Tag: Natasha Mcelhone

Matt Dillon’s City Of Ghosts

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Some films just go nowhere. They start in the middle of nowhere, continue down a road towards nowhere, and eventually end up.. guess where? Nowhere. There’s no structure, no beats, little to no stakes, it’s just people hanging about in a non-story. Now, this can either make for a boring film stuck in doldrums of its own making, or it can somehow oddly just.. work. Matt Dillon’s City Of Ghosts falls in the latter category, lucky him. This was Dillon’s writing and directing debut, with him front and centre as the lead, which is a lot of pressure, but he’s crafted a meandering little exercise in mood that, although providing nothing groundbreaking or all that memorable, is a great time to watch in the dreamy AM hours when you just need something vague and atmospheric to fill the space. Matt plays a professional con artist who is forced to voyage from the US to find his boss and mentor (James Caan), last seen in Cambodia. That sounds like a setup ripe for intrigue and double crosses, right? Not so much. Once he’s there, things congeal into a smoky, languishing chamber piece that sees Dillon just wandering from one exotic locale to the next with a troupe of fellow travellers, and eventually the James Caan character, a fairly eccentric and charismatic fellow. There’s a vague love interest (the ever beautiful Natasha McElhone, always terrific), a jovial innkeeper (Gerard Depardieu) and other wayward souls who flit in and out of the proceedings, all amidst this authentic South Pacific setting (Dillon filmed on location in Cambodia, which does wonders for atmosphere). Stellan Skarsgard is in it too, a hoot as some associate of Caan’s, a mopey, Eeyore-esque pessimist who sits about, smokes, mumbles despairing platitudes and does not much else. Beginning to see the picture? It goes nowhere, and by the end the characters seem to have gotten sidetracked fifty times over, never really achieving goals or making bank like they do in noir such as this. It’s neat though, if you’re in the right frame of mind, and have shelved both expectations and adrenal glands. This is a burnished, dreamy, laconic little piece that I rather enjoyed at the hypnotic hour of 2am on some random tv channel in the triple digits. 

-Nate Hill

Indie Gems with Nate: Guy X

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Guy X is one of those tonally disorientating black comedies whose madcap antics hide a deeper truth, visible only to those patient enough to sift through the meandering detritus. It also helps I your sense of humour is on the right frequency, one that is decidedly off key in this case. Think of a Terry Gilliam film, that mad rush of arbitration and deafening bureaucratic hubbub that serves as a smokescreen for something a little more grounded. Jason Biggs, keeping his dick out of pies this time around, plays Rudy, a low level army grunt who is accidentally sent to an outpost right in the the Arctic, and the middle of nowhere too, as we soon see by his fellow soldier’s boredom fuelled shenanigans. It’s fish out of water, but we get an uncanny sense that he’s also there for a reason, one that takes it’s painstaking time to emerge. Smitten by the beautiful commanding officer (the always lovely Natasha McElhone), hounded by her petty boyfriend  (Jeremy Northam) and constantly swept up in the feverish lack of discipline or coherence among the ranks. It’s all fun and games, to be sure, but there’s a melancholic aura that hangs around, especially when Rudy discovers the titular Guy X (Michael Ironside in a transfixing cameo), a lost and forgotten soul who hints at the futility of military operations, reminding us of how we all cloak our existential dread in frosty self depracation and ironic gallows humour. That’s the film, essentially, which I think many didn’t get. Most of the reviews I’ve seen on imdb are from folks who struggled deeply with the sharp, uncomfortable shift in tone, understandably jarred by a sobering rift between playful banter and troubling reflection. The important films are often more difficult for a idea audience to receive, they’re just constructed that way. This one is no exception, but there’s many a lighthearted moment and comedic situation to be enjoyed before the hammer of reality comes down. 

The Truman Show: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Everyone at some point in their lives has been bothered by the notion that their surroundings are all an elaborate prank, that somehow every single human being but them is in on some giant impossible joke, watching their every move for strange and unthinkable purposes. What if my life isn’t real? What if all my friends and family members aren’t who they say they are, and I’m just part of some ungodly social experiment? What if my life as I’ve known it just isn’t.. real? For Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) these concerns are very pressing, as he discovers throughout one of the most thoughtful, touching, creative and insightful films ever made. Director Peter Weir works with a script by Andrew Niccol to bring us this now timeless tale of a man existing in a patented pastel world that was never his own and always destined for him. Truman is the unwitting star of his own television show, inducted into its gargantuan studio set since the day of his birth, and conditioned to believe all his life that the people, places and events around him are in fact his real life. Cruel? Perhaps, but the film never takes sides, instead favoring wonder over analytical dissection, a wise move. Even the conductor of this whole absurd symphony, a prolific filmmaker played by Ed Harris, gets his moment of sympathy which can be read as preening ego or the desire to connect with his leading actor beyond the pixelated jumbo-tron he sits behind, depending on how you view the situation. Truman has a lovely wife (Laura Linney), a salt of the earth best friend (Noah Emmerich) and the perfect little white picket fence life. But none of it is real, or at least organic in the sense that every person deserves out of the womb. Truman is a rat in a very elaborate maze, but like anyone who’s had the wool pulled over their eyes, eventually he begins to see lights of authenticity piercing the seams. Gradually he begins to sniff out the ruse, like a child losing their innocence, and questions the eerily idyllic life he has been given. The people, or rather, actors in his life react in different ways. Some panic, others stick to the script, and Harris sorrowfully watches his controversial creation awaken beyond his control. Carrey is a starry eyed revelation as Truman, in one of the most overlooked performances of the century. His arc is the stuff of dreams, spanning the lengths of naivete trapped in a bubble that bursts into affecting, starry eyed realization and wonder. Every moment is owned by him, every beat is resoundingly hit in flawless fashion. When a mysterious and beautiful defector (the luminous Natasha Mcelhone) enters his life to play the part of whistle-blower, it’s the first geniune and non-puppeteered interaction he’s had with a human being. Sparks fly high enough to reach the heavens, and it’s the catalyst for a journey to find the self, the reason for his predicament, a world beyond the Lego brick suburbia he has known and the next step in his impossibly unique life. There’s a piece of Truman embedded in every viewer beholding, and I believe that’s why the film has held up for so long, and been beloved by so many. Every human being has insecurities as large as the fake sound stage that raised him from a pup. Every one of us has at one point felt the alienation he must have gone through upon realizing the truth. In a story so larger than life, we find the answers, or at least a modicum of such, to what it means being a person in this world. Carrey’s Truman is an achingly relatable avatar of this and a direct conduit into the essential. Couldn’t have picked a better actor to bring all of this to life. Couldn’t have made a better film about it. A classic. Good morning, and in case I don’t see you: good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.