Here’s the teaser for Michael Mann’s Ferrari!

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Leonard Wilson

Everyone’s popping up with movies! First Scorsese, then Fincher, and now Mann. It looks like Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) is back with Ferrari! Adam Driver stars as Enzo Ferrari, who would turn his love of cars into something legendary. While I’m hoping to see a ’61 GT California somewhere in the mix, this looks interesting. Ferrari also stars Penelope Cruz, Hugh Jackman, Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey and Sarah Gadon. The film is written by Troy Kennedy Martin (Kelly’s Heroes) with the screenplay also by Mann.

Ferrari is due in theatres this Christmas.

Embracing the Melodrama #124: Maps to the Stars (dir by David Cronenberg)

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that, for the most petty of reasons, I was dreading the 2014 release of David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars.

This was despite the fact that I happen to be a big fan of just about everyone in the cast and David Cronenberg as a director. (I still say that Cosmopolis is one of the best films of the decade and I don’t care who disagrees.)

My initial issue with Maps to the Stars — and again, I admit this is really petty — was that Sasha Stone, over the Awards Daily web site, was so damn fanatical about singing the film’s praises. I have a theory that Sasha tends to overpraise certain films specifically so she can have an excuse to get angry and go off on a rant when they don’t receive any Oscar nominations. Ever since Sasha went batshit crazy over The King’s Speech beating The Social Network, Awards Daily has pretty much gone from being a site about the Oscars to being a site about Sasha screaming in the wilderness like a biblical prophet (and not one of the interesting biblical prophets, like Elijah. We’re talking about Haggai here.) From what I had read about Maps To The Stars and judging from the response that it got at Cannes (where, despite mixed reviews, it did win an award when Julianne Moore was named best actress), this film seemed like the epitome of another deliberate lost cause.

Fortunately, the release date of Maps To The Stars was moved to 2015 and civilization was spared from having to deal with a thousand “If Cronenberg doesn’t get an Oscar, society is doomed!” rants. Instead, we had to deal with a thousand “If Hillary Swank doesn’t win for The Homesman, society is doomed!” rants.

“Okay,” you’re saying, “that’s great Lisa. Thank you for whatever all that was. But what about the movie itself!? Is it any good?”

Eh … I guess.

I mean, Maps to The Stars isn’t a bad movie. It’s not bad at all. It’s just maddeningly uneven.

One of my favorite up-and-coming stars, Mia Wasikowska, has a great role in it. She plays a schizophrenic, named Agatha, who comes to Hollywood. Agatha’s arms and the back of her neck are covered with burn scars and she is always taking pills. She is also obsessed with a vile teen star named Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird). There’s more to her obsession than you might originally think.

Benjie, meanwhile, has just gotten out of rehab and he is literally one of the worst characters ever. The film does try to build up some sympathy for him by revealing just how fucked up his home life is. His fragile mother (Olivia Williams) always seems to be on the verge of collapse. His father (John Cusack) is a glib and shallow psychologist. Benjie serves as a stand-in for every child star who has been destroyed by Hollywood. Unfortunately, the film devotes so much time to Benjie being a monster that it never really allows us to see why Benjie’s a star in the first place. Evan Bird gives such a boring, uninteresting, and flat performance that you never really buy the idea of Benjie could be a success. (Say what you will about Justin Bieber, he does at least have a cute smile. Evan Bird can’t even claim that.)

Agatha meets a lot of people in Hollywood, including a limo driver (Robert Pattinson) who is an aspiring screenwriter. She eventually gets a job working for actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana, herself the daughter of a legendary and self-destructive actress, is a monster but — unlike, Benjie — she’s a sympathetic monster. She’s a talented actress who grew up in Hollywood and now, because she’s no longer in her 20s, is being discarded by Hollywood. Havana is as much a victim as a victimizer.

Anyway, the film kinda wanders about. Along with all the other stuff going on, the characters are regularly visited by ghosts. Secrets are revealed. Hearts are broken. Lives are lost. And yes, relevant points about Hollywood are made but … well, so what? There’s nothing in Maps to the Stars that you couldn’t learn from rewatching Sunset Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard is a lot less pretentious. Plus, William Holden was a much better actor than Evan Bird.

As for Cronenberg’s direction — well, Maps to the Stars is definitely David Cronenberg on autopilot. It’s filled with identifiable Cronenberg touches. The emphasis placed on Agatha’s scars, for instance, is trademark Cronenberg. But still, Cronenberg’s direction often just seems to be going through the motions. Unlike his work in the far more interesting and challenging Cosmopolis (not to mention Eastern Promises), Cronenberg doesn’t really seem to care that much about the story that he’s telling.

Maps to the Stars is worth watching for the performances of Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska. Otherwise, it’s just another well-made but only occasionally interesting Hollywood melodrama.

Horror Film Review: Dracula Untold (dir by Gary Shore)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I finally got a chance to see Dracula Untold, the new film that claims to show us not only who the world’s most famous vampire used to be but also how he became a vampire in the first place. And I have to admit that I had strong hopes for Dracula Untold. I certainly did not think that it would be a great film but I was hoping that it would at least be fun.

And can you blame me?

After all, it is October and what better time of the year is there to see a film about the early days of a horror icon? Add to that, the film’s commercials all hinted that, at the very least, Dracula Untold would be full of over-the-top action, melodramatic performances, and ornate costumes. Sure, there was no hint to be found that Dracula Untold would actually turn out to be a good movie but how can you go wrong with the promise of a little baroque spectacle?

As well, who doesn’t love vampires? Who hasn’t, at some point, been intrigued by the mix of romance and morbid dread that epitomizes the vampire legend? And, of course, long before there was ever an Edward Cullen or a Lestat, there was Dracula.

So, yes, I had high expectation for Dracula Untold but I don’t think they were unrealistic. Ultimately, I was just hoping to see a fun and entertaining vampire film.

And, in all fairness, there were a few moments when Dracula Untold managed to be just that. Unfortunately, those moments were few and far between. For the most part, this latest Dracula film turned out to be rather bland and predictable, a well-produced film that failed to leave much of an impression. It was neither good enough to be memorable nor bad enough to be enjoyable. Instead, it just kind of was.

Dracula Untold opens in the Middle Ages, with the man that we know as Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) ruling Transylvania. Despite his fearsome reputation, we quickly see that Vlad is actually a very wise and benevolent king who truly loves his wife (Sarah Gadon) and his young son (Art Parkinson). However, when the new sultan of Turkey (played by Dominic Cooper) demands that Transylvania send him 100 young men to serve as slaves (much as Vlad himself was forced to do when he was younger), Vlad goes to war against the Ottomon Empire.

With his forces outnumbered, Vlad does what any self-respecting ruler would do. He goes to a cave and he talks to the Master Vampire (Charles Dance, under a ton of makeup). The Master Vampire agrees to give Vlad all the powers of a vampire but there’s a condition. In order to become human again, Vlad must go for three whole days without drinking any blood. If Vlad does drink blood, he will be cursed to be a vampire for the rest of his life.

Vlad takes the deal, fully intending not to drink any blood. As a result, Vlad can do all sorts of neat CGI tricks, like turning into a bat and fighting his enemies in slow motion. However, he can’t go out in the sun without his skin starting to burn and silver causes his eyesight to go all blurry. And, of course, he starts to crave blood almost immediately. As Vlad tries to defeat the Turks before losing his special powers, he also discovers that his own soldiers now fear him and his dark powers…

I don’t want to be too hard on Dracula Untold because, while my overall reaction was one of disappointment, there are still bits and pieces of the film that works. Charles Dance, for instance, gives a great performance as the Master Vampire. Dominic Cooper camps it up as the film’s nominal villain and, as a result, he’s a lot of fun to watch. Luke Evans is pretty to look at. The final showdown between Evans and Cooper is well-directed.

But, ultimately, the things that worked in Dracula Untold were the exception to the rule. For the most part, Dracula Untold is uninspiring and forgettable. Clocking in at 92 minutes, Dracula Untold is almost too short and quick for its own good. You never really find yourself becoming immersed in the film’s world and the majority of the film’s supporting characters were so thinly drawn that I struggled to keep straight who was who. (I swear, at first, it seemed as if one of Dracula’s friends was actually killed three separate times. It was only afterward, as I looked over the film’s credits, that I discovered that “friend” was actually three different characters who were so indistinguishable from each other that I had just naturally assumed that they were all meant to be the same guy.) There are occasionally hints of an intriguing political and sexual subtext, particularly in the scenes between Evans and Cooper, but the film is always in such a hurry to get to the next battle scene that those hints are often pushed to the side within minutes of having been brought up. It becomes obvious early on that Dracula Untold was mostly made to serve as the cornerstone of a new franchise and, as such, the film ultimately feels like a 90-minute prologue to a story that you’re not really sure will be worth all the build-up.

It’s not so much that Dracula Untold was a terrible film as much as it was just a painfully generic and predictable one. And a character as iconic as Dracula deserves better.

Trailer: A Dangerous Method (dir. by David Cronenberg)

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Arleigh

To say that I am a huge fan of Canadian auteur and all-around genius filmmaker David Cronenberg would be the understatement of the decade. I count him as one of the greatest filmmakers of the last 30 years. Seen his style go from grindhouse video nasties type of horror to the sublime. He’s one filmmaker who has never had to compromise his filmmaking style to suit the audience. You either accept what he has crafted or not.

The last 5-6 years has seen his stock rise amongst the film community as films like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises has gotten him recognition from the Academy voters, Film Circles and others in the film elite community. At the same time these films have been widely regarded by film fans as some of the best of the past decade. It helps that he seems to have found a partner-in-crime in another auteur with actor Viggo Mortensen who played lead in both those films.

Now for 2011 the two partner up again for the third time for Cronenberg’s film adaptation of the stage play “The Talking Cure” which itself was adapted from the non-fiction book, A Most Dangerous Method. The film is called A Dangerous Method and stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein. These three become the focal point of a sort of relationship triangle as the friendship between Freud and his younger apprentice in Jung becomes even more complicated when young Sabina get’s between the two men who would give rise to the study of psychoanalysis.

That brief synopsis doesn’t make this film very interesting at first glance, but this is Cronenberg who never picks projects and stories to tell unless it appealed to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film wasn’t just a story about three individuals and their relationships towards each other, but something even more abstract as Cronenberg’s bound to explore the early days of psychoanalysis itself.

Here’s to hoping A Dangerous Method delivers on everything fans of Cronenberg have come to expect from him…or not expect as the man has a tendency to surprise with each new film.