Rock of Ages (Adam Shankman, 2012)

"This man spews out three things: Sex, hateful music, and...sex!"

A rock musical, it sounds too good to be true. Normally I would never be thrilled to watch a film made by the director of Hairspray and Bringing Down the House, but when I saw the trailer a couple of weeks ago I was excited to see this one and I am proud to say this movie is already my guilty pleasure of 2012.

The story is total crap. The small town girl Sherrie (Julianne Hough) comes to the big city to make a career as a singer. She runs into Drew (Diego Boneta, who looks like Matthew McConaughey’s little brother) who works in the Bourbon Room, a famous rock temple about to go bankrupt. Drew of course has his own aspirations as a musician and of course the two of them fall in love. And of course later on when Drew has success in the industry something goes wrong, and in the end...you can guess.

Secondly there are the two owners of the Bourbon Room (Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand) who have tax issues. The major’s wife (Catherina Zeta Jones) is determined to shut the rock temple down and especially has something against rock god Stacee Jaxx (a brilliant role by Tom Cruise).

This synopsis sound lame and cliché and has been done a thousand times before. The filmmakers obviously didn’t take it serious since they use minimal time to tell this story and focus on the strong and funny performances by the supporting actors and last but not least on the great rock music from the eighties. Music from bands like Def Leppard, Journey, Twisted Sister and Whitesnake are integrated into the storyline, or maybe not, I believe that the story was built around the songs, since the corny 80’s lyrics fit perfectly to the story.

And then Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx. When I saw the trailer I was afraid that he would only have a cameo appearance but fortunately he has a lot of screentime and clearly enjoys every minute of it. The sheer fun he and actors like Paul Giamatti (his manager) have can be felt perfectly and makes this film ‘Nothin’ but a good time’. The scene between him and the Rolling Stone journalist, going under the brilliant name Constance Sack (Malin Akerman), is priceless. Besides all the fun, Rock of Ages ridicules some of the developments in the music industry. There is a funny development regarding a shift in pop culture (if you like New Kids on the Block it’s likely you disagree) that must be loved by anyone who is into rock music. The film also dares to ridicule the rock culture in a way as well with some gay thematics, hairstyle and the extreme adoration of a rock idol (“When my hamster died, your music got me through it”).

If you plan to regard this movie as a serious one you will be disappointed. If you, just like me, love eighties rock you will find this picture a treat. Enjoy the pleasure the actors are having in their performances and the spoof-factor (which I think is present). Don’t compare it to classics like This is Spinal Tap or Almost Famous, but just sit back and relax.

7.5/10

Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, 2012)

Cosmopolis, the latest production of David Cronenberg (Videodrome, A History of Violence) resulted in a lot of discussion amongst the critics at this year’s Cannes Festival. After watching this film I can completely understand why. After his (for me) disappointing A Dangerous Method I was curious and even excited to watch this one in which the director supposedly went back to his roots. Personally I wouldn’t agree with this statement but this movie is for sure a typical Cronenberg mixing the ‘old’ and ‘new’ side of the filmmaker.

Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) is a confident 28-year old billionaire who lives in New York City. He is a brilliant Wall Street prodigy who bet a lot of his capital on the yuan’s exchange rate. We follow him in his limousine on his way for a haircut. While losing most of his capital as the rate is going up Packer calmly discusses his philosophies with co-workers, friends, security guard and his lovers. All of this happens in his limo, he even gets a prostate exam while talking, and in the outside world the riots and threats against his life are getting worse and worse.

The long monologues and dialogue especially in the first hour of the film can easily be qualified as monotone and therefore dull. Even though some of the theories and topics are very interesting (consider we are in the near future) it is hard to keep your attention. Most of this appears to be due to Pattinson’s performance, but as the movie progresses we learn that this is exactly the point, and I think Cronenberg chose the Twilight-star for a very good reason. Not only does he have the right looks for this role, his lack of emotional expressions and somewhat cold manners are exactly what Eric Packer is like.

Of course a parallel could be drawn between Packer and Patrick Bateman, the protagonist in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, but there are some important differences. First of all the fun is missing in Packer’s monologue, it is not about his favourite bands or how he wants to kill women but about less superficial and more intelligent subjects. The comparison is very strong for the relationships Packer has, especially the one with his newly wed. In a few occasions these scenes had strong similarities in emotional (or lack of ) involvement. Patrick Bateman claimed not to ‘exist’ emotionally. Packer is craving for kicks and emotions, since the spoiled billionaire doesn’t seem to be impressed by all the dangers around him. It’s like nothing can or will hurt him. (Yes, when his favourite rapper dies, the whole world cries, what a future prospect!)

The dull start of the movie could easily spoil the rest and I can imagine a lot of viewers give up after a while, I have to admit I had a hard time getting involved with any of the characters (again, this is probably what Cronenberg wants) but after a while a dark and depressing mood struck me, this feeling is amplified by the impending soundtrack which reminded me of the director’s 90’s classic Crash.

The strongest part of Cosmopolis is the final scene with a brilliant Paul Giamatti who was a former worker for Packer. The role Giamatti plays shows how much better an actor he is than Pattinson, but again, his lack of talent is not problematic at all, it is functional I would say. Some typical Cronenberg stuff and great dialogue makes a thrilling final. The director takes a risk with this film and balances on a thin line between (functional) dullness and making a philosophical statement about the future. For me it partly worked, but I will probably not watch it again soon….

7/10

TRON (Steven Lisberger, 1982)

So, here is another classic from the science fiction genre, probably the movie genre with the most potential as it comes to creativity and visuals. In my opinion the infinite possibilities for writers have led to some awesome films, for instance Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been and still is in my personal top 10 for years, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is coming close. But I feel there are a lot of disappointing ‘classics’ as well. One of the biggest problems I have with some scifi’s is that filmmakers tend to overdo their ‘gimmick’, they sometimes seem to forget how to tell their story properly and put all the effort in action, special effect and visuals. This is exactly my problem with Steven Lisberger’s TRON.

The story in its core sounds interesting. Computer programmer Flynn (Jeff Bridges) lost his job because one of his colleagues Dillinger (David Warner) stole the games he wrote and is now the president of a software engineering firm called ENCOM. This information is stored in the mainframe computer, which he tries to hack. This computer is protected by an artificial intelligence called MCP (Master Control Program, not as creative as HAL, IBM alphabetically 1 letter shifted). When Dillinger finds out this MCP wants to hack and gain control of the Kremlin and Pentagon it blackmails Dillinger to reveal his plagiarism. When Flynn breaks in at ENCOM to hack the MCP he gets sucked in the computer mainframe entering a virtual reality and has to find his way in the digital world to beat Dillinger, who is in control, to get his recognition regarding the popular video games.

As I mentioned earlier, the SF genre has a lot of possibilities in a lot of different fields. Think about time travel, space travel, aliens, future prospects etc. I am generally a big fan of the type of SF where one or a few details have been changed or are different compared to our conventional world and that are told properly in a ‘conventional’ real-world film (Donnie Darko, Primer or Brazil). Films like Star Wars, Star Trek of Serenity are usually too ‘chaotic’ for me, there is simply too much going on or possible to keep me fascinated (I admit that I do like the old Star Wars, especially The Empire Strikes Back). Like I said I have the same problem with TRON, it started off promising but in the second half when we have entered a new virtual world there is so much going on that I lost interest.

Suspense, mystery combined with emotional thrills and involvement are in general some of the key ingredients that keep a good story going. Elements which the great directors master to integrate adequately in their films. In the SF films I qualified earlier as being too chaotic I meant that they are chaotic in the sense that the story doesn’t seem to be the most important element of the film. Especially when characters are having special skills of which I am not aware I can get really annoyed since it often breaks the coherence and puzzle element of a good story.

Director Lisberger clearly focuses on his visual imagery and I guess it is mind-blowing for the early eighties, but at the same time he proves not to be a great storyteller and fails to create a coherent suspenseful story (for me at least). The message he tries to tell us has been done before and much, much better (Kubrick). I will not go as far as to say it is a bad film, therefore it is too unique and visionary in its animated imagery but TRON is definitely not my cup of tea.

5.5/10