I reviewed them both, in separate entries. Should crank something out about THE LAST WINTER in a few days (it opens 9/19).

Well, *that* sounds encouraging!

THE LAST WINTER is good. "Fessendendies" will eat it up; the unitiated or the unconverted (I like his films) will appreciate the expanded canvas and quality effect works. And Ron Perlman, too.

Oh.

Ok, then - carry on cranking! ;)

I just wanted to add my praise for Eastern Promises. Keep in mind that I'm a diehard Cronenberg fan, but I thought it was damn good. Not at the level of Cronenberg's best, but certainly worth checking out. The script (not written by him) is a bit more simple, slight, and mainstream than his usual fare, but he does great things with it. The cast is excellent all around. But Viggo Mortensen is the big story here. Anyone who loves classic method-y hard ass performances will eat up his stone-cold machismo. It's like watching DeNiro in his prime, like young Vito Corleone, with every little character move and detail worked out. He's one bad mo-fo and you know before the movie is out that he's gonna dish out some intense Cronenberg street justice. Cronenberg keeps getting so much wonderful stuff from Mortensen and Vincent Cassel, sucking the energy out of the main story involving Naomi Watts (she's good, but playing a rather naive goody two-shoes) and the poor little baby. Things become a bit contrived and melodramatic before its over, but the good work by all involved makes it tolerable. See it for Viggo. See it for Cronenberg's usual fascination with identity, bodily transformation, and take-no-prisoners violence. But mostly see it for Viggo, with his best performance yet.

I have a spoiler-heavy question about the ending, but that can wait until more people see it.

I've been laughing at TV ads for THE BRAVE ONE in which Larry gets chased around a bodega by Jodie Foster.

Bonus fun facts about EASTERN PROMISES: Cronenberg said at our roundtable that it's the first film he's made entirely outside of Canada (SPIDER interiors were filmed in Toronto). That the movie seems to mirror A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE thematically is coincidental; "of all the projects I was considering, the funding fell in place for this one first so we made it."

The New York Times has a nice piece up on Cronenberg and EASTERN PROMISES:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/movies/1...r=1&oref=slogin

Dave is looking pretty old.

. . . we are lucky enough to be in one of the few cities showing EASTERN PROMISES during its first week of release - I can only add to the general praise for this excellent genre exercise (Mr. Cashill's piece is very good); the steambath fight to the death is, to me, an immediate classic (the intensity reminded me of the fight on the Orient Express between Connery and Shaw in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE), and is the sort of illustration we seem to need that the classic style of editing (you know, being able to see what is going on) still works just fine . . . on that subject, it is interesting to me that a modern director like Cronenberg, who shows such a consistent interest in transgressive material, expresses himself in a rather classic style of filmmaking, one that would not be so out of place in the 40s or 50s (of course, he does use a lot more blood) . . . as remarked upon by Mr. D'Annucci, Viggo is great, so is Cassel. and I must add the excellent Armin Mueller-Stahl to the list; Watts, very good throughout in a part without the flash, really rises to the occasion during a rather beautiful and unexpected moment by the river towards the end of the movie . . .

I don't mean this in any way to be flip, but Cronenberg has expressed a fascination with Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and with the particular romance of John Huston directing THE DEAD from behind an oxygen mask.

Cronenberg could easily play Kevorkian some day, as many years from now as possible...

I saw EASTERN PROMISES today and frankly my reaction is "eh".

It's not bad, it's a competent genre piece. And it's much better, IMHO, than the clunky, at points strained A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, the merits of which continue to elude me.

It's reminscent to me, though, of MIAMI VICE and THE DEPARTED, in that both of them are genre pieces by guys who have done better. Than doesn't by itself make them bad movies -- the problems with MIAMI VICE didn't have anything to do, I think, with the fact that it was a genre piece, and I think THE DEPARTED was always watchable, and at times quite gripping. But I have read (not here) a lot of special pleading for all three of these movies, suggesting that there are people out there who think that just because Cronenberg is doing it (or Mann, or Scorcese) there's got to be something more there.

But of course a genre piece isn't immediately transformed into A Major Statement For Our Times just because Cronenberg (or Mann, or Scorcese) is doing it.

And in particular I don't think Cronenberg is really the guy to be doing crime films. It's not meant as a knock -- I generally like his work. But crime films/hardboiled films come from the gut, I think, they're essentially romantic in temprament, and that's just something Cronenberg isn't. Both of these movies remind me of Kubrick's THE KILLING, which is the only Kubrick movie I've seen that I haven't liked, for exactly the same reason -- I just don't think Kubrick had the temprament for them.

(You know who does? Spike Lee. I would really like to see Lee tackle a crime movie with a better script than INSIDE MAN, which was pretty good anyway.)

MAJOR SPOILERS

PROMISES comes most alive during the fight scenes, or the gore scenes, or the tattoo sequence where Mortensen is accepted into the family. Then I felt it kinda drifted off again -- it's like you could feel Cronenberg biding his time, waiting for the interesting parts.

PROMISES also suffers from script problems, though it's a better script than the IMHO ludicrous one for VIOLENCE. The voiceover narration of the dead girl's diary is corny, straining for effect. The ultimate answer to "who Mortensen is" -- that he's an undercover cop -- is just silly, too, feels like it's been lifted from a bad TV show. (He even gets an handler who begs him to come on in.) Cronenberg introduces some much-needed ambiguity here -- we're left to wonder to what extent Mortensen is really committed to law and order, and what the exact nature of his relationship with the son really is. But nevertheless.

Well acted, though, especially given the limitations the script imposes. And I agree, the bathhouse fight is superb. Cronenberg always shot violence well.

It's not awful, but I suspect it'll be overrated, as I think A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE was.

doug

Good post, Doug. It's refreshing to know that I wasn't the only person who found A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE to be clunky and amateurish with a preposterous script. For the life of me, I could never figure out all the praise it received at the time. I pretty much hated it and found it to be embarrassingly generic, and poorly directed as well. It's definitely Cronenberg's worst film in my eyes, even more wretched than M. BUTTERFLY. I've liked or loved every other Cronenberg film, but he just doesn't seem to do well with this kind of conventional crime drama (in my opinion, of course).

I haven't seen EASTERN PROMISES yet, but the clips I have seen, the reviews I've read, and Doug's comments all seem to indicate it is most likely in the same vein as VIOLENCE so I'll just wait to see it on DVD. I've always considered Cronenberg to be one of the most consistent long-time directors as far as quality goes and I'm not giving up on him yet, so hopefully he'll get this stuff out of his system and create something new and fresh next time. And is Viggo going to become Cronenberg's version of Martin's Leonardo? Another boring Hollywood trend.

I don't much care for A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE either.

It *is* preposterous, unless taken as satire, which I don't think Cronenberg has much feel for. As a matter of fact, I find much of the overt wit in his films to be of the corny, slightly tone-deaf variety you get from smart people who are perhaps thinking a bit too hard about it.

What is your question?

I saw EASTERN PROMISES last night and enjoyed it for the most part. That is until we get to

SPOILER


the big reveal that Viggo is working undercover. Bah! I was just hoping he was a thug with a heart of gold a la THE PROFESSIONAL or something.


END SPOILER

Also, am I the only one who saw Viggo Mortensen looking like Ed Harris from A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE in this?

I too saw a little Ed Harris resemblence in Viggo's style. Which, pondering further, makes Ed's appearance in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE even more interesting: It's as if in that movie, Viggo attacks him not just because of what he knows, but because he's his doppelganger.

***ULTRA-SPOILERS!!! SPOILING THE LAST MINUTE OF THE MOVIE!!!***






I had a theory right after the movie ended which I've since decided was a little too neat and tied up to be anything other than an interesting theory to think about. As we see Nikolai in his final moments, sitting all Godfather-like with tears streaming down his face, we hear the voice-over of Tatiana speaking of her dead father, who died in a coal mine cave-in and was never seen again. The juxtaposition of the tears and the story of the father lead me to wonder if Nikolai was the father. A fake death with no body would be a great way to start a deep undercover mob sting. Nikolai says that he is "dead" and that his old life with his family in Russia is also dead. He's very concerned about the Russian sex slave girls and also is very familiar with the bad region of Russia that Tatiana came from. So, he's specifically motivated to save the baby and give her a happy life in London because she's his grand-daughter. Like I said, a little too connected, like a soap opera. But it seemed in line with Cronenberg's themes of biological identity and the corrupting nature of Burroughsian double and triple agents.




****END SPOILERS FOR ENDING OF MOVIE****


As far as Viggo being Harris-like, I missed the part where his eye and face got carved up with barbed wire. ;)

Reaching back to Bob's recommendation of The Last Winter, I agree that horror fans should seek it out. The premise, visuals, and cast are all excellent. I really had an encroaching sense of doom watching this, not certain what was going to happen next (other than it was gonna be really bad for the protagonists).

(MILD SPOILERS)

Like Wendigo, I felt this film did much better when it was implying supernatural stuff rather than overtly showing something. But I liked this one more than Wendigo. And I felt the Oliver Stone eco-political soap-boxing, while only in a few scenes and properly connected to the narrative, was a little excessive. But I love the general notion that drilling deep deep DEEP into the ground for the oily remains of pre-pre-pre-historic creatures... might have some very unsettling Lovecraftian results.

I watched EASTERN PROMISES again last night on DVD and was disappointed by the lack of extras (two featurettes totaling 15 minutes). Does anyone know if there are plans to re-release this down the line with a commentary, etc.?

Just caught up with this at a second-run screening last night and I immediately saw End of Violence Ed Harris in Viggo's Nikolai.

Aside from his outstanding performance, Viggo must be praised for performing the entire, prolonged bathhouse fight scene sans clothing or towel. There was no attempt by the actor or filmmakers to obscure his body via camera angles, staging, or other effects.

Even Sacha Baron Cohen's privates were optically censored during his nude tussle with Ken Davitian in Borat. Normally, I would have assumed this was an MPAA-mandated change except that Davitian is seen in all his "glory."

In an era where it seems that star vanity is at an all-time high when it comes to onscreen nudity, in particular, Mortensen's willingness to extend himself in this way for the sake of character shouldn't be taken lightly. The only comparable scene I can think of, at least in a studio film, is the celebrated nude wrestling sequence between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Women in Love, and that was nearly 40 years ago.

Ya'd think I would have noticed THAT! :blink:

Just think, with the DVD you'll be able to pause and advance through the scene frame by frame. :D

Southern promises?!