YOUR HIGHNESS

Written by Danny McBride and Ben Best

Directed by David Gordon Green

Starring Danny McBride, James Franco, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Theroux

and Natalie Portman

Isabel: It is my legacy to do anything to stop those who fuck to make dragons.

I don’t know about you but if I am going to get high, it’s because I want to laugh and have a good time. Apparently, when Danny McBride wants to get high, he would rather be painfully unfunny instead, and then drag all of the good people who spent their hard-earned pot money on a ticket to his new movie, YOUR HIGHNESS, down with him into his own personal hell of a bad trip. Not since Harold and Kumar got their dumb asses stuck in a certain detention facility have I had such a sobering experience at a stoner movie.

I spent most of YOUR HIGHNESS with my mouth wide open in stupefied awe of what I was watching. Wait. Was that a mechanical bird I just saw in this medieval setting? Hold on a second. Is James Franco masturbating that strangely unconvincing, Yoda-like alien creature? Uh, is that a minotaur’s penis I see and is it erect? Between all this nonsense and the broken “Ye Olde English” mixed with random cuss word diaglogue, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. And I was sober! Imagine the poor folks who actually prepared ahead of time to see this movie the way it was intended to be seen. In their impaired state, how could they possibly make sense of this insanity? And if you thought James Franco was bad at the Oscars, wait until you hear him sing.

Somewhere behind all the smoke, there is something resembling a plot in YOUR HIGHNESS. Whiny younger prince, Thadeus (McBride), lives in the shadow of older brother, Fabius (Franco). Together, they embark on a quest to stop some wizard type (Justin Theroux) from impregnating Fabius’s new virginal love (Zooey Deschanel) with a dragon baby. That’s right; I said dragon baby. Natalie Portman shows up half way through to kick some random monsters but doesn’t serve much other purpose. (She probably only did 5% of the ass-kicking anyway.) Aside from that though, it is pretty much one completely pointless scene after another, featuring a talented cast making complete boobs of themselves. (Seriously – Toby Jones: Why would you sign on to make yourself look this bad?)

Speaking of boobs, I imagine that McBride and his writing partner, Ben Best, basically inhaled as much ganja as they could before whipping out their penises, dipping them in ink, and sitting down to write YOUR HIGHNESS with them. How else could they possibly explain the total lack of reality in this film (even by fantasy standards) and the disturbing and obsessive manner in which every joke seems to lead back to McBride’s crotch? (Ladies, you have been warned – this movie is especially not for you.) YOUR HIGHNESS might have seemed like a hilarious idea high in McBride’s basement, maybe even genius by their altered standards, but on screen, the buzz is long gone before the credits are even done.

Oh, and David Gordon Green might want to try some actual direction next time.

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127 HOURS

Written by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring James Franco

Aron Ralston: This rock has been waiting for me my whole life.

I thought that winning an Oscar might mellow SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE director, Danny Boyle, but it only seems to have fueled his fire. Before anything has a chance to happen in his latest, 127 HOURS, the screen is split into three and images of people going to work or running marathons are inundating the screen at rapid speeds. I understand that he has his own style but I want to see Boyle just let the action unfold for a change, instead of just chopping it up and rearranging it visually to simply make it look cooler. At times in Boyle’s career, it has felt like the images needed the overt style to become relevant or meaningful but this time is different. Boyle has finally found a story that begs for his personal yet simultaneously impersonal touch.

127 HOURS is the story of an adrenaline junkie, a nature nut, a loner. Forcing an image to wake the heck up and jump off the screen itself is akin to what protagonist Aron Ralston (James Franco) does whenever he can. And when he can’t make that happen, he would almost rather be alone. He seeks out thrills to elevate himself above the mundane just like Boyle tries to enhance his image. When Ralston gets away from the city though and into the peaks and valleys of Blue John Canyon, Boyle slows his pace and allows the sheer grandness and beauty of the landscape to speak for itself. And speak it does. It asserts itself and its immovable brilliance by reminding man just who’s in charge here after all when it almost swallows young Ralston whole.

Ralston is a real person and in 2003, he spent a sum total of, you guessed it, 127 hours literally stuck between a rock and hard place when a rock fell with him into a cavernous gap and crushed his arm against the wall. Franco’s journey as Ralston is rarely easy to bear and sometimes just as difficult for us to take as well. His spirit goes from exuberant to painfully sober to near delirium and he carries it off with a strength I’m not the least bit surprised to see. Boyle was sure to lighten the tension with flashbacks that inform us of exactly everything Ralston still has to live for, which in turn teaches him a thing or two about how to actually live for it. The point may be somewhat plain but the experience that is 127 HOURS is a testament to an amazing feat of human endurance and perseverance, as well as an adventure that won’t soon be forgotten.

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HOWL

Written and Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman

Starring James Franco, Jon Hamm and David Strathairn

Mark Schorer: Sir, you cannot translate poetry to prose. That is why it’s poetry.

I seriously doubt this could happen today, that a poem could spark such outcry as to demand it be banned in the courts as obscene. Fifty years ago though, that is exactly what happened to American poet, Allen Geinsberg, with his poem, “Howl”. The poem depicted the darker underbelly of America, a side of the country that the majority didn’t want to acknowledge. It spoke of the impoverished, the bohemians, the homosexuals and anyone else that really that didn’t fit into the status quo because of who they were or what they did with their days and nights. And so the debate is on – does different mean obscene simply because you cannot understand it?

The trial, the poet and the poem itself are portrayed separately and cut together to form what is the first narrative film by the Academy Award winning documentary filmmaking team of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (THE CELLULOID CLOSET, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HARVEY MILK). Named after the poem, HOWL can only loosely be described as a narrative though. Albeit a somewhat safe choice for their first fiction foray, the filmmakers based their screenplay on court transcripts, archival footage and interviews, giving HOWL a very documentary feel. Ginsberg himself, played calmly and coolly by James Franco, is only ever shown in interview or in flashback, never driving any plot forward. The lack of formal focus makes for a free flowing experience but also never allows the film to truly find a firm foundation.

Like the point being proved in court by the “Howl” defense attorney (Jon Hamm) though, form needn’t be formal for the themes to be meaningful or have literary merit. Each component of the film, including a dark and rich animated interpretation of “Howl” from Monk Studios, functions fine individually and creates a whole unique unto itself. In that sense, HOWL honours its inspiration as best it can and proves the timelessness of the poem by allowing its relevance resonate even still today.

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TIFF Review: 127 HOURS

Written by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring James Franco

Aron Ralston: This rock has been waiting for me my whole life.

I thought that winning an Oscar might mellow SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE director, Danny Boyle, but it only seems to have fueled his fire. Before anything has a chance to happen in his latest, 127 HOURS, the screen is split into three and images of people going to work or running marathons are inundating the screen at rapid speeds. I understand that he has his own style but I want to see Boyle just let the action unfold for a change, instead of just chopping it up and rearranging it visually to simply make it look cooler. At times in Boyle’s career, it has felt like the images needed the overt style to become relevant or meaningful but this time is different. Boyle has finally found a story that begs for his personal yet simultaneously impersonal touch.

127 HOURS is the story of an adrenaline junkie, a nature nut, a loner. Forcing an image to wake the heck up and jump off the screen itself is akin to what protagonist Aron Ralston (James Franco) does whenever he can. And when he can’t make that happen, he would almost rather be alone. He seeks out thrills to elevate himself above the mundane just like Boyle tries to enhance his image. When Ralston gets away from the city though and into the peaks and valleys of Blue John Canyon, Boyle slows his pace and allows the sheer grandness and beauty of the landscape to speak for itself. And speak it does. It asserts itself and its immovable brilliance by reminding man just who’s in charge here after all when it almost swallows young Ralston whole.

Ralston is a real person and in 2003, he spent a sum total of, you guessed it, 127 hours literally stuck between a rock and hard place when a rock fell with him into a cavernous gap and crushed his arm against the wall. Franco’s journey as Ralston is rarely easy to bear and sometimes just as difficult for us to take as well. His spirit goes from exuberant to painfully sober to near delirium and he carries it off with a strength I’m not the least bit surprised to see. Boyle was sure to lighten the tension with flashbacks that inform us of exactly everything Ralston still has to live for, which in turn teaches him a thing or two about how to actually live for it. The point may be somewhat plain but the experience that is 127 HOURS is a testament to an amazing feat of human endurance and perseverance, as well as an adventure that won’t soon be forgotten.

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DATE NIGHT

Written by Josh Clausner
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Steve Carrell, Tina Fey and Mark Wahlberg

Claire Foster: No! When he says,” vagina”, he means your face.

Before the day has even started, it is already gone. Nasal strips are ripped off your face while miniature bodies pile drive into you before the alarm even has a chance to go off. In all honesty, the alarm probably hasn’t even needed setting in years. Something will inevitably wake the Foster’s up to their routine earlier than necessary. Phil and Claire, played by the king and queen of NBC comedy, Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, sit on opposite sides of their bed and stare into the separate abysses that await them. The message is clear; being married is hard, maybe even too hard. As you look at these two comedic geniuses though, you still see hope in their nearly defeated faces – hope for both the Foster’s themselves and for the movie you’re actually about to watch. What everybody needs is a good DATE NIGHT.

I am not married and nor do I have children. In fact, I saw DATE NIGHT in the middle of the afternoon, alone. I may not be the intended audience in regard to the marital doldrums theme we have seen plenty of times before but there is a whole other audience built in to DATE NIGHT that director, Shawn Levy, plays to more often than the first. That would be the legions of Carrell and Fey followers out there, of which I easily include myself among. Before this, I essentially avoided Levy’s work altogether. I’m not saying I’m about to go back and watch the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM series but I must commend him for rising above the complete implausibility of the film’s mistaken identity premise by allowing his stars to shine when they should. Meanwhile, getting strong character actors, like James Franco, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, for random bit parts also gives more credibility whenever it was needed.

Fey’s quick wit and Carrell’s endearing awkwardness may be strengths we are used to by now and just expect to some extent, but their mastery is only getting better and it is their chemistry that makes DATE NIGHT work when it so easily could have bombed. These two immensely funny people pull from their dramatic strengths to make sure the Foster’s are a real couple. They’re real because you can always see the fear on their faces – the fear that they could actually lose each other. This DATE NIGHT really needs to work. And it does.

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