An Ideal A-List

According to recent Forbes articles on the highest paid actors and actresses based on earnings between May '10 and May '11 the top ten looks like this:

1. Leonardo DiCaprio 
2. Johnny Depp 
3. Adam Sandler 
4. Will Smith
5. Tom Hanks 
6. Ben Stiller 
7. Robert Downey Jr. 
8. Angelina Jolie
9. Sarah Jessica Parker
10. Mark Wahlberg 

It is striking how poorly this list is coincides with the quality of the recent output of those named. I'm not going to argue that Hanks isn't a big honkin' star but when was the last time he delivered the (non-animated) crowd-pleasing goods? Cast Away? What was the last Depp movie people really loved? Finding Neverland? A Sandler movie is at best a 50/50 bet that you are going to get something completely half-assed and disappointing. Jolie can open a film as well as any actress but her credits are full of semi-satifying, good enough titles. Where is the movie that lets you know you're dealing with the biggest actress in the world? Salt? Wanted? 

If I can indulge in some film lover wish fulfillment, I think it would be nice if the list of highest paid performers reflected those actors currently in the zone, instead of those whose fame guarantees success in the Asian markets regardless of whatever turkey they crank out. If I managed to wrestle control of Hollywood's purse strings the list of those most handsomely rewarded would look more like this:

Hollywood's Highest Paid (Ideal World Edition)

1. Daniel Day Lewis - He is, simply put, playing on another level than 99% of actors. Landing a Day Lewis performance transforms any film into a major cinematic event. Besides, prying him away from his cobbling isn't cheap.
2. Catherine Keener - Guaranteed Instant Awesome for any project. Need to make a good movie better or make a bad movie watchable? She should be the first name you call. Never fails.

3. Viggo Mortenson - A man of action with complexity, studios should be shelling out the big bucks to attach his gravitas to a project. 
4. Paul Rudd - A no-brainer. He might not open movies like Rogen or Carell but his name on the poster promises prospective audiences that a movie will bring the laughs. I lost count of how many poeple I know who decided Our Idiot Brother looks funny based on nothing more than Rudd's presence.
5. Ian McKellan - The reigning king of the blockbusters. Can turn any material to gold with his classically trained magic. So powerful he can even make solid crap like the Da Vinci Code watchable in small bursts. His presence cannot be overvalued.

6. Marion Cotillard - A beauty on par with Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly she is currently knocking love interest parts out of the park in stuff both bright (Midnight in Paris) and dark (Inception). When Hollywood figures how to better take advantage of those Oscar-winning acting chops, look out.

7. Leonardo DiCaprio - This is one name I think the free market got right, if only for his uncanny ability to pick worthwhile projects over the last decade.

8. Tilda Swinton - When she is not unleashing the acting fury in independent features she is a heavy hitter in big Hollywood projects, specializing in taking characters that should be off-the-shelf - slimy corporate lawyer, evil witch - and turning them into movie defining highlights. If I was producer I would all but back a dump truck full of cash into her driveway to get her on board.

9. Javier Bardem - The MVP of any movie he appears in, it is all but impossible to pay attention to anyone else when he's on screen. Indeed it is often difficult to imagine one of his movies existing at all were he not cast.
10. Michelle Williams - With a list of credits that includes Blue Valentine, Brokeback Mountain, Meek's Cutoff, Synecdoche, New York and more, Williams is quietly developing one of the most impressive bodies of work in the business. She may not be packing them in on Friday night yet, but with work like this it is only a matter of time. 

Drive Delivers

I finally caught a screening of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive and I'm still buzzing from the film's tightly coiled intensity and ultra-cool neon and eighties pop vibe. I'll organize my thoughts and deliver them in a more coherent package when the film hits theaters Sept. 16 but since I'm too jazzed about this flick to wait here are a few initial reactions:

• Drive is an absolutely essential event for film lovers. It's possible a few folks won't have as positive a reaction as I did, but I can't imagine anyone walking away from this one feeling unsatisfied or even halfway indifferent. For all the higher brain smarts that clearly went into the craft here, Drive is a gut level experience that doesn't allow for detached viewing.
• If Gosling wasn't already cemented in the top tier of leading men Drive does the job and then some. In fact, I'd probably rank him ahead of Bale and DiCaprio when it comes to delivering the method acting goodness. I hold his work in Half Nelson and Blue Valentine in too high a regard to call this his best, but I think it's fair to call this his most original. He plays one seriously dangerous, unstable guy but his performance is 90% silence and stillness with juuuust enough cracks in the facade so that we know something is going on there. 
• Best movie kiss since...I don't know what. Spiderman?

• After Gosling the real story from the cast is Albert Brooks as one of the main villains who hides the threat of violence under a surface that is deceptively, well, Albert Brooks-y, which is to say bright and affable and generally harmless. Easily his strongest screen work since Broadcast News.
• That soundtrack! Drive goes in the opposite direction of most adrenaline pumping car movies and ditches the snarling rock in favor of ethereal synthesizer pop sounds, and take my word for it, it works wonders.
• Drive is worth getting seriously excited for if only for the car scenes. For guys like me who've had it up to here watching Fast Five cartoon-level action that ditches logic and gravity at every opportunity, the driving scenes in this are a godsend. You buy every downshift and tire squeal.
• The violence in this movie is not messing around. When the shit starts going down, and the guns and knives come out, bodies started getting destroyed and turned inside out in a way that recalls the best of Cronenberg. No cutting away and nobody clutching their chest and dropping like extras in an old western.

• This launches director Nicholas Winding Refn, who won the Cannes best director prize for Drive, right to the top of his field. He takes the basic ingredients that could have gotten into Transporter 4, mixes in early-seventies crime flick attitude, layers on a David Lynch dreamlike mood, executes the whole thing with the precision of a Coen brothers crime-gone-wrong tale and comes out with something fresh and exciting. 

So in case I have been unclear: Don't miss Drive. I'm curious to see how this is going to play with the general public. The off-kilter style and dark material may be off-putting for the Friday night date crowd,  but the film grabs the audience on such a basic level that it just might overcome those handicaps.

Bridesmaids Stands Alone

I took this screengrab off of Box Office Mojo this weekend. The top ten films of 2011 so far at the domestic box office:

My reaction to this line up is three cheers for Bridesmaids. The only non-sequel, non-franchise film in the bunch. The other nine films consist of

• 1 comedy sequel
• 2 animated sequels
• The 5th entry in a franchise that had to be electro-paddled back to life after the 3rd film in the series jumped the rails
• The 4th part in a series that audiences stopped caring about halfway through the second one but keep attending out of habit and misplaced affection for the first film
• The third entry in a quality-defying, soul-deadening series that seems to exist mainly to make film critics question why they bother at all
• The 2nd part of the 7th part of the a franchise so huge it may very well be the only thing keeping the world economy from total collapse
• 2 entries in an über-franchise made out of other smaller franchises that will multiply like gremlins until the Summer movie season starts on Groundhog's Day and ends on Halloween

This is not to say that franchise flicks have to be inferior to original works, although I would argue that is the case here. But we should all be grateful at least original work maintained a beachhead amid the all the pre-sold stuff dominating the multiplexes, lest studios give up making original material altogether.

And I am aware you could argue that Bridesmaids is an example of the same kind of market thinking that produced the other nine movies. It is, no doubt, an example of smart counter-programming attacking the female demographic and riding the wave of R-rated comedy popularity that is currently being sequel-ized in the Hangover 2.

All this may be true, but you know what? I don't care. Bridesmaids didn't come pre-sold. It had to get in there and hack it out and earn its success with laughs and good word-of-mouth, and without fast food tie-ins or Comic Con hype. That is reason enough to applaud.

The Life of the Mind

I just put up a post on The Film Experience commemorating the 20th Anniversary of Barton Fink. You should go read it and leave a comment about what the hell you think is going on in this movie.

Fink is one of those movies like The Royal Tenenbaums or Chinatown which I am legitimately obsessed with and could watch daily. 900 words is not nearly enough to cover everything I love about this movie so here are ten more strange details I love in Barton Fink which I didn't get to mention in the piece:

1. Chet's hand-lettered business card complete with exclamation point. 
2. The way Tony Shaloub's yells that the boss has taken "Uh interest" instead of "An interest". I also love the way Buscemi's Chet pronounces a hard G in "Los Angeles".
3. Judy Davis's perfect southern drawl
4. Barton's high-pitched shriek - at once disturbing and ridiculous
5. The boiling down of the screenwriting process to the choice of an "orphan or dame" to pair with the lead wrestler. Later when Barton is at his lowest we catch a glance of his typewriter which shows that typing the words "orphan or dame" are the sum total of his progress
6. "You! Don't! Listen!"
7. The ridiculous dailies from the wrestling picture Barton is forced to watch for inspiration. They subtly foreshadow Goodman's rampage later in the film. In fact, the clapboard operator even mentions Goodman's character when he declares "12 Charlie, Take 1"
8. John Mahoney drunken singing as the Faulkner inspired WP Mayhew. Barton Fink is partially inspired by Faulkner first assignment in Hollywood, which was indeed a wrestling movie starring Wallace Beery. That movie appears to be Flesh which , I'm sorry to find, is not available to rent. 
9. I also love Mayhew's succinct take-down of Barton's pretentious drivel: "Me, I just enjoy making things up."
10. Barton's dance of celebration:

Unsung Heroes - Second Season Wrap-Up

I just wrapped up the second season of Unsung Heroes over at The Film Experience with a tribute to one of the great cinematographers of all time, Sergio Leone collaborator Tonino Delli Colli. Check it out.

This video contains Major Spoilers - But is pretty awesome if you've seen the film.

Be on the lookout for a new weekly column to launch soon. I'm excited with the ideas that are being tossed around. It's going to make for lively discussion. In the mean time here are links to all the entire first two seasons of Unsung Heroes:

Season 1

Season 2

Team Huddle

Been having a lot of fun kicking around recent movie news and miscellaneous cinematic brain droppings with the gang over at The Film Experience. It's a challenge trying to match wits with those guys. Check it out if you haven't been.

Recent topics include:


Impressions of the Apes franchise

Goodbye to all things Potter

The great movie cars

Plumbing the secrets depths of our Netflix queue

The Pirates franchise

and plain old Movie Recommendations