I had no real interest in seeing this (Zac Efron dancing in his underwear doesn't do it for me)--it looked like maybe it would be a bad movie DVD renter, but Ebert's review, calling it great trash, has made me want to...
Sounds like ridiculously lurid melodrama fun.
I was sold by the opening paragraph of his review, alone:
"The Paperboy" is great trash, and as Pauline Kael told us, the movies are so seldom great art that if we can't appreciate great trash, we might as well not go at all. This is a humid, deep South wallow in raunch, with the wrong man on Death Row, the right man lurking in a swamp with his inbred family, a dead sheriff, a curious newspaper reporter, a slutty blond slattern, the younger man who adores her and alligators, lots of 'em.
I saw it and, while I wouldn't call it brilliant, I thought it was good, dirty fun. I give credit to Lee Daniels who injected his signature style to elevate otherwise weak source material (I could only make it halfway through the book). (Many reviewers seem to lambaste Daniels, and often refer to their disdain for Precious--which I liked.)
The movie still makes no sense. All the characters are crazy, mental, deranged or just plain stupid, but really, to see Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman in a blond wig and short skirt sitting with her legs apart, leaning forward with her mouth open as if to fellate her psycho prisoner 'fiance' (John Cusack doing his best Nicholas Cage impersonation) who cums in his prison jumpsuit... I mean, when are you going to see that on screen again? She will later pee on Zac Efron's face while he's lying on the beach having been stung by jellyfish. Zac is otherwise frequently seen in his undies. And Matthew McConaughy (who plays a journalist and Zac's older brother) is later discovered (SPOILER!) to be into violent sex with black men which leaves him permanently scarred. Such is the delicious depravity of The Paperboy.
The reviews on the AV Club (D grade) and Grierson & Leitch calling it the worst movie possibly in the last few years has convinced me that I have to see it. I say this as somebody who loathes Precious. Besides, it can't be worse than Killer Joe (though MM was excellent in the eponymous role) and it has to be funnier than that too- unintentionally or not.
I loved bits of it (particularly the Dottie and Joe scenes) but Emile Hirsch annoyed me for some reason and everything after the infamous chicken leg scene got even more ridiculous moment by moment.
Strummer that's exactly how I feel. And I hated Precious too, but, maybe due to my toughts on the subject matter, that one was hard for me to take in a "I love to hate it" or even a camp way--this seems ideal for that.
Although a pan, this Atlantic review is a measured analysis of the film (with some SPOILERS): Racism, Corruption, and Zac Efron's Abs: How to Explain 'The Paperboy'?
Although Zac Efron's character does use the N-word (which he regrets), apparently Nicole Kidman refused to do likewise. (As Daniels recounted his puzzlement that Kidman wouldn’t say it, Kidman replied, looking slightly annoyed, "I didn't feel like it was right for the character," then after a second, "I have a son who's African American and I just didn't feel it was right. It wasn't right.")
I just saw Beasts of the Southern Wild 2, and yes it is pure trash, but SO SO SO good!
The reception of this movie will be a litmus test for whether this is a just world. If Nicole wins her second Oscar for the best, and campiest, performance of her career all misgivings I have about humanity will be restored. (She tells Zac at one point, "Fvcking a man is the most natural thing in the world, baby," and certainly truer words were never spoken. She also simulates giving John Cusack a blow job from across the room AND the peeing scene definitely delivers.)
Zac stomps around in tighty whities the whole movie, including a scene where he dances in the rain with Nicole in the underwear.
The movie is so shocking on every level. The subject material, the performances, the direction, the script, the bizarre camera work and the fact that this movie was allowed to be presented to the public! And thank TPTB that it was.
Well, I saw it this weekend and I got to say, it almost works brilliantly.
What I liked:
Kidman's performance. She's in risky MOULIN ROUGE mode here, stretching her imagination and resources waaaaaaaay out there to the point of complete caricature, yet somehow remaining totally grounded in truth. Other actresses would snap and look ridiculous and uncomfortable in this situation, but she not only makes it work, she makes it look easy. This is fearless stuff.
Macy Gray. I don't know if you could call her an actress, really, but she's a definite presence with an effortless deadpan humor. She's great to have around.
The melodrama. I hated PRECIOUS because I felt it was sensationalistic melodrama marauding around as social truth. Here, Daniels embraces melodrama with passion and comes up with something unique, a three-way car crash of Sirk-ian melodrama, social drama, and exploitation film. And breaking that down...
The social drama. I think this movie captures the racism of its time with a clear-eyed lack of sentimentality that rings totally true to me. Daniels may be sensationalist, but not about this. Racism isn't portrayed as great, dramatic slashes of cruelty and agony, but quick, thoughtless, and hurtful puncture wounds to the soul that just accumulate and accumulate and seemingly never stop. This is so much more valuable and truthful than the overstated toilet-worshiping chest clutching of THE HELP.
And, at last:
The sensationalism. I liked it. Sorry...I liked it. You can hate Daniels for having the gall to linger in close-up over everything from a jizz stain to alligator guts to cinematically serenading Zac Efron's tighty-whitey clad ass, but you can't say he isn't giving the audience what it wants. Face it, folks: We live in a sensationalistic time where people watch a child being destroyed on HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO as entertainment before switching over to the "news". THE PAPERBOY speaks to its time. You may not like it, but there it is.
What I didn't like:
The pacing! Oh, Lee, Lee, Lee! You could have had a trash-terpiece on your hands if you just tightened the action a little bit! Unfortunately, the sloppy script has as its center a lawyer drama/murder mystery that the audience has no investment in. These scenes drag and bring down the film. Worse, Daniels indulges in arty excess at the exact moment when the audience wants it the least. When the movie indulges in the character's self-destructive impulses, its hypnotic, when it tries to keep the plot going, its dull and half-hearted.
John Cusack. It's not his fault really. Boldly cast against type, he gives it his all, but the script doesn't give him enough to do but be gruff and menacing.
So, overall, definitely see THE PAPERBOY, although you'd be better off to wait for DVD so you can speed through some of the duller areas. The audience I saw it with was gasping and laughing and seemed to be a little giddy leaving the theater.
Saw it a few weeks ago when I actually thought Kidman had a shot at a nomination. Still a little sad she wasn't nominated.
It was trashy, sensationalistic melodrama but I could not help but wonder the results had Pedro Almodovar actually got to direct this.
Kidman is fantastic. Macy Gray is very good. McConaughey and Cusack only seem to work in their scenes together. Efron might as well be a case study of the queer male gaze because that is the only interesting aspect to the character.
The pacing was definitely off and in scenes without Macy Gray's narration it felt really trudging (and I never thought such a thing was possible).
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joined:10/31/11
Posted: 10/5/12 at 10:58pm