Grand Piano (2013)

Tagline:  Play or die
Cusack plays: Clem

From the trailers I've watched we're now moving into a fairly gun heavy phase of the Cusack Challenge...

Grand Piano is a Hitchcock inspired high suspense thriller, which sees concert pianist Tom (Elijah Wood) prepare to make his comeback after suffering stage fright and a breakdown in the past.  His wife, friends and family assemble in the audience but moments before he begins he finds a note written on the sheet music - "Play one wrong note and you die"  (DUM DUM DUMMM!)

The mysterious Clem is armed with a gun trained on him, and if he plays just one note wrong people are going to get hurt. Speaking to him through an ear piece he delivers his demands and starts to act on his threats as Tom tries to call for help.



Cusack is largely off screen in this role as the threatening voice, ably assisted by an accomplice (in the shape of Bill from Bill and Ted!). The film gallops along, and is a brisk 90 minutes running time (10 of which are pretty piano music over the credits), so it's a good pick when you don't have much time to fit in a film. However the speed with which they deal with some of the events and sorta silly reasoning for Cusack's demands, meant I had to go back and rewatch part of it.

So overall, nothing groundbreaking but  certainly worth a watch.

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Maps to the stars (2014)

Cusack plays: Self-help guru type Dr Stafford Weiss

This was a double bill with the rather good Gone Girl so I had rather a lot of 18 rated cinematic action for one evening. This also meant sitting through two sets of trailers for horrible jumpy horror films with things like dolls coming to life in them.

This film might be tricky to review, as I didn’t know too much about the plot going in and I think that might be good for others too, to watch the madness unfold without much warning. So, it’s a David Cronenberg take on the nastiness that is Hollywood. His last few films haven’t been as shocking as some of his earlier stuff, but I would say this is more of a step back towards the shock factor – I’m sure you will both laugh and hide behind your fingers or turn away at certain parts.

Vague plot  - Julianne Moore is a washed up former star, currently trying to revive her career by playing her own (now dead) actress mother in a new film. She hires a new assistant, who upon arriving in Tinseltown takes a ‘maps of the stars’ sort of tour with Limo driver Robert Pattinson.  Moore (looking like an older Lindsay Lohan) tries to tackle her mommy and other issues by seeing Dr Stafford Weiss (Cusack), whose therapy seems to involve rubbing and massaging her problems out of her. That’s all I knew from reviews and all I think you need to know at this point, because the rest of it will reveal itself in both a humorous and horrifying fashion. I hadn't even seen the trailer (below), which like most trailers gives away far too much.

While I know bugger all about what Hollywood is actually like, this feels grubby enough to be close to the truth and there’s an in interesting mix of fictional characters (although no doubt heavily based on real people) and real famous people (Carrie Fisher cameos as herself and there are namedrops galore).

Cusack plays a complex, but ultimately fairly horrible man (he uses the C word! John!) and it’s definitely one of his best roles and films for a while. I thought it might just be a token small role but he gets a decent amount of screen time. He also wears glasses at one point. I like him in glasses.

Overall, I would recommend this film, but it does contain a fair bit about abuse and incest and there are some quite violent and gory parts. You have been warned.

Adult World (2013)

Tagline: When life gets hard, rise to the occasion.

Cusack plays: Writer Rat Billings

This film is just so ‘meh’ that it’s taken me weeks to bother actually writing about it. Thank goodness I don’t write for a living – which is what the main character, Amy, aspires to do – and become a poet of great renown. Having left college mum and dad don’t want to finance the dream anymore so she has to find employment. Her place of work? Adult World – a rather old-school adult bookstore/ video rental type of shop. Meanwhile a chance meeting with one of her favourite writers (Cusack) leads her to attempt to shape a mentor/protégé type of relationship. Oh, and also there’s a sort of love story with one of the other shop staff.

There isn’t much to love about this film, unless you particularly identify with the lead character. I’m too old to feel any sympathy for her (just get a job and grow up hen) or enjoy any of the quirky little things like – the transvestite co-worker! The old people who own the shop! Learning life lessons! Zzzzz.

On the other hand it’s not so annoying that you really end up hating it. It just comes and goes, it’s pretty short and nothing terrible or dark happens. Blah. It’s all just…fine, yeah, whatever. And that extends to Cusack, I can’t imagine this was much of a stretch to act. I’m definitely past my ‘finding myself’ movie phase, but this might appeal to some teenagers and creative sorts out there.

The Butler (2013)

Tagline:   One quiet voice can ignite a revolution
Cusack plays: FREAKIN Richard Nixon

I can't believe I had to wait until I was 30 years old to see Oprah and Cusack in the same film. Alas they share no screen time but Lee Daniels I thank you for bringing them (sort of) together on the silver screen.

The Butler (Or 'Lee Daniel's The Butler' for US audiences) uses the titular character to follow various Presidents through the White House and explore the societal changes that take place over the years they are in office. The character (Cecil Gaines) is loosely based on a black man whose story was revealed in a magazine article a few years ago. Some liberties are taken and details of his life changed to spice things up a tad and elevate the DRAMA.

And this is a drama and a half. From the Cecil's start in life as a black slave on a cotton plantation who is taught to serve, eventually ends up at 1600 Pennslyvania Avenue during Eisenhower's spell in office, and stays until Reagan's reign. During that time he is the silent observer to the national crises such as JFK's assassination and then goes home to a family struggling with it's own issues, for example his son's involvement in the civil rights movement.

It would be quite easy to slate this but it's more of an audience than critic pleaser. I've heard comparisons with Forrest Gump which are fair, but hey, I also like that film. The acting is of the highest calibre, particularly Oprah Winfrey as the Butler's wife.

There is also some light hearted relief from Lenny Kravitz and Cuba Gooding Junior as Cecil's colleagues and watching big names slathered in make up and prosethetics to play the President. Cusack is only on screen 3 or 4 times and I think it's fair to say he looks bugger all like tricky Dicky, but he does get a awesome giant fake nose. Alan Rickman as Reagan looks a bit like a melting waxwork model but Jane Fonda makes for a good Nancy.

Overall, I did  enjoy this film. I wasn't quite caught up in sentimentality as much as other viewers judging by the sniffling and muffled sobs I heard towards the end.  (The end has a massively crowd pleasing chuckle too). My only quibbles would be that Kravitz and Cuba Gooding Jnr seemed to work there even longer than Cecil Gaines as they were there when and he started and when he left - where's their recognition? Also poor old Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter are completely cut out.

The Frozen Ground (2013)

Tagline: The hunter becomes the hunted

Cusack plays: Alaskan Serial Killer Robert Hansen

So here we go with the slightly scary real life story of Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen and the attempts to bring him to justice. Hansen killed at least 17 women, and may be responsible for the deaths of many more. A keen hunter of animals he turned his evil eye and gun to women. One young prostitute manages to escape his clutches and detective Nicolas Cage decides to use her testimony to turn the tables on Hansen and bring him to justice.

Cage tones down his usual crazy tendencies and plays it straight, and Vanessa 'High School Muscial' Hudgens is prostitute Cindy Paulson, a part which requires quite a lot of sobbing, running around and generally being in peril (also, dancing about in her pants). And so to Cusack, turning in a fairly scary performance as the family man with a dark past and present. A creepy dude indeed, but i did like his glasses.

The period setting of 1983 doesn't make too much of a difference to things, although we do glimpse a giant mobile car phone and a very dodgy hairdo on 50 Cent (playing Hudgen's pimp). However, the film crew didn't may due attention to removing all signs that this was filmed in the present day - my eagle eyed cinema going companion spied a Trip Advisor (founded 2000) sticker in one scene.

At times I found some of the events repetitive and a little irritating - why is that person running away again? they would be much safer if they stayed put etc- but as it's based on a true story I suppose it's hard to quibble with things people genuinely did.

Overall, a decent film, telling an interesting story with a good, if a little terrifying performance from Cusack.

The Numbers Station (2013)

Tagline: The Code has never been compromised. Until now.

Cusack Plays: CIA Operative Emerson Kent

After a black ops killing job gone wrong Cusack is sent over to England to watch over a remote number station and to pal up with one of the ladies who works in it. A number station, for those not au fait with clandestine broadcasting techniques is a sort of radio station which broadcasts sequences of numbers which are then picked up by agents and decoded to get their orders. One has to assume this is some sort of well paying job, because seriously who wants to sit in an underground bunker and read out lists of numbers for a living? Especially when you’re the gorgeous Malin Akerman. 

Cusack and Akerman turn up for work one day  -  all is not well and people start shooting at them – what follows is them listening back to the recording of the last shift, and trying to piece together what’s going on and undo the wrongs that have been done – spoiler – essentially someone sending out some unauthorized lists of numbers which translate to orders to kill people.  

If you like guns, lists of numbers and people using words like 'cypher' you will be all over this bad boy. And for the rest of you, I wouldn’t bother unless I have somehow made that synopsis sound tantalising. Cusack and Akerman's acting talents probably elevate this slightly above other similar films, and they both enjoy a lot of screen time as we don’t see too many other characters, especially when they are in the bunker. Having been binge watching Game of Thrones of late though I did notice ‘Married to her Dad’ Gilly near the start and "Onion Knight" Davos as one of Cusack’s fellow agents.

Looking ahead, this weekend sees the release of The Frozen Ground where Cusack plays a serial killer. I have to say I’m pretty tired of seeing him play killers and cops though so looking forward to “The Butler” where he plays Richard Nixon…

The Factory (2012)

Tagline: 'Based on actual events'

Cusack plays: detective Mike Fletcher

Not a biopic of Andy Warhol’s studio, the factory in this case is a baby making factory. A crazy dude is picking up prostitutes, taking them back to his and them impregnating them and making him call him ‘daddy’. Oh goody.

As cop Mike, Cusack has been on the case for a while along with his partner Kelsey (Jennifer ‘Deb from Dexter’ Carpenter) when it gets personal after ‘daddy’ kidnaps his teenage daughter. Daughter is not a hooker but sort of gets mistaken for one and taken. Taken, incidentally being a far superior film if you're in the mood for a man looking for his kidnapped daughter. Anyway, I digress.

This is a just about passable, if very predictable watch. There are some big ‘reveals’ but you will likely see them coming a mile off. Cusack is looking good with a nice full head of hair and some super big black coats and leather gloves for investigating. It has a nice gruesome start when crazy killer Gary accidentally picks up a transsexual prostitute who is of no use to him and disposes of them accordingly.

The film claims to be ‘based on true events’. Can’t find any real proof of this after a quick google but I suppose there have been a few cases where girls have been kidnapped and impregnated by their captor. Probably not the taking-the-cops-daughter-by-accident though.