A Dangerous Method

Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Christopher Hampton
Starring: Kiera Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen
Release Date: November 23, 2011
Length: 1 hour 34 minutes

    Canadian director David Cronenberg of acclaimed films like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises tackles a whole new risky subject with A Dangerous Method. Academy Award winner Christopher Hampton adapts his successful play about the exciting time of psych history with Carl Jung, Sigmeund Freud and the distraught smart woman between the two of them.

    In 1904, Jung (Michael Fassbender) is happily married to his expectant wife Emma (Sarah Gadon), living at his large institution in Switzerland. He receives a young Russian patient suffering from hysteria named Sabina Spielrien (Kiera Knightley). Jung knows that Spielrien was continuously abused by her father, but through treatment he learns that she was and is still sexually excited by abuse inflicted upon her. As she heals, Spielrien becomes closer to Jung through her intrigue in psychoanalysis and interest in becoming a psychiatrist. Jung begins meeting with renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) in Vienna, where the two butt ideas. Freud eventually sends the sexually eccentric psychoanalyst Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell) to live with Jung, where Gross expresses his theory to not suppress any of your natural instincts and encourages Jung to sleep with patients he is attracted to. With Gross’ advice, Jung finally gives into his impulses and begins an affair with the now mentally stable Spielrien. As the years progress, Spielrien and Jung’s affair goes through battles of power, breakthroughs and questionings of consciences, similar to psychology’s development.

    A Dangerous Method is no exception to Cronenberg’s history of incorporating sex, brutality and most importantly bold and bizarre subject matters into his films. He bravely takes on a world-renowned historical subject that has remained untouchable to the film industry up until now. A Dangerous Method is simply the most compelling film of the year and succeeds in mesmerizing you through the skillful combination of history and drama. Something I always find to be a difficult challenge with historical films is maintaining historical accuracy while entertaining you with interesting dialogue. This is an aspect Christopher Hampton achieves best in. His script allows you to see the amount of research done on the topic while simultaneously having the most clever and intriguing conversations, especially between the opposing pyschologists. He perfectly adjusts the language to let people like me, who do not know much about psych theory, understand Freud and Jung, while not patronizing us either.

    From this multifaceted script, Cronenberg delves deep into the multiple character studies while bringing out the time period stunningly. Cronenberg and his cast members combined, make the film itself, a psychotherapy study of each character and relationship as we come to fully understand and identify with each of them. You see the distraught and continuous role changing between Jung and Spielrien, something you aren’t made to abhor or support, just fully comprehend and be absorbed into. The attractiveness of a film can sometimes be all you need to be won over, and regardless of what you think of the acting or story, there is no doubt everyone can appreciate the gorgeous cinematography, costumes and sets carefully chosen by Cronenberg and his crew.

    The most entrancing element of the film is the performance of it’s leading lady, Kiera Knightley, in her best role yet. Though Knightley’s career has had many highs, she has come a long way from playing a sixteen-year-old football player, as her skills as an actor continue to improve. Fassbender carries the film wonderfully as the distraught Jung, Mortensen does his most profoundly character enveloped performance yet as the iconic Freud and French actor Vincent Cassell makes a memorably amusing cameo as Otto Gross. But it is Knightley who steals the film with her remarkable portrayal of a hysteric-turned-loving young woman. The history that intrigues you, the romance that grips you, the shots that entrance you, and the cast that astonishes you all make Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, by far, one of the best films of the year.

TheTwilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Director: Bill Condon
Writers: Melissa Rosenberg, Stephenie Meyer (author)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Release Date: November 18, 2011
Length: 1 hour 57 minutes

    It’s been exactly three years since the first of the beloved teen books from Stephenie Meyer was transcribed to screen in what can only be described as an insanely guilty pleasure. With less than perfect visual effects, a slightly cheesy script, and a theme of romantic melodrama, Twilight (2008) was the film shunned by critics but eaten up by teens. A year later, the sequel New Moon seemed to take a step up the ladder in direction, cinematography and special effects, and less than a year later the unknown director David Slade gave the best Twilight yet with Eclipse, the film that brought the entire franchise to a solid level of filmmaking. Twilight was critically terrible, New Moon was just O.K. and Eclipse was pretty good. So, wouldn’t it seem like the final film of the series, Breaking Dawn would reach the top level and be the one to blow us away entirely? 

    For strictly moneymaking purposes, Breaking Dawn was split into two parts, which means that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 was mostly an introduction to the conflict of the fourth novel of the series. In part 1, the eighteen-year-old dreary Bella (Kristen Stewart) is preparing for her wedding to the ancient and tortured Edward, who has been waiting since the day he met Bella to “begin forever” with her. The teenage Bella has only agreed to marry Edward upon one condition, that he will finally turn her into a vampire, so she can truly be with him forever. The film follows Bella and Edward on their supposedly blissful honeymoon and Bella’s werewolf best friend Jacob with his problems with his pack. (better known as shirtless Taylor Lautner). 

    While on their South American holiday, where Edward has bought an island for just the two of them, Edward hesitantly sleeps with Bella for the first time. When Bella wakes up with bruises all over her body due to Edward’s unintentionally great force, Edward becomes furious with himself for letting himself hurt Bella while Bella is densely overjoyed and somehow successfully seduces Edward once again. Two weeks into their honeymoon, Bella unexpectedly wakes to throwing up and starts to show signs of pregnancy just seconds before she feels an overpowering kick in her stomach. A terrorized Edward calls his father Dr.Carlisle Cullen, who concludes that Bella is somehow pregnant and the vampire fetus is growing at an accelerated rate. The pair rushes back to Forks, Washington, where Bella becomes weaker and weaker, with her bloodthirsty baby eating her from the inside. With Bella nearing death, almost everyone accepts the fetus as not a baby but something trying to kill Bella that must be terminated. However Bella’s maternal instincts begin to kick in putting Edward, Jacob and the rest of the Cullens in a state of panicked disbelief. 

    Out of all the directors to take on a film for the Twilight franchise, Mr. Bill Condon has the highest critical track record directing films like Kinsey with Liam Neeson and the 2006 Oscar’s hit Dreamgirls. However, it’s easy to say that Condon has given us the worst and by far the least rewarding Twilight yet, and that is saying something, in comparison to the first one. Filled with the highest amount of laughable melodrama from any Twilight yet, ghastly distracting theatrical music, and a lack of plot because it is clearly only half a story, the film defines the word awkward perfectly. 

    Perhaps it is only romantic melodrama that we can guiltily indulge in since one of the few enjoyable aspects of the first one were the moments during the romantic development of Bella and Edward that the fans of the book could giggly gush over. In Breaking Dawn Part 1, all the melodrama is that of a soap opera, “I want to keep the baby” - Bella, “You can’t keep that fetus, it’s killing you!” - Edward, “I can’t see Bella’s future anymore!” – psychic Alice, “I’m going to kill you Edward, if your baby kills Bella!”, gasp, gasp, gasp, etc…While the drama rises, those cute loving moments cease to exist in this film. There are constantly long slow shots of Bella and Edward, and instead of the audience giving giggles of delight, they are giving laughter out of embarrassment. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this particular book was that the two lovebirds were sharing an adorable getaway, but on screen, the attempt of passionate moments is almost painful, including the cringe worthy three-second fiery sex scene. Condon does not exactly help with repeatedly long shots of facial expressions including what seemed like a twenty-minute shot of Bella’s nervous facial expression walking down the aisle. 

    However, what I believe made the film as unbearably melodramatic as it was, was the annoying never-ending music by composer Carter Burwell. He may as well copyright “Dun Dun Duhhh” because every time a character said something the least bit theatrical, in came Burwell with arguably the most over-the-top film score ever. Right off the top, you first cannot focus on what the characters are saying and second cannot take anything they say seriously because of the hormonal violin accompanying them. Another plus the first film had was an actual fantastic soundtrack with artists like Metric, Muse and Iron and Wine. This latest installment has taken another unnecessary direction toward more money with no talented independent bands for Breaking Dawn Part 1, but Bruno Mars singing the headline song for it. 

    The fault that almost immediately prevented Breaking Dawn Part 1 from being at all credible, was the split of the book into two separate films. The stupid decision Summit Entertainment made was clearly done in lieu of the last Harry Potter film’s success as two films, however Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows had strong reasoning for being split up. Although there was a clear bonus in profiting from two films, the lengthy Harry Potter novel had too many events to be included into only one film whereas Breaking Dawn is not nearly long enough to be spit into two parts. This is why by the end of the film, argument after argument becomes so repetitive when every single person is trying to convince Bella to give up the baby. 

    All of these elements make it almost impossible for there to be any enjoyable or convincing acting. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, despite the circumstances are at their best in the franchise, especially with Stewart for once having a smile on her face since the films began, while Taylor Lautner still knows how to brood as much as possible. I admit, part of going to this film is to make fun of things here and there, but you still go to engulf yourself with the transformation of those books that you were once so obsessed with. However, now that many Twilight fans are becoming older, less attached to the franchise, and less accepting of bad movies, at a certain point in the film, you just give up trying to take it seriously. 

    With the mistaken split of the story, the tasteless music, and the overall direction of the film, there is pretty much no hope for the final film, Part 2. Twilight fans can now move on to the next savory teen book adaptation, The Hunger Games, which looks more promising than the Twilight franchise ever did. 

The Muppets

Director: James Bobin
Writers: Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper
Release Date: November 23, 2011
Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

    Originating in the 1950s by the ultimate puppeteer Jim Henson, The Muppets have been around for as long as anyone in my generation can remember. They have become celebrities in themselves, presenting at the Emmys and the Oscars and being interviewed on The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Although Kermit and Ms. Piggy’s prime was in the 1970s and 1980s, charming us weekly on their self-titled show, The Muppets (1976-1981) and in their box-office hits, like The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan, their fame has failed to die away. However, after twelve years without our beloved entertainment group on the big screen, we begin to miss Fawzy’s bad jokes and Miss Piggy’s absurd demands. You begin to worry, what if those big protruding eyes remain icons of the past? In comes superhero Jason Segel to save the day.

     The film that brought Segel to the height of his fame today was one which he wrote and produced in 2008, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. In one scene of the film, Segel sits at the piano crying, while drunkenly singing the opening theme to The Muppets and later, his character Peter fulfills his dream of putting on a puppet musical of Dracula. Where else could these off-the-wall ideas come from if not from the mind of a truly devoted Muppet – and puppets in general – fan? Segel’s public obsession became even more known when it was announced that he approached Disney about making a new Muppet film. According to Segel, it was four years ago that the executives at Disney laughed at him and co-writer Nicholas Stoller – who directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall - for even mentioning the idea. Now it’s 2011 though, and even the idea of the Muppets back again gets people overly excited.

     Segel and Stoller went about creating the plot for the new film in a perfect way, using the new character of Walter to give the franchise a fresh taste and reasoning for the clan to get back together. Walter – who I should mention is a puppet- has grown up with his human brother and best friend Gary (Segel), and is the biggest Muppet fan of all time. Walter has watched every episode, owns every collectable and even dresses up as Kermit for Halloween. His close relationship with his brother becomes a little problematic for Gary’s longtime girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), when he accompanies them on their honeymoon trip to the exciting land of Los Angeles, where Walter will finally see The Muppets set. When the trio gets there and sees the place is run down though, Walter becomes disappointed and goes exploring into Kermit’s old house. There, he overhears the incorrigible taxman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) talking about buying the property because there is profitable oil underneath it and we find out he will be able to unless The Muppets can raise ten million dollars in time. In a panic, Walter makes Gary and Mary find Kermit’s house with him, where they will tell him the fate of The Muppets studio. When they meet him, Kermit is convinced by Walter to bring the whole gang back together to put on a show for the ten million. Once they’ve got everyone on board, it’s up to them to put on the greatest show just in the nick of time to save the beloved place that made them The Muppets.

     It is crucial and almost expected for every family film to have adult humor. With Segel and Stoller – whose previous writing credits include Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek – writing the script, I expected inappropriate humor that goes straight over the kids heads to make up for most of the laughs. Instead, Segel and Stoller used the fame of The Muppets from the 1970s and 1980s from their childhood to contribute countless nostalgic jokes for adults, but do not by any means let them overpower the humor in the film. The script’s cleverness makes the comeback film fresh and fun, so that the people who have seen all the Muppets films can enjoy it as much as someone watching them for the first time. The film balances a fine line of keeping up with Muppet traditions like celebrity cameos and musical numbers, while making it new and appealing to 2011 audiences. Stoller and Segel completing this hard task is only an addition to writing one of the funniest scripts of the year.

     The only film that I came close to laughing as much as I did during The Muppets was Bridesmaids last May and everyone thought that was the funniest film of 2011. The amazing thing about The Muppets though is that during those rare moments when you are not laughing, you are smiling in complete ecstacy. The cameos are just right with Emily Blunt repeating her role in The Devil Wears Prada, this time as Miss Piggy’s posh assistant in Europe, and Jim Parsons being the human vision of Walter. The musical numbers are hilarious and highly enjoyable with old favourites like The Rainbow Connection and Mahna Mahna and new classics Man or Muppet - where Water and Gary simultaneously stress over which species they belong to - and the ridiculously catchy Life’s A Happy Song.

     The talented cast of this film just makes you smile even more. Chris Cooper is incredibly funny and convincing as the evil Tex Richman, especially during his impromptu rap, “Let’s talk about me”. There is nothing more adorable than Amy Adams and Jason Segel on their own, so when you put them together and throw in Kermit and Walter and Miss Piggy, you are left with the most charming and delightful cast of all time. Segel is not only commendable as an exceptional actor, producer, screen and songwriter, but as the reason for why we get to see one of the best films of the year, and arguably the best Muppet film of all time. Without his love for The Muppets and drive to bring them back, we would all be missing those two hours of unexplainable happiness that The Muppets give us, from our lives. A lyric from the opening and closing “Life’s A Happy Song”, I just can’t wipe the smile off my face is a perfect way to describe watching the film because you will simply never have a happier movie experience. So for that, I say thank you Jason Segel, for bringing those silly, lovable, inspiring Muppets back into our hearts. 

The Descendants

Director: Alexander Payne
Writers: Alexander Payne, Jim Rash, Nat Faxon
Starring: George Clooney, Shaileene Woodley
Release Date: November 18, 2011
Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

    Acclaimed director Alexander Payne returns to his chair after seven years from directing since his last hit Sideways, with an equally curious film, The Descendants, starring George Clooney, and young actress Shailene Woodley (The Secret Life of An American Teenager).

    Based on the novel by Kuai Hurt Hemmings, the film tells the story of Matt King (Clooney), a Honolulu lawyer, who has just found out his wife, who was recently in a boating accident, will never wake from her coma, and will be disconnected from life support shortly. Matt must break the news to everyone who knew her, including his two daughters, ten-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and seventeen-year-old Alex (Woodley). In addition, Matt is the sole trustee of 25,000 acres of untouched land on the island of Kaua’i. Matt and his cousins have already decided they will sell the land for development because the trust will expire in seven years, but after his wife’s accident, Matt reconsiders what he will do with the land, especially because his daughters want him to keep it. To top off all the stress he is under, Matt finds out from his older daughter that his wife was seeing someone else before she got into the accident. Through visiting people to let them know of Elizabeth’s circumstances and tracking down the guy who was sleeping with her, Matt, Scottie and Alex endure an unconventional grieving process that brings them closer in an unexpected way.

    Payne, who co-wrote the script with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, creates the most emotionally moving film of the year that unexpectedly pulls you in so closely to the complexity of the characters and of their relationships with each other. The script radiates with an authentic real-life family that deals with grief and parenting in such a sincerely disoriented way. This is an exceptionally character-driven movie that relies highly on the layered writing, Payne’s unique direction, and most importantly, the ability of the unbelievably skilled cast.

    This film shows Clooney simply at his very best in a role you have never seen him in before. Even his tacky Hawaiian short sleeve button-ups, his uncut graying hair, and his khaki shorts makes Clooney admirable on taking a step in a different direction. Aside from the wardrobe though, Clooney is incredible at playing an unattractive, uncool, pretty normal middle-aged guy. His performance as Matt shows perfectly how bewildered he is toward raising his girls, and trying to keep it together after each blow of pressure upon him. His co-star for most of the film is twenty-year-old Shailene Woodley, someone who, I stupidly regret, kept me from seeing this movie immediately because of her lead role on a TV show that I do not enjoy. Her performance as the troubled, honest, and incredibly smart Alex is simply extraordinary and shows off her natural talent on screen that needs to be seen by more than a teen audience. Her younger sister in the film is played by the enjoyable Amara Miller, who captivates the audience just as much when on screen. Judy Greer, unfortunately best known for playing the best friend in romantic comedies like 13 Going On 30 and 27 Dresses, also breaks through her stereotype and gives an excellent performance. Beau Bridges, a great actor we have not seen in a while is wonderful as one of Matt’s annoying cousins that wants to sell the land.

    The last co-star of the film was the beautiful setting of Hawaii, which Payne continuously reinforces with Hawaiian music, and even unintentional geography and history insights into the land itself. Like Sideways, Payne again creates a unique off-the-wall movie that gradually and unexpectedly bowls you over emotionally. His original story combined with a phenomenal cast makes for a simply perfect movie and by far, makes The Descendants one of the best of this year.