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| "Maybe if we drink we can forget about being in "The Words." |
I gotta say. Olivia Wilde is becoming like Michael Pena or Dennis Quaid. I'm thrilled to see her--I really think she's a good actress--even though I know the movie she's in will probably be terrible. It's like ordering a salami sandwich from a vending machine. It's tasty at first, but later you don't feel so good.
As for Quaid, his 2012 should have belonged to Randy: "The Words, (with Olivia Wilde!)" "What to Expect When You're Expecting," and "Playing for Keeps." Good God. How depressing.
These reviews were previously published in "ICON" and are reprinted with permission.
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Promised Land (Dir:
Gus Van Sant). Starring: Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Frances McDormand,
Rosemarie DeWitt, Hal Holbrook, Titus Welliver, Terry Kinney. Corporate
sweet-talker Steve Butler (Damon, reteaming with Good Will Hunting director Van Sant) is sent to rural Pennsylvania
to convince townspeople to lease their land so it can be tapped for natural
gas. Everyone prepares for a big payday until the resident science whiz/sage (Holbrook)
objects, leading to the arrival of a young, charming environmentalist
(Krasinski). Steve soon reconsiders what he’s representing. We never buy the
doubt. And it’s not because Damon is too busy wearing the earnest beret to don
the black hat: he actually tells the obligatory love interest (DeWitt) that
he’s “not a bad guy.” Steve is an old pro so we never believe that his
conscience would suddenly wobble when faced with simple wisdom from the
farmland. (If he and Krasinski switched roles, that might work, though The Office heartthrob would have had to
contain his unbearable smugness.) By the end, Promised Land has gotten away from the thorny issues that pierce
the soul and celebrates simple, obvious values represented by American flags
and smart little girls selling lemonade.
It makes for a wonderful PSA. As a movie? Not so much. Damon and
Krasinski wrote the script. [R] **
Not Fade Away (Dir:
David Chase). Starring: John Magaro, Bella Heathcote, Jack Huston, Will Brill,
James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Christopher McDonald. The Sixties were a crazy
time, man. That’s the message behind the pointless, aggravating directorial
debut of Chase, the creative force behind The
Sopranos. A drum-loving Jersey boy (Magaro) starts off as a straight arrow eager
to join the military. Then he dives headlong into rock and roll, forming a band,
letting his hair go electric, and having a tempestuous relationship with a student
from the Marianne Faithfull School of Bored-looking Beauties (Heathcote). These
developments enrage his parents (Gandolfini and Molly Price), graduates of the
Whatsa Matta University of Working Class Stereotypes. It’s a long slog. Every
guitar pick-thin character can be described through labels: hippie, square,
concerned parent. Chase’s idea of propelling the plot is to introduce another crisis.
The ending seems lifted from another incredibly pretentious movie. Behind these
egregious faults is a stifling blandness. The film’s cultural revelations and
you should-have-been-there incredulousness—We made a bong from a toilet paper
roll! The Beatles changed everything!—are second-hand. Chase somehow thinks
this is all new information when it’s been covered, analyzed, and parodied
since the first episode of Laugh-In.
[R] *
Hyde Park on Hudson (Dir:
Roger Michell). Starring: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Samuel West, Olivia
Colman, Olivia Williams, Elizabeth Marvel.
The latest in a line of nostalgia-tinged naughtiness (My Week with Marilyn, Hitchcock) takes us to June 1939. A
perfect storm is forming over President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home in
Hyde Park, NY. Habitual paramour and distant cousin, Daisy (Linney), is in love
with FDR (Murray); wife Eleanor (Williams) lives elsewhere, and the King and
Queen of England (West, Colman) are coming for an important weekend visit. Cue
the flustered rich folk! Prestige picture is written all over this effort, but
writer Richard Nelson can’t decide on the angle. Every shift of
perspective—from forbidden love story to comedy of manners to political
drama—is jarring and incomplete. And Michell’s polite, folksy approach
guarantees that the movie seals lids shut instead of blowing them off. Don’t
let the MPAA rating fool you. Watching Hyde
Park on Hudson is like watching slides of your great-grandparents’ vacation
to upstate New York—with a few boudoir shots thrown in for spice. [R] **
Deadfall (Dir:
Stefan Ruzowitzky). Starring: Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Charlie Hunnam, Sissy
Spacek, Kris Kristofferson, Kate Mara, Treat Williams. Following a horrible car
accident, two bank robbing siblings (Bana, Wilde) separate and hope to reunite
in the wintry backwoods. Sis hitches a ride with a disgraced Olympic boxer
(Hunnam) who is running from a new set of problems. Meanwhile, bro kills at a
furious rate, making his way to the home of a couple (Spacek, Kristofferson)
for a Thanksgiving dinner that ends up fit for a hostage negotiator. “This is
like an old movie, don’t you think?” Wilde’s character observes. A little too
much, actually. Director Ruzowitzky (The
Counterfeiters) and first-time screenwriter Zach Dean aren’t interested in
telling new stories. Deadfall recycles
elements of Fargo, Scarface, The Ref and other hard-boiled fare but offers little to keep our
interest. The finale is more implausible than intense and the ill-fitting performances
range from muted to cartoonish, but the absence of absorbing characters and
conflicts really keeps us from warming up to this snowy thriller. [R] **
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