"News of the World" is some sort of mix between a western and a road-trip movie. Captain Kidd (without any relation with the pirate bearing the same name) is a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, who earns his living from some sort of a show he performs in small isolated towns - reading stories from some newspapers on which he adds his own theatrical mark. On his way between two such performances he passes by the spot of an incident - a broken wagon, a hanged man, and the sole survivor - a little blond girl who doesn't seem to know any other language than an indian dialect. The mystery is solved quickly by some papers revealing that the girl, kidnapped shortly after birth by indians who killed her family, must be returned to her closest relatives. Kidd's luck: a military patrol also gets to the same place and tasks him with the "delivery". And like that we're getting to the road-trip part...
The movie's development is slow, you're getting about two slightly more dynamic sequences for the entire trip. In its first part it reminded my of "Deadwood"; there's also there an episode where we have the exact same situation of a scandinavian girl who doesn't speak any English, who's saved from a similary situation. But the resemblance stops here. The rest is a sort of calm meditation on the effects of the war, the ocupation of the white in the indian territory, and others. It's relatively obvious that the movie targets some prizes, but as most of the productions signed by Paul Greengrass, there's something missing. There's a lack of feeling in it. It shows that his first experiences as a filmmaker were in the documentary area where is typical to detach from the presented subject, although I've seen documentaries that left me with a much stronger impression than what we have here. Anyway, considering the lack of productions lately, you have to appreciate a new release. Let's hope better ones will follow...
Not long ago I watched "Dragged Across Concrete", another movie directed by S. Craig Zahler, as well as "Bone Tomahawk". Two things I didn't like there, the ending a bit too "unhappy" + a couple scenes that were over the top as violence level. The same issues - especially the latter - I have also with "Bone Tomahawk". On the other hand, what I liked in "Dragged Across Concrete" were the dialogues. And "Bone Tomahawk" it's even better on that account, this being the main reason that convinced me to choose the movie for this entry.
The context is set somewhere in the wild west, close to the Mexican border. The movie starts with two thieves who ravage a camp in the dessert and find themselves after attacked while crossing some Indian territory. Only one of them escapes, and the action moves a couple days later, in the evening, in a tiny town, where the brigand ends up in a bar. There's not long until he gets a place on the "suspects" list of the backup deputy, an old widower, who seems to get bored of too much free time. And like that we're getting in a situation where the thief gets a bullet in his leg shot by the local sheriff, who has the unfortunate habit to do that too often with who tries to run instead answering his questions. Unfortunate business also for the wife of a local cowboy, the only apparently qualified for bullet extractions and consequently summoned to do that in the middle of the night. The problem is that in the morning she's still not back home, and the missing list is joined by the thief, the first deputy left to guard them and a couple horses in a stable. The tracks left: some arrows and a corpse in messed up state, analyzed by the local Indian expert lead to a somber conclusion - the attack was carried out by an isolated tribe of cannibals, living in caves and led to the town by the trespassing thief. Despite the warnings, the sheriff doesn't have much choice and forms a posse to recover the taken together with his backup deputy, the missing woman's cripple husband and another guy with some childhood trauma after his interaction with the Indians. And so, we get on our way...
As I was saying, the strength of the movie is mainly in the dialogues, and secondly in the acting. But the script is the base for that. You can feel that the author is also a writer. I've seen some comparison with Tarantino, given that the movie was released the same year as "Hateful Eight", but it's not in the same category. I found it much more clever in the lines construction. We have a sort of humor that alternates somewhere between dry and dark, which maybe can be seen also in the movies of Jim Jarmusch ("Ghost Dog") or Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri", "Seven Psychopats", "In Bruges"), although it has something particular here. We're left however with the problem of the excessive violence, which actually is mostly about a single scene, but a really hard to watch one. Practically, it stands out in the movie, in strong contrast with the rest. I can understand the intent of shock, but I doubt it serves to anything else here than marketing, and it's not even very honest, since the rest of the action runs relatively peacefully in comparison. I even had to search for a poster to not include "brutal" as tagline. Well... maybe it's catchy for some audience, for me it spoiled my rating, but the movie definitely deserves watching for the rest of it.
I watched "Deadwood", the series, much more recently than their production date (2004-2006). Which offered me some decent continuity for "Deadwood: The Movie", released this year by HBO. I'm not gonna make some complete description of all the story - despite the fact that's a relative short TV show at 3 seasons, there's still plenty of content there. However, I thought it deserves an entry, especially for the movie set at 13 years after the initial ending, which in the very narrow niche of "extra closures" for various series it's probably an example of "how to do it". Or at least a very interesting approach in an impossible context, out of which many screenwriters could take some lessons (not that I'm watching many series, but I felt the need for a while to make some counter reference to the last episode of GoT... especially after being nominated for an Emmy for best writing...).
So, to make it short, the context of the series is the life in a small settlement near some gold mining area, Deadwood, somewhere in South Dakota, close to the end of the 19th century. And in the last episode from 2006, everything is ended in what's pretty much the series semi-gloomy tone, something like: life is tough and happy-ends are fairy tales. More precisely, one of the main characters, Al Swearengen, owner of a "saloon" and a pillar of making things working in the community, has to kill one of his "world's oldest profession” employees, an innocent woman, in order to save another who tried to murder a wealthy businessman, George Hearst. A magnate, who using some unorthodox methods (= via contract killers) wants to take over the entire place. As I was saying, there's no time to get into much more other soapy details, but one thing is essential: Deadwood is real. The place exists. The history of the place exists. Many of the series characters were real. And if the life and ending of some got lost in time, leaving room for "romancing" it on TV, in some other cases doing that is not easy. George Hearst in particular, the main villain towards the series ending, was one of the richest men in the US at that time, getting to be a senator, and being the father of probably the more famous William Randolph Hearst, a press tycoon, and the inspiration for "Citizen Kane". If he was so evil as "Deadwood" suggests, I have no clue... But that's what the screenwriters chose, and the last series had to end with Hearst doing well and leaving the community smiling, while the people left behind are more or less agonizing after his actions. If you're not Tarantino in "Inglorious Basterds", it's hard to rewrite the history radically and put in the movie a happy end vendetta vs. somebody who lived many more years after briefly passing through Deadwood.
Unfortunately, this total lack of happy-end yearns for some other kind of closure, which as I was saying, in the historical context, seems somehow impossible. Well, after many years, the same screenwriters found a way, and like that we got "Deadwood: The Movie", where suprise, surprise, 10 year in the movie after the latest events, the villain is still George Hearst, coming back to Deadwood, still for business and still using the approach of "who doesn't breath anymore, cannot say no anymore". Only that this time, we have the payback. Without rewriting history, although probably that part is not in the history books :). I won't give spoilers, but the way the movie manages to close some narrative threads is... let's say surprisingly pleasing, and it's not about a happy-end, because there's not 100% like that. And again, this works in a context adapted from real facts with limitations, not in a fantasy where you can write whatever you want ( couldn't help it :) ).
It seems that my attempts to find a good movie are as successful as the search for water in "Meek's Cutoff". That's pretty much the story here. We have a western (with an outrageously high rating both on RT as well as on Metacritic), where three families of colonists, with three wagons strive to get to California sometime around the mid of the 19th century. And they're getting out of water. With a tracker who seems lost in space (literally), whose name in the movie title is not really justified, and an Indian they're finding on their way, who they can't really decide either to lynch or to promote as water guide. Where the logic for the second option starts fading when two-three more days pass by and the H2O reserves move close to zero. And we start wondering what super-powers the Indians had in the 19th century to resist thirst for so long. Because, if we do some simple math, if the guy was solo wandering in the desert so far from a river... Well, the screenwriter probably had more deep stuff to take care of. So deep, that it gets lost along the movie ending, which is cut abruptly when the first tree shows up in their path. Probably around Area 51, if we're anyway getting close to that place...
"Slow West" is something hard to describe. In the end it's probably what it seems to be, a western. But a very particular type of western. I don't actually have another example to compare to. I was thinking to say that if Terry Gilliam would've done a western probably the result would've been something like "Slow West", but ...
But "Slow West" is still a bit .. let's say more "settled", or "to the point" than the average in Terry Gilliam's movies. What we have close to Gilliam is a fine nuance of surreal that persists for pretty much all the movie, and which is the best part of it. The subject: a young Scotsman travels to California to find his girlfriend who ran away from Europe, is just a pretext for an initiation road trip, short and ended, in my opinion .. (light spoiler) too "classic" for a western. Probably that's what missing in "Slow West" to transform it completely in an "anti-western": the ending that switches towards the normal standards.
I didn't hear about John Maclean (director and screenwriter) until "Slow West", but I hope I will again. I guess I know after all how to call the result. It's a Terry Gilliam mixed with John Michael McDonagh ("The Guard", "Calvary"). Maybe more of the latter. It's a movie that definitely deserves your time if you're open to something that's not mainstream, even if it's only for one or two memorable scenes. Pitty that the one in which "His heart was in the wrong place", wasn't what I was expecting after the rest of the movie :) You'll get it when you'll get there ;) Maybe ...
How to start ... it's the most "shocky" movie I've seen lately. I'm probably repeating myself when saying that I'm not really a fan of the Australian cinema. Something doesn't work ... don't know ... The only exception up to this moment was "Balibo", but that one has the historical basis that matters the most. Well, the second exception for me seems to be "Red Hill".
As starting point we have our main character, Shane Cooper, young officer in the Australian police, who just arrived in the middle of nowhere = town of Red Hill, due to a transfer request. Why ? Because his pregnant wife needed a more peacefully and less stressful environment considering her husband's job (well, it's probably already obvious that it won't be like this ...). So ... the movie is focused on the first work day of the newest local legal enforcement employee. And the day begins with him late at work and without his gun, lost between his luggage. This pays with a harsh observation from the sheriff, not a very friendly guy, who afterward assigns the first work duty for the new recruit. To investigate what scarred the cattle of an old farmer who has the ranch on the other side of the hill ... and of course, our young officer must reach the other side of the hill to do that .. and the only mean of transportation available for him due to his colleagues kindness seems to be a nobody's horse wandering constantly in front of the police station. Well, the "vehicle" seems to be useful after all, getting him at destination where he finds out that the old farmer is suspecting ... a panther for the damages (reminder: the action takes place in Australia). Meanwhile, not very far from town an explosion happens at a maximum security prison. Among the fugitives seems to be a dangerous criminal caught for killing his wife some years in the past by the Red Hill sheriff. The escape seems for some reason to put fire on the daily plain program of the local forces who start preparing for a real assault being convinced that the (only one ..) guy will try to prove his aborigine descent by hunting them with a boomerang one by one (or of course with a shotgun when it's a more comfortable option).
Don't worry. I didn't touch the essence of the movie's subject in what's above. Although the way the action goes on becomes quite clear after the intro (but, believe me, it has a pretty important twist from what you might think). What's above may sound slightly comic, and I can say that the movie has its moments of humor (especially dark humor). But from the first gunshot it's quite clear that's a bit more serious as a genre. As a warning I can say that it's R rated (not the horror level like "Saw" for instance, but with enough bloody moments). What's interesting is that despite being an indie movie (something like 3 million $ budget was written somewhere) it gives you the impression of a normal production except maybe some moments when pretty bad CGI is used. For the rest you have a very nice cinematography which fully benefits from the outdoor setting. Add to this the soundtrack that's brilliantly composed and mixed to fit the scenes in front of your eyes. Actually this, the incredible of the moments and actually all the script which actually has some hidden reference to "Pulp Fiction" at some point, can make you think a bit about Tarantino and probably there are some influences in the directing style.
What else to say ... It's pretty difficult to put this movie in a well defined category because I pretty much disagree as main genre with everything that IMDb says, alphabetically as usual: Crime | Thriller | Western. Crime ... I always thought that the definition for that is something implying some criminal investigation, let's say as in "Poirot" after Agatha Christie or at most "Seven" by Fincher .. and the category doesn't have very much in common with "Red Hill". Thriller ... the movie has a bit too much action and lacks some depth to be called a thriller = you can see the end quite fast (although this doesn't spoil anything). Western ... it's placed in Australia, present days ... and this seems to get a bit far from the classic western definition ... but, from the three of them it's probably the most close to the truth = simple revenge story, lots of action. The interesting part is how this story is carried to the end by the movie, and less the story itself. And even if it has some obvious hard too believe exaggerations even in a context with pretty large boundaries, it deserves a look for the originality at least ( let me remind you : panthers in Australia :-p ).
Perhaps if it would be somebody to check out (in detail) every entry of my blog - implying here the older ones from the Ro version too ( case that I might find very weird, considering my "outputs" value due to the time and speed of writing :) ), that reader would probably think that I really like the western genre. And this is quite far from the truth. Somehow however I managed to see pretty much all of the major western titles that were released during the last years. I have no idea how this happened - because like I said I'm not into westerns, but in the current topic's title case I really felt that I should give it some time and try to write an entry about it. Anyway, western is only half of the current entry - "True Grit". The other half - "Winter's Bone" is a drama with a touch of thriller. It happened to see one movie quite close after the other, but obviously that's not the main reason for the "double topic" entry. Honestly I don't know if "vs". from the title has any meaning in this case, but it sounds better than "and", so ... :). The idea is that although the films have different genres they also do have pretty much in common. I could even change the classification above considering that "Winter's Bone" could pass as a western without the "west" part as location and being placed in the present time, and "True Grit" as a drama + thriller (which eventually can be found more or less in any western). Ok ... I already have a double intro part ( and I'll fall asleep myself if I go on with it :) ) so I'll cut it short and get on the movie subjects ...
"True Grit" is the latest Coen brothers movie ("A Serious Man", "Burn After Reading", "No Country for Old Men", "The Big Lebowski", "Fargo", "Barton Fink", etc.). In short, the idea it's a fairly simple revenge story. A guy who went to complete a sale on some horses is killed by the man he hired to help him. The daughter, aged only 14, wants justice and offers a reward for the killer's head. For this she hires an apparently all-time drunk federal marshall, also without an eye and with a reputation as a "kill first ask later" type of guy (character played flawlessly by Jeff Bridges). And because the man really seems to offer an "absolute guarantee" for the payed money between the fumes of alcohol, the girl is strongly decided to join him in pursuit of the fugitive. The group is completed by a Texas ranger (again an ok played character - Matt Damon) who has another reward to collect, also placed on the killer's head. As I said, the idea seems simple in the start. But what can be seen on screen in the action evolution is definitely more complex.
One of the first things to mention is how the main characters are constructed/developed. This is something that I didn't see such carefully built and approached in such detail very often (referring to somebody's entire filmography - not just one movie). I guess it depends on the fact that the director and the screenwriter are one and the same, and the Coen Brothers and Tarantino for example fit on this criteria. And of course, character building is just a small part of the script - which is written in that way it catches you and keeps you staring at the screen despite the fact that the story is quite simple. Actually I think that the script is in general the best part (or at least the point of attraction) from the Coen brothers movies. In this case however is not an original script, as it also wasn't in "No Country for Old Men" (besides that, the movie is actually a remake - there is a "True Grit" with John Wayne released somewhere in '60 - '70 which I have not seen) . Anyway, unlike "No Country for Old Men", the novel which is put on screen in the current case has a more simple mainline that doesn't want to seem so .. "philosophical". The result is that the main action point in the script itself is the simple fugitive chase. But .. a simple chase can bring up all sorts of lateral idea paths, witty dialogues, and finally (more finally than the final, as a light spoiler) a little twist that you probably won't anticipate .. well, unless you've read the book. Besides that, the film is nice to watch from the cinematography point of view - to say so :) (Roger Deakins is the image director - who I slowly begin to like, though until recently I pretty much considered his work as overrated as it was in "No Country for Old Men"). Also the editing worth mentioning (by Coen brothers, as in all their major titles I think; they actually seem to "go" with the idea of an directing-script-editing triplet in what they do). And one more thing. Something that adds a certain "air" that you're not quite sure of at first, but you're certain in the end. The soundtrack - Carter Burwell (I actually did not appreciate the guy until now besides "Bella's Lullaby" from "Twilight", but just as a musical piece, not as a soundtrack related to the movie - which I didn't see). And speaking of that certain air/atmosphere it gives .. it's a bit hard now to find a very clear description. Let's say it's something like a romance drama "air" - although you won't find anything like that in the film. In any case it gives a "warm feeling" in the end, and to give something as comparison now, probably one example would be the feeling you get on watching "Legends of the Fall" even if the movies have totally different subjects.
Ok, I've written enough about the first piece of today's topic, so I'll get to the second one before giving a clearer explanation about why I put them side by side. A few posts ago I wrote about "Balibo" as perhaps one of the most difficult to watch war movies that I've seen. "Winter's Bone" is pretty much the same thing I think for dramas or thrillers. The film is an indie movie = not very large budget, having been awarded the highest distinction at Sundance in 2010 (the most important festival in terms of Independent Cinema in the US). It has a subject that is somehow close to the main idea of "True Grit", but still different. Somewhere in a community from a mountain area of the US, a 17 years old girl receives a visit from the local sheriff who gives a notice that her father, released on bail, disappeared. The problem is that the house where the girl lives and the land also were offered as collateral guarantees on bailing him out. The problem becomes even more troublesome given the context of the daughter who is struggling to raise her brother and younger sister + her mentally ill mother. At this point the film seems to resemble a bit with "Frozen River" as a general feeling, as an info for those who have seen it (another Sundance-winning indie a year or two ago .. they seem to have a preference for social dramas).
After establishing the plot as described, the action is concentrated on the girl's search, struggling to find the whereabouts of her father just to avoid seeing her family thrown into the street (or more exactly, in the woods). The story gets more complicated as it's progressing, the community of which the girl is part of being actually formed from more close or distant relatives - the main character falling apparently in the second category, most of these people being involved in some not very legal activities. To summarize, the whole community resembles a classic image of a family / mafia clan but placed in a rural area in the woods (placement which is actually suitable for growing + refining various weeds - and not that kind you're using to make a tea). As a spoiler, the girl slowly realizes that her father permanently disappeared, but this doesn't clear off also the house losing problem, so the process of seeking to send him to the trial is switched on seeking a proof to send his body to the morgue. No matter how harsh or chilly the previous phrase sounds, that's not nearly at the same level as the movie. It's exactly what I said above when I mentioned that it's hard to watch. It's probably one of the best made pieces of cinema I've seen in managing to create an literally oppressive and also scary feeling without resorting to extreme violence (although this isn't entirely missing). It's a feeling that I also had when I've watched "Training Day" for the first time long long ago. I remember that when I left the cinema, I actually had a slight feeling of insecurity on the street on the way home = something like we live in a world with some bad bad people maybe just around the corner. And the interesting part is that the tension is created at the level of interaction between characters, attitude, etc., rather than through the action sequences, which aren't generally very credible in an action movie. And I must say for that fact that "Training Day" looks like a kids movie comparing to "Winter's Bone". Here "the chill factor" grows up as the end of the search approaches, being topped by the title related sequence = that one actually requires a bit of stomach to watch it, although if you take it out of the context and you place it in a "normal" thriller / horror / action it would probably look like a normal scene for that type of movie. And yet ( to give another light spoiler:) ) the movie doesn't stop there. Because it would end overly harsh. It lets you relax a bit after, fading out in a note that still wants to be somehow positive, and for how "dark" the story is probably it actually is positive enough. For all this - the plot, climax, end - and how the movie takes you through them I would give credit particularly to the direction - Debra Granik - about whom I'm hearing for the first time. She's actually co-authoring the scenario too, but like I said I think that the directing is the main part from the movie making worth mentioning and I'll probably keep an eye on future movies of her.
I'll end this already way too long entry :) with why I placed these two movies together in the same topic. There is one first reason, less important, and it actually might sound a little weird :). I'm not a fan of Romanian literature and I don't remember too much of what I read in school, but one of the literary pieces that were the subject of study was "Hatchet" by M. Sadoveanu ... ( Ya, I know, sounds weird already :)) ) The action is placed in some rural mountain area, around the beginning of the 20th century I think. The basic idea in the book is that a shepherd's wife gets worried about her husband missing for too long after he went to make some deals by selling or buying sheep (if I recall correctly). Well .. she takes her son, and following the path her husband took, starts her own investigation. After some time she finds the remnants of the dead (which she actually expects to find from some point onwards..), scene which was very grim in the novel. After that, she eventually manages to find out also the assassin, who is finally killed with a hatchet (the initial murder weapon) by the victim's son ( ya, well .. Romanian classic literature can be quite violent sometimes :) ). The idea is that I thought the two movies discussed complement one each other rather odd in a relatively close manner to the book I mentioned, and not just related to the subject but also the feeling. So, for somebody really really interested reading it may give a clear idea about how the two movies might feel as a whole ( although I have no idea if that book was ever translated in English :) ). Anyway, leaving this apart the main reason why I thought on writing this overly long post as a 2 in 1 :) would be as I said, that we have basically the same type of character - a lonely girl, minor, and very stubborn :) and pretty much the same path of action as an overview idea - she wants to solve a problem way tougher/harder than it should be "allowed" for her age. Although the movies are from different genres, you can still make some interesting comparisons between a big budget film intended to be a blockbuster (and because of that may seem a little to light/commercial sometimes) and an indie movie that aims more at film festivals (and it seems so close to reality at a point that you don't know if you'll ever want to see it again). Eventually you might reach the conclusion that both of them are pretty much at the same level as value ;).
Rating: 4 out of 5 (For both - you have something a bit too extreme in each when you see them one after another :), if it was to take them separately I would probably give a 5)
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