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- 

Review: "The Tree of Life"

In a career spanning nearly 40 years, The Tree of Life only marks Terrence Malick's fifth directorial effort. Known for his strange shooting style and insanely meticulous editing, the director is nothing if not a perfectionist of sorts. And even though he only now has five films to his name (he is currently filming his sixth, which remains untitled), it is difficult to imagine where the divisive auteur will venture next, seeing as his latest seems to tackle, well, just about everything.

Describing the plot of The Tree of Life almost feels unnecessary. I've read review after review that describe the film's plotting as "elliptical," yet this description seems to go a step too far. This is not an easy film, nor is it one that provides easy answers, but labeling the whole thing as ambiguous and obscure is extreme. The great bulk of it, concerning a family in a small Texas town in the 50s, despite having very little dialogue, is certainly not impenetrable or obtuse. Some scenes carry with them (appropriately) a child-like sense of naivete, while others quietly carry the weight of suffering and loss. Because, above all else, The Tree of Life is a film of sight and sound, often in glorious combinations.

To say that it encompasses everything is not an overstatement. After an opening where Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) learns that her middle son has died, and some jumps to the present involving her oldest son Jack (Sean Penn), we see the beginning. Literally. For some 20 or 30 minutes, Malick plunges us into gorgeously rendered visions of the cosmos, and of earth's earliest, primordial moments. We see space clouds shine in shades of gold, brown, and red. We see the staggering size of Saturn and Jupiter loom over the screen, set to the glorious sounds of Zbigniew Preisner's "Lacrimosa." We see cells dividing and merging, and blood flowing through veins. In every sense, this is a film that shows us the intimate and the epic, with everything from domestic drama to some soulful, curious dinosaurs.

Throughout all of this, the one unifying element is the sheer beauty of it all. Mr. Malick may be influenced by Christianity (the O'Briens are obviously Christian, and the film opens with a quote from the Book of Job), but this is not a religious film. It is a spiritual film, one that seeks to evoke the glory that life holds, without shying away from its moments of sadness and failure. We witness gentle, playful moments with the O'Brien children as toddlers, which gradually become more serious and nuanced as the children begin to experience the darker side of life. Some of it is direct (the oppressive nature of Brad Pitt's Mr. O'Brien), some of it indirect (a young boy who drowns at a swimming pool). All of it, whether simplistic or strange, somehow rings true through Malick's direction, which creates a spiritual experience out of life's most plain rites, rituals, and routines.

And yet all of it is captured with such quiet elegance, thanks to the astoundingly beautiful work by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. The frequent use of handheld camera work bequeaths even the most mundane of scenes with a sense of vitality, even the more abstract scenes involving Mr. Penn's lost wanderings through Houston skyscrapers. And Mr. Malick's impulses, namely subjective shots of nature, have never felt more appropriate or refined in their usage as they have here. When this technique was used in The New World (2005), a film I was not a fan of, I often thought to myself that Malick should have just made a nature documentary. Here, the establishment of the subjective shots, whether they be for the humans or the dinosaurs, carries more purpose, and further illuminates the wonders of life and creation that Malick is trying to capture. The heavy use of voice over, often rambling and tiresome in The New World (and flat-out irritating in Days of Heaven) is now focused and filled with surer purpose than ever before.

But there is still a great deal of heart among all of the beauty, both mundane and otherworldly, to be found here. Mr. Malick may be more interested in using the O'Briens as a focal point for his gargantuan exploration of existence, but the family still comes through as actual characters. Young Jack (Hunter McCraken), carries much of the film, as his transformation from toddler to pre-teen encapsulates the loss of innocence, and understanding of growing up that is so key to this story. Whether the O'Brien boys are playing music, or silently, tearfully mourning the family's need to leave their home, Malick and his actors capture it all through facial cues. Even in the film's finale, perhaps the most difficult portion to make sense of, it's hard to ignore that we're experiencing something of beauty and magnitude, even if we're not entirely sure what it all means.

This is not a film to be explained (though you can certainly give it a shot), but rather one to be experienced. Its length and pacing are occasionally trying, but for a story with so little dialogue, it accomplishes so much more than any number of more verbose films. It's also not a film for everyone, and I'll confess that I was nervous that I would feel the same towards Tree as I did toward The New World. But any way you slice it, Malick's latest remains a massive achievement. Whether you think that it's completely self-conscious, pretentious, and insufferable, or a luminous meditation on the nature of life itself is up for grabs, but you can't know unless you actually see it. The Tree of Life is, more than any film which I've ever described as such, one that deserves to be seen, thought over, and discussed, even if you come to the conclusion that it's all a load of spiritual and philosophical hogwash.

Grade: A-

Cannes Review Round-up: "The Tree of Life"

Arguably the most anticipated title at this year's auteur-filled Cannes line-up, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life finally received its official premiere. Ever since that stunning trailer was released in December, this has been at the top of my list not just for the summer, but for the whole year. I may not be a complete Malick fan (I love Badlands and The Thin Red Line, but feel pretty 'meh' towards Days of Heaven and The New World), but I certainly respect him as a film maker, and can't wait to see what The Tree of Life holds in store (only two more weeks!). However, Malick's last two films (Line and The New World) have seen the director immerse himself more in his signature style, provoking more divided reactions to his films. If Cannes is any indication, The Tree of Life continues, rather than reverses, this trend:

Rope of Silicon - Brad Brevet: (B) "Just as this film to 40 years took make, it may be another 40 years before I'm ever able to come to a final conclusion on what it entirely means to me."

The Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy: (N/A) "But there are great, heady things here, both obvious and evanescent, more than enough to qualify this as an exceptional and major film." "Emmanuel Lubezki outdoes himself with cinematography of almost unimaginable crispness and luminosity."

Movie Line - Stephanie Zacharek: (N/A) "...strong visuals don't necessarily equal strong visual storytelling. If Malick could tell a story mostly with pictures - and faces - why would he need so many voice-overs?"

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw: (5/5 stars) "This film is not for everyone, and I will admit I am agnostic about the final sequence..." "...this is visionary cinema on an unashamedly huge scale: cinema that's thinking big."

The Wrap - Sasha Stone: (N/A) "The Tree of Life is saturated with beauty, inside and out."

Indie Wire - Eric Kohn: (A-) "If Lubezki treats his job like a painter, Malick uses his magic to make the artwork come to life."

The Playlist - Kevin Jagernauth: (B) "...the director has once again created a cinematic experience that is uniquely his own, often powerful and mesmerizing, at times overreaching and overbearing, but never forgettable."

Film School Rejects - Simon Gallagher: (C) "Aiming for an experience is one thing, but presenting an intentionally obtuse, impenetrable thing like this is something else entirely."

The Telegraph - Sukhdev Sandhu: (2/4 stars) "Brad Pitt gives the strongest performance of his career, but The Tree of Life is by far the weakest film Terrence Malick has ever made."

InContention.com - Guy Lodge: (3/4 stars) "His most open-armed and structurally undisciplined film to date, it might yet prove his least rewarding."

Variety - Justin Chang: (N/A) "Few American filmmakers are as alive to the splendor of the natural world as Terrence Malick, but even by his standards, The Tree of Life represents something extraordinary."

Additional Comments: Some critics aren't entirely sold on the ending, and feel that it's a bit too literal considering what comes before. Brad Pitt receives almost unanimous praise for his performance, with solid mentions for Jessica Chastain and young actor Hunter McCracken. Even among mixed or negative reviews, critics feel that The Tree of Life is the sort of movie that needs to be seen, if only to determine which side of the debate you fall on.

Cannes Verdict: Undeniably beautiful and complex, and filled with brilliant filmmaking, The Tree of Life is likely to inspire highly divisive reactions, despite its status as a must-see.

"Fair Game" trailer

The film, modeled on the Valerie Plame story, received mixed reviews at Cannes, and this trailer isn't doing much to make me more interested. At the same time, I'm a sucker for whistle-blower stories (I looooooooooooove The Insider) and Watts and Penn (who co-starred with each other in 21 Grams) are pretty reliable performers. But Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) is more of an action director, and without action being the forefront (the explosions are all background noise), I'm curious to see whether he can pull off such a recent, hot-topic political drama.

Cannes Review Round-Up: Doug Liman's "Fair Game"

Next up for reviewing is Doug Limon's (The Bourne Identity) latest film: the Valerie Plame story, titled Fair Game, with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. Limon, who's more know for his flashier, action-oriented films, is in relatively new territory with a thriller that has to engage purely with words, and without any chases or fights. I haven't been able to find too many reviews to choose from, but the general consensus seem solid, if not ecstatic. IndieWire's Eric Kohn isn't too enthusiastic, saying that the film "only occasionally moves beyond the level of a solid made-for-TV-movie" (yikes). Kohn does go on to say, though, that Penn and Watts's performances "ensure that the stronger bits hold together," and that the film "builds to an admirably intelligent perspective in its middle section." Brad Brevet over at Rope of Silicon is much more positive, giving the film a grade of 'B+'. He says that "Watts and Penn are excellent," citing Penn's restraint and claiming that Watts "will most likely make a change at the Best Actress category come nomination time in one of her better performances to date." Brevet goes on to praise the film's pacing, saying that after its run time of 1 hr 46 min, "you certainly wouldn't mind if it had gone further." The Guardian, which has yet to publish a full review, mentions the film in a column about film at Cannes with mixed emotion. Xan Brooks says he's not totally sold on the film, in part because it's "too stolid, too by-the-book." James Rocchi of IFC, however, says that Fair Game "specifically succeeds as ambitious and engaging cinema." Finally, The Playlist offers up a review in the middle ground. Kevin Jagernauth writes that while the opening is strange and that "Limon assumes the audience knows nothing about the post-9/11 lead in to the war," he goes on to say that "as the film moves into its second half...the film rockets forward." However, Jagernauth says the film ends on a false note involving a speech by Penn's character to high school students about democracy. That said, he praises the performances, writing that "Watts and Penn are in top form here."

[current] Cannes Verdict: A fact-based, political thriller that walks a fine line between compelling thriller and bland procedural drama.