Cool News
Capone's Art-House Round-Up with ME AND ORSON WELLES and end-of-civilization doc COLLAPSE!!!
Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week or at least expanding to more theaters (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Enjoy…
ME AND ORSON WELLES
Sometimes you just watch a movie and wonder why no one has ever made a movie like it before. The subject of director Richard Linklater's latest gem is the move that the newly birthed Mercury Theater (led by rising radio star Orson Welles) made to bring Shakespeare--specifically "Julius Caesar"--to Broadway in 1937. The story is told through the eyes of 17-year-old would-be actor Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), who gutsily approaches the Mercury players while they are congregated outside the theater waiting for their marquee to get turned on. Welles (played with uncanny accuracy by British actor Christian McKay) is impressed with the young man's hubris and hires him to play the small role of Lucius opposite Welles' Brutus.
ME AND ORSON WELLES feels like it's not only attempting to capture the period it's set in, but it's also trying to capture the feel of films made in the time period. The rapid-fire dialogue, the classic elements of a backstage drama, and the slightly overplayed performances all perfectly blend into an energetic production whose pure entertainment value cannot be denied, if for no other reason that McKay's performance as Welles is terrifyingly on the money. I forgot in about two minutes that I was watching a movie with someone in it playing Welles; McKay simply becomes Welles, as both a boisterous dictator of a director and a philandering, sensitive soul with an endless arsenal of exactly the right words to get out of or into any situation. He's also an indisputable genius when it comes to directing, especially when it comes to Shakespeare, which (much like his film versions) he boils down to their absolute emotional essentials. The Mercury's 1937 production of "Julius Caesar" had the Romans in modern-day fascist wear and featured terrible examples of mob rule and political assassination. And Welles knew exactly how to make the play seem ultra-modern as well as timeless.
Even if the rest of the film was terrible, it would still be worth seeing for McKay's work. But fortunately, the rest of ME AND ORSON WELLES is quite good. Transitioning teen idol Efron brings the right balance of enthusiasm and innocence to Richard, who falls in love with office manager Sonja (Claire Danes), who seems like a great catch until we slowly realize she's a slave to her ambition to turn this thankless job into something more prominent. Sonja might be the most complex character in the film, and Danes holds back just enough in her portrayal to keep us wondering what Sonja will do next and with whom. Also doing fine work is Ben Chaplin as actor George Coulouris (Welles' Mark Antony), one of the few professionally trained actors in the production, and one of the most anxious. Zoe Kazan, who had such a great supporting part in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, plays Gretta, a young woman Efron meets in a record store, and keeps running into at just the right moments in his life and hers. Eddie Marsan plays John Houseman, who runs the day-to-day operations of the theater and ends up doing most of the apologizing on Welles' behalf. I was charmed by James Tupper's role as actor Joseph Cotten (Publius), who befriends Richard as much to guide him through the minefield that is Welles' personality as anything.
Sure the love story between Richard and Sonja is cute and interesting, but really all I cared about is watching Welles pull his show together in an impossible timeframe. He rips apart scenes that don't work, he cuts superfluous words with hardly a second thought, and he fires or threatens to fire actors who disagree with him. As he puts it, "It's my store." One begins to believe Welles thought that about the entire world--or at least those who were brave/foolish enough to step in his line of sight while he's working. ME AND ORSON WELLES is a coming-of-age story about both Richard and about the Mercury Theater players, who went own to help Welles make CITIZEN KANE four years later. Welles was a man of mischief--as can be seen by a sequence in which he does a guest spot on a radio play and ends up improvising dialogue from the novel The Magnificent Ambersons, which Welles went on to direct a film version of after KANE--and he was a man who knew how to instill strength and confidence in others even if he had to use deceit to make that happen. This is the kind of film that is easy to get lost watching. From the sharp script by Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. (from the Robert Kaplow novel) to the rich directing by Linklater and the performances that never stop giving, ME AND ORSON WELLES is a great combination of fiction and history that is difficult to forget and so easy to love.
COLLAPSE
Critics are practically tripping over themselves trying to tell you just how scary this documentary of a man sitting in a chair, talking and smoking, really is. And the most bizarre thing about the subject of COLLAPSE, one Mr. Michael Ruppert, is that he's either one of the few human beings on the planet who has connected all the dots of the latter part of the 20th century and the first few years of the new one, or he's an alarmist conspiracy theorist, or perhaps he's both. The particular reason that his analysis of the world and America is so scary is that he's predicted several events accurately both in terms of what happened and how severely. For example, he predicted our current economic crisis, and the invasion of Iraq (his reasoning for both is sound and made me very anxious, as in, full of anxiety), and he has forecast some even scarier shit having to do with the end of the oil supply, population growth, and the eventual end of civilization as we know it. Now read that last part very carefully. Ruppert isn't saying we're all going to die; he's saying that literally civilization is going to evolve when oil runs out or become unaffordable. If this happens, how could it not? So all of those critics I mentioned earlier, the ones trying to tell you that what Ruppert has to say is like walking through an intellectual house of horrors? They were right.
Chris Smith (AMERICAN MOVIE, THE YES MEN) is one of my favorite documentary filimmakers, and he's basically entering into territory that Errol Morris typically tackles. Even the style of COLLAPSE is similar, with a haunting, almost-constant dark musical underscore and simply having Ruppert address the camera, while stock news footage is interspersed to illustrate his points. The cumulative effect is undeniable and nerve-wracking. While even one of Ruppert's ideas can give you reason to bite your nails, listening to him go from one paranoid outlook to another is almost more than our brains can process, and I suppose that's the point.
Ruppert dares us to question his deductions or results to date, but as we get deeper into his history (he was an LA cop who uncovered a CIA plot to sell drugs in American ghettos), we realize the amid all the gloom and doom, Ruppert also has an unflinching belief that Americans have the capacity to change the direction the country is going. But as he systematically goes through every conceivable kind of alternative energy source and essentially says that it takes more energy to produce them, thus making them useless, I almost find his optimism as difficult to believe as some of his predictions.
So here's the thing, if even 25 percent of what he's saying in COLLAPSE turns out to be accurate, we're in for a heap of bad times in the very near future. Ruppert makes it clear that he is not a conspiracy theorist, because his conspiracies are based on fact, and frankly it's tough to disprove a lot of what he's saying. His words could be elaborate scare tactics or they could be the blueprints for the biggest preventable holocaust the world has ever seen (his words). Either way, in an age where we get small handfuls of scary docs every year, COLLAPSE might be the one that keeps you in bed under the covers for weeks. In addition to the film slowly opening around the country, it is also currently available on Time Warner and Comcast cable Movies On Demand channels.
-- Capone
therealcapone@aintitcoolmail.com
Follow Me On Twitter
-
+ Expand All
-
test
-
he's not talking about zionist conspiracies or lizard people, but once you dive headfirst into paranoid personality disorder, you don't often come out the other side. their are people whose end goal is the truth, pure and unadulterated. they're called investigative journalists. real ones. then there are the pure charlatans who don't believe a goddamn word of their nonsense, they just want to sell books to doofuses who want to believe bigfoot is real. then there are the pure and simple megalomaniacs like Alex Jones who are delusional and may THINK they're interested in facts, but they're really just trying to twist reality into their preconceived notions.Ruppert is a bit of an anamoly, I think he's a bit of all three of those archetypes. but unfortunately, as I said, PPD is not a joke. it's all consuming. he's gonna end up painting the walls with his shit someday. or maybe we'll run out of oil before then, yeah?
-
Dec 11, 2009 1:48:38 AM CST
FUCK!THIS!!SHIT!!! IS THAT HOMO EFRON'S ARM CANDY NAKED IN THIS?
by tehcreepythinman
-
Dec 11, 2009 1:48:39 AM CST
FUCK!THIS!!SHIT!!! IS THAT HOMO EFRON'S ARM CANDY NAKED IN THIS?
by tehcreepythinman
-
Dec 11, 2009 1:53:14 AM CST
FUCK!THIS!!SHIT!!! IS THAT HOMO EFRON'S ARM CANDY NAKED IN THIS?
by tehcreepythinman
You know, Vanessa Hudgens, his "girlfriend" who's really the cover he uses for his flaming homosexuality. There's no other reason why a hot little piece of ass like Hudgens spends soo much time taking nude photos of herself. She obviously has too much time on her hand due to the lack of hard throbbing cock that she thirsts for and that this limp wristed pansy denies her because of his insatiable thirst for the cock.
-
Dec 11, 2009 2:09:06 AM CST
"The rapid-fire dialogue" - this description just made me pass
by professor_monster
i remember when Tarentino first hit the scene and he included this description for the opening diner scene in Pulp Fiction - then every hack screenplay after started stated in their script that the dialogue should be delivered in a "his girl friday" manner. By you using this while exhaling the name of Orson Welles in the same breath has shown me that your review cannot be trusted. There is no way this is good - NO WAY. No movie about a genius ever captures who or what they really were - it's simply an actor wearing the clothes and doing his best pinky and the brain voice to get back stepping in the footsteps of a man who was a true maverick. A man who tried like hell to change everything in the broken system or Hollywood so the creators got a little more money from the accountants - but he failed, like all the great men who tried before and after him. Is the scene in there where Welles goes to a pitch meeting and on the way there he purchased a star of david necklace to wear into the office - it worked, he got the money to make his little movie because if it. i want to see those stories on screen!! How about when he sold Speilberg a fake Rosebud sled to get s little money to work on the Magician - i love that stuff. I so wish he was he still here to see how the dream is dead and only commercials are shown in theaters now.
-
I had no idea that you met and personally pshychoanalyzed Mr. Ruppert. Where ever did you find the time? Obviously you've been busy researching his ideas to be able to dismiss them as crazy, right? On the other hand, you could be just like all the other sheeple out there who ignore unpleasant ideas because they don't fit with your narrow world view. Yeah, I think that is more likely.
-
Read "Peak Everything" for example. These men are the Jor-El's of our society. Ignore them at your peril.
-
Check out Tim Robbins Cradle Will Rock for a film very much like, also about Welles and the Mercury. I spoke with Christian here in New York and he told me that Welles had been portrayed 41 times in movies. His was much closer than Donofrio's sullen cartoon.
-
I've studied every prominent figure in the culture of conspiracy theory, trust me. I lost a family member to the void of paranoid personality disorder, and I tried in vain to understand the allure, but mostly I just felt sorry for most of these people. not so, the authors capitalizing on their fear and delusion.using terms like "sheeple" and thinking that anyone who doesn't believe every unsubstantiated, wild claim must be ignorant, subservient or docile, is a hallmark of PPD.tell me, where do you come down on 9/11, Illuminati, etc. how about the lizard alien overlords? or better yet, just tell me how "Zionist" would most normally fit in a sentence coming out of your mouth...
-
...there was collusion between radical factions both within the Bush administration and foreign radicals. Here's your litmus test: either A) radical fanaticals managed to stage and synchronize multiple hijackings and successfully crash most of them into high profile targets during the exact time frame on the exact same day as US training exercises were being conducted that included... wait for it... the hijacking of US airliners and their subsequent usage as weapons (you'll of course remember that Cheney himself gave the "stand down" order to scramble actual fighters to intercept the hijacked planes) or B) Bin Laden was able to plan AND execute his terror attack with pitch perfect precision during the exact time frame on the exact same day as US training exercises were being conducted that included... wait for it... the hijacking of US airliners and their subsequent usage as weapons.
*smirk* -
...is amazingly terrifing. I'm not sure how much of it will actually come true but everything he says is very much based on sheer facts. His very intelligent and seems to be very positive that we can change the course if we choose to do so. I love it! A great film that everyone and I do mean everyone should see.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3nzGdaDdg0
-
as for the plane thing John Denver was unconscious in a plain with fogged up windows before he crashed, because the fighter pilot was right outside his window only minutes after he strayed out of appropriate air space.
Mike Ruppert has many points about facts that cannot be dis proven or proven for that matter because the interest of a powerful few is at stake. -
Oil is finite and its a fossil, meaning is derived from life along time ago over a large period of time and once it runs out it runs out. its in everything we use and is the life blood of modern civilization.
Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5539613947839465921#
awesome time lapse movie of industrial civilization and has the recognizable soundtrack from "The Watchmen" by Phillip Glass presented by Francis Ford Coppola -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5539613947839465921#
-
Not everyone fits in easily defined roles as you would have it. For the record, I don't believe the Illuminati exists. I don't think there is some "global conspiracy" to take over the world (alien lizards or otherwise). On the other hand, only a fool would say that 9/11 was as clear cut as the government would have us believe, though I have no solid opinion on what really happened since I wasn't there. I could site sources, but since you've already labeled me a wacko, I won't bother. My point is to keep an open mind and explore ALL points-of-view to see what makes sense. I don't accept an idea just because it's on the internet, but neither do I accept an idea just because it's what the media or government tell me. Sheeple do just that, and unfortunately, there are too many these days.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 209 total posts 207 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 160 total posts 97 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 144 total posts 77 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 68 total posts 68 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 64 total posts 60 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 480 total posts 55 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 53 total posts 50 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 118 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 182 total posts 27 posts