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| OCEAN'S 12 |
| 12.12.04 (9:22 am) [edit] |
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Cast: Oh, Everyone
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: George Clayton Johnson (characters) & Jack Golden Russell; George Nolfi (written by)
Distributor: Warner Bros. (US 2004)
Rated: PG-13 for language
OCEAN'S 12 is...
...a ratting crate full of hollow china dolls.
...a weak-hitting shortstop trying for his second home run in two at-bats.
...the low, long fart you release, which has been coming for a long time, but which you forget the moment you've had it.
...an A-Team episode with Casey Affleck as B.A. Barrackus.
...the hilarity of the yearbook staff hiding dirty words in their class messages.
...malt-liquor-on-a-Monday stupid.
...a display case of used condoms.
...an Encyclopedia Brown story where you're asked for the solution before the necessary information is provided. Quick: 8 + X = Y. Solve for Y.
...more riddled with gaping plot holes than Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow. And I speak advisedly.
...someone else's Junior Prom video.
...an ungodly waste of your entertainment dollar in the best movie season of the year.
LIC
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| OCEAN'S TWELVE |
| 12.12.04 (6:59 am) [edit] |
OCEAN'S TWELVE
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Vincent Cassel, Shaobo Qin, Scott Caan, and Casey Affleck
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: George Nolfi
Distributor: Warner Brothers (US 2004)
Rated: Rated PG-13 for language
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
There's a built-in set of expectations that the built-in sequel audience for OCEAN'S TWELVE has. The first film of the franchise, a fizzy-pop gloss on the heist genre, gathered a bevy of A-list stars and plopped them down into a glamorous world of casinos and thieves. The heist itself was the crown jewel in a whipsmart screenplay, and for the audience, it wasn't too hard to tell that the stars were having a great time. Director Steven Soderbergh, the chameleonic talent behind such varied works as Traffic, Solaris, Erin Brockovich and Kafka's The Trial, seemed giggly and intoxicated on the buzz, and created a tight but colorful universe anyone would happily live in. Ocean's Eleven seemed to have been as much fun to make as it was to watch.
For the new film, the entire coterie has returned, adding a few famous faces (Catherine Zeta-Jones and a cameo or two which, to protect the surprise value they are designed to have, will not be revealed here). There's a new heist that involves many glamorous cities of Europe, complete with a new French villain, Francois Toulour (Vincent Cassel). The champagne bubbles of OCEAN'S TWELVE, however, seem more muted and less dazzling than those of its predecessor. The cast is still having fun, but they're doing it with a new screenwriter, George Nolfi (Timeline), who has a significantly more meandering style and a weaker grasp of genre writing than Ted Griffin, the author of Ocean's Eleven. Where Griffin's script was polished to a sheen worthy of the Pope Diamond, Nolfi relies on melodrama and insider jokes (guess who Julia Roberts' character, Tess, uncannily resembles?). The dialogue rarely snaps, crackles, or pops the way it could; with about eighteen characters that factor importantly into the story (the eleven plus Zeta-Jones, Roberts, Cassel, Garcia, and newcomers Robbie Coltrane, Eddie Izzard, and Albert Finney...and I haven't even gotten to the cameos), the sheer size of this effort is more than Nolfi can manage. Everything is still color-bubbly, but the palette is muted. What seemed ingenious in Ocean's Eleven now merely seems clever; the electric atmosphere that surrounds Danny Ocean and his band of merry men has dulled to a pleasant but hazy buzz.
There's still magic in bringing, however, in bringing the gods and goddesses of Hollywood into one single movie, and the stars do not disappoint. Both Damon and Roberts have expanded parts, and neither disappoints; Damon, in particular, shows a deft gift for comedy. Clooney and Pitt, the Sinatra-and-Martin team of this postmodern Rat Pack, have an easy and assured relationship that makes their screen time together a magnetic experience. Of the smaller roles, my favorites this time around were those played by Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner, two old-timers who prove how easy it is to keep up with the young whippersnappers.
OCEAN'S TWELVE doesn't exactly disappoint its audience; rather, it's a subdued attempt at recapturing glory. Sitting in the dark, looking up at that big day-glo screen, one may still wish they were the thirteenth member of this crackerjack dozen...but when the credits roll, one may not be tempted to stay and watch it all over again. Sequels always have trouble recreating magic; OCEAN'S TWELVE has enough of the stuff to offer a good time, but also to remind you of what you're missing. Is that better...or worse?
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| THE MERCHANT OF VENICE |
| 12.12.04 (6:50 am) [edit] |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Cast: Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins, and Allan Corduner
Directed by: Michael Radford
Written by: Michael Radford
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics (US 2004)
Rated: R for some nudity
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
The murky fog that seems omnipresent in Michael Radford's adaptation of Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is a beautiful metaphor for the Bard's story. For what may seem direct and clear -- a beleaguered Jewish merchant, Shylock (Al Pacino), lends money to a Catholic noble, Antonio (Jeremy Irons) who has scorned him in the past -- is anything but a simple transaction. Antonio is borrowing the money not for himself, but for his poor young friend Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), who needs traveling fare; he plans to visit the rich and beautiful Portia (Lynn Collins) and win her hand in marriage. Shylock, for his part, is tired of the insults of Christians, and wants to exact revenge. His repayment, should Antonio default on the three-month loan, is the famous pound of flesh, taken from Antonio's body at a point of Shylock's choosing. He is going for the heart. Revenge? Jewish-Christian relations? Romance? Wealth? Comedy? Tragedy? It's enough to put anyone's head (or movie) into a fog.
There are a number of interesting controversies in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE for a modern audience, and it is to Radford's credit that he tackles them head on. First, of course, is the anti-Semitic undercurrent which run throughout the text, a villainously vengeful man who plays to Jewish stereotype (the word "Shylock" has come, in common parlance, to mean a corrupt businessman). Radford does not soften Shakespeare's text on the matter, leaving the audience in the troubling position of balancing the pain of Jewish persecution against the horrible cruelty of Shylock's actions. Secondly, there is the vaguely homoerotic relationship of Antonio and Bassanio, which Radford foregrounds...in the film's second scene, the two men kiss. Welcome to Venice!
These polemics, however, make THE MERCHANT OF VENICE much weightier that Shakespeare perhaps intended. The play is a bit of a mess, really, jerking from comedy to tragedy often in the same scene. It involves some of Shakespeare's pet conventions -- women dressed as men, subplots of far-fetched romance -- and includes an extended coda. Radford, who adapted the script as well as directing it, seems more at ease in the dramatic moments, positing the ferocity of Pacino against the brittle eloquence of Irons. The scenes of romantic comedy -- Bassanio's winning of Portia through an elaborate guessing game, and a rather disastrous telling of lost wedding rings -- fall with a thud upon the screen. Though Shakespeare may have intended a rapidly shifting tonal piece -- the world's first dramedy, perhaps? -- Radford has made a grim drama with some incomprehensible moments of failed levity. The fog has crept in, and it is very hard to wave it away when the sunlight is needed.
Radford's direction also suffers an aimlessness in sections which, combined with languid pacing, suggests that some judicious edits might be called for. Cinema and theater have different needs, and sequences of excessive verbosity can, freed of the boundaries of the stage, become visual in nature. The settings of Venice are gorgeous when Radford employs them, conveying a patrician elegance without luxury...the rough and ragged social strata of Venice is always clearly defined.
None of the performances are exceptional, but none are embarrassing, either. Pacino and Irons battle ferociously but bring little new insight to these oft-performed roles, and Fiennes lacks the depth that would give relief to Bassanio's porcelain surfaces. Only Portia, played by newcomer Lynn Collins (13 Going On 30), makes much of an impression; whether coquettishly strutting as the orphan princess or balancing a court trial as a gender-bending expert legal scholar, she is consistently mesmerizing. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, for all of its self-important politics and grand gestures, ends up being as murky an experience as a Venetian night.
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| THE WOODSMAN |
| 12.05.04 (11:23 am) [edit] |
THE WOODSMAN
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def, Eve, Michael Shannon, David Alan Grier, and Benjamin Bratt
Directed by: Nicole Kassell
Written by: Stephen Fechter and Nicole Kassell
Distributor: Newmarket Films (US 2004)
Rated: R for sexuality, disturbing behavior and language
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
Here's everything you need to know about THE WOODSMAN.
1) It stars the husband-and-wife team of Kevin Bacon (Mystic River) and Kyra Sedgwick (Cavedweller).
2) It is produced by Lee Daniels, the former casting director who successfully segued into producing with the award-winning Monster's Ball, another gritty and grim tale of human anguish.
3) It is directed by a talented newcomer, Nicole Kassell, who has nurtured the project from its infancy. And, perhaps most importantly:
4) It is a stoically sympathetic portrait of a convicted child molester.
This last bit is the shocking twist/other shoe dropping/500-pound gorilla that THE WOODSMAN builds its entire bulkhead around. And to the degree you are open (or closed) to the idea of liking a molester, Kassell's film may or may not be for you. For while the performances are solid (Bacon and Sedgwick are joined by Mos Def, Benjamin Bratt, and rap star Eve, the lone misfire in the ensemble) and the construction of the film has a spare clarity, the idea of child molestation is so heinous to our collective ethics that it may be impossible for some to dredge up the sympathy the film requires. The film is not blunt about its subject, so much as direct; rather than sensationalize its story, it tries its best to argue for a forgiving human spirit in a concise but not confrontational way.
I am only one person, of course, but I doubt my experience will be unique...I personally couldn't make the ethical leap. Molesting children is one of those areas that induce a personal rage in many of us; perhaps it is a weakness of character, but I find it hard to summon up any feelings for the hardships that convicted sex offenders must go through. Kassell, for her part, seems to know this is the major challenge of her film. Although THE WOODSMAN's subject matter is shocking and disturbing, perhaps the most unsettling quality is its matter-of-fact attitude.
Leaving the terrorizing of children until the film's final act, Kassell drapes her film in drab grey colors, placing the burgeoning romance between lumber yard workers Walter (Bacon) and Vicki (Sedgwick) in an environment of overcast skies, oily slick roads, impoverished neighborhoods, and grim, unremitting atmosphere. It is as if the film argues that molesters are punished by internal guilt and societal intolerance enough, and that the least we, the audience, could do is show them a bit of mercy. This is a political statement, and a strong one...and one I could not agree with, before or after viewing the film.
THE WOODSMAN, at its core, is a tale of broken people: Vicki is a former abuse victim herself, the police Sergeant Lucas (Mos Def) is battered by his memories of child victims, and even Walter's Latino brother-in-law, Carlos (Bratt) is haunted by the memories of his racially-intolerant in-laws. The scenes of desperate, pained lovemaking between Walter and Vicki evokes the torment of Monster's Ball, while Bacon's sad-eyed fury impeccably fends off the probing questions of his therapist (Michael Shannon). If anything, however, the inflammatory context of THE WOODSMAN lets us know that sympathy is not automatic, and not all tragedy is undeserved. Walter, ultimately, seems a nice guy, but his crimes are not forgivable...and not negotiable, even at the cinema.
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Welcome to Mixed Reviews Single Servings. Here you'll find short reviews of current and past movies for people too busy to read a full review.
You can find full-length reviews of present and past films, from Hollywood releases to independent films to "hidden treasures" that haven't been released yet, at our main site, Mixed Reviews. Please browse our archive for links to reviews of films dating back to 1998.
For more smart stuff about movies, please visit the Cinemarati Roundtable.
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