Opening Weekend: Iron Man 2, Banksy, Babies and Please Give
By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, May 7, 2010 - 2 Comments
Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in 'Iron Man 2'
This weekend at the movies, we’ve got a shooting match of iconoclasts. Take your pick: Robert Downey Jr., Catherine Keener or Banksy. They’re all first-class provocateurs, but each is working on a different scale. As the star in Iron Man 2, Downey Jr. proves that his Hollywood rehab is now more than complete. He proudly sports his shiny new franchise like a post-modern pimp in a cheap suit, even if it did cost US$140 million. And as his nemesis, another iconoclast cashes in his notoriety, Mickey Rourke. Iron Man 2 may well be the summer’s biggest blockbuster, but here’s the catch: there’s something funny about an action movie when the acting is so much better than the action. Going to an action movie for the dialogue is like reading Playboy for the articles. It’s just wrong. For a real-life renegade superhero, check out Banksy, the legendary British graffiti artist who has made his first film without surrendering his secret identity—a marvelous documentary called Exit Through the Gift Shop. Catherine Keener is an iconoclast of a different kind. And she’s in her element in Please Give, Nicole Holofcener’s wry, note-perfect movie about love, deception, greed and self-esteem. There’s no comic book posturing here, just a shrewdly observed drama with a keen wit. It’s a rare gem. And finally, for something completely different, there’s Babies, a lavish documentary about human wildlife that is all babies all the time. This post ends with an update of the Babies review that was first appeared in a BDJ Unscreened blog about Hot Docs, Documentary Tourism.
Iron Man 2
The first Iron Man had the excitement and velocity of a thing being forged from scratch. Not just Iron Man, but Robert Downey Jr.’s comeback. Now it’s just the thing replicating itself, as these things do. Another movie about a man and his gear. A playboy tycoon and his iSuit. It’s the ultimate toy, a wearable computer/weapon/rocket/uniform. We pick up where the last movie left off. Tony Stark announces to the press that yes, he is Iron Man. He makes his entrance as the star of a vulgar trade show at his dad’s old theme park, cavorting with a chorus line of showgirls.. Pretty soon, he’s like a parody of the old Robert Downey Jr. on a bender. Outta sight and outta control. Like a drunk at his own wedding. He’s also dying from toxins, from that palladium disc he uses as a heart. (Palladium? Rhymes with Avatar‘s unobtainium. And it’s what ever A-list guy is dying to have—his very own element.) Stark’s arch-enemy is a ghoulish Russian scientist played by Mickey Rourke, who is fashioning his own wearable military hardware. Rourke looks like more of a wrestler than he did in The Wrestler: a greasy, toxic, tattooed by guy with stringy dreads and a sloppy grin full of metal teeth. He seems to be smothering in his own flesh and you can practically smell the sweat coming off him. Continue…
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Newsmakers: Odd couples
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 1 Comment
From the Summer ’09 Newsmakers family edition
Sophie Dahl & Jamie Cullum
The six-foot model and the five-foot-four-inch singer shrugged off the double-entendre headlines—“love scales new heights” and “does size matter?”—and got engaged in May. As Dahl put it, very sensibly, “What’s lost is that we happen to be two people who fell madly in love and will probably produce fairly average-sized children.”Nathalie Normandeau & François Bonnardel
She’s Quebec’s deputy premier, he’s an opposition MNA. They may be political enemies in the national assembly, but in private they are just two people trying to build a relationship while, at the same time, avoiding major political and ethical landmines. Bonne chance but beware: inter-party romances tend to implode. Just ask Tory Peter MacKay and Liberal Belinda Stronach. Continue… -
The Hitman versus ‘The Wrestler’
By Bret “Hitman” Hart - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 1:44 PM - 98 Comments
This former champion finds the Mickey Rourke movie disturbing and disrespectful
The Wrestler is being lauded as the definitive portrayal of pro wrestling, but I submit that’s only because no one has asked a real wrestling champion about it—until now. In the movie, Randy “The Ram” Robinson was a main-eventer who sold out Madison Square Garden. So was I. The movie opens with a montage of clippings and event posters eerily similar to the ones in my personal collection. I lived that life for real. I liked the movie, and I’m disturbed by it.In director Darren Aronofsky’s astutely layered vision there are glimpses into a shrouded world considered fake by all but those who live in it—for them, it’s the only reality they know. Nuggets of truth make the story believable. Mickey Rourke’s clairvoyant performance makes it compelling.
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The Oscars: Scandalous Omissions
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 5:51 PM - 6 Comments
The Oscar nominations are in, and they are even more boring and predictable than might be expected, which I guess makes them slightly less predictable than expected. For a list of nominees, click on: Oscar’s list. The main event comes down to a David and Goliath clash between two fables: Danny Boyle’s the Little Movie that Could, and David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a big tedious Hollywood epic about the magic of make-up in which Brad Pitt is reborn as a wizened old man. Benjamin Button, which plods through the decades with the folksy fakery of Forrest Gump, strikes me as the worst movie to make waves this awards season. I found it interminable. But it topped the list of films recognized by the Academy with a total of 13 nominations. Why? Well, the Academy has always adored sweeping epics that use history as a backdrop for fables about the triumph of the human spirit. Or something. And it also likes movies that keep all the motion picture crafts well employed. BB is not just a period epic with lots of elaborate sets, costumes and make-up. It’s about sets, costumes and make-up. Especially make-up. As for Slumdog Millionaire, it came in second with 10 nominations. And its crowd-pleasing appeal is easier to fathom.Slumdog, a Dickensian melodrama about adorable urchins in the slums of Mumbai, framed by the whimsical conceit of a grown-up street kid eking out redemption on India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The movie submerges its fairy-tale plot in the vivid, kinetic realism of its location shooting. And Boyle, who does his most vital work since Trainspotting, captures all the colour and beauty and corruption with roaring style.
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Liveblog: Golden Globe Dust
By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 8:20 PM - 2 Comments
The Golden Globes embrace film and TV, but the TV types definitely feel like second-class citizens at Hollywood’s primo party. Last night, as a hyperventilating Kate Winslet accepted her second Golden Globe (she won best actress for Revolutionary Road and best supporting for The Reader), she looked like a woman labouring under the delusion she had just been named Queen of Heaven for Life. Then Rian Wilson from The Office came on with a girl from Gossip Girls and deflated the emotional bombast with a grin and a cheeky reminder: “Hello, we’re TV actors.”
But like the Globes, I’m more interested in film than TV. And the big winners on the movie side of the ledger last night, aside from Winslet, were Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke’s speech was the highlight, as he thanked Bruce Springsteen and Axel Rose, who gave him songs for free. Director Darren Aronofsky had trouble getting this movie about a washed-up wrestler financed because the studios had no faith in Rourke, a washed-up star. Rourke helped out by bringing rock stars on board. The irony is that he met Bruce Springsteen via Sean Penn, who was Rourke’s chief rival for best actor with his performance in Milk. We’ll see if Mickey takes Sean to the mat at the Oscars. Meanwhile, here’s my running real-time account of the Globes, typed last night in a live blog…..
What begins is a half-assed live blog of the Golden Globes. Don’t know how long I’ll keep it up. But I’m sitting here at the TV with a laptop on my knees. Might as well type during the commercials. I’ll try to limit myself to the movie awards, because I don’t watch a lot of TV, except for the late night stuff. I’m going to tack new posts onto the bottom, rather than add fresh posts to the top, which may be a hassle if you’re actually reading this live, instead of watching TV—why aren’t you watching TV??—but it will read more coherently in the morning. Continue…
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My own, totally unsponsored TIFF awards
By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 10:59 AM - 1 Comment
Now that you’ve seen the official TIFF awards, here are a few of my own. . .
Best debut by a new festival co-director: Cameron Bailey, who introduced movies with exemplary aplomb, wit, charisma and verve, while maintaining a steely neutrality through the obligatory incantation of the sponsors’ names.
Best celebrity escape artist: Gael Garcia Bernal who vanished on the evening of the Blindness premiere. A publicist eventually found him at the bar in the Pilot Tavern, and hustled him off to the red carpet on time.
Best fan hysteria: the thousands of screaming Koreans who packed Roy Thompson hall to see The Good, The Bad and The Weird, and greeted its stars as if they were the Beatles.
Best gratuitous male nudity: David Foley’s butt in full-screen close-up as his character makes a cheesy home porn video in Cooper’s Camera.
Best Oscar-buzzed performance by an actor you’d never guess was capable of it: Mickey Rourke, as as sensitive body-slammer in The Wrestler.
Best Oscar-buzzed performance by an actress you’d never guess was capable of it: Anne Hathaway as a rehab refugee creating havoc at her sister’s wedding in Rachel Getting Married. Continue…
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Family feuds and beasts of burden
By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 5:09 PM - 0 Comments
In case you’re wondering if I’ve dropped off the face of the festival, or gone to a party and never come back, I’ve been preoccupied writing for this pesky magazine that we still insist on publishing with ink and paper, which takes longer than blogging because they worry about facts, typos and whatnot. Now time for some catch-up.
The thematic trends at TIFF ’08—which could be indicative of the zeitgeist or of pure serendipity—are starting to coalesce. It’s an especially strong year for French cinema. Highlights include L’Heure d’été by Olivier Assayas and Un Conte de Noël by Arnaud Desplechin, both big, buoyant stories of large families unravelling. And I’ve heard great things about Philippe Claudel’s Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, a tale of two sisters that sounds vaguely akin to Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, which is perhaps the most universally loved hit of the festival. I’ll see the Claudel film tonight. And I’m looking forward to the final screening, tomorrow night, of Les Plages d’Agnès, Agnès Varda‘s documentary memoir, which has generated terrific buzz.
If any one trend has emerged strongly this year it’s a retreat from dramas of epic violence (No Country For Old Men, Eastern Promises, In the Valley of Elah) to stories of emotional turmoil at the heart of families. Prominent examples include The Brothers Bloom—Rian Johnson’s delightful caper movie starring Rachel Weisz as an eccentric heiress who confounds con-men siblings (Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo)—and A Year Ago in Winter, an exquisite drama of sibling loss by Oscar winning German director Caroline Link.
It’s also fun to detect idiosyncratic sub-themes, and this year we’ve seen a preponderance of movies featuring beasts of burden—both animal and human. Two of the most surprising feats of acting are sensitive, eloquent performances from actors we’ve tended to see as brutish instruments of chaos—Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Jean Claude Van Damme in JCVD. In both cases there’s a fabulous life-art resonance as the character’s dramatic arc mirrors that of the star—an actor who’s spend his career enslaved by visceral cliche and is finally shedding his old showbiz carcass. Continue…
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Sometimes You Just Gotta Roll the Potato
By Jaime Weinman - Monday, September 8, 2008 at 10:36 AM - 1 Comment
The news that Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler took the top prize at that other film festival (you can tell it from ours because the stars pull up to the openings in gondolas, or something) sent me back to Joe Queenan’s early ’90s article from Movieline, “Mickey Rourke For a Day” (not online, but reprinted in this book), where he decides to spend a day impersonating Mickey Rourke and doing and saying things that Rourke had done and said in his movies or in real life. Queenan has not been funny in years, and is now right up there with Kurt Andersen in the pantheon of former Spy magazine guys who are inexplicably given space to write like slightly younger versions of Grandpa Simpson. But back in the early ’90s, when Movieline still existed and was an entertaining, nasty alternative to Premiere, the Mickey Rourke piece was a great satire of Rourke’s attempts to pretend that he was the same bad-ass rebel he played in his movies.
He later turned it into a video:
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Mickey Rourke, Oscar bait?
By Brian D. Johnson - Monday, September 8, 2008 at 12:29 AM - 2 Comments
Talk abut unlikely Oscar candidates. First Anne Hathaway—once dismissed as just another pretty woman in Brokeback Mountain,The Devil Wears Prada and Get Smart—dazzles everyone with her hard-edged performance in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, which is the clear hit of the festival. And now, just a few hours ago I saw one of the most unlikely Oscar-worthy performances you can imagine: Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. This film won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, beating out Rachel Getting Married.
Not being that fond of either Aronofsky or Rourke, I found it hard to imagine what all the fuss was about. Now I know. You don’t have to be a fan of either the director or his star to appreciate the peculiar and astounding achievement of this film. Both have reinvented themselves utterly. Magnifying his iconic image as a washed-up, dissolute actor, Rourke delivers a body-slam tour de force as a washed-up, dissolute New Jersey wrestler, but one who clings to his pride like a heavy metal rocker locked in one last, death-defying solo. Rourke plays an aging legend of the ring who’s behind on his trailer-park rent, moonlights in a supermarket, dotes on a single-mom stripper (Marisa Tomei, speaking of comebacks), and tries to reunite with his estranged lesbian daughter (Even Rachel Wood). The scenario is not as tawdry as it sounds; in fact, it’s a remarkable tender drama with delicate touches of humour and pathos.
With long, bleach-blond hair and a scarred body pumped up to action-figure proportions, Rourke is virtually unrecognizable. And Aronofsky, who has a penchant for metaphysical puzzles (Pi, The Fountain) and high-style melodrama (Requiem for a Dream) directs with spare, unvarnished realism. On stage at the Elgin theatre, Rourke introduced his star this way: “The man I met was an eggshell—an incredibly fragile, beautiful human being. . . It’s been way too long he’s being playing tough guys.”
A wrestler who’s not a tough guy? That’s right. In The Wrestler Rourke is a pussy cat. Next week he turns 52, but his face looks older, liked a puffed-out Keith Richards. Evan Rachel Wood, by the way, turned 21 last night, and the crowd at the Elgin sang her a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday.
