Film: Escape Plan

Director: Mikael Hafstrom
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: B-

"They don't make 'em like they used to," you lament.

"Why can't I find a movie these days where the men are men and the women (both of them) can only have weird nonsexual chemistry with the clearly unattractive older male figures?

"A movie where MacGuyver does his thing, but in prison.

"A movie where Sylvester Stallone hints at an emotional backstory by trying to contort his leathery meatbag face into more of a frown than normal.

"A movie where Sam Neil slums it and plays the one person who apparently didn't know what kind of job he was signing up for.

"A movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone can both play geniuses.

"A movie where the age old question Just how puffy will Vincent D'Onofrio get? will finally be answered.

"A movie where Jim Caviezel can play a villain busy twirling his mustache so hard he twirls it right off.

"A movie where plot twists obvious from ten minutes in will literally be greeted with the line 'I didn't see that one coming!'

"A movie where the 80s can live and breathe again, if only for a far-too-long 115 minutes.

"Is that too much to ask?"

My friend, have I got a movie for you.

Film: Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

Director: Andrew Monument
Genre: Documentary
Source: USA (2009)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C+

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue does not break any new ground about the meaning or importance of horror films, but it does serve as a nice overview of why the genre continues to speak to viewers today--even (and sometimes particularly) viewers who should have "grown out" of the teenage thrills of the genre (chills, erotic thrills, and blood spills). In fact, director Monument (and creepy-voiced narrator Lance Henriksen) remind us, horror continues to thrive because it reflects, both directly and indirectly, the fears and concerns of its era. Whether it's the bomb, teenage risk-taking, or consumer culture, the best horror films have the power to show us the distorted fun-house mirror of the age in which it's produced.

That's not a new concept, but it does bear repeating, and Nightmares does a good job hitting the high points, while also serving as an overview of the changing face of horror over the years. Yes there is more blood and more nudity (especially in the 80s), but there are other changes as well. What monsters are we afraid of? One interview subject suggests that our fears can always be broken into two kinds: As we're sitting around the campfire, are we afraid of what's out there in the dark, or are we afraid of who might be sitting in our circle? And that sums it up nicely. Is the real source of fear the Other, the Unknown, or is it Ourselves? He who fights monsters, Nietzsche reminds us, should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. Horror films allow us to explore both sides of that equation.

I can't tell if it was the quality of my Netflix connection at the gym where I was watching it or if it was the film itself, but it definitely has a bit of a cheap feel to it. The video quality and text effects looked very "90s computer software" to my eyes, but if the visuals of the documentary aren't very good, there's still plenty of meat to back it up. Interviews with a lot of major forces in the genre--from John Carpenter to George Romero--and clips from a number of really significant films really do elevate the material, so content was solid even if production quality wasn't.

Ultimately, it's a nice intro for someone with an interest in the history of US film horror, and it provides a nice intro to film analysis of this particular genre. Probably worth a look for film or horror aficionados.

Film: Room 237

Director: Rodney Ascher
Genre: Documentary
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

The "theories" in Room 237 about the real meaning behind Stanley Kubrick's The Shining have been getting all the press, and I understand why. They are fascinating (the structural inconsistencies of the Overlook Hotel), infuriating (no, I do not see a face in the clouds), and utterly ridiculous (The Shining is Kubrick's apology for faking the Apollo moon landing. Evidence? Danny Torrance wears an Apollo 11 sweater). But to get caught up on the plausibility or implausibility of these theories is to completely miss the point. This is not a film about the "true" meaning behind The Shining. It's a film about how we make meaning for ourselves. It's about the act of interpretation, of how we find significance, of how "truth" means something different to each of us, even if there is shared ground. And it's about how sometimes we get lost in the labyrinth of our own heads. 

Director Rodney Ascher sets a few rules for himself early on. First, we never see the theorists, are never allowed to judge them for their crazy hair, or their studious tweed, or their wall of books, or their homemade art. We are only invited to explore their ideas, not their whole being, and it provides a nice distancing technique to help us focus on the message instead of the messenger. Second, nearly all of the visuals come from Kubrick's own films. Part of the unstated question to the film is a) how much control did Kubrick exercise over every aspect of his films (the Internet lore says he is responsible for every stitch and every inch on screen, which means EVERYTHING is purposeful, which means EVERYTHING has meaning. There is no room here for continuity errors, or set designers, or tricks of lighting. Every Kubrick shot means something to these theorists, and so nearly every shot in the film comes from Kubrick). But then Ascher starts pulling a few tricks. Screens from the film (such as the television set in the Overlook or from the Torrance's house) start being occupied with other images, images not from the original film. Is this a commentary on our own ability to insert meaning into films? Is it about our unconscious versus reality? Is it just a clever visual game? Third, Ascher doesn't always tell us who is speaking. Is this voice someone with a crazy theory or someone whose analysis has some weight? Should I put stock into what I'm hearing right now or dismiss it? How am I making meaning--of The Shining, of Room 237, of Kubrick, of Ascher--at this moment?

The result is a maze of ideas, where interesting concepts--the importance of the hedge maze (not in the book), the idea of the Minotaur--bump up against absurdity--that picture of a skiier? That's supposed to be a Minotaur, actually. Just as these critics of Kubrick's film have focused on pieces of the whole to create their theories, so too do we as viewers pick and choose pieces of each speaker's ideas to create our own versions of the truth. Perhaps I question the idea that a German typewriter means the film is about the holocaust, but I can appreciate the way Kubrick's editing can transform a group of people into a pile of suitcases. Perhaps I don't think Kubrick every purposefully intended to have the film run forward and backward at the same time (superimposed over each other), but I do see how doing so reveals some interesting concepts of how Kubrick frames and composes shots and uses the space of the screen. Perhaps I don't think a Calumet can means anything particular, but maybe something else stands out as meaningful to me. 

Ultimately, the film acknowledges that determining Kubrick's "real" meaning is a fool's game, but that the beauty of complex and sophisticated art is that it allows us to be a part of creating meaning, and that, in turn, is what makes the art meaningful. Is The Shining about Native Americans, or genocide, or Apollo conspiracies, or anything that deeply encoded as to be practically invisible? Not to me, and yet I also enjoy the maze of getting lost in interpretation, whether it be literary, religious, or otherwise. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes it's not, and sometimes it's something different to you than it is to me. The fascinating part is when we compare our interpretations and come out of the conversation with a third interpretation, different than either you or I had originally, but taking pieces of both. That is the heart of communication.

Like its interpreting voices, Room 237 gets a little lost in itself, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting. What it does mean, I'll leave up to you.

Book: The Natural

I'll admit up front that part of my problem with The Natural is that the movie casts a long shadow. For those who encountered and fell in love with the book first, I can see why the movie would be absolutely infuriating. Major (and I mean MAJOR) differences in both Roy's character and the novel's plot--including a complete 180 on the climax--turn them into wholly different animals with little more than shared DNA: a talented kid, a tragic shooting, an old rookie, a struggling team, a girl named Memo. Reading the novel after my familiarity with the film felt like stepping into an alternate reality.

But credit where credit is due, Malamud's world is as fully fleshed and full of iconography as anything in the film. It just also happens to be a darker, sadder place, full of disappointed heroes and missed opportunities. Roy Hobbes is a harder to character to like here than in the movies. He is both more Godlike in his prowess and more frail in his weaknesses, and thus somehow harder to connect to than a Sandy Koufax pitch. I wanted to like him, but I also wanted him to be better, and that's part of the genius of the story. As the novel progresses, we become like the boy Roy encounters on the final page, pleading "Say it ain't so, Roy," even as we see him stumble and fall to his knees. He may be a natural, Malamud tells us, but he is also fallible, and sometimes we, like Roy, wait too long to make up for past sins.

Is this a Greek myth? A classic tragedy? A biblical allegory? It's all of those things, and it's the story of Shoeless Joe Jackson, and it's a crackling 30s noir, and its about America's fall from grace. It is whip-smart writing, full of the lingo of the baseball diamond and the chalk and dirt of legends. It's good. It really is. It's just . . .

It's just that I love the movie, for all its cheese and schmaltz. Despite the facts that it goes for the syrupy sugar when the novel goes for the jugular. Despite the fact that it's clearly dumbing down the complexity of Malamud's novel. Despite the fact that it doesn't want to question our myth-making so much as codify it. Despite all that, I look back on the movie the same way that Redford and Levinson seem to be looking back on the golden age of baseball itself--with rose colored glasses that somehow seem able to forgive a lot of obvious flaws. It reminds me of being a kid, and of my brother, and of being filled with hope. And it reminds me of the present, and showing it to film students and seeing them jump when Harriet Bird fires that gun, and of getting a little misty-eyed when those lights get blown apart. 

So even if the novel came first, it feels a little like it's kicking at a piece of my personality that is good and optimistic and full of life. So I can respect the book, but at least for now, I can's say I love it. Icons and heroes fall--I know they do--and yet I don't have to love it when they do.

Sorry, Judge, but I still believe in the goodness of man. I can respect the tragedy here. But I can't love it.

Grade: B

Film: Admission

Director: Paul Weitz
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Video On-Demand
Grade: B

Perhaps because I work in a private school and spend a lot of time thinking about (and writing recommends for) college admissions, but I ended up really enjoying this Tina Fey/Paul Rudd romantic comedy. Tina Fey plays uptight pretty well, though she seems a little bit flat as a character, and Paul Rudd specializes in playing guys who are comfortable in their own skin. His characters pretty much always roll with the flow, handle life's challenges with only minor inconvenience, and wear a sardonic smile the whole time. It makes him pretty easy to like, but I also like it when that comfort and assurance is revealed to be only a facade for someone trying to get by just like the rest of us. I think that's what makes him work here. 

The film has a few gimmicks it really doesn't need--when Fey reads applications to Princeton in her role as an admissions counselor, she "sees" the student in front of her pleading their case, and then watches with guilt as many of them are dropped down a trap door due to her (or others') rejection. It's silly and overly complicates the process--we already get that tons of great kids are turned away from college, we don't need to be hit over the head with it. Similarly, the film is just a little too insistent on dealing with themes of parenthood, giving us all kinds of dumb parents who don't realize they're living for themselves and not their children, and not really spending any time on the one set of parents who it implies are doing just the opposite. It's makes the film kind of lopsided, as I would have liked to get to see a few more "types" of parents in the film.

Still, it's not as bad as the reviews indicated. Yes Fey's climactic "choice" is kind of dumb and undercuts some of the film's message, and yes Rudd's "school" seems to be full of perfectly brilliant students doing perfectly amazing things in a way that is just a little too idealized, but there is plenty to enjoy here, and there are some good laughs as well. It may not be eminently memorable, but Chris Weitz already made his memorable movie (also, interestingly, about parents and learning to live for others): it's called About a Boy. That is clearly a better film, but Admission isn't a waste of time. It's just not ground-breaking.

Film: The Shining

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Genre: Drama/ Sci-fi
Source: USA (1980)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: A-

It's hard to separate a viewing of The Shining from all the talk around The Shining (Stephen King hated it! Kubrick practically tortured Shelley Duvall! It's about the faked moon landing! And so on and so forth!). What's apparent from my second full length viewing of the film is that it is probably not quite as terrifying as you remember (particularly if your wife refuses to watch it at night so you're watching it at 3 in the afternoon), but it is profoundly unsettling in a way that builds over the course of the film thanks to Kubrick's deliberate (as always) pacing. The section titles here speed up (A Month Later, one reads, and then a weekday countdown begins, and then we get the time on the final day) in the same way the film does, with long drawn out shots early on leading to increasing franticness by the film's end. Thus the editing of the film mimics the slow build of Jack's insanity--and the fever pitch it eventually reaches.

As in 2001, Kubrick shows himself again to be a master of sound, as from the opening shots (a leisurely drive through the mountains) the music serves as a horrifying counterpoint to what we actually see, and then eventually matches it by the films end. The horror was there all along, the sound tells us, lurking beneath the surface. We--like Danny and Wendy--were never safe, even when we thought we were.

I think it's fair to say that the film works in large part due to Jack Nicholson. He exudes menace here, and whether it's the weight of his off-screen persona or the numerous "crazies" he's played throughout his career, he always comes off as a man on the verge of cracking up, so much so that it's hard to say where exactly the crack-up began. Was it with the first appearance of the ghost at the bar? Was it when Wendy finally crossed him? Or was it before the film even began, when he dislocated Danny's shoulder? He never seems like a "well" man, and so the slide from one side of sanity to the other is almost invisible--and that makes it all the more terrifying.

I was struck this time through at the comedy of the film--and it is there, though it's a very black comedy to be sure. I found it particularly to be the case with the way Kubrick treats Dick Hallorann.  When Kubrick cuts to Hallorann in Florida, he uses two zooming out shots to show not just Dick on the bed watching tv, but Dick on the bed watching tv in a room dominated by paintings of two nude black women (one of whom as an afro as large as her torso). It struck me as deliberately comic to see Dick--presented as a kind of Wise Black Sage archetype--hanging out under these paintings. And then, with Kubrick's truly dark sense of mirth--we spend ten or twenty minutes watching his slow progress to the Overlook, only to have him dispatched immediately. There's a sense of trickster anarchy to that, because though Dick does provide the hope of safety to Danny and Wendy, he is dropped so soon after his arrival that it's a bit of brilliant irony.

Of course, this film spends a lot of time on movement and journeys--not just Dick's but Danny's movements around the hotel, the twists and turns of the maze, and so on. It is a film obsessed with navigation and space in a way that unsettles us. The steadicam (I assume) shots that follow Danny around the hotel while he rides his Big Wheel are beautiful, but they are also disturbing: we know, at some point, that something bad is going to be around one of those bends. (The sound, as he transitions from wood to carpet, again adds a lot of richness to the scene). I'm not sure exactly why Kubrick wants us to feel these journeys so much. To understand the size and sale of the Overlook is an obvious answer, but I think there's more to it. Perhaps it is about the way we each get lost and disoriented so easily--even when we think we aren't. Just as Wendy thinks Jack's abusive behavior is under control and she thinks she understands where things stand, the reality is that we're never fully on safe ground. In abusive scenarios in particular, but in all of life in general, at any moment we can turn a corner and be confronted by true horror, even in our own homes--where we should feel safest. 

That is what makes The Shining work for me. It's the normalcy-gone-wrong. Jack in the picture? Who is the woman in 237? What about the bear/dog suit man? That might all just be misdirection. The real horror could be lying in bed in the next room--or right next to us.

Film: Chillerama

Director: Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Bear McCreary, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan
Genre: Horror 
Source: USA (2011)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: F

Came home sick from work and wanted a "fun" horror movie to put on in the background while I fell asleep on the couch. Netflix recommended this one, and good gravy, it was terrible. A horror anthology centering on the conceit of the last night of a drive-in movie theater, Chillerama turns out to be dumb, unfunny, and a real waste of time. Even the supposedly likable characters are completely obnoxious, and the film wants so hard to be something like Kentucky Fried Movie meets Grindhouse meets horror that it pretty much fails on all fronts. Five directors working together somehow managed to make one of the worst movies I've seen all year.

Not worth your time. 

Film: Grave Encounters

Director: The Vicious Brothers
Genre: Horror 
Source: USA (2011)
Rating: Horror
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C

Perhaps it's because my horror picks this Halloween have been so terrible (not sure what I was thinking. I'm going to be correcting that soon with a few classics), but for whatever reason I enjoyed Grave Encounters a lot more than I expected to. The film manages to find a "found footage" conceit that actually makes a little sense, and it has some genuinely creepy moments that really work. It's strong enough that I can forgive the moments that really don't work (such as a night-vision Repulsion rip-off scene in which the walls grow hands). It's no horror classic, but it's one I wouldn't feel too ashamed recommending to a friend looking for a creepy ghost story.

The film centers around a "Ghost Hunters" type crew showing up to film a night in a supposedly haunted asylum. The characters spend the first thirty minutes cheesing it up in the way those paranormal investigator type shows always do--lots of "I've never seen anything like this" exclamations over nothing. And then, of course, things start to happen.

Grave Encounters knows what it's doing enough to not limit the strange events to one type of occurrence, but rather finds the asylum playing with the characters on all fronts: the building seems to rearrange itself at will, food spoils, time loses all meaning, sounds, and yes apparitions all take over, and there are some moments that really are surprising, even as there are plenty that are cheesy and predictable. 

Still, in a genre (found footage) that seemed to get old almost immediately, Grave Encounters manages not to feel just like a gimmick but rather uses the tropes of that style to tell an effective story. It may not be profound, but it is fun enough for a few Halloween scares.

Film: Gravity

Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: A

There are many, many things that Gravity does astonishingly well: the long (seemingly) uninterrupted shots that seem to be filmed with a camera floating as freely and as lightly as any other object in zero gravity, the adjustments in perspective (first person that works?) and lighting that leave us stranded in space along with Sandra Bullock, the visual images of rebirth and resurrection. But perhaps the most startlingly effective for me, given all the well-deserved talk of the film's immersive 3-D and technological boundary pushing, was just how effectively the film uses sound. In fact, if the film doesn't win an Oscar for Sound Editing and/or Sound Design, I'll be shocked. 

It's certainly not an accident. The film opens with a bit of text about the silence in space, and Cuaron uses that silence carefully and intentionally. Much of the sound seems to occur at a distance, and we don't "hear" it so much as feel it, the same way Bullock's Ryan Stone does as the vibrations of a drill, say, are filtered through her suit. The technique allows us as viewers access to the world in a way we might not if traditional slam-bang sound effects and foley work were included. The tension is ratcheted up as we see chaos, noise, violence all around us, and hear . . . almost nothing. It gave me chills.

As the film progresses, and silence takes on an additional weight when Stone is cut off from ground control, Gravity allows sound to take on a nearly religious aspect. Is there anyone out there (or up there, if we take a spiritual philosophical bent) listening to our words, our prayers, or are we alone in the void of space? Maybe both, the film seems to suggest, and silence--and what fills it, or what we fill it with--becomes increasingly weighty. It was one of my favorite aspects to a film that had so many noteworthy elements.

The effects work here is truly incredible. I have no idea how the majority of these scenes were filmed, because it feels like it takes place in space. The cinema scholar in me wants to understanding how it was done--how much of this is green screen and real actors? How much of it is pure CGI? How do they make Bullock float so convincingly? But the cinema fan in me wants to know none of those things and just bask in the wonder of the film. There is much to wonder at, after all--including Sandra Bullock's performance. I have not been on board with much of her attempts to move beyond comedienne and rom-com actress (where she is very gifted), but I bought into here as Ryan Stone. She seems smart and capable, as well as burdened and terrified, as well as strong, as well as weak, as well as everything else. It is still a very "Hollywood" role (whatever that means), but I went in to the film with grave doubts about her ability to carry such a heavy role (again with the puns) and she acquitted herself admirably, I think. If you don't buy into her, the film will ultimately feel empty (the way another ground-breaking effects film, Avatar, has always struck me), but Bullock really makes it work. I found myself rooting for her and her survival, as well as her discovery of her inner strength and resolve.

In the end, though, this is a film about survival, and figuring out what to hold onto and what to let go of. That it does so in such a knuckle-whitening manner is admirable, and that it does so while creating such a believable (and terrifying) scenario is all the more reason for praise. This may be in my top ten or twenty theater experiences this year. I normally don't want to buy into the hype, but this really worked for me. I only wish I had been able to see it in IMAX.

And holy cow, even without that larger screen, Cuaron reminds us that space is just so big. 

Book: Lexicon

I feel somehow wrong giving a so-so review to a book that I enjoyed and read really quickly, but part of me wishes there was just a little more "oomph" to this book. Barry does a nice job with the structure, giving us pieces that fit together more and more clearly over time (though some of the twists are easy to guess, I was genuinely surprised more than once in the book) and flesh out the world of the Poets in some really nice ways.

But honestly, there should have been more. What's here feels like a less developed version of what Neal Stephenson does in Snow Crash, what with the "the secret history of words is that they control reality" thing. In the case of Lexicon, Barry gives us a universe in which the art of persuasion can be wielded like a weapon--and is, by shadowy government spooks known as Poets. When one of them discovers a word that literally has the power to kill everyone in a small Australian town, it's up to a Last Good Man archetypal figure (here known as Eliot, as all Poets are codenamed for famous writers) to figure out how to stop the word from spreading any further. 

It's a neat set-up, and Barry gives us infuriatingly short glimpses of this shadowy rhetorical world in which the Poets operate, but he's so intent on giving us good action scenes (and they are good) that I felt like the richer linguistic world got overlooked. I want to know more about this organization and what they do, but apparently hints and intimations are all Barry wants to give us. That's ok, it's just not as rich as it could have been. And when he gets into the history of "Babel events" and all that kind of stuff, I would have loved a little more complexity. Make me struggle to keep up, don't just tell me, "Yep, words can be really convincing." Because duh.

But still, Lexicon is fun. A bibliophile palate cleanser that would make a good action movie of the Philip K. Dick variety--the kind where you have to just let yourself go with the rules of the world and not think about how silly the premise actually is. In fact, I could see a pretty good role for Michael Fassbender as Eliot.

But I digress.

Good fun, overall. Just don't expect much more.

Grade: B+

Film: Silent Hill Revelation

Director: Michael J. Bassett
Genre: Horror Thriller
Source: USA (2012)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: D+

As I get deeper into my Halloween film watching of 2013, I'm finding a few things to be true. One, it's a lot harder to make a good scary movie than one would think. Two, bad scary movies can be a whole different kind of fun. And three, the "horror" genre is about as broad as movie genres get. Is a movie like Silent Hill Revelation supposed to be "scary" in the same way that The Shining or Psycho or even Friday the 13th is supposed to be? If so, it fails on all counts. Is it supposed to just be creepy, evocative of nightmares? It does a little better there, but the astronauts encountering the monolith scene from 2001 a couple of weeks ago was infinitely more nightmarish than anything on display here. Is it gore that makes a horror film? Because the CGI here, though purposefully bloody, is still way way less effective than something like The Thing. Horror is just such a big umbrella, describing films as disparate as Lugosi's Dracula, The Blob, The Ring, 28 Days Later, and Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, that at a certain point it just stops meaning anything at all. Even with that much breadth and depth of a category, Silent Hill Revelation is not a particularly good horror movie, but it's better than my last two horror attempts, so I'll take it. It's king of the losers so far.

Anyway, I digress.

Silent Hill Revelation has enough going for it that I'm pretty disappointed it didn't turn out to be better. Notably, it's working with a pretty solid cast, though some of them are clearly slumming it here (Malcolm McDowell, this is pretty lame stuff for you, and I say that with full knowledge that you were in Just Visiting--you know, the movie where Jean Reno plays a knight who time travels to modern New York). Still: Carrie-Anne Moss? Sean Bean? Jon Snow, still knowing nothing? Enough actors with actual talent that I wonder at what point they just all felt silly. Did Carrie-Anne Moss put on her albino wig and think, "Wait, what am I doing?" Probably. 

The film has some nice visuals as well. The ash falling on the city, the disintegrating walls, the sound-activated nurses, and some nice creature effects all work in a semi-creepy way. It all feels a little too . . . CGI? Is that possible? Like someone just kept piling on the CGI to try and overcome any shortcomings. The creepy mannequin factory is nice, for example. But the spider-quin monster that emerges from it is kind of dumb. (Similarly, Pyramid head is just goofy looking, and why is his sword so enormous?) Less might have been a little more, and the amber filter on the settings gets a little old, but there is some effectively haunting stuff to look at, if you can look past the silly too-video-gamey stuff.

The film obviously was designed for 3D tricks and laughs, and it gets a little old on just a regular tv, but I won't complain too much. It is, after all, the first film of my Halloween-a-thon that kept me from getting too bored and pulling out my iPad. So that's something. Not very much, but something. And with a bar for horror this low, right now, I'll take it.

Alternate Film Title: "Worst. Carnival. Ever."

Film: Bad Kids Go to Hell

Director: Matthew Spradlin
Genre: Comedy Horror
Source: USA (2012)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: D

I'll say this for Bad Kids Go to Hell. It was a better horror comedy than A Haunted House, which I watched last week. Unfortunately, that's a little like saying, "Hey, at least your cancer isn't ebola!" Yeah . . . I guess that's true.

What sounded like kind of a promising horror comedy riff on The Breakfast Club (even featuring Judd Nelso cameoing as the school headmaster), turns out to be a lot more . . . dull than that, as a needlessly complicated plot and a stupid "Haunted Indian" storyline suck all the interest out of this film. It doesn't help that all of the actors are a) terrible, and b) look to be around 30 years old. It also doesn't help that the "videos and flashbacks" to prior events are used so clunkily. And that's not even a word. And it really doesn't help that the ultimate reveals are so lame. 

Anyway, that's probably all that needs to be said. It could be worse, but it should have been a lot better. After shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer handled the idea really effectively a decade ago, "teens figure out an evil threat" has to actually be a lot more clever than this to be effective.

Alternate Film Title: "Even Emilio Estevez's Agent Must Have Passed on This, And That's Saying Something"

Film: Don Jon

Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Genre: Comedy/ Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: B-

Don Jon has a lot to say about the way both men and women are taught to view women as objects and princesses, and how both of those roles invite selfishness into relationships. It works for the most part, though writer/director/star Gordon-Levitt imbues these characters with two parts depth and three parts caricature. Still, he and Scarlett Johansson are watchable (even as you sort of hate them) as Jersey Shore pretty boys and girls who are so obsessed with themselves they don't understand what being in a relationship truly means. 

Gordon-Levitt gets that across by showing again and again showing us the routines of Jon's life and how his idea of getting serious with Barbara is just fitting her into those routines, even if it means lying or rolling his eyes while he does it. For Barbara it means transforming Jon into the Ken-doll/rom-com star she's always dreamed of. Neither of them see how relationships require give and take, sharing, and giving yourself over willingly to another person. That's true intimacy, the film suggests, and porn and romantic comedies are just false depictions of what can only be experienced on an individual level as partners learn how to be selfless. It's sort of a "duh" premise for anyone who has actually had a satisfying relationship, but Gordon-Levitt (and Tony Danza and the rest of the cast) are just so fun to watch that I'll forgive the film it's simplicity.

It doesn't do it all right, but no first-time director does. Gordon-Levitt has fun that works (I loved Jon's confessional visits as he seeks to "score" a lower penance number) and fun that doesn't (good golly, Joseph, sometimes you can put down the handheld cam and just let a shot settle for a moment), but overall it works. There are a lot of R-rated porn clips (nothing below the waist, but lots of porny faces/actions) for the squeamish, but overall the message is really about affirming healthy relationships and rejecting unhealthy obsessions. It's only when Jon starts to break up his routine and allow real space for other people that he can begin to grow.

I'm interested to see what else Gordon-Levitt does, not because this was a great film, but because it indicates to me a filmmaker who wants to develop and share his voice. And that's exciting to watch.

Alternate Film Title: "Oh, Hey, Julianne Moore Is In This Too, I Guess"

Film: A Haunted House

Director: Michael tiddes
Genre: Comedy (Supposedly) Horror
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: F

Well, in my hope of watching Halloween movies all through October (since I'm not a gory movie fan, but I do like horror movies) I decided to watch with a little horror comedy. 

At least that was the intention. This parody movie doesn't adequately fit either category, since it's neither scary nor funny.

Like, at all.

At a certain point, finishing this film became an act of willpower, because I was so not enjoying it, but kept holding out hope it would get funnier, since there are a few people in it that have made me laugh in the past.

I guess everybody needs a paycheck. Because this is terrible.

Alternate Film Title: "86 Minutes You Will Never Get Back"

Film: Rush

Director: Ron Howard
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: A-

I know little to nothing about F1, and Ron Howard is really hit and miss to me (Loved: A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Willow. But on the other hand: The Da Vinci Code, The Dilemma, EdTV) so I was prepared for moderate interest in Rush, but I wasn't prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. Howard takes on the (apparently) famous Hunt/Lauda rivalry of the 70s, and though a few choices don't work (I'm not sure we need the Niki Lauda book-ended narration, and at times we seem to be moving so quickly through the story we skip major events), overall I was really pleasantly surprised. Howard has brought F1 to life in some powerful ways here, and overall the film gives the story stakes that even novice F1 fans can sink their teeth into.

Step one: The sound. When my wife and I sat down in the theater, she leaned over and said she thought the sound was turned way up, and it is, but that single choice by the theater owner might have been the best choice in making this film immersive. This is a film not just about the speed of the cars, but about the throb and rumble of the engine. They overwhelm us, and they should, because they are the aural representation of strength and power.

It's that strength and power--that sense of life and mastery over it--that Hunt and Lauda both seem to tap into in their own ways, and Chris Hemmsworth and Daniel Bruhl both find that need to race in different ways. Hemmsworth is cocky, handsome, a walking talking James Bond in real life. Lauda is (as he is accused of being) ratlike, but also persistent, indomitable, and sharp. They are a great balance to one another, both as characters and as actors, and its them that make the film work.

Of course, the effects work here is top notch, as Howard's low cameras really invite us to get to a car's eye view of the track and of the driver, and they are also really effective in conveying speed. But I was impressed with just how much "action" Howard was willing to cut to make this the story of two men, not just of two racing styles. Whole races are covered in a quick audio clip and intertitle, and its effective choice in making the races that we do see count.

Really, I just didn't expect to enjoy myself quite so much. I hope the film continues to find an audience, both in the US and abroad, because it's Howard's best film in quite some time. I feel like he is dabbling with some new styles here--not just big Hollywood "please everybody" work, but really taking some interesting risks. I like to see that side of him.

Alternate Film Title: "Nascar Looks Forever Lame Now"

Film: Prisoners

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Island Cinema
Grade: C

Despite a solid cast (and particularly nice turns from Jake Gyllenhaal and Terrence Howard, and a particularly scenery chewing performance from Hugh Jackman) and several tense scenes, at a certain point--well before the third act takes an eye-rolling turn towards the "Let's Tie It All Up with a Bow" tendencies of big studio films--Prisoners is just not as smart as it thinks it is. Whether that's an obvious clue that the audience will almost certainly identify well before Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki does, or whether that's the believability of Hugh Jackman's choices in the film, or any number of little details that add up to less than they should, the film just doesn't come together for me. I mean, Loki literally falls into a major plot point, and that kind of sloppiness just doesn't go very far.

It's not all bad. It's beautifully shot (Roger Deakins, you magnificent bastard, you've done it again) and contains a lot of nice moments.The whole film feels blue and cold, and that's the emotional state of characters, not just the physical, being reflected, so it works. And I did like a lot of the performances: Howard doesn't have enough to do, but what he does he does well. And the film even ends with a strong bit of editing, sound work, and final cut that are really effective in leaving an impression.

In the end, however, the film and the director think all its ideas are good, when really only about 60% of them are. The film meanders a bit too much, and its two and a half hour running time feel really drawn out for a film that is supposed to be about tension and a ticking clock. It feels like the film is trying so hard to be a David Fincher film that it loses its way. There is real tension, and there is real pathos, but after a while it just gets to be a little too much. It loses touch with reality and spends too much time in movie fantasy land to work. 

Alternate Film Title: "Snakes in a Chest! But Why?"

Film: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Genre: Drama/ Sci-fi
Source: USA (1968)
Rating: G
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: A

It's been too long since I've recorded a movie review--in part because I've been busy, yes, but mostly because I feel overwhelmed approaching the monumental task of writing about Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece 2001. How do I say anything meaningful about a film that literally left me breathless and overwhelmed and lost and moved and confused and deep, deep in thought? It is a film that to me is everything everyone said it was, and still somehow more.

First off, I appreciate that the Filmspotting podcast's recent Sacred Cow discussion of the film which prompted me to finally go watch it. I waited to listen to the podcast until after I had seen the film so that I could process it a little on my own, but their insights and conversation were really meaningful, even though I don't see the whole film in the same light they did.

Without question the film is a masterclass on the marriage of sound and image. As many critics have noted, there is little dialogue, but to call it a "near silent movie" is in no way accurate. Kubrick uses music as a narrative device, providing meaning to what we see before us, making it evocative and emotional and erudite. His use of Strauss's "Blue Danube" or the famous "Also Sprach Zarathustra" are epic and profound, but two scenes in particular stood out for their sound. First, the encounter of the Monolith by the astronauts on the surface of the moon, when the shrieking chorus both terrifies and overwhelms us as viewers. Few other films have filled me with as much dread, as much foreboding, as this scene. As the astronauts descend the ramp (and let me note that the effects are so legitimate looking throughout the film that it is incredible to realize that this was filmed in an era so far before computer effects and before man had even actually been to the moon) one cannot help but anticipate a meeting with a higher power, a God-like figure too great for man to comprehend.

Because I have a hard time not reading this film (despite Filmspotting's insistence on Kubrick's misanthropy and pessimism) as about encounters with the divine. The Monolith transforms those who come in contact with it, as Moses was transfigured before God on the mountain, both for better and for worse. I almost see the Monolith not just as an artifact from an ancient and more advanced race of beings, but as an angel of metamorphosis. Some can handle the transformation (though I like the reading of the end of the film as the end of one race and the birth of something new, I also like reading it as Dave's rebirth and new beginning. Does it kill him or elevate him?) and some cannot. Some pervert the elevated status, as the apes, for example, develop tools, and then use them to destroy. It's a movie so filled with possible interpretations that it's silly to try and harmonize them all, and maybe this meaning for me wouldn't hold up under a second viewing, but I definitely saw in this film both the terror and the awe with which the divine is often described in literature the world over. I like that, and though the music in the moon sequence may have terrified, it also reinforced the wonder of the interstellar object.

The second sequence that stood out (and this is probably no surprise) is the life and death of HAL 9000. Never has a machine produced such an emotional response from me--not even Arnie's dying "thumbs up" in Terminator 2. HAL is, fascinatingly, the one character in the film who expresses the most emotion, and so perhaps it is fitting that his loss is far more painful than, say, Dave's death in the still-semi-perplexing sequence at the end of the film. I did not anticipate the pain of hearing him plead for his life, of losing his brain function, of ultimately singing, tragically "Daisy Bell" as he lost all sense of himself. It is a powerful moment, in part because the action here is so frantic compared to the slow pace of the rest of the film. Here we are invited to question madness and paranoia, yes, but also repentance and forgiveness and understanding. The entire sequence on Discovery One is incredible from a technical and storytelling perspective, and it's certainly the most narratively coherent section of the film, but it also provides an emotional heart to the film as well. Fascinating.

There is so much more to say here. The beauty of Kubrick's composition. The structure and the epic scale. The minutia and mundanity with which Kubrick paints a reasonable future (based on 1960s understandings). The technical expertise of making characters run in enormous hamster wheels or walk on the ceiling. The awe. The power. The self-reflection caused. It really is a masterpiece, and one I will have to make a note to rewatch every few years, since I think it's interpretively rich enough that each viewing could bring new analysis, ideas, or insights. I'm glad my first viewing was at least on a 52" screen, and I hope and hope and hope that I will have an opportunity to see it projected full size on a big screen in my lifetime. 

I loved it.