Things get hairy for Benicio Del Toro in The Wolfman

Once one of the biggest horror icons in Hollywood, The Wolf Man’s journey back to the big screen hasn’t been particularly smooth.  Universal first announced the 21st century remake of their 1941 classic back in 2007, securing Oscar-winner Benicio Del Toro to play the titular werewolf, wearing makeup effects designed by the legendary F/X artist Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video).  Music video helmer Mark Romanek was set to direct and A-list talent like Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt signed on for supporting roles.  But a year after the project was put into development, Romanek left the film and Joe Johnston–best known for Jumanji and Jurassic Park III–took over the director’s chair.  The film’s release date was soon pushed back as well, from October 2009 to February 2010.  That kind of behind-the-scenes shuffling often spells trouble, but based on the first trailer, The Wolfman doesn’t look half-bad.  Not surprisingly, Baker appears to have done a killer job on the wolf suit and Del Toro’s Method approach to his roles means we might see our most feral Wolf Man yet.  Check out the trailer below and prepare for The Wolfman‘s arrival in theaters on February 10.

Here are the guys that kept us laughing, gasping and applauding all year long.

8. James Franco, Pineapple Express
If you had told me two years ago that pretty boy James Franco would deliver one of the best performances I saw in 2008, I would have called you a pot-smoking fool.  Turns out, the joke’s on me, because the star of such wretched drek as Annapolis and Flyboys stepped up to the plate and smashed his role as excessively laid back pot dealer Saul Silver in David Gordon Green’s marijuana-laced comedy out of the park.  Put this together with his strong supporting performance in Milk and an actor I was ready to write off seems to be back in a big way.

7. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Redbelt
Hard to believe that it’s only been six years since British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor burst onto Hollywood’s radar with his star turn in Dirty Pretty Things. Since then, the actor has been on a hot streak, landing memorably roles in such high-profile movies as American Gangster, Talk to Me and Children of Men.  Despite the steady employment, Ejiofor didn’t get another chance at a leading man role until David Mamet tapped him to play the martial arts instructor at the center of his latest thriller.  The movie itself disappoints, but Ejiofor dominates the proceedings with his usual quiet authority.  Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another six years for his next name-above-the-title part.

6. The Cast of In Bruges
I’m cheating a bit here, but all of these actors are in such fine form in Martin McDonagh’s offbeat crime comedy that I just can’t choose between them.  On the one hand, you’ve got a post-rehab Colin Farrell giving what may be the best performance of his career as a novice hitman plagued by guilt over a mission gone wrong.  But you’ve also got ace character actor Brendan Gleeson stealing scenes as a veteran assassin and the usually restrained Ralph Fiennes going positively ape-shit as Farrell and Gleeson’s foul-mouthed boss.  Individually these performances would still be great, but together they are positively brilliant.

5. Javier Bardem, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Playing the lead male character in a Woody Allen film is never an easy task because his actors often feel the need to try and perform the part like Woody would.  Not so Javier Bardem, who brings his own distinct rhythm and charisma to the role of a Spanish artist in the middle of a love quadrangle with three gorgeous women (Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson and his real-live squeeze, Penelope Cruz).  Freed from the stupid haircut and lumbering gait of his No Country for Old Men character, Bardem smolders like an old-fashioned movie star.  Move over George and Brad–I think we’ve got a new candidate for Sexiest Man Alive.

4. Bill Milner and Will Poulter, Son of Rambow
In this post-Dakota Fanning age, it’s increasingly rare to find child actors who can convincingly play actual children, instead of adults in short pants.  That’s why it was a smart decision on writer/director Garth Jennings’ part to cast real kids–and not kid actors–in his hugely enjoyable ode to childhood and filmmaking.  Neither Bill Milner nor Will Poulter had any film credits to their names before landing the starring roles in Son of Rambow and their unforced naturalism is one of the keys to this underappreciated movie’s success.

3. Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man and Tropic Thunder
Few actors have enjoyed as many career second-acts as one-time bad boy Robert Downey Jr. and here’s hoping that his 2008 comeback is the one that finally sticks.  After kicking off the summer movie season in style with his high-flying lead performance as supposedly second-tier superhero Iron Man, he delivered an even stronger turn in Ben Stiller’s Hollywood satire as a method actor so devoted to his work, he actually dyes his skin black to play an African American character.  The latter role could have ruined a lesser actor, but Downey had audiences of all colors laughing.

2. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
No doubt about it, Heath Ledger’s interpretation of Batman’s longtime nemesis was 2008′s most iconic performance.  In fact, the Aussie actor–who, as everyone knows, died in January–is so mesmerizing, the movie suffers whenever the Joker is offscreen.  It’s the kind of outsized performance that walks the edge of self-parody without ever careening over the side.  Whoever follows in his footsteps as the Dark Knight’s next villain has his some giant-sized clown shoes to fill.

1. Benicio Del Toro, Che
In direct contrast to Ledger’s larger-than-life turn as The Joker, Benicio Del Toro’s star turn in Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour film about Che Guevara provides a master class in the art of understatement.  Offered zero tear-inducing monologues or other showy Oscar-reel moments, the actor nevertheless delivers a career-best performance.  The highest compliment I can pay Del Toro is that you never see him acting as Guevara…he simply becomes him.

Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour Che Guevara flick is a must-see, Keanu Reeve’s remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still is a must-flee.

Che
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Demián Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Catalina Sandino Moreno
****

There are a lot of other things you could be doing in the 262 minutes it takes to watch both parts of Che, Steven Soderbergh’s intimate epic about controversial revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara.  For example, you could prepare and serve a full-course French dinner, make a dent in Ayn Rand’s 1000-plus page Objectivist manifesto Atlas Shrugged, or hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail while rocking out to the entire output of Sly & the Family Stone.  But please don’t let Che‘s butt-numbing runtime scare you away.  It’s a remarkable movie and a career landmark for both Soderbergh and his star Benicio Del Toro, who completely disappears into a larger-than-life role that would defeat most actors.

Actually, the movie’s title is something of a misnomer as Che is less about the man than the movements he led.  Part 1 presents a detailed account of the Cuban Revolution, during which Guevara evolved from a simple medic/soldier to Fidel Castro’s top commandante.  The second part then jumps ahead roughly ten years ahead to chronicle his disastrous Bolivia campaign.  In both halves, Soderbergh forgoes the usual biopic exposition and drops the audience into the middle of the action, trusting us to keep up.  He has also cleverly designed the two parts as mirror images of each other, with the lessons Guevara learned during his rise in Cuba later contributing to his fall in Bolivia.

Viewers hoping for a more critical look at Guevara’s legacy may be disappointed by Che and, to be fair, they have a point.  By telescoping the narrative to deal with only these two events, the movie sidesteps having to deal with his divisive actions in post-revolution Cuba.  At the same time, Soderbergh and Del Toro are careful to not blindly heroicize Guevara, instead presenting him as an individual whose single-minded devotion to his cause is both his greatest strength and his greatest failing.  Che is also a terrific combat film, filled with harrowing sequences that capture the organized chaos of guerilla warfare.  So yes—this movie does demand four hours of your life.  But you’ll leave the theater richer for it.

Verdict: See It

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The Day the Earth Stood Still
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Jaden Smith
**

Released in 1951 in the early years of the nuclear age, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still is a B-movie that was elevated to A-list status thanks to its timely social message and then-awesome special effects.  The story of a pacifist alien who pays mankind a visit to convince us not to destroy ourselves, Day is more talky than the kinds of sci-fi blockbusters we’re used to seeing at the multiplexes these days, but its low-key nature is a big part of its charm.  Appropriately, the best parts of Scott Derrickson’s big-budget remake are the quieter scenes where the human characters have to wrestle with how to react to discovering they aren’t alone in the universe.

The first 30 minutes of the new Day the Earth Stood Still are surprisingly gripping, particularly considering that it’s from the same director that made the laughable horror movie/courtroom drama The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the same screenwriter that penned the forgettable Robert Redford prison movie, The Last Castle. Jennifer Connelly plays the movie’s heroine Helen Benson, a brilliant astrobiologist who, while cooking dinner on a seemingly ordinary evening, is suddenly taken into custody by a phalanx of federal agents and escorted to a top-secret meeting of scientists and government officials.  It seems that some kind of unidentified flying object is about to slam into Central Park, completely obliterating Manhattan and much of the surrounding area.  Missiles are being dispatched to intercept the UFO and Helen and her fellow eggheads are put on a chopper to NYC to plan for the aftermath.

Once in the air though, they see that the flying object isn’t a meteor or a giant ship filled with ray-gun toting space squids.  Instead, it’s a giant ball of energy, which touches down gently in the park without displacing a single tree or blade of grass.  Out of this crackling globe steps a vaguely human figure…who is promptly shot by a trigger-happy soldier.  Rushed to a nearby medical facility, the alien recovers and acquires the face and voice of Keanu Reeves.  Keanu…excuse me, Klaatu then informs his captors—including trigger happy Defense Secretary Regina Jackson (played by Kathy Bates, clearly channeling Dick Cheney)—that he’s come to Earth to strongly encourage us to respect the environment…or else.  That’s right: the first alien we meet is literally a little green man.

It makes sense that the filmmakers swapped nuclear weapons out for the environment, which is certainly more a hot-button topic amongst this generation.  And if the movie actually had something to say about our impact on the planet, it may have reached out to an audience that has previously resisted such cinematic calls to action as An Inconvenient Truth and Wall*E.  Ultimately though, Day is just using the environmental angle as a way to achieve its real objective: blowing lots of shit up.  Once Helen helps Klaatu escape from the government, the movie turns into an extended chase sequence with random scenes of bloodless violence tossed into the mix.  It also accomplishes the difficult feat of making the characters dumber as the story continues; don’t be surprised to find yourself rooting for Klaatu to off Helen and her annoying stepson Jacob (played by Will Smith’s kid Jaden) along with the rest of mankind.  The movie’s emphasis on brawn over brain might not be so off-putting if the action sequences provided Iron Man-level whiz bang wow, but all of the big set-pieces are marred by confusing choreography and low-grade digital effects.  Unlike a lot of sci-fi fans, I wasn’t horrified by the announcement that The Day the Earth Stood Still was being remade as the original certainly has some dated qualities to it.  But I am horrified that so much money and talent was wasted on a movie that has so much contempt for its audience, it doesn’t even bother to give us an ending that makes sense.

Verdict: Skip It

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Also in Theaters

Wendy and Lucy
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Starring Michelle Williams
***1/2
Writer/director Kelly Reichardt made a big splash with the critically acclaimed film Old Joy a few years back, but his latest effort is a much stronger movie, with an emotional resonance that its predecessor lacked.  Michelle Williams plays Wendy a young drifter passing through Oregon with her dog Lucy by her side.  Stopping in a small town to pick up supplies, Wendy unwisely decides to shoplift food from the local supermarket, while Lucy waits outside.  She’s caught in the act and thrown in the slammer for the afternoon.  When she’s finally released and heads back to the scene of the crime to recover her dog, Lucy is nowhere to be found.  With her dwindling finances, Wendy can’t afford to stick around until Lucy is found, but she also knows that she can’t leave her only friend in the world behind.  Clocking in at a brief 80 minutes, Wendy and Lucy is the cinematic equivalent of a great short story.  Reichardt never overwhelms the viewer with exposition, keeping the narrative lean and focused.  And Williams continues to prove why she’s the only ex-Dawson’s Creek cast member who actually has a shot at winning an Oscar one day.
Verdict: See It

Nothing Like the Holidays
Directed by Alfredo De Villa
Starring Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, Vanessa Ferlito, John Leguizamo
**
If you like your holiday movies served with heaping spoonfuls of melodrama, it’s possible that you won’t experience heartburn while watching this overbaked, underseasoned Christmas story.  (Enough food metaphors for ya?)  Set in Chicago’s Puerto Rican-heavy Humboldt Park ‘hood, the movie pays a visit to the squabbling Rodriguez clan, who have gathered together to share good meals, good cheer and lots of painful family secrets, from infidelity to serious illness.  The cast, which includes Freddy Rodriguez, Vanessa Ferlito and Elizabeth Peña, does their best, but the script is strictly dinner theater material.
Verdict: Skip It

Steven Soderbergh talks about his larger-than-life epic about a larger-than-life historical figure.

Of all the films premiering at this year’s festival, the one I was most looking forward to by far was Che, Steven Soderbergh’s two-part, 268-minute (that’s 4 hours and 28 minutes, folks) history of controversial revolutionary Che Guevara (brilliantly portrayed by Benicio Del Toro).  The film premiered to mostly mixed reviews at Cannes back in May, but considering how divisive a figure Che is, I’m not surprised that a movie devoted to his life generated such a wide range of opinions.  I’m not going to share my own take in full now—you’ll have to check out GIANT’s December/January issue for that—but I will say that Che is a striking achievement and the exact opposite of the muddled bore some reviewers described seeing at Cannes.  And while the film’s length is daunting, for me at least, it was never dull.  In fact, I can’t imagine not seeing Che in one sitting.  Both parts of the movie—Part 1 deals exclusively with the Cuban revolution while Part 2 focuses on Che’s failed campaign in Bolivia nearly a decade later—need to be seen closely together in order to appreciate how the two events mirror each other.  But enough from me.  I’m going to turn the mic over to Soderbergh, who appeared after the screening for a lively 20-minute press conference.

On how the movie came about
“Benicio and I first thought about making Che eight years ago while we were shooting Traffic together.  Sometimes you say yes to something and you’re not sure why.  Around the time the movie premiered at Cannes, I finally realized what drew me to the story: it was engagement versus disengagement.  Do we want to participate or observe?  Once Che made the decision to engage, he engaged fully.  Often people attribute that to a higher power, but as an atheist, he didn’t have that.  I found that very interesting.”

On the research involved
If you go to any bookstore, you’ll find an entire wall of Che-related material.  We tried to go through all of it—we were overwhelmed with information.  He means something different to everyone.  At a certain point we had to decide for ourselves who Che was.  I tried to avoid scenes that are too typical for biopics.  Stuff like someone asking “Why do they call you Che?” or Che putting on a beret for the first time.

On his memories of Che
Like almost everyone, I first heard Che’s name in school.  “One of the great things about this job is that I get paid to learn more about people and events.  For example, I thought the Cuban Revolution was all Fidel—I didn’t realize how many factions there were.  I also didn’t know what a hard-ass Che was.  He was a strict disciplinarian and never dropped the ideology.  He only reserved his warm side for his doctor mode.  The weird thing about this guy is that he’s an icon of Marxist ideology and yet you put his face on a T-shirt and it sells.”

On the film’s production
“We shot both parts in about 39 days each.  To put that in perspective, that was fewer days than the first Ocean’s film.  We had a 10-day break between parts and we actually filmed Part 2 first and filmed it reverse, which was confusing.  But we didn’t have a choice thanks to the limited budget and time.  To just have it done was the point.  I knew that I wanted to create a different sensation for each part.  I shot the first part in widescreen, so it resembles a more classic Hollywood war film, which is appropriate for the Cuba stuff.  For the second film, I wanted it to feel less settled—the outcome wasn’t clear from the beginning.”

On what was left out
“The story of Che’s experiences in the Congo is fascinating.  If this film makes $100 million, I’ll gladly make another one that deals with that.  We just didn’t have enough money.  When the film as first developed, it only focused on his time in Bolivia.  But we realized early on that you can’t show Bolivia without showing Cuba.  So it grew from one manageable film to one giant film.”

On the film’s release plan
“Whenever the movie enters a specific market—New York, Chicago, L.A. etc.—the four-hour version will be shown on one screen.  I think that’s the ideal way to see it, but it’s a lot to ask and requires a certain personality to see it like that.  Otherwise, the two parts will be shown separately.”

On Che’s legacy
“Che probably would have hated me.  There really wouldn’t be a place for me in the society he wanted to create.  But I can still find him one of the most compelling figures of the past century.  And the Cuban revolution was really the last analog revolution.  Technology makes it impossible to fight that kind of fight today.”

Che screens at the NYFF on Tuesday, October 7 at 6pm and will open theatrically in December and January.