Prometheus: Origins of the Creature from the Space Lagoon

Prometheus

Directed By: Ridley Scott

Written By: Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, and Patrick Wilson

Director of Photography: Dariusz Wolski, Editor: Peitro Scalia, Production Designer: Arthur Max, Original Music: Marc Streitenfeld

WARNING: Like my review for Cabin in the Woods, I plan on discussing Prometheus in full, without any consideration for what are considered “spoilers” If you are curious to see the film, just go see it. My opinion of whether I liked it or not shouldn’t be the factor. If you are curious to read on why I think the film functions as it does, without any consideration for hiding the aspects of the narrative, then read on. Also, I’m also going to spoil Lost.

            In 2010, the hit ABC series Lost came to an end with what many considered a crashing thud. For six seasons, audiences watched a show about constantly accumulating mysteries on an island. Lost fed its hungry fans with more and more—polar bears in jungles, buttons that saved the universe, alternate timelines—and then abandoned it all for a spiritual sit down with its characters, discarding the main reason that it originally drew viewers. For months before the finale, showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse warned their fans: “true fans” only care about their characters; the mysteries were irrelevant.

            Why this long primer on Lost, when the film of the week, and for many their most anticipated film of the summer, is a prequel to Alien? Because as much as critics will be discussing the craft of director Ridley Scott, Prometheus is assuredly a Damon Lindelof work. His hands are all over this film about a group of scientists traveling to a mysterious planet to find the origins of life. And in many ways, the faults of Prometheus lie in his blame (though Scott shouldn’t escape all the blame). 

Haywire: An Ass-Kicker Supreme

Haywire

Directed By: Steven Soderbergh

Written By: Lem Dobbs

Starring: Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, and Channing Tatum

Director of Photography: Peter Andrews (Soderbergh), Editor: Steven Soderbergh, Production Designer: Howard Cummings, Original Music: David Holmes

Rated: R for ass-kicking, head-smashing violence.

            The pleasures in Haywire, of which are there many, derive not from the dramatic reveals or explosions or kinetic, impossible to follow, action sequences that populate most films that follow spies and the work they do. Instead, the film gives us details through cinematic delights: a tilted shot in a red-drenched palette, an abstract jazzy score, and the sound of a gunshot runging out with booming thunder. This is after all Steven Soderbergh, a director who despite being in the business for over twenty years, has continued to remain experimental and metatextual with each film, even when approaching genre exercises (most recently the virus thriller Contaigon, which evolved into a political statement on the age of Tea Party politics).

            One could argue Haywire is the closest thing he’s done to a commercial film since his Ocean’s trilogy. However, Soderbergh plays against usual genre standards so often that the film often feels much like Godard and Truffaut making a CIA black ops ass kicking thriller than the next film from Michael Bay. Style is the substance of Haywire, which uses a somewhat paint-by-the-numbers script by Lem Dobbs (who also wrote The Limey for Mr. Soderbergh) as a starting point to give the almost deadening genre a new classic, and led by the commanding performance of Gina Carano.

Shame: Man Seeks Woman, and a Whole Lot More

Shame

Directed By: Steve McQueen

Written By: Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Muligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, and Lucy Walters.

Director of Photography: Sean Bobbitt, Editor: Joe Walker, Production Designer: Judy Becker, Original Music: Harry Escott

Rated: NC-17 for graphic sexual content and Michael Fassbender’s Fass-member.

            Shame, the second feature from British artist Steve McQueen, opens on a shot from top down on its main character, Brandon, sprawled naked across his bed. But he only takes up half the frame, the other half highlighting his empty grayish blue sheets. The painterly quality of this image is of course no surprise to those who know Mr. McQueen, a conceptual artist that has only recently moved into filmmaking. But it also highlights the emptiness that surrounds Brandon; in a world where he can have anything, still finds himself longing for something, anything, to fill the void of his life.

            Mr. McQueen’s first film, Hunger, was an audaciously bold and formalistically polarizing debut that followed the British IRA hunger strikes in the late 1970s. Mr. McQueen, uninterested in politics, focused on the control and degradation of the body, and the mental power to command such an organism. It was also the first film to introduce us to Michael Fassbender, who went on to starring roles in Fish Tank, Jane Eyre, A Dangerous Method, and now plays Brandon in Shame. And if Hunger was about the complete control of the body, Shame is about a body that constantly feeds in order to keep the mental state from absolute disaster.

Revisited: Steve McQueen Discusses the Politics of the Body in "Hunger"

A complete unknown in the film a few years ago, Steve McQueen has become an art house and festival favorite with only two films. This week sees the release of his highly anticipated film, Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict in New York. The film (reviewed at the New York Film Festival here) marks the second collaboration between the director and actor. Their first film, Hunger, debuted in 2008 to critical raves and won Mr. McQueen the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for best debut feature. Below is a piece on Mr. McQueen written during the film’s US release in March 2009. Hunger is available on DVD from the Criterion Collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone compelled about Shame.

Despite a similar name, director Steve McQueen is not the same one who rode the motorcycle in The Great Escape. The Black British artist has been working in visual arts for many years, but Hunger, a devastating and brutal film about the 1981 Irish Republican Army Hunger strikes led by Bobby Sands, is his first feature film. Lunged over in his chair with an astute pair of glasses, Mr. McQueen spoke sternly at the Meatpacking District Hotel where we met, occasionally sipping on a fresh tea and taking long pauses before every answer. Mr. McQueen explained that this was a story he needed to tell, “Young people talk about Abu Grahib and Guantanamo but don’t even know what happened in their own backyard 27 years ago.”

            Hunger is a mostly silent film that tells the story of the people within a prison known in the United Kingdom as “The Maze,” where a number of IRA prisoners participated in a series of dirty protests (no cleaning or shaving) and eventually turned into a hunger strike. The purpose? To regain their status as political prisoners, instead of simply regular criminals.

A Dangerous Method: Crumbling the Mind, Not By Machines But Words

A Dangerous Method

Directed By: David Cronenberg

Written By: Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure, adapted from the novel A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenson, Kiera Knightly, and Vincent Cassell

Director of Photography: Peter Suschitzky, Editor: Ronald Sanders, Production Designer: James McAteer, Original Music: Howard Shore

Rated: R for psychoanalytical perversions

Read an interview with David Cronenberg, Christopher Hampton, and Michael Fassbender from the New York Film Festival

Cinema and psychoanalysis have a long history together, as the new technology and the striking new school of thought both began and evolved during the turn of the 20^th century. And since the 1970s, psychoanalysis has been used in film theory to explore cinema in new light, where characters once thought to be crazy are instead explored within their Freudian terms of wanting to return the womb or whatnot (Classic Hollywood seems ripe with metaphors for sex looking back).

            So what can we infer about the makers of psychoanalysis? That certainly sounds like an interesting question for David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, a stately and often involving piece on the history of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, as well as the woman that changed everything. On first appearances, Mr. Cronenberg, known for his more graphically violent films from Videodrome and A History of Violence, might seem like the wrong choice for this imperial work from screenwriter Christopher Hampton (adapting his own play The Talking Cure, which was adapted from the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr). But thematically, this is a work through and through by Mr. Cronenberg, who explores how an idea, the psychological, can transform, disfigure, and infect the body.

Under the Skin: David Cronenberg and Michael Fassbender on "A Dangerous Method"

            Since early masterpieces like Videodrome and The Fly to more recent hits like A History of Violence, director David Cronenberg has been getting under people’s skin through his psychologically disturbing works of cinema. His latest film, A Dangerous Method, takes the subject of the psychological and the physical body directly, as it follows the story of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortenson) and their early work, as well as patient of Jung’s, a hysterical Russian named Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightly). Although it seems like a departure for the director—a period piece that’s more talking and without any disturbing violence—A Dangerous Method is dealing with many of his favorite subjects. During the New York Film Festival, Mr. Cronenberg sat down with screenwriter Christopher Hamption (Atonement) and Mr. Fassbender to discuss the bold new project.

The gestation of the project and its different forms

Christopher Hampton: It was first written in the mid to late 90s, as a screenplay called Sabina for 20^th Century Fox and Julia Roberts’s company. It floundered in the way screenplays usually do, but it seemed too good of material to not take further. I turned it into a stage play called The Talking Cure, which we did in London and the National Theater with Ralph Fiennes. About a year or so later, I had a call from Mr. Cronenbeg, who said “I think it might make a film.”

On the material changing from the original script to the final version

CH: To start with, the film was called Sabina because it was mostly focused on Sabina Spielrein. But in between the original screenplay and the stage play, it dawned on me that it couldn’t be Sabina, but had to be Jung. So there was quite a shift on emphasis. The work that I did with [Cronenberg] had to do with refining it and sharpening it and honing it.

On working on another film about sexual perversion of the body

David Cronenberg: That doesn’t sound like me—I think I’ve made a lot of comedies actually (laughs). I don’t really think about my other movies at all, frankly. I don’t think about what I’ve done at all. When I decide to do something I’m passionate about it, I’m only interested in realizing that particular thing. I don’t think about if it fits in with anything or if I’ve done it or not. 

I think when I read Christopher’s play—I’ve never seen it performed—in retrospect, I’ve always wanted to do something about Freud and the birth of psychoanalysis. But to say that isn’t to say anything really because it’s such vast topic full of incredible characters that surrounded the birth of psychoanalysis, all of them really eccentric and wonderful. What I saw in Christopher’s play was this really fantastic structure that distilled the essence of the era and the psychoanalytic movement into primarily five characters. That was a structure that could allow me to play with that topic. I also have to point out that the first movie I ever made, Transfer, was about a psychiatrist and a patient.

New York Film Festival: The (Unofficial) Awards!

With tonight’s screening of The Descendants, the New York Film Festival wraps up its 49^th year, and one of its most ambitious years in terms of its expanded programming and excellent selection. Of course, NYFF now turns toward the future, with a year-long retrospective of works from the previous years in gearing up for the golden anniversary, including screenings of works by Marco Bellocchio and Carlos Saura in the coming weeks.

But one thing that the Film Society at Lincoln Center never does are awards. The 27 Main Selection films are all worth your time equally. Of course, this is America, and there are winners and losers.  Since people can only spend so much time at the movies this fall, one would like to know what is for sure worth checking out. So here are my awards. The top prize, “The Golden Bull,” named after our now infamous Wall Street symbol in the city.

The Golden Bull: A Separation, a film by Asghar Farhadi

The Silver Bull: Martha Marcy May Marlene, a film by Sean Durkin

Best Director: Bela Tarr, The Turin Horse

Best Actor: Michael Fassbender, Shame

Best Supporting Actor: Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Le Havre

Best Actress: Kirstin Dunst, Melancholia

Best Supporting Actress: Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Best Screenplay: Le Havre

Best Cinematography: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

New York Film Festival: Steve McQueen's Shame

Shame

A Film By Steve McQueen

United Kingdom/United States

            Shame, the second feature from British artist Steve McQueen, opens on a shot from top down on its main character, Brandon, sprawled along his bed. But he only takes up half the frame, the other half highlighting his empty grayish blue sheets. The painterly quality of this image is of course no surprise to those who know Mr. McQueen, a conceptual artists that has only recently moved into filmmaking. But it also highlights the emptiness that surrounds Brandon, who, in a world where he can have anything, still finds himself longing for something, anything, to fill the void of his life.

            Mr. McQueen’s first film, Hunger, was an audaciously bold and formalistically polarizing debut that followed the British IRA hunger strikes in the late 1970s. Mr. McQueen, uninterested in politics, focused on the control and degradation of the body, and the mental power to command such an organism. It was also the first film to introduce us to Michael Fassbender, who went on to starring roles in Fish Tank, Jane Eyre, and A Dangerous Method, who plays Brandon in Shame. And if Hunger was about the complete control of the body, Shame is about a body that constantly feeds in order to keep the mental state from absolute disaster.

New York Film Festival: David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (Gala Presentation)

A Film By David Cronenberg

United Kingdom/Canada/Germany

            Cinema and psychoanalysis have a long history together, as the new technology and the striking new school of thought both began and evolved during the turn of the 20^th century. And since the 1970s, psychoanalysis has been used in film theory to explore films in new light, where characters once thought to be crazy are instead explored within their Freudian terms of wanting to return the womb or whatnot (Classic Hollywood seems ripe with metaphors for sex looking back).

            So what psychoanalysis can we read on the makers of psychoanalysis? That certainly sounds like an interesting question for David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, a stately and occasionally involving piece on the history of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, as well as the woman that changed everything. On first appearances, Mr. Cronenberg, known for his more graphically violent films from Videodrome, to Crash, to A History of Violence, might seem like the wrong choice for this stately work from screenwriter Christopher Hampton (adapting his own play The Talking Cure, that adapted from the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr). But thematically, this is a work through and through by Mr. Cronenberg, exploring how an idea can transform, disfigure, and infect the body.

X-Men: First Class: Back to Basics

X-Men: First Class

Directed By: Matthew Vaughn

Written By: Matthew Vaughn, Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, and Jane Goldman, from a story by Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer. Based on the Marvel Comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Lucas Till, and Oliver Platt

Director of Photography: John Mathieson, Editors: Lee Smith and Eddie Hamilton, Production Designer: Chris Seagers, Original Music: Henry Jackman

Rated: PG-13 for comic book violence and a clever use of bad language.

            When it was first announced that 20^th Century Fox, in their attempts to continue a franchise, would do another origin story of the X-Men, many alarms went off. Would this be X-Men: Tiny Tykes with a bunch of kids with powers, or would it even be worse, similar to the Hugh Jackman led Wolverine film? X-Men as a series and as a cash cow for Fox plays a difficult balance, as the universe is simply so grand, and finding the right story to tell within that world is often the issue the writers and creators of X-Men face, as opposed to Superman or Batman, where the main character and dichotomy is always in place.

            But besides the apparently badass Wolverine (those claws!), two characters really made the X-Men series the first great comic book film: Charles Xavier, aka the telepathic Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, aka the metal controller Magneto. As played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, watching these two play off each other like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X became the central core of the film’s first trilogy, with openly gay director Bryan Singer infusing the similarities of gay rights activism toward the comic book franchise, with the appropriate amount of entertaining ass kicking ass well.

Jane Eyre: Men Aren't The Only Thing Out to Get This Poor Girl

Jane Eyre

Directed By: Cary Fukunaga

Written By: Moira Buffini (Based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte)

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, and Sally Hawkins

Director of Photography: Adriano Goldman, Editor: Melanie Oliver, Production Designer: Will Hughes-Jones, Original Music: Dario Marionelli

Rated: PG-13, for brief violence, and some other strange happenings

            Recollections of the name Jane Eyre may conjur many things for different people. Perhaps some will think about their college or perhaps high school years reading the novel, with its quick wit and gorgeous prose by Charlotte Bronte. Others may picture the numerous film adaptations—either William Hurt as Mr. Rochester or perhaps Orson Welles, and actresses like Charlotte Gainsbourg or Joan Fontaine in the role of the titular character. Call it my naïveté or simply lack of serious intellectual pursuits, but I have never seen anything related to Ms. Bronte’s now famous novel. Jane Eyre has been a missing link on my education (oh what do they teach these days!), and thus I went into this latest version as an “Eyre-gin,” so to say.

            So colored me surprised to not find another girl caught up in marriage pursuits, as is a favorite story of Ms. Bronte’s 19^th century counterpart Jane Austin. Of course, that is the endgame in Jane Eyre, but through the eyes of Cary Fukunaga, Jane Eyre is darker than witty, more gruesome and haunting than charming and delightful. Sure it has its gorgeous moments, but its also creepy and effecting in its drab presentation and almost lifeless landscapes.