Joe.

Be warned this film involves a very powerful performance from Nicolas Cage, a statement you probably don’t hear very often. The only other time, recently anyway, would have possible been for his portrayal of real life policeman Glenn Flothe in The Frozen Ground (2013). 

In David Gordon Greens latest outing, filmed and set in Austin Texas, Cage plays Joe (2013) of the title. Joe is an ex con, he’s the boss of a gang of men that illicitly poisons trees for a living, Joe is also a mess, he drinks and smokes to much. Although Joe has anger problems, which got him his jail sentence of 26 months after he knee capped a policeman with a gun, he has a heart of gold, treats his worker’s fairly, his whores kindly and befriends the young 15 year old Gary after giving him a job. Gary’s family consists of his alcoholic father who regularly beats him and his mother and a sister who has stopped speaking due to circumstances that are only hinted at.

Joe and Gary chill.

We are again in Winters Bone (2009) and Out of the Furnace (2013) territory, the lower echelons of society where the American dream involves large quantities of alcohol, sudden violence and beaten up 4 wheel drive trucks. Beyond the outward appearances there’s a lonely man who works and plays hard and who befriends and builds a relationship with a 15-year-old boy who accepts responsibilities well beyond his status. These two unlikely human beings form a bond, which is the backbone of the movie, and bring to it an emotional edge  that goes beyond the characters outward appearances. As I have said Cage is excellent as is Tye Sheridan, who you may have seen in The Tree of Life (2011) and as Gary in the award winning Mud (2012). This adaption of Larry Browns 1991 novel of the same name has characters you have no trouble in believing in and is a movie that has grit and bite and is rich in atmosphere, which is greatly helped by the director’s regular DOP Tim Orr.  Highly recommended.

A rather sad footnote to this movie concerns Gary Poulter who was found dead in a shallow body of water before the film was released. It was Poulter that played Gary’s alcoholic bullying father Wade and was a real life homeless person who suffered from alcoholism and also was diagnosed with cancer. His performance was a case of art imitating real life!

Mud

Matthew McConaughey is an actor that improves with every new film. I felt that in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) his portrayal of defence lawyer Mickey Haller gave him a chance to leave his lightweight roles behind and to be fair he grabbed the chance with both hands. In William Friedkin’s Killer Joe  he plays the lead role with sinisterly threatening menace and along with Juno Temple made this one of the best films of 2012. Playing opposite an ultra sexy Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy (2012) brought the role of Ward Jansen, a Miami Times investigative journalist, to life.

 

The love obsessed outlaw Mud.

My latest opportunity to evaluate his body of work was in Mud (2012) where he plays the love-obsessed outlaw of the title in a film that’s seen from the viewpoint of two 14-year-old boys. Ellis and his friend Neckbone travel to a deserted river island to make a secret ‘camp’ in a boat that has been lodged up a tree from a storm, there living in the boat they find a man called Mud. He tells them that he killed a man in Texas that was beating a pregnant woman, the same women he has been in love with since he was at school with her. He goes on to tell them how he plans to renovate the boat so he can meet with Juniper and escape into the sunset. The boys agree to help him by transporting food and equipment to the island but what they don’t know is that the murdered mans family, along with some bounty hunters are following Juniper with the aim of flushing out Mud and carrying out their own form of retribution.

 

Neckbone and Ellis.

This coming of age adventure drama, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is set on the banks of the Mississippi River in Arkansas and brings to mind the Mark Twain novels of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, a character that was based on Twains boyhood friend Tom Blankenship and the name of a character in the film played by the great Sam Shepard (Blackthorn 2011)!

 

Juniper.

A movie about the power of love and how it lets you down if you believe in it too much but one that is surprisingly male dominated in which women are shown as untrustworthy and hard to pin down. This rich slice of Americana has a great script that goes far deeper than the adventure story it appears to be on the surface. A large pat on the back must go to DOP Adam Stone for making it such a good-looking picture. But it’s the acting that really makes this film stand out with McConaughey in his most watchable role to date but one that’s nearly upstaged by the raw talent of 16-year-old Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life 2010) who plays Ellis; Neckbone is played by Jacob Lofland who appears to be a natural actor in only his debut feature film. The movie also includes Reese Witherspoon as Juniper, Michael Shannon as Neckbone’s Uncle Galen and the veteran actor Joe Don Baker as King the father of the man Mud killed. Certainly one of the best and most enjoyable films I’ve seen this year from a director who shows great promise. 

The Tree of Life.

Earths Beginnings.

The Meaning of life?

I can categorically state that Terrence Malick’s latest movie, his first for six years, is strangely different from many other movies you would have seen.  Amongst a great deal of critical controversy The Tree of Life (2010) won this years Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a film full of wonderful images with marvellous use of sound and developed from three separate narratives. The central story is of a middle class family, mum, dad and three boys living in late 1950’s Waco Texas. Mr O’Brien (Brad Pitt) is head of the family; a disciplinarian who seems to believe in the old adage that its best to be cruel to be kind. A man who gave up a musical career to become a manager at the local oil plant. Mrs O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) dotes over her three boys, not always supporting her husband in his strictness regime, and who along with the boys, enjoys a certain amount of freedom when her husband is away on his long business trips. The families story is revealed via the present day, recounted through by the troubled eldest son Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) now an architect working in a high-rise glass tower in Dallas. Looking back at his childhood he relates how the death of his youngest brother at the age of nineteen effected him greatly, an incident that casts a great shadow over the complete film. Jacks subconscious wants nothing more than the whole family to be reunited. The most surreal section of the film is the imagery showing the inception of earth and the origins of life. Malick successfully works the sections together, but not in the form of a linear narrative.

The movie begins with a quotation from the Bible’s Book of Job “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, who determined its measurements – surely you know” A film full of spiritual symbolism and as one critic commented ‘rich in prayer and beauty’ which is emphasised for me by the gentle acting of Jessica Chastain as mother and wife, a character that seems to float rather than move through the film. As I said in my opening this is not your standard Picture House fodder, it’s a movie that viewers will have to assess themselves. Malick posses the question, why and for what do we exist? No two people will draw the same concussions. In my opinion the answer he gives, is family, that vague dream of happiness that we sometimes allow ourselves and maybe success in life. I would be interested to know what you think!!