12 YEARS A SLAVE: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now opening at a theater near me today, that is, exclusively in Raleigh at the Rialto Theater:




12 YEARS A SLAVE

(Dir. Steve McQueen, 2013)

12 YEARS A SLAVE, the third full length feature by 44-year old British filmmaker Steve McQueen, is going to be the movie that everybody feels that they absolutely have to see this season. But don’t go mistaking it for just another piece of big issue Oscar bait, for it’s a powerfully personal story driven by an exemplary performance that movie-goers will benefit greatly from experiencing.

The British born Chiwetel Ejiofor has shown he’s got the actorly goods before in numerous movie and television roles, but here he works his worry lines like never before as Solomon Northup, a New York native who was born free but kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841.

The film, based on the real life Northup’s 1853 autobiography of the same name, focuses without shuddering on Northup, renamed Platt by his abductors, as he tries to survive unspeakable conditions for over a decade on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

Ejiofor’s Northup would get beaten, brutally lashed, if he protests that he’s not a slave so he resigns himself to the misery of the hand he’s been dealt, and, despite the movie posters showing him on the run, largely doesn’t try to escape (on an errand he take off through the woods at one point but runs into some evil white men hanging slaves and thinks the better of it).

McQueen (wish he’d use a middle initial or something so people would stop asking me if he’s *THE* Steve McQueen) populates his film with recognizable actor folk like Paul Giamatti as a cold slave trader, Benedict Cumberbatch as a slave owning preacher, Paul Dano as a particularly abusive foreman, and Michael Fassbender as the worst of the worst slave drivers who constantly refers to Northup and his people only as his “property.”

All the white people aren’t evil however as Cumberbatch appears to have some compassion, and Brad Pitt (one of the film’s co-producers) shows up as a wizened Canadian carpenter and abolitionist, who just may be able to help Northup out.

Aided by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who shot the director’s previous films, McQueen makes use of long takes and lingers on some shots in a effectively stirring manner that makes us feel what our poor protagonist is going through intensely. One scene, in which Dano strings up and attempts to lynch Northup, has our suffering lead left dangling with only the tips of his toes touching the ground as the other slaves continue their daily activities quietly behind him.

These harsh incidents are indeed hard to watch, but to fully appreciate the severity of what went down they are a vital necessity. Elements such as Adepero Oduye as one of Ejiofor’s fellow slaves crying uncontrollably over being separated from her children from one scene to the next are as harrowing and haunting as cinema can possibly achieve. Fassbender, who previously starred in McQueen’s SHAME, embodies a creature of pure cruelty so convincingly that you can feel the audience’s hatred of him in full force. There won’t be much sympathy for Sarah Paulson as his wife either, for she’s a wretched piece of wrong-minded menace as well.

Folks may compare it last year’s DJANGO UNCHAINED, but while they may share similar subject matter and may equal each other in the heavy abundance of the use of the “N-word,” Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist revenge fantasy was a cartoon compared to McQueen’s heartfelt and heartbreaking work here with its blindingly faithful to reality rawness.



12 YEARS A SLAVE is McQueen’s best film and one of the best of the year by far. It demands to be seen and felt by everybody who is unafraid to see and feel how somebody can endure such Hellish torture, and survive to tell their tale. It can seem like ancient history, especially as we now have a black President, but here we are reminded that it really wasn't that long ago that there were these horrible conditions in our country, and the repercussions of these injustices are still largely felt to this day. As Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”



It seems these days, the only way to even begin to get past such horrors is to fully acknowledge them. The unflinchingly honest 12 YEARS A SLAVE is here to make it even harder to look the other way.



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LOOPER: A Compellingly Crafted Time Travel Thriller

Now playing at nearly every multiplex in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

LOOPER (Dir. Rian Johnson, 2012)


At first, it’s a bit jarring to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt made to look like Bruce Willis via prosthetic makeup. But Gordon-Levitt, has so got Willis’ mannerisms, and soft spoken voice down that the impression works, that is, until the real Willis shows up and it’s a little jarring again. However, it still works.



Set in Kansas City in 2044, Gordon-Levitt, as he tells us in his opening voice-over narration, is a low-level “Looper,” a hit-man who kills people that the mafia in 2074 sends back via illegal time travel technology. To close a looper’s contract, they send back the older version to be killed by their younger selves, and are paid off with gold bars. It’s a job that doesn’t attract “forward thinking people,” Gordon Levitt notes.

A frantic fellow looper (Paul Dano), when confronted with his older self, is unable to “close the loop,” as they call it, he goes into hiding in a floor safe in Gordon-Levitt’s apartment. A bearded wizened and jaded Jeff Daniels, as a gang boss from the future, offers a deal in which if Gordon-Levitt gives up Dano’s location, he can keep all the silver he’s been saving up. Gordon-Levitt takes the deal, but then finds out that his own loop is set to be closed.

Willis is able to escape from his younger self, upon appearing from the future, but not long after that they have a face-to-face at a diner, and Willis speaks of how, in 30 years, his wife (Qing Xu) will be murdered love by a powerful villain called “The Rainmaker.” Willis came back in time to kill the child who will grow up to be this bigwig baddie.

Did you get all that? Yes, it’s a movie in which the convolutions swirl around you, but you can’t help to get caught up in them. Even when the film downshifts from the expected, yet still engrossing action sequences (shoot-ups, chases, fight scenes, etc.), into a quieter second half that takes place on a farm owned by Emily Blunt, who just may be the mother of the future “Rainmaker,” its spell still holds you.

Willis doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, and doesn’t need much, but what he has, like when he talks of the woman whose life he’s trying save, he really sells. Considering his younger self to be a self absorbed junkie, Willis provides a gruff contrast to Gordon-Levitt’s stoic smoothness.

The rest of the well-chosen cast have their moments. Daniels basically has one major speech to give before spending the rest of the movie as an order barking heavy, but he pulls off both superbly.

Blunt, could be seen as a gratuitous love-interest for Gordon-Levitt, yet her frightened eyed delivery is “on,” and it’s fun to see her smoke an invisible cigarette (another thing to look forward to in the future).

A few of Daniels’ thugs are notable too - Noah Segan, as a clumsily trigger happy goon, and Garret Dillahunt as a much more professional assassin.

With its superb sci-fi premise, exemplary effects, and top-notch performances, Rian Johnson, who directed the brilliant BRICK (also starring Gordon-Levitt), and the not-bad THE BROTHERS BLOOM, has compellingly crafted a well above average action thriller. Its ending might feel a little off, but the fact that it doesn’t allow easily for a sequel makes it all the more refreshing.

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These Indie Kids With Their Surreal Anti-Rom Coms…

This summer has been thankfully free of commercial romantic comedies.

There haven’t been any brightly-lit Kate Hudson or Jennifer Aniston vehicles in which they keep the Meg Ryan rom com fire going with the time-tested true-love-wins-in-the-end formula that I’ve been aware of.

There hasn’t even been a contender for all-star ensemble rom com like last year’s sleeper hit CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.

But hold on, that’s at the multiplexes.

What about at the art houses? Well, there are a couple of movies that, at first glance, look like rom coms. Look a little closer, and you’ll see that they are anti-rom coms, that is, comical love stories, but layered with cynicism, realism, and existentialism. And then there’s the surreal element.

Like in first-time director Colin Trevorrow’s SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED from a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Derek Connoly, now playing at the Rialto in Raleigh.

Aubrey Plaza, from the very funny NBC show Parks and Recreation, stars as a jaded young woman interning at a magazine in Seattle (Seattle Magazine, duh), who comes off like a spiritual descendant of Daniel Clowe’s Enid from both the comic book and movie GHOST WORLD. Plaza’s father (Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin) thinks she’s in a funk (he embarrassingly thinks she’s a virgin too), and encourages her to get out and be social. So far, so rom com.

It veers off that well trodden trail, when our surly sarcastic heroine jumps at the chance to work on a story pitched by Jake M. Johnson (from the Fox Zooey Deschanel show New Girl) about what’s behind a classified ad that states: “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed.”

Plaza discovers that a scruffy Mark Duplass (who appears to be in every other indie film this year) wrote the ad, so she applies for the time traveling companion position. Meanwhile, it turns out that the smarmy Johnson, who at least owns up to being a crass jerk, just took on the assignment so he could hook up with an old girlfriend in the not-as-interesting-but-still-fine subplot.

Sure, it’s predictable that Plaza will come out of her shell and fall for Duplass, but the snappy script and tuned-in tone make this an endearing film that never tries to be too hip or self consciously pop culture savvy, despite having a few STAR WARS references in it. It can’t help but have some rom com story beats, but its naturalistic rhythms subvert them. That’s very impressive, considering the plot hinging on whether or not some odd guy can actually time travel.

Less successful in its rom com subversion, is Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s RUBY SPARKS, now playing at the Colony Theater  in North Raleigh. 

Its surreal premise is simple: a young writer (Paul Dano) writes about his dream girl (literally from his dreams) and she comes to life in the form of the energetic red-headed Zoe Kazan (who wrote the screenplay).

If Dano writes that she speaks French - she speaks French, if he writes that she can’t live without him - she freaks out if he lets go of her hand, and so on. “You can make her do anything you want…for men everywhere - tell me you’re not gonna let that go to waste” Dano’s brother (Chris Messina, another indie actor who gets around a bit) implores of him.

Dano’s attempts to control her always backfire, which, of course, is the point, but RUBY SPARKS is maybe half of a good movie. A sleazy Steve Coogan as Dano’s agent bit seems like a conventional concession, and the film’s conclusion spastically beats its message into the ground - or Dano’s apartment floor as Kazan frantically jumps up and down yelling that he’s a genius, because that’s what he’s typing her to do. Okay, we get it.

It’s sort of ADAPTATION meets (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, but it’s not fleshed out enough to really hit its marks. Still, the attempt to comment on the egos and expectations in a relationship as well as rom com tropes (though I’m not sure it’s really the refutation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ideal that the A.V. Club claims) does yields some satisfaction, and it’s nice to see apt cameos by Anne Benning, and Elliot Gould.

It’s worth noting that one of the only movies close to a conventional commercial rom com this summer is David Frankel’s HOPE SPRINGS, starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as an old married couple trying to get their groove back. That’s a nice little film that doesn’t need any sci-fi gimmickry or supernatural shenanigans in order to charm.

But if the idea of seeing A-list geezers getting it on puts you off, and you’re willing to give a surreal anti-rom com made by indie kids a try, go with SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED - it certainly has the edge because nobody would ever call Aubrey Plaza a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Not if they know what’s good for them.



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Blu Ray Review: THE EXTRA MAN

Now out on Blu ray, DVD, and scheduled to be available streaming on Netflix Instant starting 12/16/2010:

THE EXTRA MAN (Dirs. Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 2010)









This film, which I initially thought was too quirky for its own good, grew on me quite a bit. Kevin Kline has been in so few movies lately that it's extremely pleasing to see him sink his teeth into a juicy role, and the role here is a beaut.




As seen through the eyes of Paul Dano as a young aspiring writer with delusions of "Great Gatsby"-ish grandeur, we meet Kline as Henry Harrison - an eccentric failed playwright who lives off of the splendor of rich old ladies as he describes: "A fine meal, vintage champagne...an orchestra perhaps."

You see the scraggily gray haired mustached Kline considers himself an "extra man." He explains:




"You see women outlive men so there's always a need for an extra man at the table. It maintains a proper seating arrangement. Boy-girl, boy-girl."




Dano, who was kicked out of a teaching position at Princeton and came to New York to "find himself", rents a room from Kline and gets a job doing phone sales for an environmental magazine. Dano is fascinated by Kline's philosophies and tricks like how to get into the opera for free.




As a fellow flighty co-worker, Katie Holmes becomes the object of Dano's affection, but there's a little snag in his plans as she has an activist boyfriend and, uh, Dano has a bit of a cross dressing issue.




In one of the most off-kilter performances of his career, John C. Reilly appears in a small part as a grizzly wide-eyed neighbor of Kline's who speaks in falsetto. Reilly's part doesn't really fit in at first, but as the film goes on it becomes an inexactractable piece of the quirky quilt.




Though it's largely Dano's movie, Kline is who keeps it rolling with his witty line readings and chutzpah - a scene in which he teaches Dano how to take a leak while standing between parked cars on the street has more cheeky charm than one could imagine with that description.




What's less successful is the handling of Dano's sexual deviance. Scenes of the droopy sad eyed actor fondling brassieres and trying on women's clothes are cringe-worthy and don't add much to the more interesting material involving the wealthy women Kline is trying to woo.




A subplot involving Celia Weston as a wannabe socialite and somewhat rival of Kline's isn't explored fully, likewise Patti D'Arbanville's skimpy part as a dominatrix that Dano hires.




These flaws aside, THE EXTRA MAN is just amusing enough to be recommended. It's not as essential a film as director Berman and Pulcini's AMERICAN SPLENDOR, but it's fairly agreeable entertainment nonetheless.




Special Features: a commentary with Kevin Kline and author Jonathan Ames ("Bored To Death") who wrote the original novel, a second commentary with the co-directors + crew, a deleted scene, a clip of the voice recording for a cartoon clip, a behind the scene featerette of the musical score, and HDNet: A look at THE EXTRA MAN.




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