Liking the movie Salt does not come without a certain shame. The plot doesn't make sense for a minute. The characters do not act like rational beings. The stunts defy the laws of physics and the multiple escapes strain patience and credulity. The screenplay is an homage to No Way Out et. al. and none of the twists are any kind of a surprise. To cap it all, the cinema I saw it in was full of grubby men in rain coats. And yet. . .I liked the film a lot. Angelina Jolie is a proper movie star who looks like she belongs up on the big screen and she has that indefinable presence that we all know when we see but can't quite figure out what it is. (Perhaps its the pout). Star quality counts for a good deal, maybe everything. Jolie's acting style (if one can call it that) is all smirky self parody and forehead creasing broodiness. But the story moves, the supporting cast is excellent, the picture was edited within an inch of its life and Jolie's sheer charisma carries it all along effortlessly....
And here's some photos and the first interview with the real life "Salt" Anna Chapman c/o Life TV and the Russian Men's Magazine Heat.
31 comments:
Way off topic here, but there's a big story brewing back home:
Northern Ireland Too Dangerous For Australians.
Actually the Guardian covers it better:
Australians warned. The Guardian even mentions a pipe bomb that was found in my home town of Carrickergus.
N. Ireland can be dangerous esp during the Marching Season but everywhere has its perils: in Melbourne in the last couple of weeks we've had our fair share of murders. Three of them spectacular gangland assassinations.
It's the pout. Definitely.
Adrian, my misguided plate:
You like Salt in the same way that Roger Ebert liked the awful J-Lo vehicle Angel Eyes. To name the condition, let's just be honest and say you are in love.
No shame in that, dude. But it won't pass for film criticism. Call it what it is -- a crush.
I will give you this: If Jolie had not been in this picture, it would not have even been watchable.
She was -- by far -- the best thing about Salt.
Salt reeks in so many ways I cannot count them. And refuse to do so. But sympathy is in order for poor Liev Schreiber, who played a nearly identical role in The Manchurian Candidate remake just 5 years ago! This must have hurt, even as Liev payed his bills.
PKL
Michael
It is some pout. I wonder if its all natural.
Pat
But wouldnt I think she was brilliant in everything then?
Nah, there's something about the combination of this story and this character and this particular dumb movie that just works...
Yeah poor Liev - the guy is a fantastic actor and has fantastic cinematic presence: to be stuck in a role like this must have depressed him. I expect he'll be doing a lot of free Shakespeare in the Park for the next decade as some kind of penance.
Yeah, she's a sex bomb, all right, but that shot of her here looks like something extruded, or at least generated by a computer.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I think there's something a bit alien about her. She may be the proof that we are all in fact living in a Sim or something.
But back to Northern Ireland. This must be frustrating for the tourist board, to say the least.
It reminds me a bit of the ribbing of the Tea Party's advice on attending Glenn Beck's, uh, regeneration of the I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial that I saw on Rachel Maddow a few nights ago. Cautionary warnings abound. And while it's true that you might want to be a bit on your guard in any strange city where you don't know the ropes, I really don't think you should constrain yourself to a mere fragment of it as the Tea Party constrains you to do, or worse, as might still be the case with Belfast, not go at all.
I'm not too worried about the Australians, though. They've always seemed an intrepid sort.
Seana
I know what they're saying, it IS dangerous to get yourself mixed up in a riot, however its pretty easy to avoid the rioting areas.
It's also pretty easy to avoid a parade, in my experience. Just move away from the sound of drums and brass. By their very nature, you can outrun them if you must.
I won't take sides on the SALT talks. But it isn't true that you have to think everything that the object of your affection does is brilliant. People in a bad way sometimes worship the flaws as much or more than anything else.
Omigod--Glenn Beck having anything to do with Martin Luther King's historical speech and the spectacular march of 100s of 1000s is outrageous. That was an amazing day years ago, even to a teenager like me, one of my best memories.
Parades can be good and fun, just have to stay out of the way of trajectories and know how to duck and run.
Just enjoy SALT, no deep analysis, just enjoy.
And, by the way, Liev Schrieber was fantastic in "Defiance." That was acting. What a hero at the end!
Seana
I was pretty shocked though that of the 1.5 million Australians who visit the UK every year only 50,000 make it to Northern Ireland. I mean you fly 10,000 miles and you're afraid of a couple of kids throwing milk bottles at the police?
Kathy
I wonder if Liev S has ever been bad in anything. I saw him in this little film with Hope Davis and he was terrific in that too(I forget the name of it).
Most of the Aussies I come across aren't tourists, but working in bars and the tourist industry.
You're right Adrian, it would be next to impossible to inadvertently stumble into a riot zone - most of the participants have to go to extraordinary lengths to be there, including the 'residents' (who rarely turn out to be from the area).
I doubt if any Australian visitor, even Crocodile Dundee, could manage to get embroiled - well, Ned Kelly maybe!
Aah, calm down Philip. But the pouting lady certainly soothes the savage breast.
Marching season? It's such a funny term for ...marching...in season (ok I don't know what it means)? I will indeed look it up.
signed, sheilerama
Am reading Kevin McCarthy's "Peeler," with its local police station turned into a fortress - in 1920.
Nothing about Australians yet, though.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Wait a minute, forget about Angelina Jolie and deadly parades for the moment. Milk bottles are still used in Northern Ireland? I thought they'd have to crush the milk cartons, roll them up, and hit the peelers over the head with them.
Peter
Yeah its more likely to be a Snapple bottle these days isnt it? Or some kind of exotic fruit juice.
Philip
You would have to really go out of your way. Although that pipe bomb in Carrick wasnt a million miles from my mum's house.
Sheiler
I suppose you could call it the Parades Season as well but nobody does. I think the trick is: if you're going to go to Belfast try and not go in July.
Or maybe an alliance between Greens and radical republicans calls for throwing bottles at cops, then retrieving the bottles and throwing them again -- recycling, you know.
Peter
Well the bad news for Australians is that they're not allowed to go to Yorkshire either:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306969/Bottles-smoke-bombs-thrown-English-Defence-League-demonstration-Bradford.html
I suppose they really shouldn't come to Santa Cruz either, given last May's riots.
Seriously, though, Autralians have always seemed more intrepid travellers than most. I wonder what the U.S. stats about visiting Northern Ireland are.
I didn't go north on my trip to Ireland a few years ago, though our friend with an intersecting trip did. I don't think she was particularly afraid to go, but there was a sense of going into unknown realms, and we all asked the what was it like and how did you feel kinds of questions. I think it's like anywhre where there's been violence that's been heavily advertised. I know there are people who wouldn't go to Chicago to this day because of long ago Mafia crimes there. And there are still members of my own family who wouldn't come to California for fear of earthquakes.
It's interesting to think what you would or wouldn't risk venturing. I'm not sure I know. I probably wouldn't take a cruise off the coast of Somalia right now. Other than that, I'd have to think. Certain parts of Mexico might not be the smartest places to go right now, I guess. And maybe not New Orleans in hurricane season.
Hmmm, now I'll have to rethink seeing Salt.
I do like Noyce's (the director) other work - he did those two Jack Ryan movies with Harrison Ford, so the man knows how to do an intelligent thriller.
Brian
Take my advice. Get yourself a sitter, forget your troubles, get a giant bag of popcorn, butterfingers, a big coke and go have yourself a blast. And dont think too hard about the movie afterwards.
Seana
I'd really think twice about going to any of the Mexican-US border areas thats for damn sure.
I'd really think twice about going to any of the Mexican-US border areas thats for damn sure.
Ciudad Juarez -- Come for a vacation, stay for a lifetime.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
No shame in that.
I saw Piranha 3D at the weekend and despite it being one of the most atrociously acted, written and directed films I have ever seen I haven't enjoyed a film so much for ages.
p.s. the enjoyment had nothing to do with the 6 minute montage of boobs. In 3D.
p.p.s OK. Maybe it did. A bit.
It had to happen sometime, Rob. I now understand that this was the secret purpose for 3-D all along.
Call me slow on the uptake.
One of my friends works in a local movie theater and she tells me that one of the new job responsibilities is that someone has to collect and then wash all the 3-D glasses in between showings.
I predict a Steven Slater moment coming to a theater near you before too awfully long.
Rob
I'm hearing NOTHING but good things about Piranha 3D.
Hmmm.
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