AFI Fest: "By the Sea" Premieres

Greetings from sunny Los Angeles. I've been offline so I have to thank the team for keeping us up to date in the news. In the interest of not getting too far behind, let's talk about Thursday's opening event.

A rental car misshap nearly prevented me from attending the glitzy premiere of Mr & Mrs Pitt aka By the Sea but I made it in the nick of time. Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt manage the uncommon feat of looking as beautiful as the seaside scenery onscreen and just as beautiful offscreen. They were both glammed up like it was Oscar night in full tux & perfectly groomed hair (Brad) and shimmering form fitting white gown (Angie). Their new film is a marital vacation drama that feels like an uncomfortable fusion of three film types. The first is the enigmatic 60s Italian pictures -- think Antonioni letting Monica Vitti languidly sex up the camera and drive everyone mad while everyone forgets about the plot because "plot? --  how banal!" The second is a kind of meta-interest "vanity project" like a Burton & Taylor joint and I use the term vanity project in the most flattering way possible; no one earns vanity like the great movie stars and both Brad and Angie qualify for that designation. The third is hostile vaguely unreal marital drama erotica. In all three cases the film doesn't go nearly far enough: it needs to be more enigmatic / indifferent to the audience like L'Avventura OR more terrible and superstar campy like, say, Boom!, OR more sexually charged and surreal like maybe Eyes Wide Shut.

It's tough to imagine who the film might satisfy as its mostly inert and repetitious (not a total problem if you like art films), approaches sexually charged material rather timidly (a bigger problem), and is oddly backloaded story-wise which suddenly makes the film feel ill at ease with its languid despair at the last moment "oh, there needs to be A Story" 

But for what's it's worth it's an interesting curiousity. Along with a few truly great moments, it's fun to hear Brad Pitt speaking French and he acts drunk well.

Afterthoughts
It's interesting that Jolie  keeps challenging herself with different types of films even though she doesn't seem like a "natural" at directing, truth be told. I refuse to call her "Angelina Jolie Pitt" -- women need to stop defining themselves as belonging to a man and it's even worse when celebrities do it. Nearly all instances of famous people changing their public name for marriage end in tears and it looks sloppy on filmographies. Joanne Woodward didn't change her professional name to Joanne Newman when she married Paul and look how happy they were and remained for his whole life!

Gena Rowlands at the opening night partyAt the after party, I wasn't able to get close to Angelina or Brad and didn't spot the beautiful French stars Melanie Laurent & Melvil Poupaud (though they were at the premiere as the other couple in the film) but the most famous married movie stars in the world were real troupers hanging at the party for a good long while and speaking to well wishers in their über glamorous duds. The after party did provide one moment of pure movie bliss though: I was able to congratulate Gena Rowlands on her impending Honorary Oscar. It was brief but heavenly. She was gracious and beaming. Sasha Stone snapped the picture of this blessed moment. Thanks Sasha!

More from the AFI fest soon!

"Suffragette" Shoulders into the Oscar Fray

Is “Suffragette” faltering under the weight of overly high expectations?  With its impressive pedigree and unimpeachable subject matter, Sarah Gavron’s historical drama about the militant wing of the British suffragist movement seemed poised to be a strong Oscar contender for this fall.  Now, as we move towards the holidays, its status is looking uncertain: reviews have been mixed, and it’s drawn criticism for everything from its limited narrative focus to the limited screen time of Meryl Streep, who receives top of the line billing for a role that’s essentially no more than a cameo.  

If there’s a common trend to the criticism, it’s that the critics seem mostly preoccupied with what the movie doesn't do rather than what it does.  “Suffragette” is less a historical chronicle of the suffragettes than a snapshot view through the eyes of one (fictional) working class woman who’s accidentally and at first reluctantly drafted into their ranks.  It’s a study of what circumstances would drive such a woman to join a movement that would seem to hold no immediate benefit or attraction for someone in her position.  [more...]

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Review - Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

Tim here. Autumn is in full swing, Halloween is around the corner, and it's time for a visit from an old seasonal friend in the form of the Paranormal Activity franchise. 2015's entry, the sixth overall, is titled in full Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, and it's important for two reasons: it's the first one to be shown in 3D, and it's allegedly going to be the last one. Oh sweet Lord, please let it be the last one.

The 2007 Paranormal Activity was an exercise in brutal simplicity: sometimes, terrifying things would happen in a couple's bedroom while they were sleeping, and they had a camera set up to record all of those terrifying things for our benefit. It's as blunt and unfussy as three-chord rock. And all of the film's sequels have taken it as their primary goal to screw that up as hard as possible, adding layer upon layer of nonsense mythology, time travel, and a community of witches cultivating one family across generations to be the handmaidens to a malevolent spirit called Toby.

The Ghost Dimension takes as its stated goal the summation of all this mythology into one definitive chapter where all is explained. It fails, of course. Summing up the messy dog-ends of the Paranormal Activity pictures would have been beyond the scope of one movie, and given the increasingly arbitrary twists in the franchise, it would hardly have been satisfying. What The Ghost Dimension does manage to do is execute the reveal that all six movies have been building up to a tediously straightforward "find a body for the Devil" scenario, something that plenty of other movies have been able to sketch out in a first act, and not several hours over the course of more than a half of a decade. It's a damp squib of a finale if ever there was one.

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Review: Macbeth

Andrew here to talk about a Shakespeare adaptation

There’s a moment in the recent adaptation of Macbeth that’s legitimately surprising for audience, even those who have read the play. Towards the end of the film Marion Cotillard appears on screen for Lady Macbeth’s moment of reckoning – that iconic “Out damned spot!” speech. The scene unfolds, naturally, in a different fashion than it does in the play. The monologue, though, becomes especially striking when the camera draws back to reveal “who” she is speaking to. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but a few of the persons in the row behind me gasped at the cutaway. It’s meant to be a jolting moment in the film, and it is, although it’s also a baffling one. The moment has stuck with me since I’ve seen the film as I’ve tried to make sense of it within the film’s framework. And, the more I think on it, the more it emerges as emblematic of this adaptation.

Let it not be said that Justin Kurzel’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not without ambition and energy. This Macbeth is transposed to the cinema in language that’s distinctly visual. This is a Macbeth about movement and space and contact, and then the ensuing loss of that same contact. The language of the film is restlessness and mournful agitation from its first shot and the entire fair is slick and confident, but I go back and forth on how effective it is.

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Time to Head to the Theaters -- A Big Weekend for Oscar-Watching

Damn, Hollywood. Spread the wealth a little right? After two relatively quiet months for adult moviegoers all distributors have decided en masse that YOU are going to the movie theaters this weekend. As a result they've just released everything. All at once. If you've been all 'Netflix and chill' or dragging your feet with the movies for any reason, time to get up, stretch, text your friends and hit a movie. Or two. Or three. You don't want to get behind because it doesn't let up from here on out. (Next weekend is Suffragette and the following weekend Our Brand is Crisis) 

The images below will take you to our reviews (or the last major post on the film) if we've written one. If you're all like "this looks like the sidebar" it's our reminder to you that sidebars are there for a reason. Use them if you want to look up a particular film or topic.

Opening Wide This Weekend
		also: Goosebumps, Woodlawn
Opening or Expanding (Limited Release Only)
		Steve Jobs goes wide on Oct 23rd
Still in Theaters  See them soon if you've wanted to. They won't be around forever

What's your priority this weekend?