is the Green Art Nail
Showing posts with label Jennifer Lawrence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer Lawrence. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS: The Film Babble Blog Review
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (Dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2011)
Right off the bat it's clear that Matthew Vaughn is a much better fit for the X-MEN movies than the previous directors (Brett Radner and Gavin Hood respectively). A strong opening sequence set in a concentration camp in Poland in 1944 shows Vaughn getting the edgy tense tone right in introducing a captured kid (Bill Milner) who has untrained telekinetic powers.
A sinister Kevin Bacon plays German Scientist Sebastian Shaw who recognizes the powers the boy has, and kills his mother (Éva Magyar) in an successful attempt to unleash them. Meanwhile, a young boy (Laurence Belcher) encounters a young girl (Morgan Lily) who's broken into his Westchester County, NY mansion's kitchen. She can morph her form into anybody's with her true body being all blue and spiky, while he can read people's minds.
They live together as brother and sister, growing up into James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence as the movie shifts to 1962. After witnessing supernatural activity in Las Vegas involving a never aging dapper Bacon and his crystalized co-hort Emma Frost (January Jones), CIA Agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) seeks out McAvoy, because of his expertise on mutation.
So the mutants hook up with the CIA (who take a little convincing), and are stationed in a facility to train under the supervision of Oliver Platt who's never given a character name. The concentration camp kid, now grown up into Michael Fassbender, tracks down Bacon to his yacht at the same time McAvoy does, but Bacon escapes in a souped up submarine.
There's an amusing recruitment montage with McAvoy and Fassbender rounding up other mutants which is slickly cut with '60s style and a Burt Bacharach-esque bounce to the soundtrack.
A sizable stable of characters is assembled including Nicholas Hoult, Álex González, Caleb Landry Jones, Zoë Isabella Kravitz, and Jason Flemyng, with the film juggling them capably. The film's second half concerns the crew confronting the Cuban missile crisis with Bacon's sinister Shaw, who's a mutant himself, being the one responsible for the missiles' transportation from Russia.
Like in all these comic book epics, the climax is an overblown battle. It's an explosive spectacle with battleships filling the sky full of warheads.
Oddly, it feels like the influential touchstones of this movie are the STAR TREK reboot, and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS; it's an origin story intertwined with an alternate history scenario, and I was surprised at how much of it worked.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is a better than average summer sequel (actually prequel) that despite being cluttered with clichés, cheesy moments, and bad dialogue (Bacon even says "come with me, and you'll live like Kings...and Queens" at one point) offers a fair amount of fun.
The CGI is consistently top notch, as is the set design (I loved the complete replica of the War Room from DR. STRANGELOVE), and there's a satisfying sweep to the storyline.
Particularly in the passion of Fassbender's performance, the confidence of McAvoy, the angsty energy of Laurence, and Bacon having a ball with his Bondian villain of a role, it's an incredibly effective cast.
On the minus side, some of Hoult's mannerisms as Laurence's possible love interest are annoying and his origin as "Beast" is undercooked, the young recruits are obnoxious, and January Jones never seems to be all there, but as she's clad in white lingerie when she's not crystalized, she obviously wasn't hired for her acting ability.
Regardless this breathes fresh air into the franchise, especially after the lackluster X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.
With this classy and exceedingly entertaining effort, consider the series rebooted.
More later...
Right off the bat it's clear that Matthew Vaughn is a much better fit for the X-MEN movies than the previous directors (Brett Radner and Gavin Hood respectively). A strong opening sequence set in a concentration camp in Poland in 1944 shows Vaughn getting the edgy tense tone right in introducing a captured kid (Bill Milner) who has untrained telekinetic powers.
A sinister Kevin Bacon plays German Scientist Sebastian Shaw who recognizes the powers the boy has, and kills his mother (Éva Magyar) in an successful attempt to unleash them. Meanwhile, a young boy (Laurence Belcher) encounters a young girl (Morgan Lily) who's broken into his Westchester County, NY mansion's kitchen. She can morph her form into anybody's with her true body being all blue and spiky, while he can read people's minds.
They live together as brother and sister, growing up into James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence as the movie shifts to 1962. After witnessing supernatural activity in Las Vegas involving a never aging dapper Bacon and his crystalized co-hort Emma Frost (January Jones), CIA Agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) seeks out McAvoy, because of his expertise on mutation.
So the mutants hook up with the CIA (who take a little convincing), and are stationed in a facility to train under the supervision of Oliver Platt who's never given a character name. The concentration camp kid, now grown up into Michael Fassbender, tracks down Bacon to his yacht at the same time McAvoy does, but Bacon escapes in a souped up submarine.
There's an amusing recruitment montage with McAvoy and Fassbender rounding up other mutants which is slickly cut with '60s style and a Burt Bacharach-esque bounce to the soundtrack.
A sizable stable of characters is assembled including Nicholas Hoult, Álex González, Caleb Landry Jones, Zoë Isabella Kravitz, and Jason Flemyng, with the film juggling them capably. The film's second half concerns the crew confronting the Cuban missile crisis with Bacon's sinister Shaw, who's a mutant himself, being the one responsible for the missiles' transportation from Russia.
Like in all these comic book epics, the climax is an overblown battle. It's an explosive spectacle with battleships filling the sky full of warheads.
Oddly, it feels like the influential touchstones of this movie are the STAR TREK reboot, and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS; it's an origin story intertwined with an alternate history scenario, and I was surprised at how much of it worked.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is a better than average summer sequel (actually prequel) that despite being cluttered with clichés, cheesy moments, and bad dialogue (Bacon even says "come with me, and you'll live like Kings...and Queens" at one point) offers a fair amount of fun.
The CGI is consistently top notch, as is the set design (I loved the complete replica of the War Room from DR. STRANGELOVE), and there's a satisfying sweep to the storyline.
Particularly in the passion of Fassbender's performance, the confidence of McAvoy, the angsty energy of Laurence, and Bacon having a ball with his Bondian villain of a role, it's an incredibly effective cast.
On the minus side, some of Hoult's mannerisms as Laurence's possible love interest are annoying and his origin as "Beast" is undercooked, the young recruits are obnoxious, and January Jones never seems to be all there, but as she's clad in white lingerie when she's not crystalized, she obviously wasn't hired for her acting ability.
Regardless this breathes fresh air into the franchise, especially after the lackluster X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.
With this classy and exceedingly entertaining effort, consider the series rebooted.
More later...
Saturday, May 28, 2011
A Failed Attempt At Redemption Through Puppetry
When he awakes his puppet gives him a pep talk, and immediately he starts to get his life back together. "The Beaver," as it wants to be called, is now calling the shots to the puzzlement of his family and the employees.
Got that? Not sure I do. What makes it so hard to swallow is that Mel Gibson plays the despondent puppeteer. Gibson's popularity has waned in recent years because of famously controversial behavior, and part of this film's hype is that it could re-boot his career.
Don't count on it. This film, inexplicably directed by Jodie Foster (also appearing as Gibson's wife), is a dreary experience that has no insights into depression, delusion, or beaver puppets.
You might expect a comedy from a scenario where a man communicates only through a puppet, with a thick Cockey accent, but as The Beaver says at one point: "There's nothing funny about it."
There's a subplot involving Gibson's son (Anton Yelchin) dealing with teen angst through a budding romance with an Jennifer Lawrence (WINTER'S BONE) as a valedictorian cheerleader who hires him to write her graduation speech. It really doesn't fit, but then nothing in this film fits.
The implausibility factor here is overwhelming, and not just from the basic premise. When Gibson develops and markets a bestselling wood-cutting kit, it hits such a false note that it's deafening. Likewise Foster's one-note reaction to her husband's dementia.
An unpleasant sex scene with Foster getting creeped out by the puppet is another scene that doesn't gel.
I'm not a fan of Gibson, but there were times his performance showed real effort and passion. However it's in vain as this is strained, self conscious material that never clicks.
In the last third, THE BEAVER takes some disturbing and drastic turns that don't add up, especially when considering how tidy the ending is.
What first time screenwriter Kyle Killen, and Foster were going for here beats me.
Basically this film is a bunch of bad ideas desperately assembled in a lame attempt to form an inspirational story.
It's a failure as a comeback project for Gibson, and will probably be only remembered as a weird misguided movie that came and went with little fanfare. That is, if it's remembered at all.
More later...
Monday, July 12, 2010
WINTER'S BONE: The Film Babble Blog Review
WINTER'S BONE
(Dir. Debra Granik, 2010)
A chill can be felt in the opening scenes of this spare backwoods drama. We meet 17 year old Jennifer Lawrence, who looks a little like a rough edged Renée Zellweger, living with her mentally ill mother and 2 younger siblings (Ashlee Thompson and Isaiah Stone) in a humble home in the Ozarks. Lawrence is told by the local sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) that her drug dealing father has gone missing after putting up their house for bond. If he doesn't make a court date in one week's time they will lose the house.
Lawrence is determined to find her father, dead or alive, no matter how treacherous and uninviting the terrain. Lawrence's father's meth head brother Teardrop (John Hawkes) warns her against sticking her nose in places it doesn't belong, but her fierce drive to protect her family keeps her going. "Talkin' just causes witnesses" she is told by Dale Dickey - just one of many scary folks she confronts on the trail.
It's a washed out and grim looking film and for the first half it's such a slow burner that a strong sense of the inevitable is impossible to shake. Unfortunately its grueling build has little in terms of payoff. There are several effective scenes, including a greatly played exchange with a military recruiter that reveals the full extent of Lawrence's character's naivety, but the chilling mood can't withstand the glacial pace.
Although it was based on a 224 page novel by Daniel Woodrell, WINTER'S BONE may have made for a better short film, but as a full length feature it feels stretched out with too many periods of dead air. It's a less than gripping non thriller that barely skirts by despite good performances by its cast (particularly the stoic Lawrence) and its stark cinematography by Michael McDonough. But if dead air and a hard to shake sense of doom are what you're looking for - WINTER'S BONE has it in spades.
More later...
(Dir. Debra Granik, 2010)
A chill can be felt in the opening scenes of this spare backwoods drama. We meet 17 year old Jennifer Lawrence, who looks a little like a rough edged Renée Zellweger, living with her mentally ill mother and 2 younger siblings (Ashlee Thompson and Isaiah Stone) in a humble home in the Ozarks. Lawrence is told by the local sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) that her drug dealing father has gone missing after putting up their house for bond. If he doesn't make a court date in one week's time they will lose the house.
Lawrence is determined to find her father, dead or alive, no matter how treacherous and uninviting the terrain. Lawrence's father's meth head brother Teardrop (John Hawkes) warns her against sticking her nose in places it doesn't belong, but her fierce drive to protect her family keeps her going. "Talkin' just causes witnesses" she is told by Dale Dickey - just one of many scary folks she confronts on the trail.
It's a washed out and grim looking film and for the first half it's such a slow burner that a strong sense of the inevitable is impossible to shake. Unfortunately its grueling build has little in terms of payoff. There are several effective scenes, including a greatly played exchange with a military recruiter that reveals the full extent of Lawrence's character's naivety, but the chilling mood can't withstand the glacial pace.
Although it was based on a 224 page novel by Daniel Woodrell, WINTER'S BONE may have made for a better short film, but as a full length feature it feels stretched out with too many periods of dead air. It's a less than gripping non thriller that barely skirts by despite good performances by its cast (particularly the stoic Lawrence) and its stark cinematography by Michael McDonough. But if dead air and a hard to shake sense of doom are what you're looking for - WINTER'S BONE has it in spades.
More later...
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