ANIMAL KINGDOM: The Film Babble Blog Review

ANIMAL KINGDOM (Dir. David Michôd, 2010)

At the center of this Australian crime drama is what seems at first to be a very unlikely protagonist.

James Frecheville portrays a Melbourne based teenager with dead eyes and bad posture who we meet as he awaits medics to tend to the body of his dead mother – a victim of a heroin overdose.

Frecheville is less interested in his mother’s death than he is a game show on television. He calls his grandmother (Jacki Weaver) in hopes of having a place to stay.

Weaver welcomes Frecheville into her home which also houses her 3 sons – Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton, and Luke Ford.

The brothers, along with their friend Joel Edgerton, are armed robbers and drug dealers. The police stake out their one floor shabby home around the clock.

Mendelsohn is the most menacing of the family – the second he appears on screen entering from the darkness, one knows that he will be the source of deadly discomfort later in the film.

As retaliation for the killing of one of their family – the brothers ambush and murder 2 police officers which bring on the investigation by Melbourne's Armed Robbery Squad led by Guy Pearce as a mustached detective without a corrupt bone in his body.

Frecheville has only one bright spot – his girlfriend Laura Wheelwright. When Mendelsohn eyes her though, we get another strong sense of dark foreshadowing.

Director Michôd brings out piercing performances from his cast. Frecheville proves himself worthy as a disaffected kid on the verge of manhood having to get a hold of his life’s direction in the face of the brutality of men like Mendelsohn.

Pearce, as the only “name” in the movie, has a few particularly affecting moments – especially in a monologue that explains the film’s title.

As the family matriarch, Weaver pulls off a creepy yet somehow endearing presence. She lives on the hugs from her sinner sons, and she hints at a not so innocent past of her own.

ANIMAL KINGDOM is a gritty bleak exercise in uneasiness that at times may feel impenetrable – especially with the thick drawl of the accents – but it’s never dull and every scene has an eerie edge that remains long after the film’s cutting conclusion.

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WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS: The Film Babble Blog Review

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

(Dir. Oliver Stone, 2010)

Spoiler Alert!: This review gives away a number of key plot points because, well, I just don’t care.

Despite that last year I wrote that a sequel to Oliver Stone’s seminal 1987 WALL STREET was one of 10 sequels to classic movies that should not happen, I still had a tiny sliver of hope inside that the controversial director might pull off another timely indictment of America’s financial system.

Sadly, the return of Gordon Gekko to the silver screen is no such film. It’s as unnecessary a retread as BLUES BROTHERS 2000, which incidentally also began with the prison release of a major character.

In 2002, Michael Douglas as Gekko, 67 years old with his lion's mane of hair now gray, walks out of Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison after serving 8 years to find nobody waiting for him. The camera circles his head to let this sink in.

The film flashes forward to 2008 and for a while it’s Shia LaBeouf’s movie. LaBeouf is an ambitious trader – think Charlie Sheen in the first film but with more ethics – engaged to Douglas’ activist blogger daughter (Carey Mulligan). LaBeouf’s mentor (Frank Langella) at his firm commits suicide after rampant rumors cause the company’s stock to crash.

LaBeouf suspects Josh Brolin, as an old school Gekko-ish hedge fund manager, to be the source of the rumors. Going behind Mulligan’s back, LaBeouf consults with Douglas who wants to be close to his daughter again.

Mulligan wants nothing to do with her father. She blames him for the overdose death of her brother and she’s vehemently against the Wall Street world which makes it hard to believe that she’s surprised to find out that her fiancé is a “Wall Street guy.”

LaBeouf wants to avenge Langella, make a name for himself, and sincerely help a renewable fusion-energy company run by the always nice to see Austin Pendleton – in the same manner that Sheen wanted to help out his father’s ailing airline.

Upon learning that Douglas set his daughter up with a Swiss trust fund worth $100 million, LaBeouf finds himself caught in a web of convoluted double crossings.

Stone uses every visual trick up his sleeve to shape this material – at a point in one of several flashy montages full of split screens, tangled neon cable news ticker tape, and computer animation I felt like I was trapped in a MSNBC hall of mirrors.

The problem is that what made the first movie great is that Gordon Gekko was not a redeemable character. He was a symbol of corporate evil and a necessary one, for there are horrible fiscal creatures out there that destroy thousands of people’s lives with no remorse.

If Gekko truly isn’t a sociopath (as his daughter calls him early on), but a visionary that predicts the economic collapse in 2008 and can be won over by a disc containing his future grandson’s ultrasound – what does he symbolize now?

Douglas’s Oscar winning performance of Gekko in the first film was named by AFI as number 24 of the top 50 movie villains of all time in 2003. After his defanged depiction here that number will surely drop next time they update the list.

It’s understandable that Stone and Douglas wanted to revisit this terrain, but with its predictable plot and pat happy ending this is more than a missed opportunity – it’s a failed follow-up of epic proportions.

One of the only enjoyable elements is the soundtrack provided by David Byrne and Brian Eno. As the first film ended with the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)”, this one obviously tries to match the mood with a fine selection of the duo’s collaborations. When these melodies appear it’s the only time that this film feels anywhere near the league of the original.

Beyond that, MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (awful title) has little point to it, except maybe to unleash a bunch of new Gekko-isms on the public.

Of the many so called pearls of wisdom the slick slimy Gekko spouts - “Idealism kills every deal” – sticks out. By sparing us the true cutthroat nature of the beast in favor of trite sentimentality, the deal is definitely dead as a doornail here.

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DVD Review: LOUIE BLUIE

LOUIE BLUIE (Dir. Terry Zwigoff, 1985)

"She sauntered over to me and she says 'You're Armstrong. I know you're Armstrong. But you're not Louie Armstrong, that Louie. You're just plain ol' Louie Bluie, that's what you are.' And so I used the name to record under later." - Howard Armstrong

Last month the Criterion added to their esteemed collection CRUMB - Terry Zwigoff's classic 1995 documentary about legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb.

The same day, August 10th, a lesser known Zwigoff film, his 1985 debut doc LOUIE BLUIE, also got the deluxe treatment and that's very good news for fans of the blues, comic art, and hilarious tall tales that just might be true.

"Louie Bluie" is the nickname Howard Armstrong (1909-2003) - a fiddle and mandolin player who recorded in the late '20s and '30s who is also known for his amazing artwork of various mediums.

Armstrong sits down with friends (mainly guitarist Ted Bogan) and tells wonderful stories about his youth filled with colorful phrasing and sharp wit.

Zwigoff's subject picks on Bogan for being a dog towards women and he picks with Bogan on several jams which give this delightful doc a toe tapping rhythm between anecdotes.

There's not much of a narrative here, but it hardly matters as the material and music are so good.

When Zwigoff zooms in on Armstrong's art, we can see why this old time musician appealed to the '78 collecting, comic book loving director.

Armstrong started drawing when he was a child capturing himself, family members, various other folks and scenes from his Tennessean birthplace.

Armstrong's art is astounding - whether it's created by crayon, paint, or ink squeezed from crepe paper. At one point he shows a friend his "Pornography Bible" - a thick bound book of art and text about sex that Armstrong keeps under lock and key.

Armstrong: "I have to keep it locked up to keep the man from locking me up."

LOUIE BLUIE is only an hour long but it's an hour very well spent with a fascinating funny and terrifically talented man who should be better known.

If you want more there's a little over 30 minutes of "unused footage" featuring more music and amusing stories.

Other bonus features include an illuminating Zwigoff commentary and a stills gallery that is really worth paging through if only to see more of the "Pornography Bible".

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