Five Minutes of Heaven

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson

****

By Reece Crothers

Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of Downfall, once again blends fact and fiction to great effect in one of the year's most overlooked films. Working on a smaller canvas here than on the Oscar nominated Hitler picture, German filmmaker Hirschbeigel tackles "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland with an intelligent and challenging screenplay from Guy Hibberts, who collaborated with Paul Greengrass on another film about the plight of Northern Ireland, 2004's Omagh, a worthy film that was also mostly ignored.

Over black, the voice of Liam Neeson tells us, "In order to understand the man I am, you have to know something about the man I was," and so the part of the film that is fact is a meticulously recreated 1975 murder of a catholic boy by a young U.V.F. "soldier". The hit is lead by 17-year-old Alistair Little, who has volunteered with the hope that killing one of the enemy will make him a big man with the other lads, the higher-ups, who will then march him into the local pub as a hero, a force to be recognized. It's not personal for him. He doesn't see the enemy as a person. For Alistair there is only "us" and "them". As Alistair prepares to assassinate the Catholic boy, we are treated to scenes of the boy's family life and meet his little brother Joe, who spends all day kicking the football against the bricks of his row-house, trying to break his own record. When Alistair murders Joe's brother, shooting from the street into the bedroom window, he spares little Joe only because he mistakes the boy for a neighbour.

The boy grows into James Nesbitt as the adult Joe Griffen, a husband and father teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown, and we wonder how much life was really spared, how much of the little boy actually survived. Joe is a man hollowed out over years of guilt and grief and, most of all, rage. Nesbitt plays him as a bundle of nerves that could kick off an explosion at any minute. Liam Neeson plays the adult Alistair Little as a broken man, living a lonely empty life – a melancholy, lost soul haunted by the murder he carried out three decades ago, and about to face Joe Griffen for the first time since the night of the killing. A television reality program has brought them together ostensibly in pursuit of reconciliation. But with a dagger hidden in his belt, adult Joe has more than reconciliation on his mind. He's going for retribution and revenge for his "five minutes of heaven".

This is the part of the film that is fiction, the imagined meeting of two men who "bare the legacy of" the true story. "Do I shake the man's hand or do I kill him?" That question drives the first half of the film, where the journey of each man toward the TV set is plagued with painful memories played out in flashbacks. The two leads are a great match, and one of the picture's strengths is the thrill of watching two actors at the peak of their talents play against each other, whether in the same scene or through the clever editing of their parallel stories and flashbacks.

Both actors have given some of their best performances in films about the Troubles before: Neeson in the title role of Neil Jordan's excellent Michael Collins and Nesbitt in the lead of Paul Greengrass' pre-Bourne breakout Bloody Sunday. Here Nesbitt is electric. He careens wildly from composed family guy full of charm to raging would-be killer. It's an impressive tightrope that he walks. Equally good in his restrained, sorrowful performance as the repentant killer, Neeson's face, handsome in a slightly broken way, perfectly emulates melancholy and regret and gives Alistair Little a dignified grace that would not usually be afforded a character who has committed his crime. And while the film works as a revenge thriller building towards the two men's reunion, and we are reminded by Neeson that Nesbitt "...doesn't want to hear me say I'm sorry. He's here to confront me!", it evolves beyond the limitations of the genre. Most revenge pictures work on the notion that we all want the hero to kill the bad guy. Look no further than Neeson's recent blockbuster Taken as an example of that, as well as Tarantino's comeback picture Inglourious Basterds, Mel Gibson's Payback (admittedly, good fun), Charlie Bronson's Death Wish, Michael Caine's Get Carter or most of Clint Eastwoods’ films. What sets this apart is that it takes its time setting up the murder, the events preceding it unfolding with the white-knuckle suspense of a great ‘70s thriller, so that we are emotionally invested in the fates of both Alistair and the little boy kicking the ball against the bricks. The film doesn't allow us the luxury of writing the young Alistair off as "the bad guy". We experience his fear, his resolve, his desire to prove himself to his peers and elders. We understand that he thinks what he is doing is right and true. And the killing is all the more horrific for it.

When the smoke clears the ending is more complex and provocative than the revenge thriller aspects would lead you to expect. This is a film that never claims to offer easy answers, nor does it attempt to provide any. In the end we pray for mercy, for both of them, and wonder along with the filmmakers another question, a more difficult one: after so much violence and suffering, "is reconciliation even possible" for men like Joe and Alistair? This question drives the second half of the film with just as much tension as the first but with much deeper drama. We don't root for Joe Griffen's revenge; we wait with knots twisting in our guts for his reckoning.

Further recommended viewing: Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday", Pete Travis' "Omagh", Neil Jordan's "Danny Boy (Angel)" and "Michael Collins", Ken Loach's "Hidden Agenda", Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out", John Ford's "The Informer", Jim Sheridan's "In The Name Of The Father" and "The Boxer", Alan Clarke's "Elephant".

Everyone Says I Look Just Like Her

Everyone Says I Look Just Like Her (2010) dir. Ryan A. Balas
Starring: Deidre Herlihy, Jace Nicole, Ryan A. Balas, Joe Swanberg

**1/2

By Reece Crothers

The tone of Ryan Balas' second feature film, much like it's title, is occasionally reminiscent of middle period Woody Allen, and in its best moments evokes the grim, pretty, heartwrenching moments between intimates in claustrophobic settings that Woody perfected in Interiors and September.

The story follows two half sisters, one white and one black, and their awkward boyfriends, who spend a weekend together in a cozy cabin in the Michigan woods. The girls are waiting for the arrival of their father for the tenth anniversary of their mother's death. In a more traditional film the suggested impending confrontation with the father might make for the climax, but we never get to the father's arrival. Likewise, you might expect the drama to concern itself with issues of race given the different backgrounds of the sisters. Instead the talky story's drama is mostly made up of tiny moments, small disagreements or misunderstandings, while waiting. It's an interesting narrative choice to avoid the expected dramas the filmmakers set up in the first act, but one with not much of a pay off as it also afflicts the film with the same aimlessness as its protagonists.

There is one playful moment of tonal shift when three of the main characters are paid a surprise visit and the movie suddenly feels like it is about to shift into "Halloween" territory. But that moment passes quickly and the film's trajectory returns to a mumblecore chamber piece. I guess if I want to see a mumble-horror I'll have to finally watch the Duplass brothers' "Baghead" (Which I avoided because of "Puffy Chair" but am now reconsidering because of "Cyrus").

The end result here is something like a really intense exercise in an improv-acting class. Everybody digs deep and reaches cathartic emotional moments but it takes a long time to get there and it doesn't all hold together as one thematic whole. That's why acting classes don't have audiences. They are emotionally messy, occasionally profound, but designed for the benefit of the actor, not the spectator. The story's aimlessness robs the film and the audience of the same catharsis that its players seem to reach. The film feels authentic because of the mumble-core aesthetic, like watching someone elses home videos, or like going away for the weekend with two couples who seem to be having a great time but never ask you to join in on the fun. And here they actually don't seem to be having that much fun.

It's one of the mumblecore genre's shortcomings, that it's films so often confuse "awkward" with "dramatic". Perhaps it is a side-effect of the youthful filmmakers behind the films. But the youth of its filmmakers and its protagonists is also mumblecore's greatest asset. It's a catch 22. It's hard to know how to relate to others when you still haven't figured out who you are. That seems to be the central thesis of all of the mumblecore films. It's an astute observation, but the insight often ends there. The filmmakers, like the characters (and often the filmmakers are also the actors playing those characters) are still working through these confusing feelings, still searching for an identity, and they lack the clarity of hindsight.

Co-starring here as the fuck buddy, Joe Swanberg has always been a fascinating filmmaker, but he really blossomed in his last picture "Alexander The Last" because his characters seemed to finally figure things out, finally grew out of the confusion that is so much of your 20s. When I wrote about that Swanberg picture I titled the piece "The Film That Killed Mumblecore" because after that movie I didn't think one could go back to asking the same questions that it already seemed to answer. "Alexander" basically ended the need for further examination of the themes that have dominated the mumblecore films en masse.

While I felt myself craving a more, dare I say it, traditional central narrative to drive the plot forward, I actually enjoyed many of the technical aspects. Balas continues mumblecore's fascination with documentary aesthetics - handheld cameras, over-use of tightly framed shots, low-lighting, etc) and the film feels very intimate and personal. Too much so at first. There is an uncomfortable voyeurism in the frank sexual depiction of the first couple early in the film because we don't know the characters well enough yet to be in bed with them. But as the film plays we slowly get to know the young couple, the visiting sister, her new fuck buddy, and start to care about them too. There is a quiet assuredness in the pacing (that would really have worked with more punch to the dramatic bits) and the restrained use of music is very effective in a few almost transcendent sequences. The best of these comes right at the end.

It's actually the ending that I loved most, and all is usually well that ends well. It is unexpectedly sweet and moving and beautifully shot. The cast stands in a field at sundown and lights paper lanterns that rise and disappear into a darkening sky. That may be the most accurate metaphor for the end of youth in any mumblecore film yet. I'm looking forward to what Balas does next.

Lethal Weapon 4

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) dir. Richard Donner
Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Chris Rock, Joe Pesci, Jet Li, Rene Russo

**

By Reece Crothers

From the continuing series In Praise of Richard Donner.

There is an amusing story about Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone, who famously fell out over their uneasy 'collaboration' Natural Born Killers (a film I think is a masterpiece and one of the best pictures of the 90s) wherein Stone tells Tarantino that while the younger director makes "movies", Stone makes "Films". I like that for two reasons: First, it is exactly the type of pretentiousness that we all love to hate Oliver for, and second, because it provides an appropriate context to discuss the fourth installment in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Is LW4 a great film? Of course not. But is it a great action movie? Well, it's a very good one at least.

It loses some points off the top for the rushed intro to the characters and the story. It's like the opening of LW3 on fast forward. There is no set up whatsoever. If you haven't seen the previous pictures you have no idea who these two cops are. And if the filmmakers aren't taking the story seriously, how are we supposed to? The best sequels are films which stand alone. Do you need to see the first Terminator to think that T2 is awesome? I don't think so. Same goes for The Dark Knight, which pretty much renders Batman Begins as obsolete. This is not one of those sequels.

The warning signs in Part Three that things were starting to get a little stale come to full bear here. Most of what happens feels forced. The screenplay by Channing Gibson lacks the cohesion of Jeffrey Boam's work on the previous sequels, and it lacks the explosive wit and energy of Shane Black's benchmark work on the original. But should you really apply expectations of originality on a part four of anything?

So what does this film offer, other than recycled ideas from the first three? Well there is the welcome addition to the team of Chris Rock, as an eager young detective who unbeknownst to Danny Glover, is about to have a baby with Glover's eldest daughter. Glover's growing pains regarding his daughter's sexual maturation is a key component to any Weapon picture, even if it is one of the more sitcom-y elements. Remember how nervous he looked when his teenaged daughter Rianne flirted with his then-new partner in the first picture? Then of course their was Rianne's condom-commercial in the second picture, and here she is about to have Chris Rock's baby. Rock is fun to watch but imagine what he could have done back when the franchise still had edge?

Glover handles his scenes well, and a lot of things work that shouldn't simply because Glover is so damn lovable in his signature role. He hasn't changed much since the first movie back in 1987. And that's the way we like him. He was never a complicated guy. Gibson, however, as in the last picture, has lost all of his edge in his performance as Riggs. How much so? He finally gets to utter the overused "I'm too old for this shit" line. Actually it's a nice moment when he says it, but then things get sort of embarrassing as Riggs and Murtaugh start chanting "We're NOT to old for this shit!". It was nice when they acknowledged it, kind of pathetic when they disputed it. Looking especially worn and retired is Joe Pesci, who despite a rather poorly written, sentimental monologue, does his best with a character who ran out of juice between LW2 and LW3. Is this film to blame for Pesci's 8 year hiatus between this and 2006's The Good Shepherd? Even that was only a cameo and since it was directed by De Niro, his co-star from the great Scorsese pictures that represent his best work, and produced by The Godfather, Francis Coppola, himself, one has the impression that that particular performance was an offer he couldn't refuse. Only recently has Pesci resurfaced in a role of any significance, though in an ultimately forgettable picture - Taylor Hackford's 2010 drama Love Ranch.

Other than Rock, the other reason to watch is Jet Li. His climactic fight on the rain battered bridge near the end of the picture is actually superior to the goofy Gibson/Gary Busey karate match at the end of LW1. Li kicks Riggs and Murtaugh's asses SIMULTANEOUSLY. Of course, he can't win in the end and so he ultimately meets a brutal death when Gibson gets lucky and spears Li through the chest with a metal pole, but it's the best scene in the picture and is right up there with the best of Richard Donner's action sequences. Actually in a film that is cranked up to deafening levels, Li's quiet portrayal of the villain is maybe the best thing about LW4. And while he is a household name now, this picture served as Li's American film debut and an introduction to western audiences unfamiliar with his Hong Kong filmography. Li is a much finer actor than many of his films require. What he does is closer to Buster Keaton than Bruce Lee. I found him strangely affecting in his Luc Besson-produced collaborations Unleashed and Kiss Of The Dragon, though I would really love to see him in a film actually directed by Besson.

It does nothing to disprove the law Of diminishing returns, but LW4 is an entertaining, if disposable, action picture. And while it never reaches the heights of the original Weapon picture, it is still far superior to the majority of films that are little more than clones of that first iconic classic. Donner is still in fine form here as an action director. The best sequences make me think that someone from Marvel should get Donner to direct one of their next pictures. Fuck the guy who did 500 Days Of Summer. How is that an audition for Spider Man? Seriously, this guy did the best Superman, still one of the most commercially and critically successful comic book adaptations ever, despite all of the advances in special effects wizardry and cgi since the 70s. Give him the next Iron Man or something already. Jon Favreau should go back to material like Made. But that's a conversation for another day.

The Movie That Killed Mumblecore

Jess Weixler & Amy Seimetz in Joe Swanberg's Alexander The Last.

By Reece Crothers

Joe Swanberg's most recent picture proves that there is indeed life after mumblecore. In fact this film may be the last time you need to use the "M" word while discussing Swanberg's work. But for the uninitiated, a quick history:

Attributed to Andrew Bujalski, the director of Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, the term "mumblecore" refers to a very loose collective of young filmmakers whose d.i.y. aesthetic, youthful protagonists, improvised dialogue and non-professional casts, contributed to a sense of community before there actually was one. The south-by-south-west festival in Austin, Texas brought together Bujalski, Swanberg and other filmmakers like the Duplass' Brothers (The Puffy Chair, Cyrus) and Aaron Katz (Dance Party USA, Quiet City), and provided context to discuss the films in relation to each other. But unlike the French "Nouvelle Vague" or the Danish "Dogme '95", the filmmakers behind this alleged movement did not have a conscious agenda or manifesto, they didn't even know each other. But since those first films, the mublecore filmmakers have gone on to collaborate, both in front of and behind the camera, further creating the impression that they, and the actors they share, are members of a film family spanning cities and states. Swanberg appeared on screen in Katz' Quiet City, and Bujalski, along with Duplass brother Mark, both appear in Swanberg's 2007 film Hannah Takes The Stairs, for example.

Andrew Bujalski and Greta Gerwig in Hannah Takes The Stairs.



Mark Duplass and Greta Gerwig in Hannah Takes The Stairs.

The upside to the idea of a movement is that the films provide a context for each other and help small, independent pictures that often fly too far under the radar to reach the audiences they deserve. The downside is that it discredits the unique voice of each of the filmmakers, by lumping them all together, and for audience members who are less able to digest the rough around the edges aesthetics, experimental editing, and occasionally raw, improvised performances, they may dismiss one filmmaker's work because they had a bad experience with another's. I didn't like The Puffy Chair, for example. Not one bit. (Although I loved the Duplass brothers' non-mumblecore Cyrus) And if you told me that was the defining mumblecore movie, I would have missed out on Swanberg's pictures, or Katz's films, or Bujalski's. But there is no defining mumblecore movie. Even aesthetically, the films are only superficially relatable becuase of their small crews and budgets. Compare the stark almost Jarmusch-like black and white film photography of Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation with Swanberg's sharp, digital, colour photography.

Justin Rice in Bujalski's 'Mutual Appreciation'.



Jess Weixler and Justin Rice in Swanberg's Alexander The Last.

To my taste, Swanberg is the best of the bunch. He is certainly the most prolific. Since his 2005 debut Kissing On The Mouth, Swanberg has released a new picture every year, and four seasons of his sexy, innovative IFC web series Young American Bodies, a new documentary series The Stagg Party about Photographer Ellen Stagg, while also acting, shooting, and/or producing films for other filmmakers. That kind of output makes Swanberg the Woody Allen or Steven Soderbergh of his generation. And each of Swanberg's films has improved on the one previous. Considering that he accidentally started a new movement with his first, it is not intended as small praise.

The trend continues with Alexander The Last, Swanberg's most mature and accomplished work, and in many ways the culmination of themes and ideas he has been working on in all of his previous pictures. Working with a name producer this time, Noah Baumbach (writer and director of The Squid & The Whale, for which he recieved an OSCAR nomination for best screenplay), and featuring Hollywood stars like Jane Adams (Happiness, Hung) and Josh Hamilton (Baumbach's Kicking & Screaming), Swanberg has transcended the limitations of mumblecore and created a film that is at once both a breezy romantic comedy AND a challenging drama about commitment - in art and relationships - as a young actress is tempted by a crush on her her co-star while her musician husband is away on tour, and to complicate things further, plays matchmaker between her crush and her fragile, beautiful sister, well played by the lovely Amy Seimetz (Wristcutters, A Love Story).

The subject of romantic entanglements that arise when artists collaborate is the perfect fit for Swanberg whose earlier pictures and web series featured actors performing real sex on camera. The same dramatic question is being asked here as in Martin Scorsese's New York, New York, albeit on a much smaller canvas, which is essentially, "Is it possible for two artists to find true love and happiness together?". In the audio commentary Swanberg explains that he navigated the same moral quandaries as his central character in "Alexander" while working on his previous projects. This film is dedicated to Swanberg's wife and frequent collaborator, Kris, and the film is both a love letter and an apology to her for exactly the kind of entanglements that the story dramatises.

If you've seen the very intimate Nights & Weekends, Swanberg's 2008 film with Greta Gerwig, you can imagine that the vulnerability and emotional commitment required to play such an intimate chamber piece could very easily bleed into the actors' off-screen lives. Watching Nights & Weekends is like watching certain Cassavetes films, it is so intimate, that it is emotionally exhausting to experience. It stays with you for days after. The blurry line between what is real and what is drama is what gives the film its edge. Seeing Gerwig and Swanberg introduce the film together at a screening at Toronto's Bloor Cinema a few years back, one had the impression of watching two weary soldiers just home from the war.

Swanberg & Gerwig in Nights & Weekends

Gerwig has since gone on to mainstream success, co-starring in Noah Baumbach's recent Ben Stiller dramedy, Greenberg. Baumbach got Gerwig and Swanberg got Baumbach. There is a nice symmetry there. Greenberg served as the perfect vehicle for Gerwig's transition to bigger budget, more mainstream work, and her oddly affecting, aloof charm, has made her something of a Diane Keaton for this generation, but it is unlikely that she will ever do anything as raw as her work with Swanberg in any Hollywood productions. Unless maybe they're directed by Joe Swanberg.

Gerwig with Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach's 'Greenberg'.

In his first picture without Gerwig since 2006's, LOL, Swanberg casts the talented Jess Weixler in the central role as Alex, a young, theatrical actress torn between her commitment to her husband and her desire for her handsome new co-star. It is a great observation on Swanberg's part, rendered with insight, warmth and humour, that when we want to be with someone we cant, we play matchmaker to keep them close. It's a flawed, self-defeating logic, and the stuff of great romantic comedy. The sexual tension on display here between Weixler, as the girl with a crush, and Barlow Jacobs as her hunky co-star, provides plenty of sparks. Both actors come to "Alexander" fresh from dynamic, breakthrough performances in well recieved independent pictures (Teeth, and Shotgun Stories, respectively) and share great chemistry. But their relationship is just one of many that make up Alexander's narrative , all equally insightful and finely rendered.

Justin Rice (star of Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation") is great as the musician husband. A talented pop musician in his own right (his band Bishop Allen was featured on stage in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist) Rice performs a wonderful musical interlude that underscores the bittersweet tone of the whole picture. Also very strong is Seimetz's heartbreaking turn as the sister who has no idea that she is being set up to have her heart ripped out by her selfish sibling. As Seimetz falls for Barlow Jacobs character, we hold our breaths in gut-twisting anticipation for the moment we know is coming, when she will discover her sister's true feelings for her new boyfriend.

In smaller roles, Adams and Hamilton are fun to watch, too, as the writer and director of the play-within-the-film. Adams in particular seems to have fun with the role. She may be the best comedic supporting actress since Lilly Tomlin at her peak. Watch HBO's Hung if you don't believe me. I wish Altman was still alive. He would know how to craft a picture for her as a lead. She actually appeared in an Altman picture, 1996's Kansas City, but Jennifer Jason Leigh was the star. Leigh also happens to be Baumbach's wife in real-life. All roads lead to Baumbach. You wouldn't have guessed it back in the Mr. Jealousy days. Though I loved that movie. I digress...

The Duplass brothers, despite making the worst mumblecore picture (in my opinion) have had the greatest success in the mainstream, attaching stars like John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, and Marisa Tomei for their last picture Cyrus, not to mention RIDLEY AND TONY SCOTT(!!!!!) as executive producers, but Swanberg's next picture is Silver Bullets and it's about werewolves...sort of. And since we're living in Twilight times (whether we want to be or not) this might be the one that breaks Swanberg into the mainstream, too. No one needs to mention Dogme 95 when they talk about Lars Von Trier anymore because he is bigger than dogme. I think the same will be said of Swanberg. Personally, I can't wait to see what he does with Silver Bullets. And I told you he was prolific, it's only one of two new Swanberg pictures coming out in the near future. Keep your eyes open for Silver Bullets and Uncle Kent.

Awesome poster for 'Silver Bullets', Swanberg's next picture.

And if you haven't already checked out his earlier pictures, here's an essential viewing list of the films mentioned above, and some not mentioned, to scratch that mumblecore itch:

-Alexander The Last (dir. Joe Swanberg, 2009)
-Nights & Weekends (dir. Joe Swanberg, 2008)
-Hannah Takes The Stairs (dir. Joe Swanberg, 2007)
-Dance Party, USA (dir. Aaron Katz, 2006)
-Quiet City (dir. Aaron Katz, 2007)
-Funny Ha Ha (dir. Andrew Bujalski, 2002)
-Mutual Appreciation (dir. Andrew Bujalski, 2005)
-Team Picture (dir. Kentucker Audley, 2007)
-The Goodtimes Kid, (dir. Azazel Jacobs, 2005)
-In Search Of A Midnight Kiss (dir. Alex Holdridge, 2007)
-Frownland (dir. Ronald Bronstein, 2007)

and you can watch his Young American Bodies series free online here: http://www.ifc.com/youngamericanbodies/

Animal Kingdom (Reece's review)

Animal Kingdom' (2010) dir. David Michôd
Starring: Joel Edgerton, James Frecheville, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver, Ben Mendelsohn

***

By Reece Crothers

Though it loses some of it's magic for a too long in the second half half of the picture, the debut feature from Australian writer/director David Michôd earns much of it's star rating from the spell cast by the early scenes which feature a brood of criminals living in the suburbs like something out of the wild west, the James gang plucked out of history and dropped into modern life. Animal Kingdom is the story of the Cody family's demise through the eyes of it's most estranged member, played by newcomer James Frecheville. The Darwin metaphor is self-explanatory.

Frecheville is 'J' whose junkie mother has overdosed and died and left the teen with nowhere else to go. He calls his grandmother, Janine, and we get the sense that they have been apart for a very long time. But Janine is sweet and will take 'J' in. And so we meet the rest of the family. There is Jackie Weaver (from Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock) giving a beautifully nuanced performance as matriarch Janine, and her two hunky scruffy sons Barry (played by Joel Edgerton from "The Square") and Craig (Sullivan Stapleton from TVs "Neighbours"). We also meet Jackie's youngest boy Darren, (Luke Ford - a movie star name if ever there was one) who is so close to 'J's age that he instructs him not to call him "uncle" Darren because it creeps him out. Barry is the de-facto man of the house and has a beautiful wife, seems to be looking out for everybody and will look out for 'J' too. We wonder how a family like this could have grown apart, though there is a red flag when grandma Janine seems to enjoy kissing her sons in greeting a little too much, but for a moment it seems like 'J' has found the stable family that he has been missing his whole life. It is a world apart from living in motels with his junkie mom.

Then we meet Jackie's eldest boy, Andrew, nicknamed "Pope", and the crack in the facade shatters completely. Did I forget to mention that the family robs banks? They're like the family version of the Ex-Presidents from Point Break - charismatic, sexy, and dangerous. Pope is a psychopath, wonderfully underplayed by Ben Mendelsohn. It is the kind of character that attracts the worst of over-acting, but neither the finely drawn script, or the subtle direction, or Mendelsohn's quiet authoritative performance hits a wrong note here.

It is the ordinary presentation of the world and the character's in it that makes the film feel so gritty. It feels real. Where the director applies the greatest amount of stylization is in the atmospheric sound design. The film sounds great. The attention to audio detail here reminds me of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, and much like that filmmaker's debut, "Sydney" (or "Hard Eight" as it was renamed by the studio), the film feels like it is announcing a great director who is still finding his voice. The film is so good that you want it to be great. But there is a major structural problem that I cannot reveal without spoiling the plot. I think the writer/director outsmarted himself.

Because it is the story of a family's demise, characters start dying. I don't want to say who, but I will say that when the carnage starts it actually made me jump in my seat. Few films do that anymore. The problem is the second half of the picture starts to feel a little empty. You start to miss characters who aren't around anymore. I like passive protagonists so long as they are surrounded by more outrageous companions. Like Ewan McGregor's Renton in "Trainspotting", who is much less active a character than say, Begbie, or Sickboy, or even Spud. Their quiet, observer character give us an anchor in their universes. Take away Begbie, Sickboy and Spud and Renton is a real bore. As is the case here. Without the dynamic characters surrounding him, whether because they've been killed, or arrested, or he has simply alienated himself from them in other ways I don't want to give away, Frecheville's character's passivity started to wear me down and for a few minutes I was checking my watch. But not for long. The picture has a terrific ending.

If it's not exactly a classic, it is a very good picture, a worthy entry into the crime genre canon - a stylish, serious, drama about as good as Sean Penn's 1990 Irish-mob-in-New-York flick, "State Of Grace", and offers the promise that Michôd's next next film might just be a "Boogie Nights".

The Last Lullaby

The Last Lullaby (2008) dir. Jeffrey Goodman
Starring: Tom Sizemore, Sasha Alexander

**

by Reece Crothers

Recently released on DVD I picked up a copy of this Tom Sizemore Hit-man drama because it's been a long time since I've seen anything good from the actor I used to have great artistic admiration for. From Tony Scott's "True Romance" in 1993 through Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" in 2001, Sizemore had a run as one of the most thrilling character-actors working in American movies. Sandwiched between those Scott brothers films are stand-out performances in pictures like Natural Born Killers, Heat, Saving Private Ryan, and Bringing Out The Dead, to name a few.

Then Sizemore got addicted to methamphetamine, had eight hours of sex tapes surface on the internet, beat up his girlfriend - the famous Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss and, and by 2007, he had landed himself in jail. He had fucked up big, Robert Downey Jr big. But Sizemore, lacking the charm of his Natural Born Killers co-star, has had nowhere near the comeback Iron Man has. And it's not for a lack of trying. His imdb filmography since 2007 lists a staggering 40 credits (if you include his Celebrity Rehab and Shooting Sizemore reality TV appearances). Not one out of the 40 is in league with his 90s work. I was hoping this might be the hidden gem among a plethora of cheque-cashing appearances in forgetable pictures and a return to form for once-great, now-disgraced, artist.

Sizemore's performance in The Last Lullaby is interesting because it's a lead role and one in which he exercises a great deal of restraint. His face shows the wear and tear of a decade in oblivion. He seems humbled by it. Like a great ball player sent down to the minors, it's hard not to watch him play and get nostalgic for the old days, or to lament the wasted years, or to wonder about where he might be now without the meth, and domestic abuse, and porn, and reality TV. But there are hints at redemption in this modestly enjoyable picture. The wear and tear becomes a character actor after all.

So what about the movie itself? The story fits the actor well. A hitman who has been out of the game attempts a comeback, but is conflicted when he develops a personal relationship with his latest target. The DVD jacket claims that it the screenplay is from the co-writer of Road To Perdition, which is slightly misleading. It is co-written by the author of the graphic novel that Perdition is based on. Writing character and dialogue for film is an entirely different beast than writing for graphic novels, and the script for The Last Lullaby never would have attracted someone of Sam Mendes' calibre. The plot is well-worn and the story cliched, but the naturalistic approach and execution by the filmmakers, which focuses more on drama than action, provides many fine character moments for Sizemore, though the rest of the cast is pretty flat, especially his female lead Sasha Alexander. It's better than most direct to video features, but looks and feels like TV. And I don't mean HBO. It probably should be added to the list of titles that would have been better as a series pilot. It isn't quite that hidden gem I hoped it would be, but it suggests that one is possible. There is a glimmer of hope that his career is salvageable.

Aside from those 40 pictures, Tom is apparently attached to the long-gestating Fahrenheit 451 remake that Frank Darabont is developing. That could be the start of something beautiful, a return to working with the A-listers.

Cop Land (Director's Cut)

Copland The Director's Cut (1997) dir. James Mangold
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Michael Rapaport, Robert Patrick

****

by Reece Crothers

James Mangold has kept a comparatively low profile among his contemporaries of the Miramax 90s in part because he has avoided the auteur label by never repeating himself, shifting genres and styles from picture to picture. Consider that Cop Land is only his second picture and that his first was the slight, near-silent "Heavy", a Sundance favourite two years prior, a modest romantic drama in the tradition of "Marty", about an overweight young man hopelessly in love with dream girl Liv Tyler. There is nothing in "Heavy" to suggest the scope and gravity of "Cop Land", an ensemble epic crime picture that often feels like a Western. A collision of John Ford and Martin Scorsese's worlds.

Making up the ensemble is an embarrassment of acting riches, supporting star Sly Stallone (giving the best performance of his career) are heavyweights like Scorsese's leading men Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and even Raging Bull's Cathy Moriarty (smoldering and sexy in a small role) alongside 90's staple Michael Rappaport, Robert Patrick (at his best, too - it will make you forget about the T-1000), Annabella Sciorra, Paul Calderone (of Pulp Fiction, Clockers, King of New York), Janeane Garofalo (in a rare dramatic turn as a sherif's deputy!) and Arthur Nascarella (Summer Of Sam), a former NYPD detective, who like fellow cop-turned actor Dennis Farina, wears a lifetime of experience in his cop face. Watching Keitel and De Niro play off each other is a great treat. That it is nowhere near the most memorable scene speaks volumes about the picture - as great as everyone else is, Stallone owns the picture.

Following in his co-star's shoes, Sly famously gained a staggering amount of weight to play Freddy, the flabby small town New Jersey sheriff in over his head with a town full of crooked big city cops. Liotta is great too, giving off the kind of sparks that made him so electric in Goodfellas and Something Wild. His "Rule of Diagonals" speech is terrific.

The director's cut runs 116 minutes, about 12 minutes longer than the theatrical version. I'm not going to list all of the additions, though the excellent commentary track Mangold shares with Stallone, Patrick, and producer Cathy Konrad will, but the overall effect is that the film breathes more and despite the added footage, the picture moves faster, culminating in a shoot-out climax that has some of the best sound design in any film of its genre. The music by Howard Shore is beautiful, hypnotic and haunting, as we have come to expect from Cronenberg's favourite composer. There's also a little Springsteen thrown in to nail that melancholy Jersey feeling - something nobody does better than The Boss.

"Cop Land" has aged well, improved even - gorgeous to look at, elegant, thrilling, sad, and even touching, a film that will one day be regarded as a classic.

Assassins

Assassins (1995) dir. Richard Donner
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore

*1/2

Review by Reece Crothers

Part of the continuing series In Praise of Richard Donner

This is one of those perfect storm movies where everything is wrong, from the director to the stars, to the composer, and even the screenwriter doing the rewrite. Everyone involved seems out of their comfort zone and awkwardly struggling to find sure footing. The picture is ridiculously overlong, joyless, unfocused and badly dated. Like the technology it over-relies on to tell it's story, it was already obsolete before it even saw release, a film hopelessly stuck in 1995, the year after Tarantino changed the whole game.

By the mid 90s Quentin's influence had spread like wildfire through all kinds of pictures, but the ones that were really wrecked by the spell 1994's "Pulp Fiction" cast over audiences, were the male action hero pictures. Stallone and his pectoral contemporary Schwarzenegger looked like something out of the 50's once the cool, pop-culture-obsessed, violent, sickos and cowboys of "Reservoir Dogs", "True Romance", and "Pulp Fiction" were let loose on cinema screens. The Joel Silver special, the wise-cracks and big explosions formula, was beginning to feel like a relic of the cold war. Only Bruce Willis would survive and prosper in the ensuing shake-up, largely due to his roles in "Pulp Fiction" and "The Last Boyscout" (directed by "True Romance" helmer Tony Scott) and later Robert Rodriguez' s "Sin City"(Guest directed by Tarantino). Stallone's only blip in an otherwise fading career-trajectory throughout the 90s was his Miramax-produced picture "Copland", and as we all know, Miramax is the "house that Quentin built".

Sly's actual performance isn't bad, really, just uninteresting. And he looks dorky. Not in a fun, ironic, Rambo-wears-a-headband kind of way, but in a Banana Republic, shirts-tucked-into-your-high-waisted-khakis kind of way. What would "Cobra" say about this? Somebody get this man some aviators.

Banderas does what he can with an uninteresting villain, but whenever he is on screen you can't help but wish you were watching Rodriguez's "Desperado" (released the same year) instead, a film that knew how to use his charm and physicality to great effect. Here, he is just swarthy.

Interesting to note is the performance of Julianne Moore, not yet come into herself, still waiting for P.T. Anderson's "Boogie Nights" to ignite her career. She floundered early on in the decade with forgettable parts in pictures like "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" and "Body Of Evidence" but made a strong impression in "Benny & Joon" as Aiden Quinn's love interest, and with a brief cameo in "The Fugitive". I would bet she signed on to do this before she garnered arthouse acclaim in Altman's "Short Cuts" or Louis Malle's "Vanya On 42nd Street" the previous year. Despite those pictures, it was P.T. Anderson who best knew how to highlight Moore's talents. She has never been as good in any other picture as she was in "Boogie Nights", but she was so good in that film that no one seems to mind. Here, in the Donner picture, we see evidence of the kind of overly serious and miscalculated performances she would give later on in movies like "Next" and "The Forgotten". She is so awkward in her manner, her beauty so fragile, that like everybody else in the picture, she just doesn't fit.

The story, about a good assassin (Stallone) and a bad one (Banderas) going all "Highlander" on each other in a cat and mouse game over their latest "mark" (Moore), occasionally sparks to life in the action sequences and we are reminded that this is indeed from the man with the megaphone on classics like "Superman" and "Lethal Weapon", but those moments are far too few and despite the promise of an early scene that recalls the famous "Look into your heart..." speech from "Miller's Crossing", the picture feels like it should end 40 minutes before it actually does.

The spec script was written by The Wachowski Brothers and picked up by Producer Joel Silver at the same time as The Wachowski's "The Matrix". Silver gave the script to his friend and frequent collaborator, Richard Donner, one of those old-fashioned action-directors who must've hated Pulp Fiction at the time, and Dick, bless his heart, brought in Brian Helgeland to rewrite it. Helgeland has been involved in some good pictures ("Payback"), some great ones ("L.A. Confidential") and some awful ones ("The Order", anyone?). His writing is incredibly stiff and sluggish and occasionally a film is great despite his contribution (Eastwood's direction and the performances of the cast in "Mystic River" cover up a poor adaptation of Dennis Lehane's brilliant novel). The Wachowski's are no Robert Towne but if they wrote this back in their Matrix 1 days, I would bet their script was much more entertaining that what Helgeland did to it. There is a rumour that when producer Joel Silver saw the Wachowski's directorial debut "Bound", he apologized for his part in "Assassins" and let them do "The Matrix" their way. And the game was changed again. For The Matrix whetted the appetites of an audience now craving more and more effects, more and more spectacle. The blockbuster killed the indie by the end of the decade. Just as it had done at the end of the 70's. The 70's belonged to Coppola, the 80s to Spielberg. And so it goes. As we enter a new decade we can only hope the next game changer is ready to throw down, because shit is getting stale again, and while nobody was minding the store Michael Bay has been having too much fun.

Inside Moves

Inside Moves (1980) dir. Richard Donner
Starring: John Savage, David Morse

***

By Reece Crothers

Part Two in the continuing series 'In Praise of Richard Donner'

'Inside Moves' represents a change of pace for director Richard Donner and is something of an anomaly among his work, a gentle character driven film, although you wouldn't know it from the harrowing first four minutes which features a breathtaking leap from a downtown skyscraper that rivals Riggs' jump, handcuffed to a would-be suicide jumper, in the famous scene from 'Lethal Weapon'.

Here the jumper is John Savage as Rory, a man at the end of his rope. Suicidal Rory crashes into a tree, breaking his fall and lands on the windshield of a parked car. He survives the fall but is crippled. Rory's physical recovery is handled efficiently in the opening credits and the story, adapted by Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin from the Todd Walton novel, concerns itself with Rory's emotional recovery, mostly through his interactions with a motley crew of diabled characters who work or patronize a run down, inner-city bar.

Barry Levinson contributed some of the best "guy talk" in cinema with his 1982 picture "Diner", and the conversations between the guys in the bar, especially between leads Savage and Morse, are the heart of the film.

Morse plays Jerry, the bartender, who eventually recovers from his own injury and abandons his friends at the bar. Morse has become one of the more interesting characters actors of the last two decades, his best work arguably being Sean Penn's "The Crossing Guard", and he is fine here, but the show truly belongs to John Savage. Savage is an underused actor, who also appeared in The Crossing Guard, and held his own with De Niro at his peak in "The Deer Hunter", but never had De Niro's career. He is a real pleasure to watch in this film, portraying Rory with dignity, warmth and passion. He has a great speech where he tells Morse "I'm big, Jerry... bigger than you" - a moment right out of the best Capra. His relationship with a waitress at the bar who is weary about getting involved with a cripple, even though she likes him and feels guilty about her hesitation, is touching and delicately handled, although the performance of Diana Scarwid as the waitress is often flat.

Ultimately it is a story of forgiveness, for our friends and of ourselves, and a tale of rehabilitation. A feel good story that celebrates the best and most optimistic characteristics of human nature without wallowing in self-pity or melodrama. And in Donner's assured hands, the picture moves at a brisk pace, made with the same polish as his action blockbusters. It's also fun to see some of the regulars that feature in his tough action films, like Donner's cousin, Steve Kahan, who has appeared in many Donner pictures and most famously as Lethal Weapon's Capt. Murphy, here playing a bartender. It is a romantic view of rock bottom, that occasionally dips into sentimentality, feeling at times like Sydney Pollack could be at the helm, but the insights are genuine and heartfelt, and the end result uplifting.

For other Donner discussions: Click Here

This is pretty much all I could find on Inside Moves:

The Runaways

The Runaways (2010) dir. Floria Sigismondi
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon

***1/2

by Reece Crothers

Based on lead singer Cherie Currie's memoir "Neon Angel" and written for the screen by 90s music video darling, (and OCAD grad) Floria Sigismondi, this is a rock n' roll movie that kicks ass and packs an emotional punch.

The performances are uniformly excellent with leads Fanning and Stewart proving their acting chops and standing out among their peers as true actors in a sea of celebrities who are famous for being famous. There is something shocking and dangerous watching the veteran child stars emerge from the awkward teenage period (that most child actors don't survive) and you can't help but feel the authority of their work in dealing with precocious fame and all the pratfalls of excess that come with it. The film works almost as a love story between two artists and you couldn't ask for two actors with more chemistry, their very different energies complimenting each other extraordinarily well.

From the first frame in which she appears, Stewart inhabits Joan Jett. There is nothing of the Twilight Saga's Bella in her portrayal of the rock icon. Her mannerisms, the way she hunches her shoulders, the tough exterior, the drive to be taken seriously as an artist, the vulnerability, it's all over her face.

Fanning, as Currie, is just as impressive, playing the more tragic character, the 15 year old "jailbait", who truly suffers from the volcanic rise to fame of the first ever all girl rock group. There is something of a young Michelle Pfeiffer to Fanning's performance, the cat eyes, the fragile beauty. Like Pfeiffer, there is a lot more going on beside a pretty face and she is able to project a myriad of emotions in a flash of her deceptively vacant expression, the more you look at her the more you see right into her soul.

In a stand out supporting role as Kim Fowley, the record producer who gave The Runaways their start, Michael Shannon steals every scene he turns up in. He seems to really have fun with the role, and especially in the early scenes, there is a warmth to his performance that we haven't seen from him before. Shannon has been turning in exceptional work consistently ever since 'Jesus' Son'. If you haven't seen him in 'Shotgun Stories', get yourself to a video store immediately.

The story may be familiar, a rise-fall-redemprion, sex, drugs and rock n' roll excess tale, but because it's rooted in these great characters it manages to feel fresh. The "rise" part of the film is especially fun, exciting and propulsive. The scene where they write Cherry Bomb, which would become their first hit and launch them towards stardom is a particular highlight.

Writer/Director Sigismondi is no stranger to the music scene, one of the foremost talents in music videos for more than a decade. Like Anton Corbijn's recent Joy Division/ Ian Curtis biopic "Control", she delves deep into the music and it's creators to find the story behind the songs and delivers a stylish, sympathetic portrait of young artists and their work that is compelling whether you are a fan or not. Interesting too is Jett's credit as executive producer. Usually when the subject is credited as a producer it means you are going to get a whitewashed account, a fluff piece. Look no further than Puff Daddy's uber-disappointing Biggie Smalls biopic "Notorious" for proof positive, but this movie has teeth, and claws.

See this for the performances of the leads and enjoy the music as a bonus. I dare you to walk out of the theater NOT singing either The Runaways' 'Cherry Bomb' or Jett's 'I Love Rock n' Roll'.

Richard Donner: Lethal Weapon 3

RICHARD DONNER RETROSPECTIVE #1:
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) dir. Richard Donner
Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo

***

By Reece Crothers

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a continuing series reflecting on the films of Richard Donner

LW3 opens on a high note with Gibson's Riggs volunteering himself, and his way-too-old-for-this-shit partner, Glover's Murtaugh, to stand in for the bomb squad at a downtown skyscraper where explosives have been discovered in the parking garage. Chaos swirls all around them as cops and firemen evacuate the building and the two stars bicker like the old married couple they have become in the five years since the first film, clearly having fun returning to their now signature roles. It's a funny scene and the explosion that follows is a real gem compared to the CG fare we are mostly weaned on these days. This is the kind of scene an ordinary action picture needs an hour and a half to build to, but with the previous Weapon pictures filling in for backstory, director Richard Donner and screenwriters Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen, wisely cut to the chase, or the bomb as the case may be, knowing that this is everyday stuff for these two guys. And therein, also lies the problem. There isn't much we haven't already seen.

Like any marriage, Riggs and Murtaugh have settled into routine. Moments like Riggs’ assault of a disrespectful citizen by way of Three Stooges "bits" is no longer fresh, as it was in the first one, or cute, as it was in the second, it's expected, played-out. The character, like the actor, has started to lose his edge.

This period in Gibson's career produced the mediocrity of "Forever Young" (the cryogenics-themed romantic snoozer with Jamie Lee Curtis) and Gibson's mostly ignored directorial debut "The Man Without A Face". The movie-star good looks of "Year of Living Dangerously" faded into a kind of bland handsomeness. Murtaugh's lack of development is less detrimental. It's amazing the mileage the filmmakers have gotten out of the Walter Matthau approach to his grumpy detective character (look no further than the ironically titled "The Laughing Policeman" for Mathau's definitive take). We don't want more from Murtaugh. He's perfect as is. But Riggs' crazy, suicidal cop, the evolution of the Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry model, the Riggs of Part One, who hand-cuffed himself to a would-be jumper and took both of them literally over the edge, who brushed his teeth with the barrel of gun, the crazy "lethal weapon" of the series' title (Remember the old poster? "Glover carries a lethal weapon. Gibson is one") is crazy no more. In fact he's ready to settle down, with series newcomer Rene Russo. The adrenaline junkie is in recovery. And reform is boring in movies. Russo and Gibson do have plenty of chemistry, though not exactly Hepburn and Tracy, they would co-star again in Ron Howard's "Ransom" (from a crackling Richard Price script) and in the fourth Weapon.

The real problem in the third outing is the total non-involvement of the original film's writer, Shane Black, one of those rare genre writers who manages a unique style and voice with stories that are often told and characters that we have seen many times before, somehow making them fresh and vital again, much in the way of Tarantino, who came later, but without the formal abstractions. Where Tarantino's ‘Pulp Fiction’ is heavily influenced by the structural experimentation of Godard, Black's anti-heroes are film-noir protagonists right out of the best of Chandler or Hammet. Only R-Rated. Imagine Humphrey Bogart's Phillip Marlowe with a dirty mouth and you might get something close to Bruce Willis' Detective Joe Hallenbeck in Black's "The Last Boy Scout", released the year previous to LW3. With the critical success of Black's 2005 directing debut "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", hopefully he will be back to tell more of his own stories.

Here the writers are Jeffrey Boam, whose credits include ‘Lost Boys’, ‘Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade’, and the second Weapon picture, and Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote all four of the original "Karate Kid" pictures and is now Luc Besson's in-house American, responsible for the "Transporter" series, the hit "Taken", and, as the story goes, the man we can thank for rewriting Besson's "Leon/The Professional" (which originally had the 13 year old in a sexual relationship with her hit man "guardian"). Boam and Kamen are solid genre craftsmen but they can't touch Black for dialogue, or edge.

On the plus side, Joe Pesci is back as Leo Getz and Donner keeps everything moving at a lightning quick pace. The stunts are great, the villain passable (Stuart Wilson is not the most exciting actor but his dirty cop character is sufficiently nasty, though the role was apparently offered to De Niro which would have been more fun). It doesn't break any new ground but the formula works, and for fans of the series, part three delivers on almost all expectations.

In Praise of Richard Donner

By Reece Crothers

Why Richard Donner?

Donner is a director, much like his contemporary, Walter Hill, whose work in genre storytelling has denied him the rank of master director among his peers, despite the fact that many of his works are benchmarks for their respective genres, none more so than the buddy cop prototype of "Lethal Weapon" (1987) and the modern comic book adaptation of "Superman" (1978), which is as much an art film as it is an action film. Listen to Donner discuss the circumstances around his Superman sequel being taken away and given to another director, and tell me this is not the wounded soul of an artist. In the support materials for the "Superman II" DVD, Donner can't even say the offending director's name out loud (for our purposes I can tell you it was that other Dick, Lester).

Time and reflection allows us to appreciate Donner's contributions to genre cinema and to see the uniqueness of his style. Compared to the geographically challenged, ADD-afflicted photography and editing of a post Bourne universe, Donner's films have striking formalism, a classic approach, a sort of John Ford model for the 80s, his warm photography is polished without looking slick or affected. Time has allowed us to see John Huston, Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, and Clint Eastwood, among others, for more than just genre hacks. They have transcended their genre. Walter Hill is gaining status. Craving a classic, old school action picture I picked up Donner's original "Lethal Weapon" and decided I wanted to go through all of his pictures, separate the mistakes from the accomplishments and hold him up against his contemporaries to see if it isn't time for Donner's status to be reconsidered.

The first picture in the ongoing series In Praise of Richard Donner" is "Lethal Weapon 3" (1992), which, being born in 1979, was the first Weapon picture I was able to see theatrically. As a 13 year old boy with no prior exposure to the first two pictures this was one of my favourite movies that summer. This viewing of Donner's director's cut on DVD, 18 years later, immediately follows revisits of both Lethal Weapon 1, and 2, and nearly two decades of familiarity with the series.

As we go through highlights of Donner's extensive filmography I hope to bring more new cinephiles into this circle of appreciation. You might be surprised what you encounter along the way.

Click HERE for entry #1: LETHAL WEAPON 3

Five Minutes OF Heaven

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson

****

By Reece Crothers

Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of "Downfall", once again blends fact and fiction to great effect in one of the year's most overlooked films. Working on a smaller canvas here than on the Oscar nominated Hitler picture, German filmmaker Hirschbeigel tackles "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland with an intelligent and challenging screenplay from Guy Hibberts, who collaborated with Paul Greengrass on another film about the plight of Northern Ireland, 2004's "Omagh", a worthy film that was also mostly ignored.

Over black, the voice of Liam Neeson tells us "In order to understand the man I am, you have to know something about the man I was", and so the part of the film that is fact, is a meticulously recreated 1975 murder of a catholic boy by a young U.V.F. "soldier". The hit is lead by 17 year old Alistair Little, who has volunteered in hopes that killing one of the enemy will make him a big man with the other lads, the higher ups, who will then march him into the local pub as a hero, a force to be recognized. It's not personal for him. He doesn't see the enemy as a person. For Alistair there is only "us" and "them". As Alistair prepares to assassinate the Catholic boy, we are treated to scenes of the boy's family life and meet his little brother Joe, who spends all day kicking the football against the bricks of his row-house, trying to break his own record. When Alistair murders Joe's brother, shooting from the street into the bedroom window, he spares little Joe only because he mistakes the boy for a neighbor.

The boy grows into James Nesbitt as the adult Joe Griffen, a husband and father teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown, and we wonder how much life was really spared, how much of the little boy actually survived. Joe is a man hollowed out over years of guilt and grief and, most of all, rage. Nesbitt plays him as a bundle of nerves that could kick off an explosion at any minute. Liam Neeson plays the adult Alistair Little, as a broken man, living a lonely empty life, a melancholy, lost soul, haunted by the murder he carried out three decades ago, and about to face Joe Griffen for the first time since the night of the killing. A television reality program has brought them together ostensibly in pursuit of reconciliation. But with a dagger hidden in his belt, adult Joe has more than reconciliation on his mind. He's going for retribution, revenge, for his "five minutes of heaven".

This is the part of the film that is fiction, the imagined meeting of two men who "bare the legacy of" the true story. "Do I shake the man's hand or do I kill him?" That question drives the first half of the film, where the journey of each man toward the TV set is plagued with painful memories played out in flashbacks. The two leads are a great match and one of the picture's strengths is the thrill of watching two actors at the peak of their talents play against each other, whether in the same scene or through the clever editing of their parallel stories and flashbacks.

Both actors have given some of their best performances in films about the Troubles before: Neeson in the title role of Neil Jordan's excellent "Michael Collins" and Nesbitt in the lead of Paul Greengrass' pre-Bourne breakout "Bloody Sunday". Here Nesbitt is electric. He careens wildly from composed family guy, full of charm, to raging, would-be-killer. It's an impressive tight rope that he walks. Equally good in his restrained, sorrowful performance as the repentant killer, Neeson's face, handsome in a slightly broken way, perfectly emulates melancholy and regret and gives Alistair Little a dignified grace that would not usually be afforded a character who has committed his crime. And while the film works as a revenge thriller, building towards the two men's reunion, and we are reminded by Neeson that Nesbitt "...doesn't want to hear me say I'm sorry. He's here to confront me!", it evolves beyond the limitations of the genre. Most revenge pictures work on the notion that we all want the hero to kill the bad guy, and look no further than Neeson's recent blockbuster "Taken" as example of that, or Tarantino's comeback picture "Inglourious Basterds", or Mel Gibson's "Payback" (admittedly, good fun), or Charlie Bronson's "Death Wish", or Michael Caine's "Get Carter", or most Clint Eastwoods, etc, etc, etc. What sets this apart is that it takes it's time setting up the murder, the events preceding it unfolding with the white-knuckle suspense of a great 70s thriller, so that we are emotionally invested in the fates of both Alistair and the little boy kicking the ball against the bricks. The film doesn't allow us the luxury of writing the young Alistair off as "the bad guy". We experience his fear, his resolve, his desire to prove himself to his peers and elders. We understand that he thinks what he is doing is right and true. And the killing is all the more horrific for it.

When the smoke clears the ending is more complex and provocative than the revenge thriller aspects would lead you to expect. This is a film which never claims to offer easy answers nor does it attempt to provide any. In the end we pray for mercy, for both of them, and wonder along with the filmmakers another question, a more difficult one: after so much violence and suffering, "is reconciliation even possible" for men like Joe and Alistair? This question drives the second half with just as much tension as the first but with much deeper drama. We don't root for Joe Griffen's revenge; we wait with knots twisting in our guts for his reckoning.

Further recommended viewing: Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday", Pete Travis' "Omagh", Neil Jordan's "Danny Boy (Angel)" and "Michael Collins", Ken Loach's "Hidden Agenda", Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out", John Ford's "The Informer", Jim Sheridan's "In The Name Of The Father" and "The Boxer", Alan Clarke's "Elephant".

The September Issue

The September Issue (2009) dir. R.J. Cutler
Documentary

**

By Reece Crothers

The September Issue is a satisfying bit of fluff, a light, digestible entertainment. It is not the behind the scenes expose one hopes for considering the poster's promises that this movie "does for fashion what The War Room did for politics". There is nothing here we don't already know from The Devil Wears Prada. We do not get to peer behind the mask of Anna Wintour, the notoriously icy matriarch of the Vogue magazine empire, and there is less insight into her person here than in Meryl Streep's portrayal of her in the Prada film. Neither are we privy to the Devil-ish side to Wintour, who is always composed, detached, almost bored. Her face rarely forms into anything you might call an expression. On the rare occasions when she does smile, it is as if the muscles of her mouth have lead a revolt against the rest of her face. The one bit of revealing portraiture comes from Anna's admission that her family finds her work "amusing" which is to say, not very important, a point driven home later in the film by Wintour's Ivy-league-bound daughter who says matter-of-factly that she doesn't take her Mother's job very seriously, has no interest in following her footsteps at the magazine, and instead wants to be a lawyer like her dad. If we look closely we see a flash of the injured Wintour before she shrinks back into her fur-coat cocoon.

I wish the filmmaker took Wintour a little more seriously, too. The film is all too comfortable playing it cute with a pop music soundtrack that makes it feel like we're just watching a really long episode of Fashion Television. Like the magazine itself, it's glossy, vibrant, beautiful to look at, but not very profound. When we want to take it seriously as art we instead are treated to bitchy, superficial moments like the editors hovering over proofs of September's cover girl Sienna Miller, complaining about her teeth or that her hair is "lacklustre". In moments like these, it doesn't feel like art, it just feels catty. I mean, Sienna Miller is lacklustre? Really? Did they see Layer Cake?

The redeeming element here is the secondary portrait of Grace Coddington, Creative Director of American Vogue, who seems to wield every bit as much power and influence as Wintour does at the magazine. Grace is fiercely talented, funny, and prickly. Her love-hate relationship with Wintour, as she struggles to keep her favourite pieces from getting edited out of the tent-pole September issue, is the heart of the movie, as she is the only one who will (or maybe can) stand up to Wintour. Grace is an odd-looking figure when we first meet her, a stark-contrast to Wintour, pale and thin with a wild main of orange hair. She began her career as a model, a trajectory that was interrupted by a car crash, and she evolved into the industry's greatest stylist. As Wintour herself puts it, "No one can do what Grace does." After seeing her incredible designs on display in Cutler's movie, I'm inclined not to think of Wintour's praise as hyperbole. Grace lends the picture much warmth, humour and character.

There are plenty of other "characters" that show up to bow down to queen Wintour, or bitch behind her back, and some are wonderful to watch and to listen to, none more so than Andre Leon Talley, who is runway-perfect even while playing tennis. The footage of Talley sweating through his mandatory tennis practice ("Anna says I have to lose weight", he tells us matter-of-factly) is one of the picture's high points, a truly likable guy who comes off like a gay, black, John Candy as he comically struggles to keep up with his instructor. We don't know if its a bit of cruelty or compassion at the root of this imposed exercise Wintour has doled out to the hefty Talley, and the answer is probably a bit of both. Whenever Talley shows up the picture is a little more vibrant. Someone should give him a reality show while they're handing those out.

At the end of the day, The September Issue has more cultural weight as a magazine than a movie and I prefer the Meryl Streep version. And for an art film with fashion at its core, I would recommend the equally fluffy, but much underrated Robert Altman picture, "Pret A Porter". This doc just didn't have enough of the devil, and come to think of it, there wasn't much prada either.

"The September Issue" opens in theatres in limited release in Canada by E1 Entertainment

TIFF 2009:Trash Humpers

'Trash Humpers' (2009) dir. Harmony Korine
Starring Harmony Korine, Rachel Korine

*

Guest Review by Reece Crothers

When David Cronenberg's "Crash" (shame on you Paul Haggis) was released late in the last century, it received a rating of "N or NNNNN" in our local NOW Magazine. That was confusing. Was it great or terrible? Most people said it was a "love it or hate it" kind of picture, but usually one or the other. How was that possible? How could the reviewer have such extreme ambivalent feelings about the picture? After thirteen years and one screening of Harmony Korine's new movie, I finally understand. I cannot say whether 'Trash humpers' is a good film or a terrible one, only that there has never been anything like it, which was the director's intention, and in that respect it is a stunning achievement.

In the Q&A that followed the TIFF screening, Korine explained some of his motivations behind making this movie as a sort of archival, or "found object", and it is a huge departure from the sweet and dreamy, and super-slick 'Mr. Lonely', Korine's previous picture. I thought Korine had really matured with that movie. It was playful and surreal and poignant and clever and it showed the young auteur in a slightly more vulnerable mode, actually revealing something romantic and even sentimental. The new film is a return to the nihilism of "Gummo" without the innocence of "Julien Donkey Boy" or the melancholy heart of "Mr. Lonely".

Korine in person was much more lucid and candid than his reputation would suggest. Though he playfully sparred verbally with an obnoxious audience member who felt he was owed a personal explanation for the exploits he had just been subjected to on the big screen: "Is that supposed to be artistic?" Obnoxious Audience Member demanded. "I don't know..." Korine jabbed, "Is your hat artistic?"

The emphasis was on "artistic" as a dirty word and it actually suits the picture just fine. I refer you back to the title: 'Trash Humpers'. This is not a title like "Magnolia" or "Reservoir Dogs" that serves as a tonal indication without any reference to the subject or content of the film. This is a film all about humping trash. It's dirty, but it's also beautiful. The VHS photography (blown up to 35mm) is a nostalgic requiem for our analog past. Anyone who ever edited their movies from one VCR to another will get a warm fuzzy feeling.

When asked if "Trash Humpers" was part of the Dogme95 films (the style made famous in 1998 by Thomas Vinterberg with "Festen" and by Lars Von Trier with "The Idiots", and a school to which Korine's JDB is a certified member) Korine responded that "it probably would be if I thought about it". It's hard to tell how much thought was actually put into the film or even should be put into analyzing it. To describe "the plot" would be misleading. The picture works best as a primal sensory experience.

Korine explained to the crowd at the TIFF screening that the origins in the project began when he was handed a VHS tape by a fan who simply asked "Watch this" before walking away. Korine played the tape at home with his wife and a friend. After twenty minutes of bizarre, juvenile, violent stunts, Korine's wife and friend wanted to turn it off, afraid the tape may veer into snuff territory at any minute. But Korine was captivated and couldn't bring himself to shut the video off prematurely. "Someone's gonna get killed on this tape" they warned. That scenario, a famous artist and friends are handed a snuff tape, would probably make for a better plot than the one actually strung together for this movie. After all, what is at stake for the average trash humper? But that is obviously not the point. We are meant to observe the antics of the TH's in the same way that Korine et al screened that original VHS fan tape. It is an alternately hilarious and terrifying and almost always baffling horror story of three degenerates in latex "old people" masks who just can't get no satisfaction. If a stranger gave you this tape, my advice would be to stay the hell away from them. They are probably insane. Coming from Korine, it's harder to dismiss.

"Kids" (1995) still ranks as the most sobering morality tale of my personal film watching life, ranking with "Trainspotting" (1996) as the ultimate cinematic warnings about the consequences to the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll ethos that defined those pictures on the vanguard of decades previous. And Korine was only 19 when he wrote "Kids". There is no doubt that he is one of the most brilliant and individualistic filmmakers working in American movies today. I really couldn't say whether I liked this film or not, and personally probably would have enjoyed seeing Trash Humpers in a gallery setting rather than in a cinema, but I am glad I saw it. Korine's vision is truly his own. He follows his own voice. He knows his audience is not a blockbuster one, yet he has a strong cult following. Time will tell whether or not he will be able to exist as a filmmaker in both worlds like Gus Van Sant has been able to (Van Sant executive produced "Kids" and Korine made a cameo in "Good Will Hunting", arguably Van Sant's most commercial film).

"If you are the kind of person who walks out of movies.... if that is something you do... and that's cool... but like, you should probably just go now. You aren't going to like this movie. But if you are into seeing something called "Trash Humpers", and that's what it's about really, then I hope you like it". Those were Korine's words to the crowd at the screening just before the lights went down and we all had our minds blown. Consider yourself warned, or initiated, depending on your appetite.

TIFF 2009: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009) dir. Werner Herzog
Starring: Michael Shannon, Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier

***1/2

Guest review by Reece Crothers

Many seasoned directors use the clout they accumulate over their careers to help emerging filmmakers realize their first films, or to make the jump from indies and foreign films to studio pictures, lending the "So-and-So Presents stamp" as a sort of formal endorsement. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, they all do it. Most recently Peter Jackson produced Neill Blomkamp's "District 9", and before the trailer hit, when there was little more than the clever "Humans only" marketing campaign to arouse the audience's curiosity, Jackson's name served as assurance, a guarantee of quality. What is far less common is the joining of two, already established heavyweight directors. When Martin Scorsese produced Spike Lee's "Clockers" from a script by frequent Scorsese collaborator Richard Price ("The Color of Money", "New York Stories"), Lee was hardly a novice, with half a dozen studio pictures already under his belt, and the result was decidedly half-Lee, half-Scorsese. It's as if one artist were giving the other permission to borrow his language, his themes, even his actors.

Now David Lynch and Werner Herzog have joined forces, cinema's two foremost authorities on the absurd, each one a giant among his own fan base, both of whom have managed to cross over into mainstream cinema without surrendering their odd-ball visions (Lynch is only getting more cryptic with each film) and the result is as weird, hilarious, riveting, terrifying and frustrating as their combined filmographies would suggest. How much is Lynch and how much is Herzog is hard to say, but the cocktail is intoxicating. The music, the experimental use of tableau vivant, which Herzog gleefully violates by allowing the actors to blink while holding their poses, staring straight into the camera, the harsh sunlight bleaching the San Diego landscape, all contribute to a dreamy, altered state of consciousness that makes ‘Twin Peaks’ seem a little more ordinary.

After a beautiful static shot of a train passing under a bold blue sky, the story begins with a humorous back and forth exchange between Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena as detectives on their way to a brutal crime scene. The actors contribute worthy additions to the rich collection of memorable movie cop duos from recent years such as Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards in David Fincher's "Zodiac" (animal crackers anyone?) or Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Lee's "Inside Man" (also featuring Dafoe as a cop). Like those other pictures, the cops here are decent, hard-working, compassionate civil servants, not super-cops, and while providing comic relief they also serve as the humane counterpoint to brutal violence and senseless tragedy. We empathize with them and we distance ourselves from the violence. Dafoe and Pena's characters keep the film grounded in reality. Pena is especially funny as an overzealous but not entirely talented young officer, eager to participate, while his partner handles the emerging chaos surrounding the pink flamigo house in suburban San Diego where Michael Shannon, playing the mentally unstable Brad, has taken hostages and apparently murdered his mother with a sword.

The details of the murder are recounted in grisly detail by the detectives and the witnesses but Herzog has wisely kept the violence off-screen, a welcome choice after the scalping in "Inglourious Basterds", the cheek-biting in "Watchmen: The Directors Cut" or nearly everything in "Crank 2". The truth is censorship is dead, the ratings system an anachronistic joke, and until they find a way to regulate the internet, images of any and every act of depravity imaginable are only a few mouse clicks away and restraint is in short supply. Herzog is weird, but he has class.

Michael Shannon it has to be said, is the most interesting American character actor to emerge in many years. He has that quality of making weird compulsively watchable, like Crispin Glover ("Back to the Future", "River's Edge") in his youth, or the late, great, 70's icon John Cazale ("Dog Day Afternoon", "The Godfather Saga") before them. In 2007's "Shotgun Stories" (a near-masterpiece overlooked in a year unusually crowded with great films), Shannon proved he could be menacing while still playing the hero. As much as I love Lynch and Herzog, Shannon is the reason I came to "My Son, My Son..." and I was a little disappointed. I have a feeling this has to do with how he was directed, but I wasn't on set so it's only a theory, but instead of using his inherent weirdness, as was on display in his work on William Friedkin's "Bug", "Shotgun Stories", and his Oscar-nominated performance in "Revolutionary Road", Herzog also has him playing weird and it takes a while to acclimatize to the performance. Around the half-way point I was so drawn in to the story that I accepted it, only pausing when Chloe Sevigny, as Brad's fiancee, shows up. She is so sweet and normal, that I couldn't understand why she was with him. This is "inspired by a true story", we are told in the opening credits, and it's hard to believe Brad wouldn't have gotten himself locked up with his psycho behavior long before he was ever able to draw the sword.

There is of course no such thing as a true story. What does "Inspired by" really mean? This is an old argument, but an important one. Whether or not a "true story" is even possible is an argument for another time, but in an era when writers are threatened to annotate their imaginations and inspirations to death by Errors & Omissions insurance nonsense, we have to wonder what those promises of "true", "inspired by", or "based on" really give us. Are we supposed to care more because it supposedly really happened? Would "Casablanca" be any better if there was a real Rick & Ilsa? Would you rather read a biography of Hamlet than Shakespeare's play? Would that somehow improve the drama of it? In the end it doesn't matter how much Shannon's Brad resembles the real-life Brad or if there even was a real-life Brad. He doesn't get locked up before the murder, and the character haunts and lingers long after both the deed and the picture are over.

True or not, the story is fascinating. Why did Brad have the sword in the first place? Because he needed it for a play. What was his role in the play? A man who kills his mother. And the director of the play? Udo Kier!! (Remember his scenes in "My Own Private Idaho"?) The parallels between the play and the murder are chilling, as is the revelation of just how long Brad might have been planning the murder, alluding to it cryptically in rehearsals. This is the most effective section of the film, where Brad totally descends into his own schizophrenic nightmare (the word "schizophrenia" is never heard at any time in the film). As harrowing as Brad's journey is, it's often also very funny. The trip to get the sword introduces us to a wonderful supporting bit from Brad Dourif as an insane, Ostrich-farming bigot. Dourif is incredible. Check him out in the recently issued Criterion DVD of John Huston's "Wise Blood", or in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and you can forgive all the "Child's Play" sequels.

It's fun to see Herzog venture into genre storytelling when you consider his earlier, idiosyncratic "art films' and documentaries, and unlike his recent "Rescue Dawn", his strange sensibilities are fully intact. Perhaps protected and encouraged by another artist, especially on of David Lynch's stature, he is free to be himself. I can't wait to see how he fares with producer Edward R. Pressman ("Badlands", "Wall Street", "The Crow") for the "Bad Lieutenant" revamp, also playing TIFF this year. More on that to come.