Monday at the Movies - June 3, 2013

In honor of last month's stellar first season finale of Bates Motel, the A&E show I ended up loving more than I ever thought I would, we take a look at the myth behind the filming of Psycho before turning to the film itself.

Hitchcock (2012) – One of our finest actors portrays one of the greatest directors of all time, yet somehow the results leave something to be desired.  Sacha Gervasi’s directorial debut follows the corpulent Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) during the making of his ostensible masterpiece, Psycho.  It sounds like a recipe for success, but something’s missing; my vote is that, engaging though they all are, there are far too many subplots going on in the film.  We’ve got Helen Mirren doing fab work as Alma Reville, but it’s a performance dulled by a lifeless tease of adulteries (Danny Huston, usually equally compelling, is uninteresting here).  The bits where Hitch hallucinates encounters with Ed Gein are wacky in a Tim Burton kind of way, but these scenes are mere sidebars to other narratives.  And the making of Psycho itself, which was the major draw for me, gets short shrift – a shame, since it’s Hitch/Hopkins at his liveliest, and we have solid turns from Scarlett Johansson and James D’Arcy (as Janet Leigh and an uncanny doppelganger of Anthony Perkins, respectively).  On top of all that, though Hopkins is divine as always, his own star power sometimes overshadows the role, so it’s difficult to see him just at surface level; his Hitch voice is killer and his mannerisms accurate, but Hopkins still bleeds through.  All told, there’s nothing wrong with the movie, but it teases so many fascinating movies within itself that nothing feels fully fleshed out.  If nothing else, you’ll be itching to rewatch Psycho when all’s said and done.

Psycho (1960) – What do you say about a movie which the universe has already agreed is a landmark classic?  Alfred Hitchcock, the undisputed master of suspense, directs the hell out of Robert Bloch’s pulpy novel about the shady Bates Motel and its troubled proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), burdened with his own unique brand of mother issues when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) arrives with a bundle of stolen cash.  Though it’s part of the air we breathe, the rest is criminal to spoil just in case, and I can only say that what Hitch does with the material is nothing short of golden.  He’s helped by a more than able score by the legendary Bernard Herrmann, who crafts no less than three unforgettable themes for the film (including those unmistakable violin screeches); indeed, Herrmann’s compositions are almost characters in themselves, governing the mood almost as much as Hitch’s own deliberate direction.  But oh, those directorial decisions:  the black and white, the montage (Eisenstein’s idea of montage as violence never felt so appropriate), the angles, the shadows, even the color of Janet Leigh’s underwear – all are the marks of an obsessive genius lending all his skill to a real project of passion.  Each visual is a treat unto itself, the shots of Norman’s taxidermy lending a beautiful horror to his calm conversation.  And from an industry standpoint, much about the film is delightfully innovative, making twist endings and arriving on time part of the moviegoing lexicon.  In short, it’s not crazy to love Psycho.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here on Friday for the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month!

The A-Team (2010)

Even though I have never watched a single episode of the television show on which it's based, I knew I wanted to see The A-Team once I saw the trailer, in which Bradley Cooper fires the machine gun turret on a tank as it plummets in midair. And the good news is that the movie is filled with moments like that, unapologetically and gleefully screaming "Summer popcorn movie!"

Liam Neeson stars as Hannibal Smith, leader of an alpha unit - or A-team - that's regarded as the best covert ops team in the armed forces. Cooper plays Face, the beauty to Hannibal's brains, every bit the ladies' man; Quinton Jackson plays B.A., the warrior/pacifist role made popular by (or which popularized, if you want to go chicken-v.-egg) Mr. T; and Sharlto Copley, late of District 9, plays the borderline-cuckoo pilot Murdock. After a mission in Iraq goes awry and with the aid of the CIA's secretive Mr. Lynch (Patrick Wilson), the A-team turns fugitive in an attempt to recover a stolen MacGuffin while creatively evading recapture at the hands of Face's former flame Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel).

In terms of action, director Joe Carnahan gets points for imagination with his management of some of the most inventive action sequences on screen in recent years. In truth, the action is the real star of the movie: character development is negligible (though it exists, in small doses) and plot twists are present (though you'll probably see most of them coming), but it's the visuals that will make your eyes pop. If you've ever wanted to see a flying tank or a man parachute into a moving helicopter, this is the summer picture for you.

As for the acting, it fits well into the "action film" stock tropes, but the fact that the cast is made up of very talented people brings this film in above the level of "cliche." Though he's not quite as good as in Taken (review coming soon) or Love Actually, Neeson is endearing as always, showing off his sense of humor and ennabling us to have as much fun as he is; Cooper too is just as fun, having made a satisfying transformation from the slightly irritating Will Tippin on Alias to the genial star of gutbusters like The Hangover. Jackson and Copley are supporting characters in the classic tradition, not overbearing but still entertaining; my one gripe (aside from the broad strokes with which B.A. is painted, which I imagine is faithful to the spirit of the show) is that Copley's thick South African dialect slips through in a few moments, distracting from his otherwise jolly turn. And Wilson and Biel are just fine in their roles; Wilson is the stronger of the two, stepping solidly out of the schleppy shoes he normally fills for this slick and cagey part, while Biel's acting chops are overshadowed by how pretty she is (which is really the only requirement given to female co-leads in an action movie - attractiveness).

So if there's a word that encapsulates my take on The A-Team, it's "fun." It may not be credible or particularly layered, but The A-Team is a lot of fun. And that, first and foremost, is all I ask of a movie - that it be entertaining, that I feel satisfied on a gut level if not on a creative level. Fortunately, what this movie lacks in narrative imagination, it makes up for in how far it pushes the envelope of originality. There are numerous moments in the film that caused me to think to myself, "I've never seen that before," and that alone is worth the price of admission. If the action sequences were more conventional, in the vein of Michael Bay explosion-centric CGI-fests, perhaps this would only be a so-so movie. But what might have been an average action vehicle has a backbone which makes it stand up straight and be better than it ought to have been. This, in a way, is what The Losers should have been.

The A-Team isn't one of the greatest films of all time - nor does it pretend to be. What it is- and what it is successfully - is a bona fide popcorn flick that doesn't shortchange the audience on pure
visceral entertainment.

Like all good summer popcorn blockbusters, The A-Team is rated PG-13, this time "for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, language and smoking." Basically, stuff blows up, people get shot, mild profanity (no F-bombs) gets issued, and Liam Neeson smokes a cigar.

Next (2007)

It's almost blasphemous that this movie replaces The Dark Knight as the first article that my readers see when they log on, but here goes.

Next is the film that convinced me that Nicolas Cage has lost his edge. Granted, I had ample evidence - The Wicker Man and Ghost Rider among the most recent - but here I stand convinced that Cage is sadly incapable of making a good movie anymore.

On the surface, Next ought to be a reasonably intriguing movie. Cris "Frank Cadillac" Johnson (Cage) is a Vegas mentalist who actually possesses the ability to see two minutes into the future. Enter Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel), Cris's love interest and the woman who allows him to see farther (further, father?) into her future, and FBI Agent Ferris (the ever-intense - or is she just aggravated? - Julianne Moore), who's out to use Cris's ability to stop a terrorist cell from going nuclear.

If that plot thread seems out of left field, it is. Director Lee Tamahori (who brought us Die Another Day, arguably the least of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies) tries to make Next two very disparate things; at times a Nolan-esque examination of the fantastic in the real world and at other times a Jack Bauer-style counterterrorist actionfest, Next doesn't really succeed as either by fault of the other. If Tamahori had picked one or the other, the film might not have suffered as it does. Instead, the film waffles between genres without wholly committing.

I've beaten up on Cage for losing his edge, yet it's not as though the other actors aren't pulling their weight. Moore is serviceable as the stereotypical federal agent, making me a little nostalgic for her turn as Clarice Starling in Hannibal. And Biel seems determined to prove to me that she's an actress in her own right, because she seems to be doing more "acting" and less "eye-candying" the more I see her. And an almost-cameo from Peter Falk makes me lament that he's not given a bigger role as the comic relief sidekick. Still, Cage's performance led me to wonder (several times aloud), "Was that supposed to be funny?"

The villains are less than one-dimensional (they're evil, okay? that's all you need to know), but my most significant gripe comes with the ending of the fim. So if you wish to remain unspoiled, best to stop reading here and take away the nugget that I can't in good conscience recommend Next. Essentially, the ending of the film is the largest cop-out since Superman reversed the rotation of the earth back in 1978. Just as the film builds to some really cool stuff and instills a sense of hope that maybe - just maybe - Next is about to redeem itself, SURPRISE! None of it really happened! The last time I felt this cheated by a movie, I chucked a bowl of quinoa at Inland Empire. Thanks, David Lynch - and thanks to Lee Tamahori for completely invalidating ninety minutes of my life.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)

Dennis Dugan's 2007 so-called comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry offended me on a lot of levels. No, the plotline of two heterosexual firemen (Adam Sandler as Chuck and Kevin James as Larry) who pretend to be homosexual to collect one's insurance benefits isn't at all offensive. It's a lot of other factors that troubled me to the core.

Take first the fact that, as comedies go, this one isn't terribly funny. If we're being honest with each other, I did laugh at a lot of points in the film. Yet these were quick laughs, brief "Ha!" moments interspersed between scenes that are terribly unfunny. Not because they're offensive or crude, just because there simply isn't a joke in sight. Or if those pass for jokes, I missed a memo somewhere.

Also patently offensive: Adam Sandler. Kevin James is great here (and in the sitcom that made him a star, The King of Queens), but it's unfortunate that he's not the lead in a movie that could have been saved by giving him a larger role - and replacing Sandler, who continually seems bored. Sandler seldom makes eye contact with his costars, leading me to believe that he's either practicing some new tick of method acting, or he's reading cue cards because he's not interested enough in his part.

That might be the fault of Jessica Biel, who's supposed to be playing the sexy lawyer defending Chuck and Larry, with whom of course Chuck falls in love. Did I miss a meeting somewhere? Are we giving Miss Biel acting roles because she has some talent? Because she has some endearing physical characteristics? Because to be honest, I don't see her possessing either. Forgive me for needing more in a movie than She-Hulk in wet lingerie (a scene that I'm convinced was used as a trick to get straight men into the theaters without feeling "gay").

Also forgive me for being patently offended by Rob Schneider's uncredited role as the wedding chapel owner who weds Chuck and Larry. Did I mention he's supposed to be Asian? Uck. Steve Martin's Frenchman in The Pink Panther was funnier than Schneider tries to be, which is admittedly not saying much. I'm not sure which is more offensive - that Schneider tries to revive the antique tradition of "yellowface" (a term originally used to disparage the Charlie Chan film series), or that he tries to be funny. He fails miserably on both counts.

The final offense this film commits is wasting perfectly good actors in this muck of a mess. I've already shed a tear for the misuse (I should probably say underuse, since he makes the best of his part) of Kevin James, but note Steve Buscemi who has a sum total of three scenes - an insult to a talent of his caliber. Dan Aykroyd... well, maybe not a talent, but he's reduced to giving the preachy "message" of the film in an eye-rolling climax. And Ving Rhames - oh, poor Ving Rhames. The man tries his best to redeem his largely inconsequential role as a closeted homosexual fellow fireman. Rhames is over-the-top, but I feel sorry that the man who embodied Marsellus Wallace (please, no jokes about Zed here) is stuck in movies nowhere near as funny as it could have been.

Oh, and I almost forgot. It's not even original. It's remarkably similar to a 2004 Australian film, Strange Bedfellows (similar to the point that the first film's makers are in legal combat with the second's). The original might be funnier, but after this one, I'm not exactly inclined to find out.

The Rules of Attraction (2002)

Though 2002's The Rules of Attraction bills itself as "From the corrupt minds that brought you 'Pulp Fiction' and 'American Psycho,'" I wouldn't go in expecting the magic that director Roger Avary (co-writer of Pulp Fiction, though I understand that claim is a little sketchy) and source novelist Bret Easton Ellis (who also wrote the American Psycho novel) offered up in their earlier projects.

That isn't to say that The Rules of Attraction is wholly without redemption. A fundamental problem with the movie is that its characters not only are for the most part unlikable, but they demand not to be liked.

The character map sounds like something Shakespearean in scope. Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek) brother of American Psycho Patrick Bateman) is a self-proclaimed "emotional vampire" who falls in love with Lauren (an endearing Shannyn Sossamon), whom he believes is writing him purple love notes filled with glitter. But Lauren is really in love with Victor (Kip Pardue), a sex- and drug-addled student taking a semester abroad. Lauren's roommate Lara (Jessica Biel way-back-when) is similarly promiscuous, though she has her eye on Sean - as does Paul (Ian Somerhalder, alias Boone from Lost), a depressed homosexual looking for Mr. Right.

With the partial exception of Lauren, no character was sympathetic enough for me to grow attached to. Where Patrick Bateman (as portrayed brilliantly by Christian Bale) was an oddly enjoyable anti-hero, Sean tries his hardest to be unlikeable, having no-strings-attached sex and dealing drugs without any concern for the lives he hurts around him. An Ellis trope, to be sure, but at least Bale made Patrick Bateman compelling. In fact, all the performances are heavily laced with ennui. That's not to say that the performances are boring, but rather the characters are extremely bored, which makes a difficult viewing experience. The actors involved all do a great job personifying this disillusionment (especially Somerhalder, though I find myself asking why it seems Lost destroyed what could have been a promising career), but it's distracting to have characters so vapid that I can't pay attention.

Avary's direction is also distracting. Though imaginative the first few times it's employed, Avary's repeated use of reversing the film - playing scenes backwards - is wholly overused, seeming tired and cliche by the end. Perhaps this is a stylistic point Avary tries to make, but he doesn't make it well. One style feature used well here is the typically-Ellis first-person narration, in which characters freely speak their minds in the present tense to give a better sense of what's going on. Again, though, Bale did it better; the narration here sometimes verges on Kevin Costner's turn as the brutally dull narrator of Dances with Wolves.

I'm not sure I can in good faith recommend this movie. The point of a film is to get the audience engaged, and The Rules of Attraction tries profusely to make its characters despondently inaccessible. If you're up for a challenge, though, try to get thoroughly attached to one of the characters.

Lauren melting your heart doesn't count, though.