Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Road to Perdition"

For this edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, TFE's signature series in which everyone playing along must choose one shot from a selected movie that they define as best, we're looking at Sam Mendes Oscar-winning Road to Perdition (2002) on the eve of its 10th anniversary. 

The film's sole Oscar win was a posthumous statue for the great cinematographer Conrad L Hall. He died in early January of 2003, just a few weeks before his tenth Oscar nomination was announced. Hall didn't have anything to prove this late in his career but Mendes sure did, given that it was his follow up to his Oscar winning debut American Beauty (1999). This crime drama is filled with frameable frames. It's majestic looking really, veritably dripping with prestige for better and worse, usually on account of both the lighting (one shudders to think how long Hall spent on each set up) and the intricate staging and compositions.

a terrific POV shot that doesn't cheat. That's so rare in the movies.

The bulk of the film's narrative spins dangerously from this eyewitness shot, a perfectly excellent choice for Best Shot -- I'm sure someone will choose it! -- if not (quite) mine. 

Michael Sullivan Jr (Tyler Hoechlin nine years prior to Teen Wolf fame) is our narrator and he's about to witness a murder that his father (Tom Hanks) has a hand in though it's the unstable Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig) pulling the trigger. Road to Perdition's title suggests that the movie is about irredeemable souls and it is to some degree. Mob boss John Rooney (Oscar nominated Paul Newman) says as much when he's screaming at Michael Sullivan Sr. (Tom Hanks) in the basement of a church -- "There are only murderers here" -- predicting that none of them will see heaven. But the truer topic is fathers and sons. There are three sets of them in this movie: The Sullivans, The Rooneys, and the closest of the lot, the non biological edition - the Sullivan/Rooney.

The introduction of Michael Sullivan Sr. He never turns to look at his son.

Sullivan Jr. and Sr as well as the Rooney Jr and Sr are often separated by great distances in the frame but note how Sullivan Sr and Rooney Sr are all tight in one of the film's most tender moments, a little piano duet at a wake.

That's all an elaborate set up to make my choice for Best Shot really hurt, to extend a little sympathy for the devil. The devil in Daniel Craig. In one of the film's least comfortable moments Connor glibly apologizes to the mafia bigwigs gathered about that murder that gets the film rolling. His angry father humiliates him right then and there. As the meeting adjourns Mendes and Hall's camera does a slow zoom in on Connor just as he's being abandoned by everyone visually. Connor goes out of focus the closer you get to him, the better to illuminate the father (Rooney Sr) and preferred virtual son (Sullivan Sr.) all chummy directly behind him.

Best Shot

The focus snaps back to Connor at this perfect shot's tail end. He's about to kill two more people as payback insuring tragedy for all (including himself). No, he's not going to heaven.

Or maybe I just love this shot so much because it mirrors the sudden focus shift in Connor's introduction earlier as he lays on a couch smoking.

Or maybe I just love this shot so much because Daniel Craig is a dangerous actor and the movie desperately needs his unique kind. Jude Law as the very sick photographer "Maguire" also manages but Tom Hanks, fatally miscast, is at a complete loss to convey it. Even his furrowed brow looks friendly --physiognomy as destiny. Sorry, Tom!

Or maybe I just love this shot so much because the next sharp cut (god bless Jill Bilcock) from childish Connor seething with hate for daddy and adopted brother is to this:

"There are only murderers bloggers in this room"
Serious Film "blaze of glory"
F*** No, But There's a Poster "Meet Maguire"
Amiresque  best (gun)shot
Cinesnatch past, present and no future all in one image
Film Actually a father and son reunion
Encore Entertainment "when you raise a gun you get your own blood on your hands" 
Antagony & Ecstacy on one of the most beautiful pictures of the past quarter century 
Pussy Goes Grrr convergent diagonals, legible horizontals, phallic guns?
Okinawa Assault biking towards damnation, wading in crowds

I'm also happy to report that Rope of Silicon has joined the "Best Shot" party this week. Brad's series "Paused" which shares gorgeous screenshots from random movies will line up with ours here when we're both in the mood for the same movie. I'm sad I didn't think to do Alien when he covered it.

Next up on 'Hit Me':
07/18 PINK NARCISSUS (1971) *for adult audiences only*
07/25 THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001) Wes Anderson's masterpiece?
08/01 HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953) with Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Extremely Loud..."

A full disclosure before we begin with this one, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's the supposedly Oscar Baity story of a precocious young boy in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, reeling from the loss of his father and roaming the streets of New York City. I have not read the novel that it's based on so the only story I know is what the trailer gives me. In fact, I've never read anything by Jonathan Safron Foer though I really meant to read Everything is Illuminated back when it was the only book I ever saw people reading on the subway. (I miss the days where you had eyeball proof what books were hot; everyone just reads Kindles or IPads on the subway now so the visual hive mind is no longer illuminated. Sigh). 

Introducing... Thomas Horn

Finally, I am generally emotionally resistant to 9/11 narratives because most of them cheapen the actual memories of that day or 'reduce them to anecdotes' as Ouisa Kittredge might say.  To me ... I should add, even though it's implicit in all opinion-pieces, because I get that we all respond to button-pushing shared histories differently.

So take the following for what it's worthy as we break down the trailer in our usual "do we want a ticket?" way:

YES -reasons the trailer illuminates for wanting to see it right now.
NO - things the trailer makes us nervous about.
MAYBE SO - things that leave us uncertain or seem like they could go either way.

HERE WE GO...

Click to read more ...

Cinema de Gym: Forrest Gump

Kurt here. On the day Forrest Gump was playing at my gym, it seemed only right that I swap out the elliptical for the treadmill: Run, cinephile! RUN!! In truth, part of me wanted to run right out of the building (this is a behemoth of a movie to chip away at with my modest column). But, I stuck it out, and I tip my hat to the gym's programmers, as I've never been so inspired to burn off as many calories as possible.
Forrest Gump tends to have that effect on people, ever since it ran away with every trophy in sight at the end of 1994. It's a you-can-do-it movie, through and through, with Forrest boasting Oprah-level propulsion – too busy to look back for more than a brief glance. The film itself doesn't wow so greatly the smaller it gets in the rearview, no matter how large it looms on the marquee and no matter how well it urges one to keep up with its star runner. Such is the plight of the overhyped phenomenon.
I like Forrest Gump just fine, but I think it works better as a capsule of Americana than as a movie. And, of course, to be a capsule of Americana is a big part of its aim. It's essentially 141 minutes of milestones and iconography, landmark moments and famous faces. Its underdog-rewrites-history conceit is a good one, always teetering on the edge of magical realism but too awash in actual events to truly show it. That vicious, wonderful – and very viral – review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon stuck it to Gump for being the evil initiator of archival footage manipulation, but it's hard not to find charm in the film's grainy tour of suddenly resurrected legends (JFK, John Lennon), however buffoonish the tour guide may be. I think my personal favorite thing about the film – if I may be so broad – is its sociopolitical Vietnam-era backdrop, which multiple films have since tried and failed to depict with the same buzzing cultural potency (ahem, Across the Universe, ahem). It's what pumps awesome power into Forrest and Jenny's Washington Monument reunion, surely one of the most iconic hugs in contemporary cinema. It's not strength of narrative, but strength of context that gives you butterflies – a movement and an era defined in an embrace. 

Hug it Out

And that's just one moment.
In its tireless forward motion, Forrest Gump, covers an awful lot of ground, each episode another page in the history book. So nimble is its pace that to tell you what I saw during my quick workout is to offer you a clip reel: the rise of the ping pong master, the boiling resentment of a legless Lieutenant Dan, the newsreel mooning of LBJ, the breaking up of the Black Panther “party” and, of course, that lovely aforementioned hug. All scenes that, appropriately, have now found their own places in the pages of history. However you feel about Forrest Gump, few films have so firmly cemented themselves into popular conversation, achieved such immortal quotability, and made themselves known to what seems like every adult media consumer. As I write this, I'm in a house with a ping pong table in the basement. Is it possible to play the game without thinking of a rubber-limbed Tom Hanks? Is it possible to open a box of chocolates without envisioning Sally Field, or a white bench in Savannah, Georgia? 

It was nice to revisit this movie after the major Hanks misfire of Larry Crowne, which won't put a dent in the smiley star's career, but surely bruised his credibility as a filmmaker. There will be no higher peak for Hanks than Forrest Gump, no better instance of his massively, uniquely beloved everyman/leading man persona. I wonder if he knew this when he was making the press rounds with Robert Zemeckis and Robin Wright, or when he collected his Oscar – that this was it, the summit, the key page in his history. I wonder if he wanted to stop and freeze instead of just keep running. 

Conclusions?

1. See above.
2. Movies about running are even better motivators than Matthew McConnaughey's abs. (Should I recommend Prefontaine to the gym programmers?)
3. Admittedly, the whole “box of chocolates” thing is pretty counterproductive here.
4. Qualms aside, Forrest Gump is something of treasure.  

What do you think of the film? Despite everything, it's surprisingly divisive, especially given the whole Pulp Fiction / Shawshank Redemption Best Pic defeat. 

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Larry Crowne"

This isn't a trailer but let's make an exception for two of the most recognizable faces on the planet.

Do we want to see Tom Hanks & Julia Roberts round two in Larry Crowne? The clip starts at about the one minute mark.

yes... well Julia is singing Gilbert & Sullivan in the clip. Plus, there aren't enough romantic comedies about adults and by adults I mean adults with functioning brain cells.

no...

maybe so... Tom is trying his damndest to sell it and admitting how awkward it is to sell your wares... though maybe he's pushing that a little too hard. It's not like you can be as cool as you wanna be by pretending not to be cool. It's too transparent. But I liked That Thing You Do! kinda, didn't you? I dunno. Both Julia and Tom both have similar weaknesses as massive stars go: the charm offensive. They have to walk a very fine line between barely selling it and letting their natural charisma do the work, barely selling it to the point that they just look like lazy/overconfident about their charisma which doesn't work, and overselling it because of the charm offensive.

It must be complicated to be a superstar.