John Carter

John Carter - Dir. Andrew Stanton (2012)

"When I saw you, I believed it was a sign that something new can come into this world."

Edgar Rice Burroughs is famed for writing two classic adventure novels, Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars. Tarzan became more familiar across the spectrum of pop culture while A Princess of Mars, the first in Burroughs' Barsoom series, became a progenitor of 20^th century sci-fi and fantasy. The name of its lead protagonist, John Carter, a Civil War soldier mysteriously transported to Mars, will resonate with genre fans. Sadly, that same name is now synonymous with one of the biggest box office disasters in movie history.

An adaptation of A Princess of Mars had been in development for decades as far back as 1931 when Bob Clampett of Looney Tunes fame pitched the idea of an animated version to Burroughs. In 2004, Robert Rodriguez was attached to direct a live-action film at Paramount with Frank Frazetta as conceptual artist. The project passed through the hands of Kerry Conron, the writer/director of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Jon Favreau, who ultimately abandoned the picture to helm Iron Man. The rights passed back to Disney, who previously held them back in the 80's. Pixar's Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E), a die-hard fan of the books, enthusiastically stepped into the director's chair and co-wrote the screenplay with fellow Pixar employee Mark Andrews and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon.

Another Pixar peer, Brad Bird, knocked it out of the park when he made his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which had been released four months earlier. But, Stanton found himself well outside his comfort zone, requiring extensive reshoots for the troubled production. Negative buzz built around the film with the budget estimated to be $250 million with a marketing campaign rumored to add another $100 million on top of that. That same marketing campaign did nothing to stave off the negative buzz that was quickly building. Stanton stubbornly took charge of the advertising that included lackluster posters and uneventful trailers. The generic title didn't help matters either. A Princess of Mars became John Carter of Mars to distance itself from being a frilly girls' movie. Mars was eventually ditched because movies with the word 'Mars' in their title did poorly. Disney was still reeling from another monumental flop in Mars Needs Moms, which led to the shutdown of Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers Digital and the cancellation of his planned 3D remake of Yellow Submarine. Thus, we were left with plain old John Carter, which makes the whole thing sound like the story of Jimmy Carter's cousin who works as a CPA.

No, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a former captain in the Confederate Army now mining for gold in the Arizona desert. While being press ganged into a Union regiment by Col. Powell (Bryan Cranston), they are ambushed by the Apache. Carter seeks refuge in a cave where he somehow wakes up on Mars, which the natives refer to as Barsoom. Due to the lower gravity, Carter is blessed with superior strength and the ability to leap great distances. He is taken prisoner by the Tharks, a tribe of green skinned, multi-limbed Martians, led by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe). Carter is soon pulled into a war between red skinned humans from the cities of Helium and Zodanga. The peaceful city of Helium is led Tardos Mors (Ciarán Hinds) and his daughter, the titular princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). The Zodangans follow the ruthless Sab Than (Dominic West), who wields a powerful force known as the 9^th Ray given to him by clandestine beings known as Therns, led by Matai Shang (Mark Strong).

John Carter may have been cursed with being too faithful to the source material. There is an inordinate amount of plot to wade through as the film laboriously details the entire geopolitical history of the planet. It doesn't help that you need a scorecard to keep track of all the characters with their hard to remember names. Secondly, Stanton does little to differentiate John Carter from other sci-fi spectacles of recent years. While the original book may have spawned Avatar and Star Wars, in the eyes of the general public, John Carter looks like a rip-off. It has the same storyline about an Earthling saving an alien race, a gladiatorial battle recalling one from Attack of the Clones, and speeder bikes ala Return of the Jedi. Worse yet, its mix of science fiction and Western elements is superficially reminiscent of Cowboys & Aliens with a hero, who looks too much like the one from Prince of Persia, both big budget failures no one should associate with.

Taylor Kitsch has received a huge push as a leading man in 2012. While he's given fine performances as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights, he's little more than a bland hunk of meat as John Carter. Lynn Collins fares better as her Dejah Thoris is more than just a scantily-clad princess; she is a scholar and a warrior. It's easy to see why Collins jumped to the forefront as a possible candidate to play Wonder Woman. But, the best character by far happens to be Woola, a swift six-legged beast resembling a cross between a bulldog and a lizard. It says a lot when a CGI creation is far more interesting than any living, breathing human being.

Disney made headlines when it posted a $200 million loss on the production of John Carter with Walt Disney Studios' head Rich Ross resigning a month later. John Carter doesn't deserve to be placed alongside notorious bombs like Ishtar or Heaven's Gate. It has the tone of old school adventure serials with a strong opening in which Stanton emulates John Ford and Sergio Leone. John Carter ultimately lacks the sense of wonder and majesty necessary to make it a sci-fi classic.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

The Messenger

The Messenger - Dir. Oren Moverman (2009)


There has been a spate of socially conscious films focusing on the war in the Middle East and the current socio-political climate. Rendition, Stop Loss, Redacted, Lions For Lambs, and Home of the Brave, to name a few. The majority of these films have flopped financially from audiences already inundated with these issues on the news. They’ve flopped critically due to filmmakers shoving their own agendas down the throats of whoever was unfortunate enough to sit through the picture. 2009 saw a pair of relevant films that won critics over and were certainly deserving of wider release. I’m speaking of The Hurt Locker, which has made its way onto dozens of “Best Of” lists and a sure contender for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and The Messenger.

Ben Foster stars as Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery who is sent home after being injured in Iraq. He returns not to a hero’s welcome, but to a sparsely decorated apartment, finding some catharsis listening to loud heavy metal music. His girlfriend, Kelly (Jena Malone), has moved on with her life and plans to wed another man.

With his tour of duty almost up, the Army assigns him to the Casualty Notification Team. Alongside Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), a recovering alcoholic who narrowly missed seeing action in Desert Storm, SSgt. Montgomery has the unenviable task of informing family members that their loved one was killed in action. The Notification Team treats their duties the only way they can…with military precision. They are to get in and get out. They refer to the family only as NOKs (Next of Kin) and are not allowed to make physical contact at all. They follow a script that is specific in the language used. Soft terms like “passed away” or “no longer with us” are not to be spoken.

It is an emotionally draining job for SSgt. Montgomery still struggling with the traumatic experience that took him off the battlefield. The team’s heartbreaking news is met with inconsolable sadness or even blind rage. Montgomery and Stone are taken aback when the widowed Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton) reacts with surprising stoicism. She manages to hold it together and even shakes their hands, knowing the difficult position they are put in. SSgt. Montgomery disobeys orders and begins spending time with Olivia and her son.

Writer/director Oren Moverman previously co-wrote Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan-inspired I’m Not There and once served in the Israeli army. The Messenger is his directorial debut and is an assured first effort that heralds the arrival of a filmmaker with plenty of potential. For the notification scenes, Moverman abstained from the rehearsal process and didn’t inform his leads who they would meet or how they would react. He allows the camera to observe unobtrusively. If there is camera movement during these sequences, it’s slight and almost documentary-like.

The acting is strong all around with Ben Foster bringing his usual intensity and Woody Harrelson deftly blending his flair for the comedic and the dramatic. Samantha Morton shines in her role as the newly widowed Olivia. It’s a subtle, low-key performance. She hits all the right notes without resorting to the melodramatic histrionics of the usual Oscar bait performance. Morton has proven to be one of the best actresses of the past decade her roles in Minority Report, In America, Control and even her cartoony portrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots in the bombastic Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

The Messenger isn’t concerned with pushing a pedantic, political agenda for the left or the right. The film is all about the human element which is why it succeeds.

Rating: ***

Mister Lonely

Mister Lonely - Dir. Harmony Korine (2008)


Harmony Korine burst onto the cinematic landscape as the co-writer to the controversial, unflinching Kids. He made his debut as director with Gummo, a redneck David Lynch-esque look in a small Southern town. He followed that up with Julien Donkey Boy, Korine’s entry into the Dogme 95 movement. Both films cemented Korine’s status as a polarizing filmmaker. Some critics lauded him as a unique voice others considered his films incomprehensible and reprehensible. Korine’s career was derailed by drug problems and after a nine-year gap, he returns with Mister Lonely, co-written with his brother Avi.

Mister Lonely opens with a scene of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) riding around a go-kart track on a yellow mini-bike as Bobby Vinton’s hit song plays over the credits. This is exactly the kind of thing Korine is the master of, finding beauty in the strange and unsettling. This faux-King of Pop earns a living in Paris and meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) while performing at an old folks’ home. Marilyn invites Michael to the Scottish countryside where she and other celebrity look-alikes have formed their own commune. They have a James Dean, a Madonna, a Buckwheat, the Three Stooges, the Pope, Queen Elizabeth II, Sammy Davis Jr., and a foul-mouthed Abraham Lincoln. Marilyn has a daughter, a doppelganger of Shirley Temple, and is married to an insensitive, piggish “Charlie Chaplin.” Oddly, their ranks also include a Little Red Riding Hood (played by Korine’s wife, Rachel). There’s also a completely unrelated subplot involving filmmaker Werner Herzog (in a scene stealing role) as a priest in South America charged with airdropping food to poor villages. One of his nuns falls out of the plane, but miraculously survives, an act of God, no doubt.

This quiet commune acts as a microcosm for our own society. The impersonators look to fashion their own idyllic fantasy world, but find the realities of life creeping in. Their sheep get sick and need to be put down. Despite creating alternate personas, those in the community still suffer from all the same neuroses and jealousies as anyone else. For all of Korine’s intentions and best laid plans, Mister Lonely feels like two incomplete films slapped together. There’s thoughtfulness and tragedy to be found as well as tedium and pretension.

Rating: **

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York - Dir. Charlie Kaufman (2008)


"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." - Jean Baudrillard

In his treatise, Simulacra and Simulations, Jean Baudrillard hypothesized that we (as a modern society) no longer live in the real world, but rather, a simulated version that has become more real than reality. That sort of rumination on the nature of reality has become a trademark in the films of Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Never has this been more prevalent than with Synecdoche, New York, the latest meta-textual mind twister by the scribe behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Synecdoche marks the directorial debut of Kaufman and it is the screenwriter’s most personal film yet. It is a film that is nearly as obfuscated as its title.

The title, Synecdoche, is both a play on the town of Schenectady and a reference to a figure of speech that is commonly used, but most people probably didn’t even know there was a name for it. There’s a lot of that going on in the film which is filled to the brim with symbolism and clever wordplay. Kaufman takes us on an existential journey of discovery that is anchored by another remarkable performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, you can’t hinge your entire movie on just one actor, no matter how great he is. That is why Kaufman surrounds Hoffman with a bevy of talented actresses, each well-known on the arthouse circuit. There´s Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, and Hope Davis. I kept waiting for Laura Linney or Illeana Douglas to pop up.

Hoffman is the alliteratively named Caden Cotard, a theater director mounting Death of a Salesman, who becomes plagued by problems both physical and emotional. Caden suffers from various ailments such as blood in his stool, muddy urine, pustules on his face, and eventually violent seizures. After a mishap with the kitchen faucet, he’s bounced around from doctor to doctor, from ophthalmologist to neurologist. None of whom can tell Caden exactly what is wrong with him. There’s a distance growing between Caden and his bohemian wife Adele Lack (Keener) who, in a uniquely Kaufman fashion, paints portraits on miniature canvases that must be viewed through a magnifying glass. One day, Adele leaves for an art exhibit in Berlin with their daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein), and never comes back.

Caden tries to find comfort from his marriage therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Davis), but all she can do is shill her own self-help books. He bounces in and out of a relationship with Hazel the box office girl (Morton sporting red hair and plenty of cleavage). Hazel, by the way, buys a house that is perpetually on fire and dumps Caden for the realtor’s son who happens to live in the basement. No longer with Hazel, Caden bounces into a second marriage with his lead actress, Claire Keen (Williams).

Things seem to be going well when Caden is given the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the ´genius grant.´ Caden sees this as an opportunity to put on a play about life, death, and everything. He rents out a massive theater that looks more like an airplane hangar and casts Claire as his star, a thinly veiled version of Hazel who eventually returns to Caden as his assistant. The years roll on, the cast grows by the hundreds, and the set grows into a scale replica of the city itself. The lines between reality and the play bleed further when Caden seeks out an actor to play himself. He finds Sammy (Tom Noonan) who has been observing Caden for a long time. He can be spotted in the background in several scenes. It gets even more confusing when Caden hires an actress (Watson) to play the Hazel to Sammy´s Caden. Then, Sammy hires an actor to play Caden while he directs him as Caden while the real Caden directs him. Err…at least; I think that’s how it’s supposed to go.

Time also plays an important factor. In the world of Synecdoche, it moves in a nebulous fashion. For Caden and the audience, minutes may pass, but it has actually been years. Months go by without notice in between bites at the breakfast table.

Kaufman has weaved a surreal world with idiosyncratic touches that might make Luis Bunuel proud. Synecdoche isn’t quite as fantastical as Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine. While there has always been an underlying layer of tragedy in Kaufman’s films, Synecdoche is far more bleak and pessimistic. Caden is a dying man desperate to leave his mark on the world. At the same time, his immense autobiographical play is a means for him to observe firsthand what he has done wrong with his loves and his life. On a more intimate level, Caden is a father searching not just for meaning in his life, but for a long-lost daughter. In one of the film´s more powerful scenes, Caden discovers an adult Olive (now working as a living tableau of tattoo art) dancing naked in a glass booth. He pounds the barrier between them only to be dragged away with Olive completely oblivious to his existence.

Synecdoche isn’t without its light moments. They are sprinkled throughout the narrative with humor so deadpan that they make deadpan look like the Marx Brothers. Yet the film can’t escape the gravity of its somber tone. Restless audience members will find what little patience they have tested by the methodical pace. Synecdoche easily veers into territory that is overly pretentious and Kaufman may not have had the most objective eye when it came to trimming the fat.

I wouldn’t call Synecdoche a total loss, not by a long shot. It is true there is quite a lot to chew on, but if you can get past it all, you’ll find something meaningful. I would definitely consider Kaufman to be one of the most important writers working in Hollywood today. A straightforward plot summary leaves out so much of the sublime elements in Kaufman’s magnum opus. It is a daunting film that will need multiple viewings to catch every little detail. It should go without saying that Philip Seymour Hoffman is wonderful, backed by an ultra-talented supporting cast and the final act is oddly affecting. If Kaufman had spent a few more hours in the editing room, Synecdoche would get a more wholehearted recommendation.

Rating: ** ½