Posted on August 26, 2015 at 8:00 am
Sara Silverman as the mother of a high school student? Even by Hollywood traditions of actresses being cast as mothers when they are barely older than the actors playing their children, that seems jarring. But Nat Wolff and Mickey Rourke (as “Ashby”) seem like a fun combination.
Posted on August 21, 2014 at 5:59 pm
If you want to not just see but hear an eyeball being pulverized, then see “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” If you want to see and hear it in the company of an audience who thinks that’s funny, buy a ticket.
Like the first “Sin City,” this sequel is co-directed by Frank Miller, who created the comic book series that inspired it, and Robert Rodriguez, and they have again perfectly transferred the dark pulp sensibility and striking visuals from page to screen. Like the first film, it is in stark shades of black, white, and gray, with splashes of color — bright red lips, shining blonde hair, sleek blue satin — and, of course, blood.
Sin City is a place of corruption, betrayal, and decay, of haunted souls who can’t remember or who remember too much. “How did I get here? What have I done? And why?” Marv (Mickey Rourke) asks as the film opens and he finds himself with some dead and dying guys. He does remember “wishing I had an excuse to break somebody’s face.” When he gets an excuse, he says he feels like Christmas.
The interlocking stories center on a young gambler named Johnny who wants to bring down crooked Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), who controls just about everything and everyone in Sin City, a private detective named Dwight (Josh Brolin) who takes photos of indiscretions for his clients and who knows he should not trust the woman he loved and lost to a man who could afford her (Eva Green as Ava), and a stripper named Nancy (Jessica Alba), who cannot decide whether she should kill the man who murdered her lover or just drink herself into oblivion and hope she can forget him.
People say a lot of tough things to each other. “They’ll eat you alive,” someone tells Johnny. “I’m a pretty tough chew,” he answers. Everyone in this film is a pretty tough chew. “Death is just like life in Sin City,” another one says. “There’s nothing you can do and love don’t conquer anything.” There are monsters everywhere in Sin City, and some of the most painful struggles are with the monsters within.
But that doesn’t keep people from trying.
There is a lot of artistry in “Sin City,” but it is so stylized that it calls attention to itself instead of its story, characters, or themes. The artistry in visuals and storytelling is so self-conscious it is fetishistic. It always keeps us at arm’s length. Despite superb work from everyone in the cast, especially Brolin, Willis, and Gordon-Levitt, the visuals are more striking than the story and ultimately they overpower it.
Parents should know that this is an extremely violent movie with themes of corruption and betrayal. People are injured, maimed, mutilated, and killed by a wide variety of weapons including a sword, knives, guns, pliers, and arrows. There are graphic and disturbing images and sounds. It also includes explicit sexual references and situations and nudity and strong language. Characters smoke, drink, and use drugs.
Family discussion: How do Dwight, Johnny, and Marv define justice? What do we learn from stories of corruption and betrayal?
If you like this, try: “Sin City” and the Frank Miller comics
Posted on September 28, 2010 at 8:00 am
Let’s begin with a recap of Iron Man 1, not so much the plot (a man puts on an iron suit and beats the bad guys) as what it was that made it so successful, widely considered one of the best comic book adaptations ever.
First was Robert Downey, Jr. It’s almost impossible to remember now that at one time it was almost impossible to imagine that he would overcome his demons to become a star as big as his talent. “Iron Man” was the movie that established him as a major movie star in part because the role was perfectly designed for his slightly strung-out, self-deprecating surface and ferociously intelligent core. He was a surprise. And so was his character — Iron Man was not an established icon like Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman. The freshness added a lot to the movie’s appeal.
So did the mechanical special effects. Director Jon Favreau, previously best known as a director for “Swingers” and “Elf,” turned out to have the heart of a fan-boy. He minimized the computer effects. He got the details right and hit the sweet spot between dedication and irreverence.
In part 2, as often happens with sequels, pressure to repeat and the pressure make everything bigger can throw things off balance. We can’t be surprised the same way; this time we come in with expectations so high they’re almost impossible to clear. And so what we have is an entertaining summer movie that feels more like a bridge to Part 3 than a repeat of what was best about Part 1 with some organic additions. It’s missing the exuberance of the original. There was the audience’s in the pure fun of the film, based on Tony Stark’s in the physical exhilaration of flying, the mental exhilaration of finding a task to engage his mind and spirit so entirely, and the spiritual exhilaration of meaningful and sustaining engagement with the world.
A strong beginning shows Tony Stark (Downey) as something between an evangelist and a rock star, bragging that he has “privatized peace” and refusing to turn over to the US government the secret of his “weapon.” His suit may be made of metal, but his body is not and the same substance which is keeping him alive is poisoning his blood. Stark’s recklessness and impetuousness is escalating and his assurance that he can keep the world’s dangers under control increasingly sounds more than arrogant — it seems delusional. So this is not a good time for him to get some competition. Mickey Rourke shows up as a Russian with a grudge — and his own metal suit which comes with a deadly accessory. Shooting out from the wrists are electrified whips that can slice a car like a loaf of bread. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) shows up as the leader of SHIELD, a collection of highly talented and trained operatives, to invite Stark to join. Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) shows up as Stark’s weapons manufacturer rival. Don Cheadle takes over the role of Stark’s friend Lt. Col. James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes. Garry Shandling shows up as a Senator who wants Stark to turn over his technology to the US government. Scarlett Johansson shows up as a very beautiful and capable new employee who turns out to have some additional talents and loyalties. Like Hit-Girl, she mows down a hallway-full of bad guys single-handedly. Her curls bounce enticingly and her catsuit fit is even moreseo.
That’s enough for about four movies, and so the movie sags under the weight of all of these characters and exposition before picking up for one last big action scene. Those who wait through all of the credits will get a glimpse of what is in store for the next film. I hope between now and then they remember that less is more.
Posted on March 17, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Looming shadows fall starkly across rain-slick streets. A door chain jiggles because a very bad man wants to come in and hurt someone. Hookers pull guns from garter belts. Tough, tough talk comes from bruised lips that dangle cigarettes and spit blood.
The villians are unspeakably evil. The heroes are compromised and overmatched. The city is filled with corruption but the countryside is even worse.
In “Sin City,” two of today’s greatest stylists join forces in an audacious synthesis of graphic novel and movie. It has the logic of a nightmare. It is movie-making pared down to the essentials Pauline Kael once saw on an Italian movie poster: “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
It is intentionally shocking when it confronts us with heart-stopping cruelty and violence. And it is even more shocking when it finds a terrible beauty in ruination.
Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids) defied the rules of the Directors Guild to bring on as his co-director Frank Miller, the writer/artist who created the Sin City graphic novels. The result is a faithful, shot-for-shot rendition of each stunning panel. Hard, resolute voice-overs accompany stark, inky images. There are brief flashes and flutters of color — red for brake-lights, a heart-shaped bed, a lightning-streaked sky, a sleek getaway car, and for blood. Yellow for the golden curls of a dead hooker and the jaundiced skin of a cowardly villain whose toxic perversions have turned him the color of bile.
Three stories about heroes battling overwhelming odds circle around each other, amplify each other, and ultimately intersect.
Marv (almost unrecognizable Mickey Rourke in a career-restoring performance) is a gigantic brute of a man. “I love hitmen,” he says, “No matter what you do to them you don’t feel bad.” After a beating he says, “My muscles make me a thousand promises of pain to come.” He has had one perfect night of love with a golden-haired prostitute who “smelled the way an angel should.” She said she wanted him. But the next morning, he wakes up in that heart-shaped bed to find that she has been murdered lying next to him.
Marv does not think too clearly. He can hold just one thought in his head at a time, if that. The world always seems incomprehensible and dreamlike to him, especially when he thinks he sees his Goldie again. But this is her twin sister. Marv knows — he thinks he knows — that justice requires him to kill the people who murdered his angel, no matter what the cost.
John (Bruce Willis) is a cop about to retire. He has a bad heart. But he cannot quit until he finds a way to rescue a little girl named Nancy from a man who molests and kills children but is protected by the forces that control Sin City.
And Dwight (Clive Owen) is a man who has made a bad enemy, his girlfriend’s predatory and abusive ex-boyfriend (Benicio Del Toro). Their dispute will shred the fragile compromise between the corrupt cops and the gang bosses that allows the prostitutes to control their own section of Sin City.
This is a masterpiece of technique, bravura film-making with sure and complete mastery of tone, setting, and mood. A lesser cast would be lost, even invisible, but Rourke, Willis, and especially Owen are every bit as arresting as the images around them. Most of the female characters are more props than characters, but Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba make strong impressions.
The film is overwhelming at times, intentionally keeping viewers off-kilter by combining grand heroics, stunning beauty, hideous grotesquery, outrageous butchery, toughness and innocence, tragedy and comedy. This is a movie where a man’s hand is sliced off and then he slips on it like a bananna peel. The entire film exists precisely on the edge between exploitation and artistic statement, ultimately saving itself from toppling over with the sincerity of its tone, the beauty of its images, and the honor of its heroes.
Parents should know that this movie is extremely disturbing. It is not for kids and not for many adults. It is an extremely violent movie with constant, intense, and exceptionally graphic battles and all-out butchery and slaughter. Body parts are sliced off (and eaten — off-camera). People are wounded and killed just about every possible way, including electrocuted, stabbed, impaled, shot, dumped into a tar pit, and sliced up. There are severed heads and other body parts. There are references to child rape and cannibalism. The film also includes nudity, strippers, prostitutes, sexual references, and non-explicit sexual situations. Characters drink and smoke and abuse prescription drugs. They also lie, cheat, steal, extort, and violate as many laws (and commandments) as can be packed into one movie, with some of the most loathsome and vile villains ever put on film.
Families who see this movie should talk about the enduring appeal of such dark stories and characters and the way that co-directors Miller and Rodriguez use the settings and the camera to create mood and character.
Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the graphic novel series that inspired it as well as some of the movies that inspired them, like The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, and Kiss Me Deadly. They will also enjoy films by “guest director” Quentin Tarantino, including Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill.
