THE GRANDMASTER

While watching The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-Wai's decade in the making martial arts biopic, I couldn't help but think of the films of Bruce Lee, particularly Enter The Dragon. This is partially because Grandmaster's subject, Ip Man (Tony Leung), went on to train Lee, but mostly because of the contrast in how these films handle action.

The photography in Lee's films were joyously overwhelmed by his physicality. The camera often staying far away, emphasizing his whole body moving as one blurry, unstoppable force. But Grandmaster isn't like that. It's approach to Kung Fu is much more intimate. Wong's camera is interested less in the whole and more in the individual pieces of the body and how they relate to each other. He uses many short close-ups of hands and feet moving into position, an impressionistic technique that, in other action pictures, frequently confuses, but here it provides insight because Wong is showing us strategy. It also helps that Wong is one of the most tactile and painterly filmmakers in the world to the point that he frequently uses step printing and other techniques to make it seem like we can actually see paint smearing on the lens of the camera and the film becomes a beautifully choreographed ballet of singing razor blades, rain drops splashing off hats, falling icicles, crumbling cakes and ritualistically lit cigarettes.

While Wong usually eschews traditional narrative to create his thematic mood pieces, a sort of story does emerge: the film follows Ip Man and Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), two expertly talented Kung Fu masters who find their destinies greatly altered because of the times they live in. The film begins in the early 1930's when it seems that Ip, a rising star, might be able to unite the Northern and Southern schools of Kung Fu. But his refusal to collaborate with the invading Japanese results in him being exiled to Hong Kong where he suffers terrible poverty and hardship. By the time Wong get's to the 1950's, the old guard is mostly gone and no one even knows Ip's name.

Gong Er's battle is even harder, she is the daughter of a northern grandmaster and an expert of her 47 Hand's style, she even beats Ip Man in a wonderfully conceived bout, but because of her gender she will always be denied her place as the shepherd of her fathers legacy. Her father, clearly bitter about the limits society puts on her, is forced to pass off his legacy to someone the community would accept and suggests she try her hand at becoming a doctor.

Though history has vindicated Ip Man (films about him are almost a genre unto themselves at this point), Wong views both these people as being defined by lost destinies. Indeed all the characters in the film seem to struggle living in the shadow of the lives they almost had. Like many Wong films, Grandmaster is ultimately about people in limbo, making the best of who they are and using love as a way to cope with crushing loneliness.

There are two cuts of Grandmaster out there. The original Hong Kong cut is not especially long at 130 minutes, none the less it has been cut down to 108 minutes for the American market. The cuts are noticeable but not fatal. The American cut, which Wong oversaw personally, adds a great deal of intertitles to help explain/rush past the complex plot, and it often feels like there are holes in the narrative. The Hong Kong version handles the exposition much more smoothly and there are more scenes involving the Gong family and more stuff with secondary characters such as Razor (Chen Chang), another exiled master. Strangely though, the American cut also contains a great deal of footage not found in the Hong Kong cut, some of which seemed essential when I saw it last week. Both versions are fantastic and worth your time.

Grade: A-

BRONSON

Sometimes a movie depends so squarely on a lead performance that it's casting becomes the film. Nicolas Winding Refn's 2008 film Bronson is just such a case. Bronson tells the true tale of Englands most violent prisoner. Michael "Bronson" Peterson. Bronson is played by Tom Hardy (Warrior, Inception), and the film follows him throughout his hyper violent life.

Tom Hardy IS the film. Without Hardy as Bronson, there is no film. Period. And there in lies the problem. Hardy is fantastic and fearless in the role, but there isn't very much else going on here. The film is essentially 92 minutes of Bronson hitting things. There is some variety to be sure. Sometimes he's hitting things while in jail, sometimes in an insane asylum, sometimes in underground boxing matches. Near the end of the film he abandons the whole 'hitting' part and tries his hand at being an artist, but it doesn't feel right so he goes back to hitting things and the movie pretty much ends.

To be fair, you can't have the movie without the hitting. Bronson was and remains Englands most violent criminal. He is a difficult character. He's spent time in 120 prisons and logged over 30 years in solitary confinement. He takes joy in causing pain, loves being in prison, and nothing else. He's not quite human. But where as other directors, such as Scorsesse, might find some sort of thesis or point to Bronsons life, Refn just presents it. Perhaps he's saying that there is no point, that some people are just violent sociopaths and that's that. If that is his point, it is a depressing one. I honestly don't think the film is really trying to say anything. It's as if script-development stopped when the lead role was cast and that is simply not enough. If anyone can make any sense out of this film, this man, please post your ideas in the comment section.

The real story here is Tom Hardy as Bronson. He is a force of nature, and he is unlike anyone else working in the buisines. He's built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he moves like Charlie Chaplin. The way he moves and uses posture is lightyears ahead of most other actors. Even his shoulder-blades give a great performance in this film.

Refn is a good director and this is a very stylish film. A dangerous drinking game can be made out of spotting Stanley Kubrick references. You get the feeling that Refn will one day make a great film, but this is not it.

Grade: C+

"Bronson" is currently streaming on Netflix Instant. Hardy is currently appearing in the MMA drama "Warrior," and will play the villain in The Dark Knight Rises. Refn seems poised to break into big time too with "Drive," which opens today.

The Social Network

So is it true? Is any of it true? Is none of it true? Did Mark Zuckerberg steal the idea for Facebook from a pair of Olympic rowers? Did he cheat his best friend out of his shares of Facebook? Is Mark Zuckerberg that much of an asshole?

The real life Zuckerberg says David Fincher’s new film ‘The Social Network’ is a piece of fiction. But Mark has a clear, vested interest in discrediting it. However there is further cause to doubt its source material. The film is based on a book by Ben Mezrich called ‘The Accidental Billionaires.’ Now some years ago Mezrich wrote another book based on a true story called ‘Bringing Down The House.’ The problem is that according to The Boston Globe, significant parts of that book were just plain made up. Truth fudging is accepted in film, but is kind of a no-no for books labeled ‘non-fiction.’

The story gets complicated here because ‘The Social Network’ isn’t exactly based on ‘The Accidental Billionaires.’ At the time the book was sold to Columbia Pictures it was just an outline. Screenwriter Arron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing) used that outline as his starting point and did the majority of his own research independently. He found transcripts of Mark's former blog concerning the creation of Facemash (a website Zuckerberg wrote while in an inebriated fit over a girl) Facemash allowed users to compare the looks of female Harvard students. The initial idea was to compare the girls to farm animals, but he thought better of it. The blog transcript appears in the film almost verbatim. Looking at Sorkin’s work, I know that he is an idealistic man consumed with details, but as a storyteller his loyalty is always going to be to the story he’s trying to tell.

The Facemash incident not only gets Zuckerberg in trouble with the Harvard Admin board, it also earns him and his roommate Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) the scorn of every girl on campus. But Mark also gains the notice of the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) who want him to build them a social networking site. The site would mirror MySpace, but be exclusively for Harvard students. Around the same time Mark asks Eduardo to help him fund a new social networking site that uses exclusivity as its core idea. Before long Facebook is up, the Winklevoss twins are threatening legal action, and Eduardo is at the end of his wits just trying to eek out a profit for him and Mark before it all goes to Hell. To help, Mark hires Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) as a consultant. Eduardo sees Sean as a paranoid moocher and a bad influence on Mark. But Mark sees Parker as a rock-star beyond reproach, and begins to push Eduardo away, leading to more legal trouble.

The obvious comparison is to ‘Citizen Kane’ and it’s not completely undue. Both are well-crafted, controversial films told in flashbacks and based on the lives of media tycoons. But ‘Kane,’ loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst had the decency to change all the names (though it was obvious who it was about). Also while Charles Foster Kane was clearly based on Hearst, co-writer/director Orson Wells put just as much of himself into the character, resulting in a film that is a much more personal statement about greed, ego, etcetera. The two movies are also very different stylistically. ‘Kane’ is a grand, operatic film encompassing its subjects entire life. ‘Social Network’ is more down-to-earth and centers on Zuckerberg’s early days. The later is not a fault of the movie as Zuckerberg is only 26 and therefore has nothing but early days.

The best structural comparison would be to Akira Kurosawa’s film ‘Rashomon’ and it’s countless imitators. That film told the story of a crime from the point of view of four witnesses who all claim to be the culprit (go watch it, if you haven’t already). ‘The Social Network’ is told in flashback by Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and various hostile witnesses called in two law suits brought against him. Kurosawa used the point of view in ‘Rashomon’ to say that memory and emotional testimonies are inherently unreliable. ‘Social Network’ does so too, but in a subtler way. We don’t see events replayed from different points of view so much, as we are made aware that the witnesses have their own agendas.

I have no clue how ‘The Social Network’ will be viewed in 20 years. I doubt that it’ll be held in the same esteem as ‘Kane’ or ‘Roshomon.’ But that said, ‘Social Network’ is a fantastically well-made film. Its complexly structured script is brimming with multi-tiered conversations and exceedingly technical details would defeat many filmmakers. Yet Fincher finds a way to make it not only watchable, but also enthralling. He boils it down to a simple core and builds on it so no matter how complicated the film gets, we always see the basic human drama going on. At the end of the day ‘The Social Network’ isn’t about coding, or theft. It’s about an awkward guy who just wants to belong and sit at the cool kids table, even if he manages to alienate the few people who might actually want to be his friends.

The film is a technical marvel as well. This is to be expected from David Fincher who, like Zuckerberg, is a tireless perfectionist (he did 99 takes of the opening scene alone). The film has a chillingly effective score by ‘Nine Inch Nails’ front man Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It adds a sense of playful menace to a film that is really toying with its audience. Mischievousness in story telling is a trademark of Fincher’s films (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club), but he’s more sly about it here.

Going in, I wasn’t certain if Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook and I’m still not. The way the film depicts him, he is certainly brilliant enough to have come up with it on his own, but he’s also arrogant enough to have stolen it. I know that a lot of the little details are true, but the answers to the big questions are really only known to Mark Zuckerberg and possibly Eduardo Saverin. The filmmakers understand this and they don’t try and give us any definitive truth. They give us truth and myth. Truth plus. A lot of movies based on fact do this, they say "based on a true story" and expect you to assume that it's all true. But Sorkin and Fincher have done something different here, by creating a film where the truth of the story we're being told is always being questioned by it's characters, they invite discussion and skepticism of the film itself. In it's own quiet way, 'Social Network' may be Fincher's most subversive film yet. This is a film that demands your attention and in exchange it gives you something to think and talk about with your friends. So you tell me, is it true?

Grade: A+