FILM

TWO FILM STRIVING FOR GREATNESS: AND THE WINNER IS?

reviews of The Master and The Paperboy

By Jordan Minter

What have we here?

By the time you get to the end of The Master, there’s a fundamental issue that you can’t get around. At two hours and thirty minutes it is just too long for what it is. I almost never complain about a movie’s length, but as I sat in the beautiful Grand Lake Theater, a stylistic mirror to The Master’s baroque re-imagination of early 50’s glamour, I found myself continually saying over and over again, this would be a weird place to end the film. No, this would be a weird place to end the film! Oh my God, what a weird place to end the film. And as I say, if you watch it, you will be able to say, several times, that this would indeed be a weird place to end the film. And when you find yourself at the end of the film, you will find yourself saying, perhaps one of those times would have been a better place to end the film, no matter how weird it would have been. So, to begin with we have issues of duration and endings.

FILM

DYSTOPIAN SMILES

reviews of Looper and Dredd 3D

By Jordan Minter

I don’t want to talk about Looper. Just as Bruce Willis’ character, Old Joe, in Looper says, “I don’t want to talk about that time travel bullshit,” I don’t want to talk about time travel either—as always, Bruce and I know our limits. But since he talks about time travel anyway, I might as well talk about Looper as well, and we’ll both talk about something we don’t want to talk about, but maybe for different reasons. Looper is director Rian Johnson’s third film. I adored his first two, the noir in high school, Brick, and the let’s-go-around-the-world-having-fun fantasia, The Brothers Bloom, and kind of wondered how he might handle the conceit of time travel, even though, like Willis’ Old Joe, I’d rather pass.

FILM

THE FUTURE: VERY BRIGHT AND SOMEWHAT STIFLING

a review of Robot & Frank and Total Recall

By Jordan Minter

Surprisingly Excellent

It just goes to show you, what a focused vision, tight script and excellent actors can accomplish. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing old either. But it seems to be a concept that Hollywood refuses to understand. Take a simple and honest script, with few locations, a solid premise and let actors act. There’s a good chance you’ll catch something amazing, which is what film does best. Little Miss Sunshine, Garden State, Juno, Sideways, The Descendants and Hesher all prove this point and now Robot & Frank joins them as a shining example of how a modest approach to production can result in movies of sharp insight and subtle beauties. At first released on only two screens and with an advertising budget that wouldn’t feed a family of fleas, Robot & Frank has found its success by way of critical praise and enthusiastic word-of-mouth. Strangely, when awards season comes around, Hollywood very well may reward exactly what it’s so reluctant to produce and promote.

FILM

CRAZED BODIES IN FILM AND SPACE

a review of Killer Joe and Lawless

By Jordan Minter

Watch out! McConaughey's about to act!

I confess. I read a review of Killer Joe before I saw it. Not something I normally do. But my interest was crack addict high as I overheard theater workers murmuring something about fried chicken fellatio. And so it was in this state that I searched Film Comment for their take on William Friedkin’s latest. Emile Hirsch and Thomas Hayden Church are always good for a quick trip to the theater, but add in the tender presence of one Matthew J. McConaughey and Gina Gershon, an actress for whom the phrase “effervescent aroma” seems coined in heaven, and it didn’t matter what Film Comment or Variety said, I had to be there. And Juno Temple, where had I heard of her?