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The Devil’s Double (2011) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A dangerous life with dictator’s son

Posted on May 25, 2013 by kaist455

One of my morbid childhood memories is associated with those pulpy anti-communism magazines published for South Korean elementary school students. Whenever I found nothing to read, I zealously read these magazines in my classroom because they told me lots of fun stories about how vicious North Korea’s fearless leader Kim Il-sung was or how much those poor North Koreans were oppressed and brainwashed by their evil dictatorship or how many times North Korea threatened our country with their spies and their soldiers. I must confess that I was particularly excited by the stories about the Rangoon Bombing in 1983 and the bombing of KAL 858 in 1987: Secret agents! Time Bomb! Ka-boom! And (of course) the prompt arrest of North Korean scums by our proud South Korean agents! Hooray!

As far as I remember, the magazines also featured a bunch of horrible stories about Kim Il-sung’s naughty son Kim Jong-il, who has been recently succeeded by his equally naughty son Kim Jong-un after his death. The stories graphically described how he had the right stuff as a future despot even when he was very young or how evil he was as a dutiful heir full of new diabolical plans to please his daddy dearest, and, to be frank with you, these stories were pretty entertaining to an 8-year-old boy of myself.

Looking back from now, I have some reasons to believe these rather fantastic stories about Kim Jong-il were mostly fictional although North Korea and its dangerous lunacy are the undeniable fact of my life in South Korean society. But these stories remain memorable to me none the less, and that was the main reason why I was rather amused by “The Devil’s Double”, the story about Saddam Hussein’s psychotic son Uday Saddam Hussein and his unfortunate double. To my amusement, the movie tells its believe-it-or-not story uncannily with the exact broad tone of the anti-communism magazines of my childhood, and it certainly made me cringe with the horrific moments which would not have been out of place in these magazines.

The story is mainly told through Uday’s double Latif Yahia(Dominic Cooper), who later published a book about his unbelievable experience which has lots of reasons to be doubted for the lack of clear evidences to support his claim(isn’t it strange that both CIA people and the former inner circle members of Uday said they do not know him?). When Iraq was in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war, Latif was a military officer at that time, and we see his lucky survival on the battlefield through flashback as he is suddenly sent to Baghdad for meeting Uday Hussein(also played by Dominic Cooper), who wants Latif to work as his double because of Latif’s close resemblance to him.

Latif does not like this order, because that means his life will be forever shackled with Uday. He initially refuses, but Uday is not a guy to whom he can say no; not only Latif gets a harsh treatment for his refusal, but also the safety of Latif’s family is threatened. Seeing that he has no choice in his circumstance, Latif eventually accepts his new job, so he has to fully commit himself to being Uday even though he cannot fool Uday’s father Saddam Hussein(Philip Quast): “God is great. He gives me two sons. Now I have three.”

While becoming self-loathing amid the enormous luxury of Uday’s lifestyle, Latif is forced to hang around Uday, who treats him like a new pet he has recently bought while enjoying his company. As they move around nightclubs and parties with Uday’s mistress Sarrab(Ludivine Sagnier), the movie shows us the dark, decadent, and delirious side of the Hussein regime during the 1980-90s, and the movie comes to us as a sort of crazy cross between “The Prince and the Pauper” and “The Last King of Scotland”(2006) with a touch of “Scarface”(1983). Nobody dares to criticize Uday because he is the eldest son of Saddam Hussein, and Uday loves to wield that fact with his gun in front of others as a spoiled man child gleefully intoxicated with power, booze, drug, sex, and violence.

And he does lots of barbaric things just because he can. He blatantly picks up young schoolgirls with his sports car for raping them later, and he even rapes a young bride right at her wedding. He has many torture videos to watch(I heard that he tortured Olympic athletes just because they did not do well at the matches), and, at one point, he brutally murders one of his father’s close associates with a big knife while everyone watches him in horror. Even his father is really sick of his son’s crazy behaviors: “I should have gelded him at birth.”

The movie becomes monotonous as Uday’s monstrosity continues its vicious rampage during its second half, but Dominic Cooper’s fabulous duo performance holds our interest even when the story feels disjointed and awkward around the finale. Cooper plays Latif as a decent man gradually influenced by the evil surrounding him while functioning as the voice of reason in the story along with Raad Rawi, who plays Uday’s no-nonsense security chief, and he also has lots of fun as Uday, who is naturally a far showier character than Latif. The attraction/repulsion inside the relationship between his two characters always feels palpable on the screen thanks to him, and it is a little shame that the movie does not dig more deeply into this interesting relationship than it could have.

Despite its shortcomings including the unconvincing ending, “The Devil’s Double” is an interesting fiction even if its ‘true story’ is entirely false. The director Lee Tamahori made a slick work of lurid fascination which fascinated and horrified me as much as those North Korea stories did, and, though he is not fully utilized in the film, Cooper is electrifying to watch. The recent Iraq war was wrong for many reasons, but, after watching the film, you may be a bit glad that it got rid of one crazy hyena casually stomping on the powerless without feeling no remorse or guilt about it at all.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Dictator, Dictatorship, Double, Iraq, Real-life figure | Leave a comment

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : Outrageous & Preposterous as usual

Posted on May 23, 2013 by kaist455

At the certain point during one of the action sequences in “Fast & Furious 6”, the audiences around me burst into a big laugh because they could not simply believe what happened on the screen. When one character was hurled from a big tank running wild on the highway, the other character boldly jumped from his car being driven on the opposite lane, and, in a typical slow motion shot, we got an incredulous circus-like sight of being rescued in the air without any serious injuries. Their bodies promptly crashed together onto one of those unfortunate cars which happened to be there, but they were pretty all right on the whole.

This action sequence is quite outrageous and preposterous to say the least, but what do you expect from the action movie series whose specialty is providing fast and furious action sequences which blatantly defy physical plausibility second by second? Out of some reasonable concern, the movie reminds its audience that all of its stunt driving actions were made under a controlled environment by professionals during its production and they should not be imitated, but I seriously doubt who can be that stupid and reckless enough to imitate such unrealistic actions like the one I mentioned above.

While sticking to its formula matured through previous five films, “Fast & Furious 6” mixes several new things into its formula for being a little different. Again, the background is changed(this time, it is London – and then Spain), and new adversaries to be smashed are introduced along with the returning characters, and then we get what we want as promised; the series of well-made action sequences occasionally interrupted by the rudimentary character interactions to emphasize to us that our reckless driver characters are bonded together as a sort of alternative family.

After their spectacular heist which happened fast and furiously in Rio de Janeiro in “Fast Five”(2011), Dominic Toretto(Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner(Paul Walker) and their friends/accomplices have been having a pretty good time with their money although they are officially a bunch of wanted criminals who would be arrested and incarcerated if they return to US. Toretto, O’Conner, and Toretto’ sister Mia(Jordana Brewster), who is now O’Conner’s wife, have been living in the Canary Islands, and we see Toretto and O’Conner driving their cars fast as usual to the local hospital where Mia is about to give a birth to O’Conner’s son. I think going to the hospital by one car seems more practical and perhaps safer on that winding mountain road, but I guess it must be quite boring for both of them to sit next to driver’s seat.

Toretto and O’Conner have no problem with their less exciting family life(well, these boys still have cars to drive and fix, don’t they?), but, as previously announced at the end of “Fast Five”, they are drawn to action again when federal agent Hobbs(Dwayne Johnson), who clashed with them and then eventually helped them in the previous film, informs that Letty Ortiz(Michelle Rodriguez), Toretto’s lover who was thought to be killed in “Fast & Furious”(2009), is very much alive and has been involved in the series of criminal activities around Europe.

With no hesitation at all, Toretto becomes determined to find her and face her while helping Hobbs(the condition: full immunity), so he and O’Connor quickly gather their crews played by the series regulars including Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges. They go to London, and they and Hobbs soon confront their common adversary Shaw(Luke Evans), a criminal mastermind who speaks with your typical evil British accent and also has the crew not that different from Toretto’s(“It’s like we’re hunting our evil twins”, one character muses).

Letty has been working as one of Shaw’s key drivers, so Toretto eventually encounters her during one busy night car chase sequence unfolded all over the West End area of London. To his dismay, Letty does not recognize him at all because, surprise, she lost her memories due to what happened to her in “Fast & Furious”, but all he have to do is reawakening their emotional bond through their shared passion toward illegal car race. I cannot possibly imagine an illegal car race happening in the downtown area of London, but I and others did not came in the screening room for reality from the beginning.

The movie steadily increases the level of outrageousness over its paper-thin plot, and the director Justin Lin handles the action scenes with skill and energy. While the night car chase sequence mentioned above feels flat and distant due to the disorienting mix of choppy editing and shaky camera movement, other two major action sequences which appear later in the film are more exciting because we are always aware of the direction inside them even when things get more rushed and more surreal than before. During the busy climax sequence where the bad guys attempt to escape with their big cargo plane as being chased by our good guys, it is clear that the plane is being accelerated rapidly for take-off when the action begins, but the movie continues to drive the plane and the vehicles chasing after it along the runway for more than 10 minutes at least, and they have not even reached to its end yet when everything is over. As the other critics already noted, this runway certainly deserves to be remembered as one of the longest runways in the history of action flicks.

But you won’t probably mind about that and other implausible things in “Fast & Furious 6”. Because I was impressed by his debut film “Better Luck Tomorrow”(2002) several years ago, I wonder why Justin Lin has been stuck with no less than four Fast & Furious movies including this one, but he does his job well as a good action movie director as before, and the movie provides us exactly what it promises to us and then leaves us with another possible sequel to come(A brief scene before the end credit is another amusing moment besides the warning for the audience).

The actors comfortably wears their respectively roles thanks to their long-time involvement with the series, and the movie puts some of them into physical action. Michelle Rodriguez has a ferocious fight scene with Gina Carano’s character at London Underground, and Tyrese Gibson and Sung Kang also engage in a tough fight with Joe Taslim, who previously went through a far more brutal moment in “Raid: Redemption”(2011). Having recently watched “Teddy Bear”(2012), a small but touching drama about a painfully shy bodybuilder, I must say it was amusing for me to watch its amiable lead actor Kim Kold appearing as one of Shaw’s henchmen who looks to be more than an ideal match for Dwayne Johnson.

Starting with “The Fast and The Furious”(2001) and then continuing with “2 Fast 2 Furious”(2003), “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift”(2006), “Fast & Furious”, and “Fast Five”, the series has somehow maintained or improved its quality level fairly well, and I sort of come to admire this tenacious series despite my constant 2.5 or 2 star rating(I think I should have given “Fast Five” 3 stars instead of 2.5 stars because it is the best film of the series). Someday, I will review “Fast & Furious 10” – and maybe I will be more favorable to this series if it still drives as well as it should.

Posted in Movies | Tagged action, Crime, Vehicle | Leave a comment

The Croods (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A colorful prehistoric quest for new shelter

Posted on May 17, 2013 by kaist455

Appreciating “The Croods” as a well-made animation feature film for family audiences, my mind went astray and reflected on one small memory from my childhood years. As a little nerdy movie fan, I constantly watched movies through the VHS tapes rented from the local rental shops in my neighbourhood, and I sometimes got the information about interesting movies through the trailers included in those VHS tapes. One of the impressive ones I particularly remember well is the trailer of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Quest for Fire”(1981); watching its trailer, I got interested in how those primitives in that film learned something new about themselves while interacting with others, and I was later intrigued by the fact that Annaud had the actors speak in a rudimentary language specially invented for the film.

That movie was the main source of minor distraction I experienced while I was enjoying “The Croods”. I was well aware of that its story is basically a fantasy tale where you have to put aside some of your common sense and scientific knowledge, but, while watching its primitive characters speaking in perfect English and occasionally exchanging some new words and their definitions, I could not help but think about how our ancestors said the words like ‘fire’ or ‘joke’ or ‘sun’ in their ancient primitive languages. When one character used the word ‘brain’ at certain point, I even briefly ruminated on whether he really saw a real brain. Did he crack a skull, and discover a brain inside it, and then define it as ‘brain’ for himself? And, above all, how did the main characters in the film come to have a surname like ‘Crood’? Was it derived from some ancient onomatopoeic word, I wonder?

But this odd thought inside my mind did not seriously disrupt my enjoyment with “The Croods”, whose characters are as modern as “The Flinstones” in case of their personalities. Grug Crood(voiced by Nicholas Cage) is a dim but mighty patriarch of his family who always puts the safety of his family first, and his sensible wife Ugga(voiced by Catherine Keener) usually functions as the voice of reason for her husband, and they have three children between them. There is also Grug’s aging mother-in-law Gran(voiced by Cloris Leachman), and, of course, her presence is always annoyance to her son-in-law who frequently hopes that she will get eternal peace someday.

Living in wilderness has been pretty hard for the Croods in these days. Most of their human neighbours are dead due to various reasons, and Grug is more focused on their survival with his firm rules. They hide in their cave from predators whenever it gets dark, and he always emphasizes to his children that they should not be outside their habitat and they should not be curious because it will cost their lives. I understand his intention is purely good, but his teaching method reminds me a lot of those misguided parents trying to shield their children from the world outside just because they believe they must cover their kids from all the dangers and evils roaming around our world.

Well, most of children are bound to grow up and become curious and rebellious in the end, and Grug’s daughter Eep(voiced by Emma Stone) is no exception. She is not very happy about her dear dad’s strict regulations like any teenager girls in our modern civilization, and she is compelled to see the world outside the narrow valley where their cozy cave is located inside. At one point, she even sneaks out of the cave during one night while not being noticed by anyone, but, like many dads in the past, the present, and the future, Grug does not accept well that his daughter is no longer a cute little girl but a big feisty girl who can take care of herself.

And then two big changes arrive to change their life forever. First one comes through a sudden appearance of Guy(voiced by Ryan Reynolds), a young man who is not particularly strong even compared to Eep but knows lots of things including making fire, which the Croods have never seen before. While her daughter is being attracted to this stranger, Grug has lots of reasons to be cranky about that as a father who does not want to be a father-in-law yet and as a leader who does not want his authority threatened. I think he should think about the future of his family line, but, as I observed from a reaction of one of my friends when he found that his little daughter had a boyfriend, the mind of a protective father is not always rational.

Meanwhile, as Guy notifies the Croods, their world is approaching to ‘the End’ due to the massive continental shifts on the Earth, so they must stick and move together to survive through this global catastrophe. There are lots of dangers here and there in their journey, but you can safely enjoy their adventures as entertainment because this is a family-friendly animation world where nobody gets hurt no matter how rough their CGI bodies are treated amidst the busy action sequences in which they run fast or fall from a high cliff. Even Grug’s mother-in-law, who seems to be over 60 at least, looks like she is having a hell of good time during this bumpy journey.

The directors Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders, who also wrote the screenplay, made a good-looking animation film filled with lots of bright-colored things to be savored by our eyes. The story is slowed down at some points, but the pace is brisk overall, and some of comic sequences are funny enough to induce laughs from not only children but also their parents. When the Croods come across the new world filled with big, colorful creatures who look like the products of deranged intelligent design on psychedelic mode, I was quite delighted to see these funny creatures. My favorite is a duo of mice linked by their mutual tale; seriously, how can this duo be evolutionarily advantageous, except being used as a furry living scarf or a furry skipping rope?

“The Croods” is a wholesome entertainment coupled with some nice family lessons. Its voice actors, many of whom are notable movie actors, give nice voice performances while working well along with each other. Though he does not appear on the screen, I am sort of glad that Nicholas Cage finally works in something good after appearing in several regrettable bad movies which did not deserve his talent.

Still, my mind lingers on “Quest for Fire” even at this point. If you are going to show “The Croods” to your kids, I am not against your decision at all because, as far as I could see, the kids sitting around me loved its every gag and joke and we all had a good time together. But, if you want your kids to be more curious about our world and ourselves, I think you also should show them “Quest for Fire”. It’s a R-rated film, but you may do them a big favor.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Animation, Family, Patriarch, Primitives, The prehistoric age | 3 Comments

The Great Gatsby (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): So it beats on….

Posted on May 17, 2013 by kaist455

Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” is a gorgeous but ultimately disappointing adaptation which excessively tries hard to grip the spirit of one of the great American literature works. Watching it was not a bad experience, but my interest was quickly dissipated in spite of its interesting attempt to present the story in an unlikely style, and I gradually got lost amid its excessive party while not understanding or caring about its characters much.

The movie glitters more than it is suggested in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel, and you will not be disappointed at least during its first act. Driven by the director Baz Luhrmann’s typical hyperbolic approach, the movie promptly thrusts us into that swinging Jazz era in New York during the 1920s, and we are served with several big, glossy night parties full of impressive sets, beautiful costumes, and colorful confetti to dazzle our eyes.

These sights are accompanied with not only those jazzy period songs but also the modern songs which feel certainly out of place. It is surely anachronistic, but what do you expect from the director of “Romeo + Juliet”(1996) and “Moulin Rouge!”(2001)? In his heavily stylized world, George Gershwin can go hand in hand with Shawn ‘Jaz Z’ Carter on the soundtrack, and we see lots of extras feverishly dancing the Charleston under the mood of the 21th century nightclub.

This looks amusing at first, but, alas, in spite of all wealth and glamour it can present on the screen, the movie fails to evoke that elusive quality inside the concise elegance of Fitzgerald’s prose. Like the 1974 film directed by Jack Clayton, it faithfully follows the plot of the novel, but, again, it only shows us that the power of Fitzgerald’s novel does not come from the story itself but from how to reminisce and tell its story through the fascination and disillusionment with the people and their life style observed by its detached but wistful narrator. It is no wonder that some of my South Korean acquaintances were not so enthusiastic about the novel after reading its badly translated versions and asked me why the hell the novel is regarded by many as a masterpiece.

The movie tries to capture the mood and feel of the novel through its rather awkward and distracting storytelling device. As many of you know, the story is told through Nick Carraway(Tobey Maguire) in the novel, and we see Carraway as a patient convalescing in some sanatorium at the beginning of the movie. As a ‘morbidly alcoholic’ guy suffering from the depression, he starts to write about that as a way of curing and redeeming himself thanks to his kind psychiatrist’s advice, and we sometimes see the paragraphs from the book being written or typed by him on the screen.

Because many of you must be pretty familiar with the plot, I describe it as briefly as possible. As a young Yale graduate hopeful about his future as a successful New York bond salesman, Carraway comes to reside in one small Long Island village named West Egg. While getting acquainted again with his rich classmate Tom Buchanan(Joel Edgerton) who lives in East Egg, he is pleased to meet his distant cousin and Tom’s wife Daisy(Carey Mulligan), and Tom and Daisy introduce him to a socialite Jordan Baker(Elizabeth Debicki), a well-known professional golfer who seems to be attracted to Carraway behind her aloof attitude.

During their lunch conversation, Carraway’s mysterious neighbour Jay Gatsby is mentioned. Carraway becomes more curious about him, and, not long after that, he comes to know a lot more about Gatsby, who has been secretly yearning for Daisy while holding big, decadent party every Saturday night at his grand manor just for impressing her with his wealth and winning her back with his love.

In case of presenting Gatsby’s first full appearance, the movie does not disappoint us. As its extravaganza flowing with colors and sounds approaches to the peak along with the firework and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, Carraway finally meets Gatsby, whose disguised confidence and casual charm are well conveyed through a nice performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. He may not be what he claims to be, but he is willing to be at your service, and you won’t mind him at all as long as the glasses of champagne or martini are served to you along with dance and music for all night long.

While trying a little too hard to impress a no-nonsense guy like Carraway, Gatsby manages to have Carraway on his side. At Gatsby’s request, Carraway invites Daisy to his house, and Gatsby tries too hard again when preparing a meeting he has desired for. He turns Carraway’s humble house literally into an expensive botanical garden, and he gets increasingly fidgety while waiting for his girl to come.

We are supposed to identify with Gatsby’s anxiety at this point, but, unfortunately, it feels more like an unintentional comedy to me. DiCaprio does look as serious as required, but his speech and movement feel stiff and mannered at times, and I heard several audiences around me giggling around the point when Daisy arrives to meet Gatsby. We are supposed to be happy and moved to see Gatsby finally facing a girl he has always loved since he met her several years ago, but the movie only distances itself from them just like Carraway, who steps away from them for leaving them alone to their private moment.

I think the main problem lies in the misguided direction/interpretation of the story. Fitzgerald’s novel may look like a tragic love story between Gatsby and Daisy on the surface, but it is essentially a cautionary tale about American Dream. Determined to have Daisy back, Gatsby has done everything he can do for becoming rich enough to climb up social ladder, but, in spite of his shady side, he remains fatally optimistic and innocent compared to the rich and rotten people like Tom and Daisy. His illusion is quickly crumbled in front of them because, unlike him, Tom and Daisy have real power and real background. As a couple who deserves to labeled as 1% people, they can break things and then can get away with it and move on as if nothing had happened.

Unlike his previous work “Moulin Rouge!”, which pulled out genuine feelings from its unrealistic background and equally unrealistic archetypes, Baz Luhrmann’s artificial melodramatic approach does not match well with the story here. The thin characterization in his adapted screenplay written by him and co-adapter Craig Pearce becomes more problematic as its second act is bogged down while burdened with heaps of production design and costumes, and, as a consequence, we are more emotionally alienated from the story and the characters as the running time goes by. When Carraway says to Gatsby “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” around the finale, this crucial line seriously lacks that poignant emotional impact I felt while reading the book.

The actors cannot be blamed for this problem, for they adequately fill their roles as much as they can. Leonardo DiCaprio is definitely better than Robert Redford in the 1974 film because he looks less assured and more vulnerable than Redford, and Carey Mulligan is certainly less whining and more charming than Redford’s equally miscast co-star Mia Farrow. Too bad there is not much palpable feeling generated between these two good-looking and talented performers; we see them looking at each other, and that is all to be seen for us.

Tobey Maguire is as neutral as he is supposed to be as a passive but observant narrator, and Elizabeth Debicki looks splendid in her thankless role, and Joel Edgerton gives the most effective performance in the film. He is a despicable bully for many reasons, but at least we always know where his rotten heart is whenever we sees him. Amitabh Bachchan is not bad as Gatsby’s suspicious associate Meyer Wolfsheim in his cameo appearance, but, as a Jewish character, he feels as strained as Alec Guinness in “A Passage to India”(1984).

The movie is not a total waste. It does not waste any cent of its budget on how it should look. As I said before, you will be impressed by those glamorous sights in the film, and I sort of appreciated the efforts put behind the contrastingly bleak landscape of “the Valley of Ashes” where Tom’s mistress Myrtle(Isla Fisher) and her dim husband George B. Wilson(Jason Clarke) and other poor people lead their depressing lives. I understand that the movie does not intend to look realistic, but, seriously, are they living in, say, Mordor?

While it looks gorgeous, the movie forgets how it should feel. It is nice to hear that immortal last paragraph of Fitzgerald’s novel being quoted in the end, but this only confirms my opinion that the novel will never be successfully adapted into movie. Almost everything from the book including that elusive green light are all vividly presented in front of us, but the movie ends up only scratching the surface as struggling to reach out for its green light, and we are left with little to reflect on. So we beat on, audiences against the trend, borne back ceaselessly toward the book.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Bootlegging, The 1920s | Leave a comment

Get Shorty (1995) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : He’s well-qualified to be a Hollywood producer

Posted on May 13, 2013 by kaist455

It is a jungle out there in Hollywood, and “Get Shorty” presents the various kinds of animals residing at the lower strata of that jungle through a pungent but cheerful satire about one nutty pre-production process. Almost everyone in the movie wants at least one sweet slice of success while aspiring to move on to higher places in Hollywood, and, driven by greed and ambition, some of them are willing to do anything for that. The movie humorously juggles these people around a cool, clever, and charming hero, and we are amused to find that he is well-qualified to be a Hollywood producer because, as a smart criminal, he exactly knows what he has to say or do for getting what he wants.

He is Chili Palmer(John Travolta), a small-time loan shark operating in Miami, Florida. He recently becomes a subordinate to a local mob guy named Ray ‘Bones’ Barboni(Dennis Farina) after the untimely death of Chili’s New York boss, so now he has to take care of Barboni’s loansharking business as demanded although he dislikes Barboni a lot for many reasons. During the prologue scene at a local restaurant, he is angry to know that Barboni has taken his precious jacket without telling him, and that is led to the first terrific comic moment of the film.

Chili is ordered to collect a $18,000 debt from a dry cleaner guy named Leo Devoe(David Paymer), who was allegedly dead due to an unfortunate plane crash. Through a cordial talk with Leo’s wife, Chili quickly finds that Leo has a $300,000 life insurance on himself and he is very much alive with insurance money while hiding somewhere. He tracks down Leo to Las Vegas without much difficulty, and he also learns that Leo went to LA after getting himself into a minor trouble at one of the casinos.

And then, as a big movie fan, Chili finds a very tempting opportunity for him in LA. As a small favor to his casino manager friend, he makes a surprise night call on a B-horror movie producer Harry Zimm(Gene Hackman) for collecting his casino debt when Harry is at the home of Karen Flores(Rene Russo), a struggling actress who previously appeared in some of Zimm’s trashy horror films including “Slime Creature” and its two sequels. It turns out that Zimm is in a very difficult circumstance; besides owing lots of money due to his reckless gambling, he also threw away $200,000 given by his shady investors for producing another cheap horror film, and it is only a matter of time before they will ask him about the money – and they are not very nice guys.

After having some good night chat with Harry on whether they can a movie based on Chili’s latest task, Chili quickly insinuates himself into Zimm’s business as his associate/fixer and, surprise, he is very good at his new occupation because, after all, crime business is not so different from movie business. Mainly fueled by greed and opportunism, both businesses require wits and guts to manipulate others for survival and benefit, and, needlessly to say, Chili has plenty of them for maneuvering others from one thing to the other thing while helping Zimm’s new project based on a very promising screenplay named “Mr. Lovejoy”, which will possibly give them a big break in the town if everything goes right as they want.

The movie is based on the novel by Elmore Leonard, who has been regarded by many as one of the great American crime novelists. He has been writing numerous enjoyable crime novels decorated with twisty fun plots and colorful criminal figures, and “Get Shorty” is no exception. As the story gleefully moves around several turns and surprises, the conversations between his talky characters are accompanied with wits and humor to draw us into their world and their story. It is no surprise that Quentin Tarantino cited Elmore Leonard as one of the major influences on him as a writer; “Pulp Fiction”(1994) was as good as Leonard’s best works can be in many aspects, and his next film “Jackie Brown”(1997) was based on Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch”.

The adapted screenplay by Scott Frank, who would later work on another Leonard’s novel in “Out of Sight”(1998), is mostly faithful to the novel while retaining much of its lively spirit. The story gets more complicated as more characters coming into its busy picture, but the movie seldom loses its sense of fun while generating good laughs from the selfish and cynical denizens of Hollywood who follow their Darwinian instinct with very little concern on morality or ethics whenever they smell a potential of next big success. In case of Karen, who has been tired of being cast as a scream queen “walking around in f*ck-me pumps and a tank-top”, she is in bed with Zimm for getting better acting role when Chili slips into her house at night. She is skeptical about Chili like any jaded Hollywood people would be, but, when she discerns a good opportunity from Chili and Zimm’s ongoing project, she actively joins them as a production partner who can introduce and connect them to Martin Weir(Danny DeVito), a major star and two-time Academy winner who is also her ex-husband(“….and I’m wondering: how did it all slip away?” – “Well, it didn’t slip away, Martin. You did, when you went off to sleep with Nicky at my birthday party.”).

It is rather unbelievable that those witty dialogues derived from Leonard’s novel could have been downgraded to the bland ones during the pre-production process, for the comic moments in the film largely depend on how quick and smart their dialogues are. They are enjoyable enough to make a good audio book, and I was especially tickled by a funny conversation on the difference between e.g. and i.e. The movie is also sprinkled with several movie references, and some of you may appreciate the poster of “The Thin Man”(1934) at Chili’s Miami office or a small scene in which Chili and Karen watch the finale scene of “Touch of Evil”(1958) together at a local theater.

Considering their delightful performances, it is apparent that the actors had lots of fun with their characters and juicy dialogues. Right after his comeback performance in “Pulp Fiction”, John Travolta solidified his career rejuvenation with this film. He injects lots of likability to Chili through his own star presence, and Chili comes to us as a nice, pleasant guy who can amiably talk with you a lot about movies even if he comes to you for his rough business matters. As the smartest and coolest person in the story, this courteous tough guy can grip your attention by merely saying ‘look at me’, and the laid-back confidence in Travolta’s magnetic performance makes us believe that Chili will get whatever he wants from others even if he faces meddling complications in his scheme.

As a hapless and hopeless movie producer Harry Zimm, Gene Hackman is an effective counterpoint to Travolta’s cool performance. Hackman plays his silly character completely straight, and that is why his performance works. Zimm thinks he can handle his circumstances even though they are way over his head, and, unfortunately for him and his body, this buffoonish guy is not aware of that at all. Rene Russo has good chemistry with Travolta as a practical actress who finds herself attracted to Chili while staying on business mode. When they have a private talk at her house in the sunset, both perceive it well that their moment feels like being in a movie – but they gladly roll to the next base anyway.

As the supporting character crucial to their plan, Danny DeVito may look a little too short as a major Hollywood star, but he brings an ample amount of personality and ego to his role. His presence hovers over the story as a little running visual gag throughout the film, and he has the funniest scene in the movie where Weir attempts to look like an authentic loan shark in front of Chili and Karen during their private meeting at his manor. We cannot help but laugh at this sight, for, as being coached by Chili, he is absolutely concentrated on giving a short but credible performance as a dedicated professional(A small trivia: it was said that this character was inspired by Leonard’s private experience with Dustin Hoffman).

The movie also pays considerable attention to other supporting characters, and it is a pleasure to watch reliable veteran actors like Dennis Farina, David Paymer, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, and Bette Midler, who has a hilarious scene with Hackman as your average middle-aged Hollywood seductress craving for, uh, man’s touch. With the comically injured nose on his face, Dennis Farina is boisterous with his expletive lines as a mean mob guy who, according to Chili, does not like movies(but, like others, he is somehow drawn to that irresistible charm of Hollywood). Delroy Lindo is a drug lord who immediately assumes the attitude of Hollywood studio executives as soon as he comes across a chance to get involved in movie business, and James Gandolfini, who was few years before acclaimed TV series “The Sopranos” when the movie came out, gives a sympathetic performance as Lindo’s henchman Bear, a bulky stunt man who discovers that he is not as imposing as he looks through a few dismal encounters with Chili.

The director Barry Sonnenfeld once gave me one of the most embarrassing movie theater experiences during my adolescent years through that disastrous mess “Wild Wild West”(1999), but he has consistently made good comedy products including “Men in Black”(1997) and “The Addams Family”(1991), and “Get Shorty” remains as his best work. Under his slick direction, the movie smoothly rolls out its increasingly intricate plot as aided by the spunky jazzy score by John Lurie, and I particularly enjoyed the way the camera flexibly moves around to present several things going on in different directions during one brief but busy shot.

As we come to see the overall picture of what is going on here and there in the story while having fun with it, it gradually revolves around a questionable safe box at the LA airport as its center, and the movie is never slowed down as the screenplay brilliantly pushes its set pieces toward the finale without a hiccup. Lots of things happen around the characters during the last 20 minutes, but everything is organically progressed according to the characters’ natures, and we come to appreciate the finale as an ironic punch line for its comic story and its subject.

I watched “Get Shorty” for the first time in 1996, and I was just an adolescent kid who had become a little more serious about watching movies around that time. I was mildly entertained by it during the first viewing, but, after watching lots of movies for many years and learning some little things about Hollywood, I found myself far more amused while I revisited this funny black comedy. To be frank with you, while chuckling during the scene in which Chili kindly explains to the other character how he confused “El Dorado”(1966) with “Rio Bravo”(1959), I felt an urge to write the additional line for that scene: “And you made a wrong movie reference like Alan Rickman in “Die Hard”(1988), you doofus. Do you remember what happened to that guy, by the way?”

Posted in Movies | Tagged Actor, Comedy, Crime, drug, Hollywood, Loan Shark, Movie, Producer | 2 Comments

Cats and one goose (2013/05/06)

Posted on May 6, 2013 by kaist455

While cats are eager to eat anything, one goose remain silent during another fine afternoon.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cat, Goose, KAIST | 1 Comment

Ruthless Avian Campus Gang in Spring Afternoon (2013/05/01)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by kaist455

This time, they threatened a poor little girl…

Posted in Photos | Tagged Geese, KAIST | 2 Comments

The Woman in the Fifth (2011) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A writer blocked in ambiguous melancholy

Posted on April 30, 2013 by kaist455

If you appreciate that subtly unsettling mood of “The Woman in the Fifth”, you may forgive the baffling conclusion of its mystery plot. I do not think I understand or discern everything in this puzzling film, but I did not lose interest during my viewing, and its confusing story is well supported by the good performances finely tuned to the quiet but uncomfortable ambience surrounding them.

Ethan Hawke, whose appearance still reminds us of his early years despite being aged, plays an American writer named Tom Ricks. He previously published a novel received well by critics and readers, but both his writing career and his private life are in total mess at present. He comes to Paris for seeing his little daughter Chloé(Julie Papillon), but his divorced wife Nathalie(Delphine Chuillot) does not approve of that for some unexplained reason. When he comes to her apartment, she does not welcome him at all, and she soon calls the police because, according to her, he has been under the restraining order since their divorce.

He manages to encounter his daughter, who gladly welcomes him, but that is just a brief moment. She says to him that her mommy said he was in jail, and he tells her in response that he was in hospital because he was sick. Around that point, you will begin to sense that something is hidden behind Tom’s sincere and desperate behavior. He really wants to spend some time with his daughter, but what really happened in his past? And what do the recurring images of the forest and its ominous creatures in the film mean? Are they connected to his first novel, named “Forest Life”, or his current work in progress?

He can just go back to US, but Tom finds himself stuck in the city. He happens to get his luggage and wallet stolen while he is incidentally asleep in the bus. He fortunately finds a place to stay for a while when he comes into a shabby cafe managed by untrustworthy Sezer(Samir Guesmi), but his room is one of the stuffy rooms above the cafe, and he has to share a common bathroom with an imposing guy occupying the room next to his(and this guy has a very unpleasant habit of using bathroom).

Because he needs money to support himself and pay his lodging charge, Tom gets involved with Sezer’s questionable private business. It looks like a simple deal at first; he works as a sort of security guard at some confined place for 6 hours, and all he has to do is pushing different buttons in different circumstances as instructed by Sezer while occasionally watching the entrance outside through camera. Furthermore, because the place is quiet and isolated during most of his worktime, it looks like an ideal space for him to write something in solitude.

Tom does write something, but it is not his second novel. Still wanting more time with his daughter, he keeps writing the letters meant for her even though the chance to see her properly seems to be getting slimmer. Right after consulting with his lawyer at one point, he screams out of frustration, and he feels more isolated as a foreigner suffocated by alien environment.

Meanwhile, two women approach to him in different directions. Through one meeting full of literary snobs, Tom comes across Margit(Kristin Scott Thomas), who is the wife of some famous Hungarian novelist he has heard about. This beautiful and mysterious woman gives him her calling card, and, being attracted to her beguiling charm, Tom calls her later and visits her house in the Fifth Arrondissement. They quickly become close to each other, but she looks too good to be true, and the piano score in the soundtrack hesitates even when they become more intimated with each other. Thomas’ nuanced performance slyly suggests something is not right about her character, and our suspicion increases more as an unexpected incident happens during the third act of the story.

On the opposite, Tom also engages in an earthlier relationship with Ania(Joanna Kulig), a young polish waitress working at Sezer’s cafe. She genuinely likes him and his novel, and there is a nice scene in which she reads his book translated in Polish to him while they are together in private. If he just wants, she will willingly become his muse although there is some complication in her private life.

The movie is based on Douglas Kennedy’s novel with the same name, and I heard from other critics that the movie is faithful to its source. I have not read the book, but I must say the director/adapter Pawel Pawlikowski does a good job of establishing the mood and then rolling it well along the plot to the ending which may make you scratch your head for many reasons. The movie serves us with one of the most unglamorous presentations of Paris, and it works effectively as the gloomy background for the hero filled with quiet depression.

I must confess that I am still not so sure about what happened in Tom’s past or what really happens in the story, and I think you will be disappointed if you expected a clean-cut mystery plot. There are indeed several loose ends demanding more explanation here and there in the film, but it keeps its melancholic heart intact below its seemingly mundane surface, and its confounding finale somehow feels right with its atmosphere.

Few weeks before watching this movie, I revisited Charlie Kaufman’s great film “Synecdoche, New York”(2008), and I observed that the movie resonates on emotional level despite puzzlement because it looks into the mind of someone sad, desperate, regretful, and fading. While not on the same level of “Synecdoche, New York”, “The Woman in the Fifth” works because of a similar reason; I still do not know much about Tom even in the end, but I think I experienced his melancholic state of mind a lot during my viewing. What a sad, desperate guy he is.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Author, Divorce, Thriller | Leave a comment

Spring Afternoon photos (2013/04/30)

Posted on April 30, 2013 by kaist455

Flowers are everywere – and so are ruthless avian campus gangs.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Flowers, Geese, KAIST | 1 Comment

Iron Man 3 (2013) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Iron Man recharged

Posted on April 26, 2013 by kaist455

Unexpectedly, “Iron Man 3” recharges itself with the sense of fun and excitement while being a little more serious than before. We saw Bruce Wayne and James Bond falling and then rising again in last year, and now it is Tony Stark’s turn to go through a hard journey for reestablishing himself, and the movie is fun even when he puts himself into actions without wearing his iron suit. He may be a lot more vulnerable than before, but he is as witty as before, and we are both thrilled and amused by his another adventure.

After the prologue scene showing how Tony Stark(Robert Downey Jr.) spent the last day of 1999 in Switzerland with a pretty biologist Maya Hansen(Rebecca Hall) while neglecting a meek but ambitious scientist named Aldrich Killian(Guy Pearce), the movie quickly moves to Tony Stark at present point. After that apocalyptic incident during the climax of “The Avengers”(2012), he has devoted most of his time to not only upgrading his iron suit but also making its numerous variations at the fancy laboratory below his luxurious mansion, and we see some of his personal toys along with his latest technique developed for quicker wearing. I do not think making a bunch of metal objects flying into you is a good idea for wearing iron suit, but Downey maintains his sardonic wit even when he gets his private part hit by one of them, and he makes the scene look like a joyful child’s play.

While his ever-faithful assistant Pepper Potts(Gwyneth Paltrow) manages Stark Industries on his behalf as usual, he casually behaves as if nothing much had happened, but he is not all right in his mind. Considering his behaviors, it seems he is going through a sort of PTSD caused by his adventure in “The Avengers”, but that is a story premise I found a little too hard to accept. As far as I remember, there was nothing traumatic about those bloated actions in that movie – except his Human Centipede action which was probably more traumatic than going through a wormhole(Do you remember how he went straight through one giant floating creature?).

The humanity turns out to be far more resilient than Stark, for the world goes on as usual even after such a historical extraterrestrial invasion confirming the existence of aliens and superheroes to everyone on the Earth. They do remember it, but they do not seem to be affected a lot by the catastrophe which was unleashed upon the streets of Manhattan. What the hell, “The Avengers” was just a big expensive commotion in the superheroes’ playground, wasn’t it?

Anyway, the global world remains being threatened by bad guys, and the most prominent one is the Mandarin(Ben Kingsley). With the beard instantly evoking our memories of Osama bin Laden, this zealous terrorist leader announces the assaults on the US territory while hiding somewhere in the world, and it is not just an empty threat. A mysterious explosion occurs in LA, and Happy Hogan(Jon Favreau), Stark’s ex-bodyguard currently working as the security chief of Stark Industries, is seriously injured during that explosion. Angered Stark vows a private revenge on the Mandarin in front of the media, but his enemy quickly slaps him through one spectacular ambush, and now Stark finds himself depending on his intelligence more than his gadgets.

The movie spends considerable amount of time to how Stark tries to solve the mystery behind the explosion while searching for the Mandarin alone. I cannot say a lot about that, but you will not need a minute to figure out that Dr. Killian, who looks quite different now when he visits Stark Industries to meet Potts, is somehow involved with the Mandarin. They have a bunch of super soldiers who can turn their bodies into hot burning mess and also can regenerate their body parts quickly, and, not so surprisingly, Dr. Hansen’s personal scientific project is behind their origin.

These soldiers look threatening and invincible on the surface, but I must say they look ridiculous at times with their occasionally glowing eyes and skin. As a biology major, I have no idea about how their biological metabolism is genetically modified to be capable of generating the heat of more than 3,000 ℃, and I wondered whether they would face serious inconvenience during their bedroom activity(Is their next development stage mainly for solving that problem?)

But it is just my small amusement with the shaky premise. The story is engaging, and the director/co-writer Shane Black, who wrote the screenplay for “Lethal Weapon”(1987), provides many witty moments of character interactions between big action sequences. There is a precocious kid who helps Stark in several ways while he investigates a similar explosion case in some rural town in Tennessee, and his scenes with Stark drew some hearty laughs from me and the other audiences(young actor Ty Symtkin holds his own little place while playing well with Downey). Don Cheadle, who reprises his thankless role in the previous film, has more interesting things to do here in this movie, and Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley play their villain characters with gleeful relish. Rebecca Hall and Gwyneth Paltrow do not have many things to do compared to their co-actors, but they do not give bad performances at least even though they are mostly wasted.

With the good story and nice performances at its base, the movie mightily soars with its excellent actions sequences as it promised to us through its trailer. Shane and his co-writer Drew Pearce present some neat ideas for Stark’s iron suits, and I was surprised and entertained by how the movie skillfully mixes some of them into the thrilling action sequence involving Air Force One. The finale is decorated with the big action spectacle unfolded at a wide container harbor, and I appreciated how the movie lets us to observe its scale and scope while busying itself with lots of bangs and explosions and CGI figures on the screen.

And Robert Downey Jr,’s performance holds its center even at that point. I was not that impressed by the first Iron Man movie in 2008 and the following sequel released in 2010, and I was less enthusiastic about “The Avengers” than others, but I was always entertained by Downey’s performance despite my disappointment with these movies. This time, Downey is in a better story, and he effortlessly dances between seriousness and fun as making the changes inside his character feel convincing to us. There still remains a spoiled smart kid inside Stark at the end of the story, but you can see that how much he is changed when he utters the last line with matured confidence, and you will hope he will soon return again.

Although I found its plot progress a bit murky with several unexplained spots, “Iron Man 3” is more entertaining than its previous films, and I enjoyed its humor and actions. Besides being shown in 2D, the movie will also be shown in 3D or 3D IMAX in selected theaters, but, like many previous cases, you will not miss much while watching it in 2D. Yes, there is a wonderful 3D hologram scene showing the entire brain activity of one character, but that is a brief one, and, to be frank with you, I incidentally saw far cooler images of brains from one impressive New York Times science article few weeks ago.

If you’re interested in reading that article, here’s the link.

Sidenote: There is a small scene after the end credit linked with “The Avengers”. It is trivial, but you may find it funny.