Fighting for a good space under the lighting

Review - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2012-01-13T14:43:00.001-08:00

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2011
Dir. by Brad Bird

I found it odd that I was actually looking forward to another MI film, having been less-than-impressed by the first two films and mildly entertained by the J.J. Abrams-directed third entry. However, for this latest film, seeing the animated veteran director Brad Bird finally get his shot at live action I was fairly intrigued. He’s a very good storyteller and understands the visual medium. And he “gets” action as much as one can, using action scenes to link a story together but not lose characters/personalities within those scenes.

These skills serve him well in this film which behaves more like an episode of the original television show: The characters are all pretty well established so you don’t have to re-invent them; there’s no love interest story needed, it’s just this group of characters trying to do what seems to be literally impossible.

The story itself involves a Russian hardliner (Michael Nyqvist) trying to start a new Cold War era and the MI team getting disavowed and having to race the clock to stop him. Tom Cruise is Agent Ethan Hunt yet again, capable, assured but a little world-weary/-wary now. But he does exactly what he needs to do given the mountain of obstacles he and the team are up against. And, for the first time in the franchise, this feels like a “team” movie. Hunt is clearly at the front but director Bird pushes the others up front and center, too, so they’re not overshadowed and play an almost equal part. Simon Pegg returns as Agent Dunn, now a rookie field agent which affords him some new areas to play in. They’re joined by Agents Carter (Paula Patton) who has a bit of a score to settle along the way and Brandt (Jeremy Renner) who has a secretive past that he’s just barely handling. Each member has to work together and on their own for their mission to succeed here and it’s refreshing to see that actually happen in this film series.

While the story/notion doesn’t play out anything new Bird is smart enough to realize that and, instead, seizes on the more memorable points of the franchise: Exotic locales, some gadgetry (but, thankfully, they lose most of it and have to rely on their own skills), and a destructive timeline. The film never really seems to rest, either, even when the characters catch a break periodically and that helps underscore the tension of their mission as well. And it’s not that the camera’s always moving in every single shot (watch some garbage by Michael Bay to understand this point, if you must) but the plot points keep moving everything forward - no opportunity is lost but in a way that doesn’t feel manufactured. Again, I’d credit Bird as a storytelling technician and knowing how to keep everything moving without the audience realizing it, per se.

It’s a fun movie, a good actioner, and a big ol’ win for Brad Bird. But, then again, that’s pretty much what could be expected.

Rating: B

Review - The Mechanic (2011)

2012-01-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Mechanic
2011
Dir. by Simon West

In the recent spate of remakes I’ve found myself often wondering why films that weren’t great - okay but not great - aren’t the subject for remakes instead of already-established films. So it was nice to see West’s version of The Mechanic show up.

This version gets current action-filmmaking machine Jason Statham in the lead (instead of Bronson in the original), as Bishop, a too-cool professional hitman. After getting a job to eliminate his likeable, wheelchair-bound old boss, McKenna (Donald Sutherland) - and lest we overlook this: He shoots a guy who’s his friend who’s in a wheelchair - that’s pretty bleak, folks - he has to come to terms of that loss with McKenna’s miscreant of a son, Steve (Ben Foster, a serious upgrade from Jan Michael Vincent’s role in the original). Having misspent most of his life wandering Steve now wants vengeance for his father’s death and figures hitching himself to Bishop would be the best way to do so.

It takes very little convincing for Bishop to take Steve on as an apprentice and so he starts to learn the assassin trade. Steve’s still a bit of a loose cannon, though, but clearly capable. Bishop feels bad for him but remains rather coldly emotionless with his plight and the fact that he killed Steve’s father. The movie tries to sell you more on the action set pieces and Statham’s cool character rather than worrying about things like character development or story architecture or plot much, though. When the plot does finally resume it’s an abrupt, awkward interruption that only seems to be there to put this bro-fest love-in to some purpose. It’s ending seems even more disturbing than the event that precipitated all the action, with all parties somehow getting what apparently they deserve at the end. It’s a harsh ending but not treated as such and that’s the film’s consistent fault: It gleefully ignores consequences and the obvious moral no-man’s-land of these characters, eschewing that for some great action pieces, sexual encounters and explosions.

Ultimately, The Mechanic really lives up to its name here - it’s the kind of movie you could assemble if you had the right Chilton’s guide and it reads just about as passionately as that technical volume. Foster tries his hardest to inject some personality into the film but can’t compete with all the other noise going on. The only other note I’d like to add is that I counted a boom mic coming down from the top of the screen at least five times, too, and that’s rather telling of the director’s attention to detail and storytelling capability. Good as a brainless action flick but, really, that’s not saying much at all here.

Rating: D-

Review - Batman: Year One

2012-01-12T15:56:00.000-08:00

Batman: Year One
2011
Dir. by Sam Liu, Lauren Montgomery

When I was in high school I decided to get back in to comics. I hadn’t picked up anything since my subscription to Star Wars ran out many years prior so I asked the guy working at the comic book store what he’d recommend. He had a single recommendation, saying, “Here’s all you need.” What he gave me was a copy of the first issue of Frank Miller/Dave Mazzuchelli’s Batman: Year One. That set me up for what I felt comics should be like, that dirty street quality, the dark, brooding characters and storylines, the appreciation for the characters. So I was stoked to hear of an animated movie of this four-issue comic run that would involve Bruce Timm, a strong force behind Batman: The Animated Series who clearly cared about character and story.

The story here focuses primarily on the development of Bruce Wayne into Batman (voiced here by Ben McKenzie) and a young Lt. James Gordon (voiced by Bryan Cranston). They each come to Gotham at the same time and, as the storytelling progresses, it’s clear they want the same thing - to do right, to do better, to “save” more than to “fix” the city. Gordon’s been run out of his previous job due to taking down a dirty cop by the book and Cranston’s world-weary voice gives the character the appropriate gravitas here. Wayne’s just returned from being abroad since, basically, his parents death, feeling ready to take on Gotham’s criminal element but unsure how.

Each character has to go the trial-and-error route to find a way to get what they want and neither gets their easily. The system seems set against both of them even as they’re initially set against each other. But they soon recognize their similar paths and the story really develops around showing how Batman and Gordon could become such strong allies later on.

Clocking in at :90 min. this animated adaptation gets most of the comic series right but still feels a little rushed. Deciding to include the Catwoman origin story (ably voiced by Eliza Dushku) seems to strain the already-loaded story, too. But the movie is faithful to the tenor of the seminal comic series and includes all the big, dramatic moments and, ultimately, is pretty satisfying as far as adaptations go.

Rating: B

Review - The Last Circus

2012-01-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

The Last Circus
2010
Dir. by Alex de la Iglesia
Watched on Netflix Streaming

Consider this one of those movies where the trailer is far superior to the finished product. While not a bad movie by any means de la Iglesia’s heady and colorful dissection of Spain’s cultural history and where it now stands just tries to do far too much, sacrificing its genuine core story in the process.

The film begins against the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s push to power. A circus performance is interrupted in order to conscript any able-bodied men to fight, with a machete-wielding clown doing more than his fair share. But the fascists win and imprison the clown, separating him from his young son, Javier. When he’s a teen Javier visits dad’s work camp, intent on freeing him but instead sets himself on a path of timidity and docile compliance. The film catches up to Javier years later (now played by Carlos Areces) getting his first job in a circus as the “sad clown” character. He pairs perfectly with the popular, bombastic, suave Sergio (Antonio de la Torre) who’s the circus’ financial saving grace and bully.

These two characters share an attraction to the beautiful circus dancer Natalia (Carolina Bang) who loves each of them but for directly opposite reasons: Whereas Javier brings out her romantic-ideal side with his puppy-dog adoration/protection Sergio plays to her harmful, violent, lustful sexual ideal. She can move between them easily since she’s basically getting to have her cake and eat it, too, without any negative consequences (they both still love her, regardless).

Combine Natalia’s lack of commitment with Javier’s arrested development notions of love and romance and Sergio’s brutal jealousy and the story is primed to move to its next phase. After a gory altercation leaves Javier naked and mumbling in the woods and Sergio with a new appearance, the story sets its sights on Javier’s transformation. He says at one point that he’s a sad clown because, “I never had a childhood.” Indeed, here, what plays out is that his opportunity for any sense of “normal” has been taken away by a violent past that now comes back for vengeance. Javier’s transformation into a base animal and resulting religious zealot and bringer of destruction makes sense in this context, as his environment’s biggest contributors (the State and the Church) only see him as a disposable asset, fit for their own needs.

Javier physically transforms himself into the sad clown+angel of vengeance, a visually striking but fairly ineffective caricature that’s bent on rescuing Natalia. Meanwhile, she has moved on with her life somewhat when Sergio reappears, his mangled face merely an externalization of his internal ugliness. She has sympathy for him and what they used to share but soon realizes it’s not going to work out, commercially or romantically. When next approached by the new Javier she is sympathetic but spurns his advances as well. This drives the two men into a fevered battle for her affections, leading to a symbolic, fatal finale atop the huge cross of the Monument in the Valley of the Fallen where they try to force Natalia to finally make a decision. The decision she makes offers no one any peace but, in the grand sense of theater, only a tragedy that seems all-too fitting.

With Javier as the developmentally-stinted country and Sergio as its brutal but sexy figure of authority the film comes down heavily on Natalia, who seems to represent the country of Spain in its current age. It refuses to acknowledge its violent past, enjoying instead the idyllic romanticized version of its life - while, at the same time, secretly masochistic over that violence, aroused by overwhelming authority. It’s basically the fascistically idealized version of Woman, “a whore in the bedroom, a nun in the rest of the household.” But the film seems to say that this condition is Natalia’s fault by not acknowledging the dark parts of its past while carrying on a fantasy about them to satisfy their true lust for some power.

I dunno if it’s a sound argument - blaming the victim rarely works - but here de la Iglesia makes a strong case with some stunning visuals and a passionate enthusiasm for the story that’s clear in the film’s level of embraced absurdity. His reach definitely exceeds his grasp here, though, and that ultimately hurts his argument as it gets muddled by too much of that visual treatment, sacrificing a more structured story for sensationalized imagery.

Rating: C

Movie review - OSS 117, Cairo: Nest of Spies and Lost In Rio

2011-12-16T01:19:00.000-08:00

OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies
2006
Dir. by Michel Hazanavicius

Here’s a thought: Imagine if the Austin Powers films were actually done well, didn’t rely on cheap gags and were made by a filmmaker that can tell a story. What would that look like? Well, in French, it looks like the OSS 117 films from Michel Hazanavicius and combines satire of the spy genre with screwball action and comedy, as much homage as parody.

OSS 117 is the code name of France’s top secret agent, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (the amazingly well-cast Jean Dujardin), at the top of his game in mid-50s France. Brash, unapologetic, unaware and completely incorrect politically - think a 50’s French Archer, if you’re familiar with FX’s animated series - he’s nonetheless successful at his job of foiling international conspiracies.

After his “good friend” and fellow agent goes missing in Egypt OSS 117 is dispatched to find out what happened and, in the turn of events, to stop a militant Muslim uprising. And, of course, Nazis, Russians, Egyptian royalty and double-agents are involved. He teams up with local contact Larmina (Berenice Bejo) who, while shocked at his arrogance and ignorance, nevertheless has to appreciate his ability to somehow come out on top. Like the country he represents he’s still managing to accomplish something while seeming to also accidentally destroy everything around him.

Mixing comedy and de facto criticisms of France’s colonialism and white-male-dominated society is a tough sell but the film’s story and especially Dujardin’s endless charm go a long way to make that work. While not nearly as good as the sequel film OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is still a very entertaining, amusing film because of all the little things it gets oh-so right.

Rating: B-

OSS 117 - Lost In Rio
2009
Dir. by Michel Hazanavicius

This sequel ups the ante of the first film in sheer goofiness and Nazi headcount and it’s all for the better as director Hazanavicius and company seem to finally properly dial-in the right formula for a successful satire-spoof.

This film moves the action to 1967 without OSS 117 having aged at all. He’s sent to Rio de Janiero to track down Nazis (what else?) and finally comes face to face with the counter-cultural revolution and the passing of his particular age. He’s aided this time by Mossad agent Dolores Koulechov (Louise Monot) and the lead Nazi’s hippie son, Heinrich (Alex Lutz). The plot of this film is tighter and the comedy is just more spot-on than the previous film and it really works. OSS 117 is realizing slowly how out of touch his generation is and how the world is changing all around him, despite his strongly-held beliefs to the contrary. As the world opens up all its possibilities he begins to finally embrace them. And he has to fight some evil luchadores along the way, too, to get his Nazi prize.

Dujardin is again just fantastic in the lead role, actually getting some growth to his character this time around. The whole film plays big, in every way, kind of giving him and what he stands for a final send-off in grand fashion. Witty, entertaining and well-paced it’s a great film to just kick back and laugh with.

Rating: B

Movie review - Bridesmaids

2011-12-16T01:16:00.000-08:00

Bridesmaids
2011
Dir. by Paul Feig

Judd Apatow - regardless of what you may think of his sense of humor - has built a steady reputation of character-driven comedies. He manages to take a flimsy or cliched premise and bring out the humanity of the story, wrapping as much sentiment about connection and relationships as he can with a thick covering of “crass” or “inappropriate” humor.

However, the biggest critique leveled against him is how his female characters play out in his films - they’re typically either shrieking harpies or emotionally insecure pretty girls that are far beyond the reach of his Every-schlub protagonists yet somehow they end up together, in a positive fashion.

So it’s an interesting take he gets in producing Bridesmaids. Ostensibly the story of a lifelong pair of friends (Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph) who reach a crucial point in their lives as Rudolph gets engaged and Wiig’s life falls apart. The film is pretty much a Kristen Wiig vehicle but she manages the responsibility quite well, not cutting any corners with her character’s accelerated loss of ambition, motivation, and self-respect.

As the story plays out Rudolph picks Wiig to be her maid of honor, much to the chagrin of newer-friend (and better suited to the task) Rose Byrne. Then, as the other bride wedding party guests are introduced they serve mainly as foils to act out how badly Wiig can try and screw up her friend’s wedding. Apart from Byrne the really only essential character that does anything here is Melissa McCarthy who gets the meatiest role as the strong-willed, determined, unsinkable gal-pal that just happens to be there at the right exact moment she’s needed.

While that story is rather bare, actually, the more interesting aspect is how the men in Wiig’s character’s life fit into her story. Typically in Hollywood films the woman can do nothing without the man, whether it’s find happiness or motivation or making her life complete in some way. Here, though, the men are either hilariously chauvinistic (John Hamm as her “boyfriend”), ignorantly callous (Little Britain’s Matt Lucas as her wonderfully creepy roommate) or completely genuine (The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd as her frustrated romantic interest). These characters either abuse her, ignore her or think they understand her when they don’t quite do so. Her budding relationship with O’Dowd feels sincere as it’s not instant-happiness nor is it the cure to all her problems and once she’s with a man, BAM! all her depression is magically erased. She rejects him, then he rejects her, then they come together more as friends. It’s a deft touch of feminism on display, and while this is no feminyst(!) film-of-the-decade it nevertheless represents a refreshing step forward for female roles in Hollywood films, especially comedies - something that’s been abysmally lacking for quite some time (current violators are anything with either Jennifer Aniston or Katherine Heigl).

Much less of a chick-flick than I was led to believe, Bridesmaids is a pretty humorous look at the complexities of modern relationships, both friendly and romantic.

Rating: B-

Movie review - Captain America

2011-12-16T01:15:00.000-08:00

Captain America: The First Avenger
2011
Dir. by Joe Johnston

I’m an unashamed comic book geek and, since I was a kid, Captain America was my favorite character. It wasn’t the little guy-to-super-soldier angle that appealed to me, though. Rather, it was the fact that he was just a good, solid guy, always able to do the right thing when no one else could. Plus, he beat up Nazis and had a cool shield so that was a plus. And he had THE best arch-nemesis, in my opinion, in Red Skull. So I went into this movie hopeful but with much trepidation. Comic book movies can be pretty hit-and-miss and I didn’t want them to screw up my lifelong favorite. Thankfully, here, they didn’t.

The story follows the pint-sized Steve Rogers (with an amazing effect of actually using a computerized-pared down version of actor Chris Evans) trying repeatedly to get into the Army at the outbreak of WWII. His good pal and “protector” Bucky (Sebastian Stan) has no problem enlisting but that leaves Rogers all alone. He finally catches the attention of a Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who’s developed a super-soldier program. Much to the chagrin of hard-edged Col. Philips (Tommy Lee Jones) Rogers is accepted into this program that seems stacked against him. But he soon proves his character and resourcefulness and becomes their test subject. He’s injected with the serum and becomes, well, enormous...

He doesn’t have long to get used to his new self, though, since an agent of the bad guys’ group HYDRA (or, if you will, Nazis) disrupts the procedure, killing Dr. Erskine in the process. With the good doctor gone and, apparently, the ability to re-create his super-serum (really? no notes or anything? that still bugs me as it did when I was a kid but, hey - at least they left that part in) Rogers is put on display as the new US soldier archetype in a cross-country promotional tour for war bonds.

Frustrated at his limited role and lack of ability to take on the enemy he finally gets his chance on a USO tour in Europe. Learning that his pal Bucky has been captured along with many other US soldiers and is stranded behind enemy lines he sets off to rescue against Col. Philips’ orders. He’s aided by a young Richard Stark (Dominic Cooper), inventor and a bit of a daredevil, and the plucky and determined Army attache Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Rogers manages to infiltrate the HYDRA base, rescue Bucky and his fellow soldiers, grab some intel on HYDRA’s secret locations, and come face-to-face with the only other living recipient of Erskine’s formula, HYDRA general Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). But as the serum amplified the good of Rogers it also amplified the evil of Schmidt and grotesquely twisted him into the villainous Red Skull.

So, with the primary characters now fully introduced - Captain America with his shield, Schmidt throwing away his mask and fully becoming Red Skull - the rest of the story plays out actually pretty quickly. And while the final ten minutes or so seem to solely be setup for The Avengers movie coming out next year, the rest of the story stays true to the comic storyline and lets Captain America do what he does best - act awesome and stomp the tar outta the bad guys.

The special effects in the film are fantastic when it comes to the characters. Rogers’ transformation easily deserves the Oscar in that category. And the way the filmmakers realized Red Skull as both functional and uniquely evil really works well. Both Evans and Weaving have an equal amount of fun with their opposing characters here and it keeps the action bouncing along nicely, too. As a fan, I would say that I’m very pleased with the results. Equally nostalgic with the long-running character and updated with a very moral characterization, Captain America: The First Avenger is very well done.

Rating: B

Review - The Debt

2011-12-09T23:10:00.000-08:00

2011
Dir. by John Madden

The spy thriller is a fairly tried and true genre, giving modern filmmakers a tougher time to come up with something new to do with it. Adding the Cold War and modern era together along with a complicated romantic relationship AND Nazi-hunting Mossad agents The Debt tries quite hard for a sexy new spin on it all. Does it succeed? Well, sorta...(yes, that is a cop-out to get you to read the rest of this review).

The film’s story basically starts with the introduction of a book about a famous Israeli mission to bring a horrible Nazi to justice in 1966. The book’s author just happens to be the daughter of two of the three agents who participated in that story: Her mother Rachel (Helen Mirren), her father Stephan (Tom Wilkinson). The third agent,David (Ciaran Hinds), is clearly the most troubled after the whole incident while Rachel and Stephan are now divorced, she living as a lecture-touring symbol of Israeli justice and Stephan high in the ranks of Mossad. After some brief setup it’s clear that not everything is going well suddenly for the trio and, to set it up properly, the film moves the action back to 1966, in Berlin for this famous mission.

Young Rachel (Jessica Chastain) is on her first assignment in the field while veteran operatives young Stephan (Marton Csokas) and young David (Sam Worthington) are busy setting up the operation. Their target is the infamous “butcher of Birkenau,” one Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen). He’s currently living in Berlin and working as a gynecologist. So Rachel and David pose as a young couple trying to have a baby, giving her a chance to get in close on the good doctor to confirm his identity. Once that’s done they manage to abuct him quickly and have plans to put him on a train out of Berlin and get Vogel to Israel where he can stand trial. But the plan doesn’t work out and they’re left holding their hostage in their apartment in Berlin, on their own, marked by the authorities and lacking any outside help.

As they’re stranded in this place their situation begins to develop into something more between them all. Since there are three of them it’s safe to assume that they each take on the role of The Mind, with righteous David as the superego, ambitious Stephan as the id and the all-too-human Rachel as the moderating ego. She clearly has to carry the biggest load here, as she at first has to allow this evil man to probe around inside her lady parts then, later, as she continues to do the dishes and clean up the apartment. Her spy skills notwithstanding the 2 others begin to turn to her romantically (David) and sexually (Stephan) as well, subjugating her yet again. The film stops just shy of really making something more out of this with the exception being that she’s the only team member who leaves the mission with a hideous visible scar. I don’t think subtlety is Madden’s strongsuit.

How the mission plays out and what they have to do in order to return home as heroes plays out in good spy-movie fashion. Where the film comes off the tracks a bit is the final half hour when they turn the spy thriller into a mystery-action piece, attempting to put a nice bow onto it all in the modern day and give all the characters a second chance. It’s shoehorned in and shows clumsily which is a shame as the script here was written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman who have done much better with keeping these kinds of thematic elements in check.

The debt of the film’s title, then, relates to this final part fo the story and - as it’s is pretty muddy - so, too, is the meaning of the title as it’s very unclear to whom the debt is owed at all (while they nail the cost of the debt and who’s paying it quite clearly). It’s unfortunately uneven in this way and that drags the overall film down which is a shame because, at its core, it’s a very competent spy thriller.

Extras, Audio, Video

Extras on this Universal BD are incredibly sparse, containing just three very short marketing-type segments, focusing on the film itself, on Helen Mirren and on the “love triangle” story angle. The commentary track from director Madden and producer Kris Thykier is rather boring as it’s mostly Madden describing the setup of shots and scenes and trying to wake his producer on occasion.

The available English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 track is incredibly efficient, servicing the dramatically scored action scenes as well as the whispered, secret conversations between the main actors. The image is also quite nice here, presented in widescreen 2.40:1 at 1080p, giving nice grit to the Cold War era Berlin and beautiful sun-saturation to modern Israel locations.

The only other notable “extra” is more a function of the BD Live use on the disc, giving me the opportunity to try out the pocket Blu app on my iPhone. It actually works more cleanly and responsive than my player’s remote control and the time-tracking ability (by tilting my phone on its side) is a nice feature. From this app I could even stream the above-mentioned extras and view them on the phone if I’d wanted. It’s a pretty slick addition.

Summary

At the core of The Debt is a story of honor and honesty and what the cost of fighting the good fight really is. It’s a common theme in Nazi-hunter type films and while they try to play up the love triangle connection here as a new spin on it it’s ultimately a film without clear direction. It works best when it focuses on the spy thriller and less on the mystery that seems crammed on in order to make a better moralistic value judgement of the characters and their actions. Entertaining but uneven it’s still watchable for the main storyline and the performances of Mirren and Chastain.

Rating: C

Review - Tetsuo: The Bullet Man

2011-11-10T16:15:00.001-08:00

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
2009
Dir. by Shinya Tsukamoto

The third and final installment of his Tetsuo series The Bullet Man is, for this series, the most cohesive from a narrative perspective. It’s also the best looking of the three, with the same creative photography Tsukamoto’s employed in the previous two films but, here, with a sharper eye to better cinematography.

The story here is pretty much a rehash of the second film, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer - A young businessman is plagued by strange visions before a malevolent stranger runs over his young son right in front of him. In both films this serves as the necessary impetus to begin the bodily transformation of the protagonist, where rage suppression leads to turning the body into a violent cyborg weapon. The young man, Anthony (Eric Bossick), is still quite number after the experience, much to the disappointment of his revenge-seeking wife, just as in the previous film.

The primary difference here in The Bullet Man is that, this time around, there’s a doctor/family friend involved that knows more than he lets on. Failed secret government programs and ghastly family secrets combine to cause Anthony to finally lose control and become the human weapon, the bullet man of the title. All of this, again like the other films, serves to push him to a final confrontation with the man that killed his son - played yet again by a sinister Tsukamoto, who just wants that “one big shot” from the bullet man to end his own existence and, it seems, the majority of Tokyo in the process. Will Anthony’s rage overwhelm him or will his save the day and learn control even in the face of great passionate tragedy?

Fans of the series shouldn’t worry, though - it’s still as weird and frenetic and enjoyable as the previous films. (Note: Unfortunately, the robo-drill penis is limited to just the first film, The Iron Man.) Tsukamoto’s traversing familiar ground here once again but, like the other films, it’s an other-wordly joy just to watch him do so.

Rating: C-

Review - Thor

2011-11-10T16:00:00.001-08:00

Thor
2011
Dir. by Kenneth Branagh

I’ll admit that, as a kid, I was never much into Thor comics. My young reasoning what this, “He’s a god stuck here on Earth and doing the right thing - so what? Now where’s that latest issue of Haunted Tank at?” And yet in Branagh’s telling of the backstory, Thor becomes a much more relatable character, one with a grand sense of pathos and vulnerability, ultimately need to become a hero more than a god.

That’s not to say there’s a whole heaping deal of introspection and character depth on display in Thor - quite the contrary, the film plays it all lightly and comically straightforward. And that’s to the film’s credit, making it pure comic book of a movie.

The story follows the brash young god Thor (Chris Helmsworth) cockily swaggering toward the throne of his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins), ready to ascend to the role of leader of their land of Asgard. Odin, though, has reservations about his character and denies him this. As Thor is fuming about this his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) deceitfully talks him into a plan of restoring him and his people to his father’s good graces. Of course, it’s actually Loki’s plan to remove Thor from the picture and take the throne himself. Thor soon finds that he’s made everything worse with his rash, unthinking actions and is banished to Earth, seemingly cutoff from returning to his heavenly home forever.

Living amongst the mortals, especially love-interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), provides him a learning experience. Away from his coddled, easy existence he learns not how to fight but what it is to actually fight for something honorable. And so, naturally, it’s when he has that revelation that he’s finally able to grab that badass hammer of his and start whupping up on the big baddie from Asgard that Loki’s sent to destroy pretty much everything. Heroes are born, villains motivated, justice and order restored, and most everybody’s happy at the end.

The film does run a bit long, especially in detailing the whole Asgard story and their ancient fight with the Frost Giants. But it’s still exceptionally well-detailed, like any good comic book of this type should be. It doesn’t belabor any point but keeps it moving despite it’s 2+-hour running time. It’s a true comic book experience that seeks to entertain rather than re-invent the wheel - and, again, that’s very much to its credit.

Rating: C

Review - Attack the Block

2011-11-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

Attack the Block
2011
Dir. by Joe Cornish

Possibly the only thing I could see someone holding against Cornish’s very entertaining sci-fi film Attack the Block is the fact that the main characters are all hoodie-wearing young thugs in London. They start out bad enough but it’s due to their pugnacity that they’re able to mount a defense/offense against the invading aliens. As a bonus, their leader Moses (John Boyega), gets a lesson on how his actions might have horrible consequences not only for himself but everyone around him.

The gang starts the film by robbing a young female med student, Sam (Jodie Whittaker). She soon calls the cops out but the gang has other pressing matters as they’re attacked by what seems to be a rabid dog. They unite and chase it down, killing it in the process and proudly dragging the unique carcass back to the only person they know who might be able to give them money for such a find, the local pot dealer and his lackey Ron (Nick Frost).

However, it soon turns out that what they’ve done is killed the lead of an alien hunting invasion. This invasion is swift, vicious, and overwhelming and it’s only by relying on their well-developed escape skills that the kids in the gang are able to make it to safety. Trapped in their apartment block they end up having to team with Sam and others as they try to outrun and, ultimately, outwit the aliens who seem to have targeted them specifically...

Filmmaker Cornish here gives these kids - who are understandably often maligned by polite society - a level of credibility as victims of their circumstances who, nevertheless, can inspire themselves to fight back for the “greater good.” Shot on the cheap but looking nothing like it Attack the Block is a quick-paced, entertaining sci-fi actioner that’s as fun as it is unique.

Rating: B-

Review - Drive

2011-11-10T15:27:00.001-08:00

Drive
2011
Dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn

You ever go into a movie theater with really high expectations, knowing you’re going to like the movie you’re about to see? And then you get the surprise of people walking out of the theater during the movie? AND, as it turns out, the movie not only meets your expectations but exceeds them wildly? Well, yep - that was my experience with Refn’s latest film, Drive.

First off, Drive is not a crime movie. Nor is it a Fast and the Furious ripoff. Rather, it’s an amazingly well-done, poignant, even-handed, brutally violent homage to 80’s action films, done by a European art-film type of director. The main character of the driver (Ryan Gosling who spends most of the film in mute, passive silence) is never named, universalizing his story into the fantasy wish-fulfillment that action films typically fill for most males. He’s a film stunt driver by day, under the sponsorship of old-vet Shannon (Bryan Cranston). But like many others around him, the driver becomes a means to an end as Shannon has bigger NASCAR dreams on the driver’s talent - he just needs money. So that’s where the local gangsters step in, in the form of the personable, slick crime boss Bernie (Albert Brooks - yes, that Albert Brooks) and his brutal partner Nino (Ron Perlman).

However, at the same time, the driver befriends his next-door neighbor, single-mom/waitress Irene (Carey Mulligan). Her husband, Standard, is in prison and her son is her only companion so Irene is understandably lonely. The driver’s quiet calm reassures her and their friendship starts to move ever closer to romantic - until news of her husband’s early parole comes in. Standard is a good enough guy, suspiciously aware of the nature of Irene and the driver’s relationship, but willing to let it slide. However, when the driver finds him beaten by thugs in front of his son, the driver’s protective instincts kick into gear. When Standard is then forced to rob a pawn shop with the help of the gorgeous Blanche (Christina Hendricks) the driver figures that he must now also protect Standard, thus honoring the trust that Irene and her son have placed in him.

Things then go from bad to worse as the driver is soon left holding the bag (literally), the previously-mentioned gangsters come into play again, and threats and fights ensue. As the situation grows more dire the driver sinks more and more into this character he’s built up in his mind of the young, good-looking, talented, resolute hero needed here to save the defenseless woman and her son. Like a true action hero, he knows what the cost of his actions might be but he commits to them as the only course he can possibly follow now.

Refn masterfully uses the soundtrack and lighting to express the various moods that conflict in order to bring about this character’s evolution. Sunset-drenched scenes of peacefulness surround the driver and Irene, while heavily-shadowed and pure dark scenes set up violent confrontations. And the violence is worth noting here for two reasons: One, it’s totally in keeping to its 80’s action film roots, where films from the likes of Cannon and Golan-Globus dished out bloody bodycounts in ever-higher levels; second, it’s Refn providing commentary on such film violence, asking such questions as, “If it’s okay to show your hero kicking someone’s head in, with that action occurring just off-camera, why then should it be wrong to swing that camera around and show the audience what he’s actually doing?” He may not be making such a clear point about audience complicity in such human but, rather, more of a statement about the unending depths of man’s nature to violent activity.

Drive is poetic, well-shot, dynamically constructed, bold in its assertions and fantastically well-acted.

Rating: A-

Review - Mesrine, parts 1 and 2

2011-11-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Mesrine: Killer Instinct
2008
Dir. by Jean-Francois Richet

French crime dramas have a strong pedigree in film (heck - there’s even a French Connection. Get it? Huh?) but French crime biopics? Not so much. So the two-part story of 70s super-criminal Mesrine is a unique look at a controversial character, played by Vincent Cassel with his all his talents pegged at 100%.

The first film opens with what will be the final scene of the second film, the end of Mesrine’s life. The tense mood that carries through both films is thus firmly entrenched, allowing director Richet to play off of that with a measured approach to the expository elements. Mesrine is a young soldier in Algiers, shocked by the violence and the nature of the rebellion and its members in the face of overwhelming odds. He’s clearly a morally-conflicted character but not heartless, possibly the major theme Richet attempts to explore within this larger-than-life’s characters throughout both films. Mesrine returns home to France but finds nothing that can scratch his itch - that is until he runs into an old friend, Paul (Gille Lellouche), a small-time robber who works for local crime boss Guido (Gerard Depardieu). Mesrine makes a quick impression and falls into the trappings of this life of crime. He has romantic notions of playing the desperado but when the hard realities come crashing in (a short, troubled marriage and a murder that forces him to flee the country) he becomes more frantic, trying to escape back into his fantasy world.

In this first half of the story the main portion is devoted to his relationship with the Bonnie to his Clyde, Jeanne Schneider (Cecile de France) and the big-time kidnapping they stage of a millionaire and how badly it goes for them. Finally captured on the run in Utah, the two are returned to France for judgement. In his flashy style Mesrine manages to sneak a handgun into court and escape in dramatic fashion while Jeanne is left behind bars. He thrashes about, intent on rescuing her, stopped only by her sob-filled insistence that this relationship must end now, that it will only get worse if they continue. Mesrine is frustrated but can see her point and the first film ends here, with him clearly committed to this lifestyle, for good and bad.

Rating: Hard to rate since it’s the first half of a story but I’ll give it a solid B.

Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1
2008
Dir. by Jean-Francois Richet

The second half of this film version of Mesrine’s story is far more action-filled as it details his rise in popularity, a rise that’s matched only by the escalating brutal violence he and his cohorts perpetrate to keep it all going.

The core story of this film revolves around Mesrine’s dramatic escapes from prisons, aided by his equally ambitious partner Francois (Mathieu Amalric). In their first prison, where they meet, Mesrine is clearly popular with inmates and guards alike, aiding his and Francois’ escape. After robbing several banks they are imprisoned again - this time, though, they are sent to a cruel maximum security prison who’s warden claims is “unescapable.” After a long period of humiliation and cruel solitary treatment Mesrine and Francois manage to facilitate their escape.

Having suffered this way at the hands of the state Mesrine now becomes more political, seeing a revolutionary bend to his criminal activities. He contacts old crime buddies who are now in what are basically terrorist groups, convinced of the right-ness of his actions because he himself has been so wronged. However, he’s still in love with the flamboyant fantasy criminal character he’s created. He finds another beautiful accomplice, Sylvia (Ludivine Sagnier), who’s less a criminal and more eye-candy for Mesrine. The tension between these two aspects of his character drives away his old buddy Francois as alienating him from much support of his new revolutionary buddies. But Mesrine is unperturbed, defiant and excessive as he still wants to be the most famous criminal that’s ever been.

The state recognizes the battle they’re losing on the PR-front with Mesrine and so they form the anti-gang squad, cops solely committed to bringing down criminals like Mesrine and setting him as the true public enemy number one - which is exactly what Mesrine wanted all along. They are relentless and, as it turns out, brutal in that it’s clear that capturing Mesrine will not be enough to win this public battle.

The character of Mesrine as a modern outlaw is treated in these films with a certain level of respect, tending to gloss over some of his crimes and victims in favor of falling for his charisma and good looks. But, to his credit, Cassel keeps the murderous character ever-present in his portrayal, a wild look here, a frustrated exchange there - it’s all consistent and mindful that this man is indeed a dangerous criminal. Apparently, Cassel’s family history is tied to Mesrine a bit which makes the sympathetic character here a bit more understandable.

But, those conflicts aside, the sum impact of both Mesrine films here is a tale in the grand tradition of celebrated criminals. Intriguing and detailed, entertaining and with a good leftist’s social commentary toward police brutality and excessive force both Mesrine films are very well-done and almost solely supported by Cassel’s immense performance.

Rating: B

Review - Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

2011-11-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil
2011
Dir. by Eli Craig

In the current spate of horror films the focus seems to be more on the gore and jump-scare factors than using those elements in the telling of a story. So it’s a relief to see something like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil come along since not only does it use its horror elements to aid the telling of the story but, also, retains a sincere sense of humor that doesn’t wear thin.

The film’s story begins with the cliched premise of a group of college kids heading out for a camping weekend in the deep woods. However, the narrative perspective here quickly changes to the cliche-appearing hillbillies these kids awkwardly encounter, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), longtime good friends who share maybe too much with each other. These two are off to fix up the run-down cabin in the woods they’ve recently purchased, coincidentally in close proximity to where the college kids are to be camping.

The misunderstandings soon come comically to the fore in order to move the story into its horror elements. When Tucker and Dale go late-night fishing they happen to be in the right spot to save one of the skinny-dipping college kids, Allison (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden), whom they surprise and, in her shock, knocks her head on a rock and sinks underwater. Dale dives into the water and saves her but only the latter half of his rescue is witnessed and the rest of the college kids think that the hillbillies have captured their friend for their own evil purposes.

From there, Chad (Jesse Moss) emerges as a motivated leader among the college kids, convinced that they can fight back and rescue their friend. His ever-increasing bloodlust is matched antithetically by the good-natured Dale who’s trying his best to nurse Allison back to health. Both Dale and Allison have a chance to come to an understanding of each other beyond their appearances and strike up a quick, natural friendship. But that’s not to be as Chad becomes outright sadistic in his quest, sending other group members to their accidental (and hilarious) deaths one after another.

The core of the story here is the notion of getting beyond the stereotypes, both for the hillbillies and for the pretty girl, and how the true evil is to not allow such honesty to flourish. It’s a clever way to present such a theme, told with equal parts action, gore and humor. Highly-entertaining and very well made, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is a fun little film that shouldn’t be missed.

Rating: A-

Reviews - The Pusher Trilogy

2011-11-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Pusher
1996
Dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn

The Pusher trilogy details the penultimate moments of small-time criminals in Denmark. Writer/Directory Refn explores themes of man’s resiliency, determination, ignorance, and self-harm in each film in different ways, themes he’ll come to explore in better realized in his later films (Bronson, Valhalla Rising, and his most recent, Drive).

The first film follows drug dealer Frank and his energetic buddy Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen). Frank finally gets a chance to go big-time by making a large deal between an old acquaintance and Milo (Zlatko Buric), the local drug crime boss. Frank already owes Milo money but is certain this deal will not only take care of that but, also, make them a huge profit. Naturally, then, the drug deal goes bad when the cops bust them and Frank ends up destroying the drugs in a nearby lake. The cops don’t like his story but release him, leaving him to work out the now-enormous amount of money he owes Milo, who’s none to happy.

The manic desperation as Frank tries to find some way, any way, to get Milo his money goes from bad to worse as Frank begins to become nothing but harm to everyone close to him. Every small connection suddenly takes on major importance for him and the victims quickly become consequences. Frank finally hits upon the idea of escape and begins working to that end, only to realize that there really may be no escape for him at all.

The violence accompanying Frank’s decline is brutal, regardless of whether it’s physical (as he nearly kills Tonny over absolutely nothing) or verbal (as he treats his girlfriend in ever-worsening regard). Refn certainly doesn’t shy away from that component, wanting to detail the life of such an individual as completely as possible, in order to present the best full-picture possible. And, in that, he succeeds in this dark, demoralizing, depressing but entertaining tale of man’s abjectness in living and survival.

Rating: C+

Pusher 2
2004
Dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn

The second film of this trilogy picks up with Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) from the first film. He’s out of the hospital and out of jail, wanting to pick his life back up. His dad runs an auto shop that’s also a chop shop. It’s clear, though, that Tonny’s dad doesn’t want much to do with him, figuring him an unmotivated, over-eager screw-up and not much of a son.

While Tonny is struggling with this reality he’s also being pushed into fatherhood by an old flame that swears he’s the father of her child. Tonny is fighting against this, though, wanting to stay carefree and have a good time rather than be saddled with things like family and a career. Everyone around him seems to be disappointed in what Tonny will - or, more accurately - will not do. When he tries to start up an old friendship it soon turns sour as the friend wants Tonny to commit to his path of destruction in order to get him out of owing money to Milo (who makes a brief, pointed appearance in this film). Tonny can’t seem to get anything right even though he starts to try and take hold of it all. As his life begins to unravel and forces try to pull him apart Tonny reacts strongly and violently, ultimately finding, though, a path of escape, of survival, in the life of another human being.

Not as dark as the first or third film in the series, this entry is also the best-structured story and gets an incredibly good lead performance from Mikkelsen.

Rating: B-

Pusher 3
2005
Dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn

The third and final film in this trilogy focuses on a now much-older Milo. He’s still a small-time crime boss but, now, even he’s getting squeezed by younger, wealthier gangsters and ends up fighting back against what they would make him do.

The story here focuses around Milo’s attempts to hold off another gang taking over all his business while he’s also preparing a grand meal for his daughter’s wedding. Russians are forcing him into uncomfortable areas of criminal activity and, at the same time, his main homemade recipe is giving all his guys horrific diarrhea. It’s a bit of dark humor that nicely exposes the situation Milo is in and what could become of him.

That dark humor comes into play later after Milo reaches a point of no return. It’d be spoiler-y of me to reveal how that plays out but the character remains consistent in both his determination and his subsequent actions against those that would try and bury him.

Like the other two films the main character reaches a point of snapping, where they can only be pushed so far but, also, where they meet a moralistic crossroads. Now, morals to these characters are something taken from another book entirely but they must be seen in light of the characters and their environment: Theirs is a world of uncertainty where that’s all they want, a stability that doesn’t threaten themselves or anyone else and the compromise of which would equal the compromise of their very souls.

This third film drives this point home with gut-wrenching brutality and reflective closure, a deft feat not for the faint of heart or those lacking the ability to tell a story. Refn meets both criteria exceedingly well.

Rating: C

With my writer's block conquered I resume reviewing...

2011-11-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
2009
Dir. by Julien Nitzberg

America has a long history and popularity-based love affair of the image of “the outlaw.” Doing things by their own rules, living lives in defiance of the buttoned-down world of law and order, outlaws typically represent a type of vicarious living necessary to counteract either middle-aged ennui or general malaise of audiences. Thankfully, in this documentary about an infamous family in West Virginia, the depiction is more open and honest rather than painting these people as modern outlaws that deserve grudging respect.

The film details the lives of the current living Whites, especially their more noted member, Jesco White. The family’s close connection to one another gives them some resiliency but, also, allows their bad habits to propogate pretty much from the oldest to the youngest family member. Run-ins with the local law enforcement are common as the Whites embrace their use and selling of drugs along with the accompanying recklessness and violence. They seem to be thorough in their attitude toward life-as-misery, figuring that, if they’re going to Hell, they’ll just enjoy the ride and ignore the consequences.

The film details how they manage to form relationships with others and try, to varying extent, to either keep them or at least acknowledge them. The lone member of the White clan that has any sense of remorse and desire to change her self-chosen path of destruction is one of the older daughters. When it’s clear the state is going to intervene and take her young son into protective services she accepts the route of rehab rather than the clenched, angry fist-shaking of her siblings. And, by the film’s end, it seems to work out for her. Perhaps that’s a way for the filmmakers’ to provide some type of commentary back to these people, that their lives don’t have to be this miserable, that there is a way out the downward spiral. It’s a tough, honest, telling portrait of a type of people well-known but rarely witnessed in American society. It’s a well-made film - now, if only its subjects weren’t loathsome, pitiable human beings...

Rating: C

Agile Mobile Hostile: A Year with Andre Williams
2008
Dir. by Tricia Todd

Andre Williams is a rough story of a musical soldier, as much celebrated as he is self-destructed. This documentary spends an entire year with him, now in his advanced years, connecting with younger generations of musicians while not giving up some bad habits that might just end his life.

Starting his musical career in Detroit, making his way as a songwriter and then performer in his own right on the Motown Label. And yet, for every success, setbacks appear in the form of bad business decisions or drug & alcohol abuse. The film opens with Williams on the section of downtown Chicago he hustled as a homeless man for many years (up until his recent re-discovery by former Gories’ members Mick Collins and Dan Kroha), detailing how far he’d fallen and setting up his subsequent questionable behavior in the rest of the film.

People close to him clearly care for him but he doesn’t make it easy on any of them. His self-destructive behavior has become a pattern for him, making his existence seem constantly on the verge of collapsing forever. And yet when he’s on stage and performing he seems to come alive all over again, making the burden of that care more understandable. As the film progresses they are actually witness to the event that wakes Williams up to the seriousness of his health conditions and what he needs to do to change. The filmmakers are then able to continue with following him as he attempts to keep to those changes and how hard that is for someone with his reputation.

Andre Williams is an incredibly good songwriter and fantastic entertainer, even now in his 70s. The cost of success in the music industry and coming from the poor, African-American experience have taken their toll on him and serve as commentary on that part of life. And yet he perseveres, recording new songs and albums with new bands, bringing that unique fire to new audiences. The film is a detailed companion to his more recent trials and is all the richer an experience for it.

Rating: B+

The Machinist
2004
Dir. by Brad Anderson

Playing like a long version of a Twilight Zone episode Anderson’s The Machinist is a well-told tale of the loss of self, the suppression of memory, and the power of the mind to overcome seemingly any obstacle.

The film seems to be most known for the weight-loss lead actor Christian Bale underwent for the role. And, indeed, it is shocking but also incredibly descriptive visually as the story of a man obsessed who’s desperately trying to not be obsessed. The story revolves around Bale as Trever, a Kafka-esque factory worker drone who’s insomnia is literally eating him alive. He seeks solace with two special ladies: In a close relationship with the hooker with a heart of gold (Jennifer Jason Leigh who’s again incredibly solid and believable yet again here); and with the very personable single working-mom waitress (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon). Both manage to fulfill what he thinks his physical and emotional needs are - but, as the film ultimately spells out, what Trevor thinks is not necessarily how things actually are.

Once Trevor begins having visions of an imaginary co-worker who seems to know more about Trevor than he lets on, the story’s pace picks up as the mania kicks in and sends Trevor down the rabbit hole of himself, never to return.

Dark, well-paced and very well-acted, The Machinist is like a Twilight Zone episode written by Franz Kafka that actually works.

Rating: B

I Saw the Devil
2010
Dir. by Jee-won Kim

I’ve written about my theory of revenge flicks previously and how they fall into one of two camps: They’re ultimately either fantasy wish-fulfillment or moralistic cautionary tales. However, those two types can apparently be mixed to create a new, third type - one that details the satisfaction of bloodlust and the high cost of that while also taking no pride in it, choosing instead to push its characters beyond all limits. The characters are thus intertwined and their fates sealed but it’s then shown with a sense of closure, of balance, in that finality.

That’s seemingly the case with the Korean revenge extravaganza (right word?) I Saw the Devil. After secret service agent Kim soo-hyeon (The Good, the Bad and the Weird’s Byung-hun Lee) loses his pregnant wife to serial killer Kyung (Old Boy’s Min-sik Choi) the two shortly begin a battle of hunter and survival that alternates the characters’ roles from hunter to hunted and back again.

Kim not only has the drive of revenge on his mind but, also, the training and technology of his profession on his side. In short, he’s a relentless, unstopping bad-ass who, rather than killing Kyung outright, wants him to understand suffering. Kyung, for his part, lashes out in his unfamiliar status as the hunted, twisting to Kim’s whims while trying to reclaim his own murderous power (and sometimes succeeding). Both men are not “like” feral, uncaged animals - they *are* wild animals, just enough of their humanity left to keep them slightly identifiable even after they both go completely off the rails, driven there by their conflicting passions.

To say more about the film would really give too much of it away and, as perhaps the ultimate revenge film, it needs to be seen to be truly understood and appreciated. Director Kim’s previous sloppiness (noted here) are gone, replaced by a constant increase of the tension as the characters both become more and more desperate.

Rating: B

The onslaught continues for my unemployment viewing

2011-08-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Warrior’s Way
2010
Dir. by Sngmoo Lee

With all the panache of a music video and a threadbare story director Sngmoo Lee’s rookie effort should be ripe for disaster. With a strange casting of characters (Kate Bosworth with a Southern accent, really? And what the hell is Geoffrey Rush doing here?), tons of green screen and an odd mix of Asian fantasy and American Western genres, it just doesn’t seem like it’d be any good. So it’s surprising that, while not treading much in the way of landmark territory here, The Warrior’s Way is surprisingly entertaining and watchable.

The story focuses on Yang (South Korean actor Dong-gun Jang), the stone-faced “greatest swordsman on earth” and the primary assassin for the Saddest Flutes assassins’ gang. He has the opportunity to end the gang’s eternal feud by killing the last of their rival gang, an infant girl. But seeing her, his heart relents and he disappears with the girl in tow, enraging his fellow gang members who, led by a capable Ti Lung, vow to hunt him down for this betrayal.

Yang heads to a dusty version of the American Southwest, looking for an old teacher and friend. He finds a run-down town and his friend’s grave but figures this is where he should settle in. He takes over the old laundry and is quickly befriended by spunky local Lynne (Bosworth). The town is nothing extraordinary save for the large collection of circus folk who stayed after their traveling circus stopped here and called it quits. The town’s decay is symbolized by the large, unfinished ferris wheel at the end of the main street. But, soon, and with minimal dialog from Yang, he’s not only accepted by the locals but begins helping them find reason to rebuild.

All that comes to a violent halt, though, when the evil duster-wearing gang returns, led by a fantastically maniacal Colonel (Danny Huston). It seems that, years prior, this same gang terrorized the town, killing Lynne’s parents and little brother before she scarred his face and hid away. It’s not clear why they waited over a decade to return for vengeance but whatever - badass Yang is now in town and able to help dispatch these foes. However, in doing so, he unleashes the “sound” of his sword, precisely what his old gang the Saddest Flutes were listening for. Now they have his location and begin their march toward him. At the same time the desperado gang rallies their forces to destroy this small town, once and for all. Yang’s able to provide some training and some tactics to the townsfolk so the 3-way showdown is set.

The final fight scene is pretty entertaining and gives everyone the closure/motivation they apparently needed. It’s not too heavy-handed so it all moves along briskly enough not to be weighed down by any pretensions. Ti Lung is as entertaining as ever, Danny Huston is just plain fun, and Jang gives more depth to his character behind his seemingly emotionless face. The fight scenes are solid and creative and, while the whole jumbled mix of elements seems to constantly threaten to boil over into a mess, director Lee keeps the it all together and moving just at the right clip to avoid making any huge mistakes. The Warrior’s Way is thus a pretty entertaining action film on its own.

Rating: C+

Irreversible
2002
Dir. by Gaspar Noe

French auteur Gaspar Noe’s films are usually pretty polarizing and yet even with those that appreciate his narrative there’s just an uncomfortable premise usually at play that makes recommending his films all the more difficult. Such is the case with his 2002 film Irreversible, a film about the exploitational nature of male-female relationships, taken to a very violent extreme.

Told completely with all scenes in reverse order, Irreversible is the story of Alex (Monica Bellucci), her boyfriend Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and her ex-boyfriend Pierre (Albert Dupontel). The three travel together to a party that Alex leaves in frustration, mostly at Marcus’ out-of-control selfishness. On her way home she’s brutally assaulted, raped, and beaten into a coma. Marcus and Pierre soon discover this has occurred and fly into a frenzy that leads them down a dark spiral of night to the violent, murderous confrontation with the assailant in a felching bar.

The assault scene on Alex dominates the film as it’s 9 minutes in length and done in just about a single take. The camera doesn’t cut away when the scene is at its ugliest, something typical for director Noe as he wants to force the audience to stare directly into the face of humanity at its worst, to acknowledge it and accept it (but not condone - a crucial point that’s often missed in critiques of Noe’s narratives) as part of humanity.

The core story here is indeed about Alex and how these three different men - her current boyfriend, her ex, and her assailant - all project some level of violence on her. The assailant is obvious, with his brutal actions and even his choice of language during the assault. His is the Id’s way of base rage, anger and violence. Alex, to him, is a thing to be destroyed at his own hands, the ultimate power over another, using sex of course as his devastating weapon.

Marcus, her current boyfriend, doesn’t just take her for granted but views her wants and needs as subject to his own awesomeness. His, then, is the Super-ego, forcing everything in his world to serve him and his needs as primary. Marcus does more than flirt with other girls at the party and doesn’t care about the effects or consequences of his actions. And so, once his “property” has been so violently assaulted, he freaks, becoming another out-of-control version of himself, being racist and homophobic and phsyically abusive and violent in his goal of finding his worldview’s version of “justice.” Alex to him exists as an object of his entitlement in the world.

Pierre, then, the ex-boyfriend, becomes the mediating Ego in this trio. His is the way of reason, not given to the extremes of the others, but seeking to use Alex as an anchor amidst his own insecurities. He’s clearly still in love with her but his obsession is a self-fulfilling one: Alex, to him, is an ideal woman - beautiful, sexual, intelligent, but, ultimately, there to serve his own needs as the companion/mother figure rather than a person in her own right.

The fact that Alex is played here by one of the most beautiful women in the world is intentional casting on Noe’s part. It makes the violence against her not only more extreme but, in the case of how Marcus and Pierre treat her, it becomes more grounded, a shared responsibility of the consequences of male fantasy projection onto everything that is feminine in the world. The final scenes in the film - which, here, are technically the first or establishing scenes of the film - feature just Alex on her own, discovering her pregnancy and sharing that joy alone with herself. The final shot of her in a public park, relaxed and reading, surrounded by life and light, shows her beauty for what it is, free of male interference, independent and free. Which makes the resulting brutal story all the more tragic for everyone involved.

No one character gets out of a Noe film cleanly, just like no one audience member leaves a Noe film cleanly. It’s a damning statement but expertly told and relayed with intense humanity at stake.

Rating: B

Ong Bak 3
2010
Dir. by Tony Jaa & Panna Rittikrai

It seems that the purpose behind Ong Bak 3 is to clean up the utter mess that was Ong Bak 2. On that front, it’s successful but, when compared to the first Ong Bak film, it’s slow and not nearly as entertaining or rewarding.

Tony Jaa returns as Tien, orphaned after his parents were murdered by the evil, scheming Chernung. The film here picks up where the second left off, with Tien in chains at the torturous hands of Chernung’s staff. His body is broken and about to be executed when a rival king steps in and takes Tien’s body away for healing. A very lengthy rehab/re-training montage ensues for Tien.

Meanwhile, Chernung is plagued by horrifying visions as he’s been cursed by the king he murdered to gain his power and wealth. He’s soon confronted by the “human crow,” an exceptional fighter embued with just plain blasphemous evil. This “crow” finally kills Chernung and takes his place, calling out Tien for one final battle.

That final fight scene and the few other fight scenes here are entertaining but, in the overall scope of the film, they’re overwhelmed by the slow, uneven pacing that plagued the second film. But, at the end, there’s at least some closure and some point about karmic balance and evil versus righteousness. Which is a far cry better than the second film but delivered so muddily and missing the frenetic energy of Jaa’s earlier films as to become not all that watchable.

Rating: D

Presenting the highs and lows of unemployment film watching

2011-08-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ip Man
2008
Dir. by Wilson Yip

Ip Man is the name of Donny Yuen’s version of this (Chinese martial arts famous) historical figure who spread Wing Chun kung fu and, perhaps more famously, trained the young Bruce Lee.

The story here takes place just prior to WWII and Japan’s invasion of China. Ip Man is an overly righteous martial artist, not having any school of his own but is in the highest regard by all the Chinese martial artists. He gets to show some violent, brash Northerners a thing or two and becomes a local hero, well-liked and well-established financially. But when the invasion occurs, that all goes to the wayside and, destitute, he and his family are forced into homelessness and poverty.

Working at a coal yard with some acquaintances he soon discovers that the local Japanese general has an interest in witnessing Chinese martial arts in action. He pits locals against karate-chopping Japanese, with bags of rice going to the winner. But when a friend goes missing after attending such a competition, Ip Man gets involved. He gets to make angry fists, at long last, and thumps on large numbers of Japanese.

It’s soon clear that he’s going to be a problem, giving the occupied Chinese hope and all that. So when he assaults a stereotypically evil Japanese officer things go from bad to worse for him and his family. The general, though, figures to use him as an example in a fight. By beating him in a fair match in front of the locals he’ll show those Chinamen who’s boss. The evil officer, meanwhile, plans to shoot Ip Man, win or lose. But Ip Man fights heroically for all Chinese despite all this and emerges bloodied but victorious. Hooray for China! Since they’ve never oppressed any other country it’s easy to get swept up in the blatant nationalism on display, too...

The fight scenes are very well done here, some of the best out of the genre in a while, and Yuen is on full display. He’s a passionate, slow-to-anger national hero and played up for all that’s worth. It’s interesting from that perspective and very entertaining from a martial arts perspective as well.

Rating: B

Ip Man 2
2010
Dir. by Wilson Yip

Just take the winning formula from the first film, swap the evil Japanese invaders with the occupying British, stage a big showdown at the end and BAM! - Instant sequel!

Donnie Yuen returns as Ip Man, having escaped the occupied China mainland for Hong Kong and opening his own wing chun school. But being the new kid in town he doesn’t know the rules for opening a new school and isn’t very good at getting students (at first). The family continues to struggle until he gets a brash student who gets him into trouble with the local martial arts head honcho Sammo Hung. Ip Man has to qualify in a exhibition sort of fight with the different school masters so that allows us to finally have a fight scene between Sammo and Donny Yuen.

Sammo’s involved with putting together an exhibition match of Chinese boxing versus Western boxing and the British world champion, Twister - a character lampoonishly evil who propels the plot along with prejudice and arrogance, just the right amounts to finally force a long confrontation of inspirational victory for Ip Man. Again, it’s pretty much identical here to the first film but feels a bit forced, lacking much of the nationalistic drama better presented in the first film. However, the fight scenes are still great and Yuen is incredibly solid as the titular character yet again. Throw in an appearance by a very young Bruce Lee impersonator at the end and you’ve got a complete sequel package that’s sure to entertain if you liked the first film.

Rating: C

The Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
2010
Dir. by Wai keung (Andrew) Lau

A convoluted mess of a political story, love story, featuring the return of the evil Japanese and the poor, helpless Chinese, you also get some fantastic fight scenes thrown in. The story has been done previously, as Fist of Legend with Jet Li and Fists of Fury with Bruce Lee, this version tries to pack in far, far too much political backstory and truly suffers overall for it. Donnie Yuen is again solid and gets that cool Kato outfit but, other than that, it’s fairly overblown and forgettable.

The opening scene in WWI is very well done, as is the final fight scene between Yuen and the evil Japanese general. But everything in between can be pretty much skipped.

Rating: C-

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
2005
Dir. by Michael Winterbottom

A film inside the making of a film based on a novel that doesn’t exist Tristram Shandy is an entertaining look at the filmmaking process with the idea that everything is a creation, true or false doesn’t really come into the discussion.

Steve Coogan is Shandy in the film-within-a-film but also narrates directly to the camera some as well as just playing himself, “off-camera,” in the film as well. He’s joined by his friend and somewhat rival Rob Brydon, the two keying off each other both comedically and dramatically throughout.

The idea of the film is that the novel, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, is unfilmable and so the production is beset by various creative difficulties that provide many comedic moments of ridiculousness. For example, fights erupt over the types and sizes of shoes, who’s wearing them and in what scenes featuring what actors. It’s an amusing bit in an of itself, showing the ludicrous demands of those involved with making films and what compromises need to be struck. At the same time, though, is the novel’s story itself, of an un-famous man trying to make his own story a memorable epic. The arrogant, foolhardy spirit is reflected in different ways by those making the film of the novel, all expertly intertwined with one another. The pace moves quickly, though, showing the disposable nature of not only the work at hand but, it seems, ultimately of the very works themselves. It’s as if they’re all involved in something that doesn’t really mean anything but at least they’re having a good, self-involved time doing so.

Less an indictment of filmmaking and filmmakers Tristram Shandy prefers to hold up the struggling artists for the ridicule they so clearly deserve but, in that very process, shows that there’s also some value to having a story to tell, a point to be made about making a point. It’s a deft turn of narrative on itself solely for the sake of defending the very purpose of narrative: That it gives us all a broader insight into what we all share as humanity.

Rating: B-

Cowboys and Aliens
2011
Dir. by John Favreau

Mixing sci-fi and western with cutting-edge special f/x should be a winning situation. So why does Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens fall so flat?

The story is simple for both genres: Lone criminal Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) was abducted by aliens but somehow escaped. He has full amnesia, though, and can’t remember any details about that much less about himself. The aliens are abducting large numbers of local townsfolk, including son of the local mean rich guy Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Those remaining after an alien attack then posse up to get their people back. Joined by the mysterious Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) the group sets off, finds out things about themselves and how to bridge gaps with other less savory (to them) groups of people, and everybody happily bands together in order to save the day and defeat the aliens.

The story and characters are so under-developed, though, it’s tough to care much for anyone beyond the leads here. Ford is actually pretty good as the hardened war veteran and Craig is is usual solid self. But apart from another good wasted performance from Sam Rockwell as the “nervous Pervis” of the group, no drama is genuine. Because Spielberg is involved there’s of course a kid that’s involved who’s always in peril but never in danger. It’s that annoying mode of crass exploitation, of arrogance that the audience has seen this before and, therefore, will immediately buy into their plight, that’s so discouraging here. Everyone just seems to be going through the motions without any passion or reasoning.

The aliens are cool, though, so, um, there’s that.

Rating: D

The A-Team
2010
Dir. by Joe Carnahan

The 80s are known for many things, especially cheesy action films and TV shows. Primary among the latter group is the A-Team, a wonderfully ridiculous premise for intentionally goofy action where reality is pretty much thoroughly jettisoned in favor of entertainment. And Joe Carnahan’s big-screen, big-budget version is no different - it relishes the story’s ludicrous premise and embraces it with big-screen reckless abandon. And that’s what makes the film actually very entertaining.

The story this time gets to detail the origin of the team and how Hannibal (Liam Neeson), Face (Bradley Cooper), Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and BA Baracus (Quinton Jackson) came to know each other and become lifelong buddies. While in Iraq they get one last job that turns out to be a setup by an evil competing “Blackwater” clone. They are stripped of rank and imprisoned as a result but, being the A-Team, soon get sprung from jail in a variety of methods. They’re aided then chased by the duplicitous CIA agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) and chased and then aided by the committed agent Sosa (Jessica Biel). Many hijinks and elaborate shootouts and chase scenes ensue, all culminating in a plan so huge, so silly, that it only makes sense in a movie called The A-Team.

It does run a little longer than it should but the team’s chemistry is pretty solid all around (especially Cooper and Copley here), the action pieces are all pretty big, and the tone is kept fairly comedic and light so it tends to clip along at a decent pace. All that’s to say it’s a better film than it appears to be on the surface - not an event in filmmaking by any stretch but a very entertaining silly action movie nonetheless.

Rating: B

Tree of Life
2011
Dir. by Terrence Malick

Terrence Malick isn’t known for making easily accessible films. But, at the same time, he works deeply with subject matter and presents it beautifully, allowing audience members to key in wherever they can. His artistic imagery is dynamic so it’s easy to stop there - but it’s also as layered as the social/philosophical underpinnings to his films as well, the look and mood reflecting the story and vice versa.

Such is the case for his latest, Tree of Life. The film opens with a quote from the book of Job, where God questions Job’s validity by asking, “Where were you when I created the heavens?” Thus establishing the position of the narrative voice for the film, the base question is then quickly offered as human existence (“life”) being a struggle of choice between Grace and Nature.

The film’s central character is Jack, played older by Sean Penn and younger by Hunter McCracken (in an outstanding introductory performance). The story maneuvers between the old and the new character as if they exist simultaneously in the same time stream, as indeed the consciousness articulates itself and allows the narrative to be both circumspect and invested in its analysis. The figures of Grace and Nature, then, are young Jack’s parents - his mom (Jessica Chastain) and dad (Brad Pitt), respectively. Both figures dominate Jack’s development, his worldview both as a child and as an adult, as they all struggle with each other as much as they complement and love each other.

Neither side here is played as having full advantage over the other, though. Whereas Grace is strong and abiding and constant and nurturing, Nature, too, is fierce in its strength, omnipresent in casting its forceful shadow over Jack, forcing him to grow by reacting. It’s equally all awkward and incomplete and beautiful and fulfilling all at the same time for both the young and the old Jack, too.

This formative struggle, then, is then further laid out as endemic to all humanity by the lengthy evolutionary sequences in the film. The elements themselves seem born of and born to this conflict as the only way to progress and develop. It’s not a judgement of characters then at this point, but, rather, shown to be part of all of us, forever and equally, embracing everything on the planet, a shared inheritance of being, a “tree” of “life.”

Deeply moving and deliberately paced very slowly with minimal musical score, Tree of Life is an abundantly rich text of shared existence, exquisitely shot and masterfully told. It’s easily Malick’s greatest film and for good reason.

Rating: A

Super
2011
Dir. by James Gunn

I didn’t really like Kick-Ass but wasn’t fully sure as to why. Sure, the main character was pointless and the story moved into ridiculous territory pretty easily and quickly. But it wasn’t until I saw Super that I understood what bugged me so much about that other film: It lacked any sort of heart at its center, any investigation into the damaged characters that could become superheroes, anything linking it to anything beyond crass exploitation (“Look, our little girl kills people and uses swear words!).

Super then is the story of Frank, a simple man, a bit of a loser, who loses the love of his life - his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler, who’s actually good here) - only to find new purpose in becoming something more in order to get her back. Sarah’s a recovering drug addict who is soon back on drugs thanks to her evil new boyfriend, local criminal boss Jacques (Kevin Bacon, playing a far more believably and grounded bad guy than he did in X-Men: First Class, by far). Frank attempts to confront Jacques to get Sarah back but is laughed off and roughed up by Jacques’ thugs (including a solid supporting role yet again from Michael Rooker).

Despondent, he then doesn’t know what to do until he has a vision that involves the Bible action hero The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) who, in a vision, gives him his credo of, “Some of his children are chosen.” And it’s in that vision that Frank gets the idea of fighting crime and taking Jacques down, all in order to save Sarah from evil.

But Frank doesn’t know how to start so he heads to his local comic book shop and is quickly befriended by Libby (Ellen Paige, who constantly threatens to steal the show in every scene she’s in here). She gives him some good “source material” for superheroes and Frank soon becomes The Crimson Bolt. Armed then with a pipe wrench and a comic book bubble-worthy hero phrase - SHUT UP, CRIME! - he sets out to work clean up the streets and get ready to face Jacques, once and for all.

This doesn’t go according to plan, though, but, soon, he’s using his alter-ego to very violently stamp out crime, becoming a bit of a local sensation in the process. Libby is soon on to him, though, and becomes his sidekick, Boltie. But her manic personality plays out even more violently than Frank’s and he’s soon conflicted about having her along. Her admiration soon becomes infatuation as well, making for a tense relationship between the two as they fight crime together. Eventually, though, they work their way to Jacques and have a showdown at his large estate, with much shooting, stabbing and exploding, in order to save Sarah.

What works best about Super, though, is both its consistency in its characters’ actions as well as the fact that film doesn’t relent, doesn’t let anyone have an easy time of it but also lets the characters be whoever they are, good or bad. The sincere humanity not only anchors the story but drives home it’s final point, that being super might just be only about being the best person one can be, that what you think you want isn’t really what you need, and that there is a way to serve the greater good without losing your identity or your soul.

(Bonus: The film is the first in my memory that features a song by The Nomads in it.)
(Double Bonus: When she’s in the Boltie costume Ellen Paige is one of the sexiest characters on screen of all time. I’m not kidding.)

Rating: A-

New movie reviews - 7.27

2011-07-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

Tekken
2010
Dir. by Dwight Little

As video game production companies try to edge toward blurring the line between their games and cinema their products seem to become better thanks to more focus on story-telling and character development. However, in the reverse case, film makers can’t seem to retrofit such necessary film making elements to existing games, no matter how hard they try.

The most recent entry in the video game-to-movie transition is Tekken, based on the fighting game from Sega of the same name. Director Dwight Little does make a good attempt at it, with some fairly decent production values and attempts to weave a story where none existed previously.

The story behind the fighting tournament of Tekken is set against a post-apocalyptic kind of world where just a few large corporations run everything globally. The Tekken Corporation, founded by Heihachi Mishima (Cary-Hiroguki Tagawa), controls the populace by fear and with their police force, the Jackhammers. Tekken offices are inside a walled city while outside the denizens are left to fend for themselves, in a place called The Anvil. One survivor of The Anvil is Jin (Jon Foo), a risk-taking kid who also has had extensive martial arts training from his mother (Tamlyn Tomita). He’s managed to stay out of the political rebellion around him until one day when a Jackhammer raid goes badly and kills most of his friends and his mom. Revenge-minded, he sets out to take down Heihachi the only way possible to him: To enter the Tekken “Iron Fist” fighting tournament as the “people’s choice” fighter.

His plans soon run afoul of Heihachi’s sadistic evil son Kazuya (Ian Anthony Dale), who’s trying to oust the old man and take over the corporation for himself. But Jin is a strong fighter and won’t be denied getting to Heihachi. Through the course of events, though, as Kazuya makes a coup-type of move it’s Jin and Heihachi that bond and discover the truths about their pasts and the mistakes that have been made. Jin thus gets a new lease on his revenge motivation while Kazuya has Heihachi killed and makes the Iron Fist tournament a challenge to the death! Who will win this battle of Asian men (since the black, female, and white characters all get sidelined, for some reason)?

For what it is - a movie based on a long-running series of fighting games - Tekken isn’t horrible. Sure, it’s no Bloodsport but the action keeps moving quickly and the story is there just enough to patch those fight scenes together with minimal thought or effort, really, involved on the part of the viewer. The performances are adequate, given the source material, too, so the overall effect doesn’t feel like watching this is a chore necessarily. It’s just a fairly solid, simple action film that doesn’t try to be anything more - and that’s much to its credit.

Extras
Anchor Bay’s BD comes in widescreen (2.35:1) 1080p and so the aforementioned higher levels of production really come through nicely. Images are clean and pick up every appropriate light source in scenes, giving the film a nice visual continuity. The only audio track is Dolby TrueHD 5.1 but it rumbles and peaks nicely along, again helping out the overall effect of the movie. Subtitling is available in English SDH as well as Spanish. And other than scene selections against animated menus the only other extras are the movie’s trailer and the :50 minute short titled Stunt Stars: Tekken. That short examines the fight choreography of Cyril Raffaelli primarily, talking also with stunt coordinator Eric “Son of Chuck” Norris. It’s very detailed and a bit long, detailing the final three days of shooting and all the work they had to do but if stunts are your thing it’s definitely worth checking out.

Summary
Not a bad small action film Tekken is also not overly memorable - adequate might be the best term for it. But in terms of newer action movies that’s not such a bad thing.

The Clone Returns Home
2009
Dir. by Kanji Nakajima

The sci-fi genre lends itself as a backdrop for the fantastique in any number of other genre films - horror, drama, comedy, action, etc.,. The audience’s willing suspension of disbelief is inherently allowed to be pushed further within the seemingly limitless boundaries of sci-fi, allowing directors to explore extremes of the human condition at new levels that feel new.

Such is the case with Kanji Nakajima’s The Clone Returns Home, a meditative indulgence on themes of death and living and rebirth. Kohei (Japanese entertainer Mitsuhiro Oikawa) is an astronaut that also happens to be the first test subject for full human cloning. When a space voyage he’s on ends under mysterious and tragic circumstances his clone is activated. However, due to strong interference in his memories of a very traumatic childhood incident involving his twin brother the clone is unable to be a “true” replacement. The officials running the cloning agency decide to eliminate this mistake and whip up another clone, with much greater success. However, the second clone finds out his place and has to track down what ever happened to the first clone and, ultimately, what has happened to the original personality.

The story here is told partially in flashback, as Kohei and his twin, Nobaru, and their mother carry on with a normal life. As these memories will inform Kohei’s clone later they become very important in the structure of the story and are given ample time to develop on-screen. Later, the adult Kohei is somewhat withdrawn and reluctant to face his past, hoping to just move on with his life. But after his accident the memories of the tragic death of Nobaru, having not been dealt with fully, limit the first clone to staying at the moment of that accident and trying to set things right and just “go home” once again. It’s on this journey that the second clone is finally able to track him down as well.

Adding the more detailed examination of the film’s philosophical underpinnings are the conversations between the scientist responsible for the ability to clone (Toru Shinagawa) and the company chief (Kyusaka Shimada). The doctor continually stresses resonance, a theme which occurs throughout the film, become even an audio motif on the sparse soundtrack. The notion, as he explains it, involves the soul of the original person trying to hook up with the clone successfully so that the “true” personage is restored. It’s apparently something that exists beyond science but is a crucial step in the cloning process, no matter how much the chief dismisses it outright. This struggle for identity and simultaneous states of development within a single character are the core of the argument on display here. Director Nakajima isn’t set on answering any questions, per se, but rather seems most interested in using the idea of cloning and restoration to examine the frailty and vulnerability of humanity that often informs our decisions and motivations.

Extras

The DVD from Anim-Eigo is full anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and really fills out the screen nicely. The abundance of long, slow shots in the shadow of Mt. Fuji are thus fully represented and serve the director’s theme of placing this human struggle in the context of overhwelming nature. The Japanese-only audio track is decently displayed though the film’s lack-of-score never really pushes any limits there. Subtitling is available in yellow or white, with color changing in the subtitles based on who is speaking in the scene (green and red get used this way).

A :50-min. “making-of” featurette has interviews with the director and cast about making the film, the various conditions they had to work under, what they brought to the characters/story, etc.,. It’s interesting but very Japanese in its straightforwardness and professionalism.

The remaining features are a few program notes that are text-stills providing more details on both the film and the featurette; a still-image gallery and bios for the lead actor, the director, and producer Wim Wenders are also included and are all very, very brief.

Summary

Deliberate and slow-paced like other similar sci-fi films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Tartakovsky’s Solaris, The Clone Returns Home uses technology as a setup to extra-ordinary ethical situations that reflect on all of humanity, both the living and the departed.

New reviews - 7.19.11

2011-07-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

Cyrus
2010
Dir. by Jay & Mark Duplass

It’s interesting to see comedic actors known for their improvisational chops take on more serious fare. And yet, in Cyrus, it fits the film’s overall organic feel and context. Characters seem more real, better fleshed out, and their story of what relationships require in terms of “give” and “get” becomes more grounded.

Cyrus is the tale of John (John C. Reilly), a good enough guy who’s just had a hard time moving on from his divorce seven years prior. His ex-wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) is sympathetic but, just having made her own new wedding plans, realizes that John should move on with his life as well. He seems a bit stuck, a bit awkward and slobbish but such is the lonely bachelor. At Jamie’s insistence he joins her and her fiance at a party. He makes some awkward moves at small-talk attempts but, failing that, decides to get seriously drunk. Doing so, though, he lets more of his guard down and acts his natural, honest, fun-loving self. And, in that state, he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) and the two form a quick relationship.

But Molly’s constant early departure from his bed motivates John to follow her home on early morning. He waits outside her house, falling asleep until after she’s left for work. He approaches the house with some caution but suddenly runs into Cyrus (Jonah Hill), who he’s surprised to learn is Molly’s 21-year-old son. As these two begin talking it’s clear that there’s more to Molly and Cyrus’ relationship than mother and son.

As the story progresses, then, it’s clear that Cyrus has grown up too close to home and his mom and it’s clear that he’s going to have a hard time letting her go as any other male presence threatens his life with Molly. Soon, John has divined Cyrus’ duplicity and the two match wits to try and convince Molly to accept one male over the other. Tastefully, though, the Duplass’ don’t seize this opportunity for a comedic montage of oneupsmanship. Rather, like the similar-in-feeling Rushmore, the two males become locked into something they can’t escape as they’re both in desperate situations without the presence of the woman in their lives. And yet neither character seems pathetic and are played straight, allowing some comedy to form in their drastic-ness and keep the story progressing. Once both characters realize that Molly’s happiness is central to their own versions of that feeling they’re able to positively affect one another, be honest and do the right thing, forcing their characters to face some unpleasant realities. Yet they’re also left with the hope that, now that they’re all working together, they’ll be better off in the long run.

The small, constrained performances from the leads here give much of Cyrus its effectiveness. They all seem more honest and exposed, even when they’re not being that way with one another. That feeling allows the characters to remain or become sympathetic and engrossing. It’s a tough move to pull off but the actors portrayed vulnerability allows it all to happen more naturally so as not to feel forced at all.

Extras

The film’s available in a Dolby 5.1 Dolby Digital English track that picks up everything nicely, adding some nice touches throughout the movie. Dolby Surround offerings are also here in Spanish and French. Alternate subtitling includes Spanish and deaf options. However, no commentary track is available which is too bad as the Duplass’ introductions to the two included deleted scenes (and explanations as to why they were deleted) are engaging and interesting. It would thus be entertaining to hear them throughout the film’s story as well.

The only remaining extras are the theatrical trailer and previews of other Fox Searchlight films. Scene selection and an animated main menu are all that are included in this fairly bare-bones presentation.

Summary
A nice small character-driven drama with some really solid performances from Reilly, Hill and Tomei, Cyrus doesn’t try to pretend it’s something it’s not and comes out well-done as a result.

Rating: B

Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘N Roll
2010
Dir. by Mat Whitecross

Biographical films seem to often be the result of an obsessive fan or admirer of the subject. Their stories typically then get an added boost of nostalgia or fanboy-esque fawning, where the subject at the center of the tale becomes perhaps more important than they actually were. However, when the subject chosen actually seems to be much larger than life it lends some credibility to the the film’s efforts in the end and makes for a more entertaining time.

And such is the case with Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll, the Ian Dury biopic starring Andy Serkis as the crazed, manic, polio-ridden entertainer. Given Serkis’ aptitude for physical portrayals (Gollum in LOTR, the ape in King Kong), plus his apparent adoration of Dury’s work he’s a natural here, gleefully and flamboyantly stealing the show as, really, Dury did in his time.

The film starts with a strong, loud punch, mixing stop-motion, self-narrative and show performance into one grand opening number that sets up how Serkis is going to portray Dury. That level of frenzy returns at key career moments during the telling of Dury’s story throughout the film. And yet the scenes in between these “highs,” detailing the passionate mess that was Dury’s personal at-home life, especially his troubled relationship with his volatile, impressionable son, Baxter (Son of Rambow’s Bill Milner, excellent here again). His long-suffering love interests wife Betty (Olivia Williams) and groupie Denise (Naomie Harris) each go through the struggle of loving and supporting the troubled artist who invests more into his career than his family or personal relationships.

Even though Ian Dury & the Blockheads only had a couple of chart-toppers it seems like the filmmakers here want to underline Dury’s importance as an artist in his place and at that time of his popularity. Contrasting scenes of him facing an obstacle in his adult life and his rough childhood in a tough boarding school for polio-affected children are played throughout the film to demonstrate the strength of his character and how it developed and found its voice. While these seem exploitational or overly-sentimental (especially the flashbacks of the brief appearance of young Ian’s father, played solidly as you’d expect from Ray Winstone) they provide a proper tone and story-telling technique that reaches a conclusive climax toward the end of the film, when Dury composes a controversial hit in support of the disabled (Spasticus Autisticus). It’s a measured but sharp crescendo, showing that not only had Dury not lost a step but that he also held some things very clearly dear to his heart and was not about to compromise anything in his support of them.

If you’re a fan of either Ian Dury or Andy Serkis then this film’s a must for you. Stunningly well-shot and fairly evenly paced it’s an entertaining look at a wild ride of a counter-cultural icon.

Rating: C+

Burke and Hare
2010
Dir. by John Landis

Where did this movie come from or go? A black comedy sticking fairly close to an actual story involving 19th-century grave robbers in Scotland who are ultimately helping create the world’s first, accurate medical dictionary? Throw in Landis at the helm and a killer cast and how could you end up with something just so adequate?

The story itself follows the main characters of Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (Andy Serkis), two hapless entrepreneurs who come to discover that there’s money at stake in providing corpses to one of two competing medical schools in 19th-century Edinburgh. While Dr. Monro (Tim Curry) heads one with ignorant study, Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson) heads the other and sees an opportunity with the new possibilities of photography to get himself fame and honor. The trouble is, Knox needs corpses - lots of them, and fast.

Enter our heroes who come to Knox’ attention while disposing of an old lodger in their tenement house. With some encouragement from their landlady Lucky (Spaced’s Jessica Hynes) they soon start in with finding the recently-deceased to provide to Knox. However, as the elderly aren’t dropping off as quickly as they’d like, they soon have to move to more creative ways to obtain fresh corpses. Without actively violently killing anyone they manage to stage any number of accidents that give them what they’re after.

With that story alone the film would’ve progressed comedically but a sidestory involving Burke’s attempts at finding love and then bankrolling the girl of his dreams’ (Isla Fisher) all-female production of Macbeth the pace gets screwy and the introduction of other characters just makes the story a bit messy. While this does provide some motivation and sympathy to Burke & Hare’s activities it nonetheless consistently threatens and sometimes succeeds in derailing the overall story.

The numerous cameos are worth noting (it’s nice to see Christopher Lee, Ray Harryhausen and Bill Bailey all in a film together) and watching as is the Animal House-type ending of showing info on screen asking “where are they now?” questions. But the comedic timing and pacing just aren’t there, even with such a cast and seemingly ripe story for a good black comedy.

Rating: C-

Black Death
2010
Dir. by Christopher Smith

Mixing the current flavor of violent medieval films with questions of faith & religion in the face of death Christopher Smith’s Black Death is an interesting film that keeps the questions on a small scale, focusing on characters surviving (or not) during the Black Plague.

The story focuses on a young monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) who’s love of a young woman has him questioning his life choices in the monastery. With the plague running rampant and realizing the monastery is no longer safe haven he sends her away to the supposed safety of a nearby town. She wants him to come with her, offering to wait for him at that town for one week. So, soon after, when the opportunity arises for him to act as guide for a group of the bishop’s warriors to a different nearby village, he readily accepts this as a sign that he must go. However, he soon realizes he’s in over his head as the group, led by the focused, devout Ulrich (Sean Bean) is on a mission to find this village and destroy it as the stories of its heresy against the church - and its lack of the plague - make it seem like they’ve made a pact with the Devil instead.

The ever-present and displayed aura of death in the film puts added gravitas onto their quest and the story overall. Their journey is dangerous and filled with death and sadness as young Osmund believes his love to have been killed as well. Once they reach the “cursed” village things turn to the worse as they find themselves at the hands of the village witch who’s leading the belief that rejection of God and the spilling of Christian blood will keep their lands safe. But as the story unfolds and everyone’s beliefs come into question the only certainty remaining seems to be that right and wrong are completely subject to experience, wherein one belief can easily be swapped for another - and that, ultimately, death finds us all.

Unrelenting and unforgiving, Black Death is really an examination of the basis of faith in whatever power one chooses to align with, what human beings are capable of at their best and at their worst, and what the cost of making such choices is in the end. Well-shot and decently paced out the film’s an entertaining re-examination of one of the darkest times in Western civilization’s history, putting faith rather than religion at the core of the analysis.

Rating: C

New reviews - Drive Angry, Machete, and X-Men: First Class

2011-06-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Drive Angry 3D
2011
Dir. by Patrick Lussier

This current 3D phase doesn’t really do much for me, by and large. It mostly seems like a gimmick from studios to gouge more money out of audience members without providing much of anything in return. Sure, it can be used to enhance an alternate universe (like Avatar) but mostly it’s just being rammed down our throats as some great innovation in filmmaking - all the while actually ignoring innovative filmmaking and filmmakers, with studios churning out a more than fair amount of garbage instead of solid films.

Now, that said, 3D can also be employed to entertain in the mindless, goofy way it does best. 2010’s Piranha 3D and 2009’s remake of My Bloody Valentine 3D (w/ the same director as here, Patrick Lussier) understood this and, while not being landmarks of cinema, nevertheless fully embraced their schlocky roots and full entertainment value, getting us all in on the joke rather than beating us over the head with it.

Into this latter camp of films comes 2011’s Drive Angry 3D, an over-the-top actioner that’s far more entertaining than it has any right to be. Borrowing an 80’s film school sense of abandon when it comes to action, mixing it with the relentless, joyful insanity of the Hong Kong New Wave, and seemingly inspired by or at least in the same vein as 2007’s Shoot ‘Em Up, this film also throws in a supernatural element, just so its characters and situations can go that much more over the top.

Nicolas Cage is John Milton, a former criminal who escapes the confines of Hell itself (get the name now?) to rescue his granddaughter from the evil clutches of devil-deal-making cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke). Along the way he befriends man- and life-troubled spunky youngster Piper (Amber Heard) who soon feels quite compelled to join Milton in his quest. She also has a fight scene with a naked chick who moments before was bonking her fiance and later picks up a good-looking busboy and makes him paint her nails. So, there’s that. As they chase Jonah in a bitchin’ Charger they’re also pursued by a mysterious bounty hunter named The Accountant (William Fichtner) who deliciously chews up every scene he’s in and fills in some exposition around Milton’s current situation.

Given the energy pouring out of this film’s action scenes (shoot-outs in churches, chase scenes, fights inside RV’s, or one featuring Milton clamping down on a cigar, holding a bottle of Jack in one hand, a .45 in the other, and a horny old waitress straddling his Jimmy, blowing away a small army of cultists) the film does suffer from some awkward pacing. This is mostly around expositional scenes involving Milton but, fortunately, these are not many so, overall, the film clips along nicely.

Good performances - especially from Fichtner - and great, balls-out action sequences are what the film is all about and what it does exceptionally well. The film was shot in 3D so viewing it in 2D makes some of the effects seem like awkward posing but it’s clear what their intent was (and makes for a good drinking game-basis). Director Lussier again doesn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, choosing fun laughs over any sort of in-depth story. But that’s what such pulp-type stories exist for, isn’t it? Plus, he’s fond of including horror film veteran Tom Atkins in his films now and that’s just a far too nice touch to ignore.

Rating: B

Machete
2010
Dir. by Robert Rodriguez (w/ screen credit also given to Ethan Maniquis)

Movies still seem to be rolling out based on the 2007 Rodriguez/Taratino Grindhouse double-feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof. Included in that mishandled release were a series of schlocky trailers meant to conjure up that other time of filmmaking when all you needed was a good title (thank you, Mr. Corman). One of those trailers featured veteran character actor Danny Trejo as the titular character in a film that seemed best described as “Mex-ploitation.” And yet here we are, 3 years later, with a full-feature film from that trailer that, while it has all the right intentions, just seems to miss more than hit its mark.

The film opens with a bit of an origin story for Machete (Trejo), a by-his-own-rules Mexican federale in pursuit of evil Mexican crime kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal). His rush to action against Torrez goes awry with the criminal ruining his life and leaving Machete to wallow in the misery of his mistakes.
    Cut then to three years later, to the present day, and Machete is now a day-laborer in Austin, TX. He quickly comes to the attention of three key characters: ICE agent Sartana (Jessica Alba) who seems set against her own people’s plight by believing in the rightness of the law; roach-coach vendor Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) who may be the secret leader of “The Network,” set to help illegals survive in their new home; and finally steely-eyed no-goodnick white rich guy Booth (Jeff Fahey). None of these characters know Machete’s background and potential for violence but, thankfully, they get to experience it pretty quickly.
     The action starts pretty quickly after Booth hires Machete to kill severely anti-immigrant state congressman McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro) at a re-election speech. Booth double-crosses Machete, framing him for the attack that only wounds McLaughlin, causing his poll numbers to suddenly sharply increase. The wounded Machete must now fight Booth’s assembled goons as well as escape the police. Luz catches up with him and gets him to a Network-friendly hospital but Booth’s goons soon get there and start dying. So next Machete encounters Sartana who wants to bring him in but is no match for his manly awesomeness. Instead, she sees something in his plight that reeks of conspiracy and reluctantly partners with him in a way in order to see justice done.
    The action moves pretty quickly from here on out and other characters get to have their due, notably Cheech Marin as Machete’s shotgun-wielding priestly brother, Don Johnson as a relentless border patrol vigilante, Lindsey Lohan as Booth’s career-wrecking daughter, and Tom Savini as a hitman for hire. All of them actually turn in solid performances in small-ish roles. Unfortunately, the film never has a clear vision of what it wants to be: A knowing nod to 70’s violent exploitational films, a full-on embracing of that style of filmmaking, or a topical lesson on immigration issues. Rodriguez attempts to blend all three but splitting his attention makes the entire structure fall apart. The movie is fun and entertaining for its silly action and it’s great to see Trejo get lead-actor billing. But it just feels like it’s been forcefully strained, an intentional bare premise then stretched far too thinly to really work well. If only he’d chosen to focus on what film he wanted to make Machete could have been far more a fulfillment of what’s promised in its trailer.

Rating: C-

X-Men: First Class
2011
Dir. by Matthew Vaughn

I’ll be honest here: I never liked the X-Men comics. When I started to get back into comics in high school (thank you, Alan Moore) we had two comic stores in my town, on opposite sides of the city limits. The one thing they both had in common were shrieking X-Men fanboys, babbling and crying over these characters like old housewives and soap operas. I wanted nothing to do with that and intentionally kept my distance. As such, then, now, I have no passion around them or their stories but I have come to learn quite a bit more thanks to the movie versions of their stories. I thought the first couple films were pretty entertaining, trying to get at the struggle of those that society would deem as “the other,” putting a typically white but nonetheless human face on that conflict. The third X-Men film didn’t do anything for me, though, and I thought the Wolverine spin-off was vastly disappointing

So it was with low-bar trepidation that I went into the latest film, X-Men: First Class, a film seeking to not reboot the series but, rather, re-energize it. Helmed by Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn I thought it at least might be entertaining and get more to that people-behind-the-mask sorta thing. And while it doesn’t rewrite the book in that regard the movie does what it sets out to do: Namely, garnering interest in the franchise all over again.

The film opens with young versions of the primary protagonists, Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, and speaks to how much their environments will determine the leaders they come to be. Charles lives in opulence, carrying a “hidden” mutation that still lets him into the heads of anyone else. Finding the source of a late-night break-in he finds Raven/Mystique and his cheeriness lends itself to great hospitality, recognizing they are of the same type and all. On the flip side is Erik, imprisoned in a concentration camp under the cruel tutelage/experimentation of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Erik’s story is in stark contrast to Charles’, full of misery, pain and loss which, in turn, he learns to use to feed his ability to bend metal.

Flash forward nearly 20 years on the older characters where Charles (James McAvoy) and Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) are out at a pub, having grown into a brother-sister relationship. It’s soon clear that Charles, while working on his doctoral thesis on genetic mutation, is able to cheekily employ his ability to pick up girls in bars, Raven is discontented at not sharing either his genius or an ability/willingness to hide her ability. Meanwhile, Erik (Michael Fassbender) is resolutely hunting Shaw, finding a path of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to lead him to his prey. He is ruthless, cunning, but also overwhelmed with anger and vengeance.

Soon, however, these three will come together, thanks mainly to CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) witnessing Shaw and his bevvy of bad mutants getting the US envoy to the UN to do their bidding. Moira brings Charles and Raven to meet with her skeptical CIA chiefs and they’re soon all working together with a special branch of that governmental body. They attempt to apprehend Shaw while Erik is attempting to assassinate him. Shaw escapes but Charles and Erik form a quick bond of sorts, recognizing the levels of power and commitment in one another. Together, then, they set out in a brief montage to recruit other mutants to their cause. They soon have a small team assembled and again plan to stop Shaw, who seems set on enabling nuclear annihilation.

It’s clear, then, that the mutants-vs.-humans themes of the earlier films are being established here, with Shaw being an obvious forerunner to Erik becoming Magneto, right down to the telepath-blocking helmet. So the curious point of the film then turns to see how these characters come to be, how these two strong personalities and allies could turn so resolutely on each other, to see the influences on the other team members’ decisions of which path they will follow. Thankfully, all the white people survive and stay on Charles’ side while the ethnics and psychos follow Erik’s path of supremacy.

The story vein here is fairly rich, tapping into a somewhat well-known story and seeking to understand the “why” of the characters which is the strength of the X-Men saga. Being born differently doesn’t necessarily make one good or evil - it’s an on-going struggle that can affect even family relationships and force people to face some devastating truths about themselves and the society they’ve created. The performances here are pretty much stellar (how could they not be w/ Lawrence, Macavoy, and Fassbender?) though some seem entirely disposable, such as eye-candy Emma Frost (January Jones, about as passionately played as her character’s name suggests) or now-I’m-an-evil-stripper Angel (Zoe Kravitz), the other ethnic that goes bad seemingly pretty quickly. So with racial and gender roles thoroughly screwed the film can focus on its white male lead protagonists who ably carry the story. And since the relationship between Charles and Erik is played out much like a love story - a fairly entertaining love story, to be sure - I’m left once again at that initial opinion of the X-Men universe being just another soap opera, one with neat f/x...

Rating: C

So many reviews, so little time...

2011-05-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Heavy Metal in Baghdad
2007
Dir. Suroosh Alvi, Eddy Moretti

Passionate music seems to always be linked to adversity. For most Western bands they might have their run-in’s with the cops or lousy childhoods or general angst to complain about. But for Iraqi band Arissacauda, the daily reality of living in Baghdad, Iraq, in a post-9/11 world presents some very real, very tangible and very deadly adversity. The band’s story is one of finding a way to survive when seemingly everything around you is bent against any sort of success or expression.

Getting noticed by Vice magazine the film opens with some explanation of how the magazine editors/filmmakers found out about Arissacauda and attempted to get to Baghdad to film their first show. Given that this is 2002 they experience some travel difficulties and are unable to get to the show. Their contact, a Dutch employee, does manage to get there, though, and to start filming. The band members explain that while their heavy-metal stylings aren’t exactly welcome they’re not banned outright. They do note that they’re unable to grow their hair long or have headbanging at their show (too similar to Jewish pilgrims at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, it seems). They’ve learned English by listening to lots of popular heavy metal acts and are just responding in the way young men often want to in that genre. But since the war/invasion even power is hard to come by - demonstrated when the power cuts out during their set. The attending crowd get into the show, though, and make it a seeming success.

Fast forward two years and the Vice guys are now able to get to Baghdad to reach out to the band. The band, it seems, has not played a show since that last. They’ve continued to practice despite having no support for their type of music and how they want to do it. And they continue even after a rocket attack demolishes their practice space. The band members are understandably shaken but resolved nonetheless. This, after all, is still their home and feeding their passion to escape it any way they can (literally or artistically).

The band eventually finds themselves in Sudan where, while they still don’t have any support musically, they do at least have a lack of the constant fear of dying in a warzone. But it’s clear the separation still pains them, that they miss their home despite so badly wanting to escape. And that’s the fait accompli of the film - showing the struggles of these young men to do something that should be fairly simple and the seeming huge obstacles in front of them the filmmakers make a subtle but underlying point about the cost of war time on civilians. It’s the kind of casualty that doesn’t show up in any numbers or in any news report - but it’s real people, living their lives, caught in the midst of ideologies that they don’t believe in, just trying to live out their hopes and dreams like anyone. For most Western audiences this side of the Iraq invasion/”war on terror” is missing from the discussions around it all - so it’s refreshing when something as simple as a heavy metal band can bring that all back into proper focus and renew discussion.
Rating: B+

Big Fan
2009
Dir. Robert Siegel

Dark comedies are usually tough to pull off successfully: The characters are usually so troubled or deeply-flawed it makes connecting with them and their struggles difficult. Their extremity of personality typically provides the humor, especially when they come into contact with larger, more “normal” society. The main characters usually come off as a bit creepy and desperate but, in a well-done story, they demonstrate perspective of “the other” in such a way as to provide counter-culture balance of some sort.

In Big Fan we meet Paul (Patton Oswalt, handling all of the dramatic elements quite capably here), a 30+-year-old with an inane job, living at home with his mother, unsocial and happily unsociable. Paul’s a huge NY Giants fan, seemingly sacrificing any sense of self into the broader aspects of the team and its players. He’s a frequent listener/caller on a local sports talk radio show, defending his team with the passion of the over-compensating obsessive. Joined and encouraged in this by his friend Sal (the great character actor Kevin Corrigan) they live and die throughout the season with the Giants. Yet despite their slavish devotion they’re still clearly outsiders, only interacting with other fans on the radio show, going to home games but sitting out in the parking lot by themselves with a TV rigged up to Paul’s car battery. They’re definitely marginalized but couldn’t be happier in that space where there are no outside influences, just “the team.”

Out one night they spot Paul’s favorite Giants’ player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm), in their part of NYC. Nervously but with the superfan’s excitement they find themselves unable to approach him directly. So, instead, they follow him on his route, first to a house party and then to a strip club in Manhattan. Ignoring the girls and obscenely-overpriced drinks they focus solely on how to approach their star. But being outsiders not used to socializing in any context leaves them woefully unprepared and, in a series of miscommunications, Paul ends up greatly offending Bishop. His creepy stalking tactics send Bishop into a rage and he unleashes his fury on Paul, beating him unconscious and sending him to the hospital.

So what happens when your life gets turned brutally upside down? Paul is clearly hurt, both physically and emotionally, but still struggles with his response. The cops want him to press charges. His shyster lawyer brother sees a big payday. Everyone around him wants him to do the societal right thing. But, in Paul’s mind, he begins to realize the cost of justice to his own personal life, such as it is. The cracks in this edifice he’s maintained begin to show as Paul’s behavior becomes more and more erratic toward everyone around him. But, most especially, the story moves him into a final “showdown” with his on-air nemesis, a cross-divisional Philadelphia Eagles’ super-fan who continually taunts him on the radio show. The mania of his situation drives Paul to a final extreme reaction but one that, in the context of the film, you feel good about him committing to, as an exercise in poor judgement it may be...
Big Fan is the directorial debut of Robert Siegel, former editor-in-chief of The Onion and writer of The Wrestler. The tone and direction is fairly even for the film even if the pacing is a bit uneven, especially toward the end of the film. But Siegel’s instincts seem to mesh well with Oswalt’s comedic sensibility and brings a root-able character quality to a sad, rather pathetic tale. Uncomfortable, uneasy, but definitely entertaining, Big Fan is a pretty solidly-told story who’s unevenness keeps it from being more memorable.

Rating: C+

Micmacs
2009
dir. by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Seemingly not very long ago - 1991, actually - the world was introduced to the retro-niche-kitsch from France in the form of the lovable Delicatessen. Quirky caricatures in funny environments finding love and purpose and hope despite their surroundings, all told with a circus-style pace and with knowing nods to the likes of Rube Goldberg.

That film and it’s equally-enjoyable follow-up, The City of Lost Children, were directed by a pair of animators, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Together, they had an impressive sense of scope and storytelling with limitless creativity, it seemed. Those two films, though, would be their only film work together and they parted company afterward. But Jeunet foraged onward, making a name for himself as an established director with Amelie, Alien: Resurrection, and A Very Long Engagement. Yet, each of these films might be enjoyable in their own regard to varying degrees they still lacked the pop demonstrated when Jeunet and Caro were together.

So Jeunet decided to get back more to his roots in subject-matter with his latest film, 2009’s Micmacs (French title, Micmacs á tire-larigot, or “non-stop shenanigans”). And while a capable film it’s still without Caro and that extra edge he brought to the creative table.

Micmacs is the story of Bazil (Danny Boon), an average French “joe” that has an extraordinary story. The film opens on Bazil’s father getting killed by a landmine in Africa and Bazil discovering the name of the (ironically) French manufacturer of the device. Cut to many years later and an older Bazil is relaxing one night at his job in a video store. Rushing outside to witness a gunfight + chase a bouncing gun delivers a bullet straight into Bazil’s forehead. The doctors realize that removing the bullet will make him a vegetable but leaving it in might eventually kill him, they opt for the latter (is this how socialized medicine works?). So he gets a cool scar and, seemingly, a bit of a social/learning disability.

Due to being in a coma he loses his apartment and his job. However, the cute girl replacing him at the video store saved the bullet casing from the gun that put a bullet in his head. And, again, ironically, it’s a French manufacturer that’s responsible for this latest violence in his life. Inevitably (in this world, anyway), Bazil soon concocts a plan of revenge...
Given his downward social standing he’s on the outskirts of society but is pretty non-plussed by it. He just takes to living on the streets as if that’s what he’s supposed to do. It’s this hopeful, adaptive attitude that soon draws him into contact with Slammer, an ex-con who’s involved with a group of social misfits who apparently live underneath a trash pile. Each member of the group has some kind of special talent, like an film-assembled team does: Calculator, a savant of numbers, Tiny Pete, an automoton craftsman, Buster (Dominique Pignon!) the record-setting human cannonball, Remington, an ethnographer obsessive, and Elastic Girl, a contortionist that’s not afraid to speak her mind. With this team assembled and his discovery that the arms’ manufacturers responsible for the violence he’s experienced are both in town and situated directly across the street from each other Bazil’s ready to enact his plan.

The plan is involved, a little convoluted, but it’s fun to watch how this group creatively puts the pieces in motion. Jeunet even throws in still shots of the live action within the shots themselves, too, just for fun. And that’s the best part of Micmacs - it’s sense of creative and having fun doing it. The performances are good despite the uneven story elements and rough structure that seems spasmodic rather than “quirky” or “mannered.” The film still looks great and is a fun time, regardless, though. But I just can’t help wondering how much more it might’ve been had Jeunet also re-teamed with his old partner...

Rating: B-

13 Assassins
2011
dir. by Takashi Miike

When the name of Japanese director Takashi Miike comes up in conversation, the last words even remotely thought of to describe his style and films are “structured,” “balanced,” and “tight storytelling.” Typically, you could instead use terms to describe his films like “frenetic,” “hyper-violent,” and “just outright disturbing.”

And yet that first list of terms is absolutely applicable in the case of his latest - and clearly best - film, 13 Assassins. It’s a bit strange if you’re a fan or even familiar with Miike’s other works to witness this film but, ultimately, he’s created here one helluva period samurai film.

The story is pretty straightforward: The younger half-brother of the current shogun, Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), is a brutal tyrant, a psychopath with full royal privileges and demanding subservience. He’s moving ever closer to a position of national power that, to seemingly everyone else in the film, would lead to utter chaos in the land. The shogun’s chief samurai Sir Doi (love that name) knows something must be done about him but, politically, he’s unable to make such a move directly. So he contacts old samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) for undertaking this task. It’s clear, however, that this is a one-way ticket for anyone involved. And, yet, given the time of relative peace in the land, the samurai feel unneeded, unused, and, ultimately, unfulfilled. With that discontent being part of their lives Shinzaemon is able to assemble a small but able team of 11 other samurai to join in this samurai suicide mission.

Shinzaemon’s old rival, Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura), is the chief samurai for Lord Naritsugu and is very aware of the assassination plot. The lord has to undertake a long journey across Japan and both Shinzaemon and Hanbei know that somewhere along that route will be the best opportunity to strike. Each man moves the chess pieces around carefully and Miike allows this to slowly transpire on screen, with Hanbei growing ever-frantic and Shinzaemon biding his time, lulling his opponent into a false sense of security as best he can. That plan is confusing and a bit infuriating to the other samurai but Shinzaemon makes a convincing case for playing the waiting game.

Eventually, though, their time is soon upon them and they move into position. Doing so takes this small group on a long, cross-country trek. In fact, at one point, they get lost in the forest. They discover a punished gang member, Koyata (Yusuke Iseya), who’s impertinent but playful and, while not a samurai, is definitely capable in a fight. Thus, they become the 13 on their mission.

This group finds a way to channel Naritsugu’s troupe into a particular town, one that they buy out and fit for their assassination purposes. They soon find, though, that while they played the waiting game the number of their opponents has swelled fantastically, making their task much, much more difficult. And so Miike allows for basically the final hour of the film to encompass this battle scene, to play out all the energy and weariness and bloodiness presented by the prospects of such a battle.

What that final battle scene also allows, though, is a fulfillment of each of the characters, especially the 13. Their reasons for enjoining a suicide mission are given enough depth without belaboring it all and their identities become clearer, making the point of how their lives end to define how their lives were truly lived. In this, it’s akin to parts of Seven Samurai and The Wild Bunch equally and deserves to be held up close in mention with those films all on its own. More than just a samurai action flick, 13 Assassins is an exploration of man’s choices in life, the paths followed, and that ever-present nagging in the back of your mind that something greater is possible to you, that your life can have value and meaning, even in death.

As a fan of samurai movies I can say that, were it not for Seven Samurai, 13 Assassins might just be the best samurai film ever made. Seriously.

Rating: A+

Reviews updated yet again - woot!

2011-03-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

127 Hours
Watched streaming

Danny Boyle’s works have always included some element of Kafka-esque transformative quality and his latest film, 127 Hours, is certainly no exception. Whether this transformation is forced upon a character (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later) or chosen by the character (Trainspotting), the end result is one of some type of liberation or escape. Like the character in Kafka’s story there’s a shedding of the grossness of this world and all its alluring trappings that results in a fullness of being that the characters wouldn’t get to otherwise.

Drawing from Aron Ralston’s autobiographical account the film quickly establishes his happy-go-lucky adventurer character while also nicely acknowledging the fairly well-known outcome of the story. But Boyle, like any good storyteller, knows that the richness lies not just in the climax but also in the journey. James Franco plays Ralston as a good-looking, easy-going, open-road type spirit that, while a bit cocky, also is aware of his surroundings and the opportunities that come his way. He’s not some errant goofball that gets in over his head here. Rather, Boyle focuses intimately in on Franco’s portrayal, of how someone put in a perilous situation - someone who knows what they’re doing - can adapt and ultimately survive.

Despite a few characters he meets during the setup and some additional in flashbacks (including a criminally-underused Treat Williams) Ralston is the sole focus of the story. It’s part of his character, the untethered loner, that gets him into this situation in the first place. When he falls down the narrow canyon and his arm is pinned to the wall but an immovable rock, he’s then forced to face his life choices, some good, some not-so-good. Ralston realizes he’s isolated himself more than he should (amplified by his current predicament) from people he loves and that love him. As he attempts to escape his entrapment and put off his eventual dismemberment he reflects heavily on his life. In one hazy vision he sees himself in the future, with a young son, being happy and enjoying life. He feels some guilt over a lost love, some regret over missed connections (mostly telling people where he would be when the accident happened), but he doesn’t despair. He realizes instead that - like for all of us - these poor choices are also a part of him, that he is not truly lost, that there’s still reason to continue, to survive.

Getting to this point enables him to perform the nearly-unthinkable amputation that frees him from the rock and saves his life. Visually, the journey here gets a very slick and solid treatment that Boyle’s become known for, mixing and fusing the natural with the surreal, the ostentatious with the sublime. It helps keep the story moving, too, so that it doesn’t feel like a one-man, one-act play. The cinematography is gorgeous (I viewed this just in 720p and it was fantastic there) and the Utah country provides a beautiful backdrop for a (mostly) non-menacing Nature element. The amputation scene itself is not as gory as it could have been, the focus instead remaining on Ralston’s face, from the POV of his ever-present camcorder. Boyle doesn’t shy away from the gore here but, rather, lets the events unfold specifically from Ralston’s way of remembering some parts and blacking out others. It’s a very adept story device that way, too.

Franco’s portrayal of Ralston is fantastic as well. While there’s some points of emotional range it’s key to the character that he remain calm and aware, relaxed and thinking. Franco covers all of that, with his quick-and-easy grin present to take much of the emotional edge off the horrible situation his character’s in. His version of Ralston is one that is willing to undergo change, to accept responsibility and yet will not be crushed by it. Strong and defiant yet clearly vulnerable and a bit tender, too. It’s just a very, very good performance here by Franco.

The story seems like it could be a horrible Lifetime channel movie (tagline of, “Staring death in the face, he rose to the unthinkable!”) or, in the hands of another director, it might be more man-versus-evil Nature survival-at-all-costs tale. In 127 Hours, though, it’s more an examination of humanity under duress, freed from its typical surroundings, left all alone but not hopeless and adaptable.

Rating: B+

Winter’s Bone

Revenge stories typically have two primary elements that fall under that story type’s notion of justice: There’s payback and then there’s closure. It’s perhaps more of a formula that fits nicely into the typical male revenge flick, where the guy is able to eventually dish out ladle-fuls of whoop-ass, setting things right AND re-establishing his manhood all in one shot. The better revenge flicks focus on either just the ass-kicking, leaving the headiness of things like character development to the side; or they allow the character to stare into the abyss, realizing that they’ve become what they’ve beheld as evil.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I love revenge flicks in pretty much all flavors, so long as they’re full of a high body count or broken characters that get less (or, sometimes, even more) broken. But I’ve also wondered, “What it would look like if you had a revenge story where the protagonist doesn’t care about payback, just about that closure?”

Enter, then, Debra Granik’s 2010 film Winter’s Bone. It’s a small, tighly-compacted story of revenge that focuses on closure rather than retribution. Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17-year-old who’s holding her poor, small family together in rural Missouri. She’s dropped out of high school, bound to taking care of her younger brother and sister and mentally-invalid mother. Dad here only comes back into the story when the sheriff (Garrett Dillahunt) and bail bondsman show up separately to let her know that dad’s getting out of jail, that he’s put the family home and acreage up as collateral on his bond, and has subsequently skipped out on it. The bondsman tells her she has one week to clear this up or lose everything out of this.

Ree’s determination is borne out through the establishment of her character and her interactions with those closest to her. The younger siblings are basically helpless, solely dependent on her. A good friend seems subdued by her young marriage but finds inspiration in Ree’s words of comfort and admonishment. As she has to branch out to find any trace of her father she walks into the seedy underside of her environment, the world of libertarian meth dealers and, basically, the “hillbilly mafia” that her father was involved with and, she suspects, has run afoul of. She makes it often clear that she’s only looking for him in order to settle this issue of losing the family home - if something’s happened to him, then, she has no concern for retribution.

But it’s retribution that’s feared, a crossing the line into an issue that many in this seedy community of criminals would want to see left alone. She’s churning up the truth about them, inadvertently, forcing them all to face what they don’t want to about themselves, whether as accomplices or as a measure of the failure of their own lives.

Foremost in this is her uncle, her dad’s brother, Teardrop (John Hawkes). Armed, short-tempered, and forceful, everyone seems to be scared of him but none, it turns out, moreso than he is of himself. It turns out he has a fairly clear idea of his brother’s fate and who’s responsible. While seething with anger at these truths he also sees another way through all this, one that addresses the living, those left behind by his brother’s actions. Ree shows this to him through her blunt determination and forcefulness, representing some kind of hope for a future that’s free of all the bad parts that Teardrop and his brother have accumulated and foisted on them all.

The story unfolds primarily through Ree, her resolute focus guiding the movie through all the strong- and weak-willed characters that are tied into her finding the answer she needs. She never relents, even when bloodied and threatened with her very life. Rather, she presses on since she knows that others are relying on her to get this issue resolved and, she feels, that she alone has to do this. Teardrop clearly sympathizes with her and the focus of their relationship turns on that solitary vulnerability that they each clearly share. While he has chose to bury or ignore unsettling truths Ree seems to be set on bringing them to the surface because lives depend on it. Her realism overwhelms many of the other characters realities they’ve constructed around themselves, to keep safe or to keep the peace. Ree’s lack of interest in their hubris compels others around her and the story to find its voice and resolution through her and for her.

Incredibly well-shot, seemingly out-of-time and space, Winter’s Bone is a strong character study that focuses on what might best be described as the “innocent bystanders” of criminal actions and how hope can be found out of that experience. Exceptionally strong performances from Lawrence and especially Harkes thoroughly ground this story from beginning to end.

Rating: B+

White Lightnin’
2009
(watched streaming)

Loosely based on the Wild Whites of West Virginia and its pater familias, Jesco White, White Lightnin’ tells the story of Jesco himself and what, possibly, his story could mean on an archetypal level.

At the film’s outset Jesco is a severly-troubled youth who’s father teaches him the nearly-forgotten ways of folk mountain dancing as a possible remedy for his wickedness. He still huffs glue and keeps going to juvenile detention but, also, keeps the dancing alive as a way to temper his spirit. The story fast-forwards to a much older Jesco, who gets out of a mental institution only after learning that his father has been killed. What follows is not so much a tale of revenge as it is an Americana story of brutality, redemption and salvation and the cost paid by all involved along the way.

Brit actor Edward Hogg is quite fantastic as the hopped-up-on-life scoundrel who, indeed, has some serious mental issues. Carrie Fisher plays his love interest that he renames as Priscilla (given his obsession with Elvis). Their life together is schizophrenic and passion-filled, with Jesco providing enough unpredictability for both of them. As he eventually drives Cilla away and descends into further paranoid delusions, madness and violence, Jesco begins to change the way he views himself in the world and what price he has to pay in atonement.

Fairly stylized visuals - you could say it’s shot in “blue and white” - combined with intriguing, well-acted characters who are nevertheless archetypes of uniquely American versions of music, sex, violence and religion all eventually pay off in White Lightnin’. It’s more a thematic study, then, rather than a simply dramatized tale of these unique real-life characters. The story moves beyond their reality to pitch more as extreme representatives of the purveyors and victims of these messy types. And, in attempting to do so, the film makes a bit more out of itself than it would like to let on.

Rating: C+

Review - American: The Bill Hicks Story

2011-02-22T13:41:00.001-08:00

American: The Bill Hicks Story
2009

Described as a “photo-animated documentary” American: The Bill Hicks Story follows the short story arc of late comedian Bill Hicks. Using numerous photos and then slightly animating them within the context of the story being told the film comes a little more alive, providing something as unique as Hicks’ own take on the world, while the narration comes from those closest to him.

The film starts his story at the crucial meeting of his lifelong friend and one-time comedy partner Dwight Slade. The two become fast friends and quickly realize they both have a love of comedy. Doing “guerrilla skits” in high school, Hicks already has his sites set higher. So when a comedy club finally opens in nearby Houston, TX, they sneak out and start doing stand-up - at 15 years old. From there, as it becomes clear that Hicks’ talent and aspirations are going to carry him further, the list of those providing narration grows as his story does. He travels to Los Angeles only to grow despondent and return to Houston. Growing in popularity his act begins to transform, especially once he discovers drugs and alcohol. As his star is starting to peak, though, those demons become too much and he’s forced to, again, retreat, this time to New York City. Going sober, though, he’s finally able to reach the point he’s probably now best known for: As more of a social activist-cum-comedian, wildly popular overseas and still relatively unknown Stateside. And, again, as his star is yet again peaking, he receives the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer that will take his life at 32.

The “moving” photo approach keeps the film moving in a way that deftly avoids the talking heads approach typically seen in such stories. In fact, it’s not until the end of the film, when discussing Hicks’ final days, that those on-screen voices gain their visuals. It’s a nice emotional touch that reconnects to the humanity of the person and those around him and the effect he had on all their lives. Filmmakers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas also use both amateur and professional-quality footage of Hicks’ appearances at various comedy clubs throughout his career as well as his appearances on Carson, Letterman and HBO. Since they were also involved in documenting Hicks’ career earlier on they include bits from already-existing documentaries they worked on, Sane Man and his UK show, Revelations. Throwing in some home movies then breaks up the still-photos not only for some visual interest but, also, to clearly show off Hicks as a person and a performer.

The most interesting aspect of American: The Bill Hicks Story is how well-balanced its approach is. Hicks is, still, a controversial comedic figure, but here his development of his worldview is given thorough backing, a way to understand how he saw the world and how he saw comedy’s way to express that. His comedy broke barriers not because it was shocking but due to its brutal honesty about society and ourselves. Hicks’ unrelenting approach gives him not only appeal but a credibility that’s his legacy, a “true comedian’s comedian,” an American patriot following his dream even when the landscape around him was scarred by governmental autocracy, corporate greed, and societal apathy. It’s a unique story that looks into how such a strong, singular voice can be raised and celebrates it accordingly.

Rating: A

Updated reviews - Feb. 13th

2011-02-13T21:50:00.001-08:00

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

The final film of the Millenium trilogy The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest neatly ties up the characters introduced in the first film and then explored more deeply in the second. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist return as the main characters and the action picks up right where the second film left off.

Lisbeth (Rapace, again outstanding in this role she seems to have been born for) is recuperating in the hospital after having been shot by her estranged father Zalachenko. Handy enough, he’s in the same hospital due to the damage he sustained at Lisbeth’s hands. Mikael (Nyqvist) has enough info now to push ahead with the big expose on the shadow conspiracy Zalachenko inadvertently led he and Lisbeth to. But that secret society knows what’s at stake and begins taking action against everyone, especially Lisbeth, who is soon back on trial for her very sanity.

As Lisbeth’s trial date and Mikael’s magazine’s publish date get closer and closer, more governmental forces get involved and everyone has to put everything on the line to try and win out in the end. Lisbeth’s cool, headstrong determinism allows her to finally get the smirking victory and Mikael, for his part, gets to see justice done to her as well as to those responsible for harming her - his whole motivation in the first place with her.

TGWKTHN is much more involved with the primary characters here coming to a final showdown with the forces set against them. It’s a well-paced and well-done conclusion to a series exploring someone on the outside but, at the center, represents the very best parts of society in her uncompromising commitment to the truth.

Rating: B+

Frozen

A simple premise, some basic horror conceits, and a small, contained cast and location and you’ve got Frozen, a surprisingly not-annoying little horror/suspense film.

Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Joe (Shawn Ashmore) are lifelong friends out for a day of hitting the slopes. But Dan’s brought along his girlfriend (Emma Bell - no relation) who’s a novice. Some basic tension here with the three of them thrown together but trying to make the best of it.

They bribe the lift operator to let them on and then, later, get him to let them up for one last run at the end of the day. Poor communication skills and bad work ethics lead to setting the premise in place when the three are then left, literally hanging, up the mountain on the ski lift with the dark and a storm coming on. Oh and the resort is going to be closed for a week.

Using the horror course 101 of people left to their own devices making things worse, director Adam Green gets an amazing amount of mileage out of that constrained space. Personalities start to deteriorate as everything becomes more desperate, with threats above (the ice/cold, frostbite) and below (wolves!) and the three try to overcome their situation. But Green also follows the further horror conservative conceit - “if they’d just followed all the rules they wouldn’t be in this situation.” But none of them ever think of this, instead bonding or fighting or just trying their best to survive. The tension in this man vs. nature is inherent and Green milks it along nicely for all it’s worth. The ending, to me, seemed a bit too easy and not standing up in the proper horror movie tradition but it still works, keeping the story again fairly self-contained and moving along nicely.

Rating: C+