The Neon Demon (R)
"..treats objects like women, man."
It's a story as old as Los Angeles itself, a young girl looking for fame and fortune, innocent to the world, runs into the dark belly of the entertainment industry (LITERALLY!) in Director Nicholas Winding Refn's (Drive) gorgeously weird film, The Neon Demon.
Stunning cinematography, beautifully dangerous hellcat women, electro-smoky pulsing soundtrack, stilted Kubrick-like dialog, strange symbols and visions, and that one scene: Oh, that show stopping Scene! They all make up the brunt of Refn's attack on the fashion industry, that it exists and how it cannibalizes (heh) the female form. Early on, Elle Fanning's Jesse, the young lovely but impressionable youth who is the star of the film, is told "to always say she is 19. 18 is too on the nose." This is shorthand for her situation, shorthand for the entire enterprise of film and subject. She is quickly embraced by the industry's entrepreneurs, drunk in by the male gaze, and vilified by it's older, less natural looking models. Even her new friend Ruby (Jena Malone) seems to have a strange fascination with Jesse, who soon gets caught up in her own hype and gets led down a dark walkway of doom.
Special attention must be made to the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, once again joining Refn after scoring Drive. Easily half of this film's enjoyment can be derived from the musical landscape of electronic moods, from 80s synth to edgy Pop Diva. It matches all the gore and glitter perfectly and the film uses it extremely effectively. Many will rewatch the film just as a means to experience the sweet dark marriage of visuals and sound. The use of light, the shadowy early hours, the flash bulbs and mirrors, the cinematography is just as nuanced and beautiful as the audio and constructs a nightmare world of gloss and reflection for us to watch Jesse lose herself in.
ND will be too slow for many, too little viscera for others, the third act too toe-curling intense for anyone sane. But for some the experience of wallowing through this blood bath will be sublime. Slow, brooding and methodical, The Neon Demon mystifies for a long period and then suddenly drives it's point home with a pair scissors. It's almost a twisted giallo mashup, like Diana Ross' Mahogany remixed by Dario Argento. This is Refn at his most feminist, the men in the film treat women as mere meat puppets for their cameras, and the ones that don't the women themselves push away (Keanu Reeves himself has a small yet significant part). The expected fashion cat fights, the women infighting by snidely brutalizing each other, these eye rolling cliches all happen. But there is a deeper layer to it, and once that layer gets scratched and bleeds all hell breaks loose. It's Refn's interest in not exploiting the women on screen who are being exploited that makes his intentions very clear, so beautifully on the nose it cuts it off to spite it face artistically.
8.5 You'll Never Look at Funeral Homes the Same Way Again out of 10 (GREAT)
Showing posts with label YMMV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YMMV. Show all posts
Finding Dory (2016)
Finding Dory (PG)
"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, who fish?"
A short while after finding Nemo, Dory sets out on another oceanic voyage to find her long lost parents in Pixar's follow up, Finding Dory.
Pixar, once the Art House 3D powerhouse, has apparently succumbed to it's masters and begun churning out sequel after sequel. And while Monster's University was a small success but did have something new and interesting to say about it's Universe and characters, Finding Dory is a huge hit with almost nothing new to say. The absent minded Dory (Ellen Degeneres) has been upgraded to main character but her winning sidekick charm has been downgraded in the process. Saddled with grief and dementia, Dory is a panic stricken nervous case without time to crack as many jokes. Her quest for her family is of course fraught with peril and fun new friends, and Nemo and Marlin tag along for the ride because, hey a sequel can't stray to far from it's roots right?! The Pacific Coast setting is accurately rendered and yet so far removed from the delightful candy like reef that it is as much of a downer as remembering Dory's lost childhood is. Things spice up once they reach an aquarium/habitat, but still strange plot questions weigh down what should easily float (like why on earth would a clutch of California sea lions have English accents?).
The great Ed O'Neil (Wayne's World) has the best and newest character as Hank, a curmodgeony octopus trying his best to escape yet slowly but surely falling under Dory's chaotic spell. Hank's story is obviously influenced (and probably sparked the creation of the sequel) by the nationwide headlines a real life escaping octopus made in the news awhile back, and in 3D form provides the best action, fun and lines in the entire picture. The only other stand out is Becky, the speechless empty headed loon that helps the fish, which is in of itself telling of the mediocrity of the main story.
The other characters (a near sighted whale, a Beluga with a confidence problem, etc) are mostly just there to move Dory along and fill in her backstory from the first film. It's a case of better left unsaid, Dory is at her best being surprising and funny in difficult situations, but this Finding has to tell you WHY she had so many surprises and why she is so sad. It's not an emotion easily stapled to our memories of Dory from the first film, and all of it comes across as not much of a reason to make a second. Finding Dory is a safe money maker, it takes no chances with it's beloved franchise, and is the artistic equivalent of a luke warm salt water bath.
6 At Least the Humans look less Freakish out of 10 (GOOD)
"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, who fish?"
A short while after finding Nemo, Dory sets out on another oceanic voyage to find her long lost parents in Pixar's follow up, Finding Dory.
Pixar, once the Art House 3D powerhouse, has apparently succumbed to it's masters and begun churning out sequel after sequel. And while Monster's University was a small success but did have something new and interesting to say about it's Universe and characters, Finding Dory is a huge hit with almost nothing new to say. The absent minded Dory (Ellen Degeneres) has been upgraded to main character but her winning sidekick charm has been downgraded in the process. Saddled with grief and dementia, Dory is a panic stricken nervous case without time to crack as many jokes. Her quest for her family is of course fraught with peril and fun new friends, and Nemo and Marlin tag along for the ride because, hey a sequel can't stray to far from it's roots right?! The Pacific Coast setting is accurately rendered and yet so far removed from the delightful candy like reef that it is as much of a downer as remembering Dory's lost childhood is. Things spice up once they reach an aquarium/habitat, but still strange plot questions weigh down what should easily float (like why on earth would a clutch of California sea lions have English accents?).
The great Ed O'Neil (Wayne's World) has the best and newest character as Hank, a curmodgeony octopus trying his best to escape yet slowly but surely falling under Dory's chaotic spell. Hank's story is obviously influenced (and probably sparked the creation of the sequel) by the nationwide headlines a real life escaping octopus made in the news awhile back, and in 3D form provides the best action, fun and lines in the entire picture. The only other stand out is Becky, the speechless empty headed loon that helps the fish, which is in of itself telling of the mediocrity of the main story.
The other characters (a near sighted whale, a Beluga with a confidence problem, etc) are mostly just there to move Dory along and fill in her backstory from the first film. It's a case of better left unsaid, Dory is at her best being surprising and funny in difficult situations, but this Finding has to tell you WHY she had so many surprises and why she is so sad. It's not an emotion easily stapled to our memories of Dory from the first film, and all of it comes across as not much of a reason to make a second. Finding Dory is a safe money maker, it takes no chances with it's beloved franchise, and is the artistic equivalent of a luke warm salt water bath.
6 At Least the Humans look less Freakish out of 10 (GOOD)
The Revenant (2015)
The Revenant (R)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road (R)
"What a Lovely Day!"
In the bombed out dusty future of our world, the remnants of society are banded together in savage attempts to survive the wasteland. Those, like Max, who cling to the past and refuse to submit to the new world are seen as mere untapped resources, lone wolves. And those that revolt against this insane patriarchy are pursued with chrome and bloody exhaust in Post-Apocalyptic godfather George Miller's 30 years in the making follow up to the Mad Max series, Fury Road.
With a character design dregged from the weird fantasies of Brom, vehicle designs that Ratfink would salivate over, a brutal world finally fully realized and minutia-ized, and stunts and action that are in-camera and astonishing to behold, Mad Max returns full throttle and on the red line. This is the kind of film either you know the genre and enjoy immersion or the over-the-top-ness will turn you off and you'll avoid. There are quite a few surprising twists thrown into the mix however, completely shattering the mold that Miller himself invented. CGI is prominent and a bit unwelcome (mostly it looks like for 3D showings and sometimes cheaply). Females now have a more prominent role, lead by Imperator Furiosa (the incomparable Charlize Theron who is well cast as the co-lead of the film). This may in fact turn off some of the muscle car and gear head beer swillers who traditionally enjoy Max films, as Furiosa commands much of the bad-assery on screen, what with the Evil-Dead arm and newly styled savage fem-action hero who somehow retains her femaleness (a woman Max she's not). Grrl Power is the name of the game in Fury Road, and many fans will astound at the backseat driving Max does for most of the film. Now played by Tom Hardy (Mel Gibson is retired in all but name due to his shenanigans), Max almost barely deserves to be in the title. And, unfortunately, Hardy is either not up to filling Gibson's Mad shoes or Miller unwilling to completely allow him to. The character is missing the insane drive and masculinity that Gibson brought the role, and combined with sharing the screen with Theron and having his character's madness upped to actual insanity really hampers one of the great action roles of all time. Perhaps a return of the character to full glory first without all the femme-fatals (sic) would have lessened the sting, but Max almost seems like just another of the interesting side-characters that colorize Miller's Apoc films.
And what colorful characters there are! The ultra-males, the seed saving grandmothers, the War Boys and concubines and Bullet Farmers, all tumor laced and disgusting. One is a stand out, young Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy in X-Men First Class) is a stand out as Nux the sickly War Boy. He has a manic energy and fanaticism that drives the first half and mellows the second, and is a stand out performance. All of the Max films have benefited from villains that you enjoy spending time with and seeing defeated, but Fury Road has so many of these characters whose insane lifestyle you just can't help but admire, who ride into battle like Valkyries with a Rock'N'Roll opera being performed live as they drive (like Wagner gene-spliced with GWAR) with flame throwers spitting and exhaust pipes flaming, that unlike much of the genre of post-apocalypse, Fury Road is a dangerous outback that seems fun to visit (even if no one would want to live there). The first break in the action left the audience winded, and then continued for another hour and a half. Fantastic stuff.
9 Don't Look Thumbs Up out of 10 (GREAT)
Bone-us Haiku
Shotgun eyes at dusk
Lizard skulls and blood bag dust
Chrome fenders eat well.
(Humongus Approved)
"What a Lovely Day!"
In the bombed out dusty future of our world, the remnants of society are banded together in savage attempts to survive the wasteland. Those, like Max, who cling to the past and refuse to submit to the new world are seen as mere untapped resources, lone wolves. And those that revolt against this insane patriarchy are pursued with chrome and bloody exhaust in Post-Apocalyptic godfather George Miller's 30 years in the making follow up to the Mad Max series, Fury Road.
With a character design dregged from the weird fantasies of Brom, vehicle designs that Ratfink would salivate over, a brutal world finally fully realized and minutia-ized, and stunts and action that are in-camera and astonishing to behold, Mad Max returns full throttle and on the red line. This is the kind of film either you know the genre and enjoy immersion or the over-the-top-ness will turn you off and you'll avoid. There are quite a few surprising twists thrown into the mix however, completely shattering the mold that Miller himself invented. CGI is prominent and a bit unwelcome (mostly it looks like for 3D showings and sometimes cheaply). Females now have a more prominent role, lead by Imperator Furiosa (the incomparable Charlize Theron who is well cast as the co-lead of the film). This may in fact turn off some of the muscle car and gear head beer swillers who traditionally enjoy Max films, as Furiosa commands much of the bad-assery on screen, what with the Evil-Dead arm and newly styled savage fem-action hero who somehow retains her femaleness (a woman Max she's not). Grrl Power is the name of the game in Fury Road, and many fans will astound at the backseat driving Max does for most of the film. Now played by Tom Hardy (Mel Gibson is retired in all but name due to his shenanigans), Max almost barely deserves to be in the title. And, unfortunately, Hardy is either not up to filling Gibson's Mad shoes or Miller unwilling to completely allow him to. The character is missing the insane drive and masculinity that Gibson brought the role, and combined with sharing the screen with Theron and having his character's madness upped to actual insanity really hampers one of the great action roles of all time. Perhaps a return of the character to full glory first without all the femme-fatals (sic) would have lessened the sting, but Max almost seems like just another of the interesting side-characters that colorize Miller's Apoc films.
And what colorful characters there are! The ultra-males, the seed saving grandmothers, the War Boys and concubines and Bullet Farmers, all tumor laced and disgusting. One is a stand out, young Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy in X-Men First Class) is a stand out as Nux the sickly War Boy. He has a manic energy and fanaticism that drives the first half and mellows the second, and is a stand out performance. All of the Max films have benefited from villains that you enjoy spending time with and seeing defeated, but Fury Road has so many of these characters whose insane lifestyle you just can't help but admire, who ride into battle like Valkyries with a Rock'N'Roll opera being performed live as they drive (like Wagner gene-spliced with GWAR) with flame throwers spitting and exhaust pipes flaming, that unlike much of the genre of post-apocalypse, Fury Road is a dangerous outback that seems fun to visit (even if no one would want to live there). The first break in the action left the audience winded, and then continued for another hour and a half. Fantastic stuff.
9 Don't Look Thumbs Up out of 10 (GREAT)
Bone-us Haiku
Shotgun eyes at dusk
Lizard skulls and blood bag dust
Chrome fenders eat well.
(Humongus Approved)
Boyhood (2014)
Boyhood (R) - Review
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
Noah (2014)
Noah (PG-13)
"When it rains it pours"
Director Darren Aaronofsky's (Requiem For A Dream) life long ambition of putting the Bible parable Noah on screen comes to fruition, but comes through quite waterlogged with modern ideas and structure. While not as atheist-centric as some had feared, the tale of Noah is filled with fantasy sci fi trappings along with the strongly mythical ones.
For an epic the story feels quite small, with just a few sets (ash land, rock land, grassy mountain, ark). For an epic there are very few characters, just Noah and his family and the evil Tubal-Cain (played by Ray Winstone), whose armies are just nameless background cannon(golem)fodder. The lack of racial diversity is an eerie throwback to Ten Commandments whitewashing, the fantastical rock giants evoke the LOTR trilogy more than the Holy Bible, the CGI driven time lapse photography that is quite jarring as it promotes evolutionary creationism, human bad guys shoot rocket launchers at those giant golems, and the fauna of the Earth that are saved two by two are strangely unevolved (dogs with armadillo scales?). The casting too lacks a certain finesse, with no performances besides Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah generating much interest. The choices are odd, and when considering the market for a straight laced Bible story is probably dwindling, the cynical might scream that these add-ons are mere tricks to spice up the potential box office gloom.
Yet when the movie plays upon and toys with the themes of this ancient mythology it actually hits some strong (if too modernized) philosophical chords and proves it's artistic forethought. The nature of the relationship between Creator and creations, the fight of good vs evil, sinful human nature versus his wished for ideals, these are inborn to the story of the flood. Stepping then as it does into the sciences of ecology, environmentalism, and conservationism makes the movie more palatable to modern audiences while still keeping its morals, or most of them, intact. When the Earth is being wiped out due to humanity's strip mining and pollution (the evil king is very unPC and therefore very pro-Earth exploitation) it skews it more towards self righteous liberalism. Add that to the mix the freakish rock-creatures and rough old testament miracles, Noah survives the flood of new and old. The added action scenes and family strife pad the overlong runtime to over 2 hours, but really could it be that entertaining of a story without them? Putting at its forefront the idea that mankind was once so technologically advanced and neglectful of the Earth and had to be completely wiped-out doomsday style is a side of the story often unexplored, and is probably just what 9 year old Aaronofsky was attracted to in the first place. Noah then has to wrestle with letting all of humanity die or let it begin again, which does the Creator want and what is it saying about us, the descendants of these men? Interesting ideas, but Noah just interests more than flat out entertains. However if you can forgive the deluge of eccentricity there are worse ways to spend an rainy afternoon.
5 Noah the Hatchet Man out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"When it rains it pours"
Director Darren Aaronofsky's (Requiem For A Dream) life long ambition of putting the Bible parable Noah on screen comes to fruition, but comes through quite waterlogged with modern ideas and structure. While not as atheist-centric as some had feared, the tale of Noah is filled with fantasy sci fi trappings along with the strongly mythical ones.
For an epic the story feels quite small, with just a few sets (ash land, rock land, grassy mountain, ark). For an epic there are very few characters, just Noah and his family and the evil Tubal-Cain (played by Ray Winstone), whose armies are just nameless background cannon(golem)fodder. The lack of racial diversity is an eerie throwback to Ten Commandments whitewashing, the fantastical rock giants evoke the LOTR trilogy more than the Holy Bible, the CGI driven time lapse photography that is quite jarring as it promotes evolutionary creationism, human bad guys shoot rocket launchers at those giant golems, and the fauna of the Earth that are saved two by two are strangely unevolved (dogs with armadillo scales?). The casting too lacks a certain finesse, with no performances besides Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah generating much interest. The choices are odd, and when considering the market for a straight laced Bible story is probably dwindling, the cynical might scream that these add-ons are mere tricks to spice up the potential box office gloom.
Yet when the movie plays upon and toys with the themes of this ancient mythology it actually hits some strong (if too modernized) philosophical chords and proves it's artistic forethought. The nature of the relationship between Creator and creations, the fight of good vs evil, sinful human nature versus his wished for ideals, these are inborn to the story of the flood. Stepping then as it does into the sciences of ecology, environmentalism, and conservationism makes the movie more palatable to modern audiences while still keeping its morals, or most of them, intact. When the Earth is being wiped out due to humanity's strip mining and pollution (the evil king is very unPC and therefore very pro-Earth exploitation) it skews it more towards self righteous liberalism. Add that to the mix the freakish rock-creatures and rough old testament miracles, Noah survives the flood of new and old. The added action scenes and family strife pad the overlong runtime to over 2 hours, but really could it be that entertaining of a story without them? Putting at its forefront the idea that mankind was once so technologically advanced and neglectful of the Earth and had to be completely wiped-out doomsday style is a side of the story often unexplored, and is probably just what 9 year old Aaronofsky was attracted to in the first place. Noah then has to wrestle with letting all of humanity die or let it begin again, which does the Creator want and what is it saying about us, the descendants of these men? Interesting ideas, but Noah just interests more than flat out entertains. However if you can forgive the deluge of eccentricity there are worse ways to spend an rainy afternoon.
5 Noah the Hatchet Man out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Need for Speed (2014)
Need For Speed (PG-13)
"The Need for Editing"
Adaption of mid-90s racing videogame staple "The Need for Speed" finds Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame behind the wheel of exceedingly expensive muscle cars in a bid to take revenge on his rival for the demise of his ex-girlfriends brother and coworker, whose death he was blamed for. He goes on parole, breaks parole and calls his soon-to-be-British-girlfriend who owns a 3 million dollar Shelby Mustang and proceeds to illegally drive across the country from NY to SF in his bid for vengance against former highschool rival now turned underground racing millionaire celebrity. That's about all the plot that exists in this overlong, over-plot-holed and over-pot-holed road flick.
The film is a hodge podge of everything that could be wrong with a film that will be scrutinized by gear-heads, film-heads or video game fans. Examples include badly scripted characters, including the quirky foriegn accented woman who can recite car statistics like a middle schooler quoting a wikipedia car on horsepower, ooo so empowered! Lighting schemes more distracting than useful with many scenes where the light is extremely artificial looking tied with multiple long closeups during tense driving moments just to spoil the mood! Car physics that defy the laws of, well, you know. Urban driving in souped up EuroUber-cars that is so reckless it would make even the late Ryan Dunn spin in his grave, may he rest in Jack-Ass peace. A thoroughly false sense of reality punctuated by the backfiring blast of unfunny bro-ish hipsterism (both in front and behind the camera), making NFS an exercise in overlong exposure to exhaust fumes with a complete poser at the wheel.
Not that its all skid marks. Aaron Paul's noble attempt at leading man stardom might forever be stunted by Need failure to light up the box office (not as stunted as his facial and vocal range chops, we hope), but he has a certain charm when he's not hoping he looks as cool as Steve McQueen. Then there is the laughably long "emotional" scene of Paul emoting to his "friend"'s fiery death; an emotionally bereft, head grasping, mouth gaping affair. Who is at fault for such a awful film breaking scene, the actor who pulls that face or the director who shoots it in slow motion (or the editor who allows it to linger on screen)? Let's give Paul the benefit of the doubt, he is likable when he is being his natural self. That goes double for the stunts and driving; NFS eschews other racing franchises crutch of CGI car stunts (looking at you recent Fast & Furious') and does it all in camera with real cars to a great grounded effect. The races themselves look good and move well, even if you don't care for those doing it. In fact, besides Paul and his rich co-pilotess played by Imogen Poots (no way that's a stage name!), the cast of actors all have somethings in common. They are all supposed to appeal to a young demographic, are written like stupid frat boys and all have faces that you wouldn't mind see included in a 3-car pile up.
If this movie had trimmed down 15-20 minutes of junk by removing the extraneous "comedy" or "wow cool" bits, focusing instead on the realistic adrenaline junky aspect of speeding down the highway, the movie and its star could have avoided a blowout. Need for Speed even bows to its influences with a nice opening homage to Bullit (1968), one of the most iconic car chases in film history. Unfortunately it soon proceeds a wholesale theft of ideas from decades of other, better car movies (the chained axle cop car from American Graffiti, the evangelical radio DJ from Vanishing Point (with Micheal Keaton, really???), the cross country deadlines and scenery), makes NFS a movie that knows at heart it's unworthy of the legacy, with precious few miles per gallon to show for all the noxious rubber it burns.
4 Refueling with the Car running is a fire hazard guys, especially while going 110 on a highway out of 10 (BAD)
It Follows (2014)
It Follows (R)
A College student enters into a new sexual relationship which leads her to a new life of terror in the anxiety ridden yet only subjectively effective It Follows.
Indy Horror can be a mixed bag, for when something goodish comes around the starving fan base and critics fall over themselves to fawn. And while the dream like pulse-pounding instinctual fear of the first third of the movie is wonderful film making that retains a gorgeous cinematographic look of suburban Detroit and its surrounding environs, the creep comes to an abrupt halt about half way through and then continues to dig it's own grave by breaking it's already established rules and being obviously obtuse.
There is still a lot interesting here and if the movie lived up to it's first half then it would indeed be the "scariest movie of the decade." Well, considering the decade it still might be, for it's not the 80s anymore. It Follows has a preternatural fear instilled in it, the feeling of being stalked is captured vividly, hackles will rise. Inspired by dreams the film maker had as a child, the way the camera moves and the antagonist's slow pursuit will set off the alarm bells in your head and heart. Good acting, odd production values and strange music (the synth sounds, old tube televisions, big back seated cars and no cell phones are invoking a 70s-80s spin on the present that homages back to the genre's and filmmaker's roots), its all an elaborate technique to throw the audience into a unknown situation filled with panic, forcing them to scan the screen constantly for the bad guy. It's a slow, terrifying trip that ends too soon.
For then there is that scene on the beach and the specter of supernatural CG on a shoe string budget snaps the suspension of belief. When they come into actual physical contact the buzz and creep and anxiety melts away as it becomes another "YAs vs. the thing movie." Suddenly "It Follows" stops following its own urgent rules and just literally stands and stares instead. It was a fantastic premise that unfortunately someone had to write a semi-commercial ending for. It's not bad, it just isn't as strong as what followed.
And yet the first half is stellar, the look and work of the camera stunning, the emotional under pinning of parental child-abuse (physical and sexual), the dangers of sensual awakenings and the prepubescent fear of sex, so much works and all hackles were risen. Yet while the ending turns out to be a simple parable (me and you against the world, baby) the film will probably have you looking over your shoulder for a couple days, and that might earn "It Follows" a place in your nightmares, just not the history books.
7 Soggy Arm Casts out of 10 (GOOD)
A College student enters into a new sexual relationship which leads her to a new life of terror in the anxiety ridden yet only subjectively effective It Follows.
Indy Horror can be a mixed bag, for when something goodish comes around the starving fan base and critics fall over themselves to fawn. And while the dream like pulse-pounding instinctual fear of the first third of the movie is wonderful film making that retains a gorgeous cinematographic look of suburban Detroit and its surrounding environs, the creep comes to an abrupt halt about half way through and then continues to dig it's own grave by breaking it's already established rules and being obviously obtuse.
There is still a lot interesting here and if the movie lived up to it's first half then it would indeed be the "scariest movie of the decade." Well, considering the decade it still might be, for it's not the 80s anymore. It Follows has a preternatural fear instilled in it, the feeling of being stalked is captured vividly, hackles will rise. Inspired by dreams the film maker had as a child, the way the camera moves and the antagonist's slow pursuit will set off the alarm bells in your head and heart. Good acting, odd production values and strange music (the synth sounds, old tube televisions, big back seated cars and no cell phones are invoking a 70s-80s spin on the present that homages back to the genre's and filmmaker's roots), its all an elaborate technique to throw the audience into a unknown situation filled with panic, forcing them to scan the screen constantly for the bad guy. It's a slow, terrifying trip that ends too soon.
For then there is that scene on the beach and the specter of supernatural CG on a shoe string budget snaps the suspension of belief. When they come into actual physical contact the buzz and creep and anxiety melts away as it becomes another "YAs vs. the thing movie." Suddenly "It Follows" stops following its own urgent rules and just literally stands and stares instead. It was a fantastic premise that unfortunately someone had to write a semi-commercial ending for. It's not bad, it just isn't as strong as what followed.
And yet the first half is stellar, the look and work of the camera stunning, the emotional under pinning of parental child-abuse (physical and sexual), the dangers of sensual awakenings and the prepubescent fear of sex, so much works and all hackles were risen. Yet while the ending turns out to be a simple parable (me and you against the world, baby) the film will probably have you looking over your shoulder for a couple days, and that might earn "It Follows" a place in your nightmares, just not the history books.
7 Soggy Arm Casts out of 10 (GOOD)
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
Guardians Of The Galaxy (PG-13)
"Hooked on a feeling"
The MCU dives into its funky cosmic side with a swaggering explosion filled romp that is as irreverent as it is irrelevant, raucously audacious enough to break its own molds and yet offering only simple lower class pleasures with a cast so utterly charming that audiences will have to shrug off any misgivings, even though they are watching a Marvel stepping stone to the great film that may someday come.
Chris Pratt's (The Lego Movie) patented brand of doe-eyed mischievousness fills the role of Star-Lord Peter Quill to the brim, creating a sensational addition to the archetype SciFi oversexed treasure-hunting rouge, overflowing with snarktastic bon mots and anachronisms from his departed Earthly mother's love of 70s pop music mixtapes The rest of the crew is stocked with unusual weirdos-banding-together types; Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) is a CGI Space-Raccoon with a violent love of firearms, his close companion is a space tree voiced by Vin Diesel (Riddick) who can only utter the words "I am Groot", Drax the Destroyer is a musclebound straight-shooter without an ounce of irony played by former WWE champion Bautista, and the adopted daughter of the villainous Thanos (remember him from the Avengers post credit sequence?), the soon-to-be-girlfriended assassin Gamora played by Zoe Saldana (2009 Star Trek).
The runtime of GOTG entails the finding of a mysterious orb, infighting over the orb, having to escape from space prison with orb, try to sell the orb without pirate intrusion, having the orb stolen by the bad guy Ronan the Accuser who intends to blow up a planet with the orb only to have the Guardians try to guard against it. It's really not Shakespeare or Asimov, but its filled with improvisational humor and rowdy fun that is greatly increased by a sunny musicality that overpowers the film's often brutally grim vibe. GOTG's largest saving grace is that ragtag crew; their banter is naturalistic and wonderfully contains a solid dose of the PG13 bad words. It's the best SciFi spaceopera ship and it's crew since the original Star Wars 1977, but hold onto your space horses buckaroos. Everything isn't all Attack Ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, even if the open-shirted Han Solo swagger cons you into starry eyed distraction.
The action doesn't come through with much impact or heft, sad to say the fight scenes feel almost unrehearsed (that was attempted to be glossed over with CG that overall also wasn't of the highest grade). The Collector (first seen in Thor 2) is once again played by the incomparable Benicio del Toro (Way of the Gun), whose over the top performance and alien mannerisms are sadly underused with little screen time, what there is is great stuff. Same goes for the incredible casting of ensemble comedian John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights) as a Nova Corps officer who briefly gets a moment to shine. Ok, so the film really just wants to point the lazer-spotlight on Quill and company (understandable), but meanwhile the cardboard villain Ronan gets almost zero backstory and so little motivation for his genocidal quest that he is one easily upped by the all-to-brief appearance of Thanos (who all Marvelites know to be the overall heavy in some faroff film that will be made...later). There is just so much underused material from the Cosmic Marvel Universe (encompassing all the biggest and most creative stories from the books, especially those by Jim Starling), that to throw the audience into it without explanation is understandable yet still a shame. While this is obviously a specific choice to avoid the morass of that insane big picture, completely leaving it unsaid leaves the film one of the lightest piece in the Marvel Film Puzzle. There's nothing wrong with light entertainment, but those seeking even a little Space Odyssey in their Cosmos won't find any.
Still, without hesitation it is a very fun romp in a Galaxy far far away, the first real spiritual successor of the original Star Wars film married with the whimsical tone and aesthetic of the Original Star Trek palette (dayglo skin tones mixed with candy colored backgrounds). They caught a special magic lightning in the bottle with this crew (except for overall blankness of Zoe's portrayal and role), but the adventure is a straightforward affair that offers almost nothing surprising (the spaceprison escape, for example, can be found in any number of pulp SciFi paperbacks rotting away in your brothers basement). However the biggest detractor, for this critic, would be that in the overall series that comprises the entire MCU, Guardians can only be considered a filler or time killer episode. Bereft of the the enormous Cosmic events that Marvel has been hinting at and fans have been slavering for, it onl teases yet again at the epic things to come (The Infinity Gems!). This too is understandable, Disney/Marvel are biding their time and dreaming of the cash that Avengers 2 or 3 or 4 (or Thor3, The Defenders, WHEN???) will make, as opposed to betting on the noname also-run like GOTG. As admirable as it is for Marv and team to even consider releasing a Guardians film at all (it's source material is the stuff of bargain bins and heavy-nerd cult followings), the buildup for something REALLY big and overarching is over 6 years old now. Perhaps this is expecting too much from a studio that has consistently overdelivered on almost all of their films (the boxoffice returns and lack of a critical bomb is supremely impressive in this day and age), but it is Marvel/Disney's fault if we are left wanting more, better and now, especially considering the stories are there, foreshadowed and ripe for the harvesting. Instead we get baby steps, now we know there is another gem and Thanos wants them supposedly.
Director James Gunn (also of 2010s Super, a much unappreciated indy satire of the comicbook medium) cribs a plethora of shortcuts from SciFi Space Operas that have come before, but is sorely lacking in actual action direction experience. The banter though, is sublime and works as well as any recent bro-comedy action film, like Channing/Hill except in space. Gunn squeezes so much fun and humor onto the screen that the zipping lazers and spaceship dying fireballs are not what you leave the film with an impression of. It is Pratt, dialing up his middle finger to his b-character typecasting, kicking up his heels with his walkman to retro tunes as he picks our pockets for popcorn money. All thanks to the Spirit In The Sky.
7.5 Big Blue Wrinkled Chins out of 10 (GOOD)
"Hooked on a feeling"
The MCU dives into its funky cosmic side with a swaggering explosion filled romp that is as irreverent as it is irrelevant, raucously audacious enough to break its own molds and yet offering only simple lower class pleasures with a cast so utterly charming that audiences will have to shrug off any misgivings, even though they are watching a Marvel stepping stone to the great film that may someday come.
Chris Pratt's (The Lego Movie) patented brand of doe-eyed mischievousness fills the role of Star-Lord Peter Quill to the brim, creating a sensational addition to the archetype SciFi oversexed treasure-hunting rouge, overflowing with snarktastic bon mots and anachronisms from his departed Earthly mother's love of 70s pop music mixtapes The rest of the crew is stocked with unusual weirdos-banding-together types; Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) is a CGI Space-Raccoon with a violent love of firearms, his close companion is a space tree voiced by Vin Diesel (Riddick) who can only utter the words "I am Groot", Drax the Destroyer is a musclebound straight-shooter without an ounce of irony played by former WWE champion Bautista, and the adopted daughter of the villainous Thanos (remember him from the Avengers post credit sequence?), the soon-to-be-girlfriended assassin Gamora played by Zoe Saldana (2009 Star Trek).
The runtime of GOTG entails the finding of a mysterious orb, infighting over the orb, having to escape from space prison with orb, try to sell the orb without pirate intrusion, having the orb stolen by the bad guy Ronan the Accuser who intends to blow up a planet with the orb only to have the Guardians try to guard against it. It's really not Shakespeare or Asimov, but its filled with improvisational humor and rowdy fun that is greatly increased by a sunny musicality that overpowers the film's often brutally grim vibe. GOTG's largest saving grace is that ragtag crew; their banter is naturalistic and wonderfully contains a solid dose of the PG13 bad words. It's the best SciFi spaceopera ship and it's crew since the original Star Wars 1977, but hold onto your space horses buckaroos. Everything isn't all Attack Ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, even if the open-shirted Han Solo swagger cons you into starry eyed distraction.
The action doesn't come through with much impact or heft, sad to say the fight scenes feel almost unrehearsed (that was attempted to be glossed over with CG that overall also wasn't of the highest grade). The Collector (first seen in Thor 2) is once again played by the incomparable Benicio del Toro (Way of the Gun), whose over the top performance and alien mannerisms are sadly underused with little screen time, what there is is great stuff. Same goes for the incredible casting of ensemble comedian John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights) as a Nova Corps officer who briefly gets a moment to shine. Ok, so the film really just wants to point the lazer-spotlight on Quill and company (understandable), but meanwhile the cardboard villain Ronan gets almost zero backstory and so little motivation for his genocidal quest that he is one easily upped by the all-to-brief appearance of Thanos (who all Marvelites know to be the overall heavy in some faroff film that will be made...later). There is just so much underused material from the Cosmic Marvel Universe (encompassing all the biggest and most creative stories from the books, especially those by Jim Starling), that to throw the audience into it without explanation is understandable yet still a shame. While this is obviously a specific choice to avoid the morass of that insane big picture, completely leaving it unsaid leaves the film one of the lightest piece in the Marvel Film Puzzle. There's nothing wrong with light entertainment, but those seeking even a little Space Odyssey in their Cosmos won't find any.
Still, without hesitation it is a very fun romp in a Galaxy far far away, the first real spiritual successor of the original Star Wars film married with the whimsical tone and aesthetic of the Original Star Trek palette (dayglo skin tones mixed with candy colored backgrounds). They caught a special magic lightning in the bottle with this crew (except for overall blankness of Zoe's portrayal and role), but the adventure is a straightforward affair that offers almost nothing surprising (the spaceprison escape, for example, can be found in any number of pulp SciFi paperbacks rotting away in your brothers basement). However the biggest detractor, for this critic, would be that in the overall series that comprises the entire MCU, Guardians can only be considered a filler or time killer episode. Bereft of the the enormous Cosmic events that Marvel has been hinting at and fans have been slavering for, it onl teases yet again at the epic things to come (The Infinity Gems!). This too is understandable, Disney/Marvel are biding their time and dreaming of the cash that Avengers 2 or 3 or 4 (or Thor3, The Defenders, WHEN???) will make, as opposed to betting on the noname also-run like GOTG. As admirable as it is for Marv and team to even consider releasing a Guardians film at all (it's source material is the stuff of bargain bins and heavy-nerd cult followings), the buildup for something REALLY big and overarching is over 6 years old now. Perhaps this is expecting too much from a studio that has consistently overdelivered on almost all of their films (the boxoffice returns and lack of a critical bomb is supremely impressive in this day and age), but it is Marvel/Disney's fault if we are left wanting more, better and now, especially considering the stories are there, foreshadowed and ripe for the harvesting. Instead we get baby steps, now we know there is another gem and Thanos wants them supposedly.
Director James Gunn (also of 2010s Super, a much unappreciated indy satire of the comicbook medium) cribs a plethora of shortcuts from SciFi Space Operas that have come before, but is sorely lacking in actual action direction experience. The banter though, is sublime and works as well as any recent bro-comedy action film, like Channing/Hill except in space. Gunn squeezes so much fun and humor onto the screen that the zipping lazers and spaceship dying fireballs are not what you leave the film with an impression of. It is Pratt, dialing up his middle finger to his b-character typecasting, kicking up his heels with his walkman to retro tunes as he picks our pockets for popcorn money. All thanks to the Spirit In The Sky.
7.5 Big Blue Wrinkled Chins out of 10 (GOOD)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (PG-13)
"Steal From Groundhog. Crib From Aliens. Repeat"
Tom Cruise stars as a cowardly Major who is thrown unwittingly unto the front line of a final assault against a time-manipulating alien menace in a overtaken Europe. In a twist of fate (and a plot wholly borrowed from the Bill Murray classic Groundhog's Day) he finds himself waking up to the exact same day every time he dies, a time loop caused by the alien invaders which was apparently based on a Japanese novel called "All You Need Is Kill".
Soundly unoriginal yet entertaining, Edge of Tomorrow is made by professionals like writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), starring a talented cast headed by Cruise, Emily Blunt and Brendan Gleeson, no wonder EOT is tightly made, acted and produced (yet blandly titled) blockbuster. However, burdened with a quite wimpy PG-13 rating, Tomorrow drags itself back again and again to the past. Generously helping itself to the squad dynamic of James Cameron's Aliens (even plagiarizing Bill "Game Over Man" Paxton), leaves the movie's well groomed hands caught red handed in the cookie jar.. The overly macho "Metal Bitch" played by Blunt is, to put it bluntly, tiresome (even more so is the eye-rolling insistence on a romantic angle between the leads), a product of the film's need to differentiate and lean on modern tropes to distract from it's source.
The reason the original Groundhog wasn't itself repeated by other films despite it's enormous success is that the formula is so uniquely tell-tale that if you copy it you'll have no where to hide. Hire the best screen writers and talent to mix in new xenomorphs or finally use the power-armor that was missing from SciFi classic Starship Troopers and still every critic will mention Groundhog's Day.
Shoot, Die, Rewrite. Lure the best screen writers and talent to mix in new xenomorphs or finally use the power-armor that was missing from SciFi classic Starship Troopers and still EVERY critic will mention Groundhog's Day, even though applying it to an action film can be quite satisfying (any genre in fact it would work on, its a fantastic idea that Harold Ramis came up with), Bing!
5.5 Leave the Helmet on Tom out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Steal From Groundhog. Crib From Aliens. Repeat"
Tom Cruise stars as a cowardly Major who is thrown unwittingly unto the front line of a final assault against a time-manipulating alien menace in a overtaken Europe. In a twist of fate (and a plot wholly borrowed from the Bill Murray classic Groundhog's Day) he finds himself waking up to the exact same day every time he dies, a time loop caused by the alien invaders which was apparently based on a Japanese novel called "All You Need Is Kill".
Soundly unoriginal yet entertaining, Edge of Tomorrow is made by professionals like writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), starring a talented cast headed by Cruise, Emily Blunt and Brendan Gleeson, no wonder EOT is tightly made, acted and produced (yet blandly titled) blockbuster. However, burdened with a quite wimpy PG-13 rating, Tomorrow drags itself back again and again to the past. Generously helping itself to the squad dynamic of James Cameron's Aliens (even plagiarizing Bill "Game Over Man" Paxton), leaves the movie's well groomed hands caught red handed in the cookie jar.. The overly macho "Metal Bitch" played by Blunt is, to put it bluntly, tiresome (even more so is the eye-rolling insistence on a romantic angle between the leads), a product of the film's need to differentiate and lean on modern tropes to distract from it's source.
The reason the original Groundhog wasn't itself repeated by other films despite it's enormous success is that the formula is so uniquely tell-tale that if you copy it you'll have no where to hide. Hire the best screen writers and talent to mix in new xenomorphs or finally use the power-armor that was missing from SciFi classic Starship Troopers and still every critic will mention Groundhog's Day.
Shoot, Die, Rewrite. Lure the best screen writers and talent to mix in new xenomorphs or finally use the power-armor that was missing from SciFi classic Starship Troopers and still EVERY critic will mention Groundhog's Day, even though applying it to an action film can be quite satisfying (any genre in fact it would work on, its a fantastic idea that Harold Ramis came up with), Bing!
5.5 Leave the Helmet on Tom out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Gone Girl (2014)
Gone Girl (R) - Review
"Little Red Lies"
A seemingly happy man one day finds his wife missing and himself as the most likely suspect in her disappearance. As the blood-thirsty media and local police begin digging through his trashcans and personal baggage, the husband tries to piece together what happened to his marriage and keep his life in David Fincher's film adaptation of the popular novel Gone Girl.
Leaving the icky gender issues aside (the story not only reeks of feminist empowerment but also misogynist feminine tropes but lets not get into that can of worms), the main bone of contention with Gone Girl is that it's main characters are so unlikable and frankly unbelievable in their motivations by the end. The situations and drama are tense and fraught with peril thanks to master filmmaker David Fincher's visuals (Fight Club) and aided by Trent Reznor's low-key edgy music. In fact, if it wasn't for the constructive Fincher-ness of the film it might have been a complete dud. It's the creeping dread of a marked man, of the competitive cat and mouse games, the fear of a woman scorned that fuels this film, which consequently further stokes the gender bias fires (the ones that we aren't talking about). Rosamund Pike (The World's End) delivers a wonderfully chilling performance as Amy Dunne and is the center piece to the whole movie, but is it enough?
What is this movie anyway? Besides being a series of professionally crafted and lovingly lit images created for our mutual entertainment? Gone Girl's plot is, to it's core, a Revenge Porn for and by women, troublingly fused with victimhood fantasies and lousy with grrrl power nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with that). Luckily the performances are top notch (particularly the side characters like Tyler Perry adding some easy charm); even Ben Affleck comes across well while simultaneously managing to be utterly loathable dim-bulb man of the house Nick Dunne ("he likes to sit around and play Playstation??? what a looooser right" the film half heartedly sneers but still fits Affleck's smugness to a tee). The story's veins are blood-filled and yet oddly soulless, much like Neil Patrick Harris' sacrificial lamb of a character, just aching to be spilled, It's almost as if Fincher himself wasn't that enamored with the source material and if anything it reminds one most of Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for Gone Girl too seems to have a European sentiment to sex & violence while moaning over America's obsessions. But the sheer artistry on and off screen still make it not only watchable but somewhat enjoyable (not just the movie but Affleck too, surprisingly), but the muddled messages and questionable choice of ending (it is thematically on-point but also completely ruins its own credibility, because no no, no wasn't going to talk about it, shutting up) will leave this Girl Gone and hardly missed.
6.5 Novel uses for Wine Bottles out of 10 (GOOD)
"Little Red Lies"
A seemingly happy man one day finds his wife missing and himself as the most likely suspect in her disappearance. As the blood-thirsty media and local police begin digging through his trashcans and personal baggage, the husband tries to piece together what happened to his marriage and keep his life in David Fincher's film adaptation of the popular novel Gone Girl.
Leaving the icky gender issues aside (the story not only reeks of feminist empowerment but also misogynist feminine tropes but lets not get into that can of worms), the main bone of contention with Gone Girl is that it's main characters are so unlikable and frankly unbelievable in their motivations by the end. The situations and drama are tense and fraught with peril thanks to master filmmaker David Fincher's visuals (Fight Club) and aided by Trent Reznor's low-key edgy music. In fact, if it wasn't for the constructive Fincher-ness of the film it might have been a complete dud. It's the creeping dread of a marked man, of the competitive cat and mouse games, the fear of a woman scorned that fuels this film, which consequently further stokes the gender bias fires (the ones that we aren't talking about). Rosamund Pike (The World's End) delivers a wonderfully chilling performance as Amy Dunne and is the center piece to the whole movie, but is it enough?
What is this movie anyway? Besides being a series of professionally crafted and lovingly lit images created for our mutual entertainment? Gone Girl's plot is, to it's core, a Revenge Porn for and by women, troublingly fused with victimhood fantasies and lousy with grrrl power nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with that). Luckily the performances are top notch (particularly the side characters like Tyler Perry adding some easy charm); even Ben Affleck comes across well while simultaneously managing to be utterly loathable dim-bulb man of the house Nick Dunne ("he likes to sit around and play Playstation??? what a looooser right" the film half heartedly sneers but still fits Affleck's smugness to a tee). The story's veins are blood-filled and yet oddly soulless, much like Neil Patrick Harris' sacrificial lamb of a character, just aching to be spilled, It's almost as if Fincher himself wasn't that enamored with the source material and if anything it reminds one most of Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for Gone Girl too seems to have a European sentiment to sex & violence while moaning over America's obsessions. But the sheer artistry on and off screen still make it not only watchable but somewhat enjoyable (not just the movie but Affleck too, surprisingly), but the muddled messages and questionable choice of ending (it is thematically on-point but also completely ruins its own credibility, because no no, no wasn't going to talk about it, shutting up) will leave this Girl Gone and hardly missed.
6.5 Novel uses for Wine Bottles out of 10 (GOOD)
Snowpiercer (2013)
Snowpiercer (R) - Review
"Goin' off the rails on a Crazy Train!"
Adapted (apparently somewhat loosely) from an obscure early 1980s French graphic novel and directed by acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), Snowpiercer is his first English effort and tells the supremely strange tale of a train populated with the last of humanity in a frozen alternate Earth and the struggle of the rear passengers for a better life. Chris Evans (Capt America) and John Hurt (Alien) lead the abject slaves of the rear cars on a revolt against draconian segregation and abysmal living conditions that the trains staff (lead by typecast sourpuss Tilda Swinton) and the train's creator (a malevolent Ed Harris) have forced upon them. How they got there and where they go is Snowpiercer's tale to tell, but overall it may not be worth the ticket to ride.
There is little background to explain the situation of these underprivileged-come-they-represent-us-on-the-train-of-life, just that an experimental form of fighting global warming with chem-trails has left the Earth a lifeless tundra, and that an unstoppable train that runs throughout the entire world contains the sum total of humanity. Preposterous as it sounds (and it remains), the premise is in fact the biggest asset to the film. The emotions are misplaced, CGI is slipshod and cheap, the action sequences oddly misguided, the cartoonishly over the top front cars betray the stark horror and gritty realism of the rear cars. Surprises and great moments await those who wish to board, but the message of the film may have been lost in one of the translations, what with the rightwing/leftwing conspiracy theories and 99%/1% class warfare that has gone from French to Korean to English. What was lost seems to have been a clarity of thought, clearness in action and distilled complexity that is sadly missing from such an intriguingly bizarre unHollywood premise, for the movie often barrels the train into very Hollywood-like territory (perhaps Weinstein was right to call for more editing, if handled well). Still, the uniqueness is omnipresent and there are undeniable moments of greatness, especially for fans of WTF-OLs and sci fi action. There's just not enough of it to toot it's own horn.
6 Slow Motion Fish Axe Moments out of 10 (GOOD)
"Goin' off the rails on a Crazy Train!"
Adapted (apparently somewhat loosely) from an obscure early 1980s French graphic novel and directed by acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), Snowpiercer is his first English effort and tells the supremely strange tale of a train populated with the last of humanity in a frozen alternate Earth and the struggle of the rear passengers for a better life. Chris Evans (Capt America) and John Hurt (Alien) lead the abject slaves of the rear cars on a revolt against draconian segregation and abysmal living conditions that the trains staff (lead by typecast sourpuss Tilda Swinton) and the train's creator (a malevolent Ed Harris) have forced upon them. How they got there and where they go is Snowpiercer's tale to tell, but overall it may not be worth the ticket to ride.
There is little background to explain the situation of these underprivileged-come-they-represent-us-on-the-train-of-life, just that an experimental form of fighting global warming with chem-trails has left the Earth a lifeless tundra, and that an unstoppable train that runs throughout the entire world contains the sum total of humanity. Preposterous as it sounds (and it remains), the premise is in fact the biggest asset to the film. The emotions are misplaced, CGI is slipshod and cheap, the action sequences oddly misguided, the cartoonishly over the top front cars betray the stark horror and gritty realism of the rear cars. Surprises and great moments await those who wish to board, but the message of the film may have been lost in one of the translations, what with the rightwing/leftwing conspiracy theories and 99%/1% class warfare that has gone from French to Korean to English. What was lost seems to have been a clarity of thought, clearness in action and distilled complexity that is sadly missing from such an intriguingly bizarre unHollywood premise, for the movie often barrels the train into very Hollywood-like territory (perhaps Weinstein was right to call for more editing, if handled well). Still, the uniqueness is omnipresent and there are undeniable moments of greatness, especially for fans of WTF-OLs and sci fi action. There's just not enough of it to toot it's own horn.
6 Slow Motion Fish Axe Moments out of 10 (GOOD)
The Counselor (2013)
The Counselor (R)
"What would the BAR Association say?"
The first script from the pen of author Cormack McCarthy (author of the novel No Country For Old Men) is a head scratching affair. Directed by the venerable yet wildly uneven Ridley Scott (Bladerunner), there is the expected energy and pop to the filmed scenes. A-list actors lead by Michael Fasbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz (miscast as a Jamaican femme fatale) culminate in one the years best casts, and yet the words fall flat. The snappy Noir prose style is leaden, the situations preposterous, the outcome dreary. The story? Fasbender plays a successful Texas lawyer, whose shady client base draw him into the south of the border drug smuggling business to maximize his profits. The house of cards is shaken by the backstabbing, golddigging Diaz, a character so over-sexualized, so misplaced, so supposedly evils-of-woman-incarnate/female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly that she could only come from the pen of a mid-life-crisis fever dream. Some scenes work, some shock to righteous effect, most collapse under the heavy weight of pretension. A freak show of many unique sights and sounds, but you may regret the two-bits to get in.
4.5 New Definition of Car Sex out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"What would the BAR Association say?"
The first script from the pen of author Cormack McCarthy (author of the novel No Country For Old Men) is a head scratching affair. Directed by the venerable yet wildly uneven Ridley Scott (Bladerunner), there is the expected energy and pop to the filmed scenes. A-list actors lead by Michael Fasbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz (miscast as a Jamaican femme fatale) culminate in one the years best casts, and yet the words fall flat. The snappy Noir prose style is leaden, the situations preposterous, the outcome dreary. The story? Fasbender plays a successful Texas lawyer, whose shady client base draw him into the south of the border drug smuggling business to maximize his profits. The house of cards is shaken by the backstabbing, golddigging Diaz, a character so over-sexualized, so misplaced, so supposedly evils-of-woman-incarnate/female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly that she could only come from the pen of a mid-life-crisis fever dream. Some scenes work, some shock to righteous effect, most collapse under the heavy weight of pretension. A freak show of many unique sights and sounds, but you may regret the two-bits to get in.
4.5 New Definition of Car Sex out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Inside Llewyn Davis (R)
"Assholes are like Elbows"
A textured look into the lives on the folk-singing scene of 1960's Greenwich village told as only the Coen Brothers can. Llewyn is a talented, unsuccessful singer song writer couch surfing his way through obscurity. He bums rides, beds, cigarettes and spotlights from his fellow New Yorkers, brushing elbows (and greatness) with the likes of Bob Dylan. He is an insufferable fellow, unpleasant and narrowly selfish, a true starving artist who makes those around him also suffer the pangs.
Llewyn Davis is sometimes an over-the-top loathsome person, seemingly rude and uncaring. His lovers despise him and curse his name, those that take him into their homes are rewarded with lost family pets and tirades at the dinner table. Inspired by the autobiography of singer Van Ronk (one of Dylan's inspirations and fellow Village player), the movie is not a recreation but an artistic allegory about the soul of the universal struggling artist. He plays beautifully but without his deceased singing partner no one listens. His record producer is a skinflint with a guilty face, a roadtrip to Chicago to audition for the greats is a gloomy forboding affair, his attempts to quit the musical life are a fruitless endeavor. Llewyn is fated to go unrecognized and unloved, forever trekking through the slush and snow in hole-filled shoes lugging his records and guitar from couch to couch.
Masterfully envisioned and executed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country), this is one of their perfect films if you have the right ears to hear its dulcet tones. Their most invisibly surreal and foreboding film since Barton Fink (which also includes the great John Goodman, here as the music scene's Jazz conscience come to pass judgement), Llewyn is cloaked in a mantle of self-loathing that is thick with artistic unfulfillment (which only the curmudgeonly Coens can pull off while still being critical and box office darlings). The visuals are their strongest yet most subtle, the film sticks with you. The music is wonderfully rich and period specific, with a full range of Folk covered (from sell out comedy to protest impotency). Seriously cemented in the Coen's underground oeuvre of self depreciation, Llewyn Davis hits some notes sour with a purpose, tweaks the strings of anti-sentimentalism, blows hard and stomps its feet yet performs no encores, all told through the perceptions of a man fated to repeat himself endlessly, chasing the suppers he can sing for.
9 Orange Tabby Cats out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
"Assholes are like Elbows"
A textured look into the lives on the folk-singing scene of 1960's Greenwich village told as only the Coen Brothers can. Llewyn is a talented, unsuccessful singer song writer couch surfing his way through obscurity. He bums rides, beds, cigarettes and spotlights from his fellow New Yorkers, brushing elbows (and greatness) with the likes of Bob Dylan. He is an insufferable fellow, unpleasant and narrowly selfish, a true starving artist who makes those around him also suffer the pangs.
Llewyn Davis is sometimes an over-the-top loathsome person, seemingly rude and uncaring. His lovers despise him and curse his name, those that take him into their homes are rewarded with lost family pets and tirades at the dinner table. Inspired by the autobiography of singer Van Ronk (one of Dylan's inspirations and fellow Village player), the movie is not a recreation but an artistic allegory about the soul of the universal struggling artist. He plays beautifully but without his deceased singing partner no one listens. His record producer is a skinflint with a guilty face, a roadtrip to Chicago to audition for the greats is a gloomy forboding affair, his attempts to quit the musical life are a fruitless endeavor. Llewyn is fated to go unrecognized and unloved, forever trekking through the slush and snow in hole-filled shoes lugging his records and guitar from couch to couch.
Masterfully envisioned and executed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country), this is one of their perfect films if you have the right ears to hear its dulcet tones. Their most invisibly surreal and foreboding film since Barton Fink (which also includes the great John Goodman, here as the music scene's Jazz conscience come to pass judgement), Llewyn is cloaked in a mantle of self-loathing that is thick with artistic unfulfillment (which only the curmudgeonly Coens can pull off while still being critical and box office darlings). The visuals are their strongest yet most subtle, the film sticks with you. The music is wonderfully rich and period specific, with a full range of Folk covered (from sell out comedy to protest impotency). Seriously cemented in the Coen's underground oeuvre of self depreciation, Llewyn Davis hits some notes sour with a purpose, tweaks the strings of anti-sentimentalism, blows hard and stomps its feet yet performs no encores, all told through the perceptions of a man fated to repeat himself endlessly, chasing the suppers he can sing for.
9 Orange Tabby Cats out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
Fear X (2003)
Fear X (PG-13) - Review
"X marks the Spot"
Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn's (Drive) first foray into American cinema was the 2003 mystery film Fear X, a brooding yet unsatisfying tale of obsession and blood told with a truly terse style and steady hand yet rejected by the majority of the public as it showcased two of Refn's favorite genres, surrealism and the art house film's nihilism towards standard plotting.
Leading the cast is the ramrod mall cop Harry (John Turtorro), who's wife murder he is slavishly investigating. Harry watches the surveillance tapes obsessively, looking for every possible clue in the low-resolution vhs dubs, scans the halls of commerce for familiar faces and motivations, and ultimately leads him (maybe) to the conspiracy of his wife's death. The overwhelming sense of dread and discovery to the film is wonderful, tracking Harry through this adventure is a nail pulling experience, and many who lived through that tale are put off by its art-house vagueness of its ending, where it is up to the home viewer to decide what happened and why. It does come as a shock since much of it's first hour is delivered as a fairly standard detective story, but the severe surrealism, dream sequences and shock lighting schemes should serve as a clue to it's eventual arty crash of traditional narrative.
Showing signs of the genius and unconventional voice of Refn's style (X is an obvious precursor to his later Only God Forgives, both in construction and audience acceptance), the director borrows liberally from Kubrick's The Shining and Lynch's Blue Velvet mixed with Coen's Fargo to carve out his own niche in film oddities for his US debut. It works, it gets under your skin and rattles your cage, but perhaps it being neutered with a lukewarm PG-13 and a unnaturally vague ending (further frustrating the viewer is that the surrounding characters are discussing what happened and what it means and yet we cannot hear them), Fear X is more of a film-theory than a full-fledged film experiment. Results will vary, but the side effects may be worth it.
6 "Undecipherable visual montages to transition your film ending are soooo 2001:ASO, Refn" out of 10 (GOOD)
"X marks the Spot"
Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn's (Drive) first foray into American cinema was the 2003 mystery film Fear X, a brooding yet unsatisfying tale of obsession and blood told with a truly terse style and steady hand yet rejected by the majority of the public as it showcased two of Refn's favorite genres, surrealism and the art house film's nihilism towards standard plotting.
Leading the cast is the ramrod mall cop Harry (John Turtorro), who's wife murder he is slavishly investigating. Harry watches the surveillance tapes obsessively, looking for every possible clue in the low-resolution vhs dubs, scans the halls of commerce for familiar faces and motivations, and ultimately leads him (maybe) to the conspiracy of his wife's death. The overwhelming sense of dread and discovery to the film is wonderful, tracking Harry through this adventure is a nail pulling experience, and many who lived through that tale are put off by its art-house vagueness of its ending, where it is up to the home viewer to decide what happened and why. It does come as a shock since much of it's first hour is delivered as a fairly standard detective story, but the severe surrealism, dream sequences and shock lighting schemes should serve as a clue to it's eventual arty crash of traditional narrative.
Showing signs of the genius and unconventional voice of Refn's style (X is an obvious precursor to his later Only God Forgives, both in construction and audience acceptance), the director borrows liberally from Kubrick's The Shining and Lynch's Blue Velvet mixed with Coen's Fargo to carve out his own niche in film oddities for his US debut. It works, it gets under your skin and rattles your cage, but perhaps it being neutered with a lukewarm PG-13 and a unnaturally vague ending (further frustrating the viewer is that the surrounding characters are discussing what happened and what it means and yet we cannot hear them), Fear X is more of a film-theory than a full-fledged film experiment. Results will vary, but the side effects may be worth it.
6 "Undecipherable visual montages to transition your film ending are soooo 2001:ASO, Refn" out of 10 (GOOD)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
From Dusk Till Dawn (R)
"Hackula, Dead and Loving it"
The deadly Gecko brothers, fresh from a bank robbery and jail break, are causing havoc throughout southern Texas, take a ex-Preacher, his RV and two children hostage, using them to sneak over the border to Mexico where they can live out their lives in the sun. The only thing that can halt their spree are their own self destructive tendencies, one decent man's spirit, and a brood of devil worshiping Aztec bloodsuckers in Robert Rodriquez' (El Mariachi) direction of one of Quentin Tarantino's best action scripts.
FDTD is two movies with a swerve connecting them, arriving at a swift pace and razor sharp dialogue. George Clooney, in his first starring role plays the brains of the Gecko brothers. He steals the show from the get go, shedding the OR scrubs for a professional thief with a black suit and neck tattoos that proved he would soon be Hollywood's go-to bachelor superstar. Quentin himself plays the other, seedier Gecko, one with a predilection to rape, murder and hallucinations (QT actually nails this role). Their relationship is center to the first half of the movie, a buddy dynamic that is loving as it is demented. The characters that cross their paths are likewise well defined and cannon fodder for the Gecko's mayhem, centered by headliner Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant) as the burned out preacher with a dead wife on his soul. Together they make it through Texas and to a low life bar across the border, drinking and waiting for sunrise and their escort to the good life. And that's where the second movie begins and things almost fall apart.
What once was a on-the-lam crime film with red hot dialogue (some of Tarantino's snappiest and most believable) with good action and vibrating with testosterone injected one liners oh-so-bad-guys you love to hate, suddenly transmogrifies into a supernatural gore fest with silly cheesy effects and over the top ridiculousness. It is jarring, but not altogether unsuccessful. There are ideas aplenty, ideas rushed onto the screen and smashed with gleeful vigor (as often is the case with Rodriguez' films). Some of the make up does not hold up well, bad masks and awful morph effects straight from the 90s lowbudget wave (RRs bread and butter). Prudction desings like a biker (infamous VFX guru Tom Savini) with a six-shooter for a penis, the lovely Salma Hayek gets a makeover only a snake mother could love, blacksploitation star Fred Williamson gets a makeup job that looks so cheap in closeups it looks like it came off the Halloween rack at Walmart.
Yet somehow Clooney and Keitel push through this madness and deliver an emotional, action fueled mad house of bat-killing frenzy. QT's script is subdued in just the right ways (no overlong conversations about some off topic pop culture wizbangs), RRs manic camera links to the ridiculous on screen story very well (demonic Mariachi bands aside). There is gravitas and red-gravy spraying everywhere, the film is a half greatness and half lunacy. Which half appeals to you is all a matter of taste (with a side of tequila, salt, lime and bloody body shots).
7 Cheechs Double Cameos out of 10 (GOOD)
"Hackula, Dead and Loving it"
The deadly Gecko brothers, fresh from a bank robbery and jail break, are causing havoc throughout southern Texas, take a ex-Preacher, his RV and two children hostage, using them to sneak over the border to Mexico where they can live out their lives in the sun. The only thing that can halt their spree are their own self destructive tendencies, one decent man's spirit, and a brood of devil worshiping Aztec bloodsuckers in Robert Rodriquez' (El Mariachi) direction of one of Quentin Tarantino's best action scripts.
FDTD is two movies with a swerve connecting them, arriving at a swift pace and razor sharp dialogue. George Clooney, in his first starring role plays the brains of the Gecko brothers. He steals the show from the get go, shedding the OR scrubs for a professional thief with a black suit and neck tattoos that proved he would soon be Hollywood's go-to bachelor superstar. Quentin himself plays the other, seedier Gecko, one with a predilection to rape, murder and hallucinations (QT actually nails this role). Their relationship is center to the first half of the movie, a buddy dynamic that is loving as it is demented. The characters that cross their paths are likewise well defined and cannon fodder for the Gecko's mayhem, centered by headliner Harvey Keitel (Bad Lieutenant) as the burned out preacher with a dead wife on his soul. Together they make it through Texas and to a low life bar across the border, drinking and waiting for sunrise and their escort to the good life. And that's where the second movie begins and things almost fall apart.
What once was a on-the-lam crime film with red hot dialogue (some of Tarantino's snappiest and most believable) with good action and vibrating with testosterone injected one liners oh-so-bad-guys you love to hate, suddenly transmogrifies into a supernatural gore fest with silly cheesy effects and over the top ridiculousness. It is jarring, but not altogether unsuccessful. There are ideas aplenty, ideas rushed onto the screen and smashed with gleeful vigor (as often is the case with Rodriguez' films). Some of the make up does not hold up well, bad masks and awful morph effects straight from the 90s lowbudget wave (RRs bread and butter). Prudction desings like a biker (infamous VFX guru Tom Savini) with a six-shooter for a penis, the lovely Salma Hayek gets a makeover only a snake mother could love, blacksploitation star Fred Williamson gets a makeup job that looks so cheap in closeups it looks like it came off the Halloween rack at Walmart.
Yet somehow Clooney and Keitel push through this madness and deliver an emotional, action fueled mad house of bat-killing frenzy. QT's script is subdued in just the right ways (no overlong conversations about some off topic pop culture wizbangs), RRs manic camera links to the ridiculous on screen story very well (demonic Mariachi bands aside). There is gravitas and red-gravy spraying everywhere, the film is a half greatness and half lunacy. Which half appeals to you is all a matter of taste (with a side of tequila, salt, lime and bloody body shots).
7 Cheechs Double Cameos out of 10 (GOOD)
The Late Shift (1996)
The Late Shift (R)
"Therrrrre... goes Johnny!"
HBO pulls back the curtain behind the Letterman vs Leno debacle of 90s late night television and blows up NBCs skirts in the process. Based on the book by media journalist Bill Carter, the insider view into the machinations between Dave, Jay and management are both entertaining and interesting and bring a mostly impartial eye to the proceedings. The actors portraying the stars try their best with somewhat shaky results (the real life David Letterman particularly hated his doppelganger, calling him a "psychotic red haired chimp" on many a weeknight monologue), but only Kathy Bates as Jay's foul mouthed pitbull of an agent with an eye on the late night throne deserves any notice (and was awarded a Golden Globe for her effort).
Parties interested in the proceedings/backstabbings sponsored by the incompetence shown by NBC executives, a genial Jay and his pushy agent-ess and an underachieving David Letterman may be better served by reading the minutia filled novel, but the movie serves as a great crib-note version and quick fly on the wall view into one of the most bizarre infights in television history.
6 Prelude to Conan's Situation out of 10 (GOOD)
"Therrrrre... goes Johnny!"
HBO pulls back the curtain behind the Letterman vs Leno debacle of 90s late night television and blows up NBCs skirts in the process. Based on the book by media journalist Bill Carter, the insider view into the machinations between Dave, Jay and management are both entertaining and interesting and bring a mostly impartial eye to the proceedings. The actors portraying the stars try their best with somewhat shaky results (the real life David Letterman particularly hated his doppelganger, calling him a "psychotic red haired chimp" on many a weeknight monologue), but only Kathy Bates as Jay's foul mouthed pitbull of an agent with an eye on the late night throne deserves any notice (and was awarded a Golden Globe for her effort).
Parties interested in the proceedings/backstabbings sponsored by the incompetence shown by NBC executives, a genial Jay and his pushy agent-ess and an underachieving David Letterman may be better served by reading the minutia filled novel, but the movie serves as a great crib-note version and quick fly on the wall view into one of the most bizarre infights in television history.
6 Prelude to Conan's Situation out of 10 (GOOD)
Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
Santa Claus: The Movie (PG)
"Ho Ho, Oh?"
After the megahit Superman: The Movie and subsequent sequels, the Produvers, the Salkinds, who were instrumental to that franchise getting off the ground turned towards another world wide figure and poured millions of dollars into special effects, grand sets and marketing into their new film target: Santa Claus. A resounding box office failure, SC:TM is razzed for its dark take on Claus' origin story, cynical product placement in a film about the spirit of Christmas and over the top goofiness of both actors Dudley Moore and John Lithgow hamming it to the max. The starving hobo kids drooling over McDonalds through the windows at the super satisfied fastfood patrons could have been sarcastically painted by Norman Rockwell as a portrait of 80s corporate greed and is completely deaf to the reason of the season. This much money spent, this much whizbang technology utilized leads to a nice looking movie with entertainment (a million monkeys at a million typewriters...), but kind of misses the whole point of a Christmas movie. Santa mixed with a kind of strange biblical spirituality, an anti-corporate message (brought to you by a huge Hollywood juggernaut), and overthought/overspent script and set design really skew a simple story of a fat man who crawls down chimneys in the middle of winter.
5 Seriously, Just use the Xmas story we already know out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Ho Ho, Oh?"
After the megahit Superman: The Movie and subsequent sequels, the Produvers, the Salkinds, who were instrumental to that franchise getting off the ground turned towards another world wide figure and poured millions of dollars into special effects, grand sets and marketing into their new film target: Santa Claus. A resounding box office failure, SC:TM is razzed for its dark take on Claus' origin story, cynical product placement in a film about the spirit of Christmas and over the top goofiness of both actors Dudley Moore and John Lithgow hamming it to the max. The starving hobo kids drooling over McDonalds through the windows at the super satisfied fastfood patrons could have been sarcastically painted by Norman Rockwell as a portrait of 80s corporate greed and is completely deaf to the reason of the season. This much money spent, this much whizbang technology utilized leads to a nice looking movie with entertainment (a million monkeys at a million typewriters...), but kind of misses the whole point of a Christmas movie. Santa mixed with a kind of strange biblical spirituality, an anti-corporate message (brought to you by a huge Hollywood juggernaut), and overthought/overspent script and set design really skew a simple story of a fat man who crawls down chimneys in the middle of winter.
5 Seriously, Just use the Xmas story we already know out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway