Post by StevePulaski on Jan 20, 2017 0:18:16 GMT -5
Lost in London: Live (2017)
Directed by: Woody Harrelson
Directed by: Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson directs his first feature with Lost in London: Live.
Rating: ★★½
Actor Woody Harrelson's Lost in London: Live is just about the most insane directorial debut you can have, and time will tell if its impact on cinema will be anything more than a footnote. Harrelson decided to turn a raucous night that occurred at his expense in London back in 2002 into a film that would be a live event for audiences. For the first time in history, a film would be shot live whilst being broadcast into theaters nationwide, using a single camera, dozens of extras, fourteen shooting locations over two miles, and a wild script that constantly moves at a frantic pace.
Kudos and respect must be given not only to Harrelson, but everyone involved in this tireless project that cinematographer Nigel Willoughby claimed in a post-film Q&A caused him many nights of lost sleep. The margin of error for a project of this undertaking is extraordinary, and thinking of this concept is only half the battle. But with the advent of Facebook Live, Twitter's Periscope service, and various other methods of broadcasting things as they happen, it was only a matter of time before some ambitious soul tried to stretch it into the thesis for a film. We should feel fortunate that the first person to execute it was Woody Harrelson.
The film recounts Woody Harrelson's wild London night, which begins with him putting on a failed play before realizing he's the talk of the tabloids after participating in a wild sex orgy with three women. Woody's wife Laura (Eleanor Matsuura) quickly discovers this as her and her children are trying to enjoy dinner and she's disgusted, insisting she have some alone time back at her hotel. This leads to Woody trying to kill a quick hour, going to a bar, where he meets his best friend Owen Wilson, playing himself, before getting into an argument with him about the inherent "preciousness" of his colleague and close friend Wes Anderson's films. The two wind up getting into a scuffle, which prompts Woody to take a cab back to his hotel. A confrontation with an argumentative cab-driver and a misunderstanding involving an ashtray leads to the cabbie calling the police on Woody. Woody flees the police until he's apprehended and sent to prison until he's able to post bail; in prison, he's greeted with the presence of an angel, played by country music superstar Willie Nelson, who offers him spiritual guidance.
One can only imagine how zany of an event this was in real-life, and to see it reenacted with a single, 4K camera rushing behind Woody to capture everything as it's unfolding is about as manic as it sounds. Once again, the whole process and everyone involved need be commended for their daring efforts.
However, in the midst of the awes and the laughs this project's concept inspires, there are indeed inevitable shortcomings. For one, despite claims of a "meticulous" four-week rehearsal by Woody Harrelson, it's abundantly clear to anyone that when you're forced to run to over a dozen different locations, never taking a break, and doing everything in one-take, you will not be getting everyone's potential best in the sense of acting or comic timing. This is where the intersection of film and a play (Harrelson has some background in theater) exists in Lost in London: Live, and the effect is mostly good, at least until the contrived humor comes into play.
Consider the moment where Woody, upon being arrested by the cops, allows the Irish officer to call and speak to Bono, who has taken up smoking weed and the Rastafarian culture. It's a scene that would struggle to be funny in a neatly scripted, studio comedy and feels even more ridiculous and thrown-in here.
The most fun moments and the best humor comes when the characters are being self-referential, such as the aforementioned moment when Woody and Owen are bickering about Wes Anderson. Owen responds by telling Woody that he wasn't the first pick to play Larry Flynt in the famous biopic of the Hustler magazine founder, and that he was for his looks and charm. These are the moments film-fans live for, more-so than cheap sight-gags, such as Woody vomiting on a club-goer, and when these are compounded by a strict and rapid-fire presentation, they only work to feel more silly.
Lost in London: Live is precisely what it sounds like, a nifty gimmick that works more often than it doesn't and ends up being a lot more entertaining and thoughtful than I think many of us thought it would be. Anyone coming in expecting a trainwreck, I feel, was a little bit too doubtful of the competence of the crew at hand, but anyone expecting a near-flawless, convincing production I initially thought was too optimistic. Aside from one particular moment heavily harped on in the followup live Q&A, the operation ran smoother than anyone expected, and the end result was a mostly entertaining dose of experimental cinema I'm sure I'll share with cinephiles half as interested as me for years to come.
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Willie Nelson, and Eleanor Matsuura. Directed by: Woody Harrelson.