New Moon didn’t screen in time for publication but Drew Lazor went anyway:
Let’s start out by saying there’s no real point in criticizing Twilight. Complaining about the pointlessness of Stephanie Meyer’s bizarro Mormon fantasy world, populated by pouty, eyelash-fluttering studmuffin vampires, steroid-abusing American Indian werewolf boys and the screamingly self-absorbed teenage girls they lust after is akin to punching a tidal wave — it may make you feel like you’re fighting the good fight, but your ass is still going to drown. This series, for myriad reasons, has an unrelenting stranglehold on American pop culture and is not going to let go until the last drop of blood (money) has been drained from the veins of America’s shrieking tweens. So what exactly does Chris Weitz’s New Moon, which picks up right where Catherine Hardwicke’s 2008 smash left off, accomplish in terms of advancing our understanding of this arcane mess? Nothing in particular. Bella (Kristen Stewart, the No. 1-ranked lip biter/melodramatic sigher in Hollywood) still treats her friends and father like garbage because she’s so fixated on thousand-yard-stare-factory douchevamp Edward (Robert Pattinson), who abandons her early on after an ugly incident at his family’s house. Jacob (Taylor Lautner), tormented by Bella’s incessant mixed messages (“You’re beautiful! I love you! But I still like vampire guy better, he’s mad sparkly!”), lifts a shitload of weights, discovers he’s a werewolf and starts wearing nothing but jean shorts and running shoes. (We also learn that werewolves, while in human form, enjoy muffins for breakfast.) We eventually meet the Voltari vampire council, all of whom dress like they’re in a porn version of Immortal Beloved. The acting is crappy, the plot is stupid and Meyer seems to want every young girl in America to believe it’s OK to screw over everyone who cares about you in the name of restraining-order-worthy love. But this is the movie that made $26.3 million in a single night, so I’m going to go ahead and holster my haymakers and let that saltwater rush into my lungs real slow like.
CP: So, Ben, how did you immerse yourself in the role? BF: Oren set up a field trip for Woody and myself to go to Walter Reade Hospital before we started shooting, to spend time in the amputee ward. That was a life-changing experience. You can read things in the paper, and see things in the news, but to be in the amputee ward and touching a 19 year-old boy’s stump, it roots you. It becomes, in itself, its own kind of humble service trying to get out of the way of yourself and serve these men and women and represent them warts and all, scars and all.
Shaun Brady gives you the full scoop on Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire from Philly-native Lee Daniels (verdict: Daniels is up to the same melodramatic tricks but they work this time around due to strong performances) but, as loyal CP readers will know, we had A.D. Amorosi interview Daniels when he took Sundance by storm:
Unlike Woodsman and Shadowboxer, Daniels shot Push in Manhattan. He hated it. It wasn’t fun. “I wasn’t home,” says Daniels referring to Philly. Yes, he lives in New York City now. “But shooting there? There’re so many other famous directors doing likewise. You’re just one more. They don’t treat you well. Yawn.” So he shut down production and called in his Philly crew to take over. Lee Daniels is unstoppable no matter what Manhattan film crews or persnickety critics think. “Do people in the film biz think I’m crazy?” he asks, rephrasing a more delicately put question about his image. He laughs. “I don’t care what anyone thinks except my mother, my kids and my God. If I cared what people thought I’d be in Hollywood.”
The Box didn’t screen in time for print but Drew Lazor went anyway. Here’s what he had to say:
Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s latest expands a remarkably short, short story by sci-fi icon Richard Matheson into a peculiar, campy, frustrating but undeniably original two-hour creepfest. Matheson’s tale, one of those ones so well-suited for middle-school English class discussions, takes the classic morality play setup and repackages it into what’s basically a Staples “Easy” button. An odd stranger presents a struggling couple with a proposition: If they choose to push a weird button on a weird box, a stranger will die — but not before they’re awarded a large chunk of money. Kelly’s version has the male lead (James Marsden) employed by NASA, the wifey (Cameron Diaz) as a repressed schoolteacher and the odd stranger (a frightening Frank Langella) touting natty suits and extreme facial disfigurement. Kelly is a gifted weaver of suspense, and The Box score — constructed brilliantly by members of Arcade Fire — trumps up the screenplay’s many moments of Hitchcockian paranoia. The movie’s shortcomings are not based in implausibility (all in the game), but rather in the occasional stiffness of Marsden and Diaz’s performances. We can all agree that pretty people can’t always sell middle-class — but this film’s built like a nesting doll, so we expect our leads to get sharper as the answers starting rolling in.
Mark Maurer talks to director Tom Quinn about his very Philly film, The New Year Parade, about a family torn apart by divorce set against the Mummers parade:
When Tom Quinn approached the Mummers for feedback on the script for his feature-length debut, The New Year Parade, they reacted with “friendly ball-busting.
“They just wanted to tear it apart,” Quinn says, who grew up in Bucks County and attended La Salle and Temple but is otherwise far removed from the string and fancy bands that set The New Year Parade scene. “They know this world so much better than I ever will.” Quinn saw value in letting the Mummers retain their own voice, so he encouraged ad-libbing with the mostly first-time actors.
Darren is a normal teenage boy. He’s popular, has a good family and gets good grades. But things start go awry for Darren (Chris Massoglia) when his best bud (and complete opposite), Steve (a much-more-interesting-than-Massoglia Josh Hutcherson), persuades him to cut out on his grounding (also Steve’s fault) and check out the Cirque du Freak, a WTF vaudeville-style freak show, anchored by the mysterious Crepsley (John C. Reilly), who performs with a spider named Octa. Darren makes the terrible decision to steal Octa (because, as we’re told, he’s obsessed with spiders), which leads Crepsley to turn him into a half-vamp (he’s not daylight-allergic). Too bad the creepy Mr. Tiny (Broadway great Michael Cerveris) has other plans for our hero and wants him for himself. Cirque du Freak is one of those movies that’s clearly meant to set up a franchise. It’s a lot of exposition for little payoff. But the visual effects are fantastic, and watching the cavalcade of freaks — like The Daily Show’s Kristin Schaal’s toothy Gertha, Salma Hayek’s sultry bearded lady and Patrick Fugit’s rock ‘n’ roll-loving snake boy — is fun enough to keep it going. Still while Reilly is characteristically awesome as the theatrical Crepsley, you have to wonder: Is he doing it for the part or because he knows he’s got paychecks coming down the pipe when the other tent poles go up?
Director Mira Nair knows how to set up a shot. She can work the light and create scenes of pure beauty, as she’s shown in movies like Monsoon Wedding. But that doesn’t help her when it comes to the story of Amelia Earhart, played in all of her buck-toothed glory by Hilary Swank. Beginning with Earhart’s doomed flight around the world, Nair gives us a brief look at Earhart’s childhood and hits the ground running with her meeting with eventual husband/publishing magnate George Putnam (Richard Gere), who ostensibly needs a woman flier to play passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight, but really wants a star who can sell books. Nair’s version is full of positive women-can-do-it-too! platitudes but glances over the interesting parts — like Earhart’s unseen alcoholic dad who gets more than a few mentions or the necessary celebrity associated with keeping her up in the air. Even her affair with Gene Vidal (father of Gore … yeah, that Gore), played by Ewan McGregor, feels like an afterthought. Swank, who has garnered praise for the gritty realism she brings to her performances (Boys Don’t Cry), plays Earhart like a character, rather than embodying the aviatrix (although Gere is far guiltier of this than Swank). The film only gets interesting when we get a glimpse inside Earhart’s final ride before she disappeared without a trace, but by that point, Amelia’s already crashed. Click For More »
Admit it, you want more from this week’s Movie section.
Yesterday marked the opening of the 18 ½ Philadelphia Film Festival. We gave you 14 reviews (plus extras online!!) in the section this week. What are you going to see at the fest? Anything strike your fancy? I’m beyond excited for District B13: Ultimatum and Fish Tank, among others. What about you? Let’s discuss in the comments!
CP: So Scott, you starting out working with the Wayans brothers who have made an incredible amount of money on these parody films. So where do you where to draw the line between parody and homage as a filmmaker?
SS: My explanation starts in the original pose and photograph. This pose to me is badass but the nunchucks just take it 10 percent too far. But it’s still badass. That’s kind of the source of our humor, just a light touch with the satire. The original movies are pretty crazy to begin with. A 10 percent extra just makes it really funny and then you don’t feel like you’re straining for the joke. I read a review on Ain’t it Cool, which I really liked that said when black Dynamite goes into the pool hall and closes the gate after they’re insulting him, you laugh. But you don’t laugh because it’s ha-ha jokey-jokey funny. You laugh because you’re like, “Oh my god, this badass is gonna kill this guy.” It’s a different kind of a laugh than in something like Meet the Spartans where they’re kicking Britney Spears down a hole. That’s a different kind of humor.
First we have our dysfunctional couples … : Couples Retreat didn’t screen in time for publication, but I did you a favor and saw it anyway. Here’s what I said:
Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau go way back, first starring together in 1996’s Swingers, as young bucks ready to take Los Angeles by storm. Thirteen years later, the two have reached middle age, now at the top of their Hollywood game. But where Swingers thrived on freshness and energy, Couples Retreat is complacent. Jason Bateman and Faizon Love join Vaughn and Favreau as the XY contingent of a group of couples persuaded to go to Eden, a therapy retreat, by Bateman and onscreen wife Cynthia (Kristen Bell) — two uptight PowerPoint lovers who convince their buddies that they won’t have to take part in planned healing activities. Except when they arrive, as it turns out, it’s all mandatory. They’re faced with a choice: Stay in paradise and listen to some touchy-feely quack, or bail and head back to kids and responsibility? The couples stick to Eden and spend the next couple of hours doing everything you’d expect them to. I don’t know what’s more disconcerting: the fact that four genuinely funny men willngly play into their own typecasting (Vaughn as the fast-talking wiseguy, Bateman as a less-hilarious Michael Bluth), or that Vaughn and Bateman’s onscreen wives look a fraction of their age and they think no one will notice.
It took first-time director Oren Peli just seven days to shoot Paranormal Activity in his own house, with a hand-held camera, two unknown actors and a measly $15,000 budget. Plenty of people are saying what he came up with is one of the most terrifying horror films of all time. That’s an unfortunate overstatement in that it’s created unrealistic expectations for this little movie that could, but it’s unabashedly scary — and it’s worth seeing for multiple reasons, some of which aren’t hair-raising at all. Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, playing a couple named Micah and Katie, are embarking on an experiment: She’s been deeply disturbed by a insidious presence her whole life, so her cocky day trader boyfriend leaves a high-end video cam rolling while they sleep to sate his curiosity. “Things” start happening — and it’s not long before the incidents begin increasing in volatility with each passing night. That’s all you need to know to embrace that aspect of the movie, but Paranormal’s biggest gifts come in the form of Sloat and Featherston’s performances — both do a superb job of fleshing out the throes of a couple in duress, scrambling from argument to make-up and back again with such gentle chemistry that you might mistake them for your actual friends.
The new one from Ricky Gervais didn’t screen in time for print, but here’s my review:
In a world not unlike our own, no one can tell a lie. It’s not just that they can’t say untruths, it’s that people say whatever happens to pop into their head, which doesn’t bode well for Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais), a loser with few prospects. On the day he’s fired and unable to pay his rent, Mark suddenly gains the ability to say what isn’t. Like any movie, especially a comedy, with a shtick, The Invention of Lying gets old after the initial idea wears off. Yes, we get it, people can’t lie. Mark can. Gervais, who co-wrote and directed with Matthew Robinson, is smart enough to understand that this device can’t sustain a feature-length movie (something the creators of Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man never got). But at that turning point, The Invention of Lying shifts dramatically from innocuous comedy to atheist manifesto, when Mark essentially creates religion by “revealing” the presence of “the man in the sky.” Whether you disagree or not with the validity of god isn’t the point; it’s simply an unnerving tonal shift. Whether he produced a screed or not, Gervais has funny friends in high places and the various cameos that pop up throughout are at least fun to look forward to.
Cybela on how to protect yourself from aliens:
I think basically, if they really want to abduct somebody, it’s very, very hard to avoid it.
Cybela on why extraterrestrials are invading our planet:
If you were going to go to the best resort in the universe, it would probably be planet Earth.
Cybela on not being crazy:
I’ve interviewed people in Brazil, all over Brazil, and there are judges and lawyers and doctors in Brazil who claim they’ve been aboard spacecraft and they’ve been put in some kind of nitrogen liquid and they’ve been on other planets and, and — you think I’m crazy, right? I mean, I’m not, I’m just telling you the truth.
Admit it, you know you want more from this week’s Movies section.
Drew Lazor braved two movies that didn’t screen in time for print so you don’t have to.
Whiteout — C-
Visually stunning but lacking punch, Dominic Sena’s adaptation of Greg Rucka’s graphic novel is more of a screen saver than a movie. Haunted by a double-cross in her professional past, U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) takes the worst job for folks of her ilk — the only law enforcement official in Antarctica. Right as she’s about to wrap up her self-prescribed exile and head back to society, though, she finds a dead man in the ice, miles from what’s considered “humanity” on the continent. It’s up to Stetko to dig up the conspiracy behind Antarctica’s first murder, with the help of pilot Delfy (Columbus Short) and U.N. inspector Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht). Rucka’s 11-year-old comic series, which debuted in 1998, has earned praise for its adventurous approach to setting — letting a body-count-heavy murder mystery play out on the brightest, cleanest stage on earth means the fresh blood looks that much more red. But while Sena (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Swordfish) does tremendous work maximizing the impact of an unforgiving environment, he’s unable to draw the same level of stimulation out of his dullard cast. —Drew Lazor
Sorority Row — B-
What should one expect from a movie whose top-billed actress (in order of appearance) is “Bra-Clad Sister”? Awesome things, dammit. And Sorority Row, a remake of the 1983 cult classic The House on Sorority Row, mostly delivers. Goofy as hell, gender-marginalizing (really into Le Tigre? Don’t see this!) and thoroughly enjoyable as a slasher flick, the movie kicks off after an elaborate prank involving roofies (seriously, girls?) results in the slaughter of Theta Pi sorority sister Megan (The Hills‘ Audrina Patridge, somehow more natural here than in her reality show). While Cassidy (Brian Evigan) and Ellie (Rumer Willis) are reluctant about covering up the murder, the rest of the soon-to-matriculate senior girls have no trouble dumping homegirl’s carcass down a mine shift. This, of course, kicks off an innovative killin’ spree that begins as soon as the guilty parties turn their tassels. There are plenty of guffaws to be had, many of them thanks to “Chugs” (Margo Harshman), a drunken floozy who screws her therapist to get anti-depressants. The best lines, however, are reserved for ice queen Jessica (newcomer Leah Pipes), who rattles off quip after alpha-bitch quip even in the worst of circumstances (after finding a rotting body hanging in the shower: “She looks terrible!”). —Drew Lazor
The September Issue — B+
I had the opportunity to talk to September Issue director R.J. Cutler about his time with Anna Wintour, aka, the devil in Prada herself. His reaction to Wintour was certainly different than her myth has made her out to be:
CP: I kept thinking that if Anna were a man working in a masculine industry, instead of a traditionally feminine industry, do you think she would have this reputation?
RJC: No. I think it’s more complicated because she is a woman. You can’t really go there. But I do think that a guy who had her leadership approach and her management approach? No way! Do you think Morley Safer would interview a guy on 60 Minutes with a guy who dominated a $300 billion global industry and would ask him if he was a bitch? Morley Safer would be like, [affecting a funny voice] “Hey buddy, you’re the greatest, let’s go play golf. Look everybody, tough guy loves me!” But because he’s with a woman, he’s like, “You’re a bitch.” It’s cowardly to me. And it’s sexist. Absolutely, there’s no way with a guy with Anna’s approach to running her business would be the subject of that kind of inquiry. No way. Tell me an instance where anybody gives a shit that fill-in-the-blank is an asshole to the people who work for him. It doesn’t happen. Not that I’m saying Anna’s an asshole to the people who work for her, don’t get me in trouble. I’m not saying it at all. But she’s tough. We know she’s tough, I made a movie about her. She is tough! She is demanding. No tough, demanding guy gets asked by Morley Safer, “Are you a bitch?” Or even “Are you too tough?” What a silly question. You a run a publication that makes tens of millions of dollars. She should have said, “Fuck you, you asshole. You pussy. That’s the question you’re going to ask me?” She should have said that.
You know you want more from this week’s Movie Section. If you only picked up the print edition, you didn’t get to read Drew Lazor’s review of A Perfect Getaway, which he gave a B-. Lo and behold:
A slick little eye-candy thriller with the soul of a music video, A Perfect Getaway looks the part — but writer/director David Twohy’s smart-alecky postmodern leanings end up smudging the gloss. Hollywood scribe Cliff (Steve Zahn) and his new bride Cydney (Milla Jovovich) decide to celebrate their fresh-out-the-box nuptials by hiking the remote, treacherous trails of Kaua’i. When word reaches fellow hikers that police are hunting for a couple suspected of a brutal double slaying, the yuppies do what yuppies do best — cast paranoid judgment on everyone around them, including Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez), an affable but unsettling duo. Twohy’s playful who’s-hoodwinking-who work is often sharp (Olyphant’s particularly fun as a batty ex-special ops killer), and the tension pops against the gorgeous tropical backdrops. But considering there are only so many actual characters, it’s difficult not to foresee the epic “twist” that’s been so hyped up via the movie’s marketing arm. That Twohy insists on using Cliff’s screenwriting job as an excuse to get way cutesy on us — they talk about red herrings, while surrounded by them! — doesn’t quite help.
Staff Blog
THE SCENESTER: Howling at the New Moon, Blinded by the white and more
