Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sam' Review: Bruno
While I may sound like a pretentious d-bag, I believe that most people still do not get Sascha Baron Cohen’s act. His newest film, Bruno, made we wonder how a figure so popular can be so widely misunderstood. Film nerds, jocks, the young, and the old loved Borat. But they don’t love him for the same reason. I suspect the same will happen of this movie except to a much lesser extent than the Borat-mania that occurred last go around. In this film Cohen portrays over-the-top fashion reporter, Bruno. After losing his hit show in Austria, Bruno decides to go to America to become famous. His quest to be the most famous person in the world is used as the plot device to go between bits where Cohen does what he does best.
Needless to say the plot in this movie is incredibly thin (as is the love story with his assistant). The point of this is not to tell a great story, but to set up the sketches or bits he does with unsuspecting folks. As Bruno, Cohen shows us the dark underbelly of some of the idiots and bigots in this country, much like he did in Borat. He goes huntin’ with some good ol’ boys, tries to become straight (just like those stars Kevin Spacey, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta) and interviews seemingly insane stage parents who would put their child in many sorts of danger just to get them in a photo shoot. These prove to be funny and shocking which is what (I think) he is going for. What he isn’t going for is what I fear are two camps most people who aren’t in on the joke fall into:
1. Cohen is homophobic and propagating a message that all gay people dress ridiculous and love shoving crazy shit up their ass.
To the people that fall in this group, get off your high horse and look at what he’s doing. Of course he dresses insane how would he get the reaction of real homophobic people if he presented himself as a realistic human being? He shows up as what a homophobe would characterize gay people as in order to get them as riled up as possible. Yes, Cohen does ridiculous stuff like shove a remote up his ass or has crazy sex with his pygmy boy toy. He wants a laugh and he gets it. Anyone who believes that the shit he does in this movie is normal behavior is stupid.
2. This is funny, he’s gay, isn’t that inherently hilarious?
For all the weird shit he does in the movie I don’t think Cohen wants people leaving laughing at gay people in general. He wants people to laugh at this character who would never exist. The joke in one scene in the movie is when he is shackled up with his assistant in some bondage type stuff, funny I guess. But the joke is when they leave their hotel still shackled together without clothes and crash a gay bashing rally.
Of course I could be sitting in another camp of pretentious d-bags that watched Da Ali G show and think we get everything about Sascha Baron Cohen when what he really wants is us to just laugh at his dick. Whatever his intentions, Bruno made me laugh, for better or for worse. Not as funny as Borat, but what is?
B+
Needless to say the plot in this movie is incredibly thin (as is the love story with his assistant). The point of this is not to tell a great story, but to set up the sketches or bits he does with unsuspecting folks. As Bruno, Cohen shows us the dark underbelly of some of the idiots and bigots in this country, much like he did in Borat. He goes huntin’ with some good ol’ boys, tries to become straight (just like those stars Kevin Spacey, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta) and interviews seemingly insane stage parents who would put their child in many sorts of danger just to get them in a photo shoot. These prove to be funny and shocking which is what (I think) he is going for. What he isn’t going for is what I fear are two camps most people who aren’t in on the joke fall into:
1. Cohen is homophobic and propagating a message that all gay people dress ridiculous and love shoving crazy shit up their ass.
To the people that fall in this group, get off your high horse and look at what he’s doing. Of course he dresses insane how would he get the reaction of real homophobic people if he presented himself as a realistic human being? He shows up as what a homophobe would characterize gay people as in order to get them as riled up as possible. Yes, Cohen does ridiculous stuff like shove a remote up his ass or has crazy sex with his pygmy boy toy. He wants a laugh and he gets it. Anyone who believes that the shit he does in this movie is normal behavior is stupid.
2. This is funny, he’s gay, isn’t that inherently hilarious?
For all the weird shit he does in the movie I don’t think Cohen wants people leaving laughing at gay people in general. He wants people to laugh at this character who would never exist. The joke in one scene in the movie is when he is shackled up with his assistant in some bondage type stuff, funny I guess. But the joke is when they leave their hotel still shackled together without clothes and crash a gay bashing rally.
Of course I could be sitting in another camp of pretentious d-bags that watched Da Ali G show and think we get everything about Sascha Baron Cohen when what he really wants is us to just laugh at his dick. Whatever his intentions, Bruno made me laugh, for better or for worse. Not as funny as Borat, but what is?
B+
Jordan's Review: Bruno
Sacha Baron Cohen has balls. And he also has great comedic abilities, though sadly only the former are on display during Bruno his follow up to 2006’s smash hit, the infinitely superior Borat. Baron Cohen is a brilliant comedian—he has great timing, he’s great on his feet, and he has the aforementioned chutzpah to go after his subjects no matter how uncomfortable the situation. He also stays in character no matter how far over the line the situation gets, as evidenced in a moment when he is getting mercilessly flogged by a topless swinger.
So with all of those comedic skills at his disposal, how did Bruno fail so epically? Firstly, it is a complete rehash of Borat, from the foreigner coming to America, to the inevitable rock bottom and finally to a revelation that leads to happiness. This alone is not an issue however, as I would not have noticed these similarities if I had been laughing. Secondly, where Borat went after a variety of targets, Bruno mostly focuses on the easy marks—a gay converter, a group of rednecks, and of course, the military. While I love to see bigoted, closed minded conservatives humiliated as much as the next bleeding heart liberal, what I was looking for in this movie was not a feeling of moral superiority (which I already possess) but a few laughs. Every barb Cohen throws can be seen from miles away, because every one of the people he’s after has already been lampooned previously, and usually much better.
I also am woe to call the movie over-the-top. I’m the guy who thought the naked wrestling of Borat was the funniest thing since Team America’s minutes long puppet sex scene, yet Bruno’s antics seem engineered simply for shock value, and that doesn’t play out as humorous, mostly just unwarranted. Bruno as a character seems hopelessly trapped in a Teutonic view of homosexuality that has been satirized and dispensed with years ago, and so although he undertakes this stereotype to satirize people who actually believe homosexuals act in this way, it all feels very done.
I have great respect for Sacha Baron Cohen and I find him hilarious in most things. And when this movie made me laugh, it was only due to the exuberance with which he played his character and his commitment to staying in the moment, regardless of how ridiculous the gag. So I feel a bit like I did when I walked out of The Love Guru: I’m left wondering how a comedian I so greatly respect could waste years of his life making a movie that would only make me feel like I’d wasted hours of mine.
Grade: C-
So with all of those comedic skills at his disposal, how did Bruno fail so epically? Firstly, it is a complete rehash of Borat, from the foreigner coming to America, to the inevitable rock bottom and finally to a revelation that leads to happiness. This alone is not an issue however, as I would not have noticed these similarities if I had been laughing. Secondly, where Borat went after a variety of targets, Bruno mostly focuses on the easy marks—a gay converter, a group of rednecks, and of course, the military. While I love to see bigoted, closed minded conservatives humiliated as much as the next bleeding heart liberal, what I was looking for in this movie was not a feeling of moral superiority (which I already possess) but a few laughs. Every barb Cohen throws can be seen from miles away, because every one of the people he’s after has already been lampooned previously, and usually much better.
I also am woe to call the movie over-the-top. I’m the guy who thought the naked wrestling of Borat was the funniest thing since Team America’s minutes long puppet sex scene, yet Bruno’s antics seem engineered simply for shock value, and that doesn’t play out as humorous, mostly just unwarranted. Bruno as a character seems hopelessly trapped in a Teutonic view of homosexuality that has been satirized and dispensed with years ago, and so although he undertakes this stereotype to satirize people who actually believe homosexuals act in this way, it all feels very done.
I have great respect for Sacha Baron Cohen and I find him hilarious in most things. And when this movie made me laugh, it was only due to the exuberance with which he played his character and his commitment to staying in the moment, regardless of how ridiculous the gag. So I feel a bit like I did when I walked out of The Love Guru: I’m left wondering how a comedian I so greatly respect could waste years of his life making a movie that would only make me feel like I’d wasted hours of mine.
Grade: C-
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Public Enemies Discussion
Jordan and Sam discuss Public Enemies, the movie that robbed us of our high expectations, and left the treasure that could have been lying behind in the vault.
Sam's Review: Public Enemies
Michael Mann’s newest film Public Enemies was one of my most anticipated movies for this summer. Maybe that’s why it let me down so much. It had had all the makings of a great summer flick: bank robberies, guns, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. But it just did not deliver on so many levels.
The film chronicles the life (well the bank robbing part) of the notorious bank-robber, John Dillinger (Depp). We see how he breaks out of prison (twice!) and how he robs banks and so on and so forth. The other side of the coin to this movie is following Melvin Purvis, the man given the task of tracking down Dillinger, by any means necessary. It is important that he get Dillinger to maintain the reputation of this new thing called the FBI run by J. Edgar Hoover (played like a radio-show actor by Billy Crudup aka walking talking blue penis, he also played Dr Manhattan). We also get a peek into Dillinger’s private life in his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).
There’s a great story here and certainly a great cast but the movie was just not executed well. I’m going to lay the blame on Mann for this one. I thought the pacing of the film was too slow for a movie that seems like it should be moving a mile a minute, at least that is how it was being promoted. I also did not like Mann’s digital camera shake-fest. It worked quite well in his 2004 movie, Collateral. But the 1930’s should not be seen through the eyes of a shaky camcorder. The digital shots and shakiness took me out of the viewing experience and made think about what camera he was using and how he was shaking the thing like a baby that won’t be quite.
I found the movie to be at times very boring. I almost dozed off in the middle there, and there were a few checks of the watch. Mann shows us what we already know and what we’ve already seen in bank heist movies. Dillinger’s fame is only briefly mentioned and as to why he’s so famous seems to be explained in one throw-away line (something about giving back the people’s money at the bank). I want to know more about Dillinger the person. How’d he get so damn good? Where does he come from (this is obviously mentioned also in one quick line, but I mean how did he get to be this way).
It wasn’t all bad though. The acting was strong in the film, but that’s what you’d expect with this cast. Beside the big three mentioned earlier the cast sported people like Giovanni Ribisi, Domenick Lombardozzi (Wire!), Stephen Dorff, and Lilli Taylor (Six Feet Under!).
While I don’t think Mann’s style meshed well with this film, he is certainly a talented director. It came in bits of flashes throughout the film with good shots coming here and there. What impressed me the most was probably the last 10-15 minutes of the film which I thought were the strongest. Without revealing any spoilers, it had the emotion, and drama the rest of the film could have used. In the end though, this was just a mediocre bank-robbery movie where Dillinger’s name could have been interchanged with any fictional character’s name and it would have been basically unrecognizable. This was my first real disappointment of the summer.
C
The film chronicles the life (well the bank robbing part) of the notorious bank-robber, John Dillinger (Depp). We see how he breaks out of prison (twice!) and how he robs banks and so on and so forth. The other side of the coin to this movie is following Melvin Purvis, the man given the task of tracking down Dillinger, by any means necessary. It is important that he get Dillinger to maintain the reputation of this new thing called the FBI run by J. Edgar Hoover (played like a radio-show actor by Billy Crudup aka walking talking blue penis, he also played Dr Manhattan). We also get a peek into Dillinger’s private life in his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).
There’s a great story here and certainly a great cast but the movie was just not executed well. I’m going to lay the blame on Mann for this one. I thought the pacing of the film was too slow for a movie that seems like it should be moving a mile a minute, at least that is how it was being promoted. I also did not like Mann’s digital camera shake-fest. It worked quite well in his 2004 movie, Collateral. But the 1930’s should not be seen through the eyes of a shaky camcorder. The digital shots and shakiness took me out of the viewing experience and made think about what camera he was using and how he was shaking the thing like a baby that won’t be quite.
I found the movie to be at times very boring. I almost dozed off in the middle there, and there were a few checks of the watch. Mann shows us what we already know and what we’ve already seen in bank heist movies. Dillinger’s fame is only briefly mentioned and as to why he’s so famous seems to be explained in one throw-away line (something about giving back the people’s money at the bank). I want to know more about Dillinger the person. How’d he get so damn good? Where does he come from (this is obviously mentioned also in one quick line, but I mean how did he get to be this way).
It wasn’t all bad though. The acting was strong in the film, but that’s what you’d expect with this cast. Beside the big three mentioned earlier the cast sported people like Giovanni Ribisi, Domenick Lombardozzi (Wire!), Stephen Dorff, and Lilli Taylor (Six Feet Under!).
While I don’t think Mann’s style meshed well with this film, he is certainly a talented director. It came in bits of flashes throughout the film with good shots coming here and there. What impressed me the most was probably the last 10-15 minutes of the film which I thought were the strongest. Without revealing any spoilers, it had the emotion, and drama the rest of the film could have used. In the end though, this was just a mediocre bank-robbery movie where Dillinger’s name could have been interchanged with any fictional character’s name and it would have been basically unrecognizable. This was my first real disappointment of the summer.
C
Jordan’s Review: Public Enemies:
The idea of watching one of America’s most successful and infamous bank robbers of all time engage in a game of cat and mouse with the fledgling F.B.I. sounds to me like a movie idea with almost limitless potential for success. Throw in some acting heavyweights like Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, and Marion Cotillard, and Public Enemies was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. So it is with a heavy heart that I report most of that anticipation went to waste.
I’ll start with the good stuff: the film was shot on digital, which makes the cinematography scintillating in every action scene and stunning in its moments of subtlety. Of course, the price audience’s pay for handheld digital is the occasional shaky camera, but this effect is minimalized here and on the whole, the cinematography is stunning. Of course it doesn’t say much for a movie when its greatest point is the cinematography, but this truly is a beautiful film to watch.
Another high point to be found is in some very colorful supporting performances. Billy Crudup is excellent as J. Edgar Hoover. He is simultaneously fascinating, hilarious, and a little revolting, and I found myself wishing the movie was more about his rise than Dillinger’s eventual fall. Stephen Graham is also very good as George “Baby Face” Nelson, nailing the accent and the manic delusions of grandeur while also having fun with the role. If more of the actors in the movie had followed Graham’s lead, the results would have been a sight to be seen. Finally, Johnny Depp (who did seem to be following Graham’s lead and enjoying the role) plays Dillinger as an incredibly charming figure—darkly humorous with a mischievous grin always flickering at the side of his lips. He doesn’t always have a lot to work with, but Depp works the angles of the role like the champ he is, bringing humor, and moral relativity to a film that seemed destined to avoid both.
The largest flaw with the film seems to come from the script, which tackles what is arguable the greatest cat and mouse game of all time like it was just another episode of a standard police procedural. When Melvin Purvis (portrayed here by Christian Bale) was actually chasing John Dillinger across the Midwest, his pursuit was powered by new methods of investigation and he was a member of the brand new F.B.I. so it’s curious why the scriptwriters chose to make the pursuit seem like old hat. Bale feels like he’s sleep walking through a majority of the movie, but that is not particularly his fault—the screenplay took a conflicted, later suicidal character and turned him into a one dimensional law enforcer. Where Purvis should have been one of the film’s bright spots—conflicted, thrown into a spotlight he didn’t seek and deadest on catching a man while constantly unsure if he was pushing things to far—he was instead its low point, an a stone faced character who emoted less than the room he was standing in.
Cotillard was solid as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s lover, yet there was never any chemistry between she and Depp. When she was not by his side (as in her interrogation scene) she was often stellar, yet when the two were together, they fell flat, a problem when the film spends much of its running time exploring their relationship.
I’ll end with another positive point: there were a few very solid action sequences peppered between the underwhelming majority of the movie, and the shootout in the Wisconsin woods was in fact excellent. The film often showed flashes of brilliance, but they were sadly far too fleeting, and the movie was left standing in the shadow of the film that could have been.
Grade: C+
I’ll start with the good stuff: the film was shot on digital, which makes the cinematography scintillating in every action scene and stunning in its moments of subtlety. Of course, the price audience’s pay for handheld digital is the occasional shaky camera, but this effect is minimalized here and on the whole, the cinematography is stunning. Of course it doesn’t say much for a movie when its greatest point is the cinematography, but this truly is a beautiful film to watch.
Another high point to be found is in some very colorful supporting performances. Billy Crudup is excellent as J. Edgar Hoover. He is simultaneously fascinating, hilarious, and a little revolting, and I found myself wishing the movie was more about his rise than Dillinger’s eventual fall. Stephen Graham is also very good as George “Baby Face” Nelson, nailing the accent and the manic delusions of grandeur while also having fun with the role. If more of the actors in the movie had followed Graham’s lead, the results would have been a sight to be seen. Finally, Johnny Depp (who did seem to be following Graham’s lead and enjoying the role) plays Dillinger as an incredibly charming figure—darkly humorous with a mischievous grin always flickering at the side of his lips. He doesn’t always have a lot to work with, but Depp works the angles of the role like the champ he is, bringing humor, and moral relativity to a film that seemed destined to avoid both.
The largest flaw with the film seems to come from the script, which tackles what is arguable the greatest cat and mouse game of all time like it was just another episode of a standard police procedural. When Melvin Purvis (portrayed here by Christian Bale) was actually chasing John Dillinger across the Midwest, his pursuit was powered by new methods of investigation and he was a member of the brand new F.B.I. so it’s curious why the scriptwriters chose to make the pursuit seem like old hat. Bale feels like he’s sleep walking through a majority of the movie, but that is not particularly his fault—the screenplay took a conflicted, later suicidal character and turned him into a one dimensional law enforcer. Where Purvis should have been one of the film’s bright spots—conflicted, thrown into a spotlight he didn’t seek and deadest on catching a man while constantly unsure if he was pushing things to far—he was instead its low point, an a stone faced character who emoted less than the room he was standing in.
Cotillard was solid as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s lover, yet there was never any chemistry between she and Depp. When she was not by his side (as in her interrogation scene) she was often stellar, yet when the two were together, they fell flat, a problem when the film spends much of its running time exploring their relationship.
I’ll end with another positive point: there were a few very solid action sequences peppered between the underwhelming majority of the movie, and the shootout in the Wisconsin woods was in fact excellent. The film often showed flashes of brilliance, but they were sadly far too fleeting, and the movie was left standing in the shadow of the film that could have been.
Grade: C+
Friday, June 26, 2009
Q & A: Appointment viewing...
Jordan and Sam discuss who in TV, Music, and Film they can't ever miss when they come out with something new.
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