Posts Tagged ‘Sigourney Weaver’

Master Gardener

Director: Paul Schrader

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Joel Edgerton, Quintessa Swindell, Esai Morales

Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Patty Hearst, Autofocus and Card Counter auteur director Paul Schrader returns with a fascinating multigenerational character study in his new film Master Gardener starring the alluring three time Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl) as a prickly and difficult yet wealthy heiress Norma Haverhill who owns a beautiful estate called Gracewood Gardens.

In this lavish estate with an extensive formal garden in the French style is a meticulous horticulturalist Narvel Roth with a murky and dangerous past, whose previous life as a white supremacist is tattooed all over his chiselled body. Brilliantly played by Australian actor Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom, The Great Gatsby), Narvel is escaping his terrible past and trying to redeem himself as a horticulturalist while remaining discreet as a criminal informant who spied on his own gang and got police protection under a new identity.

Narvel Roth is tasked by the demanding and vicious Norma Haverhill to look after and employ her grand-niece, Mia a young directionless girl played by Quintessa Swindell (Black Adam, Granada Nights) who enters the privileged world of her great aunt, Norma who holds court in a beautiful mansion complete with a maid and butler.

As Mia interrupts the arrangement between Narvel and Miss Haverhill, relationships unravel and the beautifully kept gardens are subjected to disruptive elements which threaten the tranquillity of Gracewood Gardens.

Scripted by Paul Schrader and using the garden as a motif for growth and rejuvenation, Master Gardener is a seductive film about the complex issues of race relations in the United States. Schrader skilfully directs the narrative weaving in contemporary themes like racism, addiction, class and succession, but what really holds Master Gardener together are three superb performances by three actors from very different generations: Sigourney Weaver, Joel Edgerton and Quintessa Swindell, all of whom are mesmerizing.

Premiering at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, Master Gardener is a stylish thriller with complex character actions in which each one of them are tempted by sex and violence, two of Schrader’s favourite topics.

Schrader has always been fascinated by the murkier sides of human relationships, the illicit deceptions and the brimming rage within each character that he creates. After all, this is a screenwriter that wrote the iconic film Taxi Driver starring Robert de Niro and Jodie Foster.

If audiences are a fan of Paul Schrader’s films and love a good film noir thriller, then watch Master Gardener, which gets a film rating of 8 out of 10.

An intriguing story directed by an auteur at the peak of his creative powers investing all the characters with crisp and challenging dialogue.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang, Jack Champion, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, CCH Pounder

Running Time: 3 hours and 12 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

This film is only available in cinemas – please support cinemas

After a 13 year absence, director James Cameron returns with the highly anticipated sequel to the 2009 smash hit Avatar which is a mix up of the first film, with directorial flourishes from his earlier films including the Oscar winning Titanic and 1989’s The Abyss. Avatar: The Way of Water follows the Na’vi race to protect Pandora from the Sky People commonly known as humanity who have come to colonize Pandora as earth is becoming increasingly uninhabitable.

This epic fantasy adventure is over 3 hours long and can be viewed as a family orientated cinematic opera with a clear 3 act partition. The narrative focuses on Jake Sully and his family as they leave the rainforests and escape to the water people, Metkayina reef people headed up by TonoWari played by New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis (Once Were Warriors) and his wife Ronal played by Oscar winner Kate Winslet (The Reader) who reteams with James Cameron after the critical success of Titanic.

Act 1 of Avatar: The Way of the Water is establishing the family dynamics of Jake Sully and his wife Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana and their four children: two boys and two girls as they live blissfully in the lush rain forests of Pandora. Act 2 follows the family’s departure to the water people following an imminent threat by Quaritch played by Stephen Lang, a human space commando that has become an Avatar to track down Jake Sully and then Act 3 is the most spectacular as there are the Aqua Wars.

It is really in the critical scenes of Act 3 that director James Cameron excels as the gorgeous water scenes are extraordinary. However soon the water people and the ocean species are threatened by the arrival of Quaritch with humans, ammunition and extremely advanced technology which destabilizes the delicate balance of life that the Water people, wisely governed by TonoWari has fought so hard to maintain. The water sequences in Act 2 and 3 are truly phenomenal: dazzling and visually beautiful. For that reason alone it is worth seeing Avatar: The Way of Water. The second reason, besides the cutting edge visual effects, is the extraordinary production design, not only in scale but in imagination and interpretation.

The story of Avatar: The Way of Water could be an allegory for conservation, the climate crisis and rapid urbanisation. It could also be an allegorical tale about the colonizer trying to conquer the colonised to the point of extinction. Both allegorical reference points remain relevant and contemporary.

Visually lavish, Avatar: The Way of Water is truly amazing to behold, a vast and glimmering spectacle of oceanic wars, threatened species and unbelievable technology.

Avatar: The Way of Water gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and should win an Oscar for Best Visual effects. It is a very long film, but highly recommended viewing, not so much for the storyline but for the cinematic spectacle.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Christian Bale, Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Mendelsohn, Ewen Bremner, Maria Valverde

After the success of Gladiator and Robin Hood, British director Ridley Scott tackles the Book of Exodus in his ambitious cinematic reworking aptly titled Exodus: Gods and Kings, dedicated to his deceased brother director Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun, Man on Fire).

Exodus: Gods and Kings, starts when Moses is a muscular young man taken into the ancient Egyptian court of Seti the supercilious Pharoah played by John Turturro whose son and heir apparent Ramses played by Joel Edgerton becomes like a brother to Moses. All sibling affection soon vanishes, when Moses visits the enslaved Israelites who are forced to build pyramids, sphinxes and tombs to the Egyptian kings.

Moses played by Oscar winner Christian Bale leaves Egypt and sets off for Midian where he meets his future wife Zipporah played by Spanish actress Maria Valverde. While in Midian, Moses is visited by God in the form of a vengeful boy who promises to free the Israelites from Egypt and set curses upon the ancient land. God makes Moses a leader and instructs him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt into the promised land of Canaan.

After several years of marital bliss, Moses returns to Egypt to discover that the brutal and vain Ramses has taken power and forced the Israelites into an entrenched and vicious slave labour, while the ancient Egyptians live an idle life.

Once the ten plagues of Egypt have cursed the land of the Nile completely, Ramses will banish the Israelites from Egypt into the desert of Sinai and cinematically these ten curses upon the House of Ramses are brilliantly recreated from rivers of blood to the seminal deaths of the first born Egyptian sons including that of Ramses heir, whilst the Israelite first born sons are spared during the Passover.

In Exodus: Gods and Kings, naturally the narrative is completely biblical and sure to be controversial depending on which religious context the viewer is watching this film in. Besides the religious and historical aspects, Exodus: Gods and Kings is an ambitious saga which unfortunately suffers from the weight of its own importance along with a poorly written dialogue which makes the character development flimsy and almost predictable.

This is a pity considering the fantastic ensemble cast which Scott commands including Sigourney Weaver whose part as Tuya barely registers in the overall narrative along with Ben Kingsley as Hebrew leader Nunn and an unrecognizable Aaron Paul (The Need for Speed) as Joshua.

Besides the two main leads with Bale going through the motions as Moses and Joel Edgerton is slightly better as the confused and curse stricken Egyptian king Ramses, Ben Mendelsohn shines as a camp Viceroy Hegerop who lives a debauched life away from the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis.

Maria Valverde is convincing as Moses long suffering wife Zipporah who is also basically neglected in an overtly patriarchal narrative which gives little credence to any of the female characters in the story. Sigourney Weaver’s Tuya suffers a similar fate, merely feeling a presence without any significant motivation.

As a film, Exodus: Gods and Kings could have been so much better, including more lavish cinematography, better acting and a more intelligent handling of the Book of Exodus which is complex enough as a religious text, thus making it even more difficult to translate this biblical story into a relevant 21^st century cinematic narrative.

In terms of Ridley Scott’s excellent filmography including A Good Year, Gladiator, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Exodus: Gods and Kings can be considered his least successful film, yet it will be his most provocative and talked about.

Whether it’s a complete disaster of biblical proportions or a genuine retelling of Moses leading the Israelites into the promised land of Canaan, Exodus: Gods and Kings will be judged historically entirely by the viewer’s frame of reference, religious beliefs, gender and socio-political perspective. Recommended viewing for those that enjoyed Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, Gladiator or long biblical spectacles such as the 1956 Charlton Heston epic The Ten Commandments.

Avatar

James Cameron much anticipated Avatar is a simulacrum of CGI images which will dazzle the viewers but leave any intelligent probing of colonialism in a virtual capacity as a hollow fantasy without any true substance, leaving the human characters to languish in a wilderness of special effects without a thread of credibility…. there again – it is billed as a fantasy epic – a strange mixture of Ferngully on Acid mixed with GI Joe Transformers – where are those corporates digging for precious metals?

Too little of such great talents as Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi are used purposefully onscreen while Sam Worthington’s avatar is as solid as it is imaginary, as two dimensional as the proverbial battle between the indigenous popultion, the Na’vi and the humans which seek to destroy and colonize Pandora

First half is stunning but once Pandora ‘s delights are discovered, it all goes South from there and the machines bring destruction and a new dawn…

Irony of the film is that the earth-loving Pandoreans would never have been created ten years ago without the 21st Century digital technology….

Blade Runner, Babylon AD and Chronicles of Riddick do far better in the originality arena… held up by the bastions of Science Fiction Star Wars and the recent brilliant Star Trek.