Rust And Bone

Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a brutal and selfish loser, put in charge of his son, and in need of a new start in life. He relocates to an ocean side city in France, where he gets a job as a security guard. It is while he is working the door at a club that he meets Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a dolphin trainer at a local amusement park who seems at the end of her limit of patience with her own life. When Stephanie is involved in an accident that costs her her legs, she leans on Ali to try and find a way back to the world. Ali's true nature is revealed quickly, though, leaving Stephanie to contend with the emotional roller coaster of being involved with this man.

Directed by Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped), Rust and Bone is a powerful film about accepting others for who they are, and having to accept your own faults and problems and over coming them. It is not just Stephanie who must overcome her injury. Ali must also come to the realization that his behavior is dangerous to both himself, and those around him. The film moves at a perfect pace, with perfect acting, and perfect cinematography. It is one of my favorites of this year, so far.

The Dark Knight Rises

Four years ago, I wrote a post called "A few thoughts on The Dark Knight". It wasn't a review, it was just a couple of thoughts that I wanted to write down because I felt like nothing I could say would be outside of all of the stuff that so many others have said. Having seen The Dark Knight Rises three times now, I would like to do the same thing -

1. This is probably the most perfect ending to this trilogy I could ask for. A lot of other people have denounced it, but, I think it's amazing and I love it.

2. It is one of the only movies I can think of that, while I don't agree with the ending, every time I watch it, any problems I may have with it wash away. When I'm separated from it, I can think clearly and identify the, relatively, few things I have a problem with, but when I'm watching it, I'm purely in love with it.

3. This is the only movie I can think of that has a significant "twist" in it, that has never lessened my enjoyment of watching the film on repeat viewings.

4. While I do LOVE this film, at the same time I feel like it was cut really tight to keep it from being too long. It feels like it should have been two films. At almost three hours long, and with the revelation that, potentially, noteworthy scenes were cut out to slim down run time, I'm wondering if we will see a three hour, or more, directors cut of this film? I'm assuming not, as Nolan has never done a director's cut of anything.

5. As much as I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I feel like the addition of Blake, as a primary character, was a lot. There's SO MANY characters in this film, it's kind of crazy sometimes. One of the things I think Batman Begins and The Dark Knight share, and do better than The Dark Knight Rises, is keeping a simplicity and economy to how many stories are being told. I feel the same way about Matthew Modine's character. He rarely feels necessary.

6. I have yet to see this in the normal theater. All three times have been in IMAX, so far. This is, truly, the way to see it, as over 60 minutes of footage in the final film was shot in the IMAX format. I do want to see it once in the regular theater, though, just for that experience.

7. Michael Caine's Alfred finally gets his day in this film. I feel like that character finally graduates to having some real evolution in this script.

8. Bane was the perfect villain for this one, and Tom Hardy was the perfect person to play him.

9. I don't understand what the big deal was about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I have no reverence or nostalgia for Michelle Pfeiffer's performance, and it was 20 years ago. Someone's going to play that character again, eventually, and thank goodness it was done better than Halle Berry's Catwoman. I think Hathaway was perfectly cast for the role and she did the best job I could have hoped for.

10. In summation - I loved, couldn't ask for more.

Contagion

Steven Soderbergh recently announced that he will be leaving filmmaking (at least temporarily) to concentrate on painting. After seeing Contagion, and taking into consideration some of his recent work, it might be good for Soderbergh to take a little break, before he ends up becoming the Neil Young of the film world, releasing everything he can, even if it's mediocre.

Contagion is an ensemble piece that focuses around one specific thing - a new disease that pops up, which, over time, claims millions of lives, and the fight to stop it. To try and explain how each of the leads (people like Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, and more) is connected would take longer than I care to give it. Much like Traffic (another of Soderbergh's ensemble pieces), the interconnectivity of the characters can be inconsequential at times, but there's so many of them, trying to explain it would be tedious and confusing.

What's my gripe about Contagion? Well, put simply, a lot happens with nothing really happening. Bad things happen to all of the main players, but they're handled with such distance that it's hard to not just feel like your simply observing something unfolding in front of you, devoid of any emotional connection to the characters. Like The Girlfriend Experience, Contagion comes off almost like a documentary, but it's still a docu directors job to find some way for an audience member to have some sort of emotional connection to the people it's showing, whether positive or negative. In Contagion, I didn't feel either way. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened. I didn't feel fear. There wasn't any "thriller" aspect to the film, as some reviewers have alluded to. As I said before, it just came off as a bunch of stuff that happened.

You're going to kill me for saying this - It's not that it's a bad film, it just never seems to climax at any point. Honestly, I would still give it a B-. I don't know if that's because I look at Soderbergh's work through rose colored glasses, or whether their really is just enough there to have something redeeming happening. I'd like to see it again, see if a second viewing (now that all of the hype has been drained out of me) would fair better, but, it won't be in the theater.

One more quick note - I feel like Soderbergh is getting really lazy with his cinematography, as well. Half of the film looked like it was shot on a 5D. Not to bash 5D's (I shot PHX on one), but when you have a Red Epic at your disposal, and a real budget, don't just jack up your ISO. Light the scene. Shooting in "natural" light above 800 or so starts to really make the image look like crap. I know he's really been into available light shooting, ever since he fell in love with the Red One, but, seriously, you have the resources. Light it.

Inception

I don't hesitate to say that Christopher Nolan is easily the rightful successor to, and our generation's, Steven Spielberg. His mastery of storytelling is top notch, and while Spielberg often seems to make sacrifices and compromises to sell every bit of his films to as broad an audience as possible, Nolan seems to have gotten away with being able to avoid that. Movies like The Dark Knight, Insomnia, and Memento are uncompromisingly dark, even in their sheer genius. While Inception shouldn't strike anyone as dark, it is, without a doubt, uncompromising.

The film follows a band of, well, let's call them agents (it's never defined in the film exactly what they are). Their job is to use a complex system of gadgetry, chemicals, and their own minds to inhabit someone's dream and steal their secrets. The group is led by Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), who, of course, has a complex history which most of the film hinges on. His objective is to find a legal way home so that he can visit his kids in America without being arrested upon entry for the murder of his wife (which she framed him for). He is offered a job by a mysterious Asian man (who's mind he had broken into earlier), with the promise that, upon the jobs successful completion, strings would be pulled and Cobb would get to return home legally. Cobb rallies a group of top experts to invade the mind of the heir of one of the worlds largest companies, and sets forth to do the job that will take him home.

Inception is amazing. In fact, it's beyond amazing, though I don't know what other word I could use that would really qualify just how awesome it truly is. The story is the key to it, and it's so solid, and so labyrinthine, that one barely has a chance to catch it all on the first go (the film definitely demands multiple viewings). The acting is top notch, and the effects are truly amazing. Nolan sets the bar so high with Inception, one is left to wonder if anyone will be able to top it, and if so, when will it happen?

Nine

It's just about the worst time for movies in all of movie history right now. The money for independents has dried to a trickle, and the studios aren't interested in anything but remakes, re-imagining's or proven properties. It's a hard life for someone who is trying to do something even mildly original, even if they have been nominated for Oscar's for their previous work, and won countless other awards for the same work. Rob Marshall, apparently, believed that he could recapture the magic that he had with his hit stage to screen musical Chicago, in the Fellini inspired, hit Broadway musical, Nine. Unfortunately, when it didn't do as well as expected on its opening week, the studio pulled out of engagements all over the country, and now this thoroughly entertaining film will probably only be seen for the first time, by many, on DVD.

Nine is about about a director, Guido Contini (patterned after Italian director Federico Fellini), who is having a crisis trying to figure out what his next film is going to be. He has made a string of hits, and now, his production company is moving forward on his new project, a film for which he doesn't have an idea for, much less the script that everyone keeps demanding. He is forced to reckon with pretty much everyone in his life, and ESPECIALLY the many women of his life, before his creative muse will return.

Nine, I think, is a fun romp, especially for those who are fans of film history and enjoy Fellini. Daniel Day Lewis is exactly how you expect his character should be, Italian (or, at least what we think of as Italian) to his very core. The film boasts a number of incredible supporting roles, the best of which is Marion Cotillard as Contini's wife, who is constantly humiliated by his philandering ways. Penelope Cruz turns in a fun performance as Contini's mistress, and Judy Dench does a great job as one of Contini's right hand staffer's. It's hard to comment on the direction in a movie like this, because musical's are really a mixture of acting direction, choreography, and musical direction, which, most of the time, are taken care of by various people. I enjoyed Nine immensely, though, and do recommend it to people, though mostly to "film" people.