Movie Review: Pawn Sacrifice (2015)

by Tony Dayoub


The intrigue of a monarch marshaling his forces against an insurgent has been fodder for exciting movies stretching back for decades. When the soldiers are only an inch high and the battlefield is a chessboard the chances of eliciting the same thrills are much, much lower. Fascinating as it is, Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice misses the mark often enough to keep it from being a full-on masterpiece. On occasion though, this spare biography of tormented chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) and the performances of its dynamic ensemble cast are riveting.

NYFF52 Review: Mr. Turner (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


A tour-de-force performance by character actor Timothy Spall brightens the otherwise languid Mr. Turner, director Mike Leigh's biopic of English painter J.M.W. Turner. Although filled with terrific performances from recurring members of Leigh's acting troupe, Mr. Turner revels a mite too long in the gorgeous landscapes that inspired Turner (as shot by cinematographer Dick Pope). At times, it allows one to consider the effect such vistas had on Turner's art. Often, though, the movie borders on the ponderous and only Spall's earthy grumbles and snorts keep us tethered to the movie's titular subject.

NYFF52 Review: Pasolini (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


Controversial Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini finally gets a kind of a biopic in Pasolini, starring Willem Dafoe. A journalist, poet, and philosopher among other things, the homosexual Pasolini is a tough subject to try to encapsulate in a film, especially one with as short a running time as this one's 87 minutes. Director Abel Ferrara, no stranger to controversy himself, wisely chooses to simply focus on the final days leading up to Pasolini's lurid murder. The resulting film is, like the director, a study of contradictions and not just a little perplexing.

Movie Review: Yves Saint Laurent (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

French biopic Yves Saint Laurent is at once sincere and reductive. Framed as a reminiscence by his business and life partner Pierre Bergé (Guillaume Gallienne), the movie sometimes plays like a telefilm truncated for a pre-arranged timeslot on Lifetime. The majority of its running time is allotted for the most interesting part of course, the meteoric rise of Saint Laurent (Pierre Niney). Before becoming a famed couturier in his own right he was an assistant to another fashion icon, Christian Dior, whose untimely death placed Saint Laurent atop the House of Dior as head designer at the unprecedented age of 21. Other formative experiences, such as a hospitalization that included electroshock therapy after his aborted conscription into the French Army, are elided over in a manner not unlike that of a footnote in a magazine profile.

Movie Review: Jersey Boys (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Clint Eastwood, a usually reliable filmmaker, is virtually invisible while directing Jersey Boys, an adaptation of the Broadway musical depicting the rise and ultimate dissolution of the rock/doo-wop icons, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Instead, Eastwood stands aside in deference to the material, a by-the-numbers biopic that would be merely serviceable were it not for the group's memorable music. Thanks to the Internet, though, you can queue up "Rag Doll", "Dawn", "December, 1963", or any other Four Seasons song on iTunes or YouTube any old time. So what's left is a mildly interesting story that isn't unique enough to stand above your typical Lifetime TV movie.

Movie Review: Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

What is it like when you find out you've got less than a month to live? Is everything you see or hear a marker signifying the dwindling amount of time you have in the face of impending death? According to director Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyers Club it just might be. The Canadian director's last film, Café de Flore, displayed a penchant for magical realism even in the context of profound grief, perhaps overly so. But Dallas Buyers Club tempers Vallée's predilection for the whimsical while still allowing him to indulge in some not inappropriate lyricism. Small details like the perfectly timed but tangential Billy "Crash" Craddock lyric "...he loves her so much he wants to die..." playing on a car radio or a bright, bold "30" on a blank calendar after doctors inform shitkickin' electrician Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) of his terminal condition bolster the story of this irreverent antihero, on a quixotic quest to extend the lives of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS, including his own. But it's the sober, strong performances by McConaughey and costar Jared Leto that keep Dallas Buyers Club firmly anchored in reality.

Movie Review: The Fighter (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

It doesn't even take as long as you'd think. In fact, it begins during the opening credits for The Fighter. Christian Bale, already being lauded for his "scene-stealing" turn as the crack-addicted former boxer Dicky Eklund, starts showboating. And then, as he walks through his neighborhood with the film's ostensible star—Mark Wahlberg playing Eklund's brother Micky Ward—with a camera crew and some locals (surely non-actors given their earthy, blank-faced realism) gathered around them, someone stops to take a picture of Micky and one of the groupies, and Bale photo-bombs the shot with his hyperactive mugging. It's a moment indicative of the movie's flaws. Director David O. Russell (Three Kings), often portrayed as a control freak of the worst kind, gives up control to the manically cocky Bale, and The Fighter buckles to its knees.

Carlos (2010): NYFF10's Masterpiece Premieres Tomorrow on Sundance Channel Before Theatrical Release

by Tony Dayoub

Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours) alternates between quieter dialogue-driven films and action-oriented pictures which explore themes related to the effect globalization has on individuals. So, given his previous film's quiet look at a family dealing with the death of their matriarch, it is no surprise he should return with this period biopic centered on the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal. Anyone who grew up in the seventies can remember the rash of plane hijackings and hostage taking that plagued the era. Too many, Carlos seemed to be an omnipresent mastermind behind nearly all of them. What is surprising is how consistently exciting Carlos remains throughout its 5-and-a-half-hour running time. Even a film like Che (2008), which I rank among one of my recent favorites (and has sprung up in conversations comparing it to Carlos despite bearing little resemblance to it beyond sharing famous revolutionary protagonists), has its slower paced lulls. But I saw Carlos last week in one marathon sitting (interrupted only once by a 30-minute intermission), and it moves with a real urgency throughout its three parts.

NYFF10 Movie Review: Black Venus (Vénus noire) (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

The "Hottentot Venus" was a freak show exhibition in the early 19th century, in which a black South African female, Saartjie Baartman (Yahima Torres), was displayed to European audiences curious about her anatomical differences, primarily her large hips and buttocks, a genetic trait common among her people. Not exhibited to the same spectators was another rumored physical feature, the elongated labia minora which hung down 3 to 4 inches from her vagina. As Black Venus (Vénus noire) begins, we see a plaster-cast figure of Baartman being examined at a scientific lecture, with particular attention being paid by the biologists to this feature, which they dubbed the "Hottentot skirt." This denigrating and sexist nickname is but one of the many indignities Baartman would suffer throughout her life, indignities which would continue even in death.

Movie Review: Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1) (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

A couple of weeks ago I caught an interview with Vincent Cassel on Charlie Rose in which, while promoting his Mesrine two-parter, he explained his approach to famed bank robber Jacques Mesrine. Chief among his demands on the film's producers was his desire to play the man as the criminal he was, not the mythical Robin Hood he portrayed hiself as in his memoir. So my expectation going into the second part, Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1), was that this film would be the grittier and more overtly critical of the two films, a takedown of the roguish image depicted in Mesrine: Killer Instinct (reviewed here). Imagine my disappointment when, midway through the film, Jacques gives a 100,000 francs to a poor family who just smuggled him through a police roadblock, thanking them for their service.

Movie Review: Mesrine: Killer Instinct (L'instinct de mort) (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

Opening today in limited release throughout the U.S., Mesrine: Killer Instinct is a star vehicle showcasing the talents of its leading man, Vincent Cassel. Although quite well-known internationally, particularly for his lead roles in Irreversible and La Haine (oh yeah... and he's married to one of the most beautiful women in the world), domestically he's had to settle for character parts in films like Eastern Promises, and the Ocean's franchise. Being that Mesrine feels more like an American gangster flick than some of the notable Gallic ones, this might be the best chance for the talented Cassel to finally cross over big.

Movie Review: Bright Star

by Tony Dayoub

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

—John Keats

Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water

—the epitaph Keats requested on his deathbed

A return to form for Jane Campion (The Piano), the ethereal Bright Star proves simpler films with a narrower scope can be just as rewarding as the more ambitious ones.

The Year 2000: Counting Down The Zeroes - Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel)

Seeing Before Night Falls (2000) again for the first time in 8 years, I am struck by how timely it still is. With a new administration in the White House far more open in its foreign policy, Cuba is one country that is benefiting from the America's reengagement in the world of diplomacy. The Congressional Black Caucus even sent a few representatives this past week to sniff out its new leader, Raul Castro, and investigate if there is enough cause to consider building bridges between the U.S. and Cuba. As the son of Cuban immigrants myself, I've always had a somewhat more complicated view of the internal realities in Cuba. Director Julian Schnabel captures my own feelings on the subject and presents a story that is somehow both realistic and surreal, political and poetic; a story of a small, beautiful island on the decline under the weight of corruption, yet fiercely surviving because of the powerful will of its creatively spirited people. Writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) is a homosexual who comes of age at the same time as Fidel Castro's revolution comes to fruition. While Arenas at first supports the revolution because of the change it seems to bring, he quickly comes to realize that the new regime is far more oppressive than he first thought. Dissent is not welcome. And the creative community is targeted for its position in society, ideally suited in fomenting dissent among Cuba's free-spirited population. Homosexuals are also targeted for "rehabilitation", placing Arenas in the sights of the island's oppressors. We follow Arenas through his travails in Cuba's prison system, and his eventual exile from the island, ending up in New York where he lives in poverty until his death of AIDS. But Arena's will is never diminished by his troubles, and his story's arc serves as a metaphor for that of Cuba itself. Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), a renowned painter himself, has always specialized in telling the story of artists facing personal adversity, whether real (Basquiat) or imagined (Lou Reed's Berlin). This frees him to use creative license in depicting the story of Before Night Falls. For instance, Arenas isn't always the most reliable narrator. His romantic childhood as told to an interviewer late in the film flies in the face of the impoverished childhood we observed earlier in the movie. We begin to realize that Arenas' art - and in fact, Cuba's - thrives as a result of its existence under oppression. For whether its the poverty that ruled the island before the revolution, or the regime that ruled after, Arenas and his fellow Cubans used the resulting climate as an incentive to create transcendent paintings, literature, music and dance. There are details I relate to, having family that experienced the 1959 Revolution firsthand. In an early scene on the island, Arenas seems to be eating hard-boiled eggs and broccoli because that is all he can afford. We later see him eating the same in New York, where he has freedom of choice, but has perhaps become institutionalized into eating this after his years under Castro. Arenas is often being observed by shadowy government informants, a fact of life in Cuba. Once in New York, he extols the virtues of baby food by pointing out how simple it is to eat for a writer since it can be eaten right out of the jar, a tall tale used to cover up his embarrassment that it is also a cheap source of nutrition for the penniless author. Schnabel shows us how the Cuban people have survived through times of great political repression by continuing to indulge their creative spirit. And though there are many opposed to lifting America's economic embargo against Cuba, I believe that once it is lifted it will allow a subtle shift to occur. No longer will the United States be seen as aiding in the punishment of Cuba's economically depressed people. It will be seen as contributing to the dialogue among its artistic community, as democracy begins its slow invasion into the island and pushes new sources of ideas to the forefront of the Cuban consciousness. Only then will the Cuban people have a chance to escape the oppression of their daily lives that they have grown accustomed to. This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 4/14/09.

DVD Review: I'm Not There - Bob Dylan... Chameleon or Cipher?

by Tony Dayoub

Look up the definition of a cipher. The first definition on Dictionary.com for cipher is simply the word zero. Singer Bob Dylan has been anything and everything but a zero. However, as Todd Haynes illustrates in his paean to Dylan, I'm Not There, Dylan viewed himself as somewhat of an empty receptacle. As he used his chameleon-like abilities to create new personas he could hide behind, friends, fans, and particularly the press, would fill that receptacle with their own preconceived notions of who Dylan really was. Haynes found it so difficult to present Dylan in a straightforward manner, that he instead chose six actors to interpret many of his adopted personas. And if much of the stories told about Dylan or by him are apocryphal, then Haynes found the best way to tell the story. He took the advice of a character in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Among the personas appearing in the movie are the poet-like Dylan known as Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw), Rimbaud being the poet whose quotation, "I is the other," is the central thesis of the film. Young African-American actor, Marcus Carl Franklin, plays the Woody Guthrie persona. Dylan had fashioned a background story for himself as a young folk-singing hobo, who spent his youth jumping on trains to travel cross-country, a story later found out to be false. Haynes casting of the 11-year-old Franklin is a wink to viewers, making it obvious that this kid could not possibly be a surrogate for Dylan despite his stories leading one to believe it so. Jack Rollins (Christian Bale) is the Greenwich Village folkie that we closely associate with Joan Baez (or in this movie, Julianne Moore's Alice Fabian). Bale also reappears as Pastor John, the born-again Dylan of the late seventies. Jack Rollins (Heath Ledger) is the self-absorbed movie star Dylan, who's crumbling marriage is symbolized by the trajectory America takes during the Vietnam war. Richard Gere is Billy the Kid, the Dylan that retreats from public view to live a quiet life in Riddle, a town populated by characters from his songs.

The most iconic and spot-on performance, in fact, almost a transformation, is Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, the defensive Dylan facing rejection from his folk fans after going electric. Her nomination for an Oscar is well deserved, for at no time are you consciously aware that this is Blanchett acting. You are transfixed by her charisma as the androgynous rock star at the height of his sixties-era confrontational posturing towards the press. Blanchett captures the Dylan that sees himself as a cipher, "One having no influence or value; a nonentity."

Haynes shoots each story in the style of cinema suited to the period and story being covered. For example, Blanchett's segment is reminiscent of Fellini's 8 1/2, and Gere's evokes the westerns of the seventies, like Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller or Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (which Dylan appeared in).

I was enthralled by the enigmatic film on a level that I can't quite explain. It certainly has an emotional effect on the most visceral level. But the enigmatic film resists any intellectualizing. Much of the explanations above were derived from a thorough survey of the special features included on the DVD, in stores now. I am a casual Bob Dylan fan so I did not have any reference points to lean on when watching the film. But the wealth of extras on the disc can serve as a crash-course on the singer's life and work. Special attention should be payed to the writings on the film collected under the title "An Introduction to the Film" on Disc 1. The point is that none of this should hinder enjoyment of the film, as long as you can accept its perplexing metaphorical nature.

"I is the other." As Dylan would say, I is not me... I'm not there. Haynes fractured biopic depicts the nonentity that characterizes Dylan. And perhaps his film consciously exemplifies yet another definition of a cipher, "[a private mode of communication] contrived for the safe transmission of secrets."

Still provided courtesy of Genius Products and The Weinstein Company.

DVD Review: Walk the Line: Extended Cut - Extra Features Illuminate the Man in Black

by Tony Dayoub

Just caught a preview copy of Walk the Line: Extended Cut, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. It is the Johnny Cash biopic directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) which stars Joaquin Phoenix, as the Man in Black himself, and Reese Witherspoon, in her Oscar-winning performance, as June Carter-Cash.

The pair vividly embody the roles of the country singing performers, singing all the songs themselves. Phoenix's smoldering intensity suits the haunted Cash perfectly. Witherspoon's own history as a child performer no doubt informed her portrayal of June, who had sung in the public eye since quite young.