What kids didn’t love Disney’s My Little Mermaid? Much of the story was changed to make it friendly for children – the original fairy tale is pretty grim. There have been several mermaid films over the years from adorable romantic comedies to neo-thrillers and horrors, but the latest effort comes slightly out of left field. Pierce Brosnan, of James Bond fame, is taking on the role of Louis XIV in a film based on (and with its name taken from) the fantasy novel The Moon and The Sun by Vonda McIntyre.
The film will feature the French king and his quest for immortality. Approaching his fiftieth birthday he begins to fear that his only male heir is unfit to rule the country and sends a member of the navy out to find and capture a mermaid with the hope of acquiring her life force in order to live forever. The mermaid will be largely CGI, and is unlikely to be the kind of vicious mermaid seen in horror films – those terrifying monsters that make playing on MermaidMillions.net a much safer bet if you’re trying to get your mermillian fix – as she is played by the beautiful Chinese rising star Fan Bingbing. The king’s illegitimate daughter, as yet uncast, doesn’t know that the king is her father and falls in love with the mermaid’s handler, scheming to set them both free; she only finds out the truth about her parentage when she is arranged to be married to a merchant as a way of paying off the treasury’s debts.
Obviously this is a fantasy film, but is there any truth in it? Well, only in that it’s true that Louis XIV had many illegitimate children by mistresses, and commonly married them off to members of the royal forces. Unfortunately that’s pretty much where it ends, as the Sun King – as he was known – ruled for over seventy two years until his death in 1715, the longest any monarch has ever ruled, and his heir was his five year old grandson. As far as we know, he had no interactions with mermaids.
One of the genuinely exciting elements of The Moon and The Sun lies in the actress to play the mermaid, Fan Bingbing. She has been an important part of Chinese cinema for some time now and appeared in the Chinese release of Iron Man 3, most recently making the transition to American cinema by signing on to play Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past. An exceptional beauty, she should show audiences a gorgeous and mysterious mermaid.
Kristin Scott Thomas doesn’t star in a comedy that’s not actually a comedy.
Professor of Chinese business practices Damien (Jean-Pierre Bacri) finds himself in a bind. He has promised his wife Iva (Kristin Scott Thomas) that he will get a visa application sorted for one of her relatives. This means meeting up with his father (Claude Rich), a successful lawyer who Damien seems to have a fractured relationship with. Probably because his father/Claude Rich is quite irritating. Despite that being the overall plot conceit running through the film, the matters which concern writer/director Pascal Bonitzer are the relationships between the family members. Indeed, the ‘Hortense’ of the title becomes becomes conspicuous in his Waiting for Godot absence.
Damien and Iva’s marriage is near collapse. Iva, an avant-garde theatre director, is having an affair with her leading actor. Damien’s eye begins to wander toward the fascinating and vulnerable Aurore (Isabelle Carre). There’s the three generation wide father-son issues. Despite a thin layer of affection between Damien and his father the men two men clearly know little about each other. This is notion more obvious than in the scene where Damien’s father, very annoyingly ask a Japanese waiter to read out the full name of his favourite desert whilst repeating it back with a gleeful annoyance that’s very annoying. I didn’t care for this actor. Can you tell? Damien then realises that his father may be gay which leads to a somewhat odd tangent later on when Damien spends a night with the same Japanese waiter. It really seems to come down to how open people should be with their affections. Damien is unsure how strict to be with his increasingly brattish son. How forward should he be with Aurore. How up front should he be with his wife and their failing marriage?
Oh yes this is all supposed to be a comedy according to British publicity. Well it’s a comedy in the sense that people get confused a lot by other people’s actions and get angry. The go-wide eyed or even narrow their eyes and swear a bit. If Looking for Hortense is a comedy, my my is it gentle. Looking for Hortense plays closer to a Haneke style drama with a lighter touch. Bawdy comedy this ain’t. You may have also noticed from the amount of times I mention ‘Damien’ and how little ‘Iva’s name pops up that Kristin Scott Thomas isn’t really the main focus here. She puts in yet another faultless performance – she really does get better with age – but her role comes across as secondary at best. So once again the misleading marketing companies strike.
Like much of the art that has come to mean so much to me in life—from the work of Joyce and Mamet, to McGoohan’s The Prisoner to the giallos of Argento et al.—the work of actor Russ Russo was not so much something I discovered, as it was something the world repeatedly conspired to make me aware and appreciative of. If not for a continuous series of coincidences that eventually revealed themselves to be overt nudges, insistent fingers of the hand-of-art pointing at something I was imperatively meant to be aware of, I would be in the likely position of most reading this article—that is, I would find myself, at the mention of the fellow’s name, able to offer nothing but the question “Russ Russo?…yeah, who is that?”
What follows is the true history of how I was, by no effort of my own, made aware of the works of an actor I truly believe to be one of the finest currently working, an artist who I count myself fortunate to have eventually made the personal acquaintance of.
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In all plain candor, I cannot even say that I “discovered Russ Russo” through the film Williamsburg, though it was in the frames of it I first laid eyes on, heard voice of him. That is, I have no actual memory of where I watched the film, under what circumstance (was it in theatre or on video? was I alone or in the company of others? did I half-interestedly pick it out based on cover art or was it shown to me offhand by an acquaintance?)–all that I do know is that from the moment I viewed this little Jarumusch-esque jewel of independent cinema, Russo became a back-burner-presence in my thoughts. I did not—as fine as their performances were, do not get me wrong—take the time to consciously note the names of any of the other performers when the credits rolled, but know I took a distinct moment out to see who played ‘Brother James’ and from that moment “Russ Russo” would innocently crop into my thought processes, my little daydreams of making films of my own. “Who would I cast in X or Y or Z role?” I would, in reverie, so often ask, and one of the most frequent answers would be “That guy from that one film, Williamsburg—that guy Russ Russo.”
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The coincidental progression of my becoming aware of his work continued in the following way: one of the other constant answers to my fanciful question of being a filmmaker with the authority to cast whom I felt was “Norman Reedus” (an actor whose work I became aware of and as passionate for in as random a way as Russo’s, Reedus first announcing himself to me in his role opposite Alan Rickman in a more-or-less unheard of thriller called Dark Harbor). I here mention Reedus and his random introduction to my thought-life most particularly, as it was through him (in a sense) that I next actively “encountered” Russ Russo. I had written a series of essays on the short films Reedus directed and of a lazy afternoon (this years and years after having watched Williamsburg) I happened to check Twitter to find some fellow had tweeted his enthusiasm for one of the essays in particular: This fellow?—Russ Russo. I had some brief interaction, very casual, via correspondence with Russ, confirming he was, indeed, the self-same actor I had in mind, but nothing further than a few “I dig your work” messages exchanged between us before my life, as it often does, soon swallowed me up in other things.
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Why I was watching television of an evening, staying at a friend’s (surfing the far more channels than I had at that time access to in my own home) why I was there with some idle moments at just that time of the evening I also cannot recall, but landing on the G4 network just as a screen went black, an actor’s name appeared, alone on the screen: Russ Russo. The film was an intriguing sci-fi short called Against the Wall, Russo, it seemed to me at the time, maybe in the role because the filmmakers had wanted to cast “someone who looked a lot like Christian Bale might look” (funny story, Russo later did play “Christian Bale” due to his likeness in the “Call Me, Maybe” parody video built around Nolan’s Batman franchise). Thing was, the short was just to my taste—simple, unflashy, measured—rather like a delicious teaser for what might be something larger one day, but just as much self-contained as any truly great short story in an issue of Asimov’s or any pulp anthology of old. A ten minute short, no other purpose than to exist for the sake of its subdued coolness, I nodded my approval at the thing and twice as much at Russo, himself, for his participation. I was keen to see if I could get back in touch, but also too busy to find time.
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So—a penchant of mine is to frequent the ol’ RedBox, every once in awhile, with the particular intention of grabbing some inconsequential movie to pass a rare free evening with—usually, I am after a “bad but watchable film” (though, I must admit, several of my favorite films in the last several years have come from such a hunt, two in particular being 388 Arletta Avenue and a marvelous, all-but-completely overlooked gem called Skew) and usually it is a horror film I take away. On a night in particular, I nabbed a thing called Donner Pass, imagining it would be drivel. The film opens in flashback, a “re-enactment” of the fate of Donner Party and there, bearded (and, as always, giving ten times better a performance than the material he was performing necessarily called for) was (or I thought it was) Russo. His character lasts not long, two, three minutes screen time at most, some half dozen or ten-at-most lines of dialogue, but the gravity I now readily expected of him was there (one of those things a keen film viewer notices, one of those ancillary things that so often make one glad they watched an otherwise tossaway episode of Law and Order or took in a matinee of some dime-a-dozen bank heist or car chase film). Here was Russo, now lurking in my private RedBox haunt, a thing I verified via the Donner Pass credits and by (first time in forever) dotting through Twitter to find Russo was, quite nonchalantly, mentioning the film was now available.Not to be remiss, let me add that the film was pretty solid—nothing I wanted to write home about, but other than a kind of average last act it was something that had a verve, a reason to exist beyond just being an on-the-cheap horror flick—there is an energy to it I like, similar to that of some Ewan McGregor movies I love but don’t feel lived up to the full potential energy their scripts and makers likely had within (Rouge Trader, Nora, The Serpent’s Kiss, in case you wonder which Ewan films I mean).
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Sometime after that is when I, through learning of his attempt to Kickstarter a film project he had written called Heat Wave, was able to briefly make Russo’s acquaintance (this—another odd connection I will get to in a moment) made possible by the fact that I was, quite randomly, in Los Angeles to spend a day on the set of Paul Schrader’s films The Canyons, which I was a backer of. That encounter and my thoughts on him as an artist I set down in two articles here and here.
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Touch was lost after the Kickstarter reached its goal and he got busy with work. I, meanwhile, continued on being busy and taking submissions of manuscripts to the literary press I co-run. In a submission, I was told I should check out another author, a friend of the current submission-writer, a friend too shy, allegedly, to submit work herself. The name of this author was Darelene Kingslee. And when I Googled the name, for whatever, completely baffling reason, the third or fourth entry down on the results page was a link to a film starring not Darlene Kingslee, but an actress called Faye Kingslee—a short film it turned out (his name bolded in the Google result) also starring Russ Russo. And again, a short, perfectly atmospheric and contained piece, everything dependent on subtlety in expression, in unspoken performance on the part of the central male figure, Russo (who, I might add, now having seen him in several roles…I still could not immediately be certain was the same Russo, so absolute is his immersion in any role, his performance nothing to do with “I am an actor” but instead “I am just exactly what this character calls for, myself-as-connected-to-any-other-of-my-work effaced”). The film (please do view it here) a simple thing, a take-it-or-leave it to most, I have no doubt, but his performance, for my taste, was hypnotic (and would have been, I say with emphasis, even without the fun, growing set of coincidences so evidently wanting him in front of my eyes).
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I love the television program Breaking Bad (as any worthwhile, thinking person does) and in it most especially I was fond of the character Gustavo Fring, portrayed so amazingly by Giancarlo Esposito. Learning Esposito was a character on a (at that time) new NBC television program called Revolution, I tuned in to a random episode, despite my more than modest dislike of most things “J.J. Abrams” related. See—I have a real love for not the central or even main-supporting casts of television programs (I like them, don’t misunderstand) but a dear, dear love and fascination for those actors and actresses who have small scenes to play, play them so often seamlessly and with more art than it takes (in my opinion) for the main casts to do their roles (and if not “more art” then at the very least with an air of artistry and absolute devotion that seems out of proportion to doing a “bit part” in a scene most viewers are not paying strict attention to them in, just seeing them as means to an end for what the central cast members are up to—this all said here just to inflict some of my random, ranting cinema/television philosophy on anyone reading). So I was not exactly surprised that there, front and center, pre-credits, was Russ Russo (his character not lasting too long, per the status quo it seemed) again turning in a mostly dialogue-free performance of intense gravity to mesmerizing effect, but was more delighted. “Give Russ a fucking show, Abrams!” I thought to myself and, indeed, think I did get in touch with Russo again to tell him my feelings were so.
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Now, again we did not keep in any kind of touch—I always worried I was pestering him or that he might have thought I would only be getting in touch to subtly bug him about “What happened to Heat Wave?” as I had contributed a modest bit of dough and had not since heard news about it. So it was months and months later that, quite randomly, I received an e-mail from him explaining he would be working on a new film to be called Novel (actually, he told me it would be called The Elusive D.B. Cooper, but the title became Novel by the time I found footage). “What was so interesting about this that he had to e-mail me about it?” one might wonder: Well, it was to be the second mainstream starring role for adult film star James Deen, who of course is the star of Schrader’s The Canyons and someone, in our one encounter, Russo and I had discussed. I chuckled, kind of felt maybe I was really just in a coma dream and that only a handful of faces and names were accessible by my brain to develop a sleeping-state reality, because otherwise it was just too odd that my circles of random reference were constricting, coalescing, joining in to some kind of absolute Single. Little could Russo know, of course, that what was much more fascinating to me than even the coincidental presence of Deen was that the film was not officially being filmed yet, only a very stylish, “preview” of the film, a short-film in its own also serving as teaser and “chapter one” of the project—this exact method of getting attention to a project something I had (as I often did, but in this case only days before) been discussing with some friends about doing with a film we wanted to get off the ground. I watched the trailer, intrigued by the cursory outline of plot Russo had given in his e-mail as much as just by Russo’s presence (I had, by this time, looked up his filmography and knew he had a growing body of work much of which I was unfamiliar with, but had never, actively, sought out his work, maybe unconsciously preferring the way it would just poke its head in and out of my life, whenever it saw fit). Again: an artwork in itself, the preview a complete world, an intrigue, a film almost as good already, not existent, than it could ever be in completion; “a teaser that contained something more impressive than could its realization as whole,” I remember was my impression…except for one thing: Not enough Russo. Or except for two thing: not enough Russo and the flat fact that by this time I was so convinced that if Russo lent his time and talents, his pure artistic enthusiasm toward the director and the material, than just like even in the sometimes less-than-spectacular films I had seen him in sometimes, there must be some core greatness, something that if realized would be towering, the future, what and the way things should be done.
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I still don’t seek out Russo’s work actively, perhaps to my shame, don’t (until this article) go around name dropping him to promote his interests or to (perhaps somewhere) get some hipster/indie film buff cred at casually mentioning the work of a fine actor-in-obscura, an actor whose projects, short or feature, completed or gestating, truly give me the greatest confidence that the renaissance of independent cinema I believe the US is having (and is poised to soon have even a more full version of) is a reality, not just a fervent hope of mine, but it occurs to me that the list grows and grows of random encounters I truly hope the world affords me (I am waiting for you to “ahem” over my shoulder Blue Collar Boys, to receive a seemingly “sorry wrong number” call from you The Projectionist, to suddenly have you be waiting around a corner like a friend I met once in a dream once, Shreveport—I am waiting, though I encourage anyone reading to venture forth and take these and all things Russo-related by the face, the shoulders, and embrace them with abandon).
Internet kick-starter projects, and the like, pose an interesting dilemma for reviewers: Is it fair to judge projects with shoe-string budgets on the same scale as their studio backed, multi-million dollar brethren? On the one hand you have the obvious technical limitations brought about by a smaller budget, as well as the assumed point that if filmmakers are offering considerably less in wages, they will not attract the best in the business. While on the other hand, I’ve seen El Mariachi, which was shot for about $7,000 and launched Robert Rodriguez’s career, proving that it is possible to make great movies for next to nothing.
The reason I bring this up, as you’ve probably guessed by now, is that How to Become a Criminal Mastermind is not a movie with deep pockets. Described in the press-pack as having a “micro-budget”, the film seems to wear its humble forging on its sleeve, but is that a boast or an excuse?
The story focuses around Freddie, as sweet and innocent a young man as you could hope to meet, but sadly, Fate has it in for poor Freddie. Within the first few moments of the film he loses his job, his girlfriend, and the bank threaten to take the house he and his grandmother share. Fortunately, Bainbridge, a career criminal looking for a fall-guy for his next job, offers to train Freddie up in the ways of the Criminal Mastermind to help alleviate his financial worries and thus allowing him to keep his house.
As far as set-ups go, it’s not a bad one! The idea of a truly nice individual being tutored in breaking the law is fairly amusing and Philip Weddell’s performance as Freddie certainly gets the character’s child-like, wide-eyed, cynicism-free good nature across very effectively. Sadly, most of the rest of the cast are adequate at best and wooden at worst, barely breathing life into their roles. Prime culprit here is Sam Massey who is uninspiring as Bainbridge, despite a fairly good attempt at borrowing Peter Serafinowicz’s voice for most of the movie…perhaps the micro-budget prevented the rest of him from being in it?
Scriven’s direction is competent and functional, making the most of the picturesque village the film was shot in and masking budgetary issues by keeping all the action within a few small, private residences. There is a strong Edgar Wright feel flowing through parts of the film, especially towards the start, where it’s hard not to notice the Shaun of the Dead inspired scene changes.
So, if the direction is ok and the sets are sound, it must be the cast’s fault this crime caper falls a little flat?
Actually, no. It seems unfair to blame the actors when the script is the real problem. After setting out its fun premise, it seems to put its feet up and just see what happens instead of following up on promises of a clever, witty indie comedy. Too often lowest-common-denominator efforts rear their ugly heads, scaring away the kind of insightful or intelligent material the aforementioned Mr. Wright tends to build his films around. It’s a shame, as the interplay between Freddie and Bainbridge could have been enough as a focal point of the film if a little more TLC had been put in, but the movie never seems to quite hit its stride, favouring to repeatedly aim for the gutter instead of the stars.
How to Become a Criminal Mastermind falters at the most basic of levels: it’s a comedy that isn’t that funny. It’s a shame, as I found myself really wanting it to be a better film, for it to suddenly knuckle down and be what I wished it could be, instead of a flat, under-cooked, comedy with little to say about anything, and without enough laughs for that not to matter.
So returning to our opening question; is it fair to judge an under-funded movie by the same scale that we judge blockbusters? Well, when it comes down to shoddy writing, I think we can. I am a firm believer in the maxim, “You can make a good film about anything” and there are certainly more challenging topics to make interesting than super-crook school, but the script is poor, giving the cast little to work with. A real shame, I was quite looking forward to this one too….
On 14th October Hammer’s classic film THE MUMMY will be released for the first time ever in HD on Blu-ray and on DVD double play and presented in its original UK theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Fans will also be treated to a host of brand new extras never seen before.
Starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in their iconic roles in this the 3rd of Hammer’s original Gothic classics, THE MUMMY (1959) was directed by the legendaryTerence Fisher who previously helmed DRACULA and THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
One by one the archaeologists who discover the 4,000-year-old tomb of Princess Ananka are brutally murdered. Kharis (Lee), high priest in Egypt 40 centuries ago, has been brought to life by the power of the ancient gods and his sole purpose is to destroy those responsible for the desecration of the sacred tomb. But Isobel Banning (Furneaux), wife of one of the explorers (Cushing), resembles the beautiful princess, forcing the speechless and tormented monster to defy commands and abduct Isobel to an unknown fate…
Available 14th October in the UK on 3-disc Double Play, the pack comprises 1 x Blu-ray and 2 x DVD, the release also includes brand new documentaries, a new expert commentary track from Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby, and multiple bonus extras and a stills gallery (see below for full list of extras).
Fans will also get the chance to see THE MUMMY on the big screen when it features as part of the Gothic: The Dark Heartof Film season at the BFI Southbank. Taking place 31stAugust, 8pm,the new digitally re-mastered film is one of three classic titles from the golden age of British Gothic horror, screened from the forecourt of The British Museum.TheMonster Weekend also includes Night of the Demon (1957) and Dracula (1958). Visit the BFI website for more details. www.bfi.org.uk
