Inspired by actual events that occurred in 1920s-era Los Angeles, Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" tells the story of a woman driven to confront a corrupted LAPD after her abducted son is retrieved and she begins to suspect that the boy returned to her is not the same boy she gave birth to. The year was 1928, and the setting a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. As Christine (Angelina Jolie) said goodbye to her son, Walter, and departed for work, she never anticipated that this was the day her life would be forever changed. Upon returning home, Christine was distressed to discover that Walter was nowhere to be found. Over the course of the following months, the desperate mother would launch a search that would ultimately prove fruitless. Yet just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a nine-year-old boy claiming to be Christine's son seemed to appear out of thin air. Overcome with emotions and uncertain how to face the authorities or the press, Christine invites the child to stay in her home despite knowing without a doubt that he is not her son. As much as Christine would like to accept the fact that her son has been returned to her, she cannot accept the injustice being pushed upon her and continues to challenge the Prohibition-era Los Angeles police force at every turn. As a result, Christine is slandered by the powers that be, and painted as an unfit mother. In this town, a woman who challenges the system is putting her life on the line, and as the situation grows desperate, the only person willing to aid her in her search is benevolent local activist Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich).
Portraying one of the shadier details of American history, this is the story of Jack McGurn, who comes to Los Angeles in 1936. He gets a job at a movie theatre in Little Tokyo and falls in love with the boss's daughter, Lily Kawamura. When her father finds out, he is fired and forbidden ever to see her again. But together they escape to Seattle. When the war breaks out, the authorities decide that the Japanese immigrants must live in camps like war prisoners.
During the Japanese rule of Taiwan, the Seediq were forced to lose their own culture and give up their faith. Men were subject to harsh labor and kept from traditional hunting; whereas women had to serve the Japanese policemen and their families by doing the household work and giving up their traditional weaving work. Above all, they were forbidden to tattoo their faces. And these tattoos were seen as the Seediq's traditional belief to transform themselves into Seediq Bale ("true humans"). Mona Rudao, the protagonist, witnessed the repression by the Japanese over a period of 30 years. Sometime between autumn and winter 1930, when the slave labor is at its harshest, a young Seediq couple are married and a joyful party is thrown. At the same time, a newly appointed Japanese policeman goes on his inspection tour to this tribe. Mona Rudao's first son, Tado Mona, offers wine to the policeman with gusto, but is in return beaten up because his hands were considered not clean enough. With anger, Tado Mona and his brother Baso Mona attack the policeman. And from that day onward, their tribe is living in the shadow of being the object of revenge by the Japanese. In a few days, a group of youth surround Mona Rudao. They strongly request him to lead the retaliation against the Japanese. Mona Rudao struggles for a long time between extending his fellow's lives and fighting back for dignity, until he sees these youngster's faces - clear without Seediq's tattoos - that he made up his mind. He tells the youngsters, "Japanese troops out-number the stones in Dakusui River, more intensive than the leaves in the forest, but my determination fighting them is ever stronger than Mt. Kire." "Children! On the tip of the Rainbow Bridge led to home of our ancestor's spirits, there is another beautiful hunting range. Our ancestors are all there! Remember, only brave spirits can enter this place, and we can never lose it. My fellows, let us hunt the heads of our enemies, and we wash our spirits with blood so that we walk the Rainbow Bridge to be always with our ancestors." The film Seediq Bale depicts the Wushe Incident, which occurred in central Taiwan during the Japanese rule. When the Seediq Bale, believing in the Rainbow, and the Japanese, believing in the Sun, met one another, they fought. The leader of Seediq Bale, Mona Rudao, led 300 warriors fighting against 3000 Japanese troopers. The only thing they forgot was whether it was the Rainbow or the Sun they believed in; they actually believed in the same sky.
When a king speaks, he must command attention. Though the British monarchy may be more iconography than anything else at this point in history, people will still look to their royal leader for guidance and reassurance in times of woe and doubt. That’s a lot of pressure for someone who may never have wanted to assume the responsibility to begin with. Unfortunately for King George VI, his birthright meant he did not have any choice in the matter. It’s not that he didn’t think he could do it; it’s just that he wasn’t confidant enough to think anyone would care to have him.
Forget the king; when director Tom Hooper speaks, he has my full attention. After his impressive first feature last year, THE DAMNED UNITED, Hooper continues his journey in regal fashion with THE KING’S SPEECH and delivers the goods right from the start. Colin Firth, who could easily garner another Oscar nod with his heartbreaking work here, is the Duke of York. It is 1925 and he is about to address the nation. The tension builds and by the time he gets to the podium, every ear in the land appears to be waiting to hear what he has to say. At first, there is nothing. What follows that awkwardness is a disjointed, passionless address that he stammers all the way through. It may not be as epic a global failure as modern day technology allows but enough people were listening to make it seem like a public collapse that he might never recover from.
He almost didn’t. King George VI went through many speech therapists before landing on Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Logue helps George break down the years of subtle abuse one suffers as the son of a king to see that his speech impediment is the result of isolation and lack of confidence, not something particularly physical. Their banter is at times hilarious and at others quite intense. Their immense combined talent, along with supporting turns from Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pearce, give THE KING’S SPEECH even more depth and flourish than Hooper already has. Together, they created a film that will certainly resonate long after it’s said what it has to say.
Roland Emmerich is famous for directing disaster movies, like 2012 and INDEPENDENCE DAY. His latest, ANONYMOUS, is supposed to be a grand departure but it still felt an awful lot like a disaster to me. And what better way to distance yourself from a genre that practically ignores story completely, than to take on a story that attacks the character of one of the most famed storytellers of all time, William Shakespeare. Rhys Ifans stars as Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford and, according to Emmerich, the actual writer of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s an interesting theory but one that Emmerich executes with about as much finesse and subtlety as one would expect from the man who rewrote history in 10,000 B.C. If I were Emmerich, I would have left my name off of this one.
Considering Clint Eastwood has lived to witness most of what he chooses to depict in his J. Edgar Hoover biography, simply titled J. EDGAR, it is an awful shame that so much of it feels lifeless and false. Eastwood’s Hoover accomplishes great things, like taking fingerprint technology nationwide and forensic science to new heights, but he does so with very little fanfare, subsequently inspiring even less interest in his audience. Fortunately, incredible performances by Leonardo Dicaprio and Armie Hammer, as the notorious FBI director and his rumoured romantic partner of many years, Clyde Tolson, elevate the picture high enough to overshadow the drab, washed out stiffness of Eastwood’s former America. Dustin Lance Black’s script is smart not to focus solely on Hoover’s sexuality, but unfortunately, the film only truly comes alive when it does.
In 1956, one of the biggest stars and sex symbols the world has ever known travelled to England to make a movie with one of the world’s most respected stage actors. Somewhere in the middle of the inevitable chaos and drama that ensued, a young man named Colin Clark was embarking on his first job in the movie business. The star was Marilyn Monroe; the actor was Sir Laurence Olivier; and the movie was THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL. Clark’s budding film career never took off but his unique experience would one day become a book (“The Prince, the Showgirl and Me”), which in turn has now become a movie called, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.
The shoot itself actually went several weeks long but when it comes to spending time with Monroe, the experience is so fleeting that it can feel like an instant that has ended long before it should. There was nothing Clark, portrayed here by fresh faced, Eddie Redmayne, could have done to prepare himself for the magnitude of Monroe’s magnetism. And as the splendid Michelle Williams demonstrates with her finely nuanced performance, there was very little Monroe could do to tame that pull either. Though Clark is just a glorified gopher on set, his innocence and honesty grab Monroe’s attention and before long she latches on to him to use as a shield from the multitude of things that frighten her in general. Her near crippling fear and anxiety in turn threatens the success of the shoot, which causes a serious rift with Sir Laurence, who is played with great exuberance by Kenneth Branagh.
Director, Simon Curtis and writer, Adrian Hodges, both relative unknowns in the world of Hollywood feature filmmaking, infuse MY WEEK WITH MARILYN with a delicate subtlety that allows for simple but sympathetic insight into the mind of the infamous starlet. Bolstered by the almost always brilliant Williams, Monroe comes across here as part frightened little girl, lost in a world she barely understands and part experienced woman, aware of her position and unafraid of abusing her power if it means alleviating her own distress temporarily. She enjoys the attention but also doesn’t know what to do with it when she has it. Most importantly, she is aware that she is more commodity now than person, yet seems more or less content to play along. This might perhaps be because she has no idea how to change the direction of her life or it might be because she no longer remembers who the real Marilyn is anymore.
“Disaster” is a word that I’ve heard easily thrown around regarding Madonna’s latest film, W.E.. With the notoriously despised film actress at the helm of the project, it almost seemed like I was hearing the word before people had even seen the film. To deem a Madonna film disastrous is expected, fashionable even. And so, at the first sight of any questionable direction in the film, it would appear that the great majority of the critical world wrote it, and her, off. As negative criticism tends to be more colorful (and more enjoyable to write) and as negative reviews are more fun to read, the hate for W.E. is now rampant. Is it a great film? No, it isn’t. Is it a disaster though? Absolutely not.
W.E. is as stylish as they come. Under the watchful eye of cinematographer, Hagen Bogdanski (THE LIVES OF OTHERS) and production designer, Martin Childs (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), it is undeniably sumptuous and rich. The imagery is then elevated to dizzying heights by an equally lustrous score by Abel Korzeniowski (A SINGLE MAN). At times, it can all be a bit much to take, an overdose of exquisite taste and fine furniture of sorts, but Madonna’s guidance is always omnipresent, albeit somewhat heavy-handed. There is a vision though and the dramatic tones she strikes are often quite real and effective. A good director makes choices and Madonna is nothing if not decisive.
The true problems with W.E. lie with its script. As a director, Madonna shows promise; the woman clearly has an eye for beauty after all. As a writer though, she can be stiff and unfocused. Co-written with her TRUTH OR DARE director, Alek Keshishian, W.E. tells the story of one Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), a doctor’s wife whose life looks perfect from the outside but is downright abusive upon closer look. Wally is obsessed with the love affair of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), an American divorcee, and King Edward VIII (James D’Arcy), who abdicated the thrown to be with her. Their love story was told the world over and was admired by many as one of the greatest romantic gestures in history. Feeling no love in her life, Wally takes solace at a Sotheby’s auction for the famous couple and meets a security guard (Oscar Isaac), who reminds her of how beautiful she truly is.
The connection between both story lines is a stretch most of the time and eventually goes nowhere at all. That sounds harsh but the cast are all beautiful and compelling so W.E. does engage the viewer in the end. The romantics amongst you could even very easily be swept up in it. Madonna’s decades old preoccupation with championing the plight of women who are despised the world over, in this case Wallis after she stole England’s king (and apparently showed some sympathy towards the Nazis), ultimately distracts her from the task at hand.
For my part, I have no shame admitting that I am a Madonna admirer and that this admiration in turn taints the way I see her work. Still, as a critic, there is a job to be done and I believe I’ve done it here. And so, if I can keep my bias in check, I wonder why others cannot do the same. Besides, if critics really want to see a disastrous Madonna movie, they need only watch her first effort, FILTH AND WISDOM. That’s essentially unwatchable.
The other day, I told a friend of mine that I had never in my life ever ridden a horse. She gasped in horror as if I had missed out on one of life’s most rewarding experiences. I’m not against the idea of it, although I can’t imagine horses enjoy that kind of weight on them for hours at a time. I have just never had the occasion and therefore, I have never had the chance to connect to one of these majestic creatures, like so many others. From what I understand, the bond between a person and a horse can be quite something but having no first hand experience with it, I have no idea why. And so, my lack of horse experience or appreciation may have unduly influenced my reading of Steven Spielberg’s WAR HORSE. Or maybe, it just wasn’t that great.
Based on both the original 1982 children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo and the 2007 stage play by Nick Stafford, WAR HORSE is the story of one remarkable journey, had by a horse. The horse, named Joey in the film, starts out born on a farm, and we are naturally present for that birth, and then, after being separated from his mother, is sold at auction in a pissing contest between a landlord and lies lessee. There, Joey must overcome his exquisiteness to become a work horse or the farmer will lose his land. Past that, he goes off to fight in the first World War and the film follows as he changes hands during his four years away from home. Some of the characters Joey meet along the way make for some tender and beautiful moments but given that the story is his, the perspective gets away from him all too often. A horse’s point of view is a little awkward but Spielberg should have reigned himself back in and focused more.
This horse movie is nearly three hours long and it is never clear what kind of movie we are actually watching. Spielberg is known for two types of filmmaking - family style blockbusters that are entertaining for all and graphic war films. WAR HORSE tries to be both of these films, which makes the experience a confusing one at times. The first hour, or at least it felt that way, is about Joey bonding with his young owner, Albert Narracott (relative unknown, Jeremy Irvine) and seeing if he truly can plod the field. The tone is light, the story tired and the shots somewhat plain considering the man behind the camera. Once he goes off to war, the tone changes drastically and the stylized violence Spielberg thrives on takes over, erasing all traces of family entertainment. Predictability follows and we wait for the horse to find his way home. We wait almost three hours ... for a horse.
The film explores the secret life of our greatest president, and the untold history that shaped our nation. As a young boy, Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin walker) witnesses the shocking death of his mother, leading him on a path to an ongoing war – and ultimately to the presidency – he chronicles in a hidden diary. The journal reveals the incredible story of a clandestine warrior, who never stopped fighting for the country he led and the people he loved.
What the history books neglected to include: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Not what many expected, but with Seth Grahame-Smith trend of rewriting classic literature (and now political figures) with genre concepts have been hit-and-miss with me. At least we have Timur Bekmambetoy (Wanted) directing the film.
Fox released the second full trailer at Wondercon. Narrated by Benjamin Walker who plays Abraham Lincoln and showcases the mythology of why Abe began hunting vampires. Release date is June 22, 2012.
