Eastern Promises (2007) - Cronenberg invites us to meet the Russian mob in London

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+ Best London Movie of the Year + Best Mob Movie of the Year + Best Villain of the Year: Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai + Best Fight Scene of the Year (the bath house fight) + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year

The poster for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises prominently features the tattooed hands of Viggo Mortensen's character in the film

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A British-Russian midwife in a London hospital makes a fateful find as she helps birth the daughter of a young Russian rape victim who dies in labor: The girl's diary subsequently leads her on a frightening and dangerous road to the local Russian mob.

Eastern Promises is an excellent mob thriller written by Steven Knight (Pawn Sacrifice (2014)) and directed by Canadian master filmmaker David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch (1991)). It is a rare film, because it deals with the Russian mob in London, and from what the movie shows, the cinematically ubiquitous Italian mob sort of fades against the hardcore vileness of the Russian hoods.
The story is exciting, and Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive (2001)) is great as the midwife who needs to know what happened and soon finds herself in trouble for this. Oscar-nominated Viggo Mortensen (Albino Alligator (1996)) is tough as nails as Nikolai, SPOILER who partakes in the film's bathhouse fight that must go down in cinema history as one of the greatest, most vicious fights of all time.
SPOILER My only real reservation to this fine film is that while it 'closes' the story of the baby, we get no conclusion as to the future of Nikolai; does he become boss? Does he reveal the mobsters? I really want to know, but the film ends with no answer given. Others feel this is part of its brilliance.

Related reviews:

David Cronenberg: Cosmopolis (2012) - Cronenberg/DeLillo/Pattinson's speculative limo lullaby
A Dangerous Method (2011) - Cronenberg's rather disappointing waltz with the fathers of modern psychology 
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
A History of Violence (2005) or, Who Is Tom Stall? 
Spider (2002) - Cronenberg takes us to the tormented (and slightly dull) mind of a schizophrenic 
Dead Ringers (1988) or, Brothers and Their Instruments 
The Dead Zone (1983) - Eerie sci-fi/horror King-adaptation  
The Brood (1979) or, Marital Fury and Craze!   

Viggo Mortensen gives a show-stopping performance in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises

In lieu of a trailer, not currently on Youtube, here you can listen to 15 minutes of Howard Shore's score from the film

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 56.1 mil. $
= Big flop
[Eastern Promises premiered September 8 (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 101 minutes. It was mostly shot on location in London, beginning in November 2006. The tattoos and portrayal of the Russian mob in the film is said to be truthful. The film won the Best Film audience prize in Toronto and was lauded critically. Roger Ebert among others awarded it a top grade, and it made several critics' top 10 lists of the year. In its wide release, it came in #5 (in 1,404 theaters) to a 5.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed a somewhat disappointing 17.2 mil. $ (30.7 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 6.8 mil. $ (12.1 %) and Spain with 4.8 mil. $ (8.6 %). The film received one Oscar nomination for Best Actor (Mortensen), which he lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for the masterpiece There Will Be Blood. It was also nominated for 3 Golden Globes, winning none. Talks of a sequel were laid to rest in 2013 by Cronenberg, who placed the responsibility with US distributor Focus Features' James Schamus. However, the blame most certainly lies with the big flop status of the original film, whose big budget is obvious in its top notch production value, talents and London locale. Eastern Promises is certified fresh at 89 % with a 7.6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eastern Promises?

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) - The enjoyable if farfetched second Apes sequel

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The colorful poster for Don Taylor's Escape from the Planet of the Apes

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The most sympathetic ape couple in screen history, Zira & Cornelius were able to flee the nuclear holocaust of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) with a third ape and travel through a warp in time. They arrive back on Earth in 1973 and are initially welcomed, - but it is to an atmosphere of intense fear and paranoia.

Just as the first sequel in the Apes franchise, Escape isn't an altogether successful film and a far cry from the masterful Planet of the Apes (1968). It does have some original ideas, and the story is carried ahead without the film seeming like a sell-out, mostly because it almost completely lacks the action scenes that the former films had. SPOILER It does, however, go out on a gloomy note similar to the first films.
A few reservations: SPOILER The character of Dr. Hasslein, who will go to great lengths to murder the apes for something their descendants will presumably do 2,000 (!) years in the future, is far out. As is the final scene with the baby Milo. 
Most of Escape is mostly enjoyable as a type of involuntary comedy. It is written by Paul Dehn (The Taming of the Shrew (1967) and directed by Don Taylor (Echoes of a Summer (1976)).

Related reviews:

The Apes franchise: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) or, Ape 3.1: Mad Apes!
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) or, The Final Ape!  
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) or, The Ape Uprising   
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - Decent follow-up to the SF milestone 
Don Taylor: Damien: Omen II (1978) - Mimicking follow-up is a true turkey

Watch an original trailer for the film here

Cost: 2 mil. $
Box office: 12.3 mil. $ (North America only)
= Huge hit
[Escape from the Planet of the Apes was released May 21 and runs 98 minutes. The script was devised to fit a smaller budget than the previous films by only having two actors dressed as apes. Shooting lasted just six weeks November 1970 - January 1971. Kim Hunter (Columbo (1971), TV-series), who plays Zira, liked the script better than the one for Beneath, but later remarked that she and Roddy McDowall (Angel 4: Undercover (1994)), who plays Cornelius, felt a sense of isolation during production, because they were the only two people dressed as chimpanzees. SPOILER She has also said that she was glad that her character was killed off in the film, so she wouldn't have to return to the Apes franchise. Escape opened to good reviews and box office; unfortunately, a world gross isn't made public, but it was certainly a huge hit. Two more sequels were created in the original iteration of the franchise: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Escape from the Planet of the Apes is fresh at 78 % with a 5.7 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Escape from the Planet of the Apes?

Ed Wood (1994) - Burton's sticky biopic with strenuous Depp

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This attractive poster for Tim Burton's Ed Wood lacks its priceless (but essentially ridiculing) American tagline: 'Movies were his passion. Women were his inspiration. Angora sweaters were his weakness.'

QUICK REVIEW:

Ed Wood (Glen or Glenda (1953)) was the world's arguably worst filmmaker, who wrote, directed, often also acted in, produced and edited some rather incredible films in the 1950s and 1960s, while befriending ailing horror movie icon Bela Lugosi (Dracula (1931)).

As a tribute to someone recognized as the worst filmmaker ever, (although he hardly was, in fact, because his films do have something infectious and human to them), I suppose it is really almost fitting that master filmmaker Tim Burton (Batman Returns (1992)) has made a sub-par biopic about him.
Ed Wood does have some good elements: Martin Landau (Edtv (1999)) is eminent as Lugosi, a deservedly Oscar-winning performance. SPOILER The fight with the plastic octopus and the baptism scene with Bill Murray (The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)) are also fun. 
But apart from these things, Ed Wood is a sticky, melodramatic, pathetic plate of dribble. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's (The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), both) script, based on Rudolph Grey's Wood biography Nightmares of Ecstasy (1992), certainly carries its share of the blame. The biggest problem, though, must be Johnny Depp (The Rum Diary (2011)), who is awful in the title role, treading water throughout with an accent as irksome as the strange grimace he insists on carrying throughout. 
Most of the scenes of Ed Wood are simply too shallow and light-weight. Burton loves society's outsiders, and as such Wood should have been a prime source of material for him, but this one regrettably doesn't work.

Related poss:

Tim Burton: Dark Shadows (2012) - Fun, flamboyant vampire romp is a celebration of culture
Corpse Bride (2005) - Impressive, loud, hollow, dark doll fairytale 

1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date  
Batman Returns (1992) - Burton gives us the ultimate, Gothic spin on Gotham City and its sinister characters
Batman (1989) - A huge, glitzy, empty joker
Beetle Juice (1988) - Burton and team serve one of the best horror comedies ever  

Here's a teaser for the film, ripped from a VHS

Cost: 18 mil. $
Box office: 5.8 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty (likely at least a big flop)
[Ed Wood premiered September 23 (New York Film Festival) and runs 127 minutes. Alexander and Karaszewski devised the script after being tired of writing family movies, and Michael Lehmann was supposed to direct. Other obligations brought Burton to the project, who was a Wood fan. Columbia set the project in turnaround, because Burton insisted on shooting it in B/W. It was picked up by Disney, who gave Burton, who took no salary for the film, his budget and total creative freedom. The film was shot in 72 days in and around LA. Burton worked with Howard Shore on the score, after he had fallen out with his regular composer Danny Elfman during Batman Returns. Ed Wood contains several inaccuracies concerning Lugosi, Wood's relationship with Dolores Fuller and time distortions, (read about them here.) The film opened wide (in just 623 theaters) #9 to a 1.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America. 357k paid admission in France and Spain, but other than that, world numbers aren't known, and so its theatrical status cannot be made up, although it was almost certainly at least a big flop. Ed Wood was shown in competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, where it lost to Emir Kusturica's great Underground. Landau won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and the film also won the Best Makeup Oscar. At the Golden Globes, Depp and Landau were nominated, with Landau winning. Ed Wood is certified fresh at 92 % with an 8 average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ed Wood?

Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

1. We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011) - Lynne Ramsay

2. Anything Else (2003) - Woody Allen 

3. City Island (2009) - Raymond De Felitta

4. Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) - Peter Jackson

5. Dogville (2003) - Lars Von Trier

6. 54 (1998) - Mark Christopher

7. Children of Men (2006) - Alfonso Cuarón

8. The Devil's Backbone/El Espinoza del Diablo (2001) - Guillermo del Toro

9. Blade Runner (1982) - Ridley Scott 

10. 55 Days at Peking (1963) - Nicholas Ray, Guy Green, Andrew Marton

Other great big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order)

25th Hour (2002)
Albert Nobbs (2011) 
All Is Lost (2013) 
Amos & Andrew (1993) 
The Believer (2001) 
Bound (1996)
Dark Water (2005) 
Dazed and Confused (1993) 

Good big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order)

Art School Confidential (2006) 
Attack the Block (2011) 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) 
Catch-22 (1970) 
Celebrity (1998) 
Cimarron (1960) 
Collateral Damage (2002) 
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) 
Dinner for Schmucks/Dinner with Schmucks (2010) 
Il Divo/Il Divo - La Spettacolare Vita di Giulio Andreotti (2008)
Dogtooth/Κυνόδοντας (Kynodontas) (2009) 
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) 
Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) 
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) 
In Real Life/Det Andet Liv (2014) 
Maniac (2012) 
Melancholia (2011) 
Mesrine: Killer Instinct + Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1/Mesrine: L'Instinct de Mort + Mesrine: L'ennemi public n°1 (2008) 
Northwest/Nordvest (2013) 
The Paperboy (2012)
Rango (2011) 
The Sitter (2011) 
Thirteen Days (2000) 
Tusk (2014)
We Shall Overcome/Drømmen (2006) 

Mediocre or poor big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order)

15 Minutes (2001) 
16 Blocks (2006) 
A Dangerous Method (2011) 
A Home at the End of the World (2004) 
Arthur (2011) 
Bandidas (2006) 
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) 
Deathwatch (2002) 
The Doom Generation (1995) 
Dreamcatcher (2003) 
Dreamgirls (2006) 
Dune (1984) 
The Frighteners (1996) 
Girl Most Likely/Imogene (2012) 
John Carter (2012) 
John Dies at the End (2012) 
The Mechanic (2011) 
Night of the Living Dead (1990) 
Promised Land (2012) 
Spider (2002) 

[63 titles in all]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

What do you think of the list?
What big flop movies would be on your top 10? 

The Doom Generation (1995) - Araki's violent, sometimes sexy, not that good 5th

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The in-your-face style poster for Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation

QUICK REVIEW:

A young couple drives out on an adventure and picks up a sexy stranger to go with them, who, however, soon gets them involved in several bloody murders.

You can't really blame adults in the mid 1990s for being slightly uneasy about the younger generation with films such as this. Great LA writer-director Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin (2004)), in this his 5th feature and second film in his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy (also consisting of Totally F***ed Up (1993) and Nowhere (1997), shows us a depraved and deeply unhealthy youth, utterly lacking any moral compass while navigating in a manufactured, mediated type reality.
Som sexy scenes and stars James Duval (Donnie Darko (2001)), Rose McGowan (Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)) and Johnathon Schaech (Broken Horses (2015)) light up in the general nihilist-apocalyptic mood of Doom Generation, a film that wants to be a lot more than it is.
SPOILER Unfortunately, it also ends in an unnecessarily vile scene of violence, in which Duval's genitals are mutilated. Yuck! Poor, sweet Duval...

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 0.8 mil. $
Box office: 284k $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty (but likely at least a big flop)
[The Doom Generation premiered January 26 (Sundance) and runs 83 minutes. It was shot in January 1994 in LA and was Araki's biggest movie to date. At its Sundance premiere, many critics reportedly walked out. Roger Ebert was among the harshest critics of it, giving it a zero star rating. In North America, it received small public reception, probably heavily influenced by its being released unrated, peaking in just 20 theaters. It was released in at least 16 countries besides the US, so without a world gross, it is impossible to ascertain its theatrical status, however, it was likely at least a big flop. McGowan was nominated for the Best Debut Performance at the Spirit Awards, losing to Justin Pierce from the great Kids. The Doom Generation is rotten at 47 % with a 4.8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Doom Generation?

Doubt (2008) - Shanley's masterful religious drama

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+ Best Drama of the Year + Best Religious Movie of the Year

The somber, elegant poster for John Patrick Shanley's Doubt

We are at a Catholic school in New York in the 1960s, where a sermon given by Father Flynn leads the nun principle to suspect him of disturbing irregularities that soon find corroboration from a younger nun. - But what is really the truth?

Doubt is an adaptation of master New-Yorker filmmaker John Patrick Shanley's (Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)) 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play Doubt: A Parable, which he has rewritten for the screen and directed himself.
Not for a second did I feel that the film is a theater adaptation. Shanley, production designer David Gropman (Burnt (2015)) and the again masterly yet simple photography by Roger Deakins (Sicario (2015)) along with an almost imperceptible score by Howard Shore (The Yards (2000)) lead us through Doubt in the most cinematic way possible. And yet, it is an actors' film if any is, with Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep (A Cry in the Dark (1988)), Oscar-nominated Philip Seymour Hoffman (Moneyball (2011)), Oscar-nominated Amy Adams (Pumpkin (2002)) and Oscar-nominated Viola Davis (Trust (2010)) all giving formidable performances, not to mention the many boy actors in it.
The story manages to juggle the double-sided risks of acting in a possible molestation case; the risk to wrongfully destroy a man's life - against the risk of neglecting to shield an adolescent. In a case with no 'smoking gun' such as this, Streep's character accepts to pass judgment based on signs that she interprets, heightening the film's title theme. But Doubt juggles many great themes SPOILER and end up breaking one's heart. It is full of secrets and truths at the same time and is, in short, a masterpiece.

Related posts:

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  

2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 50.9 mil. $
= Minor hit
[Doubt premiered October 30 (AFI Fest) and runs 103 minutes. The film was shot on location in the Bronx and Greenwich Village from December 2007 onward. It opened wide (in just 1,267 theaters) #10 to a 5.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 33.4 mil. $ (65.6 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 3.5 mil. $ (6.9 %) and Italy with 2.3 mil. $ (4.5 %). Of its 5 Oscar nominations the film won none, one of the major snubs of the year: Streep lost Best Actress to Kate Winslet for the great The Reader. Hoffman lost Best Supporting Actor to Heath Ledger, who won posthumously for the great The Dark Knight. Adams and Davis lost Best Supporting Actress to Penélope Cruz for the great Vicky Christina Barcelona. And Shanley lost Best Adapted Screenplay to Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. Doubt was nominated for the 5 same things at the Golden Globes, where it also went home empty-handed there. Doubt is certified fresh at 78 % with a 6.9 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Doubt?

Il Divo/Il Divo - La Spettacolare Vita di Giulio Andreotti (2008) - Sorrentino's complex, performance-like political biopic

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+ Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Toni Servillo

The red of the Italian flag runs out like blood on the poster for Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo

QUICK REVIEW:


Giulio Andreotti is a migraine-plagued top politician and seven-time prime minister of Italy, who in the 1990s gets accused of having ties to the mob.

Toni Servillo (The Consequences of Love/Le Conseguenze dell'Amore (2004)) is masked unrecognizably in Oscar-nominated makeup as the enigmatic and at times comical real-life figure Andreotti, the title 'Divo' [the divine], and is convincing in the part. Il Divo is the 4th theatrical feature of Neapolitan master filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013)), who wrote and directed it.
Sorrentino stages Servillo in a film, which feels more like a performance or perhaps rather a series of performances than a unified story. Il Divo refuses to serve us a conventional biopic narrative, and as a non-Italian, one will inevitably lose track of a lot of the story, also because Sorrentino, especially in the beginning, flings names and other information at us at machine gun pace. The challenging material can make Il Divo seem long, but its very lively camera, by cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (Youth (2015)), eclectic music, by Teho Teardo (The Right Thing/La Cosa Giusta (2009)) and many interesting faces make this difficult film highly inviting and worthwhile regardless.

Related posts:

Paolo Sorrentino: The day after ... The Oscars 2014
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza (2013) or, Jep Gambardelli's Rome
This Must Be the Place (2011) - Sorrentino's Nazi-hunting stoner cracker

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
The Caiman/Il Caimano (2006) - Moretti's unfunny political comedy - strictly for Italians (actor)   

Watch the US trailer for the film with English subtitles here

Cost: 6.7 mil. $
Box office: 11.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[Il Divo was released May 23 (Cannes) and runs 110 minutes. The initial cut of the film was 145 minutes long. The real Andreotti walked out of a screening of the film, saying that it was "too much" and added that in the end he would be judged on his record. The film opened #61 in 2 theaters to a 13k $ opening weekend and peaked in 8 theaters in North America, where it grossed a paltry 0.2 mil. $ (1.8 % of the total gross). Its 3 biggest markets were its native Italy with 8.5 mil. $ (75.9 %), France with 0.9 mil. $ (8%) and the UK with 0.5 mil. $ (4.5 %). Il Divo won the Jury Prize in Cannes and was Oscar-nominated for Best Makeup, which it lost to Star Trek. It was also nominated for 4 European Film Awards and 16 David di Donatello Awards (Italy's Oscar), of which it won 7. Il Divo is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.5 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Il Divo?