Tag Archives: The Brothers Coen

Oscarwatch 2015: Bridge of Spies VS Carol

Editorial, Movie Review, , , , , , ,

brett_wiesenauerOf all the Oscar nominees, Bridge of Spies is the one I’ve been dreading writing about the most. My feelings on the latest Spielberg drama are complicated, due to my internal struggles to classify it by that terrible, outdated binary distinction of it being a “good movie” or a “bad movie”. It’s almost as if my inner film snob is trying to strangle itself, Dr. Strangelove-style.

In terms of technical craft, it is fine.

But I don’t talk technicals in my reviews. I talk about emotions, characters, stories, images, concepts, and interesting and memorable events. And when the first thing that comes to mind after a STEVEN SPIELBERG MOVIE of all things is the technical craft, the alarms start to go off. This is a director whose whole of his image is based in his innate ability to play the audience like the orchestra, swelling emotions like string sections under the hand of maestro John Williams. And yet, here is a film that left me feeling… nothing.

I walked out of the movie acutely aware that a craftsman, whom I have respected as an artist for years, had tried to manipulate my feelings for the characters and story before me, and he failed hard. Like the far, far worse The Danish Girl, I find that the more I think about it, the less I appreciate it. And I just loathed The Danish Girl from frame one save for Alicia Vikander, while initially I did try to defend some of the more troubling aspects of Bridge of Spies as soon as I viewed it before Christmas.

The acting is just unimpressive on the whole. Tom Hanks played his role as you’d expect Tom Hanks to play any role outside of the realm of the Wachowski siblings, and I didn’t care. Amy Ryan as his wife makes no significant impression, whatsoever. Alan Alda makes his rounds as still relevant older actor, yawn. The kid playing Francis Gary Powers, of the U-2 Spy incident, doesn’t make any sort of impact that he’s supposed to. Character actors come and go portraying various degrees of hostility, strong-arming, and intolerance that you’d expect from any message movie.

Of the whole cast of characters, the only one who makes a substantial impression is Academy Award-nominee Mark Rylance as the incriminated spy Rudolf Abel. In a movie filled with stuffy and stale archetypes, he brings a quiet precision to his character, sighing at the complexities of American justice systems prejudiced against any semblance of equality for his petty actions. The direction is where this movie falls short in terms of audience sympathy for the American characters, or any characters actually.

Granted, a good portion of the screenplay was at one point in the hands of the Joel and Ethan, the Coen Brothers. They bring a fast-paced banter to the story that certainly Bridge of Spies Launch One Sheetlifts it above uninvolving period drama and upgrades it to a level of ambition that is still mildly entertaining, just not successful in winning me over. That being said, classy banter does not a good movie make. Take for example the 1992 remake of the classic, low-budget noir Detour; that movie had an excellent hard-boiled script, but the actors just couldn’t handle it and the movie completely fails as thriller and drama. The difference between Bridge of Spies and Hail, Caesar is there were characters and situations that intrigued me in the latter, while I was nearly bored to tears in Spies.

The direction is where I realized just how unhappy I was with the movie. Spielberg tries on multiple occasions to grab on to emotions that were nonexistent on my end throughout. At the big trial, Tom Hanks makes a grand old speech for liberty and justice for all, and it lands with a hollow thud. I wasn’t swayed to his side as I should have been because I was already there. I believe in liberty and justice for all, this isn’t that ethically dubious, spy or no spy. Later on, we view youths in East Germany being gunned down as they attempt to cross the Berlin Wall. And again, it felt hollow. I felt like I was getting reheated outtakes from Schindler’s List, in a lesser package. I felt Spielberg simply going through the motions rather than making an honest effort.

The reason I mentioned technicals above is that, on paper, this film works fine. The editing, camera work, sound, music all do their jobs, but they overshadowed the lacking sense of story and investment/stakes. That is the sign of a truly flawed script and directorial duties. Trying to get involved in the storytelling and coming up empty save for “it looked nice, and sounded nice” is not the reaction this movie needed.

~Now let’s change gears and talk about a truly excellent movie that was snubbed in categories Bridge of Spies picked up.~

Carol is a much smaller scale movie than the latest Spielberg project, being the tale of a unique relationship ignited between an amateur photographer/full-time department store clerk and a married housewife. The film stars Rooney Mara of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network fame, alongside screen demigoddess Cate Blanchett, two-time Oscar-winner and patron saint of screen actors, whom audiences may recognize from the Lord of the Rings saga and The Monuments Men.

The story does concern itself with certain subjects that are still in contention throughout much of the United States. The unique relationship of mention is a close friendship that does evolve into lesbianism. The first hour is foreplay and character buildup for the ingénue Therese (pronounced Teh-rezz) and the lovely titular Carol Aird. The film doesn’t jump headlong into the intimacies of the bedroom, rather it explores the intimacies of female relationships in the early 1960s.

003

The acting is utterly top-notch. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are radiant whenever they get a chance to steal the focus from Ed Lachman’s gorgeous photography. Also along for the narrative are Kyle Chandler as Harge, Carol’s estranged husband and Sarah Paulson as Carol’s best friend and confidante, Abby. The characters transcend their performers and take on actual existence on the screen, which is the goal of all great film performances. Under careful, consolidated direction from Todd Haynes, the cast work alongside one another, moving the story along at a good pace, keeping the performances front and center in tandem with the imagery and Carter Burwell’s ingenious scoring.

Seriously, the music is incredible. As much as I loved the thrilling tones of Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to The H8ful Eight, I feel the score to Carol is so much more moving and deserving of recognition. The score is most certainly Mr. Burwell’s most Burwellian score, since Fargo at the least. The best way to describe it is an Adagio for Love as influenced by Phillip Glass. The strings and piano combine to form a perfect ode of nostalgia and melodrama, like one’s memory of a first love.

Topping off my list of exquisite elements of Carol is the imagery, delivered through the lens of Oscar-nominated Ed Lachman. The film was shot on Super 16 millimeter film, exuding a sense of being shown a private stash of home movies. The generous amount of soft lighting and truly lush color adds to the dream-like quality of the pictures. I mentioned H8ful Eight previously, and I have to say, even with all of Tarantino’s grandstanding about his use of 70-mm film in that project, methinks this little film about love makes a better case for preservation of physical film elements than that film did in all of its bloated three hours.

Unlike Bridge of Spies, I was fully invested in the love story on-screen from the minute we are introduced to Carol and Therese. There wasn’t a single moment where I lost interest in what was unfolding between the lovers and struggled to reattach my attention to anything, be it a filmmaking or storytelling element. Through the emotional journey audiences are transported on, the romantic tension and surprising amount of dramatic involvement will catch audiences off guard.

See, Carol is going through a divorce over the course of the film, and her husband Harge does not approve of the relationship she initiates with young Therese. There is a single moment shortly past the halfway point where a betrayal takes place that truly puts the stakes of Carol’s marriage into focus. With such stakes present, the hardest of hearts will be hard-pressed to honestly say they can’t relate to Carol’s decisions, regardless of her lifestyle choices.

The Academy most ungraciously passed Carol over for Best Picture and Best Director. Initially, I felt
shocked and disturbed by the omissions. But then I thought about the Academy’s history with LGBTQ projects and then it hit me. The previous projects of queer intrigue recognized by AMPAS all contained a significant arc of tragedy. Brokeback Mountain, The Imitation Game, Midnight Cowboy, Dallas Buyers Club, and Milk were nominated for Best Picture, but only Midnight Cowboy took home the statuette, and all ended poorly for their characters. The sole exception to this pattern being 2010’s The Kids are All Right, but since that was a comedy, which the Academy has a terrible history of overlooking, it received nothing for its efforts.

Carol is not by any means a tragedy; it is a tad harrowing at times, but the tone of the film is not one of “woe is me, for I am queer”. And actually, the focus is not on the genders, but on the romance, something more queer movies should take note of. It’s an update on the Romeo and Juliet story with the tragic bits replaced with that of 1950s and 60s high melodrama, which director Todd Haynes mastered previously in the Best Director-nominated Far from Heaven.

The point of it all is that instead of gracing a daring and matter-of-fact presentation of queer romance with well-earned recognition, the Academy went with the lazy, easy choice of nominating the old-hat, typical choice that only points to how outdated and out-of-sync the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are with increasingly progressive movie audiences. For an organization that previously gave big awards and recognition to the likes of 12 Years a Slave and Philadelphia, the Oscars seem to act more like they are filling thematic quotas rather than actively recognizing quality film efforts that just so happen to push boundaries.

HAIL, CAESAR: A Classy Throwback to Golden Age Tinseltown

Local Entertainment, Movie Review, , , ,

brett_wiesenauerThe Brothers Coen, or Coen Brothers as most describe them, are back in the out-and-proud business of entertainment with a rambunctious ride of a comedy, in the vein of Raising Arizona and the cult phenomenon that is The Big Lebowski. Their latest, Hail, Caesar!, is a period piece/melodrama/screwball comedy hybrid that functions as a nostalgia-driven look back at the celebrated Golden Age of Hollywood that produced epics along the likes of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, as well as the cheesy, but classy musicals featuring Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, and that guitar-playing gaucho, Roy Rogers.

 

Our leading player, Eddie Mannix, played to worn perfection by Josh Brolin, is a “fixer”, a man whose talents are put to use sniffing out and snuffing out potential scandals before they happen. A typical day involves a morning confessional at church, on-the-run schedule dictation with his world-weary secretary, multiple phone calls with studio heads and big-wig power players to keep the films on schedule, and meetings with actors and directors to work out their personal gripes.

 

On this day of days, a big name leading male star is kidnapped from his trailer, and that’s only the beginning of the shenanigans. Not only does Eddie have to pay ransom money for his missing male lead, he also has to deal with a furious director unsatisfied with his actors’ abilities, a pregnant starlet whose image is dependent on the public not finding out about her previous marriages and mishaps, twin gossip columnists on the prowl for juicy scoops, and on top of all that, he still has to make it home in time for dinner with the wife.

Eddie Mannix, the 'fixer' (Josh Brolin) Source: twitter.com/HailCaesarMovie
Eddie Mannix, the ‘fixer’ (Josh Brolin) Source: twitter.com/hailcaesarmovie

 

This film gets how to make a complicated narrative interesting to unravel, and still navigable without a color-coded map of characters, partially because they already are by their costumes. The Hollywood players wear suits to work, the mermaid has a tail, the kidnapped lead looks like a cosplayer from ancient Rome, and the song-and-dance men are all gussied up in their sailor outfits.

 

The cast of characters is eccentric to say the least, with a sizable portion of the film put aside to detail the confusingly offbeat path set for one Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), prominent star of singing cowboy B-movies, who is suddenly thrust into a big and fancy, A-list prestige picture, complete with tuxes and tails. Doyle struggles to make do, but it’s obvious to all that he’s out of his element. But, a chance meeting with Eddie in his office leads to Hobie getting involved in tracking down the missing Baird Whitlock. Of all the key characters, Hobie is the only one truly intertwined with the kidnapped George Clooney story, unlike what the trailer sold to audiences: an all-star team-up of Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton, and Jonah Hill to rescue George Clooney.

 

Many have accused the movie of being uneven and not unjustly so, as the film juggles many plot lines, mostly played for grins, dealing in sexy scandals, undercover communists, and kidnappings behind the scenes of a major Hollywood studio, Capitol Pictures. The story meanders around and jumps to different locations and character point of views as much as most rambling stories told to us by friends do. But, realistically, the changes in tone and pace make sense, as the main character is being escorted from problem to problem in the expectation that he can “fix” it with minimal trouble, but that’s not always the case.

 

One single, simple case of covering up an unwanted pregnancy ends up involving two trips to a law office to scope out legal solutions and a visit to a sound stage where the potential father is directing a musical sequence. Not all problems nowadays come in single events or day lengths. Some days, problems just proceed to pile on top of another until the poor schmo of problematic stature throws up his hands and reaches for the hooch. This is a filmed version of one of those days, and it’s being treated like it’s unbelievable fantasy. Harsh.

 

A particularly memorable sequence involves Eddie organizing a meet-up between local religious leaders to discuss whether the appearance of The Christ in the titular film would be considered tasteful by audiences of faith. “So a Protestant Minister, a Rabbi, an Orthodox Priest, and a full-blooded Catholic walk into a movie studio…”, you see where I’m going with this? The dialogue crackles with dry, witty barbs and argumentative personalities who just can’t agree on who The Christ was in context of the film, instead picking apart the stunts in the script for being “unbelievable”. It’s a really fun scene that makes the film feel heightened in hilarity, yet grounded in realistic human personalities. Late in the film, an actor, crucified on high, is asked whether he is a principal or extra by the lunch organizer. The actor wearily replies with uncertainty, as if to say even the cast doesn’t quite know what’s going on, which is a nice touch.Hail,_Caesar!_Teaser_poster

 

The movie itself looks fantastic. Roger Deakins, up for an Oscar this year for his haunting work on SICARIO (a vastly different Josh Brolin movie), brings a true touch of class to the proceedings, providing lush and vibrant recreations of Hollywood Old with a new twist. The cast plays well together, with not just the big established stars turning in great performances, from the likes of Clooney, Johannson, and Jonah Hill. The up-and-coming support shine through the action, with special mention to Alden Ehrenreich as the sure-footed cowpoke suddenly thrust into stardom. Besides Brolin and Clooney, not everyone else shares a lot of the screen time, with Brolin rushing from problem to problem and Clooney staring bewildered at his mischievously political captors from time to time. There’s a cute moment with Coen Bros. veteran Frances McDormand showing up as a chain smoking editor locked in a suite with her current project, the prestige picture that Hobie was thrust onto. But it is mostly a “hey, it’s [that actor]” kinda movie, with two kind of central characters navigating a never-ending pool of eccentrics.

 

Hail, Caesar! is a worthy addition to the Coen catalogue of manic and truly original works that straddle genre boundaries and don’t care if the audience can keep up with its brand of joyful noise. It rockets along at a gleeful pace and just packs in the homages to everything from Anchors Aweigh to Ben-Hur. I have a feeling this could be the Grand Budapest Hotel of 2016; it comes out early, entertains the crowds, and silently pokes its head up around Oscar season to snag some Oscar nominations later in the year.

 

If you are in the mood for a jolly old time revisiting the tone and imagery of Hollywood Classics of old, this movie will thoroughly entertain. If you are in a No Country for Old Men mood, you best stay home and watch the Coen’s version of True Grit, or the bleaker Josh Brolin movie, SICARIO.