Boys will be boys. And if provoked in the right way, parents will become children. Such is the tale of Carnage, the latest film by infamously exiled Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, adapted from the Olivier Award- and Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. Oscar winner Jodi Foster and Oscar nominee John C. Reilly play the Longstreets, parents of a 15-year-old boy who is injured after fighting with a friend and classmate, the son of the Cowans, played by Oscar winners Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz. What starts as a civil meeting between conscientious parents turns into a war of words where no opponent comes out unscathed in this entertaining social satire.
As the film starts, we see the children on the playground from an objective distance. Although both the teens play the aggressor at one point or another, the Longstreet child is left injured, setting the balance of power for the adults. Later, at the home of the Longstreets, the two sets of parents collaborate on a written summary of the playground incident. The victim’s parents encourage a harsher characterization and the Cowans object. With mild dissent, an alternate depiction is inserted and the Cowans prepare to leave until, in a gesture of goodwill, they are invited back for a slice of pie. The forced cordial nature of their interaction is palpable and over the course of the next 80 minutes, minor every-day irritants creep into their conversation, causing each character’s facade to crumble.
A lot has been made of Shame, the controversial second film—or rather, the second controversial film—from British filmmaker Steve McQueen, way before its release.
A journey into the life of a sex addict named Brandon, played by Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, 2009) who came to fame in McQueen’s award-winning first feature Hunger (2008), we were told to imagine uninhibited scenes of sex and masturbation, the graphicness of which is odious depending on your sensibilities (more on that later). On another front, there was some concern that the only woman Brandon tries to have an actual relationship with is African-American (Nicole Beharie, The Express, 2008), as black audiences don’t want to see her get “turned out” (for lack of a less pejorative term) or for Brandon to find his soul in between a black woman’s legs, as happens pretty often in cinema (more on this later, as well).
The Descendants is the latest quirky comedy from writer/director Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt). It is based upon the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, which finds Matt King, a white descendant of Hawaiian royalty, dealing with several life-defining scenarios, including his family’s inheritance of Hawaii’s most valuable land; his wife’s coma-inducing boating accident; and the fact that he doesn’t really know—and therefore, cannot handle—his children. His life is further complicated once he learns that his wife was having an affair at the time of her accident, which drives him to embark on an impulse-driven journey to find his wife’s lover, and possibly closure. George Clooney plays King in this coming-of-middle-age comedy that touches on the true meaning of family.
For a film career that has spanned over three decades and 16 films, Festival de Cannes darlings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne still show no signs of ceasing, much less slowing down. The power brother-duo filmmakers from Belgium showcased another masterpiece at the 49th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, the poignant and heart-rending, The Kid with a Bike. Â
Coming hard on the heels of their third win at Cannes last May for this film (the Grand Prix, shared with the Turkish film Once upon a Time In Anatolia), the Dardenne Brothers presented The Kid with a Bike with two successive screenings at Alice Tully Hall in New York to an eager and massive audience. It’s the fifth time the brothers have made a presentation at the New York Film Festival. What’s amazing is that Jean-Pierre and Luc, 60 and 57 (respectively), have stressed to their audience during a Q&A that their big win at Cannes this year doesn’t mean they’re at their filmmaking prime. Instead, the Dardennes feel that the response so far toward the film only shows them that they still have a long way to go when it comes to telling stories.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological thriller about a young woman’s reintegration with society after escaping a farm-based commune with cult tendencies. Martha, who is renamed Marcy May by the cult in a common indoctrination tactic, escapes the commune physically, but is trapped mentally and emotionally by the cult’s brainwashing. Throughout the story, Martha’s past haunts her present and loosens her hold on reality.
Expect audience reactions to the film Drive to be wildly polarized. From the advertisements and marketing, viewers are probably expecting to see the new Ryan Gosling actioner as a slightly repackaged, art-house reworking of The Transporter (2002). However, when I saw the movie recently, the audience was clearly (and in some cases, loudly) baffled, laughing at odd moments while shifting uncomfortably during others. Indeed, the film is set to confound expectations, for Drive is a fever-dream neo-noir film masquerading as cheap, commercial multiplex fodder. It is a mysterious, subversive work of art, veering close to the edge of self parody while also playing its material in ardent sincerity. With this essay, I want to explore Nicolas Winding Refn’s new film Drive as a metatextual exercise, and as such, will reveal spoilers along the way.
Drive is a highly stylized pulp noir action-drama from acclaimed Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising, 2009). Ryan Gosling plays Driver, an inscrutable loner who is a stunt driver for Hollywood by day and the wheel man for armed heists by night. He instantly falls in love with his neighbor Irene, played by Carey Mulligan, and soon becomes part of her son Benito’s life. When Driver learns that Irene’s ex-con husband Standard, played by Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood, 2010), will soon return home from prison to reunite their family, Driver is willing to step aside. Unfortunately, Standard’s past follows him home and Driver agrees to drive for one last job to settle Standard’s debt. Nothing is what it seems, and Driver sets on a course to keep Irene and Benito safe at all costs.
Once I’m sitting down in front of that big screen (or even small screen), I tend to forget what I’ve read or seen about a movie. It’s like clockwork. I forget the trailers, the commercials, the music, and sometimes aside from the big stars and directors, who’s even supposed to be in it. I just let it wash over me. All that said, when watching Restless I couldn’t help but compare newcomer Henry Hopper’s character to the film’s director Gus Van Sant.
See, Hopper plays Enoch Brae, a young man who has dropped out of the business of living by crashing funerals and hanging out in cemeteries after a car accident claimed the life of his parents. It’s at one of these funerals where he meets Annabel Cotton, a lively and charming naturalist with an affinity for Charles Darwin and a deep love for the world despite having terminal cancer, played by the delightful Mia Wasikowska (more on her in a minute), and they develop a unique and quick personal bond, despite their worlds crashing in on them.
Warrior is poised to do for mixed martial arts (MMA) what The Karate Kid did for local karate gyms everywhere. After 14 years apart, estranged brothers Tommy’s and Brendan’s paths collide in a once-in-a-lifetime MMA event.
Tom Hardy (Inception) plays Tommy, an ex-Marine who escaped his abusive, alcoholic father, played by two-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte, with his mother. Fourteen years later, he returns to Pittsburgh—without warning—and enlists his father to train him for the largest MMA event in history, Sparta, which holds a $5 million purse. Tom Edgerton (Animal Kingdom) is Brendan, an ex-fighter-turned-school teacher and father of two who is hit hard in the economic downturn. He returns to fighting for extra cash and sees Sparta as the long shot that could change his life.
In his short films, director Rashaad Ernesto Green was never reluctant to tell difficult stories, and his first feature film pushes that personal aesthetic of his even more.
In Gun Hill Road, Green tells the story a family in transition — in more ways than one. Esai Morales plays Enrique Rodriguez, who unceremoniously returns home from his latest three-year stint in prison to find not only his wife rejecting his attempts to reassert himself as head of the household, but a son about whom something seems seriously off. Not helping is a deep secret that Enrique is living with that constantly consumes his thoughts, but he chooses to focus on re-forging his relationship with his wife and son.
