Edge of Darkness and Precious

Over the last week, I saw two films - Edge of Darkness and Precious. Precious is generally listed as 'Precious - Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire', but I'm not going to type that out every time so let's just pretend I did.

For the sake of comparison, Edge of Darkness had a budget of $87,000,000, and has made $21,029,253 at the box office since opening. Now, I only just got up, so correct me if I'm wrong, but that pretty much means it didn't open. Precious, on the other hand, had a budget of $10,000,000 and has since grossed $46,896,564 in revenue. According to IMDB, it holds the record for averaging $100,000 per screen in fewer than 50 US cinemas.

Edge of Darkness, which stars Mel Gibson, opened in US and UK cinemas on the 29th of January. Precious, which had no advertising budget and starred the unknown Gabourey Sidibe in the titular role, premièred at Sundance and Cannes in 2009, after which Oprah Winfrey's production company began to promote it. It's currently on limited release in cinemas throughout the UK.

I saw Edge of Darkness because...well, it was a Sunday afternoon in Southampton, and at the time we got there, it was that or Astroboy. I had pretty much no idea of what it would be about, and, to be honest, didn't really care.

For those who do care, it's about a policeman whose daughter is killed. His coworkers assume that he must have been the target. He starts searching for whosoever might have wanted to murder him. Trailer below.



I saw Precious because I was in the mood for a film. I checked out what was on at Birmingham Broad Street, read a few descriptions, and remembered that we'd seen the trailer for Precious before Edge of Darkness. I also remembered that I thought it seemed interesting, so I decided to go see it.

Precious is the story of an obese sixteen-year-old, pregnant by her father for the second time, and living with her abusive, manipulative mother. Again, trailer below.



The two are very different films. Edge of Darkness is an action film, based on an old British TV series. Precious is more of a drama film, and was based on a novel. You can see the difference in the production budgets, too. Edge of Darkness is very slick, very well put together, while certain scenes in Precious seem to have been filmed on a handheld.

The important difference, however, is in how much one cared about the characters. You know the way you flinch when something horrible happens to a character in a film? You clutch your throat if theirs is slit, or you place a hand on yourself wherever the bullet hit them. That happens because you're empathizing with and caring about the character - people don't usually get that reaction from watching a plate of meat being sliced. So, it probably says quite a lot that I giggled at most of the violence in Edge of Darkness. It's not that it looked bad - it was, I suppose, technically rather gory and well-orchestrated. I just really couldn't bring myself to care.

Several of the actors have wandering accents in this film, too. Plus, the relationship between Gibson's character (*googles*) Thomas Craven and his daughter (I'm not even going to bother to look up her name, actress or character) looked creepy and incestuous. To be quite fair, so did the one in Precious, but, on the other hand, that one was supposed to be creepy and incestuous. I think here, they may have been going for caring. It didn't work. It was creepy and incestuous. I got hysterics at the bit where he was holding his daughter's body and breathing heavily. Creepy and incestuous.

While watching Precious, on the other hand, I flinched at every tiny blow. I wanted to take all the characters home with me, and take care of them. Or beg someone to impregnate me, so I could have my own child, to raise in a loving and safe environment, and never ever expose them to anything so horrible. And that's not like me at all.

Although Precious did have some famous actresses in it, that didn't distract me at all - unlike in Up in the Air, Sherlock Holmes and 17 Again, which got very odd at some points - Chandler Bing turns into Zac Efron and tries to seduce the Hooters doctor from Big Daddy while fending off Dawn from Buffy?

Anyway, yes. With Precious, I actually cared about the characters, instead of just coming up with triva about the actors. I didn't even recognise Mariah Carey, in her role. I had to double check it was the same Mariah Carey, then find a youtube clip of her scenes to compare with her pictures.

One criticism levelled at the original book was that it seemed unrealistic for one character to face so much hardship. I haven't read it, but although Precious' life does seem to keep hitting her with the trauma stick, I didn't find it unrealistic at all. Probably because it all kind of went together - if her mother hadn't also been abusive, her father's abuse wouldn't have gone on for so long, and so on. It's not like a series of unrelated unfortunate events.

In short; Precious made me cry. Edge of Darkness made me laugh. To be quite fair, I'm not a huge fan of action films, so maybe someone who is wouldn't find it quite so hilarious. However, I'm not the only one who prefers Precious - the average ratings on review sites such as Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and even IMDB is around 7-8 out of 10 for Precious and 5 out of 10 for Edge of Darkness.

Edge of Darkness has yet to be nominated for or to win any awards. Precious, on the other hand, has been nomated for six Academy Awards, four BAFTAs, ten Black Reels, five Critics Choice Awards, two Chicago Film Critics Awards, one Costume Designers Guild Awards, one Directors Guild of America Award, one GLAAD Media Award, two Golden Globes, one Golden Trailer, ten Image Awards, five Independent Spirit Awards, one ALFS, two Online Film Critic Society Awards, one PGA, three Satellite Awards, two Screen Actor's Guild Awards, one Bronze Horse from the Stockholm Film Festival, five WAFCA award, and one WGA. That makes sixty-four.

Precious has also won two BSFC Awards, one Critics Choice Award, one Capri Award, one CFCA Award, one Chicago International Film Festival Award, two from the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, one from the Deauville Film Festival, two from the Florida Film Critics Circle, one Golden Globe, one from the Hawaii International Film Festival, one from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, one from the Las Vegas Film Critics Association, one NBR Award, one NSFC Award, one PGA Award, one from the Palm Springs International Film Festival, two from the Phoenix Film Critic Society, one from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, two from the San Sebastián International Film Festival, one from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, two Satellite Awards, two Special Achievement Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one SEFCA Award, one from the St Louis Film Festival, two from the Stockholm Film Festival, three from the Sundance Film Festival, one from the Toronto International Film Festival, and two WAFCA Awards. That makes forty.

Have a look here if you don't believe me.

Again, to be completely fair, remember that Precious was actually released in 2009, so Edge of Darkness still has a chance in the 2010 awards.

Also remember that those awards won't make you personally more or less likely to enjoy either film. I just really like it when the world shares my opinion.

Up in the Air and the Chipettes

Jason Reitman directed Juno, and if you didn't know that before you saw Up in the Air, you'd have a sneaky suspicion after the second or third familiar face.

I'm exaggerating a bit. On second thoughts, I can only remember two actors who were in both Juno and Up in the Air. However, those two are Jason Bateman, who played Mark Loring, and J. K. Simmons who played Juno's father, which made it that much more jarring when they popped up here (as Clooney's character's boss and a random extra named Bob, respectively).

You'll notice that I said 'Clooney's character' and not (googles) Ryan Bingham, and that's the other problem with casting famous actors.

Well, technically it's the same problem. It's that much harder to fully enter a state of suspended disbelief.

Anyway, moving on to the actual film. Honestly, I expected it to be far more of a romantic comedy kind of thing. This was before I knew who directed it, incidentally - it's generally not something I look up beforehand. That's why I'm recording director's names on my stats page, so I can see if there are any accidental patterns.

So, yes. It looks like it should be a romantic comedy, but that's not entirely the case.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney, who looks much younger clean-shaven) is in the job of firing people. Other companies hire him and his coworkers to do their dirty work for them. Honestly, I find that that automatically makes the film more interesting. It's a little harder to find a character in that line of work sympathetic, although Clooney does quite a good job of remaining likeable. Reitman's on record as saying that Clooney's charm is the reason he was cast, as the film wouldn't have worked otherwise. I'm inclined to agree.



Ryan Bingham has no ties, and he speaks at seminars teaching other people how to cut loose from their own. His goal in life is to reach ten million frequent flier miles, so it certainly helps that his job requires him to fly all over the country. But then, a young ambitious coworker (played by Anna Kendrick, who also looks rather familiar, although a glance at her imdb page doesn't pinpoint why) comes up with a way to completely revise how his job works, and he's threatened with being grounded. Arguing that she doesn't fully understand the job, his boss tells him to teach her, and Bingham is forced to take her along.

...yes, the film does delve into "your way of life is wrong and lonely, let's teach you about family". Bingham is happily childfree and relationship-free (incidentally, Clooney is childfree too, so there's another bonus to the entirely purposeful casting), but, despite being happy, he's obviously wrong to feel this way. Don't you know that the only way to be happy is to surround yourself with people you care about and support? No? You obviously haven't seen enough films.

There's nothing really bad about this viewpoint, I guess - I just hate the way it's forced down everyone's throat, constantly, as being the only right way to live.

Incidentally, the film never really does answer the question of "what's the point?". Unless you want to count "because everything's better with someone else there", that is.

I do like the non-traditional way the Ryan and Alex's relationship unfolds. Not at the beginning, Scrooge McDuck and Goldie did the whole "too alike" thing years ago, and much better at that. No, the ending. It was unexpected, it was new (as much as anything can be), and it was interesting. To be honest, I spent the last half an hour or so of the film (I don't know exactly how long, I lost track of time) praying that it wouldn't be traditional, that it would be something new, that Ryan wouldn't end up renouncing his entire personality with a "one year on" clip of him and a pregnant wife. I may have seen too many romantic comedies, because I was sure that was how it was all going to go down. But, I was wrong. Yay!

That said, many other aspects of the ending - such as Natalie's arc - were very traditional and predictable. But I didn't mind, since they'd managed to surprise me a little with the ending, and not sell out the character quite as far as I'd feared.



I saw Alvin and the Chipmunks - the Squeakquel too, the other day. Really, it's not worth its own post, so I'm shoving it in here.

Now, I liked the first movie. I saw it when it came out, it was fun, it was entertaining, I spent weeks youtubing up Witch Doctor.

This one, however...well, the songs weren't as good for a start. It requires an even bigger suspension of disbelief, since everybody now seems not to bat an eyelid at the existence of not one, but two sets of singing chipmunk siblings. And it seems to be all set-up and no plot. In short, despite the length, it doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like the pilot episode of a new TV series.

A bit 'meh', really. Although I am very disturbed by the blatant sexualisation of small furry animals. I'm sure that's illegal.

Role Models

The other day, I was discussing, via text message, the possibility of my going to see Role Models with a close friend of mine. He'd seen it, and described it as "LOLtastic". I replied "...oh dear", but sent him another message as I left the cinema.

"You were right."

Seann William Scott has announced his fear of typecasting in interviews. I'm afraid of him becoming typecast, too. Although he does play the Stifler kind of role really well, I've also seen him carry off different roles - Southland Tales is the one that comes to mind, although I suppose his characters in Evolution and Dude, Where's My Car? were slightly different too.

Still, Scott is a great comedic actor, and he was good in Role Models. I'm less familiar with Paul Rudd, although he and Scott worked very well together, contrasting when needed and working nicely as a double act at other times.

Another actor who should probably start to worry about typecasting is Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who plays Augie in Role Models, and is probably more familiar as Superbad's McLovin. So far, he's always played the geek, and it does suit him. But, I'd like to see him try sexy, or cool, or just not completely gauche. That would be interesting.

Role Models is literally laugh-out-loud hilarious. I especially love the dramatic conclusion (and the make-up). I think I've actually been coverted to a KISS fan by proxy.

The film's a little like Drillbit Taylor or Superbad, only not quite as cliched as either of those.

The film's rated an R in the US and a 15 in the UK, in both cases, for sex and language (the UK has slightly different attitudes towards both).

Burn After Reading

They're all mad.

Seriously. Many of the characters in this film are insane (apart from the straight men who stand around looking bemused).

When CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is fired, he believes it is political. He storms out after being told he has a drinking problem - and then there's a predictable cut to him pouring a glass of something alcoholic for himself.

Cox decides to write his memoirs, despite his wife asking why anyone would possibly be interested in those. However, when a disc containing those memoirs and some financial information is lost, some people turn out to be very interested.

Unfortunately, these people are also insane.




Believing themselves to be in possession of top secret CIA info, gym employees Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand) attempt to blackmail Cox. When he refuses to play ball, they attempt to sell the information to the Russians (yes, the Russians). Meanwhile, having checked that Cox has relatively limited access to anything interesting, the CIA looks on in bemusement, as the characters convince themselves of their own importance.

Every single character appears to believe they are in a film (I said the characters, not the actors). Well, that's an exageration. Lots of characters seem to believe they are starring in spy or gangster movies, with a variety of government agencies interested in their activities. This is, in fact, false - they are nowhere near as important as they think they are. Although they are all sleeping with one another.

The film is hilarious, in a dark way. Many of the roles were written specifically for the actors who played them, which is probably why they fit so well. The film is unpredictably comic, and not nearly so violent as one might expect for the R rating (although the sensitive may wish to close their eyes during the axe scene). Clooney is so incredibly tanned that, for much of the movie, I didn't recognise him, assuming he was some Asian actor (and by 'Asian', I mean south-east - India or Pakistan, probably). I've never been a huge fan of Clooney or tans, but I'm sure some people will swoon over that. His character gave me some good ideas about running, so kudos for that.

Bartelmy