By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter
“Cowboys and Aliens,” outside of the last Harry Potter, is this summers’ most eagerly anticipated blockbuster. Judging from the casting, it looked like it was intended as much for adults as to the all important teenage demographic.
Jon Favreau, who directed the first “Iron Man” with wit and energy, delivers the goods suggested by the title. But that’s about all he does, and in a market place overstocked with high power thrill rides, the movie fails.
From the very beginning the movies’ strategy is clear; mashing the conventions of potboiler westerns with the equivalent devices from B level science fiction. The problem is the filmmakers haven’t added much more to the mix. The plotting is predictable, the aliens have been swiped from a dozen better junk movies, and the dialogue does little more than get us from one scene to the next. So even though the movie comes on like a risk taker, it’s so safe that it hardly quickens your pulse.
Considering that a half dozen writers are given screen credit, you have to believe the producers got the movie they wanted. What’s maddening is that their other work, including the “Star Trek” reboot and “Iron Man,” is so much sharper.
Do I have to concede that C and A has a “look.” The New Mexico scenery is stunning. And it’s impossible to spend 100 million without getting good effects. Still, it’s not enough.
The same material might have worked had it been produced on a tiny budget with tacky, smile inducing effects. Or if the producers had gone the Tarantino route, and spiked the story with comic digressions and ironic asides. But every element goes in the exact opposite direction. The result is nonsense delivered with a poker face.
Daniel Craig takes his cues from Clint Eastwood’s fabled “man with no name,” but without the redemptive, low key charisma. Harrison Ford gives his all to the lines, but like everybody else, he’s just part of a machine that has no use for personality. The rest of the large, familiar cast suffers a worse fate; it’s nearly invisible.
Olivia Wilde, whose striking eyes seem to leap off the pages of glossy magazines, is finally given a central role in a big movie. The trailer makes a point of teasing us with a provocative shot of her half naked in front of a bonfire. The actual scene is completely cold, as is the rest of her part. I won’t bother trying to describe her murkily conceived character; it’s not her fault and it’s not worth the effort.
It may be helpful to point to a similar movie that works much better. At this moment, the obvious comparison is to the latest “Transformers.” Although critics hate it, Michael Bay’s third in the series has proved a huge success both here and abroad.
Two weeks ago, responding to crabby letters from readers, the two chief critics from the New York Times, A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis, carried on about the movie, at length. The readers complained about Bay’s violence, militarism, and the fact that his style has been revered not just by audiences, but certain critics who appear compelled by the high level of filmmaking.
As a reluctant fan of this latest “Transformers,” I would add to that the gleeful and cracked humor that sets the tone. And tone makes all the difference.
I’ve yet to see the first “Transformers”, but I found myself amused by the second, “Revenge of the Fallen.” I found it directed with a knowing humor that, along with Bay’s awesome technical expertise, ranked it best in breed. Sure, this kind of film making, at its heart, is disposable, and does nothing to elevate the mass consciousness. But it was a thrill ride in the best sense, with a canny balance of humor and character that generally sustained it through the two hour plus running time.
I expected less from “Transformers 3, Dark Side of the Moon,” but had little choice but to see it; my uncle, a veteran character actor, provides the voice for two of the “Autobots.” Let me qualify my admiration; unless you’re in on the Transformers phenomenon you’ll find the latest installment maddening and incoherent. It would be the same as being set down in front of the last Harry Potter without any knowledge of what came before. So, viewer beware.
Back to a comparison between “Cowboys,” and “Dark Side of the Moon.”
The first half of Bay’s movie, a satiric rethinking of the whys and wherefores of the space race, takes us back to the days of Sputnik, when the Russians had the edge on the US. The movies outlandish premise is that the space race began when something alien crashed on our moon, setting off competition between us and the Soviets to discover the who and why.
Bay quickly establishes a breathless pace, studding the landscape with a variety of off kilter characters, including John Tuturro, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and Patrick Dempsey, with more to come as the movie proceeds. Shia LeBouf returns, but with a new British girlfriend, Rosie Huntington-Whitely, who’s dressed and shot like she’s auditioning for a 70s soft core.
After an hour or so of comic intrigue the movie settles into a series of awesome set pieces pitting alien robots (bad), against earth based robots (good), with Washington first, then Chicago, serving as battlefields. An extended sequence that comes near the end, featuring the destruction of a massive skyscraper is as witty as it is spectacular. It’s absurd and virtually bloodless, but rigged with the sort of ingenuity that keeps you amused throughout.
Bay knows that this is all nonsense, but he’s smart enough to know that even the most spectacular visuals need a sense of verisimilitude in order to keep us interested in what happens next. This he delivers, with imagination and technical panache.
It may seem silly, and almost perverse, to engage in a discussion over the relative merits of one disposable movie over another. But style makes all the difference, and it’s always made the difference, whether the director was Alfred Hitchcock or Michaelangelo Antonioni. And at bottom this is why those of us who love movies are capable of enjoying a diverse range of movies, from the ridiculous to the sublime
As for the indignant readers of the “Times,” one wonders what they’re doing at “Transformers” in the first place. That they didn’t know what they were getting into when they bought their tickets is more worrying than anything that they endured on screen.
“Buck”
Buck Branaman was a character just waiting for a filmmaker to come along and tell his story. And the documentary that celebrates him is now an indie hit. After playing most of the major cities to enthusiastic crowds it continues to run in Harrisburg. If there‘s any justice, it should make an appearance in Lancaster, sooner or later.
On one level the movie is familiar, functioning in a comfort zone populated by a library of similar, character driven non fictions. But what’s been added to the predictable brew, beyond the depth the filmmakers achieve in telling Buck’s story, is a level of technical achievement that until recently, was not in the non narrative tool box. In this case, the tool is first rate, and occasionally beautiful images.
Branaman has been called the original “horse whisperer,” because he worked with Robert Redford on the movie of the same name. Branaman seems to get into an animal’s head, in a way that defies human perception. But he’s a psychologist who understands humans just as well as animals. And he’s blessed with wit.
Branaman teaches humans how to make enduring connections to their animals. And he does it with a shrewd understanding of both species.
I was skeptical at first; I just don’t care about horses. But the man’s presence is so compelling, his voice so clear, that it quickly overcame my indifference. The movie itself breaks no ground in terms of style, but it doesn’t have to. The material and the solid direction are enough.
The latest generation of digital cameras has gifted low budget filmmakers with a new range of options. They could always go out and shoot nature in a way that inspired a sense of awe. But it took time and money. Stories about extraordinary humans, most of them made on miniscule budgets, were generally shot with inferior cameras that, at best, delivered images akin to that of network news broadcasts. They got the intimacy but at the expense of the sensual. No more.
The better digital imagers allow filmmakers to follow their subjects and get detailed and vivid images that rival what we’ve come to expect from feature films. And Buck is one of several beneficiaries of the technology. From the very opening the environment is a major player. But above all, you’ll leave the movie feeling better that Buck Branaman lives and breathes.
