A Kiss to Build a Dream On.

I wouldn't mind seeing Mrs. Brolin (Diane not Babs...) and Mrs. Bardem do the same, would you?

True Grit ***

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin

Barry Pepper, Dakin Matthews, Hailee Steinfeld

The Coen brothers, beacons of sophisticatedly dark humor and bleak existentialism deliver a no-frills, straightforward genre pic with True Grit, a new film adaptation of the novel by Charles Portis.

Grit centers on the story of Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) a fourteen year old girl who sets on the mission to avenge her father's dead at the hand of outlaw Tom Chaney (Brolin).

Based on recommendations around town she hires U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) as her personal tracker.

She sets off into dangerous Indian territory with Cogburn and Texas Ranger La Beouf (Damon9 who's also after Chaney.

This sets the stage for what can only be called an old fashioned Western. The film offers nothing new (except maybe some optimism from the Coens) but it's such a well told story that you can't help but think this is what fireside tales of old must've been imagined like.

The brothers show technical mastery and their every choice seems perfect just as it is. Once more teaming up with the extraordinary cinematographer Roger Deakins, they create a Wild West that's as dreamlike as it's realistic.
Deakins' camera indulges itself with vistas that go as far as the eye can see and strange camera angles that work despite their affectedness.

But fear not, this doesn't mean the film is completely devoid of the Coens' touches. Now and then they let their surrealistic touches go away with them and expertly weave them into the larger, more mainstream scheme of the plot.
In one of the film's most haunting scenes we see a bear riding a horse during a storm (you'll have to see this to believe it) and during the film's climax the Coens seem to have been possessed by the spirit of John Ford in a thrilling shootout.

Perhaps what makes the film feel more Coen-like are the performances. Bridges is outstanding as Cogburn, this man must be the only actor who can don an eye patch, look completely disheveled, deliver his lines with a mumble and still make it seem like the most natural thing on the planet.

Watch him epitomize coolness, yes, despite the eye patch, when everytime he moves, his coat flows and evokes a superhero's cape.

Damon and Brolin don't have much to do but they are steady supporting performers. Brolin is particularly good in the few scenes he has, completely owning the cowardly viciousness of Chaney.

Steinfeld gives a performance that's wiser beyond her years (this is her screen debut!) and she holds up beautifully against Bridges. She develops a lovely chemistry with him and by film's end, this becomes so deep that it even transcends the boundaries of different actors playing the same role (Elizabeth Marvel plays an older Mattie and it feels as if it's Steinfeld with makeup on).

True Grit may not be particularly profound in the way the Coens have used us to, it could be said in fact that if this wasn't directed by them it would surely seem more majestic.

But as an exercise in how to make a movie in the classic studio way, it feels just fine, it's also way more entertaining that it has any right to be. With the Coens flourish for quirky dialogs and melancholy it's refreshing to see how they can inject some new blood into a genre that's been pronounced dead more times than any other.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger **

Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Pauline Collins, Anna Friel
Anthony Hopkins, Neil Jackson, Gemma Jones, Freida Pinto
Lucy Punch, Naomi Watts

Throughout his filmography, Woody Allen has been characterized for delivering existentialist meditations filtered through comedy and relationships, yet even his darkest movies have been characterized by something that resembles hope. Yes, even in something like Interiors, we find ourselves finding that there's always more than meets the tragic eye.
It's a surprise then to find the master feeling so jaded in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. And it's not that feeling of bitterness itself what makes the film fail where other of his works have blossomed, it's just that it feels more like a work in progress than an actual film.
For all the plot twists, winks at some sort of divine justice and quips Allen inserts here, there's also an unintentional sense of disconnect within the characters who this time merely seem to become puppets in a convoluted plot that doesn't know where it's going.
The plot is quintessential Allen, a series of interconnected characters all trying to find their way in the misery of life.
We first meet Helena (Jones) a woman who has just been abandoned by her husband (Hopkins) who ends up marrying former prostitute Charmaine (Punch). Heartbroken, Helena begins to visit a fortuneteller (a delightful Collins) who begins to fix her life.
Helena's daughter Sally (Watts) has developed a crush on her employer (Banderas who curiously isn't the stranger from the title) while her husband (Brolin) tries to get out of his writer block by spying at their sensual neighbor (Pinto).
Allen's dialogues are fascinating as usual, even if sometimes the quips sound forced and cold and while it would be easy to say that any Allen is better than most things playing out there, the truth is that this film in particular shows that as a writer some of his tricks don't work as they used to.
For all the charm contained in the fact that his characters still say things like "erotic" and study musicology sometimes his lines feel derivative. This movie would've been aided by the use of silence and restraint.
If Allen fails a bit, his actors are mostly fantastic (even if this cast doesn't particularly fit together). Brolin broods marvelously and reaches a level of dishevelment that's an act upon itself, while Watts should get an award for being the actress who reached the lower depths of selfdeprecation in films this year. When she confronts a character to ask him if he ever fathomed the idea of falling in love with her, she asks it from a place of such pain that your heart will be broken along with her character's dignity.
It's interesting to see that when it comes to the two central characters in the film Allen pretty much redoes Interiors.
Jones as the resentful wife gives a layered performance filled with the over the top theatrics muffled by her sensitive British comedic timing, it's like watching Blance Dubois being played by Helen Mirren's version of Queen Elizabeth.
Then there's Punch who proves that nobody writes a hooker with a heart of gold like Woody does. Sometimes she comes off looking as an inferior version of Mira Sorvino's character in Mighty Aphrodite but even in cliché Punch finds an odd sense of beauty. Watch her act next to Hopkins, while he tries a bit too hard, she flows effortlessly like a skanky Eliza Dolittle.
It's the cast that make this stranger more alluring than he has any right to be.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps *1/2

Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan
Eli Wallach, Frank Langella, John Buffalo Mailer, Susan Sarandon

Regardless of how many times you may have seen Splendor in the Grass, the moment when Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty) learns about the Great Depression never fails to turn your heart upside down.
Such a moment was supposed to occur in the fractured Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, as it deals with recent economic disasters that have affected the world in unexpected ways. We expect it to come when we see Gordon Gekko (Douglas) being released from prison in late 2001 and we expect it to occur again when the movie jumps forward in time to the chaotic 2008.
However nothing really happens and we are left wondering exactly what was the point in making this film.
On the surface it's basically a remake of Wall Street. Gordon Gekko's time in jail nothing but a MacGuffin so that he can regain the prominence he had during his 80's peak.
He writes a book called Is Greed Good? and the masses flock to him like a messiah. Among the crowds is idealistic Jacob Moore (LaBeouf) a wide-eyed proprietary trader who admires Gekko and wishes to be like him. Essentially LaBeouf is playing Charlie Sheen.
Of course, this being the aughts and all, besides being one greedy little bastard he also has a thing for the environment and for his girlfriend Winnie (Mulligan), Gekko's estranged daughter who has gone all Elektra on him by becoming a leftist, money-hating, journalist.
To say that nothing much happens in this sequel would be an understatement given how most of the film consists of scenes where the young Jake and the old sharks (which besides Douglas include Brolin, Langella and a scene stealing Eli Wallach) discuss vengeance, power and money like characters straight out of Clash of the Titans.
Other than the awkwardness of the plot, we often wonder what drew Oliver Stone back to this themes. Throughout the movie his direction seems to be trying to find itself.
Part of him is so in love with Wall Street that he seems to think he invented the 80's. Winnie tells Jake "you're so Wall Street it makes me sick" referring to both the actual stock market and the movie which isn't as iconic as Stone wants to think.
Another part of him seems to feel proud about having predicted back in 1987 that the world's economy would just continue collapsing until we all approached doomsday; however, this part of him also feels guilty and like Jake tries to atone through innumerable mentions of what alternative energy can do for the planet.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps doesn't know whether to condemn or to glorify and its overlong running time makes us sit through what ultimately is an unnecessary debate.
The one thing that rarely fails is Douglas. Even if Stone tries hard to humanize him (Gekko says "I'm human" more than once) the actor tries his best to remind us that first and foremost Gordon Gekko was so effective because he wasn't human.
Precisely because of his larger-than-life greed it was that he became who he was and not for one minute should we expect him to be turned into a politically correct version of materialism.
This is best embodied in a pathetic end during which Stone once again puts Gekko in the wrong kind of spotlight and we're left wondering if he's making some sort of comment about how easily human beings give "bailouts" to those who have wronged us (which would've turned the film into a twisted, great satire) or if he's just turning Gordon into the Grinch.
It's safe to say that the idea of Gekko getting the last laugh is something 80's Stone would've made, what we end up with right now is a reminder that he doesn't make them like he used to.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Considering I'm one of the few people alive who think Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie are not the most beautiful people alive, this poster makes me want to ask all of you who do, what exactly makes them so appealing?
This poster is so terribly done that it seems they aren't even in the movie together and someone made this to try out their very basic Photoshop skills.


This is how you do a teaser. Text posters used to be huge once and now everyone has become so dependent on the movie star that they have forgotten how to actually work hard to get a message across.
Notice how the font makes a statement about the setting, time and mood of the film while that bullet hole and blood are a thing of genius. Best of all? We don't get stuck with an annoying "Academy Award Winne Jeff Bridges" sort of crap.
Also that "retribution" label at the bottom is wickedly delicious. Just got excited about this movie!

What do you guys think about these?

Awards and the City.

Mike Leigh's extraordinary "Happy-Go-Lucky" and Gus Van Sant's "Milk" wowed the New York Film Critics Circle as they lead their year end awards.
This year's winners are:

Best Picture: "Milk"
Best Director: Mike Leigh "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Best Actor: Sean Penn "Milk"
Best Actress: Sally Hawkins "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin "Milk"
Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Best Screenplay: Jenny Lumet "Rachel Getting Married"
Best Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle "Slumdog Millionaire"
Best Foreign Film: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
Best Animated Film: "WALL-E"
Best First Film: Courtney Hunt "Frozen River"
Best Documentary: "Man on Wire"

Particularly interesting is the resurgence for Sally Hawkins who is shaping out to be the critics' darling this year (and with reason, she's fantastic).
What I find intriguing is how much the actual state of the world is influencing the critics, these people often choose the most dramatic, "hard" performances for their awards (see Charlize Theron, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Fernanda Montenegro, Imelda Staunton etc.) so this year it was supposed to be about how great Kristin Scott Thomas was in "I've Loved You So Long".
Yet they're going for Sally Hawkins! Both performances are absolutely brilliant (I'd place them both in my ballots if I got to vote) but it's interesting to ask oneself how much they need optimism right now.
Oh and yay for Penélope!

Let the National Board of Review In.

This year's winners are:

Best Film: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Best Director: David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Best Actor: Clint Eastwood, "Gran Torino"
Best Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"
Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, "Milk"
Best Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Best Original Screenplay: Nick Schenk, "Gran Torino"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"; Eric Roth, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Best Animated Feature: "WALL-E"
Best Foreign Language Film: "Mongol"

Thrilled about Penélope and Anne! Not so much about the Clint love fest (both his films...really?), surprised about the snub for the big foreign language films and slightly pleased that they finally stopped the Ledger posthumous slam dunk wishes.
Read the rest of the winners here.