The best in holiday movies
By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, December 21, 2012 - 0 Comments
Tom Cruise in 'Jack Reacher' / courtesy Paramount Pictures
The Christmas rush of holiday movies is upon us, and if you find this whole notion of peace on earth is already beginning to wear thin, they offer some harrowing alternatives. Two of them, Jack Reacher and Django Unchained, had their premieres cancelled last weekend because their scenes of gun violence were considered inappropriate so soon after the Newtown massacre. Jack Reacher, which reboots Tom Cruise’s career as a action hero, has landed with especially unfortunate timing in light of the Sandy Hook massacre—it opens with a scene of a sniper killing five random civilians, including a mother holding a young child. Django, Quentin Tarantino’s tale of slave liberation, is tale of merry vengeance that opens Christmas Day.
Jack Reacher opens Dec. 21, along with Judd Apatow’s fractious family comedy This is 40. Those two studio pictures will likely lead the weekend box office, but also opening Dec. 21 are The Impossible and Rust and Bone, a pair of potent dramas from European directors that could win Oscar recognition. The Impossible is the harrowing tale of a family on holiday torn apart by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami; Rust and Bone is a romance about an animal trainer (Marion Cotillard) who loses both her legs to a renegade killer whale. No one ever said escaping Christmas would be a walk in the park.
So many movies, so little time. Here’s the rundown:
Jack Reacher
As a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, I was as mortified as everyone else when it was first announced that the 5’8″ Tom Cruise would play the 6’5″ Reacher It seemed like a historic coup of miscasting. Since then Child has endorsed both Cruise and the movie, which is loosely based on One Shot, the ninth novel in the Reacher series. Now that I’ve seen it, I still feel Cruise is miscast, and not just because he’s too short. Size doesn’t matter so much on the big screen. But character does. Reacher is a rugged Army veteran, a multi-decorated former U.S. Military Police Major, who has gone rogue and become a drifter. Cruise doesn’t look like he’s a veteran of anything but the gym and the red carpet. Reacher, who has a brutal manner and a forensic intellect, is cool, detached and laconic. He’s like a human bullet: smooth, fast and hot. Too intensely polished for the role. That said, he’s an athletic actor who is always impressive in hand-to-hand combat. He functions best with blunt, minimalist dialogue, and in that sense he makes the character his own. Continue…
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Depp's Dillinger is dead cool
By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 5:19 PM - 4 Comments
Johnny Depp stars as outlaw John Dillinger in 'Public Enemies'
By now it’s indisputable: Johnny Depp is the coolest movie dude on the planet. Forget Brad Pitt. Forget Tom Cruise. . . and remind me, who else is there? Robert Pattison? Sean Penn? Maybe Robert Downey Jr. But no Hollywood star puts together the whole package quite like Depp—combining screen-idol charisma with the grace of a gifted actor who seems to intent on continuing the mythic legacy of Marlon Brando and James Dean. And after the string of Pirates movies, it’s nice to see Depp finally playing a grown-up outlaw in a suit, in a summer blockbuster that is designed for adults.
I’m not sure why the title of Public Enemies is in the plural. Sure, this is a story of gangsters who worked as a team, but it’s really about just one public enemy, John Dillinger, and specifically about the final 14 months of his life before he was gunned down on the sidewalk after leaving the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, having just watched a gangster movie, Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy—a fitting end for a populist outlaw who acted not unlike a movie star himself, and was famous for refunding money to patrons in the banks that he robbed.
Public Enemies is directed by Michael Mann, who has made a career of outlaw romance, from Manhunter to The Last of the Mohicans, from Heat to Miami Vice. This movie plays a lot like Heat in period dress—a cat and mouse game between a frustrated lawman and his elusive quarry. But Christian Bale, who plays the FBI agent on Dillinger’s tale, is even more a cipher than he is behind Batman’s mask. This is Dillinger’s story. Mann portrays him as a purely romantic hero, with an elegaic tone that reminded me of Joey, that epic Bob Dylan ballad about gangster Joey Gallo. But what prevents the characters from surrendering to stereotype is Depp’s performance. Behind the the bravado and the posturing, you can see glints of chilling cruelty in his face. He carves nuance from the hollowsof Mann’s unsubtle script with a brilliant performance that lurks in the shadows, never giving himself up to cliché. As an actor, Depp has the brutal economy of a rhythm guitar player who knows how to hold back—like a John Lee Hooker or a Keith Richards—hiding just behind the beat. Continue…
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Photo Gallery: Toronto Film Festival 2006
By Jeff Harris - Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at 1:51 PM - 0 Comments
Juilette Binoche epitomized the “blonde bombshell” look at Breaking and Entering
premiere, along with…
Juilette Binoche epitomized the “blonde bombshell” look at Breaking and Entering
premiere, along with co-star Jude Law — who had an impish grin for festival paparrazzi. The Dixie Chicks came to town with a hot documentary that followed the backlash after their dig at President George Bush. From Ashton Kutcher to Zach Braff, see all the celebs that invaded Toronto this past September.
