The end of an era:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1109919295218430.xml
'The Jacket': It's a wrap for Section 8
Friday, March 04, 2005
BY STEPHEN WHITTY
Star-Ledger Staff
Recently, pals Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney said they were letting their Section 8 production company disband. Fun was fun, but they'd had enough of setting up other people's projects.
Too bad. Things were just starting to get interesting.
Made to connect indie directors with big stars and studios, Section 8 mostly failed to connect, making more "Oceans Elevens" than "Far From Heavens" (and occasionally, a truly awful picture like "Welcome to Collinwood").
With "The Jacket," though, the partners seem to have gone back to their original idea. Take a noncommercial director (in this case, the artist John Maybury, whose previous film was the Francis Bacon bio "Love Is the Devil.") Give him a commercial script (in this case, a psychological thriller about an amnesiac Gulf War veteran).
Then combine the two, take a step back and see what happens.
In the case of "The Jacket," the result is an arty -- and sometimes artsy -- but still diverting fantasy.
Railroaded on a murder charge, innocent Adrien Brody ends up in an old dark house of an asylum. Gothic shadows loom, and doctor Kris Kristofferson is doing nasty psychotropic experiments in the basement.
There's an unintended side effect, though. The drugs open a sort of time portal in the mind -- and with a little practice, Brody begins to travel regularly into the future, and think about changing his past.
It's certainly a far-fetched premise, even for a time-travel movie, and Maybury doesn't do much to root it in reality.
The initial setup -- with its flashback to the first Gulf War -- feels like callow exploitation (there's absolutely no reason for Brody's character to be a veteran.) The first few scenes of Brody's hallucinations are so crowded with flashing lights and subliminal shots they could trigger migraines.
Eventually, though, Brody learns to control the images, and the movie begins to control itself. And we watch as two separate stories unfold in parallel times -- both featuring a man trying to figure out the mystery of his life and, maybe, death.
Brody is compelling as the shattered vet, although his constant near-nudity makes some of the movie look like a commercial for a weigh-loss drink. ("Burn Body Fat Fast!") Keira Knightley has a smudgy glamour as his future- tense girlfriend, and a battered Kristofferson provides menace as the mad doctor. (Only Jennifer Jason Leigh is wasted, as a sympathetic psychiatrist who mostly frowns and watches from the sidelines.)
Despite their efforts, occasionally the thinness of the material shows through. Occasionally the pretensions of the director takes over. There are constant images -- for no good reason -- of Brody's eyes filling with blood. Maybury's love of jittery editing and extreme close-ups turns a dialogue scene into a duet of lips and eyes, a love scene into a mesh of anonymous midriffs and elbows.
But that was sort of the point of Section 8: Combining the usual project with an unusual director, and waiting for the result. What happened in "The Jacket" is a sci-fi fantasy with an unusual bit of gravity and style. What happened to Section 8 is just a shame.
Rating note: The film contains bloody violence, some brief nudity, sexual situations and alcohol abuse.
'The Jacket': It's a wrap for Section 8
Friday, March 04, 2005
BY STEPHEN WHITTY
Star-Ledger Staff
Recently, pals Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney said they were letting their Section 8 production company disband. Fun was fun, but they'd had enough of setting up other people's projects.
Too bad. Things were just starting to get interesting.
Made to connect indie directors with big stars and studios, Section 8 mostly failed to connect, making more "Oceans Elevens" than "Far From Heavens" (and occasionally, a truly awful picture like "Welcome to Collinwood").
With "The Jacket," though, the partners seem to have gone back to their original idea. Take a noncommercial director (in this case, the artist John Maybury, whose previous film was the Francis Bacon bio "Love Is the Devil.") Give him a commercial script (in this case, a psychological thriller about an amnesiac Gulf War veteran).
Then combine the two, take a step back and see what happens.
In the case of "The Jacket," the result is an arty -- and sometimes artsy -- but still diverting fantasy.
Railroaded on a murder charge, innocent Adrien Brody ends up in an old dark house of an asylum. Gothic shadows loom, and doctor Kris Kristofferson is doing nasty psychotropic experiments in the basement.
There's an unintended side effect, though. The drugs open a sort of time portal in the mind -- and with a little practice, Brody begins to travel regularly into the future, and think about changing his past.
It's certainly a far-fetched premise, even for a time-travel movie, and Maybury doesn't do much to root it in reality.
The initial setup -- with its flashback to the first Gulf War -- feels like callow exploitation (there's absolutely no reason for Brody's character to be a veteran.) The first few scenes of Brody's hallucinations are so crowded with flashing lights and subliminal shots they could trigger migraines.
Eventually, though, Brody learns to control the images, and the movie begins to control itself. And we watch as two separate stories unfold in parallel times -- both featuring a man trying to figure out the mystery of his life and, maybe, death.
Brody is compelling as the shattered vet, although his constant near-nudity makes some of the movie look like a commercial for a weigh-loss drink. ("Burn Body Fat Fast!") Keira Knightley has a smudgy glamour as his future- tense girlfriend, and a battered Kristofferson provides menace as the mad doctor. (Only Jennifer Jason Leigh is wasted, as a sympathetic psychiatrist who mostly frowns and watches from the sidelines.)
Despite their efforts, occasionally the thinness of the material shows through. Occasionally the pretensions of the director takes over. There are constant images -- for no good reason -- of Brody's eyes filling with blood. Maybury's love of jittery editing and extreme close-ups turns a dialogue scene into a duet of lips and eyes, a love scene into a mesh of anonymous midriffs and elbows.
But that was sort of the point of Section 8: Combining the usual project with an unusual director, and waiting for the result. What happened in "The Jacket" is a sci-fi fantasy with an unusual bit of gravity and style. What happened to Section 8 is just a shame.
Rating note: The film contains bloody violence, some brief nudity, sexual situations and alcohol abuse.