Category Archives: Film

Milk (2008)

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I remember how absurdly pleased I was at the sneak preview of Tropic Thunder when the crowd mostly applauded for the gay couple.[1] Restored my faith in humanity, a bit. But, y’know, there’s always the other side of the coin. I’m not shocked by that; it’s all around the political landscape, right? And nevermind all the more personal examples. This stuff is pretty much exactly what Milk is about, which is why I could not have predicted an example right in the theater.

See, the first thing that happens in the movie is eventual gay activist Harvey Milk meets and hooks up with the guy who will be his long-time partner. Pretty much inevitably, this means dudely make-outs. Therein lies my surprise: you would have a hard time going to a movie about a famous gay politician during the first days of the gay rights movement, and not expect to see some gay men doing gay things, right? But as soon as Sean Penn and Harry Osborne started kissing in the subway (I want to reiterate that the movie had not been on for five minutes yet), a [straight] couple got up and left the theater. It was almost a perfect moment for underlining everything the movie was trying to say; thinking about it now, I could almost believe they’d been planted to bolster the rest of the audience into feeling good about themselves.

Anyhow, the flick itself starts off a little choppy. They needed to dump a lot of set-up information, but it never really came together until Harvey decided to get into politics, maybe 20 minutes in. After that, the acting shines through, and it really is an inspiring story. Maybe it could win a few people over. The only thing that bothers me about it is that I’m sad people still need to be won over to what seems like an obvious message: let people have their happiness where they can find it, instead of stealing it from them.

I know there’s more to do, but it really was a little horrifying to see how bad things were around the time I was born. I’m really glad it’s better, and I’m going to be more thoughtful about what I can do in small ways to keep it improving. ‘Cause, yeah, I’m a bit inspired. Not so much with the going activist or having my gay friends hook me up with the parade calendar or anything, but for sure I won’t be as quick to let things go that I’m used to ignoring for the sake of peace. This is important shit, right here. It’s peoples’ lives.

[1] Which, okay, that doesn’t exactly make sense, but I don’t want to ruin it, either; the point is, it was an overwhelmingly positive response to something that I would have expected my Dallas peeps to react to neutrally at best.
[2] Unreferenced footnote: I just want to apologize for my inability to write today. Sorry you had to read this, instead of just having the gestalt beamed into your brain.

Saw V

So I caught Saw V[1] last week, and, y’know, that happened. Which is to say, it had the Rube Goreberg stuff going for it, and the usual test set up where the Jigsaw killer gives you a choice in which you have to do something that is against your nature to avoid certain death. And it had the FBI guy and the local PD guy who looked exactly alike again, but at least this time I knew in advance. And it had a mini-hook for yet another sequel. But the truth is, the first and second movies were very good, each in their own way, yet no entry in the series has matched them since. There’s a lot of information floating around, and each new movie adds pieces to the jigsaw puzzle[2], but it’s just not enough to convince anyone to pick up these sequels, unless you were gonna do that anyway.

At least there’s a lot to ponder about while it’s happening. I’ve watched other horror movies and franchises with far less benefit than the mental exercise these ones give me.

[1] See what I… aw, damn, this footnote ruins it. Nevermind.
[2] And, okay, that’s pretty cool; I can see what they did there!

Transporter 3

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It is the rare movie that arrives exactly as advertised. Assuming you’re aware of the Transporter series, I have nothing else to say. But since you might not be, a little more explanation is in order. There’s this guy, Frank Martin. He is an American expatriate who drives things from European places to other European places for people. Specialized things that said people think might have trouble arriving, such as a bunch of mysterious bags in the trunk or a red-headed Ukrainian party girl in the passenger seat. But Frank never cares what the package is, only that he does the job and gets paid. (Will he eventually break this rule in every single movie in the series, and discover that there are layers that might make him change his definition of the job? You betcha, but plot is so far to the side of the point of the movie that it has caught up to the leading edge of the Big Bang.)

No, what is important about Transporter 3 is that it includes the same signature car chases, explosions, sexual tension, and kung fu action that each of the other entries in the series has contained. And a shirtless Jason Statham is probably an important ingredient to some members of the audience; I will not begrudge them it. So, if you want to see a lot of over-the-top action sequences of the types described above, you’ll love it. It is exactly what it pretends to be, neither more nor less. And that’s kind of refreshing, even in a year where I have seen a lot of exceptional films.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

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Michael Rennie had no reason to be ill on Friday, The Day the Earth Stood Still. After all, the remake of his most famous role[1] had a lot of cool to it. Nice effects budget, Keanu Reeves in a role tailor-made for him, thoughtful science fiction examinations of humanity. It was, on the whole, a good movie.

Which, in an odd kind of way, is exactly what was wrong with it. I’m not sure if it’s peculiar to me, or if I’m objectively right about this: but it needed to be a great movie, to be successful. And it never reached that level. The acting was all eminently competent without being inspiring. The effects would have looked outstanding five years ago, but they only look pretty cool today. The central questions of the film, does homo sapiens deserve to thrive? and what about at the expense of other species?, are important ones that perfectly fits the sci-fi mold. And if there had been any doubt about what answers the film would provide, then the examination of the question might not have felt quite so shallow as it did.

I don’t know, maybe it is my fault, holding expectations a little too high. All I know is, I wanted to think it was great, the way I thought last year’s sci-fi hit was great. And I only thought it was good. Oh, well.

[1] I mean, as far as I know.

Punisher: War Zone

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Wednesday movie time! This week: Unexpected Awesomeness Edition! See, there are movies that I know will not be all that good objectively but that will be enjoyable to me, such as Death Race that I intended to see if nobody wanted to join me with better ideas. And then there are movies that I expect to have no enjoyment of even though they’ll get raved about, like Snow Falling on Cedars. And then there are movies that are so blah that I can’t imagine anyone actively wanting to see them, like Epic Movie, or Punisher: War Zone.

There are two things that are lucky for me right now. 1) Ryan picked the movie, and 2) it turned out to be incredibly awesome in every way. You may think you’ve seen over the top before, but I am not convinced you really have. I am not convinced I really had, for damn sure. Examples: the time when the Punisher punched a guy through the face; or the time when the stitch-faced bad guy ripped off Patton to inspire lots of ethnic gangs into a battle royale; or the time when a dude got blown up by a rocket launcher while joyfully backflipping across the rooftops. There is no plot but mayhem[1], and no spoilers but the surprisingly fantastic badness of every frame. I am severely wowed by this movie.

[1] Okay, wait, there is a portion of plot in which our hero tries to rebuild his missing family in the most disturbing way possible. Which just adds to all the rest of the perfected horrible!

JCVD

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And then, towards the tail end of the weekend, I headed back to the Angelika[1] to watch another movie chock full of subtitles, JCVD. So there’s this guy, Jean-Claude Van Damme, right? Martial arts movie star from the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s but who has been somewhat less popular of late. And he has kind of a sad life; sure, the Belgians back home all adore him, but he’s losing custody of his daughter and his attempts to revive his career are frustrated at every turn, most recently by Steven Seagal’s willingness to ditch his ponytail in pursuit of a role.

And then, on a perfectly normal day, J.C.[2] runs into the post office on an errand and finds himself locked into a twisted hostage crisis whose events are told several times in parallel, with a little bit more information about the truth of the matter revealed each time. What action there is follows the gritty cop drama formula more closely than the fantasy action you’d expect out of one of his movies, and there’s a substantial amount of comedy along the way. But underneath all that lies a serious examination of celebrity and the many ways that people interact with it that would never have happened if it had been a different man trapped in the post office with the rest of the hostages and criminals. The police and negotiators, the hostages, the criminals, the witnesses to events immediately preceding the crisis, the crowd outside, each brings a spin, and in each case only because they recognize that guy from some movies they saw a few years ago.

Which is kind of the point. Not to judge any particular reaction, but to make us aware of how profoundly differently we do react to our celebrities. Hell, it even happened to me. Knowing full well what point the movie was making, I was still frustrated once or twice that Van Damme didn’t take one of the opportunities to fight back against the armed men, take control of the situation when he was one on one. Intellectually, who cares how good he is at karate? He’s still a middle-aged man with a gun being held on him, and he’s allowed to be scared and not want to be any more involved than he must. But I was still rolling my eyes at him because of my own expectations abut his abilities. All of which to say, it’s cool when something can make you laugh and think both. Plus, there really aren’t enough films in the tragicomic category, and it’s always nice to see one more.

[1] In both cases, there was only this one theater showing each movie within at least thirty, and probably more like hundreds of, miles.
[2] This is probably the only movie I can think of where the lead character having these initials is not a sly reference to a messiah; and then again, the case could be made…

Låt den rätte komma in

This weekend, it has been all about the subtitles. After rolling out of work a little early on Wednesday, I fought traffic and a driving blizzard to get to the Angelika in time for Let the Right One In. Plausibly, there was no snow of any kind until the movie started; it’s hard to remember? In any event, there was plenty of snow to be had from the moment the credits rolled. And not just because the movie was set in Sweden, which presumedly is not locked in winter ice twelve months of the year.

Oskar is a bullied 12 year old boy and child of divorce, alone in his apartment most of the time, wishing for the courage to stop his oppressors, and already visibly embittering at his inability to do it. Into that unchanging snowscape arrives a man and a young girl, Eli, who have moved in next door. While Eli and Oskar begin to learn about each other and fumble toward friendship, the man is wandering the woods with his serial-killing kit, draining blood from his victims. Oskar’s new friend will turn out to be far more than she seems, and Oskar’s wishes may not be the boons he had always assumed they would. But then again, maybe they’ll be exactly what he wanted.

It was a very quiet movie, light on dialogue in most of the scenes, and I almost think that the ubiquitous snow and cold were characters in their own rights. Symbolically, I mean, as emblems of that quiet, and of the inner coldness of so many of the characters. There was a lot of beauty in that austere trackless white and cold, and, despite everything, in Eli as well. I said to Nicole that the movie was beautiful and tragic, and it was tragic; but it strikes me that it could have been merely tawdry and pitiful without that abundance of austere beauty. I think this marks the first time that I could see why someone would actively buy into that whole vampire obsession that’s so solidly in vogue these days. I’m not sure if it was the cinematography, the acting, or the script, but Eli was downright magnetic in every frame of film, no matter how innocent or brutal the scene.

It’s hard to really explain why I’m still so drawn in by the memory of the movie without going spoiler all over the place. But my estimation of it has only gone upward in the subsequent days, and I’d run off to watch it again upon pretty much anyone’s request. I really am impressed.

Quantum of Solace

So, new James Bond movie, which is almost by definition cool and only really needs to be compared to other Bond movies. I liked it enough to have seen it twice, and yet I’ve been stuck on the review for a while now. I think it wasn’t until I realized that and thought about why that I was able to come up with something, but it does all kind of make sense now.

What I liked about Quantum of Solace is what they’ve done with the franchise. Not only was was it a direct sequel to Casino Royale[1], but there are strong implications that an underlying arc will continue through at least the next film, if not several more. I’m also pretty okay still with the lack of gadgetry in favor of more direct badassery, though I think I maybe want there to be a few more gadgets than approximately none. The plot: in which a shadowy organization has various irons in the fire whose goals are the acquisition of more power and resources with which to acquire more power still. Or, okay, to be specific, they are propping up a Bolivian dictator in exchange for control of certain resources. Or okay, to be more specific still, the water supply. Which is possibly silly, but appropriately grandiose for the archetype. It fits, anyhow, so I like it well enough to not worry about it.

What I didn’t like was the lack of an iconic villain. Casino Royale had a guy who wept blood, for crying out loud! This only has a guy with a bowl haircut, which, y’know: enh. And he’s just the villain’s cousin! And, okay, yeah, I’m coming around on the gadgets thing. Awesome car chases are necessary, but they are not sufficient. These are largely quibbles in the face of my joy over a Bond with both a plot and a character arc. But I’m pretty confident it’s possible to have and eat my spycake, so I’ll look forward to that in 2010.

[1] I’m pretty sure they’ve only ever done that once before, and the time they did it, it was just a few minutes at the beginning that had no bearing on the rest of the flick.

Teeth (2007)

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I finally watched another Netflix movie! No, it’s true. Sure, I’ve still got season 5 of Alias sitting on my table waiting for me to watch special features and commentaries and such, but something pretty cool happened. The XBox 360 now lets me stream Netflix movies directly, with neither muss nor fuss. As a test of the system, I snagged a movie I’ve had my eye on for a good long while, Teeth. What I’ve learned is that it’s not worth it to stream things that aren’t in HD, since my player upscales DVDs and the streamy thing does not. But still, the actual movie divorced from the crappy resolution, it was okay.

There’s this girl, right, and she’s involved in one of those teen abstinence organizations. The problem with such organizations, apart from how they disseminate inaccurate and insufficient information regarding sexual health, is that the guys in them are perhaps not as committed as the girls? If this is as true as I suppose, it’s due to the wonders of relative testosterone levels per age of the folks, and not really anyone’s fault; see above regarding sexual health, yes? But, so yeah, she meets this guy, and they have the strong teenage feelings that sometimes result in perhaps more activity than an abstinence organization would approve of. Except, our heroine learns that she is inflicted with vagina dentata, and then she learns that maybe it isn’t such an affliction after all. Hooray for preying on thousands of years of masculine insecurities! Plus, strongest female character in a horror movie since the Ginger Snaps: Unleashed. It was a decent flick, is all I’m saying.

Mirrors (2008)

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Some Wednesdays, I make my way to a movie theater and catch up on stuff I’ve wanted but failed to see. There are several such things right now, but some of them are trapped in limited release that conflicts with my schedule, and I found no willing soul who had a preference, so I went for the oldest movie on the list, theorizing I’d be most likely to miss it if I waited. The lucky winner? Mirrors.

Kiefer Sutherland is a cop with a troubled present that has caused his suspension from the force and separation from wife and kids. While trying to put his life back together, he takes a job as a security guard at a burned out department store; only, there are visions in the mirrors, and eventually actions affecting the world outside. And it’s not enough that they are tormenting him. Before very long at all, his entire family is in danger from every reflective surface in the world. And there are kind of a lot of those!

It was surprisingly good, well above my expectations despite a bit of a fall-apart towards the end. Mirrors have a long and creepy history in the movies, and the exploitation of that was done well. Plus, it was nice to see Kiefer not playing Jack Bauer for a little while, even if it didn’t last the entire film.[1] It really had a ton of things I love to see in movies, including urban decay, psychiatric wards, hillbillies, and nuns! Not at all a bad way to kill ten bits and two hours. Although the fat chick in the row behind me who kept sitting all the way forward with her arms and head resting on the back of a seat in my row? That’s kind of weird, right?

[1] I present here an actual line of dialogue from the next-to-last act: “Please don’t make me have to threaten you, ma’am.”