Green Zone didn’t screen in time for critics, but we sent Drew Lazor anyway:
Paul Greengrass’ frenetic, Adderall-addled visual style isn’t for everyone. But it works well in the context of Green Zone, screenwriter Brian Helgeland’s fictional interpretation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s 2006 true-life take on the costly U.S. blunders that took place inside the violence-insulated Iraqi headquarters of our country’s Coalition Provisional Authority. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon), jaded after coming up empty-handed in a series of WMD raids organized around supposedly air-tight intel, begins questioning the true purpose of his presence, only to be rebuked for falling out of lockstep with The Mission. He decides to check up on the source —an anonymous Iraqi insider named “Magellan” — on his own, and stirs up a hornet’s nest of bureaucratic double-dealings, with Pentagon suit Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) and CIA firebrand Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) jockeying for his loyalty. (Amy Ryan, as a WaPo journalist following the same scent as Miller, is underused.) The movie is exhilarating as an action entry, but its leanings, however representative of stateside opposition to the conflict they may be, are childishly oversimplified — it places blame for the deaths of thousands on a single individual, when in reality thousands more are culpable. Damon’s granite-chinned white knight may be the American all of us would like to see staring back at us when we look into a mirror, but Green Zone fails to portray war through the eyes of a soldier, since Damon’s Miller is not a soldier but an ideologue.
Trailers for the other movies opening today after the jump. Click For More »
In his review of Crazy Heart, Shaun Brady referenced a David Allen Coe song that “laid out all the elements necessary for the perfect country-western song: mama, trains, trucks, prison and gettin’ drunk.” For those wondering, the song is Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name,” one of the all time greatest songs to drink Jack with a Bud back while you teeter-totter on a bar stool. Listen, for the criminally uninformed:
If you’re like me, you’ve been anticipating Avatar even before you knew about blue cat people. The studio said we couldn’t print the review in the paper, but we sent Shaun Brady anyway:
No one knows how to show off a technological advance like James Cameron. Terminator 2 made a wham-bang case for CGI, and for the past decade Cameron has been biding his time and tinkering before finally pulling back the tarp on his 21st-century 3D. Avatar works perfectly as a show reel for how the process can be used — but it will have to wait a bit longer for a filmmaker to apply it to an actual film rather than merely a game-changing novelty.
Keep on reading to find out why one of the most anticipated movies of the year is just OK.
941 Theater’s Nick Esposito, Zafer Ulkc and Doug Sakmann.
The 941 Theater and the non-profit Philadelphia Friends of the Projected Arts are ready to party holiday-style, despite being kicked out of their former home NoLibs home. Instead, the boys behind the 941 will relocate to the Skybox at Fishtown’s2424 Studios for the time being and continue with regular screenings, all starting with a holiday party on Tuesday, December 22. You may remember when we featured the 941 Theater in our Big Vision issue.
If you’ve been following our struggle over the last few months you know that we as the managers and creators of the 941 Theater have been fighting the city to re-open the theater. With the public’s support and donations, we raised nearly half of our initial goal, but we’ve also been shut down for nearly two months and right now it looks like it will be at least another two. At this point we can say that the 941 Theater will not reopen in 2009 and that is sad. It’s sad for us, the PFPA, who have worked on the theater for over three years and it’s sad for the people of the city who embraced the theater and made it their own. However there is an incredible silver lining to this story. The mission of the Philadelphia Friends of the Projected Arts will continue at 2424 studios with regular movie screenings!
Instead of crying their little, movie-lovin’ eyes out, they’ll break out the egg nog to kick start their sorta reopening with a holiday party, featuring Santa Claus Conquers the Space Martians with Mystery Science Theater 3000 and selections from holiday TV faves. Here’s a preview of the aforementioned holiday classic to whet your appetite:
Before the screening, there will be an hour-long reception for you to check the new place out. Bring some grub — they’ll have some free snacks but it’s potluck.
941 holiday party, Tue., Dec. 22, reception from 7:30-8:30 p.m., screening from 8:30-10:30 p.m., $3 suggested donation, 2424 Studios, 2424 York St., 215-423-1800.
Admit it, you want more from this week’s Movies section.
Turner Entertainment Co and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or some such. A time when you’re expected to drop large amounts of cash on your loved ones, whether you actually love them or not. Sam Adams rounds up some of the best DVD purchases for the cinephile on your shopping list, from the Wizard of Oz’s Blu-Ray treatment to the newest Criterion catches. I’ve been drooling over this Kurosawa box set myself:
If there’s one megabox that makes the grade, it’s Criterion’s AK 100, a centennial celebration of Akira Kurosawa that collects 25 of the master’s films, including new, variable-quality transfers of his first four films: The Most Beautiful, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail and both parts of Sanshiro Sugata. Due to rights issues, Criterion’s now out-of-print Ran is not included, nor are the company’s trademark profusion of extras, but considering the set would cost a cool thousand at Criterion’s usual rates, the fact that it’s available for roughly a quarter of that makes it a steal.
So … if anyone out there wants to get me a present … cough, cough. Click For More »
To complete his vision of the apocalypse, The Road director John Hillcoat turned to DIVE, the Philadelphia-based visual effects and film finishing company that recently color-corrected the Barnes Foundation doc The Art of the Steal.
According the DIVE’s executive producer, Andy Williams, Hillcoat initially selected DIVE so the relatively low-budget movie could take advantage of the Pennsylvania tax incentive — most of the The Road was shot outside of Pittsburgh. But he also needed the apocalypse to look credible. Visual effects supervisor Mark Forker spent the majority of The Road shoot on set in western Pennsylvania and beyond, working directly with Hillcoat, advising on how to frame shots and light scenes to minimize post-production work.
What couldn’t be done on camera was sent back to Philly. It’s apt that we’re responsible for making the end of the world look believable.
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.
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