As a subcategory of the horror genre, the exorcism film does not have the best reputation. For every The Exorcist, there are a dozen Posessed’s and Beyond the Door’s. Yet, when done well, there is rarely something as profoundly [...]
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
The days of animation resting in the children’s film genre is officially over. Dashing aside all conventions for the “cartoon,” Fernando Trueba’s Chico & Rita transcends its medium with a magically adult and sensual story about relationships, music, culture, and the importance of passion.
The film centers on three characters: Chico (Eman Xor Oña), an aspiring pianist; Rita (Limara Meneses), a singer with an incredible voice; and Havana in the year 1948. When Chico sees Rita performing in a nightclub, he immediately sets his sights on her for his partner in a competition that would bring the musical duo to New York City. Naturally, their partnership extends beyond piano keys and microphones, and their romance must battle the cultural and emotional obstacles characteristic of a classic love story.
Rather than being defined by the art, Chico & Rita’s animation and art style (spearheaded by illustrator Javier Mariscal) supports the story beautifully. The objects and characters seem to float through the sketched Havana without gravity, an effect that lends itself to scenes of dancing and music. Rita in particular is gracefully portrayed, a curvy temptress that floats from foot to foot, her body constantly shifting from one shape to another in a demonstration of extraordinarily illustrated femininity.
Perhaps the most impressive portrayal, however, is that of the city. The drawn images are remarkably detailed and richly colored. Due to the trembling animation style, the buildings appear to shift and shiver in the background, giving the impression that the city is living, breathing, participating.
This surrounding sense of color, movement, and energy goes on to support the generally vibrant tone of the film. The melancholy of the couples’ ballads, following in the bolero tradition, juxtaposes perfectly against the city’s frenetic energy. We can see from the calm elegance of their music that their love is something set apart from the hectic lives that exist in the background. The result is a very carefully painted picture that is balanced and engaging.
That Chico & Rita is a beautiful movie is clear from its opening frames; that it is a good movie is developed through every scene until the very end. While it may not add much to the classic romance formula, it works with the narrative devices that have served so well through history. In the end, it is a wonderful story of desire, both intellectual and physical, and the nature of the world, in which nothing comes easy.
Troma Entertainment has by now established an impressive reputation for heedless gore, nudity, and tackiness in the horror genre, so it is no surprise that when Troma royalty like Trent Haaga makes a film, the expectations are high. Sadly, Haaga’s Chop is a lackluster try at the horror comedy trend that fails both to amuse and terrify.
The film centers on the detestable Lance Reed (Will Keenan), an ex-druggie that is tortured and mangled throughout the film by a stranger (Timothy Muskatell) in a vague revenge plot. Lance, it seems, has committed some heinous crime against the stranger, of which he has no recollection. As the stranger, and the viewer, uncover more of Lance’s distasteful past, the stranger chops off more and more of Lance’s expendable limbs.
Playing Lance, Keenan is an over exaggerated clown channeling Robert Downey, Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, playing panic, fear, love, disappointment, depression, annoyance and all other emotions in neurotic fast talk that lacks the wit to entertain. It is difficult to determine whether it’s Adam Minarovich’s script or Keenan’s acting that makes Lance so utterly difficult to watch. He is objectively despicable with no charm or intrigue to temper it, and no matter how many ways Keenan can move his eyebrows, nothing can make us care even remotely about the character.
Naturally, if we judged every horror film over its unlikable or badly developed central characters, we’d have to throw the whole genre out the window. Perhaps if Chop supplied something decent to support its genre categorization, we would forgive it for Lance. But instead, Chop misses the mark constantly. As a horror film, it is nearly mislabeled: there is no suspense, no pop out scare tactics, and only one scene of laughable gore. As a comedy, the jokes consistently fail to land, often coming off as trying too hard or simply alienating rather than funny.
Perhaps the greatest error of Chop, however, is its resistance to committing itself too fully to one thing. It seems that Haaga and Keenan, both from Troma backgrounds, have failed to learn the lesson taught by Troma films: when it comes to blood and laughs, more is better. If Chop really committed to the absurdity of its concept -– for instance, if the premise of the movie was simply a man who woke up to find himself missing an appendage every time he fell asleep –- there might be more life in this. If the filmmakers embraced the brutality of its subject, and actually showed some of his limbs getting chopped off, maybe the giddy gore would at least elicit an emotion from the audience.
Instead, Chop doesn’t commit to anything, making it hard for the viewer to commit to even watching the film through to its dissatisfying ending. Movie watchers would do well to skip this in favor of the Troma catalogue for a bloody good time instead of a bloody mess.
The greatest critics of the horror genre will make definitive statements about its reliance on formulas and tropes, cliches and repetition, and cheap tricks to garner gasps and shrieks from the audience. While these observations may be true for most of the Blockbuster hits that will spike adrenaline in theaters, this trend has also given birth to a delightful breed of satirical horror masters. Let it be said that Ti West is royalty among them, and his new film, The Innkeepers, does not disappoint.
Set in a retiring hotel, The Innkeepers is a neat horror package. Skeleton crew of the hotel staff, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are self-fashioned ghost hunters, intent on capturing evidence of a haunting in the Yankee Pedlar Inn’s final days. Naturally, rumors of an apparition related to a death on the property forms a classic origin story for the haunting, and the vast open spaces of the near-empty hotel provide a perfect setting for a suspenseful ghost hunt.
Writer/Director West is not an artist to conjure up tales of unique creativity or edgy insight; instead, he works with the existing tropes, cliches, and repetitions to create something acutely smart and cheeky. Gripping the classic haunting film by its edges, he crinkles it up, adds a few lines, and smooths it out again. The result is charming, and impossibly fresh.
This is in no small part due to Claire. Paxton is a child-faced pixie with a petulant attitude. She stomps around the hotel, growling at Luke, flinging her tiny body from one activity to the next like a possessed rag doll. Her comic timing is impeccable, and armed with West’s writing, she is charmingly off type for a horror heroin. Playing against the grumpily aloof Luke, she makes one of the most engaging horror characters ever to grace the screen.
Most of the film consists of following Claire around the hotel as she attempts to contact the ghost and subsequently gets severely “freaked out.” These sequences are full of typical horror scare tricks, with birds flying in faces and clomps and clunks turning out to be harmless tinkering. Yet, the film is not undone by the feeling of phoniness to which these tricks often doom a horror project; instead, they seem like deliberate, playful winks at the audience. Got you, West is saying. And you know he’ll get you next time too.
The Innkeepers is a lot more than a few bumps in the night, however. West’s inclusion of home recording techniques and amateur ghost capturing technology is an obvious satire of the trends in horror toward handicam and low-fi. With each one of these sniggers at modern horror, West supplies a throwback scene, reminiscent of campfire scary stories and 80s haunting films that relied on story and tone to draw chills rather than film student gimmicks. Perhaps the greatest appeal of West’s work is that it is visceral, enjoyable, entertaining, and doesn’t give you the impression of degrading your intelligence. He knows exactly what is going on, and so do you.
Unfortunately, this self awareness tends to remind the watcher that this is just a film, and so it fails to lead to anything truly frightening. The spirit as represented doesn’t terrify (in some scenes, it’s unclear as to whether she’s even malevolent), and nothing feels high stakes. But perhaps this film, unlike The House of the Devil and its chilling suspense, or Cabin Fever 2 and its revolting gore, is not meant to garner such a physical reaction. Perhaps West aims for something more intellectual with this one. The mind is the most dangerous weapon.
Even tongue in cheek, his films continue to delight not just horror fans, but those that desire good story and characters on their screens. In the end, The Innkeepers is a classic and simple formula that yields a charmingly classic and simple result.
Writer/Director William Brent Bell appears to have an acute understanding of exorcism film’s successful attributes and its traditional flaws. Recycled trademarks like unnaturally contorted bodies, speaking in tongues, and sexual threats are all present in The Devil Inside, but they do not feel old or tired. The film also avoids any preachy religious characters, and overly elaborate makeup. Bell brings freshness to the subject by approaching it from a different angle; he does not follow the linear progression of a possession, but rather approaches the subject of possession from a distance and narrows upon several victims through a nonlinear narrative. As a result, the film does not carry the standard exorcism film formula, where the viewer knows exactly when to rest in safe boredom, and when to tense in preparation for the climax.
More important than his approach, however, is Bell’s portrayal of the actual exorcisms. Too frequently in films of demonic possession, there is thematic discussion without satisfying horror scenes to back it up. The Devil Inside does not shy away from its subject; each exorcism and possession is examined in full, grotesque detail. The effects are seamless, careful, and tastefully explicit. One victim breaks her own bones and contorts wildly, as exorcists Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth) attempt to drive out the demon. The scene is disturbingly authentic and the details are obsessively precise. For the first time on screen, exorcism feels real.
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| Crowley plays the possessed Maria |
The lackluster story creates more of a foundation upon which to build a study of exorcism than a structure for the film. Emotionally, the viewers become much more entranced with the activities of the cynical priest Ben, and his reluctant partner, David. Their conversations over the morality of performing illegal exorcisms and unravelling the truth behind Maria’s questionable possession are well written and intellectually stimulating, giving the film a feeling of depth that the main storyline doesn’t supply.
With the exception of a particularly cliche “horror movie” ending, The Devil Inside is a horror film that will intrigue even the most discerning horror fans, and terrify those less acquainted with the genre’s staples. This one definitely deems a rewatch–but this time, we’ll keep the lights on and the Bible close.
If there is a single academic that can be judged to have the most extensively permeated theories, it must be Sigmund Freud. Perched in an ivory seat of eminence in Vienna in the early 1900’s, his theories on sexuality and its effect on standard human behavior were famed as far as America, and his fervent followers counted among them doctors, academics and patients.
While Freud’s modern day reputation relies upon the diffusion of these theories in academia, the personalities of Freud and his colleagues has also become a great subject to discussion and interest. Freud is recognized to have been, among other things, a cocaine addict, an egotist, and stubbornly fixated on cores of his theories to which he would accept no compromise. He is known to have lost many of the great friends he forged through his work.
It is with one of these friendships that David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method occupies itself. On the eve of World War I, a young Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) treats a hysterical patient, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) with the “talking cure” developed by Freud (Viggo Mortensen). As Jung’s theories advance, he struggles with Freud’s preoccupation with sexuality, with Spielrein’s representation of it, and his own resistance to indulgence.
The film is a tangled mess of conversation and minimal plot, where story advances with subtle slights and shifts of ideas rather than large events or broken dishes. The slow pace is paired with Cronenberg’s perfect intensity to create a precarious, exciting balance. Handsomely mirroring its subject, the blurred line between instinctual indulgence and societal restriction, the filmmaker has created a monster wearing a mask of human courtesy. From the beautiful trimmings of Jung’s well-fashioned house, to the brittle repartee between Freud and Jung in the book-lined studies of Vienna, we can feel something boiling in the background.
For perpetration of such a feeling, Cronenberg could not have cast two better actors as his male leads. In his third beneficial pairing with the director, Mortensen is incredible as Freud. Partially obscured by the theorist’s trademark beard, constantly puffing on a cigar, Mortensen plays his part with an understated intelligence and obstinant self-satisfaction. He simultaneously evokes genius and ignorance.
Knightley is certainly the weakest link among the performers in the film, but for all her visible straining it must be said that she far surpasses anything in her history. Particularly remarkable is her evocation of Sabina in hysteria, writhing and shuddering, forcing out an underbite that seems almost physically impossible.
What the film lacks in conventional plot, it makes up for in its writing. Based off Jon Kerr’s book A Most Dangerous Method with a script penned by Christopher Hampton, the dialogue doesn’t peddle to ignorants. The fact that the film does not dumb itself down is one of its greatest strengths; it is sweetly inflated, high on its own extraordinary intelligence. When Jung and Freud exchange theories, the viewer does not feel subject to an explanation, but rather witness to an intellectual discussion.
The result of this is that at times, it can be slightly too academic. It is imaginable that less interested viewers will find the film to drag at parts, when discussions heap on other discussions, and the talk of sexuality becomes greater than the actual sexuality in the film. However, for those with an interest in psychology, and terrifically intelligent movies, A Dangerous Method is not one to miss.
Rarely is a screenwriting debut so full of unique voice and character as Diablo Cody’s Juno, which opened to great critical praise and cult honorifics in 2007. Now, Cody’s pen brings us a darker, ironically more mature study of growing up in Young Adult.
If the title isn’t warning enough, this is not a piece exalting subtlety. Young Adult follows Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), an explicitly childish and unfulfilled woman, visually described in a quiet, sluggish opening that frames Mavis on the gray backdrops of Minneapolis as she attempts the opening chapters of a young adult series she ghostwrites. Theron tinkers around the high rise apartment with a fragile grace, her eyeliner smeared, hair mussed, skin perfect. For a few moments, it feels like a clumsy scene stolen from Todd Haynes’ Safe, the obvious pathetic fallacy reflecting Mavis’s mute hollowness.
Then, Mavis discovers that her high school flame, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), has had a baby. The film shifts gear and switches tone entirely as Mavis swivels her uncanny focus onto returning to her hometown of Mercury, Ohio, and reclaiming her soul mate, no matter the consequences.
It is in the process of this pursuit that the film finds its rhythm, largely due to the subtle genius of Patton Oswalt, who plays a crippled, “fat nerd” that knew Mavis in high school, and becomes an unlikely foil to her marginally sociopathic intent. Oswalt, famous for comedic turns on screen and a sharp standup routine, plays his part with a sweetly self-deprecating, puppyish affect. Acting against Theron’s Mavis, all hard angles under layers of mascara, Oswalt demonstrates a charmingly human, rancorous amusement. At times, the repertoire between the actors appears almost competitive; every quip drips with a threat of stealing the scene.
It is clear from these exchanges that the film’s most remarkable aspect rests in the performances. Where the humor is lackluster and the narrative arc lacks the conviction to hammer home any of its petty conclusions, Theron is a marvel. Having played serial killers and bubble gum popping teenagers, the actress is by now a seasoned champion on screen. Still, it is rare that we see her flexing so many acting muscles in one film. She is in one scene a coy, flirtatious princess, extraordinarily gorgeous and alluring. In another scene, she is pallid, picking at her hair, anxious, afraid. The issue, then, becomes that Theron is too big for the character. She brings a level of depth and profound insight into a role that is written like a character in a young adult novel.
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| Wilson shines as one-time dreamboat Buddy Slade. |
These performances may be partially due to the direction of Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno), who is famous for eliciting great performances. But if we are crediting him for the performances, we must also acknowledge his part in the failures of the film. While individual attributes of the film may be delightful, they come together in a disappointing melting pot of discordant tone and jumpy mood. Where Juno successfully accomplished a humorous film with hints at darker themes, Young Adult gets bogged down in the melancholy. Too frequently, it slips back to the grey feeling of the opening. Add to this the manifold references to Mavis as a “crazy person,” her clear mental dissonance, and the disturbing scenes of her picking hair out of a spot on the back of her head, and the film simply is not funny. It’s sad. And scenes that try to jostle the viewer into laughter feel phony and uncomfortable.
In the end, Young Adult is an interesting treatment of the madness perpetrated by unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and the danger of selfish desire. Yet, Cody’s attempt at a more mature subject falls short; not surprisingly, the best lines of dialogue are the theatrical snippets that Mavis witnesses when she overhears teenage girls speaking. Perhaps Cody, like Mavis, isn’t quite ready to grow up. But maybe that isn’t the worst thing, after all.
A prequel to the 1982 Kurt Russel classic, The Thing follows a group of scientists and helicopter pilots (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen) that make a startling discovery in the icy wastes near the South Pole. However, celebration doesn’t last long, as they quickly realize that the specimen drudged from the ice is more dangerous than they could have ever imagined.
Director van Heijningen, Jr., whose resume boasts only short film and commercial work, indicates a deft understanding of the requirements for suspense and tension. The pacing of the film is generally tight, and although it accelerates quickly into the action, there is never a sense that the director has lost control of the wheel.
A great part of the suspense is contributed by the original concept. Rarely do alien films pair the Earth’s innate hostility with a violent extraterrestrial presence. Here, while the creature attacks from within, the tundra outside is equally dangerous. Thus the tension is twofold. Where do you go when you cannot stay inside, and you cannot go outside?
And when we say “inside,” we mean inside. The concept of the creature accesses the core of all fear associated with arrival of an alien presence. Rather than creating a simple monster that harries the scientists, The Thing imagines a creature that can replicate the cells of a host, living inside the body, masquerading as a human being. Rather than a murderous invasion, this creature attempts to slide into place among us until it strikes. Its intrusion is not exterior, it is into the very cells of the body.
Like the alien and its hosts, this film appears to be a fairly standard thriller on the outside, but inside it lacks heart. The characters are not developed, so it is up to the actors to create the unscripted personalities for us. As a result, the relationships are often confusing and inconsistent. As the cast gets slowly picked off, it is unclear who to root for, and no death feels weighty or even very interesting.
In the end, The Thing is a solid film that gives the right amount of jumps and thrills. Still, even with a concept this chilling, the story leaves us numb.
In the forties, Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men relayed a story of the danger of politics for good men, and the disillusionment delivered by the politically great. Now, George Clooney’s The Ides of March attempts to impart the same message.
March, co-written, directed, and starred in by Clooney, follows Steven (Ryan Gosling), an up and coming campaign staffer for Governor Mike Morris’s (Clooney) run for the Democratic primary. Steven finds his ideals challenged when he becomes a pawn in a game of campaign managers (Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman), reporters (Marisa Tomei), and interns (Evan Rachel Wood).
Clooney’s vision is clear and specific, if a bit narrow. Steven, an intelligent and seasoned consultant with an idealistic vision of political potential, is doomed by his own optimism. After years in the business, he believes that Morris is a politician unlike the others. When Duffy, Giamatti’s puffed up rival campaign manager, offers Steven a job, he argues, “I don’t have to play dirty anymore. I’ve got Morris.”
The painting of Steven’s character is handled exceptionally well, and the most intriguing part of the film is the behind-the-scenes look at the campaign. We see Steven as a puppeteer, carefully pulling strings to support his candidate, tip-toeing through the press. The delicacy of politics is the real wonder, and the insight Steven’s role gives the impression of a performance rather than a job.
But this sense of subtlety is quickly lost as the film delves into the supposedly tragic disillusionment of the optimist. Evan Rachel Wood’s Molly, Steven’s love interest with– surprise – a dark secret, seems more like a plot device than a character, and her acting is so reminiscent of high school theater that Gosling appears incapable of playing convincingly off her performance.
Aside from the over the top framing of scenes, such as a shot that places Steven lost in thought, silhouetted against a giant American flag, Clooney makes an ill-conceived choice in attempting to draw comparisons by framing scenes in ways that evoke images from organized crime films. While a subtle nod in this direction might be effective, scenes where dark political discussions occur in the shadowy kitchens of local restaurants appear manipulative and phony. Intended to lend the story arc a sense of higher stakes, and justify some of the melodrama, it fails deeply when the sense of danger fizzles out and we are reminded that this is a story of a primary campaign, not a mob takeover.
This is Clooney’s greatest mistake. In the end, politics are dramatic in subtle, and often intellectual ways. While the stakes are high, with the campaign and Steven’s career at risk, the fact remains that politics simply are not life and death. By creating a film about politics that chooses cheap tricks over remaining true to the tone and pace of politics, Clooney illustrates an inherent ignorance to his subject.
Perhaps what Clooney discovered is that the meat of politics is not screen worthy, or engaging, or dramatic. If the content of a campaign looked like the flashy glitz of March, then maybe the populace would be more eager to play a role in it. Clooney’s Morris seems more like a preacher than a politician, and while he parrots all the right opinions for the film’s demographic, Morris is simply, too good to be true.
In the end, the package leaves the impression of a glossy exterior with little thought behind it. But it does make you wonder, how many more people would turn out to vote if real politics looked this good in a suit?
March, co-written, directed, and starred in by Clooney, follows Steven (Ryan Gosling), an up and coming campaign staffer for Governor Mike Morris’s (Clooney) run for the Democratic primary. Steven finds his ideals challenged when he becomes a pawn in a game of campaign managers (Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman), reporters (Marisa Tomei), and interns (Evan Rachel Wood).
Clooney’s vision is clear and specific, if a bit narrow. Steven, an intelligent and seasoned consultant with an idealistic vision of political potential, is doomed by his own optimism. After years in the business, he believes that Morris is a politician unlike the others. When Duffy, Giamatti’s puffed up rival campaign manager, offers Steven a job, he argues, “I don’t have to play dirty anymore. I’ve got Morris.”
The painting of Steven’s character is handled exceptionally well, and the most intriguing part of the film is the behind-the-scenes look at the campaign. We see Steven as a puppeteer, carefully pulling strings to support his candidate, tip-toeing through the press. The delicacy of politics is the real wonder, and the insight Steven’s role gives the impression of a performance rather than a job.
But this sense of subtlety is quickly lost as the film delves into the supposedly tragic disillusionment of the optimist. Evan Rachel Wood’s Molly, Steven’s love interest with– surprise – a dark secret, seems more like a plot device than a character, and her acting is so reminiscent of high school theater that Gosling appears incapable of playing convincingly off her performance.
Aside from the over the top framing of scenes, such as a shot that places Steven lost in thought, silhouetted against a giant American flag, Clooney makes an ill-conceived choice in attempting to draw comparisons by framing scenes in ways that evoke images from organized crime films. While a subtle nod in this direction might be effective, scenes where dark political discussions occur in the shadowy kitchens of local restaurants appear manipulative and phony. Intended to lend the story arc a sense of higher stakes, and justify some of the melodrama, it fails deeply when the sense of danger fizzles out and we are reminded that this is a story of a primary campaign, not a mob takeover.This is Clooney’s greatest mistake. In the end, politics are dramatic in subtle, and often intellectual ways. While the stakes are high, with the campaign and Steven’s career at risk, the fact remains that politics simply are not life and death. By creating a film about politics that chooses cheap tricks over remaining true to the tone and pace of politics, Clooney illustrates an inherent ignorance to his subject.
Perhaps what Clooney discovered is that the meat of politics is not screen worthy, or engaging, or dramatic. If the content of a campaign looked like the flashy glitz of March, then maybe the populace would be more eager to play a role in it. Clooney’s Morris seems more like a preacher than a politician, and while he parrots all the right opinions for the film’s demographic, Morris is simply, too good to be true.
In the end, the package leaves the impression of a glossy exterior with little thought behind it. But it does make you wonder, how many more people would turn out to vote if real politics looked this good in a suit?
While you may never read it on a prescription pad, the concept that laughter is the best medicine is familiar to most. Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 proves it with a film that’s half cancer drama, half buddy comedy.
Inspired by writer Will Reiser’s own experience with illness, 50/50 tells the story of Adam (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who is diagnosed with spinal cancer at the age of 27. Most of the narrative balances his struggle to accept his chances of survival with the ups and downs of his social support: his best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), reluctant girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), overbearing mother (Anjelica Houston), and therapist (Anna Kendrick).
50/50 is not a standard illness film following in the footprints of Love and Other Drugs or A Walk to Remember. While Gordon Levitt’s representation of the physical hardship brought on by the cancer and treatment rings true, the movie never gets overly lost in representations of sorrow or anger. Instead, it is chiefly a comedy, choosing to face each new development with a light sense of humor.
This is made possible, and inoffensive, by the charms of the lead actors. Gordon Levitt plays Adam’s bitterness and dry humor with reservation, giving the sense of an actor seasoned far beyond his years. Still, he is easily outshone by Rogen, whose heroic Kyle is a Judd Apatow transplant with a heart of gold. Rogen, Reiser’s real life friend, has plenty to call on; the writer attributes some of the film’s best scenes to actual experiences the two shared when Reiser was battling his own cancer.
Culturally, most people are fairly accustomed to the concept of illness among the elderly. The establishment of rest homes, retirement villages, and hospice organizations has both removed exposure to affliction and codified a practical and emotional response to it. But what happens when it happens to you, and you’re young, and you have your whole life ahead of you?
This is the question that Reiser attempts to answer. While the film at times gets tied up in the shadow that Hollywood casts over its head (portraying a one-sided girlfriend, or an unbelievable romantic prospect), Reiser’s answer touches on friendship in a way that the bromance trend is alternately too bawdy or too shy to portray. Adam and Kyle are more like family than friends, and it is the warmth of their interaction much more than any doctor’s words that reminds us that everything will be OK.
Inspired by writer Will Reiser’s own experience with illness, 50/50 tells the story of Adam (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who is diagnosed with spinal cancer at the age of 27. Most of the narrative balances his struggle to accept his chances of survival with the ups and downs of his social support: his best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), reluctant girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), overbearing mother (Anjelica Houston), and therapist (Anna Kendrick).
50/50 is not a standard illness film following in the footprints of Love and Other Drugs or A Walk to Remember. While Gordon Levitt’s representation of the physical hardship brought on by the cancer and treatment rings true, the movie never gets overly lost in representations of sorrow or anger. Instead, it is chiefly a comedy, choosing to face each new development with a light sense of humor.
This is made possible, and inoffensive, by the charms of the lead actors. Gordon Levitt plays Adam’s bitterness and dry humor with reservation, giving the sense of an actor seasoned far beyond his years. Still, he is easily outshone by Rogen, whose heroic Kyle is a Judd Apatow transplant with a heart of gold. Rogen, Reiser’s real life friend, has plenty to call on; the writer attributes some of the film’s best scenes to actual experiences the two shared when Reiser was battling his own cancer.
This is the question that Reiser attempts to answer. While the film at times gets tied up in the shadow that Hollywood casts over its head (portraying a one-sided girlfriend, or an unbelievable romantic prospect), Reiser’s answer touches on friendship in a way that the bromance trend is alternately too bawdy or too shy to portray. Adam and Kyle are more like family than friends, and it is the warmth of their interaction much more than any doctor’s words that reminds us that everything will be OK.
The most obvious update to the original formula is that Lurie moves the story from the English countryside to the American south. When Hollywood writer David Sumner (James Marsden) moves with his actress wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth) back to her hometown of Blackwater, Mississippi, he finds the town to be a far cry from Los Angeles. Filled with a first-name basis population that farms its youth for football athletes, then sets them out to pasture as manual laborers, the town could be any plucked from the deep south. A safe haven in the real world, “We all trust each other here,” Amy says. “We don’t even lock our doors.”
The viewer is smarter, of course, and not only those that know the original story. When David attempts to make a friendly gesture to the friends of Amy’s past by hiring a roofing crew headed by her ex, Charlie (the marvelous Alexander Skarsgård), he gets more than shingles. Tension builds as the crew repeatedly takes advantage of his kindness, and pays particular, uncomfortable attention to Amy.
Lurie paces his film fantastically, allowing it to unfold slowly with a careful building disquiet. Blackwater is bathed in a buttery light, and the roofers constantly clothed in autumn colors of red and orange and brown, bent in physical and violent action, from hammering nails to hunting to draining cans of beer. David, instead, is adorned in crisp white, and the only thing he hammers is his keyboard.
Playing opposite, Bosworth’s wooden Amy is unsatisfying, but Marsden is an inspired choice. The traditional rom-com and superhero star slips into the oblivious and brutal role of David seamlessly, allowing the viewer to simultaneously disagree with and root for him.
By the time the tension escalates to its gory climax, Lurie’s Straw Dogs is morally black and white. What’s missing here is the controversial ambiguity of the original, where the famous rape scene posed the question: Did she like it? In Lurie’s version, the answer is clear, and in that he misses one of the interesting elements of the original. In a world where manhood can be defined so subjectively, where strength and violence are valued over intelligence and financial success, what other perceptions can be skewed?
The avoidance of a real treatment of the rape is intriguing, and follows a mainstream trend on screen. Where modern film is increasingly explicit with violence, language, and sex, rape remains a taboo subject. This was highlighted recently in criticism of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which omitted many of the rapes included in the novels. In general, film rapes are either hinted at or threatened rather than committed; if committed, they are largely off screen.
Thus, while Lurie’s version may one-up the original with explicit gore and violence, it loses the controversial nature that horrified and intrigued viewers long after the credits rolled in 1971. Lurie’s Straw Dogs is a tight, tense thriller that will leave theaters speckled with gnawed off fingernails, but when it’s over, it will send many home to lock their doors, and watch the football game on TV.
It is difficult to know how to react when the credits roll after Drive. Applause for a tight and generally well crafted film? Disappointment, that the excitement and action has concluded? Or dance, commemorating the film’s fantastic soundtrack? One thing is certain: you’ll walk out with a feeling of contentment and satisfaction rarely awarded by film. Because if there is one thing that Drive is, it’s a good movie.
One of Drive’s greatest strengths is its commitment to a strong, straightforward plot. The Driver (Ryan Gosling, whose highly anticipated return to the silver screen has not failed to surpass expectations) is employed performing vehicle stunts for Hollywood while moonlighting as getaway wheels for petty criminals and a mechanic at a local garage. The apathetic balance of his life is thrown askew when he gets in over his head with an organized crime circuit.
Having set up this plot line, the film then leaves the plot to essentially solve itself. Instead of preoccupying itself with clever twists or richly layered dialogue, the film steps back to place it in context. Director Nicholas Winding Refn, who most recently directed the spare, stoic Viking drama Valhalla Rising, allows the Driver’s story to unfold upon the massive backdrop of Los Angeles. This is an alternate universe,existing in quiet dichotomy with the glittery world of Hollywood. The city Drive portrays is slick pavement, dim streetlights, and shadows. No one speaks because no one needs to. A cracked smile, a blink, that is the currency of communication.
Winding Refn uses Los Angeles as a character in itself. From scenes of sunshine and water in the polluted L.A. River to a tense scene where the Driver uses overpasses to hide from a police helicopter, the geography of Los Angeles is essential to the action and plot development. In particular, the lighting is used purposefully to evoke moods, surging warmth in scenes of romance, and cold whites and glaring reds with violence. The streets are brimming with the sleek forms of cars, and these cars are not the passive vehicles of action from standard film chases; instead they hold the same energy and character as a shuddering stallion. Frequently, the physical actions of the car mirror the Driver’s mood, stopping when he is surprised, accelerating with his rage.
In at times comedic and villainous roles, Bernie (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman) are bursting with menace while still appearing natural, realistic.The violence in turn is very careful, with tasteful but explicit gore. As the film progresses and the Driver delves deeper into the treacherous waters of Bernie and Nino’s world, the tension gains momentum and accelerates to a fantastic and bloody climax.
But for all its simplicity, Drive is not one, long car chase. Underneath all of the blood, the gasoline, and the tire marks, there is an interesting view of Hollywood, and the effects of a world where the artificial lies in bed with the dangerously tangible. The Driver mainstreams as a stunt driver,performing car rollovers like circus tricks. We see the expenses put into the faux-violence, the faux-danger, but what of the cost? Drive shows us what happens when the artificial and the tangible bleed into each other, as the line between film and reality blurs. While the Driver may accomplish a safe rollover on screen, in real life, rollovers and fights and guns end in death. And the good guys don’t always walk away at the end.
This retrospective view of film continues to the last scene, with a Lynchian ending that leaves the viewer guessing, and more importantly, wanting more. One thing’s for sure, if the Driver wants to go for another, we call shotgun.
In the landscape of horror, rarely are the scenarios as probable as that presented in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. While the concept of a brute that wears human skin for clothes and sleeps with his chainsaw is terrifying, and the idea of fairy-like creepers living in the fireplace might make one’s hair stand on end, seldom does something settle in such a quiet cool as the very realistic concept of an epidemic that kills indiscriminately and pushes aside all feeble human defenses. This chilling message is what Contagion attempts to communicate, but unfortunately, the film’s message is not as infectious as its subject.
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| Marion Cotillard takes a turn as an epidemiologist. |
One would assume that with an ensemble of such time-tested actors, the film’s emotional core would hold the strength. Instead, the actors struggle to pack sensation into largely stale dialogue. While Damon manages to force in some endearing earnestness as he protects his daughter, the other storylines are overshadowed by the vastness of the threat. As a result, many of the twists and jabs–in particular, Law’s cheeky narcissist–smack of phoniness, like a doctor attempting to make a joke while delivering a cancer diagnosis.
Perhaps this is because the antagonist of the film is so much more developed and fully realized than any of the characters. The opening of the film shows us the progress of Beth’s succumbing to the disease. Paltrow gives a disturbingly fantastic performance as she experiences brutal seizures at home, and the hospital. There is no question as to how deadly this threat is.
The result is a feeling of suspicion, like that felt while watching news coverage. Clearly, they aren’t showing us the full picture. There are bodies in the back room that we aren’t seeing, and there are children crying somewhere that we can’t hear.
The choice to release the film on the weekend of September 11th’s tenth anniversary is interesting, as it, surely deliberately, pairs the one-time horror of a devastating event that left so many innocents dead with the motiveless brutality of an epidemic. However, this comparison is most felt in the draw of the film; just as millions watched and rewatched video of the planes hitting the Twin Towers, the viewer watched the contagion’s spread not out of personal connection to those affected, but rather out of a recoiling horror and fascination.
Contagion’s great flaw, then, is that it attempts to combine two films into one. On the one hand, it is an exciting study of a potential scenario that has left the human race devastated, and could do so easily at any time. On the other hand, it is a treatment of the personal tolls–familial, professional, moral, economic–that such an event would take. Unfortunately, it does not successfully meld or juxtapose the two sides, resulting in a project that seems constantly uncomfortable with its current storyline.
The result? Walking out of the theater, viewers may not be filled with the intended cold fear, but they certainly aren’t touching the banister on their way out.
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