Review: Haywire
Steven Soderbergh - Haywire
(Irish Film Board, Relativity Media)
Words: Rob DeStefano
Last month Tom Cruise proved that athleticism and stunt work are the superior methods for materializing a film’s action. Avoiding quick cuts and CGI laden scenes, Steven Soderbergh also believes in this “raw” approach to excitement. Haywire, his imagining of a rogue agent’s revenge, adheres to these principals, making it an efficient thriller that sends you out of the theater wanting to kick some ass.
K’NAAN Returns
Welcome back, K’NAAN. Despite last releasing an album in 2009, the Dusty Foot Philosopher seems more ready than ever to make his presence known in the rap game, but instead of me mincing his words, I’ll let you read for yourself.
“Dear supporters,I spent the last year living my life, observing other lives, changing, evolving, then breaking down to the basics. I’ve been good and ugly, sometimes couldn’t tell which was which. I felt the oldest pain in the world for the first time, and found myself lost. All the while, through all the changes the only thing which remained consistent was being in the studio. I sometimes took a matter seriously, and when I realized that the matter was me, I laughed hysterically. I wrote about 60 songs or so. Some of them will probably never be heard by ears other than mine, but some I am now ready to share. I’m releasing an EP titled MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SILENCE. It features tracks with Nelly Furtado, Nas, and production by Ryan Tedder and Chuck Harmony. It’s available exclusively on iTunes on January 24th, but right now, Complexis going to premier the absolute very FIRST song from the EP: “Nothing To Lose” Featuring Nas! … Man, I can’t rant on here cause it ain’t my twitter, BUT… just know that this is a gigantic moment for your boy, cause Nas is one of the reasons why I’m so slick with this English language right here!Enjoy the song and get yourself the EP on the 24th of January.”
Red Light, Green Light, 123
Words: Rob DeStefano
Claustrophobia paired with an encircling wickedness can make for either a taught thriller (e.g. Panic Room or Frozen) or an inadvertent joke (e.g. P2 or Devil). It’s essentially an exploitive mode of horror. The premise usually caters to relatable hypothetical fears, which allows for the audience to loosely interact with the material, questioning what their response would be, but knowing that they are entitled to the film’s resolution. As many ideas are exhausted – Julia Roberts, begone! – 2012 takes this “imprisoned” idea to a new level of absurdity: ATM, the story of three friends stranded inside an ATM.
It’s serious, and it comes from writer Chris Sparling, the man responsible for 2010′s coffin tale Buried, a movie which had a decent idea but a vacuous execution. ATM seems ludicrous from the get-go. It’s a horrible business model for a bank to isolate its cash machines.
January 2012 Forecast: The Beginning of the End
Words: Rob DeStefano
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Must Love Dogs would not have been 2012’s antecedent if Mr. Cusack agreed with T.S. Eliot’s heresy. Semantics aside, the countdown has begun. In light of this, IF reviews earth’s final January release schedule, and assuming the movies will be as barren as prior winter slosh, we’ve included our weekly apocalyptic DVD picks.
Friday: January 6
Pick – Beneath the Darkness
This year’s mandatory exorcism comes in the hollow shell of The Devil Inside, which relies on the gritty realism of handicam horror that seems all too contrived here. There are three smaller releases for this date, ranging from mediocre to Dennis Quaid. Roadie is about one of Blue Oyster Cult’s assistants who returns home in his forties after years spent migrating with the band. It’s a hometown drama that has been generating mixed reviews, though it should strike a chord with Long Island natives. What falls in the middle of the mediocre and Dennis Quaid scale is the Japanese love story Norwegian Wood – adapted from Haruki Murakami’s novel. The film’s emotional content has received praise, but it’s the visual style that has been considered undeniably beautiful. Finally, there’s the indie horror/thriller Beneath the Darkness, which casts actors in their late twenties as high school students and Dennis Quaid as a psycho who dances with corpses. Already a top contender for 2012’s Best Unintentional Comedy? For this reason, it’s our pick of the week.
Skip the Theater: Our DVD pick of the week to humorously celebrate the end-of-days vibe is Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).
Stocking Stuffer: Naughty or Nice
Words: Rob DeStefano
Nice
Science Fiction
It was a grand slam for this genre, one that is too often overproduced or rehashed. Movies like Another Earth and The Skin I Live In used the subject matter as a mere backdrop, giving the characters unique paths of suffering aimed at thematic fulfillment and not at spectacle. Likewise, Attack the Block gave a genuine twist to the alien invasion subgenre by using monsters that are incomparable to what we’ve grown accustomed to and by staging the battle in a British low-income complex (known as a “block”). Even X-Men: First Class took a leap of faith, putting its high caliber effects in the context of the Cold War. Despite this blockbuster appeal, its characters had motives and layers, a return to form for the franchise after Little Miss Piggy squeaked out the previous one. Additional entries such as Hanna, Source Code, Contagion, Super 8, and (the overrated) Rise of the Planet of the Apes further bolster this win.
Attack the Block
Coming of Age
Young characters grew as much as Adam Sandler does when he hears his name. Touching on the obvious, Super 8 recalls childhood eagerness and the magic of early Spielberg: it is an appreciated feeling that is seldom found on today’s high profile productions. On the smaller end of the gamut, Submarine packs the style, wit and heart in a story that follows its protagonist through a whirlwind of family and sex crises. Similarly, one of the year’s best in the category is the film Terri, starring Jacob Wysocki as an obese and quirky high school student who is matched against John C. Reilly as the assistant principal. The conflict surrounding Terri’s maturation becomes incredibly hypnotic in the final act, specifically in an extended scene of pain killers and alcohol in the hands of these inexperienced youths. This shoe also fits for Attack the Block and Hanna, as already mentioned above, and the case can be made for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – though they took the idea a little too far in its last scene.
Submarine
Quotes from New Year’s Eve
Words: Rob DeStefano
Jessica Biel to Seth Meyers
Hands down the most bizarre plot of the movie: two couples fight to birth the first baby after midnight in hopes of receiving the hospital’s cash prize. Biel and Meyers go to extreme and inhumane measures to tear their baby out from the uterus, since the reward will help payoff some of Meyers’s student loans.
Quote [to the obstetrician]: “We were wondering if we could just schedule a Csection and get this show on the road!”
My favorite Quote: “Oh, please don’t yell at my vagina!”
Abigail Breslin to Sarah Jessica Parker
My friend pointed out that the only sensible casting is this mother-daughter relationship, unlike the pairing of Parker and Efron as siblings, and it works because both are made so incredibly unattractive. It’s not Breslin’s fault that her overly made-up face is cringe worthy on a big screen; Parker is another story. The angsty teen wants her first kiss of 2012 to be from someone other than her mom, so she delivers this series of dialogue, her own rendition of “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!”
Quote: “The world doesn’t scare me! It’s just getting good! I want to start living in it!”
When Parker asks again for their Twelve o’clock kiss, Breslin follows with, “Mom, you stopped trying and you’re being really clingy and mean. It’s because you don’t have a man.” It’s probably post-Family Stone disorder.
Sunday Morning Song Selection: Traditional Swedish Carol “Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring”
Words: Amy Keresztes
The Swedes are a festival-loving folk. In order to cope with the extremely short, dark days of November and December, they emphasize interior warmth, light, and cosiness. Drinking mulled wine and eating gingerbread cookies becomes a regular weekend ritual, everyone hangs paper lantern stars in their windows, and lights enough candles to burn down the entire country. These attempts to make something positive out of one of the world’s worst climates wouldn’t be complete without something cozy to settle in around the ears.
Sweden is culturally quite secular; that doesn’t stop them from going all-out each year to commemorate a Catholic saint. Traditionally, the eldest daughter of the household dresses in white with a wreath of candles in her hair and rises early on December 13th to bring saffron buns and coffee to her family. Nowadays it is more common to have public processions, with a Lucia “crowned” in every town and city, and most schools, churches, and daycares having their own Lucia procession and concert. To Americans it might seem a little old-fashioned and over-the-top, but the values of light, warmth, loved ones, good food and drink, and beautiful carols to set the mood are sure to remain a central part of the Swedish winter experience for many generations to come.
Trailer Trash
Words: Rob DeStefano
Grab your favorite malt liquor and sit back. Here’s 3 recent misfires.
Titanic 3D
If a near 2 billion dollar gross wasn’t enough, Titanic will return to theaters, promising to blur your vision and cost more than double what you paid back in ’97. It’s just one of the many movies riding the 3D re-release caravan, but this participator has the golden ticket… Celine Dion.
The preview is pretty standard at first: we understand it’s an advertisement for Titanic once that silly little lady – just moments from death – starts talking about how one of the biggest disasters in history was the best night of her life.
[0:30] The words “In 3D” grow onscreen and we realize why this received the green light for conversion. The next image is Rose’s gigantic lavender hat. It is surely the most beautiful hat ever captured on celluloid, and the hat knows it too: it pushes Winslet’s head right out of the frame. When I first saw Titanic with my mother, I was disappointed in the bonnet and its bow. “That’s it!?” I thought. But two dimensions will no longer confine such a gigantic lavender sombrero. Thank you science.
[0:48] The voiceover (by Leo) says, “You never know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next.” This is superbly paired with the extension of his hand toward the lavender hat’s owner. She takes the offering, and climbs into the abandoned car. If my memory serves me correctly, this scene ends with quite the handprint. Damn Cameron, you’re the king of meta.
[1:29] This is where it wins you over. Celine belts her tune over the montage. “There’s nothing I fear!” The visuals accompanying these words are perfectly selected: an elderly couple drowning, water gushing through the ceiling as people climb the dining room pillars, the ship cracking in half and collapsing on the thousands stranded in the ocean, etc.
[1:49] A man falls and shatters his body on a metal railing. The impact releases a chime, which serves as Celine’s cue to shut up.
Sunday Morning Song Selection: Boy Friend’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme”
Words: Amy Keresztes
As a devoted fan of all things Swedish, I’m a real sucker for ABBA. A good ABBA cover, though, is hard to come by (and usually takes the ultra-kitchsy form of the musical “spectacular” Mamma Mia). Thankfully there’s Boy Friend, the musical partnership of Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown. Their Tumblr description says it best: “With a creative partnership that combines different stylistic preferences and attitude with a passion for fantasy, narratives and love-sick lyrics, their song-writing is led by strong lead vocal and guitar melodies layered in harmonies, ambiance, and thick atmospheric backdrops.” Tried, and true: their version of the ABBA hit “Gimme Gimme Gimme,” restored my faith in the integrity of the cover project. In their capable hands, this blissfully cheesy pop song has been reincarnated as a strong, gorgeous aural experience.
BBC Interview with a 17 Year Old David Bowie
BBC Tonight’s Cliff Michelmore’s 1964 interview with the 17 year old founder of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men, David Jones (The Monkees would form the following year and irrevocably sully Bowie’s birth name).
via 01