THE GHOST WRITER (no spoilers)
moviePig
A legendary director invites you to his Hitchcockian thriller, set on
a rain-shrouded island off the Massachusetts coast. What? Been
there, done that? Go again. Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER
manages the always remarkable feat of filling two-hours-plus with
tense energy, atmosphere, and dialogue that crackles start-to-finish
(...not to mention inspired casting, like Jim Belushi as a philistine
highbrow book-publisher). Even if Ebert's 4 stars for this flick do
happen to include some genuflecting to Polanski, it's not much. tGW
is a treat ...and highly recommended.
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YOUR taste at work...
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nick
> A legendary director invites you to his Hitchcockian thriller, set on
> a rain-shrouded island off the Massachusetts coast. What? Been
> there, done that? Go again. Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER
> manages the always remarkable feat of filling two-hours-plus with
> tense energy, atmosphere, and dialogue that crackles start-to-finish
> (...not to mention inspired casting, like Jim Belushi as a philistine
> highbrow book-publisher). Even if Ebert's 4 stars for this flick do
> happen to include some genuflecting to Polanski, it's not much. tGW
> is a treat ...and highly recommended.
>
until I read your review. I checked the showtimes in our local paper
and sure enough it has. No mention, nothing, not a word, in our
weekend preview section (which as I said last week is now devoted to
scenesters and maybe to a scenester, Polanski is just too yesterday,
man, or maybe, just maybe, local distributors are worried about
promoting a Polanski picture.)
On the other hand, we're getting a lot of publicity for some movie
about the Red Baron which I didn't know existed until yesterday.
moviePig
450 theaters, up from 100. I had a short drive (but well worth it).
If you read the critics -- one-line blurbs only, I continue to harp --
you'll see that the consensus can't decide which it likes more... the
movie itself, or the fact that it was the superannuated Polanski who
made it. (Fyi - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365675/ -- on its way to
dvd, apparently... which looks like the earliest attention I might
give it...)
Mr. Hole the Magnificent
> A legendary director invites you to his Hitchcockian thriller, set on
> a rain-shrouded island off the Massachusetts coast. What? Been
> there, done that? Go again. Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER
> manages the always remarkable feat of filling two-hours-plus with
> tense energy, atmosphere, and dialogue that crackles start-to-finish
> (...not to mention inspired casting, like Jim Belushi as a philistine
> highbrow book-publisher). Even if Ebert's 4 stars for this flick do
> happen to include some genuflecting to Polanski, it's not much. tGW
> is a treat ...and highly recommended.
Part of this film felt like Shutter Island 2 to me.
moviePig
Perhaps you're telling me my intro was too subtle...
Mr. Hole the Magnificent
Tee hee hee, I actually missed that somehow.
I know, I skipped down to "...and highly recommended" hit replay
fully meaning to go back and read the full text and then forgot. :~)
nick
of classical music to alert you to the possibility that all things are
not quite right?
The Ninth Gate had superficial resemblances to Eyes Wide Shut and that
was a better movie so I'll be walking in later today confident that
history will repeat itself. But re: Ebert's four star review (which I
haven't read and even if I had, at this point I'm mentally subtracting
a half or whole star from any review Ebert gives), there's not much
middle ground with how I'll respond to a Polanski work. If I don't
like it I won't get through it. I've never even gotten all the way
through Fearless Vampire Killers--which has its audience--and I've
never even gotten started on that pirate thing of his. Even Oliver
Twist, I gave up on despite a good Ben Kingsley performance because
if you're familiar with the novel or other adaptations, it didn't look
like Polanski was brining anything new to the material.
But when Polanski's on, even in dodgy productions like Bitter Moon or
The Ninth Gate ot The Tenant, I''m all in.
Even if Polanski hadn't directed the Ghost Writer I'd want to see it
just to see what Pierce Brosnan does playing a PM based on Tony
Blair. (My revulsion to Tony Blair equals the revulsion that many
feel towards Mr. Polanski.)
moviePig
>
> But when Polanski's on, even in dodgy productions like Bitter Moon or
> The Ninth Gate ot The Tenant, I''m all in.
>
> Even if Polanski hadn't directed the Ghost Writer I'd want to see it
> just to see what Pierce Brosnan does playing a PM based on Tony
> Blair. (My revulsion to Tony Blair equals the revulsion that many
> feel towards Mr. Polanski.)
Re Brosnan's performance... I agree with whoever called tGW 'ensemble
acting', (albeit with Ewan as the lazy-susan's axle). Re tGW's
music... my tin ear could easily have bought it as lost Bernard
Herrmann. Oddly, the movie that most came to my mind wasn't actually
SHUTTER ISLAND, but RONIN... i.e., where John Frankenheimer enjoyed a
late energetic fling. I'll be surprised if you don't have a good
time.
nick
Shutter Island but it wasn't homaging--Polanski knows he's too old for
that stuff and Scorsese should realize the same thing--but more in the
direction of using a film style Hitchcock helped develop. (I'm
thinking of a camera shot during the climax and McGregor's BMW drive--
Hitchcock would have had a world of fun with GPS's.)
The "ensemble acting" was fine aside from Kim Catrall bringing that
dreaded "international marquee value"--complete with dodgy fake accent
that comes and goes--and generally getting blown off the screen by
Olivia Williams--who's never been better. Ewan was fine considering
I'd just been listening to a couple of critics reviewing that gay
thing he's done with Jim Carrey and saying that he hasn't been any
good since Trainspotting. Wilkinson was really good in his brief
appearance. (At some point though filmmakers are going to have to do
a better job of faking old photos when they need to show their
characters in their younger years.)
I think The Ghost Writer was hampered somewhat by real life actuality
and maybe for the first time you can even accuse Polanski of being
naive. Brosnan's Blair-based PM was being accused of things that
weren't that bad considering some of the horror stories we've been
exposed to in the last few years courtesy of Dick Cheney and co..
Forget war crimes and the Haigue, you accuse Blair of the things in
The Ghost Writer and all you'd get a smarmy smiling denial followed by
a solid full court media defense from the Murdoch/Ailes empire. Four
people got waterboarded and one died by accident . . . big deal.
But, yeah, Ghost Writer is entertaining and witty in that sly
Polanski way--what's up with that "sex scene" (aside from presumably
Mr. McGregor)?--and it's good to be able to watch something well-acted
and intelligent with a sane film style (I'm looking at you, Mr.
Scorsese). I wouldn't give it Ebert's four stars, but three-and-a-
half, easily.
moviePig
I'll trade you pages from my own scrapbook: I found the sex-scene, if
not exactly disrobing, at least disarming (...and, iirc, Ewan's was
the movie's only tushie). That scene obviously intended to limbo
under the MPAA's 'PG-13' bar ...as did the *numerous* instances when a
character in closeup quite visibly dropped an f-bomb, of which only
the rigid max of two were allowed to reach the soundtrack undubbed.
Next, I recall questioning your contention that SHUTTER ISLAND's ferry
seascape was green-screened ...but, now, I'll assert that tGW's ferry
had an ocean surface that was all-cgi. (You can't get placid waters
to look that ominous.) Re pseudo-Brit Cattrall, remember that Boorman
used her similarly in TIGER'S TAIL, where I thought she was also
credible (as well as slutty) ...but, of course, your ear would be
sharper. Lastly, I'll remark on an absolutely wizard shot of
Polanski's, of Brosnan's back with his hands splayed on a picture
window facing out into gray, hostile elements. With the shot framed
to omit the window's border, it's a striking, perfect metaphor for the
political tempest rushing at him. (I was annoyed that Polanski
repeated it a few seconds later.)
nick
And to think The Ghost Writer deals with the same political class as
In the Loop. I bet Cherie Blair never says "freaking". I'm not sure
what sort of marketing decision it is, cutting a Polanski political
thriller to a PG-13 as if that's going to increase its audience.
> Next, I recall questioning your contention that SHUTTER ISLAND's ferry
> seascape was green-screened ...but, now, I'll assert that tGW's ferry
> had an ocean surface that was all-cgi. (You can't get placid waters
> to look that ominous.) Re pseudo-Brit Cattrall, remember that Boorman
> used her similarly in TIGER'S TAIL, where I thought she was also
> credible (as well as slutty) ...but, of course, your ear would be
> sharper. Lastly, I'll remark on an absolutely wizard shot of
> Polanski's, of Brosnan's back with his hands splayed on a picture
> window facing out into gray, hostile elements. With the shot framed
> to omit the window's border, it's a striking, perfect metaphor for the
> political tempest rushing at him. (I was annoyed that Polanski
> repeated it a few seconds later.)
>
I liked the way the setting and the weather contributed to the
character's sense of isolation. My wizard shot of the movie was after
McGregor jumps the ferry and he's alone with his bags in the parking
lot to the dock in the early evening. I captured perfectly the
loneliness of being the last passenger after everyone else has gone
their way.
Also a shout out to whoever was playing Tom Wilkinson's wife. She's
in The Ghost Writer for mere seconds but she still projects a ghastly
image of every kind of elitism you can think of.
moviePig
(Yeah. I wasn't sure whether she was meant to be his wife, bodyguard,
or social secretary ...and then I realized she was three meants in
one. The kind of touch you *don't* get from Hitchcock, btw and
iirc...)
Russell Watson
"Der Rote Baron" was due out a couple of years ago (I guess it was
released in Germany then, anyway). I was beginning to despair that it
would ever show here in the US. Been looking forward to it, though I
have heard some negative stuff about it here and there. Probably a
better version of the story than "Von Richtofen and Brown" with aerial
sequences at least on par with something like "Flyboys" so hopefully
not a total loss.
I have yet to ever see any verification that MvR had a girlfriend, but
this film seems to involve a relationship between him and his nurse
(played by the Terminator TV series' Lena Headey) from his
convalescence after being shot in the head as is protrayed by Michael
Shaara in novel "The Last Full Measure".
ACS
Well, I'll give you a counterpoint - It's a fairly terrible. Much like
Shutter Island, it's insanely drawn out, without any of eye catching
imagery. McGregor's flat performance is fairly emblematic of the pacing.
Much more problematic, however, is the narrative. Without any subtext or
interesting images, the Ghost Writer is left live or die on its
conspiracy-related plot. A GPS as a plot reveal? Why didn't the bad guys
take care of erasing it? You've got an old man sitting in his house just
aching to spill the beans? The final reveal is also howlingly stupid.
And you have to wonder why the final act of violience occurred - I mean,
the character, to the bad guys, was still in the dark. Yet there is
someone just lying in wait for him? It reminds of the slick Hollywood
thrillers that come out every several weeks. There are some built in
surprises that are never earned. It's A Perfect Stranger level bad.
There are so many other minor details that I can't get into without
significant spoilers, that were simply not thought out. I like Polanski,
but I can't imagine he'd own up to this being one of his best.
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moviePig
> On Mar 19 2010 6:48 PM, moviePig wrote:
>
> > A legendary director invites you to his Hitchcockian thriller, set on
> > a rain-shrouded island off the Massachusetts coast. What? Been
> > there, done that? Go again. Roman Polanski's THE GHOST WRITER
> > manages the always remarkable feat of filling two-hours-plus with
> > tense energy, atmosphere, and dialogue that crackles start-to-finish
> > (...not to mention inspired casting, like Jim Belushi as a philistine
> > highbrow book-publisher). Even if Ebert's 4 stars for this flick do
> > happen to include some genuflecting to Polanski, it's not much. tGW
> > is a treat ...and highly recommended.
>
> Shutter Island, it's insanely drawn out, without any of eye catching
> imagery. McGregor's flat performance is fairly emblematic of the pacing.
>
> Much more problematic, however, is the narrative. Without any subtext or
> interesting images, the Ghost Writer is left live or die on its
> conspiracy-related plot. A GPS as a plot reveal? Why didn't the bad guys
> take care of erasing it? You've got an old man sitting in his house just
> aching to spill the beans? The final reveal is also howlingly stupid.
> And you have to wonder why the final act of violience occurred - I mean,
> the character, to the bad guys, was still in the dark. Yet there is
> someone just lying in wait for him? It reminds of the slick Hollywood
> thrillers that come out every several weeks. There are some built in
> surprises that are never earned. It's A Perfect Stranger level bad.
> There are so many other minor details that I can't get into without
> significant spoilers, that were simply not thought out. I like Polanski,
> but I can't imagine he'd own up to this being one of his best.
If those inconsistencies bothered you during the movie (or very
shortly thereafter), then you may have a gripe. But fwiw, e.g., I can
easily believe that thugs might not think to erase a GPS (...which
was, after all, a product-placement here expected to somewhat impress
consumers). Indeed, though, I don't hold thrillers to the same level
of meticulous plausibility that I do good sci-fi...
nick
"reveal" involving Brosnan's PM was something that most anyone with
Internet access could have figured out without much trouble, since
there was only one or two dots to connect (though my initial reaction
was, so that's why Tony Blair's such a lickspittle lapdog to the US--
makes sense to me.). Maybe political thrillers just aren't the same
in the era of Google. I liked the climax because even though it might
not have been entirely plausible, it fit Polanski's sense of humor and
without giving too much away, with a title like The Ghost Writer,
well . . .
ACS
For FWIW, I tend to dislike thrillers because I find myself picking them
apart. When movies hold themselves out as smart, then I hold them to that
standard. On the other hand, when I see something like Hot Tub Time
Machine, my expectations are drastically different.
The old man didn't bother me all that much during the movie, the GPS kind
of bothered me during the movie and I let out a small laugh at the final
reveal. So, with that said, I guess it is a decent thriller ... just not
a great movie.
I saw this about a month ago in a semi-arthouse theatre that was packed,
and at the end I got a "meh" vibe from the entire audience. What you
justifiably saw as Polanski having fun, I saw as lazy writing.