Review: "Sicario"

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Runtime: 121 minutes

The prevailing notion is that once foreign-born filmmakers make the leap to English-language filmmaking, they get lost in the great big American studio machine. As prevalent as this issue remains, look to French-Canadian helmer Denis Villeneuve as an all-too rare exception to the rule. In 2013, he made his English debut with back to back successes in Prisoners and Enemy (the latter of which was released last year). Enemy was the artier and more thematically ambitious of the pair, but it's in Prisoners that one sees Villeneuve's potential. The man is poised to evolve into a reliable commander of mid-budget studio fare aimed at a more sophisticated base. In an age where mid-budget (let's call that between $20 and 60 million) films are increasingly difficult to finance, Villeneuve's recent hot streak is nothing to sniff at. 

Issues of financing special significance for Mr. Villeneuve's latest, the drug war drama Sicario. Despite the attachment of Emily Blunt in the lead role, the filmmakers were repeatedly told that they would get more money if Ms. Blunt's protagonist was switched to a male. So even though Sicario does little to break ground with its character archetypes or its plotting, it remains something of a marvel amid the slowly-evolving mindsets of the major studios.  

All of this would mean precious little if the film in question was a failure. Thankfully, Sicario - though not the action-thriller its marketing promises - is another victory for Villeneuve and company. Though the film, written by first-timer Taylor Sheridan, favors mood over pointed commentary, it still works rather effortlessly on its own harshly beautiful terms. 

That harsh beauty is apparent from the opening sequence, in which FBI Agent Kate Macer (Blunt) leads a raid on a drug compound that quickly spirals into tragedy. As lensed by the legendary Roger Deakins (re-teaming with Villeneuve after Prisoners), the opening is harrowing because of the way Deakins blends naturalistic images with those meant to come laced with menace. Sicario takes place in the sun-baked terrain of Arizona, Texas, and Mexico, yet its cumulative effect is to leave one shuddering. Villeneuve, Deakins, and the rest of the behind-the-camera workers get the job done with haunting results. 

So much work goes into the look and feel of Sicario, that it's understandable that the characters may prove too simple and too distant to connect with at all. Blunt and her co-stars (Josh Brolin's smarmy black-ops leader and Benicio Del Toro's gun for hire) have been given relatively simple roles that don't really demand emotional fireworks. But as Sicario winds towards its conclusion, and the focus shifts in surprising directions, the coldness of the protagonists emerges as a deliberate and intelligent choice. 

Despite taking place in a completely different world, what Sicario most strongly resembles is Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty. Sicario leans heavier on terse dialogue and ominous music cues, but there's an unsettling distance from the weightier emotional components that ultimately works in the film's favor. The War on Drugs, like the War on Terror, is filled with queasy ambiguities and moral grey zones that push people like Kate (and the audience) to question the methods and end goals of such broadly-defined, jingoistic labels. 

The journey from blunt determination to moral quagmire is superbly embodied in Blunt's performance, and comes closest to giving Sicario a heart (albeit a dark one). The British actress - seamlessly blending in with her American and Mexican co-stars, maintains a poker face early on, but doesn't fall into the trap of appearing blank. Her expression may be flat, but Kate's face is one that remains alert to the vagueness of her mission. When time comes for the steely facade to crack, Blunt keeps emotions in check, never mugging even when her character is at her most vulnerable. 

Mr. Brolin and Mr. Del Toro, meanwhile, have considerably fewer quiet notes to play, though both are convincing and have strong chemistry with Blunt. A third act shift in focus does open up more room for Del Toro, to the film's benefit. The actor's performance does not change, but the added context given to his demeanor acquires new heft, and further plunges Sicario's morality into the mud. Though I longed for more scenes between Blunt and Del Toro like the one found in the final frames, the questions left at the end prove more satisfying than additional answers. 

Because even Sicario is not a film with a big Message, what little it does whisper to the audience proves valuable, if not terribly surprising. Drug violence is bad, and people in power do shady things. Not exactly shocking in this, the year 2015. But Villeneuve and Sheridan have nonetheless created a brooding pseudo-thriller that captures the human cost of the drug war, as well as the futility of fighting it with such simplistic and aggressive means. Some films tackling contemporary issues overstate their cases and wind up saying less. Sicario, meanwhile, says very little, yet its impact lingers because of its brevity. It's a work of level-headed and purposefully de-sensationalized violence, and that's exactly why the images of dry, sun-scorched earth do nothing to counteract Sicario's blood-chilling jolts.


Grade: B+

Review: "Inherent Vice"

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Runtime: 145 minutes

Finding the right writer/director to adapt a distinctive novel is no easy task. When directors apply too much of their own vision, the original text gets lost in the shuffle (though The Shining is still an example of how such an approach can work). And if the director is too safe, the source material ends up being worshipped as gospel, often resulting in sluggish, line-by-line adaptations that fail to leap from the page to the screen. Perfect marriages of director and source material, those that complement each other rather than engage in a stylistic tug of war, are rare, but not impossible. The Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men set a high standard seven years ago, and in October David Fincher's Gone Girl joined its ranks. The latest adaptation to work so well, even if it's not quite great, is Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. 

It's understandable that it's taken so long for a Pynchon adaptation to reach cinemas. The reclusive author's works are characterized by dense, head-spinning prose wrapped around byzantine plots. Inherent Vice, as a novel, isn't as overwhelming as something like "Gravity's Rainbow," however, which makes it a smarter pick for a silver screen debut. In Anderson, Pynchon's novel has found an artist perfectly adapting to its pot-smoke flooded atmosphere and shaggy dog storytelling. 

Set right at the end of the 60s, Inherent Vice, like the novel, wastes no time in getting started. The instant drug-fueled detective Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) wakes up, he's confronted by his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston), who's come to beg for help in the dead of night. Shasta's new boyfriend, land development millionaire Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) is in danger of being thrown in a psych ward so that his wife and her lover can claim his fortune. It's a classic noir opening, albeit dressed up in 60s threads and surrounded by LA surf culture and neon lights instead of venetian blinds.

But it's not long after this encounter that Doc finds himself in way over his head and the plot starts to snowball into a web of alliances, double crosses, and conspiracies. People show up out of the blue with cryptic warnings, and somehow everyone he meets, no matter how different, is somehow connected. Everyone, good, bad, or in between, has an agenda except for Doc, who wanders through the story like a confused extra rather than a true protagonist. If you come into Inherent Vice expecting answers to all of your questions, you're out of luck. Doc barely understands everything going on, and Anderson keeps the film rooted in his perspective. There are so many angles in Vice's story that it can be dizzying to keep them all together. 

Even so, Anderson's ability to capture the tone of Pynchon's overall story as well as his prose is commendable. Clocking in at two and a half hours, it's quite the long trip down the marijuana-scented rabbit hole, but the contact high Inherent Vice provides is often a pleasurable one. Though often quite funny, there's a pointed commentary on display about how those in power co-opt counterculture movements that gives the film just enough of a point to justify its narrative ramblings.

Though Phoenix is the story's only true main character (everyone else drifts in and out of the story at a moment's notice), it's the massive supporting cast that really owns Vice. Josh Brolin is an early standout as Lt. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, a straight-laced cop who enjoys nothing more than making Doc's "hippie bullshit" life hell. His interactions with Doc bring out the film's off-kilter humor in both dialogue exchanges and weird visual gags. Waterston is an effectively alluring and conflicted surfer femme fatale, and makes her relationship with the considerably older Mr. Phoenix believable. Though underused, Benicio Del Toro is spot on as Doc's lawyer, while Owen Wilson and Jena Malone turn in memorable work as a missing musician and his wife, respectively. A somewhat unrecognizable Eric Roberts is also quite good as the missing Mickey Wolfmann, once the character finally surfaces.

Despite the characters who pop up across the entire film, the most memorable performance comes from one of the story's one-off characters. As a corrupt, drug-addled dentist, Martin Short delivers an arrestingly gonzo performance that marks Inherent Vice's comedic high point. To see his character leave the story so quickly is a bit of a disappointment. Other characters have plenty of spark to contrast with Doc's mellow attitude, but the dynamism Short brings to the film is often missed during other key scenes.

Perplexingly, the cast member who is least consistent is Phoenix. Though his look and mannerisms are spot on, the actor's delivery is wildly inconsistent. Even when his face is glazed over, there's a sharpness to Phoenix's eyes and features that never quite sinks into Doc's mindset. Similarly to his work in The Immigrant, Phoenix sometimes just feels too tightly wound and modern to fully immerse himself in Doc, who's the epitomization of a very specific subculture and time period. Phoenix certainly has his moments in the role, but just when he appears to have fully clicked with the character, some piece of dialogue or interaction comes along and rings false. 

Phoenix may be inconsistent, but at least the storytelling and tone are set on the right path. Anderson holds keeps the pieces of the story together, at times just barely, ensuring that enough of it makes sense while leaving plenty of connections skimmed over to the point where the film practically demands a second viewing. Anderson's longtime cinematographer Robert Elswit allows certain images to look grainy or rough, further drawing one into the story's representation late 60's Los Angeles. Composer Jonny Greenwood  contributes a moody, accessible score that nicely contrasts with the purposefully eerie themes written for Anderson's previous two films (There Will Be Blood & The Master). Other production details are excellent across the board, though special mention should be given to the hair and makeup team for putting so much personality in each character's coiffure.

Though Inherent Vice's longwinded structure can lead to sporadic lulls in pacing, it's still an engaging trip through the mind of one of the most important writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Vice is not regarded as one of Pynchon's greatest works, and the film isn't one of Anderson's finest, but both work as engrossing pieces of entertainment that finely straddle the lines between high and low culture. It's proof that one can create a perfectly successful and satisfying adaptation of a novel without straining to find a hidden greatness that was probably never there in the first place. And even if it was, it would probably just go up in smoke anyway.

Grade: B

Review: "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For"

Director(s): Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
Runtime: 102 minutes

The over-stylized, faux-noir alleys of Frank Miller's Sin City stories may be treacherous, but few of them compare with the journey that it took to get a sequel to 2005's Sin City to the big screen. On and off for years, a second adaptation of Miller's work was in a constant state of almost being off of the ground. Alas, nothing quite took, even with names like Johnny Depp and Rachel Weisz attached at different times (remember when those names actually piqued your interest?). Yet somehow, even after nearly a decade of waiting, the world of Sin City still holds a tiny bit of cinematic appeal. Co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Miller himself, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For may be running on fumes, but those fumes still hold a mindless, pulpy allure.

Functioning as both a prequel and sequel (kind of), A Dame to Kill For is as visually outlandish as its predecessor, even though the technique (monochrome with selective use of color) isn't even remotely fresh by this point. When Marv (an especially rough-looking Mickey Rourke) kicks off the movie with overwrought voiceover work, it's clear that no one here is aiming for the realm of high art. For all of its visual flourishes (some of them quite dazzling), Sin City is as crude and campy as its characters. At its best and worst, A Dame to Kill For embodies the spirit of its source material.

Yet even though nothing about the film feels fresh, the mix of old and new cast members are often able to make their mark amid all of the visual chaos. Josh Brolin, taking over Clive Owen's character from the original, makes a stoic hardboiled anti-hero, albeit without the sort of grimy, rakish charm that Owen brought to the role. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also quite solid as a cocksure young gambler, even though his best scenes find him facing off against meatier performances. Returning members Roarke and Powers Boothe (as a villainous senator), especially the latter, are still having fun in their over-the-top roles. And, of course, it's still fun to see Rosario Dawson smirk and fire off a few rounds, even as she's given basically nothing else to do.

But when it comes to having fun, no one is having a better time than new addition Eva Green as the film's titular dame. In her second long-delayed comic book sequel of the year (after 300: Rise of an Empire), the actress puts even the visual effects to shame when it comes to theatricality. Her casting as an extreme version of a femme fatale is already spot on, and watching Green shift her voice (breathy damsel, husky temptress) and her always camera-ready face while playing men off of each other captures all that a Sin City movie should be: outrageous, sleazy, twisted, seductive, and darkly funny. 

And, if Dame was all about Brolin and Green's story, it would make for a fun, disposable piece of entertainment. Where the film loses its way is in its awkward structure. Like the first film, Dame involves several interlocking stories. However, this time around everything is compartmentalized. We get intros to two major plot threads before Brolin and Green's kicks in and runs through to its conclusion, which then leaves two more stories that have a middle and end. 

Not helping matters is that the first complete story is also the best on all fronts. By the time narrative thread #3 arrives (involving Jessica Alba's stripper Nancy and her struggles with alcoholism and revenge), the film's initial fumes have started to wear off. With smarter structure, A Dame to Kill For could have escalated to a spectacular finale with plenty of room to play around with chronology. The film already has one location - the dive bar where Nancy dances - designed as a narrative hub, yet it only makes minimal usage of this set up. The film doesn't exactly wear out its welcome, but it does feel like it's in need of some rearranging so as to make sure none of the main stories are left feeling like filler.

Even at its lowest level, at least A Dame to Kill For offers something different compared to the usual comic book/graphic novel fare. The noir influence is backed up more by the style than the substance, but it lends the film the chance to dive into decades-old narrative tropes with an anarchic energy that, at the very least, acts as a fresh coat of paint. Underneath all of that gloss may be something old and rusted, but it's still eye-catching when the light hits it just right.

Grade: C+

Review: "Oldboy"

Director: Spike Lee
Runtime: 104 minutes

There's nothing inherently wrong with an American remake of an acclaimed foreign film. Though there's hardly a notable catalog of successful Hollywood remakes, successes aren't impossible. Just two years ago, David Fincher delivered his take on Sweden's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Despite sharing similar problems with the original (which stem from the novel), Fincher's version was a vastly superior work of pure craft. Go back a few years more, and there's Martin Scorsese's The Departed (based on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs), which took home Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. So what's the verdict on Spike Lee's Oldboy, a remake of Park Chan-wook's acclaimed South Korean thriller? 

The short answer is that no, Lee's version doesn't hold a candle to the original. But to dismiss it for that reason alone would be foolish. And, in fairness, Lee's version does have its merits, even though they feel superfluous in the shadow of the Korean version. Even when Lee and writer Mark Protosevich deliver, the results are but a shadow of the previous iteration. 

It doesn't help matters that Oldboy gets off to a jarringly sloppy start. From the frenetic editing to the rushed line delivery, the film's establishing scenes, in which Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) drinks, fights with his ex-wife, and drinks some more, are hacky and amateurish. Joe's starting point in the film makes sense on paper, but Brolin's first moments feel like bad rehearsals. Things get a little better once Joe is captured and imprisoned in a mysterious, window-less room, but the filmmaking and acting remain disconcertingly subpar. Watching Park Chan-wook and the great Min Sik-choi chronicle the maddening years of imprisonment was visceral and unsettling cinema. Lee and Brolin's take quickly slides into tedium. Even as Joe learns, via his cell's TV, that he's been framed for rape and murder, the psychological component remains out of the film's grasp.

Only when Joe is mysteriously thrown back into the world does Lee's film start to improve, and even then the improvements seem like a lackluster reward for one's patience. Joe, understandably, struggles to put together the scraps of his former life (20 years is a long time to be kept in confinement). Old friends barely recognize him, but one (Michael Imperioli, whose character only exists within his bar and apartment) finally takes pity on him. Joe also befriends a young nurse named Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), who becomes determined to help him because the plot requires it. A version of Olsen's character exists in the original, but she was introduced in a way that felt in line with the narrative. Olsen, sadly, is brought in through a clunky intro that revolves around her position as a nurse. Even in the details that Oldboy keeps the same, it still fumbles with the moment-to-moment execution.

If it seems like Lee's film has nothing to offer, that's not quite the case. One of Park's film's best known scenes is its brutal hallway fight, in which the protagonist fights off dozens of henchman in a single crowded, brutal shot. Lee changes the scene's setup to the point where it almost feels like a video game, but it works. With this breathless, stylized crescendo of assault and battery, the director starts attacking the material with conviction. Everything afterwards is far from perfect, but there is, thankfully, a consistent increase in overall quality from here on out. 

Where Lee and company really make an impression is in the last half hour. In a pair of smartly-executed flashbacks, Lee elegantly overlays images of the past on the present. Even more striking is the director's handling of the story's shocking and disturbing climactic twist, doled out largely in a single, knockout camera movement. Everything - the directing, the writing, the imagery - finally coalesce into the movie that this remake should have been. 

But even for the uninitiated, it may not be enough. There will be, not surprisingly, those who find themselves too repulsed to enjoy to twisted nature of the conclusion. Yet even those who find it riveting will still have to contend with the mixed bag that precedes the final act. It's hard to find anything consistent or noteworthy for so much of Oldboy, that it threatens to completely sever one's engagement with the story and the characters. 

Even District 9 star Sharlto Copley, as Joe's shadowy tormenter, isn't enough to hold it all together. As much as Copley digs into his outrageously stylized character, he feels like he belongs in a 1950s Bond movie. Despite his muscular build, Copley's sneering Adrian is the sort of sinisterly effeminate type that Hollywood used to love parading in front of audiences with a wink and a nod.

So as much as Oldboy deserves credit for ending with its best foot forward, it's a hard movie to endorse with much enthusiasm. When Lee's sensibilities actually click with the material, there are tantalizing hints at the great, American-ized remake that could have been. Unfortunately, those moments make up too little of this middling, yet competent, retread of a film that's already something of a cult classic. As is often the case, you're better off simply watching the original, especially since Netflix finally uploaded the original South Korean version with English subtitles. 

Grade: C+

Review: "Labor Day"

Director: Jason Reitman
Runtime: 111 minutes

While Jason Reitman deserves credit for branching out with his latest film, he's hardly deserving of praise for the final product this time around. A mishmash of poor decisions and shoddy story telling, Labor Day comes across more as a polished Lifetime movie, rather than the latest work from an exciting young director. In venturing outside of his comfort zone, Reitman has made the mistake of indulging in all of the worst tendencies of his new chosen genre. The result is awkward, boring, and fatally unconvincing.

Set over Labor Day weekend in 1987, Reitman's adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel centers on Henry (Gattlin Griffith) and Adele Wheeler (Kate Winslet). The latter is a shut in of a single mom, unable to rebound from her divorce to Henry's father (Clark Gregg). On her monthly sojourn to the local convenience store, however, Adele's life changes with the introduction of Frank (Josh Brolin), an escaped convict who inserts himself into Adele and Henry's life. 

Right off of the bat, the set up is unconvincing. The level of contrivance present, which rests upon Henry's gullibility and naiveté, isn't the sort of flaw the film is able to make up for over time. Instead, it undermines everything that follows. The psychological tension inherent to the set up never materializes, which leaves Labor Day as a goopy slog of a romantic drama. 

Reitman approaches the material by throwing every trick in the book at it, and it's rather depressing to watch. Voice over pervades the entire film, spelling out even the most obvious details. Meanwhile, Rofle Kent's score, though fine on its own, is overused to the point of self-parody. Rather than compliment the footage, Kent's music strains the create an atmosphere that the writing and direction are laughably incapably of conjuring. Reitman also tries, unsuccessfully, to build Frank and Adele's backstories through laughably "arty" flashback sequences that do little to truly get under the skin. If anything, they only make the whole project seem even more worthless.   

Even the two stars seem unable to fully connect with their characters. Though Winslet and Brolin are perfectly suited to their respective roles, the material they're given is so thoroughly lacking that its no wonder their performances suffer. Winslet, in the more emotive role, is particularly disappointing as the damaged Adele. All of the nervousness and wariness Winslet communicates feels halfhearted at best. Though it's hard to pinpoint whether the fault lies more with the writing and directing or the actress can be difficult. Either way, it's sorely lacking work from an actress who is capable of so much more. Brolin, meanwhile, is effective enough without having to really do anything that requires true effort. His character almost never seems to be in any true danger, which leaves the actor with little to work with, given that his main conflict revolves around whether or not he'll be captured by the authorities. 

The biggest disappointment in the whole mess, though, is Reitman's direction. The director made a name for himself with sharply observant comedies like Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult. His transition to full blown drama, however lacks any of the success of his previous work. His indulgence in tired techniques (heavy-handed music, voice over) feels desperate. There's no intelligence behind any of it, and it all grows old far too quickly. His adaptation surrenders to the dramatic contrivances of its source material, rendering it all painfully trite. Labor Day isn't an intriguing new direction for a rising filmmaker. It's a numbingly bad misfire that ought to be stricken from the resumes of everyone involved. 

Grade: D+

Gosling + Stone Round 2: "The Gangster Squad" trailer

For a few weeks about a year ago, set photos of The Gangster Squad, Ruben Fleischer's follow-up to Zombieland (yay!) and 30 Minutes or Less (...um) lit up the Internet with glimpses of cast members Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Josh Brolin in costume. Yet nothing about those initial pictures indicated anything close to the look that the finished product appears to have, which certainly adds an element of surprise to Fleischer's next project. Based on Paul Lieberman's novel, the film chronicles the LAPD's fight to keep east coast mob members from claiming territory on the west coast. Incredibly stylized, Squad at least has a capable (if not terribly proven) director who has proven he can deeply immerse himself in a genre, and a really strong cast. All the same, there's a certain spark missing that would otherwise make this look like a must see, in spite of those involved. With John Hillcoat's Lawless already set to hit in August, Squad could come off as redundant. At the very least, Gosling's presence is a plus, not only because of his talent, but also because he has an eye for good projects, which many actors near or at his level lack, leading to less consistent filmographies. Hopefully he's right on the money here, and this isn't a rare misstep for him (and everyone else). And let's hope the marketing team re-cuts this trailer with a better choice of background music. It's a movie with machine guns, you don't need modern music to somehow 'connect with' modern audiences.


Trailer Grade: B- 

"True Grit" - REVIEW

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) repeatedly announces that she is "only 14 years old," and unlike the original True Grit, which starred a 20-year-old Kim Darby as Mattie, when Steinfeld says it, it rings true. Only 13 when she shot the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, Steinfeld's role is much more important than it was in the 1969 original, and it's just one of the reasons why the Coens' remake (or rather, re-adaptation) works so well.

Like the original, True Grit tells the story of a Mattie Ross' attempt to track down her father's murderer by hiring a hard-nosed US Marshall named Rooster Cogburn. Now, as to just how close the Coens stuck to Charles Portiss' novel for their screenplay, I can't vouch, as I've never read the source material. That said, in going back to the text instead of the John Wayne film, they've found a way to make a film that is much more inline with their sensibilities, and even their sense of humor. This is a good thing, because if there's one thing that surprised me in True Grit, it's the amount of humor that runs almost consistently throughout the film.

And even though the humor (and the story) may not entirely have the typical Coen brothers sense of irony, it still feels as though something they would come up with if they felt like playing it a little on the safe side. Assisting them through these (relatively) tame waters is their impeccable cast. Though she's been placed in (and won) supporting actress in the critics awards thus far, Steinfeld truly deserves to be labeled as lead. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) may be the iconic character from Portiss' story, but at heart the story belongs to Mattie and her quest for justice and vengeance. Steinfeld beautifully captures the sense that Mattie is both a girl mature beyond her years, and yet still, well, 14 years old. As for Bridges, the role remains something of an emblem rather than a fully-formed character. What background details we're given don't really sink in, as their used more to portray Cogburn as a man with a penchant for rambling. That said, Bridges, whose last collaboration with the Coens gave us the ultimate laid-back "Dude," is able to pull off the role, one which has such large boots to fill. But the real joy of the film (aside from the surprise of Steinfeld) is Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LeBeouf, who has been searching for Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) for a separate crime. Damon, recently returning to comedy on NBC's 30Rock, gets to show off his comedic talents even more here, and he plays the slightly huffy, self-important Ranger with just the right touches, without making the character truly obnoxious or unbearable. A good part of the fun also comes from the fantastic (if at times overly wordy) dialogue, which is a mix of wild west gruffness mixed with a strange pseudo-Shakespearean tone (don't expect many contractions).

But good performances are nothing new for the Coen brothers. What's really, really surprising is the film's overall emotional impact. In a career long-dominated by black humor, irony, and in some cases flat out nihilism, True Grit ends up being surprisingly touching. I can't remember the last time that term applied to anything the Coens have done (if ever). Even with the comedic aspects of the film penetrating further into the story that one would expect, by the time it reaches its climax and begins to wind down, the result is actually moving (though completely free of schmaltz). While the story basics and characters may have been traversed before, for the Coens, True Grit is bold new territory well-explored.

Grade: B/B+

"True Grit" trailer (watch it while you can!)

This looks pretty fantastic. Aside from the obviously stunning cinematography from Roger Deakins (maybe he can finally get that Oscar this year?), the film reminds me of a quote I read about the brilliant No Country for Old Men, where the writer described the film as the first time the Coens "treated their characters without a wink." The same seems to be true here; none of the cruel ironies of A Serious Man or Burn After Reading. And since the Coens' last effort like this turned out so well, I have great faith in this film.

"Jonah Hex" trailer arrives

And now we know why it took them so long to release a trailer: there obviously isn't a lot of good stuff to work with. Fox seems absolutely wooden, and Brolin looks like he's struggling to emote under that make-up. The only one who looks like he's having fun is Michael Fassbender, complete with wide, crazy grins. I think I'll be skipping this one. Oh, and ENOUGH with the grunge-rock soundtrack in trailers for period action films already!

"...and introducing Josh Brolin as Harvey Dent"

Josh Brolin wonders if Diane Lane finds scars sexy...

RopeofSilicon has a new image of Josh Brolin as the titular hero of this summer's fantasy-western Jonah Hex, which is a good sign. The post also mentions that a trailer is FINALLY arriving [edit]next Friday, and will be attached to the new Nightmare on Elmstreet film. I really like seeing Brolin in tough western roles like this. He was wonderfully understated in No Country for Old Men, and didn't get nearly the praise he deserved for it (to be fair, Bardem and Jones were better). Plus, if this film turns out to be a stinker, we'll get to see Brolin in western mode later this year in the Coen brothers' True Grit remake, which should be quite the film considering the cast and crew. I know in certain circles this isn't the most popular opinion, but I never saw anything special in Brolin's Oscar-nominated turn in Milk; however, I look forward to seeing what he'll deliver with two very different explorations into the Wild West mythos.