Rian Johnson’s comedy about a pair of brilliant Jewish con artists with one last great scam up their sleeves is a charming fairytale about fiction itself. Mark Ruffalo’s elaborate stings are so beautifully conceived that it is difficult to know where real life ends and make-believe begins. Stephen (Ruffalo) maps out every crooked scenario like a romantic story. He paints the exotic scenery – St Petersburg, Prague, New Jersey, Mexico, Montenegro – and fleshes out the elegant parts that each brother plays to psychological perfection.

In one of the first scenes we see his 35-year-old younger brother, Bloom (played by Adrien Brody), taking a fake bullet in the chest from an emotional “mark” (victim) who doesn’t realise just how neatly he has been set up. The irony is that Bloom feels imprisoned by Stephen’s ingenious deceptions. His personality feels as if it is a figment of his brother’s imagination. Bloom aches for the uncertain freedom of “an unwritten life” – a future that hasn’t been scripted by his witty, flamboyant brother. The existential comedy lies in just how impossible this is for Brody’s fearful hero. No matter where he runs, he cannot escape his genial brother or their mute oriental sidekick, Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), whose fondness for nitroglycerine punctuates the story.

Johnson’s film is a playful piece of cinema that takes off like a magic carpet when Bloom and Stephen lure an impossibly lonely heiress, Penelope (Rachel Weisz), into parting with $1 million. Bloom inevitably falls in love with this surreal and fabulously eccentric princess who refuses to heed any of Bloom’s warnings not to trust him. The preposterous con involves car accidents, exotic train journeys in period costume on the Orient Express, half a dozen European cities and strange run-ins with ghosts from the past.

Most of these wild characters have only the most tenuous relevance to the plot. Robbie Coltrane’s Belgian museum curator, and international smuggler, is madly fashioned from Hercule Poirot. Max Schell’s one-eyed Diamond Dog – who mentored the brothers like Fagin and who lost his left eye in a rapier fight – is like a villain from Sinbad the Sailor. The comic tension between Brody and Ruffalo, and latterly Brody and Weisz, is the real pleasure. What’s exasperating about the film is the lack of anywhere realistic for Brody’s melancholic hero to escape to.

Unlike Johnson’s debut feature Brick – which cleverly imported the classic tropes of film noir to a high-school murder – The Brothers Bloom is a little too cute and knowing for its own good. The burlesque rhythms and contorted twists are ultimately too fanciful and, at times, totally incomprehensible. But any film that can summon shades from movies as disparate as The Darjeeling Limited, Murder on the Orient Express and The Sting is not short of mischief or ambition.

Source: Times Online

• The Brothers Bloom new trailer and release date
• Brody and Ruffalo Are Two Huggy Bears
• More Toronto goodies

Bottom Line: Superbly acted, deeply authentic portrait of the lives of two petty thieves in South Boston.
By Peter Brunette

TORONTO — We’ve all seen this film before — two hoodlum friends from the tough, violent streets of South Boston trying to cope with the lure of easy money and the offsetting threat of jail time — but we’ve never seen it this well done.

With Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke registering personal bests in the performance category as well as playing magnificently and ultraconvincingly off each other, “What Doesn’t Kill You,” a true story that is powerful and completely riveting from beginning to end, clearly is one of the best films at Toronto this year.

The independent film recently was bought by Image Entertainment and should do well in limited commercial engagements. Festival programrs should definitely have a look, and ancillary sales, especially DVD, should be robust.

Paulie (Hawke) and Brian (Ruffalo) have been best friends since childhood, when they first started boosting TV sets off the back of trucks. But for 15 years, they’ve been under the strict control of the local Irish Catholic crime boss and are increasingly resentful about the skimpy returns they see after risking their lives on a daily basis.

Finally, they decide to strike out on their own, with disastrous results. Brian, particularly, falls into the maelstrom of drug abuse, becoming a cokehead who feels tremendous guilt for letting down his wife (Amanda Peet, sporting a terrific Boston accent) and two boys.

After a stint in prison, Brian, back out on the unforgiving streets, struggles between the temptation of easy money — especially because he can’t find a decent job and the bills are mountainous — and his desire to be a responsible husband and father.

The film’s remarkable performances can be partially explained by the fact that its director, the first-time but remarkably self-assured filmmaker Brian Goodman, is an experienced actor who has appeared in numerous films and TV shows. But because Goodman grew up in South Boston, everything about the film — the dialogue, characters, situations and symbolically icy, snow-packed locations — shouts authenticity.

The script is fast-moving and well-structured yet also has plenty of funny moments that give insight into the less-than-glamorous life of the petty crook. It also moves significantly away from the cliches of this genre and always seems remarkably fresh.

It also shows the extent to which violence of every possible variety (including domestic) is a constant factor in these characters’ lives, characters who seem to know no other means of solving disputes. One scene after another is staged in an utterly convincing manner, and the overall, cumulative effect is memorable.

Production: Yari Film Group, Battleplan Prods.
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke, Amanda Peet, Donnie Wahlberg.
Director: Brian Goodman.
Screenwriters: Brian Goodman, Donnie Wahlberg, Paul T. Murray.
Producers: Bob Yari, Marc Frydman, Rod Lurie.
Director of photography: Chris Norr.
Production designer: Henry Dunn.
Editor: Robert Hoffman.
Sales: Syndicate Films International.
No rating, 100 minutes.

The Hollywood Reporter

• “What Doesn’t Kill You” trailer
• Mark gets emotional in Toronto
• “What Doesn’t Kill You” TIFF premiere

MARK RUFFALO and Julianne Moore are traipsing through a rubbish-strewn urban wasteland, scavenging for salvation. All around them, dozens of pitiful humans dressed in filthy, mismatched clothes grope their way past wrecked cars and graffiti-splattered highway ramps, like dancers in some grotesque ballet of the damned.

It is not a pretty sight, but it is impossible to avert your eyes – which is exactly the point. The director, Fernando Meirelles, and his camera crew are gearing up to shoot another take of Blindness, a feature film based on the harrowing 1995 parable about an unnamed city stricken with a plague of sightlessness, by the Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago. Like nearly everyone in the film, Ruffalo’s character, an ophthalmologist known simply as “the doctor”, is afflicted with a terrifying malady in which the eyes appear normal but are coated with a milky whiteness that blocks out vision.

The only person immune is Moore’s character, the doctor’s heroic, steadfast wife. As the story gathers speed, she must guide her husband and a small group of fellow sufferers (played by Danny Glover, Alice Braga and others) through a perilous obstacle course, in a society where order has collapsed and humans live like animals.

Critics heralded Saramago’s novel as a brutal but compelling allegory of the 20th century’s house of horrors: the Holocaust, the stigmatisation of AIDS patients, the ominous encroachment of Big Brother. First published amid the fin de siecle fixation on end-times scenarios, it anticipated pop culture’s obsession with apocalyptic story lines: I Am Legend, 28 Weeks Later, the Christian/sci-fi Left Behind books, Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road.

And if this film’s setting visually echoes post-Katrina New Orleans or a sub-Saharan refugee camp, that reflects the director’s view that the message of Blindness is more timely every day.

“Because now, especially with the environment, we’re really destroying the planet, but we keep going, keep selling, keep burning. It’s like we can’t see,” says Meirelles, whose 2002 international breakout hit City Of God, about Brazilian youth gangs, stamped him as a skilled action auteur with a social conscience.

Filming of the combined Japanese, Canadian and Brazilian co-production wrapped up last year in the chaotic Brazilian mega-city of Sao Paulo. The film will open this year’s Cannes Film Festival before its US release in August.

Originally published in Portuguese as Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Essay About Blindness), Saramago’s international best seller might have been titled Eyes Wide Shut. In book and film, blindness is not only a physical condition but a metaphor for the darker side of human nature: prejudice, selfishness, violence and wilful indifference.

Blindness is about how we, as humans, look but do not always see. It is about how quickly our seemingly stable lives, even in so-called developed nations, can spiral into anarchy and barbarism.

“Sometimes we read about tribal wars in some countries in Africa and how terrible they are, and how aggressive, and how violent. And we’re exactly the same,” says Meirelles, who has made something of a specialty of translating Third World moral quandaries into gripping dramatic narratives with which First World audiences identify.

For the cast of roughly 700 extras, Blindness was frightening, draining and exhilarating. They were trained to act “blind” by Christian Duurvoort, an actor who coached his colleagues. Just as important as understanding the physical mechanics of being blind, Duurvoort says, was helping the actors deal with “the emotional state, the psychological state, being vulnerable”.

Meirelles wanted the extras to seem like traumatised people, not B-grade movie zombies. Practically everyone working on the film donned a blindfold at some point, even the producers and the director. In one exercise, the main actors were blindfolded and told to follow the sound of a bell. Ruffalo had particular trouble and kept wandering around getting lost. During shooting, he wore a thick make-up layer to make him appear older and special contact lenses that rendered him blind.

“At first it’s terrifying and then it’s frustrating and then it gets quiet,” says Ruffalo. “We’re tormented by our eyesight. A beautiful girl walks by; cars; clothes; terrible things on television. You don’t know this until you go blind … As an actor I suddenly felt free.”

For the characters trapped in the Hobbesian purgatory of Blindness, the seeing are as cursed as the sight-impaired.

Hundreds of people, including the doctor and his wife, are rounded up and placed in quarantine, where they are menaced by a gang of thugs led by a very unsavory Gael Garcia Bernal.

The movie does not shy from depicting the degrading conditions, although it will spare audiences some of the novel’s more excruciating details, such as people slipping on excrement.

Rape and revenge killing come into play. But so do valour, courage and small, redemptive acts of kindness. Through their blindness, the principal characters discover (or rediscover) their ability to empathise with others. “It’s at times the very best we can be, and also the ugliest and basest and worst that mankind has toward one another,” Ruffalo says.

Los Angeles Times

The 61st Cannes Film Festival opens on May 14.

• Blindness comes to DVD
• “Blindness” screencaptures
• The Brothers Bloom at the London Film Festival

On occasion a criminal captures the imagination in a particularly emphatic way; Jack the Ripper did so both through extreme violence and a series of taunting letters to the police and press. The California serial killer who called himself The Zodiac followed in those footsteps, killing five confirmed victims in 1968 and 1969 (though claiming many more in his letters) and sending a lengthy correspondence, filled with puzzles and ciphers, vague threats and displaying an odd fondness for Gilbert & Sullivan musicals. Although never caught, his talent for branding and media manipulation have given him an importance in true crime lore that has few equals.

David Fincher’s film begins with several of the murders, though including only the ones that had surviving witnesses. While graphically depicted, they occur very quickly and it’s clear that Fincher’s interest lies not with Zodiac or the killings, but specifically with the effect that his conduct and especially his letters had upon three men. These include San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), who did the principal coverage on the case, and detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), the lead investigator for the San Francisco police. Most importantly, it centers on Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist for the Chronicle who becomes completely obsessed with the case, and eventually would write the book that started a generation of armchair detectives on the case, referred to affectionately or contemptuously in equal measure as the Yellow Book.

The Yellow Book, while obviously influential in keeping the case in the mind of the public, has its own shortcomings due to Graysmith’s self-trained amateur police procedures and a penchant for exaggeration (some say fabrication) to make his favored suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) fit better than anyone else. For instance, a key factual point against Allen in the film is The Zodiac making a telephone call declaring December 18 to be his birthday (also Allen’s birthday), though such a call is completely undocumented. Graysmith also leans heavily upon a painting party attended by Allen at the home of one of the victims, which apparently never even happened. Fincher’s film has come under some serious criticism in Zodiac circles such as www.zodiackiller.com for following the Yellow Book’s interpretation of the facts. But Fincher is playing a complicated game here; it’s important to note that he’s not treating Graysmith as having the answer. Indeed, as portrayed by Gyllenhaal he’s something of a nut, seeing suspects on every side and leaping to conclusions about suspects; in the space of about ten minutes of running time he’s absolutely convinced that three different men are The Zodiac. It’s as if Fincher is quite aware that Graysmith isn’t entirely reliable, but that he’s interested in the obsessional aspect of the man, and thus feels free to use Graysmith’s conclusions without necessarily validating them. That’s underlined by the fact Fincher uses several different actors to portray The Zodiac as he commits his crimes, none of them being Lynch.

Gyllenhaal does a superb job of conveying Graysmith’s descent into near-madness and paranoia as he becomes more and more fascinated by what seems to him as if it is a solvable puzzle. He begins as an Eagle Scout interested in bringing a killer justice and slowly allows his life to totally unravel as he continues wallowing in his fascinations. At the same time, he uses the obsession toward constructive ends, culminating in the Yellow Book, unlike Paul Avery, who finds himself unable to cope with his unwilling interest in the case and The Zodiac’s sly attentions, descending into drugs and leaving San Francisco altogether. Ruffalo’s portrayal of Toschi is quite solid, conveying frustration both at his inability to capture The Zodiac and at Graysmith’s amateur antics, while also allowing Graysmith to refuel his own interest and to allow him to pursue issues that are stymied by interjurisdictional problems. The supporting cast is outstanding as well, with Brian Cox doing a superb job as flamboyant media hound attorney Melvin Belli, and Lynch in brief scenes as Allen. Particularly memorable is Chloe Sevigny as Melanie, Graysmith’s long-suffering girlfriend and later wife, who cannot get through to him about what his obsession is doing to their marriage. Her plight is poignant, but she also refuses to suffer in silence.

Even though very little happens after the murders have concluded less than half an hour in, Fincher keeps the suspense level high through editing that moves the various threads along. Several set pieces are brilliantly executed, most notably the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa, where The Zodiac adopted the terrifying persona of an executioner complete with bizarre black hood, and Graysmith’s visit to Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer), who at first appears to offer information and then quickly becomes a suspect himself. This version of the film offers the director’s cut with an additional seven minutes of footage, though nothing of earth-shaking relevance.

Unlike most crime movies, there cannot be a satisfying denouement to this picture where the criminal is brought to justice. The question remains open to a far greater extent than the film suggests, since Allen did not match on DNA or fingerprints, and persons who spoke to The Zodiac said his voice did not match. On the other hand, one of the victims, Michael Mageau, identified Allen as the man who shot him. As stories change, memories fade, witnesses die and evidence vanishes, the crime will in all likelihood remain unsolved, even though it continues to fascinate and obsess armchair detectives from retired police and government cryptologists to Britney Spears.

Rating for Style: A
Rating for Substance: B+

Disc Extras
Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 27 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, French, Spanish with remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
4 Documentaries
2 Feature/Episode commentaries by 1) director David Fincher 2) Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., producer Brad Fischer, James Vanderbilt, crime author James Ellroy
Packaging: Elite
Picture Disc
2 Discs
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extra Extras:

1. Previsualisation comparisons

Extras Review: The package is an eye-catching reproduction of a Zodiac envelope, a clever piece of design that immediately differentiates it from the rest of the discs on the shelf while also resonating with the faux brown-paper packaging of Fincher’s Fight Club. The first of two discs is devoted entirely to the movie, with a pair of commentaries. Fincher’s is very solid, with little dead time and offering many insights into what he was intending to do. He does, however, reference period studio logos, which aren’t on the print used here. He makes it clear this is a very personal film, with his own childhood memories of The Zodiac and various other matters intruding into the picture though not on an obvious level. The second commentary is a chatty one that covers a lot of the same ground but is nevertheless an entertaining listen.

The second disc features four substantial documentaries, three previsualization sequences of the killings, and the trailer, all of them pleasantly presented in HD. All of the extras also include English, French and Spanish subtitles, which is a nice touch. The first of the four documentaries, all produced by David Prior (who makes a career of documenting Fincher), is Zodiac Deciphered (54m:12s), a fairly standard “Making of.” However, it also incorporates a goodly amount of behind-the-scenes material that gives a fascinating glimpse into Fincher’s perfectionist ways that remind one of Kubrick and his penchant for endless takes. Visual Effects of Zodiac (15m:18s) offers a look at the surprising amount of digital effects that were used to generate late-1960s San Francisco and other sites that have changed beyond recognition.

This is the Zodiac Speaking (1h:42m:10s) is one of the most fascinating extras ever offered on a DVD. Going directly to primary sources, Prior looks at the Zodiac crimes by interviewing the police involved, and the two surviving victims, Mike Mageau and Bryan Hartnell, while also looking at the physical evidence, and mostly disregarding the handwriting, the letters and ciphers that tend to get most of the attention. This does include crime scene photos that sensitive viewers may want to avoid. But to actually hear Hartnell talk about the attack, and see him on the shore of Lake Berryessa laying out how things happened, is amazing. Mageau, on the other hand, has clearly suffered badly in the interim and his story changes even while the camera is on him, making him a highly unreliable witness, though certainly a poignant one (and in the process casting substantial doubt on his ID of Allen). The stories often conflict in the details, making it clear that the real truth may never be known on many aspects of the story, such as whether The Zodiac was actually stopped by police after killing cabdriver Paul Stine.

The final documentary is Prime Suspect (42m:33s), devoted to Allen himself, or more specifically, Allen’s most notable accusers. In particular, Don Cheney, who disturbingly resembles the composites of The Zodiac, dubiously makes his story better and better over the years. This documentary does at least make it clear that while Allen was undeniably a weirdo who enjoyed being a suspect, and he was implicated by a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, there was in fact no physical evidence that connected him with The Zodiac’s crimes. It’s a superb collection of material that will both satisfy followers of the case and likely create new ones.

Extras Grade: A+

Final Comments
There’s a good reason why the True Crime section of bookstores continues to expand: the all-too-human fascination with such subject matter. Superb lead and supporting performances beautifully drive this drama of obsession with crime, and the extra materials are outstanding.

• Mark Ruffalo As The Hulk In “The Avengers”?
• Cotillard, Ruffalo and Hawke Prep For A ‘Second Coming’
• “In The Cut” screencaptures

Is there anything more depressing than the senseless death of a child? In the real world, perhaps not; in Reservation Road, plenty. For starters, it’s depressing to note that director Terry George elected to follow his powerful Hotel Rwanda with this simple-minded melodrama. It’s also depressing to note that this film largely wastes the talents of not one but two Best Supporting Actress Oscar winners, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino. And finally, it’s depressing when a strong premise is compromised by lazy plotting and cop-out resolutions. Based on John Burnham Schwartz’s novel (with Schwartz co-writing the screenplay with George), Reservation Road starts with a young boy being struck and killed by an SUV. The driver is the distracted but decent Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), who panics after accidentally hitting the lad and flees from the scene. The victim’s dad is Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix), who witnesses the tragedy firsthand but doesn’t get a good look at the driver. Dwight struggles with his overwhelming guilt while Dwight tries to console his grieving wife (Connelly) and their other child (Elle Fanning) — so far, so moving. But buying into the notion that every city outside of LA and NYC is the size of Mayberry, Reservation Road then takes a wrong turn by having Dwight’s ex-wife (Sorvino) coincidentally be the music instructor present at the boy’s funeral — and then grows even more absurd when Ethan turns to a law firm for help and gets assigned — God help the storytellers — Dwight as his counsel. It’s all downhill from here, as Ethan turns vigilante (when he sets off to purchase a gun, we half-expect him to bump into Jodie Foster on the way out) in order for the film to end as predictably as we feared it might.

Source:Connect Savannah Online

• “Reservation Road” screencaptures
• Reservation Road (R1) postponed
• Independent studios gear up for Oscar battle

While driving his son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) home from a baseball game, Dwight Arno (Ruffalo) swerves his car and kills Josh Learner (Sean Curley), the young son of Ethan (Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly). Dwight panics and drives away unidentified. The beginning is raw and unflinching, shot with a jarring series of cuts and ending with a mournful image of Josh’s body seen from a car window slumped on the ground. Subsequently, Dwight faces his profound inner turmoil, while Ethan, dissatisfied with the stalled police investigation, begins his own quest for justice.

The screenplay convincingly portrays the extreme swings in emotion felt by both sides, understanding that some days are better than others for people coping with tragedy. The relationship between Ethan and Grace feels especially honest. As Ethan turns to vigilantism, Grace finds a way to persevere for the benefit of surviving daughter Emma (Elle Fanning). Similarly, Dwight has days when he is almost able to forget his horrendous mistake but most of the time, he remains entrenched in a morass of shame and fear.

Ruffalo perfectly embodies that devastating psychological conflict. He maintains a perpetually uncomfortable facial expression and notably pensive demeanor that, even in Dwight’s happiest moments, suggest the inescapable stain on his conscience and attendant self-loathing. It’s brilliantly effective, visceral acting and one wonders how substantially the film would have been affected had it focused entirely on him.

George makes a major structural mistake in developing Phoenix’s scenes. The director employs a thriller aesthetic with lots of close-ups of the actor’s disturbed visage as he trawls for information on the perpetrator. This detracts from the evolution of the Learner family dynamic and is more fitting for a story of obsessive revenge. Further muddling matters is an unconvincing plot twist in which Phoenix hires Ruffalo as his lawyer, growing mildly suspicious as his calls are ignored. The plot hurtles toward a climactic showdown that would have been appropriate for a story in which good and bad were concisely and explicitly defined, but feels tacked on and exploitative in a work that otherwise holds a nuanced view of human nature.

• The Brothers Bloom at the London Film Festival
• The First World chooses not to see, even though we’re looking
• “Reservation Road” screencaptures