cinema. television. obsessions.

Year-End Leftovers

2012-01-10T12:35:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. I've been blogging with fairly decent regularity over at TheSplitScreen, and next week my "Best Of" list for 2011 will be making an appearance. I have agreed to narrow it down to a strict ten picks, though it's pretty difficult. I liked a lot this year that I think deserves to be seen. As a teaser, I thought I'd share a few of the trimmings from the list. Some of these may have made the list at any given moment, but at the time I finalized my selections, they just didn't make the cut. Think of this as a supplement to my year-end list, an addendum.

I would also like to note that Cave of Forgotten Dreams and 13 Assassins, though I love these films immensely, have not been included in either of my lists because I saw them both well over a year ago at this point, and it's hard enough to narrow it down as it is. Consider them as in the official Top Ten, but off to the side, looking on as everyone else gets a turn on the merry-go-round.

Cedar Rapids

An amazing comedy that is just enough smart and just enough raunch. Ed Helms gets a chance to take a turn as leading man, and he pulls it off with plenty of help from my perennial favorite John C. Reilly (who was in another terrific film this year, Terri). Helms plays Tim Lippe, who is sent to represent his small-town insurance company at a big industry convention in Cedar Rapids. Having never really left his small town, the world of Cedar Rapids is opened up to him with wide-eyed wonder, and he soon finds himself taken under the wings of three veteran conventioneers. This wonderfully kooky movie really shines in its supporting performances, with Reilly fleshing out a character who could become one-note very quickly, and Anne Heche appearing in a significant small role (funny, sweet, sexy, loopy) as Joan Ostowski-Fox, a mom who is tied to her boring life in much the same way as Lippe and everyone else who uses the convention as an annual oasis of drinking, fornicating and other shenanigans they could never pull off at home.

Captain America: The First Avenger
Director Joe Johnston takes us retro with this thoroughly entertaining superhero origin story. There's great action, the film's design is terrific, and there's a big ole' musical propaganda centerpiece that stole my heart while I wasn't looking. One of the things I absolutely fell in love with regarding that musical number/USO show montage was that it is a rare instance of how a superhero's story can be successfully condensed into a few minutes, and still leave so much untold that will be hinted at, only to be discovered much later. The other thing I like about this film is that it's the culmination of Marvel's long-in-production franchise building process leading up to next summer's superteam film The Avengers, and as such, there are some well placed references to the earlier films in the series, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor. This is not to say that the film is stuffed to overfill with constant in-jokes and references like some unholy marriage of unabashed spoof "comedies" and self-serious action spectacles that ended up acting like comedies anyway. Instead, what we have is a light-weight, very fun flick that operates with the best of them. There's a lot crammed into this Captain America movie, and all of it, by my estimation at least, works to its advantage.

Love Crime
Alain Corneu's final film is an airy, delicate examination of love and betrayal, high stakes office politics, and cunning deception. What it lacks in plot (it's wafer-thin at best), it more than makes up for in its performances and great cinematography, both of which serve to highlight the intricacies of the central relationships of the film. Kristen Scott Thomas is always terrific and this is no exception, but I really loved Ludivine Sagnier's performance as Isabelle, who is the central character. Sagnier's such a great actress that she sneaks up on me constantly, just as she did Swimming Pool and both Mesrine films, and in spite of my personal feelings toward murder and murderers, I just kept rooting for her to pull her scheme off. While we plainly see that she was, in fact, guilty, Corneau masterfully sets up the methods Isabelle will use to evade the cops and exact total revenge on her conniving boss and the corporate office power structure. I think this movie was fairly well received by critics, but a lot of the commentary seems to express problems with the plot or lack thereof. I think that's actually one of the film's strengths, giving us more time to absorb the characters and become familiar with its world. Honestly, that's something more films could use.

The Guard
Brendan Gleeson is so good in this movie that I had a review typed up and ready to go all about his face until I decided it was just a bad piece of writing and I never wanted it to see the light of day. But I'll give you a taste anyway: "He has a big ole' round moon of a face is possibly the most likable movie star currently working, which no doubt helps him land roles for characters we would otherwise find it difficult to understand the motivations of or sympathize with." I know, and it only got worse from there. But the truth is that Gleeson is a fascinating performer, able to give an audience one piece of information only to betray our thoughts about it seconds later, and a lot of it has to do with his physical presence. In The Guard he is Sgt. Gerry Boyle, who ultimately teaches us that appearances and first impressions are not always correct. When Don Cheadle's FBI Agent Everett comes to Boyle's sleepy Irish town on the tail of some drug smugglers, he is confronted with Boyle's overtly racist remarks and seemingly dimwitted rube of a police officer. Truth is, he's actually smart, and likes to play toward others' perceptions of him. Despite his outward demeanor (and his very real insistence on taking vacation days) he knows police work, and knows exactly what is going on at all times, mostly because everyone thinks he will be easily overpowered. The film is a very funny comedy, pitch-black at times, and confronts us with an ending that is confounding, inconclusive, touching, and inevitable.

Melancholia
A film that looks to the cosmos not as a creative entity but as the manifestation of the natural destructive impulse, Lars von Trier's Melancholia is the treatise on humanity and life on Earth that Terence Malick's Tree of Life so desperately wanted to be. Told in two halves, each examining one of two sisters with a seriously strained relationship more closely than the other, the film is an emotionally draining experience. Kirsten Dunst's Justine is a pitch-perfect portrayal of clinical depression, and Charlotte Gainsbourg (given a break from the tortures she endured for the director in Antichrist) keeps things from pitching over into total lunacy until the final sequence of the film with her denial of the world-ending event that everyone knows is coming. Told in grandiose images and stark melodrama, Trier's film is shocking in its revelations, and by allowing us to wholly identify with the depression of Justine–and the depressing denial of Claire–it jolts us to discover that we, too, could be comfortable with the end of the whole maddening show of this world. The existence of life beyond corporeal bodies and human thought is just as unfathomable as in Malick's film, but is not made into some hopeful message about our existence at this moment. Death of all life is inevitable and the only sure thing in the entire universe. And yet somehow I found myself feeling better about life in general after this latest von Trier depress-fest. I actually believe thematically this is a work that is much closer to the heart of 2001's mystifying look toward infinity and our own understanding of ourselves and our lives than that other movie which is constantly compared to it, even though there is no "beyond the infinite" possible here, and none is even posited. Melancholia is a film in which we learn that we only have this one life on Earth, and not for long (to misappropriate the tag line of the movie). There's something to be said for that message.

Source Code / The Adjustment Bureau
I'm pairing these films up because I think they're just some terrific examples of science fiction that isn't all about monsters blowin' shit up. Speculative Sci-Fi damn near doesn't exist anymore on American screens, and these films, though they fall a bit short of true greatness, at least gave me something to chew on and think about. Source Code, Duncan Jones' second feature after a terrific masterpiece of a debut, Moon, confronts some of the same issues at the heart of his first film, namely the question of what constitutes life and death? Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier who was killed in action but whose body was saved enough so that his mind could still function, permanently plugged into a virtual reality system that can play back the final minutes of someone's memories, allowing him to investigate a crime and discover the person behind it. The Adjustment Bureau operates in a similar vein, adapted from a Phillip K. Dick story, and typical of that author's work, is concerned with questions of fate, human relationships, and digital manipulation of the physical world. I like the relationship between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as they attempt to overcome the machinations of the bureau, an entity (thankfully never fully explained) that oversees all things on Earth according to a "plan" and must maintain balance and order. Thematically these films are almost too similar, but such is the world of adult science fiction. My colleague Eric Plaag wasn't too big on either film, but I thought they were both really solid and thoroughly enjoyable flicks.

Critical Breakdown: Film Grammar, Jim Emerson, and Joseph Kahn

2011-09-22T15:08:00.004-04:00

Philip Noyce does indeed outdirect Nolan with Salt.

There's a bit of a back-and-forth going on these days between music video director Joseph Kahn and film critic Jim Emerson. Before diving into the fray, I offer some context of what exactly is going on.
When The Dark Knight was released in 2008, Jim Emerson was one of the more vocal critics of the film, drawing largely on his assertions that Nolan and his cinematographer and editor (Wally Pfister and Lee Smith, respectively) don't seem to know how to piece together a coherent action sequence. While this may or may not be true, it's a subjective opinion, and one that Emerson has backed-up. Repeatedly. For the record, I think some of his assertions about Nolan's capabilities, and certainly those of Pfister, ring a bit false, but that doesn't stop the fact that I agree that Nolan's films are all about exposition and actually show very little in the way of action, and that little bit is by and large not particularly interesting or dynamic visually, nor coherent upon second look.

In any case, here are some links to some of the things Emerson wrote about TDK then (use as you wish to fill in any gaps):
Under Cover of The Dark Knight
Stories Without Endings
The shorter, the Longer
Batman vs. the Zeitgeist
Critics Better Love The Dark Knight

Each of the above pieces map out an in-depth critical response to a film that, compared to other films from the same year, was probably underserving of such lengthy consideration. But the sheer amount that Emerson wrote about why he didn't like certain things Nolan had done was not enough, and he was criticized constantly as simply being anti-Nolan, anti-TDK and anti-fun, despite the fact that he never says any of these things. In fact, the most telling example that the opposite is in fact true is right in the opening of his first piece on the film, after he discusses his initial reaction:

By the end I'd had a good time, and I already know I'd like to see it again. Maybe, I've been thinking, it's kind of like a good album that's been haphazardly sequenced, with a few lackluster (or even bad) songs and occasionally dumb lyrics, muddled arrangements, or klutzy production choices. But, you know, after a while you're willing to overlook the parts that don't work in order to enjoy the parts that do. At first exposure, those rough spots stick out and even hurt. Later on, you just accept them, get used to them, or even choose to ignore them.

This willingness to work with a text like The Dark Knight is the bread and butter of true film criticism, and is self-evident in its goal, which is to better understand the film as a work of art, as a piece of entertainment, and as an historical and sociological object. The purpose of film criticism should always be to enlighten and provide some perspective on a film. As I said when I commented on Jim Emerson's follow-up to this whole kerfuffle, I wish more people understood that film criticism can (and often is for genuine critics and should be) much more than just saying whether or not you liked something and whether it's worth $10.

Thanks for hanging with me, but I think the above is somewhat essential information for understanding why I find this situation between Emerson and Kahn to be so maddening, interesting, crucial to critical discourse. Now, to the task at hand: what IS all the fuss about?

Over the course of the past two weeks, Jim Emerson has posted a series of video essays about film editing and action sequences, picking apart what he thinks does and doesn't work shot by shot. The first essay, "In The Cut: The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan", no surprise, details exactly what he found problematic with The Dark Knight and why. Whether or not these things also bothered other people is inconsequential as to the project undertaken by Emerson as a purely subjective opinion on various things that stood out to him as he watched the film, and this sequence in particular. It is worth noting that nowhere in the piece does Emerson ever say that he thinks the movie is bad, but that this is a poorly directed, shot and edited portion of it, and then he backs up what he thinks about it with things the filmmakers (editor Lee Smith is actually brought up directly at the beginning of the essay) actually said about the direction, shot composition and editing. I'll let you form your own opinions on it, but I think the piece stands in conjunction with his follow-ups on Salt and Don Siegel action pieces as one of the best criticism anywhere in recent memory.

Enter into this Joseph Kahn, who makes an almost incomprehensible mistake right off the bat in his rebuttal to Emerson's critique: "I simply want to address points he explains as 'rules' – which are not. Basically, anything he states as a 'violation' is what I’m after here." His basic assumption in tearing Emerson apart is that he literally believes that rules don't actually matter for a basic understanding of film action. Take this quote: "Any analysis that views film from only from the prism of composition and editing, and excludes sound, has made a completely arbitrary line in the sand that does not reflect that actual totality of what you actually saw."

Kahn is making a valid argument before this about the expansion of technology and a further development of film theory based on that, including thoughts about experimental film and digital frontiers, but he seems to be negating a couple of basic facts. First, Christopher Nolan is not engaged in a non-classical project. He is totally disinterested in experimentation, and he is certainly no Stan Brakhage. Second, composition and editing still contain the most basic fundamentals of film grammar, no matter what the aim, and given how well much of The Dark Knight isn't nearly as problematic as this single sequence, it seems that Nolan, Pfister and Smith know what they're doing and how they're going about it.

Despite Kahn's correct assertion that these basic rules are not always what you need to focus on when engaging a film as text, the fact remains that TDK is a film that adheres in every regard to classical style and narrative logic. He brings up the straw man argument of David Lynch somewhere in this rant about the "arbitrary" nature of Emerson's assumptions that a film should follow these well-established rules of film grammar only to forget that Nolan isn't even trying to do what David Lynch does.

Apparently Kahn is of the school of filmmakers (and they are out there - I dealt with them in my undergraduate days as well as now) who think that what they are doing is in no way tied to the basics of filmmaking as understood by hundreds of theorists throughout the world, and who get really upset at the notion that someone would try to read their film as something other than what they envision it to be. The problem with that thought process is that the reason these rules developed is as much physiological as it is technical. The human brain logically connects ideas and visual information in specific ways that helped the development of film grammar along its way, not the other way around.

We are biologically predisposed to making certain assumptions and processing information in a certain way when watching a film, or looking at a painting, or any other work of art. The fact that art exists that challenges those assumptions is irrelevant, because as pre-eminent classical grammar formalist David Bordwell has consistently pointed out: the exception to the rule proves that the rule does in fact exist. Otherwise, why would anyone even try to say that what Nolan and his production team are attempting has nothing to do with what the critic is talking about? The logical breakdown in the thought process here is staggering.

Kahn also makes a valiant attempt to correct Emerson as to his thoughts on what is going on in the sequence, but the further discussion of the SWAT van/semi-truck incident just serves to open up even more questions of spatial relationships. Where is the truck that hits the van coming from, for instance, if the other side of the "bridge", as Kahn calls it at one point in his comments, has water on the other side. And if it's not a bridge, but in fact is meant to convey a lake-side underground roadway (as it really exists in Chicago) then how does his reading/rebuttal of Jim's criticism of the shot make any sense whatsoever? Even the counterpoint to Emerson serves to further distinguish how confusing the shot choices, composition and editing are in these scenes.

All in all, the rest of Kahn's arguments are wrong because his essential argument is that rules don't matter. They do, and there are reasons. I haven't delved into all of them here, but I would encourage anyone interested in them to do a little bit of reading on the subject from time to time. This goes especially for Kahn, who doesn't seem to recognize film grammar even in the projects he shoots himself.*

You can read Kahn's remarks here.
Also, please check out Jim Emerson's follow-up with annotations on his text here.

*As must certainly be the case given that he doesn't even believe they exist or should be followed or indeed ever are by anyone because of a practical reason other than adhering to some ancient assumptions about what they should be doing.

Note: Above photos are taken from Emerson's posts. I just really like Salt, so that's why it's relevant. Noyce DOES outdirect Nolan, even if I don't think Salt is an equal affair to TDK overall.

Marketing THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Remake

2011-06-12T18:45:00.001-04:00

When I heard David Fincher was going to be making an American version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, I didn't know what to think. Here is a well respected and critically acclaimed director known for a wide range of work, and he is looking to return to the doom and gloom of his directorial heyday. Fair enough. The novels certainly fit into his element, which has always lain somewhere between grunge and gloss. But why a remake/reimagining/whatever you want to call it? I'm still not 100% sure as to why this is happening exactly, other than the assumed (and sadly verifiable) "fact" that American audiences will not watch a movie with subtitles.

In any case, it's here, and it's time to come to terms with it. Before I go on, please watch the trailer before I go on and on and on about it:

The most striking thing, right off the bat, is the use of Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song", performed by Trent Reznor and Karen O, and the fact that the trailer is cut to the beat in short, quick cuts. The heavy industrial beat hammer the images into our eyes, conducive as it is to pairings with chilly shots of wintry Sweden, and the visual refrain of a POV shot driving toward the massive Vanger estate. The music also serves to introduce the hard-edged character Lisbeth Salander, who as imagined by David Fincher and star Rooney Mara is a force to be reckoned with, and who appears to have lost all veneer of assumed retardation that Noomi Rapace locked into the character in Niels Arden Oplev's original film, and which helped to cement her star power and successfully conveyed some very powerful private information that Lisbeth hides from those whom she does not trust, namely that she's very capable of handling herself.

That aside, it looks to be that Fincher has returned to the source material very capably, and is certainly more intent on invoking the novel's original Swedish title, Men Who Hate Women. The novel itself is a nasty little thing that seems to have a distinctly cynical and cold-hearted worldview, no matter the "happy ending" that sees Lisbeth and Mikael Blomquist (who is really the main character) succeed in exposing corruption, perversion and misogyny.

One only need look at the poster for the film to see that the focus on the darker and more hard-hitting elements here is definitely going to be key to winning legions of fans over to the idea of a remake, and so far, for me, it's working. (Look up the racier and totally NSFW international poster for the film as more evidence of how hard Sony is going to marketing this movie properly for once.) As much a fan I am of Oplev's film, the second and third meander a bit and lose steam toward the end, losing focus on the passionate hatred that Larsson had for the corrupt structures humans use to prop up evil and make it acceptable on some level.

Banning the Human Centipede

2011-06-08T11:08:00.000-04:00

In a decision that is truly mind blowing in this day and age, Tom Six's sequel to HUMAN CENTIPEDE: FIRST SEQUENCE (Subtitled FULL SEQUENCE) has been banned by the BBFC, Britain's film censor board. As reported in various sources, though I first read about it in The Guardian, the reasoning behind the decision is based entirely on the certification that the film breaches the BBFC's Classification Guidelines, and poses "a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers."

For those of you who have not yet been scarred by what in the film poses such a risk to viewers of the movie, a little taste of the plot: A man becomes increasingly obsessed with the first film and starts to act out sexual perversions and recreate the centipede by abducting and surgically altering captors of his own. Two scenes in particular, involving masturbation with sandpaper while watching the film and a rape scene involving barbed wire and the girl bringing up the rear of the man's creation, are singled out by the board in its justification for the classification, which makes any activity having to do with the film (including possession, distribution, and viewing - much like drugs) illegal.

But as pointed out by a favorite film blog of mine based in Britain, Little White Lies, this essentially tells us nothing about what these fears may be. Clearly the fears of the board are realized within the film itself, but what of the real world prospects of copy cat amateur surgeons? The first film has been out for nearly two years and I've yet to read a single report of anyone moved to such lengths by a perverse little diversion. It also bears to recognize, as again pointed out by LWL, that the board has banned films for similar reasons before, including THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, which created an absurd situation that saw one of the defining horror movies of all time, as well as one of the less sanguinary of the last thirty years by comparison, banned in the UK until 1999.

That ban did nothing to stop people from seeing the movie, though, and this one will likely do nothing to stop THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE: FULL SEQUENCE either. In an era when anything and everything can simply be downloaded via torrent or sold internationally, there's no stopping someone from seeing something if they want to. It's just absurd to do it with something as fluid and accessible as cinema, no matter how lacking in artistic merit it may be. And if we start banning things based on that criteria, I say we start with movies starring Rob Schneider.

And then there's the situation brought on by the announcement of the ban itself. As evidenced by the growing interest in A SEBIAN FILM, a nasty little number from last year's festival circuit which still fails to have U.S. distribution, all the attention about how horrific and immoral it is has only given it free publicity and increased the likelihood that more people will actually see the movie at this point. Not to mention the fact that adults are allowed to make decisions about what they would like to watch or read because they are adults, hence the very need for a classification system at all. Tell us what's in the movie, and then let us watch it if we want to. I know I, for one, can't wait to decide whether or not to watch Tom Six's follow-up to THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. That's because I'm an adult, and not a child to be coddled and told what is appropriate. All that aside, though, there's more seriously fucked up material written in literature these days anyway, but I guess that's okay because the luddites out there who want us to be on the lookout for perversion don't read anything anyway.

4 Performances - Johnny Depp

2011-05-24T13:05:00.001-04:00

This weekend we wered treated to the fourth film in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise, ON STRANGER TIDES. In honor of that film's release (which could honestly have one of these columns written about any number of actors in it), and its star attraction Johnny Depp, I want to discuss four of my favorite performances from the prolific, idiosyncratic and extremely talented actor. I'm also going to forego discussing his terrific (and career changing) turn in Jim Jarmusch's minimalist masterpiece, DEAD MAN because I want to write about that a bit in-depth in the near future.

1) Sam, BENNY AND JOON (Jeremiah S. Chechick, 1993)

One of Depp's earliest attention-grabbing performances was as Sam, an eccentric man who has apparently modeled himself off Buster Keaton, opposite a terrific Mary Stuart Masterson as Joon, an emotionally distant woman who opens up to be herself in the presence of Sam. Funny, sweet and just enough oddball to herald the career to come, BENNY AND JOON is remarkable character work by a burgeoning star.

2) George Jung, BLOW (Ted Demme, 2001)

BLOW is one of only two pictures that have ever made me cry in the theater (I don't mind telling you the other is Tim Burton's BIG FISH). A wholly engaging crime drama as well as character study, BLOW follows George Jung, a big time cocaine dealer who, at one time, was responsible for roughly 70% of the imported coke in the U.S. Tracking his rise and fall, the film utilizes the considerable acting chops of Depp and Ray Liotta, who plays his father, who gets all the best lines. Directed by the late Ted Demme (nephew of Jonathan), BLOW is electrifying in its use of rock music, the production design and gorgeous, coked-out set pieces that rival the best of De Palma and Scorsese for 70s/80s period gangster drama.

3) Ichabod Crane, SLEEPY HOLLOW (Tim Burton, 1999) / Inspector Frederick Abberline, FROM HELL (The Hughes Brothers, 2001)

I often conflate these two characters, though I don't rightly know why. Perhaps its because Depp plays the same character very similarly, though adding or subtracting a bit of aloofness from his performances (respectively). His Ichabod Crane is a man of science on the hunt for the Headless Horseman, and who is nearly driven mad by the ordeal.

Ditto Inspector Abberline, who is searching for a similar boogeyman in the shadows of London with Jack the Ripper on the prowl and the city gripped with fear. While neither role is a huge departure from Depp's usual repertoire of weirdos and malcontents, it's refreshing to see him take on characters that are at least grounded in the real world, and who partake in normal movie star activities like solving murders and being hunted by ghouls in the night.

4) John Dillinger, PUBLIC ENEMIES (Michael Mann, 2009)

While the film itself has some problems - chiefly its on-again off-again commitment to a watchable image during its action sequences - Depp's portrayal of John Dillinger, America's favorite antihero, is spot-on perfection. Dapper, clean and charming, Depp here proves that he can really be an everyman, just as long as that everyman has charisma and is terribly handsome. In this regard it's a better role for him than other forays into similar territory, like 2004's SECRET WINDOW or last year's THE TOURIST, which gets my vote for best film everyone hated for no good reason in 2010. It also doesn't hurt that he plays against type by being the flat-out bad guy, and that he gets to go head-to-head with fellow pop-thesp Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the Federal agent given the assignment of taking Dillinger down.

Lars Von Trier, the Cannes Controversy and Talking to Adults.

2011-05-19T21:32:00.002-04:00

I usually don't write about super current issues in the filmmaking world, but I'm really interested in the current debacle happening in France. For the past couple of days, the cinema world has been in an uproar over some comments made by controversial filmmaker Lars Von Trier during a press conference for his new film, MELANCHOLIA. Apparently, the film was a serious contender for the Palme d'Or until the incident, and remains in competition, even as the festival itself has banned the director from attending any of it, including the awards ceremony on Sunday.

His banning has been greeted with praise from The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendents, who condemned his comments as "repulsive" and went so far as the call his comments an "exploitation of victims' suffering for self-serving promotion and publicity." (Source: Moviefone Blog) The comments were also taken wildly out of context, as discussed in depth by both Jim Emerson and Ben Kenigsberg at TimeOut Chicago, not reflecting the situation as it happened at all.

So what did really happen? Von Trier, who has quite the reputation for being a provocateur as much as for his divisive films, and who has a well-documented history of deep depression, seems to be getting at the ways in which he understands hopelessness, discussing Hitler in his bunker, making plans even as Berlin is falling around him. He also seems to be discussing his relationship with fellow Danish filmmaker Susanne Biehr (who recently won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for IN A BETTER WORLD, who is also Jewish), as well as the conflicting sense of identity within himself after he spent much of his life believing that his Jewish step-father was his biological father, and his recent discovery that he is, in fact, of German descent.

That's a whole lot of context. Certainly his apology gets at the heart of all of that seeming to be the case - something was blown way out of proportion, and Von Trier couldn't help his own dark impulses to not keep his mouth shut. (For a really in-depth experience of the play-by-play, you can check out the coverage on Deadline, which has given much more context to the types of questions he was being asked as well as the general mood of the conference and some of his previous acts as European filmmaking's enfant terrible).

In any case, what I find most astonishing is that the entire context of the comments was missed so completely by the press, as well as the parties who would wish him harm or are glad that he is banned from the festival. Even the official press release from Cannes is laughable, and in the space of one paragraph makes a case for its showcasing of talent without boundaries while condemning one of the world's most prominent directors for conducting himself in the manner they say the festival operates in the spirit of two sentences earlier. Ridiculous.

Are we really not allowed to be adults anymore? Are we not allowed to grapple with difficult subjects and think about what is being said and why before we jump on the bandwagon of calling someone an anti-Semite and smearing his reputation? Apparently not. There are already comparisons of Von Trier to Roman Polanski, which is laughable, not because Polanski's past isn't problematic or worthy of some derision, but because Von Trier did not commit the same level of offense, no matter what you may think of him.

Von Trier was obviously working toward some sort of overarching metaphor about himself in relation to his films and fellow filmmakers, maybe even seriously discussing ethnic background at some level, but he even says in his statements that he doesn't condone what the Nazis did. But that doesn't matter, because Von Trier had already forgotten that there is no such thing as adult human beings capable of processing reality. At least, there aren't any out there according to how everyone has reacted to this situation.

Antici---pation!

2011-05-19T20:20:00.001-04:00

So Summer is now in full swing, with the tent pole releases of THOR and BRIDESMAIDS heralding in the official launch of the blockbuster season. In honor of this, I give you a new entry in my once-frequent series in which I discuss several of my most highly anticipated flicks and their trailers.

1) MELANCHOLIA
Lars Von Trier is probably the one filmmaker furthest from my mind when I think of Summer movies, but the timing of the release of his latest depress-fest is oddly appropriate. Described as "a beautiful movie about the end of the world," the film takes place as a planet threatens to crash into Earth, which is certainly the plot of many a summer blockbuster even if Von Trier's film is guaranteed to be totally unlike anything we could ever hope for from a Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay. I was really affected by his previous effort, ANTICHRIST, a rumination on man's relationship with nature, historical and supernatural malevolence, and the many ways we can destroy ourselves, so I'm looking forward to MELANCHOLIA, which looks to share a lot of the same thematics. A director unafraid of controversy or audience disgust, there is always one guarantee when encountering a new work by Lars Von Trier: there will definitely be something to talk about, one way or the other.

2) CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Focusing on the superstar of the Marvel Universe, this is the last production before next year's superhero megafilm THE AVENGERS. Directed by Joe Johnston, who has already made a pretty great alternate-history superhero movie with 1991's THE ROCKETEER, and knows how to craft a rousing adventure film out of period drama (for proof see HIDALGO and his work on the television series THE INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES). Following the hero, Captain America, from his birth in the super soldier program during World War II, we are guaranteed many a showdown between Cap and his arch nemesis, The Red Skull. Yes, it's yet another superhero film, but this one is going to be a bit different, and hopefully up to the task of introducing us to a character as important as Captain America is to the Marvel cinematic project of replicating their comic book mythologies.

3) THE FUTURE
The new slice of weirdness from Miranda July, the genius artist behind ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, seems to be told (at least partially) from the viewpoint of an adopted, sickly cat. Maybe. And it definitely details the lives of two thirty-somethings who haven't really got a handle on their lives just yet. July is an artist who I wholeheartedly respect, and this looks and feels a lot more like some of her book of short fiction more than her previous work as a filmmaker. This is a high profile art house release for the Summer season, and I'll be seeking it out as soon as I possibly can.

4) 30 MINUTES OR LESS
I was a big fan of ZOMBIELAND a couple years back, and I'm looking forward to this film which rejoins Jesse Eisenberg with director Ruben Fleischer, and also brings Asiz Ansari into the fold for a movie about a pizza delivery driver who gets tangled up in a bank robbery scheme. The red band trailer in particular is very strong (and totally NSFW), and gives a good set of laughs to all the main characters, including Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as the two criminals who strap a bomb to Eisenberg's chest so he'll rob the bank for him.

5) TROLL HUNTER
A found footage film about troll hunters in Norway? I'm there. No question. This movie is already available on demand, so I'll probably see it sooner rather than later, but I really think it was meant to see theatrically, which is why I'll be planning a trip to see it when it opens in either Asheville or Atlanta (if I've moved down there by then). In any case, the special effects and troll designs look amazing, and I'm all about supporting international and low budget genre cinema that seems to actually capture something magical and doesn't look and sound like utter crap.

ActionFest 2011

2011-04-13T23:53:00.005-04:00

If there's anyone out there who hasn't read any of it, my ActionFest coverage is being put up all over the place. Some reviews and thoughts will be here, and the interview with Bail Enforcers/WWE Superstar Trish Stratus will (hopefully) be the feature on the Shadows and Light Movie Podcast next week. Other stuff is on CA Literary Review. Still more will find its way to my new joint venture with my friend Eric Plaag, The Split Screen. What follows is a list of links that I will update as I have more and more come out for reading/listening.

CA Lit Review:
ActionFest 2011 Wrap-up
An Interview with Michael Jai White
An Interview with Writer/Director Julian Gilbey
Review: 13 Assassins

Matt Smith on Film:
Review: Bail Enforcers

Shadows and Light Movie Podcast:

The Split Screen:
Bellflower: A Review
Hobo With A Shotgun: A Review

Review: Bail Enforcers

2011-04-13T10:29:00.002-04:00

This movie is just a lot of fun to watch. Featuring some fantastic little fight sequences and a charismatic set of leads, the film makes it easy to overlook some of its short-comings, which really aren't its fault at all, and are generally shared by most independent films, not just in the action genre. Seven-time WWE Women's champion Trish Stratus makes her film debut as Jules, a bounty hunter whose team gets drawn into making a deal with a gangster named Hal in order to make a bigger payday by turning over one of their bounties to him instead of taking him to the police. Along the way they have a run-in with a few goons who work for Hal and have to fight for their lives. It's not the most complex plot-line ever, but a ton of action films are held together on flimsier premises, and do far less with what they have.

The film opens with a really well done fight between Jules and a weight lifter in a gym as she and her partner try to apprehend him and take him in. Not only does the fight serve to get the audience involved in the action right off the bat, but it also provides us with a glimpse at Jules' fighting style (sort of a wrestling-modified Krav Maga), which shows her as a no-nonsense go-getter; a woman of action. This is important because of the contrast it provides between her and her partners, Chase (Boomer Phillips) and Ridley (Frank J. Zupancic), who are much more suited to gun-oriented confrontation.

The group dynamics are typical, but pulled off well: Chase is the goofy one - Phillips has a background in comedy, Ridley is the square-jawed and level-headed leader, and Jules is the heavy-hitter, but also provides the group with a bit of sex appeal and helps to throw her opponents off because, hey, she's a woman! There's a charisma between the actors that is palpable on screen most of the time, and it makes some of the film's lesser moments (such as a regrettable and unimportant scene in which Ridley utters the words that he "loves" Jules, and an absolutely useless subplot and scene in which Jules works as a waitress at a strip club and must be picked up for a job - two of the few times genre cliches aren't quite so well averted or incorporated.) Which brings me to what I like most about the film: its ability to recognize its strengths and weaknesses as a B-movie (not a bad thing) and make the best of most of them.

Bail Enforcers has an honest sense of humor about itself that isn't so self-aware that it falls into unwatchable territory, and that's kind of refreshing. I'm pretty bored with "clever" post-modern parody of action films, and am glad to see there's still a small group of filmmakers eager to make what they have work to the best of their abilities and within a tight budget. There's not a weak spot considering all of this: the cinematography by Justin J. Dyck is solid, and the direction of Patrick McBrearty is more than capable.

And then there are the fights themselves. The choreography is quite well done, and the scene-stealer is Andrea James Lui, who plays Ruby, one of the heavies sent to kill the bounty hunters and take their bounty back to her mobster employer. She has two fights of note, one with Jules in close-quarters combat in the back of an ambulance, and a funny and character-building fight over a set of keys with chase. The former is thrilling, and the second is comic and endearing. These scenes are well-shot, too, with much of them being shot at a higher frame rate and then played around with in post. It's nice to see camerawork that is being done at least partially in-camera and not all on a computer.

Overall, Bail Enforcers is a solid view for a fan of the genre, a fan of Stratus' and anyone interested in supporting independent action movies. High cinema it's not, but not everything sets out to be. This is a knock-down fight flick about hard bodies and hard punches that plays like the films made in the heyday for this sort of film. Which is meant to say nothing bad about it at all.

The 15 Best Feature Films I Saw from 2010

2011-03-18T22:09:00.001-04:00

So, I know it is nearing the end of March, 2011, but I wanted to see as much as I possibly could before finalizing my list. In any case, narrowing it down as much as I did was already too difficult to go much further with it. Of course this means that many films I loved are missing from the list, notably TRUE GRIT, THE OTHER GUYS, LET ME IN, THE CRAZIES, and WINTER'S BONE. I also wanted to focus on my main interest, which is narrative feature films, and though I saw a good many documentary and experimental films in the past year, I just don't feel versed enough in those worlds to really rank and qualify them, especially among the features that share a special place in my heart. Anyway, these aren't really in any order, though BLACK SWAN most definitely was my favorite film of 2010.

1. BLACK SWAN (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
I'm not finished with this film, and it's definitely not finished with me. I haven't felt as strongly toward a film in years. Aronofsky's masterpiece, no matter your feelings toward it, has a way of getting into your brain and noodling around (or tunneling, if the metaphor is to lack subtlety in the same manner) for days and weeks afterward. I don't believe anyone who says they haven't thought about it since they saw it. Natalie Portman's performance as Nina, a ballet starlet striving for perfection, is admittedly one-note innocence, until the final forty minutes, when she really starts unraveling and there's enough sturm and drang and outward physical expression of her inner turmoil that even Fritz Lang would rise from the grave and take notice. Surrounded by a more-than-capable cast (a terrific Barbara Hershey and Winona Ryder), Portman's interpretation is breathless, filled with the kind of bravura that most actors shy away from (though there are hints of Daniel Day-Lewis' comic-grotesque employed in THERE WILL BE BLOOD and GANGS OF NEW YORK to be found here and there). The Grand Guignol of the whole affair is something refreshing and exhilarating in the landscape of American cinema, not merely rehashing and blending older genres like many of our most capable filmmakers, but re-appropriating entire filmmaking styles to make something bold, fresh, daring and ultimately as divisive as BLACK SWAN turns out to be. By the time the final notes of SWAN LAKE play, and the screen turns into a bright, searing white, it never fails to send genuine shivers down my spine.

2. SALT (dir. Phillip Noyce)
A master of the political thriller, having directed two Jack Ryan films with Harrison Ford and the subtler but no less break-neck THE QUIET AMERICAN, Phillip Noyce has returned with a more action-oriented take on the genre within which he seems most comfortable, and turns in the first Movie Star movie in quite some time. Angelina Jolie is in full-on movie star mode (helped along with the gorgeous cinematography of Robert Elswit) as Evelyn Salt, a U.S. CIA operative who may or may not be an insider for the defunct Soviet regime in Russia. The film is pretty breezy, and packs enough of a wallop that the Blu-Ray release features three different cuts of the movie, all overseen by Noyce, and all of which are worth a look. It's a shame this is an action film, though, since it automatically excludes it from any serious awards consideration. Except for from me, of course.

3. THE KILLER INSIDE ME (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
A literal and figurative sucker-punch, this bleak, utterly hopeless adaptation of Jim Thompson's rowdiest novel sticks very close to the first-person narrative of the novel, with closet psychopath/sheriff's deputy Lou Ford expounding his every horrible thought. Directed by the chameleon-like Michael Winterbottom, who shows a seemingly innate ability to work within any and every genre, THE KILLER INSIDE ME wears its nihilism on its sleeve, and features two of the most realistic, brutal and physically sickening murders many audiences have likely ever seen. What is so profound and disturbing about the film (and what makes it stick with me) is that Lou's descent into his suppressed dark side only comes about by what he sees is a necessity for his survival. Essentially, he's happy to murder people, in fact he seems to actually feel nothing about the act other than its status as an action that must be undertaken, but never once does he even care that his own fate may be sealed before he's even found out. Lou Ford is a monster, and THE KILLER INSIDE ME is a horror film that is more terrifying than any two or three genre films released in any given year.

4. DESPICABLE ME (dir. Pierre Coffin, dir. Chris Renaud)
A refreshing change of pace for an animated film glutted by pop-cultural references and the morass of an industry that views its child audience as mere money-generating morons. And while the last part of that statement may apply to parts of DESPICABLE ME (especially the marketing surrounding the Minion characters), the film itself is generally devoid of everything that makes one loathe the current climate of children's entertainment: it is a sweet, funny and poignant film that earns its laughs through situation, dialogue and universal truths rather than forced imitations of other, usually much better products. The plot, which concerns a super-villain named Gru, who seeks world domination (also the plot of MEGAMIND, another film of note this year, though lacking in some respects as regards the praise I have for DESPICABLE ME), is wrapped in the story of his changing focus when he takes in three young girls from an orphanage as pawns for one of his schemes. The animation is exaggerated and smooth, with a very welcome cartoonish slant, and it finally puts to rest the debate about whether or not Pixar holds a monopoly on the quality of mainstream animated features.

5. SPLICE (dir. Vincenzo Natali)
An early surprise for 2010, the brilliant sci-fi freakout SPLICE was the perfect antidote to a slate of genre releases that featured heavy on the remakes (some of them being very good notwithstanding), and with diminishing returns in original content. A biomedical / body horror / ethics meditation worthy of the distinction of being Cronenbergian, Vincenzo Natali's little film about a superstar team of geneticists who design what they think could be the perfect creature is one of the more disturbing films to receive a major release. Seriously, the Adrien Brody / Sarah Polley / Dren triangle is beyond bizarre (and beyond intriguing material for a film), and I can't honestly say that I've experienced as big a sucker-punch to my mind since.

6. GET HIM TO THE GREEK (dir. Nicholas Stoller)
This semi-sequal to FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL features Russel Brand's character Aldous Snow returning in his full rock-god glory, anchored by Jonah Hill's record company errand boy trying to get him to an anniversary show while avoiding all kinds of disturbances and distractions. The script is smart and funny and I kind of love the idea of serializing characters through multiple films and in different situations (something uber producer / director Judd Apatow is looking to do with his next movie). In addition, the soundtrack is absolutely hilarious, with spot-on pop and rock tracks by Aldous Snow's band Infant Sorrow as well as Rose Byrne's pop-star, Jackie Q. Seriously, "Ring Around the Rosie" was robbed of Best Original Song awards left and right.

7. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (dir. Niels Arden Oplev)
I don't think there's any doubt that 2010 was the year of Lisbeth Salander. There wasn't a single place you could turn where there wasn't a copy of one of the books or without talk of Noomi Rapace's absolutely bewitching (and star-making) turn in the film versions of the novels. Oplev's first film is still the strongest because the first book's story could be effectively trimmed down into a lean thriller without losing too much of the enchanting nature of all the side characters littered throughout the periphery of the story. Following an punk computer hacker with Asperger's, Lisbeth Salander, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is a dark and gritty Swedish thriller that unearths corruption on many levels both corporate and private in almost all of its characters. And though the film may focus more on journalist Mikael Blomquist, there is no forgetting Rapace's interpretation and dedication to the role that took the entire world by storm.

8. THE TOWN (dir. Ben Affleck)
The second feature from Affleck may be 2010's overlooked gem, telling a complex story about the failings of human nature and the ineffable nature of our actions with the veneer of a crime drama and heist film. Affleck also stars in the film as Doug McCray, a professional thief who runs a crew in Charlestown, an area of Boston that, statistically speaking, has spawned the most armored car thieves in the U.S. After a bank robbery that gets a bit out of hand, and from which they abduct a hostage (a wonderful Rebecca Hall), the crew must protect themselves as an FBI team led by Jon Hamm (MAD MEN) starts looking into the members and putting the pressure on them as they cook up their next scheme. Of course, McCray takes to making sure the former hostage doesn't know who he is, and he ends up falling in love with her. This may seem very silly, but trust me it's not. Based on Chuck Hogan's supremely enthralling novel, the film flies by, even though it clocks in at over two hours. Trust me on this, THE TOWN is a must-see, slow burn crime film that is all about human interaction.

9. SHUTTER ISLAND (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Yet another collaboration between the greatest living American director and his current muse Leonardo DiCaprio, SHUTTER ISLAND is a psychological thriller that is all about film aesthetics, film history and paying homage to the old Hollywood masters while providing an engaging old-school entertainment with shades of Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller. I remember sitting in the Denny's with my podcast co-hosts Woody and Pierce for over an hour afterward just picking apart the imagery and sound design, and it was one of the most thrilling academic exercises in aesthetics I was exposed to by a mainstream film all year.

10. THE RUNAWAYS (dir. Floria Sigismondi)
I'm a big fan of Joan Jett, and when I heard a biopic was being developed for The Runaways, I was a bit apprehensive, but I have to say the end result completely knocked my socks off. The performances by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning as Jett and Cherie Currie are electric, erotic and moving. And that's not even factoring in how brilliant Michael Shannon is as sonic mastermind and band manager Kim Fowley. Director Floria Sigismondi perfectly captures the youthful urgency of the music and the spirit of the band while also exploring the growing chasm between the hodgepodge group of musicians that form the band, particularly the desire and distrust surrounding Jett and Currie. I wrote at length about this film last year when I saw it, and have revisited it a few times since then, and each time I feel the same way. I don't really care how anyone else feels about it, THE RUNAWAYS is an amazing piece of filmmaking.

11. THE ILLUSIONIST (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
Based on an un-produced screenplay by the French master Jaques Tati, THE ILLUSIONIST follows an aging magician who plays variety shows throughout the world, but is slowly being edged out by the mainstream entertainment of hot, new rock and roll acts. As with his previous film, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, Chomet uses very little real dialogue to tell his story, focusing instead on his magical hand-drawn animation and the development of strong, sympathetic characters. The film's best moment also features a cameo from the deceased Tati, and it's quite brilliantly done, and not forced at all. THE ILLUSIONIST is a film that is heartfelt, beautiful and urgent. A masterpiece by one of the most intriguing animators in the world.

12. OUTSIDE THE LAW (dir. Rachid Bouchareb)
Telling the story of four brothers who dabble in organized crime in Algeria and France during the Algerian revolutionary period, Rachid Bouchareb's film allows a glimpse into an oft-neglected chapter of world history, and provides us with a classic gangster picture at the same time. Featuring the same cast of his previous, Academy award-winning film, DAYS OF GLORY, all playing characters who are unrelated but have the same first names as the characters they played in that film, Bouchareb weaves the stories of the brothers into the history of the Algerian resistance. I particularly appreciated Jamel Debbouze (AMELIE, ANGEL A) as Said, who is trying to distance himself from the political and criminal lives of his brothers and make it as a legitimate boxing promoter and trainer, but is seen as an outcast and traitor by his own family for respecting the French oppressors in any way.

13. THE FIGHTER (dir. David O. Russell)
The only real difference between any boxing film is the milieu within which it attempts to tell its story. With ROCKY it was an underdog picture, with RAGING BULL we had a tale of masculine self-destruction, and with MILLION DOLLAR BABY it was a message picture. THE FIGHTER takes place firmly within the family melodrama genre, following Micky Ward's rise from stepping stone to world champ, and also his brother Dicky Ecklund, a former contender whose one famous moment was knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard, as he overcomes a crippling addiction to crack. Directed by David O. Russell, THE FIGHTER is a film that is worth seeing just for the performances, with Oscar winner Melissa Leo as Micky and Dicky's overbearing witch of a mother tearing up every scene she's in, and a love interest played by Amy Adams that brings a bit of heart to a film that might otherwise be too depressing to seriously contemplate as reality.

14. GREEN ZONE (dir. Paul Greengrass)
An action film that takes all the best parts of Greengrass's masterful work with his historical/political drama period pieces and the Bourne flicks, GREEN ZONE is the adrenaline rush the Iraq-war subgenre needed, and it delivers on all fronts. I personally think this is Greengrass's masterpiece as an action filmmaker. Matt Damon once again proves why he's one of the most interesting movie stars in ages and co-star Amy Ryan proves that she needs much more work than she has been getting.

15. DEEP IN THE WOODS (dir. Benoit Jacquot)
This film hasn't seen a release here in the U.S. yet, but when it finally does come out, I will see it again and again. Isild Le Besco pairs with Jacquot yet again for the story of a girl who follows a stranger wanderer into the countryside in 1865. Timothee, who may or may not have the gift of hypnotism and bewitchment, is smitten with Josephine, who is from a well-to-do family, and he wills her to go with him into the woods and live outside of civilization. The big question throughout the film, of course, is whether or not their relationship is consensual, or if she is in fact being raped and Timothee really does have these powers she claims he has. The characters in the film come to a conclusion, but director Benoit Jacquot allows the story to linger and settle with the audience. The film also has a brilliant score, with baroque chamber tendencies. Loved this.

"The Other's a Fish": THE LINCOLN LAWYER

2011-03-18T20:02:00.000-04:00

This faithful adaptation of Michael Connelly's best-selling legal thriller, THE LINCOLN LAWYER, is a throwback to breezier, slightly funkier courtroom procedurals. A smart performance by Matthew McConaughey that imbues the character of Mickey Haller with a knowing swagger anchors this approach, and the film's loose sensibilities serve as a counterpoint to the efficient clockwork plot. The latter quality of the film may in fact be its lone weakness, as it has trimmed much of the juicy fat away from the story, leaving bits and pieces hanging here and there, and not quite giving us enough character information in a few instances. Still, THE LINCOLN LAWYER is a wonderful film that kept me enthralled even though I was familiar with the many twists and turns beforehand.

The film follows Mickey Haller, a criminal defense attorney who will defend anyone who can pay his price. As the film opens, he stalls a case from going to court because a client of his, a member of a bike gang, hasn't paid the bill to date. In the following scene we meet the rest of the bikers, who have brought payment to Haller, and are given a sense that he is a man unafraid to take risks, but who has an ethical code even though he's willing to take a razor to the prosecution and bleed even the most guilty clients' charges down to an empty shell. A bit later, when Haller meets with repeat-client Gloria, a hooker who he never charges for his services. The relationship is a bit murky in the film, but in the book, it's really a sweet motive on his part, because he sees the good in Gloria, and wants her to get straight and stay that way. In any case, it serves to show his golden ideals held deep within the hard exterior of a money-driven defense lawyer.

As mentioned earlier, McConaughey's turn as Haller is a major reason this film works as well as it does. Haller has just enough sleazy wit and smart-ass charm to keep the audience alert to the plot, but the trick of casting someone as instantly likable and recognizable as McConaughey also serves to make us root for him and know that, no matter what twists get thrown at him, Haller is a good guy who will do the right thing in the end. Haller doesn't care what others think of him, and when cops come at him with jabs about his job and his culpability in keeping scum on the streets (Bryan Cranston is fun in a bit part), he brings it right back to them, knocking on crooked cops and how easy it is to do his job when the D.A. and the police are so inept at prosecution. Haller is a fun character, one that is challenging and emotional and downright engaging. He's a real, honest human being, and for once he's on screen in front of us.

McConaughey isn't alone, though, and is supported by a strong supporting cast, including Marisa Tomei as his ex-wife and prosecutor Maggie, William H. Macy as his private investigator, and Ryan Phillipe as Louis Roulet, the client he's been hired to get off an attempted murder charge. Phillipe's character in particular is worthy of notice because of his many faces, all of which are played expertly. Phillipe isn't an actor we've seen much of lately, and that's a shame, because I've always enjoyed his work. I'm sure audiences will be intrigued to see him here first as the story's underdog, and then as its villain. Josh Lucas is also enjoyable as prosecutor Ted Minton, and the courtroom scenes hinge a lot on his reactions to Haller's defense tactics. It's a shame there's not more of the court proceedings in the film, though, because Minton has some fantastic scenes in the book that would have likely been explosive between the two actors on screen.

While defending Roulet, Haller stumbles upon information that leads him to believe Roulet is not only guilty of the crime he is now accused, but also of the murder of another woman that got pinned on a previous client of Haller's, and who pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. Of course, not giving too much away, the attorney-client privilege is given a lot of play in how everything turns out, and it's really quite intriguing and plausible. Let's just say there aren't any surprises, no matter how dark the film gets, as to how everything ends.

Cinematographer Lukas Ettlin, who also provided us with the most memorable and pleasing part of recent plotless disaster BATTLE: LOS ANGELES, turns in some really fantastic late-Sixties exploitation style "slick" cinematography, balancing just enough edge and flatness that really feels like that period, but in a completely good way. There are plenty of gorgeous close-ups of the stars, as well as some stark, matter-of-fact exposures we're not used to seeing in a Hollywood film, including an emotional drink with Haller after a close friend's murder which really doesn't make McConaughey seem like the pretty boy we all think of when his name gets mentioned.

I think what will stick with me the most, though, is McConaughey. Finally the man has returned to actual acting. I'm content with him popping up in small but memorable roles while cashing major paychecks for rom-coms, but it's nice to see him headlining something that requires him to actually show up to work. Maybe we're entering a new period for him, one that will see him really come into his own. Or, maybe we'll just get hints of true brilliance here and there. Honestly, I get the feeling that, much like Mickey Haller, he doesn't care all that much come to think of it.

Girl Power: MADE IN DAGENHAM

2011-02-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

A feel-good movie if there ever was one, Nigel Cole's MADE IN DAGENHAM tells the story of the 1968 strike by the women workers of Ford's plant in Dagenham that ultimately resulted in the passage of equal pay legislation in Britain. While it's a little too frothy, and the return to our current cultural climate outside the darkened theatre is something of a downer afterward, it's a solid film to spend a couple of hours with, and features the always fantastic Sally Hawkins as Rita O'Grady, a composite of several real-life women who lead the movement.

Like most films based on political movements/activists like this, there's a certain trajectory that's expected to play out on screen: person has injustice, person takes action against their adversary, person overcomes injustice. And to be sure, MADE IN DAGENHAM follows this precisely, never really wavering from its path, though it has some nice surprises here and there, mostly in the ways it deals with the interpersonal and familial relationships at stake. Rita and her husband Eddie have a pretty healthy relationship, and while there are trying moments that would likely hit any family going through an income crisis as they have (especially once the strike by the women causes a plant-wide shutdown), it really comes through that they love and care about one another, and there are plenty of apologies to go around.

As the film tracks the encounters with management and their spineless self-serving union leaders, and the disappointments experienced by the women at their hands, the film moves along at a fairly quick pace, finding its footing in the swift dialogue and the pleasure of watching such skilled actors at work. It doesn't really matter that the story itself is predictable - they'll never really make the kind of movie that ends with the decimation of unions' bargaining rights - because the film's charms are its quiet moments and often boisterous interactions. And the actors are more than capable of buoying a film like this.

Sally Hawkins, who I've already mentioned, and who most audiences may know from her lead role in Mike Leigh's HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, is once again a charming on-screen presence and proves that she really should be in many many more movies (a quick check of her IMDB tells me she'll be in at least two films in the coming year, which I'll happily check out just because.) She's helped along by some strong supporting work from the two prominent male cast members: Daniel Mays as her husband, and the incomparable Bob Hoskins as a low-level union rep that actually has the balls to get the job done as it needs to be, bypassing politics and getting right to the heart of the problem. But the film's biggest jaw-dropper is the sheer amount of female acting chops on display, with all of its major moments revolving around women and the stifling feelings they have when they are spoken down to and about by males running everything without ever being asked what they might actually feel best suits their interests.

Underneath its light surface is a darker commentary about the ways in which male-centric societal discriminations shade even our own thoughts about who is important and should be important in not just everyday interactions, but even in the simple act of watching a film - even one such as this that really puts the voices of women right out in front. Hoskins and Mays aside, the major characters that drive the film are all the friends of Rita who stand behind her and support her giving voice to their concerns as women. Miranda Richardson is a hoot as Barbara Castle, who is still the only woman ever to have held the office of First Secretary of State in Britain, and Rosamund Pike turns in a really tight performance as Lisa Hopkins, a highly educated woman kept underneath the power structure in both Britain and her own household by her husband, who is the labor relations director for the Ford company in the U.K.

The real heart and soul for, and the most conflict when sticking up for her sisters for Rita, comes from her best friend, Connie, played by the wonderful Geraldine James. Connie's husband, George, is a former soldier who is experiencing what we now know is PTSD, and some days are obviously better than others. Their relationship as husband and wife, which may be a shadow of its former self, is powered by pure love, and ultimately, George sees his wife as someone who deserves everything she has been fighting for. The denouement of this particular section is very sad and poignant, but it provides the story with just enough oomph and impetus to get over the hump of making sure Rita's friendships really do see her through to the end. Really, it's a touching moment when Connie, who was once the spokeswoman for the girls, and Rita both enter the labor union's conference together.

It's not really a surprise to see such good acting in a British film. Half of their acclaimed talent currently fills U.S. productions anyway. But it is a surprise to see a film that really attempts to get to the heart of its female characters, and provide a realistic view of their relationships with one another and their families, and with society-at-large. MADE IN DAGENHAM may be a rather light-hearted affair, but there's enough going on beneath the surface concerning sexism and its inherent role in every facet of Western culture that it really is worth a second look beyond the cursory first glance. Even if it is just for the sheer amount of wonderful performances, which given such great work in smaller roles by the likes of Andrea Riseborough and Jaime Winstone, et al, I really haven't even tipped the bucket on.

Blurbs: Special Edition 2

2011-02-23T10:56:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, where did I disappear to? I'm back, this time with a vengeance. I'm going to have some 2010 wrap-ups and polish off a few articles I didn't get around to posting. First up, a super-long edition of Blurbs (really long this time out). Without further ado:

THE KING'S SPEECH (Tom Hooper, 2010)
A movie that really hinges on the performances of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush and completely delivers on both counts. The story's plot is nothing spectacular: the King of England has a stammer and seeks speech therapy so he can lead the nation in proper royal capacity, but the screenplay has some of the best dialogue in recent memory (along with THE SOCIAL NETWORK it holds a place with me for making an uninteresting subject interesting just because of the ways in which people communicate and find importance in communication) and Tom Hooper's direction is refreshingly restrained and classical in style. I enjoyed the off-center shots of the two leads, and it's nice to see something that's not quite so flashy. Even the fog-shrouded exteriors seem subdued and refreshing in their simplicity. One of the smaller cinematic pleasures I had this year is watching the bickering back and forth between Rush and Firth, two fine actors in a fine film that may not be the best, but which is still deserving of one's time.

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (John Sturges, 1955)
One of my favorite films of all time, I recently watched this after having not seen it in about six years and was re-enamored with it. Spencer Tracy's portrayal of hard-as-nails Macreedy, the one-armed veteran come to Black Rock with a mysterious purpose. Met with a town hiding a dark secret and the determination to do whatever to make sure it never comes to light, Macreedy faces this opposition head on. In an iconic performance, Tracy takes on the whole town, populated by a superb cast playing the townspeople: Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan and the inimitable Lee Marvin. A social tirade against racism and igorance, A BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK manages to hit all of its intended notes and rattle some nerves in a meager 81 minute run-time, which is more than most other films could ever dream of.

SEASON OF THE WITCH (Dominic Sena, 2011)
While not a total waste of time, the film's improbable (and horribly computer-generated) final twenty minutes almost dismantle the enjoyment I had of watching a mostly-reliable B genre picture starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as two Knights on the lam escorting a witch to her trial at an abbey several days away. Honestly, I think this film falls apart based on the direction alone, making choice after choice, from the overall tone, which waffles between camp and seriousness, to the aforementioned CGI-laden debacle of the finale. Dominic Sena has made exactly one film worth a real look (KALIFORNIA) and as bad as I wanted it to, SEASON OF THE WITCH does nothing to further a sub-genre of horror/fantasy I feel is due for a comeback. I guess TRUE BLOOD's upcoming witch-filled storyline will have to keep my hopes up for the time being.

THE CHICAGO CODE (2011)
Producer/Creator/Writer Shawn Ryan has already seen one of his best creations cancelled by FX (the best show of last Fall, TERRIERS), but he's giving it another go with the so-far-so-good cop show THE CHICAGO CODE. Following a group of officers and detectives banding together to take down a corrupt politician, there are shades of THE WIRE at play, though things are starting to widen a bit, growing to show a more subjective view of various characters through voice-over narration and small throwaway moments that might be trimmed from a show not on a network production scale (though this season will feature only 14, there are normally 22 episodes a season as opposed to half that number). Aside from surface level comparisons, though, the feel of the show is much more in tune with Ryan's work on TERRIERS and THE SHIELD, albeit a little less gritty and featuring a police department actually fighting for justice, which is a welcome change to the current television procedural climate. Fantastic performances from Jennifer Beals as the department's superintendent and Jason Clarke as a detective determined to make the case buoy the show and really propel it into the must-watch realm few shows reach for me.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS (Chris Weitz, 2007)
I didn't mind this film, though I could tell as someone who hasn't read any of Philip Pullman's trilogy that it glosses over a WHOLE lot of stuff. But, I think as a non-fan audience member it worked for what it was: an epic start to a trilogy that there's no way to condense into a single set of three films in the first place. That, in a nutshell, is the problem of adaptation in general for the fantasy genre. The very nature of the beast requires a fair amount of condensing from an often bloated, world-creating novel that spares not a single chance to describe small and seemingly inconsequential scenes in oft-excruciating detail. Fans of the books do hate this movie, and probably with justified reasoning. But, it is what it is, and if you want to see how bad film adaptations of really good and highly revered works of children's lit can turn out, you might want to try THE SEEKER: THE DARK IS RISING from the same year. Yeesh.

DOGHOUSE (Jake West, 2009)
I have a soft spot for any sort of British horror-comedy. This offering, following a group of men who attempt to cheer up their friend following a devastating break-up with his girlfriend by taking a holiday to a small town that boasts a ton of single women per capita, is a lighter affair that features some imaginative takes on zombification and some fun kills. The should-be-more-popular fan favorite Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham headline as two of the guys up against a town in which all of the women have become the subjects of a secret military experiment that makes them aggressively pursue and kill all men in the area. This one's fun for fans, and may even win a few converts. Worth checking out.

AN IDIOT ABROAD (2010)
Oh my word, this is brilliant television. I've loved listening to Karl Pilkington on the Ricky Gervais Show podcast for the past few years, but I never imagined something like this would ever happen. For those of you not familiar with him, his friend Ricky Gervais describes Karl as a "round-headed, ape-like moron," and while that may seem mean-spirited, it's not completely wrong as a description of the television personality we're given. He's actually just an average man, uncomfortable around anything he's never been exposed to or has no previous notion of, and this leads to absolutely hilarious observations, non-sequitirs, odd-ball analogies and brilliant unscripted physical comedy. This may be the best thing I've seen on TV since November, and it's definitely the best reality-based show to come along in a long, long time.

TRUE GRIT (The Coen Bros., 2010)
There's a lot to admire in this re-adaptation of Charles Portis' classic Western, but far and away the best aspect is the discovery of Hailee Steinfeld, the fifteen year-old actress who more than holds her own with some of the best actors ever to appear on celluloid. As Mattie Ross, the plucky and determined daughter out to track down her father's murderer, Tom Chaney, she displays the same wisdom of an older soul her character has as well, and she really is amazingly talented. And while it doesn't pack the same punch as their recent few films for me, this is another home run for the Coens, and again marks their place as one of the best filmmaking duos working today.

BLUE VELVET (David Lynch, 1986)
Upon multiple viewings, BLUE VELVET only becomes increasingly more disturbing and creepy. Eventually I stopped paying attention to the thin plotting (and the intricate workings of the dream-like logic employed in the film) and began focusing on the nightmarish nature of every single thing in this film, from opening credits to the very end. Seriously, even Laura Dern's character gives me the willies. Another recent discovery: Dean Stockwell as Ben is an even more disturbing person than Frank Booth. In just that one scene in which he lip-synchs Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" he walks away with the movie, and the whole vibe of the apartment, the retro-decor and fashions, the casual nature of the abusive relationships...it's almost too much to take. I watched this a couple of times around my obsession with Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN and it was an illuminating experience for me. The nature of dreams, nightmares, and mental breakdown swirling around us at all times, and the simple act of watching a movie in effect being similar - well, let's say I may still be a little too close to it all. In any case, this is Lynch's masterpiece, and deserves to be thought about constantly by anyone who can stand to.

EPISODES (2011)
An amazing show about the problems facing adaptations of award-winning British comedies for American audiences. Featuring a really hilarious Matt LeBlanc, and some razor-sharp writing, the story of Sean and Beverly, the creators of BAFTA-winning show "Lyman's Boys" watch in horror as their show is picked up for a pilot by network executive Merc and becomes the opposite of what made their show a critical favorite overseas. After replacing the show's star with Matt LeBlanc, the show's entire story changes, becoming a sitcom about a hockey coach and being retitled "Pucks!" It may hit a little too close to home for those of us who have seen this exact thing happen in reality, but it's still a fantastic show that pays off by building upon its previously introduced jokes and satisfying us with an appropriately awkward and bittersweet finale.

Review: BLACK SWAN

2010-12-10T23:20:00.001-05:00

Director Darren Aronofsky (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE WRESTLER) is not a subtle filmmaker. His films often feel like they're pounding, pounding, pounding their audience into submission, with deliciously all-too-human horror that confronts the viewer in such a way that forces them to either love the film or hate it. There's really no in-between for an Aronofsky film. His body of work could probably best be described as typically divisive. His latest effort, the psychodrama BLACK SWAN, is no different. The thriller, starring Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a ballerina up for the role of the Swan Queen in SWAN LAKE, a production under the control of hard-line artistic director Thomas (a brilliant Vincent Cassel), starts by recalling countless earlier ballet-centric films, notably THE RED SHOES - a film which can't help but be invoked by the mere mention of a powerful ballet director and a struggling dancer - and ends with notes of body horror, psychological melt-down and the destructive impulse that drives its obsessed central character toward perfection and destruction.

Nina strives for perfection as a dancer, and is selected for the role because the White Swan should be a technically perfected part, but Thomas still has his doubts about her turn as the Black Swan, who he envisions as a bit more loose and wild than Nina ever allows herself to be. Enter the rivalry of another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), much more sensual than Nina's perfected technique would ever allow. Nina may lose her part, Lily and Thomas may be conspiring against her, and she may or may not be transforming, quite literally, into some horrific thing. Aronofsky has utilized the thematics of the ballet SWAN LAKE to create a real-world mirroring of its central conceit: two sides of the same coin, dooming one another, and only because they are one and the same, and it works perfectly as a horror film.

Something tells me, though, that this may end up becoming a major issue, as horror can most certainly be used as a derogatory term when it comes to the world of ballet. It's a largely insular culture, with its aficionados holding strong aesthetic opinions of good and bad that comes with the territory (all artistic and critical communities are the same in this regard), and I don't think they'll be too pleased with the actual presentation of ballet in the film (indeed, James Wolcott's review makes this point for me). It's a backdrop, and not the show, and even Natalie Portman's year of training for the role doesn't really make much sense considering Aronofsky's film (and the horror/thriller genre in general) is more concerned with intimacy and brooding intensity - a point the film's many close-ups of Portman's gaunt face and leaner, more bruised and calloused frame hammers home more efficiently than any medium shot of the dancing going on around them ever could. In reality, the close-ups of her body never had to be the real Portman, but, just as it did with Mickey Rourke's scarred torso in THE WRESTLER, the fact that it is only serves to add to the visceral impact the shots have in conveying the physical impracticalities of such a demanding lifestyle on a biological level, let alone the strain it can have on the psyche.

Given the obsession the film has with Nina's strictly-governed and routine-driven existence becoming unraveled by her awakening to her own desires and her growing sensual self-awareness, there is naturally a strong sexual element to the relationships Nina forms with both Thomas and Lily, with each offering some new and thrilling experience that could end up dooming her chances at being a successful dancer. This sexual awakening is accompanied with both horror and pitch black comedy. Thomas, perhaps unprofessionally, but with a point nonetheless, in an attempt to drive the point home to Nina, who just can't stop being perfect, asks a male dancer point-blank, "would you fuck this girl?" In another scene Nina wakes up and starts to masturbate, and just as she reaches arousal, with her back arched and her stomach down, she looks over and sees her mother sleeping in a chair next to her bed. These scenes serve to shock us and make us laugh uncomfortably. They are uncomfortable scenes in a film filled with discomforting thoughts and uncomfortable relationships that shed light on the whole absurdity of the assumptions various characters make about one another, specifically concerning sexual desires and inclinations. Even the assumptions made about Lily are horrifying to hear coming out of Nina's mouth - especially when we find out the truth behind the night in question. They may as well all be losing their minds.

In many ways, BLACK SWAN is a culmination of Aronofsky's body of work to date, one in which his primary concerns of psychological and physical trauma are perfectly married into a perfect vehicle. THE WRESTLER with more darkness, or REQUIEM FOR A DREAM with more sympathetic identification. And, like his much-criticized but underrated work THE FOUNTAIN, he is again here obsessed with doubles, and features many a fantastic shot by frequent collaborator Matthew Libatique that features multiple mirror images of Nina. The motif is blunt, much like the parallels between the story of the ballet SWAN LAKE and the film, but it hits and it sticks, and it has stayed with me since I first saw the credits roll all the way back in September. This is Aronofsky's masterpiece.

I feel like I haven't successfully conveyed anything about the supporting actors or their roles, but I also don't feel that it's necessarily important that I do. As fantastic as Barbara Hershey is as the domineering ex-ballerina mother (an important stock character in ballet films), or as much fun as Winona Ryder is as the aging ex-lead ballerina whom Nina is replacing, the film is really only concerned with Nina. Even Lily and Thomas are extensions of the almost entirely subjective view we are provided by Aronofsky as a window into this story. We feel for Nina because she is a classical tragic figure, marching toward an end as inevitable as any the rest of us can expect, albeit one with a much better soundtrack.

Blurbs: Special Edition

2010-12-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

I've been gone a long time, I know. But here I am, and I'm back. Sorry for the all-too-long hiatus. In any case, I figured I'd start back with something light, quick, and hopefully interesting, a new entry in my "Blurbs" series, where I give brief thoughts, reviews, etc, on a lot of things I've seen recently, but don't have time to devote to full-lenght pieces (though I may come back to some of them in the future). Without further ado, here's a new, extra-long installment of Blurbs:

13 ASSASSINS (Takashi Miike, 2010)
I caught this one in Toronto, and I've been thinking a lot about it since then. It's definitely as bombastic and over-the-top as any other Miike film, but in a more traditional mode of filmmaking. Stylistically, it plays exactly like a classic samurai picture, mirroring in many aspects the films SEVEN SAMURAI and SANJURO, as well as any other post-60s film that features an individual or group of samurai nobly defending peasants against the evil advances of a violent and immoral enemy. Still, there are touches of trademark Miike the provocateur in the film, including a sequence which sees the samurai defending the town by having a herd of bulls charge at the invaders with dynamite strapped on their backs. And, yes, he still finds some way to include a naked torso-woman in the proceedings. Things aren't nearly as strange as all that, though, and Miike has made what is probably his most mature film to date, a real, first-rate classic that finally marks his arrival above the cult following he has held for the past decade. 13 ASSASSINS is memorable, fun, thrilling and inspiring filmmaking of the very first order.

THE ILLUSIONIST (Sylvain Chomet, 2010)
Another Toronto selection, this is the follow-up to Chomet's feature debut THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE. Based on an unproduced script by legendary filmmaker Jaques Tati, THE ILLUSIONIST follows a magician growing slowly irrelevant by a world less-inclined to believe in magic, and becoming more and more enamored with rock-n-roll, which slowly takes over as the main draw to many of the venues he has been playing for years. Like TRIPLETS, THE ILLUSIONIST is a film of quiet charms, with minimal dialogue (and much of that is muffled and incomprehensible) that focuses all of its attention on the visual imagery and the dazzling art of the film. There's a moment near the end of the film when the protagonist stumbles into a dark movie theater while chasing his clothing on a runaway rack, and for a brief moment, he shares the screen with Tati's projected image within the theater (a real film clip, not animated). This single sublime demonstrates what is really the most important thing about Chomet's film: it's ability to touch its audience is admirable in an age when most directors, animators included, would rather shock thrill or titillate. Truly this is one-of-a-kind filmmaking.

DUE DATE (Todd Phillips, 2010)
This film had a huge build-up because of Phillips' previous success with THE HANGOVER (which, at the time of my writing this, is the most-viewed on-demand movie ever). Audiences were particularly excited in seeing that film's break-out star, Zack Galifianakis re-team with the director, though it seems the film they got wasn't as amazing as they were hoping (see also: reactions to Judd Apatow's FUNNY PEOPLE). So goes the saying about expectations, etc., etc. I, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised that Phillips had made a different type of road movie from THE HANGOVER, particularly since he was already lining up to shoot a sequel to that one anyway. Robert Downey, Jr., plays the straight-man to Galifianakis' annoying idiot. Neither character is particularly likable, though when pressed I'd have to say Galifianakis gets my vote for the one I'd be more likely to kill myself. In what is essentially a remake of John Hughes' PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, we watch as the ever-bitter Downey begins to take a liking to the schlub who keeps getting him in these awful situations to begin with, and it does feature some winning performances. Downey is incredibly mean-spirited here, much more so than Steve Martin's character in PLANES, and that's saying a lot. If there's one thing that keeps this film from being completely successful, it's that the character dynamics are so in-tune with previous ideas of how these personalities should clash (thanks to other, better films), that we just can't identify with either character, let alone both.

"G" MEN (William Keighley, 1935)
I'm an unabashed fan of pretty much everything that James Cagney ever did. He's one of my favorite Classical Hollywood actors, and he's never as much fun as when he's playing a bad guy with a heart of gold. I'd never seen "G" MEN, Warner's post-Code gangster picture, though I'd been meaning to for years. Finally, I caught it on DVD about a month ago. It's really quite fantastic. In an effort to make a gangster picture, with one of their top stars, Warner Brothers decided they would cast Cagney in a trademark role, but with a twist so as to not upset the censors: Cagney would be a reformed gangster who helps bring down his former associates when he joins the newly-formed FBI. A lot of the Warner contract actors are here, including Robert Armstrong and Margaret Lindsay, who played tough-as-nails and strictly by-the book Jeff McCord and his sister Kay, respectively. Keighley's direction is superb (he also directed one of the best adaptations of Robin Hood with star Errol Flynn, and collaborated with Cagney again on the prison drama EACH DAWN I DIE), as is the crisp cinematography of the legendary Sol Polito (THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, 42ND STREET). I loved this one. Definitely check it out if you can.

THE WICKER MAN (Neil LaBute, 2006)
I honestly think this is one of the most misunderstood films of the past ten years. While not terribly good, it's nowhere near awful, and is compelling not only for Nicolas Cage's leap off the deep end performance, but also because it's one of the weirdest films I've ever seen, from beginning to end. Loosely taking its cues from the original British film and the novel it was based on, LaBute crafts what is essentially a broad genre farce, though played completely straight. I think this is also the problem a lot of people ran into with LAKEVIEW TERRACE: we're not entirely sure what his game is. It's such a departure from traditional filmmaking in its tone and execution that it seems like he's often just fucking with us. Indeed, I think with THE WICKER MAN, he was just fucking with us. Cage plays a detective from California summoned to a tiny island off the coast of Washington to search for a missing little girl, and uncovers a lot of weirdness when confronted by the modern-day, femme-centric bee-farming pagans that leads to a lot of questions about LaBute's long-accused misogyny (though I think this is mostly him joking about his perceived disgust with females). In any case, by the end of the film, in which Cage dons a bear suit and goes around punching women in the face and kicking Leelee Sobieski into a wall, the only reading that makes sense any more is that this is a personal satire, as well as an affront to his critics. He finally gave us "the essential Neil LaBute anti-feminist screed", and we hung him out to dry for it. Kind of brilliant, actually, and it essentially freed him up to make whatever he wanted from there on out, even if the films weren't that great in the end.

MACGRUBER (Jorma Taccone, 2010)
A pretty smooth film for such an absurdist and sporadic comedy. Based on the SNL sketch that mocks MACGUYVER about two decades too late, Will Forte leads the charge as the title character, a moronic special-forces type that is utterly clueless about his actual job, but nonetheless succeeds in the end. The jokes range from the inspired to the merely silly, but there is hardly a minute that passes that doesn't contain at least one gag that had me chuckling. It's odd that this one got such bad word of mouth (I know I didn't go see it theatrically because of it), because it's actually the funniest film SNL's been involved with since WAYNE'S WORLD 2 all the way back in 1992. Oh well, now I know, and I'm glad I've seen it. Immature, yes. Funny, also yes. Great cinematic art, well, no.

BABY FACE (Alfred E. Greene, 1933)
The inimitable Barbara Stanwyck stars in this pre-Code picture about an attractive woman who uses her feminine wiles to work her way all the way to the top. After, quite literally, starting in the basement of a building as a bartender, she begins working at a bank, and goes floor-by-floor to the top, using her looks and sexuality all of the way, though she ultimately realizes this power and financial security will never bring her happiness. This portrait of unabashed willpower wrapped up in sex and evocation still holds on to its power today, mostly due to Stanwyck's powerful performance as a woman who gains everything only to realize she is still vulnerable. Thrilling, miraculous stuff.

Review: BURIED

2010-10-07T10:27:00.000-04:00

Spending 90 minutes watching nothing but Ryan Reynolds alone onscreen may not sound like your idea of a good time, but let me assure you, his new film, BURIED, which I saw while in Toronto, is an excellent high-concept suspense film that will keep you on the edge of your seat for its entirety. Director Rodrigo Cortez has crafted a one-man show that is smart, inventive, visually stunning and which, given his very literal constraints, allows the main actor room to turn in an impressive and completely unexpected performance.

Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driving contractor in Iraq who wakes up in total darkness, buried alive, with no idea how he is supposed to get out. When he comes to, the film begins, and for the first few minutes, we are all alone in the dark with only heavy breathing and panic setting in. Then, there's the sound of a Zippo, and a flicker of light. Flashes of the coffin and the person in it slowly come into focus for us once the lighter remains lit for a longer stretch of time. There is nothing but Paul, the coffin, the lighter, and a cell phone he discovers laying next to his body.

From this predicament, Paul tries every conceivable trick: calling his employers, calling his wife, calling the FBI, and each time he is met with further frustration. And then people actually start answering their phones and they are even less help than no answer would have been. The film plays with these moments a lot, with the bureaucracy of the situation showing through in a lot of them. How does an HR office worker react to a call about someone who works for them buried in a coffin? How about the hostage "negotiator" who is barred from contacting or negotiating with the "terrorists" who have captured the victim? These questions are mired in layer after layer of sweat and dirt as Paul maneuvers through them all.

Rodrigo Cortez's direction (he was also editor) is superb. During the Q&A in Toronto, he revealed that they actually built seven coffins to shoot in and around so they could get all of the angles - not entirely unlike the boxing rings built by Scorsese for RAGING BULL in order to provide different psychological mindsets - and it works to great effect. There's a particularly memorable shot looking down on Paul as the camera just lifts up and up and up, with the sides of the coffin rising for what seems like forever, which puts us right in the moment of helplessness and hopelessness that he's feeling right at that second, buried god-knows-how-far beneath the earth on top of him.

One last thing I loved about the movie: the lighting was all natural. No lighting rigs were used to illuminate the scene, only a lighter, cell phone or whatever else was being used in the scene at the time (Cortez did note that, sometimes, when the lighter was off-screen, they had three of them lit so they could generate enough light to make the shot effective. Still, the flickering is real, the darkness is real, and Ryan Reynolds effectively keeps us in suspense for the full run-time of the movie. BURIED is a high-concept one-man show that is entertaining and worthwhile.

Review: LET ME IN

2010-09-30T17:54:00.001-04:00

It's always a shaky proposition remaking a film that was considered by many to be an instant classic upon its release, but that's exactly the task director Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD) decided to undertake with his latest film, LET ME IN, which isn't so much a remake of the Swedish film as a re-adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel (and his subsequent screenplay adaptation) LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Reeves' new film stands wholly on its own, though as a consequence of its being adapted so closely from the same source material there are many similarities in dialogue, certain sequences, and even mood. This isn't to diminish the American film in any way in regard to the original, and I'm simply making mention of the inevitable comparisons many will make (over and over again) between the two films. I don't really think that's fair to Reeves, or to his actors, or to anyone involved in LET ME IN, which is on its own a superbly crafted film that, though it may tell a tale some may be familiar with, will nonetheless be many viewers' first exposure to all the film(s) and novel have to offer.

The film tells the story of Owen, a bullied kid who lives at home with his mother, who recently separated from his father. They live in an apartment complex in New Mexico, and he spends a lot of time on his own, either in his room, or on the playground in the courtyard, sitting in the snow imagining his revenge on his tormentor at school, who derisively calls him "little girl." He spies a girl moving into the complex one night from his window, and things move from there, with them gradually growing closer despite Abby's insistence that they "can't be friends." Owen undoubtedly finds Abby a bit odd - she smells funny, never wears any shoes, and solves his Rubick's Cube in a day - but he seems to be inexplicably drawn to her as well. Later in the film, we learn a lot more about Abby, and a little more about Owen as well, especially in his relationship to what Abby is and his need to be protected.

What struck me most as I watched the film almost three weeks ago in Toronto was the overall tonal shift Reeves made in transporting the film's setting from Sweden to New Mexico. The cinematography is certainly more stylized, with a much darker lighting set-up than I expected, and that leads to the film feeling much more sinister in its implications. Toward the end of the film, the relationship between Abby and Owen is much heavier than the one shared in the original by Oskar and Eli. This has to a lot to do with some added nastiness about the actual nature of killing people and drinking their blood than we've seen before. In a particularly memorable change in sequence, Abby's reveal to Owen features a full-on attack scene that poses questions about what exactly constitutes a monster, and the morals faced when you learn someone you are close with may be something entirely different than what you imagined.

But the surprises don't end with the simple additions of gorier scenes and different kills, although one such sequence does have a rather fantastic camera maneuver in it as we are stuck in a car that is crashing over a snow-filled bank off the road. The film also offers some fantastic performances by its young cast members, who are full-fledged actors, and not mere "child actors." Chloe Moretz once again proves she is every bit as amazing as she has been hyped to be, and Kodi Smit-McPhee is no slouch either. As Abby and Owen, they are every bit the onscreen pair as Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson were in Tomas Alfredson's film. There is certainly something sweet and endearing going on that is conveyed even through the very thick, sad atmosphere brought to the film by their adult counterparts. They are the perfect balance between knowing adulthood and ignorant youth, and perfectly show us a couple of children who are, literally and figuratively, old before their time. I haven't even gone into the performances by Richard Curtis and Elias Koteas at all, and they were fantastic as usual.

The film drew me in with its similarities and by the end it left me in the same sense of wonder and suspense I had when I finished LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which I will make no secret of being my absolute favorite film of 2008. This is no small feat, and it's one that Matt Reeves pulls off by being unwaveringly faithful to the source material while still taking stylistic risks that American audiences may not necessarily be prepared for, and which serve to form additional layers of depth to a film many people already enjoyed in its first adaptation. Think of it like a companion piece about the same people and with the same themes and tones, but with slightly different viewpoints. It really is quite fun and interesting in its own right.

I also want to single out the score by composer extraordinaire Michael Giacchino, that demonstrates a very nimble approach to scoring a film of this nature, which could come off as a very, very heavy-handed experience. Instead, he toys with creepy choirs while never going full-blown "HEY! THIS IS SCARY!!!" style, and he never rubs anything in for too long or keeps a theme going far past the time the music should have died down. Like his amazing overture at the end of CLOVERFIELD - notable because it was the only score in the film, over the end credits - he has given us a series of compositions that perfectly evoke mood and theme while never intruding upon the space the film needs to properly breathe.

Of course, I could go on and on about the many, many similarities between LET ME IN and its inspiration, but that's not what I want to do. You can surely find that out there on any number of straight-up review and fan sites, and most of them will probably tell you it's not as good as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and not to bother. But I just can't do that. LET ME IN is its own thing, and it doesn't deserve to be diminished in a climate that produces untold hours of absolute dreck every single week. To say that something isn't as good as something that is near-perfect is to say absolutely nothing about it. But to perhaps show how it made me think and react, which I hope to have done here, is to encourage others to give it a chance. It may make a believer out of you that all remakes aren't necessarily bad. After all, there were how many versions of the Dracula story in the past century? And at least a dozen of them are more than worthwhile. Regardless of all that, LET ME IN remains the tender, horrific and very poignant vampire film that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is, and that means that it's totally unlike any other film to come out of the current vampire craze.

TIFF 2010 - Midnight Madness, first three selections

2010-09-13T18:34:00.002-04:00

Toronto is a very user-friendly major city. The entertainment district encompasses a large section of downtown, but most everything is easily walkable. From the Southernmost point in which there are hotels in the area, the furthest theatre takes maybe 45 minutes by foot. It's really quite convenient for a film festival. There are tons of films playing - somewhere around 300 - and most look like they would be worth my time if I had it to spare. The most anticipated portion of the festival's programming before I got here - the always promising Midnight Madness selections at Ryerson Theatre - have held up to my expectations. Today is Monday, and I've only seen three, but they have so far been fantastic and completely unique in many ways in the world of genre filmmaking.

Friday night saw the world premiere of James Gunn's SUPER, an absurdist, ultraviolent, completely irresponsible real-world superhero film starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page. The film plays a lot with convention, including the responsibility a hero has to not kill the people he's constantly beating to a bloody pulp, but throws it out the window for sheer insanity. The third act's super dark tone doesn't quite work with the lighter absurdity that comes before it, but it does help the audience swallow all of the bludgeoning with a wrench that happens earlier in the film, as well as the uncomfortable eroticism of being, essentially, raped by Ellen Page, after one of the filthiest, dirtiest lines of dialogue I've ever heard in a film. Anyone who knows Gunn's work with Troma, or his previous film, SLITHER, has an inkling of what to expect, but this is one difficult flick to take stock of, even by his gratuitous standards.

Saturday night's BUNRAKU, by first time filmmaker Guy Moshe, is a completely unique, wholly original experience that I swear to you is completely unlike anything you've ever seen before. Imagine a pop-up book filtered through Hollywood noir and Hong Kong action filmmaking, and you have a bit of something to work with. SIN CITY through the eyes of Yuen Woo Ping, but with the cinematography of DICK TRACY. In a world where guns are outlawed, all disputes must be settled with fists, and there's lots of dispute settlin'. This will be an interesting film to follow through to a release, because it defies categorization. There are moments of such amazing choreography and stuntwork that it's mind-blowing, but then you remember that it's a highly stylized and streamlined narrative that features some really challenging moments of suspension of disbelief. Wonderful film.

The third night's selection saw Midnight Madness get creepy, with Brad Anderson's (THE MACHINIST, TRANSSIBERIAN) new film, VANISHING ON 7TH STREET. The premise is classic TWILIGHT ZONE set-up, with a darkness spreading and the majority of a city's citizens disappearing with only their clothing crumpled on the ground where they stood. Shadows play an integral role in the terror of the film, organic entities that are attempting to grab up the remaining living souls, who have all wound up together in a neighborhood bar being kept lit by a back-up generator. Hayden Christensen, who I've given plenty of crap for his acting on a lot of occasions, turns in a pretty strong performance, rediscovering the promising chops he showed back before he was cast as young Darth Vader. Thandie Newton's character is a bit one-note, and John Leguizamo's conspiracy-theorist movie theater projectionist is a standout, but he's given too small a role. Honestly, this is one creepy film that, much like Anderson's SESSION 9, utilizes its dark atmosphere to stunning effect. A possible sleeper if it's released wide in the U.S.

The next few nights have some promising fare - John Carpenter's THE WARD and James Wan's INSIDIOUS bring the creepy some more before things get shaken up with RED NIGHTS and THE BUTCHER, THE CHEF, AND THE SWORDSMAN, which I will sadly miss. In any case, MM is really a highlight of the festival for genre fans, as well as anyone looking for something truly outside the box. I haven't written the last of my thoughts on these films here. Look for more in the future.

Essential Listening 02 - "Maybe I Know"

2010-08-24T07:58:00.000-04:00

note: I originally wrote the following article for the website SceneSC.com for an (at the time) ongoing column in which I would discuss songs and artists I loved and spotlight the intermingling of music and imagery. The column never really came to fruition, so I'll be reproducing the unused articles here so they may see the light of day.

This is the greatest pop song ever recorded.

Let that sink in a moment, because I’m dead serious. Greatest. Ever.

Recorded by Lesley Gore in 1964, “Maybe I Know” isn’t her most well-known single (that would be “It’s My Party”) or her most haunting (the magnificent proto-fem statement of self-reliance “You Don’t Own Me”), but it is Gore at her absolute best; a distilled essence of innocence, maturity, love, forgiveness, pop-power and teenage wonder. Try to listen to this song and not feel something - it’s impossible!

Gore’s singles are interesting in that they form a sort of narrative, following Gore’s innocent teen protagonist from first broken heart to independent woman, all on vinyl, and all within two short years. “Maybe I Know” falls right in the middle of this story, an epic in which she’s stung by Johnny and Judy, steals her boy back, and eventually proclaims her identity outside of relationships. She’s the original riot grrrl.

The formation of her personal identity is forged in the first run of the chorus, right up front, in which she proclaims, “Maybe I know that he’s been a-cheatin’ / Maybe I know that he’s been untrue / But what can I do?” She’s still vulnerable, but learning. She’s trying to find the answer outside of the traditional pop-identities shared by women at the time: predominantly the feeling that they’d die without a man to make them whole. What crap.

In 1964, Gore performed for the T.A.M.I. SHOW, a concert film edited together from performances at two separate concert events, and her versions of “Maybe I Know” and “You Don’t Own Me” are particularly memorable. She exudes energy, smiling, swaying, and really belting out the songs. I’ve included the video below for you to check out. The T.A.M.I. SHOW film is one of the key documents of American pop music, and was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2006. For those interested in the full film, there are also performances by James Brown (one of the most remarkable I’ve ever seen), The Rolling Stones, Smokey Robinson and Chuck Barry, among others. It is available on DVD.

Back to the song: make no mistake, this is all Gore’s track. Her performance is flawless, and the music is classic mid-60s girl-group pop. Gore’s voice is one of the most memorable in all of American popular music, distinct and mature, and completely unwavering. The song starts out all bouncy horns and soaring vocal, and over the course of 2:35 minutes, it trancends time and space, then brings us back to Earth again. The experience of listening to “Maybe I Know” is always magical, ethereal, and completely jaw-dropping - it is never any different - and it brings me to my knees every single time. “What can I do?,” indeed.

Essential Listening 01 - "Where The Wild Roses Grow"

2010-08-22T18:35:00.009-04:00

I think my Facebook friends are already tired of me going on and on (and on and on) about just how good this song and video are, and about the perfection of the duet by Cave and Minogue, from subject matter to its final execution, but dammit, I just can’t get enough. This song is something like a religious experience - best experienced by yourself and then shared with others continuously throughout the rest of your life.

In the mid-90s, Cave came up with the idea of doing a full album of murder ballads, which had been a staple on every Bad Seeds album since From Her To Eternity in 1983. Originally conceived as a joke - a sort of over-the-top “obvious” record, meant to be taken ironically - the resulting release is nonetheless a treasure trove of material. In addition to this haunting and oddly romantic song, there’s also the rambunctious barnburner “The Curse of Millhaven” and the devastating, violent and explicit reinterpretation of the essential murder ballad, “Stagger Lee”. But I digress.

“Where the Wild Roses Grow” is the song that makes the album, linking all of the songs together with Cave’s usual semi-crooner persona from this era in his career, the romantic who only sees heartbreak and loss around every corner. Telling the story of a courtship that ends with the man killing his beloved by the riverside after determining she was too beautiful to ever grow old (and also from the point of view of the confused spirit of the deceased, Elisa Day), the song treads some truly disturbing ground, mostly because it’s such a damned gorgeous composition.

As a fan of both Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, the sheer logic of them recording together has never quite made sense (I could do a whole other bit on Kylie album “Fever”, but that’s another beast altogether). But apparently, they had a thing for one another. There’s a rather amazing little short edited together over on YouTube that tells the story of this pairing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFezNxypDK4), and it’s fascinating just to hear the pair of them discuss the song and its legacy. I highly recommend it.

But back to the task at hand. Cave and Minogue’s vocal delivery, surely some of the most amazing to exist in all pop music, is perfection; lightning in a bottle. It’s awful and beautiful and romantic and ugly in only the way a Nick Cave song can be. That this album of songs about ugliness, greed, lust and, yes, murder is a prelude to the heartbreaking and tender follow-up The Boatman’s Call is evident in this very song.

And then there’s the video, which is based on painter John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia”, depicting the scene in Hamlet when Ophelia drowns herself in a river. In the video, of course, Cave is constantly kneeling over his deceased love while she lay in the spot where the wild roses grow. Visually, it’s all soft-focus photography on the gorgeous Minogue, and harsh shadow for the murdering Cave. It sends shivers down my spine constantly.

Masculinity Under a Microscope - Writ Large, preliminary thoughts on VALHALLA RISING

2010-08-01T17:19:00.002-04:00

I recently - and finally - caught Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn's breathtaking new film, VALHALLA RISING, via Video-on-Demand service. Following the pagan warrior One Eye as he accompanies a band of crusaders in their journey to the Holy Land, the film plays out like an odd mixture of brooding uber-masculine Viking epic, with the pacing of a Terrence Malick venture and a dash of 70s Herzog/Kinski madness. In scope, beauty, and pure brutality, I can't say I've ever seen anything truly like it. It's not any one thing, but a mixture of things, and a pure, unadulterated work of imagery and poetry. VALHALLA RISING is definitely not for everyone, but then again, few films are.

The film begins with a sequence depicting One Eye's enslavement to Scottish pagans and the constant hand-to-hand fights he competes in for their sporting pleasure. After being introduced briefly to this situation, and the leaders of the clans discussing the coming Christians marauding the land and massacring the pagan tribes if they don't convert, One Eye escapes in a bloody rage, murdering the party that is to transport him to his new owners and heading off on his own, with the young Are - who fed him in captivity - in tow. It's not long before they come upon the Christians, freshly off a massacre, and still sitting in the area where they killed another clan of heathens.

Instead of either side attacking the other, and thinking they could use a great warrior like One Eye on their side, the Christians invite One Eye to join them in the Crusades as they take back the Holy Land and fight for riches and the Lord. Soon they are journeying across the ocean, and it's at this point the film becomes an increasingly spartan filmmaking exercise; the dialogue all but ceases to exist for long stretches, and the imagery really takes over even more than it had already.

One Eye also has some sort of ability to see events in his future, tinted a bright, bloody red, which makes you wonder if that's how he sees the world - through that blood-red hue. He also carries a bit of a mystical quality about him in that he seems to be able to speak through Are, who constantly answers questions asked of One Eye and makes remarks on behalf of him. This plays out to much stranger effect in the last half hour of the film, when the fates of the party and the events that lead to them play out.

The crew finds land after drifting for days in a fog that seems to have descended upon them for fateful purposes, but it's not Jerusalem, and is filled with lush greenery. Once their party is attacked, two things become apparant: they are in fact in the New World, and are under threat from "primitives" and their pagan companion has brought them to Hell for suffering and death.

The contrast between One Eye and the Christians' reactions to their ultimate location is interesting to consider: One Eye is a warrior, a non-convert, and for him, death can only lead to his place in Valhalla, and some sort of Hell isn't really an option as long as he fought the best he could and died while fighting. But the Christians think they've been corrupted by the pagan, this viking One Eye, and they blame their plight on him, descending into madness, sodomy, murder and, ultimately, their own deaths.

VALHALLA RISING is enigmatic, ethereal and difficult - having seen it twice now I'm still processing most of my thoughts on it. It's completely unlike any other viking epic I've ever seen, and the cinematography is some of the most gorgeous I've ever encountered. During the film's final two acts, slow-motion photography is employed to an extreme, giving the impression of characters walking through sludge to get to their destination. The movements, the expressions on their faces - they're all highlighted in various forms of suffering, coping and acceptance. The essence of VALHALLA RISING is in these final scenes: masculinity, under a microscope, on a large scale. What it says to you - that's the interpretive part.

The Life Of The Mind

2010-07-21T14:51:00.001-04:00

All of this INCEPTION talk has been enlightening and refreshing, and not just in a Facebook status update "that movie blew my mind" sort of way. I'm still a bit on the fence about it, personally, and though I do have some small problems with it, I tend to fall much more squarely on the side of having liked it. The story of a dream heist is too good for me to pass up, given my interests in crime dramas and my own concerns with the nature of memories and how they shape our lives and those of other people. Despite whether or not I like the film or not, the discussion surrounding it justifies its existence on some level, even if you, like many others, find talking about the movie more fun and enlightening than actually watching the film itself.

Of course, as a natural outgrowth of all of this, I've gone back again and again to thinking about dreams and reality and the nature of cinema altogether. As many blogger, commentators, and others have pointed out, a movie is not entirely unlike a dream, in that you enter a fantasy world, usually via a surrogate's experience, and exist within the imagination of the filmmaker for the time you're watching the movie. It's a point the Davids Lynch and Cronenberg have made over and over again in their films. Below is a brief discussion a few of my favorite films concerned with reality, dreams, perception and memory. (Oddly enough, BARTON FINK doesn't make it in here. I just liked using that reference as a title.)

TOTAL RECALL (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)
Arnold Schwarzenneger plays Quaid, a regular guy who dreams of taking a trip to Mars - where he may or may not have been before. In order to get there, he opts for an implant in his brain that will give him the memories of his amazing, romantic, spy-themed vacation. During the course of the procedure, something goes wrong, and he awakens suddenly with very concrete memories of a huge conspiracy that has gone down, and has been covered up by having his brain wiped. All of the pieces begin to fall into place, and before long, we're transported to Mars for real (maybe), and Quaid begins to lay waste to his enemies as he unravels their dirty deeds one by one and helps the "mutants" of the colony reclaim their humanity and rights. Adapted fairly loosely from a Phillip K. Dick story, TOTAL RECALL has aged remarkably well, mostly thanks to pulp-auteur Paul Verhoeven, who infused the story with enough stunning visuals and ridiculous adventure (and that camp humor that anchors all of his films) to make the film stay fresh through repeat viewings. The movie is fairly non-commital as to which parts of it are fantasy and which are reality - the potential is there for several different interpretations - and that's one of its many charms. The dreams in TOTAL RECALL are also structured pretty literally, if they're dreams at all, and though they're fantastic images, there's nothing really hallucinatory about them as they're all based in some sort of physical reality that is easily interpreted as only being slightly outside the realm of possibility. In other words, the dreams are normal science-fiction worlds. Verhoeven is less interested in the perceptions of reality, though, than he is in examining the effects of memory on these perceptions (a common trait among all the best dream films.)

MULHOLLAND DR. (David Lynch, 2001)
In one of the great fractured mind performances ever put on film, Naomi Watts plays Betty / Diane - a mash-up of two personalities, real and imagined - an aspiring actress freshly arrived to Hollywood to live out her dream of becoming a star. Lynch is not a director to shy away from surreal imagery and unexplainable and disturbing themes. His films are maybe best described as being the aesthetic kin to fever dreams, most definitely in the cases of ERASERHEAD and LOST HIGHWAY. To this day I am still freaked out by the oddly creepy homeless man behind the dumpster of Winkies, a typical diner, and the build-up that leads to his reveal. That sequence begins with a discussion of dreams, and a fear of a particular nightmare becoming reality, in which Dan (played by Patrick Fischler, who is well-known to television fans from his stints on LOST, MAD MEN and dozens of guest spots on other shows) finds a monster behind the dumpster that kills him. I won't give away what does happen, but there is indeed a monster to be found, and its relevance in the reality of Watts' character later in the film is as puzzling and mystical as it is profound and, in some ways, moving.

WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (Wes Craven, 1994)
The NIGHTMARE films have always had a firm grasp on the wild and weird world of dream and nightmare imagery, even as they had varying degrees of success at making those worlds interesting, fresh and scary for the intended audience. In NEW NIGHTMARE, original director and series creator Wes Craven returns for the first time in a decade to the characters and the world he forged in the seriously creepy and remarkably dark A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Heather Langenkamp returns as herself as Nancy in a story that sees the child-murderer and, at this point, demonic Freddy Krueger attempting to break through from the celluloid world of dreams into the real world by attacking his oldest nemesis Nancy, who is, of course, Heather. If all of this seems too convoluted to worry about, don't worry, it's not, though describing it to someone could induce headaches in all parties involved. This is one of the most fun meta-excursions into films about films about dreams and all that jazz. Robert Englund has some of his best lines as the character, and the 'reality'-based make-up for Krueger is truly frightening. I wish they had just followed this film up (with Craven behind the scenes) instead of rebooting it into a soul-less, humor-less excursion into boredom and wasting a solid performance by Jackie Earle Haley as the new face of the franchise.

SHERLOCK JR. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
The portion of this film in which Keaton, playing a projectionist in a movie theater, falls asleep while showing a film and dream himself into the movies themselves is inarguably one of the most famous movie sequences ever, silent or sound era. Never lacking in imagination, Keaton's dream world flashes from the film he is screening to a crowded city street, to the mountain ranges of the West, and then to the African plains as he is surrounded by Lions. This may be one of the first such instances drawing the parallel between the nature of dreams and the nature of film itself, though it's certainly not the only silent-era film to do so. There are more amazing evocations of dreams in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, and Carl Th. Dreyer's early sound film VAMPYR, which features proto-Lynchian imagery and disjointed editing techniques to specifically and subtly cause an uneasiness in the viewer.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME's Disquieting Charms

2010-07-19T17:23:00.000-04:00

Casey Affleck's portrayal of Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford in Michael Winterbottom's THE KILLER INSIDE ME is probably the single most amazing performance I've seen this year. It's a total embodiment of a horrible character that's as memorable, disturbing and thought-provoking as Daniel Day-Lewis was in THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but more subtle and unassuming. Lou Ford, much like Robert Ford, is the perfect role for the younger Affleck, and it continues a string of amazing performances in low-key, provocative dramas since his appearance in brother Ben's masterful GONE BABY GONE. His performance is the center of this film, with all of its menace and traditional noir overtones radiating outward from the essence of the unnameable evil that surely exists in Lou.

The film is without a doubt one of the creepiest and most disturbing movies to come out this year, which is surprising considering the unusually high number of creep-fests unleashed on audiences in the past few months (SPLICE, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE). But creepiness aside, I find myself constantly returning to it as a purely unforgettable viewing experience. I can't shake it - it's under my skin, and it's going to stay there. Everything about it is pitch-perfect.

Adapted from what is probably the rowdiest novel I've ever read (the passage where Lou describes beating his girlfriend's face as being like hitting a pumpkin is the most graphic thing I may read in my lifetime), Jim Thompson's blacker-than-black noir THE KILLER INSIDE ME, this is a film that, quite literally, pulls no punches on its audience. From the opening, which is full of gorgeous retro-styled freeze-frames and features the haunting use of Little Willie John's version of "Fever," it's obvious that Winterbottom has crafted an altogether different sort of film than what we're used to seeing for an American audience.

The film has been attacked for its ultraviolent murders (see my previous write-up: "Strange Bedfellows"), which are brutally realistic, but they work to great, sickening effect, but which mostly feature the women Lou Ford ostensibly has feelings for on some level. Affleck brings a quite menace to these scenes, and his innocent, boyish features may contain the key behind some of the critiques lobbed at the film. After all, how can someone so nice, even as purposefully nice (and in some moments of pitch-black humor, extremely biting) as Lou is. In some ways, the "nice guy" persona is played off much like in the television show DEXTER, which also concerns a cold-blooded killer that is intent on keeping people off his tracks, but Lou isn't really likable, so this may not be an entirely apt analogy.

For me, the scene that most singularly makes the film is right as Lou delivers the final blow to Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), a prostitute who is probably the only person Lou actually cares about in the film (though the killer inside him definitely does not). After punching her repeatedly in the face, at which point bone is visible through her gored and broken skin, he tells her not to worry, "it'll all be over soon," and then he delivers a few more crushing blows as she falls over onto the floor, being beaten to near-death before the arrival of Elmer Conway, his second (and main) target in the planned double-murder that sets the film in motion. Still, after having her skull pounded like so much flattened steak, it's the fact that, in both book and film, Joyce still has that compassionate, loving look in her eyes. Only moments beforehand she had been planning to run away with Lou after stealing a load of cash from Elmer's father, but even as her dream is slowly fading from her reality, along with her life, she just can't believe that Lou is doing this to her. It's an absolutely chilling point to make: no one believes Lou capable of such things, even those he is doing them to.

But back to Affleck, who really makes this scene tick. He's cold, calculating, and goes about the savage beating in a very methodical way. Lou's detached from what he's doing at this point, and it's only when he sees Joyce's eyes that he offers solace in the only form he can: assurance that he's going to end the pain soon. That brief exchange allows Lou to break through the killer, and I think it's probably the only time in the entire film (and the book) that he realizes that he actually does care about this woman on some level. And then he kills her. Brutal stuff. That, in essence, is THE KILLER INSIDE ME: Haunting, unflinching, and ultimately unforgettable.

It's difficult to say why this film got under my skin. Maybe it's my deep love for the Noir genre, and for Jim Thompson's creation. This is by far the best and truest adaptation of his work, even counting Stephen Frears' THE GRIFTERS. I can't stop thinking about Affleck. I can't stop thinking of his first, second and third murders (his gut-punch and head-kicking of his respectable girlfriend/fiancee Amy Stanton is just as brutal as that of Joyce). I can't stop thinking of how he seems just like a nice guy, but with a seriously dark urge that he is helpless against. I don't mean that the killer part of him is entirely separated from his conscious, just that it makes up the majority of a completely subdued personality that he doesn't let out in public. Logically, he knows he probably shouldn't kill people - after all, why would you cover it up or care about how you're perceived - but that doesn't stop his own logic that people have to die. "No one has it coming," he tells the teenage boy in his jail cell right before killing him, "That's why nobody can see it coming." In the case of Lou Ford, that is 100% correct.

Strange Bedfellows: A Double Feature of the Grotesque

2010-07-18T14:09:00.001-04:00

I love when films come along that are deemed immoral or have claims made against them that they glamorize violence and really serve no purpose. This just reinforces the reasons for these films to exist: to push boundaries, make people uncomfortable with what they're seeing, and to provoke thoughts about what exactly are the roles that violence (in all its forms) play in our day to day lives. While this may be evident in the discourse a film like THE KILLER INSIDE ME is having with the moral assumptions within every day society, being set in reality, and completely subjective in its point-of-view of a seemingly normal man who does unspeakably horrible things, it is also useful to understand that violence and its role in society has long been the territory of the horror film, and that Tom Six's THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, for all its over-the-top shock value, is a perfect example of what power the visual realization of horrific circumstance on film can have on an audience, and how important it is that such images exist to provoke and disgust.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME, director Michael Winterbottom's dark noir adaptation of the pitch-black novel by Jim Thompson is the stronger of the two films in question, but with the pedigree behind it, that's not terribly surprising. We're given small-town Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (another absolutely spell-binding performance by Casey Affleck), who appears normal, and even knows and explains to the audience how he's appearing normal, to everyone around him, but who nonetheless has the impulses of a psychopath, and who isn't afraid to act on them when need be. As Lou descends into an ever-growing spiral of sexual assault and murder, mostly in order to preserve his innocent status, the film forces the audience to experience his acts in the most visceral manner: explicitly, visually, and unflinchingly.

Winterbottom has never been a director to shy away from utilizing the medium's advantage of being able to give physical life to something that otherwise could only be imagined. From the literal visions of Tony Wilson in 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, to the explicit sexual relationship catalogued in 9 SONGS, and the very visual representation of adapting an unadaptable work (more successful than even ADAPTATION) in TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY, he is consistently one of the most confrontational directors for an audience to enter into a discourse with, specifically designing his films to provoke and push the viewer into places they may not be comfortable in, but which nonetheless serve to make them think about what they're watching.

The scenes in THE KILLER INSIDE ME that leave everyone so disgusted and puzzled as to just what the film is supposed to be telling us are the scenes in which Lou Cobb brutally murders his lovers, who he may or may not actually have any feelings for, but whom he nonetheless must kill in order to satisfy his need for personal survival. The first murder in particular, of the prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba), who Lou seems to regret his actions toward the most after they are complete (though he analytically decides there was really no other option), is exceptionally disturbing. As part of a plot to get personal vengeance while also making a little money, he repeatedly beats Joyce in the face, her skin eventually giving way and exposing some of the bone underneath. While this is definitely brutal enough, what I think most people find most repulsive is the desire for Joyce to kiss her lover and attacker one final time, and the fact that he does it. The fact that all of this happens just after they've had sex so he could say goodbye to her only compounds this disgust.

But what does it all mean? I think that, aside from attempting to tell us about society at large, these scenes are meant to get us thinking about how we process violence on a personal level. What is more disturbing: to see this woman brutally murdered by the man she loves, and who apparently loves her on some level alien to those of us without a psychological disorder, and that she continues to love him despite his faults and the fact that she is very well on her way to death, or that we can watch countless action films where hundreds of people die and not feel anything at all about whatever brutal ways they meet their end? I think both are equally disturbing, and neither is more condemnable than the other. In fact, I think that both serve very visceral purposes for the viewer: thrills that are meant to provide some sort of release, whether it's one of disgust, or one of some sort of vindication. Maybe both at the same time, and in varying levels.

Before getting into THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I'd like to address something that has been said of both films: that they are in some way misogynistic fantasies. I don't know that this is necessarily an incorrect assessment of the films in some way, though I feel it oversimplifies and disregards a whole lot of other things the films are interested in or seek to provide some sort of insight into. To simply say that a film is demeaning to women completely disregards the fact that sometimes the demeaning portrayals of certain acts toward female characters may come with the intent (and I think very easily noticeable) to deliberately make the audience feel disgust at the ways in which these characters are treated. Why are women treated this way on film? What advantage would a filmmaker have to simply make a film that absolutely does not care in any way about its female characters? Is it the responsibility of the filmmaker to curb the possible or supposed interpretations of how "cool" some behavior may or may not be to the audience? To the latter, I think absolutely not. To the rest, I think these are things that must be considered at all times.

People lobbing accusations of completely pointless existence at THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE seem to be missing a bit of the point: the film is much more interesting if read as a companion piece to a film implicitly interested in showing violence to its audience like THE KILLER INSIDE ME (or HOSTEL, or A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, or anything else). Rather than dwelling on the fact that the victims are women, which is important, and which I want to discuss a bit more shortly, assume for a moment that you are shown the actual "violent" scenes of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Well, for one, they're completely antiseptic medical scenes, and in most cases you can find more graphic representations of surgical procedures on any number of television hospital dramas. Aside from a few incisions, the most violent scenes involve gunplay and a couple of instances of physical altercations during escape attempts. This is actually pretty standard fare for any number of films. Second, four of the six victims in the film are male: two abductees, same as the women, and two police officers in the climax. That the women get the worst treatment, in that they form the second and third portions of the centipede, is kind of a hollow argument, in that it's all pretty horrible, no matter where you are in the warped creation.

In any case, I think that the key to what THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is about is in the pivotal performance of Dieter Laser as Dr. Heiter, a stock mad-scientist with a diseased mind character. Laser's interpretation is chilling, in that Heiter enjoys what he's doing more than anyone logically could, and is obsessed not with killing people, but in furthering the field of biomedical surgery. It's a concept that is interesting in its implications, given not only that Heiter is of course German (and the ties to actual biological questions infamous Nazi doctor Mengele posed and attempted to answer), but that we are, as a society, constantly attempting to find ways to prolong and save lives by forcing our bodies to accept foreign biological elements (i.e. - another person's body parts) into our own ailing frames. Arguably Tom Six's twisted little horror film is more interested in bio-ethics than in creating any sense of horror at all, though it definitely succeeds on that level as well.

The key to understanding these films (and any others like them), I feel, lay in attempting to understand ourselves within the context of what we're watching. And while you can certainly find them to be murky, problematic, or in some cases completely non-existent, it's at least a more worthwhile exercise to think about why we are shown what we are shown than to simply dismiss it as something that shouldn't be shown to begin with, for any reason whatsoever. There may very well be no moral compass at work within a film like THE KILLER INSIDE ME, and certainly there is less of one to be found in THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, but that doesn't discount what they may tell us about our own sense of morality, or the world we inhabit, and who we inhabit it with.

In Dreams: Thoughts On and Discussions of INCEPTION

2010-07-18T12:28:00.001-04:00

I saw INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan's mostly brilliant new film, on opening night this past week, and was thoroughly entertained. I think he may be popular cinema's most consistently interesting auteur of what I like to call the "Thinking Man's Blockbuster." And while I may not be a fan of every single choice Nolan makes, I find all of them interesting, especially his missteps and what they may tell us about his films more than what actually works in them do, and the discussions they lead to in the online world. (Though you shouldn't really be surprised if you frequently read my blog, I feel it's actually necessary to point out that there are really big spoilers below, and on most of the links I'll provide, so if you have some fear of such things, please make note of this now).

For instance, there's some hullabaloo currently happening in the film blogging network that has sparked some serious and refreshing debate. The argument centers mainly on two things: first, that INCEPTION's "dreams" don't actually operate in the strange, illogical way that real dreams do, and second, that there's no emotional connection to any of the characters (or emotional logic to the supposed revelations they have) during the course of the "mechanical" plot (see Jim Emerson's thought-provoking discussion for an overview and to join the fray, especially comments by long-time contributors to the discussion Matt Zoller-Seitz and Christopher Long for the most interesting threads of debate).

What strikes me most about the discussion are the comparisons being lobbed about to other dream movies, amid the denial of total fans that the movie isn't "about" dreams at all. This is a point I agree with, and mostly feel that if anything, the entire movie and all of its mechanics are a McGuffin for working through Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) hang-ups about his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). Arguably, everything we see in the film is a construct of Cobb's imagination, a perpetual dream state that he either got lost in during his own experimenting, or by choice over the guilt of what he may or may not have done to his wife. The flip side is that there's actually a layer of reality in all of this, which I don't ascribe to, and which I'll get into in more detail later on. What is fascinating to me is that a lot of the criticisms of Nolan is that he is too literal in his dream-world.

As many have pointed out, the dreams within INCEPTION aren't really dreams at all, but literal constructs of an architect, who is out to deliberately fool the subject's subconscious into not realizing it's under attack and having a normal dream state. Well, given this, why would dreams appear to the audience of the film appear to be anything other than that? There's absolutely nothing in the film to suggest that the dreamer is privy at any time to the knowledge that they're dreaming, and who knows what his dreams are like while he's wandering around inside of them? Aside from the "Mr. Charles" episode, which actually does play out a bit like a surrealist dream state of lucid and conscious dreaming (I'm thinking of the sudden appearance of rain outside the hotel as water starts hitting the faces of the dreamers in the above level as the van is under attack), appropriating incidents from the previous reality into the current dream state. Think of this like every time you awake with a jolt from your leg falling off the couch, or have to go to the restroom after waking up from a dream in which you were about to, etc. I think this sort of interplay between "real" dreams and constructed dreams works fairly well within the rules set up by Cobb and Ariadne (Ellen Page) at the beginning of the film. Why some of these rules are disregarded by the end of the film is exactly why I think the entire film is a dream state of Cobb's making.

The biggest thing that stems from the ending and its implications: not only does the top continue spinning, but there's absolutely no reason it should fall. Upon going back over the film in my mind, I've discovered this really is the only outcome, and the biggest clue is the top, Mal's totem, itself. In an early scene, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is explaining the concept of a totem to Ariadne, and says that it should be a personal object that grounds its holder to reality, and which only the holder should know the specifics of, in order to avoid being unable to distinguish the dream from reality, and potentially becoming stranded in their subconscious. So where is Cobb's totem? We only ever see him with Mal's top, which at the point it becomes handled by him, has been compromised. This can only mean one thing, really: Cobb is trapped in a dream state just like he fears Mal was (and really, does this mean that maybe Mal actually left the dream world for real and the idea that spread in his mind was that dreaming was reality?) Or, was Mal even real at all? Is Cobb simply dreaming a better existence than what he may have had outside in "the real world"? I don't know that I can answer any of those questions, but they're certainly interesting things to ponder.

Going back to my original thoughts about the dream mechanics and how literal they are, the utter disregard shown by Cobb at all times for these rules, from constructing dreams of his wife from his memories to the risks he takes by delving into Limbo on, apparently, at least two levels in order to save Saito (Ken Watanabe), also shows that the film's reality is also a construction of Cobb's: if he's dreaming, then the rules can change from moment to moment whenever its necessary to progress the lie he's telling himself, no matter what the lie may or may not be or mean to him personally or the audience watching the movie. While this may be sloppy storytelling mechanics, I think it definitely makes a case for the dreamworlds within INCEPTION to be a bit more dream-like and transient than they may appear at first glance, even with the presence of an architect that builds them into labyrinthine constructs meant to trap the dreamer and keep them from discovering the truth that they are, in fact, dreaming.

I don't want to seem like I'm lavishing too much praise on the film, though. I do think that there are some extremely imaginative sequences, including all of the shifting- and zero-gravity stuff with Arthur toward the end of the films and the concept of actually creating stable dream states (which is what most of the critics seem to have problems with, acceptably so, I'll point out - not everyone has the same interests). But, as with all of Nolan's films (including both Bat-flicks, despite my assumed "fanboy" status), I have some problems of pacing and the existence of far too much exposition in dialogue form rather than simply utilizing film to do what it does best: show us what we need to know. I also think that its similar psychological territory to that certain earlier-this-very-year DiCaprio thriller, SHUTTER ISLAND, is too much to ignore. They would certainly make very interesting viewing partners, even if one were only interested in dissecting strengths and weaknesses between the two.

What all of this means to the current discourse, I can't say just yet. I know that I'm genuinely interested in the back-and-forth this particular film is providing for us all, and I'm looking forward to being able to discuss the similar (and dissimilar) parts of INCEPTION and any number of "dream"-related films that have already been brought up in context: TOTAL RECALL, eXistenZ and any number of Cronenberg films, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, etc, etc, etc. In parting, I'll leave you with this thought: is a film that sparks so much debate and academic/professional interest really that bad of a film to begin with?

*****
For further discussion and context, check out my friend Julia Rhodes' very positive review of the film over at California Literary Review, where she shares some similar but slightly different thoughts and responses to mine, as well as Jim Emerson's previous essay on Nolan's film THE PRESTIGE, again on his ::scanners:: blog.

IRON MAN 2: Exactly As It Should Be

2010-06-22T20:04:00.001-04:00

Reading all of the online articles posted about it, you'd think this Summer blockbuster season was populated by a bunch of really awful films being released on a very well-informed and comparably underwhelmed movie-going public. I don't think it's nearly as dramatic as all that. Sure, there have been tons of really bad flicks, buy what month goes by in theatrical releases when that isn't true? What really bothers me, though, is that aside from the actually pretty bad and disappointing movies, there is one really big one that everyone is describing as a huge letdown: IRON MAN 2. I don't get it.

IRON MAN 2 is exactly the film it should be, especially when taking the first film into consideration along with the rules of the sequel. We had a largely-uknown hero get his due from the audience, in a light, much more character-centric take on the superhero genre, that featured some really amazing special effects, and a charismatic star turn from Robert Downey, Jr. The sequel is bigger, has more action and more special effects, features more quips and one-liners from its star, further establishes and expands the mythos and world of the Marvel films, and is a really fun ride, even if it does do a bit of wandering. But these are all things that seem to cause problems for people. A major complaint is that it has too much going on. I disagree. I think that, for its aims, it may actually do too little.

This time out, Stark is being attacked by a vengeance-obsessed Russian (Whiplash/Mickey Rourke, who I'll get to a bit later), an arms-dealer competitor hungry for the Iron Man tech (Justin Hammer/Sam Rockwell), the government and, by extension, the military, and his own body, which is being slowly poisoned by the very technology that's keeping him alive. On top of all of this, though, this second film is also the set-up for the next two years of Marvel releases, teasing Captain America and Thor with weapon cameos, nods direct and indirect to S.H.I.E.L.D., and most of all, setting up Tony Stark as an integral part of this universe. That's a lot of stuff to cram into a two and a half hour run time, and Favreau does a pretty good job of getting it done, especially considering the fact that it's fun and engaging.

The whole film plays a bit loose, and if it seems to only get its story going about forty minutes in, well, it should. Stark is a loose character, always a bit flighty, and I really enjoy the fact that, unlike most big superhero flicks, it doesn't always feel like he has some sense of duty. He's got an ego the size of Texas, easily, and he thinks he can get away with anything. Some of the best parts of the movie have nothing to do with anything other than Tony being Tony: genius savant, ladies' man, egoist. Just the sight of him eating a hangover donut in the Iron Man suit after an out-of-control party and showdown with his best friend, or his perfect interplay with Pepper Potts, or his completely devastating and quite funny showdown in a Senate hearing is enough to keep me coming back for more. This allows the film some much-needed room to breathe, which is what a lot of these pictures lack.

I also felt much more acclimated to this style during the second time I watched IRON MAN 2. It flows a lot better than I thought it did, and even the final battle doesn't seem like as much of a let-down in how brief it is. I think I initially suffered from what a lot of people who saw it did: high expectations. The difference is that now I've seen that it in fact met all of my expectations, and perhaps even surpassed them. It's not a disappointment in any case.

As for the film doing too little with certain things, it just feels a bit too small. Whiplash is an interesting character, but we get too little time with him. I wanted more of his bloodlust. It's also a shame that he doesn't end up with ties to some of the super-villains that I know are coming up in the future films (AVENGERS and, hopefully, IRON MAN 3). I also think that there could have been some more time spent on S.H.I.E.L.D. We're introduced to Black Widow, but what's her role in the organization? She has some really great scenes, but the character is held back too much. Nick Fury's two scenes are played mostly for comic effect and to set up the next films, but he's still a mystery. But, maybe I'm alone here. I did, after all, think that Peter Jackson's KING KONG could have used an extra ten minutes or so.

In any case, I think IRON MAN 2 is perfectly fine as a sequel. It's not a well-oiled machine, but it has to be understood within the context that Marvel isn't attempting a single franchise here. If the focus were only on Stark/Iron Man, the film would probably have been greatly streamlined. The film, however, doesn't have any particularly deep flaws aside from a bump here or there. As a Summer blockbuster, it's exemplary. It's exactly what it should be, if not what I expected the first time around.

Blurbs

2010-06-20T13:08:00.000-04:00

Here's a smattering of things I've seen recently. Some I'm lukewarm about, but overall I mostly liked these selections; just didn't have enough time for full-on write-ups. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, a new installation of my regular column, Blurbs:

GET HIM TO THE GREEK (2010)
This offshoot of the very funny FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is the first big comedy of the year that I've wholeheartedly enjoyed, not that I didn't also find COP OUT and DATE NIGHT to be worthwhile diversions in an otherwise unimaginative summer schedule as well. Maybe it's my affinity for Aldous Snow, the burnt-out, drug-crazed rock star played by Russell Brand, or maybe it's the face that I have yet to tire of the almighty "Apatow machine" branding. Either way, I laughed a lot, and if the film has a small weakness, it's that its heart just didn't seem as big as the best of the crew's productions. I really loved an extended stopover in Vegas that goes into really unexpected territory, as well as serves for the end-film gag of Infant Sorrow's new song: "Furry Walls". Also of hilarious note is the fact that Snow's band, Infant Sorrow, have also released a real-world album (which also serves as the film's soundtrack). Pick that up if you're at all interested - there are some real gems on that release.

LAND OF THE LOST (2009)
Nowhere near as awful as I'd heard. Watched this one lazy afternoon on HBO, and really kind of admired its oddball qualities. Will Ferrell is reliably funny, and I love Danny McBride's constant "variations on an ignorant and clueless hick" routine enough to give him a pass, though I do wish he'd start branching out a bit. It does toy around with (and in a few instances mock) the beloved TV show, but who cares? I had zero expectations, and I was amused for a couple of hours. That's good enough for me. After all, I could've been watching yet another "___ Movie" movie.

THE BACKWOODS (2006)
I missed out on this Gary Oldman / Paddy Considine thriller when it came out, but man am I glad I finally got around to seeing it. Part STRAW DOGS, part X-FILES episode "Home", and just a little bit of DELIVERANCE, THE BACKWOODS is pretty powerful revenge-thriller stuff. You know, I've followed Considine ever since his performance in Michael Winterbottom's 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, and I really wish he worked more, and gained at least the reputation that Oldman has. He thrives in these dark dramas, so maybe someone like Fincher could pick him up stateside for some work? In any case, the usual Oldman rule applies here, too: he's all badass, and then he dies. Anyone familiar enough with his work knows this rule, so that's not really a surprise or a spoiler. Anyway, this is riveting stuff, highly recommended.

BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956)
Nicholas Ray's underseen masterpiece is a revelation. A broad expose on the "Father Knows Best" era of the American nuclear family, the film hinges on an unbelievably riveting James Mason as Ed Avery, a school teacher with a possibly fatal affliction who becomes addicted to an experimental drug called cortisone. The drug causes wild mood swings, and eventually begins changing his personality completely, transforming him from a loving father figure into a monstrous despot who starts to loathe his wife and see that there is no way his son will turn out better than he is now, so it would make better sense just to kill him. Walter Matthau turns in some impressive side-character work as Ed's coworker who tries to help his family get their patriarch back on the right track. It features breathtaking CinemaScope cinematography by Joe McDonald (PANIC IN THE STREETS, PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET) that really utilizes his experience in Films Noir as well as the expansiveness of the CinemaScope format (the screenshot above is in proper aspect ratio). If you've never heard of this film, seek it out. It was recently issued on DVD and BluRay by Criterion, and it features some typically insightful special features as well as a gorgeous picture and sound transfer. This is one to own - trust me.

"I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are": THE RUNAWAYS

2010-06-18T23:36:00.001-04:00

I may be going out on a limb when I say this, but THE RUNAWAYS, Floria Sigismondi's adaptation of the book NEON ANGEL by Cherie Currie (with obvious input from other sources as well), which details the rise and fall of the all-girl rock group, is an hour and forty-five minutes of exhilarating storytelling experimentation within a genre that has become all too stale in recent years. What some may see as lacking in forms of context, I think is invigorating. There are things that Sigismondi all but ignores in the film, mainly in the way she handles the exact level of fame the group achieves, that leave an enigmatic and half-baked feeling, but gets a whole hell of a lot more bang for her buck in terms of character and feel. This is a film as preoccupied with the aesthetics of storytelling as it is with actually telling the story of five young girls who grew to be one of the most important rock acts of all time.

Kristen Stewart is Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning is Currie. Both are unbelievably good, with Fanning carrying a lot of the film's emotional weight, and performing a fairly provocative role at the same age as her real-life counterpart when the group started. The relationship between the two girls is explored in reasonable depth, but plenty is left floating out in the ether, too, which I rather appreciated. It left me thinking about them a whole lot after the film was over, and how amazing it was that this band happened at all given its totally disparate band members. As the film (and the book) make pretty clear, a lot of that had to do with producer Kim Fowley, who coaches the girls on how to think with their cocks, exploit male physical attraction, and defend themselves against stage debris, all while helping them write songs and create an on-stage presence. The Runaways as an all-girl rock band may have been Jett's idea, but there is no doubt that they were Fowley's baby.

There's an amazing sequence mid-way through the film where Jett and Currie hook up while on tour. It's not really anything explicit, but all of the eroticism and drug-fuelled desire of it really makes it stand out. The scene's all reds and blacks and flesh, and the constant throbbing of Iggy Pop. It's one of the closest approximations to the feel of passionate sex I think I've ever seen, and all while basically showing a lot of close-ups of arms and one very quick and smoky kiss between the two girls. And, better yet, the fact that it is two girls isn't played up at all - it's all completely natural and un-attention grabbing, which may be why it really hasn't been mentioned much by the press. What I like here is the expressionism of the scene. It's all about mood and not about act. And it works.

And that's not the only time the film plays around with things. Rather intentionally or unintentionally, the only time there's a taste of how big the group has actually gotten is its foray into Japan, where Curry dons her famous leggings and corset, and even that is basically relegated to a performance of "Cherry Bomb" and a scene in the dressing room when a group of screaming fans breaks through the glass door and chases the girls down.

Otherwise, the film focuses on drug use, battling egos (especially Curry's of mythological proportions), and girls raising hell. It's not perfect, but I like this approach to detailing the rise and fall of such a misunderstood and important band in the history of rock music as The Runaways really and truly are. By the time the fall part of it all comes around, it's not quite as big a shock because you've already witnessed the girls at each others' throats for the last half hour, and the battle between Cherie's loyalty to her work and to her family at home, and it all flows logically and never becomes completely routine.

The performances in the film are all pretty great, but I was particularly impressed with the two leads. Stewart and Fanning are pretty great as Jett and Curry, and have an energy that buoys the film throughout. Fanning has really come into her own as an actress, and she does some great work here, adding real psychological depth to a character that could have easily been treated like a cartoon. As for Stewart, I've known since PANIC ROOM that she had the ability to seriously act in her somewhere, but all of her post-stardom work (even in ADVENTURELAND, which I like quite a bit) seems to consist of the same boredom infused lip biting that makes up so much of the character of Bella in TWILIGHT. Apparently all it takes to make her act is to put her in something she actually gives a toss about.

A quick word about Michael Shannon, too, the fabulous actor who really wowed me back in 2006 in William Friedkin's BUG. His portrayal of Kim Fowley is spot-on, flawless really, and backed up 100% by interview footage of the real Fowley and Joan Jett at the time. But it transcends mere impersonation, and he really comes into his own with the character of Kim - someone who is flamboyant, racy and really couldn't give a shit. He is fantastic. Michael Shannon is one to keep your eyes on.

I don't think I've really done this film justice here. I really loved it. Is it perfect? No, it's not, but I'll take imperfect and interesting any day over glossy perfection that just bores me to tears. Seriously, in my honest opinion, THE RUNAWAYS is worth seeing just for that Stewart/Fanning sequence with Iggy Pop. That's pure cinema, and you can't say that about many other biopics out there.

Of Fleshy Blobs and Bio-Ethics: SPLICE (2010)

2010-06-15T18:45:00.000-04:00

Thankfully, there's Canada.

Without their particular brand of crazy, I don't know where the sci-fi/horror genre would be. Sure, there are the French, but that's another thing altogether. No, the Canadians have had this market cornered for decades now, with David Cronenberg's body horror oeuvre being most prominent, and now we have SPLICE, directed by CUBE mastermind Vincenzo Natali.

SPLICE follows superstar geneticists Elsa and Clive (a terrific Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody), who are also a happy couple, and their attempts to splice a new creature together and track down an enzyme that is a gateway for all kinds of cures. So, we have Fred and Ginger, two slug-like organisms who are apparently far more complex creatures, who bond ("imprint") with one another, and who are extremely successful at producing the protein that the pharmaceutical company is looking for.

After this success, Elsa and Clive want to move on to human splicing - the next logical step - but are told no by their big-pharma employers, who want them to shut down their operation and attempt to synthesize the protein now, so they can start making some money off of their years of research. And of course, Elsa and Clive ignore all of this ad create the thing anyway, "just to know that they can." Things are never as simple as they seem in these movies, and inevitably, they decide to put off destroying their creation, and stuff eventually goes very, very wrong.

And then the film becomes absolutely, thrillingly insane. I mean it: crazy.

After the initial shocks of the experiment - the premature birth, the rapid development of the creature, their fear of its potentially deadly abilities - Clive and Elsa decide to keep it, especially once Elsa becomes attached to it, and gives it a name, Dren, which is significant ("nerd" backwards) in that it stems from a discovery she makes while bonding with "her."

The decision to assign a gender to Dren is a significant one, because it fuels a lot of the most intriguing questions the film raises. It also makes complete sense, given the fact that during one of the most amazing sequences, while dancing with Dren, Clive notices Elsa's features in her, leading to the realization that the human DNA spliced into her was not some random donor, but was in fact her own way of having a child (a subject brought up by Clive, but which disinterested Elsa, perhaps as not being "enough" for her). This realization is where the film completely changes into something profoundly interesting, with Dren developing self-awareness, drawing conclusions about relationships, and, of course, typical adolescent urges.

The resulting final hour of the film is packed with questions and ideas about bio-ethics, relationship dynamics, greed, species and gender identities, sexual ethics and so much more it's mind-boggling. I was so breathless by the time I left the theater that I felt like I had just run a marathon (the way I feel after watching Cronenberg's films, too).

Now, I'm not going to spoil much of anything for you, but I will give this piece of information: the relationship between Dren and Clive sets all of this in motion, and it's one of those oddly erotic moments that you're quite simply unsure of at the time. The model and sometimes actress Delphine Chaneac was no doubt chosen to play the oddly attractive Dren (from the waste up, at least) because the creature is supposed to have some sort of sex appeal. The film thrives on our identification with this thing as a humanoid. It totally works, too, because throughout the narrative, the film consistently plays with who the audience identifies with based on their relationship and reactions toward Dren.

The six or seven college kids behind me hated it. They weren't kids, just immature adults. SPLICE is not a movie for someone who is just looking for a big dumb horror flick (which is acceptable, too), and it certainly is not anything like what you would expect. It is, however, excellent, and then you even get the traditional final reel freak-out horrorshow to top it all of. It's nothing short of brilliant, and easily one of the best films I've seen this year.

George A. Romero's SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

2010-05-27T14:56:00.003-04:00

It seems that with each new installment of his "Dead" films, Romero further solidifies his reputation as the king of so-called "serious" zombie cinema. He is more focused than ever on his life's work and his humanist message. His films have always had a political bent to them, but he seems more conscious of this than ever with his previous film DIARY OF THE DEAD and his new epic, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. The main difference is that he's lost a bit of his cynicism regarding the human race - there's a streak of actual hope in his recent efforts, and his focus (particularly since DAY OF THE DEAD) on the possibility that the undead might have their old memories lurking underneath all that decaying flesh and insatiable hunger has really lent itself to the morality at play in the whole "should we kill them or wait to find a cure" conundrum that sits at the heart of all standalone zombie films (as if no one had ever seen a zombie movie before). In this regard, he's become a storyteller of great empathy, somewhat akin to a latter-day, splatter-centric and less technically masterful Kurosawa, who sees the potential in humanity through all its ugliness.

I've been following and writing about Romero's series for quite some time now, and I'm sorry to say it, but this film is most certainly the beginning of the end. SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is Romero's sixth zombie film, and again the odds are on the dead overrunning the living. SURVIVAL marks two major departures for the director, as well as the series: it's essentially a take on the Western (a showdown between two feuding families on an island over what to do with the dead forms the central conflict of the piece), and it features a character from another film in the series, Sarge Crocket, the National Guardsman who hijacks the protagonists' RV in DIARY.

This really opens up the universe of the series, and fulfills the hopes (somewhat) of late film-theorist Robin Wood, who wrote of DIARY that he hopes to see characters from that film populate later films, though he was speaking mostly in the context of the militant blacks who had taken over the town and supplied the kids with a lot of the stuff that got ripped off by the National Guard. I agree, that would be one of the more interesting sets of people to make a zombie movie about, especially in Romero's super-charged politically relevant mythology.

The plot is pretty basic - in an Earp/McLaury scenario, the island two families of Irish immigrants live on isn't big enough for the both of them, so one has to go. Forced off the island, Patrick O'Flynn takes to ripping off people for passage via boat to the island, which is apparently unknown to anyone who doesn't live in the area. Sarge and the crew he ends up with encounter O'Flynn while trying to flee the mainland, and end up bringing him back to the island. The morality play picks up and goes from there, ultimately ending in a bloodbath, but one that has some real ramifications for where the series goes in the future (Romero has said he only wants to do one more, but we'll see if that's adhered to, or not), particularly in regard to the undead's apparent ability to remember their family members, though this ends with tragic consequences.

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD has been heralded as a let-down by both non-fans and admirers of Romero, but really it's not the bore-fest it's been purported to be. Like most Romero films, there's a healthy layer of cheese that covers everything, from the over-the-top kills and the self-important dialogue (a way of interpreting other "end of the world" films' overwrought mental masturbation, in my opinion, and often bad on purpose), but none of this should be a surprise to anyone who's followed the director's films since CREEPSHOW.

He's a pulp-infused storyteller, more akin to a schlocky EC comic than anything cerebral and "intellectually engaging" on traditional levels. Part of the pleasure of watching SURVIVAL is seeing how Romero blends and synthesizes genre, undermines his own supposed legacy, and continues building upon both at the same time. It may well be the weakest of the "Dead" series, but when you're discussing any horror movie in the same breath as NIGHT, DAWN or the under-appreciated DAY OF THE DEAD, that's not exactly saying anything revolutionary in thought. Compared to the original three films, almost all horror films are completely inferior, and not just those featuring the beloved lumbering undead.

Edit - 5/28/10 3:10 PM:
Check out this interview with Romero that's really quite interesting.

Antici---pation!

2010-05-27T14:05:00.000-04:00

Here's a few that I'm looking forward to. Oddly enough, none of them are really on anyone's radar.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU

This is an odd-ball. Matt Damon plays a congressman, and Emily Blunt a ballerina, who share a romance, but soon find out that they cannot be together due to...a lot of extenuating circumstances. A group of creepy guys in hats start following them around (see also: DARK CITY, KNOWING) that turn out to be some sort of supra-national organization that controls, quite literally, everything on the planet, and that Blunt and Damon's coming together would spell disaster for something that's supposed to happen. It's that perfect paranoid conspiracy that has me hooked, even though I know things like this probably don't really exist - especially with the odd sci-fi bent. Still, I'm into it.

THE AMERICAN

This thriller from Anton Corbijn, who directed the excellent Ian Curtis (Joy Division) biopic CONTROL, stars George Clooney as an assassin on "one last assignment". While this plot development is overused almost to the point of it being a parody, the classy Clooney's keeping me interested - I'll watch anything he does, even if I eventually find it insufferable. The trailer's got some pretty great scenes in it.

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

Gordon Gekko is back, and I'm super-excited. There's been plenty of buzz from Cannes and elsewhere that Oliver Stone's sequel is very much on-point, and that's great news. Some people may have problems with the film, but I don't really care. I'll be there opening weekend.

5 Performances - Val Kilmer

2010-05-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

Whether he's taking on real-world icons, or crafting wholly original characters, when he's on his game, Val Kilmer is a talent to be reckoned with. He's been in Westerns, thrillers, crime-dramas, and even comedies (thought I love it, REAL GENIUS only gets this mention), and has played everyone from gunslingers to fallen porn stars. And then there's my love for him as Madmartigan in Willow, but that's another article altogether. Val's in theaters currently as arch-villain Dieter von Cunth (insert joke, right?) in SNL sketch-cum-feature-length movie MACGRUBER, which I have yet to see, so in honor of his return to the big screen, here's some of the more memorable slices of his career, and, since I like him so much, and because I make the rules, he gets five performances instead of my customary four.

Jim Morrison, THE DOORS
I think Kilmer's under-appreciated in this film, and that may be largely due to the more salacious details surrounding its reception. Some feel it's too schlocky, while fans of The Doors find the film overall to be a bit too slanted to Ray Manzarek's version of things and therefore factually inaccurate. But that doesn't take anything away from the performance Val gives us as Jim Morrison, the poet/provocateur behind one of rock's enduring iconic bands. Maybe it's because of his amazing physical resemblance to the real Morrison, or maybe it's just that he's so damned good in making a sympathetic figure out of a man who was by all accounts a bit off-putting. Morrison had issues with his audiences, constantly clashed with indecency enforcers and there were a lot of mind-altering drugs in use - the brilliant Indian in the desert sequence where all the members of the band are tripping balls was hilariously parodied in WAYNE'S WORLD 2. Stone's film may be imperfect, but Kilmer's spot-on.

Gay Perry, KISS KISS BANG BANG
Shane Black's brilliant buddy action-comedy/noir/Hollywood tale was actually the rebirth of both the careers of Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer (who's gone on to have tons of work since, most of it very good and overlooked), though for some reason Downey's the one everyone paid attention to. Still, Kilmer's turn as the gay P.I. hired to show Downey's actor-impersonating criminal, Harry Lockhart, the ropes in the trade to prep him for a role is where the real money's out. His constant state of incredulity at Lockhart's behavior is hysterical by itself, and really drives a lot of the best reaction moments from Downey. This is a great movie and has two of my favorite actors at the top of their games.

Doc Holliday, TOMBSTONE
This is probably his most popular and impersonated performance, but Kilmer's Southern-gent take on the iconic, tubercular sidekick and friend to Wyatt Earp still remains top-notch interpretive acting work. At once comical and deadly, Doc Holliday is a thrilling character in George P. Cosmatos's blockbuster, action-centric take on the story of the Earps and the legendary status they achieved in the town of Tombstone. With amazing delivery on some of the best trash-talking dialogue in screen history, like "I'm your huckleberry" and "You're a daisy if you do" when taunting Johnny Ringo (a great Michael Biehn) about his threat to kill him in a gunfight, Kilmer's performance goes into instant legendary territory. Is there a person alive who doesn't at least like Doc Holliday in this movie?

Scott, SPARTAN
In David Mamet's 2004 masterpiece (one of several, it should be noted), Kilmer plays Army Ranger Scott (maybe, though he's more black-ops off-the-radar than that, and even hints that he may not be a Ranger after all), who's given the task of tracking down the kidnapped daughter of the President. The film's filled to the brim with the traditionally Mametian double- and triple-crosses, enough twists and turns to effectively fill an album full of '60s car crash tunes, and an ensemble cast that's to die for (Ed O'Neil, William H. Macy, Derek Luke, and Kristen Bell). This was the first major film role that Kilmer had had in quite some time, and it undoubtedly led to him getting further prominent work. As Scott, he's all quiet and troubled subtlety - a man searching for the truth in a sea of corruption that Mamet has a field day with. The scenes between him and the Secret Service agent who was assigned to protect the daughter are especially moving, and Kilmer conveys the exact mood that overcomes Scott and compels him to complete his mission, swimming through all the muck and bullshit and beaurocracy to find the missing girl.

Chris Shiherlis, HEAT
As part of Neil McCauley's heist crew, Chris Shiherlis is a man of principle who is truly in love with his wife, Charlene, but who faces marital problems due to a gambling addiction that continues to fuel his dependence on the criminal life. With long blonde hair, Kilmer portrays Shiherlis as a no-nonsense professional, and at the end of the film when forced to leave his wife behind so he can go on the run and attempt to get free of the ever-tightening noose of the police, it's devastating. "For me the sun rises and sets with her," he says in the film, and it's especially evident in his face as he realizes that he has to go, and that she can't come with him. HEAT is every bit the modern crime epic that it's said to be, though I think some people actually underrate it just a bit. Kilmer's just one of many great performances, and it's arguably the last truly great film Michael Mann made.

Blurbs

2010-05-22T12:44:00.000-04:00

Because no one demanded it, here's a rundown of the past few things I've seen...you know, because I'm either too busy or too lazy to do a full write-up of them.

DATE NIGHT
Tina Fey and Steve Carrell turn in some solid comedic performances in a movie that is better than I expected it to be, but still felt a bit off for some reason I just can't place. Maybe it's the circular plot, or the outlandishness of the premise (despite being firmly grounded by the lead performers' natural demeanor and delivery). In any case, this was an enjoyable action-comedy, with an emphasis on the comedy half of that distinction, and there really are some laugh-out-loud moments - hell, even the usually not very funny "outtakes" at the end of the film contains a great one-liner from Tina Fey. The film also features more than a few really great cameos, and the action actually integrates into the comedy itself rather than sticking out as sore-thumb, tacked-on sequences. I know the trailer made this look like a less than worthy effort from all involved, but it really has been one of the best studio films I've seen this year.

OCEANS
I'm a sucker for nature docs, and this one featured a lot of gorgeous images that really made me want to go back and watch BLUE PLANET again. If you saw last year's DisneyNature release, EARTH, you know what to expect here as we track various animals across the world's oceans. Some of it is really jaw-dropping and magnificent, but there are a few minor quibbles I have as well: not giving us the names of species that only get a scant mention but are peculiar enough to warrant a full segment, and having no coherent storythread (other than, it seems, pollution is bad). Still, if this is your thing like it is mine, then I say see it. If you're looking for in-depth analysis of stuff...Eh.

CABIN FEVER 2
After seeing THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, I was really looking forward to this follow-up to Eli Roth's original. Director Ti West is obviously capable of some top-notch work, but this ain't it. It takes an interesting premise: the skin-eating virus getting into a bottled water supply, but does absolutely nothing with it. Winston, the party-hard cop from the first film, is back and attracting plenty of trouble everywhere he goes, but instead of focusing on his predicament, which would have been fairly interesting, apparently it's a better idea to take us to a high school prom with a lot of uninteresting characters and slowly move toward the end with a lot of vomiting blood and a gory, pus-y penis. And yeah, that's gross and all, but there's nothing here to keep us interested. Blah of the highest order.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)
Jackie Earle Haley is an inspired casting choice for a reboot of the character of Freddy Krueger, but this film takes the awesome possibilities of his performance and squashes it with an absolutely humorless script that changes a whole lot of story elements for absolutely no reason. Nancy's character dynamics for one are completely changed. Her mother's no longer an alcoholic, her father's completely nonexistent, and she's some sort of shut-in weirdo with no real friendships to speak of. Even her love interest (played in the original by Johnny Depp) is deadened, with no chemistry that makes you care whether or not they help each other survive. And then there are the kills, which are so much more sadistic and brutal in the original film that it's almost laughable here. When people should be dragged kicking and screaming across walls and ceilings, or explode in a shower of blood, or any other set piece that got redone here, they float and then get slashed, or have a glove explode through their chest. This is possibly the least imaginative take on the Freddy universe I could have ever dreamed up. I could spend an entire full-length review summing up what's wrong about this movie, but what's the point? I'm done with it.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009)

2010-05-17T11:47:00.000-04:00

Writer/director/editor Ti West's horror flick THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is a slow, brooding and atmospheric exercise in retro horror, never succumbing to post-modern genre tropes like subversion or updating of material. The film is a refreshingly old-fashioned homage, and unlike the work of contemporary retro-shocker Eli Roth, it lacks entirely the irony and self-referentialism most post-SCREAM horror flicks, and it packs in a ton of aesthetic flourishes that would have felt right at home three decades ago. On top of the fact that it looks, feels and even behaves like an early-80s occult horror film, it also manages to be pretty damned good, delivering heavy atmospheric chills and a late-in-the-film freak-out that's quite memorable, and it does so with very little gory, although when the blood does flow, there's plenty of it.

Delivering a knockout debut performance, Jocelin Donahue plays Samantha, a struggling young college student who hopes to move out of the dorm room she shares with her highly sexually active and somewhat slovenly roommate and into a place of her own. In pursuit of this dream, she takes a babysitting job from the Ulman family, a strange clan that lives in the country outside of the college town Samantha is familiar with, despite the protestations of her friend Megan, played by current indie darling Greta Gerwig.

From the start, West demonstrates an economy of storytelling, cramming a lot of character and background information into a very brief period of time. Within the first twenty minutes, we have fully established relationships, fears and motivations, and a good deal of creepy dealings with Mr. Ulman on the telephone that get the proceedings going pretty quickly. And once our heroine is on her way into the woods and unfamiliar territory, the film slowly ramps up the atmosphere, the house itself becomes as much a character as Sarah or Mr. Ulman - a labyrinth of locked doors and strange noises emanating from the bedroom of Mrs. Ulman's mother, the actual subject of Sarah's babysitting job.

Tom Noonan plays the odd and off-putting Mr. Ulman, a tall, lanky man who easily sends the creepy vibe to Samantha, Megan and to the audience while remaining subtle and mysterious. The latter is no easy feat in today's over saturated genre films that feature over-the-top performances on part of the villains. After he successfully recruits Samantha for the job, and has left with his wife for the evening, we are left alone in the big house - empty except for the sickly and supposedly bed-ridden mother, and a whole lot of strange going on.

The house itself - and the secrets that we are given snippets of that Samantha has no awareness of (like the slain family that lies behind a locked door upstairs and the grisly death of her friend Megan) - ratchets up the tension notch by notch toward a horrific climax that shares a place in film history with the overlooked road movie/Satanic horror hybrid RACE WITH THE DEVIL and the (after-)birth scene in ROSEMARY'S BABY for sheer ballsiness of content. It turns out that everything is definitely not what it seems, especially Mrs. Ulman's elderly mother, and Sarah is in great danger because it's the night of the lunar eclipse. And we all know what happens with Satanic cults and eclipses.

The film opens with the statement that the 1980s was a period of widespread belief in the existence of Satanic cults, and proceeds with one of the best title sequences in recent memory, with retro typeface and freeze frames. It feels a lot like a Craig Brewer sequence, actually, which may or may not be a reason I enjoyed it so much. But, unlike a lot of badly put-together titles, it gets the period, tone and character established, and there's not a stupid newspaper clipping in sight to make sure the audience knows what's going on in the world of disappearings or kidnappings or any other such B.S. the studios usually cram into these bits. I have a soft spot for this sort of film, sure, but I do think it's worthwhile, and while not for everyone, it's definitely interesting, and may be a flick that even non-genre fans can get into.

Movies, Morality and ...Wait a Minute...Child Porn?

2010-04-29T11:44:00.000-04:00

The recent kerfuffle over the movie KICK-ASS has me quite ruffled in a professional (as well as admittedly personal) way, mostly due to the completely unfounded attacks and assumptions the discussion surrounding Chloe Grace Moretz's portrayal of Hit-Girl. I'm not going to get into the specific attacks that much, but you can see some of the lunacy, on both sides of the argument, by reading Roger Ebert's misreading of the film (in which he actually says, "Big Daddy and Mindy never have a chat about, you know, stuff like how when you kill people, they are really dead," which, while technically true - those characters never discuss it - it's pointed out several times by other characters to them), as well as checking out my pal Julia's article posted over at the California Literary Review and the comments it received for a small sampling. What's amazing to me is that these arguments seem to have traction with people. Movies are too violent, check. Movies contain too many curse words, check. Movies about teenagers (or children) doing anything violent or swearing are immoral and equate child porn, wait, what?

Yes, you heard me, one of the commenters on the CalLitReview site actually equated the film's portrayal of Hit-Girl (and thereby the young actress who portrays her) as being "child porn." All of this, mind you, without seeing one full scene of the film, and only using other comments about the film from other people as his basis. I could very easily get in on the whole rant about not commenting on a movie's supposed (im)morality if you haven't seen it, but that argument goes absolutely nowhere (see: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, IRREVERSIBLE, PULP FICTION, etc.) What is interesting here, though, is how devoid of context all of this argument is, and how someone like Roger Ebert, whose review says, quite clearly, that the film never mentions how ludicrous all of this is, and that if you enjoy seeing a little girl getting punched and kicked in the face, then you're an immoral person and are undeserving of having your opinion even considered by him.

Film history is full of instances of outrage. Remember when Mae West was scandalous? How about almost all of Tennessee Williams's screen adaptations? How about when people were fearful that the kids would all go out and act just like Brando in THE WILD ONE, or James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, or how about all those horror movies you were told not to watch when you were a kid? Hey, what do you think people were saying about Russ Meyer back in the 60s, when Roger Ebert was palling around with the guy and writing scripts for him? What is really the fear here? And why is it the filmmaker's responsibility to address it? It's not. The filmmaker is an artist in most cases, and even those who aren't are not responsible for someone's misreading of their work, no matter if it's a kid who takes a gun to a school, or a person who dons a mask and treks through the night killing scantily clad virginal teenagers.

Well, in the case of some of the arguments, I think it's because KICK-ASS is a fairly easy movie to have a misreading of. I guess if you go about looking for things you think are fetishized, then yes, Hit-Girl is a character that gets a lot of attention for being "cool." There is a portion of the audience, possibly even some kids, who will think it's cool what she does, and think about being able to do all the things she does. And audiences do like the character. But I also like Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK and Kurt Russell in DEATH PROOF, and when I was a child I liked watching horror films pretty regularly, and I have a certain adoration for the rape-revenge genre (I first saw I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE -another film Ebert detests - when I was 13), and I'm not going around committing high-level theft and running people down in my car, or raping girls, or killing the rapists of women in particularly violent and brutal ways. Nor was I when I was a teenager, child, or whatever else I may have been or may be at some point.

These are films, guys. These are characters in films. One of the comments on CalLitReview is about Robert B. Parker's character Spenser, and I'm going to borrow it here. "I am reminded of something the late Robert B. Parker said during a reading at Cody’s Books in Berkeley, CA in 1987… in the question and answer portion of the evening someone rather pointedly asked Parker if he knew that his character Spenser was an alcoholic. Parker replied that Spenser was not an alcoholic; Spenser was a fictional character." Amen.

The problem is that now you're older, and you're nostalgic for a time that never existed. I'm sorry that you feel the film is immoral without having any knowledge about its context (because you haven't seen it), or you feel that using a child in anything else other than a sweet movie about horses or killer whales is the equivalent of child porn. There is nothing in KICK-ASS that could remotely be described as pornographic. But I will give you a caveat: If someone is turned on by guns being shot by children, or by violence perpetuated by children, or by children in leather suits, then yeah, I guess you could interpret this as child porn if you're a moron. If it's the intent of a viewer to find Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl to be a turn-on, guess what? That's still not child porn. That's a fetish, and it's the viewer's take on it, not the film's intent. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that because some creep gets off on Jodie Foster as a hooker in TAXI DRIVER or Brooke Shields in BLUE LAGOON, then it's child porn. If you feel so strongly about it, you might as well just take children offscreen altogether, because I'm sure someone out there loves watching girls ride horses, or boys dressed in striped pajamas, or any other thing that could be onscreen. So, please, keep policing the movies for things that they have no control over.

"Somebody's Got To Pay": POINT BLANK (1967)

2010-04-26T19:36:00.001-04:00

This amazing, complex, sexy, cool, smoldering, passionate crime film marks the equally cool and amazing Lee Marvin’s first turn as a big star (after his Oscar for CAT BALLOU in 1966, he was granted virtually total control over this production), as well as British director extraordinaire John Boorman’s (DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR, ZARDOZ) first film in the U.S. And - as if I haven’t already said as much - it’s the most amazing film Marvin ever made.

It was made right in the transition period between Classical and “New” Hollywood, and it has a lot in common stylistically with another very complex and psychologically oriented movie made in the same year by another Brit: John Schlesinger’s MIDNIGHT COWBOY. What makes this time so special is that it represents a time when the past was linked to the present, and was not the radical break it’s often depicted as. In fact, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elia Kazan and Nicholas Ray had begun this project of slowly changing the language and style of film over a decade before POINT BLANK, with styles and subjects that were quite striking and provocative for their time, but which remained rooted firmly in the practical filmmaking of the Classical period.

What I intend to make note of here is that actors like Marvin, and directors like Boorman, continued to make New Hollywood’s realism and grittiness more possible by preparing audiences with improvements and slight variations on the language that their predecessors had already begun. Films like POINT BLANK, THE DIRTY DOZEN, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, and THE GRADUATE paved the way for the rise of directors like Scorsese, Ashby, Coppola, Spielberg and many others who were to irrevocably change American cinema forever, bringing it kicking and screaming into its modern incarnation.

Getting back to the film, POINT BLANK features Lee Marvin as master criminal Walker as he traces the steps through a seedy organization to get the $93,000 owed him by his partner after a double-cross that left him for dead. Efficiently and brutally, Walker makes his way to the top, using any and every trick he knows, and never giving a damn. His goal is simple, and it doesn’t matter who he uses or kills to achieve it. It’s Lee’s natural demeanor and devil-may-care attitude, as well as his deadly serious performance, that makes the character and the film what it is. It’s a perfect marriage of star and vehicle.

The first scene introduces us in a flashback sequence to the events that Walker is recalling, which serves to attach the audience to his motive, and to his interpretation of what happened to him and why he’s been left for dead. It’s an articulate (filmically speaking) sequence that gives us a glimpse into the head of the character that no one else gets. To everyone in the film, he’s just a stubborn old man who’s going through all this for nothing, and who will most likely die because of it. Really, he’s doing it because he’s a professional, and he doesn’t compromise his principles and the outcome of the job he took, which was to obtain half of the score. And yeah, it may also be that he’s stubborn.

During one of many confrontations about the cash owed to him, Walker is asked by Brewster what he really wants. "I...I really want my money," he answers. What's interesting here is the slight hesitation in getting what he "really" wants out of his mouth. The film has shown us that he's interested in a lot of things, namely having his comfortable life with a wife he undoubtedly loved and was hurt by. Other than small instances like this, he never shows any emotion about it. It's the question that causes him to stop just for a moment and really consider what it is he wants...and then he knows it's impossible and goes right back to the money.

In one of the film’s more memorable scenes, Marvin has brought his (now dead) wife’s sister with him to wait on and confront Brewster, one of the top bosses about getting his money in the guy’s own house. The film is filled with all sorts of sexual tension, particularly between his wife, who betrayed him at the film’s beginning, and Angie Dickinson's Chris (the sister). It’s a relationship of convenience as much as anything else, but Walker finally sends her over the edge in this scene, and she smacks him repeatedly, across the face, beating his chest and, frankly, just hitting the shit out of him until she just gives up. Marvin makes no show of emotion. He lets her hit him, and then just goes on doing what he’s there to do. That’s the movie, and the character right there, all summed up in his resolution to get what he wants no matter what, and to ignore everyone he has to go through to get it.

I guess what makes me endlessly fascinated with POINT BLANK is its singularity as a psychological crime film, which has been emulated and toyed with ever since as a genre unto itself. And that it came well before Robert Altman’s slightly post-modern interpretation of Philip Marlowe and Noir in THE LONG GOODBYE. It takes Marvin’s Walker and puts him at the center of everything; the audience identifies with him at every turn because they know something about him and his relationships that no one else in the movie does - that they hurt him and that he’s really quite wounded on the inside. But he never shows it. To do so would compromise his mission. That’s something Walker doesn’t do.

American Crime Fiction: Why Writer/Creator Jason Aaron's SCALPED Is The Best Comic Out There

2010-04-26T16:40:00.000-04:00

The two things that American authors and filmmakers can be said to have created outright are the Western, and modern crime fiction. They're both styles and mythologies packed into the very fiber of our country's very existence. There's something gritty and raw and romantic and completely whacked in our national identity, and it has led to the creation of two of the most readily identifiable genres in the world, complete with their own logic, their own mysteries, their complete independence from European romantic fiction of any kind, apart from maybe the Victorian era (and the utter inability for anyone to come to real satisfaction with their relationships in those books - take Newland Archer in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE as an example), but that's neither here nor there. The Western and the crime drama are the mythologies of the United States, a country that was forged from the grit and determination and the testicular fortitude to tell the rest of the world to jog on. And it's a damned brilliant mythology; one that requires constant attention and revision and humility and pride.

Late in 2008, I picked up the first volume of DC/Vertigo's SCALPED, "Indian Country", and was blown away. It was by far the grittiest, most thrilling and outrageous crime fiction since Garth Ennis's legendary PREACHER and PUNISHER runs, and better yet, it existed on its own terms, incorporating distinctly American (and distinctly Native) mythologies, real-world problems and - along with Ed Brubaker's CRIMINAL - reinvigorated American comic creators in a landscape populated on every front by Brits. This first story arch, which introduces the central character of Dashiell Bad Horse and many, many subplots, is masterful in its scope and execution, and each further arch just gets better and better.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that Jason Aaron's SCALPED, a multi-genre mash-up of the cowboy mythos, espionage thriller, crime drama and a healthy dose of social awareness (and amazingly detailed research and depictions of life in the modern Native American community), is the best damned book anywhere, comic or otherwise. Seriously. It's envigorating to read, and has kept me up many a night re-reading my favorite little bits, particularly early on in the "Casino Boogie" story arch that tells the tale of a horrendous crime from four separate viewpoints, each getting its own single issue to work within.

A fair chunk of why SCALPED's incredibly detailed and carefully researched Native American narrative works, even when introducing heavy mysticism and ultraviolence into the fold, is the dusty down-to-Earth artwork by R.M. Guera and a stable of distinct but complimentary guest artists. The Rez (a Lakota reservation in the Dakotas) and its many, societally neglected inhabitants portrayed in the book live and breathe because of the urgency, vibrancy and alternately, as called for, dark and bright pop-infused art.

There are currently five trade-paperback volumes of the series in print, with a sixth collection coming in May, and I seriously can't wait to see what else Aaron has in store. The plotting and characterizations are convoluted enough for a Raymond Chandler story, with enough grit and gristle to fill many a tome by Elmore Leonard (in Western or crime mode). It's invigorating to read such an effortless title, and to read about the neglected and often forgotten original inhabitants of this land in such a realistic, and thoroughly modern American setting is a bit startling. It brings modern dilemmas they have as a minority to light while also highlighting their willingness to survive. In the fifth volume, there is a brief opening that runs up a history of the Lakotas through the battle of Little Big Horn to present day, and is accompanied by narration about their survival being almost in defiance of history and of this nation's invaders. It's quite powerful.

What differentiates this book from the thousands of others out there, comic or otherwise, and what makes it by far the best book on stands, is the multi-faceted plot and the deft aplomb with which it is handled by Aaron. He juggles a large cast of characters, all backed up by individual and very different personalities, and all based on what has to be vast amounts of historical research. It really is like getting a current affairs and history class lesson on American Indians from issue to issue. And that in and of itself is enough to make it noteworthy. SCALPED takes the American mythos and turns it on its head, not just in one of the prominent American genres, but in both of the most prominent ones, and completely becomes something all its own, and wholly American that even the best British comics creators couldn't have conceived.

If any of this interests you as a reader (and it should), then you should definitely give the book a shot. The first volume is only ten bucks, and is well worth it. Hell, get a friend to split it with you and read it for five. Just buy it; you'll be hooked. That's the best compliment I can give it, and the only compliment that really matters anyway.

This Road Really Is Lonesome: A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)

2010-04-23T17:24:00.001-04:00

Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is an upstart that moves to the big time, becoming the most powerful voice on radio to the most powerful figure on television, able to sway the masses for or against anything he wishes with not much more than a wink and a smile. He has no personal beliefs, only contempt for anything and everyone who isn't Lonesome Rhodes. He's a scoundrel, a cheat and, by the end of it all, he's washed up, madness slowly taking over.

Elia Kazan and Budd Schulburg's scathing commentary on the dangers of mass media and particularly charismatic but absolutely bat-shit crazy personalities' abilities to exploit that media, is as timely today as it ever was. Not only is the film itself an omen of things to come - notably the rise of 24-hour news networks and the triumph of "commentary" over actual journalism - but the character of Lonesome is uncannily like some of the personalities of a lot of "news" shows. And he makes boatloads of cash like some of them, too.

In the middle of the film, it looks like Rhodes is going to marry his agent, Marcia (the fantastic Patricia Neal), but instead he brings home a new bride (Lee Remick) from a visit back to his hometown that won a baton twirling contest. The scene in which Rhodes slowly becomes enamored with the incredibly young twirler - who is only 16 at the time of their marriage - is disturbing in the development of the character because of his constant leering and visible lusting after the young girl. Amazingly, she's just as into him, glaring right back the entire time in that lustful way that most teenagers get at one time or another. It's creep-tastic!

It's amazing to me that Griffith, whose portrayal of Rhodes is a highlight of screen acting, committed so wholeheartedly to such a loathsome character and then did a complete 180 to make and star in THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. As good as he is on television, here he's pure fire, and I was unable to take my eyes off him. He's a revelation, by god, in a role that should have been career-defining, but has only recently been given any attention whatsoever. Only in America would such a piece of work be virtually forgotten by audiences for over thirty years.

A FACE IN THE CROWD also features my personal favorite hang-dog, Walter Matthau, in full glory as television writer "Vanderbilt '44", as Rhodes derisively calls him, being a representative of the elite that Lonesome purports to have nothing but disdain for, yet longs for the status of. Matthau gets the last stinging word in, though, charting the total fall of Rhodes's celebrity and even giving him a last round of (canned) applause. If only things had changed at all since 1957.

Indie Grits 2nd Night - Fox Theater Shorts Program

2010-04-16T14:13:00.001-04:00

Thursday night's shorts program played another packed house at the Nickelodeon's under-renovation Fox Theater location in downtown Columbia, SC. Showing in a converted-lobby screening room were 15 films, mostly experimental, some of which were quite amazing. I'll get to a run-down of my favorites further down, but first, seeing as this is the first year the Fox Theater has been used in the festival, a word about this gorgeous building and the vision Nickelodeon executive director Larry Hembree has for it.

The Fox is exemplary of the classic movie house, with a projection booth in its main balcony auditorium that is in a class all its own, and once outfitted, will be a sight to behold. The plan is to have two auditoriums, the largest of which will be upstaris and capable of seating 150 people, and the lower auditorium which will seat around 90, and be utilized for secondary films and special screenings/events. If all goes according to plan, come 2011, Columbia will be home to a world-class, fully restored independent and art-house theater, and I can't wait.

Getting to the program, I'll spare the details on the films I absolutely hated - I'm looking at you, GIRI CHIT and THIS IS NOT A PIPE BOMB - by saying that the films I'm not discussing below were forgettable, utterly (unbearably) meandering and pretentious, or just plain-old sleep-inducing. Seek them out at your own risk. At the end of the article, I'll provide a list of all the films that were shown, for your convenience.

Jon Jones's THE GOLDEN MALLARD was the first highlight of the program. This four minute short about a portrait painter and two of his subjects draws heavily on silent comedy, and is shot in relatively flat black and white, much like in the early days of cinema. It utilizes a modern flourish of colorization to highlight a particularly inventive paint-throwing sequence and the pay-off at the end, which is pretty great. I was also highly impressed by a great title card at the beginning that goes by all too briefly. That title card in and of itself had me hooked - it was like a gift from movie heaven. Seriously, I may sound a bit obsessive about it to you, but it was that good. Really.

Speaking of titles and title sequences, Andre Silva's just-a-bit-too-long-but-utterly-gorgeous ICHTHYOPOLIS has a hum-dinger of one, blending stop-motion and psychotropic techniques to introduce the abstract tale of order and chaos between two realms. Being introduced to this film is to literally be submerged in the absurd and the sublime, with a singing goldfish announcing everything you need to know to watch what's coming up, title and all.

Completely amazing and shortest of all, clocking in at a single minute, was Brad Boll's COPS, a meditation on the absurd and horrifying (and hilarious) nature of everyone's favorite white trash crime show. I have to wonder, though it may be darker than Boll's vision, if this is how David Lynch would see this show.

Two of my favorites, though, occupy very different spots on the experimental spectrum. Charleston, SC's Liz Vaughan brought her lovely film CHIMNEY SWIFTS, a multimedia experimental tone poem about life in the Southeast. With handcut photographs (shot by Vaughan), and by animating them in conjunction with and in juxtaposition to one another, CHIMNEY SWIFTS may be the one true work of art I've seen at this year's festival. It's breathtaking in its beauty, and endearing and personal and intimate in its handmade quality.
(note: Look for my interview with Vaughan on an upcoming episode of Shadows and Light.)

The program's final film was an eclectic grab-bag of a home movie by Phoebe Brush. Part music video, part family portrait, and part folk philosophy, the film SPITTY is a confounding, challenging, inspirational, oddball, and endearing work that revolves around a father and his daughter who write and perform "Spitties", subversive, politically charged ditties, ranging in topics from Woody Guthrie to MLK, Jr., to a love for dogs. The songs, like the film that showcases them, are ethereal, lo-fi and engaging in surprising ways.

The films shown at the Fox Theater Shorts Program were:
SPACEMAN - Nicole Triche, Durham, NC
ELEMENTS OF TIME - David Montgomery, Fernindina Beach, FL
THE GOLDEN MALLARD - Jon Jones, Coral Gables, FL
ICHTHYOPOLIS - Andre Silva, Wilmington, NC
TEMPO - Robin Salant, Memphis, TN
GIRI CHIT - Simon Tarr, Columbia, SC
SCENE 32 - Shambhavi Kaul, Durham, NC
COPS - Brad Boll, Chapel Hill, NC
SATIRYTOWN: SURREEL IN CABBAGETOWN - Rose Barron, Atlanta, GA
THIS IS NOT A PIPE BOMB - Georg Koszulinski, Gainesville, FL
DORNSTARTV: Ep 5.2 - Nate Dorn, Atlanta, GA
SWIM - Chip Moore, Cambridge, MA
TWO DOWNTOWN - Cara Hagan, Winston Salem, NC
CHIMNEY SWIFTS - Liz Vaughan, Charleston, SC
SPITTY - Phoebe Brush, Durham, NC

Look for brief write-ups on the nights two main selections, Anthony Kilburn's sex-tastic CHIAROSCURO, BABY! and Aaron Katz's COLD WEATHER (in a non-competition screening) from Pierce and Woody at some time in the near future.

Indie Grits 2010 Opening Night, Program 2

2010-04-15T17:00:00.002-04:00

Editor's note: This brief piece was originally posted by Woody Jones on the blog for our podcast, Shadows and Light. It is reprinted here by permission.

I had the pleasure of attending the 8:30 program of Indie Grits held in the current Nickelodeon Theatre on Main Street. This music-centric series included music videos from local artists The Thirsties and Preach Jacobs. Directors David Arthur and William Stewart used The Thirsties’ video for “Greener in Their Prime” as an excuse to dabble in Super 8 cinemtography while Ryan Cockrell shot Preach Jacobs at his apartment as well as local watering hole, The Whig. Congrats to Cockrell and Jacobs as their video for “Falling” which will be featured soon on BET. Next came Slopdog Millionaire, a documentary short on local garage rockers Mercy Mercy Me, by filmmakers Robert Johnson and Andy Woodward detailing a debaucherous night in Charleston,SC after the band played a gig at the Tin Roof. Drunken shenanigans also play a major role in Matthew Robison’s exploration of the Atlanta music scene entitled We Fun. Anchored by local bands such as The Black Lips and Deerhunter, the film is an excellent snapshot of a music scene that is gaining national notoriety. After such an exceptional series of films, I look forward to the next batch!

Woody Jones is the host and editor of Columbia Vitals, and co-host of Shadows and Light - A Movie Podcast. He also writes a regular column for SceneSC.com

In A Really Red State: RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975)

2010-04-15T15:22:00.002-04:00

I just can't escape this movie - it burns white-hot in my mind just like the first time I saw it. It's a lightning rod of a flick, a film that separates two stages of my watching life (a designation few films share with it): things seen before, and things seen since. Unwittingly, I have succumbed to its power.

When I think of Warren Oates and Peter Fonda witnessing the satanic ritual that will endanger their lives from their campsite in the woods, it still gives me a chill, a rarity among those magical 70s horror films that I've become so familiar with, and even rarer still that it completely holds up to this very day. When they slowly realize they've been spotted, and flee in their motor home only to be pursued by the cultists, it's horrifying, exhilirating, enthralling and just a wee bit gleefully hokey, in that way the best of these genre films can be.

And that's just the beginning.

Oates and Fonda (and their wives, the fantastic Loretta Swit and Lara Parker) are pursued throughout small-town Texas, encountering members of the cult at every turn and in every strata of society. This is classic horror movie stuff, and it gets my rocks off. And I haven't even mentioned the crazy 70s road movie part of it all yet; a genre with which both Fonda and Oates are synonymous with. Let's not forget this is RACE WITH THE DEVIL, after all.

The chase scenes, in which the boys must fend off assailants as they attempt to board the RV, attack them with guns and sharp objects, and sometimes threaten to run them off the road (successfully, finally), are thrilling and suspenseful. True to form, the movie also starts out with a couple of stressless dirtbike/motorcycle sequences for good measure - to please the real gear-heads in the audience, no doubt. If there's one flaw in all of this, it's there is no scene in which Fonda is pursued while on his bike. That would be movie heaven.

The ending is also ballsy, even if reminiscent of other endings from the time - a freeze frame that allows us to assume the worst as the RV (and the heroes inside it) is surrounded by the flames that signaled the beginning of the first sacrificial ceremony. And it's satisfying. And unexpected. And still horrifying.

Watching RACE WITH THE DEVIL, I realized how life-changing movies could be all over again. I've loved Oates forever (especially as GTO in Monte Hellman's superb TWO-LANE BLACKTOP and as the title character in over-looked gem COCKFIGHTER), but he was pitch-perfect for me here, and I re-learned the many charms an actor like that posesses for a viewer. Like film critic Kim Morgan's other rough-guy heroes (among them both Oates and Lee Marvin, another similar screen-love of mine to hers), Oates plays to his physical strengths, which are definitely not those of a matinee idol. He's all real, all tough, and all American male. And despite co-billing, Fonda's a supporter. This is truly Oates's show.

And what a show, guys. What a show.

(For Kim Morgan's brief write-up on RACE WITH THE DEVIL as well as a bit about Peggy Cummins in GUN CRAZY and how amazing The Runaways are, check out her piece at Sunset Gun).

Indie Grits 2010 Opening Night Selections

2010-04-15T14:20:00.001-04:00

Note: The following article may contain spoilers.

Opening night festivities for the 5th Annual Indie Grits Film Festival were sold out last night, and they showcased some memorable and not-so memorable moments, depending on who you spoke to. I went to the night's first program, and the audience's energy was high, and the main selection, Mark Claywell's stunning documentary AMERICAN JIHADIST, was a true revelation. I spoke with Claywell after the screening, as well as CHIEFLAND director Gabriel Tyner, and both directors were really happy with the receptions their films had at the festival.

CHIEFLAND, an 8 minute short about a bullrider's first time on a bull in over a decade after losing both legs and receiving a host of other injuries after being hit by a train, is a flawed but highly interesting germ of an idea. I think it speaks to the strength of the subject of the film and the skill with which the footage and interviews with the cowboy were collected that I wanted more from it. Tyner has a great eye and a great sense of filmic rhythm, but structuraly the film is uneven, focusing on what could be either the middle third or even last third of a film, despite containing the relatively small narrative arch of the bull ride itself and the rider's struggle with it that exists as-is. Tyner is currently working on two new projects; CHIEFLAND is his first film.

The second film of the evening, director Hodges Usry's SWEET GEORGIA BROWN is ostensibly about the first black female wrestler from South Carolina, but after an interesting set-up, the film quickly loses its way, devolving into a sordid, directionless exposé on racial and familial injustices that gave no information on or insight into who "Sweet Georgia" Brown was, and why she was important aside from all of the familial bickering and in-fighting and the really horrific details of her life. Usry has directed a few music videos for bands like Lady Antebellum before, but if SWEET GEORGIA BROWN or his previous short ROZWELL (streaming online at his IMDB page) are any indications of where his talents may lie, I'm afraid he has a long way to go to overcome a lack of narrative comprehension and execution without leaving an audience adrift in its own thoughts. There's an interesting, engaging movie to be made about this woman out there somewhere, but this sure isn't it.

Finally, playing only in its second festival, and hot on the heels of winning the Best Documentary award at Slamdance, Mark Claywell's AMERICAN JIHADIST follows the completely fascinating character of Isa Abdullah Ali, aka Clevin Holt, a religious soldier of fortune whose conversion to Islam in the 1970s led to his involvement in many of the major armed conflicts in the Near East in the past few decades. Posing the question, "What makes a person willing to kill and die for their religion?", the film comes to some unsettling and utterly profound revelations, echoing the lack of easy answers and even easy labels in a constantly sound-bite driven news world, and the call for a deeper understanding of the problems facing our world.

Given completely unfettered access to Isa in both his native Washington, D.C., and his home in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Claywell shows us that while it may be possible to understand the ways in which someone could believe they're doing the right thing, that the subject is far more complex than any one individual. Isa is a subject that seems to preach his hatred of 'hate', which he claims not to feel toward anyone, but perhaps a bit contradictory to that claim, has absolutely no problem killing someone he feels has wronged a Muslim in an armed conflict. And, furthermore, he simply loves his role in warfare, and makes no secret of it - actively seeking it out throughout a thirty year career that has seen him labelled as a "known terrorist" and what would have been termed by Conservative Americans recently as an enemy combatant.

Isa isn't a particularly dangerous or even villanous man, but he has a coherent worldview and obsession with violent reproach that makes complete and total sense to him based on his interpretation of his own life's events; that's what's terrifying about the film and its subject. Here is a group of people who rationalize killing through a belief system that purports to be completely nonviolent, yet time and time again is proven to be the exact opposite of that. Likewise, someone like Isa is a complete contradiction of his own beliefs in anti-hate, anti-extremist living. He is an extremist, and he appears to hate those who are against his own beliefs.

The film is unsettling, electrifying and fascinating, swerving into distinctly Herzog-ian "objective truth" territory now and then, largely thanks to the behavior of Isa while the cameras are trained on him. As a reporter in the film succinctly put it (and I'm paraphrasing here), he is a performer of things he has read, using almost strictly boiler-plate terminology and rhetoric to discuss himself and his beliefs/actions/etc. For what it's worth, this is a must-see, and I predict that if it plays more mid-level and bigger festivals, it will have no problem finding distribution of some sort.

My pal Woody Jones was in the second program, which featured a number of music docs, including WE FUN, which focuses on the burgeoning Atlanta music scene of 2008, from director Matthew Robison (SILVER JEW). Look for a brief write-up of that screening soon.

For more information on Indie Grits and the films discussed in this article, please visit:

IndieGrits.com
Chiefland
Sweet Georgia Brown
American Jihadist

Antici---pation: Movies to Look Forward To

2010-04-08T17:05:00.000-04:00

Here's the latest crop of flicks that I'm really looking forward to seeing when they finally receive a release near or around me. They all look pretty amazing.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
The book is amazing, and by all accounts in the international and U.S. press, so is the film. I'm especially looking forward to seeing the character of Lisbeth Salander on the screen because she's such a terrifically compelling creation. Of course, it's in Swedish with subtitles, and looks to be a pretty direct translation from page to screen. The book is kind of a mixture of ZODIAC and SE7EN, with a healthy dash of techno-savvy geek-punk thrown in for good measure, giving it a journalistic quality that would be right at home with David Fincher (who has been in talks to helm an American remake, which I don't think is a great idea, but if anyone has to do it, it may as well be Fincher).

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
Directed by Edgar Wright, and based on an insanely popular graphic novel series, SCOTT PILGRIM follows a twenty-something slacker who plays in an indie-rock band and who falls for Ramona, who just happens to have seven evil ex-es that he must defeat if he is to be with her. It's an amalgamation of hipster-chic, videogame in-jokes and unadulterated manga lunacy that looks to be handled deftly by all parties involved. This trailer is pretty amazing.

George A. Romero's SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD
Romero's latest opus follows the first-ever recurring character in one of the DEAD films, as he reaches a small island with two warring families who are fighting over what to do with the members of their families who have come back from the dead. It looks gory, gooey and downright fun, and I cannot wait to see it - probably on VOD, where it's available long before theatrical release.

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS
The trailer speaks for itself. The directorial debut of the writers of BAD SANTA and BAD NEWS BEARS, a touching, awfully vulgar rom-com/con movie hybrid.

CRAZY HEART

2010-03-19T11:48:00.000-04:00

At the center of the late award season drama CRAZY HEART are two captivating performances that are brazenly abnormal (in Hollywood terms) in their depiction of honest normalcy. Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a road-weary working musician a la Townes Van Zandt and Merle Haggard - a hard-drinking, chain-smoking tortured soul of a songwriter. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Jean Craddock, a single mother who is also a writer for the local newspaper in Santa Fe, who befriends and falls in love with Bad. This isn't a typical romance or "biopic" trajectory, though, with Bad's story beginning as he's already plumbing the depths, and lacking the ending that makes his journey more satisfying. The two lovers do not end up together happily ever after.

The defining dynamic of their relationship is Bad's alcholism, which Jean isn't outrightly judgmental of, but is apprehensive of nonetheless because of her young child, Buddy. In what is the film's most contrived sequence, Buddy is lost in a mall by Bad after he stops in a tavern for a drink, which (along with losing Jean's trust and her leaving him) leads to his inevitable drive to get sober. Not that the sequence doesn't work, just that for a movie so honest about its characters and their lives, it's something that not only isn't original, but which has been telegraphed over and over again in scenes where Jean asks Bad not to drink around her son. What intrigues me about the film as a redemption story, however, even given this bit of a misstep, is that the alcholism is never center stage, and Jean never pressures Bad to give it up totally. Instead, through a series of events, not just involving Buddy, but also his declining health and income among other things, he begins to realize exactly how expansive the destruction of his behavior and lifestyle is on his everyone and everything around him, which is what ultimately leads him to make the choice to get sober, despite earlier protestations by his manager, a doctor, and even his friends. It seems startlingly realistic to suggest that alone with themselves is the only way for an addict to really change their behavior (with support, but not provocation or guilting) in a genre often rife with preachy and even dogmatic scenes of familial interventions that lead the protagonist to enter a program and get straight. Reality rarely happens that way.

Also strikingly, Bridges and Gyllenhaal look like real people, and not stylized reality or idealized, "Hollywood" real. This shouldn't be that much of a surprise, given that both actors are apparently as down-to-earth as could be for stars of their magnitude. Bridges has famously never shied away from his regular guy image, even utilizing parts of his own bland and boring personal wardrobe for his roles in THE FISHER KING and THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and Gyllenhaal frequently spends her spare time hanging out with her husband Peter Saarsgard and their child instead of making headlines. In fact, her only major tabloid moment came from her feeding her child in public, which is of course not only natural and healthy, but so...so...normal. As such, they are, as performers, as unafraid to be themselves on screen as they are in their day to day lives. That is of great benefit to the film.

The acting and deviations from character cliches aside, the trajectory of the film's story overall remains somewhat predictable, and despite the ending's bittersweet and truthful poignancy, it feels a little like the screenplay is just going through the motions, ticking off marks as it chugs along. And, despite the title song, which actually is quite a good song, a lot of the music is merely okay, more apt to get stuck in your head as a melodic memory than actually retaining the form and substance of a great Country-Western song. For a character as forgotten yet legendary a songwriter as Bad Blake, I kind of wish they had just used a bunch of really great, well-known standards. In a fictionalized context, no one but hardcore fans would even pay any attention to them, or likely know who the original songwriter was anyway (sadly). For proof, just ask anyone you know who says they listen to country music who wrote "Poncho and Lefty" and see the blank stares as they both don't know the song or, if they do, that it wasn't written by Willie Nelson. And that's a prominent standard. Anyway, these are minor quibbles, as both are more than servicable to the film as it exists.

The film ultimately remains, first and foremost, a showcase for its two very capable leads, and as an actor's picture, it's pretty great. Bridges recently won an Oscar for his performance, and some have commented that he didn't deserve it because the role of Bad Blake felt tailor-made for him. To that I ask, isn't that the first clue of true greatness? Who else could play bad? Who would (or could) replace Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT, or James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, or Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, or Michael Douglas and Charlize Theron in WALL STREET and MONSTER, respectively? The reason a performance remains memorable and spectacular is because the performer becomes inseparale from their role. They are the character. Bridges and Gyllenhaal turn in two such performances here.

GREEN ZONE

2010-03-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

Jason Isaacs and Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass's GREEN ZONE

Paul Greengrass's culmination of his docu-drama and action-thriller work, GREEN ZONE achieves a synthesis of style and adrenaline fueled action that is truly breathtaking. Working again with star Matt Damon, he tells the story of Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, a soldier looking for WMD in the "Mission Accomplished" days of the Iraq war. The film operates on the same parameters as one of Greengrass's BOURNE films, but set in reality, with one man being played on both sides while trying to uncover the truth. Unlike either of those films, however, Miller is not a one man badass, frequently relying on his unit to help him meet his objectives and track down the source of faulty intelligence that keeps leading his own men to sites that contain no signs of ever having housed WMD.

Miller discusses his obsession with discovering the truth with one of his unit.

The film is loosely based on the book IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY - really an inspiration for the setting of the story more than anything - which may be both its strength and its weakness. By focusing on a fictionalized single-perspective scenario, the audience is thoroughly engaged with the film through their cypher, and is genuinely interested in seeing him succeed - which, in this case, woudl involve uncovering irrefutable evidence that the Bush administration lied to everyone to go to war with Iraq, fabricating intelligence as they saw fit. However, this small portrait of the quagmire created by the war is problematic because the scope of the issue is much broader and offensive than indicated in the film, which might work beautifully as an action film, but ultimately fails as a document of the lies and fabrications by the U.S. government on the American people to this very day. I do realize, however, that this was not the intent of the filmmakers, and it is only my opinion, and that film I saw was urgent, factually grounded and absolutely stunning in its intelligent construction of action, particularly in a style of camerawork and editing often criticized for its incomprehensibility.

Even in low light situations, the action in GREEN ZONE remains logical from shot to shot.

What makes GREEN ZONE work stylistically, unlike some of the sequences in the BOURNE movies, is the progressive action, which flows logically from shot to shot and never loses the viewer, despite the kinetic fights and shootouts. The use of the "shaky cam" and fast cuts actually serves to ramp up the adrenaline aesthetically, and is used in fair moderation compared to the constant barrage of movement in the BOURNE franchise, which are basically chase sequences extended through the entire run-time of the film. The only other filmmaker who has utilized this snatch-and-grab style so well is Kathryn Bigelow with recent award season darling THE HURT LOCKER, though to evoke a different adrenaline response in the audience.

The final twenty minutes of GREEN ZONE contain one of the most intricately shot and edited multi-tier chases I've ever seen, following three sets of characters on foot and in the sky through the destroyed rubble of downtown Baghdad. Despite the complexities of establishing location in such an extended sequence, and despite the ultra-dark nighttime cinematography, there is never a sense of displacement or a loss of geography. It's a remarkable feat of action filmmaking, and deserves a place alongside anything currently in any list of memorable chases.

Brendan Gleeson plays a CIA agent who is trying to stabilize the country and correct the administration's mistakes.

Acting-wise, the supporting cast delivers a lot of top-notch work, including one hell of a performance from Greg Kinnear as Poundstone, the administration's crooked intel man in Iraq, both intimidating and terrified of exposure at the same time. Also of note are Brendan Gleeson and Amy Ryan (and the woefully overlooked Jason Isaacs), who continue their string of reliably dynamic side roles. Ryan in particular does a lot with the character of Lawrie Dayne, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been duped by the administration. Also, I found it fascinating how many Arab voices and faces are in the film. In a pivotal role as Freddy, an informer concerned for his country's future who accompanies Miller on his mission as translator, Khalid Abdalla gives an emotionally charged and riveting performance, providing a much needed Arab perspective to the growing cinematic discourse on the Iraq war.

GREEN ZONE is the crowning achievement of Greengrass's directorial interests thus far, and is his most emotionally and intellectually satisfying film to date. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes from here. He has expressed disinterest in revisiting the Jason Bourne character, and recently discussed in Film Comment how the ideas behind both of his entries in that series, as well as for UNITED 93 and GREEN ZONE were all hatched around the same time. As he continues onward, I'm sure I'll be pleased to see him branch out into new story terrain, while continuing to refine his aesthetic choices.

4 Performances: Radha Mitchell

2010-03-12T15:18:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a review / essay of THE CRAZIES which will hopefully be up some time in the next few days. In reflecting on the film, I've spent a lot of time thinking about Radha Mitchell, and how fantastic she is in nearly everything she does. She's seen some mainstream action here and there, prominently featured in Woody Allen's underrated MELINDA AND MELINDA, the passable sci-fi actioner SURROGATES, and various smaller roles as love interests here and there, but her real bread and butter seems to be in genre work, particularly in horror related roles. She strives here, and I adore her in these roles, and despite appearances, she's very versatile in her performance styles.

PITCH BLACK (2000)
Playing pilot Carolyn Fry in David Twohy's PITCH BLACK, Mitchell holds her own with then rising star Vin Diesel, who actually turned out to be a decent actor himself before apparently deciding to stick to the big dumb action vehicle. In an unassuming yet heroic role, she's really the film's main character, though overshadowed by the presence of fan-favorite Riddick. Still, there would be no film without her, and Mitchell imbues the role with sympathy and humanity, and acts as the audience's cypher, never sure of the escaped convict who is helping her survive, and the voice of reason at the climax, when he threatens to leave the other stranded crew behind.

SILENT HILL (2006)
Though most horror films share an interest in female relationships, both real and theoretical, SILENT HILL may be one of the rare few that is implicitly interested in concepts of motherhood and the protective nature of that relationship. As Rose da Silva, Mitchell searches for her missing daughter Sharon in the town of Silent Hill, a rotting facade that holds a dark secret. The film is dark, menacing and covered in the swirl of ash that is omnipresent in the town, and Mitchell is at the center of it, carrying the film almost on her own shoulders (though ably assisted by Deborah Kara Unger and Laurie Holden). In fact, there is only one male character of any importance in the whole film: Sean Bean as Sharon's father. Even he is relegated to supporting status, and never has much interaction with the female cast.

ROGUE (2007)
If there were a film done major injustice by its being released direct-to-DVD in the U.S., it would definitely be ROGUE, Australian director Greg Mclean's amazing killer croc feature. The film follows the patrons of a tour boat in the Australian outback which comes under attack from a crocodile after running aground and must fight for their survival. Radha Mitchell shines under Mclean's tight scripting and direction as boat guide Kate Ryan, who along with an American journalist, must overcome the creature's attacks. It's fun to watch her in this role because she seems to be having so much fun with it, exhibiting athleticism, comic timing and getting to work in her native accent. I've done a quick blurb about this film before, but if you didn't check it out then, see it now. She's great.

THE CRAZIES (2010)
Here we go: Radha Mitchell gets major screen time, paired with Timothy Olyphant (who is also terrific here, by the way), and plays yet another seemingly stereotypical female in a horror film. As Judy Dutton, she displays great acting chops as both a victim and one of the main protagonists trying to escape their quarantined town and evade the military. What makes this character work for me is Mitchell's ability to run the gamut emotionally, and to really take on a role that could be approached as simply going through the motions: get caught, scream and cry, get saved. But Judy isn't like that, and Mitchell never plays her that way. Even when the situation seems to play out in typical fashion, there's a sense of reality in her eyes that makes you really feel for the character. That's rare in any genre fare, and Radha Mitchell gives it her all over and over again.

Blurbs

2010-03-11T17:09:00.001-05:00

In the hope of actually giving a much more thorough trek through my recent viewings, I write mini-reviews/thoughts/etc. of those movies I just don't have the time to devote to writing up as a longer piece. Ladies and gentlement, once again, I give you an installment of "Blurbs":

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE
High Cinema this is not, but there's something endearing about Lexi Alexander's little vigilante action flick that really hearkens back to why The Punisher is such a kickass comic book character. He's a one-man killing machine, with little moral baggage, and who operates on one instinct: kill the bad guys. This may be the closest realization to the comic books that Frank Castle has and will ever be on screen, snatching a fair amount of inspiration from the amazing Garth Ennis run with the character that went on for around nine years. Ray Stevenson is an amazing Castle, and even though he's basically just doing Al Pacino in DICK TRACY, Dominic West has a lot of fun as signature Punisher villain Jigsaw in a performance that I thought was awful at first, but which has really grown on me.

BLACK DYNAMITE
This was one of the funniest movies I saw last year. A spot-on parody/love letter to Blaxploitation cinema, Michael Jai White played the best amalgamation of classic characters I could imagine, and delivered a thoroughly hilarious and enjoyable show for fans of the 70s 'street' films like SHAFT, COFFY, and SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASS SONG. Apart from being hilarious, the film is also a perfect imitation of the Blaxploitation style, down to its camera work and up through its outlandish character portrayals. It's over-the-top goodness that I can't wait to watch again.

KNOWING
Alex Proyas' film isn't as terrible as one would have you believe if you paid any attention at all to the reviews it got upon release. In fact, if there's a weakness, it's the totally unsatisfying ending, and not Nicolas Cage's acting or the distinct visual similarities to DARK CITY (creepy men in long coats, anybody?) It's debatable how much of this movie could have been saved if the last ten minutes were ultimately much different, and there's really no way of knowing (no pun intended), but I suspect that there was probably some energy expended elsewhere that could have benefited the climax - at least the film feels like that. The cinematography is great as well, and was shot on the RED camera, which looks amazing. There are a couple of sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat, but there are also some more cerebral moments that will keep you guessing a little bit. I didn't buy all of it, but I found it fascinating nonetheless.

THE GITS
This isn't the best rock doc I've ever seen, but it's interesting because of its subject matter - murdered vocalist Mia Zapata - and what may have been had she lived and the band continued thriving in the early-90s Seattle scene. What I liked most about this was that here was a band torn apart not by drugs or in-fighting, but by real human tragedy, which they could never recover from and a decade later are still hurt by. The surviving members of The Gits miss their friend, and really don't seem to care about the fame they missed out on. Also of note are the snippets of their performances, as raw and energetic as could be asked for, and a real breath of fresh air (especially given the prominent music that exploded from Seattle at around the same time) to anyone who is unfamiliar with the band and its music.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II
A fun, relatively gory zombie romp that doesn't quite hold up to the classic first film. I get off on this sort of thing, so I liked it quite a bit. It's silly and sometimes inspired, and it's never as bad as the next two films in the series are, but I can't really recommend it to non-fans except for one reason: early cinematography by Robert Elswit (SYRIANA, BOOGIE NIGHTS, THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS). It looks fantastic for a genre flick, with some of the best open sky panoramas I've ever seen in a zombie apocalypse movie.

SHUTTER ISLAND's Bizarre Sense of Unease and the Critical Reaction

2010-03-08T13:49:00.002-05:00

The critical discourse on Martin Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND has been fairly silent, with a lot of time spent arguing on whether or not the positive attention lavished upon it would be if it weren't a Scorsese picture. Or, better yet, if the "twist" ending makes the film good or bad. What a ridiculous way to discuss a film that has such an intimate knowledge of cinema history and classical technique. And that isn't a "twist" guys, it's a logical outgrowth of the film you just watched, and you should really stop trying to out-guess the movie and think you're smarter than it. It's not a competition, it's a movie - a brilliant one.

The film is a masterpiece of mood, perception and intensity, with one image leading into the next, and setting up all the information one would need to make connections, but with a very subtle slight of hand. From the very first shots of the film, with the rear-projection stylization setting up the artifice of the situation, to Mark Ruffalo's fumbling with getting the gun holster off his belt - because he never used one before, get it? - and on through the very obvious set-ups with side characters and their encounters with Teddy, the audience is being hinted at and shown that the only possible outcome is the one that happens.

This first dream hints at virtually everything to come, from the blood to the water, to the ashes falling around them - it's all in Teddy's head.

I am utterly convinced at this point that there are shots in this film that serve to shake the audience, to make them experience an uneasiness, adding to the film's almost unbearable suspense in places. While some of these could be dismissed as continuity errors, it happens so often and in such strange ways that it just seems implausible there would be so many of them. Maybe it's just easier for an audience to dismiss something as a mistake rather than something purposefully manipulating them much like the Surrealist and Expressionist movements did. Maybe Scorsese is asking too much of his audience to know something about these films. For my money, there's a whole lot of Carl Theodor Dreyer's VAMPYR in SHUTTER ISLAND.

The main problem seems to be that people feel like the movie owes them something, when really its payoff is perfectly adequate and even appropriate. The film isn't building up to some great revelation or cathartic release, but toward Teddy's understanding of the situation he has found himself in. And it's all supported very early on in the film, and consistently evoked throughout by images that confound, contradict and disprove everything we think we might know. For anyone who hasn't seen SHUTTER ISLAND yet, this is the point you may want to stop reading, because I'm going to get really in-depth about the whole ordeal.

Teddy Daniels is Andrew Laeddis. That's the big twist. I don't know why people are pissed about this, since it's pretty obvious the whole entire time he's on the island that everything's a big giant lie meant to send him over the edge into a realization about something that happened to him in his past and where he is at this point - a common theme found in all of Scorsese's films. Ostensibly, Teddy is on the island to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients, accompanied by a new partner, Chuck. Soon, things begin to unravel a bit, and doubts are cast on everyone on the island, even his partner.

Teddy and Chuck "arrive" at Shutter Island. Note the very obvious screen-projection, hearkening back to classical Hollywood, but also hinting at the artificiality of Teddy's situation.

Apart from all of the hints in his perceived reality, there's the dream sequences, which beckon us to think about the images we are seeing, and which very often contradict everything we've been told about his history, as well as the very thing we've just seen happen, and which also set up the bizarre things that begin to happen when Teddy is fully awake.

Take the interrogation scene in the cafeteria, which is not a dream, where a female patient scribbles the words "RUN" on his notepad. The patient asks if she could have a glass of water and is given one. Immediately thereafter, she drinks the water, but the first shot of it is odd, showing her pantomime drinking the water, and then the next showing her picking the glass up and drinking the water. The pantomimed shot is barely noticeable, except that you do notice it after it's happened, and you're not quite sure you've just seen it. That's the connection I made with VAMPYR, and it happens very often in SHUTTER ISLAND: a simple sequence or even a single shot that doesn't quite make logical sense, used to evoke dread and uneasiness.

In VAMPYR (1932), the protagonist drifts in and out of dreams, his nightmares reflecting reality and serving to cause dread in the audience.

The shot I found most fascinating in this regard, and also the most telling given the circumstances of Teddy's identity and the actual chain of events that led him to be a patient on the island, and likewise for going crazy and creating a delusion to protect himself from the horrible reality of what happened, happens during one of his dreams. In his final delusion, before we get the whole memory in its actual form, Teddy imagines the escaped woman he's been searching for covered in blood, with her children at her feet. She asks him to help her take them to the lake to go swimming, which he does. The shot of him carrying the children to the lake is almost innocuous, seemingly inconsequential stuff, until you realize it's in reverse. Teddy is walking backward from the lake, in effect removing them from the water instead of setting them in it, which is the next shot - with him in the water with the children. The shot is effective two-fold, and this is really where I started to think about VAMPYR.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 film is a movie that explicitly blurs the lines between dreams and reality, and which continually uses non-continuity shots to evoke a sense of fear and uneasiness. During one of the many dreams in the film, there is a shot of a shadow pitching hay, and though shown a few times, it's not entirely clear what's going on. For one, the shot looks odd, and it isn't until repeats of the shot that it's noticeably backward, with the hay coming from off-screen, landing on the pitchfork, and then being placed on the ground. It is, in effect, the same idea behind the shot of Teddy Daniels in SHUTTER ISLAND moving backward away from the lake with the children. You don't know what's odd about it, but it's there, and you know it wasn't quite right. There are many more parallels one could make between the two films, but for the sake of this article, we'll stick right here.

A fever dream becomes more and more intangible and surreal as the sequence grows and leads to Teddy taking the kids out for a swim.

Aside from that surrealist usage of these "phantom" shots that seemingly are there just to provoke, this shot also mirrors the reality of the situation Teddy is dreaming about, when he in fact removes his three children from the lake after their mother has drowned them. His memory and dream of this event must show the action like that because it's how it actually played out, which also explains the other "inaccuracies" in his dreams versus what he says happened to his wife - her bleeding from the stomach, being soaking wet, etc. The films shows us all of this before its revealed, and then it all makes perfect sense. Without a skillful hand guiding the way - and I feel like this is editor Thelma Schoonmaker's show as much as Scorsese's - this could have been a very plodding, generically designed movie that didn't embrace the bizarre qualities of earlier Hollywood drama and International cinema.

So, given its logical setup and delivery, why then the outcry by the audience against SHUTTER ISLAND? And where are the critics to defend it when people had similar problems with structure and subversion of expectations in Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS? Right now, hey're too obsessed with whether or not the artifice is justified, or whether or not Scorsese can be forgiven for the "twist", instead of discussing how the film arrives at its conclusion or the many ways in which it really evokes a classical Hollywood that many people completely overlook in today's criticism. In the depths of my bones, I know Scorsese has created a late-period masterpiece that will become better appreciated over time, and once everyone gets over its stupid marketing as a twist movie and how shocked they should or shouldn't be, I hope the discourse becomes much greater over this movie. I'll be contributing again soon.

DEAD SNOW and the Incessant Rehashing of Horror Concepts

2010-02-25T14:54:00.002-05:00

For once the term "Army of the Undead" is actually accurate. And brilliantly gory and fun.

The title of this piece may sound like I'm ragging on DEAD SNOW, the Norwegian Nazi-Zombie flick I just watched last night, but I'm totally not. In fact, the film's pretty amazing. What I am ragging on, however, is how it seems like the really original stuff, even if rehashing previous content, is being produced in other countries while Hollywood continues on its mission to remake literally every movie ever made - bigger and "better", as the saying goes.

I'm all for remakes, particularly in the horror genre, which has cannibalized itself all to hell ever since its formal inception with the classic Universal monster flicks of the 1930s and 40s. The current trend of remaking slashers doesn't even bother me, really, because I feel like they're at least as valid entries into series that have often made it into the double digits as the last six or seven films were. I may be the only person to stand up for HALLOWEEN II and proclaim it as the fresh air it was in a stagnant genre, but dammit, someone has to. Rob Zombie's underrated film was poorly received by a bunch of people who didn't want anything different than what they expected of the genre, or what they had seen before. Don't believe me? Read the user reviews on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and see what the number one gripe is from the "fans" of the genre. It's rife with accusations of desecrating the sacred original film, etc, etc, or being a poor handling of the character, or whatever else they want to dream up about what the movie wasn't, instead of looking at what the movie was. So, there you have it, case made in my mind for the validity of remakes and recycling concepts.

The most recycled monster as of late has definitely been the zombie - the ubiquitous slow-moving (but for some reason amped up and faster in their modern incarnations) look in the mirror for middle America. They're a favorite of the B-level flicks and the direct-to-DVD market, but for some reason they also handle a great big chunk of mainstream success. So much so that the upcoming remake of George Romero's brilliant film THE CRAZIES has been retrofitted to be more like a modern zombie movie. Don't take my word for it. Check out the trailers for original and the remake. Frankly, as a fan of the genre, and the zombie sub-genre, this is getting a bit tiring, regardless of how badly I would like a remake of THE CRAZIES starring Timothy Olyphant to be fantastic.

Last night I watched a zombie movie from Norway called DEAD SNOW, and it was amazingly inventive. It took the one part of the Romero flicks that no one has really touched - intelligence in the living dead - and worked it into a really entertaining gorefest that has a lot of fun with itself and the various ways the knowledge of movies plays into its identity, not only on the part of character self-awareness, but also its unabashed use of serious iconography from previous entries in the sublime horror-comedy category. On top of that, though, it manages to successfully combine two of our favorite monsters into one amazing combo: Nazis and zombies. That's right, Nazi zombies. And it works, though I wanted a bit more background or exposition on the big bads themselves. This is bliss, and it shows that even recycled and rehashed concepts can reinvigorate horror films and make them into something new and exciting for even the most jaded fan.

So, I hope Hollywood takes its cue from the foreign producers of genre fare. The most thrilling films of the past few years have been mostly foreign, and mostly French (FRONTIER(S), the supremely disturbing INSIDE, or THEM). I'm looking forward to the remakes in our future, particularly THE CRAZIES and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but I fear that at best they'll be decent enough, and at worst they'll continue the tradition of crap that was already happening in their respective series/sub-genres. Here's hoping for the best.

Antici---pation: Upcoming Movies to Be Excited About

2010-02-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

I used to do a regular feature on here where I'd highlight a few of the films coming out that I was personally anticipating very, very much. I've decided to try again to bring you this column, and hope that the YouTube vids I put on here hold out a bit longer. I know, I should just download and post them myself, but whatever. Embedding is easier and I'm lazy. Today, some (somewhat) historically-based movies that I think should be a blast, or that I hope are in any case.

1) CENTURION
Writer/Director Neil Marshall's (THE DESCENT) follow-up to DOOMSDAY tells a fictionalized account of the struggle between the Roman Empire's Ninth Legion and the ancient Picts in Britain, circa 117 AD. This looks pretty hot. I am a fan of Marshall's stuff, and I'm finally stoked to see a historical action film that doesn't feature (at least not from the trailer) a ton of slo-mo and 300 cribbing. The cast is stellar: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, and Olga Kurylenko. If the battle showcased in the trailer, where the legion is ambushed, is anything like the historical Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, it will be amazing. I choose this over Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD any day.

2) CLASH OF THE TITANS
This may end up sucking, but I highly doubt it, even with my reservations about Sam Worthington as an actor. It's not like you have to be at all intellectually viable when you're playing the hero of a Greek sword-and-sorcery epic. Director Louis Leterrier at least knows how to make a mindlessly fun action flick (see the first TRANSPORTER and 2008's underrated INCREDIBLE HULK for proof). I won't be seeing this in the newly announced 3D iteration because it was done in post-production and will likely be more engaging in non-3D anyway. And that Cthulu/Deep Ones/Dagon-like Kraken design is amazingly immense and breathtaking.

3) SOLOMON KANE
Legendary pulp author Robert E. Howard's Puritan hero finally gets a film that may or may not be good, but I'm all about some vengeance-obsessed bloodletting. This trailer is fun, and it's got to be better than that Kull movie with Kevin Sorbo years ago. Anyway, between this and JONAH HEX, I can't decide which vaguely historical comic book/revenge movie I want to see more. HEX has the pedigree in place, but KANE has a great legacy of its own, especially if they stay true to the character as originally envisioned, and is anything like the recent comic book of the same name that pretty much kicks serious ass.

A Glaring Omission: BLACK BOOK

2010-02-13T03:37:00.000-05:00

Dear god, how did I forget this movie? Carice van Houten's performance alone

justifies its inclusion on any list, not matter what the subject.

I must have spent a month whittling down to fifty favorites over the past decade, and it was a lot of work. I've seen a lot, and a fair amount was pretty damned good. You go back and look at everything that was left out, and you'll know what I mean. I simply didn't have room, nor does anyone. How anyone in their right minds ever came up with a list of ten that wasn't an aggregate list makes no sense to me. However, I did notice something while going over the list again with some friends (I don't generally re-read my own posts ad nauseum), and that was the exclusion of BLACK BOOK. This is completely detrimental to my whole list and actually points out the futility of such an exercise.

Paul Verhoeven is easily one of my favorite filmmakers. With the exception of HOLLOW MAN, I'm a fan for one reason or another of all of his stuff. Pulpy, erotic and oh so violent much of it is. His 2006 Jewish spy in Nazi-occupied Holland film BLACK BOOK is no exception. It has all the hallmarks of vintage Verhoeven - camp, sex, black humor, and violence - and is a remarkable achievement by any measure. And then there's the star of it all: Carice van Houten. Oh my god what a knock it out of the ballpark performance. What a commitment and embodiment of everything a good Verhoeven leading lady should be. She's all the wickedness of TOTAL RECALL and BASIC INSTINCT era Sharon Stone mixed with the unabashed willingness to go for it of SHOWGIRLS' Gina Gershon, and she's classically beautiful, too, blonde or her natural brunette. Seriously, how many mainstream actresses, foreign or domestic, would be in a movie that showed them dying their pubic hair to fool Nazi officers and both give a fantastic performance and it be a fantastic movie? Not many, I tell you.

Anyway, I just wanted to clear all that up. This one should have been in the top 25, but for some reason it wasn't. Damned lists.

Blurbs

2010-02-13T03:16:00.000-05:00

Usually, I watch a whole lot of films, and it makes a column where I play "catch up" very necessary. Recently, however, I've been catching up on television I've been missing (LOST and DEXTER, mainly), so I haven't had the need to post a "Blurbs" update. But, recently, I've seen and completed a few things you should know about, and I want to write about. So, here it is, more Blurbs:

THE WOLFMAN
This is an oddity: an adult horror film that plays like a Victorian drama, and features an abundant amount of realistic gore and practical creature effects by legend Rick Baker -which draws directly from the amazing Jack Pierce's original design for Lon Chaney, Jr (and which is amazing). The transformations are on a level not seen since Baker's work in AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, merging CGI and practical effects pretty well. On top of all that, it features Benecio del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving in a film about murder and werewolves which is tonally all over the place and beautifully photographed. I liked it. There's gore aplenty, and I liked the creakiness of the film, emphasizing mood and atmosphere over the first half of the film before unleashing the beast after a rather terrific and much-too-short asylum sequence, which I for one would have gladly watched for another twenty minutes or so, especially if given more background story on the wild boy in India. You'll know what I mean if you see it. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have a good werewolf movie again, one that can easily stand up to GINGER SNAPS and THE HOWLING, and which features actual werewolves and not teenagers without shirts. This one's a hit, but I don't think it'll be financially successful. Unfortunately, this isn't what mainstream audiences want - not even mainstream horror ones.

LOST, seasons 1 and 2
I'm a late-comer to this show, probably due to my insane drive to simply watch entire storylines at once (it's why I generally spend more money on trade paperbacks of comic books than the individual issues, which is neither here nor there), but so far I've really enjoyed it, though sometimes it's too contradictory for its own good - I definitely see this "expansiveness" becoming annoying in another season or so. Anyway, I'm down with what Abrams created initially, and it's keeping me interested and guessing, and it's actually got a pretty good ensemble, though I must admit I'm no fan of Matthew Fox, and must further admit he doesn't do that poorly here. If there's a highlight, it's definitely the lighthearted stuff with Hurley, especially since he's totally a Xander/Zeppo-type character and is usually on the fringe (and Xander's my favorite side character EVER). I love the fact that he sets up a golf course, and it's openly acknowledged how ridiculous it is by the characters, and I love that there's a whole episode devoted to the possibility that all of this is just made up by his insane brain - and that they don't say it's not. That's ballsy. Anyway, if you watch this show, you probably think it's pretty great, too. We'll see how the rest of this holds up.

A SERIOUS MAN
This probably deserves a much deeper analysis, but really I don't know what I'd say about it. The Coens have really done themselves proud their last few films, and this is definitely the oddest in a filmography that contains gems of goofy WTF-ness such as RAISING ARIZONA, BARTON FINK, and BURN AFTER READING. In any case, what we have here is an interpretation of the Book of Job thematically, with Larry Gopnick (a fantastic Michael Stuhlbarg) having just about everything bad that can happen to him, well, happen. This movie isn't for people without a serious dark streak of humor, mostly because if you can't laugh, it becomes terribly depressing after the first five minutes or so with the Gopnick family. And, it has one of the most bizarre cold opens I've ever seen, taking us back quite some time to an Old-World Jewish family and their encounter with a (possible) dybuk - a type of demon or manifestation of evil. The ending is just as magnificent and dark and beautiful and, and, and... I guess I really did love this film. One last thing about it that's truly great: you won't recognize anyone except for Richard Kind, and most people don't even know him by name.

Review: EDGE OF DARKNESS

2010-02-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

The benefit that the American-ized update of the 1985 BBC miniseries EDGE OF DARKNESS has going for it is its ability to find a momentum and sustain it. In my humble and purely personal opinion, I found the original to be a bit creaky, though engaging and entertaining. Sometimes there is just too much space between significant events in a mystery/drama like this when expanded into six hour-long episodes. In any case, here it is, and it's actually pretty good. I'm a fan of Mel Gibson's, particularly as an actor, and I'm glad to see him back on-screen and not attempting to look like he's still in his 30's. He brings a certain level of well-aged cynicism that really drives this material forward.

EDGE OF DARKNESS is adapted and scripted by William Monahan, and like his other big screenplay, THE DEPARTED, is set in Boston, though this time out everything's much more corporate conspiracy-laden and not quite so gritty. Still, what the film offers up is another morally complex piece of work where it's difficult to tell where the blurry line between "right" and "wrong" starts to fade completely. It's not an original concept, especially for what is essentially a film about a cop, but it does this particularly well, balancing Thomas Craven the vengeful family man with Thomas Craven the officer out for justice.

Gibson plays Craven, whose daughter's murder is believed early on in the film to be an accident related to an ex-con's vendetta, but which turns into something much darker and more sinister than a simple revenge fantasy could ever be. As is appropriate in these types of films, the badass detective goes on his own investigation to figure out what really happened, and comes up with real answers. And while in this day and age it's a bit inconceivable that a giant corporation would actually be held accountable for their actions, it's nonetheless satisfying to see that scenario play out, and then be handled effectively by Craven himself. Who's accountable now, punks?

The film is directed by Martin Campbell, who was also involved in the original, as well as 2006's CASINO ROYALE, which launched him into semi-superstar director status. He's well-known and fairly highly regarded in film circles in the very least. His involvement here shows a sure hand, unafraid of revisiting themes and variations he's been exploring for over twenty years in a different milieu and culture. He shoots the film's slower scenes appropriately flat, giving out precious expositional information in a similar method to THE WIRE, where nothing is really repeated and you must pay attention to what's said, but when the action revs up, it's not over-the-top slam-bang stuff; mostly it's ridiculously realistic, even when Gibson shoots the driver of a car sent to run him down and then shoots out a tire to make the car swerve and miss him. Yes, I realize I use the term realistic loosely in this case, but how many big 'action' movies do you see where someone actually has to shoot a tire out to cause the car to swerve? Realism and ridiculous are good bed-partners anyway.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. It's appropriately dark and depressing, beginning and ending in tragedy, but Gibson really shines. For me, he saves the film on more than one occasion just by delivering his dialogue in that way that I can only imagine him saying it. While not a great film, EDGE OF DARKNESS is more than serviceable as a thriller, and it really is a lot of fun, and features a great supporting cast that I won't spoil for you by saying too much about them apart from what you've undoubtedly seen in the trailers.

Best of the Decade, addendum

2010-01-21T17:08:00.001-05:00

So, of course twenty-five is a ridiculous number of films and shows to pick out of a ten year span. And, of course there were many that I debated putting on the list up 'til the very last second. In simple numerical order, without assigning "better than" status, here are twenty-five "almosts":

1) A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT
2) THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN
3) HEAVEN
4) HELLBOY
5) THE DEVIL'S REJECTS
6) BIG FISH
7) HELVETICA
8) BROKEN FLOWERS
9) SPIRITED AWAY
10) WALL-E
11) BLOW
12) CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
13) PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
14) ALL THE REAL GIRLS
15) MATCH POINT
16) VOLVER
17) PAN'S LABYRINTH
18) GOODBYE, LENIN!
19) ANTICHRIST
20) THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
21) WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES
22) THE DEPARTED
23) A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
24) THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX
25) ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Best of the Decade, part III

2010-01-21T16:57:00.000-05:00

So here you go, the last five of the official twenty-five picks for Best of the Decade. It's been fun trying to compile this list, and I hope you've had fun reading it and thinking about it. Please leave comments and discuss if you'd like; I'm always interested in another person's views, and I hope that you'll indulge me by attempting to breach that authorial wall with me that for whatever reason I have set up with the actual readers of the blog. This should be slightly more communal. In any case, here they are...let the hate/discussion/love begin:

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
I can't really think of a movie in the last decade that I found so quietly moving and disturbing at the same time, that affected me personally on a level as deep and terrifying, as THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Director Paul Thomas Anderson's epic character study is a film that works its way slowly into your mind, beginning with a masterful 15 minutes, which treks Daniel in the very beginning of his career, through the discovery of his son, that contains no dialogue, and is, for all intents and purposes, a silent film in and of itself. And really, if the rest of the film's 2 hours and 45 minutes had no dialogue, it wouldn't make that much of a difference, either. Sure, we'd lose out on the "I drink your milkshake!" fun that everyone had after the movie came out, but the film would still contain beautiful images and fierce performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, and that wonderful score by Johnny Greenwood would still be there, too. But, thankfully there is dialogue, and we are treated to Daniel's diatribes against "people," his discussions with restaurant patrons who are staring at his table, his amazing "I'm an Oil Man" speech, and all of Paul Dano's spot-on evangelical theatrics, and that last line, declaring the end of it all - literally everything, film included - would not carry such significance. This is a towering achievement for American cinema. It's a film that deserves to be seen again and again, and I'm happy to oblige.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
In a decade that saw Quentin Tarantino's directorial output more than double, it's no surprise that I should choose two of his films for my list, not only because he's one of my favorite directors, but also because he is consistently entertaining, thought-provoking and batshit insane. In the same vein of KILL BILL and the highly underrated DEATH PROOF, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is a quintessential Tarantino hodgepodge of ideas, images half-remembered from grindhouse flicks, hilarious dialogue, and memorable characters placed within a pure-cinema milieu to create a wholly fascinating, singular piece of work. Christoph Waltz as Nazi villain Hans Landa, "The Jew Hunter," is a revelation, and Brad Pitt is hilarious and über-macho as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds, an all-Jewish squad sent behind enemy lines to terrorize and wipe out the Nazi threat. Only in a Tarantino re-telling of World War II would cinema play such a triumphant and vital role, with the main characters aside from Raine, being involved in one way or another with film making or exhibition. Indeed, the final showdown, a ballsy rewriting of historical fact, takes place inside a theatre, and engages the audience on both sides of the screen by implicating them in the action, removing, with the giant head of vengeance (the Jewish owner of the theatre) laughing as the place burns down around them.

SPARTAN
David Mamet's thriller about the missing daughter of a high-level government official (it's the President; don't tell anybody) is an amazing piece of work that still gives me an adrenaline rush every time I watch it. Largely overlooked upon its release in 2004, SPARTAN is slowly growing in reputation, either by simple recommendation, or because those who kinda, sorta liked it back then are giving it another go as the years pass by. Regardless of all of that critical reception crap, though, the movie is engaging, cryptic, and trusting of an audience that all too often gets talked down to by the Hollywood system, as if we can only understand things that are spelled out for us to the tiniest detail. While that may be true to a certain extent, and with certain audiences, Mamet's gift with SPARTAN is that the film easily appeals to a wide variety of demographics, with its high-caliber performances by Val Kilmer and William H. Macy, its staccato Mamet dialogue repeating phrases and exclamations that create a sort of poetry within the film, and its wonderful camerawork. It's a spy thriller unlike any I've ever seen, its characters grounded in reality unlike the many action flicks that get passed off in theatrical release every year. It's no James Bond at all, and maybe it's an anti-spy thriller. It's brilliant, whatever it is.

THE DESCENT
The past decade was surprisingly good for horror fans, offering several noteworthy and absolutely horrific excursions into the genre, including the exploitation revisionism of THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, and the return to horror-comedy in Sam Raimi's DRAG ME TO HELL. None, however, were so brilliantly concocted, plotted, and genuinely blood-curdling as Neil Marshall's British film THE DESCENT. The film is a claustrophobic nightmare, as it follows a group of female friends on a cave exploration trip in the Appalachian mountains a year after one of them loses her family in a horrible tragedy. They end up squeezing through small passages in order to reach larger chambers, eventually becoming trapped deep within the cave system. It's terrifying, uneasy, and chilling, and then the monsters show up. I think what I found so appealing about the film is its sure hand at what it was doing, setting up its characters as people who the audience can actually care about, putting them into an already horrific situation, and then upping the ante once the darkness starts to set in as they try to find their way out. All horror films at their heart are steeped in this sort of Freudian return to the womb scenario, but none tap into it quite so literally and unabashadly, or so well. THE DESCENT's biggest surprise is that it plays on a lot of different fears, and when its lead character is 'reborn', whether in the American ending or the original ending, it is a genuine release, both for character and audience.

THE WIRE
For five seasons, David Simon's drama chronicling the investigations of the Baltimore Police Department and the many, many, many characters on either side of the cases is one of the best television shows ever, and that's not coming from me lightly, especially since the past decade has seen a revitalization of the medium, most of the fiction shows on cable stations (WEEDS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, MAD MEN, DEXTER, DEADWOOD) are outstanding examples of how to write and execute fully fleshed-out characters, plotlines with nuance and finesse. What makes THE WIRE special, though, is that it really culminates around the end of its third season to make a point of every single person, no matter what they have done or how they have done it, is neither completely good or bad, while asking serious questions about the way our society functions in order to praise some, and condemn others. Is the entire world corrupt at some tiny, minute level, or are we all redeemable because we are inherently good but sometimes get caught up in machinations of the society's circumstances at large? On top of that, each character is important, gets thoroughly examined, and receives a proper denouement in a final episode that not only brings everything to a close, but further postulates on the possible outcomes of the things that culminated by that time. It's a stunning achievement, worth every single minute it was on screen, and rewards multiple viewings with its endlessly fantastic character work, utilizing actors, non-actors, real gang members from Baltimore, real cops, and virtually no familiar faces - though Richard Belzer's Detective Munch showing up in the end was sublime and completely appropriate, even with its being a stunt. THE WIRE is one of those perfect shows, where everything that happens means something, and everything matters to the viewer. It's just...perfect.