Posts Tagged ‘Kirsten Dunst’

Roofman

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Cast: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, LaKeith Stanfield, Ben Mendelsohn, Uzo Aduba, Juno Temple, Tony Revolori

Running Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Derek Cianfrance returns to the director’s chair after a nine year absence in his new film Roofman starring Channing Tatum and Oscar nominee Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog).

Unlike his previous films The Place beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine which both starred Ryan Gosling, Roofman is much lighter in tone and focuses on the bizarre escapades of an unmanageable father Jeffrey Manchester superbly played by Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher) in an Oscar worthy performance who robs a McDonalds in North Carolina, gets arrested for that crime then escapes out of jail.

The escaped convicted then hides in plain sight in a massive Toys R Us store in Pineville, North Carolina on the outskirts of Charlotte, the state’s biggest city.

Roofman follows the captivating but ultimately heart breaking story of Jeffrey who falls in love with single mother Leigh Wainscott brilliantly played by Dunst in a role which is so opposite to her previous film roles. Kirsten Dunst was once the art house darling of such directors as Lars von Trier and Sofia Coppola. Think Melancholia or Marie Antoinette.

She is now playing a regular mother and employee at a toy store which ironically is managed by the evil boss Mitch superbly played by Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones). When Leigh asks her boss for toys for a local toy drive for her church, he abruptly tells her that Toys R Us are in the business of selling toys and not giving them away.

Leigh belongs to a North Carolina church in which she finds comfort and community. The congregation is run by Pastor Ron and his wife Eileen, played by Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba. Leigh introduces Jeffrey to this church and integrates him into her life, not knowing that he is a wanted criminal.

Jeffrey’s contact in the criminal underworld is a forger Steve played by Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) and his girlfriend Michelle played by Juno Temple (Atonement).

Roofman is a character driven film about a charismatic thief who falls in love with a divorcee who is desperately looking for Mr Right. Channing Tatum is excellent in a role which requires him to bare all both physically and emotionally. There is a hilarious scene with him naked in the Toys R Us store being discovered by Mitch, the store manager.

The slow pacing of Roofman is a trademark of Derek Cianfrance’s films, yet the crime comedy delivers a fascinating tale of a criminal falling in love with a regular citizen whose love affair is ultimately doomed. As Steve, the forger, advises Jeffrey that once you get a new forged passport and plan on leaving the country don’t go back and say goodbye to anybody that you have become attached to.

With great performances by Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, Roofman gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is a true American story of love, escape and destiny set in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bizarre but worth seeing.

Civil War

Director: Alex Garland

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Jesse Plemons, Nick Offerman, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jefferson White, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai

Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Novelist, writer and director assembles a grim dystopian future in his new film Civil War set in a strife ridden America in which the Western Forces (California and Texas) has waged a secession battle against the United States and what follows is a violent and bloody civil war waged across America leaving cities like New York, sparse and filled with refugees.

Civil War follows a group of war photojournalists lead by the hardened Lee Smith wonderfully played with a steel determination by Oscar Nominee Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog), in a role which she plays brilliantly against type. Kirsten Dunst has often been seen in costume dramas and was a time a darling of the more Avant Garde directors like Sofia Coppola and Lars von Trier. Dunst plays this role perfectly and is the best in the film along with a brief but spine-chilling appearance by her real life husband Jesse Plemons (Killers of the Flower Moon) as a xenophobic militant in what is the best scene in the film.

Unfortunately for Civil War, Alex Garland creates a dystopian future with absolutely no context, it is just this bland violence filled American landscape with no rationale behind it. The only thing that seems to drive the soldiers of the Civil War is violence for the sake of violence. There are mass graves, executions and slaughter on a massive scale.

This level of atrocity seem surreal as Lee and her fellow photojournalists, the young Jessie Cullen wonderfully played by Cailee Spaeny (On the Basis of Sex, Vice) and hardened action man Joel played by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who seems to be immune to the bloodshed around him, travel from New York to Washington DC where the Western Forces are closing in on the White House.

The ineffectual President played briefly by Nick Offerman of HBO’s The Last of Us series, has too small a role to play in this film. Jefferson White of Yellowstone fame, also plays another eager photojournalist.

Two things that save Civil War and elevate the film is the superb editing by Oscar nominated editor Jake Roberts (Hell or High Water) and the use of sound in the film.

Civil War asks viewers some complex question about at what stage do journalists actually get involved in the military conflict? Do they take sides? Do they just capture the horror and slaughter? Do they only get involved when one of their own is threatened?

Without a cohesive narrative and lacking any backstory, Civil War has one brilliant scene in it involving the journalists and Jesse Plemons’s militant character, then after that the rest of the film just descends into meaningless violence without any cathartic release. Actors like Nick Offerman , Jefferson White and Jesse Plemons are just wasted in this nihilistic narrative without any moral redemption.

Civil War was too bleak and far too dystopian in a 2024 world in which regional conflicts seem to be growing globally. Despite high production values, Civil War does not reach its full potential as a cinematic story about photojournalists in a war zone. There have been far better films about this topic than this depressing tale. The Oscar winning films The Year of Living Dangerously, and The Killing Fields should be your filmic guide on this morally complex topic.

See this film at your own risk as it makes for grim viewing. Civil War gets a film rating of 7 out of 10, saved only by some crisp editing and stark visual imagery.

The Power of the Dog

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jesse Plemons, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy, Alistair Sewell, George Mason, Thomasin McKenzie, Alice Englert

Film Rating: 9 out of 10

Running Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes

This film is only available to watch on the Netflix streaming service

After a hiatus from filmmaking for over a decade, acclaimed New Zealand film maker and director Jane Campion returns with a tightly wrought Western style family drama The Power of the Dog which recently had its glamourous world premiere at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival.

Set in Montana in 1925, The Power of the Dog is a superbly directed cinematic adaptation of a novel by Thomas Savage about Rose Gordon and her son Peter Gordon played respectfully by Kirsten Dunst (Interview with a Vampire, Marie Antoinette, The Beguiled) who gives an Oscar worthy performance and Kodi Smit-McPhee (Romeo and Juliet, The Road) who deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Smit-McPhee’s performance is truly phenomenal matched only by the film’s other brilliant performance given by Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) as the hyper-masculine and brutish Phil Burbank, a charismatic Montana rancher. British star Benedict Cumberbatch also deserves another Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance in The Power of the Dog.

When Phil’s younger brother George Burbank, played by Kirsten Dunst’s real life husband Jesse Plemons marries the fragile Rose Gordon, he attempts to introduce Rose and her son Peter into the life of the wealthy Burbank family, Montana ranchers complete with land, arrogance and an absolute disdain for the native Americans.

Rose has to contend with sharing the sprawling mansion in Montana with her vile and threatening brother-in-law Phil Burbank, who feels nothing at gelding cattle barehanded or swimming naked in a local river covered in mud. Phil is ruthless, nasty and filled with pent-up-rage. Cumberbatch’s performance is absolute startling as he plays against type and every scene with him and Kirsten Dunst crackles with tension and that underlying threat of violence.

Into this electrifying atmosphere, quietly appears Rose’s son Peter Gordon who is studying to be a surgeon, a shy and awkward young man with a sinister habit of vivisection and harbouring a covert sexual desire.

Peter Gordon is mocked openly by Phil Burbank and his gang of macho ranchers for being a nancy boy or a faggot. He wears strange shoes and displays no interest in anything physical especially tennis.

When Phil Burbank and Peter Gordon strike up an unlikely bond, Rose cannot cope with her fragile son being bullied by her brutish brother-in-law and takes to the bottle.

Despite the fact that The Power of the Dog should have been shown at cinemas and is only available on Netflix, one cannot help but imagine watching director Jane Campion’s film on a big screen for as a masterful director she paints beautiful and complex cinematic strokes, touching on such issues as sexuality, addiction, power dynamics and more significantly the devious mind of the male psyche.

Every shot of The Power of the Dog is beautifully crafted and the entire narrative which is psychological in nature is expertly acted by Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

The Power of the Dog is not going to appeal to everyone, but that wasn’t director Jane Campion’s intentions. Her Oscar winning film The Piano didn’t either.

If viewers loved The Piano then they will enjoy The Power of the Dog, a masterful tale of sinister family dynamics, of voyeurism and forbidden sexual desire, of lust and carnage with an ending that is both disturbing and brilliant.

2017 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL WINNERS

Winners of the five main prizes at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival were as follows: –

Palm d’Or: – The Square directed by Ruben Ostlund

Best Director:  Sofia Coppola – The Beguiled starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning

(No film poster available for You Were Never Really Here)

Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix – You Were Never Really Here

Best Actress:  Diane Kruger –  In the Fade

Best Screenplay:  prize shared between  Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Killing of a Sacred Deer

(The Killing of a Sacred Deer stars Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell)

&  Lynne Ramsay for You Were Never Really Here

(You Were Never Really Here also stars Alessandro Nivola, John Doman and Ekaterina Samsonov)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Cannes_Film_Festival

2011 Cannes Film Festival Winners

Winners of the five main prizes at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival were as follows: –

Palm d’Or – The Tree of Life directed by Terence Malick

Best Director – Nicholas Winding Refn – Drive

Best Actor – Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Best Actress – Kirsten Dunst – Melancholia

Best Screenplay Award – Footnote written and directed by Joseph Cedar

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Cannes_Film_Festival