Man on Film: Mud

With Jeff Nichols latest film, Mud, one thing is clear: Nichols is a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Hot on the heels of the spectacular schizophrenia mindfuck Take Shelter, Mud is a contemplative coming-of-age story juxtaposed against a powder keg of a love story set in the last vestige of a dying way of Southern life on the river.

Owing much to Mark Twain, Mud follows Ellis (played by the luckiest kid in the world, Tye Sheridan, as his other film credit was The Tree of Life) and his friend Neckbone (first-timer Jacob Lofland) as they come across a boat left in a tree after a flood. Wanting the boat for themselves, they find that a mysterious stranger has taken it for his home. That stranger is Mud, played by the down-home charisma bomb Matthew McConaughey, who is in the midst of an artistic hot streak few actors experience. Nichols uses this classic set-up to allow his contemporized Tom Sawyer to explore the notion of love, using the idealized vision of love that Mud and Juniper's (Reese Witherspoon) story presents to contrast the crumbling relationship of his parents (brought to life by Sarah Paulson and the inimitable Ray McKinnon). As Ellis and Neckbone take to Mud's cause, Ellis is emboldened to venture into the romantic fray.

That film in and of itself could be poignant, but where Nichols's film sets itself apart is in the way that reality crashes the party with pangs of truth and flashes of violence. By setting Mud in a poorer Southern river town--it was filmed and obviously set in southeastern Arkansas--the world in which Ellis lives is a poor one. His parents scrape by living a way of life that society is quite forcibly leaving behind. This socioeconomic backdrop adds a level of import to the proceedings, of the inevitability of external pressures forcing the individual down a set path, or amplified consequence to one's actions. More importantly, though, Nichols's keen eye and unique voice when trained upon this world renders a vivid and compelling picture. He is able to breathe such life into these characters, and he wisely colors the periphery with brilliant but small performances from the likes of Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, and Paul Sparks. His masterful dance between Ellis's world and his own escape to the island and the lyricism inherent in his direction is positively captivating, conjuring memories of the early films of Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green (who along with Nichols was a product of the film program at the North Carolina School for the Arts), but with a propulsive narrative presentation largely absent from either of those directors' works earlier, not dissimilar works. As he reintroduces the outside world into Ellis's walking fantasy bit by bit, the audience is reminded along with Ellis that true escape is much more difficult than one could possibly hope for, that life will intervene and the hoped-for happy ending may not come.

Having now directed two straight films which insert themselves almost instantly into the shortlist of contemporary films not soon to be forgotten, Jeff Nichols has emphatically inserted himself into the conversation of most exciting directors of the next generation with the brilliant Mud heading the very short list of best films of this early year.

Man on Film: Trance

As directors go, there are few whose work I've been as diligent about seeing theatrically as Danny Boyle. There have only been two Boyle films that I didn't see in the theater, Shallow Grave (which came out when I was 15 and most assuredly never played in La Crosse, WI) and Millions (which I never saw). With the exception of Millions (which I can't speak to), Trance is the least impressive Boyle release since The Beach. Part of that is owing to the fact that Sunshine, 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, and Slumdog Millionaire are the films that have come since The Beach, but when you are dealing with a director whose curriculum vitae is as visceral and impressive as Boyle's, it is hard to divorce expectations from the film-going experience.

Despite a promising premise and the attempt to craft a labyrinthine psychologically-complex narrative, Trance sputters through its 101 minutes of running time, never managing to get its cylinders running with a synchronicity that one would expect from such an accomplished auteur. Working from a Joe Ahearne script originally contrived around the time that Shallow Grave came out and then doctored by frequent Boyle collaborator John Hodge--the scribe responsible for writing and/or adapting Boyle's first four films--Trance starts us off with a first-person narrative presented by Simon (James McAvoy). Boyle, Ahearne, and Hodge use this construct to their advantage in framing Simon as the sympathetic protagonist from the film's onset. If there is one element of the film that works especially well (other than Rosario Dawson laying herself quite bare, which no red-blooded male or a not insignificant chunk of the female movie-going population is going to mind one bit), it is the manipulation of the audience's expectations by way of this narrative presentation. As the amnesiac Simon tries to piece together a history of events, motivations, and relationships, the audience is brought in tow, both narratively and emotionally.

Unfortunately, the vim and vigor usually present in a Danny Boyle joint are only occasionally present. The clever narrative manipulation fails to compensate for the unusually and uncharacteristically plodding plot line. The concern the audience is to feel for Simon's well-being at the hands of the crime boss Franck (Vincent Cassel) never becomes palpable because Franck and crew are never quite menacing enough to actually be scary. With whom the blame for that should lie is up for debate, but regardless this is a problem. We certainly understand that Simon's life depends on his remembering what happened to the painting at the center of the story, but the tension, the threat against Simon never reaches the level that a sense of dread strikes the audience. The ensuing deconstruction that occurs is then left not quite as clever as it could be as the foundation it tears down was of flimsy consistency to begin with.

While Trance is far from a great film and feels significantly longer than its 1:41 run-time, it is not so bad as to warrant its complete avoidance. Much is required of McAvoy, and for the most part he imbues the role with deftness required to sell Simon to the audience. Cassel is serviceable, even if each has moments where he feels a bit out of place in the film. Dawson uses her femininity and sexuality spectacularly well, running the gamut from sultry to vulnerable to manipulative to authoritarian with ease. There are moments where there are slight hiccups, and Dawson feels a bit out of place--either in the role or in the film--but those are forgivable blips for the most part. Ultimately, it feels as though the film was simply lacking in the requisite uniformity of approach to set this apart from Boyle's more forgettable and flawed films like The Beach or A Life Less Ordinary.

(Red Band Trailer - Not Safe for Work, but fuck you if that matters.)

Man on Film: Pain & Gain

So far this year, I've seen films directed by Terrence Malick, Danny Boyle, Harmony Korine, and Derek Cianfrance this year, but the best movie I've seen so far was directed by Michael Bay. I know, I can't fucking believe it either, but Pain & Gain was better than all of those films. Perhaps this says something about me, as Pain & Gain revels in the idiocy of these wannabe criminals like a twisted Elmore Leonard novel in which the bad guys are the center of the tale and you want them to succeed, but it was a dark, crime-driven action comedy, and while Bay's skills are typically a bad fit once he is thrust into the science fiction genre (or whatever the fuck you call those Transformers abominations), the Bad Boys flicks were a rollicking good time.

Where Pain & Gain is most successful is in its optimization of its stars' strengths. Pain & Gain is an optimal vehicle for both Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson.

In Daniel Lugo, Mark Wahlberg has role that allows for his gifts to shine. If there is one thing that Wahlberg does like nobody else, it is playing a slightly dimmer character who thinks he's more intelligent than he actually is. His treatise on the patriotism of fitness and the American Dream is brilliant on its own, but with Wahlberg delivering the speech via voice-over, it is fucking sublime. As he extols the virtues of maintaining physical fitness, he's delivering a laugh every five seconds. His steadfast belief in self-improvement being the key to realizing the American Dream is funny, but the amorality in his approach and the inherent contradiction in his willing to screw someone else over to better himself is priceless.

Perhaps most importantly, Dwayne Johnson gets to stretch out as Paul Doyle. In nearly every film Dwayne Johnson has been cast in, he is underutilized. Pain & Gain is far and away his best performance. His performance is rich with a comic naïveté colored by his religious belief. He is easily influenced by others who exploit his malleability. He is also enormous, and unlike in most other films, Johnson's physicality is used to the benefit of the film.

That's not to say the rest of the film is without strong performances, too. Anthony Mackie and Rebel Wilson are both good, as is Ed Harris. Tony Shalhoub gets his best chance to shine since The Man Who Wasn't There.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without a biting screenplay, which the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely deliver with a surprisingly deft hold on the darkness given that their previous efforts were the Chronicles of Narnia series, You Kill Me (which could theoretically have worked in that realm, but I've never heard of the film), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and Captain America. Pain & Gain is consistently hilarious and deliriously twisted, with much of that owing to the screenplay.

This undersells what Michael Bay does. His skillset isn't the most flexible. It only works in a very specific setting. Pain & Gain is that setting. While his direction may in fact be the byproduct of years of untreated ADHD, this film feels like Miami at its trashiest, which seems to have been the intent. I really never thought I'd say this, but I loved a Michael Bay film. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Prick Tunes: The Flaming Lips "Look... The Sun Rising"

When At War with the Mystics came out in 2006, I was honestly worried about the future of The Flaming Lips. I was so disappointed by the record after hearing it the first time that I never even bothered to buy it, and my distaste for the album made me very leery about checking out their next proper LP, Embryonic when it came out. Thankfully, I eventually did, and Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, & Co. treated me to their boldest album since The Soft Bulletin. The newest Flaming Lips release, The Terror, takes that dark vision driving Embryonic and cranks it up. While the upcoming collaboration with Ke$ha has left me scratching my head, the last two proper Lips LPs have me back on board, for serious.

This is a live performance of the album opener, "Look... The Sun Rising." I have no damn idea where it was recorded, but it looks like it was in the basement of a VFW hall.

Prick Tunes: Junip "Line of Fire" and "Your Life Your Call"

There's no better time than the present to highlight Junip, whose new self-titled LP came out this week. I've featured them here before, but for the uninitiated, Junip was a side-project that José González first got involved with in 1998. About seven years later, they released the Black Refuge EP, which featured a pretty fucking sweet cover of "The Ghost of Tom Joad" along with four original Junip compositions. This was, of course after González had gotten quite a bit of attention for his first solo record which had been released in 2003. Five years later, González, Elias Araya, and Tobias Winterkorn released their second EP, Rope and Summit, and their first LP, Fields. The next year saw them release a third EP, In Every Direction, and now their second LP hit shelves this week, featuring the singles "Line of Fire" and "Your Life Your Call," whose videos are intertwined and featured below.

"Line of Fire"



"Your Life Your Call"



Is it weird that whenever I think of life in Sweden, it's basically like that? A bi-curious cuckolding nightmare in which I'm stuck in a near-catatonic state while my aged bride who never quite looked the same after the "Black Hole Sun" video goes off getting pile-driven by the 17-year-old version of the lead singer of The Darkness, braces-and-all.

Man on Film: Bullet to the Head

I know what you're thinking: Didn't this come out like two months ago? It might have been longer ago than that. You might wonder what (other than depression) could have kept me from writing about a Sylvester Stallone/Sung Kang star vehicle directed by Walter Hill and co-starring Christian Slater, Jason Momoa, and a partially nude Sarah Shahi.

Sadly, Bullet to the Head was not another standout film in this late-era Sly Renaissance, and it was not the film that got Walter Hill back on track. The script was hokey. The quips were flaccid. The generational joshing between Kang and Sly was as ineffective as it was in A Good Day to Die Hard. The fact that Bulleit never seemed to be available at any bar in New Orleans was absurd, but the fact that this was called back upon later in the film was ridiculous.

It was hard not to hope for Bullet to the Head to hearken back to the 48 Hrs. flicks, but it didn't measure up to those hopes, and frankly it was forgettable. Well, except for the Sarah Shahi nudity.

Man on Film: A Good Day to Die Hard

After the surprisingly enjoyable fourth installment of the series Live Free or Die Hard, there was actually a bit of hope that the fifth film in the series was going to go the way of the Fast & Furious franchise and kick a whole lot of ass.

That did not happen.

A Good Day to Die Hard was D.O.A. This much should have been expected, I suppose, given that the director (John Moore) this time around was last seen directing Max Payne, but the viability of its predecessor gave false hope. Sadly, the film was a lackluster entry into the canon in nearly every respect. As has been the case far too often lately, Bruce Willis never dialed it in, and his chemistry with his son (played by Jai Courtney) never felt natural. The script was weak. The plot thin. Worst yet, it was completely forgettable, the only film in the series you can say that about.

Man on Film: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

It makes as much sense to do this one now as any. What does one say about G.I. Joe: Retaliation? For starters, it's another lackluster Dwayne Johnson vehicle that fails to utilize his gifts. Add killing off Channing Tatum (and going back and filming a new open and another scene with Tatum and The Rock at Roadblock's house that pushed the release date back nine months) into the mix, and Bruce Willis's inclusion as an afterthought, and you're looking at a whole lot of charismatic talent not being utilized.

If there was a scene from the trailer that had me somewhat excited that at the very least this might have an interesting action sequence or two, it was the cliff-side suspended ninja scene, but the CG was not quite good enough to keep me engaged. It was sort of cool, I guess, but it wasn't like the scenes on the side of the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol or anything.

The one thing Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D director Jon M. Chu did correctly is show the audience just how fantastic Adrianne Palicki can look when she got all gussied up to go to a ball in Washington. So thanks for that, Mr. Chu.

Man on Film: Snitch

It seems as though there are virtually no directors out there who are able to put Dwayne Johnson's assets to optimal use. Though he is both an insanely charismatic lead and a beast of a man, only Justin Lin has seen fit to utilize his unique skillset, and even then it was in the ensemble piece Fast Five. The Dwayne Johnson star vehicles over the past few years have done a positively woeful job of maximizing the return that could be yielded by letting the star have at it.

Ric Roman Waugh's Snitch was no exception to this.

Waugh, a long-time stunt man whose work you surely remember from Kuffs, Leonard Part 6, Teen Wolf Too, and Tango & Cash, has a relatively lackluster resume on the directorial front, so perhaps this shouldn't be surprising, but netting Dwayne Johnson and then simply putting him behind the wheel of a semi with little in the way of legitimate action sequences was a significant misstep. Proceeding to underutilize Michael K. Williams, slapping a comical goatee on Barry Pepper, and giving Susan Sarandon a less than one-dimensional role as a hard-nosed DA were just icing on the cake.

There are worse ways to spend one's time than watching Snitch, but it certainly doesn't stand out as anything other than run-of-the-mill.

Prick Tunes: the Smashing Pumpkins "Jupiter's Lament"

fashion victims chew their charcoal teeth

Most of the t-shirts were bad. Not the Zero one, but nearly all the others. I don't recall if I realized that at the time but it wouldn't have mattered. We were true believers. A poorly drawn group of swirling barcoded heads. "The World is a Vampire." But, like I said, it didn't matter then. In the year of '96 Billy Corgan was our rawk'n'roll Hero and we hung on to every note and lyric of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and we wore our bad t-shirts with pride. We tracked down the CD singles and the import singles and searched record stores for overpriced bootlegs. These were the days before Napster, kids, and you couldn't just hop on to your computer and get this stuff free with a click of the mouse. We wandered around strip malls in towns like Winona, MN hoping for Billy's home demos or a soundboard concert recording, but left satisfied with even a shoddy audience recorded boot. And it still wasn't enough until The Aeroplane Flies High hit store shelves around Xmas that year. The box set collected all the singles from MCIS and contained a number of previously unreleased demos, outtakes, and newly recorded songs. One song in particular ended up on many a mix tape back then, "Jupiter's Lament." It was the sort of song you hoped would impress girls but more likely left them wondering if you needed antidepressants and a sense of humor. In a track-by-track breakdown in Guitar World magazine, Corgan noted the AFH version of "Jupiter's Lament" was actually a demo and a full band recording was done with all the band members singing on it.

Even after I got old and mostly lost interest in the Pumpkins, I'd occasionally break out MCIS and sometimes wondered what the full band version of "Jupiter's Lament" would have sounded like.  Teenage me's dreams were finally fulfilled last year when Corgan and Co. released a massive six disc MCIS box set which included the song.  It's hard to explain the effect a song can have on you but for a moment I felt like I was 16 years old again and that's probably good enough.  Now if I can only find this Nicolas Cage t-shirt for Old Man Duggan's birthday...