In a world where inflation has run to the point that the class system is ever more evident, Remy works as a repo man for The Union a company that among many things offers mechanical organs at a high price to those that need a medical solution. If you can’t make your payments, Remy or one of his partners will come and repossess your implant. The problem is Remy never sees this as murder, merely as a business transaction, until he ends up on the receiving end of a transplant. With a new perspective Remy becomes unable to continue being a repo man and ends up running from The Union.
Repo Man is an entertaining movie – entertaining but not great. This has nothing to do with Jude Law, Liev Schreiber or Forest Whitaker but more to do with the fact that this is a film that thinks it’s a Philip K. Dick story – the only one that can pull off a Philip K. Dick idea is Philip K. Dick. The world of Repo Men is a world where dystopia reigns, the government and corporations extort the people and the poor have no option but to run. The entire time I watched this film I felt like it was an homage to Bladerunner but wasn’t aware of it.
Also, whether it was unrelated or not I found it odd that this film follows so closely on the heels of Repo: the Genetic Opera. I have not seen Repo but it’s not every day that films about a future society that collects the organs of people who can’t pay comes out and yet Repo Men comes out only a year after the rock opera…
The great thing about this film was Jude Law. I’ve never really considered myself a die hard fan of Law, but the more I see him in the more I appreciate him. Even though Repo Man falls just short of being a great film, Law is charismatic, entertaining and manages to make Remy into an engaging and sympathetic character. Law is an incredibly talented actor of this Hollywood generation and I look forward to the journey he will take as he continues to expand his resume through the next few years.
I wish I had more to say about Repo Men but honestly, one of the reasons the film stops short of being a great film is that the film itself is a little confusing to figure out – it makes a left when the entire length of the film it tells you it’s making a right – and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. I mean no disrespect to Miguel Sapochnik, but I almost feel that if the film were in the hands of another director perhaps the feeling of being cheated by the third act and the Philip K. Dick homage would be gone…
Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Writers: Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner
Remy: Jude Law
Jake: Forest Whitaker
Beth: Alice Braga
Frank: Liev Schreiber
Showing posts with label liev schreiber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liev schreiber. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, May 1, 2009
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Any X-Men junkie knows the basic origins of Wolverine. Logan was born decades ago and his mutant healing powers make is so that he does not age; he’s lived through numerous wars and along the line begins to work for an elite unit of the government with Striker. Finally, Wolverine volunteers to be part of a medical experiment and have adamantium grafted with his skeletal structure and becomes pretty much indestructible. Logan also loses his memory and is hunted by Striker without ever knowing why. This is pretty much the story in X-Men Origins: Wolverine but it is not clearly or concisely told. What could have been a very high energy, dramatic origins story was instead badly written and sloppily directed.
The best way to describe the direction of this movie is leading; Gavin Hood seems to be afraid to try anything atmospheric or to let the audience notice what is in his shots. Instead, he inserts coverage for everything he wants to make sure you see, and all of the shots are the basic master, double, close-up for each scene. However, even this would be forgivable if the writing weren’t so lazy.
Wolverine is the classic example of a screenplay where A leads to B which leads to C without any motivation or means of tying incidents together. Characters do not have motivation for anything, and relationships are very forced. Perhaps the best example of sloppy writing was the first time Wolverine is called “Logan”; it comes in the last act of the film and no one has ever called him that before – it seems like a character just makes the name up. There is also the issue of inaccuricies with the comic book; perhaps the biggest in this film is what happens to Deadpool’s character in the last act of the film. Not only does this break with the actual character of Deadpool but it’s just stupid.
What was great about this movie was for fantastic actors: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds & Taylor Kitsch. As Wolverine Jackman was phenomenal as usual and you could tell he put his all into this film. Schreiber is perhaps the best embodiment of Sabertooh that I could imagine and he is well paired with Jackman. Somehow he just exhudes an animal nature in a way I didn’t know he could. I have always loved Ryan Reynolds and the wise-crackign nature of Deadpool fits him perfectly; I was very upset that Reynolds wasn’t utilized further. Finally, Taylor Kitsch was chosen to portray the most anticipated character of the series so far as Gambit. Not only was he perfect as the souther-boy card shark, but he was the wonderful charismatic character I always remember Gambit being. I was glad that with all the films other fault we did get a sizeable portion of Gambit.
Wolverine is the kind of film that you’ll probably watch and enjoy once, but I doubt it will be a film that the real fanboys want to analyze and watch repeatedly. The ladies will love the man-candy that is all over this film too.
Director: Gavin Hood
Writers: David Benioff & Skip Woods
Wolverine: Hugh Jackman
Sabertooth: Liev Schreiber
Stryker: Danny Huston
Gambit: Taylor Kitsch
Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds
Victor Creed: Do you even know how to kill me?
Logan: I'm gonna cut your God damn head off. See if that works.
The best way to describe the direction of this movie is leading; Gavin Hood seems to be afraid to try anything atmospheric or to let the audience notice what is in his shots. Instead, he inserts coverage for everything he wants to make sure you see, and all of the shots are the basic master, double, close-up for each scene. However, even this would be forgivable if the writing weren’t so lazy.
Wolverine is the classic example of a screenplay where A leads to B which leads to C without any motivation or means of tying incidents together. Characters do not have motivation for anything, and relationships are very forced. Perhaps the best example of sloppy writing was the first time Wolverine is called “Logan”; it comes in the last act of the film and no one has ever called him that before – it seems like a character just makes the name up. There is also the issue of inaccuricies with the comic book; perhaps the biggest in this film is what happens to Deadpool’s character in the last act of the film. Not only does this break with the actual character of Deadpool but it’s just stupid.
What was great about this movie was for fantastic actors: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds & Taylor Kitsch. As Wolverine Jackman was phenomenal as usual and you could tell he put his all into this film. Schreiber is perhaps the best embodiment of Sabertooh that I could imagine and he is well paired with Jackman. Somehow he just exhudes an animal nature in a way I didn’t know he could. I have always loved Ryan Reynolds and the wise-crackign nature of Deadpool fits him perfectly; I was very upset that Reynolds wasn’t utilized further. Finally, Taylor Kitsch was chosen to portray the most anticipated character of the series so far as Gambit. Not only was he perfect as the souther-boy card shark, but he was the wonderful charismatic character I always remember Gambit being. I was glad that with all the films other fault we did get a sizeable portion of Gambit.
Wolverine is the kind of film that you’ll probably watch and enjoy once, but I doubt it will be a film that the real fanboys want to analyze and watch repeatedly. The ladies will love the man-candy that is all over this film too.
Director: Gavin Hood
Writers: David Benioff & Skip Woods
Wolverine: Hugh Jackman
Sabertooth: Liev Schreiber
Stryker: Danny Huston
Gambit: Taylor Kitsch
Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds
Victor Creed: Do you even know how to kill me?
Logan: I'm gonna cut your God damn head off. See if that works.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Scream 2
Adjusting to life post-Woodsboro Sidney Prescott is safe and happy as a theatre major at Windsor College; her life has now escaped feeling like a horror movie and is about to be committed to the horror movie genre literally. Gale Weathers wrote a follow up book to her torrid tale about Maureen Prescott’s murder telling the tale of the Woodsboro murders and it is being turned into the latest and greatest slasher movie – Stab. Sidney prepares for the release of the film and the worst time of her life to be rehashed in a melodramatic teen horror movie until the killer returns and it becomes apparent that the killer too is obsessed with sequels and he wants to recreate the Woodsboro murders.While I cannot definitively say which of the first two Scream films is my favorite I do have to say that for just a pure, fun watch I adore Scream 2. In Scream 2 the movie about a movie factor is heightened, the sequel cliché’s are played to a T and the college campus setting is a way to inject yet more youthful arrogance into the mix and allow for a much larger body count with very little effort.
Perhaps my favorite joke in all of the Scream series is Stab the movie. Stab is not only pulls directly from the characters conversations in Scream but the name Stab is a direct reference to the name of the movie. My favorite joke about Stab is that in Scream Sidney worries that if her life were made into a movie she would be played by Tori Spelling, and in Stab Spelling is the actress that lands the role of young Sidney. The irony and tongue-in-cheek humor is readily apparent and fabulous.
All of the Scream films were made while Courtney Cox was on Friends and Scream 2 decides to use the popularity of Friends (and Cox’s good standing with the cast) to throw in a few subtle references to her Friends co-stars. At one point we find out that Dewey was played in Stab by David Schwimmer and Gale tells of naked photos of her on the internet were her head on Jennifer Anniston’s body. The jokes work on their own, but if you are aware of Cox’s connection to Friends they play even better.
As someone who went to film school, the fact that Randy is a film student is absolutely fabulous to me. Randy and Mickey the rival film students are my kind of geeks and their opinions make me laugh.
In the end I cannot separate my love for Scream from my love for Scream 2. Both movies are fabulous thrillers in their own right and Scream 2 is a great sequel that lives up to its predecessor while managing to feel like its own film with its own set of rules.
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Sidney Prescott: Neve Campbell
Gale Weathers: Courtney Cox
Dewey Riley: David Arquette
Randy Meeks: Jamie Kennedy
Derek: Jerry O’Connell
Mickey: Timothy Olyphant
Cotton Weary: Liev Schreiber
Debbie Salt: Laurie Metcalf
Hallie: Elise Neal
CiCi: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Maureen: Jada Pinkett Smith
Sorority Sister Murphy: Portia de Rossi
Stab Casey: Heather Graham
Stab Sidney: Tori Spelling
Stab Billy: Luke Wilson
Mickey: Oh come on Randy, with all due respect, the killer obvious patterned himself after two serial killers who were immortalized on film.
Guy #2: Thank you!
Film Teacher: So, you're saying that someone is trying to make a real life sequel?
Randy: Stab 2? Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Scream
Scream is perhaps one of the single most intelligent films to come out in the last decade. You might want to argue that point with me but my point is not that Scream is an intellectual film, but that it is a film that operates on so many levels it can’t be considered just a teen slasher movie. Sure, Scream is a teen slasher movie, but it’s also a genuine horror film, a satire, a movie about movies, a comedy and more than anything a damn good mystery. In an era that was seeing more and more cliché’s in the horror genre Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven decided to use the horror cliché mire to their advantage and play on those cliché’s instead of falling in with them. By doing so they created a franchise that dissimilar to anything else to date. I am not going to write about all of the influences on Scream here, or even everything it references because if you really appreciate the major films of the genre you will without a doubt discover more and more hidden inside Scream on every viewing. The film is a veritable hodgepodge of hidden nuggets about other films and filmmakers and the reason the film has aged so well is because it manages to do this and still put an emphasis on the characters instead of putting the emphasis on the references.
For those that haven’t seen Scream it takes place in the small town of Woodsboro where Sidney Presscott’s life has been hell for a year; the previous fall her mother was murdered and she was the star witness in putting the killer away. Now as the anniversary of her mother’s death approaches people are dying again and Sidney must contend with the thought that perhaps these murders are connected to her mother and the fact that it appears the killer is after her. Everyone in Sidney’s life is now a suspect and Sidney’s friends don’t see the danger in the killings, simply the rewards of being let out of school.
This is perhaps the first Wes Craven film that I had ever seen; I have the appreciation I do for the (better films of the) horror genre because of Wes Craven. Before I saw Scream I thought that horror films were basically evil tools of the devil without any redeeming qualities. Once I saw Scream I began to realize that perhaps some horror movies were worth the watch. One of the most influential things about Scream is that it helped to revive the decaying genre. Somehow by poking fun at the cliché’s it helped refresh the entire thing and poured in new ideas, or at least made studios willing to take a chance on films that they might not have before. I do think that Scream is one of the most influential films to come out of the 1990’s.
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Sidney Prescott: Neve Campbell
Dewey Riley: David Arquette
Gale Weathers: Courtney Cox
Billy Loomis: Skeet Ulrich
Tatum Riley: Rose McGowan
Stuart Macher: Matthew Lillard
Randy Meeks: Jamie Kennedy
Casey Becker: Drew Barrymore
Cotton Weary: Liev Schreiber
Principal Himbry: Henry Winkler
Casey: Who's there?
Ghostface: Never say "who's there?" Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well come out to investigate a strange noise or something.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Defiance
The Oscar nominations are coming out tomorrow and though at one time I wanted Defiance to be on the list of nominees now that I have seen it I can safely say that the only nominations I truly would enjoy Defiance receiving are for Daniel Craig & Liev Schreiber. Not that Defiance is a bad movie, but in a year that had movies like Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, The Dark Knight & In Bruges a movie like Defiance has its flaws pointed out instead of ignored.
What is truly remarkable is the story of Defiance; it is about a group of Jews at the outbreak of Hitler’s Germany and genocide that manage to evade capture by the Nazi’s by creating a settlement in the forests of Belarussia. It begins with four brothers and near the end of the war has grown to over 1,200 Jewish refugees. There story is awe inspiring, perhaps only equal to the likes of Oskar Schindler.
What is wrong with Defiance is the fact that parts of the story seem to be missing – it is as if the director trusted his audience to put two & two together too often, or that there were merely scenes still on the editing room floor waiting to be inserted into the film. A prim example of this is the romance between Tuvia & Lilka; she comes to the otriad, throws Tuvia a few meaningful looks and suddenly an ancillary character informs Tuvia that everyone knows that Lilka is hands-off. While not a killing point to the film, the leaps in story telling that occur do make Defiance slightly less than it could have been.
Defiance is an entertaining movie, but not a great one. I do believe that perhaps the film might have been helped if it was released in summer instead of Oscar season, but perhaps I can hold out hope for Craig or Schreiber getting an Oscar nomination.
Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Clayton Frohman & Edward Zwick
Tuvia Beilski: Daniel Craig
Zus Bielski: Liev Schreiber
Asael Bielski: Jamie Bell
Aron Bielski: George MacKay
Lilka Ticktin: Alexa Davalos
Gramov: How come it's so f---ing hard to like Jews?
Tuvia Bielski: Try being one.
What is truly remarkable is the story of Defiance; it is about a group of Jews at the outbreak of Hitler’s Germany and genocide that manage to evade capture by the Nazi’s by creating a settlement in the forests of Belarussia. It begins with four brothers and near the end of the war has grown to over 1,200 Jewish refugees. There story is awe inspiring, perhaps only equal to the likes of Oskar Schindler.
What is wrong with Defiance is the fact that parts of the story seem to be missing – it is as if the director trusted his audience to put two & two together too often, or that there were merely scenes still on the editing room floor waiting to be inserted into the film. A prim example of this is the romance between Tuvia & Lilka; she comes to the otriad, throws Tuvia a few meaningful looks and suddenly an ancillary character informs Tuvia that everyone knows that Lilka is hands-off. While not a killing point to the film, the leaps in story telling that occur do make Defiance slightly less than it could have been.
Defiance is an entertaining movie, but not a great one. I do believe that perhaps the film might have been helped if it was released in summer instead of Oscar season, but perhaps I can hold out hope for Craig or Schreiber getting an Oscar nomination.
Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Clayton Frohman & Edward Zwick
Tuvia Beilski: Daniel Craig
Zus Bielski: Liev Schreiber
Asael Bielski: Jamie Bell
Aron Bielski: George MacKay
Lilka Ticktin: Alexa Davalos
Gramov: How come it's so f---ing hard to like Jews?
Tuvia Bielski: Try being one.
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