Eyes Wide Shut Holiday Masquerade, The Wooly, 11 Barclay Street, 9pm to 2am, with open bar until 10:30pm, tickets and information can be found at tinyurl.com/8dayDecember1; Killing Them Softly is in theaters now.

Pitt.

For a big star, Brad Pitt chooses to waste his talent in boneheaded ways that never cease to amaze me. For every single solid, carefully written, value-packed entry in his oddball career—like Se7en or Moneyball—you get two or three choices only a moron could make. To a growing list of dumbbell duds like Tree of Life, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Mexican—not to mention his role as Achilles in Troy,a film that still gives me nightmares—you can now add a filthy, pretentious, brutally violent and utterly pointless load of rubbish called Killing Them Softly. 

This cynical, nihilistic, blood-splattered junk reunites Pitt and Aussie writer-director Andrew Dominik, who collaborated on the long-winded western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I rather liked the independent spirit of that peculiar revisionist footnote to outlaw history, but this time nothing works. Mr. Dominik, who writes like a sophomoric pothead and directs with a sledgehammer, has coughed up the kind of incomprehensible gangster gibberish that is usually rubber-stamped by Britain’s no-talent Madonna reject Guy Ritchie. But if Killing Them Softly belly flops as noisily as I predict it will, Brad Pitt can’t blame anyone. He co-produced it. Reverting to his dirty grunge look from Fight Club, he plays a crime enforcer called in by the mob to blast the heads off as many unknown actors as possible with a sawed-off shotgun. This action is set against the 2008 Obama-McCain election and the Wall Street meltdown, which are used as subtly as a Gatling gun to point out political and socioeconomic metaphors for the criminal direction in which America is heading. Instead of a plot, there’s an endless stream of tirades about immoral hoodlums and the death of idealism that lampoon American democracy as an antediluvian lost cause. Instead of narrative fluency, there’s a plague of mob hits, each trying to outdo the one before in terms of depravity and carnage. Did I mention that none of it makes one bit of sense?

Let’s see. Can I get this repellent schlock straight? A brain-dead goon named Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his creepy, crack-addicted Australian pal Russell (Ben Mendelsohn, who babbles in an accent nobody can understand), knock over an illegal poker game with masks and guns. Everyone in the mob suspects Markie (Ray Liotta), the thug who runs the game, of sponsoring the robbery, because he’s fleeced criminally sponsored card games in the past. The real villain is a porcine, small-time wannabe named “The Squirrel” (Sopranos alumnus Vincent Curatola). Big-shot mafia bosses recruit cold, sober, leather-jacketed Angel of Death Jackie Cogan (Mr. Pitt) to kill off the two ex-cons who stole the money, the idiot who hired them and the innocent but immoral card-game manager Markie—the last for mere blood sport—restoring the underworld’s cash-flow imbalance just like the Feds who invaded Lehman Brothers. Acting as a grim-jawed link between the petty mob and the super mob is a brainy mob lawyer (Richard Jenkins, looking greener than the dead coroner he played on HBO’s Six Feet Under) who tries to keep Cogan’s fees down.

Cogan is not above bringing in help to slaughter a few more victims, but the hit man he hires (James Gandolfini) is too burned out by booze and prostitutes to be much help. So we are subjected to a series of choreographed balletic massacres, including a long, nauseating scene in the rain in which more thugs beat Markie to raw liver while his teeth, ribs and brains splash all over the asphalt. Mr. Pitt prefers “killing them softly,” from a distance, not up close where they beg and plead for mercy. But the best-laid plans don’t always work, so he pulls up next to Markie’s car and blows his head off while Ketty Lester croons the ballad “Love Letters” on the car radio. A lot of disgusting bleeding, vomiting, shooting up with heroin and terrible self-indulgent acting follows, with almost no member of the cast surviving to the final credits except Mr. Pitt. Every thug is motivated by money. There isn’t one character in the film with a sense of integrity, decency or higher purpose, and every crime is accompanied by car radios and TV sets following the heated 2008 campaign for a new America of hope and change.

The film, based on a 1974 book called Cogan’s Trade that now turns up only in rummage sales, is set in South Boston but, for some reason known only to the people who sign the checks, was filmed in New Orleans. For all the cinematic advantages offered the camera by one of the most photogenic cities in the world, all Mr. Dominik chooses to show are ugly alleys, freeways at midnight and seedy hotel rooms. For all you see of authentic New Orleans atmosphere, the film might as well have been shot in Hackensack, N.J. After Mr. Pitt wipes out his final victim, Barack Obama appears again to applause with his televised speech about “We rise and fall as one nation, as one people.” And that, of course, is the morbid joke. The point of this vile, cynical and ultimately preposterous film is that America is reeling from spiritual numbness and ethical paralysis, and optimism is a game for fools. The underworld crime enforcer’s final line: “This isn’t a country, this is America, and America is a business. So pay me.” Blackout. Just in time for a Merry Christmas.

Anyone up for a snappy game of Russian roulette?

Running Time 97 minutes

Written by Andrew Dominik (screenplay)
and George V. Higgins (novel)

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Starring Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta and Richard Jenkins

rreed@observer.com

Brad Pitt, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson at No. 8 (PMc)

Last night the Cinema Society and Men's Health presented Brad Pitt's latest feature (besides those Chanel ads), a dark shoot-em-up called Killing Them Softly. The after party, held at No. 8, was jammed back full of celebs, though Mr. Pitt, Harvey Weinstein, Jack McBrayer, and Amy Adams remained secluded from the whole ordeal by two large security guards who literally linked arms to stop the crush of people from trying to wiggle their way into the VIP area.

Besides being an odd hodge-podge of fame, can we just examine, for a moment, Jack McBrayer's IRL persona, which is not very distinguishable from that of his 30 Rock character, Kenneth Parcell? I.e., when telling the actor how much we liked his animated performance in Wreck-It-Ralph, he replied, "Awww, gosh, thanks!" Which is definitely something we can all imagine Kenneth saying, yes?

Nearby, Chris Noth was giving advice to a young woman with dark hair. "If you aren't doing what you love, I'd just say quit. Is your agent getting you work these days?"

Two feet away, Ray Liotta had stopped to talk to Fisher Stevens. "Fuck that motherfucker," he said, in response to a mutual acquaintance. "Just fuck that guy."

Upstairs, Patrick Wilson conferred with Rose Byrne and a bevy of beautiful models while Boardwalk Empire stars Bobby Carnivale and Billy Magnussen mingled with friends on the stairs.

With bodies crushed at the bar to get to the liquor sponsor of the evening, DeLeón tequila, we kept being nudged in the back by a very tall young man with a newsboy hat and a wispy beard. ("What kind of drinks are they making? What does your tattoo say? Etc.)

Finally we handed Matthew Lillard the drink menu so he could check out for himself, and remarked how much we had loved Scream as a teenager.

"Did you know that it came out on Thanksgiving weekend?" he asked. "It was this brilliant piece of counter-culture programming, ever. That was all Harvey."

And what was Mr. Lillard doing in New York these days?

"Oh, just hanging out with this guy! We're making a movie together," he said, waving down the person on the other side of us.

"Hello, I'm Patrick," said Sir Patrick Stewart. We all ordered some sort of whiskey/bourbon and soda/water combination and raised our glasses.

With all the blood and guts and gore that make for (apparent) box-office gold during the holidays seasons, we asked Mr. Lillard if he had any favorite non-violent Christmas classics.

"Well, there's really only two, and they are cliche," he admitted. "There's the Jimmy Stewart one, and A Christmas Story."

Had he heard about the terrible straight-to-DVD sequel of the A Christmas Story that recently came out?
http://youtu.be/YHJNBZ2rrMM

"Don't tell me that...I wish you hadn't told me that," Mr. Lillard groaned. "In fact, you didn't tell me that. I am glad that I have never been told such a terrible thing."

He told us the next time we were in Ohio, we should go visit the Christmas Story house, which had artifacts from the film. We promised we would. Sir Patrick Stewart was with his partner, Sunny Ozwell.

As we left, we passed the crowd surrounding Mr. Pitt even within the relatively contained VIP section. He had long hair. Angelina Jolie was not with him. Harry Belafonte was, though. We quickly finished up our bourbon and left onto the wintery streets, where paparazzi still mingled, huddled together for warmth and determined to get a picture of Mr. Pitt leaving the Chelsea club before the night was over.

Jennifer Garner in 'Butter'

The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson

Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

September 14

This long-deferred movie actually couldn’t have been better timed. An apparent allegory for the creation of Scientology, The Master comes along just as public interest in the (alleged!) money-grubbing cult is at an all-time high, post-Tom/Katie divorce. In this telling, Philip Seymour Hoffman is the L. Ron Hubbard-like figure who snares untold numbers of believers into his thrall. Plot details, per Paul Thomas Anderson’s standard, are hazy, but the trailer reveals simply that Mr. Anderson has kept up his keen attention to aesthetic compostion--and that Amy Adams, playing a devoted cult wife, may be this film’s MVP. Can we arrange for Katie Holmes to present her the Oscar?

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik

Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Sam Rockwell

September 21

Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to the much-loved, little-seen Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford jumps forward in time--it’s a modern-day store of mobland America, based on a pulp crime novel. The movie was a hit at Cannes, and may be yet another feather in the cap of good-looking weirdo character actor Brad Pitt, who plays a hitman’s assistant, or “point man.” The whole thing promises to be a real boys’ club, with costars like Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta, who knows a thing or two (actually, just one thing) about mob movies.

Butter

Jim Field Smith

Yara Shahidi, Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell

October 5

Little is really known about this long-delayed satirical film. How long-delayed was it, you ask? The early buzz was that Jennifer Garner’s character, a housewife and competitive butter-sculptor, was based on Presidential front-runner Michele Bachmann. Director Jim Field Smith hails from the U.K. but takes on heartland rituals in this look at the dairy-art circuit, whose protagonist is an adopted orphan daring to take on the longtime champions (Ms. Garner and Mr. Burrell). Somehow, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, and Alicia Silverstone fit into this puzzle--no word on what Ms. Silverstone, noted vegan, did around the enormous blocks of milk product.

Argo

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin

October 12

Ben Affleck, flamed-out Hollywood star, has had a successful second career as the director of Boston heist pictures, but his third directorial effort, Argo, finally takes him outside of the old neigborhood. Mr. Affleck stars as a CIA officer who comes up with a cunning plan to rescue escapees during the Iran hostage crisis--he fakes the production of a sci-fi movie (Iran makes a lovely moonscape, after all) and attempts to airlift out the Americans, pretending they’re crew members. Sounds fairly tidy, but we’re sure complications will ensue--and we haven’t even read the Wired article on which the whole thing’s based!

Cloud Atlas

Tom Twkyer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry

October 26

Everyone believed that the mammoth David Mitchell novel, encompassing millennia of human experience, was unfilmable. And maybe everyone was right! All we know right now is that the Wachowskis (of the Matrix films) and Tom Twkyer (of Run Lola Run) have turned all of their creative over-enthusiasm towards putting together the most rollicking movie ever to contain both a Martin Amis-style comedy of manners and a post-apocalyptic agrarian community on Hawaii. Somehow, major stars like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry fit into the equation. As you read this description, you’re already significantly behind; you’d better start reading Cloud Atlas this minute if you hope to have it finished and marginally comprehended by October!

Keira Knightley in 'Anna Karenina'

Skyfall

Sam Mendes

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes

November 9

The next, and long-delayed, installment in the James Bond story comes with a schmancy pedigree--director Sam Mendes has experienced diminishing returns since the 1990s, but he still, you know, has an Oscar. So too does Javier Bardem, who promises to be the most menacing villain since Dr. No. Un-bedecked by golden trophies are new Bond girls Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe, but that’s hardly the point, is it? About the plot, little is known, but for the promise of spy-queen M’s past coming back to haunt her. All the better: it’s about time Judi Dench got to stretch her acting muscles in the Bond movies.

Anna Karenina

Joe Wright

Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

November 9

Joe Wright just can’t resist the charms of Keira Knightley--and he’s hardly alone! Mr. Wright made it cool to think Ms. Knightley was a good actress by directing her in well-received roles in Pride & Prejudice and Atonement--without his attentions, she’s languished a bit. But Ms. Knightley is back doing what she does best (aristocratic hauteur, wearing elaborate garments, telling off gentlemen), and this time, she’s got a complement of men to choose from. Though all of us English majors know how it ends, let’s form factions rooting for Jude Law’s Karenin or Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Vronsky--or, at least, let’s decide after the fact who had the most convincing Russian accent.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2

Bill Condon

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

November 16

The series that launched a million magazine covers has finally ended (though the saga of its stars’ offscreen love will surely inflate the bottom line at many a media company for years to come). It’s the final installment of the Twilight series--or “Saga,” as the producers would Germanically have it--and if you waited a week to see any of the fine independent films released last week, get in line early for popcorn. Every tween and teen and regressing thirtysomething within a five-mile radius cannot wait to see just how the Bella-Edward vampire-mortal union ends--even though the book came out years ago! No matter. Fandom, like vampirism, is eternal.

Life of Pi

Ang Lee

Irrfan Khan, Gérard Depardieu

November 21, 2012

Another unfilmable novel adapted to the screen? It must be fall! Ang Lee attempts something of a comeback with his adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, wherein a boy and a tiger are trapped on a raft floating in uncharted waters. Mr. Lee has a lot to prove, having released a couple of films consecutively that couldn’t quite match Brokeback Mountain in terms of popular acclaim. Perhaps the transfer to a wholly new environment, with the challenge both of a dense, allusive text and of a, you know, tiger, will move him to new heights! If not, it’ll at least be the season’s most compelling misfire.

Les Misérables

Tom Hooper

Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway

December 14

Anne Hathaway has subjected you to her songs through lo these many Oscar ceremonies--and now she finally has the opportunity to belt it out on film! The world’s most energetic entertainer shifts down a gear to play doomed prostitute Fantine in the adaptation of the world-rattling Broadway show; her costars include Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe playing, respectively, the unfairly convicted Valjean and the doggedly devoted Javert. Other cast members in director Tom Hooper’s first post-Oscar flick include Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the garrulous-to-a-fault Thénardiers, but it’s Ms. Hathaway who’s likely dreaming a dream... of Oscar!

Brad Pitt in 'Killing Them Softly'

Here comes the sun. All week, the Cannes Film Festival has been drenched with relentless rain, billowing wind and a sweater-worthy chill—plus a dearth of high-wattage stars, ever since Bill Murray and his Moonrise Kingdom crew left after opening night. But all that changed this morning as the clouds parted in the Mediterranean skies and Brad Pitt popped up onscreen at the 8:30am screening of Killing Them Softly.

Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (and his second collaboration with Pitt as both star and producer) is a capitalist screed disguised as a stylish crime thriller, set during the presidential election of 2008 in post-Katrina New Orleans and rife with scruffy crooks feverish for their cut of the pie—as long as they can get it wholesale. “Can we fly him coach?” asks one character when Pitt’s smooth criminal Jackie Coogan insists that another hit man be brought in. Funny in surprising spurts when it’s not waxing a cool sheen of menace, and larded with unexpectedly florid conversation, Killing Them Softly is a slow-burn rumination on excess, desperation, entitlement and old-fashioned free market self-interest.

“In some ways, the crime film is the most honest American film,” said the Australian director at a press conference after the film’s world premiere. “Crime films are always about capitalism. It's the one genre where it's perfectly acceptable for all the characters to be motivated only by a desire for money.”

One Italian journalist was concerned with the violence in the film (it’s sudden, highly graphic and, in one scene, shockingly gorgeous), and asked Pitt whether it was appropriate, especially since he and Angelina Jolie have six children. “I would have a harder time playing, like, a racist,” said Pitt. “It would be much more unsettling for me than being a guy who shoots another guy in the face.” For him as a producer, too, violence per se was far less important than the movie’s larger themes. “We're looking for stories that say something about our time and who we are,” he said.  The economy-obsessed gangster flick aptly opens stateside September 21, right in the eye of the Obama-Romney hurricane.

Also coming to the U.S. this fall is the toast of Cannes, Michael Haneke’s Amour (Love), a devastating, enthralling and deeply tender look at two married octogenarians and how their mutual devotion affects the end of their lives together. Gallic screen legends Jean-Paul Triningnant (The Conformist, Z) and Emmanuelle Riva (Hiroshima, Mon Amour) are riveting in this two-hander which takes place almost entirely in a stately Paris apartment (based on Haneke’s own parents’ apartment in Vienna and meticulously re-created on a French sound stage). When Riva becomes ill, it falls to Trintignant to take care of her, even as the severe strain of tending to such emotional, physical and mental decay becomes almost too much to bear. Haneke, the rigorously intellectual director behind such art house classics as The Piano Teacher and Caché, is, as usual, unflinching and austere. But instead of forcing the audience to keep their distance, his approach actually allows them to get closer by stripping away the insincere gloss of melodrama that lesser directors would cling to like a crutch.

Despite the fact that he routinely addresses dark subject matter—his previous film, the Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon, examined the childhood anxieties of the Nazi generation—Haneke doesn’t think he’s a pessimist. “Every artist is an optimist, because otherwise, they wouldn’t be motivated to try and raise questions and communicate with their audience,” he said to the international press today. “If I were a pessimist, then I’d simply make entertaining films because I’d think that people aren’t intelligent enough to deal with questions like these.”

Oscar handicappers are already calling Amour the shoo-in for Best Foreign-Language Film. But for Riva, the film serves as an apt bookend to her career. In 1959, she came to Cannes with Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour; and now, 53 years later, they are both back in Cannes (Resnais is premiering his reputed swan song, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.). “Hiroshima, Mon Amour dealt with an impossible love,” she said during an interview at the Hotel Majestic. “Whereas Amour is about a very possible love—so possible, in fact, that it lasts until the very end.”