SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE – park chan wook – 8.1 / 10

Korean director Park Chan Wook has quietly become one of my favorite directors. Between his vengeance trilogy and Joint Security Area, he’s shown himself to be a very compelling filmmaker. And while Sympathy for Lady Vengeance isn’t quite as good a film as Oldboy, it still packs a pretty big wallop and manages to say things about the relatively limited topic of vengeance that Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance had not already said.

Lady Vengeance (as it’s known in the West) really boils down to one metaphor that’s repeated in various forms (tofu, snow, cake, skin, etc.), the point being that to be clean, to be pure and white is the goal of the vengeance seeker. The hope is that the act of taking revenge will allow the person to move past that event, to allow them to make their life about something else from that point onward, that vengeance, once taken, will wipe their life clean.

But embedded in the symbols used to convey this idea is the knowledge that such a starting over is all but impossible. The white tofu, for instance, is the traditional gift received by a person getting out of prison. Although it’s supposed to represent a clean slate, it's also plain and simple and boring. Thus, to accept the new, clean life that the tofu represents is to accept that life will be plain and boring. This sort of double meaning is true of all the white symbols in the film. For instance, snow, besides being cleansing and blanketing, can also be treacherous; all skin has blemishes, etc.

This is an incredibly dense metaphor because, at its heart, Park sees vengeance as the impossible search for redemption. The yearning for redemption is valuable and honorable but to hope to find it in revenge is, as Park has said, quite stupid. And at the end of this film, for the first time in the trilogy, the main character comes to understand the futility and stupidity of vengeance and thus, quite rightly, plants her face in the white cake.

The film shows events from two separate times in Lady Vengeance's (Gaem-Ja’s) life. In one she's in prison for crimes she did not commit. And in the other, she's seeking revenge against the men who put her in prison. In each of these situations Gaem-Ja is a very different person. In prison she's kind-hearted and loving. After prison she's cold and calculating. It’s hard to know which of these two personalities is closer to the real Gaem-Ja but it seems probable that both are facets of the same person and co-exist to some extent at all times. Thus, the question must be asked, if prison is the worst place a person can spend thirteen years (or at least one of the worst places) how can Gaem-Ja be a better person in prison than out? Is it the thirst for vengeance that makes her so cold and removed? Or is it simply that this is who Geam-Ja thinks she needs to become to carry out her mission?

Whatever the answer, the point Park seems to be making is that lusting for revenge turns a person into a monster only because it makes the person complicit in becoming that monster. Prison, of course, can do this as well but only if the person allows it. Vengeance, because it's a personal choice, will always turn a person into a monster if it's carried to its natural conclusion.

After Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, Park Chan Wook was accused of glorifying revenge, of romanticizing it as a way for a person to take back control of his life. He has long denied that revenge is ever justified but nonetheless its power over a grieving person is very great. With Lady Vengeance, he has finally made a revenge film in which no one can possibly mistake his intentions. By having his protagonist turn the actual act of vengeance over to a group of similarly wronged individuals, he shows just how empty revenge really is. By not having Gaem-Ja, the protagonist, the person the audience has been rooting for the whole film, take the final revenge, he makes his point very clear. Robbed of a character for whom they feel sympathy, the audience can only view the vengeance for what it is, the empty act of ruined people who, far from starting over fresh, will be forever changed for the worse.

BROTHER – takeshi kitano – 6.8 / 10

Mostly about the peculiar Japanese practice of dying with honor, Beat Takeshi’s only (barely) American film is alternately fascinating and frustrating. In fact, it’s almost fascinating in spite of its inscrutability. In the film’s second to last scene (but the last one featuring Takeshi’s Aniki), a roadside diner owner tells Aniki that the Japanese are just so damn inscrutable. And, since this film is about the differences between American and Japanese culture, and is therefore somewhat inscrutable to this American, that’s a particularly apt thing to hear right before Aniki buys it.

There’s also the possibility that this film is a World War II allegory. Considering that the western theater of that war is the only large scale interaction America and Japan have ever had, it’s no surprise that both cultures should have wildly incorrect views about the other. When Americans think of the yakuza, they think about the heinous and terrible traditions (depicted in the film at hand) and the wanton violence they seem to mete out at every turn. Similarly, it would appear, from watching this film, that the Japanese think of our mafia in mostly the same way. Each criminal organization is thought of by the other culture as being ruthless, extraordinarily violent and basically institutionally insane.

The parallels with World War II are self-evident. For instance, is there an American alive that can understand why in the holy hell a grown man would fly an airplane into a destroyer or building or whatever as the kamikaze Japanese pilots of WWII did so often? Is there any Japanese person who can understand how a grown man can disgrace himself in public then carry on as if he had done nothing shameful? Add to this the fact that the propaganda machines of war were cranking out lies as fast as they could. The Japanese people were told that the Americans, when they invaded, wouldn’t stop until ever last person on the island was dead. From an American point of view this is absurd. But then, of course, we did kill millions of their citizens, innocent people mostly, in a single afternoon.

Thus, in Brother, we have the Japanese yakuza in America going up against the mafia only to find that not only are they outmatched but they're all marked for death. And as this plays out over the last twenty minutes of the film, it certainly seems awfully similar to how the Japanese must have felt at the end of World War II.

The real question, though, is what point does all this serve? Why go to the trouble to create this allegory in the first place since it doesn’t lend itself to a particularly realistic story? The answer just might be that by showing a culture how other peoples of the world see it, it might be hoped that that culture will learn something about the image it conveys to the world.

THE DESCENT – neil marshall – 8.8 / 10

Given that Neil Marshall’s first film, Dog Soldiers, concerned a group of military men trying to survive the night and that this film, his second, concerns a group of militant (though not military) women trying to reach daylight, it’s pretty clear going in that something’s afoot besides cheap genre thrills. And sure enough there’s quite a lot bubbling beneath The Descent’s genuinely terrifying broken bones and gnashing teeth.

But that’ll have to wait for a moment because the visceral experience of those broken bones is about as intense and horrifying as has ever been realized on film. Starting long before the first creepy crawler rears his albino gargoyle visage, the tension in the film is built around all manner of things real and imagined. Marshall, you see, is plainly in love with the conventions of the horror film and there’s not a one that he doesn’t reference in The Descent. For instance, there are at least two dream sequences that only reveal themselves as illusions after the scary thing leaps out of the dark (or comes around the corner). And such is Marshall’s talent that he manages to reinvigorate these normally quite obvious and completely cliché moments to such an extent that he almost makes you forget that they are cliché. Further on into the film we find the drunken mirth making in the cabin in the woods the night before the unfortunate events that comprise the film proper. Then we have the rebirth of the audience avatar (or Girl Who Lives or whatever you want to call her (Sarah in this case)) as a warrior. And so on and so forth. The point is that Marshall is so in love with the conventions of his chosen genre that the sheer joy he takes in referencing them is evident in how fresh and vibrant they are made to feel.

That vibrant life is also what ultimately makes The Descent so horrifying. The reason that the clichés of the horror genre exist is the same reason that stereotypes exist, namely that they have some basis in fact (even if that fact remains long buried in the past). Once upon a time what has now become horror film cliché actually scared people and Marshall has elevated and reinvigorated these clichés to the point that he is more or less working with all the techniques the cinema has ever come up with on how to scare the crap out of people. And further, without the clichés and hokey characterizations and lame death scenes of most horror films, there is no respite, no reprieve, no letting up. This film has its foot on the accelerator and the scares just keep coming faster and faster and the tension builds higher and higher until you’re either forced to look away just to prove that it is indeed a film or you succumb completely and fully immerse yourself in this horrible environment. Needless the say, either outcome is a testament to the virtuosity with which it has been created. There’s no other horror film that I’ve ever seen as perfectly tuned to maximum fright as this one. While that doesn’t make it Citizen Kane, it certainly speaks volumes about the talent at work and is no less a testament to the power of film.

And of course, outside of being terrifically frightening, The Descent also has a hell of a lot to say about the power of women and their role in modern society. Take, for instance, the fact that the film concerns six women squeezing themselves through dark, wet tunnels and sloshing around in viscous pools of liquid trying to find a way out into the light all while dodging the attacks of skulking men seeking to penetrate their flesh. In that context the film can almost be read as a struggle for reproductive freedom. The women have shunned men and thus must earn the right, through trials that mirror the act of giving birth, to sever the ties that link reproduction to men. In short, they choose to reproduce on their own terms (invitro fertilization, artificial insemination) but in so doing they take on the role of warrior (a traditionally male role) to protect their child and to defend their right to do so.

But what then to make of the fact that our hero’s rebirth as a warrior is facilitated by an attack from the lone female amongst the creepy crawlers? If this is truly a battle for control of gender identity and reproductive freedom then why is the most important battle (thematically, not as concerns the plot) between our hero and another female? Perhaps this is a canny nod to the fact that women are oftentimes (maybe most of the time) most responsible for keeping each other from reaching their objectives.

The events at the end of the film seem to bear out this line of reasoning. As Sarah and the only other surviving female, Juno, near the end of their journey back to the light (and a final rebirth) they come face to face with each other, weapons at the ready, after having just vanquished a batch of the crawlers. Earlier Sarah had learned that the true reason Juno was unable to stay by her side in the hospital after the car crash that killed Sarah’s husband and child was because Juno was sleeping with Sarah’s husband. Now, face to face, armed with pointed blades and drenched in various fluids, Sarah faces the choice of whether to help or attack her friend. That she chooses to attack speaks volumes about just how strong the impulse to restrain other females is. Even at the point of death and after having survived a similar encounter with a scorned female crawler, Sarah chooses vengeance.

Perhaps it’s only fitting that this should be the hero’s final decisive act. It’s Marshall’s last and most groundbreaking reinvention of archetype. The final scare in a horror film is almost always a cheat (think of the final shot of Carrie, for instance, a film not coincidentally referenced more than once here) that is meant to scare the audience but seems almost unfair to the hero who has survived so much. It’s just a cheap cop out to goose the audience one more time. But for Marshall the final scare is less a jump-out-of-your-seat scare and more a psychological wound inflicted on the audience. With that last audacious act, Sarah casts aside the audience sympathy and turns herself into the villain. We’ve rooted for this woman for an hour and half only to find our trust has been misplaced.

In some ways this is equally as cheap as a final out-of-nowhere jump-scare. But it’s certainly different and inventive and creepy as fuck because it strikes at the audience not at a character. And it’s the last in a string of clever deceptions and subversions perpetrated by the writer / director. As such it’s a doozy and as terrifically terrifying in its own way as anything that came before. I cannot wait to see what this guy does next.

MANDERLAY – lars von trier – 7.5 / 10

For the second part of his America trilogy, Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier has taken for his subject slavery and the subsequent assimilation of black people into mainstream American society. Since race is such a touchy subject in this country and since we are already so skeptical of Europeans and their attitudes (especially when it comes to sex and violence) it’s easy to understand why almost every professional reviewer has gotten up on their high horse to denounce the very idea of this film. They treat the idea of a European making a film about the American racial problem as if it were sacrilegious and therefore can’t bring themselves to give the film the fair look it deserves.

As far as I’m concerned, outsiders often have the best insight into our culture. Look at artists like the Taiwan-born Ang Lee whose The Ice Storm is as piercing a portrayal of middles class 1970s ennui as has ever been made by an American. Or look at the Italian Sergio Leone whose Once Upon a Time in America is as succinct a summation of the American experience in the early twentieth century as the homegrown Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy. That foreigners would have a keen insight into the vagaries of American culture should not be seen as insulting nor should it even be seen as surprising. Our culture permeates the world. In the days leading up to this most recent Gulf War there were pictures of young Iraqis wearing Batman t-shirts on the cover of the New York Times. Our culture is everywhere, so much so that we no longer can claim ownership of it. And if artists from other countries that are inundated with our culture want to comment on it and poke holes in it, we would be better served to accept their art with an open mind and critique it on its merits not simply on whether it has the right to exist in the first place.

So let’s get down to it then. Von Trier’s idea of the black experience in America over the last two hundred years is basically that black people in America were so scarred by the experience of slavery that they chose a sort of self-imposed slavery after they were set “free” and further that this second form of slavery is the more disturbing and harmful because it is self-imposed. Like the former slaves at the Manderlay plantation, many modern black Americans still live in the South. And those that have moved out of their ancestral homes have largely congregated in predominantly black communities in the urban North and West. Additionally, amongst these black communities (especially those in an urban setting) anything that looks like achievement in the white world is shunned (sometimes this is construed as school success sometimes it is construed as working a low-paying job, etc.). And finally the only areas of achievement that many of these black people respect are music and sports, the same areas in which slaves used to entertain themselves. So, if this is really the case, it sure does look like black Americans have chosen to continue to live as if they were slaves and that Von Trier is right.

The problem, however, is that this idea of black people, while it may be the pervasive depiction of them in our popular culture, is not really the experience of most black Americans. In truth, the experience of most black Americans is pretty similar to that of white Americans of similar economic status. And it is really this economic status that determines what kind a life a person living in America will have not the color of their skin.

It’s not surprising though that Von Trier got it wrong. It is, rather, pretty easy to see how he could think black people have ghetto-ized themselves post-slavery if he only had our popular culture to go on. But Von Trier is smarter than that. And I can’t believe his research would be entirely limited to viewing popular culture. So perhaps he is making the point that this is how we have presented the black American experience to the world. Maybe he’s just holding up a mirror so that we might see. Maybe he’s trying to start a discussion about race in America so that we might take a hard look at how we present it to the rest of the world; a world that we seem to be trying to remake in our image.

Or maybe he’s not even really talking about race in America. Maybe this whole slavery thing is a smokescreen. If we take Grace as a metaphor for George W. Bush, the slaves as metaphorical Iraqis and the gangsters as a metaphorical United States military, a rather interesting idea begins to emerge. Does Grace not force independence on the slaves in the same way Bush imposed “freedom” on the Iraqi citizens after the fall of Sadam Hussein? Aren’t the Iraqis rebelling against their newfound freedom and seeking refuge in chaos and sectarianism in the same way the freed slaves of Manderlay do? This metaphor is so perfectly apt that I can’t help but think this might have been Von Trier’s true allegorical meaning.

With this new reading in mind, much more interesting ideas begin to present themselves. When the slaves are freed their entire way of life is destroyed. Left with no infrastructure, they meander around the grounds doing nothing much and, to Grace’s great displeasure, making nothing of themselves. So Grace takes it on herself to impose democratic law at the point of a rifle in the exact same way that Bush has done in Iraq. But what she finds is that there is no one around any longer with the ability to run the plantation. The old way may have been corrupt but the oppressed slaves were not calling for their freedom. They did not want to take control of the plantation for themselves. And because they did not, once their freedom is given to them they have no incentive to make a new system in place of the old one. And it comes as no surprise that without an infrastructure everything at Manderlay collapses. There is no food to eat. The crops are mostly destroyed. Tensions rise until two people are dead.

As Grace observes this happening she can’t figure out why the freed slaves are allowing their world to crumble. And she makes the same mistake that George W. Bush made in Iraq. You cannot give people their freedom and expect them to do anything with it. They must take it for themselves. For only when they truly desire freedom can they possibly use it to their benefit. No people in history have ever had a successful revolution from without. This is true at the moment in Iraq and it is true at Manderlay.

Further, and this is where the Bush criticism is sharpest, once the slaves are freed, Grace takes it on herself to teach them about democracy and the American system of government. President Bush has said many times that he thinks bringing democracy to the world is the way to heal all the world’s ills. And this is not an uncommon view in America. It stems from our evangelical nature. We think the rest of the world is going to hell and we want to help them if we can. In Manderlay, Grace watches all her efforts to teach voting and representative government be misrepresented and used to promote ends she doesn’t support. But faced with the choice of whether to kill an innocent woman or reject her precious democracy, she chooses murder. She compromises her moral code in order to uphold her governmental aims. And in that moment the audience realizes (and maybe she does too) that imposing a system of living on a people can never work no matter how well intentioned. Grace’s imposition of democracy on the slaves is no better than Mam’s imposition of slavery on them. It is just another system forced on them at the point of a gun or a blade, and it can never work. This is the lesson George Bush is learning in Iraq.

And so the second part of Von Trier’s America trilogy turns out to not really be about the black experience in America as advertised. Rather it is a clever condemnation of the American or maybe more accurately the Bushian idea that we know what’s best for the world. Manderlay says that one group of people can never make another group of people do what they want without everything turning to shit. Change comes from within. This is something anyone who’s ever been an addict knows. This is something anyone who’s ever tried to get a loved one to change knows. It is something those in power should never forget. Grace should have known better. And George Bush should have known better. Let’s just hope that his time in office comes to an end before his anger escalates like Grace at the end of the film and her whipping of Timothy turns into Bush’s nuking of the whole Middle East.

BAND A PART – jean luc godard – 5.5 /10

If this is Godard at his most brilliant and breathtaking as everyone claims, then I think it’s safe to say that I simply don’t understand what the big deal is. Admittedly there are some nifty shots and some memorable moments scattered throughout the film (the famous minute of silence and run through the Louvre among them) but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s mostly boring, predictable and peopled by agonizingly ignorant characters who are dogged by a hopelessly pretentious narrator.

See, these three dolts are in love with popular culture of all stripes (but mostly movies) and imagine themselves as the heroes in their own film or pulp novel. When they dance in a café they hear a jazzy score playing in their heads (which is absent when pretentious narrator man is speaking his banalities). When they decide to sit for a full minute in complete silence, the whole world goes silent around them as if they are the only people in existence. And when they decide to steal money from Odile’s house, they imagine themselves to be some kind of gangsters.

The thing is, since Godard is quoting heavily from and referencing at every turn various other films and novels, he’s no different from his characters. And while that might otherwise be charming, in this case that makes him sort of an idiot. But at the same time he realizes his obsession with pop culture makes him a romantic fool and accepts that it is so. This however, does not excuse his relentlessly pretentious narration. But in this context I can’t see the narration as anything other than a joke and a not very funny one at that.

So yet again, when the film is over we’re left with the eternal question of “art” films, namely did the artistic, symbolic and metaphorical aspirations of the film outweigh the pure entertainment value and if so is the film still worth seeing and talking about. In Band a Part it’s unquestionable that the artistic concerns of Godard far overshadow the entertainment concerns so the key question is whether these symbolic and artistic elements make the film worthwhile. It’s half-century reputation as one of the classics of French cinema would seem to indicate that the answer is yes. And I agree that the film is pretty watchable despite it’s lack of an interesting plot. But I cannot agree that the film is worth adding to the canon. It’s worth a look but there are far better films that manage to make as many references as this one but in a way that doesn’t become the complete focus of the film. After all, anyone can string together a bunch of references and call it a masterpiece but not too many people can hide those references in a film that has being entertaining as it’s primary objective. In both Band a Part and Breathless, Godard constantly references American films, television shows and novels that are hugely entertaining as well as being full of symbolic meaning. If he really wanted to pay proper tribute to these works of art he shouldn’t have simply strung together a bunch of references to them and called it a film. He should have made a film that references them but does what he admires about those works as well or better. Maybe it’s me forcing my desire for what these films should be, but it’s hard to be Orson Welles or Jack London and pretty damned easy to name a character after him and call it a day.

THE FOG – rupert wainwright – 0.2 / 10

The Fog is that special kind of stupid movie in which a character. when driving through the fog, says, “I can’t see anything” then immediately runs into another car. In other words, it’s completely and quite stupidly obvious. Worse than that, everything in this film that has been changed from the original has been made tremendously worse.

Now the original film was never a classic work of cinema but it is an important piece of the horror canon. Admittedly, however, the effects in the film are very dated with its ghosts looking less like scary apparitions and more like gay pride paraders looking for Bleecker Street. So maybe it was due for a remake. But the things that made the original interesting were things like the fact that Stevie, the unmarried mother and lighthouse DJ, has to take on the role of father / protector when her family is threatened, or that a major character is just a hitchhiker who happened to be passing through on the fateful night. This is some interesting shit that, of course, was changed in the remake.

I guess in our modern PG-13 horror film age, the people behind these films don’t want the teenyboppers they’re pitching them to to be encouraged to do immoral things like hitchhike and engage in premarital sex even though that aspect of the original film can be read as a cautionary tale against doing just that. I suppose the people behind this film think that’s too complex an argument for a horror film to make. Better just make the hitchhiker the ex-girlfriend of the guy picking her up. That way when they fall into bed the audience will know that premarital sex is only okay if you’re in love.

THE WIRE: SEASON ONE – david simon – 9.5 / 10

Discussing individual episodes of The Wire as self-contained stories is as useless as talking about individual chapters of a novel as if they were separate stories. Thus, although The Wire is absolutely brilliant, it’s possible to view it as a complete failure as a television show since it is nearly impossible to enjoy in one-hour segments one night a week. But viewed on DVD, when the chapters (episodes) can be seen at any pace the viewer chooses, The Wire becomes something altogether different. It becomes one thirteen-hour masterpiece the likes of which I had previously thought television incapable of producing.

The first season of The Wire is an astonishingly assured piece of work. Every scene and plot development, every interaction is so convincing in its realism (credit here goes to the outstanding performances as well as the skilled writing and directing) that the story sweeps the viewer up in a way that almost no show before it has ever done. It’s so immersive that it almost defeats criticism altogether. And more than that, this is one television show in which, like in an auteurist work of cinema, every camera angle and word of dialogue means something and is rich in subtext. Unlike every other television show that values plot above all else, The Wire takes the time to set its scenes in places of symbolic importance and has its characters talk about things that obliquely reference the main themes being developed over the course of the season.

Take for instance the scenes in which Detectives Bunk Moreland and Jimmy McNulty drink near the train tracks. In the western genre the coming of the railroad to the unspoiled western prairie meant the death of the outlaw way of life and the coming of the industrial revolution. The railroad is destined to bring order and lawfulness to an uncivilized land (or at least a different, more refined sense of corruption). The appearance of a railroad quite literally means that the people here are at a crossroads and it hints that how they deal with this impending change is how they will be defined as people. In the same way, when McNulty is drinking at the train tracks he finds himself on the edge of a precipice, at a crossroads (usually, of course, it’s his own self-destructive nature that’s brought him to this point but nonetheless, here he is). Thus McNulty is like a western lawman, defined by the way in which he handles himself during the current crisis.

Additionally, the subplot involving Omar stealing from the Barksdales has distinct echoes of the western outlaw. It’s shot in a way that evokes the classic John Ford and Sergio Leone westerns. Couple that with the railroad and the overriding theme of the season starts to emerge, i.e. the coming revolution. Nobody is naïve enough to believe that the impending changes actually herald any real progress. But they will be changes nonetheless and whether the characters evolve and change with the world around them will primarily determine whether they continue to be a part of the police force (in McNulty’s case) or continue to live (in Omar’s case). Both are faced with the defining crisis of their careers or lives and must face it on their own like the gunslingers who meet in the street at noon to enact the climactic duel.

Obviously this idea of the police and drug dealers as heroic duelists is a bit overblown and melodramatic. And David Simon and his writing staff know this. But to the characters, to McNulty and Omar, this 'game' of theirs really does feel like the stuff of legend. They are the gods in their own myths. And if the viewer is to be fully integrated into this world, they must live it as the characters live it, complete with the unsustainable belief that what they're doing actually means something, that the revolution is coming and that it will change things. The reality that everyone involved knows deep down in the backs of their minds (and which is occasionally spoken aloud but never listened to) is that nothing can change the game as long as the rules remain the same (i.e. drugs remain illegal). But such thoughts would make it impossible to play the game and are therefore ignored or suppressed with alcohol or other controlled substances.

Thus it comes as an even greater blow when, at the end of the season, Lt. Daniels’s detail is denied a decisive victory over the Barksdales by the bureaucratic incompetence and careerism of the police force. And initially on first viewing this development left such a bad taste in my mouth that it tainted my enjoyment of the whole season. I knew that in reality this was the most likely outcome. I knew also that even if the detail was completely successful then other drug dealing crews would swoop in to take the Barksdales’ place. But so firmly was I invested in this titanic struggle between McNulty and Avon that I couldn’t bear that it ended in a draw.

It’s now become clear to me, however, that this is the true genius of The Wire. Its characters may believe that they are gods fighting a mythological war, and we the viewers might ourselves get so caught up in the story that we believe it too, but the reality that stands just outside these self-deluded people never forgets. And just when it seems that these mighty warriors have bent reality to their will, they have the rug pulled out from under them and they (and we) realize just how small and unimportant what they’ve invested themselves in really is.

This is, quite understandably, a crushing blow. And not one a television viewer is used to receiving. Thus the season, on first viewing, came off as disappointing. But I’ve come to realize just how much more valuable it is to hew closely to reality when the temptation to make it all end well must have been so overwhelming. The people behind this show must have been far more in love with their characters than I ever could be. And if they had the nerve to still remain true to how this would really be in the actual Baltimore, how then can I complain? Besides, having something end satisfactorily and having it end the way I want it to are not mutually exclusive options. It doesn’t have to all work out in order for the audience to be satisfied. Just like in every other aspect of the show, you can’t view the ending like you would that of any other show. It demands more from you and gives you much much more in return. And it somehow manages to get better each time you watch it.

LADY IN THE WATER – m. night shyamalan – 0.9 / 10

Quite possibly the dumbest, most self-satisfied film ever made. Don’t believe me? Let me just recount the plot for you: The superintendent of a Philadelphia area apartment building (Cleveland Heep, played by Paul Giammati), who is hiding a deep dark secret (this is Shyamalan remember), finds a water nymph in the complex’s pool. This nymph, called a narf for some reason, is meant to find a person (called the vessel) who, upon seeing her, will be inspired to do something great. That done, the narf can then mount a giant eagle (called the Great Eaglon) and return to her home, the Blue World. Trying to prevent her return is a wolf-like monster with grass for fur called a scrunt. There are certain nights during which the scrunt cannot attack the narf because the super evil tartutic (three monkey-like creatures made of wood who all share the one name of tartutic) will punish them. But, since this particular narf is the madame narf (an important narf who’s return to the Blue World will herald great change), the scrunt is willing to risk the wrath of the tartutic to attack the narf as she awaits the Great Eaglon. Thus the narf must enlist the help of certain humans who have been blessed with certain abilities and have felt compelled to reside in a place near the narf, in this case, in the apartment complex. Of course, the people don’t know they have these gifts so Cleveland must seek them all out. And there are a lot. There’s the “symbolist” (any similarity to Robert Langdon’s fictional occupation is purely coincidental I’m sure), the healer, the interpreter, the guardian and a group of people called the guild. Finally, with these ten or so people surrounding her, the narf has her rendezvous with the big eagle.

Seriously, that is the simplest and quickest summary of the plot of this film possible. It’s so convoluted and ridiculous that almost all of the film is spent conveying the plot. Two thirds of the dialogue is simply exposition. And the characters responsible for this exposition are two horribly stereotypical Korean women who once heard this tale as a fable back in Korea (never mind that the names “scrunt”, “ narf”, and “tartutic” sound not the least bit Korean).

Watching the film and hearing the slowly unraveling complications of the narf’s return to the Blue World, you get the distinct impression that Shyamalan is making this up as he goes. Each new development or obstacle is more unlikely and nonsensical than the last. And, perhaps most damningly, not one person in the entire film behaves like a real human being.
For example, upon finding this naked girl in the pool and hearing her tale, Cleveland doesn’t for even a moment think she’s a nut with serious mental issues. And when he begins to tell more and more of the residents of the apartment complex about her, none of these people think the whole thing’s just some crazy yarn and call the men in white coats. I guess it makes sense that the people who are unknowingly gifted (the healer, the guardian, the guild, etc.) might believe the story but plenty of non-magical people hear it too and not one person is an unbeliever. Further, the plan these people concoct to get the narf to safety is just about the most convoluted and silly strategy possible (it involves a big party and a band). It is said early on in the film that the scrunt cannot attack the narf when she is in the water. The pool is like fifty feet from the building. Why not just toss her in the pool and wait for the stupid eagle?

Okay, so the plot is ridiculously stupid and the mythology of this Blue World is inane to the point of being insulting but that is not what makes this film so smug and self-satisfied. No, that comes when you see what character Shyamalan has chosen to play and which character he has chosen to punish with the film’s lone act of violence. Remember that one person whom the narf was to influence? That’s the role Shyamalan’s chosen for himself. And the narf’s influence compels him to write a book that will not only change the world, it also causes him to be murdered, martyred for his art. As for the character that is on the receiving end of the film’s only violence, that character’s a film critic (named, for some reason, after Manny Farber, a champion of B movies and unknown auteurs).

These two taken together clearly indicate the absurd depths of Shyamalan’s messiah complex. He sees himself as the lone voice of truth and beauty in the world, his constant critical drubbing a sort of near-religious persecution. He is perhaps the only artist capable of bringing light and beauty into the world and as such must constantly fight against those (critics) who attempt to shroud that light and silence his voice. Therefore, in his mind, attacking his films becomes an attack on beauty and truth not a simple discussion of the relative merits of his films. And thus, as each successive film becomes more and more ridiculous with less and less people willing and able to defend it, Shyamalan increasingly sees himself as more and more the true artist. Eventually he’ll be making films for an audience of one and still firmly believing that he’s going to change the world. You simply cannot get more smug and self-satisfied than that.

I think I go to Shyamalan’s films to pick them apart, to dissect them and poke holes in the nonsensical plot machinations and lack of any believable reality. But, if I were to be totally honest, I also go to Shyamalan’s films because, despite the increasing amount of ludicrousness, there’s always a moment or two in which Shyamalan’s wonderful way with images wins out and the film becomes, for just a moment, everything its creator thinks it is. These moments of pure cinema magic (the baby monitor sequence in Signs or the conversation on the train in Unbreakable or the murder in The Village) are worth the two hours of nonsense that surrounds them if only because they allow the viewer to hold out hope that one day Shyamalan will make a whole film that fulfills the promise of these few scenes. Unfortunately The Lady in the Water is not that film. And worse, there are no such magical moments in it at all. I don’t know what this bodes for Shyamalan’s future but if his visual skills are going the way of his writing skills (i.e. straight up his ass) there will very soon cease to be any reason to see or talk about Shyamalan’s films. And maybe that’ll be a relief. Shyamalan can see himself as becoming completely like Christ (persecuted to the point of (career) death) and we, the movie-going public, will be spared his nonsensical self-aggrandizing mythology. I, for one, am starting to think I won’t miss him. And judging by the lackluster box office returns, it looks like I might not be the only one.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST – gore verbinski - 4.8 / 10

Midway through the second hour of the way-too-long two and a half hour Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, three men, all battling each other for some mystical trinket or other, find themselves atop the wheel of a river mill that has become detached from its moorings and is rolling through the forest. Initially this little bit of whimsy is perfectly appropriate for a jokey action-adventure film. The stout-hearted Will Turner (again played by the ridiculously awful Orlando Bloom) is all grimace and gritted teeth as he balances precariously atop the rolling wheel of destruction battling the sometimes good sometimes evil (former) Commodore Norrington. The outlandish and ridiculous Captain Jack Sparrow (again played by the best thing about the film, otherwise known as Johnny Depp) ambles, in that inimitable way of his, along the bottom of the wheel hoping to swipe the trinket while the others are busy hacking and slashing away at each other. It’s all good ol’ silly fun. But it just keeps going on and on and on. And just when you think it must finally be over, the wheel rolls off a cliff and the whole thing lurches back to life one more time.

This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the entire film. It’s fun and enjoyably goofy for while, then it gets bogged down in its torpid plot machinations and arcane mysticism, then when you think it’s pulled itself out of its own ass, the whole thing goes completely off the rails and you’re left staring at your watch and wondering what else is going on in the world. Pirates 2 isn’t a bad film, really, it’s just a mediocre one that doesn’t know when to quit.

The biggest error the filmmakers commit is making Jack Sparrow the hero and central focus of the film. I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense considering what’s transpired between the first and second films (Johnny Depp’s Oscar nomination, the world’s belated realization that Orlando Bloom is an incompetent ass (see: Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown)). But just because Johnny Depp’s the better actor and Jack Sparrow’s the more interesting character doesn’t mean that what the audience wants to see is more more more of Captain Jack. And even if that is what the audience says it wants, that doesn’t mean you should give it to them. Will’s the hero and Jack’s the sidekick, deal with it.

Making this second film into The Captain Jack Story turns the whole affair into an overly complicated and conflicted mess. The filmmakers are forced to twist and turn and contort the plot until it breaks under the enormous strain. They try to give Jack the proper hero’s treatment (and a proper hero’s quest) by making him the center of everyone’s attention. He has a heroic and seemingly impossible task (finding the key that unlocks the chest that contain the still-beating heart of Davy Jones (don’t ask)). He has a mortal enemy (the aforementioned Davy Jones). He has a mighty beast to slay (the Kraken, an octopus-like creature capable of destroying ships). And, as is indicated in the film’s final moments, he will have a journey to Hell and back. In fact, the filmmakers are so in love with Jack Sparrow that they think everyone else, including Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), should be too. So they have her wandering around after him the whole film with stars in her eyes, a development that is just silly to the point of distraction. Obviously the world of Pirates of the Caribbean is not meant to substitute for historical reality but there’s no way the Elizabeth Swanns of any reality would possibly mate with the Jack Sparrows. And it’s insulting for the filmmakers to have even considered it let alone make it the central emotional conflict of the film.

There are times when a film all but demands a sequel (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.). And then there are times when a sequel is demanded of material that doesn’t warrant it. Unfortunately Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest falls into the latter category. And even more unfortunately, the filmmakers, rather than come up with something altogether new and exciting when faced with the challenge of making two sequels, decided to follow the patented route to sequel failure, namely making everything they think worked about the first film twice as big and ignore everything else. This is why Jack Sparrow is the center of the film. And it’s why there are two action setpieces with giant contraptions rolling down hills. And it’s why there’s another ship full of otherworldly miscreants. And it’s also why the film’s no good.

SUPERMAN RETURNS – bryan singer – 5.0 / 10

There’s a lot to love about Bryan Singer’s cinematic reimagining of the Superman mythos for the modern (read: computer-generated) era, unfortunately none of it is the plot or the narrative. But let’s start with what’s done right. Give Singer all the credit here because everything that’s done well is all in the direction (although you can knock him for the story stuff too cause he’s got a story by credit up there in the same unimpressive electric blue graphics as in the first film).

In fact, the directorial flourishes are really the only things to love in this version of Superman. During one scene, wherein Superman catches the Daily Planet’s globe logo on his back, Singer frames the shot to mimic the famous statue of Atlas. At a couple points in the film Superman is compared to a god (with a positive connotation when Jimmy Olsen says it and a negative one when it’s Luthor doing the talking). And he’s depicted as a messiah in no less than three different shots. And then, of course, he dies and rises again just like a certain other Messiah.

All that god-making effectively conveys just how isolating and lonely it is to be the world’s most powerful being. There’s really no way to get close to anyone and to really feel a “human” connection. You can never tell if the person (read: Lois) wants to be around you because they like you or because they are impressed by you. Further, as Spider-Man found out at the end of Sam Raimi’s first Spidey film, allowing someone to get close to you is a good way to get that person killed. And if you go ahead and let them get close to you anyway, you’re taking on a huge responsibility that you probably can’t fulfill. It’s lonely and isolating being God and Singer’s Superman understands this and really feels the weight of it, which is pretty heady stuff for a superhero flick.

Unfortunately it’s really the only aspect of the movie that seems to have been given much thought because the rest of it makes very little sense. Let’s start with the inconsistency of Superman’s powers. In the film’s one dynamic action setpiece (which comes about thirty minutes in, a crucial pacing error), wherein Superman saves a seemingly doomed 747 (with Lois aboard, natch), he seems to have quite a struggle keeping the couple thousand ton machine off the thousands of spectators in the baseball stadium below. Then, later, when Lois is once again within moments of death, Superman struggles mightily with the larger half of a destroyed yacht as he raises it out of the water. But then, a little while later, he has no problem lifting a piece of rock the size of Rhode Island out of the water and into space, despite the fact that said piece of rock is composed of Kryptonite which had only a short while before rendered Superman human enough for Lex Luthor to stab him in the side (and that’s leaving aside the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that this hunk of rock would remain in one piece with all its weight concentrated in one spot).

I’m not trying to arbitrarily poke holes in the film here. I know it’s a comic book film based on a superhero who was created nearly seventy years ago for a much less demanding audience. But that’s exactly the point. Superman and his ridiculous powers defy all rational explanation. To even attempt to enjoy anything Superman related, a viewer has to suspend a large amount of disbelief. That being the case, the last thing a Superman story needs is anything that doesn’t adhere to the internal logic of the story. The audience is already overburdened with logic defying powers and situations, asking them to accept a story that doesn’t even make sense within this already contrived world is just asking too much.

And it’s not just the superhero stuff that defies all logic and reason. Lois Lane, intrepid (and in this film Pulitzer Prize winning) reporter for the Daily Planet, is played by Kate Bosworth. Twenty-three year old Kate Bosworth. But she has a five-year-old kid (who, of course, turns out to be the spawn of Superman. It’s unclear whether they used condoms in their ridiculous tryst in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman II but I doubt simple latex could have held back the big guy’s little soldiers anyway). This means that she’s become a world-renowned reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper at the ripe old age of twenty-three all while raising the spawn of Superman. Unlikely doesn’t begin to cover it.

But it doesn’t stop there. Lois has a fiancé (Richard White, played by James Marsden who’s making quite a career for himself being the awkward third leg of a love triangle) who believes the cute little supertyke is his. So, unless the half-Kryptonian kid’s gestation period is longer than nine months, the continuity of the whole thing had to go something like this: Superman impregnates Lois and, having finally gotten the one thing he’s been wanting for all of the first two films, promptly leaves the planet for five years. Lois, having just slept with the most perfect being on Earth and terrifically upset by his sudden departure, hops straight into bed with this Richard guy. And I mean straight into bed, within a week or two or else this subterfuge wouldn’t hold up. I know Metropolis is populated by a bunch of morons who can’t see that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person but this is just basic math. Oh, and by the way, they don’t hand out Pulitzers for one op-ed piece, a series maybe but not a single article.

And then there’s the hokey and ridiculous plot that finds the best action setpiece occurring half an hour in and the end basically an episode of ER without the drama (You think Superman’s gonna die? Yeah, sure.) wherein doctors try to stick needles in Supes and defibrillate his heart. Leaving aside the fact that there are undoubtedly biological differences between Kryptonians and humans, it’s just astounding that a medical crisis is the climax of the film. Who the hell, when plunking down their ten bucks to see Superman Returning, thought they’d get this nonsense as the climax to a film about the most powerful superhero of them all? I’m all for subverting audience expectations but if they want candy you can’t give them a fucking banana and think they’ll be satisfied.

I guess maybe there’s something to be said for showing the universe’s most powerful being reduced to just another sad victim in a paper gown (How did they get that costume off him anyway? And where did they put it?). It’s a brave move at the very least as it surely contradicts almost everyone in the audience’s preconceived ideas about the character. And in and of itself it’s not a bad moment. But this is the climax of the film, the climax of Superman Returns. He returns to spend a few days in a hospital bed and then go fly around in the sun for a bit? That’s it? Really?

Superman Returns isn’t a bad film, it’s maybe even better than mediocre but I can’t believe that’s all there is to it. Maybe it’s the fault of expectations raised too high. Maybe it’s the fault of misleading advertising. But as the credits rolled, all I could think was “That’s it? That’s Superman’s big comeback?” If this is as powerful and Super as the Man of Steel can be, he really doesn’t deserve the tent-pole treatment he’s been given.

POSEIDON – wolfgang peterson – 2.5 / 10

Fifteen minutes into Posiedon the boat gets flipped upside down. Then, over the course of the next hour and twenty minutes, every character in the film has their personalities turned upside down. I don’t know whom to credit (or blame as the case may be) for this development, director Wolfgang Peterson or screenwriter Mark Protosevich, but either way this plot-by-numbers is just no way to make a movie. I guess somebody thought it would be incredibly interesting and exciting if what happens to the boat is a metaphor for what happens to the characters. And that’s not actually unreasonable. The problem only arises because the film is little more than an exercise in seeing how many things the filmmakers can turn upside down.

Let’s count the ways. The loner hero (Josh Lucas, their character names are completely irrelevant) will, by the end of the film, be in love and wanting to start a family. The old gay man ready to die (Richard Dreyfuss) will discover a wonderful desire to live life to the fullest. A young woman (Emmy Rossum) who had written off her father as an ineffectual and distant dictator will finally realize just how much he really does love her. And then we have Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon playing Johnny Drama) who, before very long, discovers that he’s pretty damn unlucky.

See, the problem here is not so much that these people have had their lives turned upside down by the capsizing of the boat (that seems reasonable and somewhat logical) but rather that each character only has one trait. And reversing that one trait over the course of one hundred minutes is simply far too shallow (forgive me the pun) a character progression. Especially considering that anyone who’s ever seen a movie before in their lives would be able to figure out that the loner would fall in love or that the spiteful daughter would realize how much her father loves or that the idiotic Lucky Larry would prove to be unlucky. I’m not asking for Shakespeare but come on.

The only people that could possibly enjoy watching this film are those that really really like watching computer-generated fire. More so even than water, Poseidon is filled to bursting with scenes about or involving fire. It’s got flash fires, slow-burning fires, big fires, small fires, columns of fire, water on fire and even super-heated air that “burns your lungs like rice paper.” And most of this fire looks pretty damn cool. But then, of course, the silly humans that are trying to evade the fire have to do their thing and pretty soon you’ve got people diving headfirst (headfirst!) into a pool of burning oil and water or some such nonsense.

There are worse films (X-Men III, The Da Vinci Code, etc.) out there at the moment but hardly any that are this joyless. Blowing shit up and people holding their breath as they swim through flooded corridors whose length is unknown should be a lot more campy fun than this. It just looks like everyone involved was doing it for the paycheck.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – steven spielberg – 8.6 / 10

Although it’s been rechristened Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark on the cover of the DVD, it’ll always be simply Raiders of the Lost Ark to me. I’ve seen this film almost ten times by now but every time I return to it I’m surprised by how good it is. Maybe that’s because of the less than stellar position Spielberg has in my estimation but then I suppose that would still be more my fault than his.

And to be sure it is easy to hate on this film. Because so much of what made it so intoxicating back in 1981 has been imitated and copied so many times since then that it’s easy to forget how unique the picture really was. The most duplicated element of the film must surely be the overall tone, more specifically the hero’s wry sense of humor in the face of life-threatening danger. This flippant manner, basically invented by Harrison Ford in Star Wars and perfected here, provided the template for the eighties action hero. Following in Indiana’s footsteps audiences were soon to be treated to John McClane, Cobra Cobretti, John Rambo, etc. on down to Vin Diesel’s XXX. And mostly because of these lesser imitators, this ironic detachment from the danger the hero faces has come to represent everything that was wrong with the action film in the eighties and nineties. But that’s not the fault of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And if you as a modern viewer can see past all that extratextual weight, you’ll be treated to a rare cinematic treat,

The most noteworthy plot element in this film is just how often (and consistently) Indiana Jones fails. In the opening sequence Indiana swipes a sacred idol from some South American jungle only to have it swiped by the evil Beloq. Once the plot proper begins, Indiana is responsible for the destruction of Marianne’s bar, loses her to the bad guys in Cairo, finds and loses the Ark in the desert and on a boat. Even at the climax of the film, Indiana fails. His ultimate victory comes when he is tied up to pole. It’s hardly the resounding victory you’d expect.

Although all the failures that have lead us to this final moment were fun and everything, this last “failure” does strike the wrong note. Maybe it's the modern perspective from which I'm writing about this film but the fact that the hero's triumph comes from doing absolutely nothing is pretty anticlimactic. In fact, it's really the only sour note in the whole film. Unfortunately it happens to come at the very end of the movie and thus can leave you thinking it wasn't as good as it really was. Maybe that's the reason I'm surprised by how good this film is every time I put it on.

UNITED 93 - paul greengrass - 7.5 / 10

No matter the faux-documentary style or the real-time plot progression or the use of nonprofessional and unknown actors so as not to break the illusion, United 93 failed to really affect me. But that certainly wasn't for lack of trying. Director Paul Greengrass and Co. pull out all the stops on this one but by the time the fifteenth passenger is calling home to say good-bye I was starting to wonder what the Capitol might have looked like had the passengers failed to seize control of the plane and it had made it to Washington. Does that mean I'm a cynical bastard too inured to the mass mediated horrors that humans inflict on each other? Maybe. Does it mean that I've watched films with one eye on the action and one on how it was done for so long that I'm incapable of having a real emotional response to a film? God, I hope not. Actually, no, I know that isn't true. There are films, some of them nonfiction but an equal number of them are fiction, in which the moments of violence and horror have really hit home, have knocked that part of my brain thinking about how it was done completely out of my conscious thoughts (the two examples that jump most immediately to mind are the death of John Rooney in Road to Perdition and the Arab man's suicide in Cache). So even after all this time and all those films, the medium still has the power to bowl me over. But even with the loaded images from September 11, 2001, United 93 failed to do that. Why?

I suspect the answer is twofold. Firstly, Greengrass tries so damn hard to get me to emote that I almost don't want to just to spite him. This is especially true in the film's last act which, maybe not incidentally, is also the only part of the film that is almost entirely conjecture on the part of the filmmakers. In fact, during the first half of the film, right up until the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I was a bit caught up in it all. But after that the film never leaves the doomed plane and its passengers who make those seventeen phone calls to loved ones wherein the passengers say tearful goodbyes (which is initially compelling but soon turns into a game of seeing how long it takes the person in question to say they love whoever's on the other end of the phone) and people start to pray (both the passengers and the terrorists). I could maybe forgive the many many goodbyes but this whole, "we're all human beings" nonsense is exactly the type of shit conservatives have every right to hate liberals for. Yes, we're all human beings with our own unique hopes and fears and dreams and even gods. This is so head-slappingly obvious that to have it pointed out moments before what is this generation's most powerful shared experience is unnecessary, annoying and, most devastatingly for the film in question, distracting. They lost me right there. I spent the next fifteen minutes or so wondering what the conversations must have been like when the filmmakers were trying to decide how exactly to end the film. I bet they were spirited and possibly more interesting than the stuff that ended up on the screen (although the fact that the outcome is know in advance might have something to do with my distraction here).

But back to the point above. The second reason this film failed to really connect with me emotionally is because of the way in which it was shot. At this early stage in our recovery from 9/11, I'm not sure there was any other way to make this film than in the pseudo-documentary style that Greengrass employs. Anything stylized or art-directed would probably (maybe rightfully) be derided as too glossy for an event that still touches a raw nerve for a great number of people. Plus, the faux cinema verite style goes a long way towards allowing the average viewer to completely believe in the events on the screen. I say "average viewer" but I'm really just guessing. It didn't have that effect on me so I'm making that assumption based on reviews I've seen in the papers and magazines.

As far as I'm concerned, the fake documentary style of this film made me very aware that I was watching a film, more so even than were I watching a very artificial looking big budget version of the same events. The art of film has, over the last century, developed a grammar and language uniquely its own that, when properly deployed, becomes basically invisible, absorbing the viewer into the action on the screen. Documentaries, by their very nature, cannot employ all the tools (angles, lighting, etc.) that fiction filmmakers can and thus are less able to so absorb the viewer. Why then would a filmmaker attempting to be as "realistic" and as "truthful to the events" as possible want to give up more than half the available filmmaking tools? It's like Greengrass is trying so hard to make it seem real that he's overcompensating and thus it feels fake. On-screen violence, to my eyes, is only shocking and horrible when it is abundantly (and horribly) clear exactly what is going on. When the action on-screen is obscured by shaking cameras and whooshing zooms, that says, "Movie!" to me. It doesnt say, "this is a real thing that we just happened to catch on film." No style can say that. But at least when the terrible acts are shown clearly there's no place to hide. Even though the viewers know they are seeing a prosthetic or a computer generated effect, their eyes deceive them for a moment. And in that moment of deception lies the true horror (for me anyway, I know this is all subjective).

I knew going in that I wasn't going to get that in United 93. And if Greengrass had employed that method I think the critical establishment would have bolted from rather than embraced this film. I think this film will be a cathartic and momentous experience for a lot of Americans. I think, in some ways, this film will make the events of September 11, 2001, more real for people who spent that whole morning glued to their televisions but had nothing to personally connect them to the events they were witnessing. Because the real images we have from that day are so grainy and poorly photographed (so un-movie like) it might take a fictionalized version to really bring it home. And if that's what happens and it can be cathartic for people, then I guess that's something. For me, watching television that morning, I kept thinking not that this was like a movie (which was something I later heard that many people thought) but that this was less affecting than a movie. Even though it was undoubtedly really happening, because it was shot so poorly and because the news anchors were so unprepared that they lacked the ability to convey the import of this event, I kept thinking that I should feel something, anything much stronger than I was. And, I kept thinking, if this were a big budget Hollywood film, they'd have shot it in such a way as to facilitate my outpouring of emotion. But these grainy shaky images were preventing that.

The same exact thing was happening when I was watching United 93. I couldn't react to it as emotionally as I think I (maybe) should have because of the way it was shot. So, in that respect, Greengrass and Co. have made a film that reflects my experience of that day pretty damn accurately. And if that's true for me, it's probably true for most other Americans. And as such I guess we could have done a lot worse for Hollywood's first crack at depicting our greatest national calamity in fifty years.

PALINDROMES - todd solondz - 2.1 / 10

That old curmudgeon Todd Solondz (he of Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse infamy) is back and more "twisted" than ever. Palindromes finds him swapping the actress who plays the lead every ten minutes or so (from Jennifer Jason Leigh to a morbidly obese black woman, etc.), a conceit which seems primarily designed to make the viewer wonder what the point of it is. And while you're wondering what the point of it is, you really don't have much time to think about anything beyond the superficial elements of the film. So let's get to that question first.

Maybe the reason for switching the lead (and particularly because the actresses are so distinctly different) is to say that the idea of identity is constantly mutable and changing. For each encounter a person has they also have a unique identity. That is, you are a different person from day to day depending on who you're with and how you want to be perceived. Maybe that's what Solondz is getting at. But that's a pretty trite point to make and hardly one worth devoting an entire film to.

So maybe the reason for the lead swapping is to point out the way people shape their perceptions of each other around how they want to see the person. Or maybe Solondz does it because he wants to distance the viewer from the events of the film, make them constantly aware that they are watching a film and thereby force them to analyze what they are seeing more than they might normally do. Or maybe he does it because he wants to flaunt normal film convention. Or maybe he does it because he's just a cantankerous bastard who wants to mess with people. Or maybe, and this might be the direction I'm leaning, he wants to be inscrutable. He wants people to puzzle over his film and by extension him, but never really get to the heart of what the film (and the filmmaker) is about.

Maybe the reason is one of those. Maybe it's none. And maybe it's some combination. But in the end it doesn't really matter because the film is just plain boring. So boring that, for most of the time I was watching it, I was thinking about things completely unrelated to the on-screen action. For instance, when Aviva is stowed away in a truck on the interstate, I was wondering how the hell Solondz had the money to spend on a helicopter shot. Or maybe he used stock footage. But that would mean that he had to acquire the stock footage first and then dress the truck to match the stock footage. And who would bother to do that just for a few inconsequential shots of a moving truck? And besides, aren't there at least fifteen better ways to spend a few thousand dollars when making an independent film?

Guess I went kinda off the track there but that's the sort of reaction watching this film engenders. There's just not enough on the screen to hold your interest so you fill in the gaps with all sorts of ancillary nonsense. I mean, I guess you could try to wrap your mind around all the targets at which Solondz takes aim (from anti-abortion crazies to the need for gun control to the general stupidity of organized religion to our continued inability to deal with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to the need to dispose of aborted fetuses in a more seemly manner) but there's so many potshots aimed at so many classic liberal targets that it's barely worth the wasted effort. It's art, I guess, but art is easy. Being entertaining is hard and on that score Solondz fails pretty spectacularly.

BOOGEYMAN – stephen t. kay – 2.9 / 10

There seem to be two types of horror films made these days: gross-out, gore-filled torture fests or middlebrow, completely predictable supernatural thrillers. Boogeyman is, as you might infer from the title, part of the latter group. And as such, it’s basically just more stupid mainstream studio bullshit PG-13 horror. This is the same film as about ten other films of recent vintage (Amityville Horror or Hide and Seek, say) and as such I guess it’s not better or worse. But really, these paint-by-number horror films are just annoying. First you have the initial scare. Then comes the introduction of our hero and his life (or love interest or non-horror related problem). Then you have some sort of rising action that ratchets up the tension through some random but foreboding event (here the accidental killing of a crow, which, fyi, couldn’t really have been a crow since killing crows are illegal in the United States). Tthen the hero confronts and attempts to deal with the thing he’s been avoiding, etc.

The initial scare is provided by the hero’s father’s abduction by some unseen closet monster. This is neither unexpected nor scary and mostly just made me wonder if it wouldn’t have been more interesting to see what happens to the father once he’s sucked into that closet as opposed to watching the emotionally stunted son come to terms with his abandonment.

And anyway, what is the film saying when this guy who, if he were a real person would basically be a lunatic for being afraid of the dark as a thirty-year-old is proved to be right to be afraid? Are we supposed to be afraid of the dark? Are we supposed to think that all mentally ill people are really just seeing the world the way it really is and we are the ones who are crazy? I don’t think it’s trying to say either of those things but that seems to be the only logical conclusion.

THE SQUID & THE WHALE - noah baumbach - 4.0 / 10

Basically just a Wes Anderson movie made with seriousness instead of humor, The Squid & the Whale is almost a complete failure on every level. The people in this horrifically titled film are just terrible (and not completely convincingly realistic) examples of humanity. Basically the entire first hour of the film is a collection of these hideous people doing deeply embarrassing things. And not just embarrassing but lifetime-of-psychotherapy-required mortifying. Things like pretending you wrote Pink Floyd's "Hey You" or making your son's girlfriend pay for her own dinner or masturbating in public or not letting your twelve year-old son beat you at ping-pong. Not only does almost nobody in the world lack the basic social grace to do any of these things, the idea that I might want to sit down and watch them do it for an hour and a half is absolutely stupid.

FORTY SHADES OF BLUE - ira sachs - 4.9 / 10

Forty Shades of Blue is one of those films that cineastes love to champion. It's all about the ineffable pain of being alive. And it communicates this by meandering around for a couple of hours while a few depressed and misunderstood characters collide with each other and screw things up. As far as that goes, this is a pretty good film. It does all that stuff better than most films of its kind.

The problem, however, is the same with this film as with all the others that are just like it (Junebug, We Don't Live Here Anymore, Keane, Broken Flowers, etc.): it's just not very interesting. And yes, you can make the argument that these films are far more indicative of what life is like for an average person than something like Reservoir Dogs. And they are. But that still doesn't make them interesting, sorry. In short, this is the type of movie that you don't need to pause to take a bathroom break. You might miss someone being sad or looking sadly at something beautiful but so what? There are ten more of those moments, dragged out equally long, up ahead.

I am not a plot supremacist. It doesn't all have to be about the What of the thing. But if you ask me, the What should at least be marginally interesting. I could relate what the What of Forty Shades of Blue is but why bother? It doesn't actually have anything to do with the point of the film. Some people might find that beautiful. I just find it boring. I'm bored because I know five minutes in that someone, a hopelessly trapped and depressed someone, will make a bad decision (in this case to sleep with her boyfriend's son but it could just as easily have been to sleep with a best friend or to quit a job or to beat up someone, whatever). Then, rather than deal with this situation and its attendant causes, the person will retreat, not talk about the problem and get pissed. Maybe this anger will come out in inappropriate ways (hateful public speeches, tirades against the kids, whatever) and then the film will end with nothing much having been resolved.

Well, congratulations, that sure does reflect the way a lot of people live their lives. But those people suck. And it's their inability to take control and communicate that makes them suck. I hate these people in real life. And I hate them in films. So again, congratulations, you've effectively rendered some fictional people I find as infuriating as real people. Bully for you.

WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE – john curran – 5.0 / 10

And here we have yet another indie drama about the unbearable weight of being alive that bores the shit out of people. Aren’t the lives of these people so complicated and tragic? Aren’t all our lives? Isn’t it so damned hard to live a good life and forge meaningful connections with the opposite sex? Maybe the answers to all these questions are “yes.” But I don’t think so. And honestly, even if I did, I don’t think it would interest me to see that reflected on the screen. Why does “adult drama” mean boring people doing half stupid things that I’m almost embarrassed to witness? How does that deepen my understanding of the human condition? I just don’t know what people see in these films.

Well, okay, I think I know what people see. They see what they believe to be their understanding of the world reflected in the film. I guess they can identify with these people (God help them). I don’t, personally. And maybe that’s why I have contempt for these sorts of films. Or maybe it’s because every problem a person in a film like this has could be solved by effective communication. Either way, they never get me.

That’s not to say that there isn’t the occasional moment or two that works for me. In fact, in this film, almost all of it seems to work on the level that the characters and their interactions seem believable (I’m sure there are people who behave exactly this way somewhere out there). The moment in which Mark Ruffalo’s Jack tells his mistress Edith (Naomi Watts) that their spouses are having an affair and the pain-filled sex that follows hits the perfect emotional note. The look on Watts’s face as the scene ends is particularly powerful. That being said, I’ve never had sex like that and, although I’m sure it happens, I really don’t know how well what I’m seeing reflects the reality of that situation. Basically, the film convinced me that this is what it would be like but I really don’t know.

But, for as many moments that work wonderfully, there are just as many moments that are painful and annoying. And mostly, at the end of the film, I’m left with the impression that the level of commitment of everyone involved in this project could have been put to much better use.

MUNICH - steven spielberg - 6.7 / 10

There's a moment or three in Steven Spielberg's latest film that recalls the greatness of his earlier pictures and reminds why he's the unquestioned master of the visual medium. Unfortunately, as wonderful as those moments are, they only account for fifteen or so minutes of the film's bloated three hour running time. Most of that time is padded with yet another bombing of a nondescript European house or yet another meal in which the characters discuss nothing much so that the audience may see just how different what they are doing has made these men. It's those scenes, the ones of look-at-me self-importance, that really grate. Perhaps it's that this film was rushed into production and rushed again to release so that it would qualify for the Oscars. Whatever the reason, the magic is just not in those scenes.

But it is there in the extended opening that depicts the capture and murder of the nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Told mostly through shots of televisions, reporters and people watching TV around the world, this sequence says more about the way that we perceive the world in the modern age than most films that are expressly about the subject. It's just really impressive filmmaking.

The magic's also there in a scene in which Avner's group of Jews, basically terrorists without a home state at this point in the film, share a safe house with the Palestinian terrorists they are hunting. The idea (discussed by the two groups) that these people could co-exist were it not for the mere fact that the Jews have a place on Earth to call theirs and the Palestinians do not is certainly an interesting one (and not one shared by either of the two sides in their public rhetoric). It's the only scene that really gets at the motivations behind the commitment these people have to a way of life that turns them into animals and makes them look, to the rest of the world, like savages.

Later in the scene Avner, (the Jew, duh) asks Ali (the Arab) why they are so committed to the destruction of Israel. Ali's answers are simultaneously frightening, completely illogical and totally rational. In the scene's best moment, he asks Avner how long it took the Jews to get a homeland. Avner doesn't answer but the unspoken threat here is that the Palestinians might be willing to wait ten thousand years, too.

The old Spielberg magic's also there in the ending of the film (something rare indeed to be saying about a Spielberg film) when Avner and his handler talk about what they've really accomplished with this little war of theirs. They wonder, since every terrorist they kill seems to spawn five new ones in his place, what the net effect of the whole thing was. And as they wander and talk about this in the shadow of Manhattan's skyscrapers, we get a glimpse of the Twin Towers. And finally the characters part, neither feeling too assured by the other, as the camera pans up on those now gone landmarks. It's as loaded and interesting (and, yes, even depressing) an ending as Spielberg has come up with in years and it's the only thing from this film that might really stick with me. Interesting that with this and War of the Worlds, Speilberg, that benchmark of middlebrow conservatism, is really the first mainstream artist to tackle the thorny issue of 9/11 with some amount of grace.

Of course, the film isn't without Spielberg's trademark squeamishness about sex and family issues. In the film's worst scene, Avner, after meeting a beautiful and willing woman in a bar, decides at the last minute to be faithful to his wife. On the way out of the bar, he bumps into a friend. He tells the friend to beware of the woman but sure enough, later that night, unable to sleep, Avner visits his friend, smells the woman's perfume and finds the friend murdered in his bed. The implication being that unfaithfulness gets you killed. Talk about your Hebrew School reactionary impulse towards sex. It's almost as if, when Spielberg isn't paying attention, the most wonderful things leap forth from his mind but when he's trying to make a point, all he can really say is the most reactionary and simple sort of moralistic nonsense. That's a shame really because he could be our greatest artist. Instead he's just one our most interesting.

FREDDY VS. JASON - ronnie yu - 8.5 / 10

For fans of either seminal eighties horror film franchise (Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm St.) and especially for fans of both, the meeting of the minds that is Freddy vs. Jason is as good as could possibly be hoped. From the opening company logo (New Line's) that's been converted to red to more closely resemble the company's original logo that opened the first Nightmare of Elm St. to the hint of Jason's theme that accompanies it, the filmmakers get all the small details exactly right. Maybe most impressively, they came up with a believable story that would bring both maniac killers together and allow them to fight on each others respective home turf (Freddy's being dreams, Jason's, of course, being Crystal Lake). I'm just astounded that they were able to squeeze so many seminal moments of eighties horror into one film without the film devolving into parody (like A Nightmare on Elm St. 5) or a complete bloodbath (like Friday the 13th, Part 5).

Of course, this comes from a fan of both series who has recently watched all the films that preceded this one. If a viewer came into this film with only the vague ideas of Freddy and Jason that they've gotten from Halloween masks and occasional references in other media, I'm not sure how successful the film would be for them. It's impossible to imagine myself as one of them but it's safe to assume that, when Jason enters the house to kill his first victim and the victim's girlfriend is in the shower, people not familiar with the series wouldn't get the joke and would, rather, think of this scene as clichéd and old hat. I, on the other hand, loved the reference to the classic Friday the 13th shower scenes of old. And the fact that the girl in question is never really imperiled in this shower is part of the joke.

Some of the picture's best moments, the ones that are most loaded with subtext, are the murders themselves. For instance, the murder that accompanies that shower scene is of a man in bed and is filmed in such a way as to unmistakably reference the sex act. But since it's Jason doing the killing (Jason kills most of the men in the picture. Freddy takes care of the women) and his killings of men are usually decapitations (read: castrations), indeed, his later killings of men in this film are decapitations, what to make of the fact that this first murder is by repeated penetration (read: rape)? And then, later in the film, a girl is trapped asleep in Freddy's nightmare world as a drunk guy is poised to rape her in the real world. The drunk guy is about to save her from death by raping her. But then Jason comes along and stabs both of them. So, while Freddy is metaphorically raping her mind, the drunk guy is literally raping her and Jason is symbolically raping them both with his knife. That's some pretty heady stuff from a slasher flick.

This brings up the question of what role exactly Jason is playing in the film. Is he the hero of the piece? The kids eventually unleash him against Freddy in the hopes that he will save them (since Jason on the loose would only really be a problem for Crystal Lake and hence not such a threat for them since they live in Springwood). Does this make him the hero or some sort of failed romance (since he kills the girl he's ostensibly saving)? Perhaps he's some kind of heroic ambition run amok and perverted to evil by the lack of a mother figure to direct that ambition in the proper direction. Ever fearful of the sex act, Jason's been unable to overcome his trepidation and partake in the act in the rightful way. Instead he has his rapes of steel as a substitute. In the same way, his heroism is slanted and skewed. It can be harnessed by others but never truly takes the right form.

There's an awful lot going on under the surface of this film, too much even to get to it all on the first viewing. There's the part where the girl wants a nose job and then later has her nose hacked off by Freddy. There's the valiant (for a change) geek character who is actually respected and listened to and even has a somewhat heroic death. (Is this a sop to the geek fan base of the picture or does it say something about what is most valued in today's society?) There's the father, used by Freddy to murder his own wife, who comes after his daughter in exactly the same way as he went after the mother. Basically there's a ton of stuff in this film. And it's been put there by people who, for once, treat this genre with the seriousness normally accorded ancient myth. This film shows that such treatment is not only warranted but also quite fruitful. This is the film that points out just how far from mere titillation the slasher flick can be. It's a great film and nothing could have done the two franchises prouder.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN - rob hedden - 2.9 / 10

Jason Voorhees is the star of these movies. That is an undisputed fact as he is the only character to remain consistent throughout the series and is the only one for which the audience has any real interest. However, up until this seventh sequel, Jason had never had anything like star treatment. Here, for the first time, the viewer can catch a glimpse of how Jason goes about stalking his victims and why he chooses one course of action over another. You can see how he behaves after a murder (never shown before) and you can almost see how his addled child's mind thinks.

And that's all well and good for people who care about such things, but it makes for one crappy movie that couldn't scare a small child who is new to the series. If the viewer knows exactly where Jason is all the time and what exactly he's planning on doing, there's just no way to be frightened by what's going on here. Somewhere along the line someone, and I'm thinking it was the editor, figured this out, so during the later killing scenes Jason just appears out of nowhere constantly (created, probably, by jettisoning minutes of footage that show how he got to these new spots). This tactic doesn't work either because it simply makes the audience wonder how in the hell Jason could have climbed thirty rungs of a ladder in two seconds (even with his newly acquired superpowers) or how he could know the exact layout of a New York City sewer having never been away for Crystal Lake before.

But this is all moot. The real dilemma here is the time problem. The Girl Who Lives in this film is eighteen years old. As a small child of eight or nine, she was pushed in the lake by her uncle who was attempting to teach her to swim. While struggling to stay afloat, she met Jason who had been submerged there by his campmates. So, nine or ten years ago Jason was a little boy. That makes him about the same age as the kids in this film (never mind the whole, sunk at the bottom of the lake and still living thing). However, he is an adult when Tommy Jarvis, as a boy of about eleven, "kills" him in Part 4. Then, later, Tommy Jarvis returns to Crystal Lake as adult (in Part 6) and has another run-in with Jason, putting Jason's age at least over thirty. And if you really want to do the math, Part 2, in which the adult Jason first appears, was made in 1981 and Part 8 was made in 1989, so Jason has to be at least six or seven years older than the Girl Who Lives.

I know all this is beside the point with this sort of film but I couldn't help being distracted by it. Here you have one of the most interesting film franchises around with one of the richest subtexts and apparently monkeys are at the controls. There's not much about this film that could have been conceived by an intelligent, creative person. Too bad we'll never get to see what a person like that would have done with the franchise. Instead were stuck with a vision of New York that posits the ridiculous notion that the sewers are pumped full of toxic sludge every night (how our beloved killer meets his ignominious end). A sad way for someone so interesting to go out. Oh well, I suppose I haven't seen that Jason in space movie yet so I might have greater disappointment in my future.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PT. 7: THE NEW BLOOD – john carl beuchler – 4.5 / 10

So apparently nobody bothered to get Jason’s body out of the lake after Part 6. Great idea. I’m sure nothing bad could possibly happen from leaving the most vicious mass murderer of all time chained to a rock and floating a foot or two from the surface of Crystal Lake (oh and by the way, it’s called Crystal Lake again). And how is it that the filmmakers choose to have Jason brought back from the (half) dead? Telekinesis, of course.

Okay, so the setup is hokey and makes pretty much no sense, it is an interesting choice on a subtextual level. Telekinesis, a power that typically only manifests itself in young women (at least the young women of Brian DePalma films anyway) seems to have some connection to sexual awakening. And since Jason is a sexually stunted man who murders people in what basically amounts to rape (repeatedly penetrating women with pointed objects), it’s quite appropriate that he is brought back by a force that draws its power from burgeoning sexuality. Unfortunately, as depicted in this film, telekinesis is simultaneously pretty lame and pretty ineffectual.

But that’s not really the problem with the film. No, the real problem is the plot and the fact that there is an attempt at one. People come to Camp Crystal Lake to try and get laid and be cool, Jason kills them all except for one, the end. That’s the plot of a Friday the 13th. But no, this film has to add some mother-daughter issues and a sleazy psychiatrist who is trying to profit from his charge’s gift on top of the trying to get laid and look cool stuff. There’s just too much going on. And I don’t know if it’s fact that the filmmakers are trying to do too much that lead them to make the other characters (aside from the Girl Who Lives and her boyfriend) such tools, but man did I want to see some of these people die.

Although, come to think of it, wanting desperately to see people killed does put the viewer in a very strange place. While not exactly identifying with the killer, it makes the scary scenes far less so, if you don’t care about the survival of the victim. I don’t know, all this Friday the 13th has sort of inured me to the scary scenes in these films. Not because they are repetitive (although they are to some extent) but because no one ever survives (except, of course, the Girl Who Lives). If Jason comes after you, you die. It’s just a question of when and how horribly. So it seems a little silly to be concerned for someone’s safety if you know they ain’t gonna make it. Which, in terms of Part 7, means that when you see Jason going after one of these hateful people (they make fun of the telekinetic girl for going to a shrink, for chrissake) you can enjoy the entire sequence just as you did back in the beginning of the series. Yes, you enjoy the scene in an entirely different way, but it is enjoyment nonetheless. It’s injecting life back into the scary moments of the film and that’s something that seemed all but impossible after the last two sequels.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PT. 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER – joseph zito – 7.0 / 10

Aside from Halloween, this film may be the quintessential eighties horror flick. It has all the elements: great sex scenes, tension filled murders that are sometimes unexpected and sometimes horrifying, it’s loaded with subtext and, since the kid who ends up killing Jason in the end, seems to be headed for a career as a special effects maestro, it’s even a little bit meta. The only thing that grates about the film is the terrible music that for some reason continues to be used. Nothing about Part 1 has been carried over to the sequels (the killer’s different, the people being killed are different, etc.) except for the terrible theme. Harry Manfredini, the creator of that terrible theme, is also the only crew-member that has remained throughout the series. Whether this is because they are just recycling the music from the first film for all of the sequels I do not know. Whatever the reason, I just can’t understand why anyone would choose to keep using this terrible music

Also, a minor concern I suppose, but when did Jason get superpowers? In the previous two films (he wasn’t in the first one), he’s just a regular fucked up psycho but here he suddenly has the power to throw people through walls and bust down doors with this hands. Although his previous incarnations were a little stronger than your average human, his exploits were still more believable than the shotgun blast to the chest induced flight across the room of most action films. Now, however, and without explanation, he has powers. I suppose he needed to have superpowers to survive the axe to the head that ended the third film, however, I think an explanation as to the origin of these powers is needed or, barring that, it would be nice for someone to at least comment on the fact that he seems to have superpowers.

Still and all, this is a very good, maybe the best, entry in the series. It’s got a lot to chew on after the killings are done. The one that’s still working its way around in my brain is what’s going on the final scene where Tommy, after crippling Jason, sees his hand twitch and so proceeds to beat his head until it’s turned to liquid. On seeing the next film, I suppose one might think that it was meant to leave the door open for Tommy to become the new Jason. But from the production values and the subtitle, I really think this was intended to be the last Friday the 13th. So would they really plant the seed for a sequel in what was supposed to be the last film in the series? I doubt it. So what’s going on there? Why does Tommy only really beat on Jason after the heat of the moment has passed? I guess it says something about the nature and power of violence and the addictive rush it can give the person committing it. I think it also might say something about the nature of people in these movies in general. Nobody seems to be in this film for any other purpose than to kill or be killed. And since Tommy isn’t going to be the latter he must embrace the former, there’s no middle ground in Friday the 13th.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME – j. lee thompson – 6.7 / 10

This cheapie Canadian tax shelter flick is pretty much a perfect example of an 80’s slasher flick. It’s not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it has a lot more going for it than most of the cheapie horror films that piggybacked on the success of Friday the 13th.

Viewed at this late date (the film was made in 1981), Happy Birthday to Me looks like an instruction manual for the many slasher films that would follow in the next two decades. The film is set at a prestigious boarding school (as later films like Urban Legend and Cry Wolf would be). It centers around the most popular kids in school as they drink and carouse and get picked off one by one (as in I Know What You Did Last Summer or Graduation Day). Its protagonist has a horrible event in her past that she’s trying to outrun but that has implications for the murders currently being committed (just like Scream and The Fog and Boogeyman and Jeeper Creepers). And finally, the end is one twist after another as more and more information is revealed (just like any self-respecting horror flick ever made).

Since the slasher genre doesn’t get much attention in film history textbooks and in college classrooms, I don’t have quite as good a handle on the history of the genre as I do on, say, the detective film or the western. So I don’t know if Happy Birthday to Me was a big deal when it came out and therefore can’t say for certain that this film was hugely influential. But judging by the films of its ilk that have come after it, either Happy Birthday to Me was the prototype for a great many films or else it just happened to touch on all the things the genre would eventually embrace. Either way, it’s a remarkable achievement for a film whose only real reason for being made was to give some doctor or lawyer a tax write off.

HOSTEL - eli roth - 4.1 / 10

As far as I can tell, the point of this film is to see how much you, the viewer, can stomach. There's nothing in its artfully disturbed head besides a desire to maim and torture. So much so that during the film's climactic escape from the house of horrors there are numerous scenes of horrible violence for no apparent reason (two men get their heads bashed in by hungry looking children, a Japanese woman throws herself in front of a train). These moments do not advance the plot and are not necessary from any sort of story perspective. (Notice that I've left out the final murder in a Prague bathroom which is somewhat justifiable.) They are bloodletting for the sake of bloodletting.

So the question becomes, what the hell is the point of this sadism and why are people interested in watching it? These days the vogue in horror / thrillers is to set the action in medieval looking dungeons with years of blood and grim soaked into the artfully photographed cracks in the floor. Various tools of torture (all artfully rusted and squeaking of course) are strewn about the room. And there's always some sort of half human hunchback waiting in the wings to clean up the mess when the sadist torturers have completed their work. I guess the thinking is that we are no longer scared of death itself, that what we really fear is a gruesome and prolonged death. And so these films (Saw, Wolf Creek, etc.) give us the bloody torture before the eventual murder. There's nothing wrong with that approach in and of itself (except perhaps for what it says about a society hungry to eat up this sort of uber violence) but what is often lost, as it is in this film, is any pretense of scaring the audience. There's no build-up of tension and no question of what's going to happen. It's just a waiting game for scenes of torture.

There's also the issue of the gross misuse of music in Hostel. Throughout the beginning of the film, in which there's nothing much horrible happening, the music is used to give a sense of foreboding when none would otherwise exist. I suppose that's somewhat necessary because of the complete lack of anything interesting happening but the way in which it's overused is just grating. There's no need to have a huge build with violins screeching away as the train pulls into the station. It's distracting and annoying and completely unjustified.