Notes on Halloween

There was a seasonally spooky special of Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle today featuring discussions of Halloween past and present.

David Gordon Green takes an appropriately Gordian approach to the tortured continuity of the Halloween series, affecting that this is the first entry since the original, and therefore logically has a 61 year old man running amok with the superstrength and healing superpowers of a much younger supervillain. Aside from wondering if Michael Myers is in fact Wolverine, I spent far too much time doing mental arithmetic to work out how old he’s meant to be in this movie. As director Green brings the gore, and some style, but this feels a world away from the patient chills of John Carpenter’s 1978 original.

Possibly the scene most akin to the original is the cold open wherein two British podcast journalists visit Michael Myers in a prison yard and try to get a reaction from him by brandishing his bleached William Shatner mask. Myers is unresponsive, but the other inmates freak out, animals become unhinged, and we smash-cut to the infamous pumpkin re-inflating as Carpenter returns to provide the synth score.

Mo Names, Mo Problems

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, Mos Def, 2005, (c) Touchstone

INT. THE FREGOLI HOTEL BALLROOM, LOS ANGELES-NIGHT

 

TITLE: SPRING 2015

 

DANNY McBRIDE, SETH ROGEN, EVAN GOLDBERG, and DAVID GORDON GREEN are sneaking outside, with questionable tobacco products hanging out of their pockets. As they approach the French windows Green veers off to one side to scoop up another glass of champagne from a table. The others continue on. Green then sees an entire tray of cocktail sausages being neglected. As he munches his way through the sausages a man on the far side of the ballroom observes him. MOS DEF, for it is he, stops talking to KANYE, squints at Green, and then roars across the ballroom.

 

MOS DEF: D.G.!

DG GREEN: (choking on cocktail sausage) Mos!!

MOS DEF: (looking annoyed, oblivious to Green’s choking noises) It’s not Mos.

DG GREEN: (coughs up half a sausage into his glass) It’s not?

MOS DEF: No, man, it’s not been Mos for three years and counting.

DG GREEN: Oh!

MOS DEF: DG, man, what exactly do I have to do to get a meeting with you?

DG GREEN: Huh?

MOS DEF: I tried like hell to get Our Brand is Crisis!

DG GREEN: You did?

MOS DEF: Uh, Yeah! I musta called your office a hundred times!

DG GREEN: I don’t remember that.

MOS DEF: Well, then you need a new secretary.

DG GREEN: What?! No way, no way! Janelle’s incredibly efficient. Delaney vouched for her. Well, I mean Delaney’s secretary Janine vouched for her.

MOS DEF: Well, if she ain’t telling you Yasiin Bey on the line then she ain’t that efficient.

DG GREEN: Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: Yeah, Yasiin Bey. As opposed to Mos Def, which I’ve not been using as a name for three years and counting, like I said earlier.

 

CLOSE ON: David Gordon Green’s pupils dilate.

 

INT. GREEN’S PRODUCTION OFFICE, LOS ANGELES-DAY

 

The camera observes JANELLE at her desk on one side of the split-screen, and on the other half DG GREEN at his desk, scribbling on storyboards, which he throws away in frustration when his phone rings. He punches the button for speakerphone.

 

TITLE: 5 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: A Yasiin Bey is on line 1.

DG GREEN: Don’t know him. (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 4 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, he really wants to talk about the role of Ben.

DG GREEN: That’s nice. (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 3 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again. He wants to know if you have time for a lunch at The Fregoli, he has some great ideas for the role of Ben he wants to run past you.

DG GREEN: (stunned, then outraged) Who … the hell does this guy think he is?! (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 2 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, sir. He says he’ll give you a soundtrack song for free if you just give him a chance to audition like anyone else.

DG GREEN: Well now we’re finally getting somewhere! He can have a chance to audition like anyone else because he is anyone else. Does he have an agent? Delaney? (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 1 MONTH BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, sir, and, sir, Janine connected him to me.

DG GREEN: Oh! (reflects for a moment) It’s going to have to wait. I’m meeting Anthony Mackie in a half an hour. I don’t have time for any new people right now. (hangs up)

 

INT. THE FREGOLI HOTEL BALLROOM, LOS ANGELES-NIGHT

MOS DEF: Yo! DG! Anybody in there? You’re doing that thing with your eyes from Fantastic Mr Fox. Some kind of memory bells ringing?

DG GREEN: (stops doing that thing with his eyes) No…

MOS DEF: Well… So much for that.

DG GREEN: Yeah, sorry man. (turns to scoop the soggy half sausage out of his glass and eat it without Mos seeing) … … So, uh, Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: Yeah.

DG GREEN: Why?

MOS DEF: What do you mean why?

DG GREEN: Why the change of name? Did you convert to Islam?

MOS DEF: Did I convert to Islam?! Yeah, DG, I did convert to Islam. Twenty-sumpn’ years ago!

DG GREEN: Oh.

MOS DEF: You are unbelievable. Do you ask Snoop that every time he changes his name?

DG GREEN: Well he never changes it very much. If you’re not called Mos Def anymore, how will people know who you are?

MOS DEF: How will… How will people know who I am?! Do you recognise me, standing here in front of you, talking to you? I ain’t changed into a different person! Do you think nobody knew who Muhammad Ali was when he changed his name? All that’s different is I got a name now that reflects who I am now. (several beats) You’re doing that thing with your eyes again, man.

DG GREEN: Sorry I was just thinking about Snoop calling himself something reflecting who he is. Snoop M-Jane. Like a play on the Beach Boys song–

MOS DEF: I got the ‘Sloop John B’ namecheck, thank you, and you got Snoop on the brain.

GREEN: You’re the one who brought him up!

MOS DEF: Look, a man in his forties should not be carrying a moniker like Mos Def around. Can you imagine me hitting 50 and still basically being called ‘Aw Yeah!’?

DG GREEN: LL Cool J seems happy.

MOS DEF: (several Pinter pauses pass by) Do not compare me to LL Cool J. I will drown you in a jeroboam of champagne and sample your death-rattle as a bass track.

 

DG Green gulps audibly, and grabs another glass of champagne from a passing waiter, he then grabs the waiter and pulls him back to grab a second glass. He drinks both, and then nervously smiles at Mos Def.

 

DG GREEN: Look, Mos…

MOS DEF: Don’t … call me Mos! Come on, man! Make the effort.

DG GREEN: Oh! Sorry, my bad. Um, yeah, so, look, um. … … … … …

MOS DEF: (sighs) Did you seriously just forget my name in the middle of a conversation about my name?

DG GREEN: No! No. It’s … uh. … … (snaps fingers) Dante.

MOS DEF: No, that’s the name I was born with.

DG GREEN: Wait, of course, it’s, uh, uh, … … Terrell!

MOS DEF: No. That’s the middle name of the name I was born with. I can see why you’re such a good fit for directing stoner comedies…

DG GREEN: Hey! That was uncalled for. I’ve got a mortgage to pay. Look I am sorry about the whole Our Brand is Crisis mix-up, but, uh, look, have you booked a movie since you changed your name?

MOS DEF: Oh what the hell, DG? I’ve been in Life of Crime and Begin Again since I changed my name. People respect those movies, even if nobody saw them.

DG GREEN: Yeah, but had you booked them as Mos Def before you changed name?

MOS DEF: (several Pinter pauses) What are you trying to say?

DG GREEN: Could it be that people don’t know it’s you when you ring?

MOS DEF: Are you saying you remember me ringing you?

DG GREEN: No, no, I was just … running with your example. If people don’t know that, when you ring, maybe you could do like Prince…

MOS DEF: I am not introducing myself as The Actor Formerly Known as Mos Def.

DG GREEN: Maybe just have a symbol to go with Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: If I’m going to have conversations like this every time I get a meeting I think I’d just rather retire.

2016: Hopes

Midnight Special

Mud writer/director Jeff Nichols makes his studio debut on April 15^th with this tale he places roughly in the territory of John Carpenter’s Starman and De Palma’s The Fury. Nichols regular Michael Shannon plays a father forced to go on the run with his son after discovering the kid has special powers, and the FBI is interested in them… Sam Shepard also recurs, as does cinematographer Adam Stone, while Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, and Joel Edgerton join the Nichols stable. It’s hard to imagine a genre tale from Nichols, but perhaps an unusually heart-felt Stephen King captures it.

Everybody Wants Some

April 15^th sees Richard Linklater release a ‘spiritual sequel’ to both Dazed and Confused and Boyhood. Little is known for sure about Everybody Wants Some, other than it’s a comedy-drama about college baseball players during the 1980s, that follows a boy entering college, meeting a girl, and a new band of male friends. The cast features Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, and Zoey Deutch, so in retrospect may be as star-studded as his 1993 exploration of the end of high school. Hopefully it’s as archetypal and poignant as that as regards the college experience.

 

Love & Friendship

On April 27^th almost exactly four years since Damsels in Distress the urbane Whit Stillman returns with another tale of female friendship, with a little help in the scripting department from Jane Austen. His Last Days of Disco stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny reunite for this adaptation of Austen’s ‘Lady Susan’ novella shot in Ireland. Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave, and Xavier Samuel are the supporting players as Beckinsale tries to marry off her daughter (Morfydd Clark) but the real attraction is Stillman, poet of dry wit and elite social rituals, adapting an author with similar preoccupations.

The Nice Guys

Shane Black’s third directorial effort, out on May 20^th, sees him back on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang territory. Get ready for Ryan Gosling to Bogart his way thru the seedy side of the City of Angels as Holland March, PI. March partners up with a rookie cop (Matt Bomer) to investigate the apparent suicide of a porn star. But standing in his way is an LA Confidential reunion: Kim Basinger as femme fatale, Russell Crowe as Det. Jackson Healy. It’s hard not to be excited at the prospect of terrific dialogue carrying some hysterically self-aware genre deconstruction.

Queen of Earth

We can expect writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s latest movie to hit Irish cinemas sometime in June. Listen Up Philip star Elisabeth Moss takes centre-stage here alongside Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston as two old friends who retreat to a lake house only to discover that they have grown very far apart with the passage of time. Keegan DeWitt scores his second movie for ARP not with jazz but a dissonance appropriate to the unusual close-ups, that have invited comparison with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, as a spiky Waterston hurts an emotionally wounded Moss in all the old familiar places.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Roland Emmerich, the maestro of bombastic action that is actually mocking its audience, returns on June 24^th (for some reason) with a belated sequel in which the aliens come back. Jeff Goldblum has led a 20 year scramble to harness alien tech to strengthen earth’s defences but will those efforts (and Liam Hemsworth’s mad piloting skills) be enough against an even more imposing armada? Sela Ward is the POTUS, Bill Pullman’s POTUS has grown a beard, his daughter has morphed from Mae Whitman into Maika Monroe, and the indefatigable Judd Hirsch returns to snark about these changes.

La La Land

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling team up again on July 15^th for an original musical from Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle. Gosling is a jazz musician in LA who falls in love with Stone’s aspiring actress, and that’s all you need for plot. Stone did an acclaimed turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway, but whether Gosling or JK Simmons (!!) can hold a tune is unknown. The real question is will it be half-embarrassed to be a musical (Chicago), attempt unwise grittiness (New York, New York), or be as mental as aMoulin Rouge! with original songs?

Suicide Squad

And on August 5^th we finally get to see what Fury auteur David Ayer has done with Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery. The latest trailer has amped up the nonsense quotient considerably, and this now looks like The Dirty Dozen scripted by Grant Morrison. Joel Kinnaman’s long-suffering Rick Flagg has to lead into combat the assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), angry mercenary Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), half-man half-crocodile Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the psycho in psychotherapy, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). All eyes are on Robbie’s take on Harley, well until Jared Leto’s Mistah J turns up…

Sausage Party

August 12^th sees the release of probably the most ridiculous film you will see all year, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have scripted an adult animation about a sausage in a grocery store on a quest to discover the truth of his existence. Apart from Jay Baruchel, all the voices you’d expect are present and correct: James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, as well as Kristen Wiig, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. But given how Green Hornet failed can R-rated semi-improvised comedy and animation go hand in hand?

War on Everyone

The Guard in New Mexico! Okay, maybe not quite, but in that wheelhouse. In late August John Michael McDonagh makes his American bow with a blackly comic thriller about two renegade cops (Alexander Skarsgaard and Michael Pena) who have devoted themselves to blackmailing and framing every criminal who crosses their path. And then they come across that somebody they shouldn’t have messed with… McDonagh’s two previous outings as writer/director have been very distinctive, visually, philosophically, and verbally, but you wonder if he’ll have to endlessly self-censor his take no prisoners comedy for ‘liberal’ American sensibilities. Hopefully not.

The Girl on the Train

Following Gone Girl another book of the moment thriller gets rapidly filmed on October 7^th when Emily Blunt becomes the titular voyeur. From her commuter train seat she witnesses the interactions of perfect couple Haley Bennett and Luke Evans as she slows down at a station on the way to London. Then one day she sees something she shouldn’t have, and decides to investigate… The impressive supporting cast includes Rebecca Ferguson, Laura Prepon, Allison Janney, and Justin Theroux, but it’s not clear if Secretary screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has relocated the action to New York.

The Great Wall

November 23^rd sees Chinese director Zhang Yimou embrace Hollywood, with an English-language story about the construction of the Great Wall of China scripted by Max Brooks and Tony Gilroy. Zhang has assembled an impressive international cast including Matt Damon, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, Jing Tian, Zhang Hanyu, and Mackenzie Foy for this sci-fi fantasy of the Wall’s completion. Little is known about the actual plot, but Zhang’s recent movies about the Cultural Revolution have been a drastic change of pace from the highly stylised colourful martial arts epics of Imperial China he’s known for in the West.

The Founder

Michael Keaton cements his leading man comeback on November 25^th with a blackly comic biopic of Ray Kroc. Who is Ray Kroc you ask? The Founder of … McDonald’s. Yes the McDonald brothers did own a hamburger store, but it wasn’t them that expanded into a national and then global, brand. That was all Kroc, who bought them out, and then forgot to pay them royalties; one of several incidents of what people might call either unethical behaviour or recurrent amnesia. Supporting players include Nick Offerman, Laura Dern, and Patrick Wilson, so this tale might be quite tasty.

Story of Your Life

Denis Villeneuve gears up for directing Blade Runner 2 with an original sci-fi movie that should arrive late in 2016. A first contact story, adapted by Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang’s short story, it follows Amy Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics expert recruited by the U.S. military. Her job is to decipher an alien race’s communications, but her close encounter with ET causes vivid flashbacks to events from her life. Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg are physicists and spooks trying to figure out what her unnerving experiences mean for rest of the humanity.

Passengers

Stomping on Rogue One with a December 21^st release date is the dream team of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Poor Keanu Reeves spent years trying to make this sci-fi rom-com happen but as soon as these two expressed interest Jon Spaihts’ long-circling script got permission to land. Pratt wakes from cryo-sleep 90 years too early, so wakes up another passenger to relieve his loneliness on the somnambulant spaceship. Michael Sheen is a robot, but the potential for delight is offset by worthy director Morten Tyldum and the high probability of the contrivance of every other rom-com being used.

Assassin’s Creed

‘One for the studio, One for ourselves’. As it were. December 21^st sees the acclaimed Macbeth trio of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and director Justin Kurzel reunite for a blockbuster based on the all-conquering game. Ubisoft Motion Pictures (yes, that’s really a thing now) and New Regency have opted not to adapt the story of Desmond Miles, or Ezio Auditore; perhaps in case this bombs. Fassbender plays original character Callum Lynch who can commune with his ancestor Aguilar, also played by Fassbender; presumably with a devilish grin as he battles the Spanish Inquisition. Fingers crossed that this works.

Top 10 Films of 2013

(10) Fast and Furious 6

This falls short of its illustrious immediate predecessor, but director Justin Lin’s sign-off to the Vin Diesel franchise he invigorated retained its Ocean’s 11 with petrol-heads vibe. A spectacular action sequence with a tank on a freeway, a charismatic villain with an outrageously designed car, and an over-busy finale as outsize as the runway it took place on were all elevated by a pervasive air of sadness. Poor Han…

(9) Catching Fire

Jennifer Lawrence nuanced her formidable Hunger Games heroine with PTSD as she fought a deadly PR battle with President Donald Sutherland and his lieutenant Philip Seymour Hoffman. Confidence oozed from this movie, a quality noticeable in its expanded ensemble. Director Francis Lawrence’s trademark held shots and action tracks created a more rounded universe with complex villains as well as tense CGI suspense sequences in which the geography of the action was always nicely legible.

 (8) Short Term 12

Newcomer Destin Cretton helmed his own prize-winning script about twenty-something counsellors at a foster-care facility for at-risk teenagers to beautiful effect. Brie Larson is outstanding as the enigmatic lead counsellor Grace, but nuanced turns from Kaitlyn Dever as possible abuse victim Jayden, Keith Stanfield as suicidal rapper Marcus, and John Gallagher Jr as Grace’s long-suffering boyfriend all draw us into an unfamiliar world detailed with insight, humour, and a tempered optimism.

(7) White House Down

Roland Emmerich’s nonsensical Die Hard movie joyously proclaimed its debt (the villain ‘discovered’ a connection between the hero and a female hostage), paid off every plant in sight from President Obama Jamie Foxx’s Lincoln fandom to what Channing Tatum’s daughter’s six weeks honing a skill for her talent show, featured an aggressive right-wing news anchor who wouldn’t stop crying, and forced a miscast Maggie Gyllenhaal to commit so ferociously she grounded the whole thing.

(6) Now You See Me

This Ocean’s 11 with magicians romp was gloriously insouciant crowd-pleasing fun that never flagged, and flirted with cliché but avoided its embrace. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco breezed thru flashily staged sequences of magical revenge against the 1% as their ‘Four Horsemen’ magicians caused chaos across America while being hunted by Mark Ruffalo (FBI/Scully) and Melanie Laurent (Interpol/Mulder) who began to wonder – can these be real magicks?

(5) Frances Ha

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach combined as writers to potent effect for a film in thrall to Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Its monochrome NYC looked incredible, the comedy was superb and clever, it used pop music to amazingly emotional effect, and it was based around an outstanding performance from Gerwig in a richly written part. From her money worries and anxieties at meeting richer people and more successful contemporaries, to her exaggerations about her success to hide embarrassment at her failures, to plain loopy decisions, this was a piercing, realistic insight into failure.

(4) Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen mined a tragic vein as Cate Blanchett’s humbled socialite Jasmine stayed in San Francisco with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Jasmine tried to replace Ginger’s boyfriend Bobby Cannavale with Louis CK, and to replace her own dead tycoon husband (Alec Baldwin) with a widowed diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard). Two women’s romances and mental disintegration recalled Vicky Cristina Barcelona but this was far superior. Fantastic comedy from unsubtle suitors and Blanchett’s waspish tongue was combined with her extraordinary expressive portrayal of schizophrenic breaks from reality as she talked intimately to thin air, seeing people.

(3) This is The End

Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg’s directorial debut in which Seth, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride attempted to wait out the apocalypse in a Hollywood mansion stuffed with drugs and no food was a largely unstructured ramble from one absurd set-up to the next profane bout of self-indulgence, and it was fantastic. Emma Watson’s extended axe-wielding cameo was spectacular, the theology of how to survive the end of days was ludicrous, and the use of music reduced me to helpless tears of laughter; especially the final two songs.

(2) Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Writer/director David Lowery’s stunning tale of young criminals in love in 1970s Texas played out like Badlands re-imagined by Jeff Nichols. Rigorously under-lit by Bradford Young its glorious darkness created a moody, romantic atmosphere in which the abiding passion of parted lovers Ruth (Rooney Mara) and Bob (Casey Affleck) assumed mythic proportions. Keith Carradine as Bob’s mentor and Ben Foster as the lawman Ruth once shot grounded this world, and Lowery built tension expertly around Bob’s escape from jail to Ruth to a suspenseful finale which ended with an image of savage grace.

(1) Mud

Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols returned with an Arkansan tale indebted to Mark Twain as a modern Huck and Tom helped Matthew McConaughey’s titular fugitive. Teenager Tye Sheridan gave a subtle turn as Ellis, who reacted to his parents’ disintegrating marriage by bonding with Mud and his unquenchable belief in true love, despite mysterious neighbour Sam Shepard’s warning that Mud was a fool in waiting for unreliable Reese Witherspoon. DP Adam Stone imbued the Arkansan locations with a heavenly sheen, and, while Mud hiding out a river island living in a boat in a tree observing local superstitions gave rise to great comedy, there was also Twain’s darkness in blood feuds. Nichols’ third film was rich, absorbing, cautiously optimistic, and lit by a deep affection for his characters.