Posts Tagged ‘Bill Murray’

Great expectations dashed: ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Hyde Park on the Hudson’

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - 0 Comments

Martin Freeman in 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' / photo courtesy Warner Bros

Bill Murray might have made a good Hobbit, back in the day. Playing Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, may seem like a stretch. But in Hyde Park on Hudson the FDR role fits Murray like an old pair of slippers. As for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Martin Freeman, makes a solid impression as Middle-earth’s mild-mannered Bilbo Baggins. But sadly neither film lives up to expectations. And because the expectations surrounding The Hobbit has been so huge, the hollow thud of disappointment is more resounding.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

First let me put my biases on the table. I’m not a Tolkien fan; I’ve always found his up-hill-and-down-dale prose tedious. But I was duly impressed by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, or at least the first and final episodes. So I was expecting the same level of spectacle, character and story from The Hobbit. But I’m not sure if I even saw the movie Jackson intended to make, because I found it so hard to get past the film’s vaunted, and now controversial, 48-frame-per-second format, now acronym-ed as HFR (high-frame rate). Having tinkered with frame rates myself as a videographer, I never thought I’d see the day when they would become a subject of a mainstream media wonk. But like a lot of critics who saw The Hobbit in 48 fps 3D, I found the results disastrous.

A quicker primer. Movies have been shot at 24 frames per second since the early 20th century. That speed is part of what makes film look like film. It gives the moving image a softness and texture. So when directors started to shoot on video, they choose to shoot at 24 fps, because the more typical TV video speed of 30 fps tends to look too “crispy.” Well, Jackson has cranked the speed to 48 fps to smooth 3D camera movement, reduce strobe-like flicker and create a more immaculate sense of realism. You can see the logic behind what he’s doing— even the best 3D movies have trouble making fast action scenes look smooth. But to these eyes, The Hobbit looked even more video-like than a daytime soap opera. Everything was way too clear—the sets looked like sets, the costumes looked like costumes, the makeup like makeup.  Paradoxically, everything appeared so real it looked fake. Filmmaking magic is a conjuring trick, an art of illusion. So a movie devoted to magic set in a mythical world, the contemporary video lustre of the scenes was distracting to say the least. It reminded me of watching behind-the-scenes B-roll footage of a movie being made.

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  • Ben Affleck’s ‘Argo’: a bonanza of secrets and lies

    By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, September 7, 2012 at 8:38 PM - 0 Comments

    A thriller about the 1980 escape of six Americans from the Canadian embassy in Tehran lands with uncanny timing

    Ben Affleck stars as CIA officer Antonio Mendez in 'Argo'

    On Day 2 of TIFF, movies are spinning like wheels in a slot machine and producing some startling match-ups. At last night’s party hosted by the Toronto Film Critics Association I tried to keep my end up a conversation with the Globe and Mail‘s Johanna Schneller and the Movie Network’s Teri Hart, who were amazed at the number of hand jobs they’d seen in movies at the festival.  Between them, they’ve counted four, including scenes in The Master and Picture Day, which I haven’t seen yet. But I’ve witnessed a couple—one in Hyde Park on Hudson that’s powerful enough to the rock a parked car occupied by the polio-hobbled Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray); and in The Sessions, during a lesson from a sex therapist (Helen Hunt) treating a man paralyzed by childhood polio. Two hand-job polio movies in one festival—what are the odds? Then again, as I noted in an earlier blog, this is also a festival with two films about aging musicians losing their grip, A Late Quartet and Quartet.

    In other news, tonight actor-director Ben Affleck premieres Argo, the stranger-than-fiction story of a fake Canadian sci-fi movie that was cooked up as a cover to facilitate 1980′s Great Escape of six Americans hiding in Iran’s Canadian embassy. Even stranger, just hours before the premiere Canada announced that it has closed that very same embassy in Tehran.

    I saw Argo last night. It tells an extraordinary story about an operation that the C.I.A. had to keep under wraps for two decades, while then-Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor received all the credit. It starts as a comedy that unfolds like a real-life Wag the Dog, with a priceless, Oscar-worthy performance by Alan Arkin as the Hollywood producer who mounts the fake movie, lying through his teeth in a town where lies are hard currency. But then it morphs into a white-knuckled  thriller, which—not unlike Apollo 13—keeps us on the edge even though we know the ending in advance.

    The movie’s pulse is juiced by a lot of obvious fictional embellishment. It’s a caper movie, not a docudrama, which brings the Hollywood fakery of the original ruse full circle. It’s a good ride. Starring as the heroic C.I.A. officer, Tony Mendez, a bearded Ben Affleck keeps his head down and delivers a tight, modest performance. But as a director he’s impressive,  expanding on the promise he showed in Gone Baby Gone and The Town. He’s adopted a much lighter style for Argo, with a zippy curve-ball narrative spins from wit to suspense. It could be this year’s Moneyball.

    The film, meanwhile, is jammed with references that will tickle local audiences, ranging from the observational detail that Canadians don’t pronounce the second ‘t’ in ‘Toronto’ to a mention of the now-defunct Canadian Film Development Corporation—which financed more than its share of tax-shelter movies that were scams of one sort or another. There’s far more Cancon in this Hollywood picture than the two officially Canadian movies I saw today, both stories of foreign characters in foreign settings—Midnight’s Children (set in India) and Rebelle (set in Africa).

    With its flamboyant mix of Canadiana and Hollywood self-satire, Argo would have made an ideal opening night film for TIFF. Looper, the sci-action movie that did kick off the festival, was an adequate choice but nowhere near as ironically appropriate.  I don’t know what happened behind the scenes. But one can only assume that Warner Bros. did not want that somewhat stigmatized opening night slot, and opted for the hotter showcase of Friday night.

  • First TIFF2012 celebrity sighting: Conrad Black

    By Jessica Allen - Monday, August 27, 2012 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

    FDR expert joins critics at ‘Hyde Park on the Hudson’ screening

    TIFF has not even started and already there are sightings of celebrity types around Toronto.

    This very morning, for example, Conrad Black, the author of  Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, was in the audience of Hyde Park on the Hudson, a movie that stars Bill Murray as FDR.

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  • ‘Moonrise’ on the Riviera with Bill Murray, Bruce Willis and two French-kissing kids

    By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 4:11 PM - 0 Comments

    Bill Murray at the Cannes press conference for 'Moonrise Kingdom' /photo Brian D. Johnson

    Far too often, the movie chosen to open the Cannes Film Festival is an opulent, overstuffed confection, a cinematic French pastry. Last year marked a refreshing departure, when Woody’s Allen’s Midnight in Paris kicked things off. It was a confection to be sure, a dreamy mille feuilles fantasy, but at least it was about art, and artists. Today Cannes upped the ante. It launched its 65th anniversary edition with Wes Anderson’s Moonlight Kingdom. Like Midnight in Paris, it’s another charming, quirky slice of American whimsy, festooned with Hollywood stars. Yet this one is  not just about art. You could go so far as to call it an art film. Which is exactly what Bill Murray did, with a measure of deadpan pride, at a media conference following the movie’s morning press screening.

    “These are what we call art films,” said Murray, who has appeared in all of Anderson’s pictures since Rushmore (1998). “They are films where you work very, very long hours for no money. This is all we get—this trip to Cannes. Fortunately we’ve saved from other jobs we’ve worked on. It’s nice to serve. I don’t get any other work except though Wes. I just sit by the phone.” Looking wonderfully disheveled in a loud checked jacket, the actor went on to say, “Sometimes when you work with a director you hope you never see them again. And that goes for the director as well. They drive you to the airport. Wes has never driven me to the airport.”

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  • This week: Newsmakers

    By Ken MacQueen, Colby Cosh and Maclean's staff - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 10:23 AM - 0 Comments

    The Donald for prez in 2012?

    Leave it to Bieber—or else

    Surprise Best New Artist winner Esperanza Spalding discovered the downside to beating out a shoo-in at the Grammys. The jazz singer’s voluminous hair did little to endear her to vengeful Justin Bieber fans, who edited her Wikipedia page to paint a curious picture: her middle name is Justin—no, Quesadilla; she is (to paraphrase) mentally challenged, and she should die in a hole. The Bieb was more gracious, congratulating his rival warmly when he ran into her backstage. Still, Spalding may have more in common with a Canadian act that fared better that night: Arcade Fire. She sang at Barack Obama’s White House, while the Montreal indie darlings played shows for his presidential campaign.

    Newsmakers

    Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

    Hair today, who knows tomorrow

    Donald Trump electrified the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, speculating in a surprise appearance about a Republican run for the presidency. “We need a competitive person,” Trump told a divided audience. “If I run and if I win, this country will be respected again.” The real estate mogul laid out an anti-gun-control, anti-Obamacare stance, adding a pro-life element that has only recently become a feature of his political bloviations. He also provoked supporters of conservatives’ perennial favourite, libertarian congressman Ron Paul, by remarking that “Paul cannot get elected. Sorry.” Trump says he will make his final decision on whether to run in June.

    Newsmakers

    Joshua Roberts/Reuters

    You can’t go home

    When former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf announced he was returning from a self-imposed exile to possibly run for office, he faced a Catch-22: he’d either suffer an assassination attempt by al-Qaeda or arrest for treason. Now there’s another obstacle: a warrant for his arrest in connection with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. On Saturday, a Pakistani court said an investigation revealed Musharraf did not provide adequate protection for the former PM in 2007 as she campaigned against him for the presidency. Musharraf, who denies any involvement, allegedly knew of plans to kill her but failed to alert authorities. Bhutto, of course, was killed by al-Qaeda weeks after her own return following years in self-imposed exile.

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  • TIFF '09: On the red carpet

    By macleans.ca - Friday, September 11, 2009 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

    Our ever-expanding gallery of Hollywood’s hottest at TIFF

    Click on each image to enlarge.

From Macleans