What happened to Julia Ormond?

Between 1994 and 1995, actress Julia Ormond starred in three pictures about a woman caught in a fervent love triangle. In Legends of the Fall she was torn between Brad Pitt and Henry Thomas. In First Knight she was forced to choose between Sean Connery and Richard Gere. In Sydney Pollack’s remake of Sabrina, she fell in love with Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. Ormond seemed destined to become the next Audrey Hepburn. Then, after following these extremely successful films with a tedious thriller, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Ormond vanished from the public eye. She starred in several TV movies (one of which is about a gang that “turns to witchcraft to handle its criminal enterprises”) and recently made a cameo appearance in  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But for many years now I’ve been wondering, what happened? How could such a stunningly graceful and talented actress go from Brad Pitt, Sean Connery and Harrison Ford to forgettable TV movies?

Getting ‘Taken’

The hero of Taken is a retired CIA agent named Bryan Mills, a man whose years of experience shows on his weathered face and nearly every gesture he makes. When he wraps his daughter’s birthday present he does it with such immaculate precision you’d think he was trying to create a piece of modern art. It’s this kind of scrupulousness, this stunning hawk-eyed attention to detail, that keeps him alive, and it is what will eventually help him save his teenage daughter, Kim, when she is kidnapped by the Albanian mafia.

Unlike the protagonist, the director of this revenge thriller, Pierre Morel, doesn’t seem to be interested in details. He allows the script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen to take on the proportions of a mythic, urban tale. Mills is a flawless man. Not even John McClane, the invincible hero of Die Hard, would be able to outsmart him. Mills, in fact, commits no mistakes — his revenge is as precise as the wrapping on his daughter’s birthday present. There’s no question that he’ll rescue his little girl. The thrill is in seeing how he does it.

Watching the film, I recalled the sequence in Braveheart in which the Scots recount the story of William Wallace’s ascendancy with outrageous hyperbole — “He’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse!” (Mel Gibson’s historical drama, at its core, was about revenge.) Bryan Mills has that same larger-than-life quality. The director wants us to take pleasure in every moment of violent retribution — every bolt of lightening from Mills’ arse. We even relish the moment when Mills informs his invidious ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), that their daughter has been kidnapped (the bitchy sybarite had been fiercely adamant that nothing would ever happen to her baby).

It’s as close as you can get to sadism as pop entertainment. Of course, there’s the horror genre, but horror movies thrive on fear, not vicarious sadism. Not even the other revenge flick that was released earlier this year, The Last House on the Left, could give its audience this much morbid satisfaction in watching people die. In Taken, revenge isn’t sweet — it’s freaking cool. And that, one might argue, is precisely the problem. By the end, I felt as if I just finished playing a video game — or perhaps, more accurately, the game had been playing me.

Grade: B-

Gross encounters of the third kind

The aliens in District 9 resemble slimy crustaceans. Humans call them “prawns,” a derogatory yet appropriate term. Some humans find them to be as irresistible as shrimp cocktails; a woman noisily slurps up alien blood, a man gobbles up a dismembered alien arm. These space creatures have been living in Johannesburg, South Africa for 20 years, segregated into various slums — “districts” — designated by the human government.

It’s Ellen Ripley’s worst nightmare. Luckily, these are not the same vicious predators that Signourney Weaver had to contend with. The aliens want nothing more than to go home, but until they figure out a way to refuel their ship, they are stuck in an increasingly violent co-existence with the earthlings.

Director Neill Blomkamp’s debut feature is ingeniously constructed. It starts off as a documentary, something you might see on the Discovery channel, then shifts into a conventional narrative you might call The Last Samurai meets Predator meets The Fugitive. Like the Tom Cruise film, a white male protagonist befriends his enemy, a different race (in this case, a different species), and discovers that he has something in common with them. Then he joins the enemy for some serious ass-kicking.

The unlikely hero of District 9 is Wikus, a man whose job is to shepherd 1.8 million aliens into a new district. When he inadvertently squirts alien liquid in his eyes, his DNA begins to mutate, slowly changing him into a prawn. The shocking transformation begins with his arm, which is no longer recognizable as human. The government wants his body for ungodly experiments, and so he runs.

District 9 emerged from Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg, a six-minute short that caught Peter Jackson’s eye. Though it is Blomkamp’s vision that propels the story, District 9 carries the emotional weight of a Jackson movie. Jackson’s films are about human struggles against powerful, larger-than-life forces; the prawns are feared and misunderstood, like King Kong or the women of Heavenly Creatures.

Blomkamp is a confident director who clearly understands that good storytelling is based on emotional truth. What separates District 9 from banal films like Independence Day and Terminator Salvation is a propensity for honesty. Though the film eventually settles for typical Hollywood conventions, it never loses its authenticity. District 9 is about identity and home; the two could be synonymous — for who are we without a home? And when our very notion of “self” has been threatened, where do we go? The filmmakers don’t attempt to answer these questions, but it’s obvious, by the end, who the real aliens are.

Grade: B+

She’s off to see the world

As Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland had a breathtaking girlish elegance that mesmerized me even when I was a child. It wasn’t just her hypnotic singing voice — it was the way in which she looked at the world, as if everything around her was an unbelievable magical illusion. She was as enthralled by Oz as we were, and never once did she betray her audience with a winking self-awareness, the way many child stars do these days with their aw-shucks-I’m-in-a-movie mellifluence. Judy became a household name because she understood that moviemaking was about sharing the enchantment.

In Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, that enchantment is more palpable than ever. The filmmakers of this Emmy-winning TV mini-series not only channelled Judy Garland’s spirit, they brought the legendary actress to life. Tammy Blanchard, in her film debut, plays the young Judy, while renowned Australian actress Judy Davis resurrects the manic, drug-addicted adult Judy; both possess an uncanny resemblance to the star, and they embody her so brilliantly and effortlessly that watching them is akin to participating in a seance. You’re not just watching a movie about Judy, you’re watching Judy.

With impressive meticulousness, the biopic documents Judy’s unexpected ascendancy to fame and her tragic downward spiral towards mental and financial desperation. Hollywood was an abusive lover she had an unhealthy on-and-off relationship with. Consumed by an overpowering drug addiction and the feverish pressures of showbiz life, Judy was eventually left with nothing but a ghostly shell of herself. The movie never judges the star, nor does it patronize her; it shows us who Judy Garland was: a woman willing to sacrifice herself for her dreams.

Grade: A

Pixar won’t go down

By the time Pixar released its fifth feature in 2003, Finding Nemo, it had already become an axiom that every film produced by Pixar will invariably strike gold. Now the invincible computer-animation company has released its tenth film, Up, and the general truth remains evident: Pixar doesn’t know how to fail. Up is an endearingly old-fashioned adventure bolstered by the kind of shrewd slapstick choreography that the classic cartoons of the 1950s thrived on. It’s also disarmingly poignant. It tells the story of a grumpy old man, Carl Fredricksen, who tries to keep the spirit of his dead wife alive by reigniting the thing that brought them together: a fervent desire to explore the unknown. Determined to vanquish the festering loneliness in his heart, the reclusive Fredricksen ties thousands of balloons to his house and lifts off towards South America. Up in the air, the old man discovers a cherubic little Asian kid named Russell who has inadvertently tagged along for the ride. It soon becomes clear that the true journey is the budding friendship between the two explorers. Up is a prodding reminder that no matter how old you are, you’ll always be a kid looking for a new adventure.

Grade: A-

Five sequels, remakes I’d like to see

5 sequels I’d like to see:

Gremlins 3

Roger Rabbit II

The Road to Oz

The Incredibles 2

Planet of the Apes 2 (with Mark Wahlberg — yes, I actually liked it)

Zac Efron could be your father

Say what you will about Zac Efron. For all his Disneyfied, tween-heartthrob blandness, the kid is actually a decent actor. In 17 Again, the 21-year-old High School Musical star plays Michael O’Donnell, a man who magically transforms into his younger self and seizes the opportunity to undo his regrets. It’s yet another variation of Big, but the film, directed by Igby Goes Down helmer Burr Steers, is surprisingly clever.

On the verge of a bitter divorce, O’Donnell begins to form a bond with his two kids, something he never had when he was a contemptuous middle-aged man. The young O’Donnell, in essence, becomes one of them — a teenager high on the possibilities of life yet lost in his search for self-identity. In his kids’ sex-crazed world, abstinence is anathema and anti-individualism is in vogue. 

O’Donnell, spouting hilarious say-no-to-stupidity rhetoric — the kind of verbal punishment he’d inflict on his kids as a grown-up — begins to understand what it means to be himself again. It’s that sort of truthful “ah-ha” realization that distinguishes 17 Again from other teen-movie knockoffs, and Efron delivers it with delightful comic precision. Of course, the movie is not without some cringeworthy sophomoric jokes, but what’s high school without a bit of infantilism? 17 Again puts the high back in school.

Grade: B

Rage against the machines

It’s easy to dismiss Terminator: Salvation as nothing more than an empty thrill ride, because that’s exactly what McG’s film is. Still, there’s something oddly comforting in its rambunctious, “blockbuster movie” preposterousness. This is heavy metal alright, but it’s metal that’s been created with utterly defiant confidence, as if the director set out to prove that he’s as bad-ass as the characters in his movie. McG is far from becoming the visionary director he believes he is, but in Terminator: Salvation he demonstrates his burgeoning skills as an action-movie craftsman.

The film’s greatest achievement, however, isn’t the action. It’s Sam Worthington, who pretty much steals the show with his understated, heart-wrenching performance as Marcus Wright, an ex-prisoner who discovers he has more than a few things in common with the enemy. Worthington is on the fast-track to becoming Hollywood’s next big thing, and you can see why — the actor gets us to feel Marcus’s pain through his steely yet compassionate gaze. He makes internal agony seem effortless; unlike the director, who tries so hard that the film eventually collapses under the weight of its glossy, over-eager vacuousness.

After an unsurprising, by-the-numbers climax, the filmmakers move hastily towards a manufactured “emotional” ending, where they attempt to inject the movie with heart — literally. It only reminds us that what we’re watching is just as artificial as the T-1000. McG knows how to direct action, but he has a lot to learn about storytelling. Terminator: Salvation is about a war against machines, but the real machine is the movie itself.

Grade: B-

Where every man has gone before

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek crackles with such infectious cinematic fervor you almost forget that he and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are merely stirring up old ingredients. The film never quite transcends its source material, yet it manages to thrill us with its spry, geeky knowingess. It’s as if Abrams injected the franchise with a much-needed shot of adrenaline.  

But the true spectacle here isn’t the action or visual effects (which are, indeed, spectacular); it’s the tension-laced relationship between Starfleet students Kirk and Spock. Their competitiveness gradually allows them to form their infamous bond, and watching them get there is something that even non-Trekkies will take giddy pleasure in.

Abrams, the prolific and gifted TV producer who opened that confounding mystery box called “Lost,” understands that great storytelling isn’t about the plot, it’s about the characters. Chris Pine plays James Kirk with a sexy, rugged charm — a rebel with a twinkle in his eye, and he makes Luke Skywalker look like a wuss. Zachary Quinto, as Spock, effortlessly summons the erudite Vulcan’s hardened emotions and “logical” intellect. The rest of the cast, including Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy and Simon Pegg as Scotty, are equally inspired choices. 

If Star Trek falls short of greatness, it’s because, halfway through, the film abandons its sharp wit and opts for the conventionalism we’ve witnessed far too many times in the “Star Trek” canon. Abrams shifts gears and focuses on the explosions, as if he were afraid of losing the audience’s attention. Still, the action is directed with gleeful confidence, at times bringing to mind the early films of Spielberg.

Perhaps J.J. Abrams’ genius is due, more than anything else, to his ability to make the familiar seem new. Lost, Alias and Fringe have little to do with originality and more to do with execution. The guy’s passion for storytelling is palpable. He’s gone where every man has gone before, yet we’ll gladly follow him anywhere. For Abrams, no doubt, it’s only logical. 

Grade: B+

What are you waiting for?

For the longest time I was held back from making films because I believed I didn’t have the “right camera” or the “proper equipment.” Well, I now refuse to be stuck in that limited mindset. I think this is the secret to becoming a good filmmaker: 1) make as many awful movies as you can and 2) learn from them. If you want to be a screenwriter, 1) write as many awful screenplays as you can and 2) learn from them. If you wait for the “perfect script” or until the “right time,” you’ll end up with nothing but regrets.

Mistakes and setbacks are inevitable. It’s a struggle, no doubt about it. But that is how we get better at what we do, and that is how the story goes: we struggle, we work hard, we succeed. Take the “work hard” part out and you get nothing but struggle.

If you’re passionate about making movies — and I mean really in love with the art, the craft, the utter torture it inflicts on your creative soul — get out there and shoot something. It doesn’t matter if it’s on the lowest grade DV camera, or an old crappy 2001 Sony 3CCD camera like mine. Steven Spielberg never would have become the man he is today if he had said, “I don’t have the right camera. Well, I guess I have to wait until I get one.”

Stanley Kubrick was on to something when he said that young filmmakers should grab a camera and just “make a movie of any kind at all.” I’m certain that’s precisely how he became one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the world.

The possibilities are within us, not somewhere out there in some intangible form. I know there are others out there like myself who need a little push sometimes. So here’s your push. I’m looking forward to seeing your name up on the screen.

The Art of Deliberate Practice

About three decades ago, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Professor William Chase and a postdoctoral fellow named Anders Ericsson posited an interesting theory. They argued that our innate talents — whether it’s playing the violin, winning at chess, or running a Fortune 500 company — aren’t really innate at all. After many years of research and conducting dozens of experiments, they concluded that the individuals we perceive as “geniuses” — Mozart, Tiger Woods, Itzhak Perlman, to name a few — become who they are through “deliberate practice,” not thanks to some miraculous higher power.

That means thousands and thousands of hours of hard work. Tiger Woods wasn’t born a gifted golf champion. His father, a pro golfer himself, started training him at age three. Mozart’s music wasn’t merely handed down to him by God; the composer rewrote his music numerous times, trying to perfect it as he went along. Violinists like Itzhak Perlman accumulated at least 10,000 hours of practice in 10 years before he finally mastered his art. In one study, Chase and Ericsson proved that great memory can be cultivated — anyone, at any level, can improve their memory skills, not just math wizards and chess players.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that no one succeeds unless they work hard. But what separates the “ordinary” people from so-called “gifted” people, Chase and Ericsson suggest, isn’t some magical inborn quality; it’s deliberate practice. According to Geoff Colvin, author of the book Talent is Overrated:

Deliberate practice “is designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously possible; it’s highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.”

Deliberate practice equals high performance. I understand now why many of my teachers believed I was a “gifted” writer and artist. But my talents weren’t gifts bestowed upon me at birth. I was a good writer because I wrote every single day — journals, essays, school newspaper articles, letters — I even created newsletters that I sent to one of my cousins regularly. I started my first collection of short stories in second grade. And I excelled at art because, at 6, I began drawing pictures on a regular basis. I was practicing deliberately without realizing it.

In retrospect, it makes sense why, in film school, my editing and shooting assignments often stood out (one of my professors once told me he had no doubt that I would one day “make it”). Prior to film school, as a teenager, I shot and edited numerous silly little short films; I volunteered at a local broadcasting station and taught myself video production; during my spare time I wrote dozens of awful screenplays. I didn’t wait until film school to learn the craft of filmmaking.  

My point here isn’t to boost my own ego. Far from it. For the last few years I’ve been racked with self-doubt and uncertainty about my future. I’ve never had any doubts about my own talent, but here’s what I’ve realized: I haven’t been working hard enough. And you out there, whoever is reading this: keep working your ass off. Double the amount of time you spend on pursuing your dreams. Stop wallowing in fear and laziness. Surgeons don’t become surgeons after a year of med school; it takes up to 10 years. It’s a mistake to believe we can achieve overnight success simply by wanting it. You’ve gotta get out there on the field and train like crazy. We may never truly know where talent comes from, but what we know for sure is this: deliberate practice pays off.

Lynch’s Twitter report

David Lynch is arguably the most unique filmmaker of our time. Case in point:

Apatow’s Oscar ‘Express’ short

In case you missed Judd Apatow’s hilarious short from last night’s Oscars, here it is.  James Franco and Seth Rogen reprise their stoner characters from Pineapple Express. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski makes an unexpected cameo. 

‘Funny People’ Trailer

The movie, due July 31st, looks like Judd Apatow’s best film yet.

Watch the trailer.

‘Scream 4′ in the works

Wes Craven speaks with BloodyDisgusting.com about plans for Scream 4. Kevin Williamson, the mastermind who penned the first two films, is writing the script (thank you, God). It has been 13 years since the first film revitalized the horror genre and paved the way for more progressively disturbing films like Saw and Hostel. Though Scream remains the top grossing slasher flick of all time, it’ll be interesting to see if the fourth installment will be able to compete with the recent “serious” gore fests like Friday the 13th and the upcoming The Last House on the Left (a remake of Craven’s 1972 gruesome revenge flick).