The Bloodsucker in the Chair

Cosmopolis

** out of ****

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche and Mathieu Amalric

Running time: 108 minutes

David Cronenberg shot his new film Cosmopolis last summer, before “occupy” became a buzzword synonymous with revolution against corporate greed.

An adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel, Cosmopolis examines the thrust of the tension between the “99 per cent” and the heads of financial power. However, despite its placement within a world filled with tension due to economic disparity, it is the dullest feature the Canadian writer/director has ever made.

It is impervious as to why Cronenberg cast Robert Pattinson in the lead role. Full of ego and little else, Pattinson’s performance cannot carry a picture already marred in complex prose that is often recited but rarely spoken with conviction.

Cronenberg explained that he adapted DeLillo’s novel in a mere six days, although the film seems less a coherent merge of ideas and scenes than scripted strands of an academic essay that have been copied and pasted intermittently.

Pattinson is Eric Packer, an aimless multi-billionaire. Even though he is rich, young and recently married, Packer feels empty. He yearns to be stunned with some sort of feeling – violent or sexual – yet despite being the protagonist in a Cronenberg picture, this arousal comes harder than it should.

The first two thirds of Cosmopolis take place, primarily, in Packer’s limo as it slowly weaves through a New York traffic standstill. (Although Cosmopolis is set in New York, Toronto landmarks and attractions keep popping out from the screen.) He is off to get a haircut on the other side of the city, although he doesn’t need one.

The scenes turn into episodes without a goal, as friends (Jay Baruchel and company), prostitutes (including Juliette Binoche) and miscellaneous characters drop into the limo to suit Packer’s needs. He has lunch with his wife, a wistful blonde named Elise (Sarah Gadon). A doctor even stops by to examine Packer's prostate.

During the ride, Packer finds out that the managing director of the IMF was assassinated, an action of revolution that has spurred chaos around the world. The limo is soundproof and Packer cannot hear the anti-capitalist riots outside. The car is a lair of plush black leather, hardwood panels and shiny electronic screens, a monsterly extension of the protagonist.

Drained of eroticism, both the film and the protagonist are too vapid to relate to. Cosmopolis moves as slowly as the traffic jam that paralyzes Packer in his limousine.

Some of the supporting cast fares better, and unsurprisingly, these turns come from the heated acts of desperation from characters that are also victims of economic turmoil.

Paul Giamatti plays Benno Levin, an aimless, angry man who confronts Packer at the end of the film and gives him a piece of his mind. Cosmopolis’s final scene, a 20-minute confrontation of Packer’s ego and Levin’s misery, works toward a cathartic (although somewhat ambiguous) resolution. It’s a major change from the dreary, monochromatic pessimism that permeates through much of the film.

Meanwhile, Mathieu Amalric (of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) enlivens his lone moments as a protestor who stages a small pie-in-the-face coup toward the protagonist, hoping to sabotage Packer’s power in front of TV cameras.

Packer keeps pining on about how the specter of capitalism haunts the world, yet despite its relevant themes and intriguing ideas within the realm of dire financial times – the standard of currency in the film’s world is the rat – Cosmopolis doesn’t explore these elements with much depth.

This is Ridley, Signing On

Prometheus

*** out of ****

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Logan Marshall-Green

Running time: 124 minutes

Don’t walk into Ridley Scott's Prometheus expecting a taut, bottled frightfest a la Alien or an explosive thrill ride like James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up, Aliens. The film is breathtakingly beautiful and more thematically audacious than any action-packed summer release in years, but it’s not a particularly frightening ride.

Instead, Prometheus overwhelms with intelligent, thought-provoking questions, while occasionally underwhelming with thinly drawn characters and their questionable motivations.

Prometheus is the name of the vessel that we first see gliding gracefully through space in 2093, many years before the Nostromo did. It is heading to an undisclosed destination. The travelers inside include Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, very strong here) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), two explorers tracing the beginning of life.

While searching for ancient cultural artifacts on earth, Shaw and Holloway found a series of star maps that lead to a distant planet – a place they believe has ancestral bodies that holds clues to the genesis of civilization.

Also on board is David, an android played with effectively cold (and somewhat ironic) humanism by Michael Fassbender. Although the easiest comparison to a sci-fi classic would be to compare David to a walking, talking version of the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has the same brooding intensity and unpredictable nature that defined the replicants from Blade Runner, another of Scott’s films.

David has a superior intelligence and intricate understanding of human interactions and behaviour yet is unable to connect with the inhabitants on board.

The ship lands on the distant planet outside a domed, monolithic cave. When Shaw and the team spelunk inside its recesses, they find a sanctuary full of cylinders that spew an icky, black liquid – a substance that these travelers probably shouldn’t touch unless they want a stomach bursting experience.

With the exception of one gruesome sequence involving an open surgery, Prometheus is decidedly less terrorizing than Alien. Instead of following the characters down the dark corridors of the cave, Scott desires to provoke thought instead.

Prometheus spends much of its time pondering over creation, discerning between the geneses of man to the invention of robotic men. The Titan god who shares his name with the film’s title bears similarities to the corporate profiteers at Weyland, the corporation that funds the expedition.

Myths of Prometheus tell that he was chosen to create man by moulding humans out of clay, and despite being the wisest Titan, he abused his power by deceiving the elder gods to benefit the humans. Likewise, Weyland invented a God of their own, a robot that could outsmart and outlive humans, while hiding underneath their own trickster alibi.

Driven by science-fiction concepts, Prometheus gestates on existential themes and religious paradox that most summer tentpoles won’t touch. The screenplay is co-written by Damon Lindelof, one of the writers and creators of Lost, which means that many of these sci-fi elements are introduced and then left hanging.

As brainy the subject matter and mammoth the scope, the film sometimes falls to action movie conveniences and implausibility, especially with ship captain Janek. Despite taking responsibility for the trillion-dollar mission, he makes several dumb blunders, including forgetting to page some of his scientists to return to the ship during a sandstorm and then losing track of these men when peril later approaches.

Prometheus sometimes falters when it holds back on explanations and a few of the central plot strands are, begrudgingly, left wide open for a sequel. Regardless, it is still an engaging, well-acted and impeccably designed journey through the darkest depths of space, a place where there isn’t as much screaming as this reviewer remembers.

A Counsellor, Two Councillors and Young Rebels in Love

Moonrise Kingdom

**** out of **** 

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand

Running time: 94 minutes

In a March 2000 issue of Esquire, an interviewer asked director Martin Scorsese where audiences could find the next Scorsese. He pointed many toward the work of up-and-coming auteur Wes Anderson.

While Scorsese began his career with street smart, rebellious protagonists, Anderson later amassed a cult following for book smart, offbeat characters, as well as for his eccentric plots and intricate visual style. His films have a childlike imagination but often explore very adult themes. These sensibilities tend to divide his audience.

While much of his work is overly precious and emotionally inert, Anderson’s latest film, Moonrise Kingdom, is more touching and soulful than anything he has ever done.

The film is set on the fictional New Penzance Island, situated off New England, in the mid-1960s. It doesn’t have any paved roads and is home to many native wildlife reserves, according to the narrator and tour guide played by Bob Balaban.

At the film’s start, Sam Shakusky (played by newcomer Jared Gilman), an outcast from a troupe of pre-teen boy scouts, flees from camp. He becomes a lone wolf with a canoe, an air rifle, a beaver pelt and camping gear.

His scoutmaster, Ward (Edward Norton), notifies the local sheriff, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), that the boy is missing. During his searches, Sharp finds out that another child, Suzy Bishop (newcomer Kara Hayward), is gone and her parents, two curt lawyers played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, demand to know where she is.

As it turns out, Sam and Suzy are on the lam together. Sam met Suzy backstage at a local church production a year earlier and the two have been penpals ever since. Sam is an orphan living with foster parents and is picked on by his fellow scouts, while Suzy is independent, defiant and misunderstood by her parents. These two adventurous souls were made for each other.

Suzy provides the entertainment for their daytime excursions, such as her favourite French record and a suitcase filled of hardcover adventure stories. Sam, meanwhile, provides the survival skills that allow the two to cross rivers, make dinner by campfire and fend off animals. He is also a terrific still-life painter.

Meanwhile, a storm approaches that threatens to halt their juvenile refuge.

Moonrise Kingdom is, tonally and thematically, set in a realm between youth and adulthood. The symbolism may be obvious – Suzy’s manor is named Summer’s End and the film takes place at the beginning of September – but it’s a point potently made.

The film earns its stripes (or scout patches) for developing the romance between Sam and Suzy with emotional brevity. Wisely, Anderson cast two unknowns destined for big careers.

With messy hair and Austin Powers glasses, Jared Gilman’s Sam Shakusky has the same endearing, courageous romanticism that Max Fischer, the young protagonist from Anderson’s Rushmore, embodied. Kara Hayward’s Suzie looks a few years older than her co-star but she has a striking vulnerability that makes the young romance work.

A scene of cozy sexual exploration set on a beach at dusk is maybe the most touching scene Anderson’s ever written. Gilman and Hayward make it even more magical, bringing an equal blend of confidence and awkwardness to their romantic interactions. Together, the two pre-teens are like miniature versions of the aimless misfits that populated the early films of Jean-Luc Godard, simultaneously lost and free.

Although the (adult) supporting players are (rightfully) shoved to the periphery of the film, the ensemble is a reliable batch.

Of note are two actors best known for committed, intense performances that do terrific work with quieter, more nuanced characters: Edward Norton as Sam’s wise scoutmaster, who leads his troops in an expedition to return Sam to base camp, and Bruce Willis as the lonesome police captain who sees something of our map-making young protagonist in himself.

Moonrise Kingdom has fantasy elements, Biblical allegory and the same loose, eccentric energy that pulsates through the crème of Anderson’s filmography. But it’s also the most poignant film he’s ever made, reflecting back on the vigor of coming-of-age with refreshing honesty and sympathy.

Interacting with the Interactive

Indie Game: The Movie

***½  out of ****

Directed by: Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky

Running time: 103 minutes

Video games are not often referred to as an art form, despite their lucrative role in changing the modern media landscape to make art more interactive.

Indie Game: The Movie, a Canadian documentary that explores the lives and creative struggles of four independent video game designers, is a big step toward giving brilliant programmers and designers the due they richly deserve.

The film, which won an award at Sundance earlier this year, is about those who make their games with limited funding and just a few team members. The first is Jonathan Blow, whose game Braid became the first massive independent success in 2008, renowned for its crafty rewind function that allowed players to take as many mulligan shots as they wanted.

Currently designing a second game, Blow regrets some of the game’s instant popularity, explaining that his audience looked over the intricacies of his creation and were too attached to the rewind move. His attempts to defend the game online have only hurt his image.

Blow may be frustrated, but he is not as paranoid as Montreal programmer Phil Fish, whose cubist game Fez became a punchline on video game blogs the same way that the Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy got ripped apart in the music press. Nobody ever thought it would see the light of day.

But Fish cannot help that the game is delayed a few years after it was primed to launch: after new technology became available, he redesigned his game using innovative pixel art aesthetics three times over.

As Fish notes, the public has no problem tirelessly criticizing him and his small team for taking years to finish a game, when there are other games that take hundreds of programmers that are in development for just as long. He speaks in disdain about Halo and related multi-million dollar successes.

The final subjects are Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, in the ending stages of making an independent game called Super Meat Boy. Their protagonist is a character without skin that goes through levels to find Bandage Girl, who will offer him healing.

He is an animated personification of the bitter hurt Refenes and McMillen may feel if their game flops. Not only will their work’s perception flounder but so will their entire creative capacity.

Since gamers now download new releases from their consoles, independent video game markers can get a deal with a distributor like Microsoft (who own the X-Box Live platform) to get their work out to fans of the format.

In the same way that independent directors eventually got a hold of small, portable cameras and starting filming stories that were personal to them, the indie video game programmers examined here say that their games are the most effective ways to express themselves.

Discussion of mortality becomes eerily frequent in the film. McMillen refers to the room where he works as a concentration camp. After committing so much time and money to a venture so personal, Fish laments that if Fez flops, he will consider killing himself.

The figures in this male-centric documentary have no regrets showing off their bedrooms, filled with posters of obscure games, Nintendo Power wallpaper and bean-bag chairs. These rooms are microcosms of their youth-bound minds.

Indie Game is a frequently fascinating and surprisingly moving film that delves deeply into the creative psychology of unacknowledged artists. The four subjects are trying to cling onto a childlike spirit that once came from immersing themselves in the world of a game.

These interactive programmers once felt animated and alive, but they don’t want to admit that it’s game over. They will fight to rack up points – of a creative and professional variety – to become the winner of a new kind of game, even if the level seems impossible to finish.