Review: "Warrior"

WARRIOR, a sure to be crowd-pleaser features two down-and-out bruiser brothers (Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy) and their alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) all preparing for an Ultimate Fighting challenge with a $5 miilion purse. It's exactly the kind of movie you're expecting it to be. As the film begins there's Springsteen-like (Springsteen-lite?) warbling on the soundtrack and the palette's chief color, blueish gray, is smeared all over the screen. This is all handy shorthand for weary/bruised manly-man working class drama. Warrior wants you to feel as comfortable in your theater seat as you might on your couch as it works, sweats and trains towards its predictable but appropriately rousing conclusion. Which is not to say that Warrior isn't any good… just that it's both confident and content with its big meaty grip on the super familiar genre it belongs to and adores. 

The first rule of Fight Club is: do not talk about Fight Club. Tommy (Hardy) is the only Conlon family member who obeys...

Read the rest at Towleroad 

(pssst. I do mention Oscar once in connection with Nick Nolte, but I think people are getting carried away on that front.)

TIFF: Biopic Boys will be Boys

Paolo here in Toronto. My first TIFF movies are about real-life men who customarily look nothing like the attractive actors who play them on the big screen.

Edwin Boyd is a step in the right direction for Canadian cinema, since making a heist film like this is both relatively cheap and lucrative. It's about the WWII veteran turned 1950's Torontonian bank robber of the same name played by Scott Speedman. Speedman puts an athletic sensitivity to the role, whether Edwin is inside a singing booth or jumping over the counter to get the loot he wouldn't have gotten in his former job as a kind-hearted bus driver. The story covers him facing and indulging temptations, his addiction to the wrong kind of attention as well as to robbing banks, which he and his gang continue to do despite multiple arrests. There are clichés here, the biggest one is the golden-hearted criminal who also likes to get drunk and play music while celebrating his jackpots. I will give credit to the film's capability on whetting the audience's appetite on period specificities. It's also a treat to watch its grey and white cinematography, capturing the rough surfaces of the city's architecture or his snowy escape from authorities. The supporting cast includes Kevin Durand as Edwin's right hand man and Brian Cox as the protagonist's father.

Also took in the Brad Pitt vehicle Moneyball which is about the baseball team Oakland Athletics in their 2002 season.

The film's first half is has a problematically distinct voice from its second, making it difficult to forget that two writers are responsible for its script. The first, which I'll call the Steve Zaillian half, has Pitt portraying the A's general manager Billy Beane. The script makes him have the same conversation with other people, telling his financier, other GM's, his precocious daughter, her mother (Robin Wright) and her mother's boyfriend (Spike Jonze) that he's fine even if both parties know, through local and national news, that his team is having board room and locker room problems. The A's are having trouble finding 'stars' like Jason Giambi who have left the team. Fortunately, Billy meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a fictionalized version of Paul de Podesta who introduces the idea that instead of buying 'stars,' the team has to 'buy runs.' It's a method that, to someone like me who knows nothing about sports, sounds like cheating.

The underlying tension in many scenes in the film's first half is in anticipating Billy to squirm or get angry under all of these people's microscopes. This half also allows its audience to think about what might have happened if the person originally slated to direct this movie, Steven Soderbergh, had done so. Hopefully I'm not the only person who can see Soderbergh's skills in satire, and he would have highlighted these characters' callousness and childlike stubbornness. 

The second half, when the A's fate turns around, belongs to a writer with a more distinct voice, brainy frat boy Aaron Sorkin. Just like Charlie Wilson's War or Studio 60, this movie has its share of Abbott and Costello-like telephone or office conversations. He also tends to romanticize whatever he's writing about, which is baseball this time around. He even makes Peter, a generally scientifically minded character in the first half, seem emotional later on. But admittedly it still works better here than the affected humanity in The Social Network. Director Bennett Miller, with the help of his male dominated cast (including the surprisingly capable Hill) also negotiates and sutures these two voices well.

The Link of Warrior

<-- Coffee Table Book Alert!
Photographer Tim Palen has immortalized the bodies of Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton for a coffee table book called "The Men of Warrior" that's out on August 9th (available for pre-sale now here or here). The book as we imagine it -- all we've seen is this cover -- is a smart marketing movie for the Warrior film in which the two fine actors play two sparring brothers. Obviously people will see this for the muscle abuse alone, yes? That's why people go to boxing matches, right? I don't know. I'd never go to one -- too bloody/sadistic for me -- but I'd happily look at photos. The book has a foreward by Tom Hardy and (presumably) a ton of pictures of him.

Links in the Ring
Kenneth in the (212) Have you heard about this Faye Dunaway / NYC apartment eviction story.
My New Plaid Pants attends the Wet Hot American Summer anniversary party. We were just celebratin' that.
GLAAD the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ranks the TV networks on their LGBT inclusive. Top marks for CW and... ABC Family? How weird. who'da thunk it? Not that you can always trust GLAAD. They've made some weird suspect calls over the years. Showtime has a smidgeon more gay representation than HBO among premium channels.
Film Dr has some questions for those of you who have seen Cowboys and Aliens
aqui tinha a truth
Empire Steve McQueen's Shame starring Michael Fassbender has a UK release date (Jan 13th) still no word on the American release after its TIFF bow. 

Alt Screen no way! Lost silent Alfred Hitchcock film The White Shadow (1923) discovered/restored. Sort of.
The Critical Condition the ultimate pop song tournament continues into the second round. I like the second round less because I'm sure this is where all of my favorites start losing. Like "Edge of Seventeen" being bested by "Livin' on a Prayer" (thus far). That is so unright.
My New Plaid Pants which is hotter: Dominic Cooper or a Boston Terrier?  

Happy Birthday Sandra Bullock, I guess...

Paolo here.

Back in 2009 I stumbled into what looked like Bullock's CAA page, and seeing a certain factoid, I posted this question on my Facebook. "What do Stanley Kubrick and Sandra Bullock have in common?" "Well neither of them have an Oscar," a friend of mine said. He spoke too soon. [Correction: Kubrick has an Oscar but not for directing. Shake fist]

Then it was time to watch the live feed of the Oscars on campus. The fedora-wearing cinema studies students were passing around this hipster German beer and I took a sip and put it down. I swore that if Bullock won the Oscar, I'd throw my beer at the screen - I didn't, no one should. The sound of angry young men and some women collectively screaming against her victory is one of the ten greatest experiences I've ever had in a movie theatre. How the powers that be hustled such a seemingly mediocre film into a Best Picture nod and a Best Actress win was like watching steel beams bend by themselves.

Anyway, to commemorate Bullock's birthday, I watched neither the movies that I remember her being good at (A Time to Kill, Crash) nor the ones I saw in high school nor college that did not age well (28 Days) or even the fun ones (Practical Magic). Instead I saw John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side, the movie that won her the said Oscar and made her, on paper, better than Kubrick. To be honest, I had two tall glasses of beer, ruining some brain cells and I was afraid that this film would do more damage.

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Red Carpet: Emma Floats, Zoe Swims, Jennifer Drowns

For today's Red Carpet Convo, I'm joined by both of my usual coconspirators, Kurt and Jose. In this episode Kurt will lose all his motor skills, Jose will reveal psychic fashion powers, and I will prove my abject sports stupidity. Enjoy!

Nathaniel: W‪e'll start by pretending we're in London -- which none of us are (we've got the East Coast and South America in the house) -- to visit a BAFTA function‬.

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪I'm there -- un-straightening my teeth as we speak‬.

Jose: ‬ ‪it's rainy and grey down here so consider me in Sweeney Todd "no place like London" mood‬

CHENO, HER ROYAL ASSNESS, MRS BEN AFFLECK, NICKI, and MLP

‪Nathaniel: ‬ ‪At first I was all "Why are ALL the stars out for a "Brits to Watch" award -- the recipients of which (who?) are quite outshadowed by the starpower  -- but then i realized it was hosted by the royals Prince & Kate which explains it.‬

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪Hey, excuses to dress up... I thought for sure we'd be chatting up the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 premiere.

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪Patience, would be skydiver, patience.‬ So before we speak of individuals I must say that one of my favorite things is when all the beauties wear different colors. Rainbow is the absolute best red carpet color.‬ 

Kurt: ‬ ‪yes...lovely little spectrum here‬. Are we going to play Guess The Bum? Because my eyes can't focus on anything else
‪
Jose: ‬ ‪Someone should tell this to the Red Globes, the Purple Oscars and the Black SAGs‬

Nathaniel: Exactly! And it's quite representative too. I couldn't spot any hive-mind aesthetic at the Bafta shindig‬
‪
Kurt: ‬ ‪There i go again, getting ahead of things...we can stick with the color convo sorry‬ 

Jose: ‬ ‪I'm curious as to who chose the guests though, why the hell is Mary Louise Parker there and not Cate or Meryl or Kate?‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪I can't help you there. As to guess the bum. C'mon on. Look at it. Y'all know who that is.

‪Jose: ‬ ‪Her royal ass-ness‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪I figured‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪Jenny's block has moved to London‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪Can we talk for a sec about her music? I'd like opinions from the group‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪i have none.‬ Jose?

‪Jose: ‬ ‪meh, it's fun when you're drunk‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪now there's a quote‬. put that on the album cover 

Nathaniel:  ‬ ‪Blurb Whore!‬

‪Jose: ‬ and 'my spinning instructor loves her too‬.'

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪hahaha‬. All i'm saying is, i'd have a hard time takin' criticisms from her assness, if i were an American Idol. the end.‬ but, she is stunning. that skin

Nathaniel: ‬ I always feel like JLo is always trying too hard. I mean that dress is SO busy with the cutouts and the arm decor.‬

Jose: ‬ ‪she is an American Idol though, she embodies everything pop music has become about: mediocre voice, crazy antics and lots of merchandise‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪oh yea her fashion is nuts...remember that thing from "Savage Beauty"?‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪I'd prefer not to.‬ Kristin Chenoweth's dress is reminding me of something and I can't think what for the life of me. That color combo...

‪Jose: ‬ OMG it's reminding you of Dazzler, just say it 

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪SHUT IT.‬ I have retired my Dazzler obsession. It was a weird K-Hole of spring 2011.

‪Jose: ‬ ‪Hahaha the moment I saw her, I thought of Dazz and I blame you Nathaniel!‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪again: RETIRED. much like Jennifer Garner until quite recently.‬
‪
Jose: ‬ ‪Cheno reminded me of when Nicole won the Globe for MR!

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪Jose you have a sick memory.‬ Photographic so long as there's an actress and a dress

Jose: ‬ ‪I chose to take that as a compliment‬. My friends are annoyed by my fashion memory, they think I'm like a version of Lisbeth Salander who's into Vogue‬

Nathaniel: ‪Maybe Cheno's dress reminds me of some high-end old-school hotel ballroom corporate function draping? I dunno. it's really bugging me. It's so old money whilst being completely boring.‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪I'm getting lampshade-cum-business drape‬ 

Jose: ‬ ‪I kinda like it though, it's very Cher at Studio 54‬ but I think she needed higher heels to pull it off better.

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪Hmmm. I can't imagine Cher in it unless there were like a headpiece with it.‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪i don't think chenoweth should ever try for cher anything‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪Cheno does "Half Breed". JUST IMAGINE IT.‬

poll by twiigs.com

Jose: ‬ ‪LOL‬

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪i am NOT feeling this bolt of fabric Jennifer Garner is rocking. my goodness‬. she's drowning in fabric. save her!‬

‪Jose: ‬ ‪you just broke my heart Kurt‬ J. Gar's YSL is the thing couturier wet dreams are made of. It's so simple it's just perfect‬

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪well let's get something straight here: in all likelihood you are a much better judge of fashion than me, but from this angle, I see a fabric attack‬

Jose: ‬ ‪but it's supposed to be about movement, it's very flowy and watery‬. Imagine some sort of Greek goddess thing going on.

Kurt: ‬ ‪i get that...your explanation is kinda working...‬

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪I was going to say that i love the color on Garner so much but maybe anything other than Elektra Red I love on her because I just can't... you thought i was obsesed with Dazzler? You dont wanna know about my Elektra thing. Hated Garner doing her so much.‬

Jose: ‬ ‪she pulls off color quite well, remember that crazy orange thing she wore to the Oscars?‬

Kurt: ‬ ‪that was gorg

‬‪Jose: ‬ It was! but it was such a crazy Fanta color that few people would've dared to use it. Sigh. I miss her at the Oscars, never knew what the hell she was doing there but she always looked stunning‬

Red is just easy I guess, like Halle and nude color‬

Nathaniel:  ‬ ‪or everyone in black.‬

‪Kurt: ‬ ‪oh god, i just finally caught the arm thing on JLo's dress. what is wrong with her‬?

But wait there's more! Nicole's goddess scoop, Nathaniel plays Marco Polo, Swoosie Kurtz is lactose tolerant, and Jennifer Aniston's secret messaging.

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