Sunday, March 29, 2015

It Follows


A car in the middle of a dark forest

Released:  March 27th, 2015
Rated:  R
Distributor:  RADiUS-TWC
Starring:  Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe
Directed by:  David Robert Mitchell
Written by:  David Robert Mitchell
Personal Bias Alert:  likes smaller movies, likes Keir Gilchrist from his time on United States of Tara

8 of 10





            There’s a sad moment in It Follows when, out of desperation, a young woman strips down to her underwear and wades out to a boat full of men.  She knows what will come of her entrance, and she takes no pleasure in the act.  Contrast that with a moment from the beginning of the film where the same young woman is ogled by two neighborhood boys while swimming in her backyard.  She calls them out but is amused by their attention, a decidedly cavalier reaction to her sexuality.  Most women will understand both situations.  Sometimes the sexuality men constantly see in us is buoying to our ego, while other times it’s annoyingly deflating.  There are other things to us, but since It Follows wants to focus its horror on sexuality, at least it’s honest enough to capture the whole spectrum.

            The young woman’s name is Jay (Maika Monroe), and she’s cursed with a sexually transmitted presence that follows you until it either kills you or you pass it on to someone else.  Neither is a good option, but on the plus side, she’s got an excellent group of friends to help her survive until she decides. 

            Now, I don’t want anyone checking out because of the familiar and hokey-sounding premise.  Writer/director David Robert Mitchell has made this film into a nugget of pure creepiness, one that seeps into your shoulders and spine until you can’t seem to shake it.  Full disclosure:  I had a lot of trouble sleeping the night after I saw this.  That surprised me, especially since I wouldn’t say that this film is particularly scary.  There aren’t any moments that will make you jump out of your seat or make your heart pound.  What it does is unnerve you, get your guard up, make you think there’s always something coming for you that’s just out of sight.  How are you supposed to sleep like that?

            Mitchell uses some tried and true methods to achieve this feel, pulling techniques from old-school, methodical horror films.  The soundtrack is loud and cold, relying heavily on electronic pulses to pound fear deep inside you.  It’s the opposite of lovely, and while I can’t imagine anyone sitting around listening to it, it’s perfect for this film.  The other prominent technique at work here is Mitchell’s choice to shoot the film with wide shots that leave gaping areas of background surrounding the characters.  From anywhere, it seems, the presence could appear, moving ever towards Jay, quietly tracking her down.  Your eye is constantly drawn to the areas surrounding the characters, dreading any movement.

            Mitchell is a bit lax with the writing, clearly favoring mood over consistency.  The characters do some dumb things, several times falling prey to the inexplicable ‘can’t stand up’ fallacy where the characters crawl on hands and knees instead of getting the hell up.  Worse yet, the rules around how the presence works doesn’t exactly make sense, as it always appears and disappears at exactly the right moments and rarely does the things it allegedly can do to get closer to Jay.  Luckily, these narrative shortcomings are overpowered by the suffocating tension, because who really cares if something makes complete sense when all you want to do is get the hell away from it.

            I would be remiss if I didn’t put in a good word for Monroe’s central performance as the ever-tightening bundle of nerves that is Jay and Keir Gilchrist as her longing and loving friend.  None of the actors have all that much to do, but Monroe and Gilchrist get to play with a bit more meat, and their relationship is probably the only thing in this film that could be considered sweet.

            With such great care being shown to a creepy premise, it’s no wonder that It Follows has become a hit with movie fans.  How it will play for a wider audience, particularly for those who’re used to the screeching level that most modern horror films operate at remains to be seen.  What is clear is that if you’re into whiling away the night huddled under your covers, staring out into the darkness, then this is the film for you.

Other Notes:
Ø  It’s not reliant on jump scares!
Ø  Yes, it’s a metaphor for STDs, but I don’t think it really wants to be about anything deep.
Ø  Something moving slowly towards you is just creepy.  It will always be creepy.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Rosemary's Baby


Rosemarys baby poster.jpg

Released:  June 12th, 1968
Rated:  R
Distributor:  Paramount Pictures
Starring:  Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Angela Dorian
Directed by:  Roman Polanski
Written by:  Roman Polanski
Personal Bias Alert:  hyperaware of sexism, likes chillers over straight horror

7 of 10





            1968’s Rosemary’s Baby is the classic tale of a woman who’s raped either by her husband or the devil.  Okay, so it’s not a very common story, but it is rooted in common anxieties about marriage and child-rearing as Rosemary (Mia Farrow) becomes pregnant after the encounter.  Whether the baby will be man or beast eats at Rosemary, who’s nagging suspicion about her future child is on par with the uneasy feeling Eva has about her son in We Need to Talk About Kevin.  These are real, age-old anxieties that have proven ripe feeding grounds for horror, especially for slow-burn thrillers like Rosemary’s Baby, as pregnancy involves a long gestation period where the woman can never escape the thing growing in her stomach.

            It’s charming how modern horror tropes can be seen even in this nearly 50-year-old piece, as the setup is all about the unexplained oddities in Rosemary and her husband Guy’s (John Cassavetes) new apartment and an ominous warning about the building from an older friend.  If the couple were heading to a cabin in the woods instead of a new apartment, then the setup would fit right in with modern slasher films, complete with an early and unnecessary jump scare.  However, there are stark differences once the film takes off, as the pacing of movies have changed quite significantly since the film’s release.  Things moved a bit slower in the ‘60s, and it was already intended to be a deliberate pot brewer.  That writer/director Roman Polanski’s adaption is notoriously faithful to the book doesn’t help the pacing, either.  A lot of padding has been left in this film, and the feverish quality it’s going for would be helped by a leaner script.

            Polanski does about everything else right, though, turning what sounds like a low-brow concept into what some consider a horror masterpiece.  In sticking close to the novel, he paid meticulous attention to the wardrobe and settings, giving Cassavetes, Farrow, and the camera much to work with in his version of New York City’s dark underbelly.  These rich surroundings allowed Polanski to play with the camerawork, often filming long sequences in one shot and once putting his life (and Farrow’s) in real danger by walking into NYC traffic.  This is all subtle work, something you don’t have to notice to appreciate the movie, but the steady tension this filming style adds is essential to making the whole thing work.

            Farrow is the other lynchpin to this film’s success, as she appears in nearly every scene and must single-handedly portray the sense of horror growing in her gut.  She handles the arc well and never overplays her anxieties about her odd neighbors, her husband’s distance, or her doctor’s dismissive care.  She goes big when she must, but mostly she plays her character as a simmering pot that’s moving ever closer to boiling over.  It’s a fine performance, and it’s no wonder it spring boarded her acting career (who needs Frank Sinatra, anyway?).

            As a relatively young, modern audience member, I can’t help noting things that I assume are more indicative of late ‘60s cinema than of this particular film.  There’s far more nudity than I expected, but it was approved by the MPAA upon its release (the film predates the ratings system by a few months), so it must not have been too risqué for the time.  What was actually distressing and, admittedly, is something that inordinately bothers me, is the prevalent thread of sexism that runs through the piece.  Obviously, Rosemary doesn’t have a job and never discusses getting one, despite her husband being a sporadically employed actor.  She’s also loudly criticized for cutting her hair short, with two men saying to her face how ugly the style.  But the nail on this annoying coffin is when her doctor tells her not to read books.  While this makes sense in the plot, the justification he gives is downright ludicrous, making it seem that women will believe anything they read and jump to hysterics if they fill their brain with information.  It’s laughably offensive how this exchange plays out, and the fact that Rosemary acts like it’s a perfectly acceptable conversation to have is just deflating.

            While I complain about them, these sorts of things are forgivable, as a film shouldn’t be dismissed simply because the culture around it has changed.  It’s the film’s length that is a real drawback, allowing the middle section to linger on so long that momentum is partially lost.  Its positives, though, make it easy to see why Rosemary’s Baby is held in such high regard.  It’s meticulously well-crafted, and Farrow gives a star-making turn that rightly went down in horror history.

Other Notes:
Ø  One of my favorite things about this film is that it doesn’t try to be scary but instead wants to be truly horrifying.
Ø  Is it supposed to be a bit ambiguous about if it’s all in her head or not?  It seemed pretty obvious to me.
Ø  If something smells bad, there’s no way I’d wear it around my neck.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Insurgent


Insurgent poster.jpg

Released:  March 20th, 2015
Rated:  PG-13
Distributor:  Lionsgate
Starring:  Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet
Directed by:  Robert Schwentke
Written by:  Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman, Mark Bomback
Personal Bias Alert:  liked its predecessor, read the book

5.3 of 10



            In defense of this film, I would like to point out that its source material isn’t that great.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading Divergent, even if it was a familiar and ham-fisted plot.  That’s why reading Insurgent was such a letdown, as the few interesting ideas that were present in the previous installment were dropped and the book became a chore to read.  The simple fact is that its author, Veronica Roth, struggles with plotting, character, and emotional description, leaving you with some thoroughly pedestrian writing.  That this series came after the popular and very well-written Hunger Games only accentuates its downfalls, so it comes as no surprise to me that the movie series takes a similar step back in its second outing.

            Insurgent picks up mere days after the events of Divergent, with heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley), boyfriend Four (Theo James), Brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort), and fickle alliance member Peter (Miles Teller) hiding out from the Erudite-Dauntless members who are trying to overthrow their society.  Remember, their dystopian society is based on splitting everyone up into different factions based on personality, making divergents like Tris and Four, who exhibit traits from several factions, extremely dangerous.  That last fact can mostly be forgotten, though, as Insurgent focuses more on Tris and Four’s attempt to take down the mastermind of the Erudite-Dauntless alliance, Jeanine (Kate Winslet), than any major attempts to root out divergents.

            One of the major downfalls that the Insurgent film is forced to carry over from the book is the overwhelming amount of plot.  In fact, the second book ends where most series would end, cramming what should have been two books into one so it can go off to who knows where in its third outing (which I haven’t read).  Pretty much everything else is sacrificed, most notably any hint of world building even as it introduces the audience to new factions within this society.  Without any examination, each new place feels so cookie-cutter thin that the system makes even less sense here than in the first film, and too often explosion-heavy dialogue is leaned on so it all makes sense.

            This was adapted by a trio of writers (which is rarely a good sign), none of whom have stellar track records (an even worse sign).  As I’ve said, they were given rough source material to work with, and even if they failed in certain areas, they did reconfigure the plot into a streamlined, quick-paced action story.  This, along with the brisk score, is the saving grace of the film, as any faults are quickly forgotten as you try to keep up with all the new developments.  Revelations and twists are being thrown at you constantly, and even though it’s frustrating that they aren’t being explored, Insurgent is a thoroughly entertaining ride while you’re on it.

            The Divergent series is rightly accused of being derivative of other YA series, but the film series does face one unique challenge:  almost every actor has a robust career outside the series.  Winslet, Naomi Watts, and Octavia Spencer have all been part of many financially and critically successful films over the past decade, and much of the younger cast have found similar balance in their careers since Divergent’s release.  Winslet, Teller, and Jai Courtney were so busy they were actually filming other movies at the same time as Insurgent, and perhaps it’s the combination of everyone’s busy schedules and the lackluster material that led to the uninspired performances that permeate this film.  Everyone seems only mildly focused, more spitting out the lines than imbuing them with any meaning.  The biggest letdown that stems from this is the complete disintegration of Tris and Four’s relationship, which Woodley and James pulled off quite nicely in the first film but feels entirely wooden here.

             There’s advantages and disadvantages to a dense plot, and most of them can be found in Insurgent.  While it barrels right along at a pleasing pace, it isn’t very engaging from an emotional standpoint, leaving the film entertainingly shallow.  You likely won’t hate it while you’re watching it, but you’ll also probably forget it as soon as the lights come up.

Other Notes:
Ø  The action is a bit underwhelming, with lots of running and gun fighting that is off-puttingly shot, and there’s nothing anywhere near as visually interesting as the fear simulations from Divergent.
Ø  Random Janet McTeer!
Ø  This is the first film I saw in Carmike’s ‘Big D’ format, which features a larger screen, bigger sound, and nicer seats.  The seats were comfy, but the larger screen made shots seem vaguely blurry and the sound was far too loud.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Enemy


Enemy poster.jpg

Released:  February 6th, 2014
Rated:  R
Distributor:  A24
Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini
Directed by:  Denis Villeneuve
Written by:  Javier Gullón
Personal Bias Alert:  expected it to be difficult to understand, doesn’t like spiders

3.8 of 10






            The problem with mysteries like the one Enemy plays with is that you have to drop the right amount of bread crumbs as you tell the story.  If you leave too much, you give the answer away, but if you leave too few, the ending won’t make sense.  To complicate matters more, everyone’s ‘right amount’ will be different depending on their knowledge of things like cultural references and genre conventions.  I know this isn’t a new observation to anyone, and you might be rolling your eyes at me thinking that I’m about to go on some long-winded explanation of a very basic concept.  Well, that eye-rolling state is exactly what I was in while watching Enemy, because it left far too many bread crumbs as it told its story.

            A brief explanation of the plot is best as the film does try to be mysterious about its narrative.  Suffice it to say that Jake Gyllenhaal plays two men who look exactly alike, and the reason for this is the enigma the film ponderously unravels.  You never get a ‘Hallelujah, the explanation is this’ moment.  Instead, it wants you to think about its intentions, its meanings, and its odd spider metaphor.  Seriously, spiders real and imagined pop up several times in this film, and it’s as heavy-handed and simplistic a metaphor as most everything in this movie.

            Writer Javier Gullón really put all his eggs into the mystery basket with this script, choosing not to expand on characters or themes beyond what was absolutely necessary.  The film expects you to be incredibly interested in figuring out who the two men are in relation to each other, apparently not realizing that some of us would figure out the basics of what’s happening pretty early on and not care too much about the details.  That’s the boat I was in, even pinpointing what I still think was the major theme of the film in the first 30 or so minutes, being left to slog through the next hour plus without getting much for it.  Frankly, a character finding their double isn’t unique; the 2013 film The Double (in which the character aptly finds his double) is based on a novella of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which also happens to be the name of the José Saramago novel this film is based on.  What that other film and I’m guessing the two novelists understood was that this setup isn’t enough on its own to be interesting, and more must be done with it.  Enemy doesn’t share this insight, so it does little besides set up the scenario and watch it playout.

            The fault of the mystery being so obvious lies with director Denis Villeneuve, as much of the tipoffs about what’s really going on stems from how the material was presented.  There’s a sort of double warning at the beginning of the film that the material may be difficult to discern:  first we get a title card talking about there being order in chaos, then we get a heightened, almost dreamlike opening sequence that’s wordless but chock full of metaphors that slap you in the face with the message ‘you don’t understand what I mean yet, but I’m important!’  Either one by itself would get a thinking man’s moviegoer alert and watchful.  Together, they just get your head churning on overdrive.  Villeneuve proceeds to shoot the first half using such carefully constructed shots that it’s hard to miss what he’s hinting at.  Perhaps if he hadn’t gotten the audience so engaged or if he had hidden his meanings better then the film could’ve been more enigmatic.  As is, it’s just obvious.

            At least if you become unengaged you can sit back and watch Jake Gyllenhaal craft two distinctly different characters.  Costumes do help distinguish them, but their gate is what really sets them apart:  one a bit plodding and hunched while the other moves with purpose and confidence.  It’s not anything too big, which makes the time spent examining it rewarding.

            If you don’t come up with a plausible narrative explanation quickly, then this film might maintain your interest purely to figure out what the hell is going on.  Many people seem to be fascinated by this, but others, like myself, sniff out a shallow meaning underneath all the weirdness, which makes it wholly uninteresting.

Other Notes:
Ø  I enjoyed the waxing and waning presence of the score.
Ø  Random Isabella Rossellini!
Ø  I watched Chris Stuckmann’s explanation of the movie thinking I might’ve missed something.  Unfortunately, all it revealed to me was a better explanation of the spider metaphor, which didn’t get too far away from my own and certainly didn’t add anything to my appreciation of the film.  Here’s the link to Chris’s breakdown:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9AWkqRwd1I

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Cinderella


Cinderella 2015 official poster.jpg

Released:  March 13th, 2015
Rated:  PG
Distributor:  Walt Disney Studios
Starring:  Lily James, Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett, Stellan Skarsgård, Holliday Grainger, Derek Jacobi, Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by:  Kenneth Branagh
Written by:  Chris Weitz
Personal Bias Alert:  was never into the older Disney princesses, likes most of the cast

7.9 of 10





            It seems that no one (including myself) was very optimistic about this live-action adaptation.  There were valid reasons for this:  a thin story, a shaky director, and a perfectly good preexisting version, to name a few.  I think lots of reviewers plodded into this one pretty unhappy at the prospect of sitting through it, which makes it even more remarkable that it was able to melt nearly every one of our hearts.

            This Cinderella is a faithful adaptation of Disney’s 1950 animated version, sans music, but with all the heart and a delightfully sweet soul.  In case you get your Disney princesses confused like I do, this is the one that does forced labor for her wicked stepmother and gets sent to a ball by her fairy godmother wearing some very fetching glass slippers.  Cinderella in that film is a wet blanket who seemingly never makes a decision for herself and ends up getting rescued because she’s so darn beautiful in that ball gown.  The gender politics were troublesome even by 1950s standards, and this was one of the big things that needed to be fixed if the film was going to be accepted by modern audiences.  But that’s easier said than done, because a strong version of Cinderella would probably just flip the bird and walk out the door as soon as her stepmother stuck her in that kitchen.  Screenwriter Chris Weitz comes up with some nice excuses for her to stay, so even though she’s still not playing a terribly active role in her life, you don’t ever feel like walking onscreen and pushing her out of that house.

            Lily James of Downton Abbey fame portrays the classic character and nails the gentle soul that makes you fall squarely on her side.  Her role, like everyone else’s, isn’t particularly deep, but it’s a tightrope walk between sweet and saccharine, making the difficulty level easy to overlook.  Richard Madden (Robb Stark from Game of Thrones) manages to navigate the tightrope along with her as the Prince, and he has to pull off some pretty awkward pants while doing it.  That these two do everything right, especially getting that their romance can’t have an ounce of sexuality, helped keep the whole film in the kind of magical romance that’s kept Cinderella selling for all these years.

            The rest of the actors prance through the scenes, getting to play their one-note characters with verve.  None of them go so far as to stick out, but director Kenneth Branagh didn’t get them all to land on a consistent level of campy fun.  What Branagh does bring to the mix is a lush eye for art direction, which makes the whole fairytale world pop.  How he managed to make this world so enhanced from our own, with bright colors, big dresses, and vigorous plants populating the screen without it seeming like overkill is almost magical.  And that ball gown.  Watching Cinderella dance in that gown is a special moment, even for those of us who don’t normally care about such things.

            This version is significantly longer at 112 minutes than the animated feature, and even with these additions the story still feels very light.  They largely succeed at making that seem charming, but the first few scenes of setup are noticeably clunky before it settles into its frothy flow.  Like all of this film’s flaws, its quickly forgotten and is more a fault of the preexisting story than this film’s execution.  The reality is that any adaptation of this story is going to have its drawbacks, and it’s hard to imagine anyone getting it more right than Branagh and company did here.

Other Notes:
Ø  This film gets big props for not being overly cutesy. 
Ø  Some of the special effects are lacking and look a bit rubbery.  None of it is too bad until the very last shot, which is dreadful.
Ø  Why does Cinderella have every kind of mother except her actual mother?

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The English Patient


The English Patient Poster.jpg

Released:  December 6th, 1996
Rated:  R
Distributor:  Miramax
Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth
Directed by:  Anthony Minghella
Written by:  Anthony Minghella
Personal Bias Alert:  not a big romance fan, haven’t read the book

6.5 of 10





            There’s little wonder why Miramax picked up The English Patient when it became available just before filming began.  Founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein know how to set themselves up for success come awards season, and a big, sweeping romance with World War II as a backdrop practically screamed ‘90s Oscar gold.  Epics were in (Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, and Braveheart took home Best Picture in the preceding years), and romances would win the next two years (Titanic and Miramax’s Shakespeare in Love).  Upping the prestige factor is the book it’s based on, which won the Booker Prize and was considered un-filmable by some.  So when an adaptation with an adequate story and gorgeous visuals rolled into theaters in late 1996, it must’ve seemed irresistible to the Academy.

            Yes, The English Patient walked away with Best Picture at the 69th Academy Awards, along with eight other categories that night, but time hasn’t been kind to this film’s legacy.  Time wasn’t kind to its characters, either, as many spend the film breaking down inside an already crumbling monastery.  Nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) has taken refuge there to care for an unknown dying burn patient (Ralph Fiennes).  A series of tragedies have left her convinced that anyone she cares about will be killed, so isolation with her amnesiac ward seems like the safest option.  Soon other military personnel join her, including a Canadian operative named Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) and a bomb defuser (Naveed Andrews).  Each have been ravaged in their own way by the war and have come to the monastery looking for refuge, which most of them find through new or remembered love.

            The lynchpin for this entire plot is the amnesiac burn patient, who’s slowly unwinding memory proves influential on all their lives.  It’s also this period, told in flashback, that gives the film much of its padding.  It focuses on the over told story of a middle-aged obsessive, someone who’s too single-minded to be very empathetic, which then falls back on melodrama to make us care.  Much could and should have been cut from this section, as these long breaks from the much richer goings-on at the monastery becomes frustrating.

            The novel (which I haven’t read) is allegedly a strong piece, perhaps too strong to fit in a film.  Evaluating it strictly as a film, it felt like writer/director Anthony Minghella focused in on the wrong aspects of the story.  By playing up the romance, there was less time to flesh out the numerous subtleties that seemed to be lurking just underneath the relationships, giving the entire film an air of grandiosity.  The actors did their best to bring these subtleties out, but since the least interesting relationship is the main focus, most simply didn’t have the screen time to make a smooth character arc.  Also, this is a story that easily should’ve been an hour shorter, but a character sits on information that he has no reason to sit on.

            While its epic length may not be deserved, the film certainly delivers an epic scope.  Deserts, minefields, and Italian rubble are all beautifully captured in wide, lush shots that show off a generous budget for a prestige film.  Cinematographer John Seale, whose work you’ll be able to see in the upcoming Mad Max:  Fury Road, shows a good eye for framing, allowing small things to linger in the background or gradually move into view.  So while you’re wading through this slow film, at least there’s something pretty to look at.

            In the end, the various relationships do deliver in a grand, sweeping way that gives The English Patient an old-school, momentous feel.  That’s doesn’t entirely make up for how long it takes to get there, but you won’t leave feeling short-changed.

Other Notes:
Ø  They’re all struggling to find their way in the world, making maps to cover their confusion.
Ø  This is the first digitally edited film to win an Oscar for Best Editing.
Ø  “Yes is a comfort.  Absolutely is not.”
Ø  This doesn’t hold a candle to 1996’s excellent Trainspotting.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Chappie


Chappie poster.jpg

Released:  March 6th, 2015
Rated:  R
Distributor:  Columbia Pictures
Starring:  Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja, Yolandi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Jackman
Directed by:  Neill Blomkamp
Written by:  Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Personal Bias Alert:  likes allegorical sci-fi, not seen anything by Blomkamp

4.9 of 10





            The frustrating thing about Chappie is how much it does right.  The positives aren’t hidden, and they’re easy to appreciate.  But they’re surrounded by flaws both big and small, so that even when you’re reveling in Chappie’s good choices, you have to push aside its distracting mistakes.

            This is the third feature film from writer/director Neill Blomkamp, all of which are the sort of heavily allegorical sci-fi pieces where you understand the allegory from just the plot summary.  Chappie is about the definition of consciousness and life, played out through the struggle of the world’s first sentient robot.  Nicknamed Chappie, he was one of the robotic police officers used in Johannesburg that had been damaged and scrapped, only to be stolen by developer Deon (Dev Patel) for a trial run of his A.I. side project.  Chappie is then stolen from Deon (that’s karma) by a group of thugs, who raise him as one of their own.

            This period, where Chappie is learning about the world, is where the movie shines.  Chappie looks astounding thanks to the work of animators at Image Engine and Weta Workshop as well as the performance by Sharlto Copley.  There was no motion capture involved, but Copley performed the part on set and lent his voice to the final cut, giving the animators detailed body movements and emotional cues to work from.  Chappie, along with last year’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, are the only films to feature CGI characters that actually look like they’re in the same frame as everything around them, and that feat still leaves me floored.  The design of the character is just as important to this feat as the animation, and again Chappie draws top marks.  Drawing heavily from previous robot creations like the droids from the Star Wars prequels, the designers added small touches like emotive, ear-like antennae that bring much needed depth of emotion to the robotic character.

             Thanks to Chappie’s beautiful rendering, it’s easy for the audience to form an emotional bond to the child-like robot.  Yes, he’s big and tough, but he’s also naïve and lost, struggling to find his way in this brave new world.  The amount of compassion this engenders might catch you off guard, especially in a scene where he’s abused by a rival developer played by Hugh Jackman.  Establishing this connection goes a long way towards making the rest of the film work, especially after the film trades in these emotional beats in favor of big, violent action.

            The distracting mistakes of Chappie mostly stems from its writing, which fails to deliver rounded characters, a plausible plot, and any sort of idea about the themes and allegories its playing with.  Pretty much everything but Chappie himself is a farce, as other characters are too extreme to be taken seriously and plot points are shoved in to move the story forward without any regard to reality.  Not helping things is the fact that two non-actors were cast in main roles, Ninja and Yolandi Visser of the band Die Antwoord, who seem to be playing their stage personas and lack the ability to convey complicated emotions.  However, it’s the horribly overdone performance by Hugh Jackman that stands out as the worst.  Granted, his character was the most poorly written, but I don’t know how anyone watched his flailing performance in the climactic battle and didn’t call for a reshoot.

            A story about the first artificially intelligent machine naturally brings up questions of consciousness and existence, and it’s astoundingly disappointing how much these are glossed over in Chappie.  Instead of any actually debate about the answers to these questions, the movie simply chooses one path to go down and never looks back, if it even stops to examine the question at all.  There’s a point where the plot stumbles right into the scenario posited in the Swampman thought experiment, but I’m going to assume that the writers had never heard of it considering that the question it raises is never even acknowledged.  I, however, had this and many other questions gnawing at the back of my brain the entire time, which made the plot really hard to swallow.

            And yet, as frustrating as all these faults are, Chappie comes very close to working.  Blomkamp knows how to film action sequences, and Chappie himself is so endearing that you remain emotionally invested even when the plot does spin out of control.  That you care so much about the robocop is a feat, but most everything else is just a mess.

Other Notes:
Ø  One character is subtitled.  I think it’s because he was speaking broken English with a thick accent (it’s possible it was a different language), but either way, it stuck out like a ridiculous sore thumb.
Ø  This is the kind of movie where the big, indestructible robot continuously gets distracted by guys with little guns that aren’t doing any damage to him.
Ø  It’s like they tried to make an intellectual film, but forgot to put in the intellect.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men


Brief interviews poster.jpg

Released:  January 19th, 2009
Rated:  Unrated
Distributor:  IFC Films
Starring:  Julianne Nicholson, Timothy Hutton, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Dominic Cooper
Directed by:  John Krasinski
Written by:  John Krasinski
Personal Bias Alert:  haven’t read any David Foster Wallace, likes batting around ideas

7 of 10





            Some movies have a certain rhythm that, when starting the film, makes you feel like you’re jumping on a slow-moving train.  You know that it will continue to chug along, never gaining too much speed nor grinding to a halt, giving you a comforting sense of consistency.  There’s an awareness that you can jump off whenever you want, and although nothing particularly riveting is happening, you stay along for the ride.  That’s what watching Brief Interviews with Hideous Men feels like; it’s brisk and pleasant, never overly impressing you, but never giving you a reason to turn away.

            As an adaptation, Brief Interviews comes with some particularly difficult obstacles to overcome.  First off, it’s based on a collection of short stories instead of a complete novel, so a through line following a female interviewer had to be created to give the stories some overarching structure.  Second, the stories were written by David Foster Wallace, an author known as much for the quality of his writing as the density of it.  Several studios have optioned Wallace’s work only to have the projects fall apart when the screenwriters get lost trying to distill the piece.  This is, in fact, the only adaptation to make it to audiences, brought to us by The Office star John Krasinski.  Considering he had never written nor directed before, he will undoubtedly seem like one of the last people capable of pulling the feat off.  His inexperience shows, but so does his enthusiasm and love for the material, and it’s this energy that carries you through the ups and downs of the piece.

            Krasinski does have a small role, but the lead belongs to the purposefully enigmatic Julianne Nicholson.  She plays the created character, the interviewer of the hideous men, gathering their monologues for some sort of psychological or philosophical research.  She says little, her face remaining placid throughout each interaction.  You come to realize that this isn’t a facade for her research but her natural state, and the reasons for her questions may be more personal than she lets on.  Nicholson does a remarkable job of giving the audience just enough to suss out her character’s thoughts, often using only a slight adjustment of her face to convey how many wheels are turning in her head.

            The cast of hideous men is filled with TV actors that presumably are friendly with Krasinski.  They breeze on and do their small roles, often having been matched to characters that fit comfortably in their wheelhouse.  Wallace’s words here are the real stars, conveying male embarrassment and the occasional challenging hypothesis with humor.  It does, at times, cross the line into grandiose self-importance, but for each slip there’s a new and delightful story nipping at its heels.  By the end, the men’s stories are sliding in and out of each other, forming into the interviewer’s hideously twisted perception of men until it ends with her quietly observing the culmination of her findings:  the most hideous man of all.

            For the most part, Brief Interviews is a bare-bones production, with basic (and cheap) sets, costumes, and music.  The one flourish is the camerawork, which initially seems out of place until you realize how much its working with the script to simulate the interworkings of the interviewer’s mind.  It’s small things at first, like seeing the men’s stories play out around them, through which we see how she imagines their roles in them.  By the end of the movie, reality becomes even more lost as she imagines them telling the same manipulative stories over and over again, or, in a riveting sequence, we see a series of intercut conversations that escalate in emotion and honesty, forming into a frenzy of ideas that she may or may not accept.

           
The whole enterprise is a tightrope to walk, one which Krasinski and company often fall off of, but what’s exciting is how they always jump right back on, too enthused to realize their failings.

Other Notes:
Ø  The last scene was overwritten.
Ø  I like the chorus section of the two college students talking about what modern women want.
Ø  “I don’t suppose you know where the little wrangler’s room is in this place, do you?”
Ø  That title, though.  That’s a great title.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

The Lazarus Effect


The right side of a woman's face with full black eyeballs with scarring all around that same eye. The words "The Lazarus Effect" are at the bottom right in white, 5 cast members names above the title, and the tagline "Evil Will Rise" at the bottom middle.

Released:  February 27th, 2015
Rated:  PG-13
Distributor:  Relativity Studios
Starring:  Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Sarah Bolger, Evan Peters, Donald Glover
Directed by:  David Gelb
Written by:  Luke Dawson, Jeremy Slater
Personal Bias Alert:  intrigued by the cast, annoyed by misunderstandings of science

4.7 of 10






            It has to be better than Ouija, right?  That was the last major PG-13 horror release that Blumhouse Productions had its hands in, and it tripped on every hurdle that sat in its way.  Certainly the eclectic, high-quality cast of The Lazarus Effect wouldn’t be drawn to something so asinine.  Certainly there will be something interesting about it.  And, true, the movie’s not asinine, and there is something interesting to it.  However, comparing it to Ouija sets the bar so low that even a muddled but interesting failure like The Lazarus Effect is bound to draw praise.

            There are many aspects of this film that deserves faint praise, as its clear that the filmmakers were trying for something a bit more than your average horror film.  It follows a small group of scientists who are developing a serum that restarts the brain.  Originally intended to help doctors resuscitate people, it also jumpstarts the creation of neural pathways in the brain, making the implications and potential widespread use of the serum astronomically profitable.  In a brutally honest moment, the drug company sponsoring their grant points out a violation in their contract and seizes everything.  When the scientists try to replicate their experiments to prove their claim to the drug, it goes horribly wrong, one of them dies, and the rest decide to bring her back to life with the minimally-tested serum.  Now you have a previously dead person whose brain is working on overdrive and, well, the horror stuff writes itself from there.

There are ideas here about death (obviously), but also about ethics in science, religious belief, and guilt, just to name a few.  It’s one of those films where lots of things get thrown into the pot, and while not all of it pays off, at least something is always simmering in the background to keep your brain engaged.  The main odd thing mixed in, which unfortunately has been played up in the ad campaign, is the horror elements.  Most of the film is, in fact, a thriller, as the scientists spend much of the movie trapped in their basement lab with their friend/girlfriend slowly losing it.  The movie’s at its best when it wallows in this tension, letting uncomfortable moments drag out until the audience is left squirming in their seats.  The moments of horror push this feeling too far and, frankly, are not well done.  They didn’t have the budget nor the imagination to come up with great kills, so most are rather anticlimactic.  Thanks to the marketing, most people will go into this expecting horror, and they will leave disappointed.

To be clear, the failure of the horror is due to the director and his team, not Olivia Wilde’s performance as the resuscitated scientist.  She is well-cast here, good at establishing the relationships early on and then turning on her dead face to become a menacing monster.  The rest of the cast, which includes mumblecore king Mark Duplass, comedian/rapper Donald Glover, American Horror Story vet Evan Peters, and seasoned television actress Sarah Bolger, all turn in fine, if unremarkable, performances.

Director David Gelb, best known for his visually striking documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is a textbook example of the kind of director Blumhouse Productions likes to work with.  He’s promising but untested, and by taking a job with Blumhouse, he gets to show off his eye for visuals and get a moneymaker under his belt.  There are some beautifully staged shots in The Lazarus Effect, including a superb imagine of Wilde lying in bed with the sheets tucked tight around her, subtly bringing to mind the wrappings of a mummy.  Add in a tense, possibly psychotic dog standing over her, and you have a moment that drew gasps in the theater.  It’s these small moments that show off Gelb’s eye the best.  The larger moments, which unfortunately suffer the most from the small budget, undermines much of that promise.

The Lazarus Effect is a difficult one to sum up.  It’s not good, but it’s not bad, either.  Perhaps if it had twenty or so more minutes to flesh out some of its ideas and a couple million more dollars to sell the effects, then it wouldn’t be the mild mess that it is.  But when that mess is due to ambition and not incompetence, well, that’s a forgivable offense.

Other Notes:
Ø  This does suffer from a few lackluster jump scares.
Ø  The writers clearly don’t understand how laboratories work.  You would never be allowed to have food in a lab, you wouldn’t be able to order dead dogs without approval from the school, and college facilities are never this nice.
Ø  “Evil will rise” is one of the most half-assed taglines I’ve seen in a while.