Contour At The Movies

Overall Impression – Clive Owen proves you CAN have fun in a museum!

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Louis Salinger.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Expose the illegal activities of one of the world’s most powerful banks, the IBBC, and bring it to justice.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The IBBC, and the higher-ups at Interpol who don’t want Salinger pursuing the case.

What happens if he fails? – The bank will continue selling arms to third world countries, facilitating coups to win the next governments’ financial allegiance.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Interpol agent Louis Salinger believes IBBC was involved in his partner’s mysterious death. However, he finds himself operating alone as his superiors warn him off the case.

Wanderer – Salinger teams up with assistant D. A. Eleanor Whitman, and they learn that his partner was murdered. Salinger tries and fails to interrogate IBBC’s CEO, discovers that the bank has been bugging his house, and uncovers a money trail of arms deals that takes him and Whitman to Milan.

Warrior – Salinger and Whitman witness a political assassination, and track the assassin to New York. With help from the NYPD, Salinger finds the assassin and his ‘handler’ in the Guggenheim. However, IBBC wants to end its contract with the assassin and sends in its goons. The assassin is killed, but Salinger escapes with the handler and uses him to find an arms deal about to go down with IBBC’s CEO. Salinger plans to get an audio recording for evidence, but he’s discovered…

Martyr — Salinger chases the CEO with a gun. However, killing him is useless: another corrupt banker will merely replace him. Salinger understands that he’ll only be serving his revenge, so he lets the CEO live…

AND, IN THE END…

THE INTERNATIONAL has a lot going for it, but a weak Orphan element made it difficult for me to be pulled into the movie.  (At the risk of making myself sound simple, I also found the plot a bit of a chore to follow.)

That being said, THE INTERNATIONAL features some cool detective work, and one of the best shoot-outs I’ve seen in a while. It’s staged inside the spiraling Guggenheim museum, but was shot on a super-realistic set.

It’s hard not to entertain the thought of Clive as James Bond… but that’s a different reality.

- Dan Pilditch

With exactly…uh…ZERO SECONDS TO SPARE!  Wrapped on time.  WHEW!

Day three.  We’re running a little behind and there’s less than an hour to go on our shoot day.  I’m informed that we can’t do overtime.  If I wasn’t a professional I’d start to panic right about now.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I’m taking a LOT of grief over my mobile cart.  Maybe it’s the rabbit ears antenna array I use to get the video feed from the cameras (kinda visible in the photo to the right of my laptop.)  Or maybe I’m just a geek.

We started right on time and finished early.  Even got in a bonus shot!   Having fun, so far.  But of course, any script that features a meeting of the VSA (Viking Students Association) can’t go too far wrong.  

The script in question is a first script from a new writing team: Richard Rabkin and Matt Simmons.  Richard’s someone who was introduced to me a few years ago and has been impressing me his writing over that time, and Matt is a friend of Richard’s who blew me away with a feature script he had written.  I thought the two of them would make a good team and suggested that they pitch some ideas for OVERRULED.  They did, one of them clicked, and their script is now the lead-off script for season 2.

There is a lesson in there about networking, persistence, and looking for creative opportunities.  Will this lead to more writing for them?  Who knows.  I know I’d hire them again.

First take, day one.

Tomorrow’s the day! First day of shooting for season 2. I’m sure I’ll get lots of sleep tonight. NOT!

Yes, we really do line up ladders in size order for no reason…

Overall Impression – A lighthearted, goofy (and I’ll admit, fun) comedy about debt relief – Hollywood style.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Rebecca Bloomwood.

What’s she trying to accomplish? – Professional: pay off her credit card debt. Personal: overcome her shopping addiction. Private: find the things in life that have real value.

Who’s trying to stop her? – Rebecca is her own greatest enemy, but there are plenty of lesser antagonists along the way.

What happens if she fails? – Rebecca will lose her best friend, the man of her dreams, the perfect job, her home… in other words, everything that really matters.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Throughout Rebecca’s childhood, her mom refused to shell out for designer clothes, making her the odd one out amongst her friends.

Wanderer – When Rebecca realizes her crazy spending has landed her in debt, she’s forced to admit that she’s a shopaholic. Rebecca attempts to put her vice to practical use by going for a dream job at a fashion magazine, but gets sidetracked by the perfect green scarf and misses her interview. Realizing her only option is to wing a job at a finance magazine (owned by the same company) and work her way up, Rebecca interviews with soon-to-be love interest Luke Brandon. To her joy/dismay, he gives her a shot – to write an article about staying out of debt! Rebecca knows zip about finance, but makes a daunting topic accessible to herself (and millions of new readers) by writing in shop-talk.

Warrior – Enjoying overnight success and her first decent paycheck, Rebecca gets more involved with the magazine, and with Luke. But complications are aplenty. Not only must she keep up her façade as a ‘money-smart guru’, but she has to avoid the evil debt collector, control her urges to spend and compete with a model for Luke’s affections. Rebecca joins a “shopaholics anonymous” group, but it’s all in vain as, inevitably, everything blows up in her face: Rebecca loses her love interest, her best friend, and is revealed as a fraud on national television.

Martyr – A solution presents itself when the head of the fashion magazine offers Rebecca her dream job, wanting her to manipulate her devoted readers into buying designer products. Rebecca sticks to her morals and refuses, deciding to remove her debt by selling all of her clothes, including her coveted green scarf. After this display of character, Rebecca wins back Luke, her friend, and finally pays off her debt.

AND, IN THE END…

While I enjoyed the movie (this being written by someone whose eyes glaze over on the topic of fashion) there were elements that niggled me.

The ORPHAN section felt weak, and failed to get me rooting for Rebecca. She never suffered any undeserved misfortune… not really.  It’s more like she was jealous of spoiled kids’ undeserved fortune. I’ve been in the same position as kid-Rebecca (replace Prada bags with SNES games), and it didn’t feel big enough a story point to warrant support for an adult who seemed no wiser than when she was 6.  All I could think was “get over it.”

There’s some talk going on about whether CONFESSIONS came out at a bad time, given the current economic crisis.  Since Rebecca’s problem is wasting money on luxury products,  I’m sure this amplified my lack of sympathy, but I suspect I would’ve felt the same way even if we were in more prosperous times.

That being said, it didn’t matter in the end –  Isla Fisher was too likable! Throw in John Goodman, Joan Cusack and plenty of physical comedy, and the movie is bound to please some people even if it was released at an unfortunate time.

— Dan Pilditch