Salt (2010)

This is probably the last entry I will be able to write for a while since I really don't have any more time to review films before the summer ends. I had fun writing some reviews up and I hope whoever was reading enjoyed them as well. I'm thinking about starting a review blog this fall/winter that will review not just films and entertainment, but also food, music, and other stuff as well. If you're interested in writing about these things (for free) email me at andrew dot roback at gmail dot com and we can talk details. Hope you had a great summer! Oh and, officially, this will be my 35th review or something like that. Even though I failed miserably to generate the amount of content I wanted to, well, there's no excuse, I just failed. Happy rest of the summer :).

Columbia Pictures, 100 min., Dir. Phillip Noyce

(Sort of) heralded as a (pretty decent) action/spy film that will (kind of) take you on a (semi-)non-stop thrill ride, I had expectations for Salt that were (a little) inflated by hype.

However, despite such glowing reviews as "it's not as bad as I thought it would be," I was hopeful that I would at least not dislike the film. From the man who directed Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), I was expecting a smart spy film where there were lots of crazy plot developments and a really interesting cold war plot resurrection. Wrong. In other words, this film played more like Mission Impossible III than Mission Impossible.

A lot of reviews I read/heard praised the action element, but there was nothing outstanding. Action movies of this sort eventually devolve into how many different ways can the protagonist dispose of the baddies. Apart from one interesting scene involving a fire-extinguisher propelled homemade explosive, the action was mostly just Angelina Jolie hitting and shooting random guards.

The plot twists are not that interesting, and often don't reconcile with the supposed plot in some cases. There's not a whole lot of emotional investment in the characters, and the whole cold-war nuclear tension could not be more underplayed. I was expecting it to improve drastically as the film went on, but it just never did. The ending, which I won't spoil for those who wish to see it, belongs in a James Bond film where it may be taken with a level of seriousness appropriate to its mustache twisting obviousness.

The fight scenes are completely vanilla (Angelina Jolie is aging and probably shouldn't have played this role for obvious reasons), and the plot drops out to the most asinine developments possible with ancillary deux ex machina characters tossed in to finish the third act. Much like I was pissed at Iron Man II for overplaying cold war fears, I will reiterate for the rest of us who were born near the tail end: the Cold War is a piece of curious history and not a vivid memory.

The most interesting part of the movie was the idea of a Soviet spymaster creating a group of sleeper agents. Nerd that I am, I would have loved to see more of the training techniques, basically an unpacking of that whole montage. It would have replaced, perhaps, four to six scenes of Ms. Jolie breaking arms and kicking necks, but could have provided some much needed bolstering of the back story that would have made two-dimensional spy cliches into characters.

I don't see much of a future for this series, even though there is a clear setup for a sequel. The film was trying very hard to be The Bourne Identity, but an aging actress in the lead coupled with poor acting and a bad storyline sabotaged this film right from the start.

5/10: Watch Breach (2007) for a much more entertaining spy film

Zombie Film Roundup

Here's part one in what I hope could be a multi-part zombie film review. Let me know if you have any zombie films that you dig because I would love to check them out.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Image Ten, 96 min., Dir. George A. Romero, black and white

The defining zombie film that sparked a myriad of imitators never once uses "the zed word" during the film. I'm not a film scholar, so it's hard to say whether NotLD is supposed to be set in the 50's, or is just a low budget flick with old school sentimentalities.

Every female is a hysterical wreck who can't help anyone with anything and needs a good slap, and every male is stereotype (strong man, posturer, greedy self-lover). The screenplay is, frankly, quite awful. The characters aren't fleshed out very much and important details are tossed in as time permits.

The cinematography is quite a different story, however. The film begins during the early evening, and stretches through the night until the following morning. Since the film is shot in black and white, lighting is a huge consideration. Details such as the lighting of the face, dark makeup, and patterns of light and darkness all add to the viewing experience. The soundtrack, which Tobey Hooper obviously took stock of for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), uses otherworldly distortion and long-lasting crescendos to raise the stakes on otherwise stiff zombies and slow, low-budget action.

If you enjoy zombie films or are just starting to get into the genre, this is the gateway for you. Most every detail, and often times, characters, can be found in every zombie film you have seen. Romero's films alone are their own cannon, but this film was the progenitor of zombie films to follow.

8/10

The Omega Man (1971)

Warner Bros., 98 min., Dir. Boris Sagal

Boris Sagal was a television director for an unbelievable amount of series, so it's not too surprising that this movie plays like an extended television show. It could have been a pilot for a longer series.

The film is the second in three film adaptations of Richard Matheson's novel I am Legend. The novel itself depicts the force that represents 'otherness' as vampires, but this film is clearly a zombie picture. The forces against the protagonist can't venture into daylight, but that doesn't differentiate them from zombies since they also avoid daylight. You never see anyone eating flesh, but they aren't sucking blood either. In fact, the question of how these particular undead corpses survive is largely left unanswered. Their stiff appearance and style of attack seem very zombie-like in my opinion.

Charlton Heston plays Robert Neville, a scientist that survives a plague, a plague that seemingly wipes out all of mankind, by injecting himself with the last dose of vaccine after a helicopter crash prevents him from delivering it to the rest of the U.S., er, world, that is...he was definitely going to share it with the whole world...after the U.S. was safe, of course.

His arch nemesis after the plague apocalypse, Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), is the leader of the undead horde who wants to kill Neville. Neville is (in his mansion with a car, electricity, and decently aged scotch) an affront to Matthias' stone age mentality cult of plague infected weirdos who won't even pick up a gun to attack him, and want to return to a simpler life where there's no chance of wiping out humanity with biological warfare. What a bunch of losers. Although, maybe I could read their pamphlet, just to see what a bunch of losers they are. I mean, I won't want to join or anything, but you can't dispute what they say, you know what I mean?? It's not so crazy, I mean, their ideas. And what with those damn terrorists, you never know, I mean, they could totally do that, and shit. Aww man, I should really start looking into bomb shelters. But, I guess I'll finish this review first.

Neville finds some other folks who aren't yet zombie like followers of Matthias, so his life is given purpose other than hunting down the jerks who try to kill him every night. In fact, the first 30 minutes or so play like a Charlton Heston NRA commercial: "How would I kill these damn zombies without my beloved Uzi? You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands!"

This film is about as seventies as it gets. Wah-wah bass lines pervade, Heston watches Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock (1970) at the beginning of the film, and the clothes have magnificently large lapels. Oh, and everyone is drinking some kind of brown liquor out of a tumbler at some point, poured from a cut crystal decanter, but of course. Rosalind Cash's (Lisa's) fro is something else, and Paul Koslo (Dutch) looks like he just walked off Woodstock and into the wrong film set, maaahn. Still, watch for the awsomeness that is the finale, and for 70's style nostalgia. I'll totally have to do a 70's horror film roundup at some point.

6/10

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Universal Pictures, 99 min., Dir. Edgar Wright

Probably the quintessential zombie movie of this decade, Shaun of the Dead draws heavily on Night of the Living Dead in a loving way, erasing the foolishness and flaws of the original and replacing them with tongue-in-cheek references which are hilarious. Barbara (Penelope Wilton) is as dazed as her namesake in NotLD (Judith O'Day), and many of the character types mirror the originals. Despite the allusion to Dawn of the Dead (1985), Shaun of the Dead only lightly references that film.

I won't go too much into detail, since the film is so enjoyable that it really should be watched and not picked apart. There is a theme of repetition, with strong undertones that we all live like zombies and it takes a massive change of pace to help us excel to our full potential, even if that event is the end of the world. In some ways, it is a coming of age piece (buildungsroman), where the protagonist must shed his juvenile exterior and mature into a robust man who is capable of determining his own destiny. The humor is best appreciated by a gen X audience (perhaps British as well), so there are numerous cultural references that exceed my understanding; however, the humor is so endearing that you will have no problem joining in on the fun.

While a parody of zombie/horror films could easily become tiresome (see every Scary Movie for instance), this film is a tutorial in how to parody a genre by including fans and not obtusely excluding the people who would most enjoy a poke at a genre of film that is overdone or short on levity. You need only go as far as the trailer for Vampires Suck to see how parody can epically fail.

9/10

As I said above, I'd like to keep watching some zombie films and writing about them, so if you have any suggestions, send them my way.

Inception (2010)

Warner Bros., 148 min., Dir. Christopher Nolan

There's not too much you can say that hasn't been said and said and said and said, so I'm not sure there's a ton to say that hasn't been said. That's my verbal attempt at translating a Penrose staircase. Incidentally, the first time I saw a Mobius strip at the absolutely fascinating Museum of Science Mathmateca exhibit designed by Charles and Ray Eames, I ended up designing one with Nicole and Sarah and Christine and just marveling at the fact that it was possible. This film has a similar, if more subdued effect.

Inception is a psychological thriller that recalls Christopher Nolan's earlier film Memento (2000), but this is a far better film. It channels some of the energy of Nolan's last two Batman films and plays like Ocean's Eleven, but with fewer characters and more emotional payoff. There's not much need to discuss the plot as you can read Adam's salon.com article and recap the plot in detail for yourself.

What kind of film is this? A heist film, plain and simple. This film has been compared to The Matrix (1999), and that is essentially a heist film as well (thought the stakes are a bit different). A team is assembled in which each member has a particular skill to contribute. One member, (Cobb in this film) has a hangup, or some kind of personal problem that he/she must overcome before the job can be done satisfactorily. The heist involves multiple layers of concurrent threads of action and at least one twist which causes the audience to question the outcome or reassess the rules of the game.

A comparison to The Matrix is valid in my opinion, in that both films offer a fantasy world parallel to the 'real' in which different rules cause spectacular confrontations and contortions of the laws that govern our physical and mental existence. In terms of the outcome of the film, you have to see it to question, then, as Adam's suggest, determine for yourself whether you care what the final scene represents.

In a word, I will echo most critics by saying that it was refreshing to see a movie that was not a sequel, middle-story film, or reboot of an 80's television show. Nolan taps into yet another set of fundamental imagery to project a singular vision that captivates the viewer and truly establishes a world to inhabit for the duration of the film.

9/10: As with most Nolan films, a repeat viewing is in order.