Intro
Haywire (2011)
We're reaching the endgame folks. I have just one more movie after this one and I can officially say I have seen every Steven Soderbergh movie. I can now say I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of him as a filmmaker. He has three modes to simplify it more than I should: he has his mainstream movies, his experimenting with technology movies, and his genre movies.
Haywire tackles a genre Soderbergh has not yet tackled, and unless the next and last movie I cover is a vastly different movie than I expect, it remains his only movie. This is Soderbergh's action movie. I've also seen it called a martial arts movie, which may or may not be true, but if you told me that beforehand, I'd feel like I was misled.
Haywire combines the Lem Dobbs-Soderbergh collaboration for the third time. Weirdly, the movies are separated by 20 years and if the trend holds, we can expect a fourth collaboration around 2021. Dobbs has solo writing credit on all three films, and all three oddly enough are pretty damn reliant on the director. Kafka is completely stylized, The Limey's appeal is basically its editing, and of course Haywire is an action movie, so the action is the appeal, not the dialogue or even the story.
The main function of an action movie is to entertain with action scenes and not let the rest of the movie fuck that up. Most action movies fail to even deliver on that first part, much less come up with a competent story. Haywire does however deliver on the action elements.
Soderbergh would make a good action director if he decided to go in that direction. He films most of the action scenes at a farther distance than most action directors do, so that you can see every punch and kick land. There's no shaky cam, no 10 cuts for every 5 seconds here. And he was able to do this because the film's star, Gina Carano, was an MMA star.
About Carano, she will not blow you away as an actress. But she does what's needed. She was well-cast, because the character she plays doesn't really require much range, but she does require someone who can convincingly kick ass. And she convincingly kicks ass! This is one of those movies where every punch, kick, you can hear and feel. They seem brutal. Like I said, Soderbergh could do this any time he wants to if he wanted to, which I doubt.
As far as the second part of a good action movie, the rest of the movie does not fuck up. It holds together. It would certainly not stand under scrutiny, but I had no problems following the movie's plot as the movie happened. And it's hard to tell if the dialogue is specifically good, because well every other part in this movie is like an A-list actor.
Yeah the supporting cast in this movie is insane. Like ridiculously overqualified. You have Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender playing what amount to bit parts. Well McGregor's is a bit more prominent, but he lurks in the shadows most of the movie, so even he doesn't get a lot of screentime. You also have a young Michael Angarano and Bill Paxton to round out the cast, and while both of them I would picture in a movie like this even without Soderbergh's involvement, they just add to the acting talent.
All in all, Haywire gives you what you came for and that's really the most important element of an action movie. You hire Carano to do what she does best - beat people up - and make it look like she's actually beating people up, and you have a successful movie.
3/4 stars
Showing posts with label Michael Douglas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Douglas. Show all posts
Monday, August 3, 2020
Monday, June 22, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 13
Intro
Traffic (2000)
Steven Soderbergh has made movies just about every year from 1989 until 2019, with the exception of a short break from 2014 to 2017, and even with that break he's made 30 movies. Not all 30 of his movies are considered good movie, in fact quite a bit of them are not, but he has made his fair share of critically acclaimed movies and audience favorite movies.
Somehow, in that long career, the Academy Awards decided to shove all their acclaim on him in basically one year. Erin Brokovich, a movie I didn't particularly like, was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic was also nominated for five awards, which also included Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic won three awards, Erin Brokovich only won one for Julia Roberts' performance.
Erin Brokovich did not deserve all the acclaim, but Traffic absolutely did. This is the only Oscar he's got for Best Directing and he directed the shit out of this movie. There are three disparate, mostly unconnected stories attempting to encompass the entirety of the impact of the drug trade through those three stories. You have the rich dealers, the drug users, and the incompetent attempts to win a drug war.
It is one of the few long Soderbergh movies - it clocks in at 147 minutes - but actually it's about as short as it can be. Soderbergh seems to have essentially the same mindset as I do - he does not want to make long movies, but given the scope of Traffic, it's inevitable it will run a little longer. I admire the fact that it's only 147 minutes actually because you could very easily make this longer and the movie would suffer for it.
One of the most obvious directing choices he makes is that he puts a different color scheme for each story. This was Soderbergh's way of making the audience instantly aware of which story they're following, and it's highly effective. Even if you're not aware of what he's doing, your brain can pick up on that stuff subconsciously, which makes the movie feel less confusing than it could be.
The cast is of course great, because no great movie has a bad cast. I'm a little surprise Benicio del Tor won for Best Supporting Actor, not because he's not good, but just because it's not really that flashy? Like I get why Roberts won, the Academy loves performances like hers, but he's not like obviously doing a better job than the rest of the cast? He did have to learn a new accent for the part and I like him in just about every movie I've seen him in, so no complaints he got his dues at some point.
This is just a big cast with lots of names who are normally good in their parts. You have Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, who are married in real life but oddly I don't think they shared one scene together in this movie. Kind of funny. Don Cheadle, saddled with a stereotype in Out of Sight and a bad accent in the Ocean's movies, finally gets a part that does him justice here. His partner, Luis Guzman, pretty much plays the same part he always does and I dare you to dislike that part. Topher Grace was hired to play Topher Grace. I would name more, but there are a shit ton of well-known actors in this movie, at least known to me.
Traffic was one of the few Soderbergh movies I had seen before, and I don't think I fully appreciated it the first time so I'm glad I got to rewatch it. If any of his movies were to be critically acclaimed, I understand why it was the one and it's well-deserved acclaim.
4/4 stars
Traffic (2000)
Steven Soderbergh has made movies just about every year from 1989 until 2019, with the exception of a short break from 2014 to 2017, and even with that break he's made 30 movies. Not all 30 of his movies are considered good movie, in fact quite a bit of them are not, but he has made his fair share of critically acclaimed movies and audience favorite movies.
Somehow, in that long career, the Academy Awards decided to shove all their acclaim on him in basically one year. Erin Brokovich, a movie I didn't particularly like, was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic was also nominated for five awards, which also included Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic won three awards, Erin Brokovich only won one for Julia Roberts' performance.
Erin Brokovich did not deserve all the acclaim, but Traffic absolutely did. This is the only Oscar he's got for Best Directing and he directed the shit out of this movie. There are three disparate, mostly unconnected stories attempting to encompass the entirety of the impact of the drug trade through those three stories. You have the rich dealers, the drug users, and the incompetent attempts to win a drug war.
It is one of the few long Soderbergh movies - it clocks in at 147 minutes - but actually it's about as short as it can be. Soderbergh seems to have essentially the same mindset as I do - he does not want to make long movies, but given the scope of Traffic, it's inevitable it will run a little longer. I admire the fact that it's only 147 minutes actually because you could very easily make this longer and the movie would suffer for it.
One of the most obvious directing choices he makes is that he puts a different color scheme for each story. This was Soderbergh's way of making the audience instantly aware of which story they're following, and it's highly effective. Even if you're not aware of what he's doing, your brain can pick up on that stuff subconsciously, which makes the movie feel less confusing than it could be.
The cast is of course great, because no great movie has a bad cast. I'm a little surprise Benicio del Tor won for Best Supporting Actor, not because he's not good, but just because it's not really that flashy? Like I get why Roberts won, the Academy loves performances like hers, but he's not like obviously doing a better job than the rest of the cast? He did have to learn a new accent for the part and I like him in just about every movie I've seen him in, so no complaints he got his dues at some point.
This is just a big cast with lots of names who are normally good in their parts. You have Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, who are married in real life but oddly I don't think they shared one scene together in this movie. Kind of funny. Don Cheadle, saddled with a stereotype in Out of Sight and a bad accent in the Ocean's movies, finally gets a part that does him justice here. His partner, Luis Guzman, pretty much plays the same part he always does and I dare you to dislike that part. Topher Grace was hired to play Topher Grace. I would name more, but there are a shit ton of well-known actors in this movie, at least known to me.
Traffic was one of the few Soderbergh movies I had seen before, and I don't think I fully appreciated it the first time so I'm glad I got to rewatch it. If any of his movies were to be critically acclaimed, I understand why it was the one and it's well-deserved acclaim.
4/4 stars
Monday, May 11, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 2
Intro
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
Behind the Candelabra (2013)
When I started this project, I assumed that I would watch his movies in order. Due to his second and third movies being unavailable to me (among a couple others), I was stuck until I realized I did not need to watch his movies in order. So I decided to watch his last movie after his first movie. Of course by the time I have actually posted this thing, this is no longer his last movie. But it was at the time of this writing to give you an idea how long ago I wrote this.
Behind the Candelabra is a biopic TV movie, but to define it as a TV movie is slightly inaccurate. For all intents and purposes, it's a movie that came out in theaters. I only mention that because a TV movie conspires images of shoddy production values, second-rate actors, and forgettable fare. The slogan "It's not TV, it's HBO" is mostly accurate. HBO Films has released a few interesting biopics in the past few years (Bessie, Get on Up) and Behind the Candelabra is one of them.
If I wasn't doing this project, I would never have watched this movie. In order to watch a biopic, you either need to find the main subject compelling or you do it for the performances. That's pretty much it. I am not altogether that interested in Liberace's life. I didn't see him play - he died before I was even born. I don't listen to his music or watch his TV appearances or whatever else he did to become famous.
Soderbergh set out to not make the typical biopic film when he made Behind the Candelabra. He was in talks with Douglas back when he was making Traffic in 2000, but couldn't find an appropriate angle. In 2008, he decided to adapt the book by Scott Thorson as an angle for the movie and tapped Richard LaGravenese to write the screenplay. LaGravenese was a seasoned veteran of writing movies, having written 13 movies by that point. He doesn't seem to be a particularly good writer. He doesn't seem bad either. But his filmography is full of mediocre movies or worse. So I'm intrigued by that choice. Admirably, both Douglas and Damon signed on quickly and stuck with the movie as Soderbergh struggled to get it made over the next five years (because it was "too gay"). HBO Films picked it up and they made it for $23 million over a 30-day period.
To Soderbergh's credit, this isn't really a biopic film. It is and it isn't. It's about the relationship between Liberace and his much, much younger companion of about five years. This film was clearly made with a love for Liberace. There are a few scenes of just Liberace playing in front of a crowd. It's what drew Scott into his feelings for Liberace in the first place.
The true stars of this movie are the people behind the makeup department. Making a 44-year-old Matt Damon look not ridiculous as a 17-year-old is truly impressive work. It's not explicitly stated that he's 17 which probably helps. He definitely looks noticeably younger than normal and with certain mannerisms, Damon is convincing as at least being naive and young, which is basically all that is needed. Scott also gets plastic surgery which had the effect of making him look much older and the age differential is much less distracting. Douglas also had considerable makeup put on him throughout the film to make him credible as the Liberace. More than most films, makeup was especially important for believability.
If you're not interested in Liberace - and he's a colorful, larger-than-life character so I imagine I might be in the minority in my disinterest - then the performances are enough to make it worth watching. I did not know Douglas was capable of the performance he gives here. It's not that I thought he was a bad actor. He kind of reminded me of Tom Cruise in that he gives good performances but you never forget he's Michael Douglas. But I have only seen a small portion of his films so that preconception was clearly inaccurate. Much like Damon needed the mannerisms to make himself believable as a young guy, Douglas had the arguably much more difficult task of needing to have the mannerisms of a legend. Put it this way: if you told me before this movie that Damon was playing a teenager for most of the movie and Douglas was playing Liberace, I would never have believed it would have worked. But it does because of the makeup and the acting.
Basing this off only two films (and the other four I've seen), I really appreciate just how competent of a filmmaker Soderbergh is. He has two essential traits that typically are underrated in a director: as a storyteller and the performances. I guess I just appreciated the storytelling aspect more because sometimes a director can get lost when covering a large period of time, but the story here is coherent and makes sense. He makes good decisions on what to keep, what to leave out, and how much time to spend on it. Also, directors don't quite get enough credit for getting good performances out of their actors. It's why good actors sometimes give bad performances in certain movies: bad direction. Everyone in Sex, Lies, and Videotape gave a great performance and the same holds true here.
The movie begins with a director's touch. The screen is blurry, and you can make out a bar scene. It gradually focuses and becomes clear as you see Bob Black across the bar. Scott's eyes - and our eyes - are opened to a whole new world of possibilities and he conveys that with that shot. Soderbergh also has a few extended scenes of Liberace playing the piano and the audience reaction. Soderbergh is clearly a fan. These scenes effectively mesmerize the audience as they presumably mesmerized his live audiences back in 1977. He goes to quick cuts while the music reaches a crescendo, planting in your mind an amazement each time his piano strikes a new chord. There's no need to understand why Scott was drawn to Liberace in those moments.
Soderbergh also effectively hides the low budget that he was given. At least, for a guy with as much opulence and wealth as Liberace, it might be kind of difficult to show that with a moderately low budget (Douglas and Damon had to have taken a fraction of what they usually cost for this movie). Two examples are when he shows a jet flying in the air and the montage of Scott getting a bunch of expensive things. The former was shot like it was in a cloud, which made it easier to blur the fact that he couldn't afford an aerial shot of a jet. There's nothing noticeable about the latter (except a cool diagonal-from-the-ground shot of the front of an expensive white car with Las Vegas buildings in the background) except that it probably wasn't easy to portray a lavish lifestyle with the budget he had. I will give particular due to the location scout who picked out the house where most of this movie is set.
Lastly, he shot the "Scott is high out of his mind" sequences on handheld, jarring the viewer into Scott's state of mind. Shaky cam isn't my favorite filming technique, but when done with a purpose, it's extremely effective. Speaking of drugs, Rob Lowe is in this and he is fucking HILARIOUS. His character is the plastic surgeon who operates on both Scott and Liberace, and he plays all of his scenes like he is high out of his mind. The makeup team once again does excellent work as his mere appearance creates laughs on its own.
Well that was more words than I planned to write. I really wasn't expecting to go into this much detail with these posts. I can't guarantee that will continue as I'm sort of beholden to where the words take me. I'm not going to stretch these posts out if I have nothing more to say. Behind the Candelabra is a good film with good performances. If you're interested in seeing Douglas play Liberace - and that's honestly a good hook - you'll probably enjoy this film.
2.5/4 stars
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
When I started this project, I assumed that I would watch his movies in order. Due to his second and third movies being unavailable to me (among a couple others), I was stuck until I realized I did not need to watch his movies in order. So I decided to watch his last movie after his first movie. Of course by the time I have actually posted this thing, this is no longer his last movie. But it was at the time of this writing to give you an idea how long ago I wrote this.
Behind the Candelabra is a biopic TV movie, but to define it as a TV movie is slightly inaccurate. For all intents and purposes, it's a movie that came out in theaters. I only mention that because a TV movie conspires images of shoddy production values, second-rate actors, and forgettable fare. The slogan "It's not TV, it's HBO" is mostly accurate. HBO Films has released a few interesting biopics in the past few years (Bessie, Get on Up) and Behind the Candelabra is one of them.
If I wasn't doing this project, I would never have watched this movie. In order to watch a biopic, you either need to find the main subject compelling or you do it for the performances. That's pretty much it. I am not altogether that interested in Liberace's life. I didn't see him play - he died before I was even born. I don't listen to his music or watch his TV appearances or whatever else he did to become famous.
Soderbergh set out to not make the typical biopic film when he made Behind the Candelabra. He was in talks with Douglas back when he was making Traffic in 2000, but couldn't find an appropriate angle. In 2008, he decided to adapt the book by Scott Thorson as an angle for the movie and tapped Richard LaGravenese to write the screenplay. LaGravenese was a seasoned veteran of writing movies, having written 13 movies by that point. He doesn't seem to be a particularly good writer. He doesn't seem bad either. But his filmography is full of mediocre movies or worse. So I'm intrigued by that choice. Admirably, both Douglas and Damon signed on quickly and stuck with the movie as Soderbergh struggled to get it made over the next five years (because it was "too gay"). HBO Films picked it up and they made it for $23 million over a 30-day period.
To Soderbergh's credit, this isn't really a biopic film. It is and it isn't. It's about the relationship between Liberace and his much, much younger companion of about five years. This film was clearly made with a love for Liberace. There are a few scenes of just Liberace playing in front of a crowd. It's what drew Scott into his feelings for Liberace in the first place.
The true stars of this movie are the people behind the makeup department. Making a 44-year-old Matt Damon look not ridiculous as a 17-year-old is truly impressive work. It's not explicitly stated that he's 17 which probably helps. He definitely looks noticeably younger than normal and with certain mannerisms, Damon is convincing as at least being naive and young, which is basically all that is needed. Scott also gets plastic surgery which had the effect of making him look much older and the age differential is much less distracting. Douglas also had considerable makeup put on him throughout the film to make him credible as the Liberace. More than most films, makeup was especially important for believability.
If you're not interested in Liberace - and he's a colorful, larger-than-life character so I imagine I might be in the minority in my disinterest - then the performances are enough to make it worth watching. I did not know Douglas was capable of the performance he gives here. It's not that I thought he was a bad actor. He kind of reminded me of Tom Cruise in that he gives good performances but you never forget he's Michael Douglas. But I have only seen a small portion of his films so that preconception was clearly inaccurate. Much like Damon needed the mannerisms to make himself believable as a young guy, Douglas had the arguably much more difficult task of needing to have the mannerisms of a legend. Put it this way: if you told me before this movie that Damon was playing a teenager for most of the movie and Douglas was playing Liberace, I would never have believed it would have worked. But it does because of the makeup and the acting.
Basing this off only two films (and the other four I've seen), I really appreciate just how competent of a filmmaker Soderbergh is. He has two essential traits that typically are underrated in a director: as a storyteller and the performances. I guess I just appreciated the storytelling aspect more because sometimes a director can get lost when covering a large period of time, but the story here is coherent and makes sense. He makes good decisions on what to keep, what to leave out, and how much time to spend on it. Also, directors don't quite get enough credit for getting good performances out of their actors. It's why good actors sometimes give bad performances in certain movies: bad direction. Everyone in Sex, Lies, and Videotape gave a great performance and the same holds true here.
The movie begins with a director's touch. The screen is blurry, and you can make out a bar scene. It gradually focuses and becomes clear as you see Bob Black across the bar. Scott's eyes - and our eyes - are opened to a whole new world of possibilities and he conveys that with that shot. Soderbergh also has a few extended scenes of Liberace playing the piano and the audience reaction. Soderbergh is clearly a fan. These scenes effectively mesmerize the audience as they presumably mesmerized his live audiences back in 1977. He goes to quick cuts while the music reaches a crescendo, planting in your mind an amazement each time his piano strikes a new chord. There's no need to understand why Scott was drawn to Liberace in those moments.
Soderbergh also effectively hides the low budget that he was given. At least, for a guy with as much opulence and wealth as Liberace, it might be kind of difficult to show that with a moderately low budget (Douglas and Damon had to have taken a fraction of what they usually cost for this movie). Two examples are when he shows a jet flying in the air and the montage of Scott getting a bunch of expensive things. The former was shot like it was in a cloud, which made it easier to blur the fact that he couldn't afford an aerial shot of a jet. There's nothing noticeable about the latter (except a cool diagonal-from-the-ground shot of the front of an expensive white car with Las Vegas buildings in the background) except that it probably wasn't easy to portray a lavish lifestyle with the budget he had. I will give particular due to the location scout who picked out the house where most of this movie is set.
Lastly, he shot the "Scott is high out of his mind" sequences on handheld, jarring the viewer into Scott's state of mind. Shaky cam isn't my favorite filming technique, but when done with a purpose, it's extremely effective. Speaking of drugs, Rob Lowe is in this and he is fucking HILARIOUS. His character is the plastic surgeon who operates on both Scott and Liberace, and he plays all of his scenes like he is high out of his mind. The makeup team once again does excellent work as his mere appearance creates laughs on its own.
Well that was more words than I planned to write. I really wasn't expecting to go into this much detail with these posts. I can't guarantee that will continue as I'm sort of beholden to where the words take me. I'm not going to stretch these posts out if I have nothing more to say. Behind the Candelabra is a good film with good performances. If you're interested in seeing Douglas play Liberace - and that's honestly a good hook - you'll probably enjoy this film.
2.5/4 stars
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