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In “Remember Me,” Robert Pattinson has temporarily stepped away from “Twilight,” apparently in search of his “Five Easy Pieces” or “Rebel Without a Cause.”
When Pattinson’s character — a wayward, rebellious 21-year-old named Tyler Hawkins — meets who will quickly become his love interest — a fellow NYU student named Ally (Emilie de Ravin) — he informs her that his major is “undecided.”
“‘Bout what?” she responds.
“Everything,” he says.
As a character-defining quote, it’s a long way from Marlon Brando’s “Whaddya got?” in “The Wild One.” Perhaps an earlier draft had him saying he’s getting a “Ph.D. in misanthropy.”
Pattinson may be on leave from the narcotic melodrama of “Twilight,” but he’s still in full-on brooding mode. The young actor has an unmistakable screen presence. However in “Remember Me,” he pours it on thickly and self-consciously.
With low eyes, sleeves rolled up just so and cigarette drooping artfully from his mouth, Tyler (like Edward Cullen) is a reluctant romantic. He quotes Gandhi in voiceover, makes love to Sigur Ros and (understandably) can’t be moved to laughter by “American Pie 2.”
His deepness runneth over.
Fetishizing tragedy
“Remember Me” begins ominously with the Twin Towers lurking in view behind an elevated subway in 1991 Brooklyn. A woman is senselessly murdered while her young daughter watches.
When the film shifts 10 years later, the girl is Ally, whom Tyler meets through a rather preposterous revenge plot directed at her father (Chris Cooper), a New York police officer who roughed Tyler up.
Their meeting is orchestrated by Tyler’s roommate, Tate, played by Aiden Hall. But there will be no fan-created Team Tyler vs. Team Tate here. The roommate is an annoying chatterbox, whose comedic moments drag the film.
A sense of dread — hinted at by the movie’s title and intoned by Marcelo Zarvos’ score — is carried though the film, which is set in the summer of 2001. Sudden spurts of violence punctuate the story.
Long before the big reveal ending, one begins to feel “Remember Me” is romanticizing — even fetishizing — tragedy. There’s a pretentious reveling in emotional scars and painful loss.
Tyler is the son of a high-powered attorney (Pierce Brosnan), an absent father to Tyler and his young sister, Caroline (Ruby Jerins). Some time earlier, Tyler’s older brother committed suicide — the hurtful event that has given Tyler much of his grimness.
Heaviness weighs on Ally and her father, too. Cooper is typecast as an uptight, overbearing father, but he’s predictably solid.
Brosnan is the highlight of the film, again proving — as he did in Roman Polanski’s recent “The Ghost Writer” — his character actor chops. Tucked stoically behind a suit, he ably sports a Brooklyn accent in believable, confrontational scenes with Pattinson.
Director Allen Coulter shows the same skill in creating atmosphere as he did in “Hollywoodland,” but the script by Will Fetters (his first) is uneven.
The most pleasing thing about “Remember Me” is its boldness. It may be affected, but “Remember Me” is at least aiming for an intriguing character study — a positive sign in the young career of Pattinson (who is also an executive producer).
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One enters a movie like “Our Family Wedding” bracing for cheesiness.
As a genre, wedding films are typically about as cloying as two-hours worth of kitten videos on YouTube. Add in the equally checkered history of stridently ethnic movies, and you might want to start asking moviegoers to remove their belts before entering the theater.
But as Rick Famuyiwa’s “Our Family Wedding” — which combines both elements — moves along, the fingers in front of one’s eyes (usually a shield reserved for horror films) slowly part. The realization dawns that Famuyiwa has made a mostly charming movie despite its cliche milieu.
The performances help.
And the center is America Ferrera (as Lucia) and Lance Gross (as Marcus), a young couple in college in New York who return home to their families in Los Angeles to break the news that they’re engaged.
Neither family — one Latino, the other black — much likes the decision. Marcus’ father, Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker), and Lucia’s dad, Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mencia), quickly become rivals.
To be sure, there are plenty of predictable jokes reliant on stereotypes. But “Our Family Wedding” often smacks of real people.
As the families feud, they use racial stereotypes less as a crutch for identity than a means for sarcasm, self-deprecation and — if at all possible — ammo against their potential new in-laws.
Insisting that the wedding also include African-American traditions, Whitaker temporarily draws a blank before remembering the custom of the bride and groom jumping over a broom stick.
Whitaker’s Brad is a radio D-J and an aging playboy. Mencia’s Miguel is — as all fathers of the bride are in movies — overprotective. Though both are somewhat outlandish, neither sinks to cartoon level — always a threat for the comic Mencia.
A number of characters hover on the outside: Regina King as a longtime family friend; Lupe Ontiveros as an over-the-top, conservative grandmother; Anjelah Johnson as Lucia’s droll sister; Diana Maria Riva as Lucia’s mother.
As friends of the groom, Charlie Murphy and Taye Diggs make a brief, funny appearance for an argument over marriage as either “sex on the regular” or “marital Guantanamo.”
Unfortunately, “Our Family Wedding” loses its balance around the time the goat gets loose and eats a bunch of Viagra. Still, though cheesiness is all around, it never quite penetrates “Our Family Wedding.”
Famuyiwa (who directed “Brown Sugar” and “The Wood”) opens the film in a way coincidentally similar to the recent romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day”: A D-J (Whitaker) spins a tune dedicated to lovers on Valentine’s Day.
“Our Family Wedding” is significantly better than that utterly artificial film. It’s not as overstuffed, it has authentic quiet moments and it has better music, too: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings kick off a soundtrack of Daptone soul.
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Quinton Aaron and Sandra Bullock starred in “The Blind Side,” which filmed in Georgia
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“The Blind Side” could have been filmed anywhere, says Tim Bourne, an independent producer who worked on the film. But there’s a reason producers brought the project to Georgia: money.
“There’s nothing in [the movie] that couldn’t have been shot in any midrange urban setting. The reason, and the sole reason, it was shot in Georgia was the tax incentives,” he said.
Georgia boasts one of the highest tax credits in the United States: a 20 percent base tax credit, with an additional 10 percent if a Georgia logo appears somewhere in the project. The Oscar-nominated “Blind Side” is one of many films that’s taken advantage of the incentives to shoot in the Empire State of the South, incentives that also include a diverse set of locations, state-of-the-art facilities and large production crews.
Recently, another production, “Hall Pass,” written by Peter and Bobby Farrelly (”There’s Something About Mary”), started filming in the Atlanta area.
The film, starring Owen Wilson and Jenna Fischer, is about a woman who gives her husband permission to have an affair. It called for a New England location — standard for the brothers, who are from Rhode Island — but tax incentives led the production crew south, producers said.
Georgia is far from the only state offering filmmakers opportunities to leave Hollywood. Indeed, it’s one of 44 states offering incentives in hopes of attracting projects that will help their economies, according to the Tax Foundation.
“No one is trying to compete with L.A. from a technical standpoint,” Bourne said. “They’re certainly competing from a financial standpoint, though. The name of the game is all about tax incentives. It’s the sad truth.
“Films are made in a particular place strictly because of financial rebates,” he continued. “If, tomorrow, Louisiana or … any state with a crew base, rather, came up with a better incentive program, that’s where the work would be — overnight.”
Incentives differ from state to state. In most cases, filmmakers are able to apply for a tax credit or rebate as long as they meet the state’s minimum standards for expenditures and utilize local crews, some of whom don’t belong to unions. However, Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner at the Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office, said bigger production companies usually prefer to work with union workers.
Louisiana, one of the first states to develop an incentive program eight years ago, has found exposure in front of the camera with films such as “Ray” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
“Green Lantern,” set for release in 2011, is one of many projects whose makers opted to film in Louisiana after the state increased its film production tax credit to 30 percent in 2009, said Chris Stelly, director of the Louisiana Office of Film and TV.
But Louisiana doesn’t just attract projects because of the state’s high tax credit, he said.
“No matter how big your incentive is, if someone doesn’t have a good experience, they’re not going to be back,” he said.
Warner Bros. Entertainment is what Stelly calls a repeat customer.
Michael Walbrecht, vice president of Studio & Production Affairs at Warner Bros., said the company brings a lot of projects to Louisiana. It’s the third most popular place the company films, behind Los Angeles and New York.
“So far, we’ve had great experiences in the [Southeast],” Walbrecht said.
There’s no denying the tremendous impact the film industry has had on each state.
Hotels, rental cars, restaurants, equipment rentals, local crews, props, wardrobes and local extras are just some of the ways the industry gives back to the area it films in.
According to the Web site for Georgia’s Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Office, TV networks, Hollywood studios, production companies and independent producers invested more than $521 million in Georgia in fiscal year 2008-09; the state estimates the economic impact of this investment at $929 million.
Louisiana has experienced economic success, as well. Its Economic Development department’s Web site says the incentives have generated thousands of jobs and more than $2 billion since the program began in 2002.
“With some of the bigger movies, [there are] hundreds of extras on set,” Thompson said. “Those people all get paid something per day. This is especially a big deal in small towns that have never had a film [shoot] there. To spend a few million dollars in a rural area [makes a big difference].”
Even California, the home of the business, has gotten into the act. The state recently introduced a 20 percent tax credit, though its incentives aren’t as broad as in other states. For example, TV shows to air on basic cable qualify for the credit, whereas shows on broadcast networks do not.
Walbrecht said the amount of larger movies and TV shows filming in smaller states will continue to rise, which is one reason California was prompted to create incentives. “They realized their iconic industry was moving elsewhere,” he said.
Meanwhile, away from Hollywood, the competition is getting stiffer.
North Carolina became a major player in the filmmaking business thanks to such productions as the TV show “Dawson’s Creek,” which filmed in the coastal city of Wilmington and helped create a thriving film industry there. So when “The Last Song” — set in Wilmington — began filming in seaside Savannah, Georgia, hard feelings were inevitable.
“You can’t dwell on what you lost; you have to keep going and move forward,” said Aaron Syrett, director of the North Carolina Film Office. “It happens all the time, to every state.”
Legislation to raise the 15 percent tax credit was proposed before “The Last Song” chose not to film in North Carolina. The state’s new refund, 25 percent, went into effect January 1.
“We’re not trying to [have] the highest refund. We’re trying to be the smartest,” Syrett said.
In other words, offer a hefty tax rebate — and roll camera.
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As a shameless contraption of ridiculously sad things befalling attractive people, the engorged romantic tragedy “Remember Me” stands tall between those towering monuments to teen-oriented cinematic misery, “Love Story” and “Twilight.”
Beginning with a shock of urban violence set on a subway platform in 1991, then moving forward to a balmy New York City summer a decade later, the movie is one part ”Love means never having to say you’re sorry” and one part Edward’s warning to Bella: ”If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from me.”
As in “Love Story”, an angry, fancy-class young man named Tyler (Robert Pattinson) falls in love with a fine, plain-class young woman named Ally (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin) on the campus of a renowned American university, and the couple’s devotion survives an avalanche of crises that would bury lesser soul mates.
As in “Twilight”, Pattinson evokes the fancy-class man using the combined resources of dark glowers, milky gazes, and fabulously mussed-up hair.
Impressively, the star stuck with “Remember Me” even after his post-”Twilight” celebrity soared. Unfortunately, the film’s alienated rich kid is perilously close, in intense disgruntlement and plasma-deficient pallor, to that of alienated vampire Edward Cullen.
And the overheated woes dreamed up by first-time screenwriter Will Fetters, directed by HBO veteran Allen Coulter, don’t allow the actor room to demonstrate much range as Tyler slouches around on a diet of cigarettes and beer. (He shares a ratty hipster apartment with Tate Ellington as a clownish roommate better suited to cohabitation with the dudes from “Knocked Up.”)
Tyler and Ally each carry scars from family tragedies in their past. But the script offers no tolerable explanation as to why.
For instance, Tyler’s business-mogul father (Pierce Brosnan, sharp in a business suit) is such a cold SOB. Why Tyler’s kid sister (nicely serious young Ruby Jerins) is bullied by the mean girls at her school. Why Ally’s policeman dad (the great Chris Cooper, outwitted) behaves so inconsistently. Or why “Remember Me” goes where it goes with such staggeringly misplaced self-seriousness — a movie with all the hyperventilating hysteria of a 1960s teen-tragedy pop song and all the disposability, too.
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Actor Corey Haim’s death is being linked to a major drug ring which has been illegally obtaining prescription drugs, US police have said.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said the star’s name was discovered on records during an investigation into the illegal activity.
He said that the problem of drug abuse was being “increasingly linked to criminal organisations”.
But the Los Angeles County coroner has not yet determined what killed him.
The Lost Boys actor died at a California hospital on Wednesday.
“Corey Haim’s death is yet another tragedy linked to the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,” Mr Brown said.
“This problem is increasingly linked to criminal organisations, like the illegal and massive prescription drug ring under investigation.”
Assistant chief coroner Ed Winter said four prescription drug bottles bearing the actor’s name were found in the apartment where he collapsed, but all those drugs had been provided by a doctor who had been treating the actor.
Mr Winter also said he was “surprised” that Jerry Brown would “come out and give a cause of death”.
In a later interview Brown said that he did not know what had killed the actor.
Haim’s agent, Mark Heaslip, said his client’s medications had been prescribed to him.
“I don’t think Corey overdosed, not at all,” he said.
Plans are under way to hold a public memorial for Haim, who died aged 38, in LA.
The actor is expected to be buried at a private funeral in his native Canada.
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