Tag: Cliff Curtis

Reminiscence (2021, Lisa Joy)

I did give Reminiscence a fair shake. I really did.

It’s not my fault it opens with an all-CGI “helicopter” shot introducing the setting—a future, flooded Miami—and a terrible voice-over from star Hugh Jackman. It’s writer and director Joy’s fault. And her producers. And whoever thought doing low-to-middling CGI on a fake helicopter shot was a good idea. And whoever told them no one would remember Dark City, which is the first obvious… um… “homage.” Unless the helicopter shot is a Birdcage nod.

Reminiscence is what happens when you put Unforgettable, Blade Runner 1, Blade Runner 2, Waterworld (Joy didn’t have the courage for the urine filtration, sad to say), the aforementioned Dark City, and Dredd into a mixer and then bake them in a Big Sleep-shaped pan. I’m only including Unforgettable on the list because it’s got the same MacGuffin, but I’m not sure Joy’s familiar with it—though the movie ends up lifting a scene from The Departed trailer, so nothing’s too obvious. A Bugs Bunny cameo would’ve improved Reminiscence a lot. Especially since femme fatale Rebecca Ferguson is based more on Jessica Rabbit than anyone else.

That Departed lift jumps out because all the other prominent references outside Blade Runner 2049 are at least twenty years old. Wait, no… Dredd. But I feel like if you made Reminiscence you assumed no one saw Dredd, because if they had, why would they be watching your movie (outside the eventual and then frequent Jackman beefcake, which at fifty-two is still very impressive, as is his ability to emote in underwater close-ups). From the first few seconds of the film, Reminiscence is a fail. It’s just going to be two annoyingly tedious hours to figure out exactly how it’ll fail. Who it’ll fail. Spoiler: Thandiwe Newton. It completely and utterly fails Thandiwe Newton, particularly when it turns out the Occam’s razor on why Jackman falls for Ferguson instead of long-time best friend Newton (he’s Bogart, she’s Dooley Wilson, wish I was kidding) is because… you guessed it… she’s a Black woman.

There’s a lot of backstory to Reminiscence’s dystopian future, and we get every single bit of it from terrible voice-over narration. Even before the end of the first act, you’ve got to wonder how Jackman—who’s sort of been trying to do everything as a neo-noir (superhero neo-noir, sci-fi neo-noir)—didn’t get someone to try to fix the film. Somewhere in the third act, he does such a good impression of Clint Eastwood saying yes to a movie he really shouldn’t have, and you all of a sudden remember Jackman’s the movie star, and Reminiscence completely fails him.

Anyway.

In the ruins of the old world (Miami and the Gulf of Mexico flooded, Americans banded together to force Mexicans, brown people, and poor people of all colors drown), Jackman is a former interrogator (for the Americans) who uses the technology they developed to go into people’s memories to sell people “reminiscences.” You pay to relive your good memories from before the world went to shit while Jackman and Newton watch it all. Jackman’s a good guy though, he turns his head when there’s nudity. Even when femme fatale Ferguson wants him to look.

After sweeping Jackman off his feet because she can sing and apparently no one’s left who can sing, Ferguson leaves him, and he becomes a memory junkie. But when he and Newton have to go consult on a case for the cops—they need Jackman to talk calmly to the suspect while Newton watches the computer in case it tells her to tell Jackman to stop (the district attorneys and cops in Reminiscence are abject morons because Joy can’t figure out another way to do the Big Sleep nod)—he sees Ferguson in a memory and has a new lead.

He wasn’t actually investigating her before just reliving the memories (there’s even a massive clue to where she might be hiding the movie doesn’t notice because Joy’s a bad writer). But now he’s on the case, and he’s going to meet drug dealer Daniel Wu–Reminiscence forgets for the first act the majority of the population is addicted to some drug you can never, ever kick, and it’s ruining the ruined society—and crooked cop Cliff Curtis. Wu’s terrible, but Curtis is good with horrible writing. Like he’s trying. No one else in Reminiscence tries. Hopefully.

It’d be much, much worse if Jackman and Ferguson are trying. Jackman’s on autopilot. Ferguson’s got what Joy thinks is a great part, kind of an empowered femme fatale, but it’s actually this very weird slut-shaming, aggressively misogynistic, classist take. Also, Ferguson and Jackman have zero chemistry. Probably because of the bad script and bad direction, but neither actor should’ve believed Joy telling them they were Bogart and Bacalling it.

For some of Reminiscence, it seems like Jackman will at least escape unscathed. Joy must have something to say about these genres she’s blending together. When it turns out she doesn’t, and then there’s still another forty minutes in the movie, it’s just a descent into mainstream mediocrity. Jackman doesn’t have to be embarrassed by his performance, just agreeing to be in the project. Though maybe the voice-overs.

Newton’s not great. She’s fine. But not really anything more because her writing is terrible and her part is worse. She’s believable in this lousy production, which makes her definitionally infinitely better than anyone else. Must be Newton’s experience working with Joy on the similarly insipid “Westworld” show.

Technically, Reminiscence is without highlights. Paul Cameron’s photography is bad or worse. Worse on the green screen composite shots. Ramin Djawadi’s music is terrible. Waterworld Miami isn’t great, but not as good as it should be—so either Howard Cummings’s production design just misses it or Joy’s direction screws it up. The fail on the flooded city, which has tropical noir overtones, seems mostly to be Joy’s impatient direction–Reminiscence is such a chore to watch; Joy’s predictable, contrived, impatient, and tedious. So the movie’s rushing to do things slowly. The relatively short and hilariously bad epilogue goes on forever. Even the last fade-out is too long.

So maybe it’s all editor Mark Yoshikawa’s fault. Perhaps he could’ve saved us. Or at least made Reminiscence’s seemingly endlessly bland, unimaginative mediocrity move at a better pace instead. The film’s a bad memory and hopefully one easily forgotten.

Three Kings (1999, David O. Russell)

Three Kings ought to appeal to every one of my liberal affections–director Russell very seriously wants to look at the Gulf War and how it failed the people it should have been protecting. Over and over, Russell goes out of his way to make the American soldiers take responsibility. Not for the war itself, but for their personal involvement with it and the Iraqis. Not just Iraqi civilians, but the army too. It’s very deliberate and precisely executed. It’s just not enough to drive the entire film; nothing in Three Kings is compelling enough overall.

Political statement aside, there’s a lot of other distinct elements to the film. There’s the writing–Russell’s script is quite funny–lots of inane and mundane details. But it’s also rather responsible, at least while Russell’s establishing the ground situation. Russell sets up an excellent tone and structure to the characters and their relationships. Even though some of the film takes place on an army base, it always feels very small. Maybe because Russell has title overlays identifying the main characters. With amusing commentary, of course.

Then there’s the style. Three Kings is very stylized; high contrast Newton Thomas Sigel photography, very quick cuts, some very slow cuts, some slow motion. Russell directs his actors for this exaggerated style, but with only marginal success. Ice Cube and George Clooney, for instance, have nothing parts. Russell gives all the character material to Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze. Neither of them is bad, though Jonze can’t handle the transition between being an uneducated racist redneck to a soulful world traveller. He doesn’t really need to do much after that change because Russell’s moved on to focusing on Wahlberg. Wahlberg’s all right for the first act, but has this big subplot to himself and he can’t hack it. So Jonze and Wahlberg getting the most outlandish direction makes sense. They need the most cover.

By the third act, however, Russell has given in to the comedy a little much. He has Nora Dunn and Jamie Kennedy for the comic relief but he takes it even further. It starts to get absurd, which–were Three Kings more successful–should raise some issues about Russell’s political statements.

Great supporting performances. Cliff Curtis, Dunn, Saïd Taghmaoui, Mykelti Williamson, Holt McCallany. Kennedy’s annoying and probably should signal Russell’s eventual tone problems, but he’s good with Dunn. Williamson is awesome opposite Clooney. Then ppor Taghmaoui has to carry Wahlberg in their important (and informative) showdowns.

Decent music from Carter Burwell. Robert K. Lambert’s editing is probably exactly what Russell wanted, though some of the cuts aren’t graceful enough. Three Kings takes place in all of us, Russell demands the audience engage. Three Kings needs more script busywork and far less technical busywork. It also needs a director more concerned about his actors.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by David O. Russell; screenplay by Russell, based on a story by John Ridley; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by Robert K. Lambert; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, Catherine Hardwicke; produced by Charles Roven, Paul Junger Witt and Edward McDonnell; released by Warner Bros.

Starring George Clooney (Archie Gates), Mark Wahlberg (Troy Barlow), Ice Cube (Chief Elgin), Spike Jonze (Conrad Vig), Cliff Curtis (Amir Abdulah), Nora Dunn (Adriana Cruz), Jamie Kennedy (Walter Wogaman), Saïd Taghmaoui (Captain Said), Mykelti Williamson (Colonel Horn), Holt McCallany (Captain Van Meter) and Judy Greer (Cathy Daitch).

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Push (2009, Paul McGuigan)

It’s understandable Push bombed at the box office. It’s hard to find a film so with much intelligence in the filmmaking, casting and acting applied to such a subpar script. Strangely, David Bourla’s script isn’t bad in regard to dialogue—there are some great exchanges between Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans—or in how it’s plotted—the narrative twists and turns resemble those in a heist movie. Where it fails is in creating an engaging setting—Push is a superhero movie where everyone has boring superpowers (it sort of feels like Summit wanted a teen superhero franchise to go along with Twilight).

Director McGuigan picked the film’s Hong Kong setting because he wanted something exotic a la Casablanca… and it does work. Fanning and Evans are basically Bogart and Rains here—a mildly abrasive, endearing chemistry. But maybe McGuigan worrying about bringing that sensibility to a superpowers movie just can’t truly work with the silly concept. In fact, McGuigan constantly works against the superpowers element.

I’d never seen Fanning in anything; I was shocked how good her performance is in this film. She and Evans are fantastic together. It’s distressing Bourla could write this great relationship between them, but couldn’t not be goofy when writing the script in general. Push shows why an established mythology is easier to adapt than to create.

Push might be better if you’re a fifteen year-old, albeit one who wants to see a superhero movie more like Casablanca than Iron Man.

Still, it’s okay.

The Fountain (2006, Darren Aronofsky)

If you were to tell me I was going to react the way I did to The Fountain, Aronofsky’s dream project, I wouldn’t have believed you. While The Wrestler succeeded, Aronofsky didn’t write it. All my experience with his screenplays is negative.

In terms of how the film works, The Fountain is somewhat singular. It’s a rather straightforward narrative masquerading as a sci-fi event picture. It’s insane to think anyone would have given Aronofsky seventy-five million dollars to make this picture (with Brad Pitt, no less, who couldn’t have handled the acting). Hugh Jackman has to be three different people who are occasionally the same person, but don’t know about the other people, but are aware of the other people. It’s probably Jackman’s best performance.

I sat and waited for The Fountain‘s ending to fail, since the whole thing is about the ending. It never does.

Aronofsky’s direction is fantastic, as he incorporates special effects into his shots and to the way Jackman’s character experiences those special effects. Simply because what happens to Dave Bowman doesn’t matter to anyone but Dave Bowman and the viewer, The Fountain and its treatment of Jackman’s experiences is the first film to do it in this manner since 2001.

It seems like a great waste of budget to have these big space scenes with only one character experiencing them.

The Fountain is an experience for the character and the individual viewer. It’s hostile to the idea of an audience or communal reaction.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Darren Aronofsky; screenplay by Aronofsky, based on a story by Aronofsky and Ari Handel; director of photography, Matthew Libatique; edited by Jay Rabinowitz; music by Clint Mansell; production designer, James Chinlund; produced by Arnon Milchan, Iain Smith and Eric Watson; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Tommy), Rachel Weisz (Izzi), Ellen Burstyn (Dr. Lillian Guzetti), Mark Margolis (Father Avila), Stephen McHattie (Grand Inquisitor Silecio), Fernando Hernandez (Lord of Xibalba), Cliff Curtis (Captain Ariel), Sean Patrick Thomas (Antonio), Donna Murphy (Betty), Ethan Suplee (Manny), Richard McMillan (Henry) and Lorne Brass (Dr. Alan Lipper).

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Live Free or Die Hard (2007, Len Wiseman)

Remember the “Simpsons” episode where Bart watches ‘Die Hard’ jump out the window? Live Free or Die Hard–the title, incidentally, has nothing to do with the film’s content–is the first one where I expected McClane’s nickname to be ‘Die Hard.’ They come close in terms of self-reference….

Still, as a Die Hard movie, it’s about as good as a Die Hard movie featuring Bruce Willis versus a fighter jet is going to get. It’s really well cast, which carries a lot of the film. Much like the third one, it follows the short codas of the first two–which are fine for those (i.e. with Bonnie Bedelia–has everyone else forgotten the first two Die Hard movies are like a Thin Man on angel dust?)–but the movie doesn’t have a closed narrative. It has a fake ending, not going on long enough. The immediate action is resolved, then it just stops.

That good casting is necessary–and Len Wiseman’s enthusiastic direction is helpful–because the writing is terrible. Willis has some good lines and he and Justin Long have some good scenes, but it’s incredibly stupid. The Die Hard movies kept their predicaments small and manageable–even the third one kept it within reason–but Live Free is crazy big: it’s the end of the world as we know it (something left unresolved).

For half the movie, I felt like the script came from John Carpenter’s unmade Escape from Earth.

It isn’t just the dumb ideas, but a lot of the setups. McClane’s stalking his daughter in this one, which makes little sense (especially since the image of him alone, his heroism costing him everything–conjured by a discussion–is so much more striking). Luckily, there’s a lot of decently executed action. Die Hard movies always create an aura of reality, usually because of Willis’s performance and the production design–and he makes the unbelievable Live Free palatable.

As a director, Wiseman has no personality, but he incorporates CG well enough. As a Die Hard movie with CG, which means it’s fundamentally broken but it is what it is and it’s fine.

Cliff Curtis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Timothy Olyphant are all fine. Curtis is sturdy, Winstead is feisty and Olyphant is hissable (if a little foppish).

As for McClane versus the fighter jet… it’s the kind of ‘too much’ even Willis can’t ground. Combined with that flimsy ending… There’s also the issue of Wiseman’s blue filters, which I won’t expand on, since I want to end on a high note:

Live Free or Die Hard isn’t the best it could be, but it’s far from the worst. It’s fine.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999, Martin Scorsese)

What to say about Bringing Out the Dead… I remember now why 1999 was the hardest year to make a top ten list for–and I hadn’t even seen Wonderland at that point. Whatever. It’s the best. It’s certainly Scorsese’s best work in the 1990s, puts the rest to a kind of shame (it’s odd, then, that Scorsese doesn’t like the film, or maybe not).

I remember hearing a few things (one echoed by IMDb when I looked it up for running time) back when it came out. 1) nothing happens. The answer to that is ‘to hell with anything happening.’ 2) it’s too Catholic. The answer to that is ‘what are you talking about?’ I can’t remember why Bringing Out the Dead was so critically beloved, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t even know that it should have been–isn’t it sort of degrading for those who laud floaters to laud greatness?

I hate writing about great films. I absolutely hate it. Don’t rent this film. Buy it.

Interesting, movielens just told me that I’d give it 1½, which is the first time movielens has been so wrong (that I can’t remember, but I’m not linking to it, so I must be pissed). I’ve rated 836 films at movielens and the recommendations tend to be spot-on, frighteningly so sometimes. But Bringing Out the Dead throws a wrench in the works, apparently. Bringing Out the Dead is a desert island film, I realized while watching it. It’s not enough to say it’s great or that I love it, but it’s a film that I cannot do without. Which makes watching it tonight even the more odd. I was sitting at dinner and all of a sudden I decided I had to watch the film, which I probably haven’t seen since the DVD came out in 1999, but maybe I didn’t even watch the DVD then. I may have only seen this film once. Which is a tragedy. It’s such a tragedy I’m starting sentences with ‘which.’ What the hell? Go and buy it. They’ve got them for $7.