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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Shia LaBeouf

Monthly Roundup – June 2018

01 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Adam West, Animation, Austin Stowell, Ayla Kell, Batman vs. Two-Face, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Biography, Borg McEnroe, Bruce Greenwood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Burt Ward, Charles Barton, Chris Pratt, Crime, Dave Davis, Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A., Dominic Cooper, Don E. FauntLeRoy, Drama, Elliott Maguire, Francine Everett, Francis Lawrence, Gail Patrick, Guy Pearce, Horror, J.A. Bayona, Jack the Ripper, Janus Metz, Jennifer Carpenter, Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Literary adaptation, Murder, Mystery, Nicola Holt, Pierce Brosnan, Randolph Scott, Red Sparrow, Rick Morales, Sam Liu, Shia LaBeouf, Simon Kaijser, Simon West, Snakehead Swamp, Spencer Williams, Spinning Man, Stratton, Sverrir Gudnason, SyFy, The Ferryman, Thriller, True story, Wagon Wheels, Western, William Shatner

Borg McEnroe (2017) / D: Janus Metz / 107m

Cast: Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgård, Tuva Novotny, Leo Borg, Marcus Mossberg, Jackson Gann, Scott Arthur

Rating: 7/10 – the rivalry between tennis players Björn Borg (Gudnason) and John McEnroe (LaBeouf) is explored during the run up to the 1980 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, and the tournament itself; with a script that delves into both players’ formative years (and if you think Borg is a terrific choice for the young Swede then it’s no surprise: Bjōrn is his dad), Borg McEnroe is an absorbing yet diffident look at what drove both men to be as good as they were, and features fine work from Gudnason and LaBeouf, though at times it’s all a little too dry and respectful.

The Ferryman (2018) / D: Elliott Maguire / 76m

Cast: Nicola Holt, Garth Maunders, Shobi Rae Mclean, Pamela Ashton, Philip Scott-Shurety

Rating: 4/10 – following a suicide attempt, a young woman, Mara (Holt), finds herself experiencing strange phenomena and being pursued by a mysterious hooded figure; an ultra-low budget British horror, The Ferryman is let down by terrible performances, cringeworthy dialogue, and a patently obvious storyline, and yet it’s saved from complete disaster by a strong visual style that’s supported by a disconcerting soundtrack, an approach that first-timer Maguire exploits as often as possible.

Red Sparrow (2018) / D: Francis Lawrence / 140m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Ciarán Hinds, Joely Richardson, Bill Camp, Jeremy Irons, Thekla Reuten, Douglas Hodge

Rating: 6/10 – Ex-ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) is recruited to a secret Russian organisation that trains her to use her body as a weapon, and which then uses her to expose a double agent working in the heart of the Soviet system; a movie made up of so many twists and turns it becomes tiring to keep track of them all, Red Sparrow is an unlikely project to be released in the current gender/political climate, seeking as it does to objectify and fetishise its star as often as possible, but it tells a decent enough story while not exactly providing viewers with anything new or memorable.

Spinning Man (2018) / D: Simon Kaijser / 100m

Cast: Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan, Minnie Driver, Alexandra Shipp, Odeya Rush, Jamie Kennedy, Clark Gregg

Rating: 4/10 – when a teenage student (Rush) goes missing, suspicion falls on the professor (Pearce) who may or may not have been having a relationship with her; with arguably the most annoying character of 2018 propping up the narrative (Pearce’s commitment to the role doesn’t help), Spinning Man is a dreary mystery thriller that has its chief suspect behave as guiltily as possible and as often as he can, while putting him in as many unlikely situations as the script can come up with, all of which makes for a dismally executed movie that can’t even rustle up a decent denouement.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) / D: J.A. Bayona / 128m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabella Sermon

Rating: 7/10 – with the volcano on Isla Nublar about to erupt, a rescue mission is launched to save as many of the dinosaurs as possible, but it’s a rescue mission with an ulterior motive; clearly the movie designed to move the series forward – just how many times can Jurassic Park be reworked before everyone gets fed up with it all? – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom concentrates on the horror elements that have always been a part of the franchise’s raison d’être, and does so in a way that broadens the scope of the series, and allows Bayona to provide an inventive twist on the old dark house scenario.

Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) / D: Spencer Williams / 61m

Cast: Francine Everett, Don Wilson, Katherine Moore, Alfred Hawkins, David Boykin, L.E. Lewis, Inez Newell, Piano Frank, John King

Rating: 7/10 – making an appearance at a club on a Caribbean island resort, dancer Gertie La Rue’s free-spirited behaviour causes all sorts of problems, for her and for the men she meets; an all-black production that takes W. Somerset Maugham’s tale Miss Thompson and puts its own passionate spin on it, Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. overcomes its limited production values thanks to its faux-theatrical mise-en-scene, Williams’ confidence as a director, a vivid performance from Everett that emphasises Gertie’s irresponsible nature, and by virtue of the relaxed attitude it takes to the themes of race and sexuality.

Wagon Wheels (1934) / D: Charles Barton / 59m

Cast: Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, Billy Lee, Monte Blue, Raymond Hatton, Jan Duggan, Leila Bennett, Olin Howland

Rating: 5/10 – a wagon train heading for Oregon encounters trials and hardships along the way, including Indian attacks that are being organised by someone who’s a part of the group; a middling Western that finds too much room for songs round the campfire, Wagon Wheels takes a while to get going, but once it does, it has pace and a certain amount of B-movie charm thanks to Scott’s square-jawed performance, and Barton’s experienced direction, benefits that help offset the clunky storyline and one-note characters.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018) / D: Sam Liu / 77m

Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Carpenter, Scott Patterson, Kari Wuhrer, Anthony Head, Yuri Lowenthal, William Salyers, Grey Griffin

Rating: 6/10 – in an alternate, Victorian-era Gotham City, the Batman (Greenwood) has only recently begun his efforts at stopping crime, efforts that see him cross paths with the notorious Jack the Ripper; though kudos is due to Warner Bros. for trying something different, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight doesn’t always feel as if it’s been thoroughly thought out, with too much time given over to the mystery of Jack’s real identity, and a sub-plot involving Selena Kyle (Carpenter) that seems designed to pad out a storyline that doesn’t have enough substance for a full-length feature.

Batman vs. Two-Face (2017) / D: Rick Morales / 72m

Cast: Adam West, Burt Ward, William Shatner, Julie Newmar, Steven Weber, Jim Ward, Lee Meriwether

Rating: 6/10 – when a laboratory accident turns Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent (Shatner) into arch-villain Two-Face, Batman (West) and Robin (Ward) soon end his criminal activities, only to find themselves battling all their old adversaries – but who is manipulating them?; what probably seemed like a good idea at the time – have West and Ward (and Newmar) reprise their television roles – Batman vs. Two-Face is let down by a tired script that does its best to revisit past TV glories but without replicating the sheer ebullience the 60’s series enjoyed, making this very much a missed opportunity.

Stratton (2017) / D: Simon West / 94m

Cast: Dominic Cooper, Austin Stowell, Gemma Chan, Connie Nielsen, Thomas Kretschmann, Tom Felton, Derek Jacobi, Igal Naor

Rating: 4/10 – a Special Boat Service commando, John Stratton (Cooper), teams up with an American military operative (Stowell) to track down an international terrorist cell that is targeting a major Western target – but which one?; the kind of action movie that wants to be packed with impressive action sequences, and thrilling moments, Stratton is let down by a tepid script, restrictive production values, poor performances, and despite West’s best efforts, action scenes that only inspire yawns, not appreciation.

SnakeHead Swamp (2014) / D: Don E. FauntLeRoy / 86m

Cast: Ayla Kell, Dave Davis, Terri Garber, Antonio Fargas

Rating: 3/10 – a truck full of genetically mutated snakehead fish crashes, releasing its cargo into the Louisiana swamp land, where they soon start making their way to the top of the food chain; another lousy SyFy movie that mixes mutant creatures, endangered teens, a muddled voodoo subplot, and sub-par special effects to less than astounding results, SnakeHead Swamp might best be described as a “no-brainer”, in that it doesn’t try very hard, FauntLeRoy’s direction is rarely noticeable, and the cast – even Fargas – don’t come anywhere near making their characters credible or realistic, all of which is down to a script that should have been rejected at the title stage.

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Fury (2014)

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Brad Pitt, David Ayer, Drama, Germany, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Review, Shia LaBeouf, Tanks, US Army, World War II

Fury

D: David Ayer / 134m

Cast: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg

April 1945, Germany.  A battered, disabled tank lies amidst the carnage of a recently fought battle.  Its men – Collier (Pitt), Swan (LaBeouf), Garcia (Peña), and Travis (Bernthal) – are battle-hardened and weary but they have an unshakeable bond.  Under Collier’s tough, uncompromising leadership they’ve survived countless skirmishes, encounters and battles.  Now, with the war nearing its end, they are all looking forward to peacetime.

Travis gets their tank – named Fury – moving again and they head back to base.  There, much to Collier’s disgust, they are assigned a new driver/gunner, Ellison (Lerman); Collier is disgusted because Ellison is too young, he’s only been in the Army for eight weeks and he knows nothing about tanks.  Introduced to the rest of the crew, Ellison is treated with disdain and told to take a bucket of hot water and clean out the inside of the tank.  When he does, he finds the partial remains of the previous driver/gunner.  Meanwhile, Collier and three other tank commanders are given a mission to meet up with Baker Company and from there take over a small town.

On the way to the rendezvous, Ellison’s inexperience causes the death of several men including the lieutenant (Samuel) who was leading them.  Now led by Collier, the convoy carries on and they meet up with Baker Company and their commanding officer, Captain Waggoner (Isaacs).  Before seizing the town, Waggoner needs the tanks to flush out a German unit that has several dozen US troops pinned down in a field.  Fury and the other tanks get the job done, but Ellison’s inexperience nearly causes more casualties.  When the fight is over, Collier tries to make Ellison kill a captured German soldier, putting a gun in his hand and telling him to “do his job”, which is to kill Nazis.  Ellison refuses but Collier puts his hand over the young man’s hand and pulls the trigger.  Ellison is horrified by it all but it proves to be a turning point, and when the nearby town is taken he is less nervous and is able to despatch the Germans without feeling too sick or nervous.

With the town taken, Collier and Ellison investigate a building where they’ve seen a woman peering from a window.  They find the woman, Irma (Marinca) and her niece Emma (Rittberg).  While Collier washes up, Ellison takes Emma into the bedroom and clearly attracted to each other, they make love.  Later, while the four are about to have a meal, the rest of Fury’s crew barge in and spoil things, before orders are received to report to Captain Waggoner.  He tells Collier and the other tank commanders that there is a nearby crossroads that needs holding because of a large German troop movement that’s heading in that direction.  But on their way there, the tanks find themselves under attack crossing a large field, and very soon the whole mission is in danger of failing.

Fury - scene

After the less than impressive Sabotage (2014), writer/director Ayer returns with a movie that paints a portrait of extreme heroism under one of the most difficult of environments, and with a keen eye for detail that grounds both the action and the characters.  It’s a challenging piece of moviemaking and provides a reminder of just how awful tank warfare could be.

And yet, Fury is a curious mix of the heroic and the mundane.  Ayer’s script paints each man as a distinct individual – Collier as noted above, Swan as religiously minded, Garcia as more carnally oriented, Travis as a bigoted animal, Ellison as a callow liability (at first) – but it doesn’t take the time to explore or delve into those characters any further than those broad brush strokes allow.  Collier speaks fluent German but the reason for this is never revealed, leaving the audience wondering if it’s part of a back story that was excised from the final script, or if it’s just a case of Screenwriting Expediency 101, a way to keep the crew ahead of the Germans without them having to work too hard to get there.  Ellison is the only character who gets a story arc, and while his initial shock is well presented, though predictable given his introduction, when he does take to killing Nazis, all of a sudden he’s enjoying it.  The change in attitude is too quick, and is an example of Ayer’s script downplaying motivation in favour of the next big action sequence.

The extended sequence in the apartment of Irma and Emma is another case in point where Ayer seems to be scratching the surface of an issue, highlighting the essential need, even in wartime, for people to hold on to their innate humanity.  Collier and Ellison treat both women with the utmost respect but when the rest of the crew bundles in creating tension around the table and being hostile and objectionable, the tone shifts uncomfortably and Travis in particular is allowed to behave as if social manners were alien to him (he later apologises to Ellison but it’s not in the least convincing – if it were to happen in real life it would appear forced and contrived).  The whole sequence becomes uneven and any message that Ayer was aiming for becomes lost in the telling.  He then adds a layer of tragedy that speaks of the callous nature of war but which, for the viewer, will only come across as an unnecessary twist in the tale.

With so many apparent flaws in the screenplay, and with its shifting tone proving hard to pin down, Fury presents a problem for the viewer in that it’s a movie that attempts to take a snapshot of one part of what happened in World War II and to make it resonate beyond that snapshot.  This is almost a timepiece, a movie where the overall picture is lost in the mist and shadow that permeates the fields and roads that the tanks travel through.  It’s not a bad approach as such, but without that wider focus, Fury limits itself to being solely about the men inside a tank, and with no real effort to expand on their characters, it becomes a snapshot with no context.

Screenplay issues notwithstanding, the movie is on firmer ground with its action scenes, making the tank skirmishes urgent and vital, and deftly playing up the cramped conditions under which the crew operate, making a virtue of the economy of movement needed to load and fire the shells (try and count how many times we see Swan’s foot press down on the firing pedal).  These scenes are impressively shot and edited together by Roman Vasyanov, and Jay Cassidy and Dody Dorn respectively, and offer a few heart-stopping moments along the way.  But Ayer then settles for a final showdown between Fury and the advancing German troops that lifts action beats from every direct-to-video war movie you’ve ever seen, and which sacrifices credibility for the kind of careless heroics that undermines (and overturns) everything that’s gone before.

Fury - scene2

On the whole, Fury isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s sadly a movie that never quite realises its full potential.  It does feature some very good performances however, and these raise up the movie when it most needs it.  Pitt is as intense and commanding as ever, dominating every scene he’s in and making it difficult for the audience to concentrate on anyone else.  But matching him – thankfully – is Lerman, putting in a career best performance that quickly obliterates any embarrassing memories of him in the Percy Jackson movies or The Three Musketeers (2011).  As Ellison grows up on screen so too does Lerman, showing a range and a conviction that’s eluded him up until now.  It’s a pleasure to watch him match the likes of Pitt and his co-stars, all actors who, on their day, can impress beyond all expectations.  (Well, maybe not LaBeouf, but here he’s tolerable and seems required to stare fixedly at Pitt for most of the movie, but good luck with working out what emotion he’s meant to be feeling.)

Ayer is a talented individual, and he’s written some great scripts over the last fifteen years; he’s also making a name for himself as a director as well, but to date End of Watch (2012) remains his most fully realised project.  Fury will definitely attract audiences initially but there’s a sense that, ironically, it won’t have “legs”.  Which is a shame, as the movie could have been so much better had Ayer been more rigorous with his script.

Rating: 7/10 – slightly better than average but with enough problems to make viewing the movie more disappointing than not, Fury bristles with energy during its action scenes but otherwise is sluggish; one to see on the big screen though, and with one’s expectations firmly kept in check.

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Nymph()maniac Vol. II (2013)

28 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jamie Bell, Joe, Lars von Trier, Nymphomania, Sado-masochism, Sex, Sexuality, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgård

Nymphomaniac Vol. II

D: Lars von Trier / 123m

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth, Willem Dafoe, Michael Pas, Jean-Marc Barr, Kate Ashfield, Christian Slater, Udo Kier, Caroline Goodall, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Ananya Berg

Now living with Jerôme but still unable to achieve orgasm, Joe falls pregnant; she has a son, Marcel, but her maternal instincts are dulled by her efforts to reclaim her ability to orgasm.  Her sexual demands begin to alienate Jerôme, who suggests she takes other lovers as it’s clear he can’t give her what she wants.  She does so but it triggers a jealous reaction in Jerôme and proves unsatisfactory as well.  Joe then learns about K (Bell), a sadist, and visits him in the hope that by exploring this aspect of sexuality it might help her.  Her visits require the services of a babysitter while she is gone, and one afternoon the sitter fails to show up; Joe leaves to see K anyway, leaving Marcel alone in their apartment.  When she returns, Marcel is safe but Jerôme is aware of her desertion, and eventually he challenges her: be a better mother or he will leave with Marcel, and Joe will never see them again.  Unable to stop seeing K, Joe visits him again; when she returns home, Jerôme and Marcel are gone.

Having stopped seeing K, Joe reverts to having sex with any man she wants, particularly at work.  Told by her boss that her behaviour is unacceptable, Joe is pressured into attending a therapy group for sex addicts.  The counsellor (Goodall) tells Joe that in order to control her sexual addiction she must first remove anything that might provoke a sexual response; this will make controlled abstinence that much easier.  This proves impossible and Joe realises she is denying her true nature.  When she next attends the group, she rails against them before leaving for good.

The next part of Joe’s story sees her working for a man called L (Dafoe).  She works for him as a debt collector, using her knowledge of the darker aspects of men’s natures to get them to pay up.  Joe is successful in her work, but as the years go by, L suggests she takes on and train a successor.  L has a candidate for her, a fifteen year old girl called P (Goth) who comes from a family of hardened criminals and who is lonely and shy.  Unconvinced at first, Joe takes P under her wing.  Their relationship deepens over the years until, when P is of age, Joe reveals the work she does and P’s planned part in it.  P isn’t put off and begins to take a more active role in Joe’s work, though when she pulls out a gun and threatens to shoot a debtor, Joe is angry with her.  This leads to an estrangement between the two that leads to disaster when P is given her first solo assignment.  The debtor proves to be Jerôme (Pas).  Unbeknownst to Joe, they begin a relationship, seeing each other whenever P has to collect a payment for the debt Jerôme owes.  On the night of the last collection, Joe follows P to Jerôme’s house and sees them together.  She is unsure at first at what to do, but decides to kill Jerôme and is making her way through the alleyway where Seligman found her when she hears Jerôme’s voice.  He is with P.  Joe tries to shoot him but the gun doesn’t work and he beats her up, thus bringing the story full circle.

Nymphomaniac Vol. II - scene

With the playfulness and abundant humour of Vol. I toned down from the outset, Nymph()maniac Vol. II is a different movie altogether, darker, more austere, less spirited (there is still humour to be found, though).  Joe’s quest to reclaim her orgasm makes her more sexually adventurous, but it also makes her more vulnerable, and her brief foray into motherhood shows how self-destructive she really is, placing her physical needs over the needs of her child.  The correlation between drug addict and sex addict is also given its strongest expression through her visits to K, as Joe desperately seeks a solution to her predicament.  In the same way that a drug addict will take stronger and stronger drugs in an effort to boost their being high, so too does Joe seek more extreme sexual experiences in her attempt to feel again.  (There’s an argument that Joe is also punishing herself during this period but as she finds release by manipulating the mode of K’s sadism, it doesn’t really hold true.)

If Joe’s addiction leads her into more and more “dangerous” territory, it also leads her to the re-confirmed belief that her sexual appetite is validated by her refusal to love.  But, in truth, it’s a defence mechanism, and shows just how scared Joe is of commitment; her inability to feel anything is brought about through Jerôme’s return and their relationship becoming more meaningful.  By reinforcing Joe’s avoidance of her emotions, von Trier shows the loneliness that she tries to hide, and how it distances her from the people around her.  Having her become a debt collector makes a certain kind of sense, as her neutrality in the face of others’ fear or pain makes her a perfect enforcer.

But as with all the best melodramas – and ultimately this is exactly that – Joe falls in love again, unexpectedly, with P.  But it’s a brief, not too convincing affair, with Joe seemingly ambushed by P’s feelings for her.  As P begins to assert her own identity, it becomes inevitable that Joe will not survive the encounter emotionally, and P’s betrayal of her with Jerôme sees her become an avenging angel, determined to destroy forever whatever fragile happiness she’s ever had.  It’s inevitable though that Joe’s plan will backfire because she’s only ever had control over her own body, and her distance from others precludes any influence she thinks she might have (except when she’s backed up by two heavies collecting money).

In the end, the viewer will find Joe’s emotional detachment either difficult to appreciate – it makes her hard to like, particularly in Vol. II – or a necessary conceit without which the movie would struggle to maintain any sense of coherence.  Either way, her selfish attitude to those around her, and her efforts to control them, make Joe a bold but regrettably galling human being to spend four hours with.  Some of her assertions during her badinage with Seligman are so pompous as to defy von Trier’s obvious intelligence: anyone who knows even the slightest bit about organised religion will know that the statement, “the Western church is the church of suffering and the Eastern church is the church of happiness” is so far from the truth to be almost (in its own way) heretical.  With quotes like these weighing things down, Joe’s assertions serve only to highlight just how remote she is from the rest of society, and even though von Trier champions her need to be true to herself, her lack of real introspection makes her appear, by the movie’s end (or beginning), shallow and intransigent.

There have been complaints that Vol. II, by being darker etc., is less of a movie than Vol. I.  But Joe’s story is one that follows a natural progression and the decision to split the movie in two appears to be more of a commercial decision than a creative one.  It is better to see both volumes in succession so as to retain the natural flow of what was always meant to be one four-hour movie, but, ultimately, von Trier’s decision to split the narrative makes no difference to the effect of the overall story.

On the performance side, Gainsbourg’s fearless approach to the material benefits the movie enormously and there’s rarely a moment where her conviction is in doubt.  She does her best to make Joe a sympathetic character but is equally unafraid to show her in a less than pleasant light, her commitment to the role going some way to mitigating the missteps in von Trier’s script.  As the outwardly concerned Seligman, Skarsgård maintains his inquisitive, supportive stance in the light of Joe’s revelations, but is given an horrendous final scene that destroys everything the character has come to stand for.  Martin’s presence, despite Gainsbourg’s proficiency, is not as missed as might be expected, while LaBeouf remains as hard to watch as in Vol. I.  The newcomers to the tale – Dafoe, Goth, Bell – acquit themselves well (Bell in particular is unexpectedly creepy as K), and it’s nice to see Slater and Berg (ten year old Joe) in flashback.

As before, von Trier’s technical control over the material remains in place, though some of the aforementioned missteps make it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt when some scenes appear included merely for effect (the restaurant scene involving a number of spoons is a case in point, but it redeems itself by being very, very funny).  He’s on less firmer ground with the philosophical digressions that occupy Joe’s time with Seligman, and they become more and more contrived as the movie develops.  And the photography by Manuel Alberto Claro is as beautiful and decorous as in the first movie (which shouldn’t be a surprise).

Rating: 7/10 – no better or worse than Vol. I, Nymph()maniac Vol. II concludes Joe’s story in semi-triumphant style but maintains the faults found in the first movie; archly effective in places, and dismaying in others, von Trier’s conclusion to his Trilogy of Depression shows the wily old fox of arthouse cinema still as infuriating and entertaining (in equal measure) as he’s always been.

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Nymph()maniac Vol. I (2013)

27 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ash trees, Casual sex, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joe, Lars von Trier, Masturbation, Nymphomania, Sex, Sexuality, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin, Stellan Skarsgård

Nymphomaniac Vol. I

D: Lars von Trier / 118m

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Hugo Speer, Connie Nielsen, Ananya Berg, Jesper Christensen, Nicolas Bro

In a secluded alleyway, a man called Seligman (Skarsgård) finds a woman (Gainsbourg) lying unconscious on the ground; she’s been attacked.  He takes her back to his home, where she tells him the story of her life, and how she came to be in the alleyway where he found her.  The woman’s name is Joe, and she tells Seligman that from a very young age she was aware of her vagina and the pleasure it could give her.  She relates a number of instances from her childhood, and mentions her father, a doctor (Slater) whom she loved very much.  As a teenager (Martin) she chooses a boy, Jerôme (LaBeouf), to take her virginity, and so, begins a relationship with him that will continue off and on for the rest of her life.

Joe relates her time having sex with strangers on trains as a game she played with her friend B (Clark), and the club they subsequently form where members are not allowed to have sex more than once with the same person.  However, B falls in love and Joe ends their friendship in disgust.  Some time later, Joe applies for a job at a printing house, and despite having no skills or experience, is taken on.  This proves to be because her boss is the same Jerôme who took her virginity.  Jerôme wants to have sex with her but she refuses his advances, while at the same time she has sex with all the other men in the office.  But her willingness to see Jerôme suffer has a different effect and Joe stops having sex altogether; like B she too has fallen in love.  She builds up the courage to tell him but takes too long: when she arrives at work one day prepared to tell Jerôme how she feels about him, she finds he’s now married and travelling abroad.

Joe’s reaction is to have sex with as many men as possible, and to keep a string of lovers.  She tells of one man, H (Speer), who she tried to break up with by telling him he’ll never leave his wife and family, but this is exactly what he does, and it leads to an uncomfortable visit by his wife (Thurman) and their children.  But Joe admits the whole thing left her unmoved.  It’s only when her father dies in hospital that Joe is moved at all.  Continuing to juggle both work and several lovers, Joe finds herself feeling sad at times and while walking in a park one day, she is reunited with Jerôme.  He tells her his marriage isn’t working, and they go back to Joe’s place and have sex, but partway through she realises that she can’t feel anything physically.

Nymphomaniac Vol. I - scene

With all the hype surrounding von Trier’s Nymph()maniac duology (particularly the explicit sex scenes – always guaranteed to draw people’s attention), the casual viewer might be put off by a movie that revels in its bad taste highlights and caustic humour, but with Vol. I that would be a mistake.  After the dreary, depressing Antichrist (2009) and the mock-opera bombast of Melancholia (2011), the wily old fox of arthouse cinema has decided to make a comedy about sex, and not just about sex itself, but a vast array of preconceptions about sex, and its relationship with pain, betrayal, neglect, lust, sacrifice, and perhaps worst of all, love.

As a young child, Joe is presented as thoughtful, intelligent, acquisitive and precocious.  Her relationship with her father appears to hold the key to her future behaviour – Joe seeks what her father can’t give her – and on a basic psychological level it’s obvious why Joe behaves in the way she does.  But Joe isn’t interested in the emotional mechanics of sex but in the overriding physical need that pushes her to seek out so many men and so many sexual experiences.  Joe wants to be true to herself – to her vagina – but what she learns, and resolutely pushes to one side, is that emotion can enhance her encounters.  And yet, as her relationship with Jerôme shows, feelings and emotions can augment her experiences and enrich them.  It’s her refusal to admit this, or even trust it, that makes Joe such a sad figure: she’ll never find true happiness unless she allows herself to love.

In telling her story, Joe and Seligman indulge in some philosophical game-playing as Joe keeps referring to herself as sinful, while Seligman refutes her assertions at every turn. These interludes often find von Trier at his most mischievous as Joe seeks to justify her behaviour where clearly she has no need to.  Alluding to various topics, such as fly fishing and Fibonacci numbers, Seligman acts as the audience’s representative, taking Joe’s revelations in his stride and remaining unaffected throughout.  Some of the connections von Trier comes up with hail from the wrong side of contrivance, but despite this they have a certain élan to them that keeps them amusing even if they do sound pretentious.

Again, it’s the humour that counts, whether it’s Joe and B trying to be sophisticated while seducing men on the train, or Joe and Seligman arguing over the attributes of a cake fork, or even LaBeouf’s horrendous English accent (even worse than Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney horror in Mary Poppins).  Joe’s bed-hopping behaviour has its own in-built jocosity, appearing in stark contrast to the laboured protestations of guilt that the older Joe regales Seligman with.  It’s fun to see her treat men in the same way that men often treat women – as objects there to provide pleasure and little else – and even the tirade offered up by Mrs H. is entertaining with its desperate, cloying sarcasm projected as barely disguised venom.  There’s also a nice line in visual humour – Jerôme stopping an elevator in order to seduce Joe and finding out when he’s rebuffed that it’s stopped between floors; Seligman envisioning Joe’s somewhat different approach to “education”; the penis montage – although the equivalent verbal humour isn’t quite as prominent.

On the dramatic side, Joe’s encounter with Mrs H is the movie’s highlight, while Joe’s (one-sided) romance with Jerôme appears more of a plot device to keep Joe shagging lots of men than a real development for either character.  That she meets up with him again at the end isn’t much of a surprise – there’s unfinished business to be dealt with, after all – but the movie’s cliffhanger ending successfully pulls the rug out from under the audience’s feet with aplomb.  Her relationship with her father is honest and straightforward, and the scenes where he’s in hospital are genuinely moving (thanks largely to the playing of Messrs Slater and Martin).

As the younger Joe, Martin gives a stand-out performance, Joe’s initial enjoyment of sex before it becomes more and more of an addiction is so well depicted that it comes as a bit of a shock that this is her first movie.  But even when things begin to get darker, Martin keeps her focus and keeps the audience watching: it’s a bravura turn and easily award-worthy.  As the older Joe, Gainsbourg is mesmerising, her care-worn face telling of hardships that not even she can adequately talk about.  She dominates her scenes with Skarsgård, his nervous, twitchy style of acting at odds with her confident, self-assured determinism.  Skarsgård makes the most of Seligman’s “learned” naiveté, while there’s sterling support from Slater, Thurman and Clark.  Sadly, the same can’t be said for LaBeouf, who provides the worst performance in the movie, his attempts at creating a realistic character continually being undermined by his limitations as an actor.

Von Trier’s direction, as you might expect, is controlled and tightly focused, and he uses a variety of shots – often in the same scene – to show the fractured nature of Joe’s unique view of the world.  He’s on less solid ground with his script, with Joe’s often brittle approach to other people and her own feelings going some way to making her a little less sympathetic than expected.  Having said that, there are plenty of clever touches, and von Trier has a sure knack of cutting away from a scene at the right moment.  His cinematographer, Manuel Alberto Claro, gives the movie an appropriately clinical look that reflects the sense of detachment that Joe feels with regard to her life and history.

Rating: 7/10 – brimming with ideas (not all of which are effectively rendered), Nymph()maniac Vol. I is a cinematic confection dressed up in serious attire; an intriguing movie for the most part, but hampered by its unnecessary lack of an ending.

 

 

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Worst Movie Remakes…Ever!

24 Saturday May 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Disturbia, Movie Remakes, Rear Window, Remake, Review, Shia LaBeouf

In the light of the recent, hugely disappointing remake of Godzilla, I’ve been thinking about other remakes that have been less than a) wonderful, b) acceptable, and c) wanted, remakes such as any of the recent horror mishaps – A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) etc. – or modern reworkings of classic oldies such as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). I’ve compiled a list of my Top 10 Worst Remakes…Ever!, but before I reveal them to the world, I wanted to find out which movies other people think are terrible remakes. So… I’ve set up a survey for people to vote for their favourite worst remakes (or even worst favourite remakes). No more than three choices, though (so I can more easily tally up the totals), and if you want to express your reasons for a movie’s inclusion, please feel free.

To give everyone an idea of where I’m coming from, here’s the movie that just missed out on my Top 10 and currently resides at No 11:

Disturbia (2007) – D: D.J. Caruso / 105m

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Aaron Yoo, Viola Davis

A remake of Rear Window (1954) that did away with all the original’s subtlety, suspense and wit, and cast a sadly lacking LaBeouf in the James Stewart role. With no tension, and dubious attempts at making Morse’s character glamorous, the movie limps along like a bad graze looking for a plaster to make it feel better.

Disturbia

Happy Voting!

http://dullwood68.polldaddy.com/s/what-are-worst-movie-remakes-ever

 

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