twoonefivemagazine.com

Little Brother

What: two.one.five magazine presents: Little Brother

Where: Theatre of Living Arts

Cost: $20

The American

Appropriately enough, the vast majority of guns in this American assassin abroad film are equipped with silencers: The bullets barely make a sound before slicing through their given targets. The film follows suit. In what could only be described as a deliberate pace with great attention to small detail, it recounts a few idyllic weeks (months?) as our American, Jack (George Clooney), after a failed attempt on his life in Sweden, hides out in a small Italian village in Abruzzo.

Before long, he's hired for a job, building a top-of-the-line custom rifle for another assassin, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten) for one of her upcoming assignments. Tooling around the countryside, putting the gun together, Jack also takes up with a local prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido), spends a good deal of time in the woods and is paranoid enough to sleep with his gun cradled in his hand. As for plot, that's more or less about all you get. The film is far less concerned with melodramatic flourishes of narrative and much more involved with the basic stuff of Jack's life. We never learn terribly much about him, but we seemingly learn a great deal about the business of building a gun from assembled parts.

As such, with its languid pace, undersold emotions, and effectively evocative cinematography from DP Martin Ruhe, it builds its intensity and increasing tension from the ground up. It's another '70s throwback film, in other words, a sort of mixture of The Day of the Jackal and The Conversation. Though not really close to their class -- for all its attention to scant detail, we never get very much more than a surface reading of the film's characters -- it does have a certain satisfying gait. It allows us to take pleasure from something as mundane as Jack's OCD-like impulse to smooth out the wrinkled paper bag from under a just-produced canister of bullets, and his repeated mantra that he's "no good with machines." It's not every film that would take a lethal assassin and essentially put him on ice for the vast majority of the remaining running time, but it sure does give you an appreciation for the gorgeous Italian countryside.

Red Riding: Blu-ray Edition

The bodies of the dead largely outweigh those of the living in this curious triptych of films based on a quartet of novels by David Pearce, each a separate piece from a specific time period set around the infamous Yorkshire Ripper murders in the north of England in the '70s and '80s.

The first film, 1974, directed by Julian Jarrold, concerns Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a young journalist who attempts to uncover a dense network of corrupt officials and police officers ("This is the North," one yells at Dunford right before throwing him out the back of a moving van, "we do what we want!") in connection to the disappearance of several young girls -- one of whom is found murdered and mutilated at the construction site of land-owning kingpin John Daws (Sean Bean), whose every desire seems ready at his whim.

The second, 1980, directed by James Marsh, focuses on Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) the head of a newly created task force to track down the killer -- now dubbed the Yorshire Ripper by the local press -- who may or may not be connected to the abductions of the younger girls from years before. Working with a handpicked squad, Hunter runs afoul of the same corrupt cops from the previous film, while trying to maintain a professional relationship with Helen Marshall (Maxine Peake), the female member of his team, with whom he has had a past affair.

The final piece, 1983, directed by Anand Tucker, attempts to tie up at least some of the various plot threads the first two films set up, giving us two unlikely heroes in the process: John Piggot (Mark Addy), a plus-sized lawyer who attempts an appeal for the simple-minded young man (Daniel Mays) the police coerced into confessing for the kidnapping and murder of the children; and Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), one of the original corrupt officers, who grows more and more disenchanted with his part in the scheme.

The films work more or less in harmony, but in many not-so-obvious ways. While there are connecting themes and characters (and certainly, the dank, morbid hills of North England as a backdrop), the carry over is relatively slight, save the prevailing sense of doom and corruption that fills the air. Some of this is due to the high body count of characters -- each film is like a season ending episode of a violent HBO series, with tensions rising into violent action and subsequent repercussions ("Hands flat on the table" might become the "Is it safe?" of the age). In fact, if the trilogy's style and methods resemble anything in particular from America, it's HBO's (and American television's) single greatest achievement: "The Wire." Like "The Wire," the filmmakers refuse to dumb down the material, the plotlines and characters swirl around in a haze of seemingly unconnected scenes and rapid, dauntingly accented bites of dialogue. Things happen that we don't comprehend or fully understand, if at all, until much later in subsequent scenes -- or films. Still, the atmosphere holds the entire contraption together admirably, never letting up on your psyche.

By the end of the third film, which does achieve a modicum of restorative resolution, you've been buried up to your neck in muck and misery for so long, it almost feels like a benediction. The effect is chilling and more or less relentless. Dead bodies have been layered on top of one another to the point that you can begin to feel the awful weight of humanity's unceasing ability to exploit and destroy itself. An endless catalogue of crimes, murders, death, bones, blood and destruction, burnt to ash or buried deep in the ground, where, seemingly, no good can escape.

Animal Kingdom

At first glance, Jay (James Frecheville), a young Australian man with no particular plan of action in mind, seems similar to another young, rootless cinematic character: Ben Braddock. He's quiet, docile and pensive, forever gaping at the TV and taking long naps. The difference is, Jay's problems don't concern his father's friends trying to get him into "plastics" or hooking up with a much older woman. Instead, they concern Jay's large group of bank robbing uncles, and the lengths they are determined to go to in order to keep from being arrested.

There's sweet-faced Uncle Darren (Luke Ford), just a few years older than Jay, and helpless in the face of his older brothers, such as Uncle Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), a hopped up drug dealer, who's the family wild card; and Uncle "Pope" (Ben Mendelsohn), the most twisted and heartless of the clan, reacting out of emotion, but thinking he's smarter than everyone else. Topping things off, Jay also has his grandmother, Janine (Jacki Weaver, in a effectively slithery performance), who greets each of her sons with a discomforting kiss on the lips, and takes horrific vengeance on anyone who dares get in the way of her family's twisted turns.

Jay starts out more or less as a blank canvas, a tabula rasa forced to join the rest of his family because his junkie mother has finally OD'd and left him all alone. The brothers, now increasingly paranoid about their constant cop surveillance and harassment lead by lead Detective Leckie (Guy Pearce), at first try to keep Jay out of their business, but one quick, fateful decision lands him in the middle of things, where he is forced to play both sides to the middle in order to survive.

The film is smartly and stylishly made -- lots of elegant slo-mo shots and some wonderfully moody mise-en-scene from DP Adam Arkapaw -- but if writer/director Michôd has a weakness as a filmmaker, it's his pacing and balance. Certain characters, Janine and Pope, in particular, are well-rendered and fascinating, while others, including Darren and Jay's girlfriend Nicole (Laura Wheelwright), are more one-dimensional. Without quite the proper pitch, the film seems to meander a bit, despite the dramatic material it's utilizing. Lead actor Frecheville also has the unenviable job of trying to ground his character's inner turmoil on a completely impassive palette, which may have been beyond his reach at this stage of his career. His face may not betray much in the way of emotion -- with one notable, and moving, exception -- but the film still needs to have shown us Jay's anguish, if even it occurs, as it were, behind closed doors.

REcap: Rock the Bells 2010

The past few weeks have marked the seventh annual series of Rock The Bells festivals, hip-hop’s answer to Lollapalooza, where diehard fans come out in droves to pay homage to the authenticity of days past. While prior years have found the tour reaching destinations as far as Europe and various spots around our nation, this year’s festivities were more intimate, with shows only taking place in California, New York and Maryland, forcing people to travel from all over to attend.

Thousands of hip-hop’s most staunch proponents converged on New York’s Governor’s Island on a warm day in late August, and they may as well have been transported back to a time where original aesthetics were lauded in favor of modern day tawdry trends. No two acts were the same, as Slick Rick’s gaudy charisma kicked off the show, only to be followed by Rakim’s serious command as he ran through a decade worth of his classics including the ladies anthem “Mahogany” and the tough as nails theme from the classic urban film Juice, “Know The Ledge." Rakim, in turn, preceded KRS-One who gave the crowd lessons on the longevity, relevance, and importance of his Boogie Down Productions crew and all of their affiliates, interspersed with performing fan favorites of his. Never one to hold his tongue, KRS also made sure to decry mainstream radio’s ills so as to represent the ideals of “keeping it real” that he holds most dear.

Bohemian muse Lauryn Hill was amongst the main draws for people springing upwards of $150 for the concert’s tickets to have a firsthand viewing of her long awaited return. Lauryn’s set was eclectic (some might describe it as weird and not very polished) as her live band placed a rock 'n' roll sort of spin on some of her most beloved songs from The Miseducation… and The Fugees’ The Score. Initial excitement became confusion and disorientation that finally led to frenzy towards the end of her set as she brought A-list celebrities on stage to greet the crowd that included Chris Rock, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Swizz Beatz.

A major drawback of the afternoon was the lull between sets as there wasn’t a DJ on stage to keep the crowd entertained. This forced people to make the friendly acquaintance of those standing near them, increasing the passion shared by all once performances were underway, and this unity was most evident with the next two sets, A Tribe Called Quest and the infamous Wu-Tang Clan.

Though Tribe’s foray into our hearts was short lived as they disbanded before the '90s ended, their musical impact was certainly not forgotten by this crowd. While the main scope of their time was dedicated to 1993’s seminal Midnight Marauders, the crew covered other crucial material of theirs and proved their wide reach, bringing out both underground veteran Large Professor to represent his former group Main Source, and Busta Rhymes, who was true to his typical live wire act on stage.

Not much longer after calming down from ATCQ’s bonanza came Wu-Tang, who took the energy to even greater heights as all of their living members (with the late Ol Dirty Bastard’s son, Boy Jones, playing the part of his pops, his father’s mannerisms down to a tee) ran through what seemed like an endless barrage of hits with razor sharp precision. During both sets the ante was upped for crowd participation as Q-Tip, Method Man and Boy Jones came off stage to show love and perform amongst spectators.

After Wu-Tang closed shop, around 11 PM, a fair portion of the crowd noticeably faded, not so much a withering statement to the day’s headliner, Snoop Dogg, but a sign that the crowd itself, after delirious hours amongst their heroes, had themselves withered. Unfortunately, the only way home was a mile long walk to a ferry after having stood most of the day, but there remained a magical afterglow despite the weary-bodied trek back into Manhattan. All in all, 2010’s edition served as a beauteous reminder of the potential for a now wounded culture that once thrived on positivity, creative ingenuity and soulful rhythm.

Speakeasy: Centurion

Writer/Director Neil Marshall is probably best known for his inspired women-lost-in-a-cave horror flick The Descent, which put a group of believable characters face to face with what can only be described as a group of blood-thirsty mole people. In his latest film, Centurion, Michael Fassbinder plays the leader of a besieged group of Roman soliders, alone and unprotected in a very hostile environment: Northern Britain. Marshall and lead actress Axelle Carolyn (Aeron) met with us to discuss horror films, Iron Maiden and homemade, flaming fireballs.

What inspired you to write Centurion? It is different direction from your previous horror films.
Neil: Well I think that’s part of the reason is to do something different. I never wanted to be purely seen as a horror film maker, although I love the horror films I’ve done and I want to do more. This was an opportunity to do another genre I also love -- historical action movies. It was also a magnificent story, when I first read about the ninth legion disappearing in Scotland I was hooked on telling this mystery. And dealing with a kind of wilderness adventure in the U.K. is unheard of, partly because we don’t have much wilderness to do an adventure in, but when you got back 2000 years then there was. To do an outdoor chase movie in the U.K. was so unusual. I like to kind of confound expectations within the British industry.

Why did you pick the Scottish mountain landscape for the setting?
Neil: It’s a location I am very familiar with. That whole area, the highlands of Scotland, is an area I know and have loved all of my life -- that’s part of it. It’s where the story took place, so it seemed like really the only setting I could put it in.

Axelle, beyond the obvious, what attracted you to portray a powerful female warrior?
Axelle: If you work like I do in the horror films, most of the time as a woman you get offered the part of the victim. You get killed in interesting ways, but that’s about as much fun as it goes. It was just a great opportunity to play something that was the complete opposite of everything I’ve done previously, although I have played some pretty insane people in the past. It was just using physicality to express yourself. There was a lot of stunts and fight choreography and looking incredibly fierce and trying to sell the fact that you can really fight and be scary. It was just brilliant.

How did you prepare for the role?
Axelle: Part of it was the fact that Neil very much described it as a Western. I thought, “Ok, this is me playing a Native American.” This was a very unique opportunity for me to play a part that is exactly like a Native American fighter going up against the invader. Part of it was just trying to find some kind of aggression in me, which was weirdly channeled by listening to Iron Maiden -- listening to “Run to the Hills” and that kind of stuff --I kept thinking that this is exactly what it is: This is me defending my country. Otherwise, it was mostly just learning the physical part of it, the fighting and the horseback riding.
Neil: And you got to shoot bows, ride horses, and fight guys…
Axelle: If everything I did could be like this it would be perfect. Riding horses and doing stunts, getting killed in a horrible way. It’s pretty cool.

How did you go about your casting?
Neil: It was really just a matter of getting the right people for the right roles, and for getting a high caliber actor for each role. Regardless of their status or name or whatever it would be, it’s my preference to go after the best actor first, so in this case we wanted to put together an ensemble of great actors for every role. In the case of both Michael (Fassbender) and Dominic (West), I’d actually auditioned them both for Doomsday but we couldn’t make our schedules work. They were both people I had wanted to work with. I knew [Michael] kind of personally and knew he was right for the part. Same with Dominic, I just think he is fantastic. He is a real presence. His character requires someone who could be kind of larger than life and that’s Dominic in a nutshell. ?

You’re known as a director who prepares meticulously so that the shoot can move quickly without needlessly wasting time. Were you able to keep that kind of pace for a movie this size? ?Neil: Well, we only had seven weeks to shoot the whole movie. On a big Hollywood movie like this you’d probably have 12-14 weeks so we were always up against a time constraint. I like to work quite fast anyway because it keeps the energy and enthusiasm up. If you spend half the day doing forty takes of something it wears the cast out and I don’t think it really improves the move for the sake of one take. The cast very quickly picked up on the fact that I wasn’t going to do more than three takes. We were just rolling through everything at high speed to get so much done in such a short time. It’s a historical action movie with horses and make up effects and battle sequences. All of these things take up a massive amount of time. Trying to get a horse to hit it’s mark twice is virtually impossible so you have to be flexible about that. My opinion on that was that I didn’t care if it hit the mark, as long as the actor performance was good the horse was secondary. ?

How historically accurate is the film?
Neil: It is kind of book ended by historical facts. The Ninth Legion were there, and they did go into Scotland, and Hadrian’s Wall was incidentally built at the end. What happens in between is a hypothesis of what may of happened to the Ninth Legion when they marched into Scotland and disappeared. What I wanted to do with the characters was set them into an authentic world although essentially they are fictional characters. We made sure that the costumes and the behaviors and the sets were as authentic as we could possibly do. ?

What made shooting on the first day so challenging?
Neil: Day one just set the standard.
Axelle: It was not actually so bad for me, I was sitting on my trailer for most of the day. For everyone else it was incredibly cold, and then a few days later they had to jump in the river. It wasn’t necessarily in Scotland that we got the coldest. We shot part of it in Scotland and part in Sussex, which is south of London, and a lot of it was a night. It doesn’t look as cold, but that’s when it was the coldest.?

How did the scene at the beginning with the giant fireball attack come about?
Neil: I was mainly trying to figure out how the Picts could beat the Romans. They would try to use the landscape to their advantage and would not allow the Romans to assemble into a battle formation. They basically would have to ambush them on the road, so I came up with the idea to roll flaming balls down the hill into their ranks. So the way that we did it was to just do it for real. We didn’t have as many as you see in the film, we had about eight and duplicated them. They were big things, four or five feet around and wrapped in the stuff you find under carpets and then set on fire and literally rolled down the hill into the Romans. It was a lot of fun to film. And the noise … when you lit them they just sort of roared.

Speakeasy: Jason Schwartzman

Looking sharp in a royal purple button-down and a cute new mustache, actor/musician/hipster heartthrob Jason Schwartzman graciously thanks me for taking the time to sit down with him to discuss his latest adventure in film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He plays Gideon, Pilgrim’s arch-nemesis, the comic book’s Final Boss-type character. The charming veteran of Wes Anderson indies has a quite different role this time, but he’s certainly well-matched with the part. Ramona’s evilest ex is an egotistical record exec, and Schwartzman’s own music career helped out with the development of his character (he’s the founding drummer of Phantom Planet and a soloist with Coconut Records). Here, he talks about his first fight scene, recounts his mid-production marriage, and praises Beck.

You composed the score for your last movie, Funny People. What do you think of the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soundtrack?
I love it, so much. A really big part of the film is the music, and not only in the background during fight scenes, but there are bands in the movie playing songs. We were pretty lucky to have Beck, Broken Social Scene, Metric do songs for the films. And Nigel Godrich composed an original piece of music. To me it was just incredible. I probably did Funny People cause nobody else was available. But for this one, everyone was available, so they all got to do it, as they should. And it’s just amazing. Especially, the sound design is amazing, in the movie.

Which of the tracks are standouts for you?
I love like, every Beck song. “Ramona” is a great song; it’s got great chord changes. And I like “Summertime,” and [sings] “We’re not havin no fun, we’re not havin no fun…”

Your character Gideon is some kind of evil hotshot music producer. In what ways did your own career in music influence your take on the character? Did he remind you of any producers you’d ever come into contact with?
No, I’m trying to be honest. I’ve never worked with anyone as young, or as cocky as that. Nor in any way was I copying or imitating anybody. The only thing that my own musical experience has in common with the film is that I was in a lot of battle with the bands. When I see how excited Mark Weber’s character is to have a show, I can relate to that excitement. I remember when I was young we wanted to play clubs like the Whiskey in LA, [and] when they would call back about a show, it was so exciting. In fact, my mom just changed her whole answering/phone system -- it died, which shows you how long she’s had it. I had saved the message from the Whiskey A-Go-Go in 1994; they called my house and said they’d heard our demo tape and that we could play there May the fifth. I still have that message. We lost every battle of the bands we ever played in. I can relate to the Battle of the Bands thing.

Do you remember any of the bands that beat you? Anyone we’d know?
No, nope. They peaked in high school. Actually, one band that beat us was really good; they became big. Oso Motley. I think they beat us. They would never remember that we played with them, but they kicked the shit out of us.

One hilarious scene in the movie occurs during Scott’s fight with Ramona’s third evil ex, the vegan bassist. I heard that you’re a strict vegan. Have you had any altercations with the Vegan Police?
I’m not like, militant -- I was very, very strict. Now, I don’t eat meat or eggs or anything, but if someone says, “try this little piece of whatever,” and it’s got yogurt on it or something, I won’t be as tough on myself as I used to be. But unless you are an undercover Vegan Cop, no, I haven’t had any problems with the Vegan Police.

Is it true that playing the villain is more fun?
It was pretty fun, for me. Sure, everyone who’s played a villain has said something like that. So many of my favorite characters are villains, or at least mysterious, in a lot of movies that I personally love. The opportunity to learn how to do some fight sequences was really something I’ve always wanted to do. To be able to do wire fighting was really a remarkable experience, to be hoisted up into the air. It’s terrifying, because you fly up in the air a couple times, then you look over and see how they’re actually doing it: it’s just a guy jumping off of a ladder with a rope. His bodyweight is propelling you, then he’s got NyQuil in his back pocket and you’re like, “is this really safe?”

So we can say that Jason Schwartzman does all his own stunts?
We did a lot of our own stunts. Edgar had it all planned out, it was all very safe. It took about three weeks to shoot it. In fact, I got married in the middle of the fight scene. We started the scene, then I got three days off to get married. We spent our honeymoon on the set of Scott Pilgrim. And you can see a difference in my fighting style, a little bit more aggression and power. But it was a joy for me to be the Final Guy, to take on Michael Cera and be the opposite of him.

It would have been easier to beat you if Scott had just entered the Konami code.
Yes! Up up down down, left-right left-right, B-A-B-A-Select-Start?

That’s the one. So what was it like to work with Edgar Wright, the acclaimed pioneer of the Action Comedy?
I have this 50/50 split in me: I have this dream wishlist of people I could work with, and then on the other hand I flagellate myself for having a dream wishlist, like, “How could you even think that you could work with them?” It’s a weird inner-battle, it’s my Nega-Jason. He’s always been on [my list] but I never thought it could be possible because up until then, he’s only worked with the English, in England. But to work with him was so interesting, because he’s so enthusiastic about the movie, more than anyone else. Some directors have a director’s chair, he does not. He just stands there the whole time, watching.

Gideon didn’t appear in the comics until Book 6. How much of your character did you draw from the page, and how much of him did you have to create yourself?
I wish that, in the future, if I ever work again, that whatever it may be, they do a comic of it first. It really is helpful to visually see so much of the stuff laid out like that. Honestly, it’s so helpful, I’m not kidding. In terms for me, it was all there in the script. There wasn’t a lot to go on from the comics, there was some, but there’s the outline of my character cause people are talking about him the whole time. You don’t necessarily have to be there the whole time, if people are talking about you. Other people are doing their thing but you’re involved: it outlines you in some way. So I knew the space I had to fill.

More coverage on Scott Pilgrim here

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just testing to see if this shit still works...

damn what a waste of data/devloping/money

THIS DOES WORK. WOW

now that we found this we can start and new wave of bloggers. Ones that don't suck. the only problem is that we won't be able to link them to our home page. Unless... we can have a scrolling bar for our blogs. i know i know... wow why didn't we think of this before. lets try to understand what we have now and just work on what we have meow. the image below is just a test... i don't know who the fuck it is.

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