Thoughts On Celluloid

My Review: THE HANGOVER PART III

Thu, 23 May 2013 03:55:00 -0400

*sigh*

Guys. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad.

It’s not too much of a stretch to say The Hangover was a decent movie. It was certainly a ‘guy’ movie, but it had a wider appeal and an original story, and yeah I’ll admit, it was pretty damn funny back in the day, although I can’t say it holds up too well when watched again. The second one? Well, long story short, it was a lazy re-hash of the first that used shock humor (quite poorly, might I add) and it isn’t particularly memorable, but it’s certainly not one of the worst comedies I’ve ever seen.

The Hangover Part III however, is.

If you ask me what my favourite scene was, or if you wanted me to tell you one single thing I actually enjoyed about it, well, I’m fucking clueless. Because for two painful hours, I sat slouching in my seat as I witnessed one of the worst written comedies of the year, a year that started off with Movie 43 mind you, and I really can’t even begin to express how angry this movie made me.

Let’s not even get in to the story, because whenever I do that for a comedy, people throw their whole “comedies are meant to entertain!” nonsense at me, so we might as well just get right to it. This movie is not funny. It’s not entertaining. It’s predictable and desperate, and relies WAY too much on the first film to be anything except a terribly unnecessary nostalgia trip that no one wanted to take.

This movie is the definition of bad comedy. Where the first film, and the second to a slightly lesser degree, found their humor in the things that were happening on screen, this one really doesn’t give a shit about what’s happening, but instead chooses to insert its enraging excuse for a sense of humor by constantly having characters stop what they’re doing to string together a couple of words or sentences that you might associate with something funny, in some roundabout way I assume, but it’s really just a lazy piece of shit that doesn’t even try.

What’s appealing about this movie? Well, from a marketing perspective, it has the same title and characters as the previous two films, and shares some of the locations. But apart from that? Nothing. I don’t know how this movie was actually made, but if I were to take a guess, I’d say Todd Phillips and crew simply showed up on set with a portable DVD player that was playing the first movie on loop, and they used that as a blueprint for…. what exactly? I don’t know. I have no idea what this movie was trying to do. It sure as hell wasn’t trying to make me laugh, because if it was, then boy did it fail.

It didn’t make me laugh once. Not even once. There is literally NOTHING entertaining about this movie, it’s just the actors saying whatever random and unconnected thing the director told them to, and inserting references to drugs and alcohol wherever it fit the least. It was disgustingly bad, and the only effort it makes at all, is to try and get you to laugh at Alan, key words being “try” and “at”.

HA HA LOOK AT THIS GUY HE IS SO STUPID LAFF AT HIM

Really? Why, did he do or say something funny? Did his being stupid cause a problem for someone else, or at least get some kind of reaction out of them?

NO HE JUST HAS A LOWER IQ THAN ME LOL also the Chinese guy referenced cocaine again aww how cute.

That’s really the gist of it. That’s the ENTIRE fucking movie, and it almost made me wish that it HAD in fact tried to be another clone and gone down the “What the hell happened last night?” route, because anything, ANYTHING would have been better than this shit.

My Review: THE PURGE

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:45:00 -0400

I like provocative cinema. I like the kind of movies that ask the tough questions, and make people think about things that society is too scared to think about. It’s the visualization of those thoughts and ideas that make the art form a medium for change and progress, and the trailer for The Purge paints the film as one of the more thought provoking works of the horror-thriller genre…. Which is unfortunate, because it turned out to be one of the dumbest movies I’ve seen all year

Mind you, I’m not the kind of person who calls something ‘dumb’ just because I didn’t like it. This movie is dumb in every sense of the word. Also see: stupid, unintelligent, banal, ridiculous, facile, etc.

The premise is an interesting one, a futuristic American society that has little to no crime or unemployment thanks an annual event where society can cleanse itself of all its poverty and let go of all its hatred via an event known as The Purge. For a period of 12 hours, all emergency services are suspended, and all crime is made legal.

Yes. That right there. That’s the kind of movie I want to see. But that’s not the movie I got.

A concept such as the Purge is one that exposes humanity’s true nature. Its violent side. Its need to let out its aggression. What’s that? You don’t need me to spell it out for you because you’re more than capable of coming to that conclusion on your own? Well, that’s what I would have though, but apparently the producers of Paranormal Activity and Sinister think differently.

About ten minutes in to the movie, there’s a closeup of a television, and on that television is an ostensible ‘expert’ being interviewed about the Purge, as he explains, right to the audience, the moral and psychological implications of the story we’re about to watch. Boy I sure am glad they did that, otherwise I would have had NO idea what The Purge was all about.

And you know what, while that annoyed me, I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with it had the entire goddamn movie not followed suit, acting like an oversmart, sentient blimp, constantly stopping to explain exactly what was visible on its bloated surface and in its empty interior.

The trailer tells you all you need to know about the basic premise, apart from one extremely strange turn early on that’s conveniently forgotten about, so I’m not really going to get in to it as a story. But structurally and tonally, it’s a mess. It starts out as this character centric thri- well, I don’t want to say ‘thriller’ because there are very few thrills to be had, but whatever the movie starts out as, it eventually slips into a coma, better known as the “I wonder what’s lurking around this dark corridor” style of horror filmmaking, before finally devolving into a loud, obnoxious and mind-numbing shoot-em-up. Yes, a shoot-em-up, which no doubt begs the question:

Who is this movie for?

In any case, even if the movie had any target audience (re: goal) in mind, anyone watching it will be sufficiently baffled by the characters and the choices they make. Their motivations are somewhat constant for a certain period, before the movie takes an even stranger turn, and the characters begin to make 180 degree flips in whatever they’re doing or thinking without letting more than few seconds pass by. Why? I’m assuming this was meant to be some sort of character development, but it was an utter disaster.

And what of the story itself? Well, whatever little moral drama it seems to fit in manages to not only be overshadowed by the aforementioned inconsistencies, but also completely submerged under the weight of film’s main antagonists. And here’s where it starts to get really idiotic. You see, in a movie that’s clearly based on a concept that not only deals with morality and human nature, but uses them as its central premise, it kind of defeats the purpose if your villains are a either sociopaths, or simply violently delusional. Granted, the film may have been trying to compare humanity to an unfeeling cult, blinded towards its own decadence by its unruly narcissism, but that’s really not how it comes across. At all.

The main ‘bad guy’ is first introduced as some kind of preppy, teenage knock-off of Heath Ledger’s Joker, but soon turns in to some kind of farce, spouting semi-shakespearean dialog and facial ticks that not only bordered on melodramatic, but really went against the central premise of the movie. And even if it WERE trying to talk about humanity being random in its chaos (which is wasn’t) they failed in that department too, because this particular individual’s goals and methods were very, very exact and specific. It really did feel like the character was written in to the script a few weeks before shooting, by some 12 year old who had just seen The Dark Knight but didn’t understand why it worked. And dear god, don’t even get me started on the second group of villains that show up. They feel like they were ripped right out of Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, except whoever put them there WASN’T JOKING.

The Purge is an unfortunate but not uncommon case of Hollywood taking an interesting and even intelligent concept and turning it into absolute rubbish. The movie wasn’t just frustrating because it didn’t live up to its potential, it was frustrating because it didn’t even live up to the standards of a cheap horror movie, or even a mindless summer blockbuster, both of which it was trying very, very hard to be. In the end, the only commentary to be seen is that human nature is too interesting and complex for the minds of…. wait, who produced this again?

Platinum Dunes? Why am I not surprised. That’s Michael Bay’s company.

My Review: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Thu, 16 May 2013 03:12:00 -0400

It’s going to be very hard to review this movie without giving away spoilers, but I’m going to try my best to put up warnings where necessary. With that said….

Wow.

Really. That about sums it up. WOW.

I haven’t been floored by a movie like this in a long time, so my thoughts on it are going to seem quite incoherent, as I’m still trying to process them. In any case, if you’re a fan of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. If you’re a fan of the original series of films, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. In fact, if you’re a fan of movies in general, you’ll probably enjoy this movie.

I remember being apprehensive about watching the 2009 reboot, and I even remember why, but I went in a very different person this time. You see back then, I had little to no knowledge of the Star Trek universe beyond the names Kirk and Spock. I had seen a handful of episodes as a child, episodes I could barely remember, and I had never seen a Star Trek film in its entirety. This time, I went in not only having watched the reboot multiple times, but with a working knowledge of both the original television series and the old films, which of course would no doubt make me ask questions of fidelity to the source material. So, how much did being a “Trekkie” influence my criticism of this film? Well. Not at all, to be honest. If anything, it actually enhanced my enjoyment of it. And the feeling I got watching Star Trek for the first time in 2009? I had that feeling again tonight, only it was amplified.

In the years following Jim Kirk’s ascension to the role of captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the crew find themselves carrying out a dangerous task on a remote planet, one that tests their moral fiber right from the get go. It’s soon after this adventure that events start to unfold, at the hands of the mysterious John Harrison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a former Starfleet officer turned terrorist, hell bent on bringing down the organization. An attack on Starfleet HQ leads Kirk, Spock and company to hunt this individual down, as they track him all the way to Kronos, home of the Klingons. It’s there that an unlikely alliance is forged, and the true intentions of all parties start to be revealed.

Into Darkness is a rollercoaster, and an emotionally engaging one at that. It’s peppered with lots of humor, loads of exciting action, and a villain that is absolutely to die for. It’s a non-stop nail biter with some serious heart, and I wouldn’t recommend missing it for the world…. And that’s really all I can say without getting in to much more detail. So again, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I hope you enjoyed this portion of my review. I won’t be giving away too many details beyond the obvious burning questions, but a warning is necessary either way.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

First things first, yes, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Khan. That really isn’t a spoiler at this point, in fact people have been pretty damn sure of it for a year now, but it’s still meant to be a secret for whatever reason, so I decided to take my time getting to it.

On the topic of what I thought about him playing Khan beforehand, well, all I can say is I was uncertain. It seemed like the inclusion of the character was unnecessary, and I wasn’t entirely sure how he would fit in to the new Trek universe. But I knew that I wanted to see what Cumberbatch would do with him….

I’m happy to announce that not only did he do a fantastic job, the inclusion of Khan himself worked to perfection. The story is a massive departure from either of the character’s previous appearances, but its given sufficient explanation, as well as room to breathe and to be its own film. The hints along the way are interesting, and while the eventual reveal isn’t particularly shocking at this point, it was still one that was met with a great deal of applause, one of many instances in the film actually.

It’s a great reversal for the character at times, while still staying true to his motivations and apparent origins. And, to see him form such a major part of this movie almost feels like a necessary upgrade. An unexpected improvement on an already great film.

It’s not just because of Khan, though.

The film is as much about Kirk and Spock as the last one, giving us perhaps some of their best individual moments in their 47 year history. A few even harken back to Wrath Of Khan quite distinctly, acting as both a mirror to the original timeline, and a fitting puzzle piece to this new one.

Every character gets their due, and there are some moments in the film that are absolutely heart-wrenching. I never thought anything could match the ending of Wrath Of Khan or the opening of the last film, but the last 30 odd minutes or so of this one seem to have outdone both, and in grand cinematic fashion.

It’s fun, it’s entertaining, it has a hell of a lot of engaging action, but what makes it work more than anything, the thing that’s made Star Trek last as long as it has, is the characters. More specifically, Kirk and Spock. Even 8 films and 80 odd episodes later, J.J. Abrams’ has somehow proven that there’s still story left in these characters, and Star Trek Into Darkness manages to capture some of their finest moments yet. And boy oh boy does he have a great time doing it.

My only real complaint is that it’s over. The realization is slowly creeping up on me, that we may have to wait a very long time before we actually see this amazing Enterprise crew again. But, until we can accompany them on another voyage, I’m both happy and satisfied knowing that there are directors like J.J. Abrams who dare to boldly go where no one has gone before….

\\_//_

My Review: AFTERSHOCK

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:04:00 -0400

The disaster genre is often associated with images of large scale destruction of metropolitan cities, ostensibly likable characters running for two hours to avoid not having any more ground beneath their feet, and Roland Emmerich doing stuff like this in at least four movies. It’s a genre that has a specific appeal, in that you get to see entire cities go up in flames without some kind of moral or political implication, and these movies act as sort of an overarching ‘what if’ scenario that’s made to be instantly recognizable from an outside perspective (alongside post-apocalyptic porn such as Oblivion) by destroying all your favourite tourist attractions, but also by moving the more relatable aspects of the disaster to the sidelines in the process. Even the marketing of films such as 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow are specifically geared towards that spectacle.

Which is probably why Aftershock is such a brilliantly refreshing movie.

I had never seen a trailer for Aftershock before watching it, but the involvement of Eli Roth, the man responsible for the Hostel films, sort of gave me the indication that it would focus on the more horrific aspects of a natural disaster, and I suppose that assumption was right in more ways than one. Its relatively modest $10 million budget may seem like something that would hold it back, at least in the visual effects department, but even if that’s the case, it allowed director Nicolas Lopez to concentrate on things other than the disaster itself, while still allowing for some pretty great practical effects to put you right in the middle of things.

The film is set in Chile, presumably around the time of the 8.8 that hit back in 2010, and focuses on a trio of male friends and the women they meet, who all eventually find themselves clinging on to each other for survival. The first act of the film serves the purpose of not only introducing the characters, but giving them lives and stories that feel complete, at least more so than most horror/disaster movies you’ve seen. Eli Roth’s character, referred to only as ‘Gringo’, fits the role of the typical nice guy/young dad that these movies often feature, but rather than having his kid with him for the impending disaster, he’s out on holiday with his friend Ariel, an instantly likable, down on his luck “good guy”, and Ariel’s pompous, narcissistic best friend Pollo, who ends up being one of the highlights of the movie next to Roth himself.

The trio eventually befriend young single mother Irina and estranged sisters Monica and Kylie, as the six typical, touristy buddies head off to experience culture by day, and to party by night. It’s a first act that lasts a hell of a lot longer than most, but it serves a very distinct, very effective purpose, almost forming a short story within itself, so that the characters and their dynamics have not only been established, but shifted.

And then things start to get worse.

Some of the earthquake scenes are genuinely terrifying, and the absolutely relentless horror inflicted upon even the most minor characters is impactful in an almost shocking way. And from the very start, it doesn’t even let you settle in to the circumstances of the disaster, immediately pitting our unlucky six against a literal mountain of a challenge, and taking things in new, interesting and engaging directions from there on.

The characters and their struggles feel real, and PRAISE THE GODS OF FILMMAKING, they actually make realistic decisions that don’t seem out of place and in service of the action. The story arcs, while slightly predictable, are unbelievably interesting to watch, and the way by which the film establishes and even prolongs the tension of the disaster is relentless.

And then things start to get EVEN worse.

I’m not going to get in to the specifics, but Aftershock isn’t just a horrifying disaster movie, its a horror movie that has a hell of a lot to say about humanity, at its best, at its worst, and at its most desperate. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it, and I’m pretty sure the tension made me want to pull my hair out at one point, but just as its insanely gripping, it’s also gut wrenching in its visuals, and it packs a strong emotional punch at every turn.

[Also, I never thought I’d see a shitty internet meme actually turned around and used to help tell a story in such a subtle way]

My only real complaint is that one of the turns it takes towards the end might have been a tad unnecessary, but the real reason I had a problem with it was because it led to a slightly rushed ending, and I genuinely wanted this movie to be longer just so I could experience more of it. But despite that, it still had me on the edge of my seat for at least an hour at a stretch.

It’s not so much scary in its imagery as it is scary in its storytelling, although some of the stuff that happens is pretty damn gruesome. It’s a disaster-horror movie that tells a very human story, and it never stops to catch its breath or to apologize for what it puts its characters through. In the end, whether it paints mother nature or human nature as the true villain is left more or less ambiguos, which thankfully means it doesn’t end up being heavy-handed in its morality. And, even within its relatively structured narrative and definite character arcs, what seems to stand out the most is its absolutely chaotic nature, rendering all the internal goings on of the story and characters almost irrelevant in the face of merciless, unbiased destruction, both physical and moral.

But most importantly, it’s just a damn good movie.

My Review: HE'S WAY MORE FAMOUS THAN YOU

Sat, 11 May 2013 03:07:00 -0400

I wasn’t originally planning on writing a review for this one, mostly because there really isn’t much to be said, but I decided to give it a go. If you’re not interested in the specifics and just need a quick opinion: don’t watch it. It’s not worth your time.

To be honest, the only reason I went and saw this movie in the first place was because I was a background extra, and I wanted to see my name in the credits of a movie for the first time. Were it not for that, I don’t think it would have interested me in the slightest. The trailer made it seem cheap and superficial, and a sort of lazy attempt at ‘meta’ storytelling, and it’s pretty much exactly that.

And I really don’t want to put in the effort to point out everything I didn’t like about it, because it seemed like a genuinely passionate and fun project that just didn’t end up my cup of tea, but hey, it’s too late to turn back now. It’s not very professionally made, and it comes across as an extended YouTube sketch at times, both in terms of its quality and its content, but it’s certainly not the worst thing you’ll see in cinemas this month, should you decide to sit through it.

I’d go through the plot, but it’s easily discernable from the trailer, and my biggest gripe with it was that the story and characters were kind of bland, and the acting was fairly over-the-top. It has a fair bunch of celebrity cameos, and a semi-interesting gag or two, but it can’t help but feel like an absolutely forced endeavor at times, presenting everything in an extremely removed and objective manner, but never really having much to say.

I really did struggle to be entertained by it, but I suppose it scores a few points for originality, even if the genuinely character centric scenes were often overshadowed by attempts at humor via lazy references and such. Granted, were it a wider release with more noticeable marketing, I might be harsher towards it, at least in my style of writing. But I don’t really think anyone reading this review is ever going to see it, so I think I might as well just leave it at that.

My Review: THE GREAT GATSBY

Fri, 10 May 2013 04:27:14 -0400

“It’s an American classic!”

The words seem to spontaneously bellow from rooftops whenever F. Scott Fitzgerarld’s The Great Gatsby is brought up in conversation, especially when someone mentions that they haven’t read it. It’s considered to be a ‘Great American Novel’, as well as one of those books that filmmakers just can’t seem to get right. 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000, all unsuccessful adaptations, as I’ve been led to believe. And now we have this, the fifth adaptation of a book that’s almost nine decades old, one that might seem almost impossible to review without any sort of comparison to its previous incarnations.

In most cases anyway.

I personally, have not read The Great Gatsby. I have never seen any previous film version of it. And, until earlier tonight, I hadn’t the slightest clue as to what it was about….. Actually, I still have no idea what it’s about.

Let me be clear before getting in to it. Whatever I say about the movie is based purely on what I saw tonight. This was my first and only exposure to The Great Gatsby, and I am judging it as a movie, and as a movie alone. Conversely, if someone were to respond to any of my points with an explanation pertaining to the book, please know that I don’t care. The novel and its contents have absolutely no bearing on my opinion, nor should they. I shouldn’t even have to say this to begin with, but it happens far too often. Now, without further a do….

Much as the trailers would lead you to believe, Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby is a lavish, extravagant, masturbatory exercise in anachronism. What’s worse is that in addition to all that, it’s largely a failed experiment in 3D and other visual Tom-Fuckeries that need not be experimented with when making a film that doesn’t lend itself to such devices, especially when cheaper, better looking, practical alternatives exist. If I were to describe the majority of the movie, I’d say that it was directed by a toddler who had been given a 3D camera and large visual effects budget, as he filmed the world’s most expensive audiobook.

Right from the start, the two things that bothered me the most were the music and the editing. Of course, the music is a completely subjective element, so I don’t entirely hold it against the film for trying to do something stylistic with it, but if you ask me, there’s really only so much techno and hip-hop that’s necessary in the first one hour of a movie taking place in 1922. And as far as the editing goes, I have no idea what the hell they were doing. The first one hour probably features no more than a hand full of shots that last longer than four seconds, and it really made the movie come across like some sort of dialectic montage, as if three hours worth of story had been condensed in to one.

[The only positive of this was that it didn’t allow my eyes to completely focus on the absolutely dreadful green-screen backdrops that plagued every other shot]

Luhrmann’s camera whizzes through the scene like a horny quadriplegic in a hooker factory, pushing, pulling and panning just to show off the bloody 3D, as if audiences up until this point were somehow unaware that movies take place in a three-dimensional space. There’s no reason for it other than for Luhrmann to play with his new toys, and it’s painful to watch. The shots that DON’T show off the 3D like a cheap theme park ride? Well you can count on the editor to make you feel like you have severe ADHD. I’m actually starting to think this idiotic style of filmmaking WORKS for the stuff Michael Bay does, because this movie may as well have featured a screen full of CGI (more than it already did) because I sure as hell wasn’t able to connect to any of the characters when I never got to see them for more than a second at a time.

Oh, and the stuff about showing off the 3D? I realized this as I was watching tonight’s screening that wasn’t even in 3D to begin with. That’s how goddamn distracting the 3D was.

The story beings with Tobey Maguire narrating (great idea right there) his encounter with one Jay Gatsby, an elusive figure who likes to throw extravagant parties at his house on Long Island. That’s all anybody seems to know about him, and for the longest time during the movie itself (from his first appearance about 30 minutes in, all the way until the very end) I didn’t really feel like I got to know him beyond that.

Sure, there’s a lot of expository dialog as to the reasons for his lavish lifestyle, and even a couple of scenes where he prances around with Carrey Mulligan, but Maguire telling me what he thought about Gatsby, an internalization, was never once externalized on screen. The words playing ominously over the movie rarely matched what was actually happening, and the only time anything meaningful was said, it was during some of the more emotional scenes that would have benefitted from the silence.

DiCaprio turns in a good performance as always, but I have absolutely no idea who he was playing. He read the emotions on the page quite well, but that’s all it was. That’s all most of this movie was. Words on a page being read out by the actors, and often times narrated by Maguire’s Nick Carraway as a superficial representation of them occurred on screen.

Like I said, DiCaprio is intense when his accent isn’t slipping, but there really wasn’t much to Jay Gatsby. Beyond that, Tobey Maguire made about a dozen or so switches between his two default facial expressions in the movie, dopey and confused (although I think he got angry once at the end) and even Carey Mulligan, whose work I absolutely love, couldn’t help but either be ‘glamorous’ or ‘glamorous with tears streaming down her face’ because I genuinely didn’t think there was much to her character in the movie, and my doubts were proven right when she began to make 180 degree character switches at the drop of a hat. No, I don’t care if that’s how it happened in the book.

The only actors I felt that were really worth watching were Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan and Jason Clarke as George Wilson. However, Edgerton doesn’t get to shine until over an hour in to the movie, and Clarke had just two or three minutes of screen time at the most. Oh, and to any movie fans back home in India, please don’t expect much by way of Amitabh Bachchan. He’s in it for one scene, where he has maybe five or ten words to say, and even then the camera is focused on the back of his head most of the time.

Which reminds me, since these also occurred in the scene with Amitabh, there’s another point about the editing that needs to be mentioned. Two, actually.

1) Continuity. I try my best not to nitpick about stuff like this, but with a movie with as many cuts as Gatsby, it becomes really, REALLY hard not to notice the constant back and forth of characters’ arms and legs being in completely different positions from one consecutive shot to the next (let alone the bizarre spatial relationships)

2) Synchronization. Off the top of my head, I can count at LEAST 30-40 instances where the actors mouths were not synchronized with the words coming out of them. And not even minor inconsistencies, entire sentences were spoken where the actors mouth, when completely visible, was either not moving at all, or saying something completely different.

These mistakes were amateur, but importantly, they were DISTRACTING.

There’s so much to be said about this movie, because there’s so damn much wrong with it, but it’s useless harping on about how awful it was from a technical standpoint. The problems with this movie run much, much deeper than that. What was it about? WHO was it about? Why was it about them? Why am I supposed to care? The answers to these questions changed constantly, if they were ever present at all. And that last one isn’t meant to be a snide remark. Throughout the majority of the movie, I genuinely had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling, or who I was supposed to be feeling it for.

In the end, if you can look past the terribly juvenile visual effects, if you can forgive the obnoxious 3D exhibitionism, if you can drown out the excessive Jay-Z, if you can survive the seizure-inducing editing, and if you can somehow withstand feeling like you’re witnessing a fever dream, what sticks out as the absolute worst thing about this movie is that it’s BORING. It isn’t about anything or anyone in particular, it’s just an excuse for Baz Luhrmann to have people narrate and re-enact scenes from a book as he plays around with a bunch of filmmaking techniques that he is absolutely not suited for. And the unfortunate reality of his $100 million experiment is that we, the audience, were the guinea pigs.

My Review: IRON MAN 3

Fri, 03 May 2013 04:24:00 -0400

Five years and four movies ago, Robert Downey Jr made his mainstream comeback in one of the better received superhero movies of the time, a movie that was certainly right place, right time, but doesn’t hold much weight beyond establishing Tony Stark as a character in the first 45 minutes. The second movie, while more bland and aloof, also had its place in the context of introducing characters and concepts that would eventually lead up to The Avengers, a movie that’s no doubt a landmark for franchise cinema, but again, like its predecessors, was tailor-fitted to Marvel’s business model. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a brilliant business model, but it was restrictive in many ways.

The distinct advantage that Iron Man 3 has over all three of its predecessors is that it’s no longer held back by the need to build up to an Avengers movie. That’s practically going to take care of itself at this point, allowing director Shane Black to tell a more focused story, with much more of a political edge to it than any Marvel Studios movie till date. It’s a film that starts out as a character-centric and allegorical superhero spy thriller, the kind of movie that Tony Stark and the Marvel Universe DESERVE, and it manages to hold up that end of the bargain quite well for a little while, proving to be equal parts engaging and entertaining, while maintaining a distinctly modern comicbook feel, both in terms of grandeur, as well as an edge for socio-political commentary….

…..and then, about half way through the movie, it all starts to fall apart.

Let me be clear, Iron Man 3 is not a bad movie, it’s just not a very good one. It’s a lot to take in, so this review is going to go off in quite a number of directions, much like the movie itself, but I’m going to try and keep it relatively spoiler-free, until and unless otherwise specified. I’m not entirely sure where I should begin, because almost every aspect of the movie seems to have a pro and a con to it, and it’s a really loaded film, which results in it being impressively layered at times, but by the end of it, leaves it far too bloated to support its own weight. It’s better than most of the Marvel Studios movies, but that isn’t exactly saying much at this point.

The movie has a very distinctly Shane Black feel to it, which is once again neither here nor there, but refers more to the tone and structure of the movie itself. It’s nice to see a superhero movie that starts out with a superhero-esque narration, and pits its lead against some very real problems that aren’t supervillains, but again, all these eventually felt like boxes that needed to be checked off in the first hour or so.

Iron Man 3 has the distinction of being the first solo movie after The Avengers, and it asks the question that’s probably been on most people’s minds. How does Tony Stark fit in to the post-Avengers universe? The answer is actually a very interesting one. The events of the last film have left him in a paranoid, PTSD state, causing him to be so buried in his work that he constructs suit after suit after suit, and lets his paranoia affect his personal relationships. Unfortunately, this potentially brilliant character arc is conveniently tossed aside in favour of a fireworks display in act III. No, literally, a fireworks display.

The ‘villain’ of the movie known as The Mandarin, Iron Man’s arch nemesis in the comics, re-contextualized as a radical terrorist with a penchant for theatrics, is another disappointment. Again, it’s hard to talk about him without giving too much away, but I’ll get to it later on my review. The reason I bring him up now though is that I think it’s as much a marketing issue as it is an issue of filmmaking. There are certain aspects that establish The Mandarin as both a physical and ideological threat within the first half hour, but this too is squandered in favour of what can best be described as an out of place gimmick.

The film draws heavily from Extremis, the 2005-2006 comic arc by Warren Ellis, that asks questions about Stark’s place as Iron Man in a rapidly changing technological landscape, and uses biotechnology as its backdrop. Much like the comic, it focuses on DNA enhancements that, specifics aside, essentially result in superpowered henchmen. And while this was used more as thought-provoking science fiction in the comic, it functions more as a plot device here, which is never really an issue until it starts to double back on itself, conveniently forgetting which parts of the concept it chose to incorporate and which it chose to ignore. It does make for an interesting ‘mystery’ set up, in terms of having Stark discover all this, but it’s pointless if what’s really going on has already been well established, and we’re two steps ahead of our main character.

Guy Pearce steps in to the move early on in yet another ostensibly antagonistic role because, well, apparently that’s what he does now. And while he’s not entirely unpredictable in his motivations and loyalties, his version of Aldrich Killian certainly has a lot more to do in this movie than his comicbook counterpart, as does the watered down Maya Hensen played by Rebecca Hall. But, by virtue of being a Shane Black movie, Iron Man 3 is so in love with itself from moment to moment that there’s not only a lack of narrative cohesion, but a glaring lack of clarity when it comes to the film’s villains. And in a superhero movie that’s essentially driven by the actions of its antagonists, that’s not a good thing.

I’m about to get a bit spoiler-ish here, so if you want to go in to the movie knowing nothing more than you already do, I’d suggest you stop reading once this paragraph is over. But to be honest, I don’t think my ‘spoiling’ anything will really retract from your experience in this particular case, as the bits I’m about to give away either pertain to action sequences, or twists and turns that might actually end up being disappointing if you experience them in the theater. But of course, the choice is entirely yours, as it should be, but I need to throw up the obligatory warning regardless.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Okay, so the first and biggest thing that I need to talk about in the realm of spoilers is The Mandarin, and I am NOT happy about how this was handled. They got Ben Kingsley, the gave him a unique look, they centered their marketing around him, and talked about their re-interpretation of The Mandarin for MONTHS on end, to the extent that he was perhaps the main reason I was watching the movie to begin with. But what does it all amount to? Nothing. He’s barely in the damn thing, and what’s worse, everything about him is a lie. As its revealed about half way through, Ben Kingsley is not The Mandarin. He’s an actor hired to PLAY The Mandarin. Who is the real Mandarin then? Well, Aldrich Killian claims to be at one point, but realistically speaking, there is no Mandarin. He’s a blatant fabrication.

Look, I get it. The movies don’t have to be exactly like the comicbooks. And when it comes to an uber-specific, boderline racist caricature like the original Mandarin, I can see the need to go in a different direction…. Which is why I was excited in the first place. The new Mandarin, with less specific origins and a seeming knack for corrupting cultural iconography for his own benefit, felt like he had the potential to be a landmark movie bad guy, a re-contextualized supervillain in the form of a Bin Laden-esque terrorist, and Marvel really was building up to something spectacular up until a certain point.

And again, I understand what they were doing. Terrorism as Western technology and capitalism disguised as Eastern ideology is a fantastic fucking idea, and I’d love to see it in any other movie, but did it really need to be executed this way? With such a blatant middle finger to not only the fans of the comicbooks, but people who were excited by the marketing in general? The Mandarin is a tough villain to adapt, and what they promised was a version of the character that fit in to the context of today’s political atmosphere. What they delivered, was a cop out. It was almost like they decided that the Mandarin wasn’t worth adapting, and it’s almost insulting.

It was around the time of this reveal that things started to slip away. It felt like a reveal for the sake of a reveal, because it sure as hell didn’t do much for Killian’s motivation as a character. All it really did was highlight just how convoluted the plot really was, and the main reason for this really was so that we could have action sequences. In fact, as I’m writing this review, I’m starting to question whether the threads opened up in the first half were actually forgotten about, or were never really present in the first place, and are a result of some accidental brilliance.

The movie does deserve credit for at least trying to do something more character focused than any of the other three Tony Stark movies, but whatever little development we do see is, once again, all for naught thanks to the film’s clunky second half. Stark does spend some time out of the suit, but most of it ends up being with a little kid, who’s not particularly great, but he’s not terrible enough to be annoying. He really just serves an expository purpose, and the events taking place in his home town are also really just an excuse for things to go boom. The film tries to deal with Stark’s PTSD, and continues to do so for a little while, giving him anxiety attacks from time to time, but the whole idea starts to feel more and more removed as the film goes on. And once again, this MAJOR aspect of the character is nowhere to be found by the time act III rolls around.

Oh, yeah, speaking of act III, you’ve pretty much seen it in the trailers. By the time the Air Force Once rescue happens, it comes across more like a goofy episode of the Super Friends than anything with real tension, and it even goes so far as to make our hero LESS involved in what’s going on. And then of course, is the ‘big finale’, the action set piece that has been teased in the trailers and on the posters so many times that it feels quite commonplace by the time its revealed. And it was at this point in the movie where I lost all interest.

Why?

Well, because here you have this brilliantly set up character and story, but instead, the third act chooses to focus mainly on (and I kid you not) a bunch of expendable super-powered henchmen in battle with a bunch of empty suits of armor, as Tony Stark looks on from the sidelines. Yes, this was the big finale, folks. And I have never felt less involved in an action movie.

Granted, he gets into the action eventually, but not until after the President of the United States swings over a fire Indiana Jones style while wearing the Iron Patriot armor (don’t ask, the movie stopped making sense by this point) and the so called final battle between Stark and a turbo-charged Killian is constantly interrupted by either monologuing or poor attempts at comic relief.

Eventually, it’s Jarvis and Pepper who save the day, which is a nice inversion, but feels sort of disingenuous considering the way Stark was set up and kicked to the curb, from a character standpoint. That’s not one of my big complaints of course, it’s just an observation. A big complaint I DO have though, is that Stark’s character arc is so brilliantly set up in the first act, but is ignored in favour of action for almost the entire second half of the movie, until it makes a comeback at the very end, where it still feels like its driven more towards visual spectacle than any sort of ACTUAL catharsis.

In all, its movie that has a brilliant first act, but throws it all away in favour of overbearing, and to be honest, cheap looking visual effects. The Mandarin may as well have not been in it. The story seemed to be a game of fill-in-the-blanks just to see how they could get from once action scene to the next. The villains had no clear motivation. The political undertones go from being subtle to explicit, before being forgotten altogether. The plot is lazily convenient. And above all, for me personally, it feels dishonest and condescending towards comicbook readers, the demographic that made this franchise viable in the first place.

I don’t know what the actual process was, but as opposed to being a modern re-working of a superhero story, it feels like the second half was adapted from a completely unrelated post-9/11 script that never got funded, with comicbook characters put on the posters to bring in the moolah, and with unnecessary and almost random comicbook references to placate the readers, in favour of giving them a movie that felt true to the comics in even in the most basic thematic sense. And hey, can’t forget about making the third act a glorified toy commercial….

My Review: MUD

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:47:00 -0400

The spring-summer transition offers a wide variety of explosions, so it’s nice to see a smaller movie come out right before things get crazy. When I say smaller, I mean that mostly in relation to its distant, secluded southern feel. No big city life or big city buzz. A slice of Americana that we won’t see again this year until the first half hour of Man Of Steel. Of course, that in itself is neither a good or bad thing, but in the case of Mud, it most definitely works.

Before getting in to the nitty-gritties, Mud is a rather strange movie, one that tries to emphasize various different aspects of the lives of its characters in its satisfactory 130 minute run time. It’s small, but it’s by no means un-ambitious, making damn sure to give each character their due. It tries to do a lot, perhaps a little too much at times, but no matter what it does at any given moment, it does is really well.

Small town Arkansas highschoolers Ellis and Neckbone, like any kids their age, have a penchant curiosity about the world, and their world seems to revolve around mischief and women, which in a sense forms the thematic basis for the entire story. They take a motorboat out to a small island near by to take a look at an anomaly, or what they see as an opportunity for adventure: a boat stuck in a tree. Their plans slowly change focus when they discover a mysterious individual living in that boat, the titular character played by Matthew McConaughey, a name I really need to get used to spelling now that he’s doing such amazing work.

The boys form an uncanny friendship with Mud, buying in to his stories of why he’s there in the first place, and helping him out however they can, but all isn’t as it seems.

McConaughey’s lead character is a prime example of what a good actor can achieve with great material. As if Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Bernie and The Paperboy weren’t enough, the man has delivered yet another fantastic, career defining performance, intimidating and vulnerable in equal parts. The same can certainly be said about Ty Sheridan as Ellis. The young 16 year old was previously seen in Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life, and he and the young Jacob Lofland are allowed to shine bright as the film’s main characters. In fact, every supporting performance no matter how small, deserves mention, be it Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnor, or Michael Shannon (the man to look out for this summer)

Bizarre and brazen, Mud is a simple and strange (if not slightly stretched) coming of age story of men trying to find their place in the world. It takes its time, resulting in a lengthy yet interesting second act, but it has a fantastic script that’s sold convincingly by its cast and by Jeff Nichols’ eye for character-centric drama.

I can’t say it’s the best or the most exciting movie you’ll see this year, but it’s pretty damn solid.

Summer Is Upon Us!

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 05:34:00 -0400

Ah, yes. It’s that time of year again. That wonderful season where we flock to the theaters in vast numbers to be part of not one, not two, but an array of different movie events that have that unique summer quality to them. Action, sci-fi, superheros and cars, Summer 2013 has it all, and more.

[Before I get to the top 10, special mentions MUST be made of The East and The Purge, which are probably going to make a fantastic anarchist double feature come May 31st]

And now, without further a do, my list of the top movies to look forward to during what is setting itself up to be a glorious summer….

10) Fast & Furious 6 (May 24th)

To be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of the Fast & Furious series. In fact, the only one I’ve seen is the fourth installment, and I kind of hated it, However, I’ve heard nothing but good things about the fifth one (which I plan on watching prior to the sixth’s release) and the sixth itself looks, for lack of a better word, insane. It’s a film that’s looking to push the boundaries of what’s expected in an all-out, mindless action movie, labeling itself a proprietor of ‘vehicular warfare’ and showing off some of the most ballsy and ludicrous action in any trailer ever. Plus, Dwayne Johnson is always entertaining. ALWAYS.

9) The Wolverine (July 26th)

Thankfully, this one isn’t a sequel to the absolute disaster that was X-Men: Origins. In fact, apart from its timeline, it may not be much of a sequel at all, telling a standalone story about an all too familiar self-regenerating, adamantium-clawed mutant. The film seems to pick up years after the death of Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand, dealing with a lost Logan looking for meaning in his existence. It draws inspiration from Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s famous Japan-based arc from the early 80s, and while the action featured in the trailer doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy, it seems to hint at a character-centric story with mortality as its central theme. It may not be a Darren Aronofsky movie like we had once hoped, but it’s safe to say that James Mangold knows how to make a movie, and this one seems to have a really interesting tone to it.

8) The World’s End (August 23rd)

The third in Edgar Wright’s strange, sardonic and satirical ‘Three Flavour Cornetto Trilogy’, following ZomCom Shaun Of The Dead and Buddy Cop movie Hot Fuzz, this movie reunites Wright with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, adding Martin Freeman and a few others to the mix, in what is apparently some kind of bar-hopping apocalypse movie? Very little is actually known about the projec, as no clips or trailers have been released, but this one makes the list based on the trio’s previous two successes alone, not to mention the short-lived TV show Spaced.

7) Iron Man 3 (May 3rd)

By this point, having a Marvel Studios movie on one of these list has become somewhat of a routine. While I don’t particularly love the series as a whole, the fact that it’s opened up so many doors for franchise cinema is undeniable, and this one looks like it has the potential to be a genuinely good movie. It’s difficult to discern just how a solo Iron Man movie will play out in a post Avengers world, and while I already know one of the surprising (albeit disappointing) plot turns, it’s still a movie that has me interested, and it’s a move that I hope has me entertained at the very least, if not emotionally engaged.

6) Elysium (August 9th)

The premise may not seem particularly original from a social commentary standpoint, you’ll be familiar with it if you’re in to pulp sci-fi (or The Hunger Games) but what separates it from the rest is the fact that its director is Neil Blomkamp, whose previous effort, District 9, is one of the most grounded and original works of modern science fiction despite being rather effects-heavy. Elysium appears to be a fruit of that same tree, with actual locations serving as the backdrop before being transformed later on. Matt Damon plays the movie’s everyman hero, and Sharlto Copley seems to have gone the villain route alongside Jodie Foster, in what is sure to be a gritty and realistic sci-fi landmark, the likes of which we’ve probably never seen before.

5) The Iceman (May 3rd)

This isn’t the kind of thing I’d normally put on a summer movie list, for two reasons in particular. One, it’s an independent biographical period piece. Two, I’ve already seen it. But it was so damn good that I’m dying to see it again. The film stars Michael Shannon as Richard Kuklinski, a real life mob hitman with a family to protect, and featuring a fantastic supporting cast including Ray Liotta, Chris Evans, Winona Ryder, James Franco and David Schwimmer, in one dark, grizzly and powerful character portrait. It’s a lot to pack in to two hours, but what really makes it enthralling is the performance of leading man Shannon. If you’re unfamiliar with Kuklinski, here’s an idea of what kind of person her was. He murdered, mutilated and disposed of over a hundred people, and never showed any remorse for his actions except this one. Michael Shannon plays him to spellbinding perfection, and it’s honestly one of the darkest and most complex performances I’ve seen since Heath Ledger’s Joker. You’re not going to see much advertising for it, but please trust me when I say this, do not miss this movie.

4) Much Ado About Nothing(June 7th)

Joss Whedon. Shakespeare. Next.

No but really, you have brilliant source material being handled by a brilliant modern auteur in an absolutely fascinating manner, what more reason could you possibly need? The film was shot on a minimal budget and entirely in the director’s own house. It stars Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, and a host of other Whedon regulars, in a project that was not only shot over just 12 days, but kept a complete secret until it had wrapped. Of course, none of that should necessarily be something to convince you. What should convince you is that the man responsible for Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible and The Avengers is now doing The Bard. I can’t wait.

3) Pacific Rim (July 12th)

“Go Big Or Go Extinct” boasts the film’s poster. Many have already written this one off as a Transformers knock-off, some kind of mindless action movie shlock with nothing to show for it other than flashy visual effects. I’m just going to come right out and say it, those people are all wrong. Yes, I know there’s no way for me to know for sure until I watch the movie myself, but this is one of those movies I have an incredibly good feeling about. I go to the theater to watch a lot of shit that comes out, and while I hope in my heart of hearts most movies will be good, I know in my head that they won’t. This is one of those rare occasions where my head and my heart line up. I have nothing to prove it, but I’m absolutely certain about Pacific Rim. Why? Because it’s Guillermo del Toro paying Kaiju and Mecha tribute, executed in the form of big, bold, almost visionary bravura, the likes of which none of us have ever seen. GIANT. MONSTERS. FIGHTING. GIANT. ROBOTS. That’s what I’m going to this movie to see, and that’s all I’m going to need to like it. However, I have a strong feeling I’m going to come out loving it…. Still don’t believe me? Wait until it’s out. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so. “Tomorrow, we are CANCELING THE APOCALYPSE.”

2) Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17th)

Having seen all six of the original films and a significant portion of the original series, I can safely say that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to Star Trek, and boy oh boy is J.J. Abrams the best thing that ever happened to it. What started out as campy yet somewhat thought-provoking TV science fiction in the 60s eventually came back as a long-running series of franchise films that ranged from social, political and spiritual in nature, all surrounding the crew of the Starship Enterprise. William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock have earned their place amongst the rank of pop culture’s finest, becoming two of the most recognizable and beloved characters in all of fiction, and with good reason. In 2009, J.J. Abrams made a part-reboot part-prequel to the original series, which left the original stories in tact, but allowed his new cast to go on bold new adventures. This new Star Trek was by no means as high-concept as the films or the shows that came before it, and it may even be classified as space-adventure as opposed to hard sci-fi. BUT. It’s one of best mainstream releases of the last decade, telling the tale of Kirk and Spock from the very beginning, and reaching deep down in to what made these characters great, in one exhilarating, heart-wrenching story. Now, four years later and with IMAX technology at his disposal, Abrams returns with Star Trek Into Darkness, an ambiguous and ambitious follow up that features a mysterious, menacing villain in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch, who aims to take Chris Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew where no one has gone before.

1) Man Of Steel (June 14th)

Let alone comicbooks, in the realm of storytelling itself, few characters are as iconic and beloved as Superman. While his live-action image has fallen to the level of a stereotype in recent years, he still remains to this very day, 75 years after his first appearance, a hero to one and all. An alien orphan who grew up a simple farm boy, Clark Kent was an outcast who wrestled with his dual identity, but he always used his strength for good. Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and ready to make any sacrifice, Superman is an alien with God-like powers, but at the same time, he’s more human than we can ever hope to be. And this movie is going to do him justice. Directed by the visually talented Zack Snyder, and written by none other than Christopher Nolan and David Goyer of The Dark Knight Trilogy, Man Of Steel is a movie that seems like it’s going to try and break down Superman to his barest elements, focusing on his childhood as well as his reclusive nature, and encapsulating him as an icon and as a character in what looks to be one hell of an action packed adventure. Very early on, the teaser trailer established a unique, grounded tone for this fantastic story, featuring voiceover from Russel Crowe’s Jor-El ripped straight from the pages of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman. Latter trailers would feature more and more of Henry Cavil’s Superman and Kevin Costner’s Jonathan Kent. Then, a cryptic warning from Michael Shannon’s General Zod. And finally, the mother of all trailers, teasing everything from the destruction of Kyrpton, a Clark Kent on a worldly quest to help people before ever putting on the red & blue, similar to Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright, the first full glimpses of Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and an insanely adventurous amount of action, set against Hans Zimmer’s pulsating yet grandiose score. It was the trailer that finally put all doubts to rest, and a trailer that featured three words, spoken by Superman himself, that are a perfect description of why he’s important to us. Symbol of hope.

This is going to be one hell of a summer….

My Review: PAIN & GAIN

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:05:00 -0400

His first non Transformers film since 2005, Pain & Gain is movie that Michael Bay seems to have been trying to make for some time now. It has a mediocre budget of $25 million, relatively speaking, and is based on a true story from the mid 90s about a group of bodybuilders who become involved with the kidnapping and torture of the audience for two hours. Or wait, maybe that was just the movie.

Michael Bay has received some much deserved criticism about his movies, and he’s very well aware of it, which is why Pain & Gain begins as ostensible satire, seemingly self-reflexive in its portrayal of modern gung-ho American patriotism and the portrayal of its fitness-driven main characters, played by Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Each actor certainly does a fine job with what they’re given, but what they’re given slowly rots away into unwatchable filth as the movie goes on.

I was really into it for the first twenty minutes or so, because it genuinely seemed like a self-aware and satirical take on crime and self-image, but after a while, that notion started to slip away. I honestly can’t tell if it was because the satire element started to take a back seat or because I was wrong about it having existed in the first place. Beyond a certain point, it turned into a romp of tasteless jokes and mind-numbing storytelling.

To call the movie mean-spirited would be an understatement, it comes across as narrow minded and hateful in too many ways to count. And whether or not this was intended in a satirical manner, the outcome is ignorant to depressing degree. Intentionally or not, the list of targets include homosexuals, women, larger people, religious people, and to be perfectly honest, people in general. It straddles the line between xenophobic and generally misanthropic, and I really had an uncomfortable time watching it.

The story itself goes nowhere, the motivations of the main characters being unclear if at all present, the tone of the movie tries to remain darkly comedic even when the content becomes gruesome, and the movie remains largely stagnant for about 45 whole minutes. It was around this point, a little after the hour mark, that I decided I’d had enough. The combination of the movie itself and the obnoxious crowd that was laughing at every penis joke and homophobic statement stemming from sexual insecurity was overwhelming, and there was no way I was going to sit through another hour of pure hateful tripe, surrounded by the ignorant masses that absorb it like sponges.

This movie is just plain BAD in every way. I didn’t like the characters, in fact I’m pretty sure I hated them, and it just felt like some sort of strange, ADHD fueled steroid commercial that SHOULD have been a satire, but ended up being completely serious about the presentation of its content. It’s a vile, obnoxious, tasteless, and ultimately BORING movie, made by a director who seems to have taken it upon himself to respond to his critics by holding up an American flag with the words ‘self aware’ smeared across it in feces, and waving whilst standing atop a pile of money, jerking off to the thought of more talented and passionate filmmakers struggling to get funded.

‘Passion’ project? Fuck you, Michael Bay.

My response to "Bruce Wayne Stars in 'Man of Steel' Trailer"

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:14:00 -0400

The Forbes article in question compares the new Man Of Steel trailer to Christopher Nolan’s Batman films based on its tone, and while I can see why such a parallel is being made, it’s not one I agree with, and I tried my best to articulate why in this Facebook post.

Here’s a transcription of it:

“Hi. I’m sorry Forbes, but your knowledge of Superman seems to be predicated solely on his mainstream media image over the last 35 years, a la the Richard Donner films, the cartoons and Smallville. Furthermore, you seem to be ignoring the relatively essential notion that Superman is a character, not a costume. Granted, I should probably point out that your seemingly narrow opinion of the movie is based on the trailer alone, but your article’s headline seems to imply as such (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and the rest of us are going ga-ga over that same trailer alone, so let’s leave that out for now. But what I’d like to conclude with, is the fact that this very same mainstream image of Superman that you seem to subscribe to, happens to be tarnished. You can’t turn a street corner without hearing someone say Superman is ‘boring’ because he’s “immortal” and “nothing can hurt him” and other such fantasies, because that’s the image that YOU, the media, have branded upon him. The stereotype of a superhero. So don’t turn around and proclaim the writers to be narrow minded because this version of Superman doesn’t fit his watered down zeitgeist image. You’re talking about a character that has endured SEVENTY FIVE YEARS of comic, television and film media (if not conquered) to become the most recognizable superhero in all of fiction, and you seem to think that’s because he smiles a lot? Because he’s colorful and wears a costume? I’m not denying that this is certainly part of what makes him iconic…. Hold on. Sidebar. I realize Forbes will probably never see this post, and I also realize this comes across as fanboyish whining, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to articulate my thoughts on the character since the new trailer hit earlier today, and this seemed like a perfect jumping in point. It’s not an argument, it’s a context. Anyway, moving on…. I’m not denying that this is certainly part of what makes him iconic, but what makes him a character worth writing about and a character worth reading, is who he is as a person. The things he does, and why he does them. And there’s no way to aptly justify any of his actions without getting to the root of who he is. This isn’t a “darker” Superman, it’s the same Superman that’s existed for decades. It’s a more Clark Kent focused Superman, and a more Kal-El focused one, but it still seems to try and encapsulate who Superman is. The person. The icon. The outcast. The hero…. Also, the parallel to Bruce Wayne is lazy. If anything, he’s more like Peter Parker. Cheers”

You might not agree with me, but these are just my thoughts on a character that I’ve loved since I was a child :)

The new trailer for MAN OF STEEL

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:32:36 -0400

The new trailer for MAN OF STEEL

My Review: DISCONNECT

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 03:42:10 -0400

Boasting a rather catchy trailer that’s part family drama part technology riff, Disconnect has already set itself up to be one of those rare, technologically centered films that doesn’t use its backdrop as some sort of gimmick (Uploading Virus, 99% complete) but instead seems to focus on the pitfalls of the online world we live in. The movie itself? It’s all that and much more.

I’m always a little cautious as far as modern technology in movies is concerned. Sequences involving Facebook or text messaging always seem like they’re told from the perspective of someone who doesn’t actually use it themselves, but ar are annoyed at the fact that their children do. Thankfully, that’s not the case with Henry Alex Rubin’s feature debut, as the documentarian has taken a realistic approach to three specific facets of the internet; fraud, impersonation and pornography. However, Disconnect isn’t so much a movie ABOUT technology as it is a carefully crafted, interwoven character piece told through a technological lens.

The film follows three main stories, their subjects ranging from a Facebook prank gone awry, to an estranged couple at the mercy of an online thief, to a media reporter becoming entangled in the world of underage pornography, and each tells a fascinating tale of people yearning for catharsis. It’s a story of friends, lovers, and fathers & sons, all caught in a dark, technological whirlwind that maintains its intensity from start to finish.

What seems to set it apart from what I can only assume are the other internet-centric films out there that aren’t The Social Network (I can’t say I’ve seen any) is that it it delves into the moral implications of the goings on of its story at both ends, exhibiting a Crash-like narrative without being overtly preachy, or perhaps an Alejandro González Iñárritu film that doesn’t stop to take a breather.

The movie certainly has a fantastically detailed script, but it wouldn’t be nearly the experience that it is without the help of Max Richter’s score, and the performances of everyone involved, including and especially Jason Bateman. It’s an accurate, hard-hitting work of absolutely raw cinema that’s sure to entertain and engage.

My Review: UPSTREAM COLOR

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 05:24:58 -0400

In 2004, Shane Carruth burst on to the Sundance scene with his cerebral sci-fi film Primer, a near budget-less work of genre cinema that ranks amongst the outings of even the most seasoned filmmakers. Nearly a decade later, he returns with Upstream Color, a film that’s as beautiful as it is hard to explain, and one that proves to be an overwhelming emotional and intellectual experience, perhaps on par with anything that Terrence Malick has ever done.

While it’s hard to put a finger on, Upstream Color is a film that appears to be about entanglement; emotional, mental, physical, and even metaphysical. It’s a high concept sci-fi piece in the form of pictorial poetry, its premise providing just enough of a push to send the characters, sounds and images into an emotional whirlwind, a bizarre jigsaw puzzle with its pieces strewn about, but one that you may not even want to solve because of how they’re laid on the ground before you. There’s an instinctual order or Carruth’s chaos, one that’s hard to rationalize, but one that yields absolutely fascinating results.

The concept behind the science fiction isn’t clear all at once, and takes a rather indirect approach, but is meticulous in granting us an experience as confusing and harrowing as the ones suffered by the main characters. What the actual nitty-gritties of the science are might be better left unsaid for now, as they have a certain interpretive quality, but it all seems to deal with something on a microscopic level that connects us in a much larger sense.

Kris and Jeff find themselves drawn to each other, and the romance of these broken characters is the center of this bizarre tale. It’s a romance born out of necessity and shared trauma, but there seem to be larger forces at play, forces that deal with nature, and man’s harnessing of it. Who or what is actually behind any of this is never explicitly explained, and nor should it, because the setting of the film is exact in its own way. It focuses on connection, be it natural or otherwise, and it uses its striking cinematography, backed up by impecable music and sound design, to weave an engrossing tale of opaque confusion, juxtaposed with just enough moments of crystal cleat clarity to make this experience one worth thinking about.

It’s been about three hours since I walked ouf of the theater, and I’m not NEARLY done unraveling it. All I know is that it’s a beautiful, visceral experience, one that shakes up the traditional sci-fi narrative in favour of a unique cinematic experience that I really don’t think you should miss.

My Review: 42

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:33:00 -0400

There’s always a certain amount of apprehension I have when going to see a movie that’s racially themed. Not because the subject matter is touchy (well, it can be at times) but because in a lot of cases, these movie tend to cater to apologists. They portray things in a very black and white manner, if you’ll excuse the unintentional pun, and more often than not, fall under the “sorry for oppression” category of race-related filmmaking. Crash was superficial and on the nose, The Blind Side ended up a Sandra Bullock vehicle, The Help all but implied that white people started the American civil rights movement, and the same sentiment exists in other forms if you look at the likes of Avatar or The Last Samurai. Maybe it’s just my own paranoia about such things, or that I actively WANTED to find such an instance in this movie, which would allow me to call out the people involved for pandering and/or taking the safe route. But the fact remains, I could find no such instance no matter how hard I looked. And if it exists, I probably missed it because I was so damn invested in the movie.

42 is about the events leading up to the inclusion of one Jackie Robinson in Major League Baseball, a historic landmark for the sport as he was the first African American in the league. It’s also about Robinson himself, and how he deals with the struggle. It’s also about Branch Rickey, the man who brought him on board. It’s about the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time. It’s about sports at the time, about society at the time, and about a society that was seeing the earliest stages of radical shift in a definite direction.

It’s about the number 42 in the context of Baseball, and everything that it represents.

42 is an ensemble piece, one that gives each character their due in a way that’s more than just checking boxes off a list (I’m looking at you, Paul Haggis) and it tells the story of a society plagued by prejudice, but a society willing to change, a relevant theme today no doubt. Chadwick Boseman plays Robinson with heroic poise, as the film looks at him through multiple honest lenses, portraying him as an uncompromisingly human [Re: flawed] character instead of putting him on a pedestal from the start. This isn’t to say that he isn’t involved in the film’s expected early instances of fighting back (and the inevitable scene involving a whites-only restroom) but he’s not a one dimensional absolute, adapting to his surroundings, and more importantly, the characters around him, black or white.

Equally explosive on screen, if not more so, is Harrison Ford’s Branch Rickey, a dominating figure who exhibits such convincing vulnerability that it had me wondering whether or not this was actually the same sombre-yet-sincere straight-faced tough guy we’ve been seeing on screen for over 35 years now . But where Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Rick Deckard all had grand, adventurous backdrops to hide Ford’s seeming lack of depth as an actor, he delivers an absolutely, bewilderingly good performance, as do all the other actors who have a significant amount of screen time.

Sure, the green screen work is sloppy at times, and the film has no dearth of cringeworthy child actors, but these end up being more out of necessity than merely show, and the film’s visual aesthetic really helps sell the 1940s feel. And, as for my original point at the very beginning of the review, it starts out relatively cautious, but ends up unafraid to tell it like it is from a racial standpoint, going so far as to have a character who’s worried about the threats he’s getting for playing alongside a black man being completely shut down by showing us the threats against Robinson himself. Yes, it tells the story of certain white characters at the time, characters who were involved with Robinson’s story, but his story is always central, save perhaps for one single scene in which Ford delivers what is likely the finest performance of his career. In that case, it’s somewhat excusable, as Rickey and his motives have formed an important part of Robinson’s story by that point.

The film is joyfully triumphant, splattered with moments of engaging storytelling and a dash of humor for good measure, all totaling what is perhaps one of the more honest portrayal’s of race relationships in mid 20th century America in recent years, and a damn fine movie. It has its ‘cheesy’ moments here and there, but it really does feel like a film right out of the 70s or 80s that’s being re-watched all these years later, one that’s stood the test of time.

It’s an engaging and interesting film, even if you know absolutely nothing about baseball like I do, and it’s a film that finds the honesty in its inherent complexity and runs with it in the most enjoyable manner possible. Oh, and if you thought hating Alan Tudyk was impossible…. heh…. heh heh….

“Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear 42. That way they won’t be able to tell us apart.”

My Review: TO THE WONDER

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:37:00 -0400

It’s hard to believe that Terrence Malick’s last film, The Tree Of Life, was a mere two years ago. If you know anything about the reclusive auteur, you’ll know that he likes to take his time between films, sometimes up to two decades. However, To The Wonder really does seem like a visual, thematic, and in a sense, logical follow up to his previous, more grandiose effort, but it’s also a film that stands firmly on its own two feet.

If you’re wondering whether or not you should watch this movie, chances are you’re unfamiliar with Terrence Malick. Those who are have either already dismissed him as pretentious, or worship him as cinematic genius, and seem to need no convincing either way (I belong to the latter group, in case you were wondering.) However, I’m going to try and give you a rundown of what Malick is all about, although I fear words are unable to do him justice.

Terrence Malick is a visual poet, one who leans away from conventional direction and turns his back entirely on typical narrative structure. This leads to a rather split view of him, as I’ve previously mentioned, owing to the fact that his films are, in the purest sense, art. And as you know, no two people respond to art the same way. To be more specific, if you have a problem with strangely framed (super)closeups, a camera that moves through fields with youthful energy and a hell of a lot of shots of sunlight through trees, then you should probably give this one a skip. Unless of course you’re willing to look past your expectations of what society has conditioned you to believe cinema ‘should’ be, and you’d like to simply let the thoughts and images take hold.

To The Wonder is as typically Terrence Malick as it gets, which might seem like a turn off to some, but it’s also quite easily his most singularly narrative focused work since Badlands in 1973 (yes, I’ve seen everything he’s ever done) and it’s also a character focused albeit character antithetical film, in which the film’s seemingly ‘main’ character, played by Ben Affleck, ranges from charming to detestable, as he’s seen almost completely through the eyes of his two female counterparts during the story.

This is of course not to say that Olga Kurylenko and Rachel McAdams don’t get their due. In fact their performances are quite powerful, and even alluring in their own way, as they partake in Malick’s emotional back-and-forth relationship saga, strangely juxtaposed with an almost unrelated story of a lonely priest in search of meaning, played by Javier Bardem.

The vulnerability with which each actor carries themselves is matched only by the vulnerability of Malick’s vision, as he bares his soul on the silver screen, in this visually powerful and at times emotionally gut-wrenching piece. The film is voiceover heavy, featuring little to no dialog and abundant with the director’s unique use of perspective to amplify both the locations and the emotions he’s portraying.

In addition, To The Wonder is also a more mature, more forward thinking Malick, returning to the tone and setting of his Badlands and Days of Heaven days with a newfound fervor for the technological world we live in (if you’ve ever wondered what an artistic found-footage movie would look like, look no further than the opening scene) and he also retreads some of the thematic content in his 1998 return to glory, The Thin Red Line, but in a much simpler manner.

I’ve gone on about all the things that Terrence Malick is known for, his unconventional this and his unconventional that, but at the end of the day, it amounts to one singular vision that makes him unique as a filmmaker. The fact that everything he does is geared towards capturing the ESSENCE of the story he’s portraying, even if it means presenting snippets of scenes without any dialog whatsoever, just so that we can experience pure emotion even for a second.

To The Wonder might leave you contemplating the ‘point’ or leave you devoid of any thoughts at all, but one thing is certain. While thematic and symbolic in so many ways, it’s a film that has a devastatingly strong emotional core, resulting in what may very well be one of Malick’s best and most personal works till date.

It may be for you, or it may not. These are just my thoughts and feelings on it.

My Review: TRANCE

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 05:48:00 -0400

Close your eyes. Now imagine you’re at the foot of a mountain, looking up. Soon, you start to scale the gigantic peak, constantly wondering what you’ll see when you get to the top. You stick with the journey, pushing harder and harder as the mountain pushes against you. But finally, you reach the top! And for the briefest of moments, you catch a glimpse of something wonderful! You try to look at it some more, but as soon as your mind adjusts to what’s in front of you-

You start falling down the other side of the mountain at an unstoppable pace, hitting EVERY. SINGLE. ROCK on the way down, until eventually, you lay at the bottom on the other side a bloody, unintelligible mess.

I don’t really feel the need to be direct about this film, because the film takes it upon itself to skirt around whatever its subject matter happens to be at any given moment, and I don’t like that. But, for the sake of my (limited) readership who for all I know might only be here just to find out what I thought in a word or two, well, the word is this:

AMATEUR

Back to it then. Consider for a moment that you’re dealing with the concept of a house composed entirely of twigs, and nothing else. You, an un-skilled twig artist, may construct some sort of structure resembling a house, but a gust of wind is sure to blow it down. You’re not a professional when it comes to twigs, you don’t know any better…. Ah, but then you get an idea. You hire one of the worlds most skilled architects. You draw up a blueprint for the type of twig house you want, and you even provide him with twigs. After all, this renowned architect has built concrete houses the world over, what could possibly go wrong? He builds you your house of twigs. It’s a magnificent house of twigs, and it might just be the single greatest house of twigs you’ve ever seen.

But at the end of the day, it’s still just a house of twigs, and a light breeze will more than easily rip it apart. And even if you choose to build two or three of these twig houses side by side, and maybe one on top of the other, they’re still just as susceptible to being knocked over, only now, you’ve created a domino effect and made things worse. The eventual outcome is IRRELEVANT when the foundation is this poorly thought out.

And now that I’ve dispensed with my self-indulgent metaphors, let me be a little more direct just for the fun of it. Danny Boyle’s Trance is in all honesty, a movie that starts out really, REALLY well. The trailer doesn’t give away too much of the actual set up, and within fifteen minutes, my mouth was literally (I never use that word unless I mean it) hanging wide open from how brilliantly this film establishes its unique premise, whilst also establishing a very distinctly British crime-comedy style, one that’s also much closer to some of Boyle’s early work. And hey, as a fan of Trainspotting, I couldn’t have been happier….

And then things started to get weird.

I’m not one to usually complain about pacing, but when your central narrative starts to feel ADHD induced, jumping from one plot point to the next faster than the ramblings of the crazy homeless woman down the street, that’s kind of a problem. Once the narrative is set in place, the film starts to cover hours worth of character and plot development in mere minutes, feeling like a badly put together highlight reel as opposed to a complete story, the consequence of which was me feeling increasingly removed and alienated as the story went on. Usually, films try to do the opposite.

Here’s where it gets really problematic though. If the plot jumped from one thread to the next in a somewhat sensible context, then perhaps it might have still maintained some coherency, but the script behind the disasterpiece that is Trance is so convoluted and utterly obsessed with the concept of a ‘twist’ (and with its own existence) that it spends so much time trying to subvert expectations in every other scene that this becomes the primary focus of the narrative, allowing not only a minuscule amount of investment in the story and characters, but numbing its audience to the concept of subverting expectations in the first place. There really did come a point in the film where I thought to myself “Hmm, everything I know up until this point is probably a lie, but I really don’t care anymore”

I’m not going to go in to detail about the plot, just know that it deals with hypnosis in the most superficial manner possible, and rather than coercing or even fooling its audiences with its ‘twists’ (i.e. things that are usually hinted at or hidden in plain sight) it simply chooses to cheat them, throwing in plot points and backstories, and-

Excuse my while I clear my throat and prepare the index and middle fingers of each of my hands-

*ahem*

….throwing in plot points and backstories, and adding “LAYERS” that are so random and out of left field that I’m absolutely convinced the film will make even less sense if I watch it again. I won’t, of course.

And don’t get me wrong, Danny Boyle is a FANTASTIC director. Hell, even in this movie, there are some genuinely inspired decisions on his part. Of course, even those can’t save a movie that’s so intent on becoming a labyrinth that it forgets to build entry and exit points, losing any and all frame of reference when it gains enough momentum to simply become a montage of ‘twists’ one after the next.

Questionably realities? Sure, why not. I did find myself questioning what was actually going on at times. Did I care? Not in the slightest. The narrative shifts focus from one character to another and then another and even changes who these people are at random if it means being able to throw in another ‘twi- okay, I’m not going to call it a twist, I’m just going to call it “cocaine” since the script seemed like the first draft of a terribly thought out student film, and because the editor seemed to have done a line or two before getting started on every scene.

And from one cocaine to the next, the film goes in to territory that makes almost no sense, and eventually in to territory that I’m sure seemed like two or three other equally terrible ideas simply slapped together to form what can loosely be called an ending.

Even though it starts out great, nothing in this movie matters by the end of it. As time goes by, the film eventually doubles so far back on itself that it creates a black hole which can allows no sense of logic or coherency to escape. I hate to say this, especially because I really love Danny Boyle, but this was just a really bad movie.

My Review: ROOM 237

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 04:05:00 -0400

Having gained a significant amount of traction over the last 12 months as ‘the documentary about The Shining’, director Rodney Ascher’s labyrinthian critical analysis of both a labyrinthian film and of critical analysis itself has finally received its long overdue theatrical release. And while it may not change the hearts of those who already know how they feel about The Shining, it’s sure to at least influence the way they think about it, or about cinema in general.

“Some movies stay with you forever” claims the poster of Room 237, and this is absolutely true of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece. But at the same time, it’s a subtle comment about how mere images in cinema have meaning, or more importantly, are given meaning, and linger at the back of our minds, growing in the form of thoughts, emotions and ideas, stemming from the sheer power of human experience, as the documentary itself goes on to opine.

As the opening title card dictates, Room 237 is in no way a reflection of the thoughts and opinions of Stanley Kubrick or the people involved with The Shining. This is an important point that I’m going to get back to in a moment. But for now, I’ll speak about the film’s structuring, and how it relates to the film and the theories surrounding it.

Right off the bat, the documentary talks about a somewhat prevalent theme in the film, the suppression of the Native American, introducing it not through the dialogs about the Overlook Hotel being built on ancient burial grounds, but through the film’s poster, designed by Kubrick himself. What do the filmmakers, or theorists rather, use to back this up? A can of baking soda in the background of a scene, and yet somehow, it seems to make perfect sense.

This is a device the documentary uses to draw you in, or draw you back in later on, a recounting of one of the more surface-level theories surrounding The Shining, things hidden in plain sight. Soon however, the documentary and its many speakers seem to take unconventional routes, reaching a fair amount to ‘prove’ their theories that might even seem utterly ridiculous at times, ranging from Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing, to questioning the motives of every single extra in the background.

However, as the opening title card says, none of these are meant to reflect the thoughts or opinons of Stanley Kubrick.

There comes a point in the film where one of the theorists claims to see Kubrick’s face in the clouds, beyond any doubt or hesitation. But rather than allowing the speaker to take the time to point out exactly where he might have seen the mad genius’s floating head, the documentary cuts away to its next segment. Soon after, one of the speakers is interrupted by his infant son, wailing in the background. Beyond this point, none of the fillers and ‘umms’ and ‘uhhs’ were edited out, but seemed to be left in for emphasis.

The Shining wasn’t the only subject of Room 237, it was the people, now presented like characters, who found an obsessive, compulsive need to analyze the movie, that the documentary focused on just as much, if not more.

The documentary uses footage from The Shining, Kubrick’s other works, and everything else ranging from Three Little Pigs to Nazi propaganda footage to make its various points, all of which are merely the ponts of the individuals speaking. At the end of it all, no one’s to say if Stanley Kubrick really meant to say all the things these people claim he did, but really, the opposite can’t really be argued either. Not to say that this documentary makes a strong enough case to make me doubt the integrity of NASA, but it makes a strong case to make me think about the fact that these are all wildly different conclusions drawn from the exact same piece of art, based on each individual’s own experience.

And that, in a sense, is the beauty of Room 237. It’s neither a rebuttal nor an endorsement of any of the theories it presents, but rather a functioning mechanism by which a conversation about The Shining can be had, one that will likely end up a constant back and forth “No! Absolutely not! That’s bullshit!” and “Yes, that’s interesting, I hadn’t thought of that!” between the interviewees and us, the audience. It’s exactly as any impassioned conversation about cinema should be.

My Review: JURASSIC PARK

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:17:00 -0400

There are some films that stand the test of time. There are various reasons for this phenomenon, ranging from technical innovation, to cultural impact, to critical and/or financial success, but they’re all after the fact. What goes in to a movie that makes it come out a masterpiece is difficult to discern, but clearly, Steven Spielberg has some idea.

I usually write reviews for movies that I’ve seen for the first time, and in a sense, this did feel like my first time watching Jurassic Park. It was certainly my frist time in a theatre. And while the experience was certainly a fresh one, an experience that my five year old self did not and could not have had at the time, there were certain scenes that I managed to recount as clear as day. The anticipation as the helicopter approached Isla Nublar, the characters’ faces as they saw the dinosaurs for the very first time (a sense of awe that I’m sure we all shared) and the sheer thrill of being chased by the enormous T-Rex, to name a few. These are images, and more importantly, feelings, that one doesn’t soon forget. And watching this film once more, 16 years after the first time I saw it, has only reinforced them.

This isn’t a review of the 3D post-conversion. While unnecessary, it actually wasn’t distracting in the slightest, but I will say this much. 3D or not, Jurassic Park is a film that lends itself to the big screen. And when I say big, I mean the BIG screen (70mm IMAX big) because despite having seen it before, and despite having the constant awareness at the back of my mind that I was watching one of Spielberg’s best remembered films, I was engaged and invested the entire time. But what I didn’t realize at all until I saw it tonight, at the age of 21, is that it’s not only one of the director’s most meaningful and inspired works, but also one of his most personal.

People who like to write about cinema tend to jump the gun when it comes to drawing conclusions from what they see. I’m guilty of it myself, but whether or not such was the intent, Spielberg has put a lot of himself into this story. I was lucky enough to witness a panel discussion he was at, but if you’ve ever heard the man speak in an interview or on a DVD commentary, it isn’t hard to tell that he has a preserved sense of childlike awe, one that I’m absolutely certain is part and parcel of his ability to breathe life into his creations, making them just as spectacular and wonderful as he imagines them. And it’s this sense of wonder that drives a film like Jurassic Park, both as a spectacle, and as a character piece.

Intentionally or not, Dr. John Hammond is, in a sense, a representation of Spielberg himself. An innovator and a dreamer, finding the element of magic in what people seek and turning it into reality. An awe-inspiring, engaging, thrilling wonder that he wishes to share with the world. And while this second parallel may be just a bit more of a reach, it’s something that only struck me once I recalled an interview Spielberg had given about E.T. in which he talked about how spending time with the child actors on set made him want to finally have children of his own. Dr. Alan Grant’s personal story in this thrilling tale seems to be in some sense, a reflection of the great director himself. But whether or not these things are as I’m interpreting them, the fact remains that Jurassic Park is a deeply character-centric story.

It’s also a movie that’s filled to brim with symbolism, whether they’re obvious like the momentary projection of DNA sequencing on to the faces of one of the dinosaurs, or as subtle as an early instance in which Grant figures out how to lock two ‘female’ seat-belts together. But at the end of the day, intelligent as they may be, whether or not these instances are meant to be lingered on or simply appreciated in passing is a debate that will absolutely wait until after the credits have rolled, because it really is an experience that will grip you from start to finish.

And sure, watching it as an adult has given me a fresh set of thoughts and opinions on it, and perhaps even a greater appreciation of it from an intellectual standpoint…. But the movie itself did something far more important. It made me walk out of the theater feeling like a kid again. And really, what’s more important that that?

Dedicated to the memory of Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

My Review: EVIL DEAD

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 02:19:00 -0400

In the capitalist Mecca that is Tinseltown, the commercialization of anything and everything is now less of a surprise and more an accepted fact. And a large portion of the commodities the movie industry puts out, be it directly or indirectly, can more than easily fit under the umbrella term 80s Nostalgia. The reason for this is simple, really. Kids who grew up in the ever evolving cinematic and technological revolution that was the 1980s in America (and the subsequent cultural identity slump that was the 90s) are now more than likely to have jobs by now, and are the target audience for pretty much everything that isn’t Ice Age. And, since practically every successful horror franchise from that decade has seen a remake in some form (Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc) the existence of this film was inevitable.

However, what I and many others DIDN’T see coming, was the fact that it would turn out to be really, REALLY good.

Let’s dispel the film’s misnomered marketing before getting into it, shall we? Evil Dead is not the most terrifying film you will ever experience. For most horror veterans, it probably won’t have much of a lasting impact in the I CAN’T SLEEP department, and it’s most certainly not an all-out gore fest like the trailers make it out to be, although it’s significantly more gory than the originals. To be honest, I’m not even sure I was ‘scared’ by it all that much.

BUT

I was at the edge of my seat the whole damn time, waiting in conflicted anticipation to see what happens next. It was absolutely brutal in its execution, and I couldn’t look away.

For a remake, Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead has a significant amount of originality to it. I’m sure it must have been ESPECIALLY difficult to even think about taking on this challenge in a post Cabin In The Woods horror climate, but much like Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s horror satire, it manages to give sufficient reasoning for the now repetitive goings on of the typical college horror flick in a surprisingly realistic manner, and one that works very strongly to the film’s advantage.

The story, like any other suburban/rural American horror, is set deep in the woods and focuses on five college kids far away from their natural habitat. And while a couple of them are just as empty, stereotypical and expendable as you’d expect, this deliberate play directly in to the hands of the seasoned fans of the genre is neatly balanced out by some very well developed characters, who throughout the story display concrete motivations for everything that they either do or don’t do.

Rather than an exciting getaway, the cabin functions as an asylum for one of the characters to kick their drug habit while under the supervision of those closest to her. This actually gives the story a much more grounded and realistic feel initially, even when things start to go awry. And when they do, boy do they get messy.

I won’t give anything away, but what you’ve seen in the trailers is a mere taste of what lies ahead, and more than the content, it’s the presentation of it that makes this experience what it is. The movie effectively exhibits various tropes that horror fans will love, and it has plenty of references and throwbacks to the original(s) at opportune moments, but despite all that, it really does do some things you probably haven’t seen before, or at least things you don’t entirely expect. Right from the get go, it’s a pulsating, relentless film that implores practical effects to exploit exactly what the modern audience thinks they want to see.

And really, that’s what this movie is. It’s not a remake the same way most other remakes are, it’s essentially an Evil Dead for today’s audience. Comparisons are inevitable, but the fact is, I enjoyed the originals for very different reasons than I enjoyed this one, because it’s a different kind of animal, one that’s far less forgiving despite the hints of pitch black humor.

It’s a modern horror movie in that it pushes the limits of what you think you can handle on screen, but at the same time, it’s every bit a classic horror movie straight out of the 80s, from its structuring, to its characters, to its eventual outcome, all of which fit together into one ~~neat~~ package, separated from the minutiae by the fact that the film makes these characters suffer, and I mean REALLY suffer, in ways that are physical, mental and emotional, all the while making you legitimately care about them. And most importantly, it’s just a rockin’ good time at the movies.

As a fan of the original films, I have been won over. Kudos, Fede.