X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Written by Ahsley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughan

Directed by Matthew Vaughan

Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

and Kevin Bacon

Charles Xavier: I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the X-Men within the ever-expanding realm of comic book film adaptations. Given my own, and what I imagine are most people’s insecurities, it is easy to identify with people who feel they don’t belong amongst regular society, people who genuinely believe themselves to be freaks. Only these particular freaks aren’t ashamed of who they are, rather they are more advanced specimens because of their abnormalities. That confidence can perhaps be no better pinpointed that at its moment of inception. And so X-MEN: FIRST CLASS tells us the tale of how a mutant comes of age.

It is 1944 when Matthew Vaughan’s first adult superhero movie opens. (He also directed KICK-ASS but that’s more pubescent superhero-ish really.) The man who would become Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), is but a boy, being separated from his mother in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. Across the world, a boy named Charles Xavier (played in adult form by James McAvoy) is alone with his thoughts in a Westchester, New York, mansion. They don’t know it yet but they will grow to become sworn adversaries in an eternal debate surrounding the true nature of humanity – are we in fact inherently good, hopeful and open to change or are we just hateful beings acting out of fear and desperation attempting to destroy everything we cannot understand? One believes is harmony while the other doesn’t believe humanity capable of it.

A little less than 20 years later and these boys are now adults. Charles is bit of a cad with the ladies, finishing his doctorate on genetics at Oxford University. Erik however has focused his ability to manipulate and control all metals to a fine art and is determined to find the Nazi officer that ruined his life. Unbeknownst to either of them, this particular Nazi is a mutant himself and one with grand plans at that. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) wants to start World War III by pitting the Russians against the Americans in what we would know as the Cuban missile crisis. As nuclear radioactivity gave birth to mutation in humanity, Shaw believes a post nuclear war world will be a mutant utopia. Charles and Erik must band together, along with a group of misfit mutants who have barely become adults, to defeat a common enemy. Their idea of defeating him though differs drastically.

I’ve always known Professor X and Magneto to be enemies. I knew they had a respect for each other, which at times bordered on admiration but all the same, they ruled on opposing sides. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS provides the insight as to just how complex their relationship truly is. They are not really enemies after all; they are equals and even brothers who have fundamentally different values. The fact that they each adhere to their core beliefs so passionately and with such unflinching resolve is what inspires the respect that each accords the other. The strength of their fraternity is testament to the great depth Fassbender and McAvoy bring to the roles, all of which allows Vaughan to bring a great deal of class to a franchise that was going the route of crass.

Black Sheep interviews Jacob Tierney

How Well Do You Know your Neighbours?

An interview with Jacob Tierney

If you’ve ever lived in an apartment building, you know how it feels. It’s basically you and dozens of other people stacked one on top of the other and you might actually know a handful of them by name, if that. You pass them in the halls or see them in the elevator but you don’t really know them and you certainly have no idea what happens in the little boxes they call home.

“I’ve lived next to some weird people in my life,” filmmaker, Jacob Tierney tells me when we speak about his new film, GOOD NEIGHBOURS. Who hasn’t? Still, I would choose most of the freaks I’ve lived in buildings with over the characters in his third feature and I’m not alone in that. Tierney continues, “I hope I never end up living next to any of the people in this movie.”

GOOD NEIGHBOURS is a black comedy with film noire elements that is based on the Chrystine Brouillet novel, “Chere voisine”. Tierney first read it when he was still in high school (the Montreal native is now 31) and has been itching to adapt it ever since. “As soon as I read it, I wanted to turn it into a movie,” he says. “It was actually the first script I ever tried to write.”

It would not be the first movie he would ever direct though. Instead he chose the challenge of adapting the Charles Dickens classic, “Oliver Twist” into a queer retelling entitled, TWIST, in 2003. It would be six years before he would release his second film, THE TROTSKY, in 2009, after a couple of potential projects simply fell apart. “Yeah, those six years, I drank a lot,” Tierney quips. Luck and timing would provide him the opportunity to shoot his two latest projects back to back, which Tierney calls “a strain on my very small brain.”

Tierney wrote all the principal parts in GOOD NEIGHBOURS with specific actors in mind. Fellow Montrealers and Tierney film regulars, Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire and Anne-Marie Cadieux, play three of the four neighbours, with Scott Speedman filling the last slot. “My father accuses me of casting the way other people have dinner parties,” Tierney admits. “If I like you and I want to hang out with you, I will ask you to be in my movie.” Tierney’s logic behind this is pretty sound. “I don’t work with people I don’t like. We work really long hours and we’re not curing cancer so you might as well enjoy yourself.”

To watch GOOD NIGHBOURS, it is clear that Tierney is definitely enjoying himself. It is a twisted affair but it is also undeniably playful, just as any black comedy should be. This is a balance Tierney is very happy to have finally struck. “I’ll never make another movie as depressing as TWIST and I’ll never make another movie as optimistic as THE TROTSKY. GOOD NEIGHBOURS is more to my taste than anything else I’ve done before.”

In that case, I can safely say that Jacob Tierney has some very good taste.

Tierney is currently adapting Doris Lessing’s book, “The Good Terrorist” into a screenplay and will appear as an actor in this summer’s FRENCH IMMERSION, his father, producer, Kevin Tierney’s directorial debut. GOOD NEIGHBOURS is in Canadian theatres on June 3 and American screens on July 29.

Best of Black Sheep: Black Sheep interviews Javier Bardem

A Biutiful Man

An interview with Javier Bardem

I don’t often get to interview Academy Award winning actors. If this is going to become a more common occurrence though, I should probably learn to mind my place a bit better. For instance, when Javier Bardem sat with me at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival to discuss his heartbreaking role in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s BIUTIFUL, we began our conversation by discussing Iñárritu’s impressions of the actor that led to him writing this role with Bardem in mind. He described Bardem as tough on the outside but soft on the inside, to which Bardem replied, “Like a melon, like Melon Brando!” comparing himself of course to the great method actor, Marlon Brando, but crossbred with the popular fruit.

Who knew Bardem was so cheeky? So I made a note of his witty little quip in my journal and he shot me a look. “Are you going to write that?” he asked, as if surprised that I was there for any other reason other than to take note of his every word. This is when, without thinking at all, I replied, “Oh, but I am,” and shot him a knowing look right back. “Let me see that!” he said, as he went for my notepad. Who also knew that Bardem could be so playful? And here he was, playing with me.

I was actually quite happy to see that Bardem still had the ability to laugh after playing in BIUTIFUL. In it, he plays Uxbal, a father of two who is estranged from his unstable wife, is involved with a number of illegal activities that exploit those who are even less fortunate than he is and, for reasons unbeknownst to him, he has the ability to communicate with the recently departed, if their souls still linger in unrest. As if that wasn’t enough to balance, he also learns at the on-set of the film that he has prostate cancer and not very long to live. Iñárritu’s first turn as both a writer and director is a haunting, evocative experience that leaves an indelible mark on all who see it, but what kind of scars did it leave on those who were in it?

“For me it was very important to learn to detach myself from what I was doing. Otherwise, you get lost in your own thing,” Bardem confides about his process. Isn’t that what everyone wants to know? How do you do it? How do you get so lost in this character and yet still manage to find your way back afterward? “Getting lost doesn’t help creativity at all. It is not about feeling what you’re doing; it is about pretending like you’re feeling what you’re doing. Some days are harder than others, of course.”

Bardem is no stranger to difficult roles. He has been perfecting the art of playing complex characters ever since he first appeared on Hollywood’s radar with an Oscar-nominated lead turn in Julian Schnabel’s BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, the first acting nomination in Oscar history for a Spanish actor (Bardem is from the Canary Islands). He went on to win the Oscar for his unforgettable supporting turn in the Coen Brothers’ NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (the first acting Oscar win for a Spanish actor). In fact, it wasn’t until playing in Woody Allen’s VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA that audiences actually got the chance to see Bardem loosen up a little. Incidentally, this is where he met his now wife and mother of his first child, and Academy Award winner herself, Penelope Cruz. The couple recently had their first child together, little Leo Encinas Cruz. A few days he was born, Bardem received his third Oscar nomination, as Best Actor for BIUTIFUL, a feat that many thought he would not be able to pull off.

Bardem is never to be underestimated though. The layers he brings to his performances are delicately nuanced and clearly leave lasting impressions. How does he find these convincing facets inside himself? “I think it’s on the page,” he explains. “When you do the wrong character, there is no way you can do it good. 50% of a good performance is the character that you are portraying. If he is well constructed, then you have 50% of a good performance already, just doing the lines. Then you have to add the other 50% on your own.”

Bardem is not only modest but apparently a realist as well, giving credit where credit is due. In this case, that would be for his director, Iñárritu. The two have been friends for almost ten years and have talked about working together all that time because they have a great respect for each other and each other’s work. (Iñárritu likens Bardem to a minotaur even!) “I am an admirer of his. You see all these amazing performances in his movies and you wonder what happens there,” Bardem proclaims. “With Alejandro, the material is so powerful that you really have to commit. It’s going to be a journey and you have to be aware of that.”

In recent years, Bardem seems to be allowing the journeys he takes to be a little less emotionally consuming, or at the very least he seems to be oscillating between more relaxed fare and films like BIUTIFUL. He appeared opposite Julia Roberts, a friend who helped campaign for his current Oscar nod, in Ryan Murphy’s summer hit, EAT PRAY LOVE, which he shot immediately after BIUTIFUL (“Take me to Bali!” he said when he put Uxbal to bed.) The contrast has allowed him to see the importance of incorporating both the light and the dark into his life. “As much as you have to bring some seriousness to a comedy set, you have to bring some laughter to a drama like BIUTIFUL. It is the balance that always makes things more enjoyable.”

This balance has Bardem attached to a number of upcoming projects, as varied as a new Terrence Malick film and a potential villain role in the next James Bond movie. Either way, Bardem will bring his almost signature brand of intensity to any project he takes on, just as long as he doesn’t have to die this time. “My mother doesn’t like that very much. She always asks, ‘Are you dying in this one?’”

Even if he does, BIUTIFUL teaches us that death is not an ending. It is just the beginning of a long, hard road ahead. I'm not sure if that is meant to be uplifting but if anyone can find the hope in that, it will be Bardem.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Written and Directed by Woody Allen

Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard and Michael Sheen

Inez: The studios adore you; you’re in demand. Do you really want to give it all up just to struggle?

Every time I review a Woody Allen movie, it seems I address the same issues time and time again. This is likely because Allen always chooses to tackle the same themes – class, art and commerce, American values, inferiority and infidelity, to name but a few. Often times, he falls flat, which is entirely reasonable when one takes into account that he makes a movie every year, but once in a while, his recurring neurosis come together so perfectly, they reveal his true genius. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, Allen’s 41^st feature film, embodies this culmination brilliantly and is perhaps his most enchanting film in years. It is unmistakably “Woody Allen” but for some cinephiles out there, that is cause for celebration and not reason to run away.

Allen opens MIDNIGHT IN PARIS the way he always does, with plain white titles on a black background and a plucky jazz track playing. Suddenly, he interrupts himself and goes into a montage of Paris postcard shots, spanning a day that sees all the sights, a heavy rain fall and the kind of charm that only an evening in Paris can provide. It isn’t that the montage itself isn’t also quintessentially Allen-esque that is striking; it is the interruption that announces that Allen is alert and making choices instead of just letting everything play out naturally. It also allows the viewer, or any remotely sentimental one anyway, to get fully sucked into the clichéd idea of Paris as the most romantic city in the world. The images themselves are stunning yet subtle, thanks to cinematographer, Darius Khondji (who has worked with Allen once before on ANYTHING ELSE, but we probably shouldn’t talk about that), allowing Paris to be its grand self and showing us very clearly how much Allen is in love with the city.

Owen Wilson is Gil, the Allen figurehead in this story (and a very suitable one at that). He is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who considers all his success to be built on the production of meaningless material. He and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams, who does materialistic and shallow all too well) find themselves in Paris on her parents’ dime, just as he has decided to try his hand at writing a novel in hopes of achieving a more respectable level of artistry. Their priorities are clearly at odds; she prefers to go out and party while he prefers to soak in the city’s elegance. More importantly, she is of the moment and he cannot help but long for a simpler time, when life was rich and not empty like the constantly moving present. Then one night, Gil gets exactly what he has been longing for. He is mysteriously whisked away to the Paris of yesteryear when the clock strikes midnight. Here he meets artists he has always admired and finds romance he has only dreamed of. If only he wasn’t from another era.

It may sound a little “je ne sais quoi” but MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is truly a magical experience and meant to be absurdist and surreal. The cast is delightful, from Marion Cotillard as Gil’s other world love interest to Michael Sheen as the pedantic windbag archetype Allen loves to mock so much. Paris, past and present, also presents Allen with an opportunity to showcase exquisite production designs and lovely costume pieces. The literary references may go above some heads but aside from that, it is practically impossible not to get caught up in the glamour of it all. Despite all of this allure though, what most distinguishes this work from so much of Allen’s previous work, is Allen’s shift towards resolution. Infamous for being trapped by the past, Allen now moves towards letting go of his illusions of the past, allowing for a catharsis that his films rarely ever achieve.

THE HANGOVER PART II

Written by Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong and Todd Phillips

Directed by Todd Phillips

Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis

Alan: I wish monkeys could Skype. Maybe one day.

I must begin by stating that I was not a big fan of THE HANGOVER, the 2009 comedy sensation that would go on to become one of the biggest R-rated successes in history and put director, Todd Phillips, on the map. My expectations going into the highly anticipated sequel were pretty low, as a result. I feel very confident in saying that this time around, I will not be in the minority with my distaste.

THE HANGOVER PART II opens exactly the same way the first one does and essentially plays out the same from there on in, except with significantly less laughter. This time out, Stu (Ed Helms) is getting married and his happy cohorts, Phil and Alan (Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis) are on board to attend the impending nuptials. An innocent beer on a beach in Thailand turns into a night of cataclysmically irresponsible and morally reprehensible behavior, that finds them all waking up in a Bangkok hotel room with zero recollection of how they got there and even less remorse for the damage they've done. It is then of course time to piece the evening back together again in order to find Stu’s future, teenage brother-in-law, Teddy (Mason Lee), whom the threesome have misplaced.

The original works because we’ve all been there before – well, maybe not quite there but at least some variation of that experience, where we cannot quite remember what went down the night before. Despite not being terribly likable characters, the audience can relate and wants to forgive them their foolishness, thus forgiving themselves. The fact that it has happened to them again only portrays the guys as people with serious drinking problems who have no regard for anyone other than themselves. By the time Stu declares that he can’t believe this is happening again, I would be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t agree while shaking their head in shame. I think it's time to get off the sauce, fellas.

Best of Black Sheep: THE HANGOVER

Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Directed by Todd Phillips

Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galafinakis and Heather Graham

Stu Price: Why are you peppering the steak? You don’t even know if tigers like pepper.
Alan Garner: Tigers love pepper. It’s cinnamon they don’t like.

I think its fair to say that anyone who will see THE HANGOVER knows the pain of waking up to the birds chirping cheerfully outside and the sun shining brightly through the curtains, all the while wishing that it would all go away so you can sink into the hell you brought upon yourself. I myself have certainly shuffled back and forth between my bed and the toilet more mornings that I care to recall. What I don’t understand though is why anyone who does know this excruciating pain would choose to visit it voluntarily on the big screen. While watching THE HANGOVER does not inspire the same kind of nausea as a night of serious drinking, it does capture the subdued tone of the dreaded morning after pretty well. I stopped drinking excessively specifically to avoid this tone and THE HANGOVER is nowhere near a good enough reason to go back there.


From the moment THE HANGOVER begins, the voice is unmistakable. A wedding is being set up, from the flowers at the ends of the aisles to the frilly icing on the cake. As we know that we are about to watch a buddy movie where four guys get wild and rowdy on a Las Vegas bachelor party, there is no question that director, Todd Phillips, is speaking distinctly to the men out there and that the beautiful floral arrangements and final wedding details are meant to be ridiculed. Look at how preposterous all these finishing touches are, men. Aren’t women completely out of their heads for spending so much time on all of this? Let’s go get drunk already. If you’re the type of man who thinks that tired and immensely ignorant setup is hilarious than you may very well love THE HANGOVER. After all, it isn’t long after this that you get to delight in the demonizing of women as every one we meet is controlling, manipulative and callous. It’s all very modern bride.


THE HANGOVER is not about the women though; it is all about the men and their bond. The trouble is that I didn’t see anything remotely redeeming about this sad pack of losers. The groom himself, Doug (Justin Bartha), is completely uninteresting but that doesn’t matter as he is misplaced for the majority of the film. His impending brother-in-law, Alan (Zach Galafinakis) is a fat, furry troll of a man who is socially inept to the point of extreme discomfort – painful awkwardness is always a pleasure to watch on screen. Doug’s buddy Phil (Bradley Cooper) is ruggedly handsome but he steals field trip money from his elementary school class to spend at the tables and has zero respect or appreciation for his wife and child so it isn’t so easy to find him endearing. In fact, the only one of the bunch that is remotely winning is Ed Helms as Stu Price. Of course, Stu is completely whipped so you’ve got to love the guy. Poor thing has to answer to someone else; it is so horrible that people should be expected to be held accountable to the person they claim to love.

Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less what happened to these guys as I wish that less guys like this actually existed. Really, how am I supposed to root for guys who are so dumb that they would leave a baby in a parked car alone? While Philips is savvy enough to structure THE HANGOVER so that we piece the mysterious evening together at the same time as they do, it all amounts to these unappealing characters going from scenario to extreme scenario asking people if they remember anything about their interactions from the night before. It also doesn’t amount to very many laughs so maybe the real hangover isn’t from a heavy night of drinking but rather an excessive indulgence in overdone average dumb guy comedy.

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ALL GOOD THINGS

Written by Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling

Directed by Andrew Jarecki

Starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella

The trouble with ALL GOOD THINGS starts in the title. We know full well from the very onset of Andrew Jarecki’s first narrative film that the loveliness we are lavished in to begin with will inevitably disappear. After all, the old adage is pretty clear about good things; they must at some point come to an end. And so we watch the happy couple meet, fall in love and run away together, out from under the thumb of an oppressive family and off the road that would lead to nothing but heartache, waiting for the moment where everything turns Fortunately, the turns it takes are unexpected and worse that you would imagine.

If you are familiar with the life of Robert Durst, the millionaire heir to a real estate fortune who stood trial for one murder and was suspected in his life of two others, then you might have a very good idea of what to expect. ALL GOOD THINGS is loosely based on his life and he is portrayed in the film by Ryan Gosling, renamed David Marks. Ideally cast, Gosling is able to play happy yet hesitant and transition smoothly to unnerving and disconcerting without blinking, catching us all as off guard as his co-star, Kirsten Dunst. She plays his wife, Katie Marks, who went missing in the 80’s after their relationship became abusive and she threatened to leave. As solid as Gosling is, he is outdone by Dunst, who is surprisingly subtle and has a strong grasp on how internalized the plight of a battered spouse truly is. As facile as the execution of the film is at times, their performances give it the weight needed to pull it off.

Jarecki is the Oscar-nominated director on CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, a truly disturbing documentary about a family with secrets so dark they should only be shared with those strong enough to face the atrocities man is truly capable of. It would seem a natural fit for him to take on one of the most infamous family dramas in American history but he never gets to the real root of the issues. The ugly truth worked for him before but here, Jarecki is either afraid of it or just not aware of it. Either way, ALL GOOD THINGS comes to its own end, proving that the proverb doesn’t just apply to things that are good.