Drive

DRIVE

** SPOILERS **


Real Human Being, And A Real Hero

Tight-lipped. Despite the fast cars, the lurid colors of night time Los Angeles, and the frequent stains of viscera all across the screen, my lasting impression of Drive is the unnamed Driver, Ryan Gosling, tight-lipped. It's not that Gosling says nothing, he has dialogue, but there's always an extended bout of silence before he pries open his perpetual smirk to speak. He considers his words carefully and tells you what you need to know, if that. Drive is a stylish, meditative action yarn in which Gosling... drives. This is his description of himself and his sole purpose of being. By day a mechanic and part time Hollywood stunt driver, by night, a disciplined, professional wheel man for local criminals ("You seem like a pain in the ass to work with..."),  Gosling's the best to ever... drive, according to his handler Bryan Cranston. Strange that while this movie called Drive does have car chases, damned exciting ones, they feel unusually brief, with a collision and vehicle flipping usually wrapping up the action. Gosling is even more dangerous when not in a car, when he's forced to get his hands and feet and other body parts dirty. And by dirty, I mean soaked in blood. He wears both a crimson mask and a rubber mask at different points. Gosling seems to exist purely to sit behind the wheel of a car, but he does find something else to care for: his next door neighbor, the competitively tight lipped Carey Mulligan, and her young son. With Mulligan, Gosling finds an ersatz instant family, and his tight lipped smirk grows into a smile for a while, until her jailbird husband Oscar Isaac comes home. Isaac pulls Gosling into a pawn shop heist to pay off a prison debt that goes completely sideways, which ruins what little shambles of a life Gosling had going. Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks are partners in crime who come after Gosling, while Christina Hendricks has a ride along that ends in a splatter. Though abundant in tension and breakneck violence, Drive feels lean and mean (a bit too lean) in the story department, relying on some engaging but rather on-the-nose musical choices and the eye-popping visual stylings of director Nicolas Winding Refn to shift it into overdrive. Gosling's tight lipped Driver seems to inspire tight-lippedness in others around him, including a roomful of topless strippers who stare coldly and tight-lipped as Gosling tortures one of his betrayers in their dressing room. Strippers - the last folks you'd expect to have tight lips.

Centurion

CENTURION

** SPOILERS **

"This is Hadrian's plan? A fucking wall?"

Didn't I just watch this movie a couple of months ago? Despite being unrelated productions, Centurion is similar to The Eagle, but is set three years prior to the events of The Eagle. In Centurion, Michael Fassbender stars as Roman Centurion Quintus Dias, stationed on a frontier fort in Ancient Britain, "the asshole of the world". A Pict raid on his fort slaughters his men and sees him captured, but Fassbender escapes and manages to rendezvous with the fabled Ninth Legion of Rome, under the command of General Titus Flavius Virilus (Dominic West).  The Ninth are under orders to decimate the Picts and kill their leader Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen). Instead, the Ninth are slaughtered by the Picts in a graphic bloodletting complete with great balls of fire after they are betrayed by their Pict scout Olga Kurylenko. Never trust a Pict! 

Kurylenko's character is Centurion's most curious creation; she is a fearsome mute warrior and an almost supernaturally skilled tracker. As a girl her family was raped and slaughtered before she was raped by Romans. After being raised by the Picts, Gorlacon sends her to the Romans to gain their trust and eventually lead some Romans back to Britain so they can be killed. That's a pretty wild scheme full of logical holes. Golacon may have been the ancient predecessor of the spymasters of MI-6. Fassbender and the few survivors of the Ninth are hunted by Kurylenko all across Britain. For a time, Fassbender finds refuge in the home of Imogen Poots, a beautiful Briton cast out by the Picts accused of being a necromancer. 

In the midst of the frenzied ultra violence, oodles of blood spilling, dismemberments and decapitations, Centurion works hard to cement disgust at the duplicity of Rome. Turns out the Picts were right to hate the Romans, who are a two-faced bunch, as Fassbender learns firsthand when he is able to return to the under-construction Hadrian's Wall and finds himself sold out by his superiors. In order to hide the shame of truth of their mighty Ninth Legion falling to the Picts, the Roman governors opt to strike the Ninth's history from the records. Fassbender is considered a liability and becomes a fugitive once more. Poor Fassbender. He can't trust the Picts, he can't trust his fellow Romans, he can't trust Charles Xavier. 

50/50

50/50

** SPOILERS **

50/50 could be described as [500] Days of Summer, except instead of meeting Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt meets cancer. Gordon-Levitt is a 27 year old radio producer in Seattle who visits the doctor for lingering back pains and walks away with the worst news one can hear: he has a rare form of spinal cancer. The title of the movie is derived from his expected survival rate, which he researched on web.md, "but that's the Internet, so..."  50/50 takes a comedic, yet careful tack in how Gordon-Levitt deals with his terminal illness: he breaks the news to his domineering but well-meaning mother Angelica Huston, his father with Alzheimer's, his flaky live-in artist girlfriend Bryce Dallas Howard, and his best friend Seth Rogen. Rogen, after nearly throwing up on the street at the news, takes Gordon-Levitt's illness and uses it as a means to score with chicks. (Though they learn the hard way that walking up to women in bars and leading off with, "I have cancer!" is a rotten idea.) The lead performances are all terrific. Gordon-Levitt anchors the film heroically. Rogen is at his best in 50/50, a machine gun of crude, funny one liners, yet he still ably communicates his caring and affection for Gordon-Levitt. In Rogen's funniest bit in the movie, he gleefully exposes Dallas-Howard cheating on Gordon-Levitt. ("I finally nailed that cunt!") Meanwhile, Gordon-Levitt seeks counseling and winds up with a 24 year old therapist, Anna Kendrick. Kendrick and Gordon-Levitt's repartee and growing bond is a highlight, with gentle, smart writing that never goes too far beyond the boundaries of their doctor-patient relationship. The best scene in the film is Gordon-Levitt, who took having cancer like a champ, finally having a nervous breakdown and phoning Kendrick. Their conversation is short, sweet, and meaningful. 50/50 is based on the real life experience of writer and cancer-survivor Will Reiser, and verisimilitude is palpable throughout the film. The only weak links in 50/50 are Gordon-Levitt's physician, who comes off as rather cold blooded when informing his patient of his cancer, and the father with Alzheimer's, who seems an unnecessary distraction. 50/50 hits the funny bone, tugs at the heart strings, and successfully has it both ways. 

Warrior

WARRIOR

** SPOILERS **

Warrior is astounding. An improbable tale of two estranged brothers, both Mixed Martial Arts fighters, both nursing lifelong trauma by their alcoholic father, both entered in the same MMA mega-tournament but for different personal reasons, Warrior carries its heart on its sleeve. Fearlessly evoking the ancient Greek fighter Theogenes, Moby Dick, its spiritual predecessor Rocky, and even Beethoven as inspiration, Warrior's unique one-two punch of surprisingly moving character drama juxtaposed against the bone-crunching brutality of MMA taps out your cynicism and leaves you cheering for the battlin' brothers Conlon.

Tom Hardy is Tommy, the younger brother, a jacked ex-Marine and Iraq war vet hooked on booze and pills and hardened by a lifetime of seething resentment. He returns to Pittsburgh to the home of his now-1000 days sober father Nick Nolte (heartbreaking and gunning for an Oscar nod by playing... well, Nick Nolte). Tommy begins training in a local MMA gym and, after being taunted by Mad Dog, "the number one middleweight contender in the world" ("Hey Rocky, did you leave Mickey and Paulie at home?" Heh.), Tommy gets in the ring, ostensibly to spar, and knocks Mad Dog out in seconds. This gets Tommy a free ride to Sparta, the "Super Bowl of MMA". In the most finely crafted personal tug of war moment in the picture, Tommy belligerently asks his father to train him. Nolte turns the tables and lays down the rules for his son, who was his protege in his youth when he was a championship amateur wrestler.

But Tommy is not the hero of Warrior. That honor belongs to Joel Edgerton, Tommy's older brother Brendan. A beloved high school physics teacher with a beautiful wife, Jennifer Morrison, two daughters, and serious financial problems (the bank will take their house in 90 days), Edgerton is a rock of honor, responsibility and masculinity. Not since Mr. Kotter or Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World has a school teacher been so admired by his students, who plead with their principal to let them watch "Mr. C" fight. The principal, Kevin Dunn, sticks to his guns as a responsible administrator, but cheers Brendan on from the comfort of his living room on pay per view, deeply impressed he personally knows such a bad ass.

Brendan is the perpetual underdog, whereas Tommy is an overbearing beast. (In their heated confrontation, Brendan rightly accuses his father of always choosing Tommy and never caring for the underdog.) Suspended by the school board for being caught MMA fighting in a strip club ("It wasn't in a strip club, it was the parking lot of a strip club."), Brendan, years retired from an undistinguished career as a UFC fighter and "on the wrong side of 30", has no choice but to try to fight professionally once again, in hopes of saving his home with the $5-million prize for winning Sparta.

Warrior's story is a stockpile of fight movie cliches. Here are just a few: The wife who refuses to see her husband fight but shows up at octagon-side cheering him on for the climactic fight, the unstoppable enemy fighter from Russia (Olympic gold medalist and pro wrestler Kurt Angle), the sober father falling off the wagon after one-too-many confrontations with his bitter son, the tearful reconciliation between father and son(s), the improbable come-from-behind victories (three of them by Brendan) when all seemed lost, and how Brendan is somehow not seriously injured or crippled after a succession of prolonged, brutal fights over a 24 hour period.

The verisimilitude with which Warrior presents MMA is questionable even to a layman unfamiliar with the sport. Tommy is able to enter the Sparta tournament despite having no professional fighting background; a YouTube video of him knocking out Mad Dog is his only claim to fame. Tommy refuses interviews, no-shows the weigh in, and doesn't allow his photograph to be taken for the Sparta program. He storms to the octagon cage with no music, wins in seconds by knockout, and then storms out of the cage before the customary hand raising, interviews, etc. No one running the Sparta tournament ever seems to want to speak to him about any of this.

When it's revealed that Tommy, fighting as "Tommy Riordan", is Tommy Conlon and is AWOL from active service, the MMA authorities and the Marines both allow him to main event against his brother before arresting him for court marshal. In that very fight against Tommy, Brendan snaps his brother's shoulder. One would think that would end the fight since Tommy can't defend himself - Brendan sure thought so - but a sideways glance by the referee dismisses that notion, and the fight continues for two more rounds before Brendan finally forces Tommy to tap. I did like how Tommy wouldn't stop punching Brendan, no matter how soundly he was being beaten. The two brothers leave the cage together; the MMA people seemingly having given up any sense of maintaining their sport's rules and traditions.

And yet, none of that matters. Warrior is blisteringly entertaining and crowd-pleasing from beginning to end; powered by electrifying performances by Hardy, Edgerton, Nolte, and Morrison, who delivers lovely, layered work as Tessa Conlon. Nolte is a rumpled bundle of heartache, pathos, and regret. Hardy, a scene-stealer in Christopher Nolan's Inception and about to upend Batman's world next year as Bane in Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, proves himself a ruggedly charismatic leading man. But it's Edgerton who shines brightest in Warrior as the brother we wish we had, the son or father we wish we had, and the physics teacher we all wish we had in high school. Edgerton is so good, why isn't he starring in every movie?

Like Brendan Conlon's own underdog story, the odds were against Warrior succeeding. Warrior shouldn't work, and yet it does, spectacularly. Why, the hardest part of seeing Warrior may be resisting the urge to tap out the person you're seeing it with, because you love them.

Action Comics #1 - DC: The New 52

ACTION COMICS #1

Grant Morrison and Rags Morales' Action Comics #1 is a propulsive throwback to the pulpy 1938 comic book origins of Superman, but suitably modernized for the 21st century. This is Superman as he was once originally conceived; powerful but not god-like, a "social crusader", a populist hero, the People's Champion. Younger, headstrong, and raw, this Superman is calculatedly unlike the "big blue boy scout" he has been derisively accused of being in past decades. This Superman is decidedly un-safe and dangerous to the corrupt status quo of Metropolis. In short, Superman has rarely ever been this interesting.

Morrison embraces the title of the book wholeheartedly: This is Action Comics, indeed. From start to finish, Morrison and Morales depict Superman as constantly in motion: hurtling buildings, blurring around the streets, tossing tanks, smashing through walls, saving lives. Not even as Clark Kent does he stand still for a moment. Action Comics is a blazingly exciting read: this is perhaps the most energetic, kinetic depiction of Superman ever. A comic book page turner in the best sense.

Set "five years ago", Superman has been active on the streets of Metropolis for six months. He is a colorful whirlwind vigilante battling against corruption in Metropolis, a "City of Tomorrow" decaying from within, decidedly not the gleaming golden shangri-la we've grown accustomed to as Superman's home city. Superman (and his GLOWING RED EYES, which stop glowing, thankfully, halfway through the issue) wages a one man war on the black heart of Metropolis - embodied by a criminal named Glenmorgan Superman strongarms to his ideal of justice. Meanwhile, Superman is monitored from afar by General Sam Lane, father of intrepid reporter Lois Lane, and his mysterious consultant Lex Luthor. Luthor is in the midst of masterminding an operation to capture Superman in exchange for "information".

The clarity of the characterizations and points of views of each of the characters Morrison delivers is stellar. We are always with Superman, seeing things from his point of view, perhaps not always agreeing with his methods but asked to believe he's in the right. Luthor regards Superman differently. In a clever bit by Morrison, drawing comparisons to animals injected into eco-systems not designed to support it, Luthor regards Superman thusly: "Our planet is playing host to a powerful and parasitic alien organism masquerading - somewhat ineptly, I have to say - as a human being."

Morrison weaves in some welcome shout outs to past interpretations of Superman. In a neat reversal, it is Glenmorgan, held hostage and fearing for his life at the hands of Superman, who cries out, "SOMEBODY! SAVE ME!" in a nod to the famous theme song from Smallville. Later, Superman assures the people he saves, "I'll be around", echoing Superman's last words to Lois in Superman Returns - "I'm always around."

Curiously, what Morrison references hardcore in Action Comics #1 is Spider-Man 2. Superman's limits get tested severely by Luthor's gambit of sending waves of soldiers, tanks, and weapons against the Man of Steel.  When Superman is temporarily overwhelmed, it's the people Superman saved from a wrecking ball to their building who rise up to defend him, just like the people Spider-Man saved in the train do for him in Spider-Man 2. That very action packed train sequence in Spider-Man 2 is lifted wholesale here, with Superman racing to stop a bullet train by its nose, ultimately succeeding while being pinned against it unconscious, as was Luthor's intent. This young Superman is not invulnerable. He can be hurt. His wears his battle scars on his face. Clark Kent also lives in a shambles of an apartment in the run down Hob's Bay section of Metropolis, chased for rent money by his landlord. Seriously, is this Clark Kent or Peter Parker?

As for Superman's supporting cast, we learn Jimmy Olsen remains his best friend and Lois Lane is only aware of Clark Kent as a journalistic competitor (Kent works for The Daily Star, as he did in 1938, not The Daily Planet). Lois coined the name "Superman" upon his debut, as she must. Luthor dryly notes: "It was your daughter who Christened the creature, General Lane. Notice how it didn't refuse the name." Action Comics #1 ends with a cliffhanger of Superman's capture by Luthor, and teases a mystery of Luthor noticing something out there in space heading for Earth. 

Action Comics #1 should have been the flagship launch book for DC Comics' New 52 initiative. This is bold, dynamic Superman; a much more involving, visceral, and pleasing launch than last week's Justice League #1. If this is representative of the paradigm of the new DC Comics, exciting times are ahead. As an "everything old - 1938 old - is new again" take on Superman, Action Comics #1 is a runaway success. Like a speeding bullet.

Contagion

CONTAGION

** SPOILERS **

Contagion is a harrowing thriller about a killer virus that spreads across the world and how Academy Award nominees and winners deal with this epidemic. The virus, MEV-1, especially has it out for Best Actress winners. The trailer already gives away that Gwyneth Paltrow (Best Actress 1998 - Shakespeare in Love) and Kate Winslet (Best Actress 2008 - The Reader) contract MEV-1. Natalie Portman, Halle Berry, and Sandra Bullock were wise not to sign on for Contagion, lest they also find themselves wrapped in a plastic sack and dumped in a mass grave. No mercy to Best Actresses! Marion Cotillard (Best Actress 2007 - La Vie en Rose) escapes MEV-1's wrath only because she gets kidnapped in China and held as a hostage in exchange for a cure. Cotillard, who will play Talia Al-Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises, was abducted by Chin Han, who played Lau in The Dark Knight. (Batman did not return to China to save her. He was wise to stay in the Batcave until the epidemic blows over.) The MEV-1 virus spreads quickly and cruelly over 180+ days, upending the holiday plans of such movie stars as CDC head Laurence Fishburne, father and husband to Paltrow Matt Damon, and opportunistic, muck-raking blogger Jude Law. Law plays a real scumbag here, using the tragedy of the virus for his own personal gain. Contagion details the spread of the fictional (it better be!) MEV-1 virus, which is described as "the bird flu... already weaponized [by birds]" and is contracted person to person like the common cold. MEV-1 has no known cure and it's up to the CDC to find one. Meanwhile, MEV-1 gradually kills over 26 million people worldwide. 26 million! This is terrible. Beyond terrible. Those surviving the virus, including Damon, who is naturally immune, are left wandering their wrecked, quarantined towns as looters riot, set fire to buildings, and commit home invasions. Contagion's climactic explanation of where MEV-1 came from puts a real damper on my next visit to a casino and a high end Chinese restaurant. While slickly and colorfully made, the overreaching question is "Why?" Why make Contagion at all? What do we learn? What is the point? Contagion says, "All this terrible stuff is what would really happen if a killer virus ravaged the world." How does one react except: "Great. Thanks. Thanks for showing us this." On the plus side, Contagion lets us hear Kate Winslet's American accent once more. Director Steven Soderbergh does go gonzo with a shot of Gwyneth Paltrow's corpse undergoing an autopsy that is the biggest howler in the movie, with a moment involving Gwyneth's head going graphically far beyond her head in a box in Se7en. Thanks. Thanks for showing us this.

Shark Night 3D

SHARK NIGHT 3D

** SPOILERS **

Shark Night 3D is the bottom feeder of the summer; a low-rent, excruciating-to-endure violation of the sacred trust between movies and audiences. Whereas last year's glorious Piranha 3D was a lasciviously bloody and absurdly entertaining monster-fish-massacre spectacle, Shark Night 3D chooses to zig where Piranha 3D zagged at every opportunity, delivering the polar opposite of a good time at the movies watching murderous fish wage war on stupid humans. The good news for every other movie of 2011 is that the lowest bar has now been set and can be easily hurdled no matter how lousy your movie is.

Shark Night 3D wouldn't exist at all if Piranha 3D weren't successful. Shark Night calculatedly apes Piranha's tropes without at all understanding how or why Piranha worked. The first and most important mistake is Shark Night 3D is inexplicably and foolishly rated PG-13. That right there slices the belly of the beast and lets the guts fall right out. Kids and childish adults, Shark Night has no sex, no boobs (except for a couple of brief teases from behind), and no nudity besides a bare-assed shot of a naked dude. Thanks, jerks. There is nothing even remotely equal to this epic, Oscar-worthy sequence of art, beauty and pleasure that should be preserved forever in the Smithsonian. Shark Night didn't even fucking try.

All right, so there are no naked ladies in this lake full of killer sharks, but at least there are amusingly bloody murders, right? Nope. Unlike how the piranha were omni-present throughout Piranha 3D, shown early and gleefully often, Shark Night cheaps out by not showing a shark for nearly an hour - as if there was supposed to be some mystery to there being sharks in the waters of Lake Redneck, Louisiana where the movie is set. Once the movie's cast of college-age simpletons is introduced, it takes forever for them to even make it to the million dollar lake house that the rest of the movie is set in. Shark Night wastes like, half an hour, showing the dummies just going to the lake house. Isn't it fun to watch a group of chums motorboat to a lake house? No.

Sara Paxton stars as PG-13 Riley Steele, without a lot up top. Katherine McPhee from American Idol substitutes as PG-13 Kelly Brook. There's another chick who's kind of like Jessica Szohr, and then a bunch of dudes. There's a wisecracking nerdy guy who was in Avatar, and a jock dude whose main character trait is that "he spray tans his junk." One of the dudes, a "nerd" who turns out to be the hero, thinks he's Aquaman because he dives into the water over and over despite knowing there are a shitload of killer sharks in the water. 

The noblest character turns out to be the black guy, a star athlete on his way to the NFL and in love with the girl who isn't Paxton or McPhee. Guess who the racist sharks attack first? The sharks may not actually have killed the black guy first - the first kill is his girlfriend, also a minority - but a shark bites his arm off so he can never play football again. The black guy then goes insane and then - I shit you not - goes hunting for the sharks with a spear, killing a hammerhead mano e sharko. And then a few minutes later, he decides to commit suicide and lets himself get eaten by a shark. What. The. Fuck?

Did I mention these characters were stupid? After the black guy gets his arm bitten off, the kids go into hysterics and are unable to call for help. You see, all the way out there in the lake, their cell phones don't work. But, uh, it's a multi-million dollar lake house. Wouldn't the house have a land line? No? Hey wait, on the wall next to the doors are ADT security boxes. Why don't they just press the Alarm and call for help? Because they're stupid. They're not just stupid, but histrionic. During the interminably long periods between shark attacks, we are subjected to the overbearing melodrama of the characters loudly and tearfully bemoaning the unfairness of it all. When most of them get killed by sharks, at least it shuts them up.

How did sharks get in a lake to begin with? Two sets of characters offer the half-assed explanation that "hurricanes" and "rising tides" brought the sharks into these waters. Apparently there are 46 different types of sharks in the lakes, though we are treated to only a handful of the unsightly CGI creatures. In a series of forehead-slapping reveals, we discover that the local rednecks are in fact behind all of the shark murders in these waters. They may even have bred the sharks, it's not really clear. 

The rednecks' master plan: to use high def cameras attached to the sharks' bellies to record them murdering people so they can sell the videos to the black market. (Sharks with frickin' cameras; what, they didn't go for sharks with frickin' laser beams?) You see, Shark Week is the biggest annual event on basic cable so - get this - the rednecks figured a segment of the Shark Week audience would just love to watch real people eaten by sharks. And the rednecks wouldn't go to prison over this how? Also, these are dirt-poor redneck fishermen in the Gulf post-Katrina and post-BP oil spill, but they somehow had the budget to fund this operation, breed sharks, and attach them with expensive HD cameras (how do they change the batteries?), all on the speculation that they might get a buyer for their shark snuff films!

There's also a lot of backstory between Paxton and the main redneck, Scarface, whom she had the hots for three years ago ("three years ago" comes up a lot as a time frame. A lot happened "three years ago"). All of these shark murders were sort of just an elaborate revenge plot by Scarface to eventually have Paxton eaten by a shark. But who cares? Who motherfuckin' cares? Shark Night 3D is not just a complete waste of time, but at the inflated 3D prices, Shark Night bites you thoroughly in the ass where your wallet is.