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Bad Lieutenant: Good Cop Gone Nuts

BuzzSugar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:49 -0800

Nicolas Cage has said, "There's a very fine line between Method actor and schizophrenic." In Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, he teeters that line maniacally, with an ever-increasing slur and crooked swagger. Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a detective in post-Katrina New Orleans investigating a drug-related murder and his personal threshold for cocaine and heroin.

The first news of Bad Lieutenant was puzzling: famously extreme director Werner Herzog re-imagining a 1992 cult movie, also called Bad Lieutenant, but shifting the action to New Orleans and casting Nic Cage in the Harvey Keitel role opposite his Ghost Rider costar Eva Mendes. Weird.

But in fact, Bad Lieutenant is Herzog's second surprisingly accessible movie in as many years, following 2007's Rescue Dawn. And Cage is brilliant in a role seemingly made for him, so read more.

The noirish, pulpy, desperate, and often hilarious film opens with a good deed: McDonagh dives into a Katrina-flooded jail cell to save a prisoner's life, in the process injuring his back and subsequently getting hooked on Vicodin and then far harder drugs.

As a degenerate cop in a washed-out city, Cage makes Denzel Washington's Training Day villain look like a Boy Scout. He slithers through the streets, confiscating drugs to snort with his prostitute girlfriend (Mendes), hooking up with a drug kingpin played by Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner, and fending off a rising tide of self-created trouble. "Being courteous is really getting in the way of my progress," he croaks before one of his more disturbing moral lapses.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, Herzog has found the perfect setting. He never lets the city look pretty or even charmingly decayed, and he populates it with iguanas and alligators and snakes and fish. At every turn, McDonagh is confronted by cold-blooded animals, as he careens between the call of duty and the cold-blooded instinct of his addiction. It's impossible to ignore the reptilian symbolism, and the effect is perfectly bizarre. Despite its darkest moments, Bad Lieutenant is a remarkably good trip.

Photos Courtesy First Look Studios

Oscar Movie Preview: Encounters at the End of the World For Best Documentary

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:30:53 -0800

Since it can often be hard to see some of the Oscar-nominated documentaries in theaters, it's nice to get a taste of them before Oscar night - not to mention that it might help you when you fill out your Oscar ballot. So this week I'll feature as many of the Best Documentary previews as I can.

Leave it to Werner Herzog to find the poetry and beauty in hanging out with a bunch of quirky Antarctica scientists. By all accounts Herzog, considered a most talented modern-day documentary filmmaker, has achieved something truly special with this latest project.

The movie's website describes what's going on this time around:

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together under unbelievably close quarters in Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science. Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted. In his first documentary since Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his camerman, traveled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under.

From a visual standpoint, the images he captures of Antarctica are breathtaking and seem otherworldly. And I believe the Academy and the critics when they say his story is just as compelling.

To watch the trailer for yourself, read more.

Source

Next Herzog Project to Star Ghost Rider Duo, Mendes and Cage

BuzzSugar — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:40:15 -0700

The wildly talented German director Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly) has tapped the Ghost Rider leads for his next project, a remake of Bad Lieutenant. The original 1992 film has this description on Netflix:

Winner of an Independent Spirit Award (Harvey Keitel for Best Male Lead), director Abel Ferarra's gritty, visceral crime drama puts an out-of-control police lieutenant (Keitel) on a collision course with disaster. A survivor of the streets, this junkie, thief and killer comes face to face with his own sordid past. Although he's exploited young girls for sex, he's forced to confront his private demons when he investigates the rape of a nun.

Herzog's "reimagined" version will star Eva Mendes and Nicolas Cage with, I'm assuming, Eva Mendes playing the nun. I gotta say, this casting makes me scratch my head a bit. Herzog worked with Christian Bale and Steve Zahn on Rescue Dawn and made an incredible film. It seems like he could have gotten some better talent for this movie, but hey, maybe he sees something in Cage and Mendes that we haven't been able to see yet.

Source

Buzz News Roundup, 4/4

BuzzSugar — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:30:31 -0700

Has it really been that long? Fox has picked up King of the Hill for a 13th season, TV Guide reports.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman may join Rob Marshall's film adaptation of the Broadway musical Nine.
According to ComingSoon, Werner Herzog will write and direct The Piano Tuner, a Victorian-era drama about one man's journey to war-torn Burma.
Reuters reports that the Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour is definitely a go.
Denzel Washington is attached to star as the hero in a film adaptation of the bestselling Robert Ludlum novel The Matarese Circle, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
USA Today writes that MySpace will be launching a full-fledged music service where people can buy music and concert tickets.
John Schneider and Molly Ringwald have been cast in ABC Family's Juno-esque teen pregnancy TV pilot from the creator of 7th Heaven, writes Zap2it.
Justin Long and Hayden Panettiere have been tapped to voice the lead characters in the animated family film Alpha and Omega, reports ComingSoon.

Photo courtesy of Fox

Movie Preview: The Grand

BuzzSugar — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:00:00 -0800

When I first saw the poster for The Grand I had to groan. Not another casino movie! But then I looked a little closer and found some familiar, welcome names like Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer and Woody Harrelson. The Game is a mockumentary-style spoof on professional gaming, with a ridiculously talented cast full of funny people.

You just have to check out this trailer for the movie which opens in limited release March 21. And in case you're wondering, yes, "The Scary German" is legendary German director Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly). Hilarious.

To see what I'm talking about, read more.

Source

Movie Review: Rescue Dawn

BuzzSugar — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:00:00 -0700

The true story of Dieter Dengler is so astounding that director Werner Herzog felt compelled to tell it twice: first, in the 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and now in Rescue Dawn, a new movie starring Christian Bale as the German-born American pilot who escaped from a Laotian POW camp in 1965. The Vietnam War-era saga follows the soldier from his first mission, when he survives a plane crash only to be tortured and starved by Laotian soldiers before fleeing into the even more superhuman hardships of the jungle.

Best known lately for the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, German director Werner Herzog is - to put it mildly - a very extreme director inclined to extreme film-making. (For his 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo, he famously filmed a steam ship being hauled over a mountain without the use of special effects.) So it makes sense that Herzog would be drawn to Bale, who infamously lost more than 60 pounds for his role in The Machinist. As crazy as both of these guys may be, their collaboration results in a brilliantly affecting piece of art, so read more

Rescue Dawn is easily one of Herzog's most mainstream movies, and it's refreshing to see such attentive film-making applied to a very watchable Hollywood movie. Though good war movies are often equated with frank depictions of horror - as with Saving Private Ryan - Herzog's more impressive method makes very careful choices about what to show and what not to show. In the process, he gives us a very intimate tale that overhauls the typical tropes of a Vietnam movie.

Because the film is told from Dengler's point-of-view, the viewer knows only what Dengler knows, and as a result, the film can't rely on cheap exploits or irony. For instance, Dengler is astonished that some of his cellmates have been imprisoned for two years - way before Americans knew we had troops in the region - and since he has no idea why his three Southeast Asian cell mates are in the POW camp, neither do we. Like our protagonist, who is crafting an escape strategy from the moment he arrives, we are concerned only with the here and now.

Bale is rightfully being heralded for his portrayal of Dengler, whose commanding personality convinces the prisoners to flee even as his body is wasting away. (In fact, Bale gets disturbingly thinner in every scene, indicating that they were filmed in sequence.) But just as impressive are the supporting actors, including Jeremy Davies (who, my friend pointed out, will have to take a career hiatus just to gain the weight back) and Steve Zahn as Dengler's fellow POWs.

In their most subtle interactions, the actors - particularly Zahn and Bale - craft characters whose only motivation is survival. In return, Herzog uses chaotic camera work and stifling cinematography to reinforce their suffocation and determination. It's an expert telling of a story that deserved to be told again.

Movie Preview: Rescue Dawn

BuzzSugar — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:49:01 -0700

Based on a true story, Rescue Dawn tells the tale of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale), a German-American whose plane is shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War. A captured POW, he managed to organize an incredible and risky escape for a group of fellow prisoners.

From the trailer it looks like director Werner Herzog has created a tense and grim depiction of war with a little bit of hope tinging the edges. The movie is currently out in New York and L.A. and will open in other select cities as the weeks go by. To watch the trailer and tell me what you think, read more

Photo courtesy of MGM

Link Time! Eric Dane Dances His Way Into Burlesque

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:30:13 -0800

Eric Dane joins Christina Aguilera, Cher, and Kristen Bell in Burlesque - Zap2It
Daniel Radcliffe is lending his voice to a Twilight spoof . . . on The Simpsons! - Hollywood Insider
Tim Burton's career retrospective looks rad - MTV Movies Blog
Director Werner Herzog shares his five favorite films - Rotten Tomatoes
Johnny Depp is named People's Sexiest Man Alive for 2009! - PopSugar
Precious director Lee Daniels is already lining up his next gig, titled Selma - Collider
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck make beautiful music together in the video "Heaven Can Wait" - Stereogum
Brooke Shields is moving to The Middle - Ausiello Files
Will Arnett and Justin Theroux sign up for a space love story - Moviefone
New Moon director Chris Weitz says he's quitting movies - Film School Rejects