Gina Carano owns Steven Soderbergh's HAYWIRE

HAYWIRE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012)







Although I had not seen a trailer or read anything about it going in, I caught on quickly that this film is simply an excuse to string together a series of acrobatic fight scenes showcasing the mixed martial arts skills of Gina Carano.



Thing is, it’s a pretty good excuse.



The plot, something about the CIA trained Carano getting set up and betrayed on a mission, really doesn’t matter, because this movie is all about the kinetic, extremely well choreographed, and superbly shot fight scenes.



Surrounding Carano is a cast of familiar faces: Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, and Michael Fassbender, but I believe had those same roles been played by a bunch of unknowns, it would have the same effect, because, again, it’s all about Carano’s game.



On the run from an international manhunt, Carano hijacks the car of the scruffy Michael Angarano in upstate New York, and she tells him (and us) how she got there, so we get flashbacks of set pieces in opulent settings.



For instance, a hotel suite in Dublin in which Carano and Fassbender have a brutal scuffle; it’s polished violence with class as the couple is outfitted in expensive evening wear.



With its snazzy jazzy soundtrack by frequent Soderberg collaborator David Holmes, HAYWIRE bops along enjoyably from brawl to brawl. It’s a durable diversion especially compared to its competition (*cough* CONTRABAND) in this January dumping ground.



From 1989’s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE to last year’s CONTAGION, Soderbergh has dabbled in just about every genre (can’t wait for him to tackle Westerns), so why not an espionage revenge thriller with a kick ass hottie, who actually can kick ass in real life?



Here Soderbergh throws his new heroine into the ring with Laura Croft, “The Bride” from KILL BILL, and Lisbeth Salander (either Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara - it doesn't matter), and by the end of it you’ll be convinced that Carano would be the last one standing.



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BEGINNERS: The Film Babble Blog Review

BEGINNERS (Dir. Mike Mills, 2011)

Mills' second feature posits itself as a more poignant piece than his dorky debut THUMBSUCKER (2007). It involves an earnest, soft spoken as usual, Ewan McGregor dealing with the death of his 75 year old father (Christopher Plummer) from cancer.



Previously Plummer came out as gay after his wife of 40 years died. Through his daily depression, McGregor has many flashbacks that tell the story of his father's dying days from the personal ad dating scene to his dying bed.



McGregor inherits his dad's dog, a Jack Russell terrier, who he talks to, and the dog answers in comic subtitles like "While I understand up to 150 words - I can't talk." Cute, huh?



McGregor works as a cartoonist or illustrator (not quite sure which) for a firm that working on album art for an indie band called The Sads. Isn't that cute too?



At a costume party with his co-workers, McGregor dressed as Sigmund Freud meets Mélanie Laurent (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) dressed as Charlie Chaplin who writes on a notepad to communicate because she has laryngitis. Got that? A major meet-cute.



Set in 2003, the film is full of a sort of slide-show framing device in which McGregor narrates over photos of people and places from previous periods in order for us to get the proper perspective. "This is what the sun looked like, the stars, this is the President" etc. Again we're drowning in cuteness.



If you haven't already guessed, this film struck me as way too cutesy.



The despair over losing a loved one, especially one whose real identity you are just beginning to process, is only touched on affectingly in the final scenes. Otherwise it's a eye-roller with little depth or narrative thrust.



Plummer is an excellent actor who puts a lot into his performance here, but it's an underwritten role. His relationship with the much younger Goran Visjnic, his first openly homosexual relationship, is thankfully not treated cheaply, but it just hangs there as a unexplored thread.



The film has unfinished thoughts as well about McGregor's career, his inability to commit to Laurent even after he asks her to move in, and his off kilter mother (Mary Page Keller) who we see in flashbacks acting all weird at home and embarrassing her son at an art gallery.



I feel somewhat Scrooge-ish in dissing this film, because I know there's an autobiographical element here (Mills' father died after coming out) and on the surface BEGINNERS is a perfectly pleasant indie movie with likable leads, a listenable soundtrack, and, yep, a lot of cuteness that some folks will think is just fine.



But to me it was cloyingly incomplete. An edgeless experience.



If Mills would flesh out his characters more and cut down on the cuteness, I would be inclined to get on board with his work since there's certainly heart there, but I just can't get on board with BEGINNERS.



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I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS: The Film Babble Blog Review

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS

(Dirs. Glenn Ficcara & John Requa, 2010)






"This really happened. It really did."

So says the lower case white block letters floating in the blue sky and clouds at the beginning of this quirky unconventional rom com.

Unconventional because it centers on slick conman Jim Carrey courting a demure Ewan McGregor from the first moment they meet in a Texas prison.

Carrey tells us early on in his pithy narration that he's "gay, gay, gay, gay, gay" after introducing his wife (Leslie Mann) and baby girl and the film never lets us forget it mostly by way of countless blowjob jokes.

Doing time for insurance fraud, Carrey falls hard for McGregor (doing a fairly convincing Southern accent that echoes of BIG FISH) and does what he can to be with him including among various escapes faking his death from AIDs.

The first half of the film is relatively entertaining and breezy but the second half loses its already shaky focus. Carrey puts in a fairly typical performance exercising his facial expressions and smarm, but McGregor fairs better as he shows less self conscious effort.

Unfortunately the story, "based on certain facts", isn't really that compelling. It's kind of amusing to see Carrey execute cons such as charmingly bluff his way into a corporate job but the film blurs into repetition as our protagonist keeps getting apprehended by police scheme after scheme.

Not sure what the film wants us to take away from this story. It feels almost homophobic in its humor but I truly don't think directors and screenwriters Ficarra and Requa meant to craft a hate piece.

When Carrey's ex-wife Leslie Mann asks with concern if stealing and being gay are connected - it's meant as a joke about her naive character, but its a question that sadly lingers over this undercooked material.

If we're supposed to laugh at Carrey as he lies his way through life we're not given much to laugh at for I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS isn't as clever and funny as it pretends to be.

It's a forgettable little lark of a film - a frothy throwaway that has its moments but this season a movie-goer could do way better.

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THE GHOST WRITER: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE GHOST WRITER 

(Dir. Roman Polanski, 2010)


It's not easy to bypass the tangle of legal matters surrounding legendary director Roman Polanski and view his work on its own merits, but THE GHOST WRITER is such a fine film that it is possible to do so.



Most of the time. Every now and then I would remind myself that he edited it in confinement, but that only enhanced the tone of pure tension in which the film revels. Ewan McGregor, whose character's name is never revealed - he's only credited as "The Ghost", takes on the job of rewriting the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (a gruff very un-Bondian Pierce Brosnan), reportedly a thinly veiled characterization of Tony Blair.



It's a daunting task as McGregor only has a month to get the lengthy manuscript in shape, Brosnan is being accused of war crimes by his former Foreign Secretary (Robert Pugh), and there's the troubling matter that the former ghost writer was found dead washed up on the beach of Brosnan's lavish oceanfront compound in Massachusetts.



Goaded by his smarmy agent (beautifully played by Jon Bernthal), McGregor flies to that same compound and is greeted by one of Brosnan's handlers (Sex And The City's Kim Catrall) and Brosnan's frazzled wife (Olivia Williams). McGregor attempts to have a sense of humor about the situation, but is a bit unnerved when after drafting a statement for Brosnan to the press is told by a smug Catrall: "That makes you an accomplice." 



After obliviously tipping off an odd man at his hotel's bar of Brosnan's whereabouts, McGregor wakes up to a media circus. Brosnan's conversations with his lawyers (including a demure Timothy Hutton) and handlers about where he should relocate in order to stay out of the hands of the law is undeniably a moment in which Polanski's real life predicament pulsates through the screen.



In a masterfully shot sequence, McGregor drives his deceased predecessor's car following the stored GPS directions and ends up at the house of Tom Wilkinson as a retired Harvard professor with possible CIA connections who denies any connection to Brosnan. McGregor has pictures that suggest otherwise, but Wilkinson insists. 



Wilkinson's edgy presence evokes good memories of MICHAEL CLAYTON - another polished and pleasing thriller in the same class as THE GHOST WRITER. Despite a few scenes that drag slightly, this is a powerful and intensely satisfying film. It's the definition of a slow burner with an ending that is absolutely on fire. I was seriously blown away by the construction and impact of the final shots. 



That Polanski can still make such a vital piece of cinema - one that I believe will stand in his canon comfortably along ROSEMARY'S BABY, CHINATOWN, FRANTIC, and THE PIANIST - at this complicated point in his career is no less than exhilarating. So whether or not you can separate the art from the artist, this is a must see. I



t's a great story; it has great performances (even Jim Belushi as a publishing CEO puts in solid work!), a great gripping score by Alexandre Desplat, and, most importantly great direction. Just shy of a masterpiece, and I know it may be to early to say this, but it's already one of the best films of the year.

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