Category: Culture

  • Garden State (2004)

    Garden State (2004)

    Artsy But Not Fartsy

    Directed and written by Zach Braff; starring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Ian Holm…

    Artsy without being fartsy, quirky without being clueless, Garden State is one of the few good original movies this summer. It is also the perfect answer to those crashing bores who go on and on about how the US is only good at making big, hollow, special effects movies whilst Europe (and perhaps Canada…) produce artistic character-driven films.

    Admittedly Garden State’s plot is pure formula. Andrew Largeman (Braff) is living a zombie existence in Los Angeles (he is a struggling actor who spends more time waiting tables than reading scripts) until a phone call informs him of his Mother’s sudden death and sends him back to his working-class hometown in New Jersey (the “Garden State” of the title). Soon “Large” is re-connecting with his old buddies, meeting a quirky girl named Sam (Portman), and tentatively re-engaging with his estranged Father (Holm). Will Sam re-awaken his dead emotions? Will we discover the cause of the split between him and his Father? Will the loser friends he left behind provide him with some sort of closure? Do Ducks quack?

    This is all pretty familiar territory, but Garden Sate stands out in the return-to-your-roots-and-rediscover-life genre thanks to the sharpness of Braff’s eye as writer and director. (Previously known mainly as the dorky lead on TV’s Scrubs he is a triple threat here.) There is a realism and a sharpness to the scenes with his friends and father that make this old material seem fresh. And, while Natalie Portman is of the most beautiful women in the world in real life, her Sam is dressed down and damaged enough that you believe she might just be interested in Large. This is helped again by believable dialogue and quirky writing that manages to be both funny and touching. (Writing a believable relationship, like this, where the characters actually talk to one another is one of the most difficult task in the movies — if the rarity of it is anything to go by).

    Finally, just watch as Braff’s camera roams around the contents of his doctor’s walls. I dare you not to laugh. This is just one of many brilliantly moments in this small but precisely observed film.

    THUMB UP

  • The Brave One (2007)

    The Brave One (2007)

    The Brave One (USA 2007)
    Artsy Crap is Still Crap

    Directed by Neil Jordan; starring Jodie Foster, Terence Howard, Mary Steenburgen…

    Once a director establishes themselves as an artiste it seems they can routinely get away with conventional schlock that would be instantly dismissed in the hands of lesser mortals. Witness the excessive praise showed on David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, which featured some of the hoariest gangster movie cliches in the book. Or how seriously Paul Haggis’ pedantic Crash was taken despite its complete disconnect from anything resembling the real world (including a final automobile accident featuring not one, but two leaking gas tanks and a rescue from a car about to explode).

    In the case of The Brave One, the disconnect between the film’s artistic pretensions and its low-brow plotting is so extreme that even some of the critics have noticed.
    The film aims to be a realistic thriller about how the savagery of urban life could turn a gentle, artistic person into a gun-toting vigilante. But the plot is far too manipulative to be taken seriously as a realistic portrayal of anything. Incidental details also rarely rise above the level of exploitation movie cliche: Jodie Foster’s victim-turned-vigilante character is instantly skillful/lucky enough with a firearm to take out hardened hoodlums despite zero previous experience, and wherever she goes she finds thugs who need killing with convenient ease. The scenes portraying the psychological toll on our hero of all this mayhem don’t make the film realistic; they just add some grit to the revenge thriller vibe.

    Were it not for the presence of people who have done much better work, The Brave One would just be a piece of straight to DVD schlock. As it is, you have to wonder what Neil Jordan and Jodie Foster were thinking. For her sake, let’s hope it’s the end of the road for a series of woman-in-jeopardy films that started with the excellent Panic Room (2002), continued with the tedious Flightplan (2005) and have now descended to this.

    THUMB DOWN