The Screengrab : rian johnson

Screengrab Review: "The Brothers Bloom"

Nick Schager — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:00:00 GMT

The Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson’s follow-up to his kiddie-noir Brick, prances about with a virtual “WWWAD?” – What Would Wes Anderson Do? – emblazoned on its every frame. Taking his debut’s affectations to their ultimate extreme, Johnson’s film is a con man saga in which every symmetrical composition, whip pan, folksy song, hand-written title card, and bubbly, droll caricature seems meticulously modeled after those found in Anderson’s oeuvre, a connection furthered by the focus here on close but at-odds siblings. The duo in question are Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and his younger bro Bloom (Adrien Brody), a couple of grifters who, as an intro sequence elucidates, moved about from one foster home to another as kids, their transience the result of their preference for causing mischief such as an early ruse in which they swindled local classmates with a yarn about secret caves, hidden treasure, and fantastical creatures. Decked out in matching black suits and bowler hats that reflect their precociousness, they’re an adorable pair who grow into wannabe David Mamet protagonists, with Stephen the cocky author of their convoluted schemes, and Bloom the morose antihero who yearns for a life unscripted by his brother.

Their adventure revolves around Stephen’s plan to con a wealthy shut-in eccentric named Penelope (Rachel Weisz), the type of kook who habitually crashes her canary-yellow Ferrari and then orders a new one, and whom Stephen has chosen as a mark in order to provide Bloom with a shot at true love. Or has he? Working from his own script, Johnson immediately establishes by-now hackneyed circumstances in which nothing is as it seems, and thus nothing can be trusted, a situation meant to keep viewers on their toes but instead reduces the proceedings to a shallow, uninvolving whirligig. The Brothers Bloom wants to fool us narratively as well as trick us into caring about Bloom’s budding relationship with Penelope. Yet it fails to realize that it’s nigh impossible to invest oneself in the plight of characters who only register as fast-talking, quirkily dressed cartoons with weird hobbies, with Penelope’s raft of random, self-taught leisurely pursuits – she plays a range of musical instruments, does gymnastics, juggles chainsaws, and break-dances and DJs – conveyed via such a blatantly Anderson-esque montage that the Rushmore director could just about file a lawsuit on grounds of plagiarism.

According to Bloom, Stephen concocts cons “like dead Russians write novels,” a bit of braggadocio that isn’t confirmed by an ensuing tale that primarily amounts to a formulaic series of rug-pulling scenarios. Yet more than the particulars of the central con, which comes to include the participation of Robbie Coltrane as a buffoonish Danish accomplice and Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi as a mute animé-ish sidekick, The Brothers Bloom falters in its conception, since by forcing us to view every moment with a skeptical eye, it frustrates any opportunity to emotionally care about the madcap shenanigans engulfing the screen. Asked to embody superficially strange ciphers defined by idiosyncrasies, the cast predictably plays down to their material, the charming Weisz and soulful Brody’s performances reduced by the twee atmosphere into merely broad gestures and exaggerated expressions. From their costume-y clothes to their inflated mannerisms and dialogue, everyone involved acts like a child playing dress-up. And while Kikuchi’s too-cool-for-school mime is the story’s most gratingly cute character, it’s Johnson’s equally self-satisfied stewardship that ultimately shoulders the lion’s share of the blame. “I want an unwritten life,” may be Bloom’s recurring plea, but it’s one Johnson thoroughly rejects, his film infinitely pleased with its derivative, fanciful writerly convolutions.

Precursors: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Nick Schager — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom arrives in select theaters this weekend before opening wide later in the month, and it so egregiously apes Wes Anderson's trademark aesthetic that one would be better off simply revisiting the film in which the director’s style fully crystallized, The Royal Tenenbaums. Anderson’s J.D. Salinger-esque saga concerns the efforts of the titular clan’s estranged patriarch, Royal (Gene Hackman), to reconcile with his wife (Anjelica Huston) and three child-prodigy-turned-adult-misfit children (Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson) by telling them he’s terminally ill. He’s not, but his ruse gets him back in the door, thus instigating a reunion that's both funny and poignant, thanks in part to a cast (which also includes Danny Glover, co-writer Owen Wilson, and Bill Murray) whose performances are uniformly droll and sorrowful, but primarily due to Anderson’s expert stewardship. Through his beautifully symmetrical compositions, use of slow-motion and pop songs, and intricately detailed set design, Anderson creates a winningly idiosyncratic, hermetically sealed world in which to situate his audience. Just as impressive, however, is his ability to make his aggressively quirky characters not only agents of humor but also pathos, the film – unlike Anderson’s more uneven subsequent efforts – offering up a near-ideal balance of silliness and sentimentality.

The Rep Report (October 17-23)

Phil Nugent — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO: The annual "Shock It to Me" horror film festival--or, as its promoters prefer to call it, "a bonafide Horror Convention in a theater setting"--is running at the Castro Theater this weekend, today through Sunday. The special guests scheduled to be in attendance include Sid Haig, a favorite actor of Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie, who co-starred with Lon Chaney, Jr. in Friday night's big feature, Jack Hill's 1964 Spider Baby. The movie itself is an unclassifiable blend of spook show, camp comedy, and homegrown American low-budget weird; it opens with Lon, Jr. singing the title song and just rolls on from there. Also on hand: Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Paker, stars of the late-'60s "gothic" daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, which made a sex symbol of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a lovesick 175-year-old vampire in a Beatles wig that had been through the wash a few too many times. The festival will be showing both the movie spin-offs from the Dark Shadows TV series, as well as the original Night of the Living Dead and the first of Hammer Film's revivals of the classic Universal movie monsters, Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein. Plus the fest's "infamous Zombie-Eating Contest" and the promised giveaway of "a real dead body to a 'lucky' member of the audience each night." We don't know the details, but if this were a movie, it would probably mean that somebody was going to get to drive home with Sid Haig in the trunk of their car.

NORTH CAROLINA: The programmers of the Escapism film festival, running this weekend (today through Sunday) at the Caroline Theater, boldly step up to the challenge of finding a way to make people scared even when they're in Durham, North Carolina, A.K.A. God's country. (Some of you folks who've never been there may think that I'm kidding. I weep for you.) The lineup this year has quite the international flavor, including the fast-becoming-legendary Australian-exploitation-movie doc Not Quite Hollywood, the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, Takashi Miike's self-explanatory Sukiyaki Western: Django, and the French sci-fi film Eden Log. There's also "the U.S. Theatrical premiere of 1989’s [straight-to-video] The Punisher (in an uncut, director’s edition to boot!)" Dolph Lundgren fans will want to line up for that one, though they risk being run over by people who hate Dolph Lundgren's guts and are in an MST3K-kinda mood.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: "Spooky Movie: 2008", the third annual "Washington, D.C. international horror film festival", has begun and runs through October 20, at Cinema Arts Theatre and additional locations. Unlike other Halloween festivals that pile on the fondly remembered scare classics, this one concentrates on the new and the unknown, including lots and lots of independently produced short films. That tends to mean a lot of amateurishness, but it can also mean a lot of fresh ideas from people with their own, deeply personal notions about what's scary--and besides, if you have to see amateurish festival films, amateurish horror films can be more fun to watch than any other kind. There are also documentaries on William Castle and the mythology of the snuff film. Plus, this evening's "Grindhouse Night" festivities will be hosted, live, by "Count Gore de Vol", in a heartening show of confidence that the recent sex scandal will not endanger his bid for re-election.

LOS ANGELES: There actually are a few theaters in the country that aren't showing horror films this weekend. "Spotlight on Miklós Jancsó", from October 17 through October 24 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gives viewers a rare chance to see four films by the Hungarian master in all their CinemaScope glory. The program opens with the director's first international success, 1965's The Round-Up, and includes 1967's The Red and the White, 1968's Silence and Cry, and the 1971 Red Psalm, rated by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as perhaps the greatest Hungarian movie of all time.

CHICAGO: Last but not least, the 44th Annual Chicago International Film Festival opens today and runs through October 29. Things kick off tonight with The Brothers Bloom, writer-director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his Dashiell-Hammett-High-School first feature, Brick; it stars Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel Weisz. It's followed tomorrow by a "Black Perspectives Tribute" event honoring Sidney Poitier and Jennifer Hudson.

In Other Blogs: The Top 25 L.A. Movies

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The L.A. Times recently published their list of the 25 Best L.A. Films of the Past 25 Years. Naturally, some of the choices proved controversial (a lot of folks have trouble with the selection of Jackie Brown over Pulp Fiction, for instance), but Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule thinks it’s a decent list. “There were only eight, perhaps nine instances where I felt like the choices could have been replaced, by another film in the director’s filmography, or by another similarly themed film, or just by another movie to replace one that just shouldn't be there at all. For example, I can certainly understand why Boogie Nights is on the list, but it’s ultimately too diffuse and far more conventional than its electric style would suggest. I much prefer P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), a high-wire act in which Anderson gets more directly in touch with his inner Altman and dashes all concerns over whether anyone’s having a good time or not, planting Old Testament visual clues that subliminally lay the groundwork for that shocking rain of frogs. (And speaking of Altman, while I'm not the biggest fan of The Player, I was far happier to see it representing the great director here rather than the dour and sour Short Cuts.)”

The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off yesterday, and Spoutblog has the scoop on the film Paris Hilton doesn’t want you to see. “Paris Hilton and her team have successfully pressured the Toronto International Film Festival into canceling all but one screening of Adria Petty’s Paris, Not France, a documentary about the celebrity heiress which ‘attempts to explore the Paris phenomenon and how it defines this moment in culture’ and is also ‘modeled after the 1960s it-girl film Darling.’ Though the film’s TIFF info page still lists three public screenings, TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers confirmed to me that Paris will screen only once at the festival. ‘From my standpoint, of course, I wish we could do additional screenings,’ Powers told me in an email. ‘But this is certainly a better option than not showing the film at all.’… As Steven Zeitchik joked when he first blogged about this, ‘the mind dances at what kind of footage can be seen so newly shameful to Paris Hilton, the enfant teribles whose entire reputation is based on shamelesness.’”

Cinematical is also on the scene in Toronto, and they’ve had a look at The Brothers Bloom. “Long awaited in the wake of his 2005 debut Brick, Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom is a magic trick of a film; the second it's over, you want to see it again so you can try to catch how you were tricked, but you also want to see it again so you can return to the joy and wonder of being wrapped up in the nimble, deck-shuffling hands of a born showman. Watching it at first, some of The Brothers Bloom's creative and thematic elements seem like they're on loan from Paul Thomas Anderson (opening narration by Ricky Jay, pop-whiz-bang camera work, the troubled-but-tender relationship between the two brothers) while others feel as if they've been cribbed from Wes Anderson (deadpan confessions, whimsical set design, a parallel-universe setting where people still travel to Europe by steamship). The truth is, as much as The Brothers Bloom may feel like it's cribbing from other films at first, this is Rian Johnson's movie, and even if my more dreary and discerning critical faculties told me the final act goes on, perhaps, a beat too long, my inner moviegoer was sitting bolt upright, smiling, bright-eyed and carried away.”

At Some Came Running, Glenn Kenny makes an interesting connection between Road House and a David Lynch movie. No, not that Road House. “The terrifying physical contrast between the behemoth and a very delicate woman brought to mind a scene from David Lynch's under-appreciated (to my mind, at least) 1992 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. This scene, too, is set in a roadhouse of sorts—the back room of the Bang Bang Bar, which actually, if one line of dialogue is to be believed, is located on the Canadian side of the Canada/U.S. border the structure sits on. As it happens, the road house of Negulsco's film is located near the Canadian border; this turns into a significant plot point once Lily and Pete are trying to escape from the psychotic Jefty, played by Richard Widmark with his then-trademark tetchy intensity… I wonder if Lynch had ever seen Negulsco's film. Some shards of it, it seems, lodged their way into the world of Twin Peaks. The road house as portrayed in the '48 picture is a piece of bygone mid-century Americana that I've always found fascinating—it looks way fun. It's got a bar, a restaurant, a sporting-goods store, and a bowling alley!”

And in List-o-Mania this week, Geekdad weighs in with 10 Movies Needing a Muppet Remake. This guy has put way too much thought into this. “Casablanca - The initial temptation is to cast Kermit as Rick, but I think Kermit is better as the utterly noble Victor Laszlo, with Miss Piggy as Ilsa by his side. Gonzo is much better as Rick, with his internal, and external, conflict between love, revenge, and the right thing to do. Rowlf is Sam, for who else could be? Captain Renault is a tough part to play, but I think Fozzie has the right cavalier attitude for the role.”

Screengrab’s Back-To-School Round-Up: The Top 18+ High School Films (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

FAME (1980)

God, this is embarrassing. What the hell am I doing? There are so many other good high school movies to write about...much cooler cult and foreign gems like Gregory’s Girl, Flirting (featuring what’s still my favorite Nicole Kidman performance in a supporting role as, yes, an imperious blonde queen bee), Foxes, Can’t Hardly Wait, etc., etc. But, no...as much as I enjoyed those other films, Alan Parker’s musical tribute to New York City’s High School For The Performing Arts is far closer to my theater geek heart and more in need of bloggy defense and rehabilitation. So forget, if you will, the dorky TV version and the horrific stage adaptation (though both, I know, have their defenders). Pretend you didn’t have Irene Cara’s title song jammed down your throat at a zillion amateur talent shows and karaoke bars, and pretend you never saw all those people dancing on cars in the movie’s signature motif. (And, for God’s sake, purge that whole “take your top off, Coco” scene from your memory banks.) What’s left, if you can see past all that, is a believably gritty urban high school full of believably gifted, troubled kids from all walks of life, struggling with dreams they’re stuck with for good, even if they don’t have the resources, talent or luck to follow them. And that’s why “Out Here on My Own” still chokes me up after all these years, no matter what the haters say.

GHOST WORLD (2004)

Ghost World took a lot of chances. Would Dan Clowes' spooky ability to relay the odd rhythms and cadences of teenage girls translate to the screen? Would his visual sensibility carry over? Would the insertion of Seymour, meant to be an audience surrogate, backfire? Would they get the casting of Enid and Rebecca right? Was Terry Zwigoff, who'd never carried off a non-documentary feature film before, the right man for the job? Audiences, who at first consisted mostly of fans of Clowes' work, were breathless throughout the whole movie. Ghost World told the tale of two alienated high school girls and how their lives, which consist largely of mocking a culture they are certainly of but decidedly not in, change when one of them encounters an older man who never fully recovered from the repelled alienation they feel as teens. On the cusp of making major decisions about what to do after high school – decisions that will affect their lives and their friendship – Thora Birch's Enid and Scarlett Johansson's Rebecca begin to drift in decidedly different ways, and for all the recognition shocks the audience receives from the hopeless, hapless eccentric Seymour (expertly played by Steve Buscemi), it's the friendship between the two girls that maintains the movie's emotional and moral weight.

SHOW ME LOVE (1997)

Some aspects of high school transcend nation, era and — yes — sexual orientation. (Who among us had a firm handle on the latter in high school?) Locker-lined hallways, the mind-numbing alcoholized boredom of being 15 in a small town. The way even the popular kids feel like outsiders. Oh, and the redemptive power of chocolate milk. Show Me Love, or "Fucking Åmål" as it was called in Swedish, tells the story of a romance between the reckless hot popular girl and the nerdy outsider girl, both with a burning wish to get the hell out of their one-horse town. This film took Lukas Moodyson from little-known Swedish teen-prodigy poet to indie director of world renown.

BRICK (2006)

Writer-director Rian Johnson's adolescent noir grew out of Johnson's passion for Dashiell Hammett; he came up with the high school setting as a way of giving a fresh spin to what might have been very familiar genre material. It actually does more than that for the movie, because of the way that the physical and social constraints of high school life seem to comment on the hidden traps and doomed undercurrents of noir and the way that the antique hard-boiled slang that Johnson carries over from the work of his literary hero shades into the semi-decipherable slang of the young characters. Brick is also distinguished by the performances of an impressive array of proven and up-and-coming talent, including Lukas Haas, Emile de Raven, Noah Fleiss, and especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose work here, along with his starring roles in Mysterious Skin and The Lookout, confirm his status as maybe the most excitingly unpredictable American movie actor who's still in his mid-twenties.

Click Here For Part One, Part Two & Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Sundberg, Phil Nugent

Screengrab Fall Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Yesterday, my colleague Scott Von Doviak dared all of his fellow Screengrab staffers to weigh in on our most anticipated movies of the fall. Given my lifelong inability to resist a dare (which resulted in my eating far too many unspeakable things in my younger days) I’ve decided to answer the call. Craving an additional challenge- and hoping to spotlight the wide array of good and bad releases coming soon to a theatre near me- I’ve decided to eliminate all contenders that appeared in Scott’s preview. Here goes:

3 UP

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – for years, David Fincher has been one of Hollywood’s most gifted filmmakers, with last year’s Zodiac his best film yet. With Button, Fincher turns his camera on an honest-to-goodness work of literature (an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, fer chrissakes), but don’t expect a workmanlike Tradition of Quality-style adaptation. Button re-teams Fincher with Brad Pitt, who continues to improve as an actor by seeking out adventurous material, and this story gives him his biggest challenge yet, not only playing a character from childhood through old age, but playing him while aging in reverse. It’s the kind of story that requires a visionary to pull off, and I can think of few better candidates for the job than Fincher. Every year, there’s at least one high-profile movie that I actively root for to be great, and this year, it’s Benjamin Button.

2. A Christmas Tale – Unlike Benjamin Button, the latest film by the great French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin is something of a known quantity, premiering at Cannes to almost universal acclaim. But even if it hadn’t already screened, my hopes for this one would be through the roof. In the past few years, Desplechin has become one of my favorite filmmakers, and he’s coming off his finest work yet, 2004’s Kings and Queen. Factor in that Christmas Tale re-unites four of that film’s stars- Matthieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Devos, and Hippolyte Girardot- and I’m sold. That the film’s IMDb recommends the Steve Martin remake of Cheaper By the Dozen shouldn’t be held against it.

3. The Brothers Bloom – as I stated in my Trailer Review earlier this week, I’m in the pro-Brick camp, so naturally I’m excited for Rian Johnson’s follow-up project. But he’s also assembled an irresistible cast (I love Brody and Ruffalo as brothers, and Rachel Weisz is always best when she plays daffy), so I’m extra-stoked for this one. Could we be witnessing the rise of a major American filmmaker? Here’s hoping.

3 DOWN

1. Defiance – tell me if you’ve heard this one before: Ed Zwick directs a film about an outsider who aids a group of minorities in fighting about those who oppress them. That the minorities are Jews and the time period is during World War II only makes Defiance’s Oscar-grubbing even more blatant. Thanks, but no thanks.

2. RockNRolla – you know, I was under the impression that the abject failure of Revolver coupled with the divorce from Madonna meant that the moviegoing public would get a break from Guy Ritchie. Alas, that beautiful dream wasn’t to be. It was nice while it lasted though…

3. Bedtime Stories – Adam Sandler’s comic persona might be juvenile, but he’s always been at his best at unleashing his rage onscreen in decidedly un-kid-friendly ways. Less successful are his attempts to warm the heart, which makes the idea of a Sandler family comedy all the more misguided. The presence of Adam (The Pacifier) Shankman in the director’s chair doesn’t inspire much confidence either.

WILD CARD

It’s not as odd as Scott’s choice of Oliver Stone’s W. (what could be?), but I’m pretty conflicted about Quantum of Solace. What made Casino Royale so damn good is that it combined a kickass James Bond thrill ride with a legitimately compelling story. But although hiring director Marc Forster hints that the producers might be trying for that same balance of action and drama, I have my doubts that lightning will strike twice. Add to this Forster’s lack of experience in the action genre, plus the fact that unlike Casino this one doesn’t have an Ian Fleming novel to provide a solid narrative foundation, and Quantum has a lot to live up to. Sure, it might be diverting, but after Casino Royale, that just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. However, I’d love nothing more than to be wrong about this.

Trailer Review: The Brothers Bloom

Paul Clark — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Rian Johnson’s stylish high school noir Brick was one of the more divisive releases of 2006, its purplish patois winning as many detractors as fans. I count myself in the latter group, so naturally I’m excited to Johnson’s new film The Brothers Bloom, and this trailer makes me even more so. Based on the trailer, the film looks to be a Richard Lester-style globetrotting caper that Steven Soderbergh has never quite been able to get quite right in his Ocean’s franchise. But it’s the performers who have me really intrigued, with Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as the titular con artist brothers, and Rachel Weisz playing charmingly goofy as their eccentric mark. It’s also nice to see Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi as something a long way removed from the victimhood of her previous American film, as the group’s “muscle.” I have yet to hear much about the film itself, but based on its pedigree and now this trailer, I’d place it among my most-anticipated movies of the fall.

Morning Deal Report: The Travolta-ing of Pelham 1 2 3

Peter Smith — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

John Travolta will play the villain in the Tony Scott/Denzel Washington remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Who knows, maybe he'll swing it.

Good news for those who just can't get enough Underworld: more Underworld. Apparently for the first time we'll experience the Underworld universe through the eyes of the Lycans. I feel a little more complete inside.

Actual good news: The Brothers Bloom, the second movie from Brick director Rian Johnson (well, third if you count Ninja Ko), got a distributor. This one is about con men, but I'm very curious about the details.

Ed Burns's new movie will be released on iTunes. Now that's low-budj filmmaking.

— Peter Smith