Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
We’ve had a lot of requests for a review of HUSTLE & FLOW, so it’s nice to see that someone got in to take a peek at it. We’ve also had people requesting reactions to THE ARISTOCRATS and STRANGERS WITH CANDY, so if any of you saw them, let us know. In the meantime, here’s Castor with his take on two of the big award winners and a new film with Pierce Brosnan...
Harry,
Well at last, the festival has ended and thus this will be my last post until most likely next year. Overall, it’s been a great festival – with only two disappointments, Ellie Parker and one below. So here they are:
The Matador (4 out of 5)
It’s always great when you see an actor who has been as type cast as Pierce Brosnan has lately and do something small where he can just completely flip that image upside down. The Matador is that picture and if it proves to be the success in theatres later this year like it was at Sundance, I think Pierce will be doing just fine with his post James Bond career.
Here, Pierce plays Julian Noble, a rather sleezy hitman who would rather nail an underage girl behind an Old Navy store than continue on with his job. He’s been in a bit of a rut lately as he has never had a place to call home and never anyone to talk about his business with. Soon enough, he heads out to Mexico City, hoping to enjoy a bullfight or a couple quickies instead of worrying about his task of being there. Taking in a few margaritas, he soon meets Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) who’s there on business and just looking for a friendly conversation. The two take a long time to hit it off first, as Julian interrupts Danny’s story about his son dying with a drunken dick joke, but they eventually agree to go to a bull fight together where Danny learns what Julian really is.
Looking on the IMDb profile, I’m rather surprised they have this movie listed as a thriller. It isn’t a thriller at all, more of a well written dark comedy dealing with a hitman’s midlife crisis. There might be moments where it gets a little bit tense, but the best scenes are the quiet ones where Julian shows up at Danny’s doorstep in the middle of the night, watching his wife (Hope Davis) go from letting a complete stranger inside to getting drunk and bullshitting with him until 3 in the morning. The movie is more interested in how people deal with Julian than how he deals with his job, and that’s what makes it fun.
Pierce needed this movie badly. It’s not a question of whether or not he can act, we all know he’s a good actor – but for once we get to see him really bite his teeth into an off-the-wall character. Watching him here, you wonder if he had a smile on his face the whole time inbetween takes as he gets to be so rude and such an asshole at many points in this movie. And the best thing about it is he handles it all perfectly and seems born to play a role like this. His timing and line delivery is perfect, and it’s great to watch him walk around hotel lobbies in his underwear like he has no shame – it’s all a lot of fun.
How well this movie will do at the box office in the future is hard to tell. It seems like they could go many different ways with advertising this film, and that’s what could really make or break the film. But hopefully, the word will get out and people will see this movie for what it really is.
Forty Shades of Blue (2 out of 5)
Dramatic Grand Jury Award Winner
Sundance have been a little bit off for me with the grand jury award winner at times. You can’t argue when a film like American Splendor wins as it was a wonderful film, but every once and awhile one works where no one really seems to quite get it. Forty Shades of Blue, for me, is definitely the later.
The story centers around a Russian girl (Dina Korzun) living in Memphis with an older, rock legend boyfriend (Rip Torn). She goes about trying to fit in with the family, until his son (Darren Burrows) shows up and everything changes. She knew that there was a bit of cheating going on in the relationship and now she is starting to feel the same way with his son, and things begin to heat up just as he is getting ready to propose.
I wish I could give a more detailed plot summary, but this really isn’t the type of movie about story, more about characters. And quite frankly, I really didn’t give much of a damn about any of them. There are scenes in which I enjoyed, and the acting from all of them is very good (especially Rip Torn), but if I were to feel sympathy for anyone found here than I completely missed the mark.
I was ready for a slow paced film, and I saw a better one earlier this week with Junebug, but throughout the whole film I felt like there really wasn’t much of an ending in sight. You wait to watch this girl try and adjust until she just can’t take the situation she’s in anymore and is ready to give up – that’s all there is to it. Never much of a story arc to be found here, it just moves along passed places where you think “if the film ends here, it would work” but continues on.
A bit of the directing was also strange for me. I guess some could look at the way a lot of these scenes were shot and framed and call it artistic, but I just found it downright annoying. At first, I expected maybe the projectionist was a bit off, but I stared realizing this was the style. Characters will be all over the frames, sometimes cut off to the right where you can only see the edge of their face, sometimes at the bottom, etc. I’m certain that they weren’t lazy and just bumped the camera into a bad position every other scene, but I would not call any of this artistic and was turned off by it.
I’ll be curious to see how this film does, and I’m sure it’ll get some critical acclaim by those that found it deep and meaningful. I certainly didn’t, and wish that Sundance took more of a risk with their top choice and rewarded something else. This is too much of a straight forward story to me that, no matter how it is told, I still wish I would have found something better.
Hustle & Flow (5 out of 5)
Dramatic Audience Award Winner
What a way to end the festival, with the movie that was the very best out of all I saw. Some consider the audience award that top winner, and they are most certainly right this year. For anyone to vote anything below a 4 on their ballots would have been a serious crime, Hustle and Flow hits all the right notes and should hit the country with a serious bang whenever they decide to release it.
Writer/Director Craig Brewer opens the movie up like a 70s blaxploitation film with a Memphis pimp, DJay (an amazing Terrence Howard) comparing all of man to a dog. His hooker, Nola (Taryn Manning) listens on like she’s heard it all before, and it’s not long before a car pulls up next to them and its time to do business. And just as a movie gets about a pimp gets started, an old friend named Key (Anthony Anderson) shows up and we shift gears completely. As DJay becomes inspired as he watches Key add a little mix to a choir meeting at a local church, he decides he wants to live up to his dreams and become a rapper. Soon enough, he has a white kid (Road Trip’s DJ Qualls) stopping over to help produce a demo in his whore house and they work hard to get a few songs laid out before hit rapper Skinny Black (Ludacris) comes back in town for the 4th of July.
When I read the summary in the Sundance catalog that doesn’t differ much from what I just wrote, I laughed out loud. Looking back on that last paragraph, I’m doing the same. And there are indeed some hilarious moments here, but this is also a very hard edged drama and a film about the passion of music. It’s one of those movies where you could be laughing at one moment and then seeing a heartbreaking scene the next. At times it seems like its moving in the direction of an early John Singelton picture (the films producer) before heading in its own route. Basically, you can read into any plot summary you want about this film but you will never experience what it really is until you see it firsthand.
What amazes me is the diversity of an audience at Sundance, from church going Mormons around Utah to people coming from foreign countries for this festival, can all see this same movie and let out a huge applause at the end and not want to budge until the credits are done rolling (and this is at a screening where no filmmakers attended). But when you see it, no matter what age, race, or gender you are, it’s hard to deny all the talent and passion put into this picture. Both Terrence Howard and Taryn Manning are fantastic here, but you all see a serious performance from Anthony Anderson that he handles very well and a brief performance from Ludacris that shows his talent well too. The cinematography was also awarded by the festival and it is easy to see why, there is some great work here that acts as homage to other films and quietly brings in a unique style of its own.
I could write on and on about how good this movie really is. There are so many scenes throughout this film that completely blew me away. But I’d rather just leave most of it open for any future viewers to see for themselves the type of movie this really is. It almost reminds me of Garden State in the sense that the way it works can only be seen to fully understand. Thankfully though, I really get the feeling that as the word gets out, this movie could be huge.
Once again, I question how they will release this film. Should they do it in a quiet Spring where it could cause a huge bang in theatres across the country as well as its singles playing on the radio? Or will they wait until Fall and give it a gradual release push to spread the word of mouth and give it some award consideration. To me, both could work – I just look forward to seeing it again the second it comes out.
So there you have it. From the festival – recommendations for Hustle & Flow, Rock School, Pretty Persuasion, and The Matador and I’d suggest avoiding Forty Shades of Blue and Ellie Parker. Hope you’re doing ok in the hospital and we all hope you’ll be out of there as soon as possible.
Best Wishes,
Castor
How wild that two films about Memphis did so well this year. It’s not something you could plan, but it’s great to see it work out that way. Thanks, Castor, and here’s hoping we get more great reviews from you next year.
"Moriarty" out.
