New year, new look, new blog / The Fighter (2010)

If you've had a chance to read my blog, you know that I said in my very first post that I would generate 100 reviews of film and writing that I enjoyed during the summer. As with most endeavors, I wildly overestimated the amount I would be able to accomplish in the time that I had.

However, my boundless enthusiasm prevails in the new year, and with some encouragement and the sense of enjoyment I get from thinking about and writing about films and entertainment, I will endeavor to restart my blog and give myself an excuse to avoid more serious work, and maybe, just maybe, help you waste five to ten minutes a week of your employer's time this year.

As a side note, while this blog will remain hosted on blogger, I plan on eventually moving the business end over to my website (andrewroback[dot]com) where I will eventually start another blog related more to my research. Without further delay, my first review of the new year.

The Fighter (2010)

Dir. David O. Russel, 112 min., in Chicago theaters

When I went to see the visually beautiful Black Swan (2010)* I saw the trailer for The Fighter and leaned over to say to my wife "I think I've seen this film before. Wasn't it called Rocky?"

Boxing films in general seem to typify the underdog storyline trajectory that we crave so very much when we go to the theaters. This type of plot line is embedded in almost every film that we pay to see, especially in films about sports, and most especially in films about boxing. As most film watchers will agree (I think?): you go to a film to see that film, but you take with you every film that you can remember watching (amongst other things).

I am a huge sucker for most sports films, so I don't need a great deal of convincing to watch one, but I have to say that boxing films don't quite do as much for me since they seem to be so heavily interested in the build up to the final fight sequence that the rest of the movie becomes window dressing. The Fighter spices things up with two exciting fight sequences, while introducing concurrent plot lines of family drama and a love interest story.

Most of the drama centers on the tension between our boxer, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his dysfunctional family, including mother/manager Alice Ward (Melissa Leo) and brother/trainer Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) who rides the laurels of a questionable knockdown he scored in a bout with Sugar Ray Leonard that most of the world outside of Lowell, MA has long forgotten. Wahlberg gives us his typical ineffectual line delivery and flat facial expressions, which actually fit the role well since he is a passive punching bag (pardon the pun) of a character both in the ring and out. Amy Adams plays his love interest (Charlene Flemming) who causes the (relative) change in Wahlberg's character, causing him to finally start working towards what he wants rather than being used as a payday for his white trash, lecherous family.

The camera in the film leers on Adams, stressing the her objectification as a character and woman by her surroundings. Bale's movements are jerky and erratic, and his line delivery is insufferable (which I suppose was the point). Despite the tawdry attempts at engendering pathos for his character later in the film using his infant son (who really only appears to tug at the heart strings), perhaps the saddest scene is watching him reenact the fight with Sugar Ray that made him the "pride of Lowell" with a fellow junkie in a seedy crack house. The film evolves from a fighting story to a tripartite redemption story, with Adams', Bale's, and Wahlberg's characters all seeking a better existence through his slim chance at success in the ring.

It's hard not to think of Rocky when watching this film, but after some consideration, this film doesn't necessarily rely on all of the same tropes (though there is at least one training montage). The fight scenes themselves alternate between typical film and the type of grainy image you might see on a cathode ray tube television in the 90's, with angles that look like what you might have seen on HBO. However, while that was a nice gimmick, it didn't do much for me as a viewer. I expect no realism from a filmed boxing sequence. I'm not the biggest boxing fan, but fights I have watched involve about ten exciting seconds when punches are actually landing; I've yet to see a fight where the pugilists stand toe to toe in the center of the ring and trade punches in the face like drunken pub brawlers.

Performance-wise, most critics are talking about Bale. He seems to have two gears to his body: gaunt and unbelievably ripped. With most of his gaunt roles, it's difficult to separate his physical appearance from his performance since he looks like a human skeleton (I'm thinking of The Machinist (2004) in particular). In terms of ethos, the role is nailed; I'm not sure if the clip at the end of the film was intended to confirm his ability to capture the real-life character of Dicky Eklund or not, but that certainly is what it accomplishes. Without spoiling the plot, I would say that I didn't feel for his character in the level that I thought the film was going for, but his performance was still impressive if only for his ability to make the role so memorable.

8/10

*I would have loved to review Black Swan, but I saw it so long ago (opening night) that I doubt I could do a full review justice. If you liked other Aronofsky films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) then it is well worth a viewing.

Well, it's good to be back. I plan on tossing in more classic reviews this go around since I can't see myself making it to the theater as often as I would like this year due to my insanely busy schedule. My goal is going to be at least one review per week, maybe more if time allows.


Next up: A classic review of Wes Craven's surprisingly postmodern Scream (1996)

Countdown to Zero (2010)

Magnolia Films, 91 min., Dir. Lucy Walker
As seen at a free screening

I had some expectations for this film going into it, mainly that shot of people in a park which flashes to white and freezes (which actually happens at some point toward the end of the film), and a lot of clocks counting down to zero, which also actually happens, several times. My expectations didn't totally match with what the film presented, but that didn't necessarily make it a bad film.

Much of the emphasis of the film is in explaining how close we are to a nuclear disaster. It draws it's organization scheme from (some might know) the "sword of Damocles" speech John F. Kennedy made to the United Nations, where he stated nuclear disaster could be caused by "accident, miscalculation, or madness." This was perhaps not the best way to organize the film, as the discussion seemed less focused in the "madness" section and involved much more complex issues than just crazy people with bombs.

A lot was missing: an in-depth discussion of the history of atomic weapons and why they were created, a history of popular resistance to nuclear proliferation, a close look at the United States' use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese people in World War II and how the rest of the world reacted to that usage of nuclear weapons, which factors into the history of nuclear weapons. The filmmakers instead chose to focus on the multiplicity of ways that nuclear disasters could occur apart from a nuclear exchange between warring nations, with a special emphasis on the ease of obtaining, smuggling, and incorporating nuclear material into a terrorist weapon.

I started out saying to myself "I knew all that," but upon reflecting there were some startling facts presented in the film that I didn't know. The film is mostly interviews with experts (although there are interviews with Jimmy Carter, Robert McNamara, and Michail Gorbachev which either too short or edited down too much). There was also a lot of padding. Examples include staged closed caption television shots (which might look familiar to British viewers), endless shots of a blast radius over different world cities, and equally endless shots of nuclear missiles launching from silos.

In terms of the theoretical side of the film, some of the most interesting theories involved how it's impossible to predict some situations, and just having nuclear weapons endangers everyone in the world by virtue of randomness; once a weapon is detonated, Pandora's box is opened and our whole way of life shot to hell. Most people will agree with that line of thought. I also know a few people who maintain that we can't give up nuclear weapons because we would be powerless against a whole host of threats (failed nuclear nation states, terrorist use of nuclear weapons, etc.). To be clear, I don't subscribe to that opinion, but I did not see a whole lot in the film that would change the mind of someone who does.

In our typical hour plus discussion following a documentary, my wife and I got to the subject of how this film compares with other documentaries we've seen in the last four years or so. I felt like some of the issues raised in the film should feel personal, but the filmmakers did not breach the threshold of actually making the threat real and immediate to individuals in a way like (another Magnolia Pictures Co. film) Food Inc. (2010) does. It all comes back to that tricky issue of individual change that I talked about in other documentary reviews.

I won't drone on about An Inconvenient Truth because I could sit here all day and proselytize about how it's the perfect documentary in many ways and how its arguments are crafted elegantly and for maximum effect, but it does have a discernible effect on viewers. The big way it does this is by convincing the viewer that he or she is involved in the problem and can exercise personal power to effect change. It also equates the value of a minor change with having collective power, and those changes are only necessary on inconsequential levels. In other words, for a documentary to be effective (in my opinion) it must convince the viewer that:

1. a change in behavior is warranted,
2. the path to change or the actions necessary are clear, and
3. the change is worthwhile on an individual level (it must be at least worth the individual cost incurred by the change).

All three factors are important. For example, Food Inc. makes the consumer aware that his or her individual decisions are what makes the crooked machine run. Is a change warranted? Yes, people and animals are mistreated and our health suffers as a result of the current system. Is there a clear path to effect the change? Yes, we must consume food products that are produced by a better system, one which treats workers and animals ethically and does not create products that are injurious to our health. Is the change worthwhile on an individual level (i.e. should I change the way I consume food?). No. Organic food products that are ethically manufactured are unaffordable for most people without means.

Now, as the credits role and options are flashed on screen for individual action, I ask you, isn't there an inherent hypocrisy on the part of the film makers by demonstrating that the path to an individual change of behavior is blocked to the average citizen, but then having an expectation that the viewer will have any interest in statements like "buy food from your local farmer"?

Other films do this to better effect. To once again pull out Inconvenient Truth (for the last time) the path to change is simple and often causes the viewer to incur no cost: throw your can into a recycling bin instead of throwing it away. Hey, I can do that! IC is more concerned with convincing people a change is warranted, but the stakes are so low for many of the changes that I can say "Yo Al Gore, I don't believe in global warming, but I can throw my Clamato can into a recycling bin because you asked nicely." And yes, if you don't believe in global warming, your punishment should be drinking only Clamato, forever.

I won't put all of my problems with the documentary film explosion onto this film, because it is mostly in the genre of raising awareness of an issue instead of promoting individual changes in behavior (despite the invitation to text "demand zero" to 97999 or whatever that message was at the end of the film). However, I'm inclined to believe that first of all, few members of the audience were in favor of nuclear weapons who attended this screening, despite the fact that the film was free to watch. Secondly, I feel no more engaged with the issue than I have always felt before the film. There was some talk bandied about at the conclusion of the film which stressed how popular support caused reductions in nuclear weapons, but it's basically saying if there is a revolutionary amount of people who organize, band together, and elect new representatives to government, we can change any policy! Weak.

6/10: If you're in the mood for a double feature, watch Dr. Strangelove, then watch this film. I think they would pair off nicely.

Let the Right One In (2008)

EFTI, 115 min., Dir. Tomas Alfredson, Sweedish with English Sub- and Super-titles, available on Netflix Instant Queue

Something about this film resonates with those of us who have lived in a place where there is a desolate winter, which is anyone in Chicago. There is a strange sense of foreboding provided by the deserted natural landscapes, reinforced by the performances and carefully calculated presentation of the child actors in the lead roles. Every detail is attended to, and there is no escaping the longing for a sense of relief at every moment in the film: a sense that everything will be sorted out. The tension is exquisite.

It probably doesn't hurt that I watched this film during a thunderstorm, which provided the appropriate, morose backdrop, occasionally punctuated with thunder claps for effect. The settings and shots are beautiful, but in an eerie way which reminds one that the starkness of the architecture and landscape mirrors the emotional climate of the characters, cold and subdued.

The innocence and desperation of the protagonist, a 12 year old boy named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) contrasts with the need for attachment and understanding by the young vampire, a "twelve year old" "girl" named Eli (Lina Leandersson). Oskar is tormented by bullies and emboldened by Eli to defend himself, the irony resting in the fact that the timid girl who prescribes retaliation is herself a merciless predator.

It plays out in a way that should not be ruined for viewers, so I won't talk further of the plot. Of vampire movies, which I rightly or wrongly consider myself a burgeoning aficionado, I highly recommend it. The plot action and acting is straight as an arrow, so don't expect laughs outside of the infrequent comic relief. Vampire rules are redefined along conventional lines, so there's no learning curve. I hate to bring up Nadja since I will reference that in my Bowie roundup, but the lighting and shots in the film are similar. There is an effort (in my opinion) to avoid face shots in scenes in order to build contrast between the activities of the everyday and the visually stunning shots that break into the consciousness of the viewer later in the film.

The setting and sense of place in the film are unusual. I wasn't sure for a while whether this film takes place in the late 70's / early 80's, or whether props and wardrobe are meant to convey social class (e.g. Napoleon Dynamite). There are some political hints tossed in, but my Swedish history is a bit rusty. I couldn't really pinpoint the language either, which was a distraction since I felt I was missing some supporting details that a European viewer might pick up on.

I felt throughout the whole movie that there was an unsettling undercurrent surrounding each character. In that way, the film was very Hemingway-esque. You saw just enough of the characters to interject your own back story, rather than sitting through an extra hour of film. This is really a film that you should see for yourself, so I'll recommend a viewing.

8/10

The Swarm (1978)

Warner Bros., 155 min. (extended version)/116 min. (theatrical), Dir. Irwin Allen

The first thing you'll notice in the byline above is that there is an extended version and theatrical release. I did not know this when I queued it up on Netflix, so I watched the bloated 155 min. extended version which included a subplot involving a romantic contest between two middle aged men for a retirement age elementary school principle. Yikes, nothing makes like good watchin' more than two middle aged dudes wooing a southern belle, if you're into Evening Shade that is. I, however, wanted angry mutant bees, some great one-liners, and super-ridiculous pseudoscience.

The film opens with a special forces team landing on a nuclear missile base in Texas. Quizzically, the special forces team is operating on the assumption that a commie biological weapon strike killed the staff, yet you can see exposed skin between the sleeves of their "bio-hazard suits" (painter's jumpsuits) and black leather driving gloves. Also interesting, before they even know that the threat is bees, they have flame throwers. It will all come together by the end of the review, my friends.

It turns out that a swarm of killer bees stung most everyone in the base to death, and Michael Caine, an entomologist and the foremost bee expert in the world, happens to be out by that desert wasteland when this goes down. The President places him in charge of the military forces with one mission: kill the bees. Oh, and the base is right next to a town who's main industry is growing flowers. And it's blooming season.

Now I'm not saying I could write or direct a motion picture, but it must be hard to make both Michael Caine and Peter Fonda look like the two worst actors in the world. Caine essentially has three gears in the film:

• Crazy bee guy: "The war we've been fearing is finally here," referring to a war between Africanized bees and humans, something still that keeps me up at night


• Angry at the U.S. Army guy: "LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING GENERAL!!!" If you watch for nothing else, watch for the countless screaming arguments between Caine and Illinois' own, Richard Wildmark


• The guy who doles out conciliatory lines like "there was nothing we could do," something he'll get ample opportunity to say

Much like a lot of these bloated seventies action films, the plan is to get the smart, middle-aged white men into a control room to hash this thing out over black coffee and cigarettes. This film is even worse, as the women are pretty much window dressing. The one female lead who does something is billed as Helena (Katherine Ross) in the credits, despite the fact that she is an Air Force lieutenant and a doctor. She also saves a bunch of men from bees by dragging them into a bunker and escapes by crawling through an air conditioning vent, which is not shown as the film begins in medias rez. She doesn't even get a "way to go" for that one. I'm pretty sure a man would have gotten a medal, or maybe just a pat on the back, or something. But she's just a woman, a woman who gets replaced as chief doctor when a crisis hits and basically becomes Peter Fonda's lab assistant / ward nurse. She does provide someone to protect from danger and flirt with later on in the film, though.

This movie is based off a novel by the late Sci-Fi writer Arthur Herzog. I couldn't help but think about The Andromeda Strain when I watched this film as they share the same basic premise: both films present a foreign threat that has no foreseeable solution; both films involve gathering the best scientists in the world and sequestering them in a secret military installation to develop a solution. Whereas Andromeda takes the nerdy intellectual route, The Swarm eventually turns into another film about communists invading America, but with bees instead of a Soviet-Cuban alliance. The bees are constantly treated like an invading army and personified, allegedly possessing strategies and tactics designed to beat the military. As they make their way toward Huston (and there is no reason at all given as to why they're are going there) the Army officers keep referring to them as "The Africans." Don't even ask me why that is. I guess you can't refer to them as the bees, seeing as you might confuse them with the Eurasian or Australian bee armies.

Let's see, so far we've had mutant bees and some great one-liners delivered in full screaming fury by Michael Caine, now all we need is some really bad science. How's this: the bees sting some people in a nuclear power plant and, as a result, the plant explodes. Check - and - mate.

**Spoiler Alert**All the 40+ minutes of character development for the townspeople is pretty much wasted as they die in a train accident halfway through the film while trying to evacuate. There are survivors, but I guess at 155 lean minutes, the director felt it would be better not to include a 15 second scene telling us if any of them were the supporting characters from earlier.

The bees eventually begin "the occupation of Huston" and the Army does the only logical thing: start burning the city down with, you guessed it, flame throwers!! I take you now to their base of operations downtown, 11 p.m., a high rise building with floor to ceiling windows:

"Hey Private Smith, you really shouldn't be playing catch with that brick inside our glass fortress becaus--oh shit!! Anyone have insecticide...oh yeah, we tried that 72 minutes earlier in the film and it didn't work. Welp, I had a good run, lots of fun tim--and now I'm getting stung to death..."

Stupidly enough, the bees get in through the elevator, sting some dude, and as he's dying he breaks the window. Thanks, man. Way to die in the most selfish way possible.

In a brilliant piece of writing, Caine and Ross go from fleeing the bees that are loose in the building, bees so deadly that they can drop a full grown man with one sting mind you, and in the very next shot they are in a jeep, driving in an airfield, in the daytime. I've only seen one other movie that so blatantly disregards a viewers intelligence¹ and just spreads some frosting over the gaping hole in the cake.

The brilliant plan to kill the bees: spill a bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, lure the bees there with their mating sound, then light it on fire.

4/10: If bees invade, at least we've got one part of the solution taken care of already

¹That film was The Core (2003). For some BS reason a team of scientists needs to make it to the core of our planet, and most of the crew dies along the way from numerous, extremely boring geological dangers. After the mission is accomplished (no spoiler alert because you won't want to see this film at all), the two remaining terranauts (I love that word) go from the core of our planet to the ocean floor with a caption that reads "three days later." Great ending. I just wish the whole film would have been the title screen, then a screen that says "a month and a half later," and then the credits.

Note: I was reading some Shakespeare related stuff, but I plan on watching some movies this weekend and even reviewing some new releases next week

Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later (2007)

DCTV, approx. 70 min., Dir. Brent Renaud

To believe a desegregated school exists is a myth, at least that is the message behind Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later. And after seeing the film, I have little to disagree with.

First and foremost, the film focuses on socioeconomic privileges and how they play out in our secondary education system. While the filmmakers may have felt that they were beating the viewers over the head with ideas like "how do parents attend PTA meetings when they work two jobs?" or "how is it that the golf team is all white at a school that is predominantly black?" they probably could have made more probing assertions about the nature of segregation at Little Rock Central. It seems an impossible contradiction, but I want documentary films to be both subtle and explicit, objective and inflammatory, which is something I haven't come to grips with yet as a consumer or critic, I suppose.

Persons in the film seem divorced from the production qualities in their narratives, more so than other films I have seen. There is also a surreal quality of hearing and seeing biased perspectives that are out of touch with reality, a feeling that is brought to a head when a child in one classroom is asked by one of the original students who fought to be integrated to point out the historical irony in her classroom (seated to one side, the black students, and on the other, the white students). As with everything, the rhetorical effects of presentation loom large, but work on a more subtle and basic level in this film.

A positive is born of the passivity demonstrated by the subjects of the film: the opportunity for a viewer to feel the frustration at trying to forcibly integrate two cultures who are the products of their progenitors' mistrust and economic trajectories. The irony for the viewer is that we can see the sociocultural factors that lead to their opinions, but do nothing to interject. The self-replication of systemic segregation is also demonstrated in the attitudes and opinions of those interviewed.

If you are waiting for overt racism to be revealed in any of the film's subjects, don't hold your breath. With every opinion as to why de facto segregation exists (as subjects put it: "two schools inside one school") the viewer must make a determination as to the extent to which different opinions hold merit; oftentimes I was left with the unsatisfying conclusion that people in the film, even if they are lying, believe their explanations to be true. I once read a phrase that went something like this:

The conscience tells me 'I did that,' while the ego says, 'that is not me, I could not have done that.' The ego wins.

Self-perception dominates reality, and what is repeated by the film's subjects ("people tend to associate with people they like regardless of color") supplants the reality, which is that "the people they like" are most often of similar appearance to themselves.

In any case, the attentive viewer can see that race, class, appearance, and socioeconomic status are inextricably linked in terms of a high school education. You need only travel to any CPS school to experience the same frustration for yourself. The issue left unaddressed in the film (due to scope) is the attempt to fix problems associated with underserved members of our society, and that is an issue which should haunt and influence our decisions for our entire lives.

8/10

Moon (2009)

Liberty Films, U.K., 97 min. Dir. Duncan Jones

I tried to see what the deal was with Moon by doing a Google news search, but between Despicable Me and Twilight: 3/4 Harvest Moon, or whatever the new one is, I gave up immediately. I wanted to know where this film came from and how it ended up on my TV since I don't remember any trailers or reviews, but it was in my Redbox list since like last year and is still available there (and on Netflix Instant Que).

The SciFi elements of this film exist to both provide a backdrop and premise for the action, but also to showcase the moral and ethical dilemmas inherent at the film's core. It's hard to summarize without giving away the many revelations at the heart of the film, so I'll merely set the stage for you. Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2, Choke) plays Sam Bell, a solitary worker on the moon who collects moon rocks from giant skimmers that reminded me a lot of the harvesters in Command and Conquer (I know, supernerd). The moon rocks power "70% of Earth's energy needs" and his job, while incredibly important, is extremely monotonous and drives him to distraction and disinterest. As with most endurance films, things start to break down right around the end of his time there, worrying his only companion: a robot that is ingeniously done up as the type you would see assembling cars, but with artificial intelligence that makes him capable of affection for Sam, even if it is programmed. Anyway, things are looking pretty good for Sam's departure before an accident occurs, which will reveal a lot more about what's going on up on the moon.

There's a lot to like about this film. If you dug 2001: A Space Oddssey (1968) which is really a first rate science fiction film, then you will dig this. Moon has the benefit of CGI, but its use is not to generate poorly-rendered Rastafarian aliens: it serves as a tasteful and complementary backdrop to the set pieces which really make you think of Kubrick. Kevin Spacey does his best HAL as the voice of the robot, which cashed in on 2001 without completely ripping it off, but I don't think his vocal performance could get any closer to the original monotone voiced by Douglas Rain.

The tension between laxity and the perfection needed to exist in a zero atmosphere environment where the slightest miscalculation or mistake can instantly kill you in the most painful way possible is really demonstrated here. There is one particular scene where Sam tries to pass off a minor mistake caused by psychological stress as a simple accident, only to have the robot grill him with questions. Every ancillary detail of the film (carving miniatures with a pen knife, botany, ping pong) is presented in a way which heightens the fact that we often expend an extraordinary amount of attention on what we like to do, and tend to treat the monotonous work of everyday which is critical to other people and our own survival as a cakewalk (perhaps to exercise control over that which we are masters of in order to defray the tension of the uncontrollable or that which challenges us the most...).

7/10: Speaking of diffusing some tension, a lighter side of the moon

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

Overture Films, 127 min., Dir. Michael Moore

My political views are no mystery to anyone who knows me, and this is supposed to be a blog about film and entertainment, so I will do anyone reading a favor and omit the majority of my stump speech.

I'm no lover of the capitalist economic system because it stresses accumulation over concern for individual happiness and welfare, as Mr. Moore demonstrates in his film.

Moore is reviled on the left and right, and I think he gets a bad rap because of his stupid antics which cater to the type of audience that wouldn't watch this film in the first place, the people who don't vote or care at all how civics operate in this country. I'll now pull a Family Guy style cutaway gag to demonstrate my point. Here's what you might have witnessed if Moore had called me up prior to filming this movie and you were in the room watching me talk to him:

Hey Michael, how's it hangin' bud.

Oh yeah, your new movie.

You say you want to drive an armored car up to a Wall Street bank and ask for the taxpayers' money back. I'm not so sure about that. It didn't really work in Roger and Me when you asked the President of GM for an interview and--

oh wait, what's that--

You're going to go back to GM to do the same exact thing you did in 1989. Ahh...um...I see. You know what, I'm getting another call.

No, I'll call you back. Go Michigan! (scene)

Moore's at his best when he's explaining to you how everything is Washington is just a cash grab, but a lot of his stunts really wear thin after a while. The films are composed primarily of alternating human interest/soft news pieces, images of important people standing together who shouldn't be standing together, redacted documents, and dumb antics like those described above.

I'm not a hard sell on his line of thinking, and even I was getting a little tired of having peoples' personal tragedies paraded around like so much cheap filler. I suppose I weary of Moore hogging the spotlight. He turns all of his films into a documentary about his personal outrage rather than the subjects in the documentary itself. Notice how he not only conducts, but is pictured in all of the interviews; he also assumes this aggravating, child-like inflection in his voiceovers (example: "I asked Mr. Executive for an interview, but he said noooooo. I caaaan't imagine whiiiee"). Can the fake sarcasm already, sheesh.

The film closes on a revolutionary note, basically inciting people to take action against an unfair system of laws that privileges the wealthy one percent of our population which people fruitlessly try to join. Hey buddy, the financial system isn't doing me any favors, but what should I do, go smash up an ATM because I have no money? Any freshman in college will tell you that it's a self-replicating system, and until I'm in a rebellion wearing a red armband and throwing fire bombs at armored cars, I don't see a whole lot of outlets for my frustrations other than Buy Nothing Day.

I also got the sense that Moore is tired of defending himself against conservative rebuttals because he either just doesn't care to win over the opposition anymore (that is, he's just preaching to the choir at this point) or because he sees the intransigence and corruption of government officials as an insurmountable obstacle that needs to be burned down instead of sidestepped.

I could try to salvage some of the facts presented in the film and toss them out here, but the truth is that it's a challenge to watch a Moore film and separate fact from schmaltz. I've seen plenty of documentaries that can offer a more balanced opinion, but mainstream films like this rely on emotionally charged interviews with sobbing women and enraged men to make their points for them. If you're going to make a film that educates the public on a critical issue (and, yes, the oppression of workers and the willful destruction of the middle class in this country is a critical issue), step up your game from the "Everyday Hero" and "Real American" soft news tripe served up by the 6:00 evening news.

5/10: Hey wealthiest one percent, take a tip from Moore: The time is now to quicken the pace on your pleasure palace construction projects before this whole capitalism thing falls apart!!

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Paramount, 124 minutes, Dir. John Favreau


You know you're a dork when you're trying to explain to your wife on the car ride home why a new element couldn't possibly be represented by the holographic projection that Tony Stark is viewing in his laboratory in Iron Man 2. But this revelation is no surprise to anyone reading this.

Despite it's numerous scientific flaws, which admittedly one must overlook in order to enjoy a movie about a dude that flies around in an impenetrable suit and has a futuristic battery in his chest, IM2 falls short on so many aesthetic levels, which I will list here.

One: The film is a star delivery system. The screenplay fails to provide adequate lines and backstory for most of the characters played by major Hollywood actors. I still don't understand why the hell Samuel L. Jackson was in this film.

Two: Apart from special effects wizardry, the cool technology developments are largely unexplained. Tony Stark erecting what looks to be a particle collider that shoots an energy stream out of a hole in the side that hits what looks to be a miniature middle school band triangle does not explain how he develops a new element. I love cheezy comic book science, but I like it to have some kind of connection with the plot, which was too much to ask in this film.

Three: Why is the role of "Rhodey" played by Don Cheadle instead of Terrence Howard? Think we wouldn't notice?? Just like Matrix two, eh?? Wrong, my friend.

Four: Hey writers (this includes you, Stan Lee), the Cold War ended a while ago. Hence, the forced Russo-American arms race tensions seem a bit outdated. Is this a Tom Clancy novel?

This is the point where I would expand on the plot, but there isn't really much to say. Stark (Downey Jr.) predicts that he alone will maintain "the peace" (even though we see nothing in the way of global peace initiatives or Iron Man's hand in monitoring global peace--was there a war to begin with?), and then foolishly betrays the world's trust by getting hammered at his birthday party in the Iron Man suit, which is probably one of the funniest scenes in the film. It all sounds very colonial, seeing as it's once again the mighty U.S. alone (and a playboy millionaire at that) who will force the world's haters into submission. This movie really only works if you suppress the urge to think about why anything is happening.

An 80's style Soviet Cold War scientist emerges to avenge himself against the west for ruining his father's dreams of becoming a bourgeois fat cat. One of the best lines: "after he was deported, he spent the next 20 years in Siberia in a vodka fueled rage." Sweet. Way to flatten out the characters into razor thin caricatures.

I guess what sold me on the original Iron Man is that Stark undergoes an exercise in humility where he is forced to use raw talent and guile to outwit his opponents, and then reflect on the monster he created through his involvement in the military-industrial complex. It's spelled out in huge letters, but the film has a point. This movie is Stark's character delivering one idiotic one liner after another, and Downey Jr. brings a halfhearted performance. In part, the timing of this film may be off; I doubt there are too many people who care to watch the personal life problems of a billionaire playboy lamenting over his having to assume responsibility for the mess he created through his self-righteous arrogance.

4/10: He should really be called "Synthetic-Alloy-Wisecracking Man" in my opinion

The Dead Zone (1983)

I'll pretty much watch anything with Christopher Walken in it, and I guess this is no exception. The Dead Zone follows the life of a high school English teacher who gets into a car accident just prior to marrying his fiancee (Brooke Adams), wakes up after a five year coma to discover she's married, and, oh yeah, can predict the future by shaking someones hand.

The film hangs on to that classic style of cinema that I might not have described in my House of the Devil review, but typifies what I know of 70's/early 80's cinema. The opening sequence usually sets the stage for a film, but doesn't concern itself with introducing all of the characters that will be relevant/alive for the whole film. There are two or three tense events, with each one feeling as though it could be the climax of the film since the stakes are genuinely important. Films shot in the last two decades seem to have leveled out the plot line so that everything is just a waste until you get to the big finish, which usually disappoints.

I won't give any spoilers here for those of you who want to see TDZ (it is available on Hulu and Netflix), but the segmentation of the movie involves roughly three episodes that lead Walken's character to a moral dilemma that is murky at best. Walken plays the role as only he could, and if you are a fan of his particular style of line delivery, there's no shortage of it in this film. Martin Sheen also makes an appearance as a sleezeball political candidate, which was kind of a shocker after seeing him play the president character in The West Wing. He must have "politician" stamped on his forehead.

I'll digress and talk about a sweet 70's movie that this reminded me of. When a Stranger Calls (1979) has the same type of ebb and flow plotline that I think is missing from films in the 90's/00's era. The film does a flip midway through that is completely unexpected. Likewise for Dirty Harry which I just watched recently and never get tired of. There's something about the idea that you can have two or three critical moments in a movie that I just don't think writers/directors buy into anymore. The only film I can think of that I saw recently where the plot action dies with a character or is resurrected with a new storyline is...well, I'm actually drawing a blank, so clue me in if you can think of one.

7/10: three words: weapon of choice

Update: I was thinking about it, and Iron Man (2008) kind of has that feel to it when Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is in the cave in Afghanistan. When I first saw it, I thought the movie would play out entirely in that setting, but the action shifts midway through and another plot develops.

Le grand seduction/Seducing Dr. Lewis (2003)

After my iPhone displayed the incorrect time, and a traffic mishap stopped buses on Ashland Ave., Nicole and I rushed to meet Eva at the Chicago International Summer Screening showing of Le grand seduction/Seducing Dr. Lewis co-presented by the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, and
Cinema/Chicago.

The film discusses the plight of a coastal Canadian hamlet whose dried up fishing industry has left the town folk down and out. A plan to bring in a factory is in the works, but a full time doctor is needed on the island otherwise it's no deal; the conflict: no big city (Montreal?) practitioners are willing to make the move to a quaint fishing village (I am running out of synonyms for small town at this point). In a desperate bid to bring a factory to the town, the de facto mayor, Germain Lessage (Raymond Bouchard), strings together a plot to entice a big city plastic surgeon (David Boutin) into staying longer than his forced one month stay. There are a few missing details, but the premise is what it is, some small town big/city humor. At stake, the future of the town.

The film itself is hilarious. After the residents learn that the doctor loves cricket, they stage a hilarious half-baked match for his benefit. The whole film revolves around the townspeople catering to the doctor's every wish, going so far as to tap his phone and listen in, sometimes catching scandalous calls to his girlfriend.

The comic timing of the actors in the film, especially Bouchard and the actor who plays his brother-in-law, Pierre Collin, is really great. If your looking for an analogy for the type of humor found in this film, I would say it's close to Hot Fuzz (2008); come to think of it, the plot is similar to The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain but luckily for us there is no Hugh Grant to be found.

I don't think I stopped laughing for most of the film, so this is a good pick if you're in the mood for something light. As with most foreign language films, do watch the subtitles and avoid dubbing, as the delivery in French adds to the humor of many of the jokes.

8/10: un bit inattendu de la comédie de l'été

note: This film played at the Chicago Cultural Center, which was a great place to see a film. I failed to take a picture of the theater, but I will do so next time I go there. All of the times are listed on their website and there is no charge for any of the films. Oh, and here is a random picture of the beautiful stained glass dome outside of the theater.

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Remember when virtual reality was going to be part of every aspect of computing, nay, life itself? Neither do I. The closest I remember to thinking virtual reality was going to be useful for something was that scene in Jurassic Park (1993) when the scientist was using a gloves and goggles setup to manipulate a DNA double helix in 3D. The makers of The Lawnmower Man, however, really bought into VR as the technology of the future, and simultaneously roped in Pierce Brosnan to play the protagonist in this shabby special effects showpiece. For some reason, I had a notion that this was a widely regarded horror film, but I think I confused this movie and Hellraiser (1987), a mistake that would cost me 107 minutes.

I read a novel in grade school called Flowers for Algernon where a cognitively disabled man is given the same surgery as a mouse in order to vastly improve his intelligence. Apparently the characters in this movie had no contact with this book, as their message is mostly the same. I've seen other movies where people are vaulted to genius from relative obscurity (Phenomenon (1996) with Travolta comes to mind) and they all seem to reach the same conclusion: with super genius comes utter contempt for your former idiot friends and a soul crushing loneliness that is only alleviated by your death or eventual redumbification.

The poor, dimwitted "Lawnmower Man" Jobe (Jeff Fahey)--BTW, since when is "Lawnmower Man" a pseudonym for folks who cut grass for a living?--anyway, his only skill seems to be designing ridiculous looking lawnmowers, cutting grass, and working on his abs, though we don't see the last one in any scenes of the movie. Dr. Angelo, who's recent chimpanzee subject killed a bunch of guards, decides it's time to move on to a human subject. If only the damn military weren't corrupting his research, and injecting rage-ohol into his subjects along with the super brain drugs. Jobe starts his training, which consists of Dr. Angelo throwing Aztec calendars and Alchemy charts at his face in a virtual world. Unexpectedly (for those in the movie only) Jobe starts developing superhuman powers and hatches a plan to dominate the world.

If nothing else, this film has value in that it was just plain wrong about virtual reality. Take a look at this highly scientific caption that begins the movie:



I shall now write the rest of my review as if this prediction had become true...

CYBERDATE: 2 JULY 2010
LOCATION: The cyber-underground bunker, the last place VIRTUAL REALITY is not in widespread use

Hello my virtual friends. Brace yourself for this communication, and make sure you have enough time to download it on your 56k modem, print on your dot matrix printer, and delete it before Jobe's VirtuaCops detect you with their VR helmet scanners.

I am composing this message in the underground, using what they referred to in the 20th century as a "key-board." Sure, it'd be easy to compose this message by strapping on my virtual reality helmet, gloves with wires attached to the fingers, and a tight fitting body suit with neon piping that glows for no explainable reason, but then I'd be opening myself up to Jobe's mind control algorithm, and I won't do that.

I know it might be tempting to use the technology of VIRTUAL REALITY to enter computer generated worlds as unlimited as the imagination itself, where you can access the millions of positive uses that the creators of this technology envisioned, but stay strong my brothers and sisters of the resistance. Until next non-VIRTUAL REALITY cyber-textual-communication activity, formerly known as "electronic-mailing"

-VRfighter_26@excite.com

4/10: We were promised virtual reality

The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil was promoted big time last year as the horror film to see. I heard comparisons to Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002) which I saw in theaters as a junior in college, and is possibly one of my favorite films of all time. I have to say, this film cashes in on the current (or, perhaps, ongoing for the last six to eight years) zeitgeist of 1980's nostalgia. I buy into that fad a lot, despite being, as my wife continually reminds me, too young to really remember most of the 80's. I was born in 1982, but I had two older brothers who were teenagers when I was a child, so I was probably exposed to more Def Leppard and die cast Ferrari models/A-Team episodes than the average 1980's child.

THotD takes place on a wintry college campus which looks eerily deserted, and for land grant university alums the opening scene where the protagonist babysitter, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) drops a paper in an office mailbox will immediately evoke memories of turning in your last paper just before Christmas break. Samantha lives with a roommate that is much more concerned with some gym sock on the doorknob action with random dudes than washing any of her clothes or taking down messages, so she is hoping to find $300 quickly for her deposit on a new study pad free of roommate aggravation. Against the wishes of her best friend, she signs up for an odd type of babysitting gig for a creepy old man in the middle of nowhere. Sound hackneyed? It is. But the director, Ti West, is aware of this from the beginning and the tongue-in-cheek factor is off the charts. It's not a reductive, play with the horror movie conventions in a meta way film like Wes Craven's Scream (1996) for instance, but more like a carefully crafted tribute to the great B movies you rented from Dollar Video on Friday nights. I was hooked from the title scene of the movie, a freeze-frame, up-angle shot of Samantha with a smile on her face and ominous yellow title text in a typeface that looks like it was salvaged from a Vincent Price adaptation of a Poe story. Perfect.

Every detail of the film was carefully crafted to place you in the time period, while at once making you conscious that you are indulging in some period nostalgia along the way. The film is singular in execution, and definitely rates among the best that I have seen all summer. I'll say no more about the plot and twists, but the film is far more entertaining than you would imagine from the first twenty or thirty minutes.

9/10: Fire up your jiffy pop and grab a 7Up Gold out of the fridge

Update: I read a great piece on this film in Scott Tobias' "New Cult Cannon" which talks (with much more filmy expertise) on some of the conventions that Ti West is playing with in the film and the idea of nostalgia versus careful technique in crafting suspense in horror films.

Food Inc. (2010)

Food Inc. is probably one of the most highly regarded films that I have watched so far this summer, scoring an impressive 96% on RT and a 90 on Metacritic. I don't think anyone would disagree with me if I said it takes 100% of it's cues from An Inconvenient Truth (2006), aggressively forwarding a platform against an unpopular issue at the expense of big business, which never seems to learn that remaining silent on an issue is the worst possible decision.

The approach for all so called documentary films that adopt this rhetorical strategy is the same. You will be bombarded with images of human/animal/nature suffering: this makes you emotionally engaged with the issue (in Food Inc. a particularly disturbing image of yellow chicks being moved through a factory on a conveyor belt, getting their wings mechanically clipped, then being thrown down a metal chute by a worker).

Once you're emotionally engaged, the film will hit you with some expert opinions that are framed in such a way that they seem irrefutable, or, at the very least, highly disturbing and suspicious: this puts you on the side of the filmmakers since no logically thinking person would hold the opposite opinion.

Along the way, industry will be asked to comment, but will likely refuse. Another possibility: the filmmaker will toss in a "punching bag" or "straw man" who is set up as the figurehead for the opposition only to be immediately knocked down (see Charlton Heston's interview in Moore's Bowling for Columbine (2002)).

The last step is to provide an outlet for the viewers to effect a change by listing steps that you, the consumer, can take to reverse the damage. Food Inc. does this by giving food procurement tips, e.g. "go buy from your local farmer."

The film exposes a problem with the way food is produced and highlights our collective ignorance of the ingredients in the food we eat. The most salient point is probably that we have been buying food for much cheaper than it should be, and the losers are the undocumented workers who work in the meat assembly lines and factory farms as well as the local growers who are kept in wage slavery by the major corporations that have a stranglehold on food production in our country. I was sickened when someone suggested that immigration officials deport only a quota of unlucky individuals in the shanty town around a food factory since the large food corporation that employs them puts pressure on the government not to deplete their workforce; basically it's a quid pro quo which allows the government to save face at the expense of the workers they're deporting. Disgusting.

However, at the same time, I'm angry at films like this for showing me something that I have very little power to change. "Go buy from your local farmer." What a revelation! Unfortunately, I can't afford to spend $10/lb. on meat. Tell someone living below the poverty line that they should buy organic, small-farm grown vegetables for twice the price of corporately grown produce. The film addresses these problems, but provides no realistic outlets for change. At least now I can feel terrible every time I go to the grocery store and buy something, which I guess I should have felt for a long time now. It's doubly bad when I drive there. Thanks a lot.

The film intimates that industry is wrong, but stops short of denouncing capitalism as the beast which created the food corporations. I'll give the filmmakers credit for even going as far as they did. It's definitely worth watching if you want to feel bad about eating anything you can buy in your local supermarket, but if you enjoy living in the Matrix, I would recommend avoiding this film.

8/10: Even this review probably contains some corn products

Interesting note: Magnolia Pictures released this film, and is owned in part by Mark Cuban, who also owns the Dallas Mavericks.

Classic: Batman Returns (1992)

I caught part of Edward Scissorhands (1990) the other day, and it reminded me that Tim Burton made some really great films in the 90's. On a whim, I decided to roll out an old favorite from Netflix instawatch.

The summer that Batman Returns came out I definitely had Batman fever. I was a little too young for Batman (1989) (seven years old) to fully grasp how awesome Batman was, but at age ten I was fully able, and willing, to consume any and all Batman related products, including: Batman action figures, collectible Batman cups from McDonald's, a Batman t-shirt and Batman pajamas, and some kind of Batman bath foam which probably was at least partially toxic to humans.

As a twelve year old, I was barely aware of the dialogue, plot, acting, or anything that I now overanalyze. Watching the film again, the acting is pretty over the top, with Christopher Walken and Danny DeVito practically twisting their mustaches at points. Michelle Phiffer's Catwoman is needlessly killed and brought back (the character never appears and, to my knowledge, is never mentioned again in any films).

One aspect that I never really noticed: Michael Keaton's Batman is not only kind of wimpy, but he's not ever really the main focus for action within the plot of the film. He's almost like a side note, only brought in to advance or complicate the dual narratives of Catwoman and the Penguin. At the time, the film might have served as more of a set piece for the big name actors inhabiting their roles, but it generally served to take away from the foreboding personal struggle that is Batman. Ebert speculates in his review that the movie is too much about the curse of being Batman and that the action is too herky jerky to provide much continuity to the plot. I agree partially. The subplots are mostly unnecessary, and this movie started us down the path of three plus villains where two might easily do. As far as the curse of Batman is concerned, he has practically passed into martyrdom in recent films.

As anyone would say, this was the finale for 90's Batman in all respects as the final two films in this run, directed by Joel Shumacher (see the credits for St. Elmo's Fire, ha ha ha ha) were essentially shameless cash grabs designed to capitalize on earlier franchise success (look no further than Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze). In any case, if you have nieces or nephews who are of the movie watching age, this movie and the original Burton classic is something that should be shown proudly as the precursor to what hopefully will continue to be a great series of films. Also, the villainy is a little less disturbing than recent films, so you won't have to read six bedtime stories to a frightened child after a viewing.

9/10: Watch for the part where Bruce Wayne scratches and spins a CD/R like a vinyl record--solid gold

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)

Vampire films are all allusions to the original: Dracula by Bram Stoker. As an English major undergraduate at UIUC, I was required to take a class called "Major Authors." I had my choice of Bram Stoker/Oscar Wilde, or George Elliot (who, like Dave Eggers, I probably thought was a man at the time). I'm not sure what I missed out on, but judging by some of my friends who had to read Middlemarch, I think I made the correct call.

With the explosion of interest in serialized vampire novels kicked off by The Vampire Chronicles and Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice, vampires appear much less like the demonic cavern dwellers of Nosferatu (1922) and much more like various superhero incarnations, each new series having to set out the rules, or as they should now be called, the super powers that vampires possess over us blood banks. In the Twilight chronicles for instance, male vampires must unbutton their shirts halfway and pretend to be James Dean.

Cirque du Freak is no different. Vampires in this world can move super fast, slash things with their fingernail claws, and emit a noxious gas that incapacitates humans (with a deliberately open ended line of dialogue that leaves the possibility open for even more super powers).

As the title suggests, a boy has a "chance" encounter with a vampire (John C. Riley) who is a major player in one camp of vampires along with a character played by Willem Defoe. They are the retired leaders of the anti-killing humans camp, or "vampires." Then there are the "vampaneese" who still kill humans when feeding, and quarell with the vampires, but are currently kept at bay by a tenuous truce which the Cirque, a traveling freak show, somehow (inexplicably) maintains.

The movie plays around this central tension and develops characters quite well, but ultimately comes across as a sequel delivery system. It took until a few minutes into the climactic fight sequence at the end of the film for me to realize that this was the climactic fight sequence. I don't think it was the fault of the writer/director Paul Weitz, so much as it was the fact that this is poised as an opening chapter in a series from the first five minutes of the film. The voice-over delivered by the protagonist (Chris Massoglia) reminded me a great deal of the first Spiderman movie for some reason, and it eventually drops off to give way to the action of the plot.

Of course, a good versus evil binary emerges that will no doubt play out in a sequel, if there ever is one. This film scored low on RT and Metacritic, so who knows if it will ever see another incarnation. It seems that a lot of films are made on the assumption that a sequel will resolve the plot and tie up any loose ends. That might work for adaptations with a huge fan base (Harry Potter), but this film feels like a television pilot that may never get picked up. Not only that, the story seemed so rushed and condensed that I feel like it must have hardly done justice to the first book in the series. Seeing as this is a twelve book saga, I doubt that the collective capitalistic dream of making twelve movies to go along with the books will ever come true.

6/10: one, two, three, four, five, six...six vampires, bwah ha ha ha

Note: If you are looking for a better performance as a vampire by Willem Dafoe, and generally a much better vampire film, check out Daybreakers (2009).

Note 2: I'm switching to using Google Draw for future illustrations

Bad action movie roundup

Hi all. As you probably know by now, in between wasting time on the internet and watching Blackhawks/Cubs/World Cup related programming, I watch any number of bad movies that are not really worthy of a full review. If you know Nicole, you know that she is in love with bad movies, and we kind of push each other to watch ultra terrible films. Here are some of the stink bombs that I watched recently that I felt you might enjoy mini-reviews for:

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

My students begged me to watch First Blood (1982) when we discussed the Vietnam War last semester, but I made them watch Platoon (1986) which I should not even mention in the same sentence together.

Psychologically damaged vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) reprises his prior role, except this time he's going back to 'Nam. Why they couldn't find a soldier who didn't freak out and murder an entire small town Sheriff's department, who can say? The U.S. army needs Rambo to rescue some POW's. The only problem: some pencil pushing bureaucrat doesn't want to start another war by murdering a whole bunch of Vietnameese national troops in their own country. Can't those liberals in government ever get anything right?

After kicking ass for a while and firing what seems like three hundred rockets from an attack chopper, Rambo saves the day, telling that Washington bureaucrat to "find them [POW's], or I'll find you." And do what, John Rambo, exactly? I know, let's kill the whole government, that's the answer! John Rambo for president.

If you can make it through the 80's style patriotism and horrible Asian stereotypes, there are a few cheesy action shot payoffs. Better pick up a case of beer with this movie though.

4/10

Alien Hunter (2003)

At first, I thought this was some kind of SciFi Channel original, but it seems like a theatrical release, though I couldn't find evidence of that either. It scored an ominous "N/A" on RottenTomatoes.com, something I have never seen in my life. That would seem to suggest that it was never reviewed, which leads me to the conclusion that this was a case of direct to DVD.

Julian Rome (James Spader, whoa, bad move my friend) is an ex-SETI member who gets called to the South Pole to investigate an alien ship that got hauled into a hydroponic corn experimentation facility (why grow corn at the South Pole? Why the hell not I guess). To make a long plot short, the aliens have a virus that will kill all life on earth, even the super corn, if it ever escapes. How do we know this? Somehow the Roswell conspiracy and a crazy bananas theory about how these aliens wiped out a civilization on Mars eons ago (how this is known by the humans is never mentioned, surprise surprise) are forwarded as reasons to nuke the whole facility. The rest of the movie is not worth mentioning, as it just gets stupider.

Oh, and I might point out that I was expecting some battle scenes between warrior aliens and soldiers (as the title would suggest) but the alien turns out to be peaceful and some dick shoots him dead while he's trying to give James Spader the ultimate knowledge of the universe. Whoopsie daisy!

2/10

The Condemned (2007)

Stone Cold Steve Austin is on death row for a black ops mission gone wrong, abandoned by those jerks in government (he and Rambo should start a support group). Just let the military run things already. If history has taught us anything it's that handing control of all foreign and domestic affairs over to a military despot is the only logical solution.

Anyway, this is basically the Richard Connell story "The Most Dangerous Game" done up again as a live webcast where people can watch violent criminals kill each other for sport. Last one alive wins freedom and some cash, only the whole thing is basically rigged and the U.S. law enforcement system is too locked up in bureaucratics to do anything to stop it. The manhunting plot has been done to death, and once something is spoofed by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it should be dead, but it wasn't, and the movie exists. By the way, Austin cannot act at all. He did a much better job in the squared circle than this movie, by far.

2/10

The Scorpion King (2002)

Dwane Johnson plays the title role of an assassin for hire that gets involved in a simplistic plot that is almost a direct copy of Conan the Barbarian (1982). I'm not sure if the writers or directors did that on purpose as a kind of tongue and cheek allusion. One would hope so, as it cuts a little to close to the bone to be a coincidence.

The movie is solid action wise, with a lot of Sam Raimi style fight sequences that fans of cheese will enjoy. The plot and acting, both terrible as you might expect. There are the typical pre-civilization action characters: a thief/trickster, a crackpot inventor (who invents gunpowder, WTF!?! come on, really?? in B.C.E. Egypt, ugh...), some women warriors in various bikini outfits, and a delightful young scamp who gets into the darnedest of situations. The antagonist is basically the Sheriff of Nottingham in Egyptian clothes. Oh, and I forgot Michael Clarke Duncan, who cracks some skulls. I'm sorry, but he is just awesome, no matter what anyone says.

The special effects get worse as the story progresses, so don't look for a knockout final battle. The movie as whole just fizzles slowly out of existence, but I think it's on cable fifty or so times a week so you can catch it then if you're desperate to know which side wins the ultimate battle for the non-existent, anachronistic Egyptian civilization.

3/10

Well, that's it for the bad action movie roundup. For future movies, I will try to avoid any titles that star former wrestlers. I had some out of town obligations, but I will hopefully be up for writing a review of Crime and Punishment this week so as to try to get some classy material up on this blog.

Next up in the film department: Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

The Karate Kid (2010)

What sets this remake apart from The Karate Kid (1984) is the homage to past moviegoers who watched the original film.

I can recall watching the original Karate Kid numerous times in my house, my basement, my friends' basements, etc. Not to mention the reenactments, and definitely not to mention the Nintendo game of the same name.

Apart from Goonies, ET, and Jaws, I can't think of a more 80's film than The Karate Kid.

I went to see the remake with a negative attitude as I usually approach any remake. However, I must have been softened by the enthusiasm of children. I am a hard, hard man after years of post-secondary education, harder than I would like to admit. I approach every source of enjoyment (TV, movies, books, magazines, the county fair, etc.) with a calloused, angered sense of criticism toward it's underlying capitalist motives. However, a curious thing happened to me when I was watching this film: there were children in the audience who were loving it.

I admittedly have a heart of stone, but when my lovely niece is in the room, I abandon any sense of reason and enjoy trivial endeavors that I would never indulge in otherwise (such as building a Lego locomotive, or tossing a ball endlessly to a person with no hope of ever catching it). Such was the case with The Karate Kid.

There is no good reason to like this movie over the original, but the enthusiasm in the theater reminded me so much of my enthusiasm for the original that I couldn't help but be engrossed. Yes, there are absurdities like the jumbotron at the finale of the karate tournament, and the laughable delivery by Jaden Smith (in Ralph Macchio's character) which mimics his father much too closely; but I myself was moved by Jackie Chan's performance as Pat Morita's analogue. I'll go beyond other reviews I've read and say that this is a breakout performance for the previous clown of martial arts films. A tour de force by Chan.

His performance was helped not in a small part by young Mr. Smith's enthusiasm and (I suspect) stunt work and dedication to the physical aspects of the role, not to mention the fabulous settings in China (which I want to visit all the more) and the great work of the Chinese actors who played ancillary roles.

A criticism would be that Smith's young love interest's (Wenwen Han??....sorry, but IMDB does not have pics, and I saw the film yesterday, so I am guessing) subplot is never resolved. This is minor, but the engagement with Chinese culture could have surpassed just their kick ass martial arts skills.

If you have seen the original, I must recommend this film simply because the story is updated such that you will enjoy it again even though the outcome is obviously the same. As a rule, I roughly judge remakes, but this movie not only updated a classic story for a new generation but threw the savvy watcher enough bones to last through a theater of kids screaming over the sensational young actors in the film. I must say, I look forward to Jaden Smith's career as an action star, so long as he is able to shake the obvious paternal acting tics he has acquired from his father.

8/10: catch it in your chopsticks!!

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Much like Hook (1991), Alice in Wonderland sends an aged protagonist back to a fantasy land in an amnesiac state to resolve an unfinished conflict from his and her first visit, respectively. Hook by all critics' accounts was an abomination of a classic fairytale (22% on rottentomatoes.com), but damn it I liked it. There was tension between a middle class, overworked family man and his neglected children, who Robin Williams (the perennial man-child) must reconcile with through a reversion to childlike innocence that he lost in the damnable workaday world.

Alice in Wonderland offers us nothing close to this level of complexity, other than the tomboyish Alice living a century in the future in her ideals, which all live action Disney protagonists seem to do as a repentance for the widespread misogyny of the corporation's animated features. The line "I don't believe in corsets" reminds me all too much of Keira Knightly's line in Pirates of the Caribbean (2003):

BADDIE

That hurt

KEIRA KNIGHTLY

With a defiant look on her face

Try wearing a corset!

In short, there is no pretext for a revisit to Wonderland, much like there was no pretext for other Tim Burton remakes (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)). Mr. Burton has shown his penchant for remaking pop culture mythology (see his fabulous Batman and Batman Returns) but he perhaps relies too much on his writers to deliver him a script worth following, and there is no question about his over-reliance on CGI in this film. There was once a day, that is embedded in our collective nostalgia, where real actors were called upon to gesticulate, emote, and suffer ludicrous makeup and wardrobes in order to present an otherworldly image of fantastic brilliance which captivated our attention for two hours. In a sentence, the death of such an era in this film may be summed up as follows: "one of the best performances was Helena Bonham Carter's voice."

Motion capture when combined with CGI may prove a valuable tool for filmmakers (see my review of Avatar), but it is far from perfected. In general, acting performances were lukewarm with no real convincing or endearing charcters, John Depp's Mad Hatter least of all. No amount of sashaying or, regrettably, break dancing, can make the screenwriting any better than it is.

I won't go so far as to point out the historical inaccuracies in gender politics (you can ask me in person if you care), but it seems like no thought at all was put into the framing device for Alice's journey. At best, giving the writer (Linda Woolverton) the benefit of the doubt as she wrote for classics such as Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994), there may have been an editor who chopped this segment of the movie to hell; however, the writing is unforgiving and the lines are delivered in the modern style of "sponge in mouth" a.k.a. "mouthful of cookies" so that half the movie is unintelligible. A disappointment to be sure:

3/10: Redbox/Netflix only, and only during summer

Avatar (2009)

Well, I have no real excuse for not seeing Avatar when it first came out this past year, but I'll give you two. First, 3D films make me sick, literally; I'm unable to watch them, and someone told me not to see this film in 2D. Second, I was busy, or something, who can remember.

It was worth the wait for DVD and well worth watching in 2D despite what anyone says. The visuals are amazing, even if I don't have a spear jutting out into my face or some flying projectile whizzing past my head. The CGI in this film is quite possibly the best I have seen. I am a huge detractor of CGI in most cases, as it's sooo easily spotted and snaps the watcher out of the world that the film is trying to create. Models, set pieces, huge set paintings and the like, in my opinion, succeeded for decades because no discriminating eye could (or wanted to) pick them apart from the reality of the environment in the film. You just accepted what you saw as real. The CGI in this movie had the same effect on me. I stopped picking it apart and just enjoyed it.

Roger Ebert, in his review, likened the experience of watching Avatar to that of watching Star Wars (1977) for the first time. I agree. The storyline is complex enough (despite a few plot holes) to engage you and invest you in the characters in such a way that you actually care about the outcome and want to see a sequel. Due to the archetypal nature of the characters (see Joseph Campbell-->George Lucas) it's impossible not to draw connections between this movie as a myth and Star Wars: they share too much. There are even meta myth moments within the film where the hero learns the pathway to integrating himself (predominantly male) into a larger mythology. It was only fitting that I happened by chance to watch a Law and Order episode which addresses (poorly) Carl Jung right after watching this movie.

Drawbacks? Yes. For better or worse I kept thinking Aliens (1986) the whole time. Casting Sigourney Weaver in the movie probably didn't help. It's probably just me, but characters in similar roles in separate movies always elicit this problem for me, most often with Johnny Depp in Tim Burton films.

Also, the Native American references go beyond heavy handed to just embarrassing. I was telling my wife that I felt like this turned into a white man's wish fulfillment for how history could be rewritten with a powerful indigenous population that gives the colonizers their just deserts. Yet, as we both noticed, it is the "white man" who becomes the ultimate warrior and leader figure. I could write all day about the post-colonial nightmare this film induces, but I'll save it. We obviously have a long way to go to get past the shadow of The Lone Ranger's Tonto in our depictions of Native Americans. And please, let's be honest, that's exactly what the Na'vi are, despite being light years away; there is not a veil thin enough to fit the expression "thinly veiled."

Anyway, if you can overcome your outrage and watch the movie for what it is, you'd see that the film does address such issues as sustainability and humanitarianism through character interactions, but not in any complex ways. A lot of old Star Trek episodes put Native Americans on alien planets; one episode comes to mind where Kirk goes native like the protagonist in this movie and becomes the tribal leader preventing an asteroid from hitting the planet (or something to that effect). Avatar barely surpasses simplistic representations such as these, but the movie was not written for anthropologists and can only be judged for what it is, an excellent action film with incredible special effects that is definitely worth seeing:

9/10: no 3D glasses required

Pet Sematary II (1992)

Why do I torture myself? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that AMC Cinemas purchased my beloved Kerasotes theater chain, and promptly discontinued the Five Buck Club, my only source of entertainment outside of TiVo and reading. Given this disturbing development, I will probably be limited to reviewing movies that are available on my limited cable package and Redbox (apart from some Shakespeare adaptations to be reviewed later in July/August).

The first question must be with the tite: why "Sematary" with an "S"? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, that spelling is f^&*ed up (actual quote). I guess you have to read the book by Steven King to know the answer, and that ain't happenin'(maybe something to do with children creating the place, crafty children with the ability to fashion weird wooden representations of their pets that never decay over time, but not spell correctly).

Secondly, why a second movie? The first movie was all about a father's desperate attempts to cheat death through unnatural means, against all kinds of ominous warnings to the contrary (the most potent being the old guy who tried to revive his son, only to create a monster). Believing that was enough of a stretch. But of course, in PSII they have to outdo the previous movie with more bodies and more gruesome fatalities, so we get an even more thinly stretched storyline.

Edward Furlong, notable for Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) reprises his role as a renegade, sullen teenager from a broken home for PSII. Anthony Edwards plays his father, estranged husband to a recently killed actress (Darlanne Fluegel) who achieves temporary rest after being electrocuted on the set of her new horror film. The survivors move to Ludlow, Maine, a city full of people without New England accents. I'm no linguist, but why would the Sheriff who was born and raised in Ludlow, Maine have an accent similar to this famous cartoon rooster? Keynote speech at Linguistic Society of America 2011 here I come!

My amazing discovery aside, Furlong and the Sheriff's son bury a dog at the cursed Indian burial grounds after the overly sleazy Sheriff murders the poor animal for disrupting his sleazy, drunken tryst with the boy's mother; did I mention the Sheriff character is sleazy, and he's an evil stepfather to boot (weirdly enough, he's played by comic book animation voice actor Clancy Brown).

When doing some lite research (Wikipedia) I discovered that a graveyard is a confined area next to a building of worship, while a pastoral cemetery (or sematary, if you will) as we know it is usually outside of city limits thus preventing disease from decaying corpses. This Semetary is in a salt flat, which certainly makes it isolated, but seems slightly unusual for Maine (but I've never been there so what do I know).

*Spoiler Alert* Needless to say the dog comes back as a cheap Cujo knockoff, kills the hated Sheriff, who the boys inexplicably bring back using the Semetary. The Sheriff kills his family, digs up Edward's wife/Furlong's mother, somehow deposits her and the town bully (who the Sheriff also kills) into the Indian burial ground at Furlong's request (like a traditional Caribbean work-slave zombie I might add) and there is a bloody confrontation in Furlong/Edward's attic in which the bully and mom are electrocuted and burned to death, respectively.

Now when experimenting with an Indian burial ground corpse revival goes wrong the first time, why try it again? Sadly, this movie only gives us the thinnest attempt at an answer to the tune of "maybe it'll work better this time!" I guess having your former mom scream "Dead is better! Dead is better!" while being burned to death would sour your optimism, but you never know, Pet Sematary III might just be a pitch away...now that's scary stuff.

In any case:

1/10: Sometimes, the death of a storyline is better