creepy, but perfectly legal things that freak out Frances more and more. But what will her end game be?

 

The film was directed by Neil Jordan – whose career was at its peak when films like this were popular. His best known film is probably 1992’s The Crying Game – but he had a string of wonderful films in the 1980s and 1990s, including Mona Lisa (1986), Interview with the Vampire (1994), The Butcher Boy (1997), The End of the Affair (1999) and The Good Thief (2002). He’s slowed down a little bit in recent years, but judging on Greta, he hasn’t lost his sense of style. If it’s possible for any director to be having more fun behind the camera than Huppert is having in front of it, than that is what Jordan is doing here. He pulls out all the stops and then some – all the tricks he has learned over his career, and puts them to good use. The film also has narrative surprises up its sleeve – one character who in the old days would have never made it very far who just won’t go away, and then there is Stephen Rea’s characters who shows up late in the game as the detective. Rea’s appearance in a Neil Jordan film isn’t surprising – there’s hardly a Jordan film he isn’t in – but the way things play out with him are surprising.

 

But the reason to see the film is Huppert. Both Mortez and Monroe are incredibly talented young actresses, which is good because in the first act in particular, they have to make a lot of awkward dialogue work – and come about as close you could expect them to come in doing so. But it’s the great Huppert who quite literally dances away with the film. She is so good that the film would worth seeing just for her even if nothing else worked – and much of the rest of it works. The film doesn’t reinvent the genre – but it’s been so long since we’ve seen a film like this, it almost feels like it does.

Movie Review: Stan & Ollie

Stan & Ollie **** / *****

Directed by: Jon S. Baird.

Written by: Jeff Pope.

Starring: John C. Reilly (Olivier Hardy), Steve Coogan (Stan Laurel), Shirley Henderson (Lucille Hardy), Nina Arianda (Ida Kitaeva Laurel), Danny Huston (Hal Roach), Rufus Jones (Bernard Delfont).

 

The biopic Stan & Ollie is smart about a lot of things – but perhaps the smartest is not making a movie about legendary comedy duo Laurel & Hardy at the height of their fame, but rather in their last days together. While it wouldn’t be fair to say that Laurel & Hardy have been forgotten these days – it would be fair to say that it’s a lot harder to see their films than many of their contemporaries or rivals – Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, even Abbott & Costello (all of whom get name checked in the film) are easier to track down than Laurel & Hardy – which you pretty much have to find on DVD (I know – before seeing this film, I wanted to revisit films like Sons of the Desert or Way Out West that I haven’t seen in years, and found it impossible to find them anywhere. Stan & Ollie then is smart to set the film in 1953 – when the pair are older, not making movies anymore, and find everyone surprised that they are still performing and haven’t retired yet. People at least know how they are then – which people do now – but it’s appropriate for a film about aging and the fear of being forgotten to be set now rather than in their glory days.

 

We catch a brief glimpse of those days – in the dynamic opening shot of Stan & Ollie – than follows the pair through the studio lot, charming the strangers they meet, while in their private moments complaining about their mounting failed marriages, and how cheap their boss – Hal Roach – is. There will be contract negotiations coming up – Laurel goes first, and then the next year Hardy – and they’re big stars, so of course they’ll get a raise if they just stick together. What happens next, we will eventually find out, but has kind of acted as an unspoken mark of their friendship – neither one of them wants to bring it up because they know what will happen if they do (and, of course, it eventually does).

 

The pair of legendary comedians are played by John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan – and while neither would have been the first person I thought of to play either role, they are pretty much perfect in the roles anyway. Reilly is buried under a lot of makeup, and yet it doesn’t diminish his performance in the slightest. He’s a big man, paying for the excesses of his youth with a bum heart, and a lot of extra weight. And yet, on stage, he’s still magic. Coogan plays Laurel, the writer of the two of them, and needs far less makeup to become Laurel, but matches with Reilly well. On stage, Reilly and Coogan are wonderful together – they have an instant chemistry with each other. Stan & Ollie are embarking on this tour to try and convince a studio that they still have it – so that they will fund a Robin Hood movie for the pair of them. The first shows feature fairly paltry crowds – but after they are talked into a tiring amount of publicity as well, they start to sell well. And that laughter is addictive. Soon they are joined by their wives – Shirley Henderson playing Lucille Hardy, and Nina Arianada playing Ida Kitaeva Laurel) – and the two wonderful actresses have as much chemistry together as the men playing their husbands. Their verbal sparring matches are straight out of classic screwball comedy – and delivered amazingly well.

 

The film doesn’t avoid all the trappings of a showbiz biopic – but it does avoid most of them. In particular, since they are essentially doing old routines, we aren’t stuck with the type of flash of genius revelations we get in films of this sort when the people come up with their most famed works (as Walk Hard, with Reilly, mercilessly spoofed – and Bohemian Rhapsody last year shamelessly still tried to pull off with a straight face). And perhaps because Laurel & Hardy are a little further in the past than say Queen, it’s less annoying to see Reilly and Coogan recreate the duos most famous bits (and also, you know, because they actually did them – they didn’t do whatever the physical comedy version of lip synching would be.

 

And yet, when the final act gets here, and the find really turns up the heat and tries to get you to get emotional, it doesn’t feel cheap as it often can. The film has somehow earned those tears that it wants you to cry when you see the pair on stage for the last time together – not to mention the now standard issue text on screen at the end to tell you what happened after – which for once actually tells you something truly affecting. So yes, there are clichés here – but the overall film is so charming and funny, with such wonderful performances, I hardly cared.

Movie Review: Paddleton

Paddleton *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Alex Lehmann.

Written by: Mark Duplass and Alex Lehmann.

Starring: Mark Duplass (Michael), Ray Romano (Andy), Alexandra Billings (Judy), Matt Bush (Stewart), Sierra Fisk (Olive), Kadeem Hardison (David), Bjorn Johnson (Master Liu), Lu Junchang (Ku Woo Tai), Ever Mainard (Laney), Jack McGraw (Evan), Marguerite Moreau (Kiersten), Stephen Oyoung (Chen), Jen Sung (Master Liu), Dendrie Taylor (Nancy), Christine Woods (Doctor Hagen).

 

We have seen a lot of movies – too many, frankly – about overgrown man children and their friendships with each other, that mean more to them than anything else in the world, well past the point when they probably should have just grown the hell up already. And yet, I’m not sure we’ve ever seen one of those movies quite like Paddleton – which is about two, doughy, middle aged, white, single male friends – who spend all their free time together, and what happens to that relationship when one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s adding a degree of reality into a genre that I think is too often romanticizing the idea of remaining 15 forever, with some incredibly touching results. It also, I think, shows you just why these two guys have little else other than each other at this stage in their lives.

 

The movie doesn’t waste any time – the first scene in the movie has the pair of them at the doctors, who tells Michael (Mark Duplass) that he has cancer, and will need to see a specialist – which makes Andy (Ray Romano) immediately launch into a bunch of annoying questions that confuse the doctor – in part because she has no idea who is he, or what his relationship to Michael is. They are best friends – and Andy lives directly above Michael in one of those four unit complexes. They spend most of their time together eating pizza, playing guys and watching kung fu movies. Oh, and playing Paddleton – a game they made up that kind of resembles racquet ball – and playing at an old drive in theater.

 

Michael’s diagnosis isn’t good, and he decides that he wants a prescription that will end his life when the time comes – when there is nothing left but pain. But not everywhere will fill his prescription – so the pair of old buddies hits the road for one final road trip, to a quaint tourist town with a look inspired by Denmark to fill that prescription. They two talk and bicker, quote those kung fu movies, and disagree on what to do next. They are mistaken for a gay couple – and it’s easy to see why. They do bicker like an old married couple, with Michael always able to talk Andy done from his more panicky moments.

 

The movie works because of the two lead performances, and the chemistry between Duplass and Romano. Romano in particular is quite good here – perhaps the best he’s ever been. He’s a little out of sorts with the rest of the world – he doesn’t fit in anywhere. But he fits with Michael. In a way both he and Duplass are essentially playing off their usual onscreen personas a little bit here – and they match amazingly well.

 

You know where the movie is going from the outset, and yet, when the finale does finally arrive, you will likely find yourself crying just as I did. The film is very good throughout – if a little too formulaic and perhaps even a tad forgettable at times – but the ending of the film is pretty devastating. Predictable? Sure – but dammit if it doesn’t work. The film reminded me of another film featuring Duplass – Lynn Shelton’s Humpday. The films are very different, but both take male friendship seriously, and take things to a logical concluding point.

Movie Review: Lords of Chaos

Lords of Chaos **/ *****

Directed by: Jonas Akerlund.

Written by: Dennis Magnusson and Jonas Akerlund inspired by the book by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind.

Starring: Rory Culkin (Euronymous), Emory Cohen (Kristian “Varg” Vikernes), Jack Kilmer (Pelle “Dead” Ohlin), Sky Ferreira (Ann-Marit), Valter Skarsgard (Bard Guidvik “Faust” Eithun), Anthony De La Torre (Jan Axel “Hellhammer” Blomberg, Jonathan Barnwell (Jorn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud), Sam Coleman (Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen).

 

I have to admit, I’m kind of curious as to why the story of “real Norwegian Black Metal” doesn’t seem to really work as a movie. There was the documentary Until the Light Takes Us (2008) that told this story first – the story of murder, suicide, sex, arson, ego and rock and roll – and that film felt kind of like a missed opportunity, as it felt like a surface level skim of a fascinating story. And now, a decade later, comes Lords of Chaos – a dramatic retelling of the same events, and you end up with the same feeling. This story should work as a movie – and yet, in spite of some fine elements, it just doesn’t. In this case, it may just be that director Jonas Akerlund never seems to find the right tone for the movie – and doesn’t really seem to give a shit about his characters – all of whom he mocks more than anything else. And yet, despite of that, there are at least three really good performances in Lords of Chaos – they’re just in search of another movie.

 

The narrator of the story is Euronymous (Rory Culkin) – and he tells us from the start that things will not end well for him - I guess if you don’t know this story, and don’t want to know, you should stop reading now, although I think part of what this film is going for – part of the way it derives interest – is in making the conclusion seem inevitable from the start, examining how Euronymous and Varg (Emory Cohen) come together – and why one will eventually murder the other. The movie doesn’t seem to try and hide that. Euronymous is a teenage kid in Norway who really wants to create his own brand of black metal music – or at least, the real “Norwegian” brand of it. He starts a band, and they gain at least a little bit of a following (not enough to make them rich by any means) – in part because of their lead singer – who nicknames himself “Dead” (Jack Kilmer) – and, well, makes the nickname very apt in the first act of the movie. Like his dad, Kilmer is a fascinating performer – and he probably gives the films best performance, which makes it sad that he doesn’t last too long. This is a film where all the characters obsess about poseurs, always throwing that term around at anyone not like them, and even their friends when they have disagreements. Dead is many things – but he may well be the only non-poseur in the film – for all the good it did him.

 

That is perhaps why I found the film didn’t work that well. The film focuses on the friendship and eventual war between Euronymous and Varg – both of whom talk a good game, and then seem to want to try and one up each other to prove that they’re not poseurs – and that they are the “true” voice of Norwegian black metal. But Euronymous stops short of actually killing anyone – which another of their friends does to a gay man who hits on them – on setting the country’s old churches on fire – which Varg does – as a “message” to their Christian nation. But even those fires don’t actually come from a legitimate (albeit misplaced) anger at religion – but are just Varg’s way of “proving” he’s hardcore, when he really isn’t – or at least doesn’t feel like it, since he joins the movement late. Essentially, the movie is about two idiots trying to prove to each other how hardcore they are. Perhaps what is missing is the same thing that critics of the book the film is based on have complained about since it was written – that the book was written by a right wing ideologue whose sympathies aligned with someone like Varg, and therefore didn’t really examine his beliefs – which were established well before he joined the metal scene. The film certainly feels like there is something missing – and that could be it.

 

And yet, despite that, I think both Rory Culkin and Emory Cohen are quite good in the film. Culkin seems to handle the whiplash tone of the film – that can go from out and out comedic, to horror movie imagery and back again – with ease, although he particularly excels at the deadpan comedy parts of the film. Cohen excels at playing Varg as a dead eyed shark on the prowl.

 

Now that two films have tried, and basically failed (the documentary is better – but not as good as it should be) to tell this story, we likely won’t see a third. And that’s probably for the best – although I cannot help but wonder if perhaps there was some way – a better way – to tell this story that no one has thought of yet.

Movie Review: The Changeover

The Changeover *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Miranda Harcourt & Stuart McKenzie.

Written by: Stuart McKenzie based on the novel by Margaret Mahy.

Starring: Timothy Spall (Carmody Braque), Melanie Lynskey (Kate Chant), Lucy Lawless (Miryam Carlisle), Nicholas Galitzine (Sorensen Carlisle), Erana James (Laura Chant), Kate Harcourt (Winter Carlisle), Benji Purchase (Jacko Chant), Ella Edward (Nicky Green), Thomasin McKenzie (Rose Keaton).

 

The Changeover is an interesting genre film that feels perhaps like it missed its moment – had it come out at the height of the Twilight phenomenon, it would have made for a very interesting companion piece and corrective to those films. It is based on a book, which is a few decades too old to be classified as Young Adult, but that’s precisely what it is. The film is a coming of age story about a young woman, and yes, there is a supernatural, otherworldly hot guy in her class – and she is drawn to him – but ultimately, the teenage heroine of the movie has to do things for herself. It is about her coming to harness her own power – and really trust in herself. It’s certainly a better movie than any of the Twilight films – and nowhere near as many people will ever see it.

 

This is a fairly low-budget, New Zealand project – which won’t help it win any viewers – but also doesn’t hurt the movie at all. There are supernatural elements to the film, but not the kind that require any sort of special effects budget – and the cinematography and sound design do a lot of the heavy lifting here in establishing mood. This is a quiet film in many ways, and one that is more unnerving than anything else.

 

The story is about Laura (Erana James), a teenage girl being raised by a single mom (Melanie Lynskey) – who has to spend much of her free kind watching her little brother Jacko (Benji Purchase). The story is about how Laura needs to save Jacko from Carmody Braque (Timothy Spall) – who, well, he’s something. When you first meet him, you aren’t quite sure what kind of creep he is – or even if he is a creep. Laura certainly doesn’t trust him, but she isn’t sure she can trust her own instincts (something she will have to learn to do). But there is something supernatural about him – and she senses that, because there’s something supernatural about her as well – as we can tell when she is drawn to Sorensen Carlisle (Nicholas Galitzine) – that hot, but somewhat creepy guy, from high school. He comes from a family – his mother (Lucy Lawless) and grandmother (Kate Harcourt) – who will become important later, as they help Laura get in touch with whatever it is inside of herself that she can tap into to save Jacko.

 

I don’t really want to spoil the exact nature of the powers anyone in the film has – it’s kind of fun to see Laura come to grips with what she is, and then figure out what she can do. It’s even more refreshing that this is a film that can tap into those powers without the film devolving into more CGI soup – that most genre films end up as. The film is part romance, part horror, part fantasy – but it’s low-key in all three. The romance part is the least convincing – it’s hard to argue that the strictures of YA novels requiring a love interest hurt the film, since the book it is based on came out before YA novels were a thing, but that is what it feels like. There is never any real believable connection between Laura and Sorensen – and filmmakers Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie don’t really seem all that interested in developing that any further anyway.

 

But otherwise, The Changeover is an effective little film. It’s the type of film I wish more teenage girls would see instead of junk like Twilight – or whatever it is now – as it is really about Laura learning to trust herself, trust her inner voice, trust in her own powers – and that is far more of a powerful, and empowering message, than anything those other films have to say.