Category Archives: Film

Kill Theory

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I have surely mentioned, at some point, that I missed one of the Horrorfests due to a proximity failure caused by its gradually shrinking sphere of influence. But I’ve finally found a way to correct that oversight, via a cleverly scheduled weekend of DVD watching. Not quite the same as a theatrical experience, sure, but quite a bit cheaper and probably more comfortable overall. And the first film of the festival did not disappoint!

Kill Theory starts off with one of the standard tropes of the slasher genre, a van full of teens on their way to, well, it doesn’t really matter where they’re going, does it? It only matters that the place will be high on dangerous empty spaces and short on other people. And the teens all have trope personalities, to boot. There’s the annoying fat kid who is single when everyone around him is paired off[1], there’s the girl who takes off her shirt, thus ensuring a first reel murder scene, there’s the couple who are having problems because neither of them brought everything to the table when they decided to pair off, and that fighting inevitably spills into everyone else’s good weekend. Well, I suppose the guy who came to make them all dead also affects the weekend’s mood?

That guy? Instead of just killing everyone, which would have been more than enough to satisfy me after the fifth horrorfest’s mostly lackluster series of plots, he actually improves on the entire concept of slashing a vanful of teens. See, he was a rock climber who had to cut the belaying line and watch his friends plummet to their doom, because the alternative was for him to die along with them. And now he needs to prove to his therapist and/or himself that he’s not an aberration, by getting these teens to kill each other to save the one of them who will remain; if not, he’ll just kill them all. So, on top of being the perfect palate cleanser to the weekend, it actually managed to provoke thoughts about morality in its absolute and situational forms, and you can’t ask for a whole lot more than that from any film in any genre.

[1] He’s neither in a wheelchair not even half as annoying as the guy in Chainsaw who created that particular trope. But nobody else ever should be, as some molds can’t be matched.

Your Highness

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Stoner comedies, right? They vary wildly between the kind of thing only stoned people can enjoy and the kind of thing everyone should ought to dig, even if the stoned people will laugh harder. (I’m thinking here of Pineapple Express, which is apropos, since this was made by and stars many of the same people.) The point of all that, of course, is to allow me to place Your Highness onto that scale, right? Well, it’s somewhere in the middle, and while that’s not was I was hoping for, it’s not a terrible place to be either. (Although I should also say it’s kind of misframed by the title and previews and may not be a stoner comedy at all.)

The bright side, though, is that it’s really quite good as a fantasy adventure movie, enough so to surprise me. James Franco is an infinitely likable hero-type who must ride forth to rescue his girlfriend from the tragically underused wizardly nemesis, with the help of his jealous brother Danny McBride[1], his brother’s manservant, and also warrior-small-p-princess Natalie Portman, who really has been in a lot of movies this year. There’s a prophecy, a magic sword, a ton of cool special effects, and a standard yet well-presented story of personal growth.

I guess my point is this: if you are looking for a decent-but-not-brilliant fantasy movie that is frequently funny to boot, this is that film. If you are looking for a full-fledged comedic send-up of the swords and sorcery genre, you’ll probably have to wait for Simon Pegg to write one.

[1] You’ve seen him in stuff even if you don’t know it yet. This may not be his break-out lead role, but I expect he’ll have one such any time now.

Oldboy

MV5BMTI3NTQyMzU5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTM2MjgyMQ@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_This movie night thing I mentioned, it seems to be real. At least, I’ve already been to it again and seen another movie, which is a pretty good sign. Then again, if it burns brightly and flares out, I won’t be offended by that either. In the meantime, it gives me the chance to catch a few things I missed or wouldn’t have known to look for, and in a setting where I can focus on my thoughts and perhaps give each film its due. (Horrorfest kind of kills me each year when it comes around, for true. At least next weekend, I can maybe take notes or even dash out a quick review between each entrant to the festival?)

But enough of that, it’ll be focus enough when it gets here. The night’s movie was Korean, which I assume to mean South Korean since there was no point at which the Glorious Leader was praised, nor did he descend upon a golden rainbow to render judgment or justice. Oldboy follows the tale of a gravelly-voiced narrator who, in diction rife with significant pauses[1], tells a tale of his horrible fate. He was kidnapped off the street, stuffed into a sealed-up hotel room, and kept there for fifteen years. He spent this entire period going gradually insane and/or training for his shot at revenge, with a side dose of tunneling his way to an exit. But on the very night that he broke through the wall into open air, he is suddenly released and given the wherewithal to divine and then hunt his antagonist in a brutally disturbing game of cat and mouse.

Or the whole scenario is a total mindfuck. Or both! All I can say for certain is that it was too engaging to turn away, and I don’t mean that in the train wreck sense.

[1] So, I’m sure this was dubbed instead of filmed in English, and it’s kind of unfair for me to judge a movie based on something that isn’t the original version. All I can say is this particular dub artist made the role his own, whether by entering the original voice or choosing a new one.

Insidious (2010)

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It’s not that I mind, but there is a school of thought (I assume) that states the recent spate of video camera / haunting movies is starting to get played out. See, the way I figure, as long as they keep being good, why should I get tired of the subgenre? (Well, and either actual genre, really, there are plenty of good entries to either side of the intersection too.)  Enter Insidious, which combines odds and ends from Drag Me to Hell and Paranormal Activity into something that, if it is nowhere near new, is at least slightly novel and certainly has the spooky chops required to hold my interest.[1]

You know what would suck (I assume) as a parent? if one of your kids went into a spontaneous, medically unexplainable, coma. It would probably suck more if, after too many weeks have gone by for you to assume he’ll just be waking up again any second now, your house started being haunted. That premise, combined with a dash of a certain reality TV show, pretty much completes the movie; but either the movie people in general are getting really good at creepy or this particular style of creepy fuels my engine, because so far, nobody has done it wrong this decade in the last decade or so.[2]

[1] Anyone can make something lunge into frame and make the audience jump. It is rather more impressive to put something in frame that is subtly wrong and wait for the audience’s collective subconscious twig to it. I was most freaked out in the whole movie by a 1920s “extry! extry!” style newsboy that was just standing somewhere he shouldn’t have been and then, a few moments later, danced to the music on the record player.
[2] Concrete divisions of time shouldn’t ought to trick people. It is pretty much the equivalent of little Babby New Year pointing and laughing at the old guy in last year’s sash right before he ritually murders him as the ball drops at midnight.

Paul (2011)

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This will be the simplest review I’ve written in quite a long time. or, at least, the simplest positive review. Because, you see, Paul was brought to you, as they say, by the creators and stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. And what they did with the zombie and the buddy cop premises respectively, they have done with the alien premise here: and that is to look at it from all[1] of its various extant Hollywood iterations, and then send them up in right proper hilarious fashion, with digressions toward both the black helicopter set and the competition[2] between the theories of evolution and intelligent design.

My point is that if you’ve seen some combination  of the other two movies, you already know how you’ll feel about Paul; and if you haven’t, damn, get on with it already! They’re easy to find, yo.

[1] For inevitably small literal values of all, but they do what they can.
[2] I’ve said before that sometimes the jokes are written just for myself? This is an example of that. Heh heh.

American Psycho

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I’ve started another movie night, which is cool and all, but I now face the challenge of reviewing American Psycho, it being redoubled by my failing to plan for it as I watched. (I think it would not have been easy to review if I’d planned for it in the first place, so.) The weird thing is that although I would have sworn I’d seen it before, I only remembered bits and pieces and nearly nothing related to plot and outcome. I wonder if I forget so much, or have merely fooled myself this time?

Anyhow, the Christian Bale of a decade or so ago portrays a Wall Street tycoon of another decade or so earlier who, in addition to his penchant for popular musical criticism and banal interactions with his even more banal circle of acquaintances, is, well, murderously insane. And the movie explores that insanity, mostly through the lens of his interactions with a private detective hired to find one of his missing banal acquaintances, whose fate I expect you can deduce from the rest of the premise as I’ve laid it out.

I was never able to discern that there was a particular theme I was meant to draw from the film, nor that a particular moral judgment was being pushed; or perhaps the problem was that there were too many options for these lines of inquiry. At any rate, I was left with more questions than answers at the higher levels of thought, and with a plot I do not feel right revealing any more than I already have at the lower levels. But to apologize my inability to commit to much of anything so far, I will say that the movie was a decently acted and sharply funny blood-soaked satire of ’80s excesses. You probably know if you’d dig that or not?

Battle: Los Angeles

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I went into Battle: LA only really knowing two things. 1) It was going to be an alien invasion movie, somewhere in the range between Independence Day and Skyline. 2) Michelle Rodriguez has never in the history of cinema survived to the end of a speculative fiction movie. (Well, okay, and 2a), Michelle Rodriguez is in this particular example of cinema.) I didn’t really need to know any more than that, since, y’know, if aliens invade, things will explode, and that pretty much is enough to satisfy me on the time-and-money aspects of things.

I feel obligated to say a little more than that to you, though, not least because I already know of at least one person who would have benefited from altered expectations. The main thing I didn’t know that maybe would have helped is that it’s unlike Independence Day or Skyline in important ways. Where ID4 was a nation-spanning inspirational take on the concept and Skyline was a giant, overflowing sack of crap, this one owes more of its existence to Black Hawk Down. Gritty, hard-bitten marines have been sent to rescue civilians ahead of a massive bombing run, with only the faintest idea of what they’re up against, and the situation is portrayed pretty realistically, which is to say, with a great deal of grimness and doom in the air. But also aliens, so, y’know, that is probably easier to deal with than local insurgents. At least, it was for me, the viewer.

Couple of random thoughts to close with. The first is, if such an invasion did occur, on a rapid timeline? We’d be so boned, what with our military forces scattered all over the world. I guess that’s what happens when your nation is the most powerful one around and hasn’t faced a threat on its soil in 150 years. I’m glad the movie wasn’t about that, as it would have been a lot more boring, but I couldn’t help thinking it. The second is potentially a spoiler, depending on your viewpoint. I think not, but now you’re warned. Anyway, the second one is that I did have a brief moment of chilly fear, when one of the invaders was dragging an injured fellow out of the line of fire. These aren’t Star Trek humanoids with bumpy heads to distinguish them from us, not by a long shot, and it made the fight a whole lot more real to me, very suddenly, when the bad guys — however… well, there’s a reason why the best word in my lexicon right now is “alien”, and however unprovoked their villainy — have friends and families and care about each other too.

Take Me Home Tonight

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Sometimes, I think a movie gets made mainly for the soundtrack. You could make a case that Forrest Gump is such a movie, honestly, though of course it has other charms. And similarly, I don’t really mean anything derogatory about the movie attached to the soundtrack when I say that about Take Me Home Tonight.[1] But they did just make a really big deal out of all the songs of the ’80s they were able to cram in there. As for the movie itself, well, for the most part, you’ve seen one teen sex / coming-of-age comedy, you’ve seen them all. Will Topher Grace manage to get the girl while learning something valuable about himself before the events of this crazy night are through? Will his sidekick have zany unrelated adventures that push the limit a lot further than anything the main character and his chick[2] do, because their centrality to the plot makes them somehow more pure to the audience?

Though I did find it interesting that they used the  (anachronistic?) Gen-X and -Y trope of children never managing to leave home. Maybe kids in the late ’80s were already doing that? But it sure wasn’t getting portrayed yet, so it was noticeable and odd and at the same time clearly (to me) an attempt to make modern viewers of the same age able to relate. Which, while not precisely a revelatory moment in cinema is at least a slight variation from my original claim that you’ve seen them all, right? Plus also, I’m pretty sure that Anna Faris comes-of-age during her 25% of the plot, so that’s cool, even if nobody can think of another example for me!

Oh, and additional things to say real quick, I strongly approved of proto-goth and barely recognizable Michelle Trachtenberg, and strongly disapproved of the anti-gravity bangs sported by some 60% of the female cast. Remind me why that happened, again? I just don’t get it.

[1] Bizarrely, I don’t remember that particular song ever getting played. I wonder what that means?
[2] There should be more coming-of-age comedies where the chick is the main character. Are there any? Do chicks not come-of-age?[3] I have seen at least a couple of sex comedies where the chick is the main character, though I can’t remember what right now.
[3] Obviously they come of age. The hyphens represent the fact that I may be thinking of something that is peculiarly male and 20th/21st Century American and is not therefore broadly applicable, and hence the lack elsewhere.

The Roommate

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The Roommate was one of those movies where you absolutely knew what you were going to get, right? Sure, there are all kinds of thriller sub-genres, but once you start narrowing down, the plot is going to start getting predictable. If you’re in an obsession thriller, such as Fatal Attraction, and you see a small fuzzy animal somewhere around the main character? Prepare to cringe. And if you’re in a lesbian obsession thriller[1], such as Single White Female, and you see a boyfriend somewhere around the main character? Prepare to cringe about that too, although probably not in the same way. Because, seriously, and with all due respect to Steven Weber, but I feel worse about the bunny.

Not that knowing what you’ll get is a bad thing. Sometimes, it lets you take the time to appreciate the performances all the more when the plot is devoid of surprises. Take our obsessor, Leighton Meester. You might appreciate the dead stare she affects when she is angry, but that’s nothing half as creepy as the bloom of hope in her eyes every time she thinks she’s done something that this time will finally, finally get the obsessee to understand that she’s been right all along and this really is the way things are meant to have been. Of course, sometimes knowing what you’re getting leaves you with the time to ask too many questions, too. It’s always an interesting thought exercise to determine how the police will react to these events. Will there be enough witnesses for her to feel comfortable explaining what happened? Must she run away, her life forever shadowed by the tragedy even though she won? And this type of movie never addresses those questions, so if it leaves you with the time to ask them, and you can’t come up with satisfactory answers? Well, I at least think that’s a bad sign. Probably great numbers of people won’t ever mind, though.

That’s cool, I’m sure I’m wrong sometimes too, so no reason to beat them up about it.

[1] I hesitate to narrow the field in that way. It’s not that the characters in obsession thrillers necessarily want sexual relationships with the objects of their obsession, and it’s certainly not like that is the prescribed way for the obsession to start. It’s just that once the obsession exists, there is always always a sexual element to it.

Drive Angry 3D

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Remember that time when Nic Cage gave up the idea of having a serious film career and just started making drive-in flicks? I guess from one direction people might be guessing any year out of the last five, and from the other, people will insist it hasn’t happened. For my part, I definitely hope my memory is correct and would point to the current year as the bearer of that happy event. Mind you, I haven’t seen Season of the Witch yet, but surely I will? And I don’t need to, to realize it is probably even more B-grade than that fantastic Drive Angry, which I have seen.

Thumbnailing it, our Mr. Cage breaks out of Hell to chase down the man who kidnapped his granddaughter, accompanied by muscle car enthusiast Amber Heard (who you won’t quite remember as having one of the six speaking roles in Zombieland) and pursued by accountant William Fichtner (who I bet has been in some movie I reviewed, but right now I only remember him from mid-decade television). But aside from the car chases and explosions and various gunplay, I can describe a single scene which will make it entirely clear what kind of movie this is.

So there’s John Milton[1], having sex with a waitress (as you do), and a sizable group of satanic cultists break into the motel room to kill him. A several minute gunfight and melee ensues, and when the bloodstains and gunsmoke have settled, Milton has at no point exited said waitress. That? That right there is commitment to the moment.

[1] Nic Cage’s character, for some reason.