“As far as con man stories go, I think I’ve heard them all.” So goes the first line of The Brothers Bloom, delivered via narration by magician/character actor Ricky Jay. This narration may be controversial, but with the very first words of his second film, filmmaker Rian Johnson cops to the daunting task he’s set out for himself: to try to breathe new life into a genre older than movies, marked (no pun intended) by tropes and beats as familiar to any savvy viewer as they are to the archetypal grifters with hearts of gold that populate them. There’s no question that it’s derivative — it’s a story about stories that have already been written — but you’d have to be more cynical than I not to be charmed by what it does right.

The Jay-narrated prologue introduces us to childhood versions brothers Stephen (to be played as an adult by Mark Ruffalo) and his younger brother, known only as Bloom (played later by Adrien Brody). That one brother got the first name and the other the last should give an indication of the indivisible nature of their relationship, which is apparent even at ages 13 and 10. They go from one town (and foster home) to the next, with Stephen coming up with new, elaborate schemes to make money off the “playground bourgeoisie”, and the pliable Bloom serving as his lure. 25 years later, the Brothers Bloom are still at the same racket, but on a much larger scale; now they trot the globe within a single scheme, and celebrate each score with all-night wrap parties instead of popsicles.

Stephen is a magnanimous showman who blocks, casts and stage designs each con like a backyard filmmaker whose backdoor opens on to dilapidated theaters in St. Petersburg and beach cabanas in Mexico. Of course, he has a catchphrase: “The perfect con is the one in which everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted.” At the end of a successful blow-out in Berlin, all Bloom wants is to quit, to hide out in Montenegro and look for “an unwritten life” in a succession of bottles. It’s understandable that Stephen would have trouble buying his brother’s stated desire — after all, movies like this exist to make the viewer wish their own life could play out as if in a movie, and The Brothers Bloom is nothing if not self-conscious of its cinematic construction. And so Stephen and his weapons consultant/consigliere Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi) swiftly track Bloom down and talk him into One Last Con. They find their One Last Mark in Penelope (Rachel Weisz), an obscenely rich orphaned shut-in who, at age 33, is starving for romance and adventure. Bloom, always a mark for pretty girls but resistant to their charms unless romance is part of his brother’s plot, falls instantly and hard.

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In a new interview with MTV, City of Ember star Bill Murray has called for the makers of Ghostbusters 3 to introduce a female Ghostbuster. My first thought was that hottie who models the sexy Ghostbusters Halloween costume, but seriously it is a great idea. As long as the concept is to pass on the proton packs to a new generation, there really should be an actress in the bunch. And I’m not talking just a hot young flavor of the month who Hollywood thinks will get the teen boys in the audience (it’s Ghostbusters 3; they’re already sold). I agree with Murray that the main requirement should be a funny female.

However, instead of merely picking out one comedienne to appear in the sequel, SpoutBlog has decided to imagine a remake of Ghostbusters in which the entire team is made of women. So, here are some casting choices for a gender-reversed version:

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Fantastic Fest is hosting four “Secret Screenings” of movies that haven’t been released yet, and the first one unspooled last night to a theater full of people who had no idea what they were about to see. Rian Johnson was in town with a print of his movie The Brothers Bloom, and one lucky audience got to see it several months early.

It’s hard to watch Bloom and not think about the world that Wes Anderson’s films inhabit. Places where people travel by steamship, are always immaculately dressed, and consist of extreme caricatures. Johnson’s first feature Brick had that quality, and The Brothers Bloom has it in spades. It’s a fantasy world that Johnson himself probably wouldn’t mind living in, and I’m sure he’d have a fair share of people willing to follow him. At least one theater full of people last night wouldn’t have minded.

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Rian Johnson is the director of the innovative modern-day film noir Brick, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and The Brothers Bloom is his impressive followup. While Brick is certainly set in a world of its own, with everyone in a contemporary high school speaking in 30s and 40s detective-speak, The Brothers Bloom takes place in a fantasy world chock full of steamships, fancy cars, and mysterious settings. He gets impressive performances out of Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz reinvents herself nicely, and Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi is terrific with an extremely tiny amount of dialogue. It’s well worth seeing when it comes out in January.

I sat down with Rian in Toronto and he told me about writing a part for Bob Dylan, his feelings about being compared to Wes Anderson, and his next project: a dark science fiction movie called Looper.

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As the Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close, we talk with Karina Longworth and Kevin Kelly about their experience. The Coen Brothers’ new film Burn After Reading gets a mixed reaction, apparently it’s better if you get to see it with Adrien Brody. Brody’s new film, The Brothers Bloom, by Brick director Rian Johnson, is one of Kevin’s favorites.

The Fall, a lush surrealist epic directed by Tarsem (yes, he only goes by one name), is out on DVD. Adam and I mull it over, comparing it to the 1973 campy classic Zardoz, starring a half-naked Sean Connery.

Lastly, I interview Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP about Independent Film Week, taking place in New York September 14-19. I should note that I accidentally mispronounced her name as “Boyd,” my apologies. It’s sort of funny if you imagine I have a strong Brooklyn accent for just that one word.

 

 FilmCouch 87 [42:01m]: Play Now | Download

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro, a listener shares his woeful Crispin Glover tale

5:12 - Kevin and Karina’s dispatch from Toronto

19:45 - The Fall

30:46 - Michelle Byrd interview

filmcouch-87

• Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody has sold a pitch to Universal for a film called Girly Style, which The Hollywood Reporter describes as “a female-driven comedy set at a college.” Mason Novick, who Cody recently described on her blog as “totally my Rene Angelil,” will produce.
• A suspect has been arrested for stealing “computers, photographs and documents” from the set of the fourth Indiana Jones movie. The criminal mastermind was nabbed after contacting a number of movie blogs and offering the loot for sale.
• Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody have been cast in Splice, a sci-fi thriller about genetic engineering to be directed by Vincenzo Natali. Natali recently helmed a segment of the omnibus Paris, je t’aime.

To skip straight to images and audio from the NYFF press conference for The Darjeeling Limited, click the “Read More” link at the bottom of the page.

The plot of Wes Anderson’s fifth feature concerns the misadventures of Jack, Francis and Peter, three 30-something brothers who gather on a train in India. It’s been twelve months since they last met, at their father’s funeral. They’ve been brought together by Francis (Owen Wilson), who, in the intervening year, almost killed himself in a motorcycle accident; he arrives on the train with his head bandaged like he’s had a lobotomy. Jack (Jason Schwartzman) is fresh off a self-destructive tryst in a Paris hotel room with an ex-girlfriend; he’s grown a George Harrison mustache but walks around barefoot, like Paul McCartney on the cover of Abbey Road. Peter is about to be a dad for the first time; he insists on wearing his late father’s prescription sunglasses, even though they give him tension headaches.

All three are heavily medicated, trading black market Indian opiates at the dinner table before soup is served. Francis first tells Peter and Jack that they’re in India to reestablish their brotherly bonds by visiting a number of “spiritual places,” an itinerary which has Jack planning to jet off to Italy at the first snag. Francis then reveals that they’re actually on their way to find their mother, who is living in a convent in the Himalayas and who, for reasons unknown, failed to show up at their father’s funeral.

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