Author: nlclement

I can remember my parents taking me to see John Sayles’ Lone Star 20 years ago and how it utterly blew my mind. I was in my cinematically formative years, devouring the works of Scorsese and Mann and Stone and Scott and Tarantino, and then my dad had me see City of Hope, Matewan, and Eight Men Out at home with him on VHS, and in tandem with Lone Star, I became a lifelong fan of Sayles’ uniquely humanistic approach to storytelling. He’s one of the most natural, unhurried, and totally relaxed filmmakers that I can think of, and this 1996 neo-noir crime gem is easily one of the best and most layered works. Set in a small Texas town and featuring a stellar ensemble cast featuring the always amazing Chris Cooper, a note-perfect Kris Kristofferson, the fabulous Elizabeth Pena, and Matthew McConaughey in one of his first big attention-getting roles, the story centers on murder investigation that stretches generations, and as usual for Sayles, themes of racism, class, and family are at the forefront of the narrative. The tone is contemplative and the performances are beautiful and tragic and honest, while as a filmmaker, Sayles was able to capture a very believable sense of place and atmosphere through strong work with the amazing cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh (Blackhat, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty). Leisurely paced with Sayles serving as his own graceful editor, the film is never boring, and at times gets downright sprawling, and it seems a shame that an outfit like The Criterion Collection hasn’t released this as the special edition that it truly deserves.

Michael Bay is capable of making great, completely rollicking action films. His particular brand of visual mania has frequently been spectacular, and at times utterly gob-smacking; he’s the king of the money shot, the emperor of the razzle-dazzle trailer. A premiere visual stylist who cut his teeth on snazzy commercials and music videos and clearly influenced by the aesthetics of Tony Scott and John McTiernan (to name just a few), he caught the eye of super producer Jerry Bruckheimer early on, and it’s clear that he’s proud of the loud and massively-scaled summer movies that he unleashes on the multiplexes. Throughout the years he’s been one of the most prolific and successful orchestrators of cinematic chaos that the film world has ever seen. Look no further than The Rock, Bad Boys, The Island, and the first Transformers movie – these are supreme pop-corn entertainments made by a guy who is out to stun his audience with one insanely detailed image after another. Armageddon and Pearl Harbor are both shamelessly entertaining in their earnest cornball hysterics, tapping into an apple-pie sense of Americana that’s hard to resist. I’m also a huge fan of his underrated Pain & Gain, which acts as a treatise on everything that a Bay movie can and should be, but because of the smart screenplay, there’s an element of social satire not seen in any of his other works. And I greatly anticipate his most recent effort, 13 Hours, as it certainly appeared to be his Black Hawk Down; it’s the first Bay film I’ve not seen in theaters and it pisses me off that my streak has been broken.

But when I want to re-live some over the top spectacle, I always come back to Bad Boys II, as I consider it to be the apex of Bay’s vulgar, jocular style, and one of the last balls-to-the-wall, R-rated studio action films that has seen a wide release. Explosive, racist, absurd, divorced from reality, and completely bonkers with its various action set pieces, the film, as friend and critic Paul Rowlands from Money Into Light once stated, is “like an un-ironic remake of Richard Rush’s Freebie and the Bean.” This couldn’t be more apt and knowledgeable. Taking the buddy-cop formula and going complete insane with a rather routine story and mostly serviceable dialogue in between some truly excellent zingers, Bay, Bruckheimer, and a zillion screenwriters, both credited and uncredited, dismantled this well-worn formula and went for broke with some massive-stakes action, all done with a minimum of CGI and loving affection for physical pyrotechnics. Every single moment in this film is jacked for extreme visceral impact, with the ultra-stylized and super saturated images scorching the eye-balls, while all of the almost-impossible to believe action was staged with a minimum of computerized artificiality. And as per usual for a Bay movie, whatever CGI was used is always photo-real, so that you’re never taken out of the moment for a split second.

Seriously – there have been very few big-budget action films to rival this one over the last 15 years. I am not talking on a story/dialogue level – it’s all perfectly standard, nothing more, nothing less, and it won’t win any unpredictability contests. BUT – the style – the ferocity – Amir Mokri’s aggressively sexy and super-glossy yet somehow still gritty cinematography – the confrontational attitude – the obscene stunts – THAT FUCKING CAR CHASE ON THE MIAMI CAUSEWAY – nobody has topped what Bay and Bruckheimer and all the various daredevils on this dangerous production did in this particular genre. Recent films like Mad Max: Fury Road and The Raid 2 might trump Bad Boys II  – no question. But from the standpoint of huge entities making a glorified 1980’s B-movie with 2000’s $$$, Bad Boys II is a total riot from start to finish. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have a natural chemistry that is nothing short of special to watch unfold in scene after scene, and as per standard for Bay, his supporting cast deep and strong, with familiar faces and rugged, gruff physiques all on display. Bad Boys II is outlandish, it could care less what you think of it, and it loves itself through and through. Working the front desk at Jerry Bruckheimer Films when this film was in production will forever remain one of the key highlights of my Los Angeles experience.

I’ve now come to expect something special from writer/director Ben Wheatley with each new film. In a short period of time, he’s unleashed Down Terrace, Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field In England, all movies that I feel are terrific pieces of cinema, and have totally confirmed him as one of the premiere filmmakers within his age group. His latest, the gloriously surreal and exceedingly stylish futurist satire High-Rise, takes him into Grand Guginol territory with flashes of sexual intrigue while overall presenting a wildly maniacal vibe to the proceedings. Based on J.G. Ballard’s famous and much-loved novel (which I’ve not read), my guess is that this film will be a very, very different viewing experience for those familiar with the source material than from those with no preconceived expectations. Being that I never, ever compare movies to books (one of the single most pointless endeavors that anyone could possibly waste their time with), I can only report about what I’ve seen with my two eyes in terms of the movie. I loved every, single depraved, erotic, disgusting moment of it. This will be a repellent film for some. For others, it’ll be exactly the kind of decadent showmanship that you’re looking for. This is an intense film, in every sense of the phrase, forcing the viewer into a constant stream of excess, never relenting for a moment.

Tom Hiddleston finally has a juicy role to call his own, sexy Sienna Miller is back in smoking-hot mode (with some peek-a-boo nudity for extra frustration), and the entire movie has been crafted with a sophisticated visual style that blends ingenious sound work with feverish cinematography by Laurie Rose. Jeremy Irons is the brilliant yet foolhardy architect who has constructed a mega apartment building that in essence works as its own self-contained environment. There’s a gym, a grocery store, a school, restaurants, and all the creature comforts you might expect in high-society living, with each level to the high-rise comprising a different sect of society; the higher up in the high-rise, the more wealthy the inhabitants. All hell breaks loose when a series of power failures hit the complex, resulting in a total breakdown of acceptable behavior. Feeling like a thematic cousin to Snowpiercer, Wheatley stuffs his film with a locked and loaded aesthetic, and as usual, the results are wholly cinematic and form pushing; coming on the heels of the hallucinatory A Field in England, his latest walk on the wild side seems like a logical next step, further cementing Wheatley’s anarchist social worldview. The up-for-anything supporting cast includes Sienna Guillory, Luke Evans, Elizabeth Moss, Keeley Hawes, Augustus Prew, Peter Ferdinando, and a totally debauched James Purefoy. I’ve seen the film twice in three days and I can already tell that this one will be binged – HARD – once it hits Blu-ray.

The Truman Show is easily one of the most disturbing and prophetic films of my lifetime. Directed with extreme care by Peter Weir (Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock) and written by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War, Simone) who always seems one step ahead of everyone else, this is a genuinely sad film about stolen identity, the loss of innocence, the understanding of evil, and how one man decides to finally think and act for himself after years of bowing to the expected norm. Jim Carrey was absolutely brilliant (and probably never better) than he was here, subverting the silly-man image he had cultivated for a few years before dropping this dramatic bombshell during the summer of 1998. The fact that The Truman Show came out in the popcorn movie season, and grossed $130 million domestic after rapturous critical response, is still one of the coolest cinematic notions I can think of. Just think about it for a moment – a movie built on ideas becoming a huge success in the mostly brain dead, CGI summer movie landscape. It seems almost too good to be true. And I’m not so sure that this movie does that sort of business if it gets released this summer, or next summer. Both of the moment and completely ahead of its time, The Truman Show sought to expose the fraudulent nature of reality television in the darkest way possible, while skewering the notion of 15 minutes of fame, and seeking to examine the fallacies of every day life. Ed Harris was hypnotic in an Oscar nominated performance as the magician behind the scenes, calling all the shots in poor Truman’s life, and the way that he truly feels that he’s his father in the final act, and most especially in those heartbreaking and liberating final scenes, still creeps me out to this day.

Peter Biziou’s tricky and stylish cinematography took on a uniquely voyeuristic aesthetic, and Weir’s decisions to set the story in a bright and sunny and antiseptic seaside town as opposed to Niccol’s originally scripted rainy and nighttime and noir-ish NYC, was a stroke of visual and thematic genius. Take some of the most frightening emotional material ever conjured up and place it inside this friendly, sterile environment that would seem inviting to anyone. Dennis Gassner’s exquisite and duplicitous production design is worthy of intense study, as it’s always working to suppress the behind-the-scenes shenanigans while giving off a radiant, scarily friendly vibe. The concluding moments of this film with Truman heading up that perfectly surreal set of steps still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and the decision on the part of the filmmakers to smash cut to black in the exact fashion that they did will always remain one of the best storytelling decisions that I can think of. The absolutely insane supporting cast was an embarrassment of riches, including the stunningly beautiful Natascha McElhone, cocky-funny Paul Giamatti, the brilliant Laura Linney, everyone’s best buddy Noah Emmerich, Harry Shearer, and Philip Baker Hall. The ensemble was in total synch in this film, allowing Carrey and Harris to totally dominate, while still providing the film with warmth and edge where needed. Producer Scott Rudin first approached Brian De Palma (and then many others) to direct before hiring Weir, who has had one of the more bizarre careers I can think of. The absolute final shot of this work of art stings with such ironic humor that it hurts to laugh. This is one of the great existential films of the 1990’s, and a film that has only gained in its masterfulness as the years have progressed.

From the startling opening moments and continuing all throughout its entirely beguiling and metaphorical narrative, The Lobster presents us with another bizarre cinematic world from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (the Oscar nominated shock-fest Dogtooth and the funereal drama Alps), an emotional sadist who is constantly picking at his filmic subjects like itchy scabs, always trying to expose the raw and volatile relationship between humans and their fragile sensibilities. Co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, this is true, absurdist, pitch-black comedy, with plot threads that will make you feel purposefully uncomfortable, which you then feel bad about laughing over. The only thing I’m not super keen on in Lanthimos’ decidedly bleak yet strangely hopeful worldview is his strange obsession with weird animal violence; not sure where all of that comes from, but it’s a recurring theme for him that’s very noticeable. Colin Farrell isn’t the first actor you think of when dry comedy is the order of the day, but he fits perfectly within this rigidly stylish film that continually subverts its own sense of pictorial precision with a story that’s alternately confounding and exhilarating. Lanthimos is a true original and I can safely say that his films feel like the creations of only himself, so it comes as no surprise that this bizarre film won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and that so many big movie stars would jump at the chance to work with this brazen and unpredictable filmmaker.

The Lobster supposes a near-future where, by law, people must have a life companion. If you’re single, you’re sent to this ominous and ostentatious hotel that rests near the ocean, and you’re given 45 days to find a mate. And if you’re unsuccessful in your romantic quest, no worries, you’ll be turned into the animal of your choice, and released into the nearby woods, where you can look for love as a different species. If all of this sounds lunatic, well, it is, but it most certainly has a point of view in terms of relationships and societal expectations and honesty within the construct of partnership, and it basically serves as a corrective to the mindless crap that the Hollywood studios churn out on a weekly basis. Lanthimos recruited a starry cast for his first English language movie, including the magnificent Rachel Weisz, a priceless John C. Reilly, the brittle Olivia Colman, the uniquely photogenic Lea Seydoux, and a mysterious Ben Whishaw. Each shot by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis feels formally perfect and in total synch with the sharp editing by Yorgos Mavropsaridis, the keep-you-on-edge musical jolts add a repeated sense of menace, and the way Lanthimos builds his entire creation to its haunting finale will keep you buzzing after the last frame has been exposed. I’ll certainly need to see this offbeat item again to unlock all of its secrets, but like the best of films, it’s begging me for an immediate revisit.