Showing posts with label rian johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rian johnson. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY***** - BFI London Film Festival - Closing Night Gala


I was not the world's biggest fan of KNIVES OUT - Rian Johnson's closed-house murder-mystery starring Daniel Craig as the detective with the broad southern drawl. I sat stony silent in a packed London Film Festival screening with the rest of the audience having the time of their life.  I thought the mystery wasn't complex or interesting and the performances fell flat for me. I just didn't get it. As a result, I had zero expectations for its high-budget sequel, GLASS ONION, and was cringing at the thought of its two-hour twenty minutes running time. 

Well reader, I can happily report that GLASS ONION is one of my favourite movies of the year!  It flew by its running time in a haze of laugh-out loud comedy; brilliantly-acted outlandish characters; and a proper mystery that's both tricksy, meta-textual and politically biting!

The movie stars Daniel Craig, once again returning as Benoit Blanc, and leaning even further into the camp of a fussily over-dressed and anachronistic famous detective in the Agatha Christie style. The new villain of the piece is Ed Norton's tech billionaire Miles Bron, clearly based on Elon Musk. He's a vainglorious fake-hippie who invites all of his old college friends to a yearly retreat, this time on his supervillain island lair.  As the movie unfolds, in good detective tradition, we realise that each of the characters needs Miles for his money or connections and has a motive to kill him. There's even a MacGuffin - a piece of a new renewable energy-producing crystal widget that is also - oh no! - rather dangerous!

The heart of the piece - or maybe its moral compass in a sea of characters that are more or less self-interested and despicable - is Janelle Monae's Andi Brand.  As the movie unfolds we discover that Andi was in fact the brains behind Miles' big invention and they haven't really spoken in years. So why has she shown up on the island? And who invited Benoit?

The first half of the movie explores the connections between the characters and leads us to the murder. The second half of the film goes back and reveals what was really happening. This might sound tedious but it's so damn clever, smart and involving I promise you it won't feel like a rehash. But I can't tell you exactly why it works for fear of spoiling the plot - so I'll just encourage you to watch.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 139 minutes. It played Toronto 2022 and will be released on Netflix on December 23rd.

Wednesday, October 09, 2019

KNIVES OUT - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Eight


KNIVES OUT isn't a bad movie. The luscious production design, the all-star cast, the three, count 'em, three laugh-out-loud moments are truly funny.  But I had expected so much more from writer-director Rian Johnson than just a straightforward old-fashioned slow-paced closed-house murder-mystery. I had expected some of the subversion of his debut modern high-school noir BRICK. I had expected at least some of the piquancy of a Wes Anderson movie, whose production design (THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS anyone?!) he so clearly apes.  But no. Oh no. What I got was a murder mystery along the lines of Agatha Christie but less well penned.  I guessed the first hour twist in the first five minutes, and the second hour twist in the first ten minutes of that hour. At least the second hour was more pacy. The first hour was so slow and dull that if I hadn't been trapped in the middle of the row I might've left.  I didn't understand the resounding laughter of the audience who were clearly having a good time. Maybe they just read less murder mysteries than I do and so were genuinely surprised at the ending?  I also really didn't like the heavy-handed political point that the film was trying to make. Ooooh look at all those exploitative rich white dick-heads bested by a warm-hearted immigrant.   What a waste of Christopher Plummer, of Michael Shannon, of so many others.  What a pain to sit through Daniel Craig's piss-poor Poirot pastiche and his Southern drawl.  The only real interest was seeing relative newcomer Ana de Armas do a great job as the "help" and protagonist of the film.  As a closing comment, it's interesting that I love detective fiction and thought Rian Johnson did a mediocre job with this. And I really liked LOOPER, but my husband who actually does life sci-fi, thought THAT was mediocre.  Maybe Rian Johnson just makes mediocre sci-fi movies that anyone who really loves the genre sees right through?

KNIVES OUT has a running time of 130 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2019. It is released in the USA on November 27th and in the UK on November 29th.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Spoilers)


STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is the second instalment in the new trilogy of films, that sees the aftermath of the Rebellion's defeat of The Empire in the original trilogy.  In THE FORCE AWAKENS we saw a weakened Republic under attack by the newly resurgent remains of the old Empire, named The First Order.   The Emperor was replaced by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), with General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) as his military leader, Starkiller Base as his Death Star, Coruscant as its target, and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) aka Ben Solo as his Vader.  

In response, Republican Senator Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) was running a covert militarised Resistance starring a dashing pilot called Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his droid BB8.  The droid happened upon a young girl called Rey (Daisy Ridley), abandoned on the desert planet Jakku, waiting for her parents, and an instinctive force user. They in turn happened upon a stormtrooper defector called Finn (John Boyega) who seemed to exist mostly for comic effect, but also to have an antagonistic relationship with his former boss Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie). A largely redundant but popular side character was cantina owner Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyongo) who served to give Rey Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber.

The main questions set up by the film were whether Ben Solo would or could be turned by Rey to the Light Side of the Force having killed his father Han (Harrison Ford) in a test of loyalty to Snoke; who Rey's parents were, thus explaining her exceptional Force strength; and whether Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), living as a hermit, would be willing to train Rey to that task having failed in training Ben. Ancillary questions were how the First Order has amassed such tech and power so quickly (largely answered in the EU); and who Snoke was (which wasn't.)

And so we get to The Last Jedi, familiar with the grammar of Star Wars movies and the role of the middle chapter in a trilogy as a bridge of sorts, and eager to see if director Rian Johnson (BRICK, LOOPER) could move beyond the excessive fan service that was the only serious flaw that JJ Abrams (STAR TREK) made in his otherwise flawless and joyous The Force Awakens. Additionally, if we read the EU, we might have thought we would see some serious character development for Phasma (given the standalone book).

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

LOOPER


Oh dear.  I very much admired Rian Johnson's neo-noir debut, BRICK, and loved the style if not the substance of BROTHERS BLOOM.  But his third feature, LOOPER, is to my mind the most over-rated film of 2012.  Now, I realise that it is not Johnson's fault that the marketing department called his film the MATRIX of our times.  No film was likely to live up to that billing.  But LOOPER is so intellectually and emotionally disappointing that the blame must lie with Johnson as much as with the PR department.

The central conceit has promise.  In 2044, the USA is a decrepit ex-superpower, its people impoverished, its currency debased, beholden to China.  Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a contract killer who dispatches men sent back by the mafia from 2074, where time travel has been invented but also outlawed. This exposition is deftly handled and the key emotional problem set up: Joe has to kill his future self to fulfil his contract, but his future self is desperate to live.  Both trapped in 2044, Future Joe tries to assassinate the child who will become the mafia kingpin in 2074 - the child that the yoiung Joe has become emotionally attached to.

There are three problems with this film.  The first is that the events of the film violate the rules of time travel as set up by Rian Johnson.  (There's a brilliant article explaining why in the Huffpost.)  Admittedly, Johnson admits this failing, giving 2044 mob boss Abe a throwaway line telling Joe, and us, not to worry about it lest our "brains get fried".  This is all well and good in a movie that is emotionally gripping - the audience will willingly suspend disbelief when their heart is engaged.  But in LOOPER that just isn't the case.

That's because, just as the movie has set up its intriguing premise, it suddenly takes a left turn from sci-fi into paedophobic horror, with the little kid who will become the 2074  mob boss behaving like something from THE OMEN.  He has telekinetic powers you see - a random conceit that was mentioned in the first five minutes of the film and then completely forgotten about until Johnson had written himself into a hole.  In other words, LOOPER isn't a sophisticated well thought out sci-fi thriller along the lines of THE MATRIX, or TWELVE MONKEYS, but two halves of two films, both of which show promise, but neither of which is particularly well developed.

But the absolute killer - the thing that absolutely ruined the movie - that made it jump the shark, was the casting, acting, and editing that made the little kid with TK powers an  object of absurd comedy.  It's hinted at that he killed his mum in a TK rage, he is preternaturally smart and emotionally sophisticated and utters his lines with such an implausibly earnest air that everyone was laughing at him in the screening I attended.  The movie had just lost all credibility.  And with no emotional stakes, the supposedly big emotional ending had no force whatsoever. 

The upshot is that LOOPER is not a movie that lives up to sci-fi greats like THE MATRIX or time travel greats like TWELVE MONKEYS.  It doesn't even live up to SOURCE CODE or MOON.  

(Insert cheap time travel joke about me never getting back those two hours of my life.) 

LOOPER played Toronto 2012 and is currently on release in Australia, Croatia, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Bulgaria, Mexico, the UK and USA.  LOOPER opens on October 12th on Argentina, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Singapore, India, Norway, and Turkey. It opens on October 19th in Chile, Slovenia and Spain.  It opens on October 31st in Belgium, France, Finland and Poland; on November 29th in the Netherlands and Taiwan; in Taiwan on November 30th; in South Africa on December 14th; in Japan on January 12th and in Italy on January 31st.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

London Film Festival Day 14 - THE BROTHERS BLOOM

THE BROTHERS BLOOM is the visually delightful but ultimately self-indulgent follow-up film from writer-director Rian Johnson. His first film, BRICK, reinjected noir with a teen sensibility and seemed genuinely unique. It's tragic, then, to see Rian Johnson decide to make a film that seems to be something of a Wes Anderson rip-off. The elaborately designed sets; the anachronistic costumes; the richly choreographed sight-gags; the international jet-set milieu; the suffocating family relationships; the longing romanticism........oh, it's all there. And if the best of Anderson is present in this movie, so too is the worst. All that carefully placed beauty and absurdity does get a bit, well, boring after a while. And the layers and layers of artifice alienate the audience, and prevent us from feeling the reality of the attempted emotional ending. So much for the critique, what of the substance? THE BROTHERS BLOOM opens with a tour-de-force prologue which is narrated entirely in rhyme in a sort of Dr Seuss fashion. Two orphan brothers grow up poor in a rich town. The younger romantic boy wants to talk to a sweet girl but can't work up the courage. So his protective older brother comes up with a complex con in which he'll make some cash, his brother will impress the girl and all the kids will think they've stumbled upon a magic cave. Fast forward twenty years and the elder brother (Mark Ruffalo) is still trying to find the perfect con and the younger brother (Adrien Brody) is still looking for real love. They are joined by a female Japanese equivalent of Silent Bob (Rinko Kikuchi) and their mark, cloistered millionairess Penelope (Rachel Weisz). The first hour of the film is brilliant fun. Kikuchi steals every scene she's in and Weisz shows that she has real comic acting ability. Even Ruffalo and Brody are fine. The problem is simply that the fun and games go on too long and deaden the impact of the ending. 

THE BROTHERS BLOOM played Toronto and London 2008. It goes on release in the US on December 19th.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

BRICK - This film is so cool that Richard Roundtree is by far not the coolest thing about it

This review is brought to you by Tomiwa:

There are two kinds of people who will enjoy Brick: film noir fans who don't mind seeing the form explored in a new and unexpected manner, and 13 year old kids who might not know the form but will love the characters, the language and ultimately the very idea of film noir itself. Lucky for me, I'm fit right into both of these categories (old film noir fan and a 13 year old boy at heart). BRICK doesn't do anything too original to the basic workings of film noir, but it is a very fun take on the genre. All the stock characters are there, the twists (few of which a really clever viewer will find unexpected), the feel, even despite the sunny California setting, the claustrophobia.

The main problem with Brick is settling into the world it creates. There is a reason noir movies are made with grizzled, worn out men and set in dark alleys and bars. It gives instant credibility to the characters and the metaphoric darkness of their world. In a sunny California high school, one cannot help but wonder why our would be Bogey is so hard, what it is that drives him, how his instincts got honed or his worldview is so dark. One also has to wonder where the rest of the world as we know it is in relation to this place of vice and sin. The movie does a fine job answering some of these, revealing interesting details and back story that fill out the characters, but it never suceeds in merging the world it's created with the one we know. Hence, you have a movie that's internally coherent and completely engrossing if you just surrender to it's logic, but absolutely inane if you're the kind that can't let go of reality.

The acting is superb. Gordon-Levitt's take on the hard boiled detective steals liberally from Bogart (physical mannerisms and all) but opens it up wonderfully in some fresh ways. Everyone else is pretty great as well, except for the Pin, whose character is quite overdrawn and further let down by the acting. It's also a really beautiful movie in parts, with some clever cinematography and really fun shots. And the language... The language is nothing short of brilliant, the kind of stuff that makes you want to watch a movie over and over again. It adds to the oddity of the universe constructed, but it's just so much fun to hear and repeat. So I guess, I kinda recommend this movie. It's about the most fun I've had in a theatre this year.

And a few words from Bina007:
BRICK is very very odd film. Take a normal high school in modern-day California. Now, let’s give it a sort of antiquated film-noir feel. We’ll have people run to phone booths on abandoned street-corners or in empty car-lots rather than use cellphones. We’ll have the students speak in a stream of stylish one-liners full of almost impenetrable slang. We’ll have them hang out with drug-pushers and murdering thugs too. And then, we’ll populate this high school with the kind of characters who are capitalised. There will be a Femme Fatale, an Anti-Hero on the search for his missing girlfriend, who is herself kind of a Lost Soul. We’ll also have an Arch-Villain who may or may not be the real bad guy, a loyal but kooky Side-Kick. Finally, and here’s the real classy touch, we’ll cast an iconic bad-ass - Richard Roundtree – as the Assistant Vice-Principal. We’ll let these guys run around town for two hours, throwing punches and cute one-liners, and then we’ll end the film, not entirely caring whether or not the plot has been entirely wrapped up. In fact, it’s better if it isn’t – that adds to the whole noir-feel.

Like I said, BRICK is an odd film and it plays it absolutely straight. I have a feeling that whether or not you’ll enjoy it will depend on how far you are willing to just accept this odd world at face value. I went along for the ride and thoroughly enjoyed it mainly because it was just so out of leftfield, partly because it was, on occasion, hilarious, but also because Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns in another searing performance. But if you’re no fan of moody, mysterious thrillers and/or prefer your films full of nice cars, beautiful people and explosions, and there’s nothing wrong with that, then BRICK probably isn’t for you.

BRICK premiered at Sundance 2005 where writer/director Rian Johnson won a Special Jury Prize for originality of vision. BRICK went on limited release in the US in April. It opens in the UK this Friday.