John Malkovich

John Malkovich and the Morality of South Africa in ‘Disgrace’

PatrickMcD — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:04:03 -0600

CHICAGO – In a stark and compelling tale of naked vulnerability, John Malkovich becomes the centerpiece of the continuing battle for territory and humanity within the country of South Africa, in the newly released “Disgrace.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Based on a novel by J.M. Coetzee, Malkovich portrays David Lurie, a Cape Town university professor who gets caught up in a career-ending scandal involving an affair with a mixed race student. Forced out of his realm, he takes up residence with his estranged daughter, a frontier practitioner living off the unyielding but beautiful country far from civilization.

Reduced to menial labor and an ascetic lifestyle, the professorial Lurie is useless when a gang of rebels raid the modest house, attacking him and raping his daughter. Forced now to deal with both his weakness and the lack of justice in the harsh territory, Lurie must come to terms with his own perceptions and face the reality of an increasing array of post-apartheid circumstances.

”Disgrace” has a limited release, and opened September 25th at Piper’s Alley Theater, 1608 N. Wells, Chicago. Featuring John Malkovich, Jessica Haines and Eriq Ebouaney, directed by Steve Jacobs. Rated “R”

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Disgrace”

Father and Daughter Reflections: John Malkovich and Jessica Haines in ‘Disgrace’
Photo credit: Copyright © Icon Film Distribution

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Disgrace”

DVD Round Up, July 27, 2009: ‘Bad Lieutenant,’ ‘Bart Got a Room’

BrianTT — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:57:06 -0600

CHICAGO – The Round-Up is back with a quintet of standard DVDs that may have gone unnoticed in your latest Best Buy circular. There’s at least one very good movie in here and a few unique independent offerings that you might want to take a peek at. We wish we had time to cover these titles in more depth, but here are the details - synopsis, cast, features - that you really need to know.

“Horsemen” was released on July 14th, 2009.

“Bad Lieutenant,” “Bart Got a Room,” “Big Man Japan,” and “The Great Buck Howard” will be released on July 28th, 2009.

“Bad Lieutenant: Special Edition”

Photo credit: Lionsgate

Synopsis: “Harvey Keitel is a nameless New York cop, hopelessly addicted to drugs, gambling, and sex. As he makes his way to various crime scenes, he is concerned only with taking bets from his fellow cops on the outcome of the ongoing National League playoffs. As his bad decisions drive him deeper into debt, his life becomes a surreal hell, with a constant intake of crack, coke, heroin, and booze eroding what remains of his sanity. An investigation into the rape of a nun leads to his spiritual breakdown at the church crime scene, where he sees Jesus and the road to his salvation. This gutsy, highly original tale is one of Ferrara’s most perfectly realized films and a pinnacle in the career of Keitel, whose performance transcends the screen in its sheer bravery.”

“Bad Lieutenant” stars Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Paul Calderone, Leonard Thomas, Robin Burrows, Frankie Thorn, Victoria Bastel, and Paul Hipp. It was written by Zoe Lund & Abel Ferrara and directed by Ferrara. The film is presented in widescreen with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track. It is rated NC-17.

Special features include audio commentary with director Abel Ferrara and director of photography Ken Kelsch, and a new retrospective documentary featuring exclusive interviews with the cast and crew.

“Bart Got a Room”

Photo credit: Anchor Bay

Synopsis: “Nerdy high school senior Danny (Steven Kaplan) spent six hundred bucks on the hotel room, the limo and the tux for his prom. He’s only missing one thing - the girl. Hampered by well-intentioned but clueless advice from his newly-divorced parents, (William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines), as well as unsympathetic mocking from his best friends (Brandon Hardesty, Alia Shawkat), Danny battles peer pressure, teen angst and his own raging hormones as he desperately searches for a prom date. Danny’s luckless quest turns to panic when he learns that even Bart - the school’s biggest dweeb - has secured not only a date, but also a hotel room for the night.”

“Bart Got a Room” stars Steven Kaplan, Alia Shawkat, Jon Polito, Jennifer Tilly, Cheryl Hines, and William H. Macy. It was written and directed by Brian Hecker. The film is presented in widescreen with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by a Dolby Surround 5.1 audio track. It is rated PG-13.

Special features include a “Pop-Up Production Notebook” and the film’s theatrical trailer.

“Big Man Japan”

Photo credit: Magnolia

Synopsis: “Big Man Japan is an outrageous portrayal of an original superhero. As Big Man Japan, Daisato inherited the role of defending Japan against a host of bizarre monsters. He receives high-voltage electroshocks which transform him into a stocky, stick-wielding giant several stories high. However, where his predecessors were revered as national heroes, he is an outcast among the citizens he protects.”

“Big Man Japan” stars Hitosi Matumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua, Ryunosuke Kamiki, and Itsuji Itao. It was written by Matumoto and Mitsuyoshi Takasi and directed by Matumoto. The film is presented in widescreen with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by a Japanese Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 audio track. It is rated PG-13.

Special features include “Making of Big Man Japan with Commentary” and deleted scenes.

“The Great Buck Howard”

Photo credit: Magnolia

Synopsis: “Once upon a time, Buck Howard (John Malkovich) spent his days in the limelight as a mentalist extraordinaire! Nowadays, it’s clear to everyone except Buck that his act has lost its luster. Convinced his comeback is imminent, Buck needs a new road manager and personal assistant. Recent law school drop-out and would-be writer Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) needs a job and a purpose. Working for the pompous, has-been mentalist fills the former requirement, but how it satisfies the latter is questionable. Nonetheless, with the aid of a fiery publicist (Emily Blunt) and a bold stroke of luck, Buck lands back in the American consciousness, taking Troy along for the ride. ”

“The Great Buck Howard” stars Colin Hanks, John Malkovich, Emily Blunt, Ricky Jay, Steve Zahn, and Tom Hanks. It was written and directed by Sean McGinly. The film is presented in widescreen with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by an English Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 audio track. It is rated PG.

Special features include commentary with Sean McGinly (writer/director) and Colin Hanks (actor), deleted scenes, extended scenes, outtakes, behind the scenes, “The Amazing Kreskin,” and “HDNet: A Look at The Great Buck Howard”.

“Horsemen”

Photo credit: Lionsgate

Synopsis: “At home, hardened police detective Aidan Breslin (Quaid) has grown increasingly distant from his two young sons since the death of his wife. At work, he finds himself thrust into an investigation of perverse serial killings rooted in the Biblical prophecy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The White Horsemen, a master of deception and the unexpected leader hell-bent on conquest; The Red Horsemen, a sharp-witted warrior intent on turning man against man, with an innocence that hides a burning rage within; The Black Horsemen, a manipulative and dark tyrant, unbalanced but always one step ahead; and The Pale Horsemen, an executioner with disarming strength, determined to spread death through surgical precision. As Breslin grapples with each new revelation in the case, he slowly discovers a shocking connection between himself and the four suspects.”

“Horsemen” stars Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci, Clifton Collins Jr., Patrick Fugit, and Peter Stormare. It was written by David Callahan and directed by Jonas Akerlund. The film is presented in widescreen with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and accompanied by an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track. It is rated R.

Special features include an audio commentary by director Jonas Akerlund and director of photography Eric Broms and deleted scenes.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: Clint Eastwood’s ‘Changeling’ Features Great Performance By Angelina Jolie

BrianTT — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:49:23 -0700

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – I usually don’t agree with suggestions that certain movies need to be seen twice to be appreciated. If a movie doesn’t work on first viewing, then it simply doesn’t work. Having said that, watching Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” a second time on Blu-Ray made me appreciate the final product significantly more than my disappointed reaction to it in theaters.

What struck me about the first time I saw “Changeling,” starring Oscar-nominee Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan, and Jason Butler Harner, was the disjointed storytelling in the film and the way the black and white themes don’t play into Eastwood’s strengths as a director.

Angelina Jolie stars in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling
Photo credit: Anthony Michael Rivetti

Eastwood has always been at his best when his films deal with gray areas of behavior and morality. “Unforgiven,” “Mystic River,” “Million Dollar Baby” - all of these films feature characters caught in complex moral situations. Sometimes good and bad can reside in the same troubled soul and very few filmmakers have captured that in drama like Eastwood.

Angelina Jolie stars in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling
Photo credit: Anthony Michael Rivetti

J. Michael Straczynski’s screenplay for “Changeling” is missing that complexity and subtlety that has marked Eastwood’s best work. In “Changeling,” characters are pure good, pure evil, pure heroism, or pure corruption.

And the film fluctuates wildly in styles, trying to be a drama, women’s rights story, period piece, and thriller all in one. There’s a fine line between making trying to make an unpredictable one and making one that feels disjointed and I think “Changeling” sometimes crosses that line.

Watching it a second time and being able to put those issues aside, I was able to appreciate Eastwood’s film more than I did in theaters. What felt disjointed on the big screen with only one viewing, feels more ambitious on Blu-Ray and it’s easier to get over the lack of gray area when you know not to look for it.

“Changeling” is a brutally dark, upsetting true story of a single mother in 1920s Los Angeles. Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) was living an ordinary life until she came home from work to find her son missing. The LAPD at the time was already knee-deep in bad PR due to increasing corruption and couldn’t handle more bad press. They returned another orphaned child to Ms. Collins and tried to convince her that he was her son.

Collins knew immediately that the boy was not hers - differences in height and circumcision are pretty obvious signs - but Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) and the rest of the police force ignored her until they eventually threw her in a psychiatric hospital to keep her quiet. Only the powerful radio figure Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) kept her story alive long enough for the shocking truth to come out.

Angelina Jolie gave one of the best performances of 2008 in “Changeling,” taking a part that would have been tragically melodramatic in the wrong hands and making subtle, interesting decisions instead of descending into great hysteria. Jolie is fantastic and she makes the film worth at least a rental on Blu-Ray.

Having said that, I still think “Changeling” is a bit of a missing opportunity. Trying to tell so many stories in the film’s 141 minute running time makes everyone a bit two-dimensional. The police force must have realized at some point that they were doing something wrong, but they are painted as two-dimensional villains, draining the film of believability. There’s a complex, character-driven mini-series in this amazing true story that has been reduced to just the essentials and anchored by one central, riveting performance.

Angelina Jolie stars in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling
Photo credit: Anthony Michael Rivetti

The design of “Changeling” looks great in HD and the precise and detailed costumes and art direction should impress in 1080P, but I do wish the world felt more lived-in than backlot. Everything about “Changeling” looks too good and not quite realistic. The pretty picture of the Blu-Ray release mesmerizes until it dawns on you that admiring the design keeps it and the film as a whole at arms length.

Technically, “Changeling” is good but not one of Universal’s best. The blacks and blues often blend a bit too much in the film’s many darker scenes and, in general, the picture doesn’t pop like you think it would. The audio is similarly right around average with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track.

U-Control is still my favorite studio Blu-Ray function on the market and “Changeling” makes smart use of it, providing interactive cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage using the Picture in Picture feature. U-Control also allows the viewer to see pictures of “Los Angeles: Then and Now” as the story unfolds to compare the city as it was in the ’20s to the sprawling metropolis today. Archival images and documents are also presented through U-Control allowing the viewer access to the real-life individuals and story portrayed in the film.

Two HD features - “Partners in Crime: Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie” and “The Common Thread: Angelina Jolie Becomes Christine Collins” - round out the Blu-Ray release of “Changeling”.

Ultimately, “Changeling” is a good film that I wanted to be great in theaters but it’s easier to forgive the film’s flaws with a studio as great as Universal producing its Blu-Ray release.

‘Changeling’ is released by Universal Home Entertainment and stars Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, and Jason Butler Harner. It was written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed by Clint Eastwood. It will be released on February 17th, 2009.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: ‘Burn After Reading’ Hilarious Movie, Horrible Blu-Ray

BrianTT — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:23:27 -0700

CHICAGO – It’s impossible for a critic to thoroughly defend something he finds funny but fully realizes that a large majority of the audience may not. Sometimes a film just hits your funny bone in right way. “Burn After Reading” does so for me, but may not for audiences without a little bit of a mean streak.

Fitting snugly into the Coen Brothers’ resume of slightly-demented comedies, “Burn After Reading” disappointed audiences expecting “No Country For Old Men 2”, but like “Raising Arizona”, “The Hudsucker Proxy”, and “The Big Lebowski”, should have an extensive life on the home market.

Every time the Coens have made a “serious” movie, they’ve followed it with a lark of a comedy. “Arizona” came after “Blood Simple”, “Hudsucker” followed “Barton Fink”, and “Lebowski” was an odd choice after “Fargo”. They’ve all thrown audiences for a loop. It happened again with “Burn After Reading”, a dark, vicious comedy about people who think they understand espionage because they’ve seen a lot of spy movies. The Coens have often been accused of making fun of their characters and I’ve usually defended them as laughing with their lead. Not this time. They’re laughing at these morons.

The morons in question include an all-star cast headed by Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, and John Malkovich. The entire ensemble is clearly having a blast and it’s infectious. Some critics were upset at not being able to find the deeper meaning in a story about a disc of government secrets that makes its way into the hands of some stupid fitness experts. Guess what? There is no deeper meaning. That’s the point. Just have fun with “Burn After Reading”.

Perhaps Universal knows they have an eventual cult hit and held back the special features for an inevitable special edition but that kind of double-dipping is getting really old. Universal has been consistently releasing the most comprehensive and well organized Blu-Rays of the season, so we’ll forgive “Burn After Reading” as the exception. Special features? Three lonely featurettes - “Finding the Burn”, “DC Insiders Run Amuck”, and “Welcome Back, George” - don’t really qualify as “special”, especially considering they run less than twenty minutes COMBINED.

“Burn After Reading” does include Universal’s BD-Live functionality that allows viewers to cut their favorite scenes and send them but this common addition doesn’t really qualify as a special feature. It’s really just bookmarking with an internet connection.

Technically, “Burn After Reading” looks and sounds great with a 1080p HD Widescreen transfer in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and an audio track an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Both the video and audio won’t be used to show off new home theaters, but are also never distracting.

Universal clearly intended the Blu-Ray release of “Burn After Reading” to be a rental. If they wanted more purchases, they would have put more effort into the special features. Luckily, the movie itself is funny enough to make the dearth of bonuses easier to overlook.

‘Burn After Reading’ is released by Universal Home Video and stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, J.K. Simmons, David Rasche, and Richard Jenkins. It was released on December 21st, 2008.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

New York City Filming Report Surfaces For ‘Burn After Reading’ With Pitt, Clooney

HollywoodChicago.com — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:01:18 -0600

Following my Aug. 30, 2007 report on the Joel and Ethan Coen film “Burn After Reading,” a reader on Sunday wrote in with new filming details.

They are shooting today (Sunday, Sept. 23) literally across the street from my apartment.

They have slightly doctored the area around Grant’s Tomb (the General Grant National Memorial site).

One of the crew told us they would be filming up and down Riverside Drive including near Riverside Church and the International House. Riverside Drive runs along the west side of upper Manhattan.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney are on hand. My two children were fascinated by the many cars with Virginia license plates and the D.C. cabs, which are distinctive from their New York City cousins.

The film also features John Malkovich and Frances McDormand. IMDb describes the plot with these words:

A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.

3:26 p.m. update: After this post appeared, writer Shane Hazen of HollywoodChicago.com pointed out news from Friday, Sept. 21 announcing that Clooney suffered a broken rib in a New Jersey motorcycle accident.

Various reports questioned whether or not this would delay “Burn After Reading” filming.

8:39 p.m. update: Following this report, several additional people wrote me about Clooney’s current involvement in the project following his recent accident.

I followed up with my initial source for this report for more information. Daniel Tamulonis has given me permission to cite this information to his real name. In his follow-up e-mail to my question, he said:

As for Clooney, the technician who spoke to my children and me assured us that “it was nothing” and that Clooney would be taking part in the shoot.

As the day progressed (we were walking a neighbor’s dog and had several chances to witness what was going on), we saw rehearsals and then a car stunt involving Pitt.

There will be more shooting [on Monday] in front of the International House. We saw Pitt several times but not Clooney.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Production Begins on ‘Burn After Reading’ From Joel, Ethan Coen

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:06:21 -0600

On Aug. 30, 2007, I heard word that production has begun in New York City for Focus Features and Working Title Films on the film “Burn After Reading” from Joel and Ethan Coen.

They are writing, producing and directing. “Burn After Reading,” which is a dark spy comedy that will also shoot in Washington, D.C., stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand.

Focus Features, Rogue Pictures and Working Title Films are part of NBC Universal, which was formed in May 2004 by combining NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com