1/30/14: Do the Hustle (Oscar Bait, Part 2)

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'70s-era, Abscam, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, American Hustle, Amy Adams, auteur theory, betrayal, Bradley Cooper, caper films, Christian Bale, cinema, con-men, con-women, David O. Russell, drama, Film, Film auteurs, good but not great films, haircuts, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis CK, Movies, period-piece, political scandals, scams, Silver Linings Playbook

I now continue my Academy Awards catch-up with American Hustle, nominated for ten awards. This will be the first of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen for 2013, so I really don’t have much to base it on. Thus far, however, my money is definitely on the competition.

What is the difference between a “good” and a “great” film? Is there some magic formula, some sort of recipe for truly going above and beyond? Is a movie truly “great” if it does everything right but nothing more? If that’s the case, what constitutes a “good” movie? What makes a movie “classic” and what makes it just a really enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours? To use a sports analogy, we pretty much assume that any professional-level athlete can catch, throw, run, etc, at least well enough to play their specific games: what makes the sports super-stars different?

I begin with this particular line of questioning for a very simple reason: I honestly want to know. You see, I’ve seen my fair share of films that I’ve considered unmitigated classics and a few of them (The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Blade Runner) have even been considered unmitigated classics by other, much worthier people than me. When looking at the current crop of Best Picture nominees for this year’s Oscars, I tried to imagine how many (if any) of these films would stand the same test of time as The Godfather II or Taxi Driver. Would any of these current films still be considered “classics” in ten years or would other films have replaced them in our minds?

David O. Russell’s American Hustle is, ostensibly, about the Abscam scandal of the late ’70s-early ’80s, although the film takes great pains to let us know that this is a largely fictional account: “Some of this actually happened.” Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale, with a terrible toupee, in uber-schlub mode) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams in an array of outfits that practically scream, “Hey, boobs!” from the rooftops) are a pair of con-artists who fleece their victims using a banking transfer heist (the ’70s equivalent of those “Help a Nigerian prince” emails). One of these victims just happens to be Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper with a tight, curly perm…seriously, was everyone required to pick a different, strange hairstyle out of a book?), who also happens to be an FBI agent. He decides to use Irving and Sidney’s scheme to lure in some bigger fish in the form of corrupt politicians, notably Atlantic City mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner with a jet-black, plastic pompadour). All of this comes to a head when mobsters enter the mix, a combination made more toxic when Irving’s nutty wife Rosalynn (Jennifer Lawrence in a ditzy tour-de-force) gets involved with one of the made-men and threatens to sink the whole enterprise. Will Irving and Sydney make it out alive? Will Richie be able to woo Sydney away from Irving? Will Rosalynn accidentally burn down the house? Will Louis CK ever finish that damn ice fishing story?

Let me make one thing clear right off the bat: there is absolutely nothing crucially wrong with David O’ Russell’s latest entry in the yearly Oscar sweepstakes. There are choices that I don’t particularly agree with (a little too much music at times, a few too many singularly goofy haircuts for one confined space, a few weird acting choices by Cooper) but, by and large, the film is extremely well-made. The cinematography is beautiful and the sound design/soundtrack is some of the best integrated sound use since the glory days of Scorcese or Tarantino: certain scenes, such as the moment where Rosalynn first meets Sydney as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road plays, are as good as similar scenes in Goodfellas. If anything, I wish that there had been slightly less music used (at one point, the soundtrack cycles through at least four different tunes in the space of a few moments) so that the truly brilliant moments could stand out more. No bones about it, though: American Hustle looks and sounds great.

How about the acting? Well, as expected from a Russell film, it’s great. The entire ensemble cast really inhabit their roles but specific attention should be paid to Cooper and Lawrence. I’ve never been a fan of Bradley Cooper: in fact, I usually find him to be completely insufferable. His portrayal of Richie, however, is pretty damn great and rather nuanced: he’s an insufferably pompous jackass with a huge ego and an even bigger inferiority complex. Cooper has a way of constantly building up and deflating his character: one moment, he’s a swinging-dick FBI agent flexing his figurative muscles at Irving and Sydney, the next moment he’s arguing with his mother over whose turn it is to clean the fish tank. Not every choice Cooper makes worked for me (there are a few freak-out moments where I caught myself saying, “Huh?”) but he fearlessly inhabits the character body and soul: I could easily see him taking the Best Supporting Actor statue and I wouldn’t complain (this time).

Lawrence, for her part, took a little longer to wrestle her way into my heart. At first, I didn’t buy her as the kooky Rosalynn: she was acting all over the place but her eyes were never engaged. At that point, I figured this would be another case of an actor obviously “acting” a part, rather than becoming the character. Somewhere along the line, however, I ended up buying her character hook, line and sinker. Perhaps it was the scene where she brazenly chats up the mobsters. Maybe it was the part where she finally meets her husband’s mistress. All I know, for sure, is that it was before the terrific scene where she belts out Wings’ “Live and Let Die” as she bops around the house. Wherever it happened, I eventually found myself really pulled in by Lawrence, an actress with a tremendous amount of talent (see Winter’s Bone if you need further proof) who will (hopefully) make the leap into more high profile roles soon (Hunger Games notwithstanding).

For the most part, everyone acquits themselves quite nicely in roles that range from glorified cameos (Robert DeNiro in his best gangster role in decades, Louis CK as Cooper’s put-upon boss at the agency) to genuine supporting turns (Renner is great as the Mayor and Michael Pena gets in some great moments as the fake Sheik/FBI agent). I’ve always felt that Russell has a particularly deft touch with actors (although Lily Tomlin might not agree…) and that’s certainly in evidence here.

So, then: what’s the conundrum? I’ve said that American Hustle looks and sounds great, is well-cast, well-acted and doesn’t have in critical issues (for me, at least). This should, by all rights, be a classic film, right? Alas, at least as far as I’m concerned, the answer is no. Quite simply, the film made me feel absolutely nothing or at least nothing more than I feel when I watch most films. I was caught up in the action, interested in the story and satisfied by the ending. At no point, however, was I truly blown away. Now, I don’t mean blown away in a flashy filmmaking sort of way: not at all. Some of my favorite films are smaller, quieter, more subtle works. I don’t need to have explosions and spinning cameras for every single scene or, to be more honest, for any scenes: it’s just not what I look for.

I did expect, however, to be blown away emotionally. I didn’t expect to be devastated or destroyed: this isn’t that kind of a movie. I also didn’t expect to slap my knee every five minutes: it isn’t that kind of a film, either. I did expect that I would feel something, some measure of Irving’s crushing loneliness, some measure of what it meant to be Rosalynn, some iota of Richie’s ridiculous obsession with being a success…anything. As it was, I never found myself bored or looked at my watch but I never found any higher significance for anything I saw, either. To me, this was an extremely well-made, entertaining caper film but nothing more. There didn’t seem to be any bigger social ramifications, message, what have you: what was there was up on-screen.

Not every film, of course, has to aspire to delusions of grandeur: if everything changed the world, we’d be in a constant state of flux. There has to be room for “pretty good,” “good” and “very good” films, otherwise we’d have no concept of “excellent” and “amazing” films. My main issue (or confusion, to be more accurate) comes with whatever I appear to be missing regarding American Hustle: what am I not getting from the film? When I watched it, more than anything, I was reminded of another film, one that moved me completely and has never really left my mind: Goodfellas.

From where I sit, American Hustle appears to be David O. Russell’s attempt to make his own Goodfellas. There are quite a few parallels: the extensive use of music; the large ensemble cast; the glorification (to a point: neither film lets their bad guys get off totally scot-free); the heavily stylized moments (Russell has more shots where Cooper, Bale and Adams stride side-by-side, in slo-mo, while a cool song plays than are probably necessary for even a Robert Rodriguez film); the voiceover (as my esteemed friend Salim has pointed out, Bale even seems to be channeling Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill at various points). When put together, at least as put together in this particular film, these individual pieces definitely form a picture that reminds me (more than a little) of Scorcese’s seminal film.

I’m not sure what it is about Goodfellas that moves me so much but it still affects me in the same way today that it did back in the ’90s. Despite my overall enjoyment of American Hustle and my general goodwill towards Russell (I loved Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees and The Fighter, disliked Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster and have yet to see Silver Linings Playbook), I find it impossible to believe that American Hustle will have any impact on me whatsoever in one year, much less 24 years. American Hustle is a fun, well-made, extremely enjoyable film, which is really more than we can (usually) ask for. Is it an amazing film or a neo-classic? Absolutely not. Is it the best film of 2013, at least as far as the Academy is concerned? I’m hoping they all got to see at least one truly amazing film this year: I’m pretty sure American Hustle wasn’t it.

1/6/14: Fighting Studios, Witches and Medieval Diabetes

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action films, anachronistic, Dead Snow, Drew Struzan, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster, Edward the Troll, fairy tales, fantasy, films, Gemma Arterton, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, horror, Jeremy Renner, medieval diabetes, Middle Ages, poster art, Tommy Wirkola

Tonight’s double-feature consisted of a documentary and a goofy fantasy action-film. I like to mix it up a little and, for some reason, I felt these two would compliment each other fairly well. The evening began with:

Talk about a massive case of “Oh, yeah…that guy!” I went in to this doc about poster artist Drew Struzan with only the barest knowledge of the man’s work: I knew that he was a ridiculously famous poster artist, mostly because I like to collect Mondo posters and Struzan has done a few here and there. I also knew that he was responsible for some truly iconic movie posters…I just didn’t know that he was pretty much responsible for ALL of the most iconic movie posters. I also didn’t realize that he designed some of my all-time favorite album covers: talk about a serious overachiever!

What, exactly, do all of these films have in common: John Carpenter’s The Thing; the Back to the Future trilogy; the Indiana Jones quadrilogy; most of Spielberg’s best (including The Goonies and ET); the classic Muppet movies; all of the Star Wars films; Big Trouble in Little China? They all feature truly iconic posters and all were done by Struzan.

How about Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my Nightmare and Greatest Hits (the awesome gas station gangsters cover)? Yep, those belonged to good ol’ Drew, as well. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the documentary was where he described the process behind Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: not only is Struzan the man in bed on the front and back covers but the idea of putting a “heaven” scene on the back (to compliment the hell scene on the front) was his, too. I really cannot stress enough how much I love both that album and cover, so this little insight was pretty nifty for me.

Since film posters are a lost art these days, it’s definitely bittersweet to take a look back to an era when everyone actually seemed to give a shit. We’ll never see this variety of hand-painted, non-Photoshopped posters in the future and the film world is definitely poorer for that. Drew’s posters all had such a vitality and individuality, traits that simply can’t be replicated in these days of “line-up/floating heads/person standing in the center/facing backwards” cookie-cutter promotional tools. I hesitate to even call these things posters because, in reality, they’re actually just computer files.

More than anything, however, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster is a love story. It’s a truly touching story about how Struzan, a loner and rebel whose family didn’t like him and who left home as soon as he could, met and fell in love with another loner, Dylan. The two have been together since their teens, have a grown son and grandson now and are pretty much the most perfect couple I’ve ever seen. In fact, one of the biggest takeaways from this documentary is just how loved and respected Drew is. From George Lucas to Guillermo del Toro and back to Michael J. Fox, all of those interviewed go out of their ways to describe how sweet, good-natured and obscenely talented Struzan is. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the film was when Drew described being taken to the cleaners by a former partner he trusted: the guys seems so nice that I knew people would be taking advantage of him.

In the end, if you have any interest in movie and album artwork, this is a must-see. The documentary comes loaded with more amazing artwork than you can shake a stick at and also gives viewers a rare look into Struzan’s home studio, including several of his non-film/music related “personal” artwork. After seeing the doc, I would love to get a chance to meet the master in person and just say, “Thank you.”

First of all, let’s clear one thing up right off the bat: Hansel and Gretel – Witch Hunters is not the stupidest film you’ve ever seen. Not even close. Without even knowing you personally, I can guarantee this (unless, of course, your entire life has been spent watching nothing but Bergman and Godard films. If so, Hansel and Gretel will be, without a doubt, the stupidest film you’ve ever seen.).

Why do I feel the need to defend this before I’ve even described it? Well, probably because the film has received the kind of critical drubbing that usually accompanies bottomless pits of waste like Van Helsing, Howard the Duck and Hudson Hawk. I tend to detest big, loud, dumb movies, especially ones that have delusions of intelligence. I went into Hansel and Gretel expecting something unrepentantly dumb, empty and soulless: perfect multiplex fare. What I actually got was something ludicrously entertaining and much smarter than 80% of similar films at the box office.

Helping matters along immensely is writer/director Tommy Wirkola. Had I paid more attention and realized that he created this, I would have definitely gone to see it in the theater. Why? Oh, just because of a little Norwegian wonder called Dead Snow, that’s all. Dead Snow is the best Nazi zombie film ever (of the five or six in existence, at least) and became one of my favorite modern horror films after my first viewing. Wirkola walks a tight wire between comedy and gushing blood, making Dead Snow one of the most fun experiences I’ve had watching a film: it’s simply impossible for me not to stand and cheer at various points.

Wirkola applies this same sense of humor to Hansel and Gretel and it works wonders. There are so many clever things happening on the periphery of the story, so many neat little details, that the film almost becomes a Bosch painting: part of the sheer joy is in hunting for little details you might have missed. Despite the medieval setting, we get: pictures of missing children on milk bottles; an insulin-injection system to help Hansel control the diabetes (“sugar sickness”) that he got from his first encounter with a witch’s gingerbread house; a taser that also doubles as a defibrillator; enough guns to make the Expendables look like Bronies and more uses of the word “fuck” than two back-to-back viewings of Joe Pesci’s drive-thru scene in Lethal Weapon 2.

Of course all of this stuff is anachronistic. Anyone with half of a brain should know this: machine guns and tasers weren’t invented until 1502, a full two years after the Middle Ages had technically ended. I find it endlessly amusing, however, to read reviews that pick up on that one angle as being synonymous with the filmmakers’ general lack of interest in their project. I could understand this criticism being leveled at a CGI-advertisement like Van Helsing but there’s a real, live heart beating beneath H & G’s cartoonish exterior. I never got the thought that the modern elements were thrown in willy-nilly, more that they all added up to the particular world that Wirkola wanted to set his film in. Bully for him. I’m not required to like or agree with any director’s slant on a story. I’m much more likely to get invested in their vision, however, if it’s a completely realized one, versus a marketing strategy. Van Helsing and Branded are great examples of films that establish worlds I simply can’t buy: they’re video game backgrounds, not real places. Blade Runner and H & G, by contrast, both have fully realized worlds. I would never compare the two, aside from that one undeniable fact: both films pull me into their worlds and keep me there, despite any of the odd or fantastical stuff that may be happening.

The film is anchored by three very good performances: Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are perfect as Hansel and Gretel, playing the parts as the action stars that Wirkola requires. Almost as good, however, is Edward the Troll. A canny mixture of practical and CG effects work (I’m positive that Edward isn’t all CG but someone prove me wrong, if so), Edward brings more pathos and emotion to one raised eyebrow than most actors do with a speech. He’s a great character and makes me wish that Wirkola had applied the same attention to the witches in the film.

Are there problems with the film? Yeah, a few big ones. Primarily, the movie could really use some good villains. The inspired credits sequence set up anticipation for lots of cool fights with various kinds of witches but, in the end, we get the same-old-same-old: a few people in clichéd “scary-face” makeup overacting. The main witch, as portrayed by Famke Janssen, is one of the most generic baddies I’ve ever seen. The effects scenes where she turns from “Famke-face” into “scary-face” were tired five years ago and I just couldn’t help but feel that I’d rather have anyone else playing that role, including a CG creation. Oh, well.

Ultimately, Hansel and Gretel is what it is: a high energy, tongue-in-cheek re-imagining of a very old story. The action scenes are well-staged and thrilling; the effects are good and the acting is above-average. A few generic fantasy/horror beats don’t distract from the fact that H & G is, head and shoulders, above “similar” effects films like Van Helsing, et al. This provided a great stop-gap while I wait for Wirkola’s upcoming Dead Snow 2 to blow my head around backwards.