By April 4, 2005
The second of the three sequences that index Sin City follows Marv (Mickey Rourke) as he is shot a thousand times and beaten unmercifully in his quest for the killer of the whore he dated. After the 126 minutes of Sin City had played out, I felt Mickey’s pain. Not that that is a bad thing. I had been visually and mentally assaulted by a relentless group of cops, mercenaries, hookers, murderers and creeps … and I can’t wait for a repeat viewing. Sin City comes to us from self-made indie sensation Robert Rodriguez and the graphic novel wizard Frank Miller. What they have succeeded in doing is drawing out a visceral scope of images that pay homage to so many genres and styles while coming across as fresh and, above all, strikingly beautiful. The word on the street is that this is the Pulp Fiction of the new decade and, to a certain extent, sure. Tarantino directed a scene, it interweaves three plots of revenge (slightly) and will no doubt reignite a has-been’s career (Rourke)… but the only thing that the two visionary stories noticeably share is the way they will change how movies are made… experienced. Rodriguez, a proponent of digital video, used the innovative high definition video cameras. Filmed entirely in a green room like last year’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the project’s budget was a mind-boggling cheap 40 million – mere table scraps for the required effects (coming to us from a team of approximately 80 miracle-workers) and its dynamite cast (Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy, Elijah Wood, Benicio Del Toro, etc). Sin City has achieved what dozens of emerging films are attempting to but failing at achieving: successfully capturing the comic book world. Challenged only by The Crow as the best comic adaptation in the celluloid history, Sin City used the original graphic novel instead of revised storyboards. Its colors, movement, gratuitous violence, dialogue, Sunset Boulevard voice-overs, poetic sexuality and wide-reaching world of twentieth-century Americana all demand your attention, energy and suspension of reality (like any good comic should). Think film-noir’s grit with the Matrix sensation, with the mafia of tough hookers one-upping anything Trinity ever offered us. Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson’s characters rekindle an old relationship in third portion of the film. A common exchange between them is “I’ve loved you always and, yet, never.” That somehow captures the indescribable magic that is this film: for all intensive purposes, the plot is one dimensional (what comic isn’t?), and you will no doubt be exhausted by death upon merciless death. Even the one-liners get old at times. And yet, between the blood, breasts and burning colors is a collective energy that begs to be watched. From the opening and, quite possibly best scene, of Josh Hartnett romanticizing a blonde bombshell, we are catapulted into images, silhouettes, dimensions and exchanges that, until now, were only possible in the motion lines and gutters in between the pages of the newest Marvel edition. I’ll be honest. Even as a writer myself, I never thought that the words in a comic book mattered all that much. It was about being able to visually place yourself in the hero’s cruxes and, in the end, feeding off the victory and relishing in the joy that, while the real world might not be fair, heroes always save the day. The performances in Sin City are nothing short of astonishing – as are the make-up, the writing, the cinematography, directing and overall production. In the end, it wasn’t any of these things in particular that stood above the non-stop guilty pleasures of world class special effects, images that will last a life time, philosophical action and romanticized violence. In the end, really, I finally felt that ‘fuck yeah’ potency that bubbles at the end of any DC fable. With Sin City, despite all of its mature content, I felt like a kid again.Archived article by Dan CohenSun Staff Writer
By April 4, 2005
Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) is mad, really mad. Her husband has just left her and her remaining family seems to have lost the ability to relate to her. In every other “woman and her family recovering from abandonment” movie Terry would get a job or go back to school or do some other empowering thing to lift herself above her degrading husband. However the film, The Upside of Anger doesn’t follow the norm. Instead Tracy spends most of her time drinking vodka and complaining. While it might seem a little harsh, it’s one of the many quirks that make The Upside of Anger a class above its peers. While in many other films that explore a woman going though a mid-life crisis the protagonist is the victim and nearly perfect, Terry in The Upside of Anger makes mistakes, messes up and is in many points of the film, insensitive and hurtful to other characters. However, Terry isn’t a monster; she’s just acting like a normal person would in the same circumstance. In many points of the film, her angst is appropriate. Her oldest daughter Hadley (Alicia Witt) wants nothing to do with her and eventually marries a real dork. Another daughter Emily (Keri Russell) blames Terry for almost every one of her problems and still another daughter, Andy (Erika Christensen) ends up dating a immature and thoroughly older man played by the film’s director/writer Mike Binder. The only daughter who isn’t really pissing Terry off in the film is her youngest with the lovely name of Popeye, played by Thirteen’s Evan Rachel Wood, who she is having her own troubles with love. Coming to save Terry’s sanity is her neighbor, Denny (Kevin Costner) in one of his best performances in years. Denny isn’t exactly a great influence, at first he tries to take advantage of Terry’s despair and then evolves into her drinking partner. When Terry finally takes him up on having a “quickie,” Denny actually hides in the bushes. As the film proceeds over the next (a little too long) almost two hours, we see the ups and downs of the Wolfmeyer women but without veering into campy territory and always accompanied by comedic uplifts. For example, when Andy and her older boyfriend get into a fight in a radio studio, the serious matter is balanced by the fact that a few guys in the adjacent room accidentally hear all their sexual details and can’t stop cracking up. At the center of the film is the always perfect Joan Allen. Once again Allen delivers as Terry; a difficult task considering the conflicting nature of the character in the film. Even more enjoyable to watch was Costner. For the first time in a long time, Costner’s presence actually sped up the plot and made the film more exciting. In an almost self parodying role Costner plays a retired and rather uninspired baseball player (Costner’s favorite type of casting). Instead of trying to portray some untainted hero, Costner is simply a regular bonehead who simply enjoys drinking beer but in doing so comes across as the film’s most sympathetic and heroic character. The sometimes irky but lovingly low key relationship that develops between Terry and Denny is reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson – Shirley Maclaine romance in Terms of Endearment. The Upside of Anger is not without some flaws. For example the film goes on for two years but Terry never seems to seek employment to finance her more than comfortable lifestyle even though she complains about money problems occasionally. Similarly, the audience tends to wonder why Terry’s daughters put up with her so willingly. Terry messes up again and again but her trooper children for some reason seem to shrug it off and continue to cook dinner for her. And of course the film’s plot tends to draw out events that could be easily compressed. It is still refreshing to watch any film that takes a genre that seems sapped of all life and infuses it by changing a few rules around. Instead of playing out as just another “women’s weepy,” The Upside of Anger pushes the envelope. For example, in one scene Terry imagines Mike Binder’s head exploding rather graphically at the dinner table which is just as disturbing as it is hilarious. Additionally, the twist at the end is certainly worth waiting for. Don’t worry even though no one in this movie is perfect, just like in real life, each character gives and takes just enough to make it all work out in the end. It seems that the same circumstances work for this film.Archived article by Mark RiceSun Film Editor