Minnesota native and movie lover Morgan Lee Potter reviews any and all films.
- One girl, thousands of movies; endless rants, swoons, and possibilities!
"You play with a Prince to do business with the King"
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Released: 2007
Staring: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Armin Mueller-Stahl, & Vincent Cassel
Rated: R
Times Viewed: 3
It's David Cronenberg's birthday today and coincidentally I watched his film "Eastern Promises" last weekend. A film many say was in contention with Scorsese's "The Departed" for best mobster film of the past decade. Both released within a year of each other, Eastern Promises was produced on a much smaller scale but packs just as hard a punch.
Where The Departed is a loud and brash game of cat and mouse, Eastern Promises has a quiet kind of suspense about it. Not to say this movie doesn't have it's fair share of violence because let's face it, it's Cronenberg. The man's middle name IS violence. *cough* History of Violence *cough* The trailer is a bit misleading from the actual plot of the film but the basic story is communicated quite well.
p.s. I love The Departed just was much as Eastern Promises. I am not bashing it in anyway...just comparing the two.
Viggo Mortensen is a knock out and I'm not just saying that because he has a nude fight scene in a bath house...but come on, that was pretty bad ass. There is a bit of a surprise tacked on to Mortensen's character at the end that really defines his actions and elevates the story to a whole new level. His Oscar nod was well deserved and I really wish he would take on more parts...more parts like this one. Check out his flawless performance in this scene with Armin Mueller-Stahl, another silent, yet hurricane like force that drives the film.
If you like mafia flicks, great acting, and a touch of violence, I highly suggest you watch Eastern Promises. It's a film that takes you out of the hunt and inside the mob, the family, and the consequences. Beautifully directed by David Cornenberg who today turns 70.
Directed by: Joe Wright
Released: 2012
Staring: Keira Knightly, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Michelle Dockery, Kelly Macdonald, & Emily Watson.
Rated: R
Times Viewed: 1
If you know me, you know THIS is my kind of film. Victorian bustles, lace, taffeta and tool. Hats and feathers. Jewels and dramatic silouhettes. Yes, I'll admit I'm a costume whore. Periodical costume whore. Victorian periodical costume whore to be specific. I love theater and fireworks, magic and romance. Needless to say, when this trailer was released I was a tad bit excited. Not only did it star the lovely and talented Keira Knightly along with Jude Law, but was being directed by Joe Wright; master of the modern day romantic period piece. This makes sense yes? Yes. For those of my readers who are not up on the know who of directors, Joe Wright directed Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. With an academy acclaimed director and killer ensemble of actors, check out that list above, I had this one pegged to beg a big contender at this year's academy awards. Come awards season though, the film seemed to be all but forgotten about in every category save Costume Design, Art Direction, and Cinematography & Score. This leaves the viewer believing this was solely a visually accomplished film and nothing else. So what happened? After FINALLY tracking down a copy of the film I think I have an idea.
While visually striking, the vast scale and grandeur of Joe Wright's Anna Karenina sometimes engulfs the actors; swallowing performances and the well developed production.
Now, I'm not going to lie, I've never read the entire novel. It was one of those HUGE pieces of classic literature I picked up in 8th grade thinking I could finish it and soon discovered it was not meant to be. From 8th grade, I felt I simply didn't have the time to finish the lengthy book, so Anna Karenina has never made it's way from my "Want to read" to "Read." shelf....I tell you all this to reiterate that this review will not be a comparison of book and film (screen play) adaptation. I will be reviewing visual aspects of the film along with acting/character progression in relation to THIS FILM.
Set, cinematography, and an unique approach to a classic
The visual/cinematographic aspects without a doubt, are what drive this film to existing apart from other period, costume dramas. The revolutionary idea behind the spectacle is setting all scenes in St. Petersburg on (a) stage and transitioning the scenes as a play transitions sets. I wish I could find a clip of the opening scene because it's that scene that establishes to the audience the new and unique road that Wright has chosen to take. The bustling, "fake", acting, world of city life in St. Petersburg is contrasted by natural, organic, sweat and blood "reality" of life in the country. The transformation between the staged city and the natural city, while absolutely brilliant, lost me at times In various shots it seemed as though there should be even MORE over exaggeration or at least transitional method from stage to field. On several occasions I wondered if the actors really had left the set of the city or whether it was just an abrupt stop of the set changing motif the film carried. I honestly thought the revolutionary vision had stopped mid revolution. This was until I realized that the stage was the city and the large, open fields were the "real world" of the country...but this realization didn't happen until the film was almost over! As the film progressed, I though they had just forgotten the set changes; using them simply as a lure to gain the audiences attention for the first hour and a quarter...but that would be an amateur mistake. While the set metamorphosis IS used LESS as the film advances, it's not completely abandoned.
At work in the fields
This being said, I truly loved the concept of the set transitions and wish they would have used it to the extent they did in the opening and establishing scenes. The form is so unique to film, the viewer CAN NOT stop watching. It's an engaging technique that reminded me quite a bit of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet from 1996. *One of my favorite films* While Branagh used cuts in his film, in many scenes servants are seen moving certain set pieces and working in the back, transitioning the scene from one location to another.
The films even bare similar posters as well as several artistic shots and set design.
As Jude Law throws torn pieces of a letter into the air, the shreds turn into falling snow. Beautiful
This action is reminiscent of the wedding scene at the beginning of Ken Branagh's Hamlet (1996)
The "Play" of Anna Karenina's life in St. Petersburg is set within the "Play" of the stage.
"The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!"
Hamlet also deals with plays inside plays, who's acting, who's catching who, what is real and what is for show ect. ect. Branagh's adaptation deals heartily with the young Prince putting on a show for his Uncle the King. The film features an abundance of rich gold tassels and fringe along with velvety red curtains. Anna Karenina utilized many of the same decorations.
Anna Karenina
Hamlet
The sets designs were amazing and it's a shame Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer didn't win the Oscar for Production Design or Seamus McGarvey for Cinematography. Sadly though, I feel like the design and over designed approach out weighed the story and performances. This film went from a beautiful retelling of classic in a unique way, to a film who's main focus is it's design and distinct staging. I believe Branagh's Hamlet could handle the lush furnishings because the performances were just as bold. Not say the acting in Anna Karenina isn't fantastic, because it is, I just feel the story was told more through visuals and less through acting/performances/words.
Now for me this wasn't a horrible thing, I enjoy spectacle/pomp/avant-garde, it's just a fact to keep in mind if you're wondering why you the viewer didn't see more of Anna Karenina during awards season.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One member of the crew who DID receive an Oscar for her work on Anna Karenina was the impecable Jaquline Durran.
To the costumes....the costumes the costumes the costumes. Honestly I cannot begin to describe how GORGEOUS and detailed every character's costume is in this film...I can try my best and show you every screen shot, but it wouldn't begin to describe how wonderfully Jaquline Durran's pieces move and work on screen. She is a beautifully gifted designer that believes in collaboration with the actors to help develop the character's they've created from the film...an invaluable characteristic to have while working in film.
In interviews, Durran has stated that Joe Wright's original concept was to mix 50's couture with 1870's silhouettes. In an unimaginable way, these two time periods mesh together almost seamlessly. Many of the fabirics used in the late 1800s (taffeta, brocades, silks of course) were hugely popular in couture houses of the 1950s...specifically Dior and Balenciaga. Not only are similar fabrics and necklines used, but the majority of hair accessories are HUGE nods to fashionable, rich women of the 50's....when I say hair accessories I mean feathers. The use of feathers ares dramatic and unique. Instead of featuring a single plume as many films of the late 1800's or Victorian era did, Durran bends, clips, and position the feathers into new and fascinating shapes that seem both old and new. She remains true to the respective period, alludes to the 50s, but keeps the whole film relevant without loosing the characters in heaps of fur, feathers, and tool. Here's a great behind the scenes short with interviews from Jaquline Durran and some of the main cast...
There is a reason she won the Oscar people....
Jaquline Durran with some costumes from Anna Karenina
A very 50's pill box hat.
Another pill box hat as well as swooping 50's neck line.
Touch ups and a gorgeous feather hair piece.
FUR!
Breath taking!
~~~~~~
Acting
Now I'm not going to touch much on the quality of the acting in the film because when you have Keira Knightly, Jude Law, Matthew Macfayden, and Michelle Dockery you can assume, quite correctly, that the performances are great. Not to contradict myself though, sometimes the lavish epicness of the film does swallow the actors a bit leaving the story telling up the visuals and "wow factor" versus the the pure talent of it's main cast. Keira Knightly- As the leading lady she does fantastic as always, but in this role Knightly did something that I don't believe she's ever done before. She made me hate her character...this doesn't pop up till the very end, but after hours of her not making up her mind, going crazy and ultimately killing herself I didn't feel much pity for the character in the last 20 minutes or so. I feel this is a strong quality though...it shows the audience developing with the character. I went from liking this young, fashionable lady, to feeling bad for her, and ultimately not shedding a tear when she dies...cold hearted am I? Perhaps, but any actor that can make me feel a strong emotion one way or the other towards a character has already done their job.
Jude Law-I felt the same way towards his character as I did towards Knightly's only in reverse. Frist hate, then pity...an interesting character.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson- I can't really say much for the young, somewhat unknown who played Anna's lover Vronsky. He was fine, neither a nuisance nor an asset...simply a pretty face who delivers lines in an obsessed, gentlemanly like fashion.
Matthew Macfadyen- Oh my gosh MR. DARCY I LOVE YOU'RE MUSTACHE! I say this in all honestly that I bore the most ridiculous grin whenever Matthew Macfadyen's character Oblansky was on screen...and NOT just because he IS Mr. Darcy...it was because he was so NOT Mr. Darcy. Oblansky is a total social deviant; loud, smiling, having affairs and not really apologizing for any of it. I. loved. it. A great performance that shows Macfadyen's true range as an actor.
Reunited and it feels SO GOOD!
Michelle Dockery- Although her role is somewhat small, Michelle Dockery leaves her stamp on the character to the point where you're not sure if it's Princess Myagkaya (uh...Russian names) or Lady Mary Crawley. So yes, she does play somewhat of the same crass yet truthful character, but she just does it so well! Dockery's character is one of the only one's to remain a true friend to Anna through out her adulterous troubles. Now come on, who WOULDN'T want to have Michelle Dockery as their best bitch friend ready to slash any haters down with her sassy wit and sharp tongue? Plus I really loved her dress...
Michelle Dockery is judging you and it is NOT a secret...
Watching out for her friends and looking lovely in lavender.
Alright and finally if you're not sold on the whole "epic love tragedy affair" nonsense, you can watch for the real love story and the character that I enjoyed most in the film, LEVIN! Freakin' most adorable man in this film. His love for Anna's friend Kitty represents a sincere pure love that Anna and her brother Oblansky will never know.
Thomas Hacker I give you exhibit B to our "No Male Gingers Are Attractive" discussion.
I want a rugged ginger, Russian Farmer!!!
So in loooove!
Find me that ginger, get me that ginger, I will MARRY that ginger.
Yeay for the tragic, love sick ginger! In a plum suits no less!
Uh...AND I just discovered that he played BILL WEASLEY in the HP films. It's done.
I love B-camp, bloody, gory horror films, but honestly, what just happened?
Directed by: Jeremy Kasten
Released: 2007
Staring: Crisping Glover, Brad Dourif, lots of horrible unknown actors and strippers. No really, they are an actual group of strippers/porn stars...The Suicide Girls
Rating: R or Unrated
......I wish I had a running sound bite for chirping crickets because that's the only thing I heard when I try to think of something logical to say about Wizard of Gore. The concept of the film was so promising and it's execution so dismally disappointing. And if you're wondering, yes this film was watched on my Crispin Glover viewing escapade...Sadly, not even Glover's creepy charms could save this horrific illusion of a "mind bending" horror rampage.
Basic Synopsis...A downtown journalsist attends several shows featuring the magician Montag the Magnificent in a seedy, underground venue. During the show, the Wizard of Gore chooses a member of the female audience and appears to dismember their body on stage, but when the lights come up it is revealed as nothing more than an illusion. The following day the bodies of the girls are found murdered in very similar fashion to their on stage deaths. As journalist Edmund travels down the rabbit hole, he discovers that he has become more apart of this wonderland than he'd like.
Sounds like a solid outline for an interesting game of cat and mouse movie making right? This is just the problem...this script and the film makers don't keep to this solid story, instead they choose to trip themselves and the audience up on back stories, side stories, incomplete stories, past stories, present stories and any other type of added "story" you can imagine.
We have a magician who is possibly using his show as a cover for his murderous urges yes? Yes. We also have the possibility that someone ELSE is using Montag's show as a cover for HIS murderous urges yes? Yes. Two, you have TWO great murder motifs that you could run with the whole film. Was it Montag or was it not Montag...Is someone else using his tricks as basis for their murder? If so who and if so why? If it had just been left at that this movie could have been successful.
But no. We have to add in strippers, and drugs, and sex, and vietnam (just what?), and how Edmund knows absolutely everyone, and where he met his girlfriends and how he secretly gets off on beating women, and there is the escort service, and all the girls that are killed are apart of this escort service and how Edmund is involved with the murderers, perhaps HE is the murderer Oh my good, gracious father above, let's make him an UNRELIABLE CHARACTER so we can JUSTIFY this whole movie NOT making sense or fitting together in the end!
Ok!!! Now that that is out of my system I'll attempt to do and actual review. I know I usually go a bit deeper into story line and characters but honestly I just can't do it for this film. Why? Because I truthfully still do not know what happened at the end. I watched this movie from beginning to end and do not know who the ultimate killer was at the end. Too many would be killers turned into victims and and with a big part of the story being the use of this drug that can make people believe what you want them to believe, the viewers is in for a big disappointment if they expect to get any real closure with this film.
Is Edmund just being a good boyfriend and giving his girlfriend Maggie and message or is he hell bend on snapping her neck in two? I never figured it out. Kip Pardue & Bijou Phillips in The Wizard of Gore.
Characters and Setting- The main character of Edmund is just dull! Boring, uninteresting and poorly POORLY written. Any development that his character supposedly goes through is NOT well written or in that case performed by the incapable Kip Pardue. His character wanders around in 1940's garb living in a world that apparently "HE created" If Edmund really had collected such an interesting group of misfits to fill his surrounding habitat in, I would have liked to see more characters that mimic his 1940's style and attitude. You could have the squeaky blonde dame, the street wise, chain-smoking best friend who works in the morgue, a mysterious and sexy asian lady who works for the enemy. Is she spying is on him? Is she falling in love with him...just so many characters that hold that sleazy 1940's downtown crime style that the movie tries so hard to emulate but only does for ONE character. There is a Halloween scene at the beginning were a couple of characters are sporting some retro grab and I think if they would have carried that theme throughout the WHOLE movie it would have made it visually intriguing as well as add some continuity to the otherwise jumbled mess of odd characters. The downtown L.A. location is great for that old school crime thriller atmosphere and if the director would have chosen to extend this 1940's esque world that Edmund has apparently "surrounded" himself in it would have made much more sense for the character and the intended feel of the film.
OMG. I'm SO retro.
This gate is retro right?
We are not going to talk about Edmunds idiot of a girlfriend Maggie because I don't even want to go there and I don't believe I can without repeatedly swearing and confusing myself and you even more. Brad Dourif, a.k.a Grima Wormtonge to us Lord of the Rings fans, plays a...a doctor/vietnam vet/message therapist/ acupuncture/ drug dealer who we think is maybe, was, sort of not, could be friend of Edmund...I mean he helps him figure things out (because obviously stellar journalist sleuth can't do that on his own) and tells Edmund that he supplies the hallucination drug Treto Detoxin (?) to Montag who dispenses it throughout his audience by greeting each one at the theater door with a hand shake...mmm, slimy! Dourif's character almost makes sense in this film...I mean he's suppose to be a crazed war vet/drug dealer and I'm not going to lie, he plays that part well...gold start to the drug lord! ...who may or may not be the murderer and may or may not know who the killer is and may or may not be controlled by the drugs he distributed...you see how this movie works now?
I'm pretty sure these were the four main facial expressions I made throughout the film.
Sometimes pictures say so much more than words.
"Uh...wha?" "Oh mah Gosh!" "No GROOOSS!" And the end "WTF?"
Uh...and now for the part that I really don't want to talk about but must...because Crispin Glover is the only reason I'm writing this review.
In this film...Crispin Glover is strange...and I don't mean like his regular, cute awkward intriguing strange...I mean like eh this part is so bad I'm just sorry you took this role and I don't want people to judge you for it because it's not your best work although you are the best actor in the movie and I wish you had more screen time and oh my gosh those are really tight white pants they have you in and I like your hair like that but oh my gosh why are you eating that squid intestine baby is that thing from Prometheus and is that the voice you use when you have sex because you basically sound like you're having sex throughout your entire stage performance and I kind of like it but not really because I'm actually quite terrified of you right now but not in a good way please just don't shove that florescent light down your throat again....and ya.
Umm...well I don't remember him actually EATING it in the movie...I though he just rips it out...
Glover's character Montag the Magnificent was written to be the cynical, psychological villain who messes with our minds and seems to justify each killing with an analogy for the lack of emotions humans posses and our desensitization to horror and gore (WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT MOTIF FOR A GORE BASED HORROR FILM TO PLAY UPON...but no. We had to have strippers and drugs.) These could have been some great monologs for Glover to deliver except he uses this gasping, sexual voice when he's on stage as the illusionist. The only time we don't get this disturbing delivery is when he chooses the girl who will assist him in his demonstration of gore and debauchery. I believe "SIT DOWN BITCH! You die tonight." are the lines...interesting...I must say that things like screen play are not the actors fault...it's the screenwriters. Zach Chassler (according to IMDB) YOU die tonight. Or just please never write another screen play ever again.
"Sit down bitch! You die tonight."
Crispin Glover as Montag the Magnificent...just crazy as hell.
For as uncomfortable as Montag the Magnificent is, I do wish his character would have gotten more screen time. At least he's intriguing, amusing, and actually sensical believe it or not.
On the plus side, Glover gets to use his Creepy Thin man sword training again! :D
And that's all the farther I feel like I can go with this one...can't really recommend it for anyone unless you're a huge blood and gore horror fan, which I know there are a ton of people our there who love this movie. I watched solely for Crispin Glover and while I wasn't really disappointed with him, it was just the fact that I'll never get back the two hours I spent watching this movie...and even more tying to figure out who actually DONE it! Concept I like. Production I hate.
P.S. I KNOW that this movie is based off of a Herschell Gordon Lewis slasher flick from the 70's, but as I said in my review for Willard I'm not a big fan of 70's film so I've left it alone and haven't checked it out. I thought the 2007 version might just be one of those bad remakes of a gory, horror classic but when I look on IMDB their ratings only differ by .3 Original Wizard of gore at 5.3 stars and the 2007 version at 5.0...so I figured the original can't be much better...especially if it was from the 70's.
If you read the whole review wow and thanks a lots! I know it was kind of an odd one but I can't praise every movie I watch...this review was more of a subconscious train of thought.
.jpg)
