A poor man's Jennifer Lawrence, and other Girl on the Train thoughts

I thought Jennifer Lawrence was in both The Girl on the Train and The Magnificent Seven.

Turns out, she's in neither.

Turns out, it's some person named Haley Bennett.

Haley Bennett is not just "some person," you might say. You might say she's putting together a little bit of career momentum here, also appearing in this year's (poorly received) Hardcore Henry, in 2014's The Equalizer, and even in some older well-regarded films like Music & Lyrics and Marley & Me.

But that doesn't change the fact that she looks almost exactly like Jennifer Lawrence, and that's (presumably) why people are casting her now.

Here, consider it. Someone on the interwebs has done me the favor of putting them next to each other:

When you look at them side by side, you can (probably) tell which is which. But when you see only Bennett by herself in a movie trailer, you think "Is that Jennifer Lawrence?"

And then, "If that's Jennifer Lawrence, why isn't her name on the poster?"

This was a big flaw in my theory about Lawrence being in The Girl on the Train. As you can see from the poster above, only Emily Blunt was deemed famous enough to appear on the poster. Lawrence is more famous than Blunt, so that theory didn't work.

But it still took me looking at her a couple times on screen before I said "Oh yeah, that's not J-Law. That's that woman I've seen in that Magnificent Seven trailer about seven times."

I wonder if it occurs to Bennett that her resemblance to Lawrence is probably a boon to her career. I mean, she's pretty, so she probably would have succeeded anyway. And Girl on the Train demonstrates that she has at least some acting talent (though nowhere near Lawrence's class). But part of her has got to think "Well, they wanted a Jennifer Lawrence type, and I was cheap so they got me." I suppose there are worse people than a four-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner to be likened to.

Lawrence is actually the youngest actress ever to accrue four Oscar nominations, as she only turned 26 two months ago. That means she was born in 1990, and that creates an interesting (though surely coincidental) relationship to Bennett as well. But the following is a SPOILER ALERT for Girl on the Train, so if you haven't seen it yet (and care), stop reading.

The movie has occasion to show a tombstone for Bennett's character, and the inscription shows that that character, too, was born in 1990. Bennett herself was born two years earlier than that, in 1988. I only wish I'd had the foresight to check out the exact date on the tombstone, because choosing Lawrence's August 15th birthday would have been a cheeky inside joke about the similarity of the two actresses.

And forgive me for a little bit of the vulgar Donald Trump coming out here, but I couldn't help wondering if some kind of wish fulfillment related to Lawrence was a reason we see so much of Bennett's skin in this movie. The only traditionally defined nudity we get of Bennett is to see her bare bottom, but in a shower scene and some other scenes, we come pretty damn close to seeing everything else. Part of me wonders if the apparent fixation on the amount of skin she revealed was an attempt by the filmmakers to cater to our most prurient interests regarding Lawrence -- to kind of make us think we were seeing Lawrence in the buff. (Then again, actual nude pictures of Lawrence are available from one of those Snapchat hacks or whatever it was, so perhaps we didn't really need to fantasize about Lawrence via Bennett in the first place.)

And on to some other thoughts ...

Oh Emily

Emily Blunt is one of my favorite working actresses today. Period. Exclamation point.

But boy did she let me down here.

What was she thinking in that first half of the movie?

She gets better, as does the whole movie, as it approaches its climax. But I'll be much quicker to blame Tate Taylor, the director, for how she performs her scenes of drunkenness in its first half. Because I just can't think of Emily Blunt as an actress who makes bad choices. No, not even appearing in Into the Woods.

But if I'm being honest with myself, Blunt at least shares the blame for her performance in this film.

Playing a drunk is not an enviable task. Many actors and actresses have tackled it numerous times, so not only are you competing with a pretty thorough history in the annals of acting, but even the best of those performances usually seem mannered in some way. There is almost always something too big by half about playing drunk. It's kind of like when people play being stoned or sniffing cocaine -- they almost always exaggerate the effects. (Whereas taking cocaine can really look as subdued as Trump looked during the second debate. Sorry, I'm taking every occasion I can to slam The Donald these days.)

So Blunt is not immune to those traps. She does a lot of unfocusing of her eyes and blurring of her speech and ranting and raving. There are choices she makes within her choices that ring true, but the overall effect is somewhat less than natural. And Taylor makes it worse by holding her in extreme close-up for many of these scenes.

The plot of the movie turns on a lot of twists related to her being blacked out, so no doubt Taylor is trying to capture that with his camerawork and editing choices. But it just doesn't work very well. And Blunt -- even if she is the blameless victim I want her to be -- pays the price.

Gone Girl on the Train

The similarities of this movie to Gone Girl are obvious, and I think, intentional. I won't list them here. Instead, I will draw attention to the one that I thought was the most shameless.

No less of a hall of fame film composer than Danny Elfman seems to have totally ripped off Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The Nine Inch Nails frontman and his frequent collaborator worked with David Fincher to create a memorable and indelible score for Gone Girl. Then Elfman seems to have parroted it almost exactly.

People who know more about music than I do will surely point out important differences, but I noticed at least two points of near total correlation.

The beginning passages of both films deal with the lives of the couples in question pre-incident, when there's some possibility they're okay despite obvious foreboding to the contrary. In both films I noticed a sort of warm synthesized blooping on the soundtrack. (See, I told you I don't know much about music.) There's a melancholy to the music in these scenes, but also an optimism that things might turn out okay. The music is, as I say, warm, and it does, as I say, contain "blooping." You'll just have to try to imagine what I mean because I can't do any better than this, apparently.

As things go to shit and the more sinister elements of the plot are revealed later on, the score develops a sense of electronic rot, an ominous kind of scraping sound that increases in intensity as the physical and emotional violence of a scene intensifies. GONE GIRL SPOILERS. I'm thinking of the scene in Gone Girl where Rosamund Pike slits Neil Patrick Harris' throat and kind of writhes around on top of his body as the blood and life run out of him. I don't know if you remember it, but Reznor and Ross' score becomes unbearably rotten and scrapy during that scene. (Sorry, I'm doing my best.)

I'm not sure if there is an exact corresponding moment in The Girl on the Train -- I mean, there's a moment that involves a man bleeding from his neck that could well have that part of the score, but I didn't notice it there. I did notice it in the closing credits, and thought "That sounds almost exactly like that signature moment from the Gone Girl score."

Maybe we should just be happy Elfman isn't giving us another one of those Tim Burton-sounding scores with the angelic singing voices.

Chameleon

There's one woman at the center of the plot that I have yet to mention, and that's Rebecca Ferguson as the new wife of Emily Blunt's character's ex.

As I was watching the movie, I thought, "That woman looks sort of familiar, but I can't quite place her." The closing credits clarified for me. Ferguson was the woman who got so much praise in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.

Even knowing that, though, she still looked only sort of familiar.

It's clearly the same woman playing both roles, but her physicality is so different in the two roles, and they're such different roles, that I couldn't make the connection in my mind.

I'll dispense with the side-by-side photos here, because when I look them up on Google Images, they do look fairly similar. I mean, it's the same actress, so obviously they look similar. She's not wearing prosthetics or anything in either role. Her hair color does seem to be different, but that's only one minor reason she seems so different.

Really, she seems different because actors are supposed to seem different when they play different types of roles. Why do you think Vincent D'Onofrio looks different every time you see him? Because he really climbs inside the skin of the characters she's playing. He's a true chameleon. And from what I've seen of these two roles, Ferguson may be one too.

Not really enough for me to recommend you to go see the movie, though.

Hollywood's least creative thinker

One of the least surprising things I learned in the past year was that Tim Burton is filming his own adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Starring -- you guessed it -- Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Of course he is.

You see, Mr. Burton may once have been considered one of Hollywood's most creative talents. But now he has to be considered one of its laziest, not to mention one of its most predictable.

Watching Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Saturday night was a pretty good reminder of that.

Disagree? Well, let's consider the man's career on the whole if we want to follow his dispiriting trend downward. Not only has nothing in his recent films sprung from his own mind, as he's gotten himself involved in an alarming number of adaptations of famous works originated by other people, but even when his source material is not directly apparent, he's busy alluding to his own previous works.

Without further comment, I shall begin.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985). So much for my whole "Tim Burton used to originate his own ideas" theory. His feature debut was the big-screen version of the beloved TV show starring a pre-scandal Paul Reubens. And though I probably saw this for the first time too recently (2005) to have "gotten it," it's among the favorite movies of some people whose opinions I respect.

Beetlejuice (1988). This is what I will always consider the consummate Tim Burton film -- that is, if I'm speaking nicely about the man. If I'm speaking ill, that honor might go to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and represent something entirely different about him. Anyway, this film established the "Tim Burton style" that would become our template for what to expect from him -- and ultimately, a creative crutch that would keep him from testing his own boundaries.

Batman (1989). All hail Tim Burton! Everyone loved the man when he brought the caped crusader to life in a way utterly free from the camp that had characterized his previous screen incarnations. (Unless you consider Jack Nicholson's glorious vamping to be "camp"). His dark and twisted Gotham City was what we wanted from Gotham City, and who knew the jesterly sprite from Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) could be so pensive and brooding?

Edward Scissorhands (1990). Another home run. This is what I consider Burton's best film. His first of an increasingly ridiculous number of collaborations with Depp was a deeply sensitive consideration of "otherness" in a pastel alternate-1950s universe full of sameness. Also, who knew Anthony Michael Hall could play a buff jerk? A masterpiece that manages to be whimsical and downbeat at the same time. What may be most impressive in terms of total responsibility for the creative vision was that Burton also served as a screenwriter on this film, the only such time he has done that, despite a few "screen story" credits, which is not the same thing.

Batman Returns (1992). Some considered this to be even better than the original Batman -- not me, but some. (I guess I was the only one who thought Michelle Pfeiffer was over the top in this, and not in a good way, like Nicholson was). It proved that Burton still had it, finding new life in familiar territory (which can be hard, but which has become his pattern), and it was the rare sequel that was pretty much as well received as the first movie. What's more, Burton had the good sense to get out of this series and let Joel Schumacher destroy it. Today's Tim Burton probably would not have done that.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). While Burton only produced this film, leaving the directing to Coraline director Henry Selick, this was as Tim Burton-y as any Tim Burton film out there (and definitely hearkens back to Beetlejuice). He also got credited for the screen story and the production design. While I don't love this film the way some devoted fans do, I recognize its singular creative vision. I found it a little too dark for children in spots -- Santa Claus on a torture rack? -- but I don't for a moment doubt its supreme historical significance.

Ed Wood (1994). This might be characterized as his most ambitious/mature film to date, as it dealt with a real historical figure who could not be totally molded to fictional whims. I don't have a real distinct memory of Ed Wood, but I remember it being a triumph, and of course it earned Martin Landau an Oscar.

James and the Giant Peach (1996). Producer for Selick again. I thought this movie was a mess, but I thought I should mention it because I mentioned The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mars Attacks! (1996). Burton's first genuine love-it-or-hate-it film. I guess I can say I loved it, though I recognize this movie is majorly flawed. Still, those Martians were a wonderful creation -- ack ack ack ack! -- and the film was much more gruesomely violent (in a good, sometimes even chilling way) than I thought it would be. A gloriously tactile spoof of 1950s alien movies. But since it's a large, expensive, special effects-laden satire, it was never going to be everybody's cup of tea.

Sleepy Hollow (1999). Burton's starting to lose some people at this point, but not me. Like Bram Stoker's Dracula, this movie was all about the production design for me. I loved the powdered wigs, the quill pens, the sprays of arterial blood as heads were chopped off, and the entire look of the village of Sleepy Hollow. The story was a bit goofy, but I didn't care. You might say this was a preview of future failings in terms of story.

Planet of the Apes (2001). And Burton drops off a cliff. Okay, it wasn't that bad. But it was pretty bad. However, you could say that Burton kind of went outside his comfort zone with this one. Yeah, it's still Burton-y material, but there's a serious lack of gothic stylings on a planet of apes -- no moldering mansions, no obvious visual components to accompany perpetual collaborator Danny Elfman's score, no characters with the skin color of white pancake makeup. Maybe it was the inclusion of Mark Wahlberg that made it feel so little like the Burton we'd seen before, which at this point was still a quality we desired from his films. Another disturbing note is that this is his second straight update of previously created material. I see a trend forming.

Big Fish (2003). And the good Burton is back again. Though I willingly acknowledge that it could just have been me hanging on with him longer than I should have. While I had a very good first impression of this film -- and will admit to getting teary at the end -- I have a sense looking back on it that it probably emotionally manipulated me. I'm not immune to emotional manipulation. Still, who better to interpret the tall tales of the world's most embellishing storyteller -- or is he? -- than Burton? You are free to disagree on this one.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Isn't it amazing how quickly someone becomes a total hack? I recognize there are disagreements out there. But this was now Burton's third remake in his last four films, and what a garish, ugly and dispiriting remake it was. During the first 20 minutes, when we were introduced to yet another moldering city, I at least thought it was a handsome enough moldering city, and I had high hopes. But once foot was set inside the chocolate factory, this movie went completely off the rails. Everything that was good about the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was forcibly driven out and beaten into some kind of twisted obscenity. Depp is terrible as the freakish, purple-suited Wonka, not the gleeful (but still mildly twisted) Gene Wilder, but some kind of inscrutable mental patient divorced from space and time. If you like this film, you might argue that Burton was intent on extracting the true darkness that's always been present in this story. But if you are attracted to the lightness and charm of the original tale, you will find it nowhere here. And the songs ... such woeful replacements for the originals we know and love.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005). And here vanity takes over a bit. Couldn't it have just been called Corpse Bride? There are things to like in this film, the third stop-motion animation movie he's had a hand in. For one, I was glad to see him embrace the stylings of an artist who has clearly inspired him throughout his career -- Edward Gorey. But at its core, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is like a warmed-over mix tape (forgive the mixed metaphor) of all his previous works, most notably Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It probably succeeds on some basic level, but it's as forgettable as Elfman's unhummable songs. It seems strange to level such a charge against a film that obviously required so much work by so many people, but this film is downright lazy.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). Drudgery. Pure drudgery. So far has Burton retreated inside his world of gloom that there's only one sequence of pure daylight in this entire film. Whereas the sets might have stood out in one of his previous efforts, here they are so poorly differentiated from each other that they blend into the murky grayness of the background. It's Burton embracing his R side again with buckets of blood and an intentional atmosphere of pervasive sorrow. But is it anything other than that? The plot is utterly without interesting developments, and the motivations of key characters are nothing short of bizarre. What's worse, the best songs from Stephen Sondheim's original musical were not even included. I'm not one to quibble with the way an adaptation differs from its source, but I guess I did have high expectations for this based on having seen a filmed version of the Broadway musical, which featured Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett, here played by none other than wife and constant collaborator Helena Bonham Carter. Those expectations were utterly dashed. It's better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but that's about all I can say for it.

Alice in Wonderland (2010). It's anybody's guess. But really, do you have high hopes?

You might argue that my analysis of Burton's body of work is mostly complimentary, and only on a few films did I really unleash my vitriol. And you'd be right. After all, I felt enthusiastically about a film of his that was released only six years ago. Could it be just a losing streak? Could it be possible that Tim Burton still has a soul?

I don't think so. Yet I have seen every single film he's directed. Aren't many directors I can say that about, but I can say it about him. I keep going. It's like I have the same problem with him that I have with M. Night Shyamalan. I know it won't be good, but I still keep going.

Yet I suspect that my opinion of Mr. Burton is not shared by the general public, or by his peers. After all, wasn't Johnny Depp nominated for an Oscar for Sweeney Todd? And didn't Sweeney Todd actually win the Oscar for best art direction? I could argue that it was the worst art direction in any Burton film. The damn thing actually won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy, I now see. Eighty-six percent of critics supposedly gave it a favorable review, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe it just means I don't know what I'm talking about.

But I think there are those of you out there who share my pain. Who see a guy who once really captured our imaginations, and now just captures our $12 based on his name recognition.

I'm a guy who loves versatility. One of the reasons I was so blown away by The Wrestler was that it was so different from Darren Aronofsky's previous film, the impenetrable and utterly fantastical The Fountain. You might say Aronofsky couldn't have done more of a 180 in terms of subject matter and fidelity to realism. That's the making of an interesting artist. That's an oeuvre I want to watch.

But why should Burton change his ways if we -- the royal we -- keep throwing awards his way?

For many years, Burton created monsters. And now we've created one in him.

I know I've already taken up altogether too much of your time, but just for fun ...

The Top Ten Films Tim Burton Should Have Directed, But Didn't:

10. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
9. Frankenstein (1994)
8. The Crow (1994)
7. Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
6. Interview with the Vampire (1994)
5. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
4. The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
3. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
2. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
1. From Hell (2001)

It occurs to me -- how could he never have directed a vampire movie?

I can't wait for Tim Burton's Rocky Horror Picture Show in 2012.