Pick of the bunch is Haywire, easily the best action thriller since the third Bourne movie, and more evidence of Steven Soderbergh’s astonishing range. The story of a betrayed covert operative, Mallory (played by MMA champion Gina Carano) wreaking revenge is hardly original, but Soderbergh has made an wonderfully economical little movie (coming in at 93 minutes), littered with trademark interiors and some breathtaking exteriors (a fight on a beach as the sun goes down with only seagulls and waves for sound, the wide open wilderness of New Mexico), in which the moments of frenetic action alternate with long periods of stillness, and the attention to detail shows how a craftsman makes movies. The point of using Carano, one assumes, was to make the action sequences more realistic, and it works; there is nothing in the movie that looks computer-generated or as if performed by superhumans. A long chase sequence across the roofs of Dublin looks exactly as though a very fit twenty-something woman is doing the running and jumping. Finally, Soderbergh gets wonderful small performances from the ensemble cast of Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor. Highly recommended. (more…)

I don’t think anyone has posted on Lars von Trier’s latest film yet, though I see at least one of us has expressed an interest in it. Has anyone seen it? We watched it last night and I’m still not sure what to say about it. I do know that what moved me the most, what I enjoyed most was the wedding reception which makes up Part I, entitled “Justine” who is played by Kirstin Dunst. Justine has just married Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), who is a well-meaning, very likeable, but very boring young man. He’s a bit thick, too. After a splendid opening (I’m not counting the over-indulgent special effects prologue, with nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Powaqqatsi) in which we see Justine and Michael trying to get a stretch limo up a very narrow, winding dirt road, we spend the next hour or more at a wedding reception being held at a remote estate owned by Justine’s brother-in-law, John (played by Kiefer Sutherland). (more…)

Toward the end of Cristi Puiu’s Aurora the always unsettled and increasingly unsettling Viorel (played by Puiu) lopes into one of his daughter’s classes, disrupting a party rehearsal. He grabs her, to get her to leave with him, and in a prototypical long fixed take, the camera gazing at the action from just over and behind the head of one of the schoolkids, we watch a teacher try to make sense of what’s happening, try to get him to let the daughter stay for a bit, while Viorel with barely-suppressed agitation gets his daughter dressed, readies her backpack, responds curtly and then with a vague menace to the teacher. His eyes frequently dart to the side, catching the schoolgirl right below the camera’s gaze. He looks at her, he goes back to what he’s doing, he looks at her, he talks, he looks at her. Then there is one extended glare, a head-shift away with his eyes on the floor (as if afraid? ashamed? completely unable to fathom human connection?); when he pulls his head back up, he stares at her–and although the set of his mouth and the look on his face hasn’t really changed, the gaze now seems furious. In a low monotone he asks “What are you staring at?” She turns away.

We can’t. Aurora isn’t a perfect film, but it may have a perfect performance. The brilliance of that performance–the slow revelation of Viorel’s desperation, and the horror attendant therewith–doesn’t really come clear unless you engage the long, long, long, long 100 or so minutes before anything specific happens. (The film then goes on for another 80 minutes. Did I warn you that it’s long? It makes Police, Adjective seem like Michael Bay.) (more…)

Hokum. Lots of good actors, but c’mon. Hokum. If you’re going to watch one rousing hurt-men-using-fighting-to-heal from 2011, watch Real Steel, which relishes its loony cliches.

That said, I would happily watch another film, without mixed martial arts, that let Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte mix it up. (Tom Hardy is smothered in Brando sauce, so he doesn’t get much room to shine here.)

As in “lean,” as well as “enumerate”–I have missed quite a few potentially worthy films, besides not yet having access to a bunch of others. But, still: ’tis the season. Great filmgoing (or dvdviewing) experiences of the year: (more…)

I had a little, happening to start what I expected to be 6 or 7 minutes of channelsurfing before opting for a book–and saw that HBO ran an early premiere of the new Milch/Mann track show. Full of hambone outsized sweaty scruffy performers and way too many introductions and a wee bit too much melodrama and an absolutely shit soundtrack, but with thickets of knotty, interesting Milchian prose and some invigorating thundering hooves and asses and flying dirtclods and three stables’ worth of great actors, most of whom showed promise but were a little hamstrung by the ham of their introductions… except Dustin Hoffman who pulls off a brilliant final scene and Dennis Farina who’s dialled it down below everyone else and commands your entire attention.

I am in. This already has me hitched, and with Nolte in the background and Michael Gambon and Joan Allen in the wings… it’s unlikely to snap a leg and fall flat.

I haven’t found a post on this film, directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer), though I don’t trust our site’s sucky search engine, so maybe I missed this one. I sort of liked this, but it should have been a lot better. That’s a lame caveat I know, but in this case I think I know exactly what would have put this film over the top (right now it’s stalled at “well, okay”).

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There is a new French action film. This is a category not unlike healthy fast food or Republican historian. It stars a guy with Barney Rubble eyes. His wife gets kidnapped, and there is a lot of running around. People are not what they seem to be! Or at least they aren’t to Barney, who is running so much he has trouble thinking. Why have so many of these recent French faux-llywood shindigs been so resolutely dull? At least Luc Besson has excess going for him.

Alexander Payne’s latest film paints three inter-linked stories onto a lush background of Hawaii’s leafy suburbs, beaches and awe-inspiringly beautiful coastal wilderness. The first involves the discovery by Matt King (George Clooney) that his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), who in a coma from a boating accident, had been having an affair. Elements of this story require that Clooney track down and decide whether to confront the man she was sleeping with. (more…)

So, Hong Kong is a long damn way from Saint Paul. I can never sleep on these flights, maybe grabbing 15 or 25 minutes here and there, although such dozes were made impossible by the barking snores–like a rhino, startled into scornful laughter–from the strange man next to me on the way home. I usually hope to retreat into lovable tripe, stuff I failed to see and only half-wanted to, but the selections were less attractive, and I opted for three films going and coming back. In reverse order, worst to best: (more…)