Category Archives: Film

Thor

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I’ve been reading old Marvel comics for, well, a few years now. And also the Marvel Ultimate reboot series, for about the same number of years. In that time, I’ve gotten through 10 or so years of the newer version and 13 years now of the older version. Over those “years”, I’ve had characters I’ve liked and characters I’ve disliked, as you do. For instance, I will read as little about the Submariner as humanly possible, and I’ll be glad of it. Anyway, my point is this: I’ve seen a great deal about Thor as an ensemble character, and only a very little of him as a main character in his own stories. Everything I’ve seen of the latter (except for a few Loki-centric stories in the Ultimate version) has led me to be bored at the idea of picking them up, even when virtually every other major Marvel character has eventually won me over.

All of this to explain that I had pretty low expectations when I heard that they had a Thor movie in the works as part of the build-up to the Avengers franchise. Often, of course, correctly lowered expectations are the key to enjoying something that you otherwise might have rolled your eyes at or even actively hated. But the thing is, I don’t think that’s the deal here. The opening narration doesn’t give the slightest amount of delay in explaining that these aren’t really Norse gods, they’re just really advanced aliens who happened to choose Earth as a battleground, naturally confusing the natives. (Arthur C. Clarke is referenced so many times you’d think he got royalties.) And once that’s out of the way and we’re caught up to modern times, the story they’re telling is pretty much exactly the story I wanted to hear, without any of Thor’s old-school enemies who bore me so, without more than a smattering of his over the top formality that bores me even more; instead, it’s a sibling squabble between Thor and Loki, of exactly the type that has so enthralled me in all the new Ultimate stories. Except, you know, with cosmic implications and a few interesting earth people involved.

But other than the Loki thing, and I have decided over the past couple of years that in the hands of a capable writer, I could happily read or watch him doing just about anything, the main draw versus the comics that I was so leery of is that they took an overly formal prig with a stick wedged so solidly up his ass that it made Mjollnir look about as unmovable as an empty plastic bag in an independent film about existentialism and turned him into a jovial, likable, and best of all, overly rash hero among men. If someone tries to convince me that the Thor in the (non-Ultimate) comics eventually turns into that guy, I’d probably be willing to pick up his stories. Not until then, mind you, because I just don’t care enough about the backstory. Not this time.

Source Code

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I knew Source Code was a sci-fi movie, but I think if I had known that it really was full-on science fiction, instead of just with the trappings, you understand, I would have pushed myself to see it sooner. As it is, there’s hardly any time left to recommend it to people, what with the summer movie season having started yesterday. And that’s downright unfortunate, because it’s the kind of workmanlike, personal sci-fi story that people should ought to see, and that really should ought to be made more often in the first place.

Jake Gyllenhal plays his affable everyman self, military edition, attached to a top-secret project called the Source Code.[1] Using the brain patterns of a train-bombing victim, the project coordinators are able to place him into the last eight minutes of that man’s life, again and again, to determine the identity of the bomber before he can strike again. All of which is enough by itself to make for a rollicking good sci-fi / action movie, but then they went and focused on Captain Stevens’ experience in the virtual reality: his growing attachment to his fellows[2], the physical and mental agony of each failure, and his rapidly growing disillusionment with… ah, but that would be telling too much.

The important thing is, they’re telling a much deeper story than the one that might have fit in an hour of zippy television in the Seven Days, or, yes, Quantum Leap vein (and if you manage to catch Scott Bakula’s cameo, you’re a better person than I was). It doesn’t strike me as being among the very best genre movies of the (well, previous, now) decade, and here I’m thinking of Children of Men. But this is a new decade, and it’s the best one so far, plus also it’s every bit as good as another recent example of the personal sci-fi genre I’ve seen (which I shall avoid mentioning here because the comparison could be spoilery to either film), even if it didn’t manage to live up to a global-scale story that is among my favorite movies ever.

[1] Caps implied every time the name of the project-slash-device is mentioned.
[2] Especially, it must be admitted, the pretty one sitting across from him.

Scream 4

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A good long span of time has passed since the last Scream movie. In case you don’t remember, they are popular for reinventing the slasher film via clever, self-aware postmodernism at a time when the genre had very nearly died. Also, for stabbing really a lot of people and creating a brand new interchangeable killer via a consistent ghost-faced mask and voice modulator for perpetual victim Neve Campbell in every movie.

Which actually is where Scream 4 comes into play, with Sidney Prescott returning home on tour, on the heels of a successful book about her quest to stop feeling like a victim. It’s too bad, really, about the new person-or-people who have grabbed onto the same M.O. to start threatening a new batch of teens, including Sidney’s cousin, along with the woman herself and also perpetual co-stars Deputy Dewey and Gale Weathers.

I can’t detail more, both because horror movies don’t lend themselves to fine detail in the first place and especially because this series has continued its unbroken streak of leaving me unable to guess at the identity of the murderer-or-murderers[1], and I’d hate to remove the fun of it for anyone else. The writers definitely took the self-aware schtick to a whole new level, which did not bother me, though I can imagine it having played a little stale to some viewers. As usual, also, my companion and I were in the vast minority of laughers at the showing. I know sometimes I laugh at things a movie didn’t intend, but I also know the Scream movies are the kind that do intend more of the laughs than not, and as usual, I have to wonder why so many people are watching different movies than I am.

[1] That’s the second such reference, so I will point out that it is not meant to be a spoiler of these events, only an acknowledgment of the trend from previous entries in the series.

The Reeds

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The last movie of the fest was also the most difficult. See, I was winding down on juice for perhaps obvious reasons, and it was a British movie full of British people with quasi-comprehensible British accents. Still, I made a game attempt at it, and here is what you get. The Reeds documents a boatful of couples on weekend holiday who get lost in some, well, reeds. If it were not for the medical emergency and the hunter-or-hunters of unknown, mysterious, and possibly ghostly persuasion killing them off, this would probably not have been such a big deal. But, you know. These things happen.

Dread

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Dread marks another powerful entry in the fourth Horrorfest. Note that I chose that word carefully, though. See, there are these college art students[1] who want to do a study on fear in peoples’ lives. What do they fear, what is their earliest memory of fear, how does it affect them? And all of this goes on camera in first-person interviews that, though wholly unrelated to reality TV, would not be at all out of place there.

And of course there are revelations among the main characters that push boundaries and change relationships in unexpected and frequently awkward and unsustainable ways, but that wouldn’t be enough to make a horror movie. It’s when someone decides to change the rules and force people to start facing and overcoming their fears that things take a turn for the ugly. And even then, it’s closer to tragedy than horror, I think? But either way: quite powerful, and quite disturbing.

[1] I’m pretty sure they were art students rather than psychology students, since one of them paints a lot of nudes (though he may technically not have been enrolled) and another was I think a film student, but maybe I imagined that? I suppose it bears pointing out that even the fact of them being involved in the college was only an excuse to have a few dorm shots and a ready supply of subjects, so the lack of clarity on this point isn’t really a big deal.

The Final

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Okay, with only two movies left, I’m caught up again. It is convenient that after burning through several movies in a row, the most recent one is also the one I’ve liked best today. Playing on the fears (and in some cases, almost certainly the fantasies) of a post-Columbine public, The Final presents a group of high school misfits led by the President of Holden Caulfield’s fan club who hatch a plot to get all of their tormentors together at a weekend party for a series of deadly lessons on the nature of being pushed too far.

Other than a subplot about a racist Vietnam vet, pretty much every character in every scene is filled with pathos and well-presented anger in equal measure, by the end of the movie if not in any given scene. There are a few good guys, but nearly everyone is a bad guy at some time or another, and that part of high school doesn’t show up on the screen very often. Still, the plot was mostly predictable once all the characters were set in motion by the middle third of the movie; the real joy here was the acting. I may or may not have liked Kill Theory better, but this is certainly the only one so far I’d recommend to anyone else.

The Graves

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Question: what do you get if you combine the most egregious misuse of Tony Todd in the past decade with a supernatural slasher flick and lead characters whose best talents are contained in their tank tops?[1][2] Answer: The Graves.

[1] I feel like I should have had more to say about the movie, but, well. I mean, it was only so good for making fun of in the first place, and I don’t have a good way to express that part here.
[2] That sounds terrible, perhaps? If it had been only slightly less true, I would have been able to keep myself from saying it. But, yeah, wow. On the bright side, part of the issue is that the tank tops did in fact hold treasures. (My good friend Jez wishes to add an additional drunken / unfortunately true declaration: “Her boobs look better with a shirt on.”)

Lake Mungo

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Lake Mungo was the obligatory documentary ghost story. See, there’s this Australian family on Christmas vacation, and after their daughter drowns in a local lake that you would erroneously think is named Mungo, an unlikely series of twists, backtrails, and switchbacks unfolds around her haunting of her family and the area. The acting was fine, and the story was fine, but… I dunno, I think it was just a little too long. Not that this movie was the worst offender of the weekend, but I think it was the most disappointing about it, because the premise would have worked so well if they had been willing to be just a little less impressed with their cleverness.

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

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I have watched a lot of movies already today, so these are probably going to go kind of fast. The first such was a political comedy about a viral terrorist attack on American soil in the wake of 9/11. Zombies of Mass Destruction is a lot higher on concept than plot, but that turns out not to be wiener a complaint, because the concepts, in execution, are pretty much hilarious. Whether it be churchgoers versus gay dudes, the NRA versus hippies, or rednecks versus hot Persian chicks, every scene is full of a) things I found funny and b) zombies.  So, y’know… that’s cool?

I can’t figure out what else to write, there are too many drunk people being distracting around me. Maybe I’ll be better next movie?

Hidden (2009)

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You know what Hidden reminded me a lot of? Well, okay, I don’t either, so give me a second to figure it out. I mean, I know, I just can’t remember the title yet. But it was the Russian movie from the first Horrorfest[1] where the lady gets trapped in physical manifestations of her past (or psychological manifestations of them that are sufficiently convincing to serve the same purpose) when she returns home, the place that of course you can go to again, contrary to the proverb. You just shouldn’t.

Anyway, this movie is Norwegian instead of Russian, but the primary concept where the main character comes back home and weird things occur? Yes, that. In this case, there’s a murder mystery, identity confusion, ghost manifestations, and almost certainly more things? The truth is, I was fuzzing in and out after about the first third of the movie, so I got a sense of it, but the specifics remain locked on the disc, forever out of my reach. Oh, well!

[1] Oh, right, The Abandoned.