Tag: Robert De Niro

The Comedian

Robert De Niro can’t get laughs with a thin premise and outdated view of the comedy scene

The ComedianIn the Post-“Louie” era of TV and film, people have become fascinated with the psychology of The Comedian. And it’s hardly Earth shattering to suggest that these people who make us laugh are not one-dimensional clowns but artists with personal struggles and complexities.

Taylor Hackford’s film “The Comedian” has been an idea percolating with Robert De Niro as long as eight years ago, but eight years later it now has the familiar premise of “Bojack Horseman,” barely the heart of even a mediocre “Louie” copycat and an antiquated view of Internet comedy and stardom. Continue reading “The Comedian”

CIFF Review: Last Vegas

Hopefully this is the last time such legendary actors humiliate themselves like this.

“Last Vegas” screened as the Chicago International Film Festival’s Surprise Screening. This early review is merely an impression of the version screened. 

One would hope that a movie called “Last Vegas” might be the last time some legendary actors starred in such a simple, dumb comedy to be humiliated. Somehow such a thing seems unlikely, especially when this is hardly the first time Robert De Niro has signed up for such a pitiful exploit.

The difference is that Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and De Niro will all likely survive “Last Vegas” mostly unscathed. Jon Turtletaub’s film is unfunny enough to be listless, a litany of Vegas set pieces with old people that are hardly even designed to be funny, and yet it still manages to fall far short of the kind of outrageous raunch and madcap insanity that came to define the “Hangover” sequels. Continue reading “CIFF Review: Last Vegas”

Oscars 2013: It's Anyone's Race

Last year when the Oscar nominations were announced, I couldn’t stop myself from yelling at the TV when “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” got nominated for Best Picture.

This year, there were a lot of snubs and a lot of surprises, but I held my tongue.

That’s because last year, I was more or less certain going in that not only would “The Artist” be nominated, it would probably win. The news was what else would share its spotlight in history, not the actual awards.

2012 is different. I didn’t know for sure what would be nominated, and noting how many predictions I got wrong, I can safely say I still don’t know what might win. In ANY category. We still have a real race on our hands.

No, we didn’t see a real surprise nominee like “Skyfall,” “The Master” or something completely out of left field like “The Intouchables” or “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” to round out a top 10, but you tell me who’s going to win Best Picture.

“Lincoln” got 12 nominations, which is a lot. That’s as many as “Ben-Hur” got. But is the movie so universally loved that it can make a clean sweep? It’s hardly Spielberg’s best movie, even if it is his best in a decade, but some people have viewed it as homework.

I have more questions about “Life of Pi’s” chances. “Life of Pi” got 11 nominations, none of them from acting, but it did get a surprise Adapted Screenplay nod and Best Director nod. “Life of Pi” did well at the box office, but how big was this movie’s Oscar campaign? Not as big as “Silver Linings Playbook,” and certainly not as big as “Lincoln.” This movie is practically under the radar, a movie that was probably in the five or six slot for nomination is now looking like the front runner.

As early as yesterday, I would’ve said “Argo” or “Zero Dark Thirty” would be the front runners to win. “Argo” is the most well-liked movie of the year. Very few people have a bad word to say about it, and just about everyone has seen it, both of which are things that none of the other nominees can claim. “Zero Dark Thirty” has a lot of controversy behind it, but it is by far the critical darling of the year. Now however, neither Ben Affleck nor former winner Kathryn Bigelow have been nominated for Best Director. Movies have won Best Picture without winning Best Director before, but only three times in the 85 year history has a movie won Best Picture without even being nominated, those being in 1927, 1931 and 1989 when “Driving Miss Daisy” had a surprise victory.

“Silver Linings” isn’t that weak either. With Jacki Weaver getting in, it’s the first movie since “Reds” to be nominated in every acting category. That gives it eight nominations, which is nothing to scoff at.

Could “Amour” or “Beasts of the Southern Wild” pull off a surprise win? Michael Haneke was on a short list for possible director nominees, but almost no one had first-timer Benh Zeitlin on their lists. Both movies are riding the waves of having the youngest and oldest Best Actress nominees of all time in Quvenzhane Wallis and Emmanuelle Riva.

Even “Django Unchained” doesn’t look too weak. I predicted it would get seven nominations, but it’s got five, and Christoph Waltz taking Leo’s or even Javier Bardem’s spot says something.

That’s already a lot to mull over, but can you honestly make a prediction in any of the other races?

Daniel Day-Lewis seems perfectly plausible to win Best Actor. He’s playing Abraham Lincoln for God sakes. But he would be making history as the only actor to have won three Oscars. Are we prepared to call Daniel Day-Lewis the BEST actor of all time if he wins? Perhaps Joaquin Phoenix is stronger than we think, or maybe “Silver Linings” can ride an acting wave for an Oscar for Bradley Cooper.

Best Actress? Who knows. Jennifer Lawrence is the real movie star of the bunch, but Wallis can light up a room, Jessica Chastain is being called a female powerhouse in “Zero Dark Thirty,” Riva has the support of an older branch who remembers her in French New Wave classics, and Naomi Watts has the British voting block in her largely tearjerker of a movie.

Maybe Robert De Niro will end up being the three time Oscar winner, not Day-Lewis. But consider that everyone else in the Best Supporting category has already won. That’s just unprecedented.

The only conceivable prediction thus far is Anne Hathaway in “Les Miserables.” She steals the show in her three minute song, and there’s no telling that she’s one of the biggest movie stars right now who arguably deserves one. But just how good are Sally Field, Helen Hunt and Amy Adams in their movies? This is not a weak category, as I previously assumed.

No, I’m not quite ready to make any prediction. And that’s a good thing. For years the Academy has been trying desperately to get more people to actually watch the Oscars, be it through trendy hosts, more Best Picture nominees, an earlier schedule and a different presentation format. But now the Oscars have added one element that the show hasn’t had in years: surprise.

Correction: In a previous version, it was incorrectly stated that “Lincoln” received the most nominations of all time, tied with “Ben-Hur,” “Titanic” and “LOTR: The Return of the King.” In actuality, 14 nominations is the record held by “All About Eve” and “Titanic.” The record for most wins is 11.

CIFF Review: Silver Linings Playbook

David O. Russell described the Led Zeppelin song “What Is and What Should Never Be,” a song used in his new film “Silver Linings Playbook,” as bipolar.

“And if I say to you, tomorrow…” Robert Plant croons smoothly, honestly and calmly, all before a big explosion. “And catch the wind, see us spin/Sail away, leave the day/Way up high in the sky,” he screams.

“Silver Linings Playbook” is just as exciting, surprising and stylish as that Zeppelin song. It’s a crowd pleasing rom-com about two people struggling with bipolar disorder who learn to love, stay positive and enjoy family in the face of lots of hardship.

Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) is just being released from a psychiatric ward. Eight months earlier, he caught his wife cheating on him and beat her lover half to death, but because he was found to have undiagnosed bipolar disorder, he was able to spend his sentence in a mental institution rather than in prison.

It’s no wonder his disorder would go undiagnosed. Pat is part Italian and living in Philadelphia, and their loud, argumentative family dynamic blends perfectly with Pat’s honest, blunt and high-spirited speaking brought on by his disability. His father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), also has a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when rooting for the Eagles, adjusting remotes and holding lucky handkerchiefs to ensure an Eagles victory. But O. Russell realizes that all these nervous ticks just come naturally as being part of a family. Continue reading “CIFF Review: Silver Linings Playbook”

Rapid Response: Cape Fear (1991)

Sometimes you wonder when you’re watching “Cape Fear” if Martin Scorsese was making a remake of the 1962 horror movie or of “Vertigo.”

He’s got the Saul Bass title sequence, the Elmer Bernstein score channeling Bernard Hermann, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum in minor cameos, stark fades into solid colors and a film that is intentionally pitched at a level of sheer insanity.

“Cape Fear” was not well received by critics upon its release. It was seen as yet another genre picture by a director capable of so much more, least of all immediately after the masterpiece that was “Goodfellas” a year prior. But it has a lot more style and personality from Scorsese than “The Color of Money” did, because Scorsese isn’t just looking to make a genre picture but a film with dark characters, heavy themes, strong cinematic references, big ideas and even bigger performances.

Robert De Niro is so effing brilliant as the sadistic ex-con Max Cady. It hearkens back to a time when De Niro actually, you know, acted. In terrorizing Nick Nolte and his family, he has this calming, charming, attractive eloquence that puts the rest of the family’s neurotic insanity into perspective. He pulls a lot from Robert Mitchum’s playbook for his performances in both the original “Cape Fear” and “The Night of the Hunter,” but he makes the character his own. He displays charismatic insanity and proves to be capable of surprising violence and intensity.

So thanks to his performance, Scorsese is able to go ape shit. Nolte, Jessica Lange and a young Juliette Lewis are all flawed, weak members of their own dysfunctional family, but ultimately they’re fairly thin, capable of going crazy with just a little prodding. Scorsese has them and us jumping at just the sound of a phone ringing, jolting the camera towards it and blaring its ringing aggressively. Later, Scorsese turns our world upside down and dangles us by a thread, with the camera in a close up of De Niro hanging from a pull up bar, his hair flailing wildly like the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”

This Max Cady character, what with his clever ability to never cross into territory of breaking the law, always finding ways to get one step ahead of Nolte and nitpick at his mind, the bible warnings printed all over his body and finally his superhuman strength against thugs and lighter fluid, he strikes me as more of an allegory about insanity than an actual person. But the sheer madness of the film’s final moments as Cady continues fighting and screaming against all odds even goes beyond the stretches of what could possibly be considered allegorical.

“Cape Fear” is possibly more exaggerated and intense than even something like “Shutter Island,” another Scorsese that veered from his comfort zone into the realm of madness. But it resonated with audiences as the 12th highest grossing movie of 1991 and earned De Niro his most recent Oscar nomination for Best Actor. It’s by far not the finest work from Scorsese but so indicative of how versatile an artist he has become in the modern day.

Rapid Response: The Untouchables

When I first saw “The Untouchables,” I thought it was highly overrated for just being kind of lame and stupid. It seemed cheesy, and so it is. Brian De Palma is clearly making a modern day crime drama in the fashion of an Old Hollywood gangster movie. But now I think it’s overrated because it’s so plainly obvious that he’s doing that.

The problem with De Palma is that he’s a leech. He makes “homages” of classic American films, but he lacks his own personal style. His aesthetic is big and bold, but its without a defined pacing or tone. This is loosely true of “Scarface” too, a film that thrives based on its charismatic lead performance from Al Pacino, and one he also dedicates to Howard Hawks.

“The Untouchables” is the story of how Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and his small team of vigilante cops took down the Chicago organized crime lord Al Capone (Robert De Niro). But rather than take a truly interesting approach to this historical story, De Palma concocts an intentionally adorable and token back story for our hero and a series of big budget action set pieces that are bloody, but look clearly shot on movie sets, have corny dialogue and gigantic musical swells in a score by Ennio Morricone designed to place the viewer back in 1930 when this movie is set and could’ve been made. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Untouchables”

Rapid Response: Once Upon a Time in America

What’s funny about “Once Upon a Time in America” is that 1984 Robert De Niro made up to look 35 years older doesn’t look all that different from the way Robert De Niro actually looks today only 28 years later.

But what is noticeably different is the fantastically storybook world of early 20th Century America in comparison to the bleak present. Maybe blame Steven Soderbergh, but it’s hard to imagine a fairy tale set in the 2000s. Sergio Leone however takes pleasure out of envisioning a picturesque America as it once was, with orchestral elegance and lilting pan flutes filling the city streets and with lively color and sound paired with every romance and every knife fight.

There’s a scene nearly two-thirds through Leone’s nearly four hour gangster fantasy where Noodles (De Niro) takes the lovely Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern) to dinner on the seaside. The dining room is sparkling white, expansive and occupied only by handsome waiters and a full string ensemble. Only in America can you have something so schmaltzy, so over the top and so gaudy and still be touched by the magic of it all. That’s the not so subtle beauty of this great nation.

Much has been made about the film’s length and complexity reaching over 50 years with dozens of characters and intricate plot layers all building to a twist in modern day 1967. It has been reasoned that the last shot in which Noodles is seen smoking opium and is left with a big stupid grin on his face indicates that the entire fairy tale was nothing but a pipe dream, and this wasn’t helped when the movie was butchered in America by 90 minutes into an incomprehensible mess when it was theatrically released in 1984.

But I think it hardly matters. In its essence, “Once Upon a Time in America” is a simple film between two friends about nostalgia and loss. The film begins at the end of Prohibition with a few scenes of ruthless violence because it signals the end of a period of true decadence.

The rest of the film recalls that period through flashback in a surprisingly touching coming of age story of a few gangster hoods in New York. Between the antics of trying to get laid by the village whore Peggy and pulling their first jobs, the film has a goofy innocence, and every moment is treated as an elegiac fantasy through the shimmering bright cinematography and Ennio Morricone’s swimmingly saccharine score that recalls Old Hollywood. Not even “The Godfather” is this romanticized.

And when we flash forward to the ’60s, the world is not nearly as pretty, and the scene is underscored twice by what other than The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Noodles has lost the past and been wandering in the future for over 35 years, and Max, as we will learn, has been desperately clinging to that lost decadence from the days after Prohibition.

There’s certainly a lot more to be analyzed here, and that’s why this is a somewhat shorter and faster response to such a long, epic film. I’m curious for instance to understand why each of Noodles’s sexual encounters breaks the film’s element of fantasy, with him taking advantage of Peggy and raping Carol and Deborah. I also didn’t really get why Joe Pesci wasn’t in the movie more. I was sure that little kid that got shot early on would grow up to be him.

But if there’s a real answer to the film’s complex riddle, I think the truth is nothing more than a beautiful and unreal time has passed us by, never to return, but even if it takes smoking opium, there is still some giddy joy of that lost time frozen forever in our memory.