Unofficially dubbed the real party before the big party, The Independent Spirit Awards handed out their trophies earlier tonight.
Fresh off its World Premiere in Cannes, Lee Daniels‘ (Precious) The Paperboy starring Nicole Kidman, Zac Ephron, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo and John Cusack is one of the most talked about films this year. Strong performances from the cast anchored by Kidman and McConaughey, a nice gritty look to the film and the fact that we have we have some very interesting scenes including Ephron’s character peeing on Kidman in a bout of very strange sex and Kidman masturbating in a prison.
Take the trailer below and make sure to catch The Paperboy during the Toronto International Film Festival.
About the Film Lee Daniels (Precious) directs The Paperboy adapted from Peter Dexter‘s novel of the same name which follows Ward James (Matthew McConaughey), a Miami Times reporter who returns to his hometown to investigate the murder of a local sheriff who is eventually helped by his younger brother Jack (Zac Efron) as they investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a man on death row. Throughout the process Jack falls for the woman (Nicole Kidman) whom the convict (John Cusack) has also been romancing through prison correspondence. The Paperboy first premiered in Cannes and plays limited theaters starting October 5th.
Here is a vile and putrid film.
It is billed as a deep-fried dark comedy. Grand Guignol for rednecks. Double Indemnity for the Drowning Mona crowd.
I didn’t find myself laughing the way others were. I can accept a study in amorality and depravity (The War Zone and Tyrannosaur come to mind) and I can also accept it when it is funny (I’m thinking Happiness and Fargo). Those movies are good because they have the balls to confront their subject matter with perceptive human moments and humor built out of observation with the funnier two.
Killer Joe is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Fail because it lacks the courage to confront its own material. It stands above it, beneath it, beside it. A cynical cop-out of a movie that uses amorality and depravity instead for cheap effect; to titillate, to shock, to outrage, all in a desperate attempt to keep us interested in stupid characters that we’re meant to laugh at for how awful they all are.
The director, William Friedkin, made a couple of masterpieces 40 years ago with The French Connection and The Exorcist. Critics have written off his output since, but there are a few good ones in To Live and Die in L.A. with Willem Dafoe and CSI‘s William Petersen; the underrated chase picture The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro; as well as the schizophrenic thriller Bug with Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon.
Killer Joe reunites Friedkin with Bug screenwriter Tracy Letts in another of his stage adaptations, this one from the 1993 play of the same name. With Bug, they gathered uneasy tension that built to an intense climax. Here, they’re simply masturbating while a cast of good actors are left hanging.
The first one we meet on a stormy Texas night is Chris (Emile Hirsch). He’s a weasel and a degenerate, the kind of “friend” that if you were to lend him $40 and you never see him again, consider it money well spent. He comes knocking on his dad Ansel’s (Thomas Haden Church) trailer in the middle of the night. The dog is raging at Chris, but these characters are too stupid to heed the mutt’s warnings. The door opens to a reveal of his stepmom Sharla (Gina Gershon), a woman who tells us everything we need to know about her by what she isn’t wearing. Also in the trailer is his younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple), who is perceived as being slow even among rather slow people.
Chris needs quick cash. He’s in debt to people you wouldn’t want to know, let alone cross. What he proposes to his father is a plan to have mom killed in order to recoup her $50,000 insurance policy that would be handed down to Dottie. We never meet Chris’ mother but we’re assured that everyone hates her. What Ansel thinks about having his ex-wife killed I’m not sure, because anything resembling thinking is left off screen.
Enter hitman-for-hire and local police detective Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey). He needs $25,000 up front, which of course neither Chris nor Ansel can provide. They give him Dottie as a “retainer”. That leads to a sequence we behold with incredulity as the family is put through a sitcom spin-cycle. Who’s going to tell Dottie what they did to her and what is required of her? But then the characters hastily exit the picture, leaving us alone with Dottie and Killer Joe, who’s had her in his sights from the get-go.
I won’t give anything away here, except to report that their scene rings false. It is supposed to be an uncomfortable scene because it is essentially dealing with coercion and rape, but here come the filmmakers to wedge themselves in the middle of it because they’re too afraid of its dark implications. Listen carefully to the how and the what of Dottie’s reply to Killer Joe when he asks how old she is. That isn’t her real reply, just the filmmakers screwing with us. I didn’t buy her newly acquired sexual intelligence just as I couldn’t accept the incestuous implications between her and Chris earlier in the movie because that wasn’t anything more than Friedkin and Letts inserting themselves needlessly into the story instead of simply letting us get to know these people on their own terms. They go for diversionary tactics instead of playing it straight.
How this all plays out depends entirely upon events that happen off screen, including the revelation that Killer Joe has gotten the job done, and that the insurance policy is not left to Dottie, but to Rex, the ex-wife’s new husband who we only see for a couple of seconds, just before he is about to enter a cheap motel room with Sharla of all people. That is just the set-up for the climax of the picture, which sees Killer Joe, Chris, Dottie, Ansel and Sharla together in the trailer, which is obviously a double-wide since they all fit into it rather comfortably.
Other critics have been all too happy to give it away, but let me just say that this infamous scene will forever be known as the “chicken drumstick scene”, yet another example of a situation that was hard for me to buy into because of everything we’ve come to know about Gina Gershon as an actress. Watching her here reminded me of Isabella Rossellini’s work in Blue Velvet, where an actress risks everything for a movie that is far, far beneath her. Just like Thomas Haden Church’s character, we’re never allowed inside Ansel or Sharla. If they think or calculate or have any plans whatsoever, this happens off screen. If Sharla is the femme fatale, we’re not even sure if she knows it. Ansel is clueless; he’s what happens if you enter your 40′s and you’ve got no imagination and are a pothead.
McConaughey is lithe and oily here with that soft-spoken lilt he brings to his drawl, a psychopath who gets turned on through the exercise of his own ego. If he had words inked onto his knuckles they wouldn’t be “LOVE” and “HATE”, but more like “MARY” and “MARY”, perhaps.
In interviews about the film, Friedkin comes off like an infant who is elated at showing mommy his first poopoo in the potty. “You’re not supposed to ‘enjoy’ this movie”, he says.
Well, he’ll be glad to know that I didn’t.
Killer Joe makes me appreciate Tarantino, the Coens, and Todd Solondz even more. They bring life and fascination to their work while making it look easy. They were doing this stuff and doing it better 15 years ago. Friedkin’s got the notes, but he’s bankrupt of anything resembling music here.
*½ (out of 4)
We first got a taste of Killer Joe during the 2011 Toronto International Film Fest. An indie in every sense of the word, the film, which had its world premiere during the 68th Venice International Film Festival, is definitely generating a ton of buzz powered by a pretty fantastic and sadistic performance by Matthew McConaughey. It is absolute fantastic to see McConaughey going back to these grittier roles. I absolutely loved him in the recent The Lincoln Lawyer and after watching him in Killer Joe I am very much looking forward to see what he has coming up next.
To give you a sense of what I mean, check out this clip from the movie. Tell me you don’t want to see it right now.
About the Film When 22-year-old Chris (Emile Hirsch) finds himself in debt to a drug lord, he hires a hit man to dispatch his mother, whose $50,000 life insurance policy benefits his sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Chris finds Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a creepy, crazy Dallas cop who moonlights as a contract killer. When Chris can’t pay Joe upfront, Joe sets his sight on Dottie as collateral for the job. The contract killer and his hostage develop an unusual bond. Like from a modern-day, twisted fairy tale, “Killer Joe” Cooper becomes the prince to Dottie’s Cinderella. Based on the play by Pulitzer and Tony Award winner Tracy Letts, “Killer Joe” is a garish, provocative black comedy from Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) and also stars Thomas Hayden Church, and Gina Gershon.
Killer Joe opens August 10.
This trailer is pretty straightforward, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, (White Collar’s) Matt Bomer, Cody Horn, (True Blood’s) Joe Manganiello are all strippers who dance around naked and stuff in Steven Soderbergh‘s latest Magic Mike based on Tatum’s days as a male stripper.
But you already knew what the movie is about didn’t you?
Behold, men quickly taking their parents to make it a red-band trailer:
About the Film A dramatic comedy set in the world of male strippers, “Magic Mike” is directed by Academy Award(R)-winning director Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”) and stars Channing Tatum in a story inspired by his real life. The film follows Mike (Tatum) as he takes a young dancer called The Kid (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and schools him in the fine arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money.
Magic Mike opens June 29th and is being released by Warner Bros.
Some big-name directors feature prominently this summer season, beginning with the return of the edgier Oliver Stone that we once knew from Natural Born Killers with his Savages (Jul.6), the Trafficky-looking drug cartel pic starring Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, John Travolta and Salma Hayek. Very hot trailer.
First it was Barcelona, then Paris last year, now Woody Allen brings us To Rome With Love (Jun.22) featuring a wonderful sexy-smart cast in Greta Gerwig (Damsels in Distress), Ellen Page, and Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network). Also starring Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Roberto Benigni and the Woodster himself, first time since 2006′s Scoop.
Steven Soderbergh hopes to do for male strippers in Magic Mike (Jun.29) what he did for high-class escorts in The Girlfriend Experience, with Channing Tatum in a semi-autobiographical role as a male stripper who brings a kid under his wing and teaches him the ropes.
Spike Lee returns to his roots with Red Hook Summer, another edition to a set that includes Do the Right Thing, Clockers and Crooklyn. This one’s a coming-of-age tale about a boy from Atlanta sent to live out one summer in Brooklyn in a movie that opened with a very warm reception at Sundance in January.
Peter Hedges (Dan in Real Life, About a Boy) returns with The Odd Life of Timothy Green, from the screenwriter of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?. Starring Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton as a childless couple whose wish comes true. Looks very interesting.
Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, A Mighty Heart) returns with Trishna (Jul.13) in an updating of Tess of the D’Ubervilles, w/Slumdog Millionaire and Mississauga‘s own Freida Pinto.
William Friedkin (The Exorcist, Bug) is back with the thriller Killer Joe (Jul.27) starring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch.
Sarah Polley‘s Take This Waltz (Jun.29) stars Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen.
John Hillcoat (The Proposition, the Road) is back with Lawless (Aug.31) featuring Jessica Chastain, Shia LeBeouf, Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman. Looks like another strong one.
David Koepp returns with the bike courier actioner Premium Rush (Aug.31) starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Some of these films will open in limited release in bigger cities and then move out in the weeks after that, and along with them will be indies, docs and foreign films. They include the indie comedy Lola Versus (Jun.15) w/Greta Gerwig as a young woman dumped just before her wedding; the Parisian drama Bel Ami (Jun.15) w/Robert Pattinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Uma Thurman and Christina Ricci; featuring on-demand distribution before limited theatrical releases are God Bless America (May.11), Bobcat Goldthwaite‘s savage comedy, as well as the return of Mel Gibson in Get the Gringo (May.11); Les Intouchables (May.25) featuring France’s Dustin Hoffman, Francois Cluzet, in a movie nominated for 8 of France’s Oscars (Cesars) as well as Polisse (May.18) another big french drama, nominated for 13 Cesars; and lovers of Japanese cinema should be on the lookout for master Kore-eda Hirokazu’s I Wish (May.18) opening in limited release.
Documentary highlights include Paul Williams Still Alive (Jun.15), Under African Skies (May.18) about the making of Paul Simon‘s Graceland record (in yet another return to the 80′s this summer), Morgan Spurlock‘s (Super Size Me) manscaping doc Mansome (May.18), and the gut-wrenching U.S. military doc about sexual abuse titled The Invisible War (Jun.22).
- MovieJay
