Review: Kelly Reichardt's 'Night Moves' Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning

Night Moves is the latest film from indie auteur Kelly Reichardt, director of neo-realistic dramas Old Joy, Meek's Cutoff, and Wendy and Lucy. Wait, come back! There's a good many who would say "neo-realistic" is euphemism for "dull", and to be fair her prior work, while incisive and emotionally staggering, tends to lack positive action. Night Moves is slightly different, however, in that its characters are set to take a very explosive action for what they perceive is a just cause.

Night Moves follows a similar tract as last year's kinetic thriller, The East, in its exploration of the radical environmentalist movement. But this is a Reichardt film through and through; more concerned with the motivations and contradictions in its trio of lead characters. Little in the way of fanfare introduces us to Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), a quiet, simmering environmentalist raised on a "green" commune; Deena (Dakota Fanning), who comes from a place of privilege, and Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard), a military vet with personal demons to spare. Out of some notion that a hydroelectric dam is in a state of anguish, the trio decide to blow it to smithereens.

Reichardt has always preferred an economy of plot in order to leave room for her character building efforts, and those who appreciate that in her work will find plenty of it. To put it bluntly: there's not a lot of story here as we simply follow the trio, almost in documentary style, as they go about their plotting. That means watching them buy the ingredients for explosives, obtaining phony credentials, and securing transportation. The minutia isn't terribly exciting but the interactions between them are rife with tension. Josh is a no-nonsense sort, angry and with a touch of social awkwardness. It's a darker spin on what we'd expect out of Eisenberg and he is one of the reasons the film works as well as it does. Dissension, jealousy, and ultimately paranoia threaten to rip the group apart, ratcheting up when it comes time to trust one another fully.

And trust is ultimately what this film is about. Told in haunting, muted tones emphasizing the natural environment, Reichardt explores the dichotomy between those who value life while causing destruction. When a twist of fate backs the trio into a dangerous corner, Reichardt casually shifts into another mode, telling a compelling story of obsession, guilt, and murder. The second half of Night Moves is gripping and unlike anything she's done before, and despite the incredibly slow pacing it's a side of her that needs to be on display more often.

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Trailer and Clip for 'Very Good Girls' Starring Elizabeth Olsen and Dakota Fanning

There's a good chance you don't remember Very Good Girls, a film announced more than a couple of years ago. With Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen headlining the coming-of-age drama, it seemed like the kind of project that would get some festival buzz before a solid art house run. After premiering at last year's Sundance it just vanished and nobody really noticed, but now the film has resurfaced with a trailer, clip, and  upcoming release date.

In what looks to be standard teen fare, the story centers on two best friends who decide to lose their virginity during the final New York City summer they will spend together before college. A snag in their plan arises when both girls fall in love with the same ice cream guy (you can do better, ladies), causing a rift that threatens to tear them apart. Just based on this bland footage, backed by a snoozing score by Jenny Lewis (who I generally like), Fanning and Olsen don't make for a natural pair of same-aged friends and there's little here that we haven't seen a thousand times before.

That said, the supporting cast is fantastic with Demi Moore, Boyd Holbrook, Peter Sarsgaard, Richard Dreyfuss, Clark Gregg, and Ellen Barkin. Directed by Naomi Foner, Very Good Girls opens July 25th.




Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen - Very Good Girls by Teaser-Trailer.com

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Sienna Miller Scales 'High-Rise'; Gerard Butler Joins 'Den of Thieves'; Peter Sarsgaard Leads 'Experimenter'

* Sienna Miller and Jeremy Irons have joined Tom Hiddleston in High-Rise, the next film from Kill List and Sightseers director, Ben Wheatley. Adapted from J.G. Ballard's novel, this one is set inside a luxury high-rise apartment where a violent class war erupts amongst the tenants. Irons will play the building's architect, with Miller a his aide who strikes up a romantic relationship with Hiddleston's character. [ScreenDaily]

* After ditching that awful Point Break remake, Gerard Butler has jumped right into another potentially terrible heist movie. He'll star in Den of Thieves, which is co-written and directed by Christian Gudegast, Butler's writer on London Has Fallen. The story centers on a "legendary bank heist crew decides to rob the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles right under the nose of a rogue sheriff’s deputy." [Variety]

* Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder will headline the biopic, Experimenter, The Stanley Milgram Story. Milgram was the social psychologist whose controversial 1961 experiment studied human willingness to obey authority figures by instructing subjects to deliver what they believed to be painful electric shocks to complete strangers. Michael Almereyda (Hamlet) is directing, with Sarsgaard as Milgram and Ryder as his student and future wife, Sasha Menkin.

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Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning Join a Revolution in New Trailer for 'Night Moves'

Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves probably isn't the sort of film one would expect to get a big marketing push. It's likely to end up at your local art house rather than in a multiplex somewhere. But here we are with the second trailer released in about a week, meaning somebody has some pretty high hopes for the environmental thriller.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard, the film centers on a trio of radical environmentalists as they plot the bombing of a damn. It's a world of paranoia and mistrust that Reichardt has created, not unlike her neo-Western Meek's Crossing, and it'll be interesting to see these three actors in that environment.

Night Moves opens on May 30th.

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First Trailer for Kelly Reichardt's 'Night Moves' Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning

Wendy and Lucy. Old Joy. Meek's Crossing. The...ummm, let's just say "deliberately paced" films of Kelly Reichardt aren't going to get her work in multiplexes any time soon. It hasn't stopped her from gaining a share of devoted fans, and considering the talent she's worked with many of them are Hollywood actors. She's rounded up another solid group for her latest film, Night Moves, and the first trailer has arrived before it hits the Tribeca Film Festival.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, and Dakota Fanning as a trio of radical environmentalists. As we see in this footage, the group is planning their biggest and most dangerous action yet to gain attention to their cause. The film seems to bear all of Reichardt's trademarks, setting it apart from last year's The East, which told a similar story.

The revolution begins when Night Moves opens May 30th.

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Dakota Fanning and Theo James Board 'Franny'; Peter Sarsgaard and Liev Screiber In 'Pawn Sacrifice'

* Dakota Fanning and Theo James (Divergent) have joined Richard Gere in Franny, from writer/director Andrew Renzi developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Gere plays a rich, hedonistic philanthropist who ingratiates himself into the lives of a newlywed couple (Fanning and James) in order to recreate the life he once had. [Deadline]

* Tobey Maguire's Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice has been in the works for years, but it took a major step forward when Ed Zwick recently came aboard to direct it. With Maguire set to play the famous chess champion, Peter Sarsgaard and Liev Schreiber are the latest to come aboard. Schreiber will play Russian champ Boris Spassky, who Fischer had his historic world championship match against. Sarsgaard is Fischer's priest and close friend who helped him through the stressful period when he was a pop culture icon. [THR]

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First Clip from Kelly Reichardt's 'Night Moves' with Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning

It's putting it mildly to say that the thoughtful, considered dramas of Kelly Reichardt aren't everyone's cup of tea. There's a small but extremely loyal audience for her three most notable films; Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy, and Meek's Cutoff, which were never designed to strike at the mainstream in any way. But her latest film Night Moves occupies a unique space for the director, as it deals with eco-terrorism, a premise we saw hit multiplexes recently in The East, and it features bankable stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard.

With the film recently debuting in Venice and heading off to Toronto, the first clip has been released to help generate a little buzz. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken in this footage, instead focusing on the three leads as they take in the deforested surroundings. The story, which bears quite resemblance to Edward Abbey's novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (there was even a lawsuit), centers on three eco-terrorists with plans of blowing up a dam.

Night Moves has yet to gain distribution, so who knows when it will turn up in theaters. [ThePlaylist]

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Sundance News: First clip drops from 'Lovelace,' starring Amanda Seyfried

Well, Amanda Seyfried has gone from playing the purest of the pure - Cosette in last year's Les Mis - to legendary porn star Linda Boreman in the biopic Lovelace, which premieres Wednesday at Sundance. Our very own Travis Hopson will be seeing the film at Sundance, so stay tuned for his review!

Until then, though, click through for the first clip from the film, which features Seyfried with some very curly brown hair and very few clothes. No, she's not naked just yet, but she is becoming more sexually aware. In the clip, she chats with photographer and love interest Larry (Wes Bentley, YES, I ADORE HIM; this looks so much better than last year's Gone, which Seyfried and Bentley also starred in together) about how her work in the adult industry so far has taught her "how to enjoy sex, and I feel free." And when she sees the portraits Larry shoots of her, she can't believe it - "You made me beautiful."

Yup, lots here for dudes to salivate over and women to get angry about. I'm already a little offended, feminism, etc. But anyway, check back later this week for Travis's review of Lovelace (which also stars Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Adam Brody, and Juno Temple), and click through for the clip!

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Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively

By comparison, DC Comics has been lagging behind their distinguished competition Marvel Comics when it comes to getting their superhero icons on the big screen. Where Marvel seems to be cranking them out at a dizzying pace(3 this year alone!!), DC has taken a more measured approach with the aid of their big bro, Warner Brothers. Christopher Nolan's Batman films are on the verge of ending, and so it's imperative that a new standard be established. Enter Green Lantern, one of the world's most recognizable heroes with his emerald costume and mystical green power ring that allows the wearer to make anything he can imagine. With Ryan Reynolds's physique and charm tackling the role of the fearless Hal Jordan, and veteran director Martin Campbell(Casino Royale) at the helm, Green Lantern should be the superhero film to watch for the summer. Sadly, as if it was struck by the fear inducing enemy of our hero, the film turns tail and runs away from every opportunity to be something epic.

  Green Lantern is fortunate to have a rich and wonderful origin, but it's also terribly complex. Rather than streamling it down, we're greeted to a ponderous introduction that kills any hope for momentum. One of the things that make Green Lantern special is that primarily his adventures take place in the far reaches of space, and so that's where the story begins with a history lesson on the powerful Green Lantern Corps. An intergalactic police force, basically, they protect the over 3000 sectors of the known universe. Their power comes from a massive battery on the distant planet Oa, charged with the energy from the will power of every living creature. Think of it as the Force, only green and visible.

They use this energy to battle forces of fear, or rather a being comprised of pure fear, a creature called Parallax. Readers of the comic won't recognize the creature at all, having been altered to look like a grey smokey blob. Parallax goal is to destroy the Green Lantern Corps, their Guardian masters(who hover in the air like mad gods), and then the universe.  After the greatest and strongest member of the Corps is killed, his ring seeks out a suitable replacement and find him in Hal Jordan, a courageous but risky fighter pilot who has never met a challenge(or a woman) he couldn't conquer.  Blake Lively is his best friend/lover/boss Carol Ferris, who secretly longs for her guy to learn the meaning of the word "responsibility". Go ask Spider-Man. He knows what it means.

The film immediately goes from super cool to super hokey as Hal fumbles around with his new found powers. Establishing that the character isn't an instant expert in such remarkable abilities is essential, but the script by Greg Berlanti and a host of others shows absolutely no subtlety at all. That's a big problem when dealing with a character like Hal Jordan, who walks the tightrope between arrogant blowhard and lovable scamp. All of the earthbound scenes suffer from this lack of attention. It's like someone figured out that the only cool aspect to any Green Lantern story is when he's in outer space, so the stuff on the ground can be made to look ridiculous or pointless. There's a whole subplot with a creepy scientist named Hector Hammond(Peter Sarsgaard) who gets a taste of the fear power and mutates until he looks like Sloth from The Goonies. It might as well not even be there other than to give Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett someone to fritter time away talking to. I will say that Blake Lively is solid, and made Carol a far more interesting character than the dialogue she was given would have you think.

Considering the massive $300M budget(that's with marketing), you'd think the special effects would be where this film really can tip it's hat, but you'd be mistaken. For a film with such a potential for grand, galactic spectacle, the outer space component is strangely lacking. The only planet we get to visit is Oa, which is just a hunk of rock with a million Green Lanterns crowded around looking vaguely bored. It's not terribly impressive. The great promise was that this would be the comic book movie that took our imagination to whole new worlds never before seen, but we get none of that. Even the more alien characters we're introduced to don't work out so well. Michael Clarke Duncan voices the massive GL drill sergeant, Kilowog. Geoffrey Rush is the bird/fish creature Tomar-Re, who serves as a sortof Jiminy Cricket for ol' Hal. Neither has much to do, and when the CGI creatures move around they are blocky and stilted. It's not pretty. If there's anything that makes the Corps worth paying attention to at all it's Mark Strong as their imperious leader, Sinestro. Fans of Green Lantern know what path he's headed down, but I like the way the seeds of his future self are planted about this story. They blow it in the end with a predictable post-credits sequence, but if I were you I'd just leave early and pretend it doesn't happen.

Of all the problems Green Lantern has, Ryan Reynolds isn't one. One of Hal Jordan's greatest traits is his charismatic, winning personality. Reynolds has that in spades. Even if the jokes in the first half of the film fall flat, he gets points for completely buying into them, which makes the audience want to like him even more. It couldn't have been easy since the vast majority of the characters he had to converse with were added later in post-production.

The real problem with Green Lantern is the character itself. What is it that makes him so special? He's brave? Indomitable? Able to conquer his own fears? So what? That's what every superhero can do, from Batman on down to the little mutants of X-men: First Class. Only Green Lantern tries to make a big deal out of it, and it's not particularly compelling stuff. In the comics, all that bold talk about having an unbreakable will reads just fine, but on the big screen it's a crashing bore.

Trav's Tip: Hal Jordan is the first human to be selected as a Green Lantern, a fact just touched upon in the film. Earth would ultimately be the birth planet of five members of the Corps: Alan Scott, Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner.

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Review: An Education

Writer Nick Hornby is generally known as a novelist who writes books about men. His three most famous books have all been turned into amazing movies: High Fidelity, About a Boy, and Fever Pitch. All of them deal with our many obsessions and infatuations especially with ex-lovers. An Education deals with a young girl in 1961 Britain, just on the cusp of becoming a woman but not yet wisened to the ways of the world. Not exactly what one would expect to be Hornby's strong suit.

The girl in question is Jenny, played with infinite grace by newcomer Carey Mulligan. Jenny is a smart, attractive girl with a bright future ahead of her. She's slavishly studying and working to get into Oxford. Her life is basically mapped out for her. That is until she meets David(Peter Saarsgard), a 35 year old man with a slick tongue suave air of confidence about him. He's been places Jenny has only heard about. He listens to the same music as her, watches the finest films, and dines at the finest restaurants. She is at first cautious, but soon finds herself taken with the first interesting person she's ever met.
This being 1961, women didn't have nearly the options they would have now. Jenny's parents, played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour, are caring but naive. Her father is strict when it comes to her studies, but little else. Her mother plays the background but clearly knows more than she's perhaps been allowed to let on. When David first introduces the idea to them of taking their daughter out on a date, they are taken by his charm and maturity. Her parents are smart people, but that didn't get them anywhere in particular. They want their daughter's life to be simpler, like any parent would. To them, David presents an opportunity for that to happen.

David, of course, isn't all that he seems. He's into some shady dealings along with his best friend Danny(Dominic Cooper). Danny's girlfriend, Helen(Rosamund Pike), is a sophisticated airhead who doesn't quite understand the far more cerebral Jenny. David is the key to another world for Jenny. A world she has only had the opportunity to read about. She enters it willingly, risking everything she's worked her entire life for.

It's a story we've seen in movies time and again, but rarely carried out with such precision by all involved. Hornby's script, based on a memoir by journalist Lynn Barber, is tight and shows flashes of his earlier works. Jenny, much like Hornby's other protagonists, is addicted to pop culture and high society. Not obsessively so, but in the way of someone who's only been allowed to study them from afar, or has been deprived of them completely. Carey Mulligan's performance is stunning, and the transformation that takes place in Jenny is jaw dropping as she goes from naive child to world weary woman in the span of 90 minutes. That's a product of the script, but also in Mulligan's portrayal. It is one for the ages, and if she's not nominated come Oscar season it'll be a travesty.

It must say something that I wanted desperately to snatch up Jenny and get her away from that slimy David character. To make sure she followed through on her goals. Hey, I'm a dude. I knew what kinda guy he was the instant he pulled up in his fancy car and picked her up. "You're too good for him!", I wanted to scream at the screen. But it was a lesson she had to learn on her own, and while I won't spoil the outcomes of this wonderful film, I will say that I felt the ending was a bit rushed. Fortunately, everything else is spot on perfect.

There's a lesson here to be learned. An education, I guess you could say, about discovering what truly matters to each of us and whether it's worth giving out life to. It's about finding one's own place, carving out out own little corner of the world. No matter what the goal, it's always going to take hard work to do it. There are no short cuts. No easy ways out, even if they come in the form of a handsome stranger.

8.5/10

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