Given the off-the-charts camp factor in the tantalizing prospect of Lindsay Lohan playing Elizabeth Taylor, Lifetime might prize descriptions of Liz & Dick as “trashy” or “awful.” So the network might harbor mixed emotions in reading that the movie about Taylor and her tumultuous romance with Richard Burton is actually pretty good, all things considered, despite an inevitably episodic nature and one glaringly unnecessary device. Such fact-based TV movies are rare these days, but this post-Thanksgiving telecast is just hammy enough to generate numbers rivaling the hordes of paparazzi that dogged the not-always-happy couple.
The movie’s secret weapon, it turns out, isn’t Lohan at all, but rather New Zealander Grant Bowler (barely recognizable from a small part on True Blood) as the dashing, often-drunken Burton, who classes up the movie in much the way Burton’s classically trained Shakespearean actor played off Taylor’s lifelong movie star.
Directed by Lloyd Kramer from a script by Christopher Monger, the narrative is framed, somewhat unfortunately, by having the two speak directly to the camera against a stark black backdrop, in what approximates a kind of posthumous interview about their relationship. While it offers another means of getting inside their heads, it has a certain beyond-the-grave quality — exalting their epic love, yes, but feeling too much like something from one of the Mitch Albom movies Kramer helmed.
“I fell for you the moment I saw you,” Burton tells her (and Bowler has the rich Welsh baritone down pat), one of several lines of dialogue — including “My heart is broken, and you have the smashed pieces” — seemingly calibrated to appeal both to those willing to embrace the romance and those eager to approach the movie like a screwball comedy.…
Full Story »Tom Cruise IS Jack Reacher, screams the poster and new trailer for the Lee Child action adaptation. Is Paramount reaching, or is Cruise more and more believable as the bad-ass army cop who drives fast and punches bad guys in the balls as he investigates a suspicious multiple murder case?
This theatrical trailer for the Christopher McQuarrie-directed film (his first in the dozen years since Way of the Gun) wisely chooses not to linger on extended scenes of Cruise beating up dozens of bad guys — not the easiest stretch of the imagination, despite his ability to do the same when playing Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt. Sans ubercool gadgets and the metrosexual spy sheen of that franchise, Cruise has to work harder to pass for the brawling, cold-blooded ex-military loner of Child’s novels.
Never mind that fans of the books are still grumbling that Cruise looks nothing like the ginormous 6′5″ blond antihero. Jack Reacher is now a Tom Cruise Movie, so all it really needs to be a hit with the masses is a good story to string together scenes of Cruise angsting his way from fight to car chase and beyond. Right?
Jack Reacher’s secret weapon, however? Werner Herzog as a bad guy. Now that’s a brilliant stroke of casting that should make it well worth the price of admission.
Jack Reacher is in theaters December 21.
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Greta Gerwig has gone from so-called Mumblecore actress, appearing in indie titles LOL, Hannah Takes The Stairs and Nights and Weekends to bigger fare by the likes of Ivan Reitman and Woody Allen in No Strings Attached and the recent To Rome with Love. But what most audiences may not know, is that she’s picked written some of the material she’s played on screen, including her latest Frances Ha, which she co-wrote with director Noah Baumbach. The comedy is Gerwig’s second match-up with Baumbach following 2010’s Greenberg and the pair began bouncing ideas off each other, eventually creating the hysterical black and white feature that debuted at the recent Toronto International Film Festival and will be having its U.S. premiere at the upcoming New York Film Festival.
“We started trading some ideas after Greenberg Gerwig said in New York this week. “I knew I wanted to work with Noah again, and luckily he felt the same way.”
Baumbach and Gerwig emailed sent email back and forth, creating Frances Ha’s electric personalities and hypnotic banter. In the film, Gerwig plays Frances, a New Yorker who is constantly on the move. Her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) ups and moves into a plush apartment with a friend in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood, leaving Frances to fend for herself. A budding dancer, she is dropped from her apprenticeship at a dance company, but her slow descent never does little to undermine her determination to succeed. Friendship is at the heart of the film and the sometimes racy lifestyle of twenty-somethings living in New York is played out honestly, even with some discomfort.
“If you want to get technical about it, anything other than women falling in love…
Full Story »One of my favorite movies to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival was Seven Psychopaths, which was written and directed by Irish playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh. Beginning in the mid-1990s, McDonagh caused quite a stir in New York’s theater world with his funny, macabre plays, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Behanding in Spokane and The Pillowman. And in 2008, he turned heads in the film world with his debut feature, In Bruges, which he also wrote and directed. (If you haven’t seen that film, you should before CBS Films releases Seven Psychopaths on Oct. 12. It’s a dark comic gem with genuine emotional depth about two hit men who go on the lam when a job goes wrong.
Seven Psychopaths finds McDonagh in Quentin Tarantino territory, and dare I say, the Pulp Fiction director should watch his back. (By the way, the two have never met.) McDonagh has a stylish way with violence — there’s an exploding head scene in the movie that rocked my world — he structures his films to move like sleek sports cars, and his black wit is sharper than QT’s. (Yes, I did just assert that.) Check out the trailer below for a riff on Gandhi’s “an eye for an eye” quote that, thanks to Sam Rockwell’s delivery, makes me laugh every time I hear it.
In Seven Psychopaths, Rockwell plays a struggling smart-ass actor who, with his non-violent partner-in-crime (Christopher Walken), does a bit of dog-napping to make ends meet. The fun begins when he makes off with the Shih Tzu of a cold-blooded gangster (Woody Harrelson) and implicates his blocked screenwriter friend (Colin Farrell), who happens to be working on a script identical to the film’s title. (By…
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Aubrey Plaza makes sex look funnier than usual in the Red Band trailer for The To Do List. Directed by Maggie Carey (The Jeannie Tate Show), the film follows high-school grad Brandy (Plaza) as she attempts to work her way through a list of sex acts — many of which end with the term “job” — in preparation for college. Andy Samberg, Donald Glover, Rachel Bilson, Chrisopher Mintz-Plasse, Carey’s husband, Bill Hader and Clark Gregg are also among the cast.
Before you get all hot and bothered about the plot, The To Do List doesn’t arrive in theaters until Valentine’s Day 2013, but the Parks and Recreation actress makes a good case for creating an iCal entry. If the rest of the movie is as funny as the oral sex scene depicted here — involving the doe-eyed and deliciously deadpan actress, Glover and a kid who walks in on them — The To Do List could actually make the heinous Hallmark holiday worth celebrating.
I can’t help noting, by the way, that Plaza’s character in the movie shares the name of a classic 1970s radio hit by Looking Glass, ”Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl),” which is interesting given that the actress’ parents reportedly named her after the song “Aubrey” by another big ’70s band, Bread. Coincidence?
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