Grouchy returns to the movies

[Grouchy]

Yet again.

Ye bloody bastards. The whole lotta ya.

[Scar]

Aye matey....

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/clover1.jpg?t=1209412100

Cloverfield
Matt Reeves, 2008

The kaiju genre is one of the best inventions ever dreamed up in Japanese soil. It literally translates as "strange monster", and that's exactly what it is, movies centered around the sudden arrival of a giant-sized, spectacularly ugly and scary monster in the middle of Tokyo. Staples of the genre are crumbling buildings, the giant foot of the beast stepping on a poor jap that stumbled while running, mayhem and generally useless military activity. I think the first Asian movie I ever saw was Mothra, which is about a giant butterfly monster invoked by the strange chantings of miniature twin geishas. Of course, the most famous kaiju monster is the reptilian anti-hero Godzilla. On his first movie he's a destroyer of humanity, yet on subsequent films he saves Earth from a gallery of creatures, presumably so he can earn back his title as its main nuclear nightmare. In 1998, there was an unfortunate American version of Godzilla which pretty much was an attempt at Jurassic Park on NYC. The movie featured an unrealistic evacuation of Manhattan. Now that US has been through 9/11, I think they've sort of earned the right to make a Godzilla movie. After all, Godzilla is nothing but a '50s metaphor for nuclear horror.

The catch here is the Blair Witch Project gimmick, in which the movie is actually "found" home video material from a camera with seemingly unlimited batteries and capacity, in which a group of friends go from late-night partying to kaiju chaos. It's a great catch, actually. Like in Blair Witch, we get to know the protagonists before seeing them in dangerous situations. Our friends here are saying good-bye to Rob, who's trying to return to a relationship with Beth, and the main survivor group is composed of his friend Hub (the one who "documents" all the misadventures, a nerdish, annoying, comic relief presence), Marlene, the best character in the movie (it goes without saying she's a fucking wino), and a hot black chick. I can't be arsed to remember her name. They find themselves in the disorder of the (slightly more realistic than in Godzilla '98) Manhattan evacuation, and suddenly decide they're gonna help Rob find her girlfriend Beth, who's trapped and suffocating, somewhere in the island that's being destroyed by a reptile the size of the Empire State. Smart fucking thinking.

As you're probably guessing by now, I wasn't too in love with this movie. Its main problem was that, despite the superficial pains they took to make it a "realistic" witness home video (the recording over previous Coney Island footage, the date and time, the opening government disclaimer), it played exactly like a by-the-numbers Hollywood movie. Worse, actually. The characters in any teen slasher are more logical than these ones. If some guy loses his nerve and decides that the best course of action (instead of, you know, inmediately calling his parents and close relatives) is to run into the danger area looking for some short-breasted chick who's probably dead as fuck, I think his mates have a moral obligation to knock him unconscious and save his ass and theirs. I can't believe in characters who are faced with a gigantic lizard and don't want to save themselves. That's not what's being a hero is all about. That's definitively not what a fireman was doing during 9/11. That's being a tool in a poor scriptwriter's mind. And some military guy suddenly decides that their suicidal tendencies are worth encouraging? Spare me the horseshit.

Now, technically, this movie is so cool it's a shame it got lost in a bad script. Even if it has been shot in obviously high quality, the constant jerking of the camera (although, come on, gimme a break, this is not seizure-inducing for anyone who has ever watched an '80s videoclip) and the filters made me believe I was watching a first-person account of a giant monster tearing down a city. The way the monster is introduced is clever enough - we see the inmediate consequences of its rampage, and eventually (with a little help from the parasites that climb off him) we get to know it in increasingly irksome detail. But none of this technical (and creative) wonder is any good if the story the filmmakers are telling us has so many logical holes and unrealistic behavior. There are a million plot devices that could realistically set the survivor group apart from military aid and into the claws of the monster. There's no need to turn the protagonists into self-righteous cardboared figures who mumble shitty-cool Garfield jokes (ok, I laughed at that one) while wandering into the unknown. Basically, why do we need a comic relief cameraman? Cloverfield doesn't trust the audience to be smart enough to endure the "found" footage without a C-3PO hanging around? So it wants to be realistic, yet everyone is a bloody stereotype?

I'll admit it, it's a concept that's easy to explain and sell, but hard to actually film in a realistic manner. I'd say the closest they can come to make a great kaiju in this postmodern style is to combine footage from news and various recording devices into one edited narrative. That way, it wouldn't look so staged and it would offer a bird's eye view of the story with the added "reality" element. Of course, that's not what Cloverield, Abrams and company try to do, but I'd recommend a change in priorities. Maybe for the sequel. Who knows?

[MadMan]

Yet again.

Ye bloody bastards. The whole lotta ya.About damn time :P

[Grouchy]

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There Will Be Blood
P.T. Anderson, 2007

Paul Thomas Anderson, like his idol Altman, is known for his epic movies with huge ensembles of character actors, stories set in the modern world about desperate people hooked on addictions caused by unsolved traumas like Magnolia or Boogie Nights. By contrast, this Oscar-nominated period piece seems a departure, and I've read many comments complaining that it's a more conventional turn from the Anderson man. Nothing could be more far from the truth. There's absolutely not a second of this incredible movie that can be called conventional. From its overbearing and unusual soundtrack made by Johnny Greenwod from Radiohead to the crowded shot composition to its surprising, brilliant ending, this movie is far more daring and inventive than it seems - like an experimental version of Giant.

Most of the time the screen is occupied by Daniel Plainview, a character who enters the movie almost breaking his back looking for silver and ends it living in a palace bought by oil, an outcast of the world, hating everything, everyone and himself above all things. The movie is the chronicle of Daniel's misantrophy, but that's not a trait he acquires due to any dramatic turn of the movie. It's who he always was inside. For Daniel, people are always means to get to something, usually money and power. His kindness is a tool. Early on, when he adopts an orphan (then always introduced by him as "my partner and son H.W."), it's the only noble, primal act he does in the entire movie and he even blows that afterwards. We're led to believe that Daniel loves the kid, yet his unfriendly, bitter side gets the better of him after a tragic accident changes their relationship completely. Daniel Day-Lewis shows Plainview like a hunching, smiling bulk of a man who rarely shows his emotions. When he does, it's usually in a bout of rage and he ends up punching the shit out of somebody. He's "an oil man", and he's nothing more, desperate to become powerful for power's sake. He sleeps a lot and is hard to wake up, like a man who's not eager to see the real world. He likes inventive pranks and is an expert intimidator and spokesman.

While it's a performance worthy of all the praise and the Oscar it got, another one that doesn't stay far behind is given by Paul Dano. He has two characters, twin brothers. One of them, Paul, gives Daniel the information about where to search for oil. The other brother, Eli, living in the land that Daniel wants to drill, becomes his lifelong antagonist. He's a priest in a strange fanatical church where he screams like a madman and heals evil with his hands. Plainview hates everyone by his own admission, but he hates this man more than any other. It might be because they're so alike. Like Plainview, Eli is a manipulative, disgusting, baby-faced con artist. Daniel can smell the rat because he does the same. The beginning of their war is a funny moment where Eli makes Daniel promise that he will allow him to bless the drill before they start looking for oil, and at the next day waits in the first line of the crowd, ready to do some preaching. Daniel completely ignores him and the blessing. In a way, while Plainview is the obvious protagonist, the movie is the portrait of the hatred between these men with no soul.

This is a long movie, over three hours, and an extremely slow one. Shots linger on, and there must be surprisingly few of them if you decided to count 'em. During conversations, there are very few cuts. Either the shot shows all of the characters or it focuses on one for longer than it's customary, having the other one say his lines off camera. Sometimes characters walk great distances on screen and there are frequent soaring, impressive landscape takes. Anderson has said the movie is inspired, apart from the Sinclair novel, by Huston's Treasure of Sierra Madre. While that's true about the theme of greed, I see a lot of John Ford in the style. There's even a shot (Watashi's avatar) that resembles the famous closing image of The Searchers.

About the ending:

The "I drink your MILKSHAKE!" (a classic-in-the-making quote, by the way) scene is a surprisingly effective way to close an epic like this. It's an intimate scene between two enemies that leads to the brutal act of violence Plainview has been building enough hatred to commit throughout his entire life. It gives the title a hilarious literal meaning and, at least for me, it makes all look like a bit of a joke. In the end, Plainview's life meant nothing. He's rich and useless as anything but a creator of misery for others. His adopted son discovers he loves a person who has no love left in him. So why don't drink it all up to the end and destroy Eli's skull with a bowling pin? For me, it's brilliant. A darkly comedic way to end a film where anything else would be anticlimatic.

[Grouchy]

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Juno
Jason Reitman, 2007

Movies about quirky, off-beat characters have been a staple of American indie cinema for years. And lately one of them has been a fixture as filler Oscar nominee, usually snabbing Best Screenplay. But what makes Wes Anderson movies different from Punch-Drunk Love, and what makes those different from Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite and this year's Juno? Well it depends on the degree of sell-out quality which, in the script, translates into how much do the off-beat, quirky characters end up happily integrated into conformity. Little Miss Sunshine, for example, is an asshole's feel-good movie, about a bunch of subnormal losers ruining a girl's life, and finally getting their chance to shine in an extended candy-flavored, undeserved, overlong catharsis scene. I think Tim Burton is the most honest (ironically a Hollywood director) craftsman of this type of story - his characters are unapologetically weird and they never end up accepted and subdued by society under any circumstance.

Juno is about a so-called geek, sarcastic teenage girl that ends up pregnant after having sex with a meek, feminine looking boy she's secretly in love with. Unlike what might be expected from a lesser movie, her parents accept the burden with maturity and actually collaborate with their daughter in her goal of giving the child to adoption. In trying to find the perfect couple, Juno comes into contact with a pair of yuppies, played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. She's so crazy about having a child I'd never, ever in my life allow her to even touch one, while he lives mostly in the relics of his past, when he didn't have to hide his rock memorabilia and comic-books from view in a room, specially prepared by his wife for that purpose. Problem will not arise from conventional sources in this script, and that was one of the things that made me judge Juno above the type of garbage it definitively looks like from the ads and trailers. This is not the Little Miss Sunshine type - nothing will get so wrapped up by the end, neither can you see every scene coming from the first one onwards. Also, I gotta admit Ellen Page is an ugly-looking nothingness, but she's not without her acting chops.

And still, the Cody/Reitman team manages to fall into some of the independent director's traps. For example, in a movie written by a blogger, I guess it's to be expected that every character talks like they're fucking press articles instead of people. This is not being intelligent, this is being annoying - if I knew someone who talked like this, I'd kick him/her on the genitalia. "Honest to blog", "silencio!", "your eggo is preggo" and other unneeded cutecisms populate every single line of dialogue. Every character is some kind of quirky wise-ass, pop culture savvy talking head. Of course, Juno is the worst - you're supposed to relate to her because she's covering a heart of gold under that stand-up comedy exterior. 100% horseshit. How come a cashier at an abortion clinic has her face covered by body piercing and cracks jokes at Juno's condition? Is that supposed to be so out of place it's funny? I see it more as overcrowding in a movie that's already bursting with forced oddity.

And still, the drama exhibits a level of maturity rarely seen in that colorful, rock-soundtrack sub-Hollywood that's "edgy" US film nowadays, most of it evident on the script's surprise development about the adoptive couple. Even though she's a psycho and he's an inmature asshole, we understand both of them and the effect they have on Juno's already troubled mind. I also thought it was nice that Juno's parents weren't a couple of ogres. That her hero's journey has her saving the day by the end is predictable yet to an extent needed, but it brings to me another pet peeve - Juno has not in her one inch of the insecurity that's to be expected in any teenage girl, not only a knocked up one. That makes her a way too convenient protagonist and of course, smarter than everyone else around to an unrealistic extent.

I remain lukewarm on this one, although it's not a bad movie by any means. The soundtrack, the characters and the dialogue are annoying as all hell, but the actors really elevate the material (specially J.K. Simmons) and the script finds itself comfortable in that moral grey area where none is too perfect or too lousy a human being. I guess it's not good stuff either, but I can't bring myself to hate it 100%. I've seen far worse.

[D_Davis]

Nice reviews, man!

[Rowland]

Nice reviews, man!
Ditto. Keep it up Grouchy, I'm reading your stuff.

As for Juno, I appreciate that you recognize the movie's most overtly annoying flaws, but I feel you give too much of a pass to how glib its character arcs are and how deftly it avoids exploring any of the issues it exploits. I still think 2006's superficially comparable pseudo-indie quirk-fest LMS is a superior movie all-around.

[Grouchy]

As for Juno, I appreciate that you recognize the movie's most overtly annoying flaws, but I feel you give too much of a pass to how glib its character arcs are and how deftly it avoids exploring any of the issues it exploits. I still think 2006's superficially comparable pseudo-indie quirk-fest LMS is a superior movie all-around.
Seriously? I absolutely hated that one, yet I found redeeming values on this one. The mushy ending of LMS bothered me too much.

I agree it doesn't sink deep enough in Juno's angst. I know it's a comedy, but since everyone spends every second cracking jokes about everything, it's hard to take the pregnancy seriously. She claims she's socially isolated in school because of her belly, but we never see any of that. She's cool and the gang the whole time.

Thanks for reading and the nice comments, guys.

[lovejuice]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/juno-poster2-big-thumb.jpg?t=1204599406

Juno
Jason Reitman, 2007

I remain lukewarm on this one, although it's not a bad movie by any means. The soundtrack, the characters and the dialogue are annoying as all hell, but the actors really elevate the material (specially J.K. Simmons) and the script finds itself comfortable in that moral grey area where none is too perfect or too lousy a human being. I guess it's not good stuff either, but I can't bring myself to hate it 100%. I've seen far worse.

mostly agree with you on the movie especially with this last paragraph. the movie is more grey-ish, ie. politically incorrect, than many people seem to admit (or realize).

[Spinal]

Yes, you're absolutely right about the actors elevating the material and making it somewhat tolerable.

[DavidSeven]

I agree with you wholeheartedly about Juno, Litte Miss Sunshine, and the subtle, but huge, differences among lesser and greater films within the indie dramedy subgenre. Great job.

[Rowland]

I don't know, I still think LMS is funnier than Juno, is more effective as a whole work within the parameters it sets for itself, and comprises several performances that elevate the material. The soundtrack is less annoying too, the characters actually grapple with their flaws, and while it may be broad, I'll take that over the forced ingratiation of Juno.

[origami_mustache]

I don't know, I still think LMS is funnier than Juno, is more effective as a whole work within the parameters it sets for itself, and comprises several performances that elevate the material. The soundtrack is less annoying too, the characters actually grapple with their flaws, and while it may be broad, I'll take that over the forced ingratiation of Juno.

AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ = rep etc...

[Wryan]

Page an ugly-looking nothingness? Wow. Yikes, even.

[Scar]

Page an ugly-looking nothingness? Wow. Yikes, even.

Yeah, thats not cool. I find her cute.

[Grouchy]

What's that "you know what you get for being a hero?" quote from? I find it very familiar but can't place it.

[lovejuice]

What's that "you know what you get for being a hero?" quote from? I find it very familiar but can't place it.

live free or die hard?

[Scar]

live free or die hard?

Correct.

[Grouchy]

live free or die hard?
Damn straight.

[Scar]

Damn straight.

I have a ton of fun with that movie. I've got the unrated version, so I never saw the neutered PG-13 version that was in theatres.

[Grouchy]

I have a ton of fun with that movie. I've got the unrated version, so I never saw the neutered PG-13 version that was in theatres.
PG-13 is the only one I saw, both on theaters and DVD. The lack of violence compared to other Die Hards is disappointing, but yeah, it's a helluva lot of fun. I need the unrated.

McClane, Rocky, Rambo... We only lack Robocop now.

[Scar]

PG-13 is the only one I saw, both on theaters and DVD. The lack of violence compared to other Die Hards is disappointing, but yeah, it's a helluva lot of fun. I need the unrated.

McClane, Rocky, Rambo... We only lack Robocop now.

I liked the latest Rocky, but haven't seen the latest Rambo. That will be remedied when its available for at home.

[Grouchy]

I liked the latest Rocky, but haven't seen the latest Rambo.
I liked the latest Rambo, haven't seen the latest Rocky. Heh. Liked Rambo because it actually took the character seriously and had more than a bit of human drama, like the first one. The last third of the film spits blood and guts everywhere.

[lovejuice]

Liked Rambo because it actually took the character seriously and had more than a bit of human drama, like the first one.

yes yes yes, you are the first person who agree with me the similarity between the first and the -- for now -- last rambo.

but really though, i dig the hell out of first blood part 2. it's written by freaking cameron, and indeed one can tell.

[Scar]

I liked the latest Rambo, haven't seen the latest Rocky. Heh. Liked Rambo because it actually took the character seriously and had more than a bit of human drama, like the first one. The last third of the film spits blood and guts everywhere.

Sweet.

[Grouchy]

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No Country for Old Men
The Coen Brothers, 2007

WARNING - COULDN'T AVOID SOME SPOILERS

How many times can you reinvent a genre? I'm guessing Joel and Ethan Coen would answer "a helluva lot of times". From their first movie, Blood Simple, they've been grabbing the essentials of film noir and tweaking them in unexpected ways, making the same old material feel fresh. What's more striking is that they've usually taken their inspiration not from the endless noir classics filmed between 1941-58, but from the literary beginnings of the style - the Dashiell Hammet gang wars in Miller's Crossing, the "detective" myth created by Raymond Chandler in The Big Lebowski, which replaced Philip Marlowe with an aging hippie nicknamed The Dude, and the ironic James M. Cain dramas where the plot is moved forward by criss-crossing plans motivated by greed in The Man who wasn't There. And this without mentioning Fargo, an anti-noir set in a scenario that's completely white. Now, with their Oscar-winning No Country, for the first time they've adapted a novel and confessed to doing so instead of being "inspired by", and reportedly (I haven't read the Cormac McCarthy original) they've been extremely faithful to their source, while still directing a true Coen Bros. movie.

The story is a three-way conflict. There's Lewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a blender living in a trailer park who finds 20 million in unmarked cash abandoned in the afternath of a gang shooting in the middle of the desert. Then there's Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a soulless hitman with a bizarro haircut and a silent cow-stunning gun, who's charged with retrieving the money, following Moss around. Following them both is aging Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), an intelligent, laconic man with one foot on retirement already. These characters rarely share screentime together, and when they do, they don't talk, since one of them is crouching behind a hiding place, shotgun in hand, or stalking each other from the distance. Like many noirs, this western-themed one is not about the resolution of the crime. That's a red herring planted by the writers so that we want to get to the end of the story, which is actually about a bleak, cynical world without any redemption on sight.

The verbal exchanges between Coen characters range from hysterical to cryptic, alluring and mysterious. They've always had a great ear for accents, which they've incorporated as part of the comedy in each of their movies, which always feature a different U.S.-based setting. In this movie, everyone is a reject from the ass end of Texas, and so they ramble on, sometimes not making much sense, but always pleasing the ear. The actors all do an incredible job, and Bardem really had that Oscar coming. His geeky look paired with his deadpan performance are the heart of the film and its most recognizable symbol. Unusually for the Coens, there's almost no music that can be heard throughout the film. There are subtle chords here and there, but until the end credits there isn't anything resembling a musical theme. The editing is crisp and the pacing leisurely. In suspense scenes, the ambience sound and the deliberate slowness of the characters movements are seriously unnerving. There are a couple such scenes that are truly deserving of being called Hitchcockian.

Where the movie is far for Hitchcock ground is on its moral palette, which is uniquely grey. We root for Lewellyn because his crime is understandable - he finds money which seemingly belongs to none, and he wants it for himself. Yet the ironic truth is that he could've gotten away with it wasn't because he decided to compensate his thievery with an act of kindness, aiding the dying "agua" man in the truck. True story here. When I left the cinema and went to have a pee, there were two senior moviegoers (no country for them) heatedly arguing about the morals of the movie. One of them said it was inadmisible that the bad guy walked away at the end, having killed many innocent people, while the other said over and over that the movie was prophetic. I decided to say something while I finished my piss, pointing out that movies have no obligation to be better than real life. At this, the angry oldster said I was the reason why corrupt politicians won re-elections and that youth was generally lost. I left the bathroom on the run, looking for some kind of weapon to bludgeon him to death.

Seriously, though, it's not that Old Pants hadn't understood the movie, it's that he was unable to deal with the grimness of its message. On other Coen movies which were equally unapologetic with the greed and generally worthlessness of human life, there was at least one redeeming character. Fargo had a sort of heroine in Sheriff Gunderson. Sheriff Bell, on the other hand, is a survivor. He has no intentions of getting himself killed and, though he wants justice, he suddenly realizes there is nothing to be gained from looking for it and a lot to be lost. For all the dark humor that goes on through the movie, the ending is stone-faced serious and humane, with the old couple quietly talking about dreams, a wall clock ticking on in the background. Anyone who claimed the Coens were all style and no substance stands to be proven a moron with this incredible movie. Poetic and inspired, it's a great comeback from the brothers after two stinkers in a row (Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers) did nothing but harm to their reputations as great storytellers with one of the most unique and literate comedy styles. Like always, great comedians are the ones that create the best tragedies.

[Grouchy]

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Diary of the Dead
George Romero, 2007

The fifth installment of the Dead series by Romero, a man who needs no introduction, is a step up from his very recent Land of the Dead and a re-invention of the saga - what's more, it's a fitting ending for it, right back where it started. We're at the outbreak of the zombie invasion, following a group of film students shooting a lame mummy movie in the woods. When news get to them about the strange sightings of living dead, they panic, but instead of merely trying to survive, they decide to do a documentary on their situation. Romero's previous four zombie movies have been, respectively, about racism, consummerism, military and corporations (I guess) - this time he attacks the media and the internet which makes any atrocity available for anyone to watch, and for free too.

What makes this movie different from its partner in release dates, Cloverfield, which is also a common genre menace (giant monster) told through home video? Well, first of all, Diary of the Dead is a smarter movie which uses its gimmick as an expansion of its themes. It's also more believable, since instead of being "found" footage, it's an edited mockumentary taken from various sources. The device doesn't make the story clumsy or implausible that way. It's funny, though, that Romero thinks it necessary to have the characters explain many of their recording capacities, like the batteries or one instance where there's a lenghty explanation on how they got footage from the security camera which, frankly, I didn't really give a fuck about.

The script is a killer, and it's a shame that the performances are sub-par. You quickly get used to every actor sucking, though, although it did make me think about the complications of creating an illusion of reality/fiction in cinema, something that's common and easier to achieve in literature. Overall, though, it's the treatment of its elaborate themes that makes the movie worth watching. That treatment is not exactly subtle, but it never is with Romero, right? The movie is about the way the access to anything and the overload of information makes us insensitive to brutality. Not only as an audience, but also as filmmakers - Jason, the cameraman, is ready to film anything without, of course, taking an active part in aiding his fellow mates. This seems strangely inhuman, yet we've seen war footage where the cameraman does exactly the same thing.

There's also a big satire element going on. This is the funniest Dead movie so far, including a crazy scene with a badass dynamite-wielding Amish named Samuel who steals the movie. I can't remember the last time I laughed my ass off so hard in the cinema as with that scene. Not only that, but by making his protagonists film students with an interest in Horror, Romero is able to make them more conscious of what a zombie can and cannot do, including having them saying out loud that dead people most definitively CANNOT RUN and challenging many other Horror topics.

Long story short, George has done it again. Although I'd liked Land of the Dead back on its cinema days, many TV watchs have made me realize it's the weakest of the saga apart from a few clever details. This is the social commentary living dead movie the '00s actually needed. Get ready to shoot the dead.

[Grouchy]

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The Orphanage
J.A. Bayona, 2007

The best Horror movies should always be about something behind its surface supernatural theme. Vampires and ghosts speak about the human desire not to die, while Frankenstein and the Invisible Man are about wanting to outdo God. Guillermo Del Toro obviously understood this when directing his early masterpieces Cronos and Devil's Backbone. He collaborates in this incredible goosebumper as producer, while newcomer Bayona directs. The Orphanage is a story about motherhood. Belén Rueda stars (and does an incredible job) as Laura, a woman returning to the orphanage she grew up in with her husband and son Simón to open a house for handicapped children. Trouble seems to come from various sources then, like a nosy old social worker lady, strange noises and Simón having some unusual imaginary friends.

Bayona's story is about ghosts of the worst kind, those of children. But it's also a strong psychological drama and, by the end, we're not sure as an audience how much are we supposed to believe of the supernatural elements of the story. Creaking stairs, blowing wind and dark hallways are everywhere in this movie. It's a decidedly Gothic atmosphere that calls to mind The Turn of the Screw and the recent film inspired by it, The Others. Much of the fear built on screen is convincing because it doesn't show much and it's frequently about anticipating terrible events. There are only two gore shots, and they're of the painful, grotesque gore variety that really hurts the eyes and mind. The script is very intelligent while occasionally predictable, but that's only because I've seen a thousand "scary secret" movies by now.

Technically, the movie is a marvel. Cinematographer Oscar Faura has done a helluva job with shadows and sources of light. Particularly notorious are the changes in lighting when ghosts are around, which reinforce the doubts about how real they really are. All the actors are excellent, not only Rueda but also (in surprise performances) Edgar Vivar a.k.a. Señor Barriga from Chespirito and Geraldine Chaplin. Their scene, however, involving a medium session led by Chaplin, is one that was really in serious need of some trimming and halts the film at a crucial point despite being enjoyable on itself. It's not the only sequence that slows down the action, and I'm even gonna say the movie as a whole needs a slight edit, since while there are many scenes that don't advance the plot but develop character and show Laura's drama in an intense light, others just seem accesory and overlong. Minor flaw here.

The third act of the film is by far the scarier and features many delights, like the over a minute long shot that shows the ghosts for the first time. It's also where a twist happens regarding the disappearance of Simón that changes the viewer's perspective on the movie, but actually enriches the experience and deepens the bitterness of the ending. Like I said before, the ghosts of this movie are the worst kind - born of fatal mistakes that can't be undone. If you're willing to watch The Orphanage, you not only have to prepare yourself for a serious scarefest, but also for a painful drama with intense acting. Not perfect, better - inspired. Looking forward to Bayona's next movie.

[Bosco B Thug]

I really did not like this movie. Some good story elements, but overall it's silly, undercooked, and I don't know, I found the film without any sense of forward drive and zero of it scary.

[Grouchy]

I really did not like this movie. Some good story elements, but overall it's silly, undercooked, and I don't know, I found the film without any sense of forward drive and zero of it scary.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[Morris Schæffer]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

But, but he's Bosco B Thug!

[Bosco B Thug]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. Well, I know a ton of good people who are on your side, and it infuriates me to no end.


But, but he's Bosco B Thug! That's right. I bust caps in asses.

[Grouchy]

Well, I know a ton of good people who are on your side, and it infuriates me to no end.
Hahah seriously? Well, I'm willing to admit the story is a bit convoluted and, like I said in my review, the pacing is off at times, but overall I see it on a brighter light than you, specially for an opera prima.

The kid with the bag was pretty scary the first time he showed up. And the jawless woman is the most disturbing make-up I've seen for some time. Anyway, it's been a long while since I've last been seriously scared by a Horror movie. I think it was the original Ju-On. How about you guys?

[Bosco B Thug]

Hahah seriously? Well, I'm willing to admit the story is a bit convoluted and, like I said in my review, the pacing is off at times, but overall I see it on a brighter light than you, specially for an opera prima.

The kid with the bag was pretty scary the first time he showed up. And the jawless woman is the most disturbing make-up I've seen for some time. Anyway, it's been a long while since I've last been seriously scared by a Horror movie. I think it was the original Ju-On. How about you guys?
Bleh, the car incident was a bad idea badly executed. But yeah, that first appearance of the bag kid was probably the best and scariest scene in the film.

Hmm, I'd credit The Others for being the last time a theatrical viewing really scared me, at least in that old-fashioned, "scared of the dark"-type way. Wolf Creek elicited some real, non-exploitative chills in its first act, and then there's the typical 20th century exploitation horror (notably Rob Zombie's two first films) that are mostly scary in their depraved ultra-violence. The Ring (which I'm a relatively big fan of) isn't really scary, but its sustained atmosphere did get in my skin. Last year's The Mist had its moments. I got to see some Asian horrors theatrically, too... The Eye, Ju-on: The Grudge, Pulse, A Tale of Two Sisters... none I'd really say were scary viewing experiences.

Whoops, rambling on there. I'd say The Others.

[Spinal]

Anyway, it's been a long while since I've last been seriously scared by a Horror movie. I think it was the original Ju-On. How about you guys?

It depends on what you mean by 'scared', but I think The Descent fits the bill. I found myself really caught up emotionally and psychologically with the characters' situation and definitely had that feeling of dreading what was around the next corner.

[Sycophant]

Anyway, it's been a long while since I've last been seriously scared by a Horror movie. I think it was the original Ju-On. How about you guys?
Margot at the Wedding
Curb Your Enthusiasm

They both left me breathlessly scared in ways on par with the best strictly horror movies I've seen. Different tone, obviously, but yeah.

[Raiders]

It depends on what you mean by 'scared', but I think The Descent fits the bill. I found myself really caught up emotionally and psychologically with the characters' situation and definitely had that feeling of dreading what was around the next corner.

I felt this way until the bald, mutated freaks showed up. From that point on, I just sort of expected Moby look-a-likes to be around every corner.

[D_Davis]

It depends on what you mean by 'scared', but I think The Descent fits the bill. I found myself really caught up emotionally and psychologically with the characters' situation and definitely had that feeling of dreading what was around the next corner.

I agree. Watching this, alone, on DVD, on a dark and rainy night...that was scary. I actually turned on some lights while making my way to out bedroom, which was down stairs in the basement at the time. I had to descend to my room!

I just read a book that scared me - actually gave me nightmares!

Thomas Ligotti's, Noctuary.

He's a modern master of horror, that's for damn sure. I'd like to see some of his stories adapted to film.

[Grouchy]

It depends on what you mean by 'scared', but I think The Descent fits the bill. I found myself really caught up emotionally and psychologically with the characters' situation and definitely had that feeling of dreading what was around the next corner.
True, true. Like Raiders says, once we get to see the creatures it's less impressive, but the opening 45 minutes or so are bone-chilling. Good answer.

One recent Horror that's really not very good but it does have one very scary scene involving baby fetuses in jars and high-pitched screaming is Creep. Good monster make-up on that one, too.

[Spinal]

The creatures didn't really spoil it for me. I just went with it. But I am sympathetic to that point of view, I suppose. It would have been interesting to see a film in which the only obstacle was nature.

[Rowland]

One recent Horror that's really not very good but it does have one very scary scene involving baby fetuses in jars and high-pitched screaming is Creep. Good monster make-up on that one, too.Is that the one with Franka Potente?

[Grouchy]

Is that the one with Franka Potente?
Yeah.

Spinal, I don't mean the idea of the creatures being there. I mean it's less scary once we get to see them instead of just being noises in the dark. But, now that I think about it, that part of the movie was still pretty tense - they looked like fierce fuckers all right. I need to watch it again.

[Rowland]

Some of my favorite imagery occurs in the second half of The Descent. I thought it worked.

[Scar]

The Descent fucking rocks.

[Raiders]

I think the second half of The Descent would have worked much better had it been a lot shorter. The build-up was so great and the claustrophobic surroundings so menacing in the first part that the creatures just didn't hold the same kind of spatial tensions and really were nothing unique or interesting as far as the horror genre goes. There are moments in the second half that are terrific (the night vision with the creepy creature just standing there), but I think it would have worked as one sustained chaos at the very end as opposed to an entire second act with jolts and valleys. The building up would have been even more tense and the payoff more effective, I think. It's almost like one-part nature horror, one-part slasher film. I would have liked to see the creatures being the culmination as opposed to the entire second act.

[Rowland]

I think the second half of The Descent would have worked much better had it been a lot shorter. The build-up was so great and the claustrophobic surroundings so menacing in the first part that the creatures just didn't hold the same kind of spatial tensions and really were nothing unique or interesting as far as the horror genre goes. There are moments in the second half that are terrific (the night vision with the creepy creature just standing there), but I think it would have worked as one sustained chaos at the very end as opposed to an entire second act with jolts and valleys. The building up would have been even more tense and the payoff more effective, I think. It's almost like one-part nature horror, one-part slasher film. I would have liked to see the creatures being the culmination as opposed to the entire second act.The reason the monsters work is because they essentially function as demons of the id. As the characters descend into the subconscious, their bestial nature is unleashed, and every set-up in the first half has a reaction in the blood-soaked second half. If the second half was all "slasher" as you dismiss it, I don't think it'd work either, but likewise, saving all the chaos for a sustained third act wouldn't have worked either, because the cycles of sacrifice, redemption, vengeance, and rebirth that occur between the characters would have been rushed, and they were predicated symbolically on the liberation of the demons.

[Raiders]

The reason the monsters work is because they essentially function as demons of the id. As the characters descend into the subconscious, their bestial nature is unleashed, and every set-up in the first half has a reaction in the blood-soaked second half. If the second half was all "slasher" as you dismiss it, I don't think it'd work either, but likewise, saving all the chaos for a sustained third act wouldn't have worked either, because the cycles of sacrifice, redemption, vengeance, and rebirth that occur between the characters would have been rushed, and they were predicated symbolically on the liberation of the demons.

If you say so. I didn't get any of that from the film. How can we begin to know about any character's subconscious beyond Sarah and Juno? And even then I don't see the correlation. Maybe I see one for Sarah, and the alternate ending suggests something of this sort, but it doesn't explain away the fact that the monsters kill each character in equal opportunity. Sarah's devolution into a monstrous creature, in particular against Juno, doesn't suggest anything of the actual creatures but a 28 Days Later style of survival and comeuppance. And even further this doesn't change the fact that the second act is handled exactly like a slasher film, thematic intentions be damned.

[Rowland]

If you say so. I didn't get any of that from the film. How can we begin to know about any character's subconscious beyond Sarah and Juno?I was thinking more of a collective, archetypal subconscious. I'm not talking about exploring the inner motives of every character or any such thing.
And even then I don't see the correlation. Maybe I see one for Sarah, and the alternate ending suggests something of this sort, but it doesn't explain away the fact that the monsters kill each character in equal opportunity. The second half is lawless, absolutely. The brute savagery exhibited by the demons is reflected in how the group dynamics devolve into chaos, all over the ripple effects of a lost child.
And even further this doesn't change the fact that the second act is handled exactly like a slasher film, thematic intentions be damned.You say that like it's a bad thing. The Descent may be an extremely effective, brutal slasher, justified both thematically and through sober filmmaking. Marshall is obviously a genre fan, so he doesn't condescend to the genre, but rather plays to its strengths. As someone who loved Wolf Creek so much, itself essentially a slasher for its second half, I'm surprised that you'd be so quick to use that vague term with such negative connotations.

[Raiders]

As someone who loved Wolf Creek so much, itself essentially a slasher for its second half, I'm surprised that you'd be so quick to use that vague term with such negative connotations.

Not negative so much as disappointing. I just thought the first half mined (no pun intended) the area so well that to see it essentially become rather routine and unsurprising was unfortunate. Plus, unlike Mclean's film, these thematic concerns you bring up didn't resonate with me at all.

[Grouchy]

Not negative so much as disappointing. I just thought the first half mined (no pun intended) the area so well that to see it essentially become rather routine and unsurprising was unfortunate. Plus, unlike Mclean's film, these thematic concerns you bring up didn't resonate with me at all.
How conventional is a Horror movie about MOLE MEN? MOLE FUCKING MEN.

In all seriousness, I don't think the second half is routine. I see it as tremendously more explicit and graphic than the first, but that's not a bad thing either. In fact, all this discussion reminded me how much I love the film. I should re-watch.

[Russ]

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/2144/molepeopletp1.jpg

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/post-455487-1181339696.jpg?t=1207846192

To Each his Cinema
A lot of people, 2007

I started off the Buenos Aires Film Festival with this promotion omnibus for the 60-year anniversary of Cannes. All the rules the directors have is that the movie can't beat the three minute mark and it has to take place in a film theater.

What can I say? Since the films were so short and so many of them, though, I found the experience kinda tiring. It didn't help that if I saw one more Arab weeping or a blind person, I killed something. A lot of the theaters the stories took place in, by the way, were destroyed. Very few really good films. The running time forced all of the shorts to be joke-based or to evoke a mood.

Two things pissed me off. The first one is that I watched the entire movie out of synch by about one or two seconds. Apparently, there was nothing that could be done or my guess is, they would've done it since everyone whined so much. Second, where was the Coen Brothers contribution? I spent most of the time anticipating their arrival, since they did the best part of Paris Je t'aime. Well, on to the individual capsules (BE CAREFUL, MANY SPOILERS):

Open-Air Cinema (Raymond Depardon) - Piece of unredeemed arty crap with people watching a movie on a rooftop. Nothing of any interest happens.

One Fine Day (Takeshi Kitano) - Comedy gold. A farmer goes to a destroyed movie theater and tries to watch Kids Return, only the projectionist Kitano keeps mixing the reels and burning the negative while the farmer gets increasingly angry.

Three Minutes (Theo Angelopoulos) - More a homage to Marcello Mastroianni than anything else, with Jeanne Moreau and Antonioni-ness. Didn't like it much.

In the Dark (Andrei Konchalovsky) - Well filmed with excellent cinematography, also completely pointless. An old woman watches 8 1/2 over and over while smoking like a chimney. In the back rows, a couple screw like bunnies. Three minutes.

Diary of a Moviegoer (Nanni Moretti) - Good one. Moretti just sits in different theaters in Rome and tells the audience what movies he has seen there and what memories does he have of them. Cute and simple, and a good use of the limited time.

The Electric Princess House (Hou Hsiao-Hsien) - Insanity. A black and white tracking shot that becomes color and strange stuff happens on the stage. Completely bizarro and pointless.

Darkness (Dardenne Brothers) - The Dardennes place the camera close to the faces of the actors and exploit that device, to hide information. A burglar crouches his way in the darkness of the cinema to a purse, but the victim, a young girl, is moved to tears by Au Hazard Balthazar on the screen and, when he reaches for a napkin and finds the burglar's hand, he starts caressing it.

Anna (Alejandro GonzÃ*lez Iñarritu) - Blind girl watching Contempt and crying while her boyfriend explains what's going on. I'd argue that the quoting of Godard is out of place. For some reason, I can't think of this blind girl being moved by something as intellectual and visual as Godard. Iñarritú should've picked another kind of movie in my opinion, something like Bycicle Thief.

Movie Night (Zhang Yimou) - One of the best ones. It takes place somewhere in China where a huge crowd of poor farmers and their sons wait for the night to fall and the movie to begin, but the missionaries start eating dinner and, instead of watching the movie, all of the starving farmers start watching the cinema-like silhouettes of the pair eating.

The Dibbuk of Haifa (Amos Gitai) - Unwatchable crap. The filming style makes it completely unintelligible.

The Lady Bug (Jane Campion) - More weird stuff, about a maintenance man chasing an antropomorphic fly through the theater.

Artaud Doble Bill (Atom Egoyan) - Great. Two girls are chatting on text message while watching two different movies on the same theater. One of them is seeing My Life to Live and the other some '70s film I'd like to be able to place. A short msm chat about Artaud takes place. Really, it's more about mood than anything else. You have to see it to get it.

The Foundry (Aki Kaurismaki) - Pretty much exactly what you'd expect from Kaurismaki, and absolutely nothing else. An outlandish movie theater and static, hilarious shots of the patrons.

Upsurge (Oliver Assayas) - The bleached, oversaturated film stock in this one looked ugly to me, but the idea is not bad. It's about a burglar following a couple into the movie, with an interesting plot twist.

47 Years Later (Youssef Chahine) - Who the hell is this asshole? The most self-serving short in the collection is a fictionalization of young Chahine losing the Palm D'Or for whatever, followed by TV footage of old Chahine winning it. At least he's honest.

It's a Dream (Tsai Ming-Liang) - My first exposure to this director, actually. Pretty much a mood piece with surreal imagery. I didn't enjoy it all that much, but for the first time I got a picture of the guy's style. I'll track down his movies.

Occupations (Lars Von Trier) - Completely awesome. Von Trier is watching Manderlay and an annoying guy keeps talking to him. Then Von Trier, out of nowhere, kills him with an axe. Biggest laugh in the entire movie.

The Cinema Around the Corner (Claude Lelouch) - Strange stuff about a blind antropologist, a girl, and some tale about people watching Casablanca on a radio. I simply didn't get it.

First Kiss (Gus Van Sant) - Eh. A projectionist enters the movie screen to make out with a girl in a bikini. Would've been nice if the girl was hotter.

Cinema Erotique (Roman Polanski) - My friends who went to see this reacted pretty bad at this one, saying it was just a raunchy joke. Well, that's true, but it's extremely well done and I like that it wasn't pretentious at all. An old, uptight couple is watching Emmanuelle and a dirty-looking fella behind them keeps moaning and shaking. Obviously, nothing is what it seems. Even while I saw the punchline coming, the execution was hilarious.

No Translation Needed (Michael Cimino) - Idiotic stuff about Cimino filming a Cuban band. The lead singer doesn't like how he edits the shots and strangles Michael Cimino. Ugly sound effects.

At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (David Cronenberg) - Almost unquestionably the finest short film, and it has basically nothing to do with cinema. Stars Cronenberg himself as the last Jew alive in a futuristic world, reuniting courage to shoot himself while two commentators make gags and punchy one-liners about Jews and the film industry. I bet the budget was five dollars.

I travelled 9000km to give this to you (Wong Kar Wai) - This guy is a genius. Using nothing else but music, the color red, shifting in and out of focus and on-screen titles telling the story, he managed to move me after I was almost desensitized from so many shorts.

Where is My Romeo? (Abbas Kiarostami) - A series of faces of old women being moved to tears by Romeo and Juliet. It works because it's so simple and straight-forward. It's dedicated to one of the old women.

The Last Dating Show (Billie August) - The subtitles went off on this one. What I understood was a nerdy guy and a beautiful woman were being mocked by three bullies. When all five of them have to exit the movie, their desire to find out how it ends creates an alliance and all five of them end up sneaking into the projectionist's booth.

Irtebak (Elia Suleiman) - Another Kaurismaki short in style and type of humor, about the misadventures of an extremely nervous director outside of a screening of his film. Actually, it was funnier than the true Kaurismaki short.

Sole Meeting (Manoel De Oliveira) - A parody of a silent film about Khruschkev meeting the Pope. This type of culture-clash comedy is easy to do but entertaining.

5.557 Miles from Cannes (Walter Salles) - Awesome. Two Brazilian samba artists improvise a song about what Cannes must be like, while they stand in front of a theater showing The 400 Blows. A filmed performance, basically.

War in Peace (Wim Wenders) - The suck. Corny documentary footage of poverty in Africa and a bunch of kids watching Black Hawk Down on TV. Disappointing, specially coming from Wenders.

untitled (David Lynch) - A comeback to Lynch's video artist days, stuff like The Alphabet or Six Figures Getting Sick. I would've loved to see an actual story or a more ambitious Lynch effort, though. It was basically three minutes of creepy music and photographs.

Zhanxiou Village (Chen Kaige) - Sappy stuff, but well filmed. Again, blind people. A bunch of kids watch a Chaplin short and, when the projector fails, they start powering it with their bycicles, eventually going faster and faster from laughter and causing the movie to speed up as well. So far, so good, then one of the kids is blind and when he's older, he keeps going to the movies.

Happy Ending (Ken Loach) - Pure irony. Father and son delay a movie line in order to pick the right movie to see. Eventually, they give up and go to the football instead. I dunno what to make of it. I appreciate the sense of humor, though, and the fact that they closed the collection with it.

And that's about it. I guess we're all biased that way with a collection like this, because none of the shorts are excellent or gems, but I'm more indulgent with Kitano and Polanski and not so much with Loach simply because I like them better. In that way, the movie works as a showcase of modern cinema and a team-up of extremely diverse directors. I recommend it, at least once. Now if someone can show me where is the Coen Brothers short, it'll be appreciated.

[Russ]

Occupations (Lars Von Trier) - Completely awesome. Von Trier is watching Manderlay and an annoying guy keeps talking to him. Then Von Trier, out of nowhere, kills him with an axe. Biggest laugh in the entire movie.
Ha! Who hasn't wanted to do that?

[Spinal]

I can't wait to see that even though you kind of spoiled the punchline. Guess that's hard to avoid when describing a 3-minute film.

[origami_mustache]

I found David Lynch's late contribution, but still haven't seen the Coen's film which I hear is the best.

[Grouchy]

I can't wait to see that even though you kind of spoiled the punchline. Guess that's hard to avoid when describing a 3-minute film.
Huh, sorry. I thought I'd added a warning that, on many cases, I was gonna spoil the entire short. Guess I forgot. I'll do it now.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/before20the20devil20IMG_4255.j pg?t=1209412096

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Sidney Lumet, 2007

Lumet is a living legend of movies, and a walking banner for low-key filmmaking. In fact, his movies are so low-key that none's ever heard of most of them. Did you know his previous movie was a courtroom drama with Vin Diesel, Find Me Guilty? Well, maybe you did. I was very surprised myself. This new film of his is the story of a failed jewel robbery, told like Kubrick's The Killing, with elements of Coenesque dark comedy and a gritty focus on a devastated family. The title comes from an Irish saying, "make sure you're in Heaven half and hour / before the Devil knows you're dead".

The plot is simple, although the constant time jumping deconstructs it and makes sure we can't watch it as a thriller, emphazising the family drama above the robbery itself. Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman are brothers Hank and Andy. The former sinks in debts while his wife presses him for child support, while the latter swims in money, but needs even more to pay for his constant drug use, which includes coke and heroine. Andy, who's far more reckless and smart than his twitchy brother, has a plan. It's a victimless crime - robbing a mom-and-pop jewelry store. The catch is that it's their own mom and pop they're talking about. Of course, even though the idea seems harmless, it will get more complicated.

The cast is the real magic here, and on top of it, Hoffman as Andy and the amazing Albert Finney as the suffering, stubborn father. They have the toughest characters to pull off, father and son against each other, and their final scene together is what makes the movie stand out in memory. Hawke and Marisa Tomei fill in with a lot of ease, too. I'm not a fan of constant time jumping unless it really is written with a lot of thought, like The Killing, Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. Here, though, I think Lumet's intention is that we don't focus on whether the robbery will go right or wrong. We know how it will turn out from the beginning, then work our way into it, then we see the afternath, which is the longest part of the movie and the one most filled with emotional peaks. Sure, the movie could've worked with chronology, but here the director is pointing exactly where he wants his audience to pay attention.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of it that involves the mechanic of the robbery, and despite the excellent performances, I wasn't really sold on some things, like the complete stupidity of Hank, who, while nervous and depressed, seems fairly above retardation level, yet he makes very simple mistakes that botch the robbery. Almost everything that turns out wrong for the brothers is his fault, and he doesn't even have the courage to admit those mistakes, which eventually creates even more mistakes.

Above all things, I think Devil is a movie about a family living a capitalist sickness where everything -people, feelings- is measured by money. Everything costs money, including emotions and break-ups. That is correctly portrayed throughout the film and in that way, a scene where Andy destroys his house in a very calm way is very revealing. People fight for nothing but money, and need it constantly to improve their lifestyle. Money destroys love, father-and-son bonds, and even memory of our loved ones. Watch it with that in mind. Or not, if you don't want to.

A side note about HD. While there are amazing cameras that can get incredible images on video, there were times in this movie where I felt it looked too much like TV. The characters' movements, specially, have that 3D quality that makes you alert that what you're watching is not film. Of course, it boils down to personal taste, and there are post-production ways to erase those differences, only I bet they weren't used here. Of course, the format will evolve, so we'll have to see. In any case, I think different technology can coexist. I'm making such a point about this because Lumet has gone on record saying that shooting on film is "a pain in the ass" and that he'll never do it again. I bet digital video helped him on this movie, where he had to cover a scene from a lot of different angles when it was repeated from a different point of view. But many filmmakers have done the same with celluloid before.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/04208.jpg?t=1209412079

Sukiyaki Western: Django
Takashi Miike, 2007

A wide shot of the desert. Sun burning and a man in a poncho and cowboy hat, cooking himself a meal. Harmonicas in the background. Seems like the start of a perfect Sunday movie with Franco Nero, Lee Van Cleef or Klaus Kinski, shot in AlmerÃ*a and dubbed in English. Yet the sky is painted in seemingly random colors, the desert is an obvious set, the gunslinger is actually Quentin Tarantino, cooking some sukiyaki, and the rest of the cast is Japanese, speaking the worst English ever spoken in Nevada, Japan. Three minutes into the movie, QT has already parodied the bad English, shot a snake in the air and eaten an egg taken from its inside. This is the latest from Takashi Miike, a loose remake of Sergio Corbucci's classic Django and a wild satire of both the western and the samurai genre.

This is a movie that breaks barriers in the way that it doesn't offer any apology for its satirical intentions and derivative plot. Like in the original Django, which features the classic Hammettian theme of the anti-hero playing one side against the other, the gunman arrives at a town split in two factions, White and Red, constantly at bloody war over a buried treasure, and, well, plays them against each other. However, this time, when the armies are trying to force him to choose, they say "don't even think about playing Yojimbo with us!". Later on, the QT character will confess to being "a real Anime Otaku at heart". The way Miike wears his references on his sleeves is deceitful, like everything in his work - he's trying to make us laugh and not take the movie seriously, only to later show us that we can be moved by these goofy stereotypes.

In that way, Django is an expansion of Tarantino's Kill Bill, which is why Quentin is a guest star, yet it outdoes his revenge epic considerably on the boldness scale. While Kill Bill also featured movie badass stereotypes discussing pop culture out loud, QT had made an effort to set his story in a paralell reality of sorts, where kung-fu masters like Pai Mei and Yakuza gangs with Kato masks could live alongside real-life rapists, a recognizable geography and believable locations. Instead, Sukiyaki Western Django is completely anti-reality. There are duels between samurai swords and guns, snow appears out of nowhere and covers the desert in seconds, and a character develops schizophrenia after breaking his back in two halves. It's not only a spaguetti western and a samurai movie, it's a Looney Tunes episode.

Due to the incredible directing skills of Miike, now over 40 and having made an impressive 70 feature films, he creates an emotional climax where it really hurts when ridiculous characters we've grown to love, who are in fact nothing but pop culture jokes, are ruthlessly killed. And absolutely EVERYONE dies in the farcical and beautiful ending of this movie. It's not that Miike overcame the goofiness of his plot - it's that he proved he didn't have to make a gritty, realistic movie in order to provoke emotions. Is Sukiyaki only a spaguetti western parody? It has enough elements to allow you to look at it that way, particularly if you've seen the original Django, but at the same time, it's a perfectly valid Western about revenge and the blindness of hatred and, in any case, its eclectic soundtrack and millions of subplots would make it a satire of a lot of genres. Is it a completely crazy films? Yes, it's filled with visual, verbal and surreal jokes, and the structure suffers a little because of it - in particular, I don't know if this was Miike's intention, but the supporting characters and villains are a lot more interesting than Django, who's a completely uncharismatic presence.

To talk more about it would be to spoil other pleasures of this quirky (and epic) movie. It's completely unlike any other movie I've seen from Miike, far more zany and self-reflective, and a perfect midnight treat for hardcore genre fans and people with a healthy sense of humor.

[lovejuice]

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Lumet is a living legend of movies, and a walking banner for low-key filmmaking. In fact, his movies are so low-key that none's ever heard of most of them.

not many people endorse the movie, but if you understand lumetism, there are quite a lot to dig here. fewer people seem to forget that it's not per se a director's job to leave his/her signature and be revered. the best is sometimes the least noticeable.

[Grouchy]

not many people endorse the movie, but if you understand lumetism, there are quite a lot to dig here. fewer people seem to forget that it's not per se a director's job to leave his/her signature and be revered. the best is sometimes the least noticeable.
I agree. I wasn't talking about his movies lacking "auterism", I was just pointing out that if you read through his filmography on IMDb, there are either those movies considered classic or stand-outs or those that seem to have been ignored by critics and audiences.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/cartel_menonitas.jpg?t=1208323 823

Silent Ligt
Carlos Reygadas, 2007

The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496-1561), though his teachings were a relatively minor influence on the group. As one of the historic peace churches, Mennonites are committed to nonviolence, nonviolent resistance/reconciliation, and pacifism. There are about 1.5 million Mennonites worldwide as of 2006. Mennonite congregations worldwide embody the full scope of Mennonite practice from old fashioned 'plain' people to those who are indistinguishable in dress and appearance from the general population. The largest population of Mennonites is in the United States and Democratic Republic of Congo, but Mennonites can also be found in tight-knit communities in at least 51 countries on six continents or scattered amongst the populace of those countries.

Ladies and gentlemen, Wikipedia. And Silent Light, or, more appropriately, Stellet Licht, the first movie spoken in Plautdietsch, a Low Prussian variety of German which is the common language amongst Mexican Mennonites. It's a portrait of Christian guilt centering around a family man Mennonite who's in love with another woman who's not his wife. How he deals with that and overcomes not only his wife's anger but his desire to do what he wants to in spite of society is the conflict of the film. That's not to say Reygadas is too insightful about it. Like with his other film (Japón, I haven't seen Battle in the Sky), this steps closer to the documentary than the narrative film, since it features non-actors playing roles that are close to their real lives.

Reygadas is clearly a fan of Tarkovsky, and in fact you could almost say he apes his style more than he learns from it. Uniformly long takes, with very few non-diegetic music, long, slow movements and obsessive lingering over images in search of some Tarkovskian "truth". The images are very beautiful, that has to be said. The movie is book-ended by shots of the sun rising and falling in what appears to be real time. Of course, that would take over an hour of film, yet the camera pans at normal speed over what's actually four or five minutes. After the movie there was a Q&A with Reygadas, and I asked him how he'd done the two shots. He assured me there was nothing digital about it, it was all an optic effect, but then he said he didn't really felt like he wanted to explain it. In any case, obsession with nature is another constant of his work.

The actors vary in quality. While the star of the film does an extraordinary acting job and I have the impression that he must have at least some dramatic experience, others just seem clueless (the main actor's father -also his father in the fiction- is a scary sight) and there are some moments where the actors (specially child actors) stare nervously into the camera. It was that fine line and uneasiness between what could've been documentary footage of a different and interesting lifestyle and a forced plot what I disliked about Silent Light. A making of about the movie would be a lot cooler and insightful, since we'd get to see what did the Mennonites actually thought about the script, which includes a strong challenge to their beliefs. According to Reygadas himself, they had no problem with any of it, except for a lesbian kissing scene which pissed off many of them. The riots started, of course, after the movie was released, and it was a debate with other communities, not the one that had supported and acted in the film.

I watched this movie out of curiosity for its strange setting, since I'd seen Japón years ago and I couldn't remember any of it except for a shot of a beheaded chicken and the general feeling that I wanted it to end badly. I have to give this Reygadas guy a lot of respect, though. He makes the most unconventional movies possible, trying to capture reality in a fiction film, and makes it work for the most part. And his DP is a genius. It's simply not my type of cinema. Although, as far as objective criticism goes, the closing third of the film is my least favorite. It presents us with a mystical ending which just doesn't seem to fit what we'd been given so far in any way.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/manfromlondon.jpg?t=1208369237

The Man from London
Béla Tarr, 2007

On my years as a film buff and internet addict, I'd found the name Tarr, Béla a lot of times. I'd heard sky-high fucking praise on Werckmeister Harmonies, a seven-hour-long monster film called Satantango and the like. But, before this film festival, I'd never found either the motivation or the chance to actually watch his stuff. Now, when I saw he had a movie scheduled which was also an adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, I decided I'd give it a shot. And boy am I glad I did. Subsequent internet research showed me that all of his movies are exactly like this one, if not in content, in style - black and white, long travelling takes, and pacing equivalent to watching the grass grow. I know, it looks like a torture time at the movies. But, at least on Man from London, it wasn't.

What amazes me is how Tarr seems to be following a limited set of rules to direct this movie, almost as an exercise - yet he uses the possibilities of cinema to the fullest. On the first sequence (all in one shot, remember that), we're slowly watching the passengers unboard a ship. We catch a few snippets of cryptic conversation. Seems like a plan is on the making for a man to pick up a briefcase. Time passes. The passengers keep walking into a train. Then, suddenly, a man throws the briefcase. Another man picks it up. He walks. Time passes. The man is walking and he's assaulted by another one. The first man dies and falls into the river, holding the briefcase. The second man flees. Zoom out and we're inside the lookout of our protagonist who has watched everything from his tower, depicted in the poster above. The funding grounds for the whole noir thriller we're about to see have been laid, all in one shot.

When I say "noir thriller", of course, don't expect any chases. This is actually coherent with the style of Simenon novels, one of my favorite authors. His thrillers are languid, featuring characters trapped in no way out situations like those of Patricia Highsmith, and have a depressing, foggy atmosphere only occasionally interrupted by comedy. It's fun to see how the clashing of Simenon and Tarr produces an unique style which has as much to do with noir as with Tarkovsky. There is comedy in this film, of the surreal poetry variety, focusing on quirky, obsessive characters, like a couple of clothes salesmen who seem to only talk at the same time, or the strange dancing that goes on at the local bar. Yet none laughs, everyone seems to have too much rain on their brains. The acting is excellent all around, and even though most actors seem to be sleepwalking, there are moments of great intensity, mostly starring the always groundbreaking Tilda Swinton.

The Man from London is an atmospheric ride that needs to be experienced to be fully understood. If my previous review for Silent Light showed my purely intellectual response to a movie that had bored me shitless, this is written fully from the heart. After the movie, we had a Q&A with Fred Kelemen, the cinematographer. Tarr was supposed to be there too, but they said he isn't feeling to healthy. Kelemen seemed like a very cool guy and, judging from the incredible achievement the dolly shots on this movie are, he's as important to this film as the director. Kelemen also looked like he wanted to get the hell out of there, and he often answered just "yes" or "no" or "I don't know", always smiling, though. Most of the questions were about the troubled production of the film, which started when the producer killed himself on the first day of shooting, never a good-looking sign. All the struggle and the human element invested on the film, I believe, can be seen on the screen. Seriously, can't recommend the movie enough, and I'm loking forward to more from Béla Tarr. Satantango looks intimidating, but who knows? I thought the same when this started.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/let_the_right_one_in_poster.jp g?t=1208406034

Let the Right One In
Tomas Alfredson, 2008

One of the most maligned sub-genres of Horror is the vampire movie. Seriously, it seems as if it's so easy to make one the end result is fucked up by overconfidence - zombies have it a lot better. And, also, a vampire is such a classic lore character that it has lost is primal fear factor, becoming more of a subject for parody, starting with Bela Lugosi appearing in Abbot & Costello movies and ending with stuff like Vamp or Innocent Blood. The last movie in my shorthand memory to approach these bloodsuckers completely seriously is the masterful Vampires by John Carpenter. It shares with this wonderful Swedish film a gritty, no nonsense approach to what constitutes vampirism and the inmediate, human consequences of it.

Adapted from a best-selling novel by the author himself, Let the Right One In tells the story of Oskar, a lonely, misunderstood 12-year-old who develops a child crush on a pretty neighbor called Eli, who lives with her father. Eli seemingly has the same age as him, the difference being that she has stayed that age for the last 300 years. The movie then follows two paralell plots. One concerns the story of Eli and her apparent "father", their fucked up relationship, and the tragic ending of it. The other one is about Oskar and about how this new friend helps him live through parental indifference and school bullying. Director Alfredson walks a fine line between this naive and innocent children drama and the gory atrocity, culminating in an ending scene that mixes both worlds and carries a punch and a half.

Like I've said before, we've had one too many vampire movies, but rarely one so violent and real. We're used to Hollywood leeches having huge fangs and red contact lenses. Instead, the neck-biting scenes in this movie are messy and abrupt. Eli literally clings to the bodies of her victims like some kind of insect and sends the blood to the walls. We see no fangs, no crazy eyes and barely enough foreplay to guarantee suspense. It's worth noting that, unlike something like Ferrara's The Addiction, this isn't a "real-life" update where vampires are a metaphor for something else. This is the real deal, a human drama with strong suspense, dark humor and brutal violence which just so happens to involve a supernatural element like vampires. All of the mythology is kept intact, except maybe crosses to avoid entering a messy topic. Vampires burn in the sun, can't eat anything but blood, and sleep on dirt. The character of Eli is a very memorable girl-monster, specially since Alfredson hints at elements of her past that are not fully explained, thus giving us an aura of mystery to cling on. Although maybe that was more developed on the novel, I couldn't know.

This has been one of the nicest film surprises I've had all year. Visually astounding, with excellent acting by everyone including the kids and great writing. It might be in need of some further editing, though. There are scenes that led nowhere and lasted for way too long, specially those that overstated that Oskar's parents didn't understand his needs and concerns. I suspect Lindqvist, the author of the novel, couldn't gather the stomach to get rid of them. Still, even if the movie goes on for a few minutes after it reaches a perfect ending, the last scene is so tense, brutal and a stand-out in gore achieved through finesse that it makes everything worth watching. I hope it finds distribution soon here in Argentina and in the US, so that I can discuss it further and probably watch it again.

[Beau]

I really need to get into Tarr...

[Grouchy]

Beau, I always forget. Do you live in Buenos Aires or were born here but moved away?

[Grouchy]

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Redacted
Brian De Palma, 2007

It seems 2007 was a year heavily influenced by the youtube sub-culture and the "do it yourself" approach to filmmaking. Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, [Rec] and now this mockumentary by the master De Palma, inspired by a real-life case of rape and murder by American troops on Iraq. De Palma combines different kinds of simulated "found footage", including inflamatory youtube posts, blogging, security cameras, counseling military videos and, of course, the material in one of the soldiers handycam. This soldier, Salazar, declares many times throughout the movie that he thinks the reports of the soldiers lives in the field and, yes, the document of the planned rape is gonna land him a career ticket to film school.

The entire story (the killing of an officer, anger from the troops, plan to rape a local girl, and the lone voice of dissent who's threatened with death by the rapists) was the subject of a previous and very underlooked war movie De Palma made back in 1989, Casualties of War. That movie was made 17 years before the real events were soldiers Barker, Cortez and Spielman raped 14-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza, then killed her along with her family. If anything, De Palma's fiction has been completely surpassed by reality. It's easy to see the motivation for making an update of that movie, in an era where it's more difficult to properly disguise a crime so ugly due to constant surveillance.

It's not so easy to see where the idea went completely wrong. Redacted is a huge pile of badly acted clichés and misguided "controversial" editing. Since the movie itself suffered censorship because of a series of war photos at the end where it was thought that the victim's families might sue, De Palma made a running joke of it with the title's letters being obscured by black marker. In those stylistic flourishes, I think, we can find the undoing of the movie. By making it more a statement on media and the cheating yet brutal objectivity of cameras (both subjects common to De Palma's works), the script overlooks the more challenging issues contained in the story, like the growing violence of troops, the unfairness of the occupation of Iraq and the no man's land attitude the military encourages. Casualties of War was a strong drama because it showcased what was important about the story, the conflict of the protagonist between his faithfulness to the army and his country and his own moral codes. Instead, Redacted simply becomes too distracting.

On a second, more important level, a lot of the movie is boring exploitation. The famous real-life photographs at the end, the ones that were censored for fear of emotional injury, are now "redacted" (a synonim for edited) and mixed with staged photos. This, in my mind, cheapens the message. If the movie was a full-out documentary, the exploitative feel of pictures of dead people with emotional background music would be somewhat forgivable, because a war documentary, cheesiness aside, is supposed to feature a strong point of view and to look for a strong audience reaction. A war mockumentary where real images are combined with dramatizations is a reflection on cinema or an experiment, but it's not a film with a honest relationship with the audience. It's not the kind of film that would benefit this strong, inflamatory subject.

In short, a failed project. I'm a huge fan of De Palma, and even on this movie I found something to admire in the style and the way he made the source footage seem believable. But I don't think it was a good idea from the start and it was poorly executed. It combines so many messages and media it becomes shallow. Redacted doesn't have anything meaningful to say about anything related to war, in fact. It could have been made about any other subject. It's also a bit of a cry for atention in the wrong sense, a movie that could write a textbook on how to create controversial advertising. Yet, when you walk through the controversy, it's an empty shell with excellent filmmaking skills on display, but no sense of purpose.

[Beau]

Beau, I always forget. Do you live in Buenos Aires or were born here but moved away?

Born in Madrid, raised in Buenos Aires, currently living in California. Half of my soul is in Belgrano. The other half is in Nuñez. My biography, in a nutshell.

[Grouchy]

Born in Madrid, raised in Buenos Aires, currently living in California. Half of my soul is in Belgrano. The other half is in Nuñez. My biography, in a nutshell.
Hah!

Me, I was born, raised and live here. My soul belongs to the whole city, but specially to San Telmo, Montserrat and Almagro.

[trotchky]

I basically agree with you on Silent Light, and your reaction to a previous Reygadas film was similar to my reaction to this one: I wanted to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. The film has an oppressive and inhuman atmosphere, matched by its formal rigidity. Shortly after seeing Silent Light I watched Techine's The Witnesses; the life-blood pulsing through that movie and its pure, sexually-charged freedom stood in stark contrast to the former and was invigorating as hell. I guess there's a lot I admire about Silent Light but it's not something I want to see ever again.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/smiley-poster.jpg?t=1208812197

Smiley Face
Gregg Araki, 2007

A "pothead" is a person who's so deep into smoking that he's become hooked into this soft drug. I've read the term used in expressions such as "pothead culture", "pothead humor" and "pothead attitude". All of those terms embody the spirit of this comedy by Gregg Araki, a New Queer Wave filmmaker whose latest movie had been a somber drama about sexually abused kids, Mysterious Skin. It seems he felt the need to lighten up and simply tell an amusing story with this one.

Anna Faris stars as Jane F., an aspiring actress living in LA who probably smokes a little too much, since she forgets about auditions and spends the day eating, sleeping and chilling with PC games. Faris does a wonderful job with the character - I always liked her, but I'd never noticed before what an amazing timing for comedy she has, sort of like a female Jim Carrey back on his funny days. Her roommate is a creepy, constantly annoyed nerd that, at best, scares the crap outta her. One day, during a fit of the munchies, she finds her roommate's cakes under a "DO NOT TOUCH" label. She eats all of them in a heartbeat, before discovering they are no ordinary cakes - they're in fact pot cakes. From then on, her day becomes a series of drugged misfires through L.A. and beyond its borders.

A movie with a protagonist who's constantly high can't have much of a plot. Like that '90s masterpiece of the funnies, The Big Lebowski, the film meanders, improvises structure-breaking scenes and characters, and occasionally enters hallucinatory state. But at least the Dude in Lebowski had been placed on a dangerous situations by other, more stressed-out, characters. Instead, Jane F. literally digs her own grave due to being too high to think properly. And Araki directs the movie with deliberate carelesness, throwing everything he can into the frying pan. Roscoe Lee Brown narrates this saga of atrocities as if they're some kind of inspiring cautionary tale, while the sun turns into a smiley icon and a guy in a red devil suit jumps from nowhere to provide some paranoia.

Jokes appear at a fuck-miles per minute ratio. Everything from visual punchlines to quirky dialogue and messed up people is used. I predict the rewatchability factor of Smiley Face must be high, since while you're laughing the movie is running for another hit. I can't imagine any other actress in the Faris role - her crazy faces are amazing, and she never quite repeats herself. On other stoner movies, the "woooow" and "duuuude" words are overused and come out as corny, but Anna really makes it all work on a different level - sure, it's an exaggerated portrait, but the fact that she has eaten over ten marijuana muffins without even blinking is really a selling point for any sort of over-the-top behavior.

In short, this is a movie that's a breath of fresh air, made to be enjoyed for its uncompromising nature and smart, nonsensical humor. It's been my introduction to the Araki style, after which I'll accept any recommendations. I look forward to watch it a second time, a little more stoned for good measure.

[Grouchy]

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I'm Not There
Todd Haynes, 2007

Publicity can turn any man into a legend and destroy him afterwards. The list of musicians who were destroyed by their rock & roll lifestyle and, possibly, also by the press is as long as three arms. However, it doesn't include Bob Dylan - he has survived his own fame and damning choices to become an aging and respected musician. There have been a lot of documentaries made on him, focusing on wildly different aspects of his erratic life and music. Haynes, a director who specializes in music and pop culture (Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine) could've easily made another one. Instead, he made a fiction film, but not one that follows Dylan's life in a literal way, featuring an award-winning performance by actor/star X. He has made a movie featuring six different actors (one a 10-year-old black kid, another a woman) playing alternate lives of Bob Dylan, sort of like alter egos of the man's body and soul, without actually naming any of them Dylan. In fact, the name is never mentioned in the entire film, while many aliases are named after famous writers and singers. Oh, and every character has his own signature film stock.

Christian Bale is Jack Rollins, a controversial folk poet and, eventually, a born-again Christian. Heath Ledger is actor Robbie Clark, starring in a Jack Rollins biopic and seeing his marriage come apart because of Hollywood. Cate Blanchett is Jude Quinn, basically Dylan in the '60s, and we'll come back to her and her kick-ass work. Marcus Carl Franklin is Woody Guthrie, in fact a black kid running away from everything and jumping on moving trains. He shares this hobby with Billy the Kid (Richard Gere), an outlaw hiding away in a surreal town. And finally Ben Whishaw is Arthur Rimbaud, a poet being interviewed on his work. There's absolutely no symmetry on the movie, and the storylines don't make any effort to connect themselves. They're edited together more as a question of mood and correspondence than logical meaning.

Therefore, this is fucking artsy. But it's good artsy, skilfull and filled with imagination. The material fits the mystique of Dylan, an artist and a genius who refuses to be classified and even understood, by fans and haters alike. He has gone from tender folk to the protest song and straight to surreal rock ballad, alienating anyone who cared to listen. He's the Phoenix bird of musicians. But I'm Not There rings deeper than that. It's a labyrinth proving that art is unable to fully understand any man's life, not only Dylan's. The Jude Quinn segment, for example, rang very deep inside me, and as far as I know I'm no rock star. Due to recent events in my life I've also felt under pressure and wanting to avoid explaining myself. Imagine having to do the same thing, but with a world of music buffs.

That segment in particular is the heart and soul of the film. I don't know if it was always planned like that, or if it was a result of editing and simply how good the Blanchett stuff is. Her performance as the whiny, mumbly, smokey, bitchy, druggy Dylan is absolutely incredible. Not only she's a very believable man, she's a very believable creation and the one that most closely approaches the kind of freewheelin' state of mind Dylan's records from the era provoke. A lot has been said about how her black and white scenes are an homage to 8 1/2, and while that's true due to their plot and occasional imagery, the truth is that they're their own beast, and during a party scene where images are projected on the walls and Quinn/Dylan sinks into meth-induced nonsense, the segment achieves its own stand-out grandeur.

Completely memorable, chaotic and inspired, this monster movie is like a biography written in poetry, coded and obscure but always emotional and a faithful translation of the little anyone can know about Dylan's mind. In a way it's a territorial movie, since it's completely meaningless to anyone who doesn't know at least the basic Dylan facts and enjoys his music. In another way, it's not only a Dylan movie, it's an universal statement on art and the relationship of any artist with his audience. In any case, an experience like this is not attempted often by directors. I fully congratulate Todd Haynes. His monster movie moved me, made me laugh and think. It's, as far as I know, the most rocking movie of the year.

[Qrazy]

Big fan here too, best thing Haynes has done by a long shot.

[KK2.0]

found a trailer for Let The Right One In

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V08AgjqwxyzIQS

looks amazing

[Grouchy]

found a trailer for Let The Right One In

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V08AgjqwxyzIQS

looks amazing
Good trailer, but it shows too much of some key scenes.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/ironmanblu-raylargeironmanblu-ray9.jpg?t=1221757296

Iron Man
Jon Favreau, 2008

It's unquestionable that we're experiencing a Golden Age for comic-book adaptations and, specially, superhero movies. Whether that's positive, negative or downright overbearing, the phenomenon is here and producers are looking forward to the next not-so-famous character. Hell, even fucking Deadpool had a release date last time I checked. The original culprits are the enormously succesful X-Men and Spiderman franchises, and despite the quality of Batman Begins and the pretentiousness of the Superman movie, Marvel continues to dominate the scenario. And by Marvel I mean Avi Arad, who had saved Marvel from bankruptcy and who hit it big with his first two original franchises... only to follow it up by casting Ben Affleck as Daredevil. Now, through a complicated business stuff I won't pretend to understand, Marvel is self-financing its own moviehouse. And this is their first baby - Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man.

Stark is one of the most complex and powerful of Marvel heroes, and certainly the most controversial core member of the goody-goody team of Avengers. He's a peace fighter, yet at the same time a genius businessman and weapons merchant. He's a man with a weak heart, whose powers and abilities come from a self-made armor instead of being their own. He's also -or used to be- an alcoholic. In many ways, Iron Man is the dark side of Batman - he really is the shady, womanizing millionaire Bruce Wayne only pretends to be, and he doesn't seek help from his gadgets - he is the gadget. Many or all of these unconventional character traits could have been downplayed by a lesser movie to gain massive appeal. Yet director Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. (probably the most accurate superhero casting in movie history after Christopher Reeves) placed a bet on the character's peculiarities, and the box office they raised by not compromising their view is commendable.

The story gets upgraded a few years, with Stark having to build his armor captive in Afghanistan instead of Vietnam, the guardians using the very same guns he designed for America's safety. This is the beginning of a transformation road for Stark, who gets out of his rich baby genius shell and discovers a world of contradiction and moral conundrums. He learns that the best weapon is not "the one you only have to fire once", but the one you become. The script of this movie cleverly subverts the hero's journey of most superhero movies, which sees an extraordinary individual gaining hope out of tragedy. Tony Stark, instead, lives a dream life and what he gains is not hope, not even power in the fantastic sense of the word - he gains only awereness of the complexities of the world and the tools to change it.

Favreau has described his approach to this movie as "Altman making Superman", meaning that he improvised most of the dialogue scenes with his committed group of actors. By doing this, he has turned what could've been a regular formula movie filled with one-liners into a movie that breathes fresh air and that surprises us with its maturity and genuine comedy. Yes, comedy - despite all of the delicate issues and the complexity of the protagonist's conflict, the movie they made is cheerful, exciting, irreverent and funny, down to the flabbergasting very last frame. Everything has to be said, when a one-liner does pop out it sounds twice as cheesy. But Favreau more than makes up for it by the strenght he finds in his characterizations.

In other aspects, Favreau and his team have also hit gold. Instead of the obvious Iron Man archvillain (The Mandarin), they have turned a second-rank foe (The Warmonger) into a menace worthy of respect, something that over 40 years of comic-books could never do. The villain fits the origin story. Although the action sequences are few and far between, they are very inspired. Stakes are raised because of the audience's involvement with the character, and when stuff blows up, it looks awesome and dangerous. The heavy metal score is cool as well, and a nice change of pace from the reiterative "rousing" film scores. Iron Man is modern, hip, smart, violent, fast, and just as the cyborg hero, it has a heart in the middle of all the technology. The opposite of Michael Bay's Transformers, which is an unavoidable association after all the metalic sound effects.

I rank this up with the finest of this new wave of superhero actioners, up there with Nolan's Batman and Lee's Hulk. Unlike the last one, though, Favreau and Downey have not forgotten that it's also meant to be a blockbuster entertainment. It's a by-the-numbers movie if you sit down to analyze the script, sure, and the plot is, to an extent, predictable. But it's the little details that make the experience enjoyable. It's Downey's charisma (I love this man) that carries the character, and not the Light and Magic software. High five to the second half of this wacky, wacky superhero movie era.

[Grouchy]

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Lust, Caution
Ang Lee, 2007

It's not a coincidence that Wong, the female protagonist of this espionage thriller, goes frequently to the cinema to watch Hollywood movies, and that she stares casually at a poster for Hitchcock's Suspicion. Ang Lee has based his newest on a Chinese WWII novella that could have easily been the basis for a '40s war melodrama, complete with exotic locales, sexy heroines and impossible loves. But he has taken full advantage of the permisiveness and the expanded worldviews of modern times, and switched the patriotism for individualism and the suggestive for the explicit. When Rick Blaine rejected his Ilsa at the last minute of Casablanca, the studios allowed it because it was a sacrifice in the name of patriotism, but that wasn't what the screenwriters subtly injected on the script - all of the audience knew that he was doing it because it would be hopeless and cruel of him to keep the girl given how things had turn out. Lust, Caution (its real title a Chinese pun with the words "diamond" and "caution", no possible translation) doesn't need to cover up for anything.

Much like in Notorious, Wong gradually gets caught up in a subterfuge spy mission she really wants no part of. Starting up with a group of "politically aware" theater guys, Wong is the star of cheesy anti-Japanese occupation plays. However, the leader of the group is a stubborn patriot who doesn't get all he wants out of the theater. He wants to go and murder a Jap, or at least, a Chinese traitor. Partly because she has a crush on him, she agrees to take part on a misinformed attempt to murder a colaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). To tell any more would be telling indeed, so let's just say that, after many twists and turns, the relationship she finally develops with Mr. Yee in order to lure him into a trap proves too steamy for both of them and, possibly, for her fellow resistance members.

Lee shoots this movie with a languid pace and with special attention to detail and expressive acting. Characters almost never fully express their feelings talking, but the glances tell everything. And glances are Tony Leung's specialty. Here he plays a man who gained status and security through murdering and torturing his countrymen. While at first glance he has the passive sadness of his Wong Kar Wai characters, his acting really elevates the character to the next level. We realize how disgusting his day-to-day job is, and the frustration he gets from a non-existant family life (all his wife ever does is play mah jong) and his own feelings of alienation. His controlled fits of rage are extraordinary acting show-stoppers. Newcomer Wei Tang is also deadly good as Wong. Lee reportedly went through 10.000 auditions to get to this girl, and he must have made the right choice. She's gentle and expressive even in the most meaningless moments. And her suffering and million painstaking sacrifices really show on screen.

Much has been made (and all of it must have been good publicity) of the NC-17 sex. I can't really fathom how Americans think this stuff up. I swear, most of the US population must think Kama Sutra is some sort of Indian food. While there's realistic and explicit sex on screen, it's never crude or disgusting and it serves a clear story purpose. Much like Bertolucci, Lee uses the sex as a gateway to the characters true feelings, since nowhere else can they really show themselves but in bed. The sex scenes are both of the arousing and sad variety, depending on the moment on the story. But they never feel exploitative or excessive. In fact, if you edited all of the sex together, I think it would give you like 10 minutes out of a 160-minute movie. Not that much of a deal. Last Tango in Paris had a butter scene.

So, now that I mentioned the running time, does it really feel that long? Well, yes and no. I was never bored. If I'd made this movie (if I had the talent to, I should clarify), I would have probably cut off a few scenes, because I've had ingrained in me that shorter is more effective. But Lee obviously felt different, and he didn't leave in any weak or ineffective moments. There are lots of beautiful things in this hidden gem of 2007 - the cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, the period reconstruction, the acting and, overall, the sensitivity with which this melodramatic material has been handled by the always versatile Lee.

[Grouchy]

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The Oxford Murders
�lex de la Iglesia, 2008

Being a huge fan of De la Iglesia is like being part of a family of illuminated ones that have managed to find hidden in his broad, dark and vicious comedy, a satirist, a philosopher and an auteur with a number of obsessions - greed, unhealthy love-hate relationships, and specially the goddamn television. His English-language debut was Perdita Durango in 1997, renamed by marketing as Dance with the Devil. Although that movie is amazing in its own incoherent way and is excellent as a catalogue of eccentricities and politically incorrect situations, it failed to find an audience and lacked the focus of La Comunidad or Muertos de Risa. Now good ol' fatso �lex has returned to the hopes of an international career with a safer bet - the adaptation of a mystery novel by Argentine writer Guillermo Martinez, originally titled Imperceptible Crimes, which I think is a much better title.

It's a pop-corn whodunit done, for the most part, right. Elijah Wood plays Martin, a student writing a thesis in Oxford who is obsessed with his professor and famous mathematician Arthur Seldom, incarnated by John Hurt. At first rejected and mocked by his idol, he is about to return to his home in the US when he finds his landlady murdered in her room. Seldom is also there, and the two of them begin a paralell investigation to prove that whoever is commiting the murders is trying to offer a counter-example to a paragraph of a Seldom book that claims that murder is never commited for logical but psychological motives and that reality lacks the logic and the coherence of mathematics.

It's a thinking man's crime story, and it feaures plenty of mouthful dialogue. Most of the scenes showcase math banter between Wood and Hurt, and the script is a marvel at explaining in very little time, sometimes with flashbacks and visual examples, complex problems. The relationship between teacher and pupil, set up in a conference scene, is the core and heart of the film and far more interesting than the murders. I can only imagine �lex felt the same way. Martin admires the wit and wisdom of Seldom and even claims that "an hour with him equals a lifetime with anyone else". Women cross and bed Martin throughout the movie, and he even shares a juicy, breasty Leonor Watling unknowingly with Seldom. The movie clearly suggests Martin is repressing homo sex urges, but the relationship is richer and more complicated than that.

However, sometimes the movie loses its sense of purpose. I imagine the novel must have been long and difficult to adapt, as some of the secondary characters are obviously mishandled by the script. The Watling love interest, for example, should have been completely cut from the film. Sure, she looks like a goddess when naked, but apart from stressing even more that Martin is clearly obsessed with Seldom, her character is gratuitous and the romance she develops with Martin is unrealistic and comes out of nowhere. Julie Cox is a more interesting love interest with much more relevance to the core murder mystery, but she's abandoned by the script. Same thing goes for the characters of Dominique Pinon and Alex Cox, who are one-scene wonders despite their importance to the plot.

Similarly, the movie is directed with magnificence and creativity, but the editing is off a lot of the time. I swear, at one point one shot was on screen for so little time I could only guess at what was in it. There are a lot of tour-de-force signature De la Iglesia touches, like a steadicam that goes in and out of a bookstore following criss-crossing characters, but at other times and in crucial action scenes, like the murder at the Guy Fawkes memorial and the finale, the shots are great but they are unnecessarily cut. I'm not asking for a classical TV approach to the material, like Inspector Morse or something like that, but the story didn't ask for this kind of editing.

To close on a positive note, it's a good whodunit, certainly a literate movie that beats the crap out of any Da Vinci Code shit. Although many of De la Iglesia's visual touches and obsessions are here, they're downplayed in favor of big screen entertainment. It's not a stand-out movie in the director's work but, despite the flaws already mentioned, it's solid fun. I liked Perdita Durango best.

[monolith94]

I actually tried to read The Oxford Murders for a couple of days before setting it aside due its extreme fullness of suck. However, knowing that this has Dominique Pinon... I might have to go see it.

[Grouchy]

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The Mist
Frank Darabont, 2007

The opening shot of The Mist locates us inside an artist's workshop in an isolated cabin-in-the-woods scenario. The artist is painting an obvious Drew Struzan movie poster showing Roland from Dark Tower saga. The room is filled with many other movie posters, mostly referencing Frank Darabont or Stephen King material. One of the most prominent, though, is for John Carpenter's The Thing. Darabont clearly intended his movie to achieve the legendary kind of paranoia and claustrophobia handed by the Carpenter classic. And, at least on my book, he has hit success not only there, but also in improving upon the ideas of a lesser Carpenter movie, The Fog.

The hero of the plot, the artist and family man played by Thomas Jane, has his work and house more or less destroyed by a falling tree after the storm and, leaving his wife to rest, goes into town with his son and a neighbor to get supplies. Once inside the supermarket seemingly filled with the entire town discussing the storm, he sees a man soaked in blood running from a fast mist. The man enters the store and claims the mist killed his friend. Fearing it to be poisonous, the people decide to stay in the supermarket until it wears off. But everyone has his own problems and needs, and when the villagers really get scared, all the hell contained in the little town starts grabbing hold of them. At the end of the movie, you don't know what was scarier - the awesome monsters or the all-to-human attitudes on display.

This is my first Darabont movie (no, I haven't seen Shawshank Redemption other than bits and pieces on TV) and I was quite amazed by the guy's assured hand in directing such an ensemble piece which could have easily become commonplace and monotonous. He works here with a moving camera which shifts in and out of focus and seemingly floats through the supermarket - a TV technique upgraded to cinema quality standards, which makes sense when you learn that Darabont hired the filming crew from The Shield. The visual approach heightens the intensity and builds on the incredible acting power on display. Jane's character is a movie hero, amiable but not a stand-out character. However, Marcia Gay Harden's turn as a Christian nutcase living an apocalypse of her own invention is a great role and a great acting showdown.

The monsters are a Lovecraftian nightmare, and I give huge kudos to whoever designed them. The special effects live up to the challenge only partly - when they're fully visible (out of the mist) they're more obviously CGI and less impressive. However, the enormous atmosphere and tension built around them makes all of their attacks heart-pounding scenes no matter the quality of the digital work. I might not have been afraid of the movie later when I went to sleep, but it has been a while since a Horror had me glued to the screen and so invested in the characters fates. This is partly the result of an impressive script and partly an attentiveness to the human element that makes the fantastic relevant. The Mist is, at heart, a story about how under life or death circumstances, people reveal who they really are.

I've heard Darabont wanted the movie to play in black and white. While I understand he might have wanted it to resemble more closely the '50s sci-fi the story draws from, I don't think it would look appropriate given the waltzing and very contemporary camera movements. I'm glad he kept the color and the splendid cinematography that came with it. I'm also glad he managed to keep his uncompromising and bleak ending. To speak any more of it would be telling, but it's a shock that verges on being almost too cruel, yet it makes full sense with the themes of the movie. The Mist is not only one of the surprise best movies of 2007, it's one of the all-time Horror greats and I'm betting it stands for revision in a few years as a grand achievement.

[Scar]

Watched The Orphanage last night, and absolutely loved it. It will make its way into my collection some day.

[Grouchy]

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Into the Wild
Sean Penn, 2007

Christopher McCandless was a young man from West Virginia who decided that civilization and society were not made for him. Instead, he gave away $24.000 in savings to charity and set off in a lonely trip with nothing but a backpack. Said trip would take him to Arizona, through the Colorado into Mexico and then to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Salton Sea and straight into Alaska where he met the end of the road. A non-fiction book about his journeys, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, became a best-seller. Now this movie by actor-director Sean Penn analyzes his subject in unexpected, adventurous ways that match Christopher's huge ego and ambitions, strips down to essentials the psychological rejection of people he suffered, and yet canonizes him as a martyr in a decaying society.

Emile Hirsch, a pretty-faced actor I'd never been able to place before, gives an incredible performance as McCandless, a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp - he manages to play up the courageous, relentless fugitive without coming off as forced or annoying. Penn seems to argue that, while intelligent and coherent on his craving for the wilderness, Supertramp was in fact mostly motivated by his parents, who are shown as unhappy and obsessed with wealth, and by episodes of domestic violence which made him reject the idea of family and even of loved ones. His relationships throughout the movie with fellow wanderers are deep and productive, but pass by way too quickly, not always by Alex's choice, but we get the feeling that he wouldn't like sticking in one place long enough to miss it. Ironically, the only house he ever sleeps in is an abandoned Magic Bus in the middle of the Stampede Trail.

The style of the movie is note-worthy. Channeling both '70s American filmmakers and the French New Wave, Penn cuts the movie in a freewheelin', energetic and sometimes irrational way. Occasionally the main character smiles into the camera or events from two different moments in time are linked together by seamless editing. Penn's camera crew did a hell of a job with crane shots that start in eyes close-ups an end in huge mountain vistas. The cinematography is grainy and bleached, but beautiful. The music is mostly composed specially for the film and it shows, as it becomes the beat the editing follows even when it's not actually playing. Penn also used excerpts from the countless books the cultured McCandless is shown reading. Particularly important are bits of Thoreau's Walden and Tolstoy.

Although the movie can be argued as being overlong, its straight-forward beauty is what keeps it afloat and interesting. In its study of a man's single-minded pursuit for being one with nature, even while nature rejects or hurts him, it reminded me of Herzog's cinema. Like that German nutcase of a man, Penn tried to make everything on this movie as real as possible. Hirsch is really interacting with a grizzly bear and he's really swimming naked on the river or handling a kajak boat. Into the Wild is a fascinating and honest biopic, made with passion and understanding of the medium. It's a movie of excesses and emotions that have been glued to the screen by the determination of people involved in it.

[Rowland]

Kudos Grouchy, I fucking loved Into the Wild, and I agree with most of your thoughts. It was one of my favorites from last year, I was disappointed to see it go mostly forgotten during the award/top 10 season.

[Grouchy]

Kudos Grouchy, I fucking loved Into the Wild, and I agree with most of your thoughts. It was one of my favorites from last year, I was disappointed to see it go mostly forgotten during the award/top 10 season.
Yeah, and now that you mention Top10s, I think I've seen enough 2007 movies by now to confidently produce mine:

Top 10 Movies of 2007:

1. I'm Not There
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Zodiac
4. Ratatouille
5. Sukiyaki Western: Django
6. Into the Wild
7. The Man from London
8. The Mist
9. Lust, Caution
10. No Country for Old Men

Honorable Mentions:

Eastern Promises
Smiley Face
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
You, the Living

Worst of the year:

1. The Invasion
2. Left for Dead
3. Ghost Rider

57 movies seen in total.

[Grouchy]

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Steven Spielberg, 2008

VERY MUCH SPOILERS AHEAD

There is a kind of adventure story where plot is merely an excuse for one cliffhanger after another, where logic and purpose step aside to make room for thrills for thrills sake. This is very much the wood the first two Indiana Jones movies were built with (not so much the third one, which includes a family character arc) as well as the earlier Tintin adventures. Crystal Skull's first scenes made me hopeful for something like that, and while the entire film is indeed a roller-coaster that only slows down when it abruptly ends, it didn't work for me. I loved that the film had no pretense of realism or logic and that it included a scene where Indy escapes from the Soviets only to land on a ghost town built for a nuclear bomb test. I had no qualms with that.

But I did have some qualms with the artificiality of the whole thing. A lot of it has to do with the problem of special effects today. Spielberg and Frank Marshall had both claimed that they were not gonna rely on digital effects and, while it's true that a lot of the stuntwork is real, the CGI is not only pretty blatant (what the fuck was up with those animals at the beginning? commercials for a new DreamWorks movie?) but unnecessary and it really disturbs the essence of an Indiana Jones adventure. Specially when the climax relies so heavily on fantasy that Cate Blanchett is the only real thing in a whirlpool of digital (and very stereotypical) mean-looking aliens. Not even the creature design is particularly note-worthy, the aliens look like Roger from American Dad. Nothing like what came out of the Ark in Raiders all those years ago.

As I said before, the structure of the movie is closer to Temple of Doom than Last Crusade. Indy is not much of a globe-trotter here, travelling only into Perú and, once he has his girl, sidekick (Marion Ravenwood from Raiders and that Shia LaBeouf guy), villainess and location, the action never stops once. It's not a problem with me that there's not character development for the villains, for example, I can live with that - they're baddies, even the main one. But there was never a sense of threat, the characters landed exactly where they needed to be for the next set-up, and despite all of the CGI quicksand, giant ants, explosions and monkeys, we never once had the sense of real peril. I'm recalling the making of for Raiders I saw on the DVD - 7.000 snakes on screen for one shot, and the actors walking amongst them. A set on fire. Those epic production values really helped the performances. As an actor, you're sensing yourself in danger despite the previous knowledge you have that is all make-believe. Compare that to twisting and screaming in front of a green screen where some nerd is going to draw huge ants on his PC.

Another big no-no was Mutt Williams, the LaBeouf character, and the all-too-convenient way they introduced him as Indy's son. He comes out of nowhere, develops a boring relationship with Indiana, and then -boom!-, oh, yeah, you're my offspring. Williams is not a character, he's a stereotype of what young generations imagine a young hero from the '50s must look like, complete with the Marlon Brando Wild One outfit. Instead, Indiana Jones is a fully developed and highly unique, idiosyncratic character. To try and present us this kid substitute is insulting to the fans and pandering to the lowest common denominator target audience a summer blockbuster can have. Equally uninspired was the Oxley character, an obvious substitute for Dr. Jones now that Sean Connery has quit acting.

What I believe ruined this movie is the overinvolvement of the big shots in the development hell phase. I can only image that Ford (who is excellent in the movie as expected, by the way), Lucas and Spielberg fought a three-way war where the losers were the movie and the fans. Do you guys realize how long it took to get to this silly, uninspired and derivative David Koepp script? I can't accept better ideas didn't come in the way. I can believe that an ego war where none wanted to give in to the other had them discarded. In fact, I think that's the way Hollywood always blows its franchises. Pity it had to happen to Indiana Jones. Technically, the movie is a marvel, and up to the nuclear bomb scene it kept up the speed. After that, you realize it doesn't have a soul, its characters are bland tools and proof of lazy writing (specially Ray Winstone, I forgot about him), it looks like a videogame and it's all about some insipid skulls I couldn't give a fuck about.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Nice review, although I would argue that the jungle chase was a fantastic piece of action that energized the movie during the middle.

Everything else, you pretty much nailed. I especially like this comment:


Another big no-no was Mutt Williams, the LaBeouf character, and the all-too-convenient way they introduced him as Indy's son. He comes out of nowhere, develops a boring relationship with Indiana, and then -boom!-, oh, yeah, you're my offspring.

If Lucas makes Mutt Williams and the Curse of the Jade Buttplug, I'm skipping out.

[Grouchy]

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CJ7
Stephen Chow, 2007

Movies about fluffy aliens have been a classic staple of every family's favorite film library since, forever, or at least the '80s. Leave it to someone like Stephen Chow, who comes fresh off two irreverent, completely surreal kung-fu comedies like Shaolin Soccer and Kung-Fu Hustle, to find in a movie like that the ability to laugh at itself and contain more maturity and acerbic wit than it has any right to. The man is a genius in my book, and Kung-Fu Hustle a grand achievement in entertainment. And what's most encouraging is that he has gone from succesful comedy actor to visionary and innovating comedy director - he isn't even the protagonist of his last film.

Instead, he plays Ti, a widowed father who works his ass off in a construction site so that his son Dicky (played in a cross-dressing scenario by a junior actress, and trust me, it's impossible to notice) gets a decent education in a very expensive school. However, Dicky isn't very happy at the school. He never gets good grades and he irritates his professors because he's unclean and distracted. The cool kids at school all have the new CJ1 toy, a mechanical dog who stands on hind legs. Dicky wants it, but since Ti can't afford it, he decides to take a journey into the garbage dump and see if he can find any toys there. What he finds instead, after an UFO flies unnoticed behind his back, is a green ball containing a visitor from another planet - CJ7.

This feels like a very personal project for Chow. In many ways an unofficial E.T. reimagining, it has him playing a funny but subdued role as a long-suffering father. He shows more nuance and dramatic feel in the role than expected. But where he really excels is in the behind-the-camera department. CJ7 is a satisfying enough critter. Not a marvel of CGI design, sure, in fact a very simple thing to animate, but essentially cute and, like the characters painfully prove in the movie, very maleable. But the amount of crazy balls-to-the-walls shit it provokes is incredible, from an unexpected M:I2 parody to space mind-travels and fighting goofiness. Chow handles digital effects like he's very much at home with them and turns them into an essential part of his style, which requires the comedy to run faster than the audience could ever hope to catch up with and through the most unexpected paths.

The movie is very heartfelt and, although its emotional punches are very much melodramatic and Hollywood-like, they never feel less than truthful. Chow is never afraid to be make jokes about shit, poverty and cockroachs, which helps to spice things up anyway. What I did notice was that somehow CJ7 was a lot more respectful of the traditional structure of a film than Soccer or Hustle. For example, a sequence where CJ7 pretty much kicks everyone's ass is discarded as a dream sequence but given too much screentime for that deception climax, like it was a paralell movie concept that never came to be.

All in all, I'm simply happy that there's still a comedian like Chow. If this review is coming off too much like a love letter or a blow job, I apologize, but the truth is that he's a control freak, comedian and author who never ceases to explore new stuff with his work while at the same time remaining true to his themes and obsessions. There was Chaplin, then Tati, and nowadays we have Chow.

[Grouchy]

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Speed Racer
The Wachowski Brothers, 2008

Halfway into the insanity the creators of Bound and Matrix have unleashed into the world, half-crazed as I was with the LSD taken shortly before, I wondered what would happen if the movie never stopped and it just went on to more races, more villains and more stupid fun. The IMAX room was practically empty, and I could've sat in there forever, taking in the colors, the noise and the incredible images. I'm not one to watch movies on first viewings drugged out of my mind -if I'm stoned and in company I could overlook some important details- but by golly, this is the right movie for acid and IMAX the right vehicle to experience it.

Besides, I've always been a fan of the original series and the brothers pay all possible respect to it or, more accurately, to the English dubbing of it. Characters often talk their brains out, exactly like they did on the dubbed episodes, and the Racer X mystery is given an obvious twist that still works and preserves the outcast condition of the hero. Speed Racer is introduced as a young boy, crazy about racing and uninterested on anything else, looking up to his brother Rex, the greatest racer in the world. The Racers are the quintaessential friendly, honest, hard-working American family. Rex, eventually, becomes their dark history spot although his intentions are wholesome.

The structure of the movie, for those who care about that sort of stuff, is all over the place. I almost dropped my jaw in disbelief when I discovered that the 10-minute racing sequence I'd just seen was still being narrated by Arnold Royalton, only to inmediately afterwards discover it was really happening and that's Shaft right there, laughing it up and giving nonsense advice (what the hell did he say to Speed on the gym?; did that even mean anything?) and leaving. The movie exists on the moments, on the goofy fighting, the ninjas, the disguises, the charm of Pops Racer and Mom's compassion. And, of course, the comic relief provided by Sparky and the monkey. But it's clearly thought up as a devilish machine designed to razzle you up, like a kaleidoscope.

There's subtext in this movie, and part of it is clumsily explained by dialogue (yes, even high out of my mind I'm still a hardballs movie critic), equating racing with making art and people like Royalton and the competition representing business managers who take profit in art they can't really appreciate. It's irrelevant to the fun of the movie, but it's there and it proves that, as simple-minded as Speed Racer can be sometimes, it's probably the most intelligent (and counter-culture) kids movie Hollywood has churned out in years. All in all, I side with those who congratulate this ambitious project. It's a lot better than the Matrix sequels for sure.

[KK2.0]

Repped for being an Alex De La Iglesia fan.

[NickGlass]

Repped for being an Alex De La Iglesia fan.

I've only seen Crimen Ferpecto and it gave me the desire to see any of his movies other than that one. I'm still not sure if his goofy dark humor works too well on me, though. It's too self-aware of its nastiness.

[Grouchy]

I've only seen Crimen Ferpecto and it gave me the desire to see any of his movies other than that one. I'm still not sure if his goofy dark humor works too well on me, though. It's too self-aware of its nastiness.
You are right, Crimen Ferpecto is in fact not the best from the fatso. I'd rank them:

1. Muertos de Risa [Dying of Laughter]
2. La Comunidad [Common Wealth]
3. El DÃ*a de la Bestia [Day of the Beast]
4. Acción Mutante [Mutant Action]
5. Perdita Durango
6. Crimen Ferpecto [Ferpect Crime]
7. Mirindas Asesinas
8. The Oxford Murders

The Top4 is fantastic, the other four more mixed but I like everything from him on some level. There's also a TV special, part of a Horror antology (Films to Keep You Awake - Baby's Room) which would rank #5. Of course, you fucking need to see all of those.

I still haven't seen any movie since Speed Racer... I think I'm gonna break the streak with the 2005 Call of Cthulhu later tonight.

[Sycophant]

There was Chaplin, then Tati, and nowadays we have Chow.

Amen.

[Grouchy]

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The Incredible Hulk
Louis Leterrier, 2008

It's been five years since Ang Lee rocked my socks and irritated the socks of many other people with his introspective Hulk. I've noticed before that, even while I consider that movie fantastic and bold in its complex psychology treatment of the characters, I am willing to admit it's a very poor money-making blockbuster. Most of the action scenes in Lee's film are cartoonish and stylish, but not spectacular or exciting. They look beautiful, but they're far from moving on a gut level. Now that Marvel Studios is trying to usher in a whole universe of superhero epics, they've worked hard on making a more mainstream, acceptable, version of Hulk, presumably still working their way into Avengers - they've even tried to make it closer to the Bill Bixby TV series. But it's also obvious they've strived to create an intelligent script for one of their most multi-layered and underused characters.

Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) starts this movie still hiding in a favela in Brazil from the previous film (which is quickly retconned in the opening credits sequence), and working hard with a mysterious Mr. Blue online to find a cure to his strange condition. Meanwhile, even five years after he disappeared, General Ross (William Hurt) is tracking him down with the help of Emil Blonsky, an obsessive military man (Tim Roth) who refuses to reach retirement age. When Banner actually comes close to curing his condition, the overblown antics of General Ross and Blonsky create a situation where the only solution to thousands of innocent lives in peril seems to be the big green muscle boy. So far, so good, and now that I've summarized it, it actually reads a lot like an extended episode of the TV series!

So, what works and what doesn't? The action sequences work. Instead of the jelly-like, stylized giant of Ang Lee's movie, the Hulk on this re-vamp is muscular, enormous and scary. The villain, Abomination, is even more frightening. They're both CGI wonders, in Gollum's league. Their fight at the end is a real show-stopper. In fact, every action sequence is spectacular, which is no wonder since Leterrier is, first of all, an action director known for the second Transporter movie and Danny the Dog. The score is rousing and menacing, and you can't go wrong in a movie with Hurt and Roth as the villains. The former is a master at controlled shouting, going from ice cold ruthlesness to over-the-top rage.

The script, re-written by Norton himself, tries really hard to go into the inner pain of Banner and his inability to excite himself even enough to nail Liv Tyler - who, by the way, looks like she's on drugs all the time. But what Lee's Hulk did with ease, this one does with boring exposition and struggling real-life paralells. It's not a bad script, but it is a forced one. It also doesn't help that this movie has been subject to an extreme trimming which also caused a rift between Norton and the studios. Cut from 135 to 114 minutes, Incredible Hulk could use those minutes to breathe some fresh air. Sometimes the cuts even make the story hard to follow, like when we go from the Hulk embracing Betty Ross after explosions and mayhem to General Ross continuing the search and Hulk and Betty suddenly hiding in one of those random caves that are everywhere in Columbia. We have to draw the mental connection that Hulk simply jumped off and fled the military.

There are also some parts of the script that don't make sense. Like, General Ross is pretty much the president of the universe - I'm willing to accept he can raid some favela in South America without anyone caring, but sending troops to shoot up Columbia University? That's a career-destroying move. The president, or at least Nick Fury, should have something to say about that. And let's not even talk about Banner's martyr complex near the ending. Pet peeve of mine, by the way - Ed Norton is a great actor and his sad mug is perfect for conflicted Banner, but I hate his guts. It might be just misleading stuff I read in gossip shit-columns about American History X, his fights with directors and producers and the like, but I really, really, don't like the guy.

Where Leterrier and Norton scored big time with my fanboy heart is with their constant references to comic-book history. They've basically made a movie that's on the spirit of the TV series (runaway, lonely Banner gets involved with people once again only for the Hulk to destroy his hopes of a normal life) but clearly exists within the current Marvel universe. There are references to Captain America and the super-soldier serum, Doc Samson, Tony Stark's company, and a foreshadowing of future villain The Leader. Stan Lee has more than a cameo in this one, but a non-speaking part that's key to the development of the story. Yes, Tony Stark does show up, on a wrapping scene that -at least for me- was best left as a post-credits Easter Egg, since the shot that came before that gave the whole film more of a closure.

The bottom line is, I think Lee's Hulk will be remembered long past the time when Incredible Hulk becomes only an episode in the convoluted road to Avengers. True, the new movie has more action, better FX and a lot more violence (remember how everyone in Lee's film came away of the Hulk smash unharmed, and there was even a shot that only worked to explain to us that no soldiers were really killed by Banner?, in this one Abomination uses NY civilians as handballs!), but it also has less of a heart and feels in many ways more fabricated. But hell, if you want to see a movie with beautiful visuals of Hulk and Abomination destroying a city, I recommend a theater experience with this one.

[KK2.0]

You are right, Crimen Ferpecto is in fact not the best from the fatso. I'd rank them:

1. Muertos de Risa [Dying of Laughter]
2. La Comunidad [Common Wealth]
3. El DÃ*a de la Bestia [Day of the Beast]
4. Acción Mutante [Mutant Action]
5. Perdita Durango
6. Crimen Ferpecto [Ferpect Crime]
7. Mirandas Asesinas
8. The Oxford Murders

The Top4 is fantastic, the other four more mixed but I like everything from him on some level.

Me too, i've found all of his films worth watching even when i didn't like them much, with La Comunidad and El Dia De La Bestia being quite excellent. The second being a cult classic easily.

Aside from those, i've watched only Accion Mutante, Perdita Durango and Crimen Ferpecto. The last one I've had the chance to watch with Alex present during Rio Film Festival, his conference after the screening was very entertaining and you can spot that the twisted sense of humor from his movies reflect his own. And it works for me.

I remember Almodovar endorsed him at the beggining, I'm afraid if Tarantino did the same he would be a lot more popular at this side of the Atlantic.

EDIT: There's also his western 800 Balas (800 bullets), did you watch this one Grouchy?

[Grouchy]

Me too, i've found all of his films worth watching even when i didn't like them much, with La Comunidad and El Dia De La Bestia being quite excellent. The second being a cult classic easily.

Aside from those, i've watched only Accion Mutante, Perdita Durango and Crimen Ferpecto. The last one I've had the chance to watch with Alex present during Rio Film Festival, his conference after the screening was very entertaining and you can spot that the twisted sense of humor from his movies reflect his own. And it works for me.

I remember Almodovar endorsed him at the beggining, I'm afraid if Tarantino did the same he would be a lot more popular at this side of the Atlantic.

EDIT: There's also his western 800 Balas (800 bullets), did you watch this one Grouchy?
I don't know why I forgot about 800 Balas.

1. Muertos de Risa [Dying of Laughter]
2. La Comunidad [Common Wealth]
3. El DÃ*a de la Bestia [Day of the Beast]
4. Acción Mutante [Mutant Action]
5. Perdita Durango
6. 800 Balas [800 Bullets]
7. Crimen Ferpecto [Ferpect Crime]
8. Mirindas Asesinas
9. The Oxford Murders

Yeah, Almodóvar gave his whole career a big push from the start. He watched �lex's first short movie Mirindas Asesinas (about a psycho killer who buys Mirindas at a bar and refuses to pay for them, arguing that he just asked the bartender to "give him" the drinks, not to sell them to him) and was impressed enough to finance Mutant Action.

I wonder if QT has even heard about De la Iglesia. He probably has, though.

[MacGuffin]

I don't know why I forgot about 800 Balas.

1. Muertos de Risa [Dying of Laughter]
2. La Comunidad [Common Wealth]
3. El DÃ*a de la Bestia [Day of the Beast]
4. Acción Mutante [Mutant Action]
5. Perdita Durango
6. 800 Balas [800 Bullets]
7. Crimen Ferpecto [Ferpect Crime]
8. Mirindas Asesinas
9. The Oxford Murders

Yeah, Almodóvar gave his whole career a big push from the start. He watched �lex's first short movie Mirindas Asesinas (about a psycho killer who buys Mirindas at a bar and refuses to pay for them, arguing that he just asked the bartender to "give him" the drinks, not to sell them to him) and was impressed enough to finance Mutant Action.

I wonder if QT has even heard about De la Iglesia. He probably has, though.

What's with the Satanism quotes? Also, is The Day of the Beast a good place to start with this fellow's stuff?

[Grouchy]

What's with the Satanism quotes? Also, is The Day of the Beast a good place to start with this fellow's stuff?
I just found this very interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_satan

Specially The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth I'm sigging. Some of those are very intelligent and humane.

I'd say yes, go with Day of the Beast. I have no clue about its US availability, though.

[Wryan]

I just found this very interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_satan

Specially The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth I'm sigging. Some of those are very intelligent and humane.

In particular: "Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal."

I believe the signal is something along that found in Keaton's The High Sign.

http://mrpayne.com/archive/high_sign.jpg

[Wryan]

After following a few wiki links, I came upon this Gustave Dore:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Destruction_of_Leviathan.png

Breathtaking.

[MacGuffin]

I just found this very interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_satan

Specially The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth I'm sigging. Some of those are very intelligent and humane.

Yeah, I've read those before and I agree with you (aside from number 11, which seems a little extreme).

[Qrazy]

I quite enjoyed CJ7.

[Grouchy]

After following a few wiki links, I came upon this Gustave Dore:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Destruction_of_Leviathan.png

Breathtaking.
Doré is amazing. I have a volume of Don Quixote with his illustrations. I've always read the book with those in mind and they're an integral part of my reading.

[Wryan]

Doré is amazing. I have a volume of Don Quixote with his illustrations. I've always read the book with those in mind and they're an integral part of my reading.

Ooh, I bet that's a fantastic edition.

[monolith94]

Wow, how'd we get from movies to Doré? In anycase, I love Doré, and have often decorated my room with his engravings.

[Wryan]

Wow, how'd we get from movies to Doré? In anycase, I love Doré, and have often decorated my room with his engravings.

The Church of Satan wiki page lead to their sigil of Baphomet, which was inscribed with the Hebrew letters LVYTN, which stands for Leviathan, which lead to that wiki page.

:)

[Wryan]

I know this is going off base, and I apologize Grouchy, but thinking of Dore made me think of Bosch and Dali and I found this on wiki and loved it too much not to post:

"The Philadelphia Museum of Art used a surreal entrance display including its steps, for the 2005 Salvador DalÃ* exhibition."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Dali_on_the_Rocky_Steps.jpg

[Grouchy]

I find Wikipedia fascinating. You start reading an article about Campbell soup and, a few links later, you're reading about the Lufthansa heist or Spiderman or anything. Plus, I disagree that it's not an accurate source of information, I think that's mostly prejudice. It can be vandalized, but since all the additions are revised in due time, all that damage is undone. Besides, how much fun can it be to vandalize wikipedia? It's much more fun to contribute to it.

And Wryan, I don't really give a fuck what we talk about on this thread as long as it's interesting or funny. Please go off-topic as much as you want if it's worth posting. And those steps obviously are.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/800largehancock3.jpg?t=1226292 740

Hancock
Peter Berg, 2008

Flashback to 1996, when a spec script called Tonight, He Comes was sold to Tony Scott and Akiva Goldsman by an unknown with a hard-ass surname, Vincent Ngo. The Ngo's script was about an alcoholic, suicidal superhero befriending a 12-year-old and has been compared by current director Berg to Leaving Las Vegas with superpowers. Tony Scott left, Michael Mann came and went on, and many other names grabbed and abandoned the project until, over 10 years later, we have this Will Smith vehicle. Now, I haven't read that script, only heard about it and how good it was throughout the time that the hype for it kept building. Still, when looking at the final product, it's my educated guess that the story was changed for the worse. In fact, it has been neatly divided into three different segments, each one of them featuring a different tone and being largely different mini-movies.

Act One introduces us to John Hancock, a boozing superhero with an attitude problem defending a city that hates him and denounces him through YouTube videos and TV talk shows. This is the part where all the actual laughs happen. A Public Relations guy takes an interest on Hancock after he saves his life. Act Two is a bland melodrama about Hancock, the PR guy, and the PR guy's wife. The kid, who seemed important in Act One and was a main character in the original script, is completely forgotten. The movie is determined to force tears out of everyone in this part. Act Three makes shit zero sense and is where we're revealed the mystery of Hancock's origin and how this links him to someone else and a threat of some kind. The origin story I will not reveal, but it's very unlikely and reads... exactly as bad as the worst superhero comic from DC or Marvel you've ever read. It makes even less sense.

I'm all for tone-jumping, and in fact, I get pretty angry at critics when they say a movie can't decide what it wants to be, because that's exactly what the finest films of all time can never decide. The Third Man is tragicomic, Casablanca is romantic, suspense-driven and hilarious, etc. But Hancock is another story entirely. Instead of going for the laughs while at the same time bringing together a humane snapshot of a far-fetched character, it shows us a goofball parody at first and only when the movie somehow redeems him we're supposed to take him seriously. And then we're supposed to believe in a contrived origin story that comes out of nowhere. There are a lot of ideas on this movie that haven't found the time to live with each other comfortably.

Another pet peeve of mine was with the camera work. It's always this uncomfortably closer-than-close-up of the actors. There is barely an establishing shot in every scene. During shoot-outs and action scenes in general, I was completely lost. It's all big noises, lights and stuff without any semblance of continuity or logistics. It's impossible to tell what's going on. That's not an action scene. I'd rather put a saucepan on my head and bang it with a spoon. Loud doesn't necessarily equal exciting. I like the style of Bourne Supremacy, for example, because it uses shaky cam and axis jumps to convey a sense of chaos, but you are also able to understand what's going on. In here, it's mostly impossible.

The actors are not bad. Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron are well-cast. Will Smith plays against type and he does it quite well. I've been noticing that Smith has been wanting to improve his acting chops for a while now. I still don't remember him doing anything more memorable than Agent Jay, but it's nice that he's trying. He was good showing despair in I Am Legend and he's convincing as a grumpy wino in here. But of course, this isn't an actor's movie. Maybe the original script was, I'm not sure. This is a blockbuster that tries to be too many different things at once. It's funny as hell for the first 20 minutes, and once it exhaust that concept, it becomes cheesy, contrived and boring.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/800wall-e2.jpg?t=1226544333

WALL•E
Andrew Stanton, 2008

Dystopia is a sub-genre of science-fiction in which mankind (or, very rarely, some outside force) has left Earth in a sorry state. Usually, these kinds of films feature a hero who either saves that world (V from V for Vendetta) or simply tries to survive it, like Mad Max. In this brilliant twist by Andrew Stanton and Pixar studios, a gradually polluting Earth has been abandoned by humans, but they've forgotten their last cleaning robot, WALL-E series. On an on, the robot continues to dispose of the garbage, compact it on squares, and place it atop giant towers. Unusually, though, this robot, is a result of solitude, has developed a hobby - the ability to choose, among the garbage, some treasures for himself. These include a copy of Hello Dolly!, zippo lighters that he doesn't know how to use, a Rubik cube, lightbulbs.

The opening 30 minutes of this film, with absolutely no dialogue other than robot sounds and recordings, are a masterpiece of storytelling. We are slowly introduced to a desolate world and to the lonely, lovelorn protagonist. Stanton claims the idea for WALL-E came (besides Short Circuit) from a pair of binoculars - when held upside down they looked sad, and from only those binoculars you could create a moving character. Every robot on this movie has been properly turned into a character, not by forcing antropomorphia into them (like, for example, the movie Robots - remember that piece of shit?), but by focusing on their utility and creating a character out of that. The cleaning robot is tiny, obsessive and moves on broomy feet. The easy way in which all the characters are brought to life makes us believe in them, even when they're robots with impossible feelings.

Pixar keeps pumping up the complexity and visual splendor of their movies. In The Incredibles and Ratatouille, they tried their hand at creating real people living in places like Paris using the same synthesis and clear lines of their funny animals. Now, in WALL-E, they've succesfully blended an imaginary animated robot world with animated humans AND live action. The live action is only used for past events, giving the background of this destroyed world a real-life quality and linking it strongly with our own. Stanton has not exactly abused the morality of his tale or created a cautionary tale, though. The environmental issues are touched upon and used as a plot device, but not hammered into the brain of the audience. First of all, this is a tale of characters choosing to do stuff outside of their programming or comfort zones, and an ode to diversity and the power of the individual.

This is, clearly, the darkest movie Pixar has ever made and Disney ever allowed. The depiction of humanity hiding away in a spaceship in a pathetic state of compulsive satisfaction and egotism is hilarious but belongs to a branch of grotesque, vicious, mean-spirited humor. When you're laughing at thousands of fat slobs helplessly rolling away into oblivion, you're definitively outside of any known comfort zone. Does this mean this movie is not for kids? No, not at all. The younger (or less intelligent) kids will not be able to see the tragedy in this, just the goofy humor. Like The Simpsons, this movie defeats the age barrier because it speaks different things to different levels of maturity. Pixar always succeeds in making marketable films that are not necessarily for children - they're films, period. The artistry and lack of compromise found in WALL-E are very commendable. Compare that to the sitcom-like ratio of cheap jokes in the Shrek movies.

In a storyline this complex and reaching, some plot holes always arise. Some of them, like how could WALL-E endure when all the other robots died away or his miraculous rebirth at the end, are arguably "movie magic", and can even be explained when you put some thought into it. However, one that kept nagging me was this one -

Why did the evil HAL computer had to wake up the captain and provide him with a false alarm before stealing the plant? I mean, it could've easily just disposed of the plant and of EVE without ever warning the captain. Even this is arguable, though. Protocol doesn't have to make sense, and the evil computer was a computer after all. Maybe it wasn't programmed to even dream up that option.

WALL-E is clearly a work of love and brilliance. It has everything - sharp, unexpected humor, heart-wrenching drama, suspense, and enough imagination to challenge any other "brainy" Hollywood sci-fi of recent years. Its message is not pandering, it's heartfelt and poetic. Great, great kudos to the people at Pixar and specially Andrew Stanton. And to all those great works of sci-fi (Brazil, 1984, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Brave New World, Short Citrcuit) that clearly made this possible.

[origami_mustache]

both great reviews...and I love that WALL-E poster.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/9005.jpg?t=1227545995

The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan, 2008

First off, a little background. I've been a raving, insane Batfan since the tender age of six, when I discovered the Bruce Timm animated series. I jumped to the comics, which in those days were relatively adult sagas like 10 Nights of the Beast and A Death in the Family. Then, throughout the years, I discovered my passion for movies and became a raving, insane movie fan and film student. I've known for some time that I'll never stop loving two things - cinema and the Batman mythos. All I'm trying to say here is that I'm green with envy at the opportunity two fellow Batfans like the Nolan brothers got to fully reinvent the cinematic world of the character and present their own vision of Batman to the world. I've dreamed about that for ages. Is the Nolan vision of Batman similar to mine? No, not at all. It's nothing more and nothing less than one take on a character that's ageless and has seemingly infinite versions.

The movie focuses on the subject of escalation. In the last scene of Batman Begins, then Lieutenant Gordon told Batman that his arrival was going to make the crime world even more dangerous, since the criminals were going to have to change to put up with the menace he was presenting. In this movie, that promise comes true and we find a Gotham practically at war state. Its defenders can't even agree with each other. There's Gordon, who represents the law. Then there's Dent, who makes a public, political fight against crime. And Batman, an independent agent who administers his own law. All three of them will have to collaborate to defeat the Joker, a raving psycopath who defies the criminal code - he doesn't want money or profit. He just wants to create chaos.

This interpretation of the Joker is different from anything you might've seen before, even in the original comics. His clown face is not a result of an accident with corrosive acid but self-applied make-up and he bears scars of a Glasgow smile. The late Heath Ledger eats up the role, creating a unique, delirious voice and walking style that are both menacing and funny. Many of his scenes are downright hilarious because of his senseless violence and one-liners. Facing Heath off in a dramatic duel is Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. I didn't know that guy could act until now. He has the comparatively subtler task of portraying Dent's slow descent into insanity and moral decay. Oldman, Bale and Caine also turn in incredible performances. As in the first movie, though, the love interest is still the weak acting spot. Gyllenhaal might be better than Holmes or an actual actress, but the role is thankless and one-note.

Nolan directs with a vibrant, energetic style. He has admitted to basing the tone of the movie in Michael Mann's Heat, and it shows. At over two and a half hours of running time, the movie goes from one action set piece to building the ground for another, more epic one, and it never gets boring. Ironically, the movie ends on an intimate, bittersweet and semi-tragic note. The ending and its implications give much to talk about. The script resorts to a device I don't like, which is a character giving a monologue that includes the title of the film and spells out the point for the slow ones in the audience. However, in this case, maybe because of the score or the moving delivery of Oldman's voice, I was actually roused by it. The music, by the way, becomes an integral part of the film, and in some scenes, for the sake of suspense, the only thing we can hear is an unnerving humming.

However, the real discovery of The Dark Knight and the reason it's become the critical darling of the year, is the complexity of its themes. Nolan took basic elements that have existed all throughout Batman's comic-book history, like the battle between order and chaos or the question or how far will he go for the sake of justice, and made an intelligent movie that poses moral dilemmas and manages to be brutally violent without showing any blood or gore. The main different between this movie and the old cinematic Batman (the one from Burton and Schumacher) is not only the new one's "realism", but the fact that these movies have a heart and soul and are about something other than their own aesthetic. I still like Batman Returns because it's an expressionistic nightmare, but compared to this one, you realize how empty the Burton film really is. The Dark Knight takes its characters seriously and it reaches unexpectedly emotional heights.

Is it the best comic-book movie ever made? Or the best movie of all-time, according to IMDb? I don't know. What I do know is that it really raises the bar for any other comic-book movies to come. It proves that besides being pop culture icons, comic heroes are often good, solid characters and that a strong movie can be built around their personalities and not only on the special effects.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/THE_HAPPENING-1sd.jpg?t=1222799818

The Happening
M. Night Shyamalan, 2008

An auteur is an invention of the French New Wave, meaning a director whose body of work has thematic unity. Meaning not a technician or a storyteller, but an artist. Nowadays, I think, the word is overused and auterism has become a commodity. After all, auteurs are now involved in Hollywood franchises (John Woo doing a Mission: Impossible movie or Christopher Nolan in the Batman saga) and some independent cinema has become a trend or even a genre, like the dysfunctional family American comedy, for example.

But Shyamalan - that guy is certain. He KNOWS he's an artist. HE WANTS US TO KNOW TOO. And, in his latest train-wreck of a film, he'll stop at nothing to let us know that his perspective is unique. The Happening is one of those what if global catastrophe things - a wind that kills people or, more appropriately, a wind that causes people to want to kill themselves. It's told through the point of view of a biology theater having marital problems with an introvert, weird woman played by Zooey Deschanel. It's hinted that the menace is some sort of defense mechanism of the planet Earth.

I've rarely seen worse acting than the one Mark Whalberg does in this movie. He's horrible. Having the same confused brow all the time, he delivers lines as unconvincingly as possible. It's like he's some sort of fish, half drugged and struggling to survive out of the water. Deschanel and John Leguizamo play ridiculous roles, but at least they seem convinced they want to play them - Leguizamo is particularly funny.

Shyamalan has a UNIQUE sense of humor. We've already learned that in Signs, which was funnier than this one. Well, compared to this one, Signs is a masterpiece in every way. The problem is that, after a while, I wasn't sure I was laughing at the right parts. Some of it is outrageously meant to be funny, but the dramatic and Horror moments sometimes are hilarious as well. Like when Whalberg and Deschanel speak through a pipe, or the old lady's slow death. Actually, some moments are suspenseful and prove that Shyamalan is still a good director, but they're ruined by the forced quirkiness of the script.

I really, really don't know what else to say. Like Travis Bickle when he takes his girl to a porn movie, what Shyamalan thinks he's showing us and what we see are completely different things. The movie is so misguided it's hard to take anything about it as nothing more than testament of what happens when you give an auteur way too much freedom. Heh.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/ruins-poster-girl.jpg?t=1218418331
The Ruins
Carter Smith, 2008

So, how about this movie? What's it about? Well, it has four Americans on a vacation in Mexico hearing from an Austrian tourist about a group of Maya ruins not included on any map of the area. When they go there, they are at first greeted by some unfriendly Mayans (modern-day descendants, I mean) armed with arrows and guns and are forced to hide within the ruins. After a couple of freak accidents and strange voices, they realize that the Mayans are in fact scared of something else hidden in the ruins. In case you were about to ask, the gore delivers and the tension of this well-built script keeps on until the abrupt ending. There's also not any amount of pandering to an audience not capable to take in genuinely messy deaths, although that doesn't mean the filmmakers lack compassion. And now I've done my job in selling you this movie. If you haven't seen it and want to watch it based on my rec and plot outline, then don't read any further.

SPOILERS AHEAD - SPOILERS AHEAD

This is the living proof that a story is only as good as the way you tell it. Being the second Horror movie in a row I've reviewed where the monster is in fact a bunch of living plants, it's hard to avoid the comparison and realize that Ruins makes its pulpy premise not only believable, but genuinely morbid to the eye and to the imagination. It's difficult to make an effective Horror movie with the desensitized audience of today's decaying world, but the unknown Carter Smith manages to. I'm not saying you'll be haunted in your sleep by this movie, and I'm not even saying it's as genuinely scary as The Descent or The Mist (the two finest Horrors from the last couple of years) but it delivers the goods. I got involved with the fate of the characters instead of just waiting for them to be killed.

This might have something to do with The Ruins being adapted from a novel by its own writer, which means that he knows the characters better than anybody else AND that the character development has already been done in a more extensive form. Another clue to our involvement with the cannon fodder is that these people actively try to survive instead of just screaming and running around. It's much harder to see people dying gruesome deaths when you've previously seen them coming to the end of their wits in order to make it. Even a third clue is that the actors playing the walking corpses are good - Jena Malone in particular is a very good actress, and her previous work in movies like Into the Wild proves that she deserves much more recognition than overpublicized bitches like Ellen Page.

During the opening scenes, however, we're tempted to hate this moronic Yankees who step into unknown land thinking they've already bought it. We're tempted to hate them even more when we see that they don't even know how to drink properly. This is an extra amount of intelligence put into the script, because later on, we'll be totally on their side, since this is one of those cases where the need to survive will realistically get the best and the worst out of each one of them.

At its heart, The Ruins is in fact a movie about guilt. The plants not only swallow these guys and girls, they repeat their very words back to them, and it's the untold sins and desires of each one that really bring in their downfalls. The monster is just there to eat them when they're done self-destroying. So, even if you're not usually a Horror fan, you might want to try out this movie, which is more human than most. And, of course, watch the unrated. 'Nuff said. I'm off to read some Swamp Thing comics.

[Scar]

I skipped to the last paragraph. I'll read more after I watch it. I'll probably be bumping it up quite a bit in my queue now.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/x-files_2_movie_poster.jpg?t=121 9290149

The X-Files: I Want To Believe
Chris Carter, 2008

Six years after the ending of the best sci-fi on the tube of the last two decades, Chris Carter has assembled the crew together. Instead of a plot that goes back to the invasion mythology that held the seasons together over the years, the decision has been made to make a standard "monster of the week" episode on feature-lenght format, involving freak occurances other than aliens. I suspect this was to guarantee that there was an audience invested enough in the characters to watch it besides the raving fanbase that could remember who was abducted, when, why, how.

In the film, Scully is approached by FBI agents to help them find Mulder under the promise of a pardon for his sins at the bureau - they are in need of some X-file assistence that could save a kidnapped agent's life. That's the set-up for what is essentially a reunion affair that pits the wits of the duo against a group of Russian mad scientists and dubious information that comes from an embarassing representative of the Catholic faith. Scully, thus, finds herself personally attached as she's also dead-set on forgetting the paranormal and focusing on a medical career where she also finds herself dealing with lack of imagination and faith vs. science.

Carter has done one hell of a script. Mulder and Scully sound like a couple of characters who at this point write themselves, and the mystery that surrounds them has enough surrealism and emotional attachment that it's inmediately gripping. Although, as I found out later on, what happens in the movie might not be completely out of the scientifically possible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_the_Revival_of_ Organisms) (SPOILER LINK, of course). His direction is lean and effective. Of course it looks like a TV show, like I've read in some reviews, but I fail to see what's the fucking problem with that - the man has been working for TV all of his life. It's not often, though, that I've see TV as involving as this. The acting is always up there.

The movie, though, hasn't been very well-received. And while I can see some of the things held against it, I can't help but like it. It's a reunion affair that doesn't wallow in nostalgia and yet features enough winks at a knowing audience and explotaition of the romantic tension between Mulder and Scully. It has an interesting story outside of what could've been a more messy, epic, resolution of the threads left hanging from the series. Is it because it plays it too "safe"? I can't say is unforgettable or essential if you've already seen the best of X-Files, season 1 to 6. But I can say it's a well directed thriller. With a funny George W. Bush joke.

I've also seen it the best possible way - opening day, in the largest room of nerds I've ever been with, clapping when Skinner showed up or Scully's recognizable voice appeared in the soundtrack. Stay up to the middle of the credits for an ending surprise.

[Bosco B Thug]

The X-Files: I Want To Believe
Chris Carter, 2008

I've also seen it the best possible way - opening day, in the largest room of nerds I've ever been with, clapping when Skinner showed up or Scully's recognizable voice appeared in the soundtrack. Stay up to the middle of the credits for an ending surprise. Hey, really glad you liked the film! Agreed on all counts, especially about Carter's directing and the nature of the story. I was underwhelmed with the story at first, but it has definitely grown on me - the more I think about the dog in the film, all the prosthetics, the crazy medical gadgets and tubes and liquids, the priest's confusion over the survival of the FBI woman, and now the really cool historical basis you discovered, I begin to realize how creepy and macabre it really is and how effectively it is realized in the film.

[Grouchy]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/HawleyGriffin/doomsday_shot13l.jpg?t=1219343 212

Doomsday
Neil Marshall, 2008

Dystopian futures don't come better than Escape from New York or Mad Max 2: Road Warrior. I think this is something most sane men would agree on. Neil Marshall is surely one of those. He's a new promising face in Horror specializing in violent survival epics. His opera prima Dog Soldiers is about the brit military fighting werewolves in open field, and The Descent is an actually scary Horror movie with a bunch of sexy bitches trapped underground. The best thing about Marshall is that he doesn't seem prone to selling out, or at least not as much as Alexander Aja. He could be directing a Hollywood remake of a classic or an action movie that looks like it can appeal to the common denominator. Instead, a copycat as it is, Doomsday is far more unique than any of those things.

The film stars with an intense tale voiced-over by Malcolm McDowell of a deadly virus spreading and Great Britain being cut in two. In a reverse Escape from New York scenario, the infested live outside the walls, while the upper class and the lucky ones live in a walking death trap of a fortress. Badass sex-bomb Rhona Mitra is Eden, the top soldier of the inside police, who is looking to earn her right to remain indoors, since she has actually been sneaked in by her mother. Bob Hoskins is her tough-weary police chief. He receives from the forces that be the order to send Eden and a team of officers in a suicidal outdoors mission to find a possible cure. Enter Mad Max's S&M civilization and many, many wild shenanigans.

SOME MILD SPOILERS IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF PARAGRAPHS

There's a fine line that divides quirkiness from parody, and sometimes it's not easy to walk it unharmed. Doomsday shows up with so many plot twists and new scenarios at the turn of every alley that the movie loses its shape. Eden has two groups of enemies - the sadomasochistic fiends and the medieval knights (?¡) that also organize Roman circus fights. After battling the last group, she departs in a brand new car (HEAVY PRODUCT PLACEMENT) and enters a Road Warrior styled race competition. The film goes from action set piece to action set piece, wearing every reference up its sleeve. Marshall pulled a Tarantino, taking from each movie (even Timeline - heh) what could be used to solve the next scene. We have Counter Strike shootings, armored tanks against savages, torture, a bizarre video clip moment, then a medieval circus fight, then a race, in that order.

So, what's wrong with that? Nothing. Actually, Doomsday is pretty fucking entertaining. If I liked Sukiyaki Western Django, why I wasn't completely sold into this? It's not easy to explain. I think Marshall didn't quite find the tone that could make some of the goofier elements seem to fit into a coherent world. It feels like a bunch of friends were just trying to fit as many of their favorite stuff into the same movie. And, in that level, it works. But unlike in The Descent, where there was also a big plot twist halfway through the movie that also crossed references and defied disbelief, this lacks some craft or a different tone of directing that can make us accept so many over-the-top wackiness.

Doomsday is still a finely crafted movie. The action sequences are exhilarating, although they become completely exaggerated towards the end. Despite the many references and obvious copying, it's filled with imagination. But I felt it could've been a helluva lot better (and rewatchable) if it had decided on one of its many worlds. A lot of ideas would've been better used had they been expanded. A police actioner in a post-virus city with Bob Hoskins and politic conspiracies. A post-apocalyptic nightmare with sex. A combination between the Middle Ages and modern technology. All those ideas are in Doomsday, but none of them ultimately become the movie. Still, give it a watch. I laughed for the most part.

Oh and it would make a GLORIOUS videogame.

[Grouchy]

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Wanted
Timur Bekmambetov, 2008

A good alternate title for Wanted would be Bullet Time: The Movie. It's basically almost two hours of crazy shit you can do with a gun, including sending a bullet on a 360 degree errand until it kills everyone in the room and comes back to haunt you. The director, a Russian dude with a long-ass name, made a minor cult classic called Night Watch. I started watching that with a lot of interest in the atmosphere and the unusual approach to vampires. I had to struggle to finish it, because it came to a point where I was completely lost by the plot and bored as all hell. Like Night Watch, this action epic has so many camera tricks that it has the effect of running the audience over with a truck. It's impossible to look away, but it's also impossible to completely invest yourself into whatever passes for a story. Luckily, Wanted has a lot less characters than Night Watch doing a lot simpler stuff.

I haven't read the Millar/Jones comic-book this is based on. A bit of web research, however, shows that the set-up is at the same time similar and completely different. The comic is about a world in which supervillians have won the battle with superheroes and control the world from the shadows. The movie replaces the costumed villains with a band of hitmen who kill people based on a loom that basically speaks the word of God and keeps the powers of the world in balance. It's easy to imagine the exec reunion where someone went "this is okay, but I want these goofs in suits replaced with cool people with guns, and Angelina Jolie". In both incarnations of the story, the protagonist is Wesley Gibson, an office drone who learns that he has to take the supervillain/hitman mantle of his recently deceased father.

In the scenes which deal with Gibson's learning of the principles of the Fraternity and discovery of his own potential, Wanted inevitably reminded me of Fight Club and, to a lesser extent, of The Matrix. So much have these two movies affected recent American cinema that some of the scenes in this look like a direct clone/parody of them. This movie has some gritiness, gore, foul language and twisted sense of humor, there's no denying that, but it comes off as a poor man's Fight Club. It's neither as provocative nor as intelligent as that movie, and despite its attempts at profundity, it's heartless, manipulative and very nonsensical.

Sure, the interest is based on action sequences, and in that department the Russian guy delivers. The shooting extravaganza that goes on in here is definitively watchable, and Jolie plays her most badass role since Lara Croft. Morgan Freeman sleepwalks through yet another wise man role, and McAvoy is, pretty much, I don't know. He doesn't bring anything to the role without being any bad at it either. Of course, the over-the-topness of the action grows so much that, by the end, there's no caring anymore about anything - you just go with it or you don't. On the movie's favor, the guns featured are pretty easy on the eye. I'd like to keep one of those as a souvenir. They're ancient and yet they have some modern updates.

I don't know whether to recommend this one to people with very low expectations beyond getting a dose of loud warfare or simply tell you that it's crap, move on to something else. It doesn't deserve a trip to the cinema, but on download it's a night's entertainment. There's some nice dark comedy, some hot Angelina moments and a lot of violence. There's also a plot that makes very little sense and a lot of continuity goofs. Seriously, this movie has so many visual effects that, if you watch it with an eye for continuity, you'll find flaws in almost every other cut. I'd watch it if you have nothing better to do.

EDIT: Since writing this review, I have read the original comic. Well, while it's better, it isn't much better. The dialogues, as usual for Millar, are fucking ridiculous and contrived beyond imagination. Highlights are a super-villain made of turds from the 66 meanest people in history and the ending, which is so unexpected, violent and vulgar that it's no wonder they didn't use it for the film. In fact, that's the most disappointing aspect of the adaptation - that they turned an amoral story of betrayals and bloody killings into a good guy vs. bad guy thing.

[Grouchy]

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Tropic Thunder
Ben Stiller, 2008

Hollywood has famously poked fun at itself many-a-times. From serious, cynical noir classics like Sunset Boulevard and In a Lonely Place to the cinema of Robert Altman, to Airplane!, which gave birth to a plague of supposedly "satirical" movies which actually have nothing to do with satire, and are more like winky reenactments of the summer's biggest blockbusters. Tropic Thunder is a different beast. It tells an actual story with over-the-top characters that throws jabs at Apocalypse Now, the YouTube trend of intense filmmaking and Method acting.

Ben Stiller is a gifted comedian, however limited his range may be, and he's an inspired director and writer. He proves here that it's possible to reach mass appeal with a comedy without being purposefully dumb. Thunder aims at teenagers and 20-somethings that go to the theater regularly, watch E! Entertainment and are generally on the know about Hollywood, and also to the industry insiders who can see their own and other people's attitudes on the screen. Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, the action star trying to earn his acting credentials with a war epic. Robert Downey Jr. is Kirk Lazarus, the rebellious Method actor type, the one which nowadays Sean Penn and Rusell Crowe probably represent, except so far they haven't dyed their skin black for a movie. While Jack Black is basically every stupid comedian alive (Eddie Murphy, Leslie Nielsen) with a touch of tragedy, a drug addict whose career path is to fart on screen and wear women suits.

The device of fake trailers at the beginning is useful in quickly explaining who these characters are without wasting a lot of screentime and getting us straight into the action. A lot of other actors appear on the film, and most of them play succesfully against type. Highlights are Nick Nolte as the crazed war veteran who wrote the book the film is based on, Steve Coogan as the British filmmaker living the Hollywood nightmare and Tom Cruise in a role better left unspoiled. Let's just say that it's a remainder that Cruise is a very good actor with a wide range and not only a fanatical nutcase with repressed homo urges.

The movie is fucking hilarious. If you liked Zoolander, this is the cinema version of that movie. If you didn't, you'll find that this one is even funnier. What's the difference between this and something like Meet the Spartans? A world of difference. Both movies have an easy target to mock, but Stiller still has the good eye to differentiate between senseless name-dropping and what actually constitutes humor - the ability to get laughs out of stupidity and tragedy. The laughs on Tropic Thunder come from intelligent pokes at the way some people act during shooting. The director is completely lost and the actors are insecure and ignorant enough about filmmaking to believe the movie is going to be edited from the footage of hidden cameras hidden in random spots of the jungle. All the agent wants is to make sure his star gets the TiVo he demanded. There's also a brilliant moment where Kirk Lazarus explains that actors can get Oscars for mentally challenged work, but they should obviously never "go full retard", like Sean in I am Sam. Because nobody really likes to see that.

If I keep going I'll only spoil it further. This is a movie where you can perceive the wicked fun everybody had making it. But, unlike Ocean's Twelve, it doesn't forget about the audience. Five Grouchies out of five. And, as a life-long Downey Jr. fan, it's awesome to see his comeback career didn't end with Iron Man.

[Grouchy]

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The Strangers
Bryan Bertino, 2008

The story is not original, or unknown. But it hasn't lost any of its primal, bloody impact ever since the Manson clan killed a pregnant movie star and a house filled with guests and hung their skins up for dryin'. It's about a bunch of scary psycopaths discovering our characters in an isolated country house, and setting about making their lives a living hell. And it's also about survival and making it through the night. Bertino claims to have based this on some true events, which is a scare tactic probably made famous by Blair Witch Project. In reality, these events could have been real or not. What matters is that we're very much afraid that something like this could happen to us.

Liv Tyler and that dude from Felicity star in this, and they're both very good and convincing. Tyler, in particular, shows that she can be a bonafide scream queen with her constant suffering and crying. They're a young couple on holiday in his father's country house. At the start of the movie, we find that he has proposed marriage to her, and that she has refused for unknown reasons. So, they return to the house embarassed and sad, and eat ice-cream and drink champagne. Until they start having bigger trouble when a girl knocks on their door and asks for someone named Tamara. From there on, the scare-fest begins.

It's nice that newcomer Bertino took the time to engage us with his characters. The only problem is that the characters aren't really very engaging. We don't really understand anything about their conflict and attitudes, and we don't really care. It's a contrived situation and, despite the good acting, all of this could have been cut from the film. Luckily, when the scares start they really start. Bertino has done an awesome job with his sound design, which is almost a living character in the film. Since the strangers speak very little and seem to appear wherever they want to at random, the direction contributes to make them a sort of supernatural entity that can always be hiding behind your back. Another clever touch is constantly moving camera-work. Bertino uses the Steadicam a lot in order to shatter our sense of security, keeping the images on a constant waltzing mood. The cinematography is also essential. All those shots of empty rooms while we wait for something to happen kind of reminded me of Lynch at one point.

This is the kind of Horror film American audiences want and enjoy. Psychologically scary, yet straight-forward and bloody. It has a long history in cinema, the most intellectual example being Haneke's masterful Funny Games. In many ways, Bertino's film is like a remake of that movie that actually wants to be scary. And for the most part, it is. The masks are really chilling at the beginning, although later on, once we're used to seeing them, they lose all of their appeal, and once daylight bursts in, the director cleverly discards them since all of their effect has been achieved already. The ending, sadly, is kind of disappointing. It's true that it's the only way it could have ended and at no moment the audience has a right to feel cheated. Yet I think Bertino sets up a lot of suspense about the identity of the strangers which then he purposefully destroys. Whether this is a good or bad idea is left to everyone's individual judgement. I think the ending was a bit of a bore - I felt far more shocked by the rest of the movie.

The Strangers is not perfect, but it's interesting. Having already mentioned what I perceive as flaws in it, I still recommend it. As a fan of Horror, this is a cut above the usual mechanical direction and reiterative plots. It's a movie with personality, stylish and cynical.

[Grouchy]

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Taken
Pierre Morel, 2008

If there ever has been a movie that delivers EXACTLY what it promises, this is it. Trailers and plot outlines all revealed this to be Liam Nesson in killing mode, offing everybody standing between his daughter and him. And that's, word by word, exactly what the movie is. Why would you want to see the film? Because the casting of Nesson as a ruthless, deadly ex-agent with a vengeance cleverly goes against type and yet it works brilliantly. Or because you think "produced and written by Luc Besson" is a good signal for quality.

And you'd be right, on both counts. Nesson is excellent as a violent man - it's a mystery why he hasn't been cast more often in roles that allowed him to kick ass. And the script is the greatest strenght the movie has. It's formulaic, predictable and single-minded, but it works because it really has only one motivation to build - the desire of this estranged father to recover his daughter both physically and psychologically. It's been a great while since action films didn't come this simple and straight-forward. It's also been a while since we last had such a violent hero portrayed on such a positive light. When pissed, this guy kills, tortures and maims whatever tries to stop him. He also threatens enemies indirectly through their loved ones. The only thing that puts us so firmly on his side is that the people he's battling do stuff a thousand times more depraved and sadistic for a lesser reason - money.

The action is fantastic. We have two wild car chases through Paris, countless shoot-outs, and painful fist fights on a Bourne level of intensity. Most of this shit looks crudely painful as well as exciting. There is no CGI except for a shot of a man getting run over by a truck. Everything is very naturalistic and, after seeing some of the stuff pulled off by Wanted, this is very refreshing in its down-to-earth way. Realism is hardly overrated despite the abundance of fantasy on the multiplex these days. The only problem I can find with Taken is that rarely do we get the feeling that Nesson's character is really in any danger. The only time he's captured he manages to escape about five minutes later. He only gets slightly hurt towards the end, when we're already fairly sure he's gonna get the job done in the next scene. Most of the time, he's like the French Punisher - an unstoppable, uber-resourceful murdering machine. There are a few obvious logical loopholes as well in the story, but they're minor and it would be petty to mention them.

Taken is not going to surprise anyone, but it's going to please those action movie fans that still look back with nostalgia on the golden age of the shoot-'em-up genre, the '80s. It really takes no prisoners and it's not a self-conscious meta film like (heh) Shoot them Up. It's an entertaining generic action film, and that's a hell of a recommendation these days. Oh, Holly Valance and Famke Janssen are in it too (briefly) for eye-candy purposes. They both look eatable.

[baby doll]

I can't believe you actually saw Taken. It was playing at the 'plexes in Busan for months until curiosity got the better of me and I just had to see it. What was this film and why had I never heard of it? What was Liam Neeson doing in it? Luc Besson wrote and produced it--is that good? Heather and I walked out after twenty minutes because it didn't seem worth missing 30 Rock for it.

[Grouchy]

Luc Besson wrote and produced it--is that good?
Yes.

[Amnesiac]

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Let the Right One In
Tomas Alfredson, 2008


I really, really want to see this.

[Grouchy]

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AppaloosA
Ed Harris, 2008

The Appaloosa is a horse breed recognizable for its leopard-stained backside. It's also the name of one of those Old West towns where the law is made by whoever has the quickest draw and, in this film by Ed Harris, that would be sheriff Virgil Cole and his silent partner Everett, played to cool perfection by Viggo Mortensen. Cole is a man of scarce education with very few communicating skills - when he's taken aback by a woman freely speaking about sex, he rumiates to himself a little, then gets up and senselessly beats the shit out of a drunk at the bar. Everett, like his boss, doesn't talk much, but he does that in order to stay alive and minding his own business. He's far more intelligent, rational and collected. The best thing this classic Western has going for it is the relationship between the two friends that's subtly established by Harris. They're pros who talk to each other only when necessary and, even while Harris sometimes gets caught up in broad comedy of the "tough-guy-does-cute-stuff" variety, his main characters are complex and believable.

When I call this "a classic Western", I'm not even joking. Appaloosa could have easily been made in the '60s or '70s and, if they cut down the sex, in the '50s. It reminded me strongly of the relationships between characters in constant danger established by John Ford films like My Darling Clementine, without drawing quality comparisons, of course. This isn't revisionistic poetry like the recent Jesse James movie, and it has none of the gritty violence and grey morals of the 3:10 to Yuma remake. It doesn't even have the mysticism of Seraphim Falls. It's an old-fashioned, character driven story that conforms to every stereotype and attitude established by the cowboy tradition. And I mean that in a very good way.

Where the movie departs from traditional depictions of the Old West, though, is in its gender politics, which are the most interesting parts of the film. The two friends trust each other too much to be separated by the nympho portrayed by Allie French (Renee Zellwegger in a solid turn), but she sure sinks deep into Cole. The old peacemaker has had very limited experience with women, and it's a running joke in the script that he has only lived with Indian chicks. He's taken aback by this girl who's not a whore, not a saint and has a sick need, as Everett puts it, to be with "the stallion of the herd". With her character, Appaloosa challenges the stuffed sexual relationships of the classic Westerns and shows a portrait of a complicated triangle. Neither Everett nor Cole actually trust French, but Cole is in love and as a friend, Everett seems to think that his feelings are worth preserving even above continuing their peacemaking partnership.

This is a movie that supports itself on the actors, and it has a consistently great cast. Jeremy Irons pretty much plays one of the stock villains he has been doing for years, and does it very well, but even smaller roles than that are given a lot of attention. The great Lance Henriksen is almost unrecognizable as the two-faced Ring Shelton, and Timothy Spall and Ariadna Gil bring a lot of energy to a town representative and a hot bartender girl. However, I think a more cynical and no-nonsense editor should have been brought in. At 114 minutes, Appaloosa is way longer than it needs to be and often drags itself into boredom. The ending, which comes long after the final showdown with the bad guys, is disappointing because of its convenience and quickness.

However, what's nice about Appaloosa is its lack of pretentions. It basically invites the audience to have a good time with a Western, and it has an undercurrent of humor that reminded me of Clint Eastwood's works. At heart, it's a feel-good movie that celebrates friendship and romance, and also delivers a good share of shootin'. You'll probably forget it soon after watching it but, if you like the genre, you'll have a good time while you're wrapped up in the story.

[Grouchy]

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Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Guillermo Del Toro, 2008

Early on the film, Prince Nuada, who wants to recover a piece of the king's crown that will give him control over the unstoppable army of the title, enters a New York City auction - watch out for Santiago Segura on this scene - and opens a mysterious box while he warns: "now you'll discover what makes you afraid of the dark". Del Toro and Mignola are a match made in Heaven because they also know. Besides comics and Horror cinema, they're also interested in fairy folk tales and, as any enthusiast, they respect the bloody, cynical and barbaric nature of those stories. Fact is, most of the Brothers Grimm output would be rated R in today's society.

It's a great joy to Hellboy fans like me that Mignola has penned himself an original story for the second film, one involving creatures not seen so far in the comics. Add to that Del Toro's make-up background and frantic focus on the monsters and you have yourself a visual orgasm. Several of this film's frames should be paused on a giant screen and analyzed for every component of the world it presents us with. Of course, most of it is CGI, but the make-up based Hellboy and Abe Sapien blend in well, and the creatures are perfectly put together. At one point, Red and company enter the Troll Fair, a black market for fairies that strongly reminded me of the bar scene in Star Wars. In fact, it's basically its equal in creativity and ambience. It's moments like that which make Hellboy II a memorable, enjoyable film.

Well, that and the cast which plays off each other wonderfully. Most of the dialogue is Hollywood rubbish, but these actors know their characters and know how to make an exchange sparkle. In that respect, a detail which some people might not instantly notice is that Doug Jones as Sapien is now speaking his own voice, instead of being dubbed by the studio-imposed David Hyde Pierce. Another small victory for Del Toro, who reportedly fought studios for years for his choice of Perlman as Big Red. Like Reeves or Downey Jr., this is one of those actor-hero combos in which it's practically impossible to imagine any other choice. Perlman grunts, gets mad and says "oh crap" like no other could. Another casting marvel is Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane as the quirky Johann Kraus, a character that's been visually reinvented from the comics and that's a major addition to the B.P.R.D. agents.

Although the first movie had more closure and a more even pacing, it's easy to see the passion put into the Golden Army adventure. Every scene seems to up the ante with the earlier one as far as imagination, intensity and unexpected results go. Show-stoppers are a Manhattan smackdown with an Earth Elemental, the already mentioned Troll Fair and a scary encounter with The Angel of Death. There's also a strong emotional core at the middle of the story, relating to Hellboy and Liz Sherman's love story. This (and the Abe Sapien subplot) are handled so well by the script that prevent the film from becoming mechanical and an exercise in empty style. An early flashback featuring a brief return of John Hurt as the Professor also adds that extra touch of movie magic to make this a perfect blockbuster.

I believe there is a potential for unlimited Hellboy adventures on the screen, and some of those stories will find their way into the DTV animation movies coming out at the same time. However, if it's worth having Del Toro helm them personally and throw body and soil into it, I'd be happy to just have one more to book-end the trilogy, some five or six years from now. Just as the X-Files are more fun when they're about fighting individual supernatural menaces than the mytharc, Golden Army feels breezier and more awe-inducing because it's not all that caught up with the major plot issue of whether Hellboy is the actual Antichrist.

[Grouchy]

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The Mutant Chronicles
Simon Hunter, 2008

This is the first movie I've heard of so far to be based on a pen-and-paper role game - also called The Mutant Chronicles. It shows. This is basically an adventure you could have with some friends over two evenings of hard playing. There's a badass soldier, a priest, a mute nun, two aggressive Asians, one Latino street fighter, an aristocratic kraut, a Black army dude and a gamemaster hell-bent on making their mission difficult for them. The end credits even describe some characters as "Science Monk" and "Plutocrat".

The only handicap this gaming origin visibly brings to the script, though, is the need to explain just a little too much exposition. The story is set in the year 2707, where the continents have been replaced with large corporations at constant war with each other. For some reason, their equipment and trenches are all in the fashion of WWI, only with more gunpower. In the introductory scene, well past the voice-over, the forces of Bauhaus (the multi-million dollar enterprise that replaced Europe) accidentally unleash a doomsday device, and with it a group of Mutants who have long bone-made blades instead of arms and which apparently move at super-speed. Tiny soldiers die, Thomas Jane only survivor. Back to the Middle Ages.

What? Yeah, this is the second sci-fi film this year to combine relatively modern warfare with Medieval stuff, the first being Doosmday. A group of Monks led by Ron Perlman, faced with the apparently unkillable armies of Mutants (like zombies, they also reproduce themselves, only through biotechnology since they're actually smart) unleash a secret - there's a prophecy that says that a man (a Deliverer) will be able to save mankind by throwing some sort of stone inside the Mutant-making mechanism. He's given permission by the dying Headmaster of the Corporation (a medieval king played by John Malkovich), he gathers his party and the movie starts.

Sounds complicated? It is. However, the script by Philip Eisner manages pretty well to deliver a mouthful of nonsensical information with that added drama that makes it work for the screen. It also helps that, in the 20-30 minutes before the mission starts, we have an acting powerhouse on screen - Jane, Perlman and Malkovich all deliver their lines with conviction and, in the case of Perlman, he even goes completely against type by playing a subdued, non-violent wise man. Of course, by the end, everyone will have their turn at kicking ass, specially Devon Aoki, who also has a less muderous character than those she usually gets since Sin City. The other great acting comes from Anna Walton as the mute nun, who co-acts again with Perlman from Hellboy II. She was the good Goblin sister in that.

The movie comes from the US, but it has an European feel and setting. The early scenes depicting carnage and suffering from the people of Bauhaus wouldn't be out of place on an actual World War movie. Babies are killed, mothers suffer, senseless violence, etc. In fact, it's all amazingly violent and gritty. The whole dramatic centerpoint of the film is whether the carnage depicted leads to every man for himself or if it makes sense to actually have faith in the power of humans united. You can guess the moral outcome. The film, however, proves to have faith at least on its characters and engages us constantly with them. They're dead-set on a suicide mission and that means constant casualties. The finale in particular is exciting as all Hell and it brings to mind the possibility of the game expanding to the videogame industry if this earns any money.

It can't all be flowers, though. The CGI looks, to be kind, unfinished. It's strange, because, as you probably guessed, almost every location is completely digital, but half of them looks great and the other half looks like a half-assed job done back in 1995. Since the release dates on IMDb are very few, I'm wondering if I didn't rent a work in progress. Regardless, I recommend The Mutant Chronicles. It's a lot better than Doomsday as a dystopian action extravaganza and the short runtime easily makes it one of the actioners of the year for me. It captures the great joy of going to the movies to watch an adventure film done right. In a year where an Indiana Jones movie couldn't even manage that, this will probably surprise you.

[Grouchy]

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Burn After Reading
The Coen Brothers, 2008

In one ot this film's many detours, we have J.K. Simmons as a CIA manager receiving constantly quirky information about what goes on with the rest of the characters. "Report back to me", he says, "when it makes sense". In the Coens world, that's the same as never. They have created a comedy of errors in such a huge scale that there's not a single dialogue scene that doesn't involve miscommunication. We, the privileged audience, understand everything and see the bizarre motivations behind the characters, unlike the CIA and J.K. Simmons. But, when he closes the file and goes "What have we learned?", we have been so confused and entertained by the pure anarchy of the script that we feel exactly like him.

This is not a bad thing at all. Larry David would be proud of this script, which is, you guessed it, about nothing. Well, nothing is a bit too much. It's about a group of characters who look and act like somewhat normal people but, upon close examination, are crazy as all fuck - something not unlike the people you see every day on the streets. There's Harry (Clooney), a compulsive womanizer who has invented a mechanical device on his basement that has to be seen to be believed. He's cheating on his wife with Katie (Swinton), a cold, stuck-up bitch who wants to make a fortune divorcing his husband Cox (Malkovich), a drinking CIA man with level 3 clearance who is writing a memoir. Said memoir appears lying on the floor of a gym locker room and is found by Chad (Pitt) and Linda (McDormand), two sad losers who expect to make money by blackmailing the CIA into recovering the memoirs.

The plot tangles and creates new tangles until it virtually implodes on itself. This is the smartest pure comedy the Coens have written since O Brother. After two disappointing efforts and their Oscar-winning golden cow, this movie gets them back to their roots and the source of their glory days. This has the feel of a movie they wrote quick and made just for the fun of it and just to play around with some actors they hadn't had a chance to have in their casts yet - Malkovich, Pitt, Swinton and Richard Jenkins all deliver wonderful performances and Clooney pretty much plays one of his stock endearing idiots. Burn is shot on digital video, but the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki is so rich in shadows and cold light and the storyboard is (as usual) so minutely calculated that it's hard to notice.

Once again, this is comedy at its best. The plot doesn't make an inch of sense, there's nothing to be learned except how to make a great film starting just with the basic characters and the sketch of a series of motivations and ending out with grand nonsense. Sure, there are veiled attacks at intelligence services in general, but none of it is too political. This is a movie about style and great writing, the kind that makes you laugh at the way words are said and the strange choice of them. Personally, for its lack of pretensions and fine craft, I think it's even better than No Country for Old Men - and perhaps more honest. There, I said it. Have a nice day.

[Melville]

for its lack of pretensions and fine craft, I think it's even better than No Country for Old Men - and perhaps more honest.
Agreed. Though they certainly make nice companion pieces.

[Grouchy]

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Blindness
Fernando Meirelles, 2008

The Nobel Prize winner José Saramago wrote his novel Essay on Blindness with sentences long enough for most authors to call them paragraphs, no quotation marks and no proper character names. Despite this, the fame of the book and its apocalyptic setting with an epidemy that causes people to go blind provoked many producers to seek it out for adaptation purposes. The only director to get an approval from hermit Saramago, though, ended up being City of God's Fernando Meirelles, famous for a kinetic style of shooting and editing, focusing on confusing sequences of action and drama.

So, what came out of this combination? Personally, I'm not Saramago's biggest fan, but there's no denying his unique skill at conveying mood and an idiosyncratic viewpoint on history. I'm somewhat more of a fan of Meirelles. True, City of God is Goodfellas on a favela, but it has true journalistic power. The Constant Gardener was more nuanced but obviously less visceral - at any rate, a good movie. But how can a director so often associated with reality and news reports tackle an allegory that happens nowhere in particular? Well, he fared pretty well. Part of it was Saramago refusing to sell the rights to his work if the filmmakers set it in any recognizable city. Meirelles answered him by shooting the exterior shots of his script half in Sao Paolo and half in Toronto, with an international cast that almost stretches to the seven continents.

Sure, that sounds kind of bad, and for the first thirty minutes or so, it is kind of off-putting to see the Asian couple, the black wise man, the Latino bartender, etc. Kind of like the non-spoken rule of American TV shows having one minority character representing. But when I started remembering the source material, I realized there wasn't a better way to convey the universality of a parable on screen. It's not the only trick Meirelles pulled out of his sleeve on adapting such a non-cinematic work. Most of the movie is bleached and overexposed, and features close-up shots splitting the action in a series of tiny, half-guessed movements by the blind characters. A few shots visually reference the Parable of the Blind painting. This is also one of the most raw apocalyptic films ever made, featuring every lower stage of ugliness the human being can descend to. I've never seen such an accurate representation of chaos on screen since Children of Men.

I realize this review is written more like a defense than an actual analysis, and I think Blindness has been served a very unfair hand by the public. So much so that it's a reminder that the reception of a film is often more a matter of chance than a reward for the effort put into it. Blindness is potent filmmaking, and it presents us with a microcosm of humanity which is not pretty to look at, but also with an understanding of reactions and emotions which very few mainstream movies even reach for. The entire cast - Moore, Ruffalo, Glover, GarcÃ*a Bernal among other more or less famous faces - shows acting prowess and naked emotions rarely seen outside of workshop theater. Yet the movie has been booed down in Cannes and has received more bad than good reviews. I attribute this to a matter of timing and expectations more than to objective thinking.

Take my favorite target among crap film critics, Roger Ebert. His review says a lot more about him and his limited attention span than about the film he's writing about. In fact, he outright tells us that he's glad that he's attending a screening of The Godfather so he can watch something more quiet than this film, which he calls "agressive". Fortunately, not every movie has to be The Godfather. Some don't want to be. His reasons for bashing the movie are that it's "unpleasant". He claims that he'd "rather watch the characters perish" than make it through the ordeal. Well, probably if the characters were more heroic and the movie was some horseshit about mankind collaborating for survival, he'd been different. Of course, I'm open to criticisms on the film itself, and I know it's far from perfect. But from the negative reactions I've been reading, I think Meirelles and Saramago's sin is providing a less than comfortable view of the evils that men can and will do.

[Grouchy]

I'm gonna do a double post for two films I saw on theaters but simply didn't have the time to write long reviews for. At least for the first one, I wanted to. The second one was so bad it kind of took off my energy.

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Quantum of Solace
Marc Foster, 2008

Every filmic James Bond has had his own distinct personality. Connery had the cynicism and true elegancy, Moore the goofy, '60s self-parodic image, Dalton the true grit and arguably the best looks, Brosnan the jet set behavior and the ironic one-liners, and heck, Lazenby was a fucking Aussie! The filmmakers of both this and Casino Royale have worked hard in creating a Bond straight from the Ian Fleming literary sources. For the most part, they've succeeded. Fleming's Bond really is a cynic man, hardened by his job and yet addicted to it (often going in drinking binges and disregarding paperwork when not in a mission) and to an extent a killing machine such as the one portrayed by Daniel Craig. In other aspects, Craig (probably because of his badass look and acting) grows apart from the character, behaving a little like an English John McClane instead of a man used to good living and excellent taste.

This is even more notable in Quantum of Solace, a film that moves at breackneck speed from action scene into action scene, with a frenzied editing to go with it. I think it has received an unfairly amount of bad press because of the comparisons to Casino Royale. Martin Campbell, a director that gave us arguably the only good Brosnan entry, crafted that one, instead of the drama guy Marc Foster, who isn't what instantly comes to mind for a Bond director. I think he has done an excellent job, though - providing an action film that features stuff blowing up and bloody extravaganzas and yet is firmly based on reality and on current political issues such as imperialism in Latin America. Not an easy task, specially when working with such a cultural icon as James Bond.

I think the film perhaps has a little too much "reality" for most audiences expectations of Bond and because it's set almost entirely on the Third World instead of a casino in Montenegro. Yet for me it was very engaging, exciting, blood-pumping and every other bombastic adjective you like. Several things were even an improvement over Casino Royale - the opening sequence, the theme song, hell, even the action. There's no parkour scene this time, but there are a bazillion car chases and a great, beautiful-looking scene at an opera house where the frenzied editing really achieves its own kind of grandeur. I know, people sort of don't like that stuff, and sometimes I don't either (Hancock is a recent example), but when handled correctly, it can convey confusion and adrenaline moments better than a more traditional approach.

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Righteous Kill
Jon Avnet, 2008

How the mighty have fucking fallen. Twelve, thirteen years ago, Pacino and De Niro (the acting corner stone of New Hollywood) added their box office pull to Michael Mann's action epic Heat. Good times. That movie was all I could think about when I left the theater after watching this ridiculous mess. Not only because it's unarguably better, but because, to my mind, Pacino and De Niro were interested in making good cinema at the time. Now, not so much. Sure, Pacino has directed obscure movies almost none has seen and De Niro hosts Tribeca, but what about their career? What about collaborating with great directors? Can't they spell "sell-out" anymore?

The film is the kind of cop thriller that benefits from a TV showing. It uses a lot of modern resources and crapstactic directing, such as videotapes with the two lead characters talking to the camera. But you can tell the movie is all about the nostalgic reunion of the two actors and that none cares one iota about the story. The men that once gave their bodies to Tony Montana and Travis Bickle walk their expensive suits into rooms with corpses, talk nonsense dialogue with enough pop culture references to make Kevin Smith's head blow, then walk into a coffee or a restaurant, talk again. Talk talk talk talk. There's an air of intentional (lousy) humor surrounding everything, like it's all a big satire of the glory years anyway. The twist at the ending of the story is predictable.

The final humiliation is that John Leguizamo blows them both out of the water. His cop character is funnier, more lively, and he even seems to believe more on his lines. Leguizamo is one of the great character actos, and he finds himself very well supported by Carla Gugino and Mark Whalberg's brother. The question remains. Since neither Pacino nor De Niro need money, what's the point of this? To make fun of their previous image? I think the answer is more simple. They're so used to signing on for bad movies that they just happened to find themselves in the same one, and neither saw any reason to back out.