Not Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

Stoker

** out of ****

Directed by: Park Chan-wook

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Dermot Mulroney and Jacki Weaver

Running time: 99 minutes

Can a film be mesmerizing and disappointing at once? Stoker, the first English-language film from South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook, answers that inquiry with a resounding ‘yes.’

Just about every scene in this thriller engorges the eyes with haunting imagery, exquisite composition and slinky inter-cutting that maximizes suspense. However, lifeless characterization, predictable plotting and overwrought symbolism dull up the director’s ode to all things Hitchcock.

The film tracks the maturation of lonely high-schooler India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), whose father dies suddenly on her 18th birthday. India is quiet and virginal. She hates to be touched and, with pale skin and a morbid, black dress, she tries to avoid talking with anyone in the wake of her dad’s passing.

At the Stoker country house, India’s mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) welcomes her husband’s brother Charlie (a charming Matthew Goode). Charlie has a mysterious past – he claims to have been traveling the world – but India is revolted by his presence, especially when he cozies up to mother.

Charlie stays to support Evelyn, who seems to have no occupation besides moping around the manor, as the enigmatic uncle tries to become a father figure to India. She finds it hard to escape his watch, discomforted by his come-ons and romantic insinuations.

Stoker does not prove that Park Chan-wook is a bad filmmaker, even if his style often trumps his substance. Instead, the script from Prison Break star Wentworth Miller is uneven, with some intriguing ideas but not enough weight to carry the story forward or enough rooting interest for one to become invested in the characters.

Further, Miller shows that he has never met a metaphor that he did not like. Chan-wook is also just as interested in bludgeoning the audience with symbolism related to sexual maturation that has not only been used before, but employed with more imaginative results.

From the deviled eggs India consumes (fertility) to the extinguished birthday candles (growing up) to Charlie’s decision to garden after his morning over (planting his seed) to the spiders that slink up India’s leg (the touch of a predator), there is enough psychosexual imagery here to give Hitchcock a headache. Oh, yes, there is a pencil through the sharpener as well (um, castration).

And speaking of that ‘Master of Suspense,’ the iconography from his films seem to pop up in every other scene, from the empty motel where one of the characters meets an unfortunate fate to a playground replicated from the one in The Birds. Stoker is like a Hitchcock museum: beautiful and packed with homage, but not emotionally satisfying.

The most obvious reference is to Hitchcock's 1943 classic Shadow of a Doubt, most specifically in that film's off-kilter relationship between the daughter played by Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten’s creepy uncle, also named Charlie.

Here, though, the script gives Wasikowska and Goode less to do. The actors offer more with body language (some is used in a terrific, tense seduction set at a piano, Stoker’s most scintillating sequence) than Miller offers them with his pale script. Kidman fares the worst, a vapid character whose actions are inconsistent from scene to scene.

By its end, we are more curious in the choices that Chan-wook makes with framing and parallel editing the scenes that we are in the character’s actions or motivations. In addition, if you have seen any thriller, Hitchcockian or otherwise, you will likely figure out how this family portrait is going to look long before the climax arrives.

A Horse of a Different Colour

Oz the Great and Powerful

**½  out of **** 

Directed by: Sam Raimi

Starring: James Franco, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Zach Braff

Running time: 127 minutes

Oz the Great and Powerful tells the story behind the man behind the curtain. It is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz that does not enhance the 1939 MGM classic but does not defile memories of it either.

Sam Raimi’s imaginative storytelling is brainy and the script from Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire has heart to spare. However, James Franco is miscast in the lead role, without a dusting of courage that makes one less hesitant to root for the disheveled con man protagonist.

The film begins in black-and-white, with a 4:3 aspect ratio (one of the first of many homages to Victor Fleming’s classic), as magician Oscar Diggs (Franco) arrives in Kansas as a member of a traveling circus. (Although he plays a man named Oscar, Franco portrays him with the enthusiasm he gave while hosting the Oscars in 2011.)

Fleeing from a fight with the circus strongman, Oscar escapes in a hot air balloon but ends up flying directly into a twister. That tornado transports him directly to Oz. In Raimi’s film, Oz is still a land of dazzling Technicolour, a myriad of Narnia and some of Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python illustrations. It is also more of a wondrous, candy-coated Wonderland than the one Tim Burton created for Disney in 2010.

In the mystical land, Oscar befriends Theodora (Mila Kunis), a witch with emerald eyes smitten by his wizardry. She believes in a prophecy that a wizard would arrive to defeat the Wicked Witch and restore greatness to the land – and she believes the man to fulfill that destiny is the bumpkin who just flew in from over the rainbow.

However, Oscar gets mixed signals about his presumed leadership from witch Evanora (Rachel Weisz), who doubts that the wizard has what it takes to become a leader. On the other hand, good witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) has more faith in him.

Joining Oscar on his travels across L. Frank Baum’s universe are two new and welcome additions: Finley (voiced by Zach Braff), a flying monkey in a bellhop’s uniform thrilled to assist the newcomer, and China Doll, a tiny, orphaned porcelain figure. The spirit of these two computer-generated characters recalls the colourful charm of Bert Lahr and Judy Garland’s homely kindness.

There is a lot of behind-the-scenes wizardry present in Raimi’s grand presentation – except for the ‘great and powerful’ Oz himself, courtesy of a wimpy, misguided portrayal from James Franco.

Between the lack of gravitas the actor gives to his carnival performance near the start and his stilted line readings throughout, Franco more often depicts a young boy playing dress up in a magician’s outfit. He looks flummoxed when standing beside his leading ladies, all of whom relish their roles and rise above passable dialogue and underdeveloped back-story.

However, for anyone fearing a generic, calculated and Disney-fied commodity, a la Tim Burton’s uninspired 2010 retelling of Alice in Wonderland, Oz the Great and Powerful has an advantage: Kapner and Lindsay-Abaire’s script doesn’t rely too much on the goodwill from the MGM classic.

When the story focuses more on the residents in Oz, there is more at stake and more reason to empathize with the bewildered protagonist. A wistful Danny Elfman score and top-notch production design from Robert Stromberg (who worked on Avatar and, yes, Alice in Wonderland) help make the land sound and look as dreamy as Dorothy Gale would remember it.

Oz the Great and Powerful does not live up to its boastful title, although there are enough moments of sweetness and surprise. The smoke and mirrors may not be enough to make one forgive the acting miscues, but there is more freshness than one would expect from what seems to be a highly corporatized rehashing of a classic.

P.O.T.U.S., I Love You

Olympus Has Fallen

** out of ****

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Melissa Leo

Running time: 118 minutes

Olympus Has Fallen is a Die Hard clone with some blood transfused from the plot of In the Line of Fire. Since those actioners came out 20 years or so ago, it is surprising that a merged rip-off of the two did not arrive sooner.

Instead, this film predates the release of another film with a similar story – White House Down from director Roland Emmerich. It would not surprise me if Olympus rushed its post-production to get a pole position on the schedule, especially since its CGI is lackluster and the news broadcasts that depict the onscreen events are fraught with spelling mistakes. Regardless, fine-tuning on these features would not eliminate the bland characters and retreaded plot elements.

The film’s John McClane surrogate is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a former friend and national security head for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Banning abandoned his post working for Asher after the President’s car spun out of control during a low-visibility blizzard, plunging into an icy ravine with the First Lady (Ashley Judd), killing her. Both Banning and Asher blame themselves for her death.

Now working on a security detail for the Treasury, Banning returns to his old job to save the Commander in Chief when North Korean terrorists – quite improbably – evade satellite radar, bomb Washington D.C. and put the White House under siege.

The mastermind behind this plan, Kang (Rick Yune), poses as a South Korean diplomat and uses an alliance with a close aide of the President’s – also laughably improbable – to infiltrate the high-security underground fortress where the president and his staff hide.

When dozens of North Koreans posing as tourists burst through the White House gates, armed and dangerous – once again, improbably – Banning heads inside to pummel the bad guys and save President Asher before Kang can summon nuclear launch codes.

First-time screenwriters Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt offer little nuance or originality, including the groaner that the attack occurs on July 5. The plot advancements raise the stakes but are often wildly unbelievable: in the film’s universe, the White House is easily susceptible to a security breach. What good is having the world's two largest armies and billions of dollars in defence spending if the U.S. cannot track suspicious aircraft flying toward the nation's capital?

Furthermore, the dozens of terrorists that infiltrate the White House are unseen for long periods until the script needs them to fight Banning. Worse, the dialogue to get through these scenarios is inane, filled with grunts and shouted profanities.

Even though the story is outlandish, the proceedings are still predictable: when President Asher discovers a mole in his administration, he says, “I never pegged you as a traitor.” Unfortunately, many of the audience will probably see this backstabbing develop from one of the opening scenes.

Both Banning and Asher are noble without being particularly interesting. While Eckhart is miscast, lacking grit and charisma, Butler is solid, with the dramatic conviction and action chops to colour his character with more effort than the screenwriters do. Unfortunately, the characters are still dull; the only central characteristics they both share is an intense love for country and neglect for spending little time with loved ones.

In the meantime, the villain is hardly menacing, a far cry from the dastard nature of Alan Rickman or John Malkovich. The supporting cast (which includes Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Robert Forster and Angela Bassett) has thankless parts, commenting on the gridlock at the White House and doing little else. It is a quick house payment for fine actors who deserve better.

Antoine Fuqua, still riding his Training Day success more than a decade later, has trouble deciding whether to pay homage to Die Hard or rip off that action classic. He does the former more often, framing the fight sequences with clarity and intercutting between the multiple locations with the same precision that McTiernan did with his 1988 classic.

However, the rookie screenwriters fail to recreate that film’s pathos and humour. Although the over-the-phone chatter between hero and villain, the calm, African-American support (Reginald VelJohnson then, Morgan Freeman here), and the exploding helicopter on the roof are stolen, Olympus Has Fallen still remains exciting, albeit careless and implausible, entertainment.

Smells Like Team Spirit

Sound City

*** out of **** 

Directed by: Dave Grohl

Running time: 108 minutes

When Dave Grohl took the Grammy stage in 2012, he slammed the artificiality of the record industry in his acceptance speech.

“Rather than go to the best studio in the world down the street in Hollywood… we made [Wasting Light] in my garage with some microphones and a tape machine,” Grohl said, beaming. “This award means a lot because it shows the human element of making music is what’s most important. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about sounding absolutely correct. It’s not about what goes on in a computer.”

Fast forward one year, and Grohl appears at the Grammys to plug Sound City, a loving ode to the run-down recording studio in Van Nuys that birthed many of rock and roll’s most enduring acts, without the need for manufacturing mayhem via AutoTune or ProTools.

This is Grohl’s first turn as a director, and this documentary is a mostly smooth transition. Although he appears in the film with a flurry of Hall of Famers who recorded at the famed studio – including members from Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as well as Neil Young and Rick Springfield – the film’s main star is Sound City’s soundboard.

The crisp-sounding, handmade Neve Console, exalted by nearly all the rock and roll legends interviewed, was an analog mixer. It made no alterations from what was recorded in the studio, despite its numerous buttons and controls (so many that Neil Young calls it “the Enterprise on steroids").

Sound City Studios does not look like a place where rock and roll history was made. Located in a dumpy lot in Van Nuys, California, the studio looks like an old basement, with shag carpet on the walls and whiskey stains on the floors. However, the frames of Platinum records marking the walls give a different impression.

Grohl’s film spends its first two thirds compiling some fascinating tidbits from the studio’s early days, when owners Tom Skeeter and Joe Gottfried avoided early debt by opening the space to rock acts. One of the studio's early successes was an LP by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. When Mick Fleetwood listened in on this studio session, the music captivated him. Fleetwood decided to join forces with the duo and the rest is music history.

As a high-fidelity heaven for recording artists, who heap bastions of praise on it, Sound City delivered a key component that these musicans thrived for: sound of the purest kind. The undercurrents of sweet rock and roll swept through the decaying studio, a church for those praying to become rock Gods.

The acoustics of the studios also made it a fantastic place to record drums, Grohl exalts. Tom Petty holds the Van Nuys studio in a similar regard. Since there was no manipulation of sound allowed on the Neve, which many studios had started offering during the shift to digital recording in the 1980s, there was no place for recording artists to hide their mistakes at Sound City Studios.

For a place so deeply fused with the fierce growls and fury of rock and roll, Grohl rambles on about the human feel that the studio brought out, which he says speaks to a deeper truth hidden within the music. Grohl recorded Nevermind as a member of Nirvana there, helping to revitalize the then-struggling studio.

For its first two thirds, Sound City is an insightful and entertaining ode to the analog era of making music. The last third, which takes place at Grohl’s personal studio after the rocker-turned-director acquired Sound City’s Neve console, has the immediacy of a DVD bonus feature and is mainly featured to promote the film’s soundtrack.

A few diehard music fans will enjoy the interplay between Grohl and other artists who come to jam, such as Paul McCartney and Trent Reznor, but it adds nothing to the subject of the film. These scenes feel like the second-disc of outtakes in a reissued classic album: cool for the most hardcore music aficionados, senseless filler for everyone else. Talk about selling out immediately after a major success.