Review: "Mystic River" is Really Good, But is Too Damn Bleak (Happy B'day, Laurence Fishburne)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 92 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mystic River (2003)
Running time:  138 minutes (2 hours, 18 minutes)
MPAA – R for language and violence
DIRECTOR:  Clint Eastwood
WRITER:  Brian Helgeland (from the novel by Dennis Lehane)
PRODUCERS:  Clint Eastwood, Judie G. Hoyt, and Robert Lorenz
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tom Stern (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Joel Cox
COMPOSER:  Clint Eastwood
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/CRIME

Starring:  Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Kevin Chapman, Thomas Guiry, Emmy Rossum, Spencer Treat Clark, Andrew Mackin, Adam Nelson, and Robert Wahlberg

The subject of this movie review is Mystic River, a 2003 crime drama from director Clint Eastwood.  The film is based on Mystic River, the 2001 novel from author Dennis Lehane.  Mystic River focuses on three men who are reunited by circumstance after the daughter of one of the men is murdered.

Clint Eastwood’s film Mystic River was one of the most acclaimed films of 2003, and it earned several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director.  However, thanks to the onslaught that was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at the 2004 Academy Awards, Mystic River only picked up the two “Best Actor” awards:  Leading Role (Sean Penn) and Supporting Role (Tim Robbins).

Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins), and Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) are three childhood friends reunited after Markum’s daughter, Katie (Emmy Rossum), is found brutally murdered.  Their reunion is at cross-purposes, however.  Markum is small time hood, Devine is the investigator with the State Police investigating Katie’s murder, and Boyle survived being kidnapped and sexually assaulted when the three men were boys.  When Boyle becomes the lead suspect, the reunion spirals towards tragedy.

Mystic River is a very good film, but ultimately it’s a bit too cold for too long.  At times, I could have sworn that I was watching Clint Eastwood directing a drama as a formal dinner party.  Mystic River is professional and slick, as well as being raw and gritty.  The film has weight and gravity, but it all seems so laid back and cool.  Not until the last 20 minutes does the film really begin to unleash a tour de force of film drama, but those closing scenes are alien to the rest of the film.

Mystic River really plays with the idea that people are interconnected; the action or inaction of one has inevitable, although unseen, consequences upon another – neat but pat.  Besides, the award winning performances of Penn and Robbins, Kevin Bacon and especially Laurence Fishburne have the roles that anchor the film and they almost steal the show.  In the end Mystic River is all good, but waits for the closing act to show how really good it can be.  If you like dour dramas with good acting, this one is for you, but it’s not an exceptional work of movie art.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards, USA:  2 wins: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Sean Penn) and “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Tim Robbins); 4 nominations: “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Marcia Gay Harden), “Best Director” (Clint Eastwood), “Best Picture” (Robert Lorenz, Judie Hoyt, and Clint Eastwood), and “Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay” (Brian Helgeland)

2004 BAFTA Awards:  4 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Sean Penn), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Tim Robbins), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Laura Linney), and “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Brian Helgeland)

2004 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Sean Penn) and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Tim Robbins); 3 nominations: “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Clint Eastwood), “Best Motion Picture – Drama” (Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Brian Helgeland)

Updated: Monday, July 08, 2013

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USC Libraries Honor Aaron Sorkin and Ben Mezrich

USC Libraries Friend The Social Network

The writers behind the story of social-networking site Facebook take home the 23rd-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Author Ben Mezrich and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin were feted with the 23rd-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award for the film The Social Network and the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal upon which it was based. Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin announced the winners at the black-tie banquet on Friday, Feb. 4.

“When you get that phone call that Aaron Sorkin is interested in adapting your book, it’s like getting hit by lightning,” Mezrich said.

“I sat down in the movie there and the movie opens. There is that line, ‘dating you is like dating a stairmaster.’ At that moment, I thought, this is the best movie I’ve ever seen,” added Mezrich.

Sorkin, who won multiple Emmy Awards for his work on the NBC program “The West Wing” and is nominated for an Academy Award for his Social Network screenplay, related an incident from early in his career that put entertainment award in perspective.

“Early one morning a few years ago, my father came over to my apartment in New York City where I was living at the time because the Academy Award nominations were being announced and there was some hope that a movie that I wrote that year would be nominated” explained Sorkin. “When it wasn’t, my father turned to me and said ‘Aaron, how many people in the world do you think woke up this morning with even reasonable expectation that something like this might happen.’ That’s when I discovered that for most, people it’s an honor just to be nominated…in my family, it’s an honor just to be overlooked.”

“You can imagine how they and I feel about getting recognition like this, from a group of people like this,” said Sorkin.

The Social Network’s Scripter win adds to its slew of accolades. The film has been named best film by the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto film critics associations, among others, as well as by the Golden Globes and the National Board of Review. The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards and six BAFTA awards.

The Scripter awards gala, presented by the Friends of the USC Libraries, honors the year’s best cinematic adaptation of the printed word. During the ceremony, one Twitter follower described the Scripter Award as “the most civilized awards show of all.”

With filmmaker and USC alumnus Taylor Hackford (‘67, International Relations) and Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren serving as honorary dinner chairs, master of ceremonies Nancy Sinatra welcomed the capacity crowd gathered in Los Angeles Times Reference Room of USC’s historic Edward L. Doheny Memorial Library.

“We know that a great story might transport us, but it’s about more than escapism,” explained Sinatra about the importance of the writing creatively and the unique significance of the Scripter Award. “We know that history comes to us through stories and that storytelling helps us understand ourselves as much as it helps deepen our understanding of the world.”

“The great stories yet to be written will depend on all those that came before...and that’s why a great library is important to the past, present, and future of the creative arts and why we’re here to honor accomplished storytellers,” said Sinatra.

The other finalists for the 2011 Scripter, in alphabetical order by film title, were: screenwriters Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for 127 Hours, adapted from Aron Ralston’s autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place; screenwriters Robert Harris and Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer, adapted from Harris’ novel The Ghost; screenwriters Joel and Ethan Coen for True Grit, based on Charles Portis’ classic Western novel; and screenwriters Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini and author Daniel Woodrell for Winter’s Bone.

Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning screenwriter Naomi Foner chaired the Scripter selection committee for the fourth consecutive year.

Author Dennis Lehane was named the 4th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Literary Achievement Award recipient for his body of work. Lehane is the author of such books as Gone, Baby, Gone; Moonlight Mile; Shutter Island; The Given Day; and Mystic River for which he received a Scripter Award in 2004.

“[Dennis Lehane] has said that, were it not for a specific place, he never would have become a writer. He grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston,” noted USC Libraries Dean Catherine Quinlan in announcing the award. “He has demonstrated again and again his talent for carving convincing, creative landscapes out of words and populating them with intriguing characters and gripping mysteries.”

Lehane, who was unable to attend the ceremony, said in a statement that “It’s an honor to receive this award. My profound gratitude to the Friends of the USC Libraries.”

“It would be disingenuous of me not to note the depth of gratitude I owe the exceptional screenwriters who have adapted my novels for film: Brian Helgeland, Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard, and most recently, Laeta Kalogridis, whose superb craftsmanship enabled her to take a near-unfilmable novel and turn it into pure cinema,” added Lehane.

Dr. David and Gracie Fermelia were the Premiere Sponsors and Dr. Verna B. Dauterive was the Gold Sponsor of this year’s event.

The USC Libraries welcomed Audi of America as the transportation sponsor for Scripter 2011. A fleet of Audi A8 sedans chauffeured nominees and special guests to the black-tie event.

Final Draft Inc. also has supported Scripter 2011 by providing copies of Final Draft 8 to USC students. The libraries will make the scriptwriting software available through the USC Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Library Multimedia Commons. Final Draft will complement the suite of authoring software the Multimedia Commons offers students and will provide a tool for storytelling and completing coursework while drawing on the riches of the libraries’ collections.

Proceeds from the Scripter gala support the USC Libraries’ Endowed Collections program. For more information about Scripter—including additional images from the ceremony and information on sponsorship opportunities for Scripter 24—visit http://scripter.usc.edu/.

Review: "Gone Baby Gone" Superb Directorial Debut for Ben Affleck

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Running time: 115 minutes (1 hour, 55 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence, drug content, and pervasive language
DIRECTOR: Ben Affleck
WRITERS: Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard (from the novel by Dennis Lehane)
PRODUCERS: Ben Affleck, Sean Bailey, Alan Ladd, Jr., and Danton Rissner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Toll (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: William Goldenburg
2008 Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver, Michael K. Williams, Edi Gathegi, and Madeline O’Brien

Like Martin Scorsese did before him in 1973 with Mean Streets, Ben Affleck visits the tough streets of a city in which he’s familiar, Boston, for his film Gone Baby Gone, based upon a Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) novel. There Affleck tells a harrowing tale of shocking crime, brutal violence, and ultimate betrayal set in the seedy underbelly of a lower working class neighborhood.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), two young private detectives, are hired by grieving aunt, Beatrice “Bea” McCready (Amy Madigan), to take a closer look into the disappearance of her niece, a little girl named Amanda (Madeline O’Brien). Capt. Patrick Doyle (Morgan Freeman), the head of the investigation, and the two senior detectives, Det. Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Det. Nick Poole (John Ashton), aren’t happy about Bea and her husband, Lionel McCready (Titus Welliver), bringing in Kenzie and Gennaro, whose specialty is finding missing debtors.

Patrick and Angie take their investigations to the extra mean streets of the Boston neighborhood where the major players, including themselves, live. Patrick and Angie soon trace the child’s disappearance to some kind of deal gone bad involving her mother, a loud and vulgar drug addict/alcoholic named Helene McCready (Amy Ryan, in an Oscar nominated role). Ultimately, Kenzie finds himself risking everything, including his relationship with Gennaro, their sanity and lives, to find Amanda. Nothing is what it seems, and the case is vastly complicated.

If Ben Affleck was known as a pretty boy actor who made bad career choices, now he’s known as an up and coming director to watch. Gone Baby Gone, which Affleck also co-wrote with Aaron Stockard, is a sharp, edgy and morally ambiguous tale. The detective angle of the story is certainly a piece of pulp crackerjack that is as sweet and bitter as dark chocolate, but also as addictive as faerie food. Once you bite into Affleck’s beautiful/accursed confection, you will never leave it, and it won’t leave you.

That’s because the heart of Gone Baby Gone is so frighteningly familiar to viewers – the unsettling notion of a small child stolen by a monstrous human who savages, violates, and ultimately destroys a young life by murder or psychological ruin. However, novelist Dennis Lehane’s tale takes you to even darker regions below the surface of this familiar scenario, and Affleck doesn’t shy from visualizing the story into a film that goes for the vulnerable places on your body and in your mind. It’s the place where the self-righteous find that not only is the road to damnation paved with good intentions but that their justifications make them as bad as the worse people.

Ben Affleck also found his film gifted with a number of high quality performances, including some from Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, and Amy Madigan, among others. The stand outs are the director’s brother, Casey Affleck, and Amy Ryan. Affleck, playing the little tough guy, is a bubbling cauldron as he takes his Patrick Kenzie from the sweet guy who really cares to the tough guy/bad ass detective who can take on the most dangerous on mean street.

Amy Ryan is superb as Helene McCready. Simply put, the audience has no reason to believe that Helene is not a real-life breathing person with an ugly past, a pathetic present, and a loser future. Ryan makes you believe that Helene is both lost in an addictive personality and a totally lousy mother. This is the richness of Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2008 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Amy Ryan)

2008 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Amy Ryan)

Saturday, February 23, 2008

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Review: Leonardo DiCaprio Elevates "Shutter Island"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 14 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Shutter Island (2010)
Running time: 138 minutes (2 hours, 18 minutes)
MPAA – R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
WRITER: Laeta Kalogridis (based on the novel by Dennis Lehane)
PRODUCERS: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer and Martin Scorsese
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Richardson, ASC (D.o.P)
EDITOR: Thelma Schoonmaker
DRAMA/MYSTERY/SUSPENSE/THRILLER

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas, and Curtiss Cook

Shutter Island is the fourth film uniting Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and multiple Oscar-nominated actor, Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator). Based on the best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone), Shutter Island is a psychological-mystery thriller set entirely on a fortress-like island housing a hospital for the criminally insane. As I watched this engaging, haunting tale, I certainly understood what the term, “riveting” means when applied to movies. I also watched an outstanding actor take a good film and make the story work on so many more levels than it could have without him.

Shutter Island is set in the year 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are summoned to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando. Solando, who drowned her three children, disappeared from a locked room within the impenetrable Ashecliffe Hospital. Teddy and Chuck arrive at the remote, windswept isle and find the situation tense, and an eerie, volatile atmosphere suggests nothing is quite what it seems. Psychopathic patients surround them and the brilliant Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) psychoanalyzes Teddy and Chuck’s every move, even as he presses them to find Solando.

As the investigation moves forward, a hurricane bearing down on the island escalates. Teddy’s suspicions about both the facility and the investigation begin to grow as he uncovers hints and rumors of sordid medical experiments and secret wards within the hospital. But the more he digs into this mystery, the more Teddy realizes that he may never leave Shutter Island alive.

Without giving too much more about Shutter Island, I can say that both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio deliver their usual high quality work. For Scorsese, Shutter Island is a chance to make an existential terror film in the tradition of the films of producer Val Lewton (Cat People). In a way, Shutter Island is less about story and more about genre. This movie is an exploration of the conventions of genres like Film-Noir and the detective thriller, and it also plays on the styles and themes of old Hollywood thrillers that focus on the psychology of the characters.

As good as Shutter Island is, what makes it a great film is Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance. DiCaprio sells the viewer on everything about Teddy Daniels, his habits, facial ticks, demeanor, belief system, conflicts, dilemmas, struggles, and even Teddy’s sharp, off-kilter sense of humor, founded in part on a world view shaped by his time as a serviceman during World War II. I am not trying to diminish Scorsese’s contribution; it is no coincidence that DiCaprio has delivered great performances in all four of the movies that he has made with Scorsese. Whatever one might say about Scorsese, he is an actor’s director, and he finds ways to get intense, terrific performances from all his actors – from the most talented to the ordinary.

But Shutter Island is ultimately all about Teddy Daniels. Its success as a taut, riveting thriller that grabs the viewer and holds him until the very end rests in DiCaprio. Because he has us enthralled by his performance, DiCaprio also has us as engrossed with this mystery and as we are absorbed with Teddy. Shutter Island’s resolution will no doubt leave many viewers with questions, but there is also no doubt that this is one of those occasions when the lead actor is so good that he makes even a terrific movie unforgettable and special.

9 of 10
A

Monday, March 15, 2010

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