"Season of the Witch"
Richard's Review: 1 star
Set in the years following the Crusades, "Season of the Witch" sees Nicolas Cage go all medieval on the forces of evil and, very possibly, his credibility as an actor.
Cage and Ron "Hellboy" Perlman play AWOL knights who fled the Crusades after being forced to slaughter women and children in the name of God. When they are apprehended and accused of being deserters they save themselves from rotting in a plague ridden dungeon by making a deal to transport a known witch cross country to where she can be tried and hopefully, put an end to the Black Plague. Of course, even though they have the help of a colourful cast of characters -- including a priest, a criminal and a God's warrior wannabe -- they have a devil of a time getting her to the sanctuary.
I've lost track trying to list the career phases of Nicolas Cage. There was the loose-limbed eccentricity of "Wild at Heart" and "Raising Arizona." The method acting of "Leaving Las Vegas" and extreme jazz riffing of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," among others but his latest movie seems to indicate a new chapter. It's no secret that Cage is suffering some financial difficulties these days, but "Season of the Witch," a pay cheque movie if there ever was one, suggests that he is not only financially bankrupt but artistically as well.
I wasn't a big fan of his larger-than-life acting in "Bangkok Dangerous" and "Knowing," but at least he seemed to be putting some effort into his work. Here he's lifeless and flat, as though simply showing up with hairpiece intact is enough to constitute a performance. I miss the extreme Nicolas Cage, the actor who wasn't afraid to take chances, not the confounding Cage who buries his talent under a pay cheque.
Cage's performance is simply the cherry on top of this rancid Sundae. Director Dominic Sena -- what's happened to this guy since he made "Kalifornia"? --does his best Uwe Boll impression behind the camera, junking up the story with bad buddy-cop-dialogue-with-a-1332 AD-twist -- "We're gonna need more holy water!" -- and even worse special effects.
It's too early to call "Season of the Witch" one of the worst movies of the year but it does set the bar awfully high… or low.
"Blue Valentine"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
"Blue Valentine," a new character study starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, starts off with the loss of a beloved family pet and ends on an even more downbeat note.
The non-linear story begins in present day. Dean (Gosling), Cindy (Williams) and their daughter Frankie (Faith Wladyka) are a family unit teetering on the edge. Notes of tension are infused in their conversation and the only thing that seems to bond the couple is their love for Frankie. For the next 100 minutes we learn about them by jumping around on their relationship's timeline; how they met -- while visiting people at an old folks' home -- and how a once happy pairing fell prey to distrust and difficulty.
As you might expect from actors of the calibre of Gosling and Williams, the performances are top notch. Gosling seems to embody Dean, a high school drop-out with a great facility for love but also for volatile behavior and Williams has one of those empathic faces that can vacillate between joy and sorrow with just a very slight change in expression. But for all the skill of its performers "Blue Valentine" feels one-note.
The break up of Dean and Cindy's marriage is not only painful for their make-believe movie family but for the viewer as well. Emotionally raw is good. So is heart-wrenching. But the repetition with which both these aspects of the story are displayed wears down any feeling the viewer may have for either character. It's like watching a couple bicker on the subway. You feel sorry for them but hope they'll get off at the next stop.
"Somewhere"
3 1/2 stars
In "Somewhere" director Sophia Coppola brings a very European sensibility to that most American of subjects -- the life of a Hollywood star.
Stephen Dorff is Johnny Marco, a movie star between projects. He lives at the swanky Chateau Marmont, which is sort of an upscale boarding house for celebrities located just off LA's Sunset Strip. Pole dancers come and go, parties are held, pills are popped and one day bleeds into the next. In a more traditional movie a lifestyle epiphany would accompany the arrival of his 11-year-old daughter (Dakota's little sister Elle Fanning) but this isn't a traditional movie.
The movie plays like a tone poem rather than a conventional movie. Long stretches pass by without any dialogue, or even scenes that forward the story. But to be fair, "Somewhere" isn't about story, it's about establishing a feeling. Coppola spends virtually the entire 97 minute running time exploring the minutia of Marco's empty life. It's the de-glamorization of the Hollywood dream revealing the isolated and private life of a public figure.
Scenes, or rather, set pieces, amplify Marco's seclusion. Bored looking strippers -- complete with portable poles -- come to his room, he throws parties filled with people he doesn't know and passes out during some anonymous sex. There's no joy, no celebration, just emptiness. Its ground Coppola has tread before (and better) in her other hotel based movie "Lost in Translation," but here she adds large dollops of ambiguity. In an era where every celebrity foible becomes tabloid fodder Coppola chooses to underplay the underbelly of celebrity, neither playing up the allure nor amplifying the seediness. The lack of any real intimate moments renders the portrait incomplete, but Dorff's melancholy performance adds depth to a basically superficial take on celebrity life.
Some will find "Somewhere's" thinly carved slice-of-life approach self indulgent, others will think it is insightful but I found the style of the film, which overpowers whatever substance may be lurking beneath the pretty pictures, hypnotic.
"Country Strong"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
In "Country Strong" Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kelly Canter, a troubled country music superstar whose husband (Tim McGraw) pulls her out of rehab to plot her comeback tour. While getting clean she befriends orderly Beau ("Tron: Legacy's" Garrett Hedlund) who also, conveniently, happens to be a musician. Beau ends up sharing the tour's opening slot with beauty-queen-turned-singer Chiles Stanton ("Gossip Girl's" Leighton Meester), and all four end up sharing more than just music and road stories.
The first line of Country Strong's catchiest song, "Give Into Me" is "I'm gonna wear you down," and sure enough the movie did wear me down in the last thirty minutes. For the first hour or so I thought the film had as much authentic country spirit as a Muzak version of a Hank Williams song but it finally won me over.
As a look at the downside of the country music game it pales by comparison to last year's "Crazy Heart," but despite a script thick enough with clichés to choke Roy Rogers's horse and the blandest direction this side of "Hee Haw," it comes together in its closing minutes.
Much of this is due to its star Garrett Hedlund who rebounds from his bland leading man work in "Tron: Legacy" to deliver a convincing performance as a Townes Van Zandt-style singer-songwriter and love interest. He walks away with the movie, stealing it outright from Gwyneth Paltrow -- I know, I know, she did her own singing... so did he -- who can't be down home no matter how hard she tries. She has a couple of moments -- a really beautiful scene with a Make-A-Wish child and a drunken backseat conversation with Chiles -- but the character is so thinly written there's very little for her or the audience to hang onto. Leighton Meester fares a bit better, but mostly because her country Barbie character has good chemistry with Hedlund.
At almost two hours, "Country Strong" is too long and despite its downbeat subject matter -- the flipside of fame, alcoholism and jilted love -- isn't quite authentically hurtin' enough to qualify as real country.
