Why I Didn’t Dig THE DROP As Much As Everyone Else

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

THE DROP (Dir. Michaël R. Roskam, 2014)

This gritty Brooklyn-set crime drama has gotten a lot of acclaim – it’s at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes – but it really didn’t make the impact on me that it did on the majority of critics. 

I mean, I highly enjoyed the gruff presence of James Gandolfini’s last screen appearance, and the quiet power of lead Tom Hardy is a study in subtlety, but the looming darkness, particularly in the case of the creepy antagonist played by Matthias Schoenaerts, felt empty and I found the narrative lacking.

Hardy plays a nice-guy bartender at Cousin Marv’s, a working-class bar run by Gandolfini but owned by the Chechen mob. Their seedy establishment is one of many that could be randomly chosen any given night to be a “drop bar.” When the bar is robbed by a couple of loser strivers (shades of more than one episodes of The Sopranos), the menacing Chechens breathe down the necks of Gandolfini and Hardy to get their money back.

Meanwhile, while walking home Hardy finds a whimpering wounded pit bull inside a neighbor’s garbage can at the edge of their property. In sort of a “meet crude,” Noomi Rapace as the neighbor agrees to help Hardy raise the puppy, and their relationship begins.

Threatening the situation is the bearded, hooded, and all sinister Schoenaerts, who claims it’s his dog and insinuates that he and Rapace used to be together.

Now, after seeing THE HUNT and CALVARY, I get nervous when it comes to the fate of a dog in these thrillers. Especially when the Schoenaerts’ lowlife heavy threatens its life and tells Hardy he can have it for $10,000. 

The climax is, of course, on a drop night. Schoenaerts forces Rapace to go with him at gunpoint to Cousin Marv’s, with the plan of not only getting his $10K from Hardy, but the rest of the money in the safe.

Spoilers! This is where the so called surprise twist comes in, involving Hardy relaying some crucial back story that lays down the law to Schoenaerts, and a little then some. Hardy owns this scene for sure, but why wasn’t this done earlier? Why did he let the ghastly guy creep on the sidelines for so long beforehand? The scene that the two first speak has Schoenaerts invite himself in to Hardy’s house and he takes his umbrella on the way out. Why not deal with him then?

It’s also depressing that Rapace has such an underwritten, only slightly disguised damsel in distress role. Almost makes one forget how much ass she kicked in those GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO movies. And Schoenaerts, who was in director Roskam's first film, BULLHEAD, is so dead-eyed and one note that he never registers as anything but a standard issue soulless bad guy.

THE DROP is based on a 2009 short story by Dennis Lahane called “Animal Rescue” that he fleshed out into this screenplay and a new novel adaptation. The shift in Lahane’s locales from his usual Boston stomping grounds to Brooklyn doesn’t make much difference, this scenario could go down in any crime-ridden working class urban jungle. It’s a mediocre descendant of MEAN STREETS no matter where it takes place.

Yet Gandolfini’s last grand appearance on the big screen deserves to be seen; his pissed off, formerly powerful character gets both laughs with his expert wiseacre delivery and pity with his put upon bitching about his station in life.

So in conclusion, Hardy and Gandolfini are great in it, but without them - fuggeddaboutit - THE DROP is no great shakes.

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James Gandolfini Dates Julia Louis-Dreyfus In His Fine Final Film ENOUGH SAID

Now playing at an indie art house theater near you:

ENOUGH SAID (Dir. Nicole Holofcener, 2013)

It’s a testament to the talents of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the late great James Gandolfini that I forgot about Elaine Bendis and Tony Soprano, i.e. their iconic characters from Seinfeld and The Sopranos, while watching Nicole Holofcener’s newest indie rom com ENOUGH SAID.

Sure, Louis-Dreyfus has some of Elaine’s neurotic neediness, and Gandolfini shares some of Tony’s unhealthy appetites, but the people they portray here are grounded in a more stable sensibility. A sensibility that will be recognizable to those who’ve seen Holofcener’s previous movies that have largely dealt with modern women coming to terms with, well, being modern women, and always have Catherine Keener in them (see: WALKING AND TALKING, LOVELY & AMAZING, FRIENDS WITH WOMEN, PLEASE GIVE).

Here Keener plays Gandolfini’s ex-wife, a successful poet (successful enough to know Joni Mitchell) who hires Louis-Dreyfus to be her masseuse after befriending her at a party. Unknown to Keener, Louis-Dreyfus has begun dating Gandolfini, who she met at the same party.

So when Keener complains at length about her ex-husband during their sessions, Louis-Dreyfus is making all kinds of mental notes about her new beau’s faults. Louis-Dreyfus wants a playbook to guide her through the emotional minefield of when dating somebody gets serious, and for a time Keener unknowingly serves that purpose.

This hilariously comes to a head when Louis-Dreyfus can’t help picking on him about such things as the calories in guacamole at a dinner party with Toni Collette and Ben Falcone (Melissa McCarthy’s husband that you may remember as the Air Marshall in BRIDESMAIDS). On the uneasy drive home, Gandolfini remarks: “Why do I feel like I just spent the evening with my ex-wife?”

Despite its rom com-style plotting – i.e. one half of a couple is keeping something from the other until they get way in over their head – ENOUGH SAID doesn’t strain for laughs, or go for cheap one-liners. Holofcener, who wrote the screenplay, simply wants to spend some time with some flawed folks who are making their way through a transitional period.

There’s somewhat of a misshapen subplot concerning Louis-Dreyfus’s daughter (Tracey Fairaway) leaving home for college, with the mother over compensating by becoming way too close to her daughter’s best friend (Tracey Fairaway), but it doesn’t clutter up the main storyline.

Although Holofcener definitely has her own thing going on, in tone and relationship perspective, I was reminded of Jay and Mark Duplass’s 2010 comedy CYRUS, which also dealt with a couple who met at a party and have an obstacle or two to overcome, and also had Catherine Keener as the ex-wife. In that and in ENOUGH SAID, both very likable low key indies, I rooted strongly for the leads to stick it out.

The chemistry Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus have together is pleasing yet fleeting as we can’t help but be aware that the man is no longer with us. We can at least take a little comfort in the fact that Gandolfini has two more films in the can (small parts in NICKY DUECE and ANIMAL RESCUE set for next year), but that this is his last lead performance is very sad indeed.

ENOUGH SAID will perhaps be remembered more for that than its content, but however people come to it, most will find that it’s a thoughtful and witty take on the insecurities involved with taking a second chance at love. It really shows how good Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus were together working with Holofcener's moody material that that’s the real takeaway.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 6/25/13

The best new release on Blu ray this week has to be the 1965 Beatles classic HELP! The Richard Lester-directed musical comedy starring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Victor Spinetti (Spinetti, who passed away a year ago at age 82, also appeared in the Beatles’ first film 1964's A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, and their 1967 TV special Magical Mystery Tour), is available today in a single disc Blu ray edition (a new 2 disc DVD set also drops), which contains close to an hour’s worth of bonus material.

The digitally restored original film is joined by: “The Beatles in HELP!” (a 30-minute “Making of” documentary), “A Missing Scene” (a film outtake, featuring Wendy Richard), “The Restoration of HELP!,” “Memories of HELP!,” 1965 Theatrical Trailers (two original U.S. trailers and one original Spanish trailer), and 1965 U.S. Radio Spots. For more on HELP! read my review of a previous re-mastered edition of the film from November 7, 2007.

That’s the best, now for the rest headed by a couple of movies nobody, including me, went to see earlier this year: the Halle Berry thriller THE CALL, and the Steve Carrell/Jim Carrey comedy THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE, both out today in 2-disc Blu ray combo packs with UltraViolet, digital copies, etc (also out on single disc DVD sets).

THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE also features Steve Buscemi, and sadly one of the last performances on film of the great James Gandofini, who passed away last week at age 51. That alone may make it worth watching. Special Features include deleted scenes, alternate takes, Line-O-Rama whatnot, 8-minute “Making Movie Magic with David Copperfield” featurette, gag reel and something called “Steve Gray Uncut,” which has an in-character Jim Carrey starring in “The Best of The Brain Rapist.” You read that right.

THE CALL also comes packaged with a bunch of Special Features such as a commentary with cast and crew (including Director Brad Anderson, Berry, and writer Richard D'Ovidio, an alternate ending, deleted and extended scenes, and 40 minutes of featurettes (“Emergency Procedures,” “Inside the Stunts,” “Michael Ecklund Audition Footage,” “Set Tour of the Call Center,” and “Set Tour of the Lair.”

A movie that didn’t come to my area (the Triangle area in N.C.) in its brief theatrical run, Juan Diego Solanas’ odd sci-fi flick UPSIDE DOWN, starring Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst, is out today in a 3D + 2D Blu-ray & DVD Combo, and a single disc DVD. It comes with a bevy of bonus stuff including a 25-min. “Making Of” featurette, storyboards, sketches, and deleted scenes.

Also out today: Pablo Larraín’s NO, starring Gael García Bernal, Patrick Wang’s IN THE FAMILY, Samuel Fullers’ 1969 cult classic SHARK!, starring Burt Reynolds, the Criterion Collection edition of Claude Lanzmann's acclaimed 9 1/2 hour Holocaust documentary SHOAH, and a couple of well regarded works by Jean-Luc Godard (1978's COMMENT ÇA VA? and 1987's KEEP YOUR RIGHT UP) get spiffy new Blu ray releases from Olive Films.

TV Series sets hitting the shelves: Masterpiece Mystery: Inspector Lewis Season Six, CSI: NY - The Final Season, MADtv Season Three, and Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids: The Complete Series (that’s all 8 seasons on 15 discs!).

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The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden Is Intensely Told In ZERO DARK THIRTY

Opening today in the Triangle area:

ZERO DARK THIRTY (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)

The buzz surrounding Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning THE HURT LOCKER is mixed with criticism of its supposed pro torture stance, but these protests (mainly from folks who haven’t seen it) are really small minded when considering the big complex picture of ZERO DARK THIRTY.

I never felt like Bigelow’s film, written by THE HURT LOCKER’s Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal, was celebrating torture; I felt like the film was a challenging depiction of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden that had to go to some very dark places to tell its story.

But let’s start at the beginning.

After a dark screen accompanies a collage of sound bites related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the film proper opens two years after 2001 at a C.I.A. “black site” with a few torture scenes that will make you as uncomfortable as Jessica Chastain is as an intelligence operative watching as a fellow officer (Jason Clarke) roughly interrogates an al Qaeda detainee (Reda Kateb).

This can be hard to watch, excruciating even, especially when Clarke, who repeatedly says “If you lie to me, I hurt you,” brings on the water boarding.

This intense torture results in one of the first clues in tracking down Bin Laden: the alias of the terrorist mastermind’s personal courier. Despite this lead, years pass (the film is inconsistent in telling us what year it is - after 2008, it seems, they assume we can figure it out), and Chastain comes up against resistance from her superiors (mainly Kyle Chandler as CIA Islamabad Station Chief), who want her to concentrate more on Homeland Security.

Speaking of Homeland, there are stretches of this movie that recall the Showtime series. Like Claire Danes’ character on that show, Chastain has no life except her job (or obsession) of hunting down terrorists. The characters are different, as here we get no background of mental instability, and Chastain would never sleep with the enemy.

As in THE HURT LOCKER, every explosion has a strong emotional impact. Particularly the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing which violently interrupts a meal Chastain is having with the closest she has to an actual friend in the movie - N.C. native Jennifer Ehle as a fellow analyst.

I don’t recall ex-president George W. Bush’s name being spoken in the film, and the shift of administrations is only reflected on a background T.V. broadcasting an interview by 60 Minutes’ journalist Steve Croft with Barack Obama, in which the president states “The United States does not torture.” So there’s no White House situation room point of view here.

Chastain and company’s initial lead finally pays off, when they follow Bin Laden’s suspected courier (Tushaar Mehra) to a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden can’t be proven to be hiding at the compound, so nothing can be done immediately. 

After more surveillance, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (James Gandofini) asks Chastain and co. how certain they are of Bin Laden’s presence at the location, the others say around 70%, but Chastain replies: “100 percent, he's there. OK, 95 because I know certainty freaks you guys out. But it's 100.”

Unless you really aren’t informed of world events the last few years, it’s obvious that the movie’s climax will be the raid by Navy SEALs on the compound. One of the SEALs, Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt is skeptical of the mission, but the Squadron leader (Joel Edgerton) has more faith in Chastain’s confidence.

The raid, largely seen through the glowing green of the Seals’ night-vision goggles, ups the thriller quotient of the film, even when you know the intricate details of how it all ends.

The long, but not too long, ZERO DARK THIRTY was just nominated for 5 Oscars including Best Picture, but since Bigelow wasn’t nominated for Best Director it’s very doubtful that it will take home the big prize (I could see Chastain possibly winning though). That doesn’t take anything away from this film’s immersive plotting, excellent performances, and intense power. So don’t let the politics of the torture argument talk you out of seeing one of the year’s best films.

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NOT FADE AWAY: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now opening exclusively in the Triangle area at Crossroads 20 in Cary:

NOT FADE AWAY (Dir. David Chase, 2012)

David Chase’s debut as director, and first project since his seminal HBO show The Sopranos, is a tribute to the era in which the British Invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones hit America hard.

It was a time when tons of teenagers dreamed of forming a rock band that would have huge hit singles, tour the world, and be chased by crowds of adoring girls. This is the story of a New Jersey teenager (John Magaro), getting together with his friends to reach for that dream, but they never make it big. As a young female narrator (Meg Guzulescu, who plays Magaro’s sister), who pops up very sparingly, says: “Like most bands, you've never heard of them.”

Although Chase opens the film with the famous meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Dominic Sheerwood and Alfie Stewart) on a London train chatting about Chicago blues records, his is a personal film about the people listening who could only fantasize about having that iconic power; the impressionable teens watching life changing TV appearances of their heroes (there are several interspersed bits of black and white footage shown full screen including the legendary appearance of the Stones on the ABC variety show The Hollywood Palace in which they were mocked by host Dean Martin).

Our young protagonist, Magaro is obsessed with the revolutionary rock of the times. His change of wardrobe and hairstyle in the span of the 4-5 years this film covers makes him look more and more like Bob Dylan, something his sullen demeanor also calls attention to.

Magaro becomes the drummer for the never really named band (the soundtrack lists them as The Twylight Zones but that’s never made clear in the film), which also includes Will Brill and Jack Huston. At one early gig at a party, Magaro takes over on lead vocal for the Stones’ “Time is on My Side,” and catches the eye of Bella Hethcote as a girl he’d been crushing on since high school. Some conflict arises when Magaro suggests that he would sing one of their songs better than Huston, and before long he’s the lead vocalist and Huston is out.

Back on the homefront, the generation gap widens as Magaro’s father (Chase’s Sopranos star James Gandolfini) disapproves greatly of his son’s rock ‘n roll lifestyle in kitchen-set scenes that remind me of the incredibly touching, rambling monologues Bruce Springsteen would deliver between songs onstage in the ‘80s about his troubled relationship with his father back during the same period this film takes place.

Springsteen is an apt analogy as E Street Band member (and another Sopranos connection) Steve Van Zandt is executive produced, supervised the soundtrack, and wrote one of the band’s few originals “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre,” as well as played on it, and their other songs too.

The Stones dominate the soundtrack, but Chase and Van Sandt touch on a lot of crucial music including old blues artists like Lead Belly, Bo Diddley, and Robert Johnson, mixed with ‘60s pop like the Small Faces, the Moody Blues, and the Left Banke. Of course, the Beatles and Dylan can’t help but pop up.

Director/screenwriter Chase sets a tone for many scenes that can make it easy to pinpoint what’s happening next, and there are one too point plot-points that never add up (Gandolfini reveals he has cancer at one point but nothing really comes from it), but the naturalistic dialogue along with the moody engulfing atmosphere, enhanced grandly by the music, made me feel like I was in these peoples’ uncertain world.

Seeing Magaro’s band find their footing practicing in the basement, gigging at parties, and recording demos at a studio is affecting even when you know they’re never going to make it. A rude awakening for the band comes in the form of Brad Garrett as a New York music business bigwig who tells them that they’re not ready; that they need to pay their dues by playing clubs full-time for 6 months.

If you’ve even been in a band, or known people in a band, or if you are into bands at all, then you’re likely to “get” this movie.

Otherwise your reaction might be like Magaro’s when going with his girlfriend Hethcoteto to see Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 pop art classic BLOW UP: “What kind of movie is this? Nothing happens.”

Director/screenwriter Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY, which is a lifted title from a '50s Buddy Holly classic that has been countlessly covered, doesn’t overly romanticize the era, it just simply conveys the excitement mixed with confusion with being so swept up in the changing times that one can, like Magaro hitchhiking down L.A.'s Sunset Strip at midnight at the film’s end, find their lives blowing in the wind.

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Talky KILLING THEM SOFTLY Gives Us A Lesson In Gangster Economics

Opening today in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

KILLING THEM SOFTLY (Dir. Andrew Dominik, 2012)

Although this film is based on the 1974 crime novel “Coogan’s Trade” by George V. Higgins, fans of The Sopranos are going to find its trappings familiar. Not only because it features Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini, and series regulars Vincent Curatola, and Max Casella, but because its scenario set-up about low level idiots that try to get ahead by robbing a mob protected card game is ground well trodden by David Chase’s iconic characters.

But director/screenwriter Andrew Dominik, re-united with his THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES star, Brad Pitt, has loftier goals that just staging a big screen Sopranos episode. Dominik sets the story in New Orleans in 2008, and we are taken back to the days of Obama getting elected during the country’s economic collapse via a string of television screens in the background always tuned to the news. The underlying implication is that the mafia is yet another American corporation whose business model is faltering in these tough times.

Pitt, with slicked back hair, shades, and goatee, plays an enforcer for the mob who’s brought in to track down the three low level idiots who thought it was a good idea to rob a high-stakes card game run by the fidgety stressed-out Ray Liotta. Liotta, is in real hot water with this theft, because he’s robbed the game before himself, and he’s going to take the blame for this one.

An often smirking Richard Jenkins, brings his Nathaniel Fisher (the all-knowing ghost dad on Six Feet Under) confidence in his part as Pitt’s contact, a jaded mob lawyer, who says matter-of-factly that “this is a business of relationships,” ever so slyly adding to the movie’s not-so-subtle set of themes.

Gandolfini shows up as a boozing burn-out of a hitman that Pitt seems to think he needs in order to pull off the job. Gandolfini and Pitt have a few intense and intimate scenes together; one on one exchanges in which you feel their history together both as these shady guys, and as actors who’ve worked together for 2 decades, starting with Tony Scott’s TRUE ROMANCE. 

Despite some vivid violence (this movie is where to go to see Liotta getting the shit beaten out of him), it’s a dialogue-driven film, all about the sit-downs. The power and thrust of the film’s thesis can be found in Pitt’s parked car consultations with Jenkins, Gandolfini’s meaty monologues, and the frightened babbling of Scoot McNairy’s Frankie (one of the idiots involved in the card heist), who steals the movie out from under the bigwigs when he’s onscreen with his perfectly unhinged performance.

As McNairy’s partner in crime and stupidity, Ben Mendelsohn (ANIMAL KINGDOM) is also effective as a seedy heroin addict you can’t believe anybody would trust to get them coffee, let alone pull off a dangerous job.

Pitt, who is one of 17 (!) different producers on this project, provides a solid performance, but it’s nothing we’ve never seen him do before. Still, the man’s particular brand of presence is never bland.

Sort of like a mash-up of GOODFELLAS and MARGIN CALL, KILLING THEM SOFTLY may be a bit too talky for its target audience. 

Because of its marketing, which highlights the stars, the stylishness and the one explosion, audiences are likely to think that it’s a different movie than it is - much like Anton Corbijn’s THE AMERICAN, which looked like a commercial George Clooney action flick, or Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE, which looked like a commercial Ryan Gosling car chase thriller. Both turned out to be artsy cerebral takes on their genres, and while film buffs like me loved them, I knew many folks who were turned off.

This take on the gangster drama genre deserves an audience’s attention, even if the dry tone that Dominik creates, along with the immaculately shot framework (by cinematographer Grieg Fraser) surrounding some of the year’s most astonishing acting, ultimately makes more of an impression than any of the political points he’s attempting to make. 

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WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: The Film Babble Blog Review

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Dir. Spike Jonze, 2009)

The long awaited live action movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book is a big boisterous production - a fetching and fiery piece of cinematic eye candy. To flesh out the original book, which was only 10 sentences long, Jonze and Dave Eggers gives us a believable back story for our ten year old hero Max (Max Records). 

Lonely Max uses his active imagination to escape a world where he just can't seem to get noticed. He's neglected by his overworked divorced mother (Catherine Keener) who's taken up with new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo), his older sister (Pepita Emmerichs) is busy straddling an awkward age, and all we see of his father is a gift reminiscent of better times.

Of course, that's not what you want to hear about. Like a child being read the book at bedtime you'll want blast past this set-up in all too relatable reality and get right to the ginormous fluffy fantasy land. 

Unlike in the book, it's not Max's bedroom that acts as a portal. He runs from his mother into the dark woods at the edge of their housing development and somehow enters a different dimension. He travels on a boat through a sea of time to an island inhabited by 7 large "Wild Things" - that is, giant headed puppet people courtesy of Jim Henson's Creatures Shop. 

Though there is some in-fighting they are an affable bunch featuring the voices of James Gandofini, Forest Whitaker, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, and Angus Sampson. Despite the lack of New Jersey edge to his voice, it's difficult to not think of Tony Soprano when Gandofini speaks as Carol, the Wild Thing that is closest to Max, yet the illusion still holds for the most part.

Max is crowned King by the Wild Things and declares as his first order of business: "Let a wild rumpus start!" This is pretty much all the original story was - illustrations of Max and his subjects dancing and cavorting take up half the book - so, of course, conflict and clashes have to occur, and Max has to learn lessons from his interactions with these strange beasts and eventually sail back to reality. 

With an imagination like this though, who needs reality? The soaring sweep of imagery and the absorbing soundtrack (written by composer Carter Burwell and Karen O. of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs) provides a delightful reprieve from the day to day drudgery of everyday life, not to mention the soullessness of most kid's films.

This is escapism at its finest with a heart as big as its budget. I'll be very surprised if audiences don't eat it all up.

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IN THE LOOP: The Film Babble Blog Review

IN THE LOOP
(Dir. Armando Iannucci, 2009)


Picking up comparisons to DR. STRANGELOVE and geared aesthetically as an anti-West Wing, Armando Iannucci's directorial debut posits people in power treading water in a sea of political spin. It all comes from a misspoken statement by the British Secretary of State for International Development played by Tom Hollander. Off the cuff, he says that a proposed war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable" on a radio talk show and that causes what one staffer calls "a catastrofuck."

Already strained relations between UK and US officials come to a boil. Hollander finds himself getting in deeper as obscenities fly at a ferocious rate from the Prime Minister's press secretary Peter Capaldi (reprising his role from Iannucci's TV series The Thick Of It), misdirections come from diplomat handlers (Chris Addison and Gina McKee), and then there are the astute observations of James Gandofini (The Sopranos) as a gruff general who when attempting to strategize finds himself musing: "At the end of a war you need some soldiers left, really, or else it looks like you've lost." 

The large intertwined ensemble cast also includes Chris Addison (also from The Thick Of It), Steve Coogan, David Rasche, and an all grown up Anna Chlumsky (MY GIRL). With literally over a hundred great lines (most of them coming from the foul mouth of Capaldi) and a wickedly wry tone, IN THE LOOP has enough laughs for several movie comedies. 

It's a window into the tangled tortured world of policy makers and those who toil in the trenches beneath them. They're all caught in a massive web of manipulation woven from competing self-serving ambitions and it's all rooted in cold sad reality. Such pungent political satire doesn't come around often so this is definitely one to look out for.

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New Release Drama DVD Round-Up

When it comes to Netflix I'm what is considered "a heavy user". I view many DVDs and often send them back the same day I get them writing about them as I go. Since I realized that most of what I've seen lately have been dramas I decided to round 'em up for this post. I also noticed that all of these movies have funerals in them but that would make for a pretty depressing blog post title so I'm going with the drama angle. Okay! Let's get to 'em:

GONE BABY GONE (Dir. Ben Affleck, 2007)



Ben Affleck's directorial debut is everything his run aspiring to A-list leading man status (in such blockbuster wannabes as PEARL HARBOR, PAYCHECK, THE SUM OF ALL FEARS and DAREDEVIL) wasn't - it's assured, multi-layered and extremely entertaining. 

Affleck doesn't appear on camera here *, which is surprising considering his many bit cameos throughout the years, and yes it would be easy to take a pot shot by commending him for that alone but the weight and power of his Boston based crime drama cancels that immediately out. 

Brother Casey Affleck does the protagonist duty as a small scale private detective who works with his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) out of a tiny Boston apartment. When the young daughter of some neighborhood low-lifes goes missing and a media circus ensues, they are hired by the girl's Aunt (Amy Madigan) to help find her. 

The police (particularly Ed Harris as a police detective) are skeptical of the inexperienced but intrepid couple and the dangerous battered barfolk they encounter when they go snooping are little help as well but C. 

Affleck and Monaghan plug away. Morgan Freeman as a police Captain lends his reliable folksy demeanor (glad he's not narrating for once) also talks down to our heroes - indeed it is often pointed out how young and green Casey Affleck appears: "he just looks young" Monaghan remarks to Freeman's scolding. 

As you should know by now I'll give no further spoilers but I bet you can see how the couple gets in other their head in a world where nobody can be trusted - Man, that ought to be the tagline!                                    

Hate to call them twists because they are displayed with more class than in many standard thrillers but the turns of the second act are surprisingly successful because of the refreshing lack of gloss or flash. A tad high in melodrama maybe but GONE BABY GONE doesn't overreach. 

The supporting cast all bring it - Harris and Madigan (who are husband and wife in real life) both have some standout scenes and John Ashton (who many will remember as a cop in the BEVERLY HILLS COP series) gets in some good gruff gestures. Amy Ryan as the lost girl's mother plays a messed up "skeezer", as one drug dealer character calls her, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress and she's pretty dead on but some of her line readings seem a bit forced so I'll be pretty shocked if she wins it. 

Casey Affleck really should have been nominated for this performance over his part in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES..., as much as I liked him in that flick, because he really gets it right in his manner and tone here. On the cinematic chopping block MYSTIC RIVER comparisons are inevitable but Ben Affleck's moving film makes a case that Clint Eastwood doesn't own the terrain - I believe a new up and coming director dog has just marked his territory. * Actually Affleck can be seen moving through a shot in a dark bar but you could blink and miss him. On the DVD commentary co-writer Aaron Stockard calls it his "Hitchcock moment." 

WE OWN THE NIGHT (Dir. James Gray, 2007)



The opening with black and white archive photos (by still photographer Leonard Fried) of '80s era New York cops brings to mind the grainy real-life riot footage that opened THE DEPARTED.

Scorsese's Best Picture winning crime classic again rears its head as once again we have a premise resembling a good cop/bad cop scenario and Mark Wahlberg as the blunt good cop doesn’t call foul on such accusations. But let's get past that and see what we've really got here in James Gray's period-piece police Vs. Russian mobsters flick that slipped through the cracks in its release last Fall. 

With Wahlberg we've got Joaquin Phoenix as his druggie nightclub managing brother and Robert Duvall as their grizzled police chief father trying to recruit Phoenix to be a mole. Duvall is one of the few actors that can convincingly pull off such a cliched line as "Sooner or later, either you're gonna be with us or you're gonna be with the drug dealers."

Phoenix is indifferent to his Pop’s war on drugs plight as he posits himself as a future “king of New York”. His club El Caribe is obviously modeled on Studio 54 with its clientele selected by bouncers, scantily clad dancing girls on the bar, and non-stop Blondie blaring on the sound system. When Wahlberg gets shot and Duvall's life is threatened by the drug running gangsters, Phoenix changes his tune and starts singing like a canary. He even agrees to be wired in order to lead the cops to the bad guy's lair. 

Phoenix's girlfriend (Eva Mendes - looking like a supermodel in a magazine photo spread) is a possible target too but she is disapproving of Phoenix's new law enforcement involvement. The dialogue is repetitive and too often spells out every action. The story is full of predictable rote elements and the villains appear to be sent by central casting. 

It is set in the '80s not for any interesting premise reasons like the opening implies but possibly because the filmmakers knew they were unable to write any cool modern cellphone trickery plotpoints. Which once again brings up the inferiority of this to Marty's previously mentioned movie. So yeah, when it comes right down to it - skip this slickly produced pap and watch THE DEPARTED again.

ROMANCE & CIGARETTES
(Dir. John Turturro, 2005)



This is a very odd movie.

Co-produced by the Coen brothers, and made 3 years ago, but only now making it to DVD, (perhaps because the studio didn't know how to handle it), Turturro’s “down and dirty musical comedy,” (as he calls it) is certainly ballsy, but it’s more often baffling.

James Gandolfini is an adulterous NYC construction worker whose wife (Susan Sarandon) knows about his mistress (Kate Winslet). They have three daughters (who all look too old to be believable as Gandolfini and Sarandon's offspring) - Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, and Aida Turturro who have a riot grrl punk band and are constantly banging away for their piece of the soundtrack. 

Then throw in Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, and a strangely subdued Eddie Izzard and you've got a faultless cast but a weird musical mix. 

I did mention it was a musical, right? That's what makes it so odd - the cast members sometimes lip synche to classic songs and sometimes sing on top of them; rarely does the song feature the actor's voice alone. When it does have Gandolfini or Sarandon or Winslet sing by themselves it seems to be to make a particular point. I just couldn't figure out what that point was. 

I really couldn't for the life of me really get into this movie but I did appreciate quite a few moments. Gandolfini and Sarandon have a great scene, done in one take, sitting at their dinner table where he admits to her for some reason that he never liked Ethel Merman with her "foghorn of a voice."

Gandolfini excuses Ernest Borgnine's abuse of Merman in their marriage that only lasted one week back in the day by concluding "'You Can't Get A Man With A Gun' would drive any man crazy." Somehow this amounts to one of the only warm exchanges between the couple. Winslet really goes at her role with gusto especially in her introductory dancing scene wearing a scorching red dress in the window of a burning building. She and Sarandon have a ferocious cat-fight while Walken sings along in the background to Bruce Springsteen's "Red Headed Woman". See what I mean? Weird. Turturro's directional sense does comes through - a shot of cigarette butts littered all over a patch of snow is exceptional and it is obvious he has a good collaborating relationship with everybody in this movie; it may have been a mistake to cast his sister Aida though - she just ends up recalling her Sopranos character Janice. Mary Louise-Parker appears again in a movie she is barely used in - this is a shame as anybody who has seen Weeds knows, she can do better. 

At one point Gandolfini says when trying to reconcile with his wife: "Maybe I don't know how to show it like they do in the movies or in books but I love. I have love to give." Maybe Turturro doesn't know how to show it either but this film if nothing else is definitely a work of love. Just why did it have to be love of the weird variety?

SHOOT THE MOON (Dir. Alan Parker, 1981)

It’s easy to forget that in the late '70s and early '80s there was a genre that held its own against the science-fiction blockbusters that dominated that era – the divorce drama. KRAMER VS. KRAMER, of course, was the leader of the pack but close behind were such families getting torn apart tangents like AN UNMARRIED WOMAN, TWICE IN A LIFETIME, and ORDINARY PEOPLE. Long out of circulation but now newly re-issued on DVD is a pivotal player from those ranks - SHOOT THE MOON which features Albert Finney leaving wife Diane Keaton for a younger woman (Karen Allen).

As the film opens we are introduced to the couple with their four daughters (Dana Hill, Viveka Davis, Tracey Gold, and Tina Yothers) and their creaky old house on the outskirts of Marin County in California (many misty shots of the house and valley are throughout the film).

We see as acclaimed novelist Finney and his former student now wife Keaton prepare for an evening at an awards ceremony that their marriage is on the outs. Finney calls his lover and the oldest daughter (Hill) picks up the phone to eavesdrop.

On their ride there and back to the televised event their car is full of tension as we realize the gravity of what's not being said and strongly feel the giant gap between the tortured pair.

The next morning Keaton confronts Finney, while doing dishes mind you, and he responds not by owning up to his affair but by leaving with a bag that she had already packed in anticipation. The couple attempts to sort out the rubble and move on with their lives but they keep on hitting emotional roadblocks.

Finney moves in with Allen, who except for one signature scene basically has little to do but stand around looking pretty, while Keaton takes up with a contractor played with just the right tone by Peter Weller (ROBOCOP!) that she hired to put in a tennis court on her (actually legally still her and her separated husband's) property.

The film seethes with energy that explodes from underneath in a few surprisingly violent scenes. Finney is compelling as always as he stalks the screen in a manner exposing his stage roots and Keaton displays that the keen quality she can bring to dramatic roles is equal to the comedic skills she is better known for.

Dana Hill (who died in 1996 from complications due to diabetes) has perfect poise as the oldest wisest daughter who knows her parents' faults as well as their habits - she knows her mother smokes pot for example - and she has a great scene in the third act that among other things explains the movies title.

It's interesting to see Tina Yothers and Tracey Gould as sisters for as students of pop culture know they went on to be daughters in competing '80s TV sitcom families - Yothers in Family Ties and Gould in Growing Pains respectively.

A flawed but stirring drama with an absolutely shocking ending, Alan Parker's SHOOT THE MOON is an oft overlooked film that deserves a place in your Netflix queue. 

More later...