We glimpse inside the lives of two damaged brothers in the solid little drama The Motel Life. The younger brother (Stephen Dorff) lost his lower leg in a childhood accident, and is often child-like in his decision-making. The older brother (Emile Hirsch) tries to look after him, but has his own problems, including drinking so much that there’s blood in his vomit. The two are at best underemployed and living a marginal existence in seedy Reno motels. The younger brother blunders into a life-changing jam, and the older one tries to get him out-of-town. This may be Hirsch’s best performance since Into the Wild, but, in the showier role, Dorff was a little too grimace-y for my taste.
Dakota Fanning is very good as a love interest, and Kris Kristofferson has a brief role, too. There’s some creativity at work here, as in some animation that represents the younger brother’s illustration of the older brother’s storytelling. There’s a funny scene when they bet a bank wad constituting all hope for their economic survival on the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight. And I liked the Reno and Elko exteriors. The Motel Life is worthwhile, but not a Must See.
In the comedy Prince Avalanche, Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch play two guys working a lonely job – painting the yellow line in the middle of a forlorn road through a wildfire-decimated Texas landscape. Neither guy is what you would call smart, but Rudd’s Alvin is brighter than Hirsch’s Lance. Alvin is quirky and more than a bit anal. Lance’s horizon isn’t much farther than his next sexual encounter. It’s funny when Alvin tries to keep Lance on task. As each faces some personal bad news, all semblance of order crumbles. Along the way, they meet a hilariously gonzo trucker (Lance LeGault). It’s all very funny in a droll kind of way.
Rudd, of course, is a solid comic actor, but Hirsch is the surprise. Hirsch has been very strong in dramatic roles (especially in Into the Wild), but he was the weak link in last year’s darkly funny Killer Joe. Here, he plays his dunderhead entirely straight, and the result is very funny. Who knew?
Green is now a successful director for hire (Pineapple Express and a load of commercials). But all of the indies that he’s written and directed have been really excellent: George Washington, Undertow, All the Real Girls and Snow Angels (which made my Best Movies of 2008).
I saw Prince Avalanche at a San Francisco International Film Festival screening introduced by Green. He said that, after filming Snow Angels’ suicide in frozen Nova Scotia, he was ready for something lighter. A member of the band Explosions in the Sky (his frequent collaborator) told him about the burned-out landscape around Bastrop, Texas. Having found a location, he needed a two-actor story, and so he adapted the Icelandic movie Either Way. Fueled by lots of coffee, he whipped out the screenplay in two days, with two more days for a rewrite.
One of the real pleasures of Prince Avalanche is the performance of Lance LeGault, who died just before he could have seen the movie, as the truck driver. LeGault was a veteran character actor who started off as Elvis’ stunt double and played scads of nasty military guys; Green discovered him working as an extra while shooting an auto commercial in Tehachapi. Now we can remember LeGault for stealing all his scenes in Prince Avalanche.
Prince Avalanche is in theaters, and is also streaming on Amazon, iTunes, DirecTV, Comcast, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.
Here’s a movie that will either thrill or disgust you. Either way, you sure ain’t gonna be bored.
In Killer Joe, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon and Emile Hirsch play a white trash family with a get rich quick scheme. They give a hit man (Matthew McConaughey) the teen daughter (Juno Temple) as a deposit. They’re all as dumb as a bag of hammers, so what could go wrong?
Killer Joe was directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and shot by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff, The Natural) in just 20 days. These guys know how to tell a story, and Killer Joe pops and crackles.
Killer Joe is rated NC-17 for good reason and Friedkin accepts the rating without complaint. Indeed, Killer Joe has its share of Sam Peckinpah style screen violence and an unsettling deflowering scene. But the piece de resistance is an over-the-top sadistic encounter between McConaughey and Gershon involving a chicken drumstick, at once disturbing and darkly hilarious. But Sam Fuller and Quentin Tarantino would have loved it, and so did I. Nevertheless, some viewers will feel like they need a shower after this movie.
The cast does a good job, but the picture really belongs to McConaughey and Temple. McConaughey is currently recalibrating his career a la Alec Baldwin – he’s moving from playing pretty boys in the rom coms to taking meatier, more interesting roles. He is both funny and menacing as Killer Joe (and I liked him in Bernie and Magic Mike, too). I’m really looking forward to seeing him in Mud and The Paperboy.
The movie slowly makes Juno Temple’s character more and more central, until she takes command of the denouement. Temple is always sexy (Kaboom and Dirty Girl), and here she is able to ratchet down her intelligence to play a very simple character, always exploited by others, who is finally empowered to take control.
I saw Killer Joe at a screening where Friedkin said that the screenwriter saw Juno Temple’s character as the receptacle for all feminine rage. Friedkin himself sees it as a Cinderella story – just one where Cinderella’s Prince Charming is a professional killer. hat’s all pretty deep sledding to me – I see Killer Joe as a very dark and violent comedy – kinda like In Bruges with twisted sex.
We glimpse inside the lives of two damaged brothers in the solid little drama The Motel Life. The younger brother (Stephen Dorff) lost his lower leg in a childhood accident, and is often child-like in his decision-making. The older brother (Emile Hirsch) tries to look after him, but has his own problems, including drinking so much that there’s blood in his vomit. The two are at best underemployed and living a marginal existence in seedy Reno motels. The younger brother blunders into a life-changing jam, and the older one tries to get him out-of-town. This may be Hirsch’s best performance since Into the Wild, but, in the showier role, Dorff was a little too grimace-y for my taste.