Review: The IMPOSSIBLE As DISASTER PORNO

Scummit now a production company of Lionsgate has dispensed with their mountain logo for a more classical look,but their schtick is still the same. 

This movie is DISASTER PORNO

OBSCENE

Every microgram of melodrama, just plain drama, every cliche, every little tidbit of sentimentality in word, gesture or image has been plastered on the screen to manipulate your emotions and wring your feelings and penetrate your guts.

I hated myself for every tear welling in my eyes when I knew how they were playing me for that and still succeeded.

The very worst ones are when the wonderful Naomi Watts is battered almost beyond recognition in the hospital. Women are not allowed to be portrayed as battered by men anymore, but it is OK when a tsunami wave does the job. So we see her bloodied face, swollen, blackened eyes, and we even get a bit of tit that she quickly adjusts in front of her son in a desperate scene when other matters take precedence.

The cast is wonderful but the screenplay plays every bit of personal tidbit of drama it can eke out of a tragic happening. It is a porno erotic masochistic marathon with close close-ups so we can see the suffering really up close and personal. 

I cannot begin to say how awful this film is with its wonderful performances and it resonates with what Robert Pattinson had to endure with the terrible screenplays of Melissa Rosenberg for the Twilight films. 

Certainly Watts and McGregor had no idea from the screenplay that they were going to be photographed almost exclusively so close that their entire faces could not be contained by the screen. It was obscene in how close we felt to them, how close we endured their suffering faces that became pure eroticism for the effects of perversion. As close to a snuff film as you are going to get. 

The end has this family - it's another true story you know - flying to civilization to receive the best medical care money can buy, leaving all the poor folks and brown folks still wretched in their loss and bereavement on the island of paradise ruined.

The last scene is pure soap opera with Watts's face huge, trembling,  letting sobs out that have been held in so long, her quivering lips and chin and her completely vulnerability giving in to tragedy. She is beautiful in this moment and brings tears to even my cynical eyes in my fury at this grotesque display of obscene weeping in a close up that is so close it might be sexual.

Her face is reflected in the plane window, pales out as the ruined landscape appears in the window of the private jet and the credits begin to roll where we see the real family all happy and smiling that they lived through this horror.

The box office is about 200 million including domestic and overseas. The CGI was Summit's typical on the cheap, but what else can you expect from this bottom line player that Twilight saved from bankruptcy. 

Bel Ami Review: Damage Control

Bel Ami Poster

DAMAGE CONTROL to Major Tom!

DAMAGE CONTROL to Major Tom!

Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod are good ol boys running a theatre company that does Shakespeare, Wilde, Williams, Inge, O'Neill in classic productions of a repertory theatre type experience. Much like Hedgerow in Philadelphia and Jersey and the semi-professional performing groups.

If you want to see cutting edge performance you go to Elizabeth LeCompte in New York City. She was married to Willem Defoe for many years and he starred in productions and kept them afloat.

She received a MacArthur Grant. Donnellan and Ormerod are more like provincial theatre in say Brooklyn, Queens, that perform the tried and true that we all love, but will never challenge our reality to uncomfortable levels. Even Godot does not do that now the way Beckett did in the 1950's when I used to go so often.

These guys have no stature and are middle aged classic repertory theatre people shoestringing it on grants and fund raising. The nostalgic plays we love do not support themselves and their productions, while classically excellent, they are what they are.

Donnellan and Ormerod saw a way to get out of this and into the big time world of critical filmmaking with a costume drama with great name recognition. This enticed the female leads and Rob Pattinson. 

Pattinson was their ticket to some fame and future in filmmaking. Just like Lawrence and Scummit, they are riding Rob's coat tails hanging on to the gold ring on the merry-go-round.

For some reason fangirls think they are serious players. They are not.

They are hoping to be by riding in on the horse named Rob Pattinson. They have changed the book to dilute its message in favor of SOFT PORN using Rob Pattinson's face, back muscles and bare ass, and thrusting, thrusting, thrusting! They are riding their horse home to win the race. This is a "fucking metaphor"! This is blatantly obvious to all the reviewers, but they criticize Rob's performance and his silly fans who want nekkid Rob and thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, rather than the pimping of Donellan and Ormerod, who also want nekkid Rob and thrusting, thrusting, thrusting!

There is no doubt that part way through shooting Rob connected the dots.

 He has been there many times before. He was a model. He knows when his face and body are being exploited. And they are in Bel Ami. These guys are slicker than Lawrence and Scummit, slicker than Condon who did the same.

The only good film he has made so far is Remember Me where he controlled casting, the script, production. He did not control distribution but this is the only time we have seen him in control. He knows what he is doing and he has been used by inferior directors. But he is complicit in this.

Cronenberg has nothing to get from Rob and everything to give. Just wait.

 Watch and learn.

Summit Entertainment: The House That Pattinson and Stewart Built: Fifty-Fifty 50/50

50/50 Poster

Roger Ebert gave a decent review of this movie so I went. It was at the 1.00 movies so what could I lose. The real reason I went was to see Summit - Scummit - do its latest thing on all its Twilight money. It has now partnered with Lions Gate so that is a good move.


If you want a review read Ebert on the link above. The Players are:

Domestic:  $34,982,797    89.3% + Foreign:  $4,173,591    10.7% = Worldwide:  $39,156,388 Domestic Summary Opening Weekend:  $8,644,095 (#5 rank, 2,458 theaters, $3,517 average) % of Total Gross:  24.7% > View All 12 Weekends Widest Release:  2,479 theaters In Release:  82 days / 11.7 weeks

The Players Director: Jonathan Levine Writer: Will Reiser Actors: Seth Rogen Joseph Gordon-Levitt Anna Kendrick Bryce Dallas Howard Anjelica Huston Producers: Evan Goldberg Will Reiser(executive) Seth Rogen Composer: Michael Giacchino

Interesting that Production Costs were missing,eh. Without those figures it is hard to say whether they lost money, broke even, or made a little. Well, I wish them luck spending the Pattinson-Stewart-Meyer money. They are gonna need it. No vision with these folks.


Basically it is a pretty boring film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has never given a poor performance in his life but he doesn't have a lot to work with here in the screenplay. Seth Rogen is very good as the supporting buddy. Angelica Huston looks pretty with her nice face-lift and plays the part of mother suitably. When carefully shot she even looks still lovely. But. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen

Bryce Dallas Howard however is giving us her best imitation of Victoria from Eclipse:


Riley, you know I really love you. Don't let him fool you. It's you I really love blah blah blah in this latest recreation of her perfidious ways. Astonishing really, so now in retrospect it is understandable why Rachelle LeFevre was thrown under the bus as Victoria after Twilight. Ron Howard is a big player and this is his daughter. Scummit was/is being nice and sucky. She even gets two chances to plead to get her boyfriend back in Victoria mode.

Anna Kendrick and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Anna Kendrick, also from Twilight, is always an accomplished young actress. But here she is reminiscent of Jessica in Twilight, although the screenplay gives her more range and depth and time on the screen. Now it is understandable why she got screen time in Eclipse for that ready-made valedictorian graduation speech that did nothing but detract from Eclipse, but a lot to promote Kendrick for Scummit's purposes -  to add her to their stable, and give her more screen time for the money they paid her. Just like BDH. BTW Scummit she doesn't need your shitty ways of promoting as she is good all by herself.


So we can see how Scummit goes about it. Yes, I know I sound like a bitch but that's because I am one. Gee, there are no Hershey Bars to sell for this one. Let's see, how about razors to shave your head when you get chemo. They could promote those, couldn't they.


I am still annoyed at the mess they made of the Twilight movies, Breaking Dawn being the pits. Flawed as Catherine Hardwicke's interpretation was, it is still perhaps the best in feeling, although New Moon with Weitz captures Bella's grief in her loss. 

Rachelle LeFevre as Victoria in Twilight