The Point of the Play

Rian Johnson is one of the more interesting writer/directors today who’s demonstrated an ability to take a genre and make a movie that fits perfectly within it while at the same time turning the conventions of the genre on its ear. His first feature, Brick with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was a Raymond Chandler-esque hard-boiled detective story, set in a high school. He also made one of the best time travel movies ever with Looper, with the perfect way to do a mob execution. And while it wasn’t well accepted by some fans, he managed to make Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi a surprising, funny, and ultimately poignant experience. Now he’s decided to do Agatha Christie on laughing gas with the twisty mystery Knives Out.

Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a highly successful crime novelist, was found dead the night after his family gathered at his mansion to celebrate his 85^th birthday. The police initially rule it a suicide, since his neck was cut, and the blood spray pattern showed no one was near him when it happened. But a few days later, Lieutenant Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) again gather the family, Harlan’s housekeeper, and his nurse for further questions. The family includes daughter Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband Richard (Don Johnson), son Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon) with his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome) and son Jacob (Jaeden Martell), younger daughter Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette) and her daughter Meg (Katherine Langford), and Harlan’s mother, Greatnana Wanetta (K Callan). One family member skips the gathering: Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), Linda and Richard’s adult son. Except for him briefly coming downstairs for a snack after midnight, the last person to see Harlan alive was his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), while the housekeeper, Fran (Edi Patterson) discovered his body in his study the next morning.

The recollections of the family members are contrasted with flashbacks to the night of the party that show they’re not trustworthy narrators. The one exception is Marta, who physically can’t tell a lie. Whenever she does, she vomits. But as the family members are interviewed, an unidentified man sits back behind the Lieutenant. Whenever he’s struck by something that’s said, he hits a high key on the piano. Eventually the man is identified as Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a world-famous detective who’s been hired to investigate the circumstances of Harlan’s death.

And I’ll say no more about the movie’s plot, except that it constantly twists and turns and circles back to give the audience a completely different view of the story. As it goes along, Johnson pushes the interplay between the family and others just slightly past a straight mystery to have fun with the tropes of the genre. If it were played straight, Knives Out would be a mystery on the order of Murder on the Orient Express (either film version) or Death on the Nile – an involving and satisfying story that keeps you guessing who did it and how they did it. By adding some killer wit, Johnson has created a spiritual child of Charade, minus the romance, that’s lethally funny.

This is a to-die-for cast, and Johnson allows each of them to shine in their own way. Craig plays Blanc with a southern drawl that covers a razor-sharp mind, while Evans gets to completely trash the good-guy persona he’s had in playing Captain America for the past decade. Outstanding, though, is Ana de Armas’ Marta, who’s pulled into the investigation far deeper than she wishes to be. There’s also two fun cameos, with M. Emmet Walsh as a security man and Frank Oz as Harlan’s lawyer.

Even when you think you know what happened, you don’t until the final denouement. For a mystery lover, or even a mystery liker, Knives Out is a sumptuous banquet that is thoroughly satisfying. See it.

Blow It Up Real Good

Steven Soderbergh has always been an outsider in Hollywood, even when it embraced him. His first feature, 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, was a major step forward in popularizing independent film. Over the next nine years his movies were less successful, but then he found that crime can pay off. His stylish yet quirky adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight became one of the best movies of 1998, and he followed it up with The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and Oceans 11, winning the Best Director Oscar for Traffic. His cool visual style effectively contrasts the theme of rooting for the outsider. The quote-unquote loser is the typical Soderbergh hero. In the subsequent decade he made highly-successful movies (Magic Mike, the Oceans sequels, Contagion) along with personal films like a two-part biopic of Che Guevera, but was frustrated by the studio system, which had co-opted the independent movie scene by buying production houses like Miramax and New Line, or starting their own pseudo-independents like Fox Searchlight. After Side Effects (2013), Soderbergh announced his retirement.

When it comes to finances, the studio bookkeepers put the Mafia to shame. They can make a successful movie look like a financial dud by layering on studio costs for the production. Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi made over $400 million at the box office off of a production budget of about $40 million, but according to the studio it never made a profit. Writer Art Buchwald sued Paramount over 1988’s Coming to America since it grossed over $350 million but supposedly made no profit. Paramount settled the suit for $900,000 rather than have the court look at their bookkeeping methods. Even Stan Lee and Marvel came to legal loggerheads because of the vanished profits of Sam Rami’s Spiderman. On top of production bookkeeping, the studios put out massive advertising campaigns that can equal or even exceed the cost of the movie’s production, and all that money has to be paid off the top by the film’s gross. It takes an army to make a film, but they don’t share in the profits. It’s the studio that makes the money.

Soderbergh’s retirement lasted about 3 months. Instead of film, he produced and directed two seasons of “The Knick” for Showtime, where he also had executive producer credit for the TV version of one of his films, “The Girlfriend Experience.” He also executive produced “Red Oaks” for Amazon, now going into its third season. Soderbergh couldn’t completely turn his back on movies, but when he decided to come back he also decided to re-write the rule book for making films.

In an interview with GQ, Soderbergh says he first became aware of the script for Logan Lucky when he was asked to help find a director for the production. In the end, he decided to do it for himself. The script, though, has a bit of mystery surrounding it, since the credited screenwriter, Rebecca Blunt, apparently doesn’t exist. No one knows the actual writer behind the movie who used the Rebecca Blunt psuedonym.

It’s fitting that Logan Lucky has a country twang. From 1976 to 1981, SCTV (Second City Television) parodied television production at an incredibly low-budget station. One of their regular segments was “Farm Film Celebrity Blow-up” that featured the great John Candy and Joe Flaherty as two farmers who combined their love of movies with their love of explosions. They’d have on a celebrity, with a dead-on impersonation by Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, or Catherine O’Hara, then blow them up at the end of the segment. With Logan Lucky, Soderbergh has blown up the studio system and created a blueprint for others to follow. He sold the foreign rights to raise the movie’s $29 million production budget, including a million to pay the independent studio Bleeker Street to do the wide release of the film. Then he sold the broadcast rights to HBO, Netflix, and VOD to raise the publicity funds. The cast and crew worked for scale, but they will get to share in the film’s gross, which currently stands at around $28 million.

The script is textbook Soderbergh, with a cast of losers who aim to make themselves winners by pulling off an impossible crime. Rather than a fancy location like the Oceans movies, this is set in Red State South where West Virginia, Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee all come together. Soderbergh knew the set-up would cause comparisons to the Oceans movies; he even has a TV commentator in the film refer to the crime as “Oceans 7-Eleven.” But rather than the smooth heists in the earlier films, the only polish to the crew in Logan Lucky is on their cars and their boots.

The Logan clan in southern West Virginia is known for its lousy luck. Jimmy (Channing Tatum) is faced with losing easy access to his daughter (Farrah Mackenzie) when his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) plans to move out of the state with her new husband whose family owns a series of car dealerships. He also loses his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway when a manager notices him limping to his truck and has him fired out of liability concerns. His two siblings are his biggest supporters: sister Mellie (Riley Keough), who’s a hairdresser, and his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), a bartender who lost an arm while deployed in Iraq. After an obnoxious race car sponsor (Seth MacFarlane) and his lackeys have a fight with the brothers, Jimmy decides to steal the weekend receipts from the Speedway. But to do it, they’ll need the help of a backwoods bomber, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who’s currently in jail.

The twists and turns of a caper film are its greatest strengths, and Logan Lucky has plenty of them, but it also has a wonderful light touch and a true love for the characters. The cast has a ball with their roles, and Soderbergh has assembled one of the best casts of the year. In addition to those previously mentioned, the film also features Sebastian Stan, David Denman, Katherine Waterston, Dwight Yoakam, and Hilary Swank. Luminaries from NASCAR are also on hand, including Darrell Waltrip, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, and Jeff Gordon. (Edwards and Busch have cameos as state troopers who pull over a speeder.) I wouldn’t be surprised to see Craig nab some nominations during award season for his performance as Joe Bang.

Logan Lucky is a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment. If it inspires other filmmakers to bypass studios to make their films, then that would be the biggest caper ever in the history of Hollywood.

A Spectre of its Former Self

In 24 films over 53 years, the James Bond franchise has had hits and misses, though recently the Daniel Craig incarnation has done quite well. Casino Royale rejuvenated the franchise and made believers of all the nay-sayers about Craig taking over the role, while Skyfall was a phenomena – the most successful Bond movie ever. Of course, in between was the hiccup of Quantum of Solace, a movie that was truncated due to studio problems and a writer’s strike. (At 106 minutes, it was the shortest Bond film ever.) The newest entry, Spectre, isn’t short – at 148 minutes it’s the longest entry in the series – but it doesn’t match the highs of Casino Royale or Skyfall. Overall, it feels a bit like a retread.

The movie begins with a long tracking shot during the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico City as Bond moves into position to monitor a meeting. Ever since Touch of Evil, an extended shot like this has been a tour de force for the director. Last year’s Birdman extended the one short to almost the complete movie. Digital effects do allow for cuts, though Birdman still did takes of 10 or more minutes, which for film is like staging “Hamlet.” But it means the shorter tracking shots no longer have the level of difficulty of the past. The sequence does lead to a fairly involved fight that brings down a couple of buildings and has a fight to the death in a helicopter, but it suffers in comparison to Skyfall’s thrilling and surprising opening, or the uncharacteristically rough beginning of Casino Royale.

From there the movie follows the usual pattern of a Bond film, trotting around the globe – London, Rome, the Alps, North Africa – as Bond digs into the depths of Spectre, the criminal collective that’s been behind the plots in the past three movies. The action has its thrills and some surprises, but it isn’t as involving. Part of it is the main challenge of any Bond film, that the movie is only as good as its villain. Here you have two: Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) and Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista). Waltz is debonair and suave, but we don’t really get to see him until the last third of the movie. Bautista stands in as the villain until then, but he’s almost silent and with little personality beyond his strength. Former wrestler Bautista was excellent in Guardians of the Galaxy, but this role is more just a single note played over and over. After Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre or Jarvier Bardem’s Silva, Oberhauser and Hinx are a letdown.

Along with Spectre, Bond, M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomi Harris), Tanner (Rory Kinnear) and Q (Ben Whishaw) are dealing with a new overall head of British Intelligence, C (Andrew Scott). C is negotiating an unprecedented sharing of intelligence between multiple agencies, which could be a powerful tool against terrorism, or in the wrong hands a gateway to huge abuses. Scott also plays Moriarty on the BBC’s “Sherlock” and is excellent there, but in this role he’s more annoying than threatening. Q does get out into the field briefly, which is a rarity. The only other time Q’s been out is in License to Kill, when he was played by Desmond Llewellyn who originated the role. Whishaw’s fun in the fish-out-of-water scene, and it’s one of the better sequences in the film.

As always there are Bond girls, though in the recent films they’ve become women. One is the gorgeous Monica Bellucci, but unfortunately her time on screen is limited. The other is Lea Seydoux as Madeline Swan, who holds the key to finding Oberhauser. She’s kind of a Vesper Lynd lite who gives Bond someone to save. Seydoux was effective as the female assassin in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and she followed that with roles in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Blue is the Warmest Color. Spectre will increase her recognition, though the other movies were better roles.

Three writers worked on the story, and a fourth came on board to help with the actual script. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have done the Bond films since The World Is Not Enough, and John Logan (Gladiator, Hugo) joined them for Skyfall. Jez Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow, Black Mass) helped with writing Spectre’s screenplay. It’s clear by multiple references in the script that they want Spectre to be viewed as the third (or third and a half if you include Quantum) movie in a trilogy. However, the constant references simply serve as a reminder of how Spectre is a lesser movie. It’s not down in the Spiderman 3 or X-Men: The Last Stand level of totally awful, but it also doesn’t rise to the Return of the King or Return of the Jedi level of excellence. The script also turns on an coincidence that’s painfully contrived. Sam Mendes is an excellent director, but where Skyfall felt like a labor of love from a fan of the series, Spectre is more of a mechanical exercise.

Where Spectre does drop to the awful level is in its opening credit song. After the sublime ”Skyfall” by Adele, any song would be a bit of a letdown, but “Writing on the Wall” by Sam Smith is one of the worst Bond movie songs ever. The only good thing about it is it’s completely forgettable once it’s over.

Craig has said this is his last outing as Bond. While he’s been the best Bond since Connery had his first vodka martini, it’s been 9 years since Casino Royale, the same amount of time between Dr. No and Connery’s last contiguous performance as Bond in Diamonds are Forever. There are several good names being floated as his replacement, including Tom Hardy and Idris Elba, so Bond will continue on. Spectre has had a wonderful opening both in the States and worldwide, so it will be a success financially. But it would have been nice for Craig’s final turn in the role to be an artistic success as well. It’s not bad; it’s just not great.

10 Remakes that Blow Away the Originals*

Love is lovelier the second time around, as Frank Sinatra used to sing, and sometimes that goes for movies as well. Remakes are the rage in Hollywood these days. While they can make money, the new movies are often pale imitations of the originals. However, there have been a few that have bucked the trend, and here are the ten best of that bunch. For this list, I’ve eliminated English-language versions of foreign-language films since it’s subjective to compare the two. For instance, the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In and its American version Let Me In are both exceptionally creepy horror films. That the one in English might be seen as more accessible does not necessarily make it better. Instead I’ve stuck with films where both versions were in English.

(*Note: with a couple the newer movies the wind is just a mile or two stronger than the original)

Ocean’s Eleven (Original 1960; Remake 2001)

It’s appropriate, considering the lyric quoted above, to start with one of Ol’ Blue Eyes movies. Also, the inspiration to write this post was the passing of Jerry Weintraub, the producer of the remake. The 1960 original was basically the Rat Pack having a fun time together paid for by Warner Brothers. The caper itself was laughably unrealistic, though the movie did do well at the box office. Warner Brothers, though, had the last laugh. The only parts of the original that screenwriter Ted Griffin kept were some character names, that the gang had eleven members, and the heist is set in Las Vegas. Director Steven Soderburgh created one of the most stylish caper movies ever, and populated it with a dream cast. It wasn’t just having Clooney, Pitt, Roberts, and Damon in the same film, but also Don Cheadle, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner and the rest of the crew that made this a worldwide hit. Unfortunately, the sequels followed the rule of diminishing returns.

Casino Royale (Original 1967: Remake 2006)

This is a case of comparing rotten apples with prized oranges. Albert “Cubby” Broccoli locked up the rights to all the Ian Fleming Bond books except for the first one, which was actually produced on TV in 1954 with Barry Nelson as American spy James Bond. After the Bond movies became hits, Columbia decided to make Casino Royale as a spoof. It was a classic case of Hollywood excess. There were five directors, including John Huston, three screenwriters, seven uncredited contributors to the dialogue including Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Ben Hecht and novelist Joseph Heller, and an all-star cast including Allen, David Niven, and Peter Sellers. The only success it had was for Herb Albert, who recorded the Burt Bacharach/Hal David theme song. In 2006, for the launch of Daniel Craig as Bond, Cubby’s daughter Barbara finally had the rights and went back to the original story, while giving it an overdose of adrenalin. It gave the over-40-year-old series its biggest hit with a $600 million worldwide box office and cemented Craig as this century’s Bond.

Heaven Can Wait (Original “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” 1941, Remake 1978)

This time it’s a close call. Here Comes Mr. Jordan starred Robert Montgomery as Joe Pendleton, a pugilist who dies too soon, and Claude Rains as the titular Mr. Jordan, a head angel who tries to repair the mistake by placing Joe’s consciousness into the body of a banker who’s just been murdered by his wife and his personal secretary. It was based on a play entitled “Heaven Can Wait,” and the film was a hit. In 1978, Warren Beatty and Buck Henry decided to remake the story under the original title. They changed Joe’s character from a fighter to the quarterback of the L.A. Rams, with Beatty playing Joe, James Mason as Mr. Jordan, and Julie Christie as Joe’s love interest. Also in the cast were Dyan Cannon, Charles Grodin, Jack Warden, as well as Henry as the angel who grabs Joe too fast. They did keep that Joe had a lucky saxophone, though they changed it from an alto sax to a soprano. The soundtrack was done by jazz great Dave Grusin. The film was number five at the box office in 1978 (behind Grease, Superman, Animal House, and Every Which Way but Loose) and was nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture, though this was the year that The Deer Hunter and Coming Home dominated the major awards. Note: Just to be confusing, there is a 1943 Don Ameche film entitled Heaven Can Wait, but it’s a completely different story.

3:10 to Yuma  (Original 1957; Remake 2007)

Based on a story by Elmore Leonard, the original 3:10 starred Glenn Ford as the outlaw and Van Heflin as the farmer who must get him on the titular train to collect a reward. It focused more on the battle of wits and will between Ford and Heflin, and it was one of the better westerns during a time when dozens of them were made every year. The remake was done in a much different atmosphere, when westerns are a rarity, and this time it expands the story so the outlaw’s capture and the journey to the town to meet the train takes up 2/3rds of the movie. The story also makes the farmer’s son a major character. Having Russell Crowe and Christian Bale as the main characters ups the intensity all by itself, though the show is almost stolen by Ben Foster as Crowe’s second-in-command, a role played by Richard Jaeckel in the original.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (Original 1934; Remake 1956)

The only person who can safely remake Alfred Hitchcock is Alfred Hitchcock (see – or rather don’t see – 1998’s remake of Psycho, and you can already discount Michael Bay’s upcoming remake of The Birds). Hitchcock’s original was partly inspired by an actual event in England, the Sidney Street Siege in 1911when Home Secretary Winston Churchill sent in the Scots Guards to clear out an anarchist gang, turning Sidney Street into a battleground. In both movies, a family vacation is interrupted by a dying man giving the husband and wife information about a pending assassination. For 1956, Hitchcock completely eliminated the Sidney Street reference and created a wonderfully suspenseful story that starred Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.

Cape Fear (Original 1962; Remake 1991)

Once again, this is a close call. Based on a John D. MacDonald story, the original had Gregory Peck as lawyer Sam Bowden and Robert Mitchum as Max Cady, the criminal that Bowden helped convict 8 years earlier and who has now come back for revenge. It’s a good thriller, but then Martin Scorsese decided to remake it with Nick Nolte as Bowden and Robert De Niro as Cady. The new version is much darker and deeper: instead of testifying against Cady, Bowden was Cady’s lawyer and threw the defense to get Cady off the streets. De Niro’s Cady is mesmerizing, and the film benefits from an exceptionally strong supporting cast with Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis (an amazing performance), and Joe Don Baker. Scorsese also gives honor to the original by having both Peck and Mitchum take supporting roles, and reusing Bernard Herrmann’s iconic original score.

The Thing (Original “The Thing From Another World” 1951; Remake 1982)

Producer Howard Hawks’ original The Thing From Another World is one of the classic 1950s sci-fi films. It benefited from the paranoia about the Soviet Union at that time, with its final warning to “Watch the skies.” In 1982, another time of worry about the Soviet Union, John Carpenter took the story and wrenched up the paranoia. Instead of just doing battle with an alien (played by James Arness in the original film), Carpenter went back to the original novella by John W. Campbell where the alien is able to absorb the image and memories of anyone it consumes.  The body count is much higher, and Carpenter eschews the upbeat ending of the novella and the original movie for a much darker one. Long-time Carpenter collaborator Kurt Russell is excellent as MacReady, the helicopter pilot who leads the fight against the alien.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Original 1956; Remake 1978)

Don Siegel’s original is a great sci-fi film, and can also be viewed as a commentary on McCarthyism with normal people being replaced by emotionless aliens. The final sequence of Kevin McCarthy (no relation to Joe) running down the highway yelling at drivers “You’re next!” rightly freaked out the 1950s movie goer. Philip Kaufman’s remake turns a black-and-white thriller into a richly-colored work of art. The special effects are exceptional, and the cast is excellent (Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy). Kaufman also included a scene with Kevin McCarthy that echoed the end of the first film, and had Don Siegel make a cameo as a taxi driver.

True Grit (Original 1969; Remake 2010)

While the original had John Wayne and Robert Duvall as bad guy Ned Pepper, the Coen Brothers remake stuck closer to the original Charles Portis novel. The Duke may have gotten the Oscar for his role as Rooster Cogburn, but Jeff Bridges out-acted him in the remake and Hailee Steinfeld was more believable as Mattie Ross, in addition to being closer to Mattie’s age in the book. The Coens give the film a more rustic and rough feeling while the scene in the snake pit is the stuff of nightmares. While the 1969 movie had to have an upbeat ending with Wayne triumphant, the Coen’s gave the viewer a more satisfying and poignant one.

The Maltese Falcon (Original 1931; Remake 1941)

This had to be a remake, because there was no other way that Jack Warner would give untried writer/director John Huston a new movie. The 1931 original is entirely forgettable, with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth. Warner wanted a B movie, and had cast George Raft as Spade. Raft though considered the production beneath him and pulled out, opening the way for Bogart. Huston did something almost unheard of in the movie industry – his script followed the book almost exactly. Huston had accidentally sent a copy of the completed script to Warner, but he was pleasantly surprised when Warner loved the script and gave him the green light to shoot. The cast was fantastic. Bogie, Sydney Greenstreet (in his first film role), Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Elisha Cook Jr., Barton MacLane, and Ward Bond were perfect for Hammett’s hard-boiled classic. It made the finished film the stuff that dreams are made of. Interesting note: three of the black bird statuettes from the film still exist, and are the most valuable props in the world, each valued at a cool million. That means each of them could pay for the production of the original film – three times over.

Honorable Mentions: King Kong, Scarface, The Parent Trap, No Way Out

Shaking and Stirring

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise.  The series was rejuvenated six years ago when the sixth 007, Daniel Craig, reported for duty.  Casino Royale was a high-water mark for the series both financially and artistically, but the next film, Quantum of Solace, was a major disappointment.  It was hampered by a poor script that could have done with several re-writes before principle photography began.  Then the financial trouble of Sony Pictures put the brakes on a new Bond picture for 4 years.  It proved to be a blessing in disguise as it gave the creative team a chance to develop a deeper and darker story that obliterates the bad aftertaste left by Quantum.

Skyfall opens with one of the series’ patented action sequences as Bond discovers the theft of a hard-drive containing the names of deep-cover agents in terrorist organizations and the murder of three agents who were guarding it.  Assisted by another MI6 agent, Eve (Naomie Harris), Bond races after the thief – first in cars, then on motorcycles, and finally on a train.  In the end, it all goes horribly wrong.

The loss of the hard-drive has the government, in the form of Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), questioning M (Judy Dench) and her ability to continue running the agency.  It gets worse when a cyber-attack does major damage to the MI6 headquarters.

Bond has been laying low in the months since the Turkey incident, nursing his wounds.  The attack on MI6 brings him back to the service, but he’s not physically or mentally the same.  His wounds, though, provide a key piece of evidence, allowing the killer who stole the hard-drive to be identified as Patrice (Ola Rapace).  Bond traces him to Hong Kong where he catches Patrice in the middle of a hit and takes out the killer.  He also sees a beautiful woman who may have been involved in the hit.

A special chip in Patrice’s gear leads Bond and Eve to a gambling club in Macao.  Bond meets the woman he saw, whose name is Severine (Berenice Marlohe).  After defeating another attempt on his life, Bond accompanies Severine to an island where he finally meets the man behind the attack on MI6.  Silva (Jarvier Bardem) is a former agent who went rogue and was sacrificed by M when she was in charge of the Hong Kong operations.  Now he wants his revenge.

During the hiatus, Craig had approached director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Jarhead) and asked if he’d like to do the next Bond movie.  Mendes had cast Craig in one of his first film roles, as Paul Neuman’s son in Road To Perdition.  Mendes had loved the series since his childhood in England and was all for doing it.  As Craig tells the story, the offer was fueled by a considerable amount of alcohol.  In the morning he had to explain to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson what he’d done.  Thankfully, they were delighted with having Mendes direct.  Mendes worked with screenwriters Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, who’d written the series since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, and also John Logan.  Logan was also a newcomer to Bond, but he’d written such movies as Gladiator, Hugo, and the Martin Scorsese bio-pic of Howard Hughes, The Aviator.  They produced a tight, nuanced script that also delves deeper into Bond’s character than ever before.  Logan has already been attached to the next two 007 films.

Mendes also brought in legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, who’d filmed such movies as O Brother Where Art Thou, A Beautiful Mind, Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit.  They’d worked together previously on Jarhead and Revolutionary Road.  The fight between Bond and Patrice shows Deakins’s genius with lighting a scene – it takes place in a dark room with glass walls that reflect like mirrors, with light coming from a LCD advertising screen outside the building.

The role of James Bond for many years came with constraints; you had to fit in with what had come before – the jocular comments in the face of danger, the black tux, “shaken, not stirred” – to be accepted.  Casino Royale fought back against them; Skyfall blows the constraints away.  Craig has room to be a real person rather than an icon, especially with his complex relationship with Judy Dench’s M.  In the end, it is the two of them, facing the villain of the piece.

And what a villain!  Silva is the best villain since the early days of the series, meeting and even exceeding Goldfinger and Largo from Thunderball.  Bardem inhabits the role with a smoothness, but underneath the surface you see how twisted Silva is.  He’s as ruthless as Chigurh from No Country For Old Men, but with a patina of sophistication.

Harris and Fiennes infuse their roles with energy and wit.  Their characters are wild cards; you’re not sure how they fit in until the end.  There’s also a new Q, a young wunderkind played by Ben Whishaw.  He provides Bond with only a Walther PPK and a radio transponder when 007 heads back into the field.  When Bond wonders at the few provisions, Q shoots back, “We’re not making explosive pens anymore.”

It’s one of the nods to the previous 50 years of films woven in Skyfall, including the return of one of the most iconic items from the early films.  But the movie is also a bridge to the future of the series.  Major changes happen, but they are handled with grace, and they give their due to what has gone before.  If the producers can keep making movies like this, we’ll be celebrating Bond’s centennial in 2062.

Coming Attractions – Fall 2012

The fall movie season has begun, which also means it’s Oscar season since most of the movies that win awards are released in the fall.  Two different things with this year’s fall preview: 1) it’s in chronological order by release date, and 2) there’s a notation by the title if this movie is an Oscar Contender (for major awards, not best makeup or best sound editing).  So, here goes…

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower  The successful Y.A. novel comes to the screen, with the author in the director’s chair, which means it should stay close to the story.  The movie boasts Emma Watson in her first major role after graduating from Hogwarts, playing Sam, one of two older students who help the hero, Charlie (Logan Lerman).  (September 14^th)

The Master(Oscar Contender) This movie is not about Scientology – it’s about a charismatic science fiction writer in the 1950’s who creates his own religion.  Yeah, right.  However, that really doesn’t matter.  This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s follow-up to 2007’s There Will Be Blood, and it stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Amy Adams.  (September 14^th)

Arbitrage (Oscar Contender) This could be Richard Gere’s ticket to the Oscar stage, or at least one of the seats in the front row for the nominees.  He plays a billionaire whose world is threatened when he makes a mistake with his hedge fund.  Susan Sarandon plays his wife.  (September 14^th)

End of Watch  David Ayer, who wrote Training Day, wrote and direct this movie.  He returns to the streets of LA, though this time his focus is two uniform cops (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena).  The actors spent months riding along with the LAPD in preparation for their roles.  (September 21^st)

Trouble With The Curve  (Oscar Contender) Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams – that’s enough to get me into the theater.  After directing himself for two decades, Eastwood agreed to take the lead role for first-time director Robert Lorenz.  Lorenz was Eastwood’s producer for those two decades, and also did Assistant Director work on Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, among other movies.  The movie also has Justin Timberlake, who’s become a fine actor, and it’s sort of about baseball.  (September 21^st)

Looper  Joseph Gordon-Levitt grows up to be…Bruce Willis.  Oh, it’s science fiction.  Gordon-Levitt has reunited with Rian Johnson, with whom he made the well-received Brick in 2006.  In the future, the Mob has found a better place to dump people than New Jersey – in the past, where assassins (called Loopers) are waiting to kill them.  But what happens when Joe, a Looper, finds he’s been tasked with killing his older self?  (September 28^th)

Taken 2  The original Taken was a sleeper hit that turned Liam Neeson into an action hero.  He had done “action” movies before, but they were usually historical and/or literary, including Rob Roy and John Boorman’s Excalibur.  In the first movie Neeson’s character, Brian Mills, used his “particular set of skills” to wipe out the Albanian mob in Paris.  Now Brian’s in Istanbul, visiting with his family, and the Albanians (the few left after the previous movie) want revenge.  (October 5^th)

Argo (Oscar Contender) tells a bizarre but true story that was kept classified for fifteen years.  When the Iranian embassy was overrun in 1979, a half-dozen staff members who weren’t in the compound at the time of the takeover found shelter with the Canadian ambassador.  To get them out, the CIA mounted a mission under the cover of a Canadian movie director scouting for locations in Iran for a sci-fi movie called “Argo.”  Ben Affleck both directs and stars in the movie, with a strong supporting cast that includes Alan Arkin, John Goodman, and Bryan Cranston. (October 12^th)

Alex Cross  James Paterson’s detective has previously been embodied by Morgan Freeman, who’s a great actor but is about 30 years older than the character.  This time it’s Tyler Perry filling Cross’s shoes, under the direction of Rob Cohen, who made the original The Fast and the Furious.  It will likely be a more energetic portrayal.  (October 19^th)

Not Fade Away  David Chase returns to New Jersey, where his HBO series The Sopranos was set.  This time, though, it’s for a bit of nostalgia, looking at a group of three teens who form a band after seeing the Rolling Stones on TV during the group’s first US tour in 1964.  He does have one holdover from The Sopranos.  James Gandolfini plays the father of one of the bandmates.  (October 19^th)

Killing Them Softly  I enjoyed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, even though few people saw it.  It was a very rare breed – a historically-accurate western.  Now its writer/director Andrew Dominik is back with a contemporary thriller of a hitman tracking down two losers who rob a mob poker game, with Brad Pitt as the hitman.  (October 19^th)

The Sessions  (Oscar Contender) This movie won the Sundance Festival’s Audience Award, and stars two excellent actors: John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) and Helen Hunt.  It’s the true story of Mark O’Brien, a poet and journalist, who’d spent much of his life in an iron lung because of polio.  In his late thirties, he decides he wants to lose his virginity, and hires a therapeutic sex surrogate (who’s a married soccer mom).  Also in the cast is William H. Macy.  (October 26^th)

Cloud Atlas This one is a “maybe” for me.  It has a strong cast – Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving – playing multiple roles that span centuries, but it could be a case of too many cooks.  There are three directors, and they wrote the script together.  Andy and Lana Wachowski did The Matrix, one of those films that changed how the movies after it were filmed.  But they also did the two sequels, which were confusing and self-indulgent.  Tom Tykwer made the exceptional Run Lola Run.  Can they make a coherent movie? (October 26^th)

Wreck-it Ralph  This animated movie has Ralph, a classic video game bad guy, having a crisis of conscience after 30 years and going on a voyage of self-discovery through the video-game world.  It was directed by Rich Moore, who’d worked on both Futurama and The Simpsons, with the vocal talents of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, and Jane Lynch.  (November 2^nd)

Flight  Robert Zemeckis returns to live-action movies after his so-so adventures to motion-capture animation.  He’s taken on a lower-budget movie ($30 million) telling the story of a pilot who heroically lands his stricken plane, saving the passengers, but then is alleged to have been drunk at the time.  While the budget is low, he attracted a first-rate cast with Denzel Washington as the pilot, supported by Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, and John Goodman.

Lincoln (Oscar Contender) When you have Daniel Day-Lewis as the star of a movie, Oscar Contender is pretty much a given.  When you have Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair, with David Strathairn, Sally Field, John Hawkes and Joseph Gordon-Levitt filling out the cast, and it’s based on the excellent book Team of Rivals, you have the stuff that cinema lovers’ dreams are made of. (November 9^th)

Skyfall  Finally, James Bond is back.  The bankruptcy of MGM had put this new entry in the long-running series on hold for a while, giving Daniel Craig time to do The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Now Bond returns in what promises to be a strong movie.  You have Oscar-winner Sam Mendes directing, who had worked with Craig on Road to Perdition, and you have Javier Bardem as the villain (so this could be No Country for Old Spies).  Also in the cast is Naomie Harris (28 Days Later) as an up-and-coming new agent.  (November 9^th)

Anna Karenina (Oscar Contender) Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel of marital infidelity is coming to the stage and screen.  This version is set in a theater where the actors are presenting the story.  I was lukewarm at first when I heard about the movie, but it is being directed by Joe Wright, who did the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice along with the devastating Atonement in 2007.  He’s also reunited with his star of those previous movies, Keira Knightley.  With that pedigree, it’s definitely worth watching.  (November 16^th)

Silver Linings Playbook (Oscar Contender) David O. Russell has a knack with quirky comedy-dramas, having made such movies as Flirting With Disaster and Three Kings.  He also made The Contender, a quirky but heartfelt true-life movie.  His new movie, adapted from the 2008 novel of the same name, has Bradley Cooper as a former teacher who ended up in a sanitarium.  Upon his release, he has to move back in with his parents (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver) who are die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fans.  Cooper’s character connects with Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a young widow.  Plenty of quirk there, and likely plenty of heart as well.  (November 21)

Life of Pi  (Oscar Contender) Adapting a bestselling book that centers on an Indian teen adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger could be seen as problematic.  Several writers and directors were attached to the project, but bowed out.  Finally the producers approached Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).  If the trailer is an indication, he’s nailed the story.  The visuals are stunning.  (November 21^st)

Hyde Park on Hudson (Oscar Contender) It sounds crazy to have Bill Murray playing FDR, but from the buzz this picture is generating it’s crazy like a fox.  The movie is based on a BBC radio play dealing with a weekend get-together at his home in Hyde Park between the president and King George VI.  It’s 1939, and without the support of the US, things are looking very dark for England as it faces Hitler’s Germany.  The film’s told from the viewpoint of FDR’s niece and confidant, Daisy Stuckley, played by Laura Linney.  (December 7^th – an appropriate release date for a film about FDR and WWII)

Les Miserables (Oscar Contender) This is the top of my must-see list.  I’d seen the musical version of Victor Hugo’s classic tale on stage in London with the original cast in 1986, and was enthralled throughout its three hour running time.  I was also in tears several times.  Now it’s come to the screen, with a dream cast of Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Anne Hathaway, directed by Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech).  Watch for the Bishop early in the film, who saves Jean Valjean’s soul.  He’s played by Colm Wilkinson, who originated the Valjean role in London and then on Broadway.  (December 14^th)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Oscar Contender) I’m looking forward to this movie, though with a small sense of foreboding.  The original LOTR trilogy is an all-time favorite of mine; once a year I’ll watch the extended versions in one sitting.  This has Peter Jackson directing again, and has several holdovers from the trilogy (Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis).  But this time you have a trilogy coming from one book, filled out with other material from Tolkein’s writing.  I remember another time when a director went back and did another trilogy to fill in the earlier story after making a very successful trilogy – yes, I’m talking to you, George Lucas.  (December 14^th)

Zero Dark Thirty (Oscar Contender) Rep. Peter King (R-NY) got his knickers in a twist when this movie, about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was announced with a release date before the presidential election.  He wanted to have hearings about whether the filmmakers got access to classified documents.  Later the release date was moved to December.  The movie is directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, who did 2009’s The Hurt Locker, and stars Jessica Chastain and Joel Edgerton (who did the ethically-challenged detective on AMC’s The Killing).  (December 19^th)

Jack Reacher  There’s been a lot made about star Tom Cruise not measuring up to bestselling author Lee Child’s character, who’s about 10 inches taller than Cruise and brawny.  But after Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol I’ve a feeling Cruise will bring it off.  The movie’s based on Child’s 2005 book, One Shot, and was adapted by Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects.  McQuarrie also directs a cast that includes Robert Duvall, Rosamund Pike, and German director/writer/actor Werner Herzog.  (December 21^st)

The Impossible  This thriller tells the true story of a family who almost died in the 2004 Christmas Tsunami.  It stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as the parents who struggle to survive.  The picture was filmed on location, and most of the tidal-wave was not done with special effects but with real water.  (December 21^st)

This Is 40  Judd Apatow has created his newest comedy in an unusual way.  He took Pete and Debbie and their kids, the supportive family who helped Seth Rogan in Knocked Up, and wrote a new movie centering on them facing the milestone of both turning 40.  He also kept the same actors in the roles.  It likely helped that Paul Rudd has worked with Apatow on a couple of movies, Leslie Mann is Mrs. Apatow, and the two kids are Maude Apatow and Iris Apatow (nepotism has its benefits).  The cast also includes Jason Segel, Megan Fox, and Albert Brooks.  (December 21^st)

On The Road  Walter Salles directed The Motorcycle Diaries, an excellent road picture dealing with a historic trip taken by a young Che Guevera.  Now Salles is directing the ultimate road book, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.  The main stars are Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, and Sam Riley, but the movie also boasts an incredible slate of actors in smaller roles or cameos, including Kirsten Dunst, Terrance Howard, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi, and Amy Adams.  (December 21^st)

Parental Guidance  This Christmas, the gift for movie lovers is the return of several beloved comedic actors in major roles (see following review as well).  Here you have Billy Crystal and Bette Midler as grandparents asked to babysit their three grandchildren for a week.  However, there daughter (Marisa Tomei) is a helicopter parent who doesn’t fully trust her parents.  (December 25^th)

The Guilt Trip  After only doing a couple smaller supporting roles over the past 16 years, Barbra Streisand returns in a major role in this road comedy, playing Seth Rogan’s mother.  This will be a Christmas present to all of Streisand’s many and loyal fans.  (December 25^th)

Django Unchained (Oscar Contender) Quentin Tarantino has an interesting relationship with history, as evidenced by Inglourious Basterds, where WWII was won by Brad Pitt and his commandos assassinating all the Nazi high command in a movie theater in Paris in 1944.  Now he’s cast his eye at that most American of movie genre’s, the Western, though it’s mixed in with the antebellum South.   In the lead roles, Jamie Foxx plays a slave seeking revenge on plantation owner Leonardo DiCaprio.  The best thing to do with a Tarantino film is leave your reason at the movie theater door and just enjoy his crackling dialogue and action sequences.  (December 25^th)

A World-Class Adventure

When Georges Remi was a schoolboy in Belgium during the First World War, he would draw cartoons about a boy playing tricks on the German soldiers who’d occupied his country.  He refined this idea when he was a teenager and created a comic strip about Totor, an adventurous Boy Scout.  After graduation, Remi took the penname of Herge and went to work for a Belgian newspaper where he produced a weekly children’s supplement.  While there, he came up with the idea of a teen reporter who has adventures all over the world, taking inspiration from a real-life French investigative journalist, Albert Londres.  In 1929, the first of the adventures of Tintin was published.

Herge would do extensive research of the settings for his stories, and incorporate contemporary political situations.  For instance, The Blue Lotus (1934) takes place in Japanese-occupation China.  The Tintin books became a huge international success, eventually being translated into 50 languages and selling over 200 million copies.

The one place where Tintin did not catch on, though, was in the United States.  It remained a specialty item that a few people discovered and cherished (like the French comic book series, Asterix).

Now Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have given US audiences The Adventures of Tintin.  It’s a chance to experience the thrill and fun of Tintin in a movie drawn (you could say) from three of Herge’s books.

While shopping in an open-air market, Tintin (Jamie Bell) finds a beautifully-made model of a three-masted ship, the Unicorn.  He purchases it, just before it can be bought by Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig).  Sakharine offers him whatever he wants to sell him the model, but Tintin refuses.  As he leaves the market, another man warns Tintin to be careful of Sakharine.  Tintin takes the model home, where his dog Snowy accidentally breaks it while chasing a cat.  The man who warned Tintin in the market winds up being murdered on Tintin’s front step.  However, he manages to leave Tintin a cryptic clue.  That night the model is stolen, but when it was broken a slim metal case hidden within the ship fell out and was missed by the thieves.  With Snowy’s help, Tintin finds it and discovers a clue to a treasure written on thin parchment.

The parchment is stolen by a pickpocket, but Tintin’s friends, the twin detectives Thomson and Thompson (Nick Frost, Simon Pegg) are hot on the pickpocket’s trail.  Before Tintin can investigate further, he’s kidnapped by Sakharine’s henchmen.  Snowy chases the kidnappers, and when they load Tintin onto a ship, Snowy manages to sneak aboard and free his friend.  Tintin discovers another hostage on board, the drunken Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis).  Escaping from the ship, Tintin, Snowy and Haddock must race to collect all the clues to the Unicorn’s treasure before Sakharine can get his hands on them.

Spielberg has used motion capture technology to create this animated movie, though the renderings are so realistic you’ll have to remind yourself the visuals are computer-generated.  The motion capture process has the cast actually acting out their parts, and then the performances are fed into a computer where digital animation is added.  Serkis is the premier actor working in this technology, having created Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Motion capture was championed by Robert Zemekis and used for full movies such as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and Disney’s recent A Christmas Carol.  However, the nuclear bomb Mars Needs Moms (Cost: $150 million; Gross: $20 million), led Disney to shutter Zemekis’ company, ImageMovers Digital.  Producer Peter Jackson and the geniuses at Weta Digital have removed the stiffness that was a hallmark of the ImageMover pictures and given Tintin a completely natural feel.  Spielberg’s incredible eye for camera shots translates seamlessly into this new medium.  (Take a look at the mirror shot in the market, shortly after the beginning of the film, and you’ll see what I mean.)  You’ll see a strong resemblance in this movie to another in Spielberg’s oeuvre, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The writers who adapted the books are a dream team for this project.  Steven Moffat is writing and producing the current Doctor Who (he wrote the classic – and scary – episode “Blink”).  Edgar Wright wrote and directed Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the underappreciated Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Joe Cornish is also a writer/director, having done last year’s gangs vs. alien invaders movie, Attack the Block.  They’ve created a slam-bang adventure with a strong dose of comedy.

Jamie Bell brings the right amount of sincerity to the role of Tintin so it doesn’t slip into – well, caricature.  You can accept that this teenaged reporter will know all sorts of arcane facts.  Serkis gives a strong comedic performance as Captain Haddock as well as his ancestor, Sir Frances Haddock.  Craig is especially effective as Sakharine, though you may find yourself checking the credits to confirm that it is really him.  It’s fun to have Pegg and Frost back together again, and they’re delightful as Thompson and Thomson.

Once again, US audiences have been a bit slow to warm to Tintin, as the movie’s made only about $60 million in four weeks of release in the States.  But overseas it has become a solid success, approaching $300 million.  Hopefully the US theater goers will catch up with the rest of the world and see this delightful, thrilling movie.

The English Version

As a book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was the kind of publishing phenomenon that happens for a novel only a handful of times in a decade.  It’s sold over 15 million copies in the US (and still counting), and has matched that success around the world.  Sometimes it’s hard to get one movie made of a book, even when it’s a bestseller.  Dragon Tattoo has been filmed twice.  The Swedish-language version came out in 2009 and starred Noomi Rapace (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) and Michael Nyqvist (Mission:Impossible Ghost Protocol).  I saw it in an art house theater and loved it, even though at 159 minutes it did drag at the end.

Stieg Larsson filled his book with murder, rape, incest, financial misdeeds, Nazis, and constant plot twists, building on what is essentially a locked-door mystery.  But he also created an indelible character in the goth computer hacker extraordinaire, Lisbeth Salandar.  It was a wise editor who changed the book’s Swedish title “Men Who Hate Women” to focus instead on Salandar.

Now the English-language version of the movie is out.  In some ways it has improved on the Swedish version; in other ways it’s weaker.  In the end director David Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zailian have cut only one minute off the running time.The disgraced editor of Millenium magazine, Mikael Bloomkvist (Daniel Craig), has just lost a libel suit brought by wealthy industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom (Ulf Friberg).  After he resigns from his editorship, he’s contacted by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), another wealthy man whose family business has branches all over Sweden.  Vanger invites Bloomkvist to his family’s private island to request that he look into a mystery.  From when she was young, Henrik’s niece Harriet Vanger gave him pressed and framed flowers every year for his birthday.  He shows Bloomkvist a wall filled with the framed flowers covering decades of his life.  Harriet, though, was murdered when she was a teenager.  Henrik wants Bloomkvist to investigate his family and find out who killed Harriet and has taunted him with the pressed flowers for his birthday ever since.  If Bloomkvist is successful, Vanger will give him information about Wennerstrom that might help him recover his reputation.

Before being approached, Bloomkvist was investigated by Vanger’s attorney Dirch Frode (Steven Berkhoff).  Frode employed Milton Security, run by Dragan Armansky (Goran Vijnic), to check on Bloomkvist.  When he collects the report, Frode meets Lisbeth Salandar (Rooney Mara), the young researcher who prepared it.  With her multiple piercings, goth garb, and awkward social skills, she’s unlike anyone in the Milton office, but she can crack any computer and steal any secret.  Salandar has been under a court-appointed guardianship ever since she was young.  She’s had one guardian, Holger Palmgren (Bengt Carlsson), for several years but then he suffers a stroke.  The new guardian, Nils Bjurman (Yorick Van Wageningen) is a sexual predator who rapes Salandar.  But Bjurman soon learns that Salandar is not a woman you want to have mad at you.

Bloomkvist has been making some progress.  He’s met others on the island, including Harriet’s brother Martin (Stellan Skarsgaard) who’s taken over for Henrik as CEO of Vanger Industries.  Soon, though, Bloomkvist realizes he needs a researcher, and Frode suggests Salandar.  With Salandar’s help, Bloomkvist discovers a much wider murder conspiracy going back decades.

Fincher brings to this version of Dragon Tattoo his visual style that increases the foreboding.  It recalls the cat-and-mouse interviews in Zodiac as well as the feel of Se7en.

Rooney Mara’s performance as Salandar is rightfully gathering Oscar nomination buzz. While she’s rail thin and appears to be delicate, she handles the violent physicality of Salandar wonderfully.  Interestingly, they kept the clothing style that Rapace used in the Swedish-language version.  (Rapace has said that she raided her own closet for items she wore when a teenager to portray Salandar.)

As Bloomkvist, Daniel Craig communicates the right blend of world-weary stoicism with a burning desire to solve the mystery.  Larsson had also made him an incredible ladies man, bedding several women in the book including one of the Vangers, as if he were James Bond.  While it was briefly covered in the Swedish version, it’s been mostly cut in Fincher’s film.

The other supporting actors, including Plummer and Skarsgaard, are quite effective in their roles.  There’s an interesting turn by Joely Richardson as Anita Vanger, another cousin who knew Harriet and who turned her back on the family, settling in London.

While the film is a tantalizing mystery and involves the audience, it has some major weaknesses.  The opening credits seem to have been borrowed from the Bond films and are jarring to the mood.  One of the best parts of the original is Bloomkvist and Salandar as they uncover other brutal murders tied to Harriet’s story.  In this version, Salandar discovers them on her own in almost a montage.  The greatest problem though for the film was also a problem in the book – the main physical climax happens far from the end.  The resolutions of the plots then take up quite a bit of time.  Strangely, the slowest part of the Swedish movie has been re-written and now works really well.  Its power though is dissipated by an extensive resolution of the Wennerstrom story that the original movie told in a tight few scenes and a memorable final shot.

Still, given all that he had to distill into this script, Zailian has done a good job.  It does set up the possibility that he’ll be competing against himself for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar next month, since he co-wrote Moneyball.

Overall, though, if you liked the book, or like mysteries – and have a strong stomach – you’ll find The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo a fascinating movie.

Coming Attractions

Here are the movies I’m looking forward to seeing in the next four months.  I’m sure a couple of these will break my heart as they fail to live up to their potential.  There’s also sure to be a sleeper that comes out of nowhere and astonishes me.  That’s the joy of the movies.  My anticipation is based on four criteria:

• Base Material:  If it’s an adaptation of a book I’ve enjoyed, I’m likely to see the movie.  An engaging premise or story always interests me, and I’ll see some movies because I’m fascinated with their genre.

• Cast:  While this can be very subjective – look at the later Airport movies or Irwin Allen’s disaster pics – there are some actors I truly enjoy watching.

• Director:  Having Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, or another fine artist in the director’s chair will likely get me into a seat at the multiplex.

• Trailers:  I put this last since a good trailer can hide a horrible picture, and a bad trailer can sink a great one (like Children of Men a few years ago).  But they can pique my interest.

I’ve put the below movies in alphabetical order, rather than attempt to rate them:

50/50 (Sept 30): Seth Rogen helped his friend Will Reiser deal with cancer, which thankfully is in remission.  This is a fictionalized version of the story, written by Reiser and with Rogen producing and starring as a fictionalized version of himself.  It will likely be closer to Knocked Up than Brian’s Song.

Abduction (Sept 23): I hesitated about this one.  It has an excellent supporting cast (Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver) and John Singleton directing.  The premise is intriguing: a teen discovers he was abducted as a child.  The hesitation is that the star is Taylor Lautner from the Twilight movies.  Can he act with more than his abs?

The Adventures of Tintin (Dec 23): Steven Spielberg has two movies coming this fall, both within a week of Christmas.  Here he uses performance capture and CG-animation to recreate the cartoon adventures of a teenage reporter.  The books by Herge have been bestsellers everywhere except in the US since the first appeared in the 1920’s.  That may change after this movie.

Carnage (TBA): Based on a Tony winning play, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz take the main roles, with Roman Polanski directing.  It could be a new Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Contagion (Sept 9): I have a soft spot for disaster movies, as long as they aren’t a disaster themselves, like 2012.  With Steven Soderbergh directing and a cast including Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law and Matt Damon, my hopes are high.

A Dangerous Method (Dec 6):  Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender (Jane Eyre) is Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley is the woman who destroys the two men’s friendship.  With direction by David Cronenberg (A History of Violence) this will be a dangerous film.

The Descendants (Nov 23): It’s been 7 years since Alexander Payne directed Sideways.  Now he’s back and directing George Clooney.  That makes it worth a look.

Dream House (Sept 30): Jim Sheridan directed My Left Foot, In America and In The Name of the Father.  Now he’s done a horror movie starring Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig, and Naomi Watts.  This genre is very much the realm of the writer.  Screenwriter David Loucka has few credits, most of them middling comedies like the Whoopi Goldberg movie Eddie, so he’s an unknown factor.  I do hope, though, that Mr. & Mrs. Craig’s marriage starts with a hit movie together.

Drive (Sept 16):  After Crazy, Stupid Love (a movie I loved), Ryan Gosling now appears in this noir thriller (a genre I love) along with Carey Mulligan.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Dec 25): I haven’t read Jonathan Safran Foer’s bestselling novel about a child who lost his father on 9/11, but having Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in supporting roles is awesome.  Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott, The Hours) directs.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Dec 21): I saw the Swedish-language version and was mesmerized by it, so the English version has a lot to live up to.  But with David Fincher directing, Rooney Mara in the title role, and Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, the crusading reporter, it’s already taken several steps in the right direction.

Hugo (Nov 23): A children’s story, filmed in 3D, set in 1931 Paris, with Sacha Baron Cohen as comic relief?  Hmmmm.  Directed by Martin Scorsese?  My brain just went boing!  But considering Ben Kingsley appears as the French movie pioneer (and toymaker) Georges Melies, having the cinephile Scorsese in the driver’s seat makes more sense.

The Ides of March (Oct 7): Ryan Gosling is a busy man this year.  Here he stars with George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Marisa Tomei in a political drama, directed by Clooney.  Clooney demonstrated with Good Night and Good Luck that he is just as comfortable behind the camera as he is in front of it.

Immortals (Nov 11): This made the list by the barest of margins (and might fall off before November).  Mickey Rourke as a Greek God?  That’s digging yourself a pit to stand in from the very beginning.  On the plus side, it’s directed by Tarsem Singh, who made the visually stunning The Cell.  It may come down to standing in the box office line and flipping a coin on whether to see this movie or not.

In Time (Oct 28): Director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) presents another genetic-based sci-fi story filled with beautiful people.  There are worse ways to spend two hours.

The Iron Lady (Dec 16): I lived in England during the time Margaret Thatcher broke the power of the miner’s union and survived an IRA bombing in Brighton.  It will be fascinating to see Meryl Streep inhabit this oversized character.

J. Edgar (Nov 9): With Clint Eastwood directing and Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, this screams potential Oscar winner.  The Academy does like a good bio-pic.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (Oct 21): Elizabeth Olsen became the toast of the Sundance Festival because of this movie about a young woman reentering society after leaving a cult.  Olsen is the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley, but I won’t hold that against her.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Dec 21): This is another movie, like Immortals, that may come down to a coin flip at the box office window.  It may be Mission: Ridiculous, but I’m considering it because this will be the live-action debut for director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles).

Moneyball (Sept 23): I was so-so about seeing this movie until I saw the writing credits: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List).  They could write a laundry list and give it more intelligence than many of the movies made in a year.  With Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Robin Wright, this has to be a contender.

The Muppets (Nov 23):  It’s the Muppets first time back on the big screen in 12 years.  Surprisingly, they don’t look any older.  (A multitude of Hollywood stars are jealous.)

My Week with Marilyn (Nov 4): There’s a positive buzz about Michelle Williams’ performance as Marilyn Monroe in this film, set during the filming of 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl.  It also features Kenneth Branagh as an actor Branagh was compared with when he began his career – Lawrence Olivier.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Dec 16): The first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes was delightful, and for once Watson was portrayed as a partner rather than as comic relief.  With Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law back again, and with Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) as the female lead, I’ll give it a go.

The Skin I live In (Oct 14): Pedro Almodovar (Talk to Her) again teams up with Antonio Banderas on what promises to be an unusual, disturbing and involving film.  Definitely not vanilla pudding.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Nov 18): This is one of my favorite John le Carre stories.  The cast is truly stellar, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy (Inception), Ciaran Hinds (HBO’s Rome), and Gary Oldman as George Smiley.

War Horse (Dec 28): Spielberg’s second Christmas movie this year is 180 degrees different from The Adventures of Tintin.  I caught the trailer for this movie last week and it had me tearing up.  The movie’s based on a hit Broadway and London West End play.  I’m anticipating that I’ll be a puddle for the ushers to mop up by the end of the actual movie.

Do you have movies you’re planning to see this fall?  Or are there some you plan to avoid.  (You may notice Breaking Dawn Pt 1 doesn’t appear on my list.)  Please feel free to leave a comment.

Hang ’em High Concept

In Hollywood, pitches are used by producers to get projects greenlighted by studio executives.  The pitch is usually short, and often plays off of a previously successful film.  Die Hard is a particular pitch favorite; Speed was pitched as Die Hard on a bus.  With Cowboys and Aliens, the title was the pitch.  You can imagine the meeting.  Producer: “It has cowboys…and it has aliens.”  Studio Executives: “Ooh, ahh.”  Granted, this movie does have three high-powered names attached to it: Glazer, Howard, and Spielberg.  That would also have studio executives going ooh ahh.

Unfortunately the plot is an amalgam of clichés from both the Western and Sci-fi genres.  There’s the loner with no name (literally, since he’s suffering from amnesia), a cattle baron who’s a law unto himself, the cattle baron’s spoiled brat of a son, a preacher who knows guns as well as the Bible, the young boy who must grow up fast, and so on.  On the Sci-fi side you have elements lifted from Independence Day, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, and The Matrix, though all on a much small scale than those pictures.

A man (Daniel Craig) wakes in the 1875 New Mexico brush wearing only his long johns and trousers.  He’s been wounded in his side and his left wrist is encircled by a metal cuff.  While he’s trying to remove the cuff, three bounty hunters ride up.  When they turn belligerent, the man puts all three down in the best Sergio Leone tradition.   That solves the man’s attire, footwear, and transportation problems.  He rides to the nearest town, where a preacher named Meacham (Clancy Brown) attends to his wounds.  They’re interrupted when Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), the cattle baron’s son, starts shooting up the town.  Craig stops him, but as he walks away Percy draws his gun and fires – and hits a town deputy standing across the street.  (It wasn’t so much bad aim as bad scriptwriting.  More on that later.)

Sheriff John Taggart (Keith Carradine) locks up Percy.  At the jail, Taggart “just happens” to see a wanted poster for a Jake Lonergan that matches Daniel Craig.  Since it was the top poster that the sheriff would have been staring at for weeks, and featured a picture with digital clarity, you wonder why he didn’t recognize Lonergan earlier.  Lonergan is wanted for stealing a payroll shipment of gold – money that “just happens” to belong to Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), the cattle baron.  Lonergan is in the town’s bar, where he’s approached by Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde).  She claims he can help her because what happened to him happened to her people.  The sheriff arrives with four deputies to arrest Lonergan.  Cue Sergio Leone again – he takes out the deputies and gets the drop on Taggart, but Ella pistol whips Lonergan to keep him from getting away.

That night, Lonergan and Percy are being loaded into a jail wagon when Dolarhyde rides into down with his men.  He’s in a brutal mood since earlier that day a portion of his herd and two of his men were blown to smithereens by some unknown power.  Dolarhyde demands that both men be turned over to him – Percy for protection and Lonergan so he can get his gold back.  But the confrontation with the sheriff is interrupted by approaching lights in the sky.  At first the townspeople stare in wonder, until the explosions start.  Several people are grabbed by whip-like tentacles and dragged into the sky.  Guns are ineffective, but Lonergan’s cuff reveals it’s a weapon.

The sheriff, Percy, and the bartender’s wife are among those abducted.  In the morning a posse led by Dolarhyde and assisted by Lonergan and Ella sets out to get them back.

Jon Favreau, who began with independent movies and comedies, showed with the two Iron Man pictures he can do action well.  Cowboys and Aliens is no exception; the action is thrilling, and the whole picture is beautifully shot.  The problems with the picture can be dumped into the collective lap of the writers.  Sincere there are eight people credited between the story and screenplay, it’s a large lap.  A rule of thumb – if there are more than two screenwriters (or three if two of them are a writing team), the story suffers.  By eight, the script’s begging for mercy.

The cast goes a long way to glossing over the script’s holes.  Craig seems to be channeling Clint Eastwood at times, but his presence captures your attention.  Ford projects nuance within an underwritten role, though the screenwriters laden him with a scene near the end that makes no sense, unless somehow alien abduction is a character-building exercise.  Several smaller roles shine, including Clancy Brown’s Preacher Meacham, Adam Beach as the Colonel’s adopted Native American son, and Noah Ringer as Emmett Taggart, the Sheriff’s grandson.  Overall, the people who come out looking the best are the band of Comanche who join the townsfolk and Lonergan’s old outlaw gang to fight the aliens.

If you’re a diehard (there it is again) Sci-fi fan – the kind who would actually watch a movie on the Syfy channel – you’ll enjoy this film.  If you’re looking for an inventive, exciting sci-fi story featuring aliens, find a theater that’s still showing Super 8.