Tyrannosaur

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Horror without hope is excruciating as both an experience and as entertainment. If there is no light at the end of an arguably awful  narrative tunnel, no amount of artistry can turn it into something worth watching. Movies such as Precious and The Road have discovered that, once you travel down a decidedly dark and dreary path, the route both before and behind you becomes bleak and black. In his first film as a writer/director, actor Paddy Considine (Stoned, Submarine) has decided to go back to the British tradition of the "angry young man" film, except in this case, the rage inside his main character is so volcanic as to be almost apocalyptic. Watching Joseph (Peter Mullan) explode in fits of uncontrolled violence is just part of this film's main flaw. Realizing there will be no redemption whatsoever turns an intriguing kitchen sink character study into a trial by terrifying interpersonal fire.

We first meet this man as he kicks his own dog to death. Joseph is a widower and enjoys the bottle a bit too much. All his pent up feelings are funneled through a never-ending desire to defile and destroy. After yet another meaningless rant - and scuffle - in a local pub, he stumbles into the charity shop of young Hannah (a stunning turn by Olivia Colman). She's a devoted Christian and offers to pray for him. Confused, Joseph appears both moved and maddened by the act. Still, her sympathy strikes a chord and he ends up spending more and more time with the timid little woman.

And she has every good reason to be so frightened. Her horrid husband, a despicable man named James (Eddie Marsan), is the kind of lout who comes home drunk and defiant, urinating all over the living room - and his sleeping wife. What he does next is even more horrific. Over the course of her time with Joseph, Hannah begins to confide in him. The discovery of what James is capable of, and the sadistic spouse's realization of what his wife has been up to, lead to a situation that will forever change the dynamic between these sullied lost souls.

Taking its name from Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (it's part of Joseph's history with his now dead wife) and dealing realistically with issues such as poverty, abuse, and suppressed psychological trauma, Tyrannosaur becomes a 'one and done' experience. You're glad you've had the opportunity to see some of the best acting of the year (or any year) but heartsick over the manner in which you were exposed to it. Avoiding the typical fly on the wall approach of similarly styles films, Considine applies standard cinematic structures to his often harrowing events, letting their impact wash over us in expected, if still sickening ways. Not meant as a good time, we are torn between avoiding the pain and embracing it as a natural extension of the storytelling.

Considine does strive for a bit of salvation (Joseph has a hilarious drinking buddy, and though he clashes with Hannah often, he clearly appreciates her concern) but it's way too little far too late into this descent into Hell. As Hannah struggles to see something special in her life, it is clear she will be consistently let down by the men in her meager existence.  As for Joseph and James, we get two sides of the same stunted coin. Both are bad, it's just a question of degrees. The same can be said for Tyrannosaur itself. This is a dire, depressing effort. How much you get from it will definitely depend on your tolerance for disgust without deliverance, since there is a lot of the former and very little of the latter present.

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Like Crazy

Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.

Films that can't explain the ineffable desire two lead characters have for each other tend to have credibility issues. How can the audience suspend disbelief if they don't understand what is keeping the couple together through thick and thin? Often it can work anyway, especially with trickery of the moody lighting, soulful gazing, and well-orchestrated pop-song-love-montage kind. In a film like Drake Doremus's gauzy and drifting romance Like Crazy, the filmmakers don't do much to explain the root of the two lovers' attraction. Instead, it cuts almost immediately to the heartache of their separation. It's a credit to the winsomeness of the leads and the delicate affect of Doremus's direction that such a thin construction manages to work more often than not.

The fresh-faced young lovers in question, Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones), are introduced at the end of the last year of college. There's no chance to get to know them before their relationship and really very little need, as the film operates almost completely within the constraints of their relationship. The meet-cute is low-tech, a handwritten note she passes to him in class, but effective. In very little time they are holding each other tight and convinced that the world wouldn't be too worth living in alone. There is the little matter of British exchange student Anna's visa expiring soon, but with a little adolescent willfulness on her part, she decides not to care about that and stays on in sunny California anyway. Homeland Security has a different opinion on the matter when she tries returning not long after, and so begins the long-distance phase of the relationship.

Doremus filmed from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Ben York Jones (who starred in Doremus's Douchebag), but he left ample room for the stars to improvise their way through the story. The results are clearly apparent in Like Crazy, which is not quite the hedonistic rush of hormone-charged, death-wish adolescent infatuation one would expect from the title. Instead, the film lingers in small rooms with its lovers as they toggle between two essential modes. The first is a quietly sugary, wide-eyed shock that the other is there with them; it's love as proximity. The second is the anxious tension that floods the space around them when the subject of the future comes up. A British citizen with a visa problem, she can't get to America, and his burgeoning career keeps him in America.

Jones and Yelchin fill the space with meaningful pauses and bits of dialogue about longing and distance that have a ring of sincerity about them for all their awkwardness. Jones, a more naturally voluble type, seems resigned to her character's fate in a way that Yelchin isn't. His performance is a murmuring coil of tension where his soft-spokenness and mild demeanor are occasionally contradicted by flashes of rage; the latter showing both Anna and the viewer just how little these two really know about each other. The film tries to make up for Jacob and Anna's lack of backstory in elliptical ways. We see her toiling occasionally at a London magazine. Jacob is an artisan with his own furniture shop. Although Jacob is shown sketching out pieces and she is momentarily happy when she gets a raise, these careers serve primarily as engines of distraction to keep the two lovers apart. Throwing more beams onto that barricade are the more conveniently located and arguably more attractive sideline lovers that Jacob and Anna both pick up along the way (a flirty, generous Jennifer Lawrence and Charles Bewley, respectively).

It's easy to care for Jacob and Anna, though, no matter how little one knows about them. While they're both certainly creative, Doremus never overdoes the precious here, which is what one would expect from a story that avoids presenting a more pulse-racing melodramatic style of thwarted romance. The two seem trapped by a love they can't explain or understand beyond the knowledge that their lives would be lesser without it. There are worse traps to be in.

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Into the Abyss (2011)

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.

Throughout his storied career, filmmaker Werner Herzog has explored two main themes, sometimes simultaneously: man vs. nature, and man vs. his own nature. From early masterworks like Aguirre: Wrath of God to later efforts like the documentary Grizzly Man, the famed German director has uncovered the complexities of the human spirit while discovering the depths/heights to which ordinary people will strive to do extraordinary things. In his latest true life film, Into the Abyss, Herzog discusses a celebrated case in Conroe, Texas. Two young men, out joyriding and looking for cars to steal, ended up killing three innocent people. After a shootout and a series of confessions, the duo were sentenced -- Jason Burkett received 40 years to life, while Michael Perry was given death.

Herzog hates capital punishment. It represents, to him, the worst of society and civilization. With that in mind, he's not out to uncover the truth or turn his interviews into a Paradise Lost style expose. Instead, Into the Abyss wants to illustrate how ordinary individuals end up facing four decades of incarceration, and how the horrific crimes committed impact everyone -- both the felons' and victims' families. In his low and considered way, he offers a series of sit downs, asking questions both obvious ("Are you afraid to die?") and unusual ("Tell us about your hands"). By refusing to approach the material from an investigative stance, Herzog uncovers a deeper, more convicted reality, one few would expect from such a story.

Setting things up in five sections (including a Prologue and Epilogue) and talking to everyone from the prison priest to an ex-Death Row execution coordinator, Herzog spells out the futility in such state-sponsored 'murder'. Perry, after admitting everything -- and even going so far as to show police where the final two bodies could be found -- became a Born-Again denier, unable to admit what he so freely acknowledged earlier. Burkett is more of a mystery. He's married to a woman who helps support his appeal and states emphatically that he was merely a victim of a misguided friendship and assorted circumstances. The only rebuttal comes from the police, a sheriff walking us specifically through the kind of facts that are almost impossible to rebut.

Instead, Into the Abyss becomes a passive advocate for a more refined form of justice. Burkett's Dad apologizes profusely, making it very clear that his rotten parenting resulted in his son's current situation. Perry is also painted as misunderstood and misguided, though a few insinuations about his actual situation at home throw that conclusion into question. We get police crime scene footage (no gore, thankfully) and one of the more moving scenes centers on a prisoners' cemetery, where simple cross headstones are engraved with numbers, not names. When we learn it is for inmates whose families have disowned them, the message really hits home. As he has done so many times before, Herzog shows that our own frailty as people plague us in ways that lead to questionable, even condemnable acts.

With its languid pace and subtle style, Into the Abyss is unlike any documentary you've ever seen, especially on such an incendiary subject. Herzog never defends the boys' actions. Instead, he argues the classic "two wrongs don't make a right" in his own eccentric way. Naturally, the question of capital punishment is much more complicated than the director's strict approach, and this film also finds those always tricky gray areas. But then the senselessness of both the offense and the response remind us of another truism - with violent crime, there are no victories, only a series of layered, illogical defeats. In the ongoing battle between man and who he is, Herzog discovers another insightful illustration. Into the Abyss is humble...and haunting.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.

All this for a baby? Two whole movies to celebrate something that's been hinted at and known since Stephenie Meyer first put frilly glitter-infused pen to sparkly, sticker adorned paper? That's right, the tepid Twilight Saga, the very example of the law of diminishing (or in most cases, dead) returns is taking the Harry Potter way out and offering up its inevitable endgame in a pair of preposterous efforts all centering around the offspring of Bella and Edward. Sure, we get the wedding of the weekday and a weird wish fulfillment honeymoon on an isolated Brazilian island (complete with scared, superstitious housekeeper), but in the end, it's all about getting our heroine knocked up, and the reaction everyone has to her fast gestating mutant newborn.

After celebrating their faux fairy tale nuptials, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and his child bride, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) head to South America to finally sexualize their silly slow burn courtship. Of course, there's a problem. Edward is not sure his lust can be contained and he fears he will kill his willing wife. Even shape-shifting wolf pouter Jacob (Taylor Lautner) fears for his friend's life. After a couple of weeks in paradise, Bella starts feeling bad.

Sure enough, she's survived her partner's carnal concerns and is with child -- a rapidly growing, nutrition-sucking lifeform that is destined to destroy her. Taking his beloved home, he hopes Cullen clan leader -- and resident small town doctor -- Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) can save her. Bigger problems loom when the already wound up werewolves view Bella's situation as a violation of the long standing vampire/lupine treaty. They decide to destroy our heroine and/or her infant once and for all.  

Breaking Dawn Part 1 is easily the worst of the mostly awful Twilight films. The fact that there will be another installment of this anti-Dracula dreck is enough to inspire mass suicide among non-invested moviegoers worldwide. Fans of this falderal will drink up the mindless mediocrity like so many pre-natal blood smoothies. Everyone else will wonder about the sanity of those going ga-ga over this gunk. Clearly, Oscar winner Bill Condon was a bad choice to helm this halting monster melodrama. As a director's franchise, the films have clearly suffered when an uninspired choice (the original's Catherine Hardwicke, New Moon's Chris Weitz) sits behind the lens. Yet after  Eclipse's David Slade almost salvaged the entire series, there was hope that Twilight had righted its cinematic ship. With the man responsible for Dreamgirls, it's a clear case of really wrong artist, really wrong project.

Breaking Dawn doesn't even try to preach to the non-converted. It takes the talentless plot twists from Meyer's final book and blankly illustrates them without a lick of excitement or intrigue. In essence, the first half hour follows the wedding, the second sets up the honeymoon and the couple's bed business. The next 30 minutes deal with the upcoming bundle of joylessness, while the finale focuses on the Cullen/lycanthrope beatdown. There is no suspense, no sense of adventure or discovery. Just rote regurgitation of the book's basic elements without an attempt at style or splash. Granted, at this point in the process, Breaking Dawn doesn't need to expand its reach. But instead of making mere product, it would have been nice to see some attempt at a compelling motion picture.

With its laugh out loud dialogue, standard stilted acting, and over-abundance of handwringing ridiculousness, it's hard to imagine things getting much worse. What we learn from Breaking Dawn however is to never underestimate the power of this material to suck...and suck hard. If it keeps going like this, a better title for the last installment seems rather obvious -- Breaking Yawn.   

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Melancholia

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Melancholia, the latest provocation from the not-so-socially-gifted Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, is an immense motion picture. Or, perhaps, a picture of immensity would be just an appropriate descriptor, as the film is as much a work of staggering emotional lacerations, coming one after the other, as it is a document of tremendous directorial agenda. What begins as a volcanic wedding reception on an estate that seems to span the length of a small continent ends with nothing less than the final great collision of Earth and the titular alien planet, and the end of life as we know it.

Postcards from this demise preface the film with slow-motion, nightmarish visions of soil pulling down a bride and a golf course swallowing up a mother and her child. The bride in question is Justine (Kirsten Dunst), who is stuck at the entrance to her brother-in-law's (Kiefer Sutherland) incalculably vast estate, the site of her wedding reception. Her husband, Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), is cute, happy and in love with his bride, and Justine, at least for the first few moments, is in the same boat, but her stability is only as sure as that little speck of a planet in the sky. By the time her boss (Stellan Skarsgard) begins pestering her about a job and her mother (Charlotte Rampling) has delivered the most barbed toast in the history of time, Justine's face has lost a sizable portion of its glow and her once illuminative smile has turned downward.The reception is an exquisitely choreographed setpiece, bouncing from Dunst's slow deterioration to a variety of party guests, ranging from Justine's father (John Hurt) to, most prominently, her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg); Udo Kier makes an appearance as the bitchiest wedding planner you've ever seen. Claire has gone to considerable lengths to give her sister a great wedding reception but Justine manages to quit her cherry job, fuck a young understudy (Brady Corbet), and dissolve her marriage within one night. Justine leaves but returns some time later, gripped tightly by severe depression. Dunst's performance is uncomfortably accurate, brilliant often in her physical choices and always sharp in her delivery. 

It is the commitment to her character that makes Justine's elusive transformation from near-crippled depression patient to saturnine portent of doom, as new calculations confirm that Melancholia will not merely pass by Earth and offer a science freak-out but will rather collide directly with our planet. Claire wants to go out ceremoniously but Justine will have no such thing. It's the sort of sibling battle one might find in Ibsen or Chekhov, and the vicious drama that is being played out feels amplified tenfold by the looming harbinger of the end times. It is at once a literally free-floating metaphor and the ultimate punchline for von Trier, who knows how to match that dread and sorrow with large, seemingly empty spaces outside, tight and closed-in spaces inside. 

Set to a Wagnerian tempo, Melancholia is by many measures von Trier's best work since Dogville, a masterpiece that has, thankfully, survived its many detractors. If it is, as some have speculated, the mere celebration of von Trier's own inflated depression, I can't imagine a more effective and realistic portrait of the malady, at once empathetic and unflinching in its ugliness. But more to the point, von Trier has orchestrated these scenes of colossal emotional impact with a riveting sense of pacing and a continuously enrapturing sense of constant motion. An argument, I suppose, could be made that he offers no truly likeable characters, but the characters feel natural and nuanced to me, thanks largely to a great ensemble. Even in its speaker-busting glimpse into apocalypse, one can feel that von Trier is seeking out something about hope and humanity, admittedly in the grimmest of places and the most cynical of situations. Pessimistic maybe, but writing off Melancholia as one director's attempt at rolling around in his own feces for over two hours is something I can't quite wrap my head around. Also check out... Web Stalker - Lars von Trier Unleashes His Antichrist Tweet Comments: Newest Oldest Most Replies Most Liked
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Bradley Cooper as "The Crow," Joss Whedon's "Wonder Woman" and Other Comic Book Movies That Never Were

Nick Nadel is a comedy writer and blogger living in Brooklyn, NYWe're in a golden age of comic book movies right now, where even the most obscure comics (ahem, Cowboys & Aliens) can become blockbusters. But while fans have gotten movie versions of everything from Ghost Rider to Kick-Ass, there are still plenty of comic book movie properties that fall through the cracks. Recently, filmmakers like Joss Whedon and George Miller have spoken up about their failed would-be comic book franchises. Let's take a look at Whedon's Wonder Woman, Bradley Cooper's near performance as The Crow and other comic book movie "might-have-beens." Fans of DC's Amazonian warrior princess had their hopes dashed when Joss Whedon's proposed Wonder Woman flick fell apart several years back. Recently, Whedon revealed some details about his take on the iconic hero. "[Wonder Woman] was a little bit like Angelina Jolie ... she sort of traveled the world," Whedon said. "She was very powerful and very naive about people, and the fact that she was a goddess was how I eventually found my 'in' to her humanity and vulnerability. ... She would look at us and the way we kill each other and the way we let people starve and the way the world is run and she'd just be like, None of this makes sense to me." Whedon added that in his original screenplay, Wonder Woman's romance with Steve Trevor would also help to humanize her. An interesting take on a character that DC has so far failed to get a handle on for the big screen. Of course, Wonder Woman fans' loss is Avengers fans' gain. 
The Crow RebootRecently, concept artwork was released from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's failed reboot of James O'Barr's enduring goth icon. The planned update was to have starred The Hangover's Bradley Cooper in the role made famous by the late Brandon Lee way back in 1994. But, as with many projects related to the seemingly cursed Crow franchise, Fresnadillo's reboot fell apart once Cooper dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. As evidenced by the concept art, the new Crow would've had something of a Western punk rocker thing going. Diego Latorre's grim drawings (which originally appeared on Shock Till You Drop) are also proof that the jovial Cooper was completely wrong for the Eric Draven role. With The Crow, casting is everything. (Didn't the producers learn anything from Edward Furlong's over-the-top performance in the dreadful fourth film The Crow: Wicked Prayer?) Justice League Remember when Warner Bros. was working on a Justice League movie? Well, director George Miller (Happy Feet) talked to Superhero Hype recently about what happened to Warner/DC's answer to The Avengers. Turns out the 2007 Writer's Guild strike was only part of the problem. "There [were] a whole bunch of complex events," Miller said. "It was the middle of a writers' strike. There was Australian rebate legislation that was required to get the film going. ... It was no one particular's fault that it didn't happen." At one point, the film was ready to go with Adam Brody as the Flash, DJ Cotrona as Superman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Common as Green Lantern, and the then-unknown costar of The Social Network Armie Hammer as Batman. After the project fell apart, Miller went on to work with Common in the upcoming Happy Feet 2. As for Justice League, it's sadly still languishing in development hell while Avengers rockets toward the big screen.
Throughout the '90s, Avatar guru Cameron tried for years to get a Spider-Man film off the ground, only to face a protracted legal battle between defunct studio Carolco and various other parties that was more epic than a Green Goblin-Peter Parker face-off. Last year, Cameron's illustrated script treatment surfaced, providing a peek at what might have been. Featuring Electro and Sandman as the primary villains, copious profanity, and a racy Peter-Mary Jane sex scene, Cameron's take on Marvel's wacky wallcrawler was far more mature than Sam Raimi's 2002 film. One element that remained from Cameron's treatment? Those divisive organic webshooters. So feel free to blame James Cameron for that one.  Before bouncing back with Superman Returns and Batman Begins, DC's top superheroes floundered throughout the late '90s and early '00s. Everything from a third Joel Schumacher film (tentatively titled Batman Triumphant) featuring Scarecrow and Harley Quinn to an adaptation of the Batman Year One comic helmed by Darren Aronofsky was considered for the Caped Crusader, while Superman projects were tackled by the likes of Tim Burton and McG. (Who could forget Nic Cage's bizarre Superman costume that leaked a while back?) At some point, Warner Bros. just gave up and decided to combine the two franchises for the ultimate superhero smackdown. Director Wolfgang Petersen was attached to the project but eventually left to make Troy. The story found Superman battling a Batman who was driven to the edge by the deaths of Robin, Alfred, and Commissioner Gordon. (Of course, they eventually team up to take down Lex Luthor and Joker.) The strange project, which also involved Joker killing Batman's fiancée and Clark Kent dating Lana Lang, ended up being referenced in the least likely place -- as a fake movie poster in I Am Legend's post-apocalyptic Times Square. (Legend screenwriter Akiva Goldsman also worked on Batman Vs. Superman.)

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Immortals

Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.For director Tarsem Singh, looks are everything. Everything. A movie may have a lousy screenplay and ineffectual characters, but as long as the costumes are immaculate and the production design divine, all is right in the cinematic world. While it wants you to think it's as macho as 300 and filled with as much mythology as Clash of the Titans, Immortals is actually a 100 minute resume reel for one of film's most misguided auteurs. From The Cell to The Fall, Tarsem has avoided the majority of the medium's mandates in order to deliver eye popping visuals and MTV level spectacle...but little else. This take on tale of Theseus, King Hyperion, and the battle between the Gods of Olympus and the long exiled Titans is no different.  It has more than enough material for the director to free association on. All the stuff in the middle however, is mindless mediocrity. After witnessing his mother's murder at the hands of King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), Theseus (Henry Cavill) vows to destroy the despotic monarch. Little does he know that the angry tyrant is planning on finding the legendary Epirus Bow, a weapon that can unleash the legendary Titans from their underground prison. The purpose? To bring about the end of mankind and defeat Gods such as Zeus (Luke Evans) once and for all. Hyperion raids a local monastery to find  the virgin oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto) who knows of the item's location. He eventually captures Theseus as well. With the help of our hero and a thief named Stavros (Stephen Dorff), the seer escapes. She informs Theseus of his destiny and he becomes determined to prevent Hyperion from retrieving the talisman. He also will not rest until the villain is dead.

If movies can be judged by sections, at least part of Immortals is gangbusters. Whenever swords clash, whenever our actors duke it out in stellar slow-motion mayhem, the experience is mesmerizing. Borrowing heavily from the new school of slaughter (lots of CG blood spray and body damage) but also avoiding the rapid fire editing that turns fighting into an unwatchable frenzy, Tarsem wows us with his style. From Theseus' failed attempt to save his mother to the last act battle between the Titans and the Gods, the spectacle is beyond belief. It's great. We want more of it and are glad for a last minute hint at the possible heavenly histrionics to come.

But then the actors open their mouths to speak and Immortals becomes crap, a mishmash of bad accents, weird line readings, limp dialogue, and even more mundane emotions. We never once care about Theseus, the beautiful prophetess, or the firebrand fiend known as Hyperion. Their motives are meaningless, cogs in a plot machine that just needs to get us to the next hyperactive beatdown. While they all look the part (who knew Stephen Dorff had such washboard abs?), the actors are given nothing to do except be imagery. While it's easy to blame the script - and quite necessary, in fact - it's actually more of a question of context. Had he found a way to get us invested in this young man's particular quest, we would follow Immortals anywhere. It just looks that good. Sadly, such substance never arrives.

Perhaps a better way of saying it is this - Tarsem Singh is good at eye candy...very good. Unfortunately, the kind of sweet meats he's interested in come from faraway lands and contain ingredients that rub the mainstream moviegoing palate the wrong way. They're not so much an acquired taste as beyond the typical audience's ability to comprehend. On the outside, Immortals is something to behold. On the inside, however, everything is dry and dull. 

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