list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Changeling on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Changeling/324637/default.aspx Title: Changeling
Year: 2008
Director: Clint Eastwood
Plot: Inspired by actual events that occurred in 1920s-era Los Angeles, Clint Eastwood's The Changeling tells the story of a woman driven to confront a corrupted LAPD after her abducted son is retrieved and she begins to suspect that the boy returned to her is not the same boy she gave birth to. The year was 1928, and the setting a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. As Christine (Angelina Jolie) said goodbye to her son, Walter, and departed for work, she never anticipated that this was the day her life would be forever changed. Upon returning home, Christine was distressed to discover that Walter was nowhere to be found. Over the course of the following months, the desperate mother would launch a search that would ultimately prove fruitless. Yet just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a nine-year-old boy claiming to be Christine's son seemed to appear out of thin air. Overcome with emotions and uncertain how to face the authorities or the press, Christine invites the child to stay in her home despite knowing without a doubt that he is not her son. As much as Christine would like to accept the fact that her son has been returned to her, she cannot accept the injustice being pushed upon her and continues to challenge the Prohibition-era Los Angeles police force at every turn. As a result, Christine is slandered by the powers that be, and painted as an unfit mother. In this town, a woman who challenges the system is putting her life on the line, and as the situation grows desperate, the only person willing to aid her in her search is benevolent local activist Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 10
Number of blog posts: 11
Number of discussion threads: 4
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:57:17 GMTChangeling2008Clint EastwoodInspired by actual events that occurred in 1920s-era Los Angeles, <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____88601/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Clint Eastwood</a>'s The Changeling tells the story of a woman driven to confront a corrupted LAPD after her abducted son is retrieved and she begins to suspect that the boy returned to her is not the same boy she gave birth to. The year was 1928, and the setting a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. As Christine (<a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____36009/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Angelina Jolie</a>) said goodbye to her son, Walter, and departed for work, she never anticipated that this was the day her life would be forever changed. Upon returning home, Christine was distressed to discover that Walter was nowhere to be found. Over the course of the following months, the desperate mother would launch a search that would ultimately prove fruitless. Yet just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a nine-year-old boy claiming to be Christine's son seemed to appear out of thin air. Overcome with emotions and uncertain how to face the authorities or the press, Christine invites the child to stay in her home despite knowing without a doubt that he is not her son. As much as Christine would like to accept the fact that her son has been returned to her, she cannot accept the injustice being pushed upon her and continues to challenge the Prohibition-era Los Angeles police force at every turn. As a result, Christine is slandered by the powers that be, and painted as an unfit mother. In this town, a woman who challenges the system is putting her life on the line, and as the situation grows desperate, the only person willing to aid her in her search is benevolent local activist Reverend Briegleb (<a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P____44846/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>John Malkovich</a>). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide6Taggedy Taggged (6-10)101143http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s324637.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Changeling/324637/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/6/9/42583.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 6/9/2009 10:02:04 AM
Body: This review was originally published during Gran Torino’s theatrical run. The movie comes out on DVD today. Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution . Up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much, but it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as Polish-American embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of their family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t like it and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn from Walt the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness, while simultaneously fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess, and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:02:04 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog6/9/2009 10:02:04 AM This review was originally published during Gran Torino’s theatrical run. The movie comes out on DVD today. Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution . Up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much, but it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as Polish-American embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of their family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t like it and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn from Walt the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness, while simultaneously fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess, and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/6/9/42582.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/9/2009 10:01:51 AM
Body: This review was originally published during Gran Torino’s theatrical run. The movie comes out on DVD today. Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution . Up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much, but it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as Polish-American embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of their family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t like it and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn from Walt the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness, while simultaneously fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess, and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:01:51 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/9/2009 10:01:51 AM This review was originally published during Gran Torino’s theatrical run. The movie comes out on DVD today. Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution . Up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much, but it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as Polish-American embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of their family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t like it and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn from Walt the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness, while simultaneously fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess, and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/2/27/40720.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:11 PM
Body: If Tyler Perry gets an Oscar nomination for his acting in Madea Goes to Jail, can a washed-up actress scold him for taking away female roles? Actually, could it just be Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag, a la Boat Trip? Seriously, though, Madea won’t be up for any Academy Awards next year, but damn is Perry’s character popular. Enough that the sassy matriarch has now evolved from a supporting character into the star of her own vehicle (which gave the filmmaker his biggest opening yet this past weekend). Yes, it’s true that Madea is a central figure in most of Perry’s films and has previously been the main protagonist in his plays (including the one Madea Goes to Jail is based on), but in the movie world she was introduced as a secondary role in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. So, now she belongs in that small club of supporting characters who’ve earned their own film(s); other members of which include Jay and Silent Bob, Bruce and Lloyd, Cousin Eddie, Marshal Samuel Gerard, the Scorpion King and Wolverine. And Madea is one of the very few female characters to belong to the club, which is another good reason for an actress to scold Perry. But the problem also lies with the people who write woman characters, apparently, since in coming up with ten other supporting characters who deserve their own spin off, we managed to only include two females on our list. Perhaps if we’d permitted classic film characters there’d be more to choose from — though even then we might be more likely to include a Peter Lorre or a William Demarest role than a Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden. Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), from Changeling Angelina Jolie got the entire spotlight for this film, earning an undeserved Oscar nomination among other things, but the only person truly worth watching in Clint Eastwood’s period piece is John Malkovich. He’s not exactly good in the role, but he looks amazing (and more creepy than ever) with his Marcel Wave hairdo and little mustache. The radio reverend could continue in a series of films in which he helps out other characters with their problems while constantly going up against the corrupt LAPD. Bust-Ass (Danny McBride), from All the Real Girls Danny McBride is starting to become a household name thanks to scene-stealing roles in last year’s Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and his new HBO series Eastbound & Down, which he co-created with his Foot Fist Way collaborators Jody Hill and Ben Best. Yet his funniest performance is still arguably as Bust-Ass in All the Real Girls. So, even though that films’ director, David Gordon Green, has helmed episodes of Eastbound, we’d actually prefer the filmmaker go back and make a spin off to All the Real Girls starring the parka-wearing putz. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), from No Country for Old Men We could probably select just about any supporting character from a Coen brothers film (here’s a related list, to get some ideas); most would be good for a spin off of their own. But the character that won Javier Bardem an Oscar seems the most easily appropriated to any number of new situations. While Hollywood might prefer to be consistent by ruining the character’s mystique with a prequel explaining Anton Chigurh’s background, we think it’d be more fun to see any one (or number) of the following unconnected tales: Anton Goes to Jail; Anton Saves Christmas; Anton Takes Manhattan. John Givings (Michael Shannon), from Revolutionary Road John Givings functions perfectly as a minor plot device for the Wheeler’s story in Revolutionary Road, and he probably wouldn’t work as well at feature-length capacity in a film all of his own. But he could at least serve the same purpose in other stories, the way that Silent Bob functioned similarly throughout a number of Kevin Smith’s films. Then, maybe after a few more titles in which he’s still merely a supporting character he can finally get his own co-spin off, which will costar an also-deserving Kathy Bates. Currently, we like the title John Givings and His Mom Strike Back. Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), from 12 Monkeys Like Danny McBride, Brad Pitt needs to go back to his greatest performance, which was undoubtedly as the loony Jeffrey Goines, from Terry Gilliam’s underrated sci-fi masterpiece. A spin off (or franchise) would have to do away with the original film’s time travel angle, but it would still be interesting following Goines on other crazed adventures in animal activism. Plus, for Pitt it would mean another chance at winning an Oscar for his most deserved role, yet this time it could be for Best Actor (actually a number of actors on this list could do the Al Pacino-as-Michael Corleone Oscar promotion). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:11 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/27/2009 6:02:11 PMIf Tyler Perry gets an Oscar nomination for his acting in Madea Goes to Jail, can a washed-up actress scold him for taking away female roles? Actually, could it just be Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag, a la Boat Trip? Seriously, though, Madea won’t be up for any Academy Awards next year, but damn is Perry’s character popular. Enough that the sassy matriarch has now evolved from a supporting character into the star of her own vehicle (which gave the filmmaker his biggest opening yet this past weekend). Yes, it’s true that Madea is a central figure in most of Perry’s films and has previously been the main protagonist in his plays (including the one Madea Goes to Jail is based on), but in the movie world she was introduced as a secondary role in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. So, now she belongs in that small club of supporting characters who’ve earned their own film(s); other members of which include Jay and Silent Bob, Bruce and Lloyd, Cousin Eddie, Marshal Samuel Gerard, the Scorpion King and Wolverine. And Madea is one of the very few female characters to belong to the club, which is another good reason for an actress to scold Perry. But the problem also lies with the people who write woman characters, apparently, since in coming up with ten other supporting characters who deserve their own spin off, we managed to only include two females on our list. Perhaps if we’d permitted classic film characters there’d be more to choose from — though even then we might be more likely to include a Peter Lorre or a William Demarest role than a Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden. Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), from Changeling Angelina Jolie got the entire spotlight for this film, earning an undeserved Oscar nomination among other things, but the only person truly worth watching in Clint Eastwood’s period piece is John Malkovich. He’s not exactly good in the role, but he looks amazing (and more creepy than ever) with his Marcel Wave hairdo and little mustache. The radio reverend could continue in a series of films in which he helps out other characters with their problems while constantly going up against the corrupt LAPD. Bust-Ass (Danny McBride), from All the Real Girls Danny McBride is starting to become a household name thanks to scene-stealing roles in last year’s Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and his new HBO series Eastbound & Down, which he co-created with his Foot Fist Way collaborators Jody Hill and Ben Best. Yet his funniest performance is still arguably as Bust-Ass in All the Real Girls. So, even though that films’ director, David Gordon Green, has helmed episodes of Eastbound, we’d actually prefer the filmmaker go back and make a spin off to All the Real Girls starring the parka-wearing putz. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), from No Country for Old Men We could probably select just about any supporting character from a Coen brothers film (here’s a related list, to get some ideas); most would be good for a spin off of their own. But the character that won Javier Bardem an Oscar seems the most easily appropriated to any number of new situations. While Hollywood might prefer to be consistent by ruining the character’s mystique with a prequel explaining Anton Chigurh’s background, we think it’d be more fun to see any one (or number) of the following unconnected tales: Anton Goes to Jail; Anton Saves Christmas; Anton Takes Manhattan. John Givings (Michael Shannon), from Revolutionary Road John Givings functions perfectly as a minor plot device for the Wheeler’s story in Revolutionary Road, and he probably wouldn’t work as well at feature-length capacity in a film all of his own. But he could at least serve the same purpose in other stories, the way that Silent Bob functioned similarly throughout a number of Kevin Smith’s films. Then, maybe after a few more titles in which he’s still merely a supporting character he can finally get his own co-spin off, which will costar an also-deserving Kathy Bates. Currently, we like the title John Givings and His Mom Strike Back. Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), from 12 Monkeys Like Danny McBride, Brad Pitt needs to go back to his greatest performance, which was undoubtedly as the loony Jeffrey Goines, from Terry Gilliam’s underrated sci-fi masterpiece. A spin off (or franchise) would have to do away with the original film’s time travel angle, but it would still be interesting following Goines on other crazed adventures in animal activism. Plus, for Pitt it would mean another chance at winning an Oscar for his most deserved role, yet this time it could be for Best Actor (actually a number of actors on this list could do the Al Pacino-as-Michael Corleone Oscar promotion). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/groups/Coming_Soon/Week_of_2_20_fashion_cheerleaders_prison_an/216/40484/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: spout
Post To: Coming Soon
Post Date: 2/16/2009 3:10:31 PM
Body: NEW TO THEATRES 2/20 1. Madea Goes to Jail - Watch the trailer. Until today, I thought Tyler Perry's Madea was like a kooky update of Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell. (Considering Ernest Goes to Jail, can you blame me?) Then I started looking into Tyler Perry, and even though I don't think his movies are for me, he seems like a really interesting guy. Two quotes from him on Wikipedia really caught my eye: 1) "I know my audience, and they're not people that the studios know anything about." 2) "Did you know you can't say 'Jesus' in a sitcom? They told me that and I was like, You gotta be kiddin' me...God has been too good to me to go and try to sell out to get some money." I was impressed to learn that Tyler Perry's been writing plays since he was 18, and according to Wikipedia, by 2005 his plays earned $75 million in ticket sales! Who knew? Madea Goes to Jail itself was a stage play in 2006, and a filmed version has already appeared on DVD. Has anyone seen that? 2. Fired Up - Watch the trailer. Teen comedy, whooooooo! Two randy football players avoid summer football camp by becoming cheerleaders. 3. Eleven Minutes (limited) - Watch the trailer. A documentary about fashion designer Jay McCarroll trying to set up an independently-produced runway show. NEW TO DVD - 2/17 1. Quarantine - Watch the trailer. This one looked pretty thrilling to me. An inner city apartment building is subjected to a government quarantine, but what's infecting the victims? 2. Body of Lies - Watch the trailer. Kevin Buist from FilmCouch saw this and didn't love it. Here's his review. 3. Choke - Watch the trailer. Kevin Buist wasn't crazy about this one either, so maybe he's just a big fuddy-duddy. Listen to his review. 4. Changeling - Watch the trailer. This was getting a lot of Oscars buzz until everyone actually saw it. Oh well, Clint Eastwood made a winner with Gran Torino. 5. High School Musical 3 - Watch the trailer. Well, I'm sure that whatever this movie's supposed to do, it does it well. Does anyone else think 'Corbin Bleu' sounds like a gourmet meal? 6. Righteous Kill - Watch the trailer. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are in the same movie for only the third time. Since the first two movies were Godfather Pt. II and Heat, this third time is most definitely not 'a charm.' 7. Midnight Meat Train - Watch the trailer. Here's another dose of Bradley Cooper for everyone who's crushing (or man-crushing) on him from He's Just Not That Into You. Myself, I have a bit of a man-crush on the villain, who's played by tough-as-nails Vinnie Jones. 8. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Watch the trailer. Simon Pegg starts working for a pompous fashion magazine. Also stars Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox, Jeff Bridges and Danny Huston -- all people I like. The movie didn't get very good reviews, though... I'm looking forward to Simon Pegg teaming up with Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz) again, and I'm glad he's playing Scotty in the new Star Trek movie.
]]>Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:10:31 GMTspoutComing Soon2/16/2009 3:10:31 PMNEW TO THEATRES 2/20 1. Madea Goes to Jail - Watch the trailer. Until today, I thought Tyler Perry's Madea was like a kooky update of Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell. (Considering Ernest Goes to Jail, can you blame me?) Then I started looking into Tyler Perry, and even though I don't think his movies are for me, he seems like a really interesting guy. Two quotes from him on Wikipedia really caught my eye: 1) "I know my audience, and they're not people that the studios know anything about." 2) "Did you know you can't say 'Jesus' in a sitcom? They told me that and I was like, You gotta be kiddin' me...God has been too good to me to go and try to sell out to get some money." I was impressed to learn that Tyler Perry's been writing plays since he was 18, and according to Wikipedia, by 2005 his plays earned $75 million in ticket sales! Who knew? Madea Goes to Jail itself was a stage play in 2006, and a filmed version has already appeared on DVD. Has anyone seen that? 2. Fired Up - Watch the trailer. Teen comedy, whooooooo! Two randy football players avoid summer football camp by becoming cheerleaders. 3. Eleven Minutes (limited) - Watch the trailer. A documentary about fashion designer Jay McCarroll trying to set up an independently-produced runway show. NEW TO DVD - 2/17 1. Quarantine - Watch the trailer. This one looked pretty thrilling to me. An inner city apartment building is subjected to a government quarantine, but what's infecting the victims? 2. Body of Lies - Watch the trailer. Kevin Buist from FilmCouch saw this and didn't love it. Here's his review. 3. Choke - Watch the trailer. Kevin Buist wasn't crazy about this one either, so maybe he's just a big fuddy-duddy. Listen to his review. 4. Changeling - Watch the trailer. This was getting a lot of Oscars buzz until everyone actually saw it. Oh well, Clint Eastwood made a winner with Gran Torino. 5. High School Musical 3 - Watch the trailer. Well, I'm sure that whatever this movie's supposed to do, it does it well. Does anyone else think 'Corbin Bleu' sounds like a gourmet meal? 6. Righteous Kill - Watch the trailer. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro are in the same movie for only the third time. Since the first two movies were Godfather Pt. II and Heat, this third time is most definitely not 'a charm.' 7. Midnight Meat Train - Watch the trailer. Here's another dose of Bradley Cooper for everyone who's crushing (or man-crushing) on him from He's Just Not That Into You. Myself, I have a bit of a man-crush on the villain, who's played by tough-as-nails Vinnie Jones. 8. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Watch the trailer. Simon Pegg starts working for a pompous fashion magazine. Also stars Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox, Jeff Bridges and Danny Huston -- all people I like. The movie didn't get very good reviews, though... I'm looking forward to Simon Pegg teaming up with Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz) again, and I'm glad he's playing Scotty in the new Star Trek movie. http://www.spout.com/blogs/cinemarian/archive/2009/1/15/39550.aspx Post By: CinemaRian
Post To: CinemaRian Blog
Post Date: 1/15/2009 3:29:03 AM
Body: Often, it’s a sign of a movie’s greatness when you are unable to move once credits roll. You sometimes need to sit and collect your emotions before you leave. I had to do that with Changeling, as the movie had a profound effect on me, but the anger I felt was not directed towards the films antagonists but towards the filmmaker. I was disgusted and offended. I should point out, that of course, I am in the minority here. The movie came within three votes of being voted the Best Film of the Cannes Film Festival, and it has ended up on many critics Ten Best lists. With the exception of Unforgiven, I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood as a director, and I know that a whole lot of people are. So you should probably take what I am about say with a grain of salt, but feelings from deep within me told me that something about the film was deathly wrong. The movie is based on a true, tragic story of a Los Angeles woman named Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother whose son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) was kidnapped in 1928. The LAPD waited 24 hours before beginning an investigation and the story developed into a national story at a time when the police department was under fire from various sources, including Presbyterian minister Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovitch) for incompetence and corruption. After five months, they inform that they have located her son in Illinois, but the reunion is not heartfelt- the child (Devon Conti) is not her boy. Spoilers ahead. She tells this to the detective on her case, J.J. Jones (Jeffery Donovan) but he wants the case wrapped up, so he commits the totally sane woman to a mental institution where she tortured. This is not even the first of many unlikely but true things that occur in the movie. Okay, I get that all of the terrible things portrayed here happened. But like another film about abuse and suffering in recent years, The Magdalene Sisters, I felt that the filmmakers lacked any kind of sensitivity about how to treat this material. On three separate occasions in my life, I have been emotionally scarred by inappropriate actions of police officers, two times severely. Watching this movie brought those memories back, but I felt like I was being manipulated by cheap dramatic ploys. Was the entire LAPD bad? If so, how did they get that way? The implicit argument that Eastwood is making in this movie is that pretty much everyone was guilty of horrid and callous insensitivity. Even the “sympathetic” cop, Detective Ybarra (Michael Kelly) at one point orders a child to do something so abusive that it was difficult to think about. I have no doubt that there are bad people on every police force, and that sometimes even good cops do bad things, but I knew that already. WHY, damnit?! The only reason they abuse Christine and the other characters in this film is to get a rise in us, the audience. It’s wrong for Eastwood and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (infamous for creating the worst TV show I have ever seen, Babylon 5) to bring up these serious issues and then treat them in such a cavalier, manipulative way. The worst scene in the movie takes place shortly after Christine is involuntary committed to the mental institution. She is stripped naked, sprayed with a fire hose and then made to spread her legs, in full view of three people, while a nurse checks her for syphilis. What I saw on the screen was not a melodramatic moment. Jolie plays the scene so bravely and convincingly that I saw an actual person, suffering and being humiliated. I do not like to see people suffer, and I especially do not like to see women suffer. Sometimes, as in a movie like May, it is okay for a director to show pain on this level, to remind us that such things exist in the real world and it’s our call to do something about it. I saw no evidence of that goal in this film. Christine Collins was being humiliated on the screen, in 1928, and I could do nothing but sit in the audience, unable to help or comfort her. I was showed this and made to feel awful for no good reason, perhaps no reason at all, as there is no reason for this movie to exist. I hate this film.
]]>Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:29:03 GMTCinemaRianCinemaRian Blog1/15/2009 3:29:03 AMOften, it&rsquo;s a sign of a movie&rsquo;s greatness when you are unable to move once credits roll. You sometimes need to sit and collect your emotions before you leave. I had to do that with Changeling, as the movie had a profound effect on me, but the anger I felt was not directed towards the films antagonists but towards the filmmaker. I was disgusted and offended. I should point out, that of course, I am in the minority here. The movie came within three votes of being voted the Best Film of the Cannes Film Festival, and it has ended up on many critics Ten Best lists. With the exception of Unforgiven, I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood as a director, and I know that a whole lot of people are. So you should probably take what I am about say with a grain of salt, but feelings from deep within me told me that something about the film was deathly wrong. The movie is based on a true, tragic story of a Los Angeles woman named Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother whose son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) was kidnapped in 1928. The LAPD waited 24 hours before beginning an investigation and the story developed into a national story at a time when the police department was under fire from various sources, including Presbyterian minister Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovitch) for incompetence and corruption. After five months, they inform that they have located her son in Illinois, but the reunion is not heartfelt- the child (Devon Conti) is not her boy. Spoilers ahead. She tells this to the detective on her case, J.J. Jones (Jeffery Donovan) but he wants the case wrapped up, so he commits the totally sane woman to a mental institution where she tortured. This is not even the first of many unlikely but true things that occur in the movie. Okay, I get that all of the terrible things portrayed here happened. But like another film about abuse and suffering in recent years, The Magdalene Sisters, I felt that the filmmakers lacked any kind of sensitivity about how to treat this material. On three separate occasions in my life, I have been emotionally scarred by inappropriate actions of police officers, two times severely. Watching this movie brought those memories back, but I felt like I was being manipulated by cheap dramatic ploys. Was the entire LAPD bad? If so, how did they get that way? The implicit argument that Eastwood is making in this movie is that pretty much everyone was guilty of horrid and callous insensitivity. Even the &ldquo;sympathetic&rdquo; cop, Detective Ybarra (Michael Kelly) at one point orders a child to do something so abusive that it was difficult to think about. I have no doubt that there are bad people on every police force, and that sometimes even good cops do bad things, but I knew that already. WHY, damnit?! The only reason they abuse Christine and the other characters in this film is to get a rise in us, the audience. It&rsquo;s wrong for Eastwood and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (infamous for creating the worst TV show I have ever seen, Babylon 5) to bring up these serious issues and then treat them in such a cavalier, manipulative way. The worst scene in the movie takes place shortly after Christine is involuntary committed to the mental institution. She is stripped naked, sprayed with a fire hose and then made to spread her legs, in full view of three people, while a nurse checks her for syphilis. What I saw on the screen was not a melodramatic moment. Jolie plays the scene so bravely and convincingly that I saw an actual person, suffering and being humiliated. I do not like to see people suffer, and I especially do not like to see women suffer. Sometimes, as in a movie like May, it is okay for a director to show pain on this level, to remind us that such things exist in the real world and it&rsquo;s our call to do something about it. I saw no evidence of that goal in this film. Christine Collins was being humiliated on the screen, in 1928, and I could do nothing but sit in the audience, unable to help or comfort her. I was showed this and made to feel awful for no good reason, perhaps no reason at all, as there is no reason for this movie to exist. I hate this film. http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/12/18/38539.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 12/18/2008 11:01:33 AM
Body: Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution –– although up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much. But it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of the family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness under Walt’s wing, while fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess,  and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:01:33 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog12/18/2008 11:01:33 AMOf Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution –– although up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much. But it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of the family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness under Walt’s wing, while fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess,  and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/12/18/38538.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 12/18/2008 11:01:19 AM
Body: Of Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution –– although up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much. But it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of the family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness under Walt’s wing, while fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess,  and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:01:19 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com12/18/2008 11:01:19 AMOf Clint Eastwood’s two 2008 directorial efforts, Gran Torino is by far the “better” film, in that it’s the picture that’s vastly more entertaining and much less clumsy in execution –– although up against the monumentally ill-conceived Changeling, that’s not saying much. But it is worth saying that the things about this end-of-year entry that are appealing are extremely appealing. In drawing the conflict in a broke-down Midwestern suburb between the white ethnic stragglers who originally gentrified it, and the non-white ethnic groups who have more recently moved in and made it their own, Nick Schenk’s script is gleefully unafraid to go to extremes. Eastwood’s starring performance, which requires him to be on-screen, often alone, for a good 90% of the picture, has been lauded as a career high, but this might stem from a kind of “Whoops –– if not now, when?” collective guilt; the fact is; the man is clearly running out of runway to be honored on. Again, what’s interesting about what Eastwood does on camera it is not nuance or technique, but the willingness to go balls out, to turn every casually racist wisecrack up to 11 and to crank out every unnecessarily externalized shard of internal monologue with the subtlety of burlesque. Gran Torino is thus most fun when it’s working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic’s one-man show. A good third of this film consists of Clint, as embittered widower and haunted Korean War veteran Walt, sitting on the porch of his modest Michigan home, slugging one PBR after another and seething out loud to no one in particular about the “fish eyes” and “zipperheads” who have moved in next door. When said “gooks” (actually Hmong immigrants displaced by the Vietnam war, thus connecting this film in liminal political/historical interest to Ellen Kuras’ far superior doc, The Betrayal) are threatened by a gang including at least one member of the family, the fight spills onto Walt’s yard, and the crazy old racist responds in the only way he knows how: he pulls out a shotgun and growls, “Get off my lawn.” Whether Walt likes it or not (and, predictably, at first he doesn’t and then he kind of does and then he really does), the 20-ish Hmong kids he accidentally saved see the aggro Mr. Wilson act as something heroic, and soon a line is drawn in the sand: the good gooks who just want to get their slice of the American dream without having to do much assimilation learn the old school tricks of getting along while maintaining a fierce opposition to melting pot political correctness under Walt’s wing, while fending off the aggressions and provocations of the new school immigrant class, for whom prison is a finishing school and “I don’t want to join your gang, thanks,” isn’t a satisfactory answer. All that is fine, as far as it goes, and if Eastwood and Schenk had stopped there, with a character study riding the fine line between self-parody and exaggerated truth, it would be a lot easier to take Gran Torino seriously. But instead, drunk on its own excess, the film plunges into pure fantasy in a third act that’s impossible to analyze without using spoilers to describe. Suffice it to say, the crazy old racist teaches the fish people a little something about life … and death. In the end, the only thing that’s shocking about Gran Torino is that it seems that no one in this community bothered to learn anything about anyone else until the day Eastwood’s camera started rolling. Not only does Walt not know how to pronounce the specific breed of “Chinamen” who have taken over his once-Polish block, but his own kids bumble around him, attempt to appeal to a common consumerist generoisty which he clearly doesn’t possess,  and recoil at his crudeness, as if expecting something else entirely. This seems like not so much of an accident on the part of Eastwood and Schenk, but their deliberate play at pitching Gran Torino above their predicted critique. If you create a world in which none of your characters seem to really know one another –– to the extent where even an old man’s grown children seem surprised by his every gruff rumble and emotional deficiency — then you essentially buy yourself the luxury of having no one within the film space to call bullshit. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/kristen/archive/2008/11/10/37166.aspx Post By: kristen
Post To: kristen Blog
Post Date: 11/10/2008 6:10:34 PM
Body: Clint Eastwood characters are like Sarah Palin saying repeatedly in the vice presidential debate that we need to stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street. What she says is correct but one gets the feeling that she has no sophisticated understanding of the matter and no plan of attack (she lacks abstract thought). She correctly identifies an evil but simplifies it to a sound bite. In the same manner, Clint Eastwood portrays the corrupt LAPD as evil (which they may very well be) but reduces humans to flat charactures. Clint Eastwood in his simplistic manner says that the police force is corrupt and that we need to stop them. Is the matter really so black and white? Do all the people on the police force really have no soul? Is every action an act of pure evil? People and evil are more complex then Eastwood’s conception. This is an oversight that is an injustice to people and to evil. The rest of the movie follows this simplicity but does manage to have a few worthwhile moments. Changeling first establishes how much Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) loves her son. When her son mysteriously disappears, Christine suffers injustice after injustice. First the corrupt LAPD deliver the wrong son. When she goes public with the news, pure evil Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) throws her into a mental institution to shut her up. Next come the shocking details of the child murderer in order to manipulate the audience to feel further sympathy. There is a turn of events thanks to Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich). Christine and the Reverend proceed to right all the injustice. They expel the corrupt police force. They liberate the women in the mental hospital (who are wrongfully there because of the more police cruelty). They see that the child murderer receives the death penalty. And they continue to search for her lost son. To be sure, Christine never shy’s away from her responsibility (a running theme in the movie). The one mature decision Clint Eastwood makes during the movie (that is to say a non-manipulative, unexpected move that helps the story) comes when Christine visits the child murderer Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) the day before his execution. Everyone expects the murderer to admit that he killed Walter so that Christine can have some closure in her life. When he doesn’t tell her in the interview everyone expects him to shout it from the platform seconds before his hanging. Instead he takes his secret to the grave. This silence fits the character and allows the movie to continue because though unresolved, Christine now has hope. Harner gives a great performance. As a villain he manages to be creepy but almost too mentally off to hate. In his own strange way he is charming (even though we saw him viciously hacking child to death). He has a strange innocence even in his guilt. By the second half of the movie, I had such low expectations that any ending other than Walter Collins (Christine’s son) running into his mother’s arms in slow motion would be appreciated. I think I can say safely that most people expect this saccharine ending, which makes the way Eastwood actually ends the movie quite clever. It’s not a good ending, it’s a Hollywood ending but it does enough so that critics don’t turn their heads and moan and it gives the general audience the sweetness they desire. It also preserves some mystery about the case, gives Christine hope, and at least paints Walter Collins as a hero (someone Christine can be proud of). The end delivers the expectations while preserving tragedy. This ending shows a great understanding of audience and critics. Eastwood knows how to play the game. This understanding of the politics of filmmaking and his wonderful personality are (what I believe) the reason for his acclaim (aside from his one great movie Unforgiven where he rightfully deserves praise).
]]>Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:10:34 GMTkristenkristen Blog11/10/2008 6:10:34 PM Clint Eastwood characters are like Sarah Palin saying repeatedly in the vice presidential debate that we need to stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street. What she says is correct but one gets the feeling that she has no sophisticated understanding of the matter and no plan of attack (she lacks abstract thought). She correctly identifies an evil but simplifies it to a sound bite. In the same manner, Clint Eastwood portrays the corrupt LAPD as evil (which they may very well be) but reduces humans to flat charactures. Clint Eastwood in his simplistic manner says that the police force is corrupt and that we need to stop them. Is the matter really so black and white? Do all the people on the police force really have no soul? Is every action an act of pure evil? People and evil are more complex then Eastwood&rsquo;s conception. This is an oversight that is an injustice to people and to evil. The rest of the movie follows this simplicity but does manage to have a few worthwhile moments. Changeling first establishes how much Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) loves her son. When her son mysteriously disappears, Christine suffers injustice after injustice. First the corrupt LAPD deliver the wrong son. When she goes public with the news, pure evil Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) throws her into a mental institution to shut her up. Next come the shocking details of the child murderer in order to manipulate the audience to feel further sympathy. There is a turn of events thanks to Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich). Christine and the Reverend proceed to right all the injustice. They expel the corrupt police force. They liberate the women in the mental hospital (who are wrongfully there because of the more police cruelty). They see that the child murderer receives the death penalty. And they continue to search for her lost son. To be sure, Christine never shy&rsquo;s away from her responsibility (a running theme in the movie). The one mature decision Clint Eastwood makes during the movie (that is to say a non-manipulative, unexpected move that helps the story) comes when Christine visits the child murderer Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) the day before his execution. Everyone expects the murderer to admit that he killed Walter so that Christine can have some closure in her life. When he doesn&rsquo;t tell her in the interview everyone expects him to shout it from the platform seconds before his hanging. Instead he takes his secret to the grave. This silence fits the character and allows the movie to continue because though unresolved, Christine now has hope. Harner gives a great performance. As a villain he manages to be creepy but almost too mentally off to hate. In his own strange way he is charming (even though we saw him viciously hacking child to death). He has a strange innocence even in his guilt. By the second half of the movie, I had such low expectations that any ending other than Walter Collins (Christine&rsquo;s son) running into his mother&rsquo;s arms in slow motion would be appreciated. I think I can say safely that most people expect this saccharine ending, which makes the way Eastwood actually ends the movie quite clever. It&rsquo;s not a good ending, it&rsquo;s a Hollywood ending but it does enough so that critics don&rsquo;t turn their heads and moan and it gives the general audience the sweetness they desire. It also preserves some mystery about the case, gives Christine hope, and at least paints Walter Collins as a hero (someone Christine can be proud of). The end delivers the expectations while preserving tragedy. This ending shows a great understanding of audience and critics. Eastwood knows how to play the game. This understanding of the politics of filmmaking and his wonderful personality are (what I believe) the reason for his acclaim (aside from his one great movie Unforgiven where he rightfully deserves praise). http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/10/31/36844.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/31/2008 12:01:14 PM
Body: I have not been kind to Changeling, the Angelina Jolie-starring, Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar bait which opens wide today –– but admittedly, I also haven’t taken it very seriously. After seeing the supposed true-to-life drama at the New York Film Festival last month, I made the snap judgment that the film didn’t deserve my time –– it was such a silly, blatant exercise in statuette fishing, I thought, that the energy that I could expend detailing all its faults and falsehoods would be much better spent elsewhere. And certainly, plenty of other critics have covered some of the film’s key problematic factors. Dana Stevens‘ review pretty much sums it up, whether she’s citing Eastwood’s “clomping heavy-handedness” or his need to create a “deeply phony moral universe” in which to surround his victim-as-martyr manipulation shtick, which “keeps us at a stately remove, presenting Christine’s suffering as a kind of religious tableau.” But it was a throwaway line in A.O. Scott’s NYT review that made me realize that Changeling isn’t just a bad film –– it’s the final sign in a long line of them that Angelina Jolie, as we once knew her, has ceased to exist. That’s worth a minute or two. Stevens, and Stephanie Zacharek, and Ella Taylor are among the many critics who have noted that Jolie is essentially miscast in the role of Christine Collins, a fragile woman who hides her slightly hunched, rail-thin frame behind flowing layers and a giant cloche hat. Jolie’s strength, her sex appeal, the almost otherworldly confidence that makes her so genuinely fun to watch as a blockbuster anchor –– there’s room for none of that to shine through in this dreary story of a single mother who is suckered into an LAPD conspiracy, and yet manages to stay weepily polite about it for a good 80% of the film, even when dragged into the loony bin. It’s who she meets when she gets to said institution that really throws the split between the Angelina Jolie who wants an Oscar now, and the Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar eight years ago –– and trumped her own victory headline before the night was out by kissing her brother –– into sharp relief. After noting that “something essential is missing, not only from [Jolie's] performance but also from the film as a whole,” Scott runs down a bit of the plot and eventually gets to the matter of Christine’s incarceration in the police-controlled mental hospital, “where she meets Amy Ryan, who is to this movie more or less what Ms. Jolie was to Girl, Interrupted.” I’ve pulled this line out of context; in the review, it’s in parentheses at the end of a paragraph, as if it’s an aside, as if this isn’t the only thing about this movie that could potentially even matter. Because Scott is right: In Changeling, Angelina Jolie cedes the Angelina Jolie role to Amy Ryan so that she can take the ill-fitting Winona Ryder role: the frightened, sexless, allegedly sympathetic but ultimately boring, straight woman who can’t take control of a desperate situation until a much stronger woman shows her how it’s done. In Girl, Interrupted, Jolie was just supposed to set up the pins of Ryder’s long-nurtured Oscar-baiting vanity project so that the lead actress (and at the time, much bigger star) could knock them down. It didn’t work that way, and really Ryder should have known better than to assume that her comparatively prim self-consciousness would have a chance up against the larger-than-life Jolie in the much flashier role. Jon Voight’s daughter had been slowly building an image for several years as uncomfortable Hollywood royalty, rebelling via the usual means –– tattoos, knives, bisexuality, a foolish lack of filter and willingness to promote her own libertinism — but the added spotlight afforded by the run-up to the Girl, Interrupted Oscar suddenly made her growing pains seem glamorous. Her tough girl hedonism and its extreme difference from co-star Ryder’s boyish, non-threatening, very early-90s sexuality made the latter seem outmoded. Amy Ryan, already an established character actress and Oscar nominee, will probably not see the same bump in celebrity, but her character plays the same catalyst role as Jolie’s in Interrupted, and the performance similarly cracks Changeling wide open. She plays mouthy, ballsy (but kind-hearted!) prostitute Carol who imparts on Christine the learned wisdom that she’ll need to survive in This Place while upholding little interest in self-preservation. To her captors, she telegraphs the illusion that she cannot be contained, but Christine understands that her new friend’s rebellion is actually a kind of theater, and what’s more, it’s more often than not selfless–Carol acts up to distract attenton away from Christine, and ultimately, offers herself to up to punishments so that Christine will be spared. We thus understand that Christine is victim of the system, the one who doesn’t belong in This Place, while Carol — even if she’s innocent of the psychiatric charges against her — has no normal life to go back to. She has nothing to lose, and so she’ll go through everything and anything so that our heroine can’t come out free. One wants to be upset at Jolie for going for the bloodless supposed Oscar sure thing at the expense of playing to what we perceive as her strengths, as if her own experience netting a statuette should have taught her the folly of such a thing. The “old” Angelina would never have done such a thing, we sniff. As if the “old” Angelina Jolie — the tattooed man-eater, the weird girl on the cover of MAXIM who seemed to be enacting the revenge of the teenage outcast –– ever really meant as much as she seemed to mean, for awhile, just by virtue of existing. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to remember that this woman once seemed like a loose-canon anecdote to the industry of celebrity, before she became its chief moving cog. The fact is, Angelina Jolie has become such a huge star, she’s so overseen, that now it’s as if she can’t be seen. And so she can front a disposable film like Wanted on bad girl autopilot and rack up the box office victory, and no one comments on her performance because she has become so practiced at that kind of role that there’s no longer anything to say. It’s east to forget that Jolie is only now typecasted because she was somehow able to invent a new type of type. What made Jolie initially impressive and exciting––that she was simultaneously scary and sexy, smart and strong, unpredictable but in control––has been flattened down into the Angelina Jolie brand, and that brand has become a summer blockbuster mainstay. She’ll never be able to impress us with it again. And yet, when she deviates from her persona––on the rare occasions when she dares to actually show up and try––it’s read as desperate Oscar baiting. It’s a no win. But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain. There’s a scene in Changeling where, in a desperate, futile gesture, Jolie hurls a plate of macaroni at a wall (yes, it’s that kind of film) and shrieks, “I want MY son back!” It’s hard to watch the film and not think, “I want MY Angelina Jolie back!” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:01:14 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog10/31/2008 12:01:14 PMI have not been kind to Changeling, the Angelina Jolie-starring, Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar bait which opens wide today –– but admittedly, I also haven’t taken it very seriously. After seeing the supposed true-to-life drama at the New York Film Festival last month, I made the snap judgment that the film didn’t deserve my time –– it was such a silly, blatant exercise in statuette fishing, I thought, that the energy that I could expend detailing all its faults and falsehoods would be much better spent elsewhere. And certainly, plenty of other critics have covered some of the film’s key problematic factors. Dana Stevens‘ review pretty much sums it up, whether she’s citing Eastwood’s “clomping heavy-handedness” or his need to create a “deeply phony moral universe” in which to surround his victim-as-martyr manipulation shtick, which “keeps us at a stately remove, presenting Christine’s suffering as a kind of religious tableau.” But it was a throwaway line in A.O. Scott’s NYT review that made me realize that Changeling isn’t just a bad film –– it’s the final sign in a long line of them that Angelina Jolie, as we once knew her, has ceased to exist. That’s worth a minute or two. Stevens, and Stephanie Zacharek, and Ella Taylor are among the many critics who have noted that Jolie is essentially miscast in the role of Christine Collins, a fragile woman who hides her slightly hunched, rail-thin frame behind flowing layers and a giant cloche hat. Jolie’s strength, her sex appeal, the almost otherworldly confidence that makes her so genuinely fun to watch as a blockbuster anchor –– there’s room for none of that to shine through in this dreary story of a single mother who is suckered into an LAPD conspiracy, and yet manages to stay weepily polite about it for a good 80% of the film, even when dragged into the loony bin. It’s who she meets when she gets to said institution that really throws the split between the Angelina Jolie who wants an Oscar now, and the Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar eight years ago –– and trumped her own victory headline before the night was out by kissing her brother –– into sharp relief. After noting that “something essential is missing, not only from [Jolie's] performance but also from the film as a whole,” Scott runs down a bit of the plot and eventually gets to the matter of Christine’s incarceration in the police-controlled mental hospital, “where she meets Amy Ryan, who is to this movie more or less what Ms. Jolie was to Girl, Interrupted.” I’ve pulled this line out of context; in the review, it’s in parentheses at the end of a paragraph, as if it’s an aside, as if this isn’t the only thing about this movie that could potentially even matter. Because Scott is right: In Changeling, Angelina Jolie cedes the Angelina Jolie role to Amy Ryan so that she can take the ill-fitting Winona Ryder role: the frightened, sexless, allegedly sympathetic but ultimately boring, straight woman who can’t take control of a desperate situation until a much stronger woman shows her how it’s done. In Girl, Interrupted, Jolie was just supposed to set up the pins of Ryder’s long-nurtured Oscar-baiting vanity project so that the lead actress (and at the time, much bigger star) could knock them down. It didn’t work that way, and really Ryder should have known better than to assume that her comparatively prim self-consciousness would have a chance up against the larger-than-life Jolie in the much flashier role. Jon Voight’s daughter had been slowly building an image for several years as uncomfortable Hollywood royalty, rebelling via the usual means –– tattoos, knives, bisexuality, a foolish lack of filter and willingness to promote her own libertinism — but the added spotlight afforded by the run-up to the Girl, Interrupted Oscar suddenly made her growing pains seem glamorous. Her tough girl hedonism and its extreme difference from co-star Ryder’s boyish, non-threatening, very early-90s sexuality made the latter seem outmoded. Amy Ryan, already an established character actress and Oscar nominee, will probably not see the same bump in celebrity, but her character plays the same catalyst role as Jolie’s in Interrupted, and the performance similarly cracks Changeling wide open. She plays mouthy, ballsy (but kind-hearted!) prostitute Carol who imparts on Christine the learned wisdom that she’ll need to survive in This Place while upholding little interest in self-preservation. To her captors, she telegraphs the illusion that she cannot be contained, but Christine understands that her new friend’s rebellion is actually a kind of theater, and what’s more, it’s more often than not selfless–Carol acts up to distract attenton away from Christine, and ultimately, offers herself to up to punishments so that Christine will be spared. We thus understand that Christine is victim of the system, the one who doesn’t belong in This Place, while Carol — even if she’s innocent of the psychiatric charges against her — has no normal life to go back to. She has nothing to lose, and so she’ll go through everything and anything so that our heroine can’t come out free. One wants to be upset at Jolie for going for the bloodless supposed Oscar sure thing at the expense of playing to what we perceive as her strengths, as if her own experience netting a statuette should have taught her the folly of such a thing. The “old” Angelina would never have done such a thing, we sniff. As if the “old” Angelina Jolie — the tattooed man-eater, the weird girl on the cover of MAXIM who seemed to be enacting the revenge of the teenage outcast –– ever really meant as much as she seemed to mean, for awhile, just by virtue of existing. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to remember that this woman once seemed like a loose-canon anecdote to the industry of celebrity, before she became its chief moving cog. The fact is, Angelina Jolie has become such a huge star, she’s so overseen, that now it’s as if she can’t be seen. And so she can front a disposable film like Wanted on bad girl autopilot and rack up the box office victory, and no one comments on her performance because she has become so practiced at that kind of role that there’s no longer anything to say. It’s east to forget that Jolie is only now typecasted because she was somehow able to invent a new type of type. What made Jolie initially impressive and exciting––that she was simultaneously scary and sexy, smart and strong, unpredictable but in control––has been flattened down into the Angelina Jolie brand, and that brand has become a summer blockbuster mainstay. She’ll never be able to impress us with it again. And yet, when she deviates from her persona––on the rare occasions when she dares to actually show up and try––it’s read as desperate Oscar baiting. It’s a no win. But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain. There’s a scene in Changeling where, in a desperate, futile gesture, Jolie hurls a plate of macaroni at a wall (yes, it’s that kind of film) and shrieks, “I want MY son back!” It’s hard to watch the film and not think, “I want MY Angelina Jolie back!” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/31/36842.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/31/2008 12:01:02 PM
Body: I have not been kind to Changeling, the Angelina Jolie-starring, Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar bait which opens wide today –– but admittedly, I also haven’t taken it very seriously. After seeing the supposed true-to-life drama at the New York Film Festival last month, I made the snap judgment that the film didn’t deserve my time –– it was such a silly, blatant exercise in statuette fishing, I thought, that the energy that I could expend detailing all its faults and falsehoods would be much better spent elsewhere. And certainly, plenty of other critics have covered some of the film’s key problematic factors. Dana Stevens‘ review pretty much sums it up, whether she’s citing Eastwood’s “clomping heavy-handedness” or his need to create a “deeply phony moral universe” in which to surround his victim-as-martyr manipulation shtick, which “keeps us at a stately remove, presenting Christine’s suffering as a kind of religious tableau.” But it was a throwaway line in A.O. Scott’s NYT review that made me realize that Changeling isn’t just a bad film –– it’s the final sign in a long line of them that Angelina Jolie, as we once knew her, has ceased to exist. That’s worth a minute or two. Stevens, and Stephanie Zacharek, and Ella Taylor are among the many critics who have noted that Jolie is essentially miscast in the role of Christine Collins, a fragile woman who hides her slightly hunched, rail-thin frame behind flowing layers and a giant cloche hat. Jolie’s strength, her sex appeal, the almost otherworldly confidence that makes her so genuinely fun to watch as a blockbuster anchor –– there’s room for none of that to shine through in this dreary story of a single mother who is suckered into an LAPD conspiracy, and yet manages to stay weepily polite about it for a good 80% of the film, even when dragged into the loony bin. It’s who she meets when she gets to said institution that really throws the split between the Angelina Jolie who wants an Oscar now, and the Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar eight years ago –– and trumped her own victory headline before the night was out by kissing her brother –– into sharp relief. After noting that “something essential is missing, not only from [Jolie's] performance but also from the film as a whole,” Scott runs down a bit of the plot and eventually gets to the matter of Christine’s incarceration in the police-controlled mental hospital, “where she meets Amy Ryan, who is to this movie more or less what Ms. Jolie was to Girl, Interrupted.” I’ve pulled this line out of context; in the review, it’s in parentheses at the end of a paragraph, as if it’s an aside, as if this isn’t the only thing about this movie that could potentially even matter. Because Scott is right: In Changeling, Angelina Jolie cedes the Angelina Jolie role to Amy Ryan so that she can take the ill-fitting Winona Ryder role: the frightened, sexless, allegedly sympathetic but ultimately boring, straight woman who can’t take control of a desperate situation until a much stronger woman shows her how it’s done. In Girl, Interrupted, Jolie was just supposed to set up the pins of Ryder’s long-nurtured Oscar-baiting vanity project so that the lead actress (and at the time, much bigger star) could knock them down. It didn’t work that way, and really Ryder should have known better than to assume that her comparatively prim self-consciousness would have a chance up against the larger-than-life Jolie in the much flashier role. Jon Voight’s daughter had been slowly building an image for several years as uncomfortable Hollywood royalty, rebelling via the usual means –– tattoos, knives, bisexuality, a foolish lack of filter and willingness to promote her own libertinism — but the added spotlight afforded by the run-up to the Girl, Interrupted Oscar suddenly made her growing pains seem glamorous. Her tough girl hedonism and its extreme difference from co-star Ryder’s boyish, non-threatening, very early-90s sexuality made the latter seem outmoded. Amy Ryan, already an established character actress and Oscar nominee, will probably not see the same bump in celebrity, but her character plays the same catalyst role as Jolie’s in Interrupted, and the performance similarly cracks Changeling wide open. She plays mouthy, ballsy (but kind-hearted!) prostitute Carol who imparts on Christine the learned wisdom that she’ll need to survive in This Place while upholding little interest in self-preservation. To her captors, she telegraphs the illusion that she cannot be contained, but Christine understands that her new friend’s rebellion is actually a kind of theater, and what’s more, it’s more often than not selfless–Carol acts up to distract attenton away from Christine, and ultimately, offers herself to up to punishments so that Christine will be spared. We thus understand that Christine is victim of the system, the one who doesn’t belong in This Place, while Carol — even if she’s innocent of the psychiatric charges against her — has no normal life to go back to. She has nothing to lose, and so she’ll go through everything and anything so that our heroine can’t come out free. One wants to be upset at Jolie for going for the bloodless supposed Oscar sure thing at the expense of playing to what we perceive as her strengths, as if her own experience netting a statuette should have taught her the folly of such a thing. The “old” Angelina would never have done such a thing, we sniff. As if the “old” Angelina Jolie — the tattooed man-eater, the weird girl on the cover of MAXIM who seemed to be enacting the revenge of the teenage outcast –– ever really meant as much as she seemed to mean, for awhile, just by virtue of existing. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to remember that this woman once seemed like a loose-canon anecdote to the industry of celebrity, before she became its chief moving cog. The fact is, Angelina Jolie has become such a huge star, she’s so overseen, that now it’s as if she can’t be seen. And so she can front a disposable film like Wanted on bad girl autopilot and rack up the box office victory, and no one comments on her performance because she has become so practiced at that kind of role that there’s no longer anything to say. It’s east to forget that Jolie is only now typecasted because she was somehow able to invent a new type of type. What made Jolie initially impressive and exciting––that she was simultaneously scary and sexy, smart and strong, unpredictable but in control––has been flattened down into the Angelina Jolie brand, and that brand has become a summer blockbuster mainstay. She’ll never be able to impress us with it again. And yet, when she deviates from her persona––on the rare occasions when she dares to actually show up and try––it’s read as desperate Oscar baiting. It’s a no win. But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain. There’s a scene in Changeling where, in a desperate, futile gesture, Jolie hurls a plate of macaroni at a wall (yes, it’s that kind of film) and shrieks, “I want MY son back!” It’s hard to watch the film and not think, “I want MY Angelina Jolie back!” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:01:02 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/31/2008 12:01:02 PMI have not been kind to Changeling, the Angelina Jolie-starring, Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar bait which opens wide today –– but admittedly, I also haven’t taken it very seriously. After seeing the supposed true-to-life drama at the New York Film Festival last month, I made the snap judgment that the film didn’t deserve my time –– it was such a silly, blatant exercise in statuette fishing, I thought, that the energy that I could expend detailing all its faults and falsehoods would be much better spent elsewhere. And certainly, plenty of other critics have covered some of the film’s key problematic factors. Dana Stevens‘ review pretty much sums it up, whether she’s citing Eastwood’s “clomping heavy-handedness” or his need to create a “deeply phony moral universe” in which to surround his victim-as-martyr manipulation shtick, which “keeps us at a stately remove, presenting Christine’s suffering as a kind of religious tableau.” But it was a throwaway line in A.O. Scott’s NYT review that made me realize that Changeling isn’t just a bad film –– it’s the final sign in a long line of them that Angelina Jolie, as we once knew her, has ceased to exist. That’s worth a minute or two. Stevens, and Stephanie Zacharek, and Ella Taylor are among the many critics who have noted that Jolie is essentially miscast in the role of Christine Collins, a fragile woman who hides her slightly hunched, rail-thin frame behind flowing layers and a giant cloche hat. Jolie’s strength, her sex appeal, the almost otherworldly confidence that makes her so genuinely fun to watch as a blockbuster anchor –– there’s room for none of that to shine through in this dreary story of a single mother who is suckered into an LAPD conspiracy, and yet manages to stay weepily polite about it for a good 80% of the film, even when dragged into the loony bin. It’s who she meets when she gets to said institution that really throws the split between the Angelina Jolie who wants an Oscar now, and the Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar eight years ago –– and trumped her own victory headline before the night was out by kissing her brother –– into sharp relief. After noting that “something essential is missing, not only from [Jolie's] performance but also from the film as a whole,” Scott runs down a bit of the plot and eventually gets to the matter of Christine’s incarceration in the police-controlled mental hospital, “where she meets Amy Ryan, who is to this movie more or less what Ms. Jolie was to Girl, Interrupted.” I’ve pulled this line out of context; in the review, it’s in parentheses at the end of a paragraph, as if it’s an aside, as if this isn’t the only thing about this movie that could potentially even matter. Because Scott is right: In Changeling, Angelina Jolie cedes the Angelina Jolie role to Amy Ryan so that she can take the ill-fitting Winona Ryder role: the frightened, sexless, allegedly sympathetic but ultimately boring, straight woman who can’t take control of a desperate situation until a much stronger woman shows her how it’s done. In Girl, Interrupted, Jolie was just supposed to set up the pins of Ryder’s long-nurtured Oscar-baiting vanity project so that the lead actress (and at the time, much bigger star) could knock them down. It didn’t work that way, and really Ryder should have known better than to assume that her comparatively prim self-consciousness would have a chance up against the larger-than-life Jolie in the much flashier role. Jon Voight’s daughter had been slowly building an image for several years as uncomfortable Hollywood royalty, rebelling via the usual means –– tattoos, knives, bisexuality, a foolish lack of filter and willingness to promote her own libertinism — but the added spotlight afforded by the run-up to the Girl, Interrupted Oscar suddenly made her growing pains seem glamorous. Her tough girl hedonism and its extreme difference from co-star Ryder’s boyish, non-threatening, very early-90s sexuality made the latter seem outmoded. Amy Ryan, already an established character actress and Oscar nominee, will probably not see the same bump in celebrity, but her character plays the same catalyst role as Jolie’s in Interrupted, and the performance similarly cracks Changeling wide open. She plays mouthy, ballsy (but kind-hearted!) prostitute Carol who imparts on Christine the learned wisdom that she’ll need to survive in This Place while upholding little interest in self-preservation. To her captors, she telegraphs the illusion that she cannot be contained, but Christine understands that her new friend’s rebellion is actually a kind of theater, and what’s more, it’s more often than not selfless–Carol acts up to distract attenton away from Christine, and ultimately, offers herself to up to punishments so that Christine will be spared. We thus understand that Christine is victim of the system, the one who doesn’t belong in This Place, while Carol — even if she’s innocent of the psychiatric charges against her — has no normal life to go back to. She has nothing to lose, and so she’ll go through everything and anything so that our heroine can’t come out free. One wants to be upset at Jolie for going for the bloodless supposed Oscar sure thing at the expense of playing to what we perceive as her strengths, as if her own experience netting a statuette should have taught her the folly of such a thing. The “old” Angelina would never have done such a thing, we sniff. As if the “old” Angelina Jolie — the tattooed man-eater, the weird girl on the cover of MAXIM who seemed to be enacting the revenge of the teenage outcast –– ever really meant as much as she seemed to mean, for awhile, just by virtue of existing. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to remember that this woman once seemed like a loose-canon anecdote to the industry of celebrity, before she became its chief moving cog. The fact is, Angelina Jolie has become such a huge star, she’s so overseen, that now it’s as if she can’t be seen. And so she can front a disposable film like Wanted on bad girl autopilot and rack up the box office victory, and no one comments on her performance because she has become so practiced at that kind of role that there’s no longer anything to say. It’s east to forget that Jolie is only now typecasted because she was somehow able to invent a new type of type. What made Jolie initially impressive and exciting––that she was simultaneously scary and sexy, smart and strong, unpredictable but in control––has been flattened down into the Angelina Jolie brand, and that brand has become a summer blockbuster mainstay. She’ll never be able to impress us with it again. And yet, when she deviates from her persona––on the rare occasions when she dares to actually show up and try––it’s read as desperate Oscar baiting. It’s a no win. But that doesn’t mean we can’t complain. There’s a scene in Changeling where, in a desperate, futile gesture, Jolie hurls a plate of macaroni at a wall (yes, it’s that kind of film) and shrieks, “I want MY son back!” It’s hard to watch the film and not think, “I want MY Angelina Jolie back!” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/drama/MemberTagFilms.aspxdrama
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