SEVEN POUNDS

Written by Grant Nieporte
Directed by Gabriele Muccino
Starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson


Ben Thomas: In seven days, God created the world and in seven seconds, I shattered mine.”

As a film critic, writer, enthusiast, what have you, I always find it somewhat tricky to write about a film that goes through such painstaking measures in its marketing campaign to keep its plot ambiguous. I can never figure out how to talk about the film while somehow not really talking about the film at all. This is because I hate giving things away and apparently, so does director, Gabriele Muccino. For the first half of the Italian director’s latest Hollywood offering, SEVEN POUNDS, he drags his heels in the dirt, desperately concealing the plot in some failed attempt at being unconventional. For audiences who have been teased long enough with the trailer, being taunted once they’ve already paid for the answers will not go over well. There is a difference between natural intrigue and playing dramatic mind games with the viewer, intentional or not. When it comes to secrets, the important ones are kept without anyone knowing they even exist. Muccino almost seems to be having too much twisted fun dangling this seven pound carrot in my face. And by the time he gives you a bite, you’re not hungry anymore.


After successfully pairing with star, Will Smith, two years ago with THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, Muccino goes for a second round. Muccino works very well with Smith, pulling hard, internal emotions out of one of the most accessible stars in Hollywood history. Smith knows this and it was no surprise to hear they were reteaming. It would seem that Smith makes most of his film decisions these days by choosing characters that are challenging and complicated. I commend him for this and think that, for the most part, he is successful in his evndeavors. However, Smith cannot completely control how his performance ends up shaping the films he is in. In SEVEN POUNDS, Smith gives a range of emotions – from angry and bitter to gracious and generous. He is always convincing but Muccino takes Smith’s performance and breaks it into so many non-sequential pieces that the energy needed to piece them all together leaves no energy left over to appreciate the whole.


SEVEN POUNDS does have one saving grace though and her name is Rosario Dawson. Dawson plays Emily Posa, a young woman with a heart condition and very little time left to live. She also owes an obscene amount of money to the American government. In steps Smith as Ben Thomas, an I.R.S. representative who seems more concerned with Emily’s health issues than her back taxes. Inexplicably, they begin to spend significant time with each other. By the time this happens in the film, you can pretty much figure out what all the fuss is about but their interaction is so intriguing that it becomes a very welcome distraction. Their time together is oddly intriguing. They are drawn to each other and have a surprisingly simple ability to make each other laugh but you can tell that they are both dealing with very heavy struggles that limit their possibilities, both individually and together. It is a testament to healing capacity of the ever elusive emotion known as love.


The fragile love shared between Smith and Dawson proves ultimately to be another disappointing element of SEVEN POUNDS. It is so endearing that you wish the film had spent more of its focus there. Instead, it tries to play with you right up until the very end. If I am to be toyed with for such an extended period of time, I expect a pretty big payoff when I get what I’m due. Only the big reveal in SEVEN POUNDS serves solely to expose how conventional it truly is and how it wants to be heavy but is essentially as light as its namesake.

GRINDHOUSE

Written and Directed by
Robert Rodriguez
and
Quentin Tarantino


Cherry Darling: That’s the problem with goals.
They become the thing you talk about instead of
the thing you do.


Cult favorites, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are not talkers; they are doers. If they want to recreate exploitation films popularized in the 1970’s for today’s masses, they don’t just hang around talking about how cool they would be if they did something like that; they do it. GRINDHOUSE packs more blood, boobs and banalities than you can shake a severed limb at into two feature-length films that run back to back. Despite being packaged as two films from the same genre, Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and Tarantino’s “Death Proof” offer very different approaches in their homage to excessive sex, violence and gore. One throws story to the blood-soaked floor and spits on it, cluttering the screen with an abundance of characters, sub-plots, political insinuations and zombies galore. The other is all about fast cars and even faster talking women. Both films were aged to simulate the feel of the “Grindhouse” era, complete with added dust and scratches as well as missing reels thrown in for authenticity. And after three hours of vain indulgence, neither film rises above its flaws to become the ultimate cheesy experience it both should and could be.


Up first is Rodriguez’s zombie flick, “Planet Terror”. It isn’t fair to criticize a “Grindhouse” film for it’s plot, even less so in the case of a zombie movie. Regardless, Rodriguez crams so many people and plights into this fright film that the focus is mostly scattered, at times so much so that it takes away from the impending onslaught of zombies bent on taking over humanity. The acting is often horrible; the scenarios are often ludicrous. Ordinarily, this would be the downfall of any film but here it is expected. It is functional for the most part, good for some laughs, groans and nausea, but the fun that Rodriguez is clearly trying to have is often stunted by his efforts to be loyal to the genre. There is so much time spent attempting to recreate a long forgotten feel, that the action is left floundering. His own talent as a filmmaker further undermines Rodriguez’s mimicry of style. The careful framing and calculated composition is often too good to be believable as the B-movie the style is structuring the film to be. Still, Rodriguez deserves praise simply for casting Tarantino himself as a biochemically infected soldier, finding the perfect role for Quentin’s unique acting style. And by unique, I mean bad.


The moment “Death Proof” begins, Tarantino puts Rodriguez to shame. Applying similar visual effects to the film stock, Quentin has crafted a modern take on the “Grindhouse” style rather than attempt a film that feels it was taken from the era. The result is a smoother, more sophisticated aesthetic that is only further strengthened by social implications. “Death Proof” tells the tale of Stunt Man Mike (an energized and exciting Kurt Russell) and his fetish for killing beautiful babes in high-speed collisions. The ladies he targets are nowhere near helpless. In fact, they are strong and smart, if not somewhat naïve. Tarantino’s genius shines through his approach to showcase female empowerment in a genre designed to rob them of all power as well bring the filmmaker’s own perverse gaze to light in the eyes of his antagonist. Just like Rodriguez though, Tarantino trips his own pace. He does so by over-indulging the sound of his written word. One too many dialogue-heavy scenes slows the chase to a dangerously boring speed. The girls (Rose McGowan, Rosario Dawson, etc.) wrap their luscious lips around Tarantino’s snappy quips but this is the last thing you want when you’ve already been watching for over two and a half hours. A drag race movie should never drag.


GRINDHOUSE can be a lot of fun when it isn’t taking itself so seriously. It is broken up by hilarious mock previews, again crafted to fit the period, by directors like Eli Roth (HOSTEL) and Rob Zombie (HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES), arguably a director making modern day “Grindhouse” pictures without going out of his way to label them as such. The features themselves though are then bogged down by auteurs trying to be amateurs. In fact, it might have actually been more fun if two such meticulous filmmakers weren’t at its helm. Perhaps then, it would have actually captured the amateur feel it was designed too. For all its pretentious good intentions, GRINDHOUSE is never neither good nor bad enough to be great.

RENT

Written by Stephen Chbosky
Directed by Chris Columbus

I should tell you, I should tell you … I really just don't like "Rent." I've tried. I've seen the show. Yes, it was in Toronto and not on Broadway but I still saw it. I bought the soundtrack a good month or so before the release of the film in an attempt to build some excitement. I think I listened to it once, twice tops. And finally this December, amongst a packed house of Rent-Heads, possibly some of the most unstable brand of fans I've ever met, I sat through this directionless film interpretation about a bunch of 20-something aimless artists who would rather starve and freeze then sell out. It may be easier to say this as an artist who is writing this in his cubicle having sold out so he can afford to match his scarf to his hat to his shoes mind you but I still manage to get more accomplished than most of the free-loaders in this film.

I originally felt that perhaps my disdain for this show came from some unresolved issues with an ex-boyfriend who was a big Rent-Head. I would always tell people who asked that I did not like the show but followed that up by saying that I had this inevitable ex-boyfriend bias. It feels good to be able to say I simply do not like it now and it helps to know why. From a story perspective, “Rent” basically introduces you to a bunch of young artist types and shoves their values down your throat for the first two thirds of the film. Nothing really happens but we know an awful lot about the types of people who are singing. You’ve got singers and filmmakers, dancers and drag street drummers. Some of them have A.I.D.S.; some of them shoot up a fair amount of heroine. Some of them take heroine and have A.I.D.S. What they don’t have is depth. The story relies on their plights to provide a deeper meaning but as nothing aside from the looming threat of losing their loft space transpires, you pretty much get the starving for your art thing within the first little bit.


“Rent” makes for a better stage production than a film. It is mostly sung and that can get awkward when choreography is not involved. The stage is a more natural setting for this or at least more so than someone singing directly into the camera while riding their bicycle. In fact, I had my doubts about this translation from the start when it was announced Chris Columbus would be directing. It would be his first project since helming the first two “Harry Potter” flicks. I’ve got nothing against the young magician movies but this is a story of suffering, poverty and despair. I became more hesitant when I learned that the majority of the original Broadway cast would reprise their roles. This is a simple jump from stage to screen for people with experience like Anthony Rapp or Jesse L. Martin but is less successful for say Idina Menzel or Adam Pascal. Pascal plays Roger, a musician who barely leaves the house since his former flame died of AIDS. Rosario Dawson plays his romantic counterpart, Mimi, and mops their filthy loft apartment floor with him because she knows how to play for the camera. It doesn’t hurt that she can hold her own in the vocal and dance department. And while on the subject of music, as this is a musical after all, there are certain numbers that pick up the pace of the film, like “The Tango Maureen” in it’s dream sequence group tango or “Light my Candle”, a seduction in low light or even “Take Me or Leave Me” where a newly engaged lesbian couple square off on accepting the other for who they are. With few other exceptions, the remaining musical numbers often feel tired and repetitive with moments of lyrical genius and reassuring insight that are sadly too few.

Columbus tries hard to keep the gritty reality of these artists’ lives relevant and convincing but crumbs on floors and duct tape on couches are not enough to ground these characters. The first two thirds of this film are supposed to sell these artists as one big family bound by their convictions but when they are nothing but these convictions, there is little else to hold them together. When actual tragedies start to happen in the last third, they are happening to hollow vessels hiding behind lifestyles and calling it art.