The only thing interesting about this run of the mill "thriller" with a stupid and predictable "twist" ending is the filmmakers' recognition that having the protagonist possess a working cell phone would eliminate the entire plot. So they have him break it very early on. That way he has to go to all these places rather than just call up the people he's going to see. I guess that's acceptable but it seems kinda cheap.
And besides, it turns the whole film into a cautionary tale about the bad things that can happen if you lose your cell phone. Which brings up the point that most movies more than ten years old have plots that would have been dramatically simplified if the protagonist had the use of a wireless phone. (As a side note, it makes me wonder if the book this film is based on was published before cell phones became so commonplace.) That getting the cell phone out of the equation thing has become very very popular over the last few years. And I, for one, am looking forward to the day when cell phones are incorporated into the plot in an effective way rather than done away with in increasingly silly ways.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
DAYS OF HEAVEN - terrence malick - 5.0 / 10
The same lame ass voiceover and directionless storytelling that mar Malick's later work (The New World, Thin Red Line) is also present here. I suppose the predictably tragic nature of the story is supposed to lend it some gravitas, to make it allegorical for the impossible plight of the nation's poor during this period of American history. And maybe it does. But it's still a slow and boring film with a simultaneously cute and pretentious narrator who is speaking words that can't possibly be her own (and are therefore the words of the writer-director).
I don't mind a filmmaker taking a philosophical stance and having a point of view, that's the job of an artist after all. But Malick seems to be cloaking himself in aimlessness as if to say, "You can't pin this on me, this is how it was. And if you blame me for being aimless and pointless then you're also condemning the people of that time period and who are you to do that, you bourgeois prick." So I say, fuck Malick and his lovable pretensions. And fuck all the art school cineastes who would say that I just don't "get" Malick. His films are fucking boring. And I don't want to spend long hours in the dark studying something that's just plain boring. Any idiot can be pretentious but it's very hard to be entertaining. If you can be both you're a genius. But there aren't many of those. So if you have to be one or the other, I recommend the latter only because then you won't have pseudo-intellectuals following you around with their tongues hanging out. Oh, and you'll probably earn a hell of a lot more money that way, too.
I don't mind a filmmaker taking a philosophical stance and having a point of view, that's the job of an artist after all. But Malick seems to be cloaking himself in aimlessness as if to say, "You can't pin this on me, this is how it was. And if you blame me for being aimless and pointless then you're also condemning the people of that time period and who are you to do that, you bourgeois prick." So I say, fuck Malick and his lovable pretensions. And fuck all the art school cineastes who would say that I just don't "get" Malick. His films are fucking boring. And I don't want to spend long hours in the dark studying something that's just plain boring. Any idiot can be pretentious but it's very hard to be entertaining. If you can be both you're a genius. But there aren't many of those. So if you have to be one or the other, I recommend the latter only because then you won't have pseudo-intellectuals following you around with their tongues hanging out. Oh, and you'll probably earn a hell of a lot more money that way, too.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
DERAILED - mikael håfström - 1.5 / 10
Derailed offers one bewildering movie-going experience. You don't cast Jennifer Aniston (who's just plain not going to be a movie star) in a role unless you want the audience to have sympathy for her, even if you are casting her against type. She's America's other sweetheart (after Julia Roberts of course). But in Derailed she plays a double-crossing, cheating wife who is only ever an impediment to our hero (Clive Owen's Charles Schine). But she sure does seem nice. And further, her interactions with Charles, although they're later revealed to be an act, are sweet and playful and the stuff of which movie romances are made. These encounters are in sharp contrast to the stilted, pained interactions between Charles and his wife. So the audience is put in the very strange position of rooting for the relationship between the philandering husband and his mistress to be the one that prevails.
But then there's the big reveal that exposes the mistress (Aniston) as a con woman. And now the audience is completely lost with no relationship to root for (Aniston's character dies early and uselessly). The wife and sick child of our hero are annoying and having him and them return to normalcy isn't nearly interesting enough. And so, we're put in the position of wishing that somehow Charles and Aniston's Lucinda could have made it work. That's a very strange position to be put in and it's more than a little bewildering.
Also bewildering is the film's portrayal of black people. There are three in the film. One is an ex-con mailroom employee. One is a gun for hire. And the third is a policeman. (And for added fun, two of the three are played by rappers) So the good guy (Charles) has his black guy who can die in a dramatic way. And the bad guy has his black guy who Charles can kill to prove he means business. And then there's the black detective who can figure it out in the end and, although he has the power to do something to stop it, merely add a wink-wink nod of approval to our vigilante hero. How this paternalistic portrayal of black people (and foreigners and women) didn't ring any bells somewhere along the line should be shocking and offensive. Instead it's met with a shrug. This is the way it is in mainstream Hollywood, I guess.
But then there's the big reveal that exposes the mistress (Aniston) as a con woman. And now the audience is completely lost with no relationship to root for (Aniston's character dies early and uselessly). The wife and sick child of our hero are annoying and having him and them return to normalcy isn't nearly interesting enough. And so, we're put in the position of wishing that somehow Charles and Aniston's Lucinda could have made it work. That's a very strange position to be put in and it's more than a little bewildering.
Also bewildering is the film's portrayal of black people. There are three in the film. One is an ex-con mailroom employee. One is a gun for hire. And the third is a policeman. (And for added fun, two of the three are played by rappers) So the good guy (Charles) has his black guy who can die in a dramatic way. And the bad guy has his black guy who Charles can kill to prove he means business. And then there's the black detective who can figure it out in the end and, although he has the power to do something to stop it, merely add a wink-wink nod of approval to our vigilante hero. How this paternalistic portrayal of black people (and foreigners and women) didn't ring any bells somewhere along the line should be shocking and offensive. Instead it's met with a shrug. This is the way it is in mainstream Hollywood, I guess.
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
JARHEAD - sam mendes - 7.9 / 10
It's understandable why a looser and more casual film would appeal to Sam Mendes at this point in his career. His previous two films, American Beauty and Road to Perdition are two of the most carefully photographed films in recent memory made with the help of the best cinematographer who ever lived (Conrad Hall). But since Road to Perdition, Hall has passed away and left some people, me among them, wondering just how many of those perfectly composed shots were the work of Mendes and how many were the work of Hall. Additionally, such rigorously well-composed films take a lot of creative willpower to make. With these two factors in mind, is it any surprise that Mendes would make a looser and less careful film than his previous two?
And indeed he has. Jarhead is loose and fast with a constantly bobbing and weaving camera (courtesy new DP Roger Deakins, not a bad substitute). The problem with that, however, is that handheld camerawork and loose staging go a long way towards defeating analysis of a film. You can't look to any one shot in this film and say that it sums up the movie (or even the scene) because you can't say for sure whether everything in that frame was put there on purpose. You can't say for certain whether the sun glinting off the water bottle was done on purpose or if it was just a happy accident created by the fact that Deakins has the camera on his shoulder and can swoop down for that perfect shot whenever and wherever he sees it.
So Mendes has done an end run around the question of whether or not he can make another terrifically composed film without Conrad Hall. And on first viewing, that frustrated me to the point of nearly disliking the film. On second viewing, however, I began to look at the other areas in which Mendes creates subtextual and extratextual meaning in this film. There's not nearly as much of it in Jarhead as there is in American Beauty or Road to Perdition but it's there and it's worth discussing.
Foremost among these is the soldiers' use of (anti-) war films as violence porn. The marines in the film learn of their deployment to the Middle East during a screening of Apocalypse Now, a legendarily anti-war film that they're treating like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with cheering and pantomiming of the on-screen action. It's a clever subversion of the idea that a film about war can ever truly be anti-war. And it's also a lot like how you'd imagine these men would respond to a viewing of a pornographic film. Indeed, with women largely absent from their lives and pornography (obviously) not allowed in the barracks, these men more or less substitute blood lust for sexual lust. And later, when the troops gather to watch The Deer Hunter only to find that it has been taped over with real porn, Mendes makes this point abundantly clear. It's the best, most resonant moment in the film and it says the most about the situation these men are in.
The main problem with the film, however, is, to carry the violence as porn metaphor one step further, that this particular war is all foreplay and no climax. Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), the only member of his elite scout sniper unit to even see an enemy combatant, never fires his rifle. And while this only deepens the meaning and value of that particular metaphor (and indeed makes it the point of the whole piece) it isn't terribly compelling filmmaking. The audience, like the soldiers, have been craving the pink mist, the bloodletting, the violence of war. And denying us (and them) that violence aborts any sort of catharsis.
Certainly not all films have to be cathartic but this particular case of cinematic blue balls leaves the audience craving some sort of release. And if they can't have it through bloodshed, they need to get it in some other way. I think Mendes realized this and thus he tries to imbue the film with some sort of catharsis in the few short scenes after the soldiers return home from the desert. In these scenes, the characters, now quite different than we've seen them before, attend the funeral of one of their own. But this desperate grab for an emotional payoff is so far removed for the rah-rah marine life and feels so tacked on that the only real emotion engendered in the audience is apathy. It's too little, too late.
I can't help but think that if this film weren't based on a book some studio executive would have mandated that we see some bloodshed. And, although the filmmakers might have resisted, had that bloodshed made the final cut I think the film would have been the better for it.
And indeed he has. Jarhead is loose and fast with a constantly bobbing and weaving camera (courtesy new DP Roger Deakins, not a bad substitute). The problem with that, however, is that handheld camerawork and loose staging go a long way towards defeating analysis of a film. You can't look to any one shot in this film and say that it sums up the movie (or even the scene) because you can't say for sure whether everything in that frame was put there on purpose. You can't say for certain whether the sun glinting off the water bottle was done on purpose or if it was just a happy accident created by the fact that Deakins has the camera on his shoulder and can swoop down for that perfect shot whenever and wherever he sees it.
So Mendes has done an end run around the question of whether or not he can make another terrifically composed film without Conrad Hall. And on first viewing, that frustrated me to the point of nearly disliking the film. On second viewing, however, I began to look at the other areas in which Mendes creates subtextual and extratextual meaning in this film. There's not nearly as much of it in Jarhead as there is in American Beauty or Road to Perdition but it's there and it's worth discussing.
Foremost among these is the soldiers' use of (anti-) war films as violence porn. The marines in the film learn of their deployment to the Middle East during a screening of Apocalypse Now, a legendarily anti-war film that they're treating like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with cheering and pantomiming of the on-screen action. It's a clever subversion of the idea that a film about war can ever truly be anti-war. And it's also a lot like how you'd imagine these men would respond to a viewing of a pornographic film. Indeed, with women largely absent from their lives and pornography (obviously) not allowed in the barracks, these men more or less substitute blood lust for sexual lust. And later, when the troops gather to watch The Deer Hunter only to find that it has been taped over with real porn, Mendes makes this point abundantly clear. It's the best, most resonant moment in the film and it says the most about the situation these men are in.
The main problem with the film, however, is, to carry the violence as porn metaphor one step further, that this particular war is all foreplay and no climax. Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), the only member of his elite scout sniper unit to even see an enemy combatant, never fires his rifle. And while this only deepens the meaning and value of that particular metaphor (and indeed makes it the point of the whole piece) it isn't terribly compelling filmmaking. The audience, like the soldiers, have been craving the pink mist, the bloodletting, the violence of war. And denying us (and them) that violence aborts any sort of catharsis.
Certainly not all films have to be cathartic but this particular case of cinematic blue balls leaves the audience craving some sort of release. And if they can't have it through bloodshed, they need to get it in some other way. I think Mendes realized this and thus he tries to imbue the film with some sort of catharsis in the few short scenes after the soldiers return home from the desert. In these scenes, the characters, now quite different than we've seen them before, attend the funeral of one of their own. But this desperate grab for an emotional payoff is so far removed for the rah-rah marine life and feels so tacked on that the only real emotion engendered in the audience is apathy. It's too little, too late.
I can't help but think that if this film weren't based on a book some studio executive would have mandated that we see some bloodshed. And, although the filmmakers might have resisted, had that bloodshed made the final cut I think the film would have been the better for it.
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES - rob zombie - 3.7 / 10
I love The Devil's Rejects (the sequel to House of 1000 Corpses). That's just a fun, smart, sick film. But this, the one that came before and launched the sequel I so enjoy, is just lame. I kept waiting for it to get good but the longer I waited the more annoying the film got and the more annoyed I became. Every new wrinkle and twist of the plot is completely predictable and totally boring. The film is basically a group of freaks killing a group of normal people. They don't torture them very much and don't really seem to be having too much fun with the killings so I guess I'm wondering what the point of the whole thing is. In the second film, the twisted family of killers fully embraces their work and exploits their victims in horrible (but pleasant for viewing and analysis) ways. In this film, as often as not, they'll just shoot someone in the head without so much as a hello.
That being the case, my mind started to wander (never a good sign in a horror film) to thoughts of logic and common sense. Usually a horror film exerts enough grip on your fear receptors that you don't have time to consider the why's and wherefore's of the whole mess (which, if you were to actually do while watching most horror films would rob you of any pleasure. It's not that House of 1000 Corpses is unique in this department, it's just that I focused on it more than I'm normally inclined to.). Chief among the ridiculous implausibilities is the fact that the family kills people wantonly, whoever they may be and however they may have stumbled across their path (be they high school cheerleaders or law enforcement officers). The problem here is that this family could not do this for very long without people figuring out that something is amiss down by that crazy looking house.
Which leads me to the second major common sense lapse: the house. It's a fucking nut house. And while that might be scary and all, any sane person looking at that house would know some fucked up shit be goin' on in there. The fact that they've been committing murders left and right for years coupled with the fact that they've been doing it in this ridiculous house makes it impossible to believe that they could have gotten away with it for so long.
Finally, the most annoying logical lapse is the dozens of mutant creatures that live in the web of subterranean tunnels that snake all over the Firefly property. Who are all these people? How did they come to be this way? How has not one of them ever been noticed by a person who's just passing by? Why does the family even keep them around? And how did they get the technology to meld flesh with machine? That last question especially irks me because it comes out of nowhere and is never addressed but for god's sake they've built a Terminator down in that dungeon. I guess by the time you've gotten to this part of the film it's basically over and if you've gone with it this far I guess you can go with it a little more. What the hell?
However, what really turned me off the whole film in the first place was not the illogical nature of the plot (that came later when I got bored) but rather the silly interstitials of, alternately, Sheri Moon dancing half-naked, the brother looking crazy, or some half glimpsed negative image. These interludes are not scary so much as they are disorienting and annoying (not to mention pointless). That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that, it seems to me anyway, the best violence is done in these little interstitials. You go to see a film called House of 1000 Corpses, you expect some serious grue, full-on and in your face. You don't expect it to be hidden in sepia-tinged, negative printed, shaken camera interstitials that come out of nowhere and return to the ether without making any real impression. That's just not good business sense. But I guess somebody liked it. And I'm glad because that meant Zombie got to make the sequel. And since I really liked the sequel, I guess I can't complain too much.
That being the case, my mind started to wander (never a good sign in a horror film) to thoughts of logic and common sense. Usually a horror film exerts enough grip on your fear receptors that you don't have time to consider the why's and wherefore's of the whole mess (which, if you were to actually do while watching most horror films would rob you of any pleasure. It's not that House of 1000 Corpses is unique in this department, it's just that I focused on it more than I'm normally inclined to.). Chief among the ridiculous implausibilities is the fact that the family kills people wantonly, whoever they may be and however they may have stumbled across their path (be they high school cheerleaders or law enforcement officers). The problem here is that this family could not do this for very long without people figuring out that something is amiss down by that crazy looking house.
Which leads me to the second major common sense lapse: the house. It's a fucking nut house. And while that might be scary and all, any sane person looking at that house would know some fucked up shit be goin' on in there. The fact that they've been committing murders left and right for years coupled with the fact that they've been doing it in this ridiculous house makes it impossible to believe that they could have gotten away with it for so long.
Finally, the most annoying logical lapse is the dozens of mutant creatures that live in the web of subterranean tunnels that snake all over the Firefly property. Who are all these people? How did they come to be this way? How has not one of them ever been noticed by a person who's just passing by? Why does the family even keep them around? And how did they get the technology to meld flesh with machine? That last question especially irks me because it comes out of nowhere and is never addressed but for god's sake they've built a Terminator down in that dungeon. I guess by the time you've gotten to this part of the film it's basically over and if you've gone with it this far I guess you can go with it a little more. What the hell?
However, what really turned me off the whole film in the first place was not the illogical nature of the plot (that came later when I got bored) but rather the silly interstitials of, alternately, Sheri Moon dancing half-naked, the brother looking crazy, or some half glimpsed negative image. These interludes are not scary so much as they are disorienting and annoying (not to mention pointless). That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that, it seems to me anyway, the best violence is done in these little interstitials. You go to see a film called House of 1000 Corpses, you expect some serious grue, full-on and in your face. You don't expect it to be hidden in sepia-tinged, negative printed, shaken camera interstitials that come out of nowhere and return to the ether without making any real impression. That's just not good business sense. But I guess somebody liked it. And I'm glad because that meant Zombie got to make the sequel. And since I really liked the sequel, I guess I can't complain too much.
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
SAW II - darren lynn bousman - 4.5 / 10
Gotta love the concept: a killer gives people a choice, give in and die or struggle and live. That's a setup for a tremendous film. Unfortunately neither this film nor the one that preceded it is that film. I can get behind the logical inconsistencies and not get too bothered. I can even accept the very strange and uncharacteristic behavior of certain characters (assuming they're under pressure and might do the plot-convenient thing at a random moment). And, since I knew what I was getting into when I bought a ticket to see this film, I can accept the fact that there has to be a twist ending.
But with such a rich premise and basically nothing but places to go, I cannot accept that this is the story they chose to tell. It's just stupid. They have a bigger budget, access to actual actors (as opposed to using the screenwriter as the second lead in the first film) and they have the audience expecting that the killer will get away. You don't have that combination very often. And this garbage is the result? For shame.
I guess most of my ire here is over the basic set-up of the story. Five (or six or seven) people are locked up in a house and gradually exposed to a lethal toxin while the hero cop interrogates the killer and watches the proceedings on television monitors. It's like one of those bullshit romantic comedies wherein the entire world order is disturbed just so some schmuck can learn a lesson (Bruce Almighty, etc.). This whole elaborate set-up is just so Donnie Wahlberg's detective can play the game. Thus, I spent the whole film wondering why the hell Jigsaw didn't just kidnap him and make him play. Why go through the trouble of getting caught by the police and setting up this elaborate game and then having to rely on the detective doing exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment? Everything has to go exactly perfect for the killer (and it does) in order to pull this thing off. And that's just too much exposure for a guy who would surely know better. If he didn't, he would've been caught long before now.
The other major problem with the film is the twist ending. It's not bad, per se, it's just obvious from about five minutes in. Once Jigsaw says the object of the game is to sit and listen for two hours, the rest of the film is almost moot. There's a fun scare here or there but it's mostly just a way to pass the time until the detective is unable to wait out the two hours and does something stupid that plays right into Jigsaw's hands. Although the specifics of how this happens are interesting and not entirely predictable, the final plot development is greeted with a shrug. Still, there's great promise in this premise and I'd love to see somebody with a brain get in there and do something interesting with it.
But with such a rich premise and basically nothing but places to go, I cannot accept that this is the story they chose to tell. It's just stupid. They have a bigger budget, access to actual actors (as opposed to using the screenwriter as the second lead in the first film) and they have the audience expecting that the killer will get away. You don't have that combination very often. And this garbage is the result? For shame.
I guess most of my ire here is over the basic set-up of the story. Five (or six or seven) people are locked up in a house and gradually exposed to a lethal toxin while the hero cop interrogates the killer and watches the proceedings on television monitors. It's like one of those bullshit romantic comedies wherein the entire world order is disturbed just so some schmuck can learn a lesson (Bruce Almighty, etc.). This whole elaborate set-up is just so Donnie Wahlberg's detective can play the game. Thus, I spent the whole film wondering why the hell Jigsaw didn't just kidnap him and make him play. Why go through the trouble of getting caught by the police and setting up this elaborate game and then having to rely on the detective doing exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment? Everything has to go exactly perfect for the killer (and it does) in order to pull this thing off. And that's just too much exposure for a guy who would surely know better. If he didn't, he would've been caught long before now.
The other major problem with the film is the twist ending. It's not bad, per se, it's just obvious from about five minutes in. Once Jigsaw says the object of the game is to sit and listen for two hours, the rest of the film is almost moot. There's a fun scare here or there but it's mostly just a way to pass the time until the detective is unable to wait out the two hours and does something stupid that plays right into Jigsaw's hands. Although the specifics of how this happens are interesting and not entirely predictable, the final plot development is greeted with a shrug. Still, there's great promise in this premise and I'd love to see somebody with a brain get in there and do something interesting with it.
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