COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Written by Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus

and Hawk Otsby

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde

Jake Lonergan: I don't want any trouble.

Aliens have tried to take over our planet dozens of times in the movies already. Every time they do, it seems like they always choose major metropolitan areas and the setting is always current day. While I’m sure there are exceptions to these rules, who is to say that aliens couldn’t plot their attack a couple of hundred years ago? They’re aliens; they’re advanced; they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. And if you think you’d be scared if aliens decided to attack us today, imagine what it would have been like for a cowboy in 1837 to come face to face with one of these massive monsters. Imagine that real good and you’ve got yourself a new breed of alien movie, you’ve got COWBOYS AND ALIENS.

Director Jon Favreau tows a very fine line between these two genres to ensure that he is somehow loyal to both without sacrificing much from either side. Like a good Western, it starts out quiet and lonesome. A man wakes up in the desert, bleeding from what he presumes is a gunshot in his side, with no recollection of who he is and with a bizarre metal bracelet around his left wrist unlike anything he has ever seen. As it turns out, this man is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) and he is wanted for a bevy of assorted crimes, not the least of which is the murder of his former lover (Abigail Spencer). Jake moseys into a nearby town and right before he causes too much damage, a strange light appears in the sky. The whole town looks on as if a miracle is about to take place. Why wouldn’t they? They’ve never seen an alien disaster movie before so how could they possibly know what horror was in store for them?

The concept of COWBOYS AND ALIENS is so strong and while Favreau has crafted a sturdy blend of the two film worlds, there is something inherently amiss about the combination. One genre is often subdued and subtle while the other is loud and raucous. At times, the differences are too far apart to fully come together, like it wants to take flight but its too heavy to get off the ground. The pace picks up once the story crosses from cowboy loner to invasion survivors banding together. Craig is joined by typical tough guy, Harrison Ford, who is obviously enjoying himself a great deal in the part and Olivia Wilde, who just seems like she enjoys being window dressing way too much. Regardless, along with a few other determined town folk, they set off to take on the invading army with everything they’ve got, which admittedly is not much. This is where Favreau finds the commonality that ties the genres together – the endurance of the human spirit and the need to persevere.

Looking Back: Working Girl

(dir. Mike Nichols, 1988)

I've spent years trying to locate this movie and watch it.  No, I admit that it's not the hardest movie to find, but I could just never get a hold of it on Netflix or the library or whatever.  And finally it appeared on Instant Queue and my long wait was finally over (merely by saying "Honey, Harrison Ford is in it," I convinced my fiancée to sit down and watch it with me).

It's the late 1980s and hotheaded-yet-business-savvy Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is struggling to be more than just a peace of meat in the fast-paced world of New York business.  After calling her boss (a thin Oliver Platt) a pimp, she's relocated to the office of shrewd, shoulder-pad wearing Katharine Parker (played brilliantly by Sigourney Weaver).  Weaver at first seems to be a kind boss, and in fact if I didn't know she was supposed to turn out evil, that slow section of the film would have been devoid of tension.  But it was just waiting for Weaver to do something bad or act like a witch, which she finally does after being betrayed by McGill.  When Katharine breaks her leg skiing, our secretary cum Wall Street virtuoso takes over her office and begins to set in motion a brilliant business acquisition (originally her idea) which Katharine had tried to deflate and secretly steal.  Oh, and along the way she falls in love with Jack Trainer, a sleepwalking Harrison Ford.

You always hear Working Girl references as being very, very 80s in both fashion and design.  After watching the whole thing, I'm less shocked and more flabbergasted that it was so beloved at the 1988 Academy Awards. I hardly find anything to dislike about a film that's nominated for some kind of Oscar; I may not love every film nominated, but I can at least appreciate why some people like it, but about this film, I have nothing good to say.

Well, Weaver was good.  But the buck stops there. Oh, and the song "Let the River Run" by Carly Simon.  There was one particularly good scene at the beginning of the film, where Griffith is set up with a trashy businessman perfectly played by an ageless Kevin Spacey.

"You SLUT!"

How this was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and three acting races is a little beyond me. Griffith seemed like she was lost without a paddle the entire time, and not just because she was a woman in a man's world but because she was put in the precarious potion of having to act.  Maybe it was partially due to Kevin Wade's comically atrocious dialog, but Griffith's emotional range never rose above mildly irked.  Whenever something huge or stressful would happen in the character's life, all Griffith could muster was a banal "Okay" or "Snake" before hanging up the phone or calmly turning around.  I rarely say this, but it really felt as though she was merely...saying lines the whole time, and trying to remember them halfway through saying them.

Joan Cusack and Harrison Ford were both criminally underused and hardly present.  Ford's allotted one good scene, and after that the rest of his character and thereby his performance are nothing short of predictable. Cusack could have had a juicy part, but really is only able to shine in one scene that takes place about halfway into the film; after that, she basically disappears and Griffith's full lingerie set becomes her new sidekick.

The most painful part for me, though, was that no one changed in the film.  No character has an arch, there's very little evolution.  At the beginning, McGill was tough-headed and business-minded, and at the end she still is, but the only difference is people's perception of her.  Ford's character certainly doesn't change, since he's never painted as anything close to the other Wall Street snakes in the film, so when he has a heart of gold at the end there's no big reveal there (he doesn't even sleep with Griffith the night the drunkenly meet and she sleeps over).  Cusack's Cyn isn't carefully imagined enough by the screenwriter to even have a change, so the only thing that evolves on her is the amount of eyeliner and hairspray she uses.  Not even Weaver could manage an arch; witch at the beginning and witch at the end.  This, I think, is why I couldn't care about any character...they were just all so flat and boring.  This movie was about a working girl, but it's a movie that needs a lot of work to get through.  The costumes are the highlights.  GRADE: D-


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MORNING GLORY

Written by Aline Brosh McKenna

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Harrison Ford

Mike Pomeroy: Half the people who watch your show lost the remote. The other half is just waiting for their nurse to turn them over.

In MORNING GLORY, the darling Rachel McAdams plays Becky. We all know Becky. We don’t necessarily know her in real life because I’m not convinced she actually exists anywhere other than in Hollywood films. Becky is married to her job as the executive producer of fourth place network morning show, “Daybreak”. As queen worker bee, she has no time for a life, let alone any time for love. We all know from the moment we meet her that she will inevitably find the balance in her life to live happily ever after, simultaneously providing a ripple effect of equilibrium to the people that surround her. In real life, Becky works around the clock, has meaningless sex if she’s lucky, and probably has to take a multitude of medications to keep up the pace necessary to maintain her “life”. That would be way too depressing for a romantic comedy though.

MORNING GLORY may not be grounded in anything other than a clichéd perspective on life, but director, Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL) still manages to pull enough genuine emotion from his cast to make the experience pretty pleasant and often pretty funny. McAdams is the center, a 28-year-old who must choose between her dreams and reality (28 is apparently the cut off age for chasing dreams). Her effortless charm propels her through countless difficult situations but you can tell she can feel the sting of failure catching up behind her and pushing her forward at the same time. Her morning show anchors are played by legends, Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford. Keaton is sadly underused but looks to be having a blast whenever on screen. As for Ford, it was refreshing to see him look like he’s trying for a change. As former trusted news anchor and current unemployed curmudgeon, Mike Pomeroy, Ford’s cold exterior and antagonizing delivery could not be better suited. By the time he has to show a little heart (c’mon, you knew he would!), it practically feels like it could change the world.

I would like someone to answer this question for me. When is Patrick Wilson going to just waltz into my empty elevator on one of the worst days of my life like he does for Becky on hers? I would settle for someone who isn’t Wilson but is as equally attractive. The truth is though that, while life doesn’t work this way necessarily, people do still find happiness by searching, hoping and never giving up. It’s just a lot easier for them to find it when there is a director behind a camera making sure that all the missing pieces are waiting to be found in plain sight.