(Peyton Reed, 2015)
It's one thing Marvel taking established, popular characters like Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man and turning them into hugely successful film franchises. But the way they have transformed that success into the ability to take third (or fourth) tier characters and make their movies into hits too - that is genuinely impressive.
In both the cases of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, a big part of the process appears to be the way they have empowered the filmmakers to make something different from what would generally be expected of a Marvel movie. That might sound funny given the fact that the original writer-director of Ant-Man, Edgar Wright, quit the project over interference from Marvel. But the finished film still feels like something new to the studio; smaller in scale (no pun intended), quirkily funny, inventive and loose in certain particulars. For much of the first two acts, it feels more like a ramshackle bro-comedy than a super-hero movie. That is down to the presence of Paul Rudd, but also the fact that he and Adam McKay worked on the script is obvious in the way some scenes stretch out once they find a comic groove. Rudd plays Scott Lang, just released from prison after a stretch for burglary (he broke into the offices of a corporation and released some secrets to the world) and trying to go straight so that he can be a part of his daughter's life.
He is noticed by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a genius scientist and creator of the "Pym particle" which allows people wearing a customised costume to shrink to insect proportions (and beyond). Pym's old protege Aaron Cross (Corey Stoll) has taken over his company and found his own version of the shrinking process, which he hopes to sell in weaponised form as the Yellowjacket, a battle armour capable of shrinking. Pym and his skeptical, partly estranged daughter Joy (Evangeline Lily) want Scott to break into Cross' facility, destroy the armour and all of the research, without being spotted.
What we ultimately have here, then, is a heist movie. Scott assembles his crew of ex-con mates, led by a winning, hilariously broad Michael Pena. The make a plan, they prepare, there is a training montage, everything goes well...until it doesn't anymore.
Ant-Man takes longer to get to the super-hero action than any Marvel film since Iron Man, but when it comes it is genuinely different and arresting. The scenes of Scott in shrunken form, surfing on a wave of ants or riding on the back of one are among the best in the movie, and the now-you-see-me combat style he has developed has visual impact and provides for a few good gags (the final Yellowjacket vs Ant-Man fight is as funny as it is exciting). The best moment is near the end when Scott enters the "Quantum Realm" and floats through a subatomic universe where time and space have lost all meaning. That this 2001: A Space Odyssey quotation co-exists within a film also setting up a new Spider-Man movie is genuinely exciting.
Largely, Ant-Man works because it sets itself up as a modest film with modest goals. The characters can be a tad dull (Lilly and Stoll both struggle with their parts) but the actors generally sell it, the Marvel easter eggs are mostly subtle and intriguing, and the climax is excellent.
Showing posts with label Michael Douglas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Douglas. Show all posts
Monday, 20 July 2015
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA
(Steven Soderbergh, 2013)
Something about Matt Damon seems to bring out the black comedian in Steven Soderbergh. Think of The Informant! and its quietly hilarious depiction of escalating and mammoth self-delusion. Or even his role in the second and third Oceans films, where he is the most hapless and insecure of the leads, his part in their schemes the most comic and bizarre. In Oceans Thirteen he wears a false nose for the heist itself, and he again finds himself with an augmented proboscis in Soderbergh's Behind The Candelabra. Though the film is centred around Liberace, the Las Vegas Entertainer, Damon plays Scott Thorson, the actual protagonist of the story. He is a young Californian hunk who becomes Liberace's (Michael Douglas) live-in lover, companion and chauffeur in the late '70s. Soderbergh's film traces the rise and fall of their relationship from early bloom to late decay, all the while painting a picture of the bizarre bubble of kitsch and wealth Liberace's celebrity allowed him to live in.
The director's intelligence is evident in the way he chooses to present that world; filming in rooms of such overwhelmingly oppressive bad taste they make your teeth ache, he maintains a classical style, allowing the production design to do the work. His camera moves little, his compositions are simple and understated. He sticks to two-shots to capture conversations, occasionally giving us a wider view of the ridiculous opulence of an immense room.
As befits a production made for HBO, its a deceptively small, intimate film, intent mainly upon the relationship between these two men, opening out only a few times throughout. This becomes an issue between the characters - Thorson eventually wants to go out and meet people, whereas Liberace ("Lee" to his friends) is content to stay at home, except for the occasional visit to a glory hole in a sex shop. Later this is briefly switched when Lee asks for an open relationship, only to grow furious when he suspects Scott is seeing somebody else. They both have their issues - Lee first wants to adopt Scott, then pays for him to have plastic surgery so that they look more alike (hence Damon's nose), while Scott becomes addicted to diet pills and pays his dealer with jewellery he steals from Lee's house.
All of this is given a sort of sheen of deadpan hysteria, capped off beautifully by Rob Lowe as Lee's plastic surgeon, his own face stretched so tight he seems to have no eyes, his tone a sort of glazed amusement at everything he hears. The facelift he gives Lee means that he can never fully close his eyes, meaning that Scott finds him snoring one night, eyes half open
If their early courtship is unconventional, the way they fall apart is far more recognisable - jealousy, boredom, another person - and the two leads are superb at evoking the pain and complexity of it all.
While Douglas brings a pretty decent Liberace impression to life, with frequently hilarious results, Damon, miscast (he is nearly 20 years too old) on the surface, does much more interesting work as Thorson, suggesting his neediness and early naiveté and tracing the way that shifts through exposure to wealth and privilege.
He is a complex mess; claiming he is "bisexual" ("Well I haven't met the part that likes women", Lee replies) and finding anal sex "repugnant" while shunning his foster-parents despite loving them, writing songs and bemoaning the fact that all Lee's entourage hate him, his peculiar situation is clearly difficult. His resultant addiction and desperation seem like a natural progression for this vulnerable kid from a harsh background, and his late collapse is nicely, furiously played by Damon. The likes of a brilliant Rob Lowe, Dan Akroyd and Scott Bakula do good work in the background as the many figures around the outskirts of their life together.
By the end, the black comedy has mostly ebbed away to be replaced by a melancholy sense of loss and regret. But Soderbergh ensures it remains a black comedy to the end, indulging in a final musical set-piece, as Thorson imagines Lee singing "The Impossible Dream"and flying off the stage.
That it is largely a true story seems almost unbelievable.
Something about Matt Damon seems to bring out the black comedian in Steven Soderbergh. Think of The Informant! and its quietly hilarious depiction of escalating and mammoth self-delusion. Or even his role in the second and third Oceans films, where he is the most hapless and insecure of the leads, his part in their schemes the most comic and bizarre. In Oceans Thirteen he wears a false nose for the heist itself, and he again finds himself with an augmented proboscis in Soderbergh's Behind The Candelabra. Though the film is centred around Liberace, the Las Vegas Entertainer, Damon plays Scott Thorson, the actual protagonist of the story. He is a young Californian hunk who becomes Liberace's (Michael Douglas) live-in lover, companion and chauffeur in the late '70s. Soderbergh's film traces the rise and fall of their relationship from early bloom to late decay, all the while painting a picture of the bizarre bubble of kitsch and wealth Liberace's celebrity allowed him to live in.
The director's intelligence is evident in the way he chooses to present that world; filming in rooms of such overwhelmingly oppressive bad taste they make your teeth ache, he maintains a classical style, allowing the production design to do the work. His camera moves little, his compositions are simple and understated. He sticks to two-shots to capture conversations, occasionally giving us a wider view of the ridiculous opulence of an immense room.
As befits a production made for HBO, its a deceptively small, intimate film, intent mainly upon the relationship between these two men, opening out only a few times throughout. This becomes an issue between the characters - Thorson eventually wants to go out and meet people, whereas Liberace ("Lee" to his friends) is content to stay at home, except for the occasional visit to a glory hole in a sex shop. Later this is briefly switched when Lee asks for an open relationship, only to grow furious when he suspects Scott is seeing somebody else. They both have their issues - Lee first wants to adopt Scott, then pays for him to have plastic surgery so that they look more alike (hence Damon's nose), while Scott becomes addicted to diet pills and pays his dealer with jewellery he steals from Lee's house.
All of this is given a sort of sheen of deadpan hysteria, capped off beautifully by Rob Lowe as Lee's plastic surgeon, his own face stretched so tight he seems to have no eyes, his tone a sort of glazed amusement at everything he hears. The facelift he gives Lee means that he can never fully close his eyes, meaning that Scott finds him snoring one night, eyes half open
If their early courtship is unconventional, the way they fall apart is far more recognisable - jealousy, boredom, another person - and the two leads are superb at evoking the pain and complexity of it all.
While Douglas brings a pretty decent Liberace impression to life, with frequently hilarious results, Damon, miscast (he is nearly 20 years too old) on the surface, does much more interesting work as Thorson, suggesting his neediness and early naiveté and tracing the way that shifts through exposure to wealth and privilege.
He is a complex mess; claiming he is "bisexual" ("Well I haven't met the part that likes women", Lee replies) and finding anal sex "repugnant" while shunning his foster-parents despite loving them, writing songs and bemoaning the fact that all Lee's entourage hate him, his peculiar situation is clearly difficult. His resultant addiction and desperation seem like a natural progression for this vulnerable kid from a harsh background, and his late collapse is nicely, furiously played by Damon. The likes of a brilliant Rob Lowe, Dan Akroyd and Scott Bakula do good work in the background as the many figures around the outskirts of their life together.
By the end, the black comedy has mostly ebbed away to be replaced by a melancholy sense of loss and regret. But Soderbergh ensures it remains a black comedy to the end, indulging in a final musical set-piece, as Thorson imagines Lee singing "The Impossible Dream"and flying off the stage.
That it is largely a true story seems almost unbelievable.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
HAYWIRE
(Steven Soderbergh, 2011)
Steven Soderbergh is such a professional, so technically gifted, so intelligent, and so interested in cinema. It seems at times he can do anything. His career has spanned genres and styles, and he more or less excels in each of them. But I think the intellectual in Soderbergh sometimes sabotages the commercial filmmaker. Instead of a classic "one for them, one for me" strategy, he combines the two, crafting big studio-funded genre entertainments with their own hidden agendas and themes. Oceans 12 is perhaps the best example. A sequel to Soderbergh's purest entertainment (and biggest hit) filled with megastars and at massive expense, Soderbergh turns out an utterly post-modern compendium of sketches and set-pieces loosely linked by a baffling, almost mockingly complex plot in which the cast get to mug, enjoy Europe, and play themselves, while Soderbergh indulges in some beautiful stylistic experiments.
Haywire is another Soderbergh experiment. Driven here to put MMA fighter Gina Carano in a movie, he fills the cast with male stars for her to batter, then has old collaborator Lem Dobbs write a non-linear espionage tale to link the fight and chase sequences.
His interest is plainly in those action sequences, and they are correspondingly terrific. Avoiding the immediacy of the handheld-and-fastcutting style (best seen in the Bourne films) Soderbergh instead displays Carano's acumen by shooting mid-shots and editing only when necessary. We see her pull off these flips and kicks and Soderbergh's shot choices let us know instantly that its real as we see her execute moves only a real expert would even attempt. That those moves are integrated into fights which are brutal, plausible and thrilling is one of the joys of the movie. These fight scenes have real impact - when Soderbergh does cut during hand-to-hand combat, he does it either for a purely narrative reason (so we can tell exactly what is going on) or for maximum visceral effect. When Carano kicks Michael Fassbender straight through a door in the middle of the most viscious of these fights, Soderbergh shoots that in two set-ups, wih one quick cut between them. And we feel that door go. Furniture and bones break, and Carano has to earn every victory.
There are a few adrenalinised chase sequences here too, but it is in the dialogue scenes in-between that the intellectual in Soderbergh - and in Dobbs - is most evident. There's something a little too arch and removed about all the exposition and the way the generic characters are established, something secretly arty in the absence of establishing shots and off-hand loingo, something a bit reminiscent of Anton Corbjin's The American, something a little ashamed of fully embracing the pulp world this tale belongs in.
That is no problem for me; I love movies that sit firmly where the art house meets the pulp genres, but I can see it preventing Haywire from being any sort of hit.
Who cares, though? There are numerous other pleasures here. If Carano is a little stiff in some of her scenes, she is thrillingly, obviously utterly convincing in motion. That cast of hunks are all solid - Tatum and McGregor get the most to do, and both do it very well - the locations are atmospherically sketched in (though it was odd for this Dublin boy to see the banal familiarity of his hometown become the venue for SWAT pursuits and rooftop chases), Soderbergh's photography (under his pseudonym Peter Andrews) is stylish and lovely throughout, and David Holmes' update of a Lalo Schifrin score is magnificent.
Steven Soderbergh is such a professional, so technically gifted, so intelligent, and so interested in cinema. It seems at times he can do anything. His career has spanned genres and styles, and he more or less excels in each of them. But I think the intellectual in Soderbergh sometimes sabotages the commercial filmmaker. Instead of a classic "one for them, one for me" strategy, he combines the two, crafting big studio-funded genre entertainments with their own hidden agendas and themes. Oceans 12 is perhaps the best example. A sequel to Soderbergh's purest entertainment (and biggest hit) filled with megastars and at massive expense, Soderbergh turns out an utterly post-modern compendium of sketches and set-pieces loosely linked by a baffling, almost mockingly complex plot in which the cast get to mug, enjoy Europe, and play themselves, while Soderbergh indulges in some beautiful stylistic experiments.
Haywire is another Soderbergh experiment. Driven here to put MMA fighter Gina Carano in a movie, he fills the cast with male stars for her to batter, then has old collaborator Lem Dobbs write a non-linear espionage tale to link the fight and chase sequences.
His interest is plainly in those action sequences, and they are correspondingly terrific. Avoiding the immediacy of the handheld-and-fastcutting style (best seen in the Bourne films) Soderbergh instead displays Carano's acumen by shooting mid-shots and editing only when necessary. We see her pull off these flips and kicks and Soderbergh's shot choices let us know instantly that its real as we see her execute moves only a real expert would even attempt. That those moves are integrated into fights which are brutal, plausible and thrilling is one of the joys of the movie. These fight scenes have real impact - when Soderbergh does cut during hand-to-hand combat, he does it either for a purely narrative reason (so we can tell exactly what is going on) or for maximum visceral effect. When Carano kicks Michael Fassbender straight through a door in the middle of the most viscious of these fights, Soderbergh shoots that in two set-ups, wih one quick cut between them. And we feel that door go. Furniture and bones break, and Carano has to earn every victory.
There are a few adrenalinised chase sequences here too, but it is in the dialogue scenes in-between that the intellectual in Soderbergh - and in Dobbs - is most evident. There's something a little too arch and removed about all the exposition and the way the generic characters are established, something secretly arty in the absence of establishing shots and off-hand loingo, something a bit reminiscent of Anton Corbjin's The American, something a little ashamed of fully embracing the pulp world this tale belongs in.
That is no problem for me; I love movies that sit firmly where the art house meets the pulp genres, but I can see it preventing Haywire from being any sort of hit.
Who cares, though? There are numerous other pleasures here. If Carano is a little stiff in some of her scenes, she is thrillingly, obviously utterly convincing in motion. That cast of hunks are all solid - Tatum and McGregor get the most to do, and both do it very well - the locations are atmospherically sketched in (though it was odd for this Dublin boy to see the banal familiarity of his hometown become the venue for SWAT pursuits and rooftop chases), Soderbergh's photography (under his pseudonym Peter Andrews) is stylish and lovely throughout, and David Holmes' update of a Lalo Schifrin score is magnificent.
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