KILL THE MESSENGER might be the most-overlooked film of the year

I have a very strong feeling that in a few years, as his performance is rediscovered, a lot of people will be saying "Why didn't anyone talk about how great Jeremy Renner was in KILL THE MESSENGER?" Though the film boasts a great performance from Renner, it's not a particularly showy one, particularly in an Oscar season that sets it against Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER and Michael Keaton in BIRDMAN. The strange thing is that I can recall a time when this would have been the sort of dark horse everyone was buzzing about.

Renner plays journalist Gary Webb, a writer for The San Jose Mercury News who stumbles onto a bigger story when the girlfriend of a cocaine-trafficker brings him evidence that the key witness against her boyfriend used to sell drugs for the U.S. government. Webb is dubious until he sees the evidence, a grand jury transcript mistakenly turned over in the discovery process. Once Webb starts poking around, he realizes he's making a lot of people in the government nervous, a sure sign he's onto something.

This leads him to interview notorious drug figures like L.A.'s "Freeway" Rick Ross, and then feeds questions to Ross's attorney at trial, so that the examination of the witnesses against Ross can unearth a deeper conspiracy - that the government's biggest witness against the dealer was actually smuggling tons of cocaine into the country at the behest of the C.I.A. He takes a later trip to Nicaragua to interview another drug lord in prison, and this guy fingers Oliver North as the man who suggested using the cash from the cocaine sales in America to fund Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras.

Yes, this all ties into Iran-Contra, undoubtedly one of the biggest scandals of the Reagan Administration and one that's been wiped relatively clean from Reagan's legacy. (Seriously, visit the Reagan Library sometime and see how sparse the material on his second term is. It's a joke. I don't think the Nixon Library gets away with a similar white-wash on Watergate.  The difference is that the core of Watergate is pretty easy to distill, whereas Iran-Contra is so complicated that I suspect the average American barely understands what all the fuss was about.)

With enough smoking guns that seem to tie the C.I.A. directly to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, Webb writes his story and it's a bombshell. It pisses off people in government and a number of his rivals at other publications. Few are shown to be more pissed than The Los Angeles Times, who apparently missed a giant story right under their noses. Thus, both they and The Washington Post (portrayed here as a mouthpiece for the C.I.A.) set to work at debunking the story and destroying Webb's credibility.

The first half of the film follows the relatively familiar pattern of the dogged journalist working to expose corruption in power. It's an underdog story where moral righteousness prevails, the truth is dragged into the light and our hero is lauded for the bravery he shows in the face of harassment and firm "you don't want to keep digging" conversations from sinister government officials. The only problem for Webb is that all of this takes up only the first half of the movie.

The second half of the film completely subverts the expectations of the first. Webb deals with the fallout, and that includes some pretty heavy indictments against the media. Some in the press are guilty of misrepresenting what Gary's story actually says, which makes that misrepresentation vulnerable to "debunking" by the CIA, thus smearing Gary's credibility over charges he never actually made. This turns some of Webb's media appearances into a farce where the talking points have nothing to do with the truth.  Then come the criticisms that he has no one on the record who's above reproach. As Webb points out, when getting people to go on the record about corruption they participated in, it's going to be hard to find someone who's morally pure.

The film takes the position that everything Webb wrote about was in fact true. Since we're there when he's meeting the key witnesses, we know that his editors are wrong when they suggest that Gary might have gotten a little overzealous, or misrepresented what he was told. You can understand in an abstract way why his editors might give pause when the blowback hits, but the filmmakers were wise not to make this potential ambiguity a crux of the story.

This becomes a story of how one man's life and career were completely destroyed by exposing government corruption. It's the dark mirror of the Woodward and Bernstein sort of heroic journalists who buck the odds and come out vindicated. Gary Webb takes on the system and the system sets out to destroy him, with the fourth estate becoming a willing accomplice to Webb's lynching.  Renner does some of his best work as his world spirals out from under him in the second half of the film. It's a downfall made all the more painful for the investment of one half of the film in what seems to be leading to his coronation as a leading journalist.

I first read this script years ago, and I recall it casting a powerful spell, being one of the best screenplays I read that year. Thus, it's no surprise that it attracted not only a terrific lead in Renner, but a supporting cast that's a murderer's row of great actors: Rosemarie DeWitt does fine work as Webb's wife, a woman who can't quite believe in her husband as much as she wants to. The always-excellent Oliver Platt and Mary Elizabeth Winstead make the most of their roles as Webb's editors, which allows those characters to remain sympathetic even as their actions are somewhat cowardly and self-serving. Michael Sheen and Ray Liotta also turn up in brief parts as key figures in the conspiracy.

It's a real shame that this film is falling under the radar, though perhaps ironic. SPOILER: a closing title card reveals that in real life, the C.I.A. released a 400-page report that essentially confirmed everything Webb wrote about a few years earlier. However, since this happened concurrent with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, none of the major papers paid it much attention.  That's the perfect note on which to end this film, summing up every point it wants to make about American journalism.

NIGHTCRAWLER - a must-see study in creating "unlikable" characters

There will be some general story spoilers for the first half of this, but not much that you can't deduce from the trailer. I'm going to warn you before I blow bigger stuff, and then I'm going to tip-toe around the last 20 minutes or so of the film. I'm not sure how other reviewers have decided to handle this, but much of the back half of the film plays better if you go in fresh.

Right from the start, NIGHTCRAWLER lets you know that it's about a character who isn't going to be easy to like. At. All. We meet Jake Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom as he breaks into a construction site to steal materials to re-sell as scrap. A guard catches him and Lou unconvincingly tries to talk his way out of it before beating up the guard and then stealing his expensive watch.

In the next scene, Lou tries to sell the scrap to a junk dealer and it's apparent that Lou either can't read social cues or actively has decided not to cater to them. First he tries to negotiate a higher price for his find, in the process pissing off the dealer. Then he asks the man if he can have a job, not even waiting for the owner to really respond before launching into a long, prepared speech about how he's a hard worker and not going to come with an entitled attitude like so many of his generation.

Lou Bloom is the kind of guy who makes you uncomfortable when he talks to you. At first, he reminded me of people who read The Secret or who took one of those bullshit life coaching classes where they preach persistence above all else, no matter the reaction. In Lou's world, "no" doesn't mean "no" so much as it's a provocation to reload and try again. Even if we hadn't seen how Lou obtained his junk, that sequence with the dealer alone would be enough for us to find him off-putting.

Eventually, we come to understand that his alien nature is what gives him his power. It puts his opponents off-balance, and opponents is precisely the right word because Lou treats every encounter like it's a move in a larger chess game. He has zero empathy with anyone, to the point where he's a near sociopath.

Quickly, Lou becomes fascinated by the work of videographers who spend nights listening to police scanners and arriving at accident and crime scenes with the intent of shooting and selling footage to local news stations. Fatal accidents and shootings command the biggest bucks, and while some might cringe at the moral issues involved in crashing a carjacking scene and filming a victim take his last breaths while paramedics work to save him, Lou has no such qualms. It's as if he's found his calling.

Before long, Lou has added another member to his team, a young man named Rick (Riz Ahmed, doing good work as one of the movie's only likable characters) who's desperate for a job. In another marvelous dialogue scene, Lou firmly informs the young man that this isn't a playing job, it's an "internship." He hits all the usual points about how this can be an "opportunity" for the young man and if you don't want to punch Lou in the face by the end of this scene, you've never tried hunting for a job in at least the last ten years.

The fascinating thing about this is how Lou manages to get exactly what he wants through sheer force of personality. There's no charisma to what he does, nothing that gives a person the grounds to think, "Well, he seems like a totally nice guy. I'll go the extra mile for him." He is unapologetic and emotionally detached. When engages people, it's only to get something he wants and the reparte is almost entirely on showing the person how screwed they are if they don't comply. It's not so much horse-trading as it is, "I'm going to take your horse. And I'm going to explain why you're better off just letting that happen."

There's a long history in film and TV of charismatic assholes, and yet, they often become beloved characters. Think of Ari Gold from Entourage, a character who is the epitome of every horrible trait you could find in his profession. He's a bully, he's racist, he threatens people, he destroys careers... and yet even as he does this, there's such magnetism to the character that one almost goes, "Ha ha... that's our Ari! What's he up to next?" He's not even at Walter White levels of "Wow, that was awful, but it was badass too!" Watch those guys (or Boston Legal's Alan Shore, or Scrubs's Dr. Cox, to name two other notable TV assholes) and some dark part of your soul goes, "Damn, I wish I could be cool as those guys." I don't know if there's anything "cool" about Lou Bloom.

This is not a criticism of Gyllenhaal's performance, by the way. Quite the opposite, he commits to Lou's horrible nature fully and completely, with no attempt at all to smooth off some rough edges to get us rooting for the guy. There's possibly a great counterexample even within the same film, through Bill Paxton's character as a rival nightcrawler. Paxton's chasing down the same sort of footage, preying on victims of violence in much the same way. Even as he's being a loudmouth, there's something likable about the guy. He's "a guy you could have a beer with." It's not even that the film seems to be trying to get us to like Paxton, we just kind of accept him. It shows just how hard they work to make sure Lou doesn't provoke a "Hey, he's kinda fun!" reaction.

Every success Lou has is followed up in pretty short measure by some scene that reminds us Lou is pretty slimy. Midway through the film, he takes news director Nina (Rene Russo) out to drinks. He's already asked her out and been rebuffed in an earlier scene and after a relatively unveiled threat to take his footage elsewhere, Lou manages to talk her into joining him.

What follows is a truly despicable conversation where he causally reveals to Nina that he's researched a great deal about her on the internet, successfully targets her insecurity and vulnerability - specifically that she is probably not long for that job and that the upcoming ratings period is crucial to her future - and extorts her not only for a higher pay rate, but also better credit, important introductions at the station and, oh yes, sexual favors. While there is a token attempt to let Nina know that accepting this deal benefits her, it's more of the "do this and I won't have to shoot you" variety rather than a true "win-win." This isn't deal-making, it's blackmail.

(Russo, by the way, is also excellent in her supporting role. It's a real shame that her only other roles since 2005 have been in the THOR movies.)

HEAVIER SPOILERS BELOW

Of course, all this pales when cast against what Lou does in the second half of the film. Thanks to a police scanner (and a mandate to chase stories that prey on the white fear of urban crime creeping into their "safe" communities) Lou arrives on the scene of a home invasion just before the suspects flee. He gets footage of them and their car, then enters the affluent home and rolls footage on the brutal aftermath. Three people have been shot dead in gruesome fashion, their bodies left to bleed throughout the opulent setting. Lou gets what he needs and flees the scene before the cops arrive.

Nina's practically salivating at the footage (which has been clipped of the footage of the killers by the time Lou passes it on) and makes it the lead of the next newscast. Some of her colleagues have clear misgivings about using it, but Nina knows it's ratings gold and watching her direct the reporters' live commentary on the footage makes it clear just how she wants this story received. The local news mandate is to scare the crap out of their viewers - that way they'll keep coming back for updates.

And then there's the matter of how Lou exploits the footage he held back of the killers. Even with a spoiler warning, I feel like it would be a crime to blow this for the audience. Suffice to say that Lou's amoral nature and desire to create a newsworthy event goes far past most people's moral threshold. It actually makes him vulnerable for once, as he enters into a negotiation where someone else has leverage over him. There's some nice writing of that scene, where both players realize the power dynamic has shifted. You can almost see the gears working in their heads as that happens. It's the kind of moment we don't get enough of in film, seeing characters actually think. (It's also a nice showcase for the actor who becomes Gyllenhaal's sparring partner in that sequence.)

Watching Lou's plans play out make for some of the most intense moments in film this year. Watching this, you would never guess that it was screenwriter Dan Gilroy's directing debut. Not only does he have a wonderful command of character and dialogue in the script, but Gilroy has an innate sense of where to put the camera. He knows when to lock us into a particular character's point of view and watch tension build at a distance, and he knows when to put us right in the thick of the action. I felt like I was watching the work of Michael Mann circa Collateral.

As someone currently working on a script involving a sociopath and a character who isn't likable or redeemable in the least, NIGHTCRAWLER was a valuable study. There's a lot this script can teach about character crafting. I've said before that one of the necessary components of any great script is a strong character we don't feel like we've seen before. Lou Bloom is not the sort of character I've run across often. Creating him is an act of bravery on the part of Gillroy and Gyllenhaal, and it won't surprise me if that boldness is rewarded throughout Oscar season.

Some thoughts on Wonder Woman, female directors and internet entitlement

About two weeks ago, Warner Bros announced a slate of ten superhero films between now and 2020. (12 movies if you factor in the claim that there will be standalone Superman and Batman films in addition to that list.) This included the announcement of a solo-Wonder Woman movie coming in 2017. Though some outlets mistakenly called it the "first female superhero movie," that's not quite accurate. Supergirl, Catwoman, and Elektra would beg to differ.  However, it IS the first female superhero movie of the modern superhero film era, so that counts for something.

Then yesterday, Marvel announced it's own slate of eleven superhero films between now and 2019. One of these also features a female superhero, but not Black Widow, as many might have expected. This one is Captain Marvel, who will arrive in 2018.

Of course, this has provoked the usual outcry that Marvel and Warners MUST hire a woman to direct both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. A few sites have even gone so far as to put together lists of their top choices. On one hand, I'm glad we're having this conversation. For one thing, the fact that most of the lists keep coming up with the same five or six women should tell you something about how few female directors there actually are out there. And even then, some of those lists are padded because they contain a candidate or two who's probably only a serious contender in the eyes of some very small circles on the internet.

Don't forget that Warners takes a very different approach to their tentpole directors than Marvel does. Marvel often seeks out less-experienced - and cheaper - feature directors. Warners tends to go with people who have climbed the ladder from modest budgeted to hugely budgeted films. These movies are going to probably go to guys with resumes approximating Zack Snyder's - solid genre work and solid relationships with the studio. Warners wouldn't have handed Man of Steel to the equivalent of 2008 Jon Favreau. This is why I think that we're probably more likely to see a woman helm Captain Marvel than Wonder Woman.

Let me say that I think both Warners and Marvel would be smart to seek out female writers not just for projects where the lead is female, but also for ANY projects. The same for female directors, though I realize we're working from a smaller pool, at least as it relates to female directors equipped to take on a $150 million dollar project. (The number of men who can dive into that scale of project isn't exactly huge either, and many a director has gotten eaten alive by that machine.)

But do I think a good Wonder Woman movie can ONLY be directed (or written) by a woman? No.

As a character, Wonder Woman has had a lot of men write her and only a couple women. Some really fantastic work has come from male writers dealing with her character.  There's also been some really shitty work from male writers too (don't get me started on some of John Byrne's storylines.) As far as female writers, I read acclaimed author Jodi Picoult's brief run on the character and it... really wasn't good, showing that a great writer in one field might not see those skills translate to another character. 

Look, I've sat through too many bad superhero movies to get pissy about who writes and directs it as long as it's good. I don't want another True Detective Season Two situation, though, and the way the internet's getting all activist-y over these films, I can see that happening.

See, a while back, the rumor was floated that True Detective would change gears for season two and focus on a female partnership. That was never officially stated (seriously - check this timeline of official news), but somehow people got it in their heads that this was a done deal. And then when Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell were announced as leads, the internet got really ugly. There were accusations of sexism, cries of betrayal and just general venom directed at the creators for "going back on their word." But that's just it. The all-female True Detective was never a promise that was made. It was the result of a game of telephone and wishful thinking. A creator should not be responsible for what the audience thinks they are entitled to.

THR has said - without quoting anyone - that Warners is "looking" for a woman to direct Wonder Woman. That's not any kind of official statement, nor does it mean that if a man gets the director's chair they're breaking some kind of promise. I'd like to hope that if the helmer ends up being, say Drew Goddard, the primary reaction won't be to tell Drew and Warner execs to rot in hell.

But here's the other possible outcome that occurred to me, and one I find far more intriguing. What happens if they go to everyone's number one choice, Kathryn Bigelow... and she passes?

In all of this "Hire THESE ladies, WB!" has anyone ever actually thought to ask those women what they want to do? Maybe they don't want to be stuck spending a year making a giant product that will be overseen by a host of studio executives second-guessing every decision. (And let's face it, that already happens to a number of male directors on these films, so odds are it will be at least as hard on the women.) And then there's the audience second-guessing every decision too. Some of that is just part and parcel of making a comic book movie and some of that is the inevitable microscope that the press is going to put any female director under in this situation.

So let's say Bigelow feels like she and Warners aren't on the same page with this project and she'd rather make another drawn-from-real-life feature. Her heart's not in Wonder Woman. But CAN she say no? We saw the internet turn on True Detective when it didn't provide that wish fulfillment. What happens if Bigelow says to Warners and the internet, "Thanks, but no thanks."

And then how bad does the reaction get when her passing opens the door for a candidate who happens to be male? Should Bieglow feel obligated to take the gig just because of the larger implications, that it's important for film history that this movie be directed by a woman? Should she take it just to show that a woman can handle these films just as well as a man?

Basically, I'm wondering if all this pressure being put on WB isn't also creating a situation where whichever woman ends up being leaked as the top studio choice (and let's be honest, this WILL leak as deals are being negotiated) is essentially drafted. A cynical person might assume that making a public offer to a woman is a PR move that will cover the studio in the event of a pass. They can say, "Well, we tried" and then feel cleared to hire 300: Rise of an Empire's Noam Murro. (Or maybe they go for the Wachowskis first, which lets them work with directors in the Warner stable and enact some sort of progressiveness with regard to inclusion.)

I would hate to see any director take that job out of obligation. If Green Lantern proved one thing it's that these movies really need a helmer who's passionate about the character. Martin Campbell is an excellent action director - so good he actually directed TWO reboots of James Bond, both of which were fantastic for different reasons. However, he didn't appear to connect to the Green Lantern character at all, even after being handed a script that was relatively true to the comic book elements that should have made it a solid performer. The result was a movie that was neither good for Campbell, nor Green Lantern, nor WB's comic book franchise.

If the best ideas - or at least, the ideas that the studio is going to be most supportive of - happen to walk through the door along with a penis, so be it. Here's what I might do if I was running a studio and the best director pitch on a female superhero movie came from a man: You find one of the truly talented female directors like Bigelow or Michelle MacLaren and go through their passion projects. Whatever it is, make sure it's something they're as invested in as James Cameron was for any of his. When you make the announcement, trumpet how much this is their project. You're not putting them on a franchise to baby sit. You're hiring a woman director to give you something different. Not be just be a shooter.

If you want to change things THAT's how you do it.

Back in the 70s, Spielberg almost directed Superman. Did you know that? The producers waited to see how "his fish movie [does.]" Big mistake. Or not... if Spielberg does Superman and Superman II (which were shot together), maybe he doesn't do Close Encounters. In fact, given the timeframe, he wouldn't have made Close Encounters until a few years later. And then what about Raiders of the Lost Ark?

And even Raiders came about because he wanted to do a James Bond. If Lucas got Flash Gordon, there'd be no Star Wars. What would you rather have had? A Spielberg James Bond and and Lucas Flash Gordon - or two new franchises that inspired so much more? Can you name anyone who directed a James Bond movie in the late 70s and 80s? Do you know who directed Flash Gordon or anything else they directed?

But you sure as hell know who created Star Wars and Indiana Jones, don't you?

So stop begging for women directors to be accepted in the "pre-existing IP" toybox. Why not make some noise so they can tell their own stories? And yeah, maybe that means that they get $60 million to play with instead of the $150 million through at these marketing juggernauts. But they'll get to make movies, their movies.

One way or another, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are going to get their own films, and that will make an impact, no matter what genitals the person calling "cut" and "action" has.

"...Oh." How JOHN WICK is one of this year's best action films

There was a point in my reading career where I was sick and tired of covering scripts about hitmen pulled in for "one last job." That hook has birthed some good movies in the past, but as it landed as one of my most frequently-read genres, I was weary of stories that trotted out the same old cliches. It got even worse after TAKEN scored and I began seeing an upswing in revenge stories that used hired killers the same way.

JOHN WICK shows that just because an idea is old, doesn't mean it's dead. Break it down to its barest essence and it sounds like one of those script's you'd pass by for fear of it being generic. The son of a Russian mobster and his buddies break into a man's home, beat him up, kill his dog and then steal his '89 Mustang. When the Russian punk takes the car to a chop shop for clean papers and a new VIN, the owner immediately recognizes the car and tells the arrogant shit to get out of his garage, even getting physical with him.

Naturally, the kid complains to his father, and the Russian capo Viggo Tarasov calls the chop shop owner demanding an explanation. He's told that his son "stole John Wick's car and killed his dog." Tarsov gives a pause that speaks volumes, then answers simply, "Oh."

That which isn't said tells us everything we need to know there. That's not the only exposition we get about John Wick, but it definitely is a lot more effective of a way to underline how sideways this situation as gone. We see the Russian mobster unnerved by the hell his son has called upon them before we get the full dossier on Wick. It not only builds anticipation for the reveal, but it also respects the audience's ability to read between the lines.

See, John Wick was a former enforcer for the mob. When he fell in love, he wanted out and performed "a task which should have been impossible" as part of a deal with Viggo. He spent five years with his wife until recently losing her to cancer. A few days after her death, John got a delivery - an adorable dog his wife picked out so he wouldn't be so lonely.  Yeah, Viggo's son just killed the last gift John got from his wife - not really the way you want to cross a very dangerous and grieving man.

Thus sets off a series of action sequences where Viggo sends killers after John Wick, knowing that his son is probably as good as dead if he doesn't. John, of course, is more than up to the challenge. In an early eye-popping scene, he dispatches a dozen assassins sent to kill him, using a practiced and almost effortless lethality unmatched by few killers aside from Vincent from Collateral and Bryan Mills from Taken.

The brilliance of the film is the way that first-time director Chad Stahelski moderates the tempo. For every intense, non-stop action sequence where Keanu Reeves takes out a small army of goons, there's a moment where the film takes stock of the stakes and allows characters to react to the fallout of the action orgy. There's actual emotional engagement here, and it's another case of a director using Keanu's occasional blankness to good effect.

It's easy to give Reeves shit when he steps out of his comfort zone, but when he's playing to his strengths, his energy somehow draws the audience in. I'm sure some detractors have called the film out for "cheating" for pulling on easy emotional strings by having the bad guys kill a dog. One of the number one rules in Hollywood is that you never kill the dog because the audience will hate you. (This leads to jaw-droppingly stupid moments like the dog in Independence Day leaping out of the way of an inferno.) Once the bad guys commit an act sure to enrage the viewer, Reeves becomes an easy blank slate for the audience to project their own emotions onto.  We've talked a little bit about this before when discussing some of Eisenstein's theories of using juxtapositions of shots to arouse emotion in the audience rather than an actor's performance.  Whatever we are feeling as viewers, John Wick becomes an easy repository for that reaction. Reeves gives just enough to let our emotions do the rest.

Is it manipulative? Probably. Is emotional manipulation in and of itself terrible? Not always. I greatly prefer to be emotionally engaged with a story rather than passively watching it. One reason I think the film earns it's manipulation is that it doesn't dole out the backstory in a stale way. Wick's wife's illness and death is shown through a sad montage that lets the visuals do all the talking. We take in that story with our eyes and even when the dialogue of later scenes underlines what we saw, it's there only as confirmation, not wooden exposition. 

There are a lot of ways to tell this story wrong, but writer Derek Kolstad and director Stahelsk know when to give the audience just enough. Two scenes after the previously discussed shootout are good examples of this. The first is when a cop pays a visit to Wick's place to investigate a "noise complaint." The conversation between the two men is loaded with enough subtext to make Harold Pinter proud. Soon after that, Wick dials a number to make "a dinner reservation for 12" which turns out to be a call to some "cleaners" who deal with the bodies and blood left in the wake of his massacre.  It's all clever (and funny) execution of what could have just been two scenes there to explain away why the cops never investigated the shootout and how he's going to dispose of the bodies.

There's also a heavy dose of dry humor. Thanks to Pulp Fiction and Grosse Point Blank, we're used to gags about how blase and casual hired killers can be about their line of work. But usually we're dealing with dialogue that knows how clever it is. Here, the weariness in the dry delivery makes the gag fresh again. It's a subtle moderation of tone that I'm not even sure I can articulate, but it serves the film well.

Most of all, I got pulled into JOHN WICK because it creates a fully-realized world and shows us just enough that we want to immerse ourselves in it and explore much more than we are shown. This is especially true of the hotel where Wick takes refuge. It's set up as the sort of neutral ground that likely only exists in movies, where every room is made up of hired killers, the turndown service includes doctors to mend those pesky bullet and stab wounds and the one unbreakable rule is "no business" can be conducted there.

All of those elements are why I place this film above The Raid, as far as awesome action thrillers go. The Raid is relentless, full of fantastic fight choreography, but I never felt drawn into it emotionally the way I was here. I can appreciate The Raid's technical skill, but it threatened to be the fight sequence equivalent of having to smoke every cigarette in the carton. JOHN WICK is a lot more effective at world-building and character creation, both of which will make this one resonate a lot longer.

My tribute to WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE on Film School Rejects

I know that the internet of late has devoted an excessive amount of time to '90s nostalgia. This year especially has been a deluge of 20-year retrospective pieces, as it turns out that 1994 was a pretty big year for pop culture. And yet, as tired as I am of such things, I joined the ranks of the guilty this week with a piece I wrote for Film School Rejects.

It has been twenty years since the release of my favorite sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, the very meta Wes Craven's New Nightmare. It's always felt to me like a very clever movie that was under-appreciated in its time and any notoriety is has in retrospect seems to be as a footnote to Scream, which followed two years later. I gather that "real" horror fans hate how it takes place in the "real world" makes Freddy of the previous six films just a character in a movie. The movie's uniqueness repells some, but for me, that's why it's worthy of being celebrated.

I'm grateful that Film School Rejects gave me a forum in which to express that.

“Every kid knows who Freddy is. He’s like Santa Claus or King Kong.” – Heather Langenkamp in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. 

In a film full of truthful observations, that line always struck me as the truest, or at least the most relevant to my own relationship with Freddy Krueger and the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. I was four when the original came out in 1984, so I was too young to experience that film or most of the first few sequels on their first release. As I grew up, my awareness of Freddy came from what seeped into popular culture. As best as I can remember, my introduction was either a kid in my 4th grade class wearing a Freddy mask for Halloween, or possibly an ad for the costume in a comic book. 

So “my” Freddy was less the disturbing child murderer whom Wes Craven created for what probably felt like a standalone film, and more the watered-down pop icon. Less a psychological threat, and more of a catchphrase-spewing gimmick killer. It’s the difference between how the shark from Jaws plays on screen, and experiencing him on the Universal Studios tram tour. 

As a result, Freddy never scared me as a kid, nor did I have any desire to see the movies. I knew that they came out every year or two and I assumed all of the movies were stupid slasher films, in which, I saw no appeal. I remember seeing a trailer for Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare in 1991 and thinking it looked incredibly awful. Good riddance. 

Then came 1994 and the release of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. 

Read the rest over at Film School Rejects.

BIRDMAN soars

BIRDMAN is the story of a washed up actor who saw his career plummet after walking away from the latest sequel in his superhero franchise twenty years ago. That actor, Riggan Thomsan, is on the verge of a possible comeback via the Broadway play he's directing, starring in, and adapted. The problem is the show isn't very good and it's just had to recast one of its main players at the start of previews.

Riggan Thomsan is played by Michael Keaton, which makes it very easy to see parallels between the character and the actor who walked away from the Batman franchise twenty years ago after doing two films. If you've followed any of the press tour, you've probably heard Keaton disavow any real kinship with Riggan. In at least one interview, he said that he doesn't think he's played a character he's identified with less than Riggan.

As crazy as it sounds, after seeing BIRDMAN, I believe him.

Riggan is a pretty good actor, but a not-pretty good human being. He's staked all of his assets on a self-indulgent vanity project. (At one point, Riggan's co-star Mike, played by Edward Norton, accuses Riggan of not even understanding what the story is about and charges that Riggan's rewritten it to give himself all of the good lines.)

At one point, he recounts a time when he was on a turbulent plane with George Clooney and he makes it sound like the greatest tragedy in life would be to die in a plane crash with the more-famous actor, as he would get all the publicity. To underscore his point, he reminds the person he's talking to that Farrah Fawcett died on the same day as Michael Jackson, the implication being that Jackson hogged all the spotlight. Keaton plays this moment superbly, giving the plane story such conviction that we're almost tempted to empathize with him until we realize just how narcissistic he is.

There never seems to be any doubt that this is all about reputation for Riggan. He might regularly trot out an old story about why he got into acting, but his greatest passion is himself. It's a wise decision not to make him an over-the-top Type A egotist, as that treatment would turn him into something of a cartoon. Instead, Riggan becomes the more likely worst-outcome of someone who once lived their life at the top of the A-list and then fell back to Earth.

Riggan regularly hears the gruff voice of his Birdman alter-ego, often taunting him, sometimes urging his worst impulses. For a while we wonder if it's real or if he's crazy, though that ambiguity is threatened as Riggan starts displaying the ability to telekinetically toss objects across a room. He eventually graduates to flying, but the film leaves open the possibility that this is all a delusion. In fact, the final moments of the film pretty much hinge on that ambiguity. (And as this is only showing on four screens, that's pretty much all I'll say about that for now.)

The film's thoroughly character-driven from start to finish. As much as the three-act structure is there, this is not a movie where you'll be overtly aware of the structure. One of the great strength's of the film is how well-rounded the supporting cast is. Edward Norton probably leaves the biggest impression as an actor who's an asshole in an entirely different way than Riggan is. Amy Ryan has only a few scenes as Riggan's ex-wife but they go a long way towards filling out Riggan and to making her character real. Emma Stone also has a nice turn as Riggan's neglected daughter, fresh out of rehab and working for her father.

You may have heard about how director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot the film to appear as if it was one continuous take. That's not entirely accurate, as there's one cutaway near the end, but otherwise, yes, this does refine the same technique that Hitchcock pioneered in Rope. Is it essential to the film? I'd say "not entirely." You could tell this story with conventional coverage and editing and it still probably would be a compelling character portrait.


Does the style add anything? Yes, for the most part. It's oddly appropriate for a film about a stage play to appear to have been shot with "no second chances" either. It does give the acting a little more theatricality on a subliminal level. Where I think it doesn't work is the overly-frequent moments where the camera seems to be right in the actor's face with a wide angle lens. It's hard not to feel like a "close-talker" and while the subliminal invasion of personal space is almost certainly a deliberate choice, some close-ups feel so distorted that it's hard to fight the urge to scream "step back!" at the camera operator.

That's more of a personal aesthetic preference, though. I tend to favor long takes with a lot of depth of field so that the audience "edits" their own close-ups in a way by deciding what part of the frame to focus on. (Spielberg uses this technique a lot.) Iñárritu definitely wants to control where your focus goes and it's a style that will probably work better for some than for others.

The visual trick would also feel less like a gimmick if the film took place in real time. Instead, the movie covers what appears to be several weeks, transitioning forward in time within shots. It's the same sort of transition that you can imagine being done on a stage, which is the main way you could justify the technique as it's deployed here.

BIRDMAN is certainly one of the more interesting films of this year, featuring one performance that's sure to get a lot of talk as we head into Oscar season. If you want to learn how to write roles that will appeal to A-list talent, see this film.

Go and read this COLLATERAL article right now

Right, like there was any way I wasn't going to link to this. Over on Entertainment Weekly's site, Darren Franich has written an incredibly thorough and insightful article on one of my favorite films, Collateral.


Collateral is all of Michael Mann's movies in one—even The Keep. And more: Collateral is a high point in the career of basically everyone involved. It's the last Tom Cruise film from the pre-Katie Holmes era—the epitome of Cruise in his unquestioned superstardom, before the couch-jumping Weird Period and the post-couch re-entrenchment in his PG-13 Action-Movie Fortress of Solitude. It's the last film Jamie Foxx made before Ray turned him into Oscar Winner Jamie Foxx and then Hit Musician Jamie Foxx and then Frustrating Actor Jamie Foxx.

Everything you could possibly want or need to know about Collateral is in this article. Set aside a good chunk of time and read it now.