New Century Of Cinema: Hot Fuzz

Stanford, England is much, much worse than Stepford, Connecticut, if you can believe it.  Both towns contain deceptions that permeate their very cores-- however, those in Stepford are based on male insecurities.  In Stanford, only civic pride.  I consider the former to be an emotion more consuming than the latter.

Alas, I read that last paragraph and realize I have done you a great disservice:  I have revealed a rather important twist that occurs in Hot Fuzz, but it shouldn't deter you from seeing the film.  

Have you even heard of it?  It was released in early 2007 and was fairly unsuccessful, which is a shame, because it is such a sublime film.  

Edgar Wright (also the director) and Simon Pegg (also the star) wrote it as a follow-up to their cult hit Shaun of the Dead, and it is more successful than that film.  Hell... it is more successful than most films.  It centers on Nick Angel (Pegg), a London police officer who is extremely devoted at his job.  His job is his life and he's damn good at it-- so good, he is transferred to the village of Stanford to get him out of the way; he makes the other London cops look bad.  Stanford comes as a shock-- from the laid back captain (Jim Broadbent) to his bumbling partner (Nick Frost, also from Shaun of the Dead), things here are just too easy.  Until a series of gruesome "accidents" starts knocking off residents.  Angel realizes immediately that there is more to this than it seems, but so accustomed to their bucolic country life, no one will listen to him. And there is always the looming fear that it all is in his head... maybe the fresh air is driving him mad.

I realize that I have made this film sound like some sort of police procedural/ action flick with a British bent.  It isn't...really.  It is an uproarious, unbearably funny satire of exactly those kinds of movies that doesn't mind getting down there and wallowing with them either.  Here, a police officer gets in trouble for driving drunk-- the punishment?  He has to buy the station ice cream for a month.  The biggest threat to the town (before the "accidents" start)?  An escaped swan.  Yes, it's very funny in that wry British way where absolute nonsense is treated with absolute sincerity. But consider the final thirty minutes, which is really just an extended gunfight, a la John Woo (minus doves).  In all honesty, these scenes could be picked up and transplanted into a B-grade action picture (with a few costume changes and a couple of altered lines) and no one would know the difference.  Earlier, it shows scenes from Point Break and Bad Boys 2 that are just as ridiculous as anything in Hot Fuzz, only those films treat their subjects with deadly seriousness.  Hot Fuzz also takes it self seriously, up to a point, but there is a self-awareness those films lack.  It's like when George Bush sincerely asked "Is our children learning?" , and then everyone else began to ask the same thing, in the same way.  We care if the childrens learns, but we know also that's not the way to approach the subject.

  Hot Fuzz knows all the cliches, knows they're ridiculous, tweaks them slightly and sends them home.  It walks a tight rope-- it has to be hard enough that we still sincerely care for the characters (at least the major ones), yet silly enough that we keep laughing.  It never falters.  Here is  a satire of action films with enough action to satisfy fans looking for gunfire and explosions but, most amazingly, it manages to transcend both action flicks and satirical comedies-- it is just a great movie. 

How?  Well, there are lots of very funny comedies and very effective action films that I enjoy, but don't consider great.  It lies in the characters, and whether they're forced to take a backseat to their jokes or their special effects.  Here, Simon Pegg takes a back seat to no one, and neither does Nick Frost.  They both give stellar performances-- they don't know they're in a comedy, they play it straight (mostly), and they keep everything afloat.  If Pegg plays the straight man to Frost, Frost and Pegg play the straight men to everyone else.  Jim Broadbent delivers impossible lines with the honest face only a great actor can possess, and the rest of the cast, including Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Paddy Considine (so good as the father in In America) take twisted, over the top characters and never bother to wink at the camera.  Thank God for good comedic actors not raised on mindless "___ Movie" parodies or the Dane Cook/Adam Sandler school of "scream, because the louder you are, the more people will laugh!".

The film does go on a little long, but who cares?  Sure, there may be a little too much shoot out towards the end and a little too much exposition towards the middle and the final two scenes (involving the sea mine and the cemetary) are completely superfluous, but can you have too much of a good thing, especially when it's as fun as this?  And besides, you know what they were doing right before those two superfluous scenes?  Paperwork.  When was the lst time you saw that in an action film?  That act of audacity right there buys them all the superfluous scenes they want.

New Century Of Cinema: Ocean's Eleven

     Ocean's Eleven is like a machine you buy because you heard it makes homemade cookies.  Then you get the machine home, open it, and instead of making cookies, it makes a cow.  And then that cow hops in your truck, drives to the store, and buys you a package of Chips Ahoy.  Sure, the cookies aren't homemade, but now you have a cow that can drive and use money...and that, friends, is worth far more.

Steven Soderbergh's remake of a 1960s Rat Pack classic is a lot like that (really)...you think you have a heist movie, and yes, things are stolen and vaults are busted and people avoid laser beams while gliding down ropes dressed entirely in black, but really you have a magical little film that uses the standards of the heist genre as a MacGuffin and really focuses in on more delightful things like great cinematography (also by Soderbergh, using a pseudonym), a powerfully effective jazz score and charismatic movie stars having lots of fun.  I, for one, would rather that any day.

The film follows Danny Ocean (George Clooney), just out of prison for theft, as he tries to win his wife (Julia Roberts) back from the smarmy Terry Bendict (Andy Garcia).  Benedict owns three Las Vegas casino, and Ocean decides to rob them, bringing in a crew of ten other haphazarded con-men (including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac and Casey Affleck) to get the job done.  

But, seriously, the plot?  Completely irrelevant.  If I told you that they succeeded with the robbery in the end, would you be surprised?  Would you even care?  I bet not, by the time the film is over, because the film isn't about the robbery at all, but about personality.  George Clooney plays an exaggerated version of himself.  So does Matt Damon.  And Andy Garcia.  And Bernie Mac.  Or at least they play exaggerated versions of the way their seen by the public (I'm sure Andy Garcia isn't really a vicious SOB off camera... but he sure seems like he could be one).  The only actors, actually, who seems to be doing anything even remotely similar to acting are Don Cheadle (who plays the whole film, and both sequels, with a spot-on cockney accent) and Julia Roberts.  She carries the entire weight of the plot on her shoulders-- she's the only dynamic character, and whether she goes back to her husband depends less on her personality and more on what the story requires.  

And, yes, when a film stars the four biggest caucasian movie stars in the world (had they thrown in Will Smith and Denzel Washington, the reel would have probably burst into flames) essentially playing themselves, you get a movie that is a lot of fun.  There's a great scene between Clooney and Garcia at dinner where they use tone of voice to say everything the dialogue doesn't.  And there are scenes where Matt Damon does comically earnest and naive about as well as anyone can.  And Casey Affleck and Scott Caan (as brothers) have comedic chemistry and anarchic spirit that light up the screen.  And consider a scene where Brad Pitt teaches C-List celebs (Shane West, Holly Marie Combs,  Pacey Whit...err, Joshua Jackson, among others) to play poker before effortlessly fleecing them out of their money-- with that much self-deprecating going on, you'd expect king of the hill, A-list Pitt to come out looking a bit like a jackass.  He doesn't.

So, the movie is a lot of fun.  But, just being fun, does not a great movie make.  And Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape, Traffic, Out of Sight ), one of the best directors to emerge in the past 25 years or so, has made a virtuoso film on a technical level.  In fact, the style reminds me of that of one of my favorite of all films, Woody Allen's Manhattan, where he cast the titular borough in black and white, shot some of the most lovely widescreen compositions ever put to film, and scored the whole thing with sublime tracks by George Gershwin.   Soderbergh doesn't shoot in black and white (considering the neon gaudiness of Vegas, how inappropriate would that be?) but he does show us most of Vegas's landmarks in lovely widescreen compositions that make the city almost a character itself, a living, breathing place that these characters inhabit.  He shoots inside real casinos and catches that unbearably bright yet still somehow dim and shadowy look that real casino's have.  And he sets the whole thing to a jazz score that isn't as epic as Gershwin, but it's a lot of fun and keeps the mood bouncy and lightweight.  Actually, though, it's not all jazz-- there's also a gloriously well-used Elvis remix.

Earlier I mentioned the sequels to the film and yes, there are two, and yes, you've probably already seen both of them.  The second actually gets too bogged down in the idea of 'movie stars having fun' and almost completely abandons the plot.  I really liked it, too.  The third, however, found too much plot and explained too little of it, and, with the exception of a few sequences, wasn't very fun either.  But this one is the best, and should be the perfect template for big star vehicles in the future- never sacrifice the plot for your actors, but the actors are really all that matter.  In Ocean's Eleven, that's the way it is.  And that's the way it should be.  

New Century Of Cinema: Closer

There is a scene about half way through Closer that just about sums up the characters and, this being an intricate, intimate character study, the film itself.  It's a stupendous scene, probably the best in the film-- two break-ups, juxtaposed against each other for maximum effect.  Dan (Jude Law), a mopey, selfish man-child obsessed with love more as an idea than an occupation tells Alice (Natalie Portman), his girl friend of several years that he is leaving her for another woman.  Alice, young and seemingly truly in love, begs and pleads and cries.  "But I'm supposed to leave you."  And she does, finally, fleeing the apartment in angst the moment Dan leaves the room.

Across town, Larry (Clive Owen) chooses to confess a one night stand to his wife Anna (Julia Roberts).  Anna doesn't get too upset-- she's Dan's mistress and was probably about to leave Larry anyway.  Unlike their peers, these two opt out of the weeping and whining-- the gloves come off and they go for the jugular   "Don't say I'm too good for you," Larry roars, reaffirming himself against the middle class upstart angst that's probably plagued him since before he became a successful doctor, "I am, but don't say it."  Later, backed into a corner, Anna comes out swinging-- "He tastes like you, but sweeter."

So, yes-- Closer, as directed by the incomparable Mike Nichols and written by Patrick Marber (based on his late-90s play of the same name) is a film about two adults and two children playing love as a game.  That these characters are performed by four attractive, talented people (Law, Portman, Roberts and Owen, in order of appearance) acting at the top of their game would, by itself, make the film a must-see.  That the film is insightful, accurate, vicious and able to make your skin crawl, makes it a classic.

I said the film was about two adults and two children, and judging by that cast list, there isn't a minor amongst them.  True, physically, but on an emotional level Law and Portman are younger than Natalie was when she made her debut (in The Professional, at 14).  Their Dan and Alice make eye contact across a busy London street just moments before she is knocked cold by a taxi-- he rushes her to the hospital, and love ensues.  A year or so later, he meets Anna (Roberts), and again it is love at first sight.  However, the results of a cruel practical joke Dan plays brings Larry (Owen) into Anna's life and they eventually wed.  Not, however, before Dan and Anna begin the afore-mentioned affair that will eventually ruin both of them.

Jude Law plays Dan as a man incapable of compromise, incapable of selflessness and by the end of the film his is the one character who most deserves exactly what comes to him-- which is absolutely nothing.  On the opposite end of the spectrum is Julia Robert's Anna, a mature woman who has been through all these games before and finds them exhausting.  Natalie Portman plays Alice first as a weepy little girl, then as an enigmatic woman, and both times keeps the impression of a child trying on different hats to find the one she likes the best.  By the end of the film, she's the only character who has surprised us because, as the youngest, here innate nature is still evolving.  She doesn't know who she is...how can we?

That brings me to Clive Owen, who, in the film's best performance smolders, blazes and sets the screen on fire.  Here is a man who, without any silly romantic notions, understands the rules of the game and plays them to maximum effect.  He gets what he wants whilst systematically destroying his opponents.  And yet, while he does some shady, underhanded things, by the end of the film I felt a little justified that he wound up with Anna-- heaven's knows that's the only relationship in the movie that ever had a chance of lasting.

The film was directed by Mike Nichols, and this is his best theatrical effort in years, possibly since his Carnal Knowledge in 1971 (he also brought Tony Kushner's Angels in America to HBO in 2003, and that is, perhaps, the greatest thing ever done anywhere by anyone, but, for sake of argument we'll contain our hyperbole to the silver screen).  Here, some of his staging feels a bit, well, stagy-- the theatrical roots of the production remain fairly evident, but the intimacy he brings to the production could only be achieved through film and  helps to make the painful things that occur on the screen hurt even more.  He uses beautiful sets and classical music to accentuate the ugly things the characters do, and Nichol's has always had a way with dialogue (see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or The Graduate)-- here, Patrick Marber's razor sharp script give him plenty to work with. 

I think it's an accurate depiction of love in the first decade of the new century, where selfishness and stunted development and a 'win at all costs' mentality has permeated society and has turned dating into a war zone.  And with words as daggers and sex as bombs, these four know bloody well there are no rules.

New Century Of Cinema: Children of Men

(This is a new, fairly regular column I'm going to try to keep posted, where I examine and review my choices for the best films 

of the first decade of the new century. I don't get to watch movies particularly often, but I'll add to this list as I can.)

It is the year 2027 and no children have been born anywhere in the world for more than eighteen years.  Without a future, society is on the brink of annihilation; most nations have crumbled, Britain soldiers on.  Suicide drugs are free, immigrants are caged into unspeakable camps to await deportation or death, and fascism and terror battle for the upper hand.  Yet, in the midst of the blackness, even at the end, there is hope.  That is the premise of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a stunning film of remarkable emotion and visceral impact.

Clive Owen plays Theo Farron, a one-time political activist now consigned to apathy.  One day he is kidnapped by a militant activist group headed by his ex-lover (Julianne Moore).  She asks him to use his influence to procure transit papers for a young refugee, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey); it is pivotal she be allowed to move unencumbered towards the coast.  He obliges.  After a sudden assassination that couples the realization that Kee is pregnant and in great danger, he becomes her protector.  Together they flee from the government and the radicals, winding up in Bexhill Refugee Camp where they're to meet a ship that will transport Kee safely out of Britian.

Cuaron's vision of mankind at the end of days is enthralling.  There are times when we are so engrossed we forget that we're seeing sets and special effects; we mistake this London for a real place. Children of Men works so well because it doesn't opt to reinvent the wheel.  There are no towering CGI effects--it takes little stretch of imagination to see the world coming to this in twenty years.  The production designers (Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland) have peppered their cityscape with government propaganda reminiscent of New York's anti-terror campaign (I was also reminded of the wanted posters in Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).   Everything looks much as it does now, but older and less cared for.  Stray animals roam the streets, unoccupied with the troubles of man.  The refugee camp is a brilliant achievement,  effectively evoking Polish ghettos in World War Two.  There are beautiful scenes in an abandoned grade school that linger long after the credits roll.

I have made the film sound as if it is only a visual achievement, but it succeeds on all levels.  It is, above all, an action film and it has sequences so taut and brutal it makes the animated theatrics of Michael Bay seem like a Nickelodeon cartoon.  Shooting in long, unbroken takes, these scenes have an urgency that the audience responds to with a teeth-clenching physicality.  A chase down a tree-lined highway is terrifying, because it shows us for the first time of what the film is capable.  Theo's ascent in a war-torn, bullet-riddled apartment complex is unbearable, because we know how much is at stake.  Using all the tools at his disposal-- CGI, editing, cinematography-- Cuaron has created a thriller for the ages.

What elevates Children of Men from standard issue sci-fi action and ultimately makes it a masterpiece, however, is that it never allows the human aspect of its tale to take second stage to the visuals or the action, and the film has scenes so powerful that they moved me to tears.  In the beginning, all faith in humanity is drained from this picture.  Then, slowly and assuredly, in tiny gestures in the unlikeliest of places, it returns.  The result is an undeniable emotional response that subconsciously swells within us, breaking the surface in breathtaking moments that leave us gasping.  It is pivotal that we believe these characters are real people struggling for meaning in times that do not invite it, and we do.  The performances are indicative of this-- low key and pitch perfect.  Julianne Moore and Michael Caine (as an aging hippie) have small roles, but they leave an impression.  As the everyman, Clive Owen is great at projecting an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances.  And Clare-Hope Ashitey grounds scenes simply with her presence.

Yes, this future is bleak, but this film is not hopeless.  By dragging us so breathlessly through all this fear and dread and asking us to examine a stunningly rendered future world that is almost unbearable, Cuaron helps us  to appreciate the beams of goodness in his vision of the end of humanity.  And despite all this darkness, there is so much light.