black bag

In addition to Presence, I also enjoyed the (very different) Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp collaboration of Black Bag.

My Film-Forward review is here.

song to song shots

Even if the movie ends up being a "humiliating wreck," I still would like to see it for Fassy, Lubezki cinematography and of course... Ryan.

Thanks to Jason at My New Plaid Pants for directing me to this imagery.

review of 'slow west' by justin lockwood

The Western as a genre is a bit of an anomaly these days, so it’s interesting to see one released in 2015.  Slow West, the debut film from director John Maclean, checks off most of the cowboy requisites while bringing a subtly indie approach.

The movie centers on Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a naïve Scottish kid stumbling across the American west in search of the girl he loves (Caren Pistorius).  Lucky for him, he chances to meet Silas (Michael Fassbender), the archetypal drifter who agrees to escort Jay to his destination in relative safety.  Though there are plenty of tense gun battles and twists and turns, the movie unspools at a leisurely pace befitting its title and retains a slice of life quality that humanizes the conventions of the Western.  The acting is a big part of that; Smit-McPhee is the kind of actor who can convey character vividly through very few words; his big, soulful eyes do most of the acting.  Fassbender is typically good; this is the kind of part he can do in his sleep.  Pistorius, meanwhile, brings depth to a part that proves more complicated than the mythical “damsel in distress.”  She doesn’t necessarily need saving, and even if she did, the gentle but somewhat clueless Jay probably wouldn’t be up to the task.

The relatively simple storyline combined with the tremendous look of the film leads me to believe Maclean is interested largely in visuals.  Compelling images are what stuck in my mind after watching: a bright green caterpillar snaking across a Native’s face; the comic sight of Jay and Silas in white pajamas on horseback, their clothes stretched out on a rope between them following a rainstorm.  The framing and camera angles are excellent without being showy.  But the American countryside, played here by lush New Zealand, is stunning to behold, and contrasts sharply with the brutality and violence that unfold.  In this way, Slow West conveys a message more subtly than its too neat ending.  The old west was mesmerizing, Maclean shows us, but also brutal and unforgiving.  His movie taps into the Western genre’s potency without foregoing realism.

-Justin Lockwood

a review of 'x-men: days of future past' by justin lockwood

It seems like every franchise is being “rebooted” these days, but 2011’s X-Men: First Class was better than most.  The prequel was able to re-imagine major characters and their relationships, and to ground the story in historical events that resonated with the series’ sociopolitical overtones.  Sure, the script was a little ham-fisted at times, and January Jones was at her most wooden as (appropriately enough) ice queen Emma Frost; the movie was still a lively shot in the arm.

Alas First Class under-performed at the box office, so the studio decided to blend the new cast with the old stars for this summer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, based on a celebrated two issue arc of the comics. Original helmer Bryan Singer returns to direct, and his secret is this: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and Halle Berry return for glorified cameos, but the focus is mostly on James McAvoy (as young Charles Xavier), Eric Lehnsherr, aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), with stalwart Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in a 1970s milieu.  It continues the look and feel of First Class, with clever nods to the Kennedy assassination and Richard Nixon, while contrasting the period scenes with a dark future that echoes both the Holocaust (which Magneto survived) and James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The plot is convoluted and probably contains a dozen lapses in logic—fans are already debating alternate timelines and assorted loopholes—but it boils down to a good yarn that allows for meaty character stuff and inspired action sequences.  Ten years from now, shape-shifting robots called Sentinels have wiped out most Mutants, and nearly all of the survivors and their sympathizers are locked up in internment camps.  The remaining X-Men, who have allied with sometime enemy Magneto, hatch a desperate scheme to send Wolverine’s consciousness back in time to prevent the assassination that fueled the development of the Sentinels.  The mutton-chopped stud—given a crowd-pleasing butt shot early on—has to enlist young Xavier and Lehnsherr’s help to convince morally conflicted Mystique not to kill a prejudiced scientist (Peter Dinklage, further enhancing his geek cred) and set the whole horrific mess in motion.  It all seems a little clunky on paper, but Singer breezes through every beat with entertainment and style to spare.  One of his best bits is a show-stopping sequence in which Quicksilver—endearingly portrayed by "American Horror Story"’s Evan Peters—leisurely messes with Pentagon security guards within a few seconds of real time, all while listening to a hilariously mellow, lyrically appropriate 70s ballad on his headphones.  The movie has lots of fun with the period, from Wolverine waking up in a water bed to Quicksilver’s Twinkie stocked basement pad.  The actors are uniformly terrific: Lawrence is stunning, Fassbender brings pathos and killer cool to Lehnsherr, and Jackman, playing Wolverine for the seventh time (!) is so comfortable in the character’s skin it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing him—and he’s evolved fascinatingly over the course of the films.

Singer has been at the center of disturbing criminal allegations recently.  If proven, he deserves punishment for the charges of abuse and rape.  There’s no denying, however, that he’s a talented director; after a couple of high profile misfires, Days of Future Past proves that he’s still capable of delivering intelligent big budget moviemaking.  Time will tell if he’ll be able to continue his career, or undo it with his personal misdeeds.

Follow on Twitter: @JustinLockwood2.  

Think I’m spot on, or full of it? Drop me a line at justin.lockwood@gmail.com.

my dream oscar picks: the jdb awards

Sometimes they are pretty lame, but I guess I'm a sucker for the Oscars every year. Here are some of my favorite films and performances of the year I would have nominated.  Some were overlooked and hopefully some will get some recognition tonight.

BEST PICTURE

A Separation

nominees:

The Artist

Beginners

The Descendants

Drive

Margaret

Midnight in Paris

Shame

Weekend

Young Adult

BEST DIRECTOR

Nicolas Winding Refrn, Drive

nominees:

Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Steve McQueen, Shame

Alexander Payne, The Descendants

BEST ACTOR

Michael Fasssbender, Shame

nominees:

George Clooney, The Descendants

Tom Cullen, Weekend

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Ryan Gosling, Drive

BEST ACTRESS

Charlize Theron, Young Adult

nominees:

Viola Davis, The Help

Yoon Jeong-hee, Poetry

Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Anna Paquin, Margaret

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

nominees:

Albert Brooks, Drive

John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Patton Oswalt, Young Adult

Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

J. Smith-Cameron, Margaret

nominees:

Sareh Bayat, A Separation

Jeannie Berlin, Margaret

Mary Page-Keller, Beginners

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne, & Jim Rash, The Descendants

nominees:

Everything Must Go

Incendies

Jane Eyre

Moneyball

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

nominees:

Beginners

Midnight in Paris
Weekend

Young Adult

ENSEMBLE

Margaret

nominees:

Beginners

The Descendants

Midnight in Paris

A Separation

FOREIGN FILM

A Separation

nominees:

Incendies

Le Havre

A Screaming Man

Tomboy

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life

nominees:

Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia
Lech Majewski & Adam Sikora, The Mill and the Cross

Guillaume Schiffman, The Artist

Newton Thomas Sigel, Drive

FILM EDITING

Mat Newman, Drive

nominees:

Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Anne-Sophie Bion & Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Hayedeh Safiyari, A Separation

Joe Walker, Shame

ORIGINAL SCORE

Ludovic Bource, The Artist

nominees:

The Chemical Brothers, Hanna

Cliff Martinez, Drive

Alexandre Desplat, The Tree of Life

John Williams, War Horse

ORIGINAL SONG

"Think You Can Wait," Win Win

nominees:

"Masterpiece," W.E.

"Piledriver Waltz," Submarine

ART DIRECTION / SET DECORATION

The Mill and the Cross

nominees:

The Artist

Midnight in Paris

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Tree of Life

COSTUMES

Sonia Grande, Midnight in Paris

nominees:

Mark Bridges, The Artist

Michael O'Connor, Jane Eyre
Anaïs Romand, House of Tolerance

Dorota Roqueplo, The Mill and the Cross

VISUAL EFFECTS

Mission Impossible - The Ghost Protocol

nominees:

Attack the Block

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Super 8

The Tree of Life

SOUND

Drive

nominees:

Incendies

Mission Impossible - The Ghost Protocol

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life

SOUND EDITING

Drive

nominees:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Mission Impossible - The Ghost Protocol

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Bill Cunningham New York

nominees:

The Black Power Mixtape 1967 - 1975

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Project Nim

We Were Here

shame

Chic's "I Want Your Love" spins on the record player in the apartment of Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender in another devastating performance) where his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) has broken into.  The song not only illustrates her perpetual neediness and her want of something deeper from her soulless brother, but it's also a ghostly reminder of promiscuous, (but perhaps, more emotionally vibrant?) pre-AIDS Manhattan.  In the same way that John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy took us to the grit and grime of New York in 1969, in Shame, the gifted director Steve McQueen takes us to a very of-the-moment wealthy, Bloomberg-era Manhattan.  Here, Brandon takes a run past sleek, mysterious and nondescript glass offices (one of which he works in) and Chase banks and glimpses the Hudson River, with its rotting stumps of the infamous abandoned piers once hothouses for sexual hookups.

In a city that's constantly revamping, for good and bad, Brandon and Sissy seem unable to change their lives.  Pale and dead-eyed, Brandon is addicted to no-strings-attached sex and sexual imagery of all kinds. For whatever reason, (he comes "from a bad place," as his sister lets us know), he's just not cut out for relationships. When he attempts a date with a workmate (an incredibly present and believable Nicole Beharie who figures in two of the film's many great , long take scenes), he fails miserably, unable to be considerate or even create "small talk."  Sissy is suicidal and lost (her relationship with Brandon has shades of incestuousness), staying at Brandon's apartment, trying to find work as a singer.  In a heart rendering ode to pain and vulnerability, Mulligan sings a weak, small-voiced version of the usually bombastic "New York, New York."  It would never happen in reality, but McQueen forces the lounge (and the film) to stop to listen and watch.

McQueen's harrowing Hunger viewed the Irish hunger strike of Bobby Sands with a startlingly aesthetic eye (it attempted to create beauty out of its perfectly composed shots of excrement-streaked walls and Sands' emaciated body).  Bold and bleak, Shame speaks the language of the emotionally barren Brandon while taking out the aestheticism of what is usually aesthetic. ****



-Jeffery Berg