Rourke and Eastwood still have it.

I suppose it’s unfair to declare The Wrestler and Gran Torino as simply nostalgia trips starring leading men who are, by Hollywood’s standards, over-the-hill. But the element still exists and one cannot ignore it even when they do more than just reach for the old days. Still, I wanted to kill two reviews with one stone, so the connection will have to do.

The Wrestler is billed as a Darren Aronofsky film but really it’s a Mickey Rourke film. Aronofsky’s contribution to Robert Siegel’s screenplay is to pick up a camera, keep it in his or whoever’s hands throughout the shoot, and stay the hell out of Rourke’s way. Anyone considering acting as a profession owes it to themselves to see this picture for Rourke’s performance. It is one thing to play a fictional character; it is another to play yourself; even if he is credited as “Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson.” Would you be willing to go this far into the depths of your soul to give the performance of your career? Credit is also due for Marisa Tomei who is second chair to Rourke’s solo but is no less fearless and compelling as an aging stripper.

Aside from the performances, it’s the story that is most noteworthy. The trailer indicates a generic tale of redemption in the vein of Rocky but the reality of the film is far more bleak. I was initially underwhelmed by Randy’s attempts to reconcile with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), but when that particular thread was wrapped up, I was stunned by how bold Siegel was to end it the way he did. Likewise Randy’s final match which does exactly how you least expect it. Does he win? Does he lose? Just you wait.

I was a little disappointed by the fact that his direction here is little besides hand-held documentary-style filmmaking. Obviously something as erratic as Pi and Requiem for a Dream would be inappropriate for this particular story but I wish he could’ve defined Randy’s world a little clearer. Once again, he employs Clint Mansell to deliver a haunting score which helps shapen the film to an extent, but I still would’ve liked a little more. Aronofsky is supposed to be the director, after all. As I’ve said many times, it’s not enough to just photograph great acting.

Gran Torino proves that you can use the language of film to its fullest potential without losing the story in the style. Now, it must be said that I was initially skeptical of this film after seeing one of the worst trailers I’ve ever encountered, selling Clint Eastwood’s latest opus like one of Sylvester Stallone’s recent nostalgia trips, something Eastwood swore he would never do. But one must always have an open mind about a picture no matter how much the trailer sucks (I will even give The Boat That Rocked a chance when it is released over here.)

The picture is considerably quieter than its ads. The camera moves through the suburban landscape gently and its images are all pleasant enough to exist in generic housekeeping magazines. This is the perfect environment to place Walt Kowalski, Eastwood’s aging anti-hero with rage, racism and plenty of tobacco coursing through his veins. He dislikes the direction his America has taken and the mixing of minorities is only part of the problem, as shown by the utter indifference his grandchildren have towards him and his widow, their grandmother. Therefore, when the Lor family move into the house next door at the start of the picture, the stage is instantly set for the ice in this old codger’s heart to be melted.

As far as the racial element is concerned, this is the picture Crash wanted to be. Thank God Eastwood is also the director since he doesn’t have a maudlin or patronizing bone in his body. Sue and Tao (Ahney Her and Bee Vang), the two kids with whom Kowalski bonds, aren’t just a couple of Asian kids used as foils for the main character. They are every bit as complicated as Kowalski, and in Sue’s case, every bit as intelligent and outspoken. When she inevitably becomes a plot point for the loathsome gang to grow even more loathsome, the development is all the more tragic for that very reason. She is a human being.

As the story developed, the fear that the third act would turn into a gun-toting nostalgia trip for Eastwood started to set in, but Nick Schenk’s screenplay kept surprising me. Some of his dialogue is too expository, and Kowalski’s overly insensitive family needed a little work, but the story and structure are just right. Not an ounce of fat to be seen. In the same way that Unforgiven eulogized the western, Gran Torino eulogizes the good old days when conflicts were simpler and tough guys like Eastwood could settle an issue with just one fight (Using the eponymous title as an appropriate metaphor.) But it also lays to rest the more appalling traditions of the old days like the unquestioned racism implicit in guys like Kowalski, and seems to call into question the need for the simple heroes described above. Unforgiven had to end with a showdown; that was the point. Gran Torino’s ends exactly as it had to despite what the men in suits obviously wanted judging from the posters and trailers.

Eastwood hasn’t lost it. He can still tell a good story but he can also act the hell out of the rest of us. His pervasive growl, akin to Christian Bale’s Batman voice, doesn’t take long to get used to, and when he does let the rage sink in, the histrionics I expected were missing. It is a performance more understated and touching than is given credit for.

Having said that, as you will discover when the credits roll, he cannot sing a note. Please don’t let him do it again. Maybe he can get Springsteen to close out his next film. It worked for the other guy.

The curious case of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

As I stepped out of the cinema where I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I was in a daze. For the nearly three hour running time, I had been transported into David Fincher’s imagination, one that is cinematic in the best senses of the word. It isn’t real life; It is better than real life. Every image you see, every sound you hear, every character you encounter is like a diamond: Not without its flaws but bewitching nonetheless.

An hour later, the feeling was gone…

And therein lies my problem with the picture. Something as visually and aurally impressive as Benjamin Button should still be affecting the way I look at the world these 16 hours later and yet I struggle to even remember what it was about the film that made me feel this way in the first place. All that flashes to mind are the several set-pieces; all dazzling and all moving enough to make me constantly teary-eyed but for all its cinematic jewels, Benjamin Button is lacking in the one department it desperately needs: A heart.

Fincher’s style has worked in the past because he has always dealt more in ideas than feelings. Se7en uses its genre as a sociological discussion on the nature of the serial killer; Fight Club is nothing if not a two hour manifesto reaching out to anyone disenchanted with modern-day materialism; Zodiac takes the form of the puzzles that its main character is obsessed with. Not only does Benjamin Button fall short of the sort of idea that made the above films so interesting, but as far as warmth and emotions go, the best Fincher can conjure up is whimsy. And that’s never good for a love story.

Part of the problem is that the first half of the film deals very little in the love story. Instead, after Benjamin grows up and takes in the usual clichéd life lessons and then goes off on a couple of enjoyable but ultimately fruitless adventures. Whether it’s the bawdy tugboat captain or the jaded English housewife, nobody in Benjamin’s life seems to have any lasting effect on him whatsoever. Except, of course, for the love of his life. While I was watching the film, I found the build-up to consummation the most moving of its passages, but part of the problem in retrospect is that because the concept is so outlandish, I find it difficult to recreate the same feelings I had for their relationship in my memory.

Luckily, Pitt and Blanchett are capable of what Fincher seemingly is not: Making you care about these people. Blanchett is at her best here, perhaps because this is one of her least flashy performances (Except when she plays the character as an old lady on her deathbed.) Pitt is understated from the beginning, and his performance is downright heartbreaking. I’ve always defended Pitt’s acting abilities, and this point, I’m convinced that the only reason for disagreement is that everyone else would rather worry about his love life. But the work speaks for itself, and in the same way that one watches a Richard Burton performance without giving a damn about Elizabeth Taylor, people will look back at Brad Pitt as an actor first, and tabloid fodder second. The supporting players help carry the film quite nicely, from Tilda Swinton to Taraji P. Henson to Jason Flemyng to Julia Ormond.

And that’s my biggest regret with this film. Everyone is doing stellar work and yet none of it adds up to a hill of beans. I can’t think of a recent film I’ve wanted to embrace more than Benjamin Button so believe me when I say I take no pleasure in writing this pan. While so many directors have done nothing more than switch on their cameras and follow their actors around, Fincher is one of the few who tried to create an entire world through the linguistic elements of the cinema, and you know what? He succeeded. It’s a pity because I just don’t care.

Guerrilla filmmaking on a Bolex.

“We’ll do it live, fuck it!!”– Bill O’Reilly

It’s difficult for me to judge how well I pulled this film together except that I did the best I could. I was unable to find the location I had been promised, I couldn’t find a similar substitute, and when I went back to my old house in the middle of the woods to shoot the story there, I discovered it had been torn down. In the end, I had to jettison all the pre-production work and start a new story from scratch. Worst of all, I suddenly found out that I only had my actor for a couple hours as opposed to the entire day, so therefore every decision I made was on the fly. If filmmaking most involves crisis management then I wasn’t just the manager: I was the CEO.

My favorite saying about filmmaking comes from the screenwriter Bruce Robinson: “If you haven’t got luck, you’re f***ed.” I’ve decided to ironically call the film Lucky Day as a tribute to this quote. Did my 27 have luck? The film will speak for itself. That said, I couldn’t count the number of times I cringed while putting together my last film – Top Model — together. That picture did not have luck. This one might. Most of the footage came out quite well, and while the final product isn’t nearly as interesting as my original script, the result is at the very least, watchable. Maybe that’s a stroke of luck in and of itself.

Hope you enjoy it.

Harold Pinter has died.

I can’t ever be totally downbeat when somebody dies, especially when they have accomplished as much as Pinter had in his 78 years on Earth. I was just getting into his work this year and he was as brilliant, intelligent and hilarious as any writer who ever lived. I strive to write dialogue as phenomenal as his.

He is at a better place now: Nothingness. The best place there is. While we wait to encounter nothingness, let us reflect on the work he left behind:

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Christmas Gift.

Time to go to the fridge and serve myself a slice of humble pie. This is what I wrote about JCVD when I first heard about it:

This trailer does look pretty cool but why him? Hell, even if I was impressed by the most lackluster action hero who ever lived, when was the last time he had a hit? Surely someone like The Rock or Jason Statham would be a better fit. Or if they wanted to play the “washed-up movie star” card, somebody of his generation with a bit more substance?

I am in shock over the fact that I wrote those words. Yes, Van Damme’s action movies are awful. Yes, I’ve never thought of him as an actor in the past. But all that changed this morning when I sat down to watch JCVD for myself. This is a film that a small group of people have been championing while the rest of us have been too arrogant and dismissive to accept the idea that Van Damme could have anything positive to contribute to world cinema.

The film begins with Van Damme filming a one-take action sequence involving the usual explosions and gratuitous killings. After the shot is done, he complains to the ambivalent director that it’s too difficult for him to shoot the scene in one take (He isn’t young anymore after all.) This wonderful opening is done entirely in — you guessed it — one take. It is a lovely moment, and one that is more cinematic than any Van Damme film before, but best of all: There’s plenty more where that came from. We’ve never seen the actor in a world so artful as this one. Director Mabrouk El Mechri’s vision is self-conscious but never overcomes the action (Wes Anderson should take note.) Cinema is a visceral art form; Everything the viewer sees and hears should try to overwhelm no matter how “real” your story is. It’s what separates film from theatre.

Moreover, when examining these kinds of one-man shows, it is important to ask yourself if you are in awe of the performance or of the film itself. For example, obviously There Will Be Blood would not work without Daniel Day-Lewis, but it’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s vision that makes the picture so special. On the other side of the token, a film like Patton would be utterly forgettable were it not for George C. Scott’s tour-de-force performance. For my money, most of the prestige films of this season fall into the latter category. Milk is okay but isn’t particularly cinematic; It needs its strong cast to work. The Dark Knight is only special because of Heath Ledger’s performance. I have yet to see The Wrestler but I will be shocked if Aronofsky’s direction does anything more than photograph the acting which again will carry the movie on its own.

Rourke’s warts-and-all performance has everybody talking, and while I have no doubts that he deserves the attention, it’s a shame that Van Damme is being virtually ignored by the pre-Oscar awards madness. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be right up there with Rourke or Penn or Pitt or Jenkins. In one stunning moment, Van Damme is sitting with his fellow hostages in the post-office that has been sieged by a gang of thugs. Suddenly, everything stops and the stagelights are brought down right behind the actor, and he proceeds to deliver a piece of acting as raw and honest as anything since Brando’s tear-filled eulogy to his dead wife in Last Tango in Paris. And again, it’s not a piece of theatre as these films tend to be, it’s a piece of cinema. This moment calls into question the reality of the entire picture: We are aware that we are watching a film but just how honest is Van Damme’s depiction of himself? Is he acting or is this really who he is? This mind game is more characteristic of Peter Greenaway than Jean-Claude Van Damme. What the hell is going on here?

Viewers will be reminded of Dog Day Afternoon and I’m sure the link is deliberate. Although nothing ever clearly indicates to the masses that Van Damme is holding up the post-office, they instantly eat it up. It reminded me of when Wesley Snipes was wanted for tax evasion; my English professor at the time took his actions as a call to arms, like he was leading some sort of revolution against bureaucracy and the IRS. Whether we like it or not, movie stars aren’t ordinary people. Otherwise they wouldn’t be movie stars. And whose fault is that, really?

I honestly haven’t been more moved by any film this year. With the exception of In Bruges, all the supposedly great pictures of 2008 have had something missing that has held them back as works of art. But not JCVD. It’s the kind of film I dream about but rarely encounter. It is truly a wonderful Christmas gift. See it.

Why the garden variety James Bond fan is an idiot.

Let me preface this by saying that I didn’t like Quantum of Solace very much. In a nutshell, I thought it was the best Jason Statham movie ever made, but it didn’t quite hold together as a James Bond film. I don’t think the series is suddenly perfect just because it has taken a more serious direction and has a brilliant actor in the title role. Even Casino Royale — the best 007 outing since The Spy Who Loved Me — was not without its flaws.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I was always under the impression that poor storytelling, production values, performances etc. were some of the things that made a given movie “bad.” While most films are criticized according to said criteria, James Bond has a different set of rules (Taken from Empire Magazine\’s forum.):

Gunbarrel Opening

Pre-title sequence resulting in a miraculous (gadget aided) escape

A brassy theme song

Sexy Main Titles

Moneypenny banter

M briefing (What do you know about… – Bond gives encylopaedic knowledge)

Q-branch “Pay attention 007″

Glamourous locations

Bond helped by a foe (Zhukovsky in both GE & TWINE)

a Casino scene

Walther PPK

Bond in a black tuxedo

“The name’s Bond… James Bond”

Bond perhaps wearing his Commander naval uniform

“Vodka martini. Shaken not stirred”

Supervillain

Henchmen

Bond beating the Supervillain at some game (fencing, horseriding, poker etc)

Felix Leitter or another CIA helper

Despicable Plot to blow up the world

Bond Girl who dies (the sacrificial lamb)

Bond Girl who is 007’s equal

Sharks or piranah

Supervillain disposes of a minion in a gruesome manner for betraying him

Car chase with a twist

a Train fight

Bond doing something Bondesque with something hopeless (like driving a 2CV and outwitting the bad guys)

Bond being captured and left for dead but escaping

Bond quips

A few Bond innuendos

For the climactic fight, Bond is dressed all in black like in Connery’s days

Bond v Supervillain

a Countdown clock that stops in time (or even at 007)

Blowing up the Supervillain’s lair

Bond v Henchman after destruction of lair

Bond and Bond Girl being discovered by the authorities only to escape again!

Final Bond quip (“Keeping the British end up”)

In other words, I could sit down and bang out the stupidest piece of shit in the history of screenwriting — The kind of dreck that would give Robert McKee a stroke. — but as long as I utilized every single one of those clichés, I would have a satisfying Bond film on my hands. Hmm… Remember the episode of Extras where Ricky Gervais was accosted by one of his fans in a pub? “I love everything about it,” he raved like a lunatic. “The wig, the catchphrase, the glasses…brilliant! The wig, the catchphrase, the glasses…brilliant!”

Fuck that.

Whatever happened to telling a good story? We’re talking about Film 101 here. Clichés are fun, and maybe Quantum of Solace could have used a sprinkling here and there, but they should never define the quality of the film. Ever. I don’t care if it’s a James Bond film or a Martin Scorsese film.

I blame the Pierce Brosnan era. It’s not his fault — He had the four worst scripts of the series to work with. — but literally all they had going for them were the clichés. That’s it. But somehow nobody had the guts to stand up and object until Die Another Day — “The crowning turd in the water pipe,” as Blackadder’s General Melchett would say. — was released. Now all I hear is nostalgia for the good old days when mediocre filmmaking took a back seat to formulaic bullshit.

Imagine if the internet had been around in 1973 when Live and Let Die came out. Everyone would be engaged in a whiny circle jerk about the fact that Roger Moore’s hair color is wrong. Roger Moore isn’t well built enough. Roger Moore doesn’t order a martini. Roger Moore doesn’t talk to Q. The Bond Girl is a virgin. Paul McCartney is too rock-and-roll for Bond. Oh man, Bond is copying blaxploitation movies! Ick! And this is the quintessential “fun Bond” we’re talking about.

I wonder if Batman fans were this anal when Christopher Nolan came along. Something tells me most of them woke up and smelled the coffee after Joel Schumacher. Too bad most Bond fans aren’t that erudite. It’s shocking, I tell you. Positively shocking.

My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.

Gus Van Sant is peculiar to me. On the one hand, you have polarizing arthouse pictures like Elephant and Last Days, but on the other hand you have these rather bland and conventional melodramas like Good Will Hunting and now Milk. None of these films are bad in any way — Well, Last Days is shit. — but I’m waiting for the day when Van Sant moves away from these extremes and makes a film that combines the best elements of these styles.

Milk works primarily because the story of its subject is as uplifting and inspiring as any story ever told. You would have to be an outright hack to screw it up. For the most part, Van Sant takes the safest route available by simply turning the camera on, pointing it at his actors, and stays the hell away. I say “for the most part” because he does lapse into sentimentality from time to time which changes the film from an ordinary biopic to an annoying one. Milk’s assassination switches into slow-motion halfway through, and Van Sant can’t resist flashing back to a moment of foreshadowing in the first 10 minutes. I could ignore these flaws more easily were it not for Danny Elfman’s shameless score, which as Jim Jarmusch would say, tells the audience exactly how to feel at every given moment. The story is powerful enough without the incessant spoon-feeding. It is patronizing and does nothing but take me out of the story.

If there is any reason to spend a ticket on Milk, it’s the career-best performances by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin. Penn has a severe case of what I call the Rod Steiger Syndrome. In his 50 years of overacting, Steiger delivered a small handful of  adequate performances (On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night, and Duck You Sucker leap to mind.), but if you have only seen the highlights, you won’t realize just how bad he was until you see him at his absolute worst, like his laugh-a-minute performance in The Amityville Horror, and then the flaws start to show in his best work. While Penn is leagues better than Steiger, it’s after seeing him in dreck like The Game that made me discover just how hammy and self-indulgent he can be in films like Mystic River and Dead Man Walking.

But Harvey Milk was not self-indulgent. Hammy, maybe. Therefore Penn for once is light-hearted and rather endearing. I haven’t enjoyed watching him work this much since Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown. I actually cared about this character in a way that I don’t normally care about his torture victims. In short: This is his best performance to date.

Meanwhile, Josh Brolin is becoming one of my favorite actors. Like Philip Seymour Hoffman, he has the uncanny ability to transform into his characters without extreme physical changes (No disrespect to Day-Lewis or De Niro.) He does this by using his characters as an extension of himself. This makes for truly honest acting, and I can’t find a single recognizble trace between Llewelyn Moss, George W. Bush and Dan White.

Dan White’s portrayal is perhaps the highlight of the film, and one must commend writer Dustin Lance Black for not writing the man off as a homophobic psycho killer. Milk himself has compassion for White, and despite his heinous actions, so do I. This wouldn’t be possible were it not for Brolin’s portrayal and Black’s writing. Lesser talents would have turned this fascinating character into a cardboard cut-out (Although the same cannot be said for Mayor Moscone whose actions and assassination by White are a mere footnote in Milk’s story. Once again.)

I still can’t work out why Milk is being so heavily praised but I’d hate to be cynical and blame it all on Proposition 8. I read somewhere that the film was a “great example of cinema verite.” Nonsense. Bicycle Thieves is cinema verite. Milk is an Oscar-bait biopic. But a decent one.

We need more women like Kate Bush.

Beautiful, talented, intelligent, and best of all: Mad.

This is probably my favorite song of hers. With all the generic garbage polluting the airwaves today, it’s always nice to discover a pop star who used the medium to express herself fully without dumbing herself down for the sake of sales. No artist like Kate could break through today. Never.

It is party her fault that I have always been so lacking in the relationships department. I don’t believe in the philosophy of lowering one’s standards for the sake of sex, and as you can imagine, it’s damned difficult meeting women when your standard is Kate bloody Bush.

Richard Curtis’ new film looks lame.

Couldn’t think up a better title. Plus this new trailer doesn’t deserve much:

The traces of the man who once wrote for Not the Nine O’Clock News and co-created Blackadder are becoming thinner and thinner each year. I confess that Love Actually is a guilty pleasure of mine but why is it that everything he attaches his name to is so…bland?

This trailer has plenty of zaniness but is noticably short on humor, and if there’s one thing I’m getting sick of, it’s a humorist who mistakes cuteness for jokes (Mike Meyers, anyone?) We’ve got loads of dancing, loads of shrieking fangirls, a prat fall, an idiot in nothing but his underwear, and not one but two clips of what is clearly the funniest scene in the movie, Nick Frost in bed with Gemma Arterton. Get it? You see, it’s funny because he’s fat.

Now perhaps I am being unfair; you can never fully judge a film based on its trailer. Still my favorite film of the year, In Bruges, was destroyed by its vacuous trailer (Thank God people are finally discovering it on DVD.) But even that trailer looked more promising than this. I mean, how hard is it to advertise a good comedy? Just throw in some of the funnier moments without giving away the sweetest bits. Easy. So either this is one of the weakest trailers ever made or Richard Curtis has completely run out of ideas.

I think it’s time he gave Ben Elton a call and revived Blackadder for one more go. On second thought, leave it. We’ll probably get a repeat of that dreadful TV movie.

The last wave.

Sam Bottoms — or Lance from Apocalypse Now as I know him — has died. Rest in peace, and if there is an afterlife, I hope the waves are strong.

Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t have any of his scenes in the second half so we have to settle for Kilgore as the centerpiece.