The Conversations: Alexander Payne

I have a backlog of 2011 reviews in me that I'll need to attack in early 2012, but I'm pleased to close out the year with The Conversations: Alexander Payne, which is now live at The House Next Door. In this edition, Ed Howard and I discuss the writer/director's five feature films, from Citizen Ruth to The Descendants, and his short from Paris Je T'Aime. Along the way, we regularly engage with Payne's reputation for condescension, finding evidence that it fits and yet is often misapplied. Payne's films don't overwhelm me, but they offer much to discuss. If you're killing time before the ball drops tonight or find yourself recovering from a night of excitement tomorrow, please head over to The House Next Door and join the discussion.

Shell Games and a Hangman's Noose: Thoughts on Homeland

I have no doubt that Homeland is one of the most riveting new shows of 2011 - and while I don't watch enough TV to know for sure, maybe the "new" modifier isn't even necessary. The Showtime drama's strengths are many: Claire Danes' wide-eyed intensity and frail figure have proved perfect for the paranoid, reckless and ultimately self-destructive Carrie Mathison, the bipolar CIA agent trying to prevent a terrorist strike to preserve (and maybe prove) what remains of her sanity in the process; Mandy Patinkin is flawless as the mercurial Saul Berensen, Carrie's mentor, father figure and conscience; and Damian Lewis is a one-man-band of versatility as Sgt. Nicholas Brody, the central figure in the sometimes mysterious, sometimes suspenseful and often intense narrative, who is alternately charismatic, nurturing, pained, jaded, dark, warm, twitchy and/or violent, whatever the situation requires. The problem with Homeland, though, and the reason I can't see it as anything more than B-movie escapism with A-movie production values (and C-movie dialogue), is that it's too much like its main character, which is to say that, like Brody, Homeland is disingenuous and uncommitted, frequently doing things in the moment that are counter to its supposed ultimate aims.

(Major spoilers ahead, written under the assumption you've seen Homeland.)

Best Movie Posters of 2011

Tis the holiday season, which means it's the time of year when I get super excited about the idea of catching up on movie writing, only to realize that family time is precious and demanding (in a good way!) and that the best I can hope for is to kinda-sorta keep up with movie watching. So while I do hope to get some actual writings posted between now and 2012, I figure this is as good a time as any to make my annual recognition of my favorite movie posters.

What do I look for in a movie poster? In general, I like a striking image that stands out in the lineup at the multiplex while evoking the film's themes. The best movie posters ingrain themselves within our memories of the films themselves, so that to think of Jaws, for example, is to think of that image of the giant shark swimming upward toward the helpless swimmer. Of course, that means that sometimes how we feel about a movie poster is directly tied to how we feel about a film, and an image that might otherwise be pedestrian takes on greater meaning retroactively or a compelling image is made to feel trite because the movie turns out to be. The collection below represent some of my favorite films of the year, and some I didn't care for and a few I didn't even see.

So, tell me, what are your favorite posters of the year? And what did I get horribly wrong?

Shooting at the Walls of Heartache: Warrior

When the one-word title appeared on the screen in white block text against a black backdrop, I presumed that was the first of what would be many nods to Rocky in Warrior. I was sort of right. Like Sylvester Stallone’s 1976 franchise-starter, this mixed martial arts drama is about underdogs, second chances and believing in yourself when almost no one else will. On top of that, Warrior contains overt references to Rocky buddies Mick and Paulie, and it has a seemingly unstoppable Russian villain who reminds of Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago. And yet the longer Warrior went on, the less it reminded me of Rocky, or any of the countless fight movies it inspired, and the more it seemed akin to, of all things, Michael Mann’s Heat. Like that 1995 crime classic, Warrior is a drama about emotionally embattled men who tempt danger in an effort to exercise control over their lives. It’s a film that’s simultaneously mythic and realistic, stylized and uncomplicated, violent and romantic, epic and intimate. And it’s gripping to the end – without question one of the best films I’ve seen all year.

None of this is to imply that director Gavin O’Connor is the next Mann or that Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy are the next Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, although their lead performances are tremendous and the nighttime meeting between Warrior’s adversarial yet cut-from-the-same-cloth main characters works as this movie’s version of Heat’s famous diner scene. Rather, I hope to call attention to the way that O’Connor, like Mann, uses thunderous action sequences to intensify his human story, instead of letting the physical action become the story. From a screenplay written by O’Connor, Cliff Dorfman and Anthony Tambakis, Warrior’s basic plot will be familiar to anyone who has seen a sports movie – the protagonists enter a big tournament as long-shots and unknowns, hoping to fight their way to the top – but what’s special about Warrior is that it doesn’t ask us to root for victory itself so much as triumph. O’Connor accomplishes this in large part by giving us two protagonists, who happen to be brothers, with equally worthy aims: Brendan (Edgerton) is a suspended high school teacher and father of two who needs to win the $5 million purse to keep from the family home from going into foreclosure; Tommy (Hardy) is a traumatized war veteran and former caretaker of a dying mother who wants to financially support the widow of his best friend and who needs to lash out against a world that keeps trying to break his spirit. Because it’s impossible for both men to emerge as tournament winners, O’Connor ensures that the film is focused on his fighters’ souls, not their scorecards.