2011 Film: #28 and #27

#28 A Dangerous Method

This is one of those films that proves why I am not quite in "real film critic" territory--one critic in the Twin Cities had it as his #1 of the year. It's a movie I respect the hell out of, absolutely, but it did not do as much as I had hoped for me considering its unquestionable pedigree. Director David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises, the cult favorite Crash) has a flair for the dark and psychological, so the pairing feels wine and cheese-like in how obvious it is. The film follows pyschoanalyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender, ubiquitous in 2011) in the very beginning stages of his work, observing and working on a "talking cure" for Sabrina (Keira Knightley) and forming a relationship with eventual mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen in his third team-up with Cronenberg). Sabrina is prone to strange, almost possessed attacks of bad memories, and Knightley--who should have gotten an Oscar nod for this one--physically nails it, shuddering, spittling, and sticking out her lower mandible like an upset orangutan. Sabrina and Jung's relationship becomes dangerously complex in the process, and as a result, Jung seeks the help of Freud in one of the film's many effective voiceover during letter-writing sections. Mortensen is highly entertaining as a booze-swilling, cigar-smoking Freud and eventually becomes interested in helping Sabrina as well, thus leading to a dangerously complex relationship between he and Jung. There are some very well-thought out shots and costumes, but the highlights in this slowish film are the three lead performances, with a great Fassbender rounding out the trio as a man stuck between his feelings and his professional morality.

#27 Rise of the Planet of the Apes

With his work in Apes and Tintin, Andy Serkis has gone on to prove he once again belongs in a category of his own. He is the King Midas of motion-capture technology. In the Lord of the Rings series, he brought pathos to an unlikeable character, and in King Kong, he found a way to humanize the legendary creature. Ditto goes for his performance as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes re-boot. A good friend of mine worked as assistant to director Rupert Wyatt, whose only previous credit for a feature was a crime drama called The Escapist. Here, he helmed a good reimagining of the series, whose previous claim to fame was possibly the best line of all time in Charlton Heston's "Get your stinking paws off of me, you damn dirty ape (recycled in this one, awesome)." James Franco is Will Rodman, a scientist who watches a young ape show remarkable results after receiving a new drug and then go off the wall. This ape's son (Serkis) is hiding in the wings and rather than kill him like his boss has requested, Will brings him home to his father (John Lithgow), who is living with Alzheimer's and takes an immediate shine to the ape, naming him Caesar. Things are copacetic until a neighborhood incident gets the authorities called on Caesar, and he is forced into a primate sanctuary. Caesar struggles to fit in with the established apes and deals with the abusive, idiot sons of the sanctuary owner, especially Dodge (Tom Felton, better known for playing Draco Malfoy). The plans for an uprising begin. The film is a lot of fun to watch, but I can't say enough about Serkis as Caesar. He captures perfectly the confusion, fear and eventual rage that come with adolescence. He makes Caesar relatable, almost human.