ON THE ROAD

ON THE ROAD
Written by Jose Rivera
Directed by Walter Salles
Starring Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund and Kristen Stewart

Dean Moriarty: Marylou, spread those knees and let’s smoke some weed.

Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD is considered to be the defining novel of what is known as the “beat” generation. These were post-WWII young people who identified themselves through poetry, jazz, drugs and sexual exploration. These identities took time to establish and that meant there was never really any time for work or responsibility. In many regards, they remind of today’s hipsters. As I don’t care for them, you can imagine how I feel about their forefathers.

I’ve not read the Kerouac novel and I’m certain from seeing the film that it is incredibly detailed and likely highly insightful but that doesn't mean it translates well. On screen, ON THE ROAD, amounts to a fairly aimless road trip with nothing but unlikable characters to spend the time with. Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) is disenchanted with life when we meet him in 1947 in New York City. He wants to be a writer but he cannot commit to a single word, at least in type. Enter Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund). Dean is the epitome of cool and everyone follows him around, like the lost little puppies they are. The trouble is that Dean is more lost than any of them.

Dean and Sal fight against growing up and taking responsibility for their lives and choices. Along their trip, they meet many folks who reinforce this lesson with varying degrees of subtlety. Putting life on hold to figure out who you are and to enjoy what life offers certainly has its merits but to watch this experience on film, no matter how well Brazilian director, Walter Salles, paints the picture, is just self-indulgent really.

231. On the Road

231. (01 Oct) On the Road (2012, Walter Salles)* 44



Where Kerouac's writing is vibrant and rhythmic, Walter Salles' filmmaking style is the opposite. The structure is episodic and the aesthetic uninspired. Occasionally a scene is amusing or provocative, but not one offers insight or excitement. How odd that some of the most iconic characters in 20th century literature are impossible to engage with on-screen, the issue being that the leads are uniformly bland. Kirsten Dunst and Elisabeth Moss shine in supporting roles.

ON THE ROAD

ON THE ROAD
Written by Jose Rivera
Directed by Walter Salles
Starring Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund and Kristen Stewart

Dean Moriarty: Marylou, spread those knees and let’s smoke some weed.

Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD is considered to be the defining novel of what is known as the “beat” generation. These were post-WWII young people who identified themselves through poetry, jazz, drugs and sexual exploration. These identities took time to establish and that meant there was never really any time for work or responsibility. In many regards, they remind of today’s hipsters. As I don’t care for them, you can imagine how I feel about their forefathers.

I’ve not read the Kerouac novel and I’m certain from seeing the film that it is incredibly detailed and likely highly insightful but that doesn't mean it translates well. On screen, ON THE ROAD, amounts to a fairly aimless road trip with nothing but unlikable characters to spend the time with. Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) is disenchanted with life when we meet him in 1947 in New York City. He wants to be a writer but he cannot commit to a single word, at least in type. Enter Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund). Dean is the epitome of cool and everyone follows him around, like the lost little puppies they are. The trouble is that Dean is more lost than any of them.

Dean and Sal fight against growing up and taking responsibility for their lives and choices. Along their trip, they meet many folks who reinforce this lesson with varying degrees of subtlety. Putting life on hold to figure out who you are and to enjoy what life offers certainly has its merits but to watch this experience on film, no matter how well Brazilian director, Walter Salles, paints the picture, is just self-indulgent really.

COUNTRY STRONG

Written and Directed by Shana Feste

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester

Kelly Canter: Well, I remember that day / when our eyes first met / You ran into the building to get out of the rain 'cause you were soaking wet / And when you held the door / you wanted to know my name / Timing is everything.

There isn’t anything sadder in the world than a good country tune, except for maybe the booze-soaked, sleep-deprived, emotionally impossible days and nights that are the inspiration behind these great songs. Writer/Director Shana Feste’s COUNTRY STRONG is one of those true tragedies. One of the genre’s biggest stars falls off a Dallas stage, five months pregnant and wasted, killing her child and her spirit at the same time. A year later, she is checking out of rehab earlier than she should to return to that same stage and reclaim her career as well her own self. People are fighting, cheating and both breaking and making up, but by the time its done, everyone is crying tears into their beers.

Gwyneth Paltrow is Kelly Canter, a Faith Hill type country superstar, except with a slew of public problems. While her troubles are all very adult, her demeanor is still that of a child. Paltrow plays Canter as a little girl, lost in a big world, who would much rather be tending to a baby bird she found in a field than performing in front of thousands of screaming fans. She isn’t sober for long once her husband checks her out of rehab, as it becomes painfully clear the public is not going to let her forget her own personal hardships. She loses herself in anything and everyone she can in order to avoid her own self, until that’s all she has left - and Paltrow’s got a mess of mascara on her face most of the time to prove it.

COUNTRY STRONG, which also boasts a surprisingly strong supporting cast, culminates into a somewhat simplified commentary about celebrity and people as products. Feste pulls out every country punch she can think of, but lucky for her, Paltrow knows how to roll those punches into something real so that you too can have a silent sob in your beverage.

TRON: LEGACY

Written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde

Twenty-eight years is a long time to go between films. When the original TRON was released in theatres in 1982, I was but five years old. I can’t say I remember anything about it at the time, other than that the effects and animation were really cool. Special effects have come a very long way since then but after seeing the sequel, TRON: LEGACY, I can essentially say pretty much the same thing about this one as I did about the first when I was five; the special effects were cool and twenty-eight years from now, that will be all anyone will remember about the new one too, if anything at all.

The story has not changed. In 1982, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was sucked into the computer world he helped design by the Master Control Program. In 2010, it is his son’s turn to play. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) pays a visit to his dad’s old arcade after not having seen his father for nearly twenty years. Someone is still paying the electricity bill though as everything still works, including the passage way to Flynn Sr.’s secret computer lab. Once inside the system, Sam, a user, is easy to spot amongst all the programs and it isn’t long before he is brought face to face with good old Dad, who has been trapped in this world all this time. Together they must vanquish Clu, Kevin’s virtual counterpart (a surprisingly impressive effects designed younger, more strapping version of Bridges) before he takes his desperate need for perfection outside of the computer and into the real world.

The truth about both TRON films is that nothing other than the special effects and some high-energy game playing sequences matter in either of them. How else can you explain that they basically recycled the story from the first for the second? Both films imply that there is something deeper being said about religion, technology and how mankind can’t seem to get his head around how close these two concepts truly are to each other, but neither film actually leaves the viewer with any true insight. Philosophical constructs are simply a device to fill the space between each mind-blowing game scene and this is done adequately enough to distract from how empty all that space really is. It doesn’t hurt either that the space, albeit empty, is incredibly gorgeous, with all its geometric exactitude and bursts of light and colour to break up all the darkness.

And so I say, let the games begin. TRON: LEGACY, for all of its clunky dialogue and questionable plot points, is completely mesmerizing when the games are on. The original elements of the games are still intact but updated in such a way that they justify the entire existence of the film. Couple that with the dynamic and driving Daft Punk score and you have two hours that will dazzle your senses like you’ve never known. When those two hours are up though, you will put down the game and it will almost be like you never played at all.