Adrien Brody stars in Dario Argento's 'depressingly sleazy' Giallo.Following the resolution of a release-delaying financial dispute between producers and leading man Adrien Brody, it would be excellent to report that director Dario Argento's latest has been worth the wait. Sadly, the belated straight-to-DVD premiere of Giallo (2009, Lionsgate, 18) does nothing to enhance the reputation of Italy's former horror maestro. On the contrary, with its sub-Saw leering gore and crassly unimaginative exploitation aesthetic, this looks more like the work of a hacking fan boy than of the father of stylishly extreme modern cinema.
Oscar-winner Brody stars as special agent Enzo Avolfi, an unconvincingly troubled soul with a late-revealed (and, sadly, laughable) back story which affords him a dangerous empathy with his prey. In a pun-tastic play upon generic labels (Argento's touchstone oeuvre is commonly referred to as "giallo", after the yellow covers of pulp crime paperbacks), said prey turns out to be a serial killer who is... yellow. Literally! Working from a script by Jim Agnew and Sean Keller, Argento's depressingly sleazy shocker descends rapidly into self-pastiche, with even the director's trademark gliding camera moves and elegant architectural framings failing to raise the murky tone.
As for the clunkingcod-Nietzschean "good/evil" duality motif, it's about as substantial as the anagrammed credits ("Byron Deidra", geddit?) which accompany the killer's starring turn. Considering the huge debt owed by Darren Aronofsky's head-spinning Black Swan to films such as Suspiria and Opera, one can only take comfort in Argento's apparent disdain for Giallo (he has, on occasion, disowned the movie) and hope that a potential new generation of fans will not be put off by this second-rate schlock. Whether his "3D Dracula" project will mark a return to form remains to be seen.
Having scored a surprising box-office hit with Taken, big man Liam Neeson continues to showcase his upmarket action-movie skills with Unknown (2011, Optimum, 12), an enjoyably silly paranoid thriller from director Jaume Collet-Serra with an engagingly daft premise. Arriving in Berlin to deliver a keynote conference speech, brooding Dr Martin Harris (Neeson) awakens from a car-crash coma to discover that nobody knows him, least of all his wife (X-Men's pneumatic January Jones). Is the good doctor suffering from delusional amnesia? Or has the world been suspiciously reconfigured around him while he slept? Adapted from Didier Van Cauwelaert's short story "Out of My Head", Unknown plays its cards sensibly close to its chest until the unavoidable moment of revelation, after which it loses some of its dramatic steam. Still, there's plenty of hammy fun en route, thanks largely to a stalwart supporting cast which includes the magnificent Diane Kruger, an affable Bruno Ganz and a furtive Frank Langella. Extras include a featurette with the self-aware title "Liam Neeson: Known Action Hero", which confirms his oddly saleable mainstream status.
Like a herpetic sore that just won't heal, Martin Lawrence's spectacularly unfunny Big Momma series keeps resurfacing with irritatingly pustulant results. Presumably there's still monetary life in the corpse of this dead horse; clearly no one is making these movies to salve their artistic souls. Thus it's time for Lawrence to don the transvestite fat suit once more for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011, Fox, PG), in which Martin must go undercover in a girls' school, where his similarly dragged-up sprog, Brandon T Jackson, is hiding from the clutches of blah blah blah... Toe-curling horror ensues as the film-makers conclude that two gurning gumbies in oversized dresses must by definition be twice as funny as one, and proceed to rub their audience's face in the sweaty bum crack of comedy with life-threatening results. "Bigger Laughs; More Momma; Extended Cut!" boasts the sleeve, as if that were somehow a good thing. Frankly, tabloidnewspapers can carp on all they want about violent video games corrupting their viewers, but if I have to watch another second of Big Momma fun, I won't be responsible for my actions. Enough!
It's easy – nay obligatory – to knock Gwyneth Paltrow, a perfectly competent actress and moderately accomplished musician who has blotted her public relations copybook by partnering up with a member of Coldplay (aaaaargh!) and running a horrifically awful lifestyle website (Goop). In Country Strong (2010, Sony, 12), Gwynie plays an unfeasibly healthy-looking "recovering addict" who is forced to drag her sorry, guitar-playing butt back out on the road against the advice of her doctors, but at the insistence of her manager/husband (Tim McGraw). Will she stay clean and return to the top of the country charts? Or will the ghosts of her past rise up and claim her, allowing her spunky support acts (Leighton Meester and Garrett Hedlund) to steal the show?
Lifting its familiar narrative riffs from the well-worn template of A Star is Born, this formulaic fare benefits from Paltrow's undeniably impressive ability to handle the "live show" chores herself, lending a crucial unifying voice to her central performance. What the movie lacks in true grit (which is a lot) its star makes up for in gumption, even if the fruits of her labours remain essentially frivolous. The end result may be no Coal Miner's Daughter, but only the genuinely churlish could fail to raise a Stetson hat to Paltrow's performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment