Nocturnal Animals (2016) - T. Ford achieves greatness with plot-driven, stylish crime drama

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+ Best Crime Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Most Stylish Movie of the Year

 

Amy Adams and the shadowy contours of Jake Gyllenhaal fill out this stylish poster for Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals

Susan is a successful gallery owner in LA but also an insomniac with a cheating husband. She receives in the mail the manuscript for a coming novel sent to her by her ex-husband Tony, dedicated to her. The violent story it contains brings back the facts of their break-up and sheds new light on Susan's life.

Nocturnal Animals is the second film from fashion designer turned great filmmaker, Texan writer-director Tom Ford (A Single Man (2009)). It is an adaptation of Austin Wright's (First Persons: A Novel (1973)) novel Tony and Susan (1993).
The film opens powerfully with a memorable credit sequence that successfully establishes the alienated situation that our protagonist Susan finds herself in in her life. Amy Adams (Julie & Julia (2009)) is fascinating and full of internal life and mystery in the role, her second great work in 2016, a real Amy Adams year, following Denis Villeneuve's masterpiece Arrival. Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko (2001)) adds another superb performance to his accomplishments, playing both Tony and the fictional male lead of his book, who both struggle with the accusation of being weak. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla (2014)) is diabolic and sexy here in a psychopath part that's already earned him a Golden Globe. - Michael Shannon (Man of Steel (2013)) is at least as brilliant as a loner lawman who longs for the taste of justice. The spectacular cast includes, in smaller roles, Michael Sheen (Passengers (2016)), Karl Glusman (Love (2015)), Laura Linney (The Mothman Prophecies (2002)), Armie Hammer (J. Edgar (2011)) and Isla Fisher (Bachelorette (2012)).
Nocturnal Animals is a plot movie, dissimilar from the more mood-driven A Single Man which it beats. Besides the sophisticated story, the film is stylish, laced with sly humor and with an appealing but restrained appetite for melodrama and glamour, running on the fiction inside it, an unpleasant crime story. But Nocturnal Animals never gets too graphic in its unpleasantness and is in fact also a fairly quiet film, literally, with rare periods of scored beauty by Abel Korzeniowski (A Single Man). It is a thrilling film, an adult drama about the prize of bowing out from love, which makes me hope that it won't be another 7 years before Ford releases another film.

Related posts:

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 22.5 mil. $

Box office: 28.4 mil. $ and counting 

= Too early to say, but looks like it will end up a big flop

[Nocturnal Animals premiered September 2 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Focus Features bought the North American distribution rights around 6 months before shooting started for a massive 20 mil. $. Filming took place in California from October - December 2015. The film opened limited in 37 theaters to a 492k $ first weekend at #18 and widened to #8 and 3.1 mil. $ in some 1200 theaters in North America, where it has grossed 10.6 mil. $, - which must be far below Focus Features' initial hopes for the release. The film won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice and is nominated for 9 BAFTAs. It won one Golden Globe out of three nominations. Nocturnal Animals is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Nocturnal Animals?

Capote (2005) - The writing of one of the 20th century's finest non-fiction crime novels comes to life

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+ Best Biopic of the Year

Gorgeously colored poster for Bennett Miller's Capote

QUICK REVIEW:

In Capote, we follow the New York socialite author Truman Capote's (Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958)) journey to the middle of nowhere, Kansas, and his 4 year long involvement with a quadruple murder case and especially one of the imprisoned murderers, Perry Smith.
Capote is a masterly told crime biopic drama about a very exciting period of a very unusual, American writer's life. Philip Seymour Hoffman (A Most Wanted Man (2014)), - winning his only Oscar for the part, - is perfect in the title lead and gets solid support, especially from Clifton Collins Jr. (Pacific Rim (2013)) as Perry, but also from Oscar-nominated Catherine Keener (Begin Again (2013)) and Chris Cooper (American Beauty (1999)).
Only the somewhat unrefined alternation between cold images and preemptive pathos in the film's beginning seemed less auspicious to me. But a very strong film nonetheless, directed by Bennett Miller (Moneyball (2011)), whose coming film Foxcatcher (2014) is attracting quite a lot of buzz.

 

Related post:

 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 49.2 mil. $
= Huge hit
['Sleeper' hit with a long American run (October 2005-April 2006), fueled by outstanding reviews and Oscar-attention; good reception overseas as well, (US box office only accounts for 28.7 mil. $ of the total gross.)]

What do you think of Capote?
Other films of condemned men that you can recommend?

Adaptation (2002) or, Charlie Kaufman's Fictional Life

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+ Best Adaptation of the Year + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year

Nicholas Cage's head is turned into a broken pot for an orchid flower on this wonderful poster for Spike Jonze's Adaptation

This movie will especially appeal to writers and/or filmmakers, but it will most likely also delight any all all open, intelligent, creative minds.  

Famed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman finds it very difficult if not impossible to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief for the big screen, which he has been hired to do. He spars with his conversely extroverted twin brother Donald Kaufman for advice and finally decides that he has to visit Orlean. 

Adaptation is unusual and a meta-film because it is in fact written by Charlie Kaufman (Anomalisa (2015)), who wrote the film like this precisely because he found the task of adapting Susan Orlean's (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend (2011)) 1998 non-fiction novel The Orchid Thief impossible. So the story is partly autobiographical. It is also an inventive work of fiction; among other things the twin brother character Donald is a creation for the film, just as the dramatic developments involving Orlean and the orchid thief are fantasy.
Of course Adaptation is in a way a very narcissistic story, but it is written with such rare wit and writer's insight, and acted so marvelously, - with stellar performances from Nicolas Cage (8mm (1999)), Meryl Streep (Mamma Mia! (2008)) and an Oscar-winning Chris Cooper (Miami Vice (1988), TV-series) among others, - that it achieves true greatness. Marylander master filmmaker Spike Jonze's (Being John Malkovich (1999)) direction of the film, which is only his second, is creative and refreshing, and the 'evolution of life' sequence (by Digital Domain) in the beginning is something that most people who've seen Adaptation also remember from it.
Adaptation is concept-oriented, post-modernist, interested in existentialism and very funny. Brian Cox's (L.I.E. (2001)) part as real-life script guru Robert McKee is especially humorous. Adaptation is the epitome of a must-see.

Related posts:

Spike Jonze: The day after ... The Oscars 2014 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
Being John Malkovich (1999) - Jonze, Kaufman and Malkovich's great triumph (also with Kaufman on script)

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 19 mil. $
Box office: 32.8 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.72 times its cost)
[Adaptation premiered 3 December (Los Angeles, California) and runs 114 minutes. Adapting the story was an idea already in 1994, when the story Orlean's book is based on played out. Fox 2000 bought the film rights in 1997, before the book was published. Kaufman showed Jonze the script around the time of Being John Malkovich's release, 1999. Cage was paid 5 mil. $ for his performance, and Streep was very interested in playing Orleans, accepting a pay cut to make it happen. McKee suggested Cox to portray himself. Filming took place in California, including Los Angeles, from March - June 2001. The film opened #22 to a 384k $ first weekend in 7 theaters (a solid 54k $ average) in North America, where it peaked at #12 and in 672 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 22.4 mil. $ (68.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 1.1 mil. $ (3.4 %) and the UK with 0.9 mil. $ (2.7 %). The film was nominated for 4 Oscars: winning for Best Supporting Actor (Cooper); Best Actor (Cage) was lost to Adrien Brody for The Pianist; Supporting Actress (Streep) was lost to Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago, and Adapted Screenplay was lost to Ronald Harwood for The Pianist. The film also won 2/6 Golden Globe nominations, 1/4 BAFTAs noms, won AFI's Movie of the Year award, the Berlin International Film Festival's silver prize, 3 National Board of Review awards and scores of other awards and honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Jonze returned with 18 video, TV and short projects, before he returned to cinemas with family masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are (2009). Cage returned in Matchstick Men (2003); Streep in The Hours (2002); and Cooper in My House in Umbria (2003, TV movie) and theatrically in Seabiscuit (2003). Adaptation is certified fresh at 91 % with a 8.18/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] 

What do you think of Adaptation?

2046 (2004) - Kar-Wai's visually resplendent, empty hull of a movie

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A kitschy, sensual, mysterious poster for Wong Kar-Wai's 2046

2046 is a sequel to Days of Being Wild/Ah Fei Zing Zyun (1991) and the wonderful In the Mood for Love/Faa Yeung Nin Wa (2000), by great returning Chinese writer/director Wong Kar-Wai (My Blueberry Nights (2007)). The plot of the film is very hard to relate, because it is thin as ice at best:
 
2046 is about the man from the former film (played by Tony Leung (Tokyo Raiders/Dong Jing Gong Lüe (2000))), who in late 1960s Hong Kong has a lot of ladies and struggles with the writing of a science fiction novel.

For large parts of the film, it seems that the idea of whispering one's secrets into a hole in a tree is the only major idea of this film, (and that really comes from its predecessor.) The many women surrounding our protagonist are unengaging, and the film as such is uninteresting, which is a subjective verdict but will still hold true for most people who see it. A completely mindless android subplot doesn't levitate 2046. It is pretentious rubbish, but aesthetically very playful and highly gifted in the strictly visual regard, which is what is still enjoyable about it.


Related posts:

Wong Kar-Wai: My Blueberry Nights (2007) - A slice too cute

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Chungking Express/重慶森林 (1994) - Kar-Wai's urban love drama is a visual treat  

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 19.4 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.61 times the cost)
[2046 premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 129 minutes. It took 4 years to complete. Shooting took place in Thailand and China, including Shanghai and Macau. The title has several meanings in the film. It was screened in a rushed and unfinished version in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It opened #36 (in just 4 theaters) to a 113k $ opening weekend in North America, its 3rd biggest market, where it grossed 1.4 mil. $ (7.2 % of the total gross), topping at #34 and in 61 theaters (different weeks). Its biggest and 2nd biggest markets were Japan with 6.8 mil. $ (35.1 %) and France with 2.6 mil. $ (13.4 %). It was released in Hong Kong, (where it made 0.7 mil. $/3.6 %), but not in China. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2½/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. The film was nominated for a David di Donatello award, won a European Film award, a National Board of Review award and many other honors. Kar-Wai returned with Eros (2004, segment), Capture Total (2005, short) and with a feature with My Blueberry Nights (2007). Leung returned in Seoul Raiders (2005). 2046 is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.4/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 2046?