Yes, No, Maybe So: 127 Hours & Fair Game

It's a true story double feature for this installment of Yes, No, Maybe So, in which we break down personal reaction to movie trailers.

We'll start with Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire follow up -- and boy does this trailer not let you forget that this is the follow up -- which is called 127 Hours. In the movie, James Franco plays Aron Ralston who gets pinned under a rock and the rest is, well, his arm is history.



Yes James Franco is on the rise and this could be the movie where he finally proves the extent of his talents. He does have to hold the screen for virtually the full running time. If I've understood the prerelease mumblings correctly, what we're seeing in the trailer is only clips from the first half hour ish of the movie. I'd actually love to have that be the rule for Hollywood. You may not use anything past the 30 minute mark in your trailers. Begone Spoilers! (Not that people don't know what happened in this particular story since it's so easy to sum up and everyone has already been summing online for months.)

Also Moab, Utah is ridiculously beautiful even when shot by cinematographers far less gifted than Oscar winner Anthony Dod Mantle or Enrique Chediak. I know because I once lived in Utah and every photographer, good or un, has a million photographs capturing the rocky beauty of southern half of the state.

No For lost in the desert existential survivalist drama, I'll take something more contemplative like Gus Van Sant's Gerry. Will this be too tricked up to combat those nerves filmmakers so often have about how long they can hold the audiences attention? (Hence the current ridiculous average shot length being under 2 seconds problem.)

Maybe So Even though I wasn't crazy about Slumdog Millionaire -- it's actually my least favorite of his filmography (that I've seen) -- I do think Boyle is an energetic and often interesting filmmaker. My Boyle heirarchy would break down like so.

1. Trainspotting ...choose life
   
2. 28 Days Later ...choose the future
   
3. Shallow Grave ...choose a starter home
   
4. Sunshine ...choose a fucking big television
   
5. The Beach ...choose a family
   
6. Slumdog Millionaire ...but why would i want to do a thing like that?
   

Love the top three and admire the fourth quite a lot. Slumdog and The Beach are like weird twins of the B-/C+ overrated & underrated fraternal variety. So I'm curious about this movie. Where will it fit in?

Verdict: I'm a yes all told. I'll see it opening weekend in early November if I somehow miss the critic's screenings.

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In Fair Game, Naomi Watts plays CIA Operative Valerie Plame and Sean Penn her husband the journalist in this true story that's already been covered at the cinema in a movie with Kate Beckinsale and Vera Farmiga that nobody went to see called Nothing But the Truth. (It's on that annually expanding list of December Glut Plague victims)



Yes We need to be reminded of stories like this. Particularly since the sins of the past administration are still haunting us. It's definitely a compelling and resonant story about a nation that chucks their integrity and bedrock values for political point scoring (sound familiar? see also: current events).

No On the other hand, do we need to be reminded of it again this quickly? And doesn't the casting of Sean Penn in a liberal political type movie feel a bit too preaching to the choir, a bit too on the nose?

Maybe So I'm intrigued that they choose to end the trailer with Naomi Watt's defiant line reading...

They push you until they find the point at which you break. You can't break me. I don't have a breaking point.

(even though the underscore is laughably OTT) because I feel the exact opposite about her as an actress. She often seems so broken before a movie even begins. I think she's Oscar worthy in Mulholland Dr and nomination worthy in The Painted Veil (easily her two best performances) but my principal problem with her intensely pitched work is that she always seems ahead of the character arc, rather than developing it organically towards narrative peaks. I'm hoping she's calm and nuanced her at least before they threaten to break her.

Verdict: I'm a no in terms of desire, but I try to see everything if Oscar buzz becomes involved. So if awards seasons starts calling on Naomi, I'll definitely catch it.

How do these trailers breakdown for you in the yes no maybe so sense? Have at it in the comments. Whether you're pinned under a rock or your dangerous secret has just been outed, nothing is more urgent than blog commenting!
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Leaving Cannes

Julien here.

Last day in Cannes, and random thoughts on the films I saw.

Les Amours Imaginaires: Xavier Dolan's second feature was a huge disappointment for me after the gut punch of I Killed My Mother. It was probably foolish to expect a second miracle from a 20 year-old director, but although I recognized some of the qualities that made I Killed My Mother so memorable (the kid's got talent, that's for sure), I hate to admit that those who called him a narcissistic poseur the first time around were in fact not entirely wrong. Fans of A Single Man will probably revel in its overbearing prettiness, but to me the avalanche of slo-mo and Almo/Wong-isms felt too much like a self-conscious search for style, rather than the natural development of an artist.

If you thought Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's first three features were a tad too cheerful, Biutiful is sure to please you. Bleak doesn't even begin to describe the experience, which feels like being locked up in a sandbag and beaten for 2 hours and 20 minutes. As is often the case whith Inarritu, the film start with its main characters already at a very low point, and then proceeds to go downhill from there. There's no denying Inarritu has some fantastic directorial instincts, but since Babel, I'm getting the feeling that human misery is to him what oversized tits were to Russ Meyer: a huge turn-on. And his indulgence in filming squalor is increasingly nauseating, especially since there's nothing around the corner except more squalor. The only thing keeping it from complete unwatchability is Bardem's restrained, humane presence.

What can I say about Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe? Nothing much, except that I have no idea what could have attracted a director of Frears' stature to such a trivial project, and that Gemma Aterton, who plays the title character, is outacted by every single member of the cast, including the dog. There are some funny moments, but it's mostly aimless, and all over the place.

Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy is by far the worst film I've seen during the Festival. It's the typical Cannes imposture: a film so vague and meandering that intimidated critics are sure to project some sort of profound content on it, terrified at the prospect of being the only one who didn't get it. So let me put it this way: for all its contrived central gimmick and long-winded gabbing about original vs. copy, Certified Copy is nothing more than a banal bourgeois melodrama posing as an art film. I found it not only tedious, but empty, pretentious and irritatingly lazy. Binoche may be great, but there's nothing she can do to salvage this pointless, shallow film.

Who could have thought a few months age that the go to guy for Hollywood spy thrillers, Doug Liman, would ever be in competion for the Palme d'Or? And yet here he is, with Fair Game, a retelling of the Valerie Plame affair that shook the Bush adminstration a few years ago. Sigh of relief: Fair Game has more in common with The Bourne Identity than with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Liman chooses wisely to stay close to the facts, moves quickly, and gets some good work from former 21 Grams co-stars Watts and Penn. Solid and efficient, if unremarkable.

I'm flying back to Paris later this afternoon, and though I've had a fantastic time in Cannes (I've barely slept in a week), as you may have noticed I've been mostly underwhelmed by the films I saw here. I hope you won't think I'm such a sourpuss, but believe me, I ain't the only one: everyone in Cannes was pretty much disappointed by the selection. The closest I came to being won over completely was by Mike Leigh's Another Year, and I sure as hell hope Lesley Manville will be picking up the Best Actress prize for that one on Sunday.