by George Wolf
Snowpiercer
Those pinhead libs in Hollywood are at it again! This time, they’ve got something called Snowpiercer, and are trying to distract us with simmering tension, a smart script and terrific action, but the hidden agenda is clearly just another unwarranted attack on our job creators!
Actually, the agenda is far from hidden, in fact, it might as well be a deadly-aimed snowball right to the face of John Galt.
And damn, it’s well done.
Adapted from a 1982 French graphic novel, Snowpiercer drops us in the year 2031, 17 years after a desperate attempt to curb global warming instead resulted in a new ice age. What’s left of humanity travels the globe on a high speed train, where a very specific social order is enforced. Can you guess?
Makers in the luxurious front, takers in the squalid back.
But there’s a revolution brewing, reluctantly led by the cunning, pensive Curtis (Chris Evans, solid again) and his eager, impulsive sideman Edgar (Jamie Bell). After another degrading “know your place” speech by Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton, gloriously over-the-top), the charge to take over the train begins.
In his English-language debut, South Korean director/co-writer Joon-ho Bong flexes some serious filmmaking muscle. Bong (The Host, Mother) takes full advantage of the claustrophobic setting, both as a metaphor for the ills of society and as a springboard for spectacularly realized action sequences.
His pacing is impeccable as well, ratcheting up the tension incrementally as the rebels advance one train car at a time.
Snowpiercer is a film that’s also very aware of the well-worn path it treads. The story, born in the days of Reaganomics, employs a very high-concept premise to illustrate it’s still-relevant themes. Bong suspends any disbelief with a mixture of B-movie earnestness and black comedy, as well as constant nods to today’s political climate (notice how Swinton enunciates “occupy”) and classic films of years past (from Soylent Green to The Shining).
It’s all completely captivating, and downright refreshing in the way Bong and his game cast (also featuring John Hurt, Octavia Spencer and South Korean film vet Kang-ho Song) respect both the material and their audience. Even the most fervent critics of the “Hollywood elite” may appreciate the questions raised about personal sacrifice and abuse of power.
By the time the Twilight Zone-style dominoes start falling near film’s end, you realize the most thrilling ride of the summer may not be at the amusement park after all.
Begin Again
Okay, let’s talk about Begin Again without mentioning that other movie that it will really remind you of…
Nope, can’t do it.
You’d be tempted to call it “Once for the multi-plex” even if you didn’t know both films come from the same writer/director, John Carney.
In 2006, Carney’s tender, heartfelt treatment made Once a wonderful tale of two musicians in Ireland telling their love story through song. It became an indie hit that won an Oscar and spawned a popular stage musical, but now it seems Carney wants to trade nuance for bigger box office while his new characters disavow musicians who do just that.
He moves the musical setting from the streets of Dublin to the boardrooms of New York, with Mark Ruffalo starring as Dan, a well-known record executive whose career has seen better days. He stumbles into a bar just in time to hear Greta (Keira Knightley) being coaxed onstage to sing an original song,
Dan instantly hears a hit, and wants to record her, but Greta is gun shy. She’s still hurting from her breakup with Dave (Adam Levine), who has left her behind and become a superstar with soulless pop versions of her songs.
Greta agrees to a demo CD but there’s no budget to speak of, so they decide on a musical tour of the city, recording live with a full band at various locations around NYC.
Begin Again is aggressively likable. It’s all about winning you over you with popular actors, constant positivity and pleasant-yet-forgettable songs that are recorded in one take. Knightley even handles her own vocals, and she does just fine.
Of course she does! That’s how fairy tales work!
Look, as feel good movies of the year go, you could do much worse than Begin Again. It’s often charming. But there’s no escaping the irony in the “homemade” nature of Greta’s demo. Carney used similar tactics for Once, and came out a big winner.
Now, like Greta’s ex, Carney has big money behind him, but too little soul in the finished product.
Tammy
Though I grudgingly admit there’s a Melissa McCarthy backlash out there, I’m having no part of it. She’s an often hilarious comic powerhouse who has been on a roll since her Oscar-nominated breakthrough in Bridesmaids.
Her latest, though, slows that roll considerably.
Tammy is McCarthy’s first project as a headliner, from a script she co-wrote with her husband Ben Falcone (who also directs). Deciding to make it a road movie may have been their first mistake.
In one very bad day, Tammy (McCarthy) manages to lose her job, her car and her husband. Her mother (Allison Janney) offers little more than tough love, but Tammy’s grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon) has cash, wheels, and a travelin’ jones.
Off they go.
You can imagine how road movies are tempting for comedy writers, but the gimmick too often amounts to taking the path of least resistance. Got a few ideas for some randomly absurd skits? Just connect them with a stretch of highway or some winding country roads, and you’ve got yourself a movie!
McCarthy is a better bet than most to pull it off, and she showed that last year, scoring solid laughs in Identity Thief. But, that film also gave her the benefit of a better script, a great straight man in Jason Bateman, and a much more solid premise.
Tammy offers precious little support on any front. Sarandon, playing well above her age, settles for overacting in place of comic timing, while only a whisp of exposition is offered before they hit the highway.
McCarthy, through sheer force of her onscreen presence, does manage to find a little funny, but the glimpses of how this character might have carried a film are never fully developed. McCarthy and Falcone may one day become a filmmaking power couple, but Tammy proves they still need a bit more seasoning.
Earth to Echo
Homey, middle class subdivisions. Kids on bikes. Spooky government types with flashlights and potentially evil aims. An adorable extra terrestrial who needs a friend. Lord, that sounds familiar.
E.T. gets a superficial but harmless reboot in Earth to Echo, the tale of three best buds spending their last night together before a neighborhood construction project sends their families in different directions. Rather than waste what little time they have left, they take off on a grand adventure that will test their bonds and see a couple of unpredicted additions to their group of pals.
What the film lacks in originality and depth, it sometimes makes up for with loose energy, naturalistic performances and good humor. Newcomer David Green collects a talented cast of mostly unseasoned youngsters to carry his tale. He curbs sentimentality nicely, and builds a giddy momentum appropriate for a “kids on a secret mission” storyline.
The screenplay by Henry Gayden offers some very humorous lines to a group who works to establish specific, believable characters. Reese Hartwig, in particular, gives the nerdy friend cliché a funny, nuanced turn, but the film boasts impressive performances all around.
Echo, though – the alien at the center of the kids’ adventure – never gets the chance to become a character at all, which seriously diminishes the overall impact of the drama and adventure. It’s one of many underdeveloped plotlines and characters, symptomatic of a storytelling style too slight to fit its content.
No one knows how to dig below the surface – not the director, the writer, or the young cast. As likeable as everything about the film is, it offers such a superficial treatment of the ideas it conveys that it rarely feels like a film. Instead, it presents a workmanlike restringing of dozens of reliable, familiar images and ideas from better films.
Worse still, it distances itself from an honest emotional impact. Yes, Spielberg was heavy-handed with sentimentality. But is there really a need for E.T.- lite?
For No Good Reason
Hunter S. Thompson advised Ralph Steadman not to be a writer, warning him it would only “bring shame on your family.”
Though Steadman wrote anyway, he gained fame through his frequent artistic collaborations with Thompson, providing the unique and provocative illustrations that meshed perfectly with Thompson’s unique and provocative writing.
Steadman gets his due in For No Good Reason, a satisfying documentary of a renowned artist still grappling with his own legacy.
Director Charlie Paul, in his first feature, employs an arresting visual style to complement the tale of how a man and his art evolved. Narrator/host Johnny Depp takes us into Steadman’s studio, where we see the process of crafting artwork which, Steadman says, can turn into “something quite savage…you would see the work, and think about it.”
Though there’s also some great archival footage of Steadman and Thompson in their glory days, the film sometimes has trouble remembering who the subject of the documentary really is (Depp’s frequent presence doesn’t help). When the focus stays on Steadman, he’s revealed to be a fascinating visionary in his own right, someone who Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner describes as “much more courageous” than Thompson himself.
Courageous enough even to ignore his friend’s advice and write, including a gardening column and a book on Da Vinci written in the first person.
Best of all, this is a film that serves as a wonderful showcase for the art itself, and that’s more than enough reason for For No Good Reason.
Get more of my movie reviews at MaddWolf.com!