Friday, March 26, 2010

Burn After Reading



As I write this review, I will attempt to gather my thoughts. This is the kind of film that remains lean at 90-something minutes, but still may take dozens of viewings to catch all that the Coen brothers put into it. "Burn After Reading" got lukewarm praise from many critics, and was considered somewhat of an exercise after No Country For Old Men, a grungy and solemn film that was embarrassingly nearly impossible for me to connect with.

The two share some traits- flawed characters, moments of jarring violence, and an ending that had me throwing my arms up in disappointed anger. This time, however, they apply the tone of a very dark comedy, and I'll say it- I think I like this better. It resembles, slightly, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in style- this is a film of sad characters, a sad story, and sad implications. But if it is a story of pathetic lives that intersect in violence, why is it so damned funny?

Not that I got it at first. I'm still not sure I do. Around the beginning I began seriously questioning the relation between content and style. The movie broadly uses claustrophobic, sharp camera angles and an overblown, anti-climactic soundtrack, all the while often leading to ice scraped out of it's tray and liquor poured into a glass.

I was trying to figure out the Coen's intentions- were they expecting to stir people up, only to see the outcome permeating banality? Then I realized. Although this film has a blunt edge, it is a satire. The only thing left to wonder is... a satire of what? I have a few ideas, but no concrete answers. Of course, that gives me much more idea then any of the characters in this film.

"Burn After Reading" connects several different stories, with the deliberately confused style and pacing as an unusually morbid farce. Osbourne Cox, a member of CIA (John Malkovich) is shown first. He has just been fired- 'for your drinking,' they say. After a humorously absurd flinging of obscenities, he storms out toward home, where his shrill wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is much more concerned then anything about the cheeses he was meant to pick up for a house party.

Everyone in this film seems to relate to each other is some way- chances are, sexually. Katie has another CIA member, Harry (George Clooney,) over when her husband's elsewhere. Harry, not an expert in the department of committing, meets Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand,) a self-centered, socially incompetent woman who is suffering a midlife crisis, which involves as many internet flings as possible and a whole lot of liposuction.

Brad Pitt is Chad, a dim-witted and possibly homosexual co-worker of Linda's, who helps her look through personals for a guy who is not a 'major loser.' Their boss, Ted, is a meek man who, despite having feelings for Linda, is terrified he may fall into the 'loser' category. He is she and Chad's boss, though I'm not sure he would be forthright enough to actually fire anybody.

Anyway, Chad is 'lucky' (unlucky?) enough to find a CD-rom containing information of Osbourne Cox's, which involves enough code and 'number shit' to make he and Linda assume it must be worth something. Ted knows an impending disaster when he sees one, and quickly makes it clear he wants it out of their gym. It just so happens that the files are a memoir that Osbourne has decided to write, a concept which makes Katie scoff.

Then Chad and Linda attempt in a vague, hare-brained manner to blackmail Osbourne for what they have find. On the up side, it does not contain any ultra-secret files, that Osbourne would kill for. On the down side, he really wants to write the memoir, and they have caught him in exactly the wrong time, at a time of dispute with Katie, loss of his job, and the effects of the liquors that litter his cabinets, which he is *not* addicted to.

One thing is sure- there's a certain morbid fascination in watching a couple of nimrods attempting to perpetrate crime, with only the vaguest notion that they may be considered accountable. Chad, in particular, tries to threaten Osbourne with the persona that must result from too many late night TV noir movies.

Brad Pitt, who I am not sure I've seen in a film all the way through and not the tabloids, is a surprise. Here he is unabashedly satirical as a simpleton to has no clue how to deal with the situations he gets in ("Osbourne Cox," he says gruffly, then assumes the expression of a 12-year-old making his first prank call. )

John Malkovich, who plays a man who starts out a few slices short of a pizza and works his way to a mound of crumbs, is disturbing/funny in his projection of negative energy. I also liked Frances McDormand, who turns around sharply from the sensible role she played in the period drama I watched a couple weeks , Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Richard Jenkins puts some gravity and an earnest presence. as a likable side character who, in the tradition of likable side characters, is killed the most brutally.

But there are problems. Certain scenes seem like segments that the Coens wrote background details on, then forgot how to edit coherently. I guess there is something reassuring about know the directors put much more into the film, then is initially thought, but come on.

One scene, so out of flow with the rest of the story that I half thought it was a dream or a hallucination, has Osbourne tell of his dismissal to a nearly comatose old man (presumably his father,) on a boat that shows up later in the script. The father, who is doing the easiest bit of acting consisting of nodding and staring with unfocussed eyes into the distance, seems like he shouldn't be here.

He obviously can't live on his own- does Osbourne care for him? Where does he stay when the plot doesn't need him? Is he in a rest home? Who leave a daft old man to sway and sit hunched on a boat all day? Osbourne, maybe? I was also annoyed by a scene where Ted implicates at a unusual past profession. "Why did you leave?" Linda asks. "It's a long story." And? Why introduce it?

The absolute best thing about "Burn After Reading" is the dialogue and details, which link into each other in an intricate way. There are gaps, but it isn't the norm- nearly everything that happens has something to do with something else. I would however, have preferred that they change the ending, which brazenly leaves loose ends. After No Country For Old Men it may be a Cohen trademark, but honestly, it's not a tradition I want built upon (Rated R.)









Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Alice in Wonderland



Okay. Forget that well-loved pop-up book you cherished when you were eight. If you know Tim Burton in the slightest, you won't need to be told this isn't anything like that. Fans of the directors work- Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, even Sweeney Todd- Will allow him to take the story from Lewis Carroll's hands and adapt- hence, take great liberties with it. Others will wince at the special effects and try to call brightly colored, non-Burtonized Wonderland to their mind.

First, though, let me make something clear- I like Tim Burton very much. I know that we live in a society where children watch Saw and Pulp Fiction with wild abandon, but I think kids should watch kid's movies up until a certain age. I did not categorize this as family because I don't think should be considered that by a long shot. I remember at one time literally covering my mouth with my hand and considering the ludicrousness of the PG rating.

Well, it's not extreme from an above-thirteen year-old standpoint, but when the theaters tagged this PG I at least halfway expected to keep it clean, like Up. It was not. I think the scene where the Red Queen's slimy cohort aggressively comes onto Alice ought to sum it up. Plus the eyeball (which was a gasp on my part.) Come on, folks, do not make the foolish assumption I did- this is Tim Burton. Do you really think he was going to go all 'precious moments' on you?

Mia Wasikowska, who is a young actress I have seen only once before, plays Alice. She's the curious type stuck in a society full of bores. She is expected (in the classic tradition of the period piece) to marry Hamish (Leo Bill)- Tim Burton not so subtlety makes it clear- she should not marry him. Hamish is, though not as bad as his cold Aristocrat mum, harsh, spoiled, and annoying, with bad teeth to top it off.

Alice's own mum forgets to mention Hamish will be proposing- a small detail that may of slipped her mind considering the circumstances. Hamish has failed to mention this as well. He proposes (I felt humiliated for Leo, having to make sure every viewer saw that smile on the big screen,) and she, seeing limited escapes, runs for it. Hamish is still whining about his rejection while she chases a white rabbit and falls down a hole.

The hole takes her quickly out of her banal period-piece setting and into a room that seems far to sophisticated for a common forest animal. As soon as she gets out (using unusual food products I shouldn't have to go through,) and as soon as she steps onto real Burton land, where the weirdos immediately pop up. It is is difficult to tell at first which are harmless and which are out to get her, being that most of them look equally freakish.

If I was her, I'd be exiting Johnny Depp's presence first. He is quite good as the Mad Hatter, but with disturbing make-up and a gap-toothed grin he seems to be trying to out do the grotesqueness of his gaunt Sweeney Todd. But this Depp has no razors, just a large hat that can teleport the wearer at will. He is, however, there to help, whereas the Red Queen (Bonham-Carter recreating the unpleasant and slightly psychotic manner of her Mrs. Lovett character) has not have pure intentions.

The fantasy world Burton creates is brilliant, though not of the same 'reach-out-and-touch-it' quality as Avatar. With it's pasty dark colors and bizarre animals, he doesn't seem to be going for the same realism that Cameron did. The royally strange features and dark hues give off the slight feeling of a surrealist painting on film.

Alice only seems moderately shocked by the change of climates, though she is puzzled by the Hatter's claim that it is her destiny to keep the place safe from the Red Queen, who has a grudge against her sister (Anne Hathaway.) Much of the film is dedicated to Burton's creations- two morbidly obese, ball-shaped brothers, a dodo bird, and a contrary mouse who wields a sword like Desperaux with a edge.

Mia Wasikowska starts out mildly likable if stoic and distanced, looking perpetually wide-eyed at the situation around her. She warms up about halfway through, and ends up a pretty convincing heroine. Bill has an amusing but terrifically one-note role, which seems to be all that Burton needs. The biggest disappointment is Anne Hathaway, who is usually vivid. Here she is so incredibly bland as to make me wish she was putting a Bonham Carter dose of zest into the role.

At one scene, The Red Queen accuses the White Queen of 'batting her eyes and getting all the love from Mummy and Daddy.' The same could be said of Hathaway- she blinks meaninglessly, delivers a couple of waifish lines- that's about it. I was thinking how much she could have put into it- The Red Queen was sadistic, fittingly weird, and even sad, as if Helena was doing a lot- The White Queen is simply shallow and dull.

A lot of the characters, especially the fantasy ones, were great to watch- I couldn't help but like the completely self-serving, creepy-smiled cat with a hat complex, voiced by Stephen Fry- he popped in and out regarding others' crises smugly, and stole just about every scene he was in. I must admit I quite like talking dogs, if they are done right- I never even recognized the usually-slimy Timothy Spall voicing a sad-eyed basset hound unwillingly associated with the Red Queen.
At times this movie wallows in it's own weirdness and becomes willfully incoherent to a fault- Johnny Depp's dance, while undeniably amusing, appears to have come out of Left field as an inexplicable ending to a climactic battle scene. At it's best (my favorite was the scene where Alice mutters the six impossible things before breakfast to herself while fighting the Jabberwocky,) it is morbidly enchanting. Over all, it is unabashedly, unashamedly Burton. Which is great with me, but I think Disney has some explaining to do (Rated PG!?)