Dir. Mikael Håfström, 112 min., in theaters now
After missing out on a week or more of watching new films, I'm back to review a film I had little interest in seeing, The Rite. One would have expected a film dealing with demonic possession and exorcism to have a myriad of potently disturbing visual imagery sufficient to fill at least two hours, but director Mikael Håfström comes up with practically nothing. One of his prior films, 1408 (2007) captured the phantasmagorical spectrum of eternal damnation in a hotel room that is a convergence of malevolent spirits--or as Samuel L. Jackson's character puts it, "an evil f&^%ing room."
The Rite, on the other hand, reads more like a watered down version of The Exorcist (1973), and I would recommend you watch that film instead. Anthony Hopkins gives the film's best performance, but that isn't totally surprising given that the other characters in the film are not given very much to do.
When priest in training Michael Kovac (Colin O'Donoghue) goes to Rome to take part in a course that teaches him how to conduct a proper exorcism (and by extension, extinguish his religious skepticism) he meets with Hopkins' exorcist priest. There's some religious themed debate between the principle characters on whether exorcism is nothing but an antiquated custom that harms mentally ill persons by preventing intervention by the psychiatric community; but like a bad Law and Order episode, the discussions are just factoid-esque talking points from a USA Today infographic that are wadded up and forced into actors mouths to be regurgitated at regular intervals. Chances are, you've already had a more meaningful discussion on the topic in your head while waiting in line for tickets.
In terms of bringing the scary, apart from the occasional jump scene (including the ubiquitous cat-jumping-out-and-snarling) there is not much to speak of, except for a red-eyed demon mule. Keith Phipps, in his review downplays the role of the demon mule too much. If you're watching this film for nothing else, the demon mule is pretty badass. However, you might be disappointed when the mule just stands there and does nothing, especially after the little boy who it has been terrorizing builds the demon mule up with a story about how it's kicking and biting him in his dreams.
The exorcism scenes themselves are spaced much too far apart, meaning we have plenty in the way of boring exposition which bloats the run time well past where it needed to be. Rome, with it's old buildings and narrow streets, could not have looked less scary. The cinematography in this film is a flop, with shots that should be unnerving or strange falling flat on their collective face. The most laughable sequence is in a futuristic situation room where a Vatican priest is operating a high-tech touch screen interface. It was like DiVinci Code meets Transformers.
In my entry on The Fighter I talked about how boxing films are inevitably compared to Rocky, and I would argue that no exorcism film can be discussed without thinking about The Exorcist. There is one cast off line by Hopkins' character which answers the obvious question "How can the characters exist in this world and believably pretend not to know about this film?", but this film doesn't really do anything new for the exorcism subgenre of horror.
By far the most shocking part of this film is that in the course of writing this review, I've discovered that this film has the lowest rating (17%) on RT of any film I have ever written about on this blog. Seeing as I have reviewed gems like The Condemned and Pet Sematary II, I am genuinely stunned. While The Rite is certainly not worth all of the critical badmouthing it received, it's not really worth sitting through either.
5/10
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Dir. Robert Aldrich, 134 min., black and white, on Netflix Instant Watch
I suppose when I think of the 1940's, 50's, and early 60's in cinema, I am usually weary of being bored to death. I know that is really stupid, but that's just the way I feel. Allow me to bore you by elaborating.
As a child, we did not really have television as you might know it today. We had a TV in our family room (a massive cathode ray tube Zenith that had channel buttons reminscient of the buttons you would find on an early touch-tone phone) and a TV in our finished basement (a VHF/UHF television with separate dials for the channels 1-13 and 14-74, or however high the UHF band went). Since we lived in between Chicago and Milwaukee we were able to pick up both city's broadcast channels, but most of the channels that came in clearly were from Chicago. Also, we had a large antenna mounted to our roof that rotated 360 degrees by manipulating a control dial in our living room (it actually looked something like this). We called it an "aerial."
To watch one station or another, the aerial had to be pointed in a very specific direction, which seemed to change based on channel, time of day, and phase of the moon. What all of this meant is that watching a different channel on each TV was relatively pointless since the aerial had to be adjusted for the channel to come in, and my parents were the masters of the aerial control box.
To wit, I mostly watched what my parents watched. Our local public television affiliate, WTTW, used to show a myriad of films from the golden era of Hollywood, but for whatever reason the films that they showed were mostly not what you would call "classics" (maybe they were really short on funds back in the day??).
When we got cable when I was 14 years old, my television life was revolutionized. I used (or perhaps squandered) my new found freedom to watch MTV and endless amounts of hockey games on ESPN2. There was a channel, however, which plagued my existence on family vacations where only one television was available. A channel whose mission must be to inhabit the cultural space that exists as an antithesis to everything hip and cool in the world of a teenager. That channel is Turner Classic Movies.
As a young lad, TCM was the embodiment of everything boring in cinema. When you consider the channel's mission, however, it doesn't and shouldn't bode well for capturing a young audience. They show only gilded era films, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Given the amount of garbage that exists in almost every era of film making (even those prepended with the word "gilded"), you are almost never likely to watch a film that you had the remotest interest in seeing. Also, there is a 99% chance you will start watching in the middle of the film: remember, there were no DVR's in 1994.
However, as I progressed out of my 14 year old "I think everything old is stupid" phase, I started to really appreciate some films from that era. I could name check a few black and white classics that opened my eyes to early era cinema, but I'll save it for later.
If you are weary of entering the black and white era, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? could be a possible gateway (term admittedly stolen from AV Club's gateways to geekery). The story begins with two children: Baby Jane, a child star (Bettie Davis) and Blanche (Joan Crawford), a successful adult actress. While Blanche has a stellar career as an adult actress, her sister Baby Jane is unable to parley her darling child act into a successful career. After many years of bitterness and jealousy, Baby Jane is responsible for an accident that costs Blanche the use of her legs. As adults, Blanche is a prisoner in her own house and subject to the bitterness and abuse of the emotionally regressive and alcoholic Jane. The film follows their relationship as the tensions between them escalate to violent and dangerous levels.
What really stood out to me in this film was the casting. According to my go to sources (IMDB and Wikipedia) Crawford and Davis didn't much care for each other, and both were actresses whose heyday was well behind them at the time of filming. In an real-life parallel that seems too close to be accidental, Baby Jane takes an ad out in the paper looking for a piano player to revive her act; Davis took an apparently famous work wanted ad out one year prior to the release of this film. The animosity between the two is palpable in nearly every sequence, and Davis' mocking impression of Crawford's line delivery is either scarily good, or, if a voice over was used, an impressive technical trick that elevates what would be an ordinary moment in the film into truly disturbing sequence. The emotionally disturbing appearance of Davis resonates and reminds me of a similar performance by Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream (2000). Especially disturbing is the soundtrack, which plays off variations of a hauntingly sweet song entitled "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" written for the film. The mix of delusion, frenzy, and hopelessness that Davis brings to her performance of that song as a broken down and embittered late-life failure provides a moment in the film that leaves the view with a singular sense of pity.
The film has quite a few Hitchcockian moments (Rear Window comes immediately to mind as the wheelchair bound Blanche desperately tries to attract the attention of a neighbor). There is also some heavy commentary on the nature of the film industry itself. This film might not pack the same amount of suspense into two hours as some of it's better contemporaries, but it is still relevant and gripping today. If you share my apprehensions about classic film this would be a good place to start working your way into the black and white era.
8/10
I suppose when I think of the 1940's, 50's, and early 60's in cinema, I am usually weary of being bored to death. I know that is really stupid, but that's just the way I feel. Allow me to bore you by elaborating.
As a child, we did not really have television as you might know it today. We had a TV in our family room (a massive cathode ray tube Zenith that had channel buttons reminscient of the buttons you would find on an early touch-tone phone) and a TV in our finished basement (a VHF/UHF television with separate dials for the channels 1-13 and 14-74, or however high the UHF band went). Since we lived in between Chicago and Milwaukee we were able to pick up both city's broadcast channels, but most of the channels that came in clearly were from Chicago. Also, we had a large antenna mounted to our roof that rotated 360 degrees by manipulating a control dial in our living room (it actually looked something like this). We called it an "aerial."
To watch one station or another, the aerial had to be pointed in a very specific direction, which seemed to change based on channel, time of day, and phase of the moon. What all of this meant is that watching a different channel on each TV was relatively pointless since the aerial had to be adjusted for the channel to come in, and my parents were the masters of the aerial control box.
To wit, I mostly watched what my parents watched. Our local public television affiliate, WTTW, used to show a myriad of films from the golden era of Hollywood, but for whatever reason the films that they showed were mostly not what you would call "classics" (maybe they were really short on funds back in the day??).
When we got cable when I was 14 years old, my television life was revolutionized. I used (or perhaps squandered) my new found freedom to watch MTV and endless amounts of hockey games on ESPN2. There was a channel, however, which plagued my existence on family vacations where only one television was available. A channel whose mission must be to inhabit the cultural space that exists as an antithesis to everything hip and cool in the world of a teenager. That channel is Turner Classic Movies.
As a young lad, TCM was the embodiment of everything boring in cinema. When you consider the channel's mission, however, it doesn't and shouldn't bode well for capturing a young audience. They show only gilded era films, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Given the amount of garbage that exists in almost every era of film making (even those prepended with the word "gilded"), you are almost never likely to watch a film that you had the remotest interest in seeing. Also, there is a 99% chance you will start watching in the middle of the film: remember, there were no DVR's in 1994.
However, as I progressed out of my 14 year old "I think everything old is stupid" phase, I started to really appreciate some films from that era. I could name check a few black and white classics that opened my eyes to early era cinema, but I'll save it for later.
If you are weary of entering the black and white era, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? could be a possible gateway (term admittedly stolen from AV Club's gateways to geekery). The story begins with two children: Baby Jane, a child star (Bettie Davis) and Blanche (Joan Crawford), a successful adult actress. While Blanche has a stellar career as an adult actress, her sister Baby Jane is unable to parley her darling child act into a successful career. After many years of bitterness and jealousy, Baby Jane is responsible for an accident that costs Blanche the use of her legs. As adults, Blanche is a prisoner in her own house and subject to the bitterness and abuse of the emotionally regressive and alcoholic Jane. The film follows their relationship as the tensions between them escalate to violent and dangerous levels.
What really stood out to me in this film was the casting. According to my go to sources (IMDB and Wikipedia) Crawford and Davis didn't much care for each other, and both were actresses whose heyday was well behind them at the time of filming. In an real-life parallel that seems too close to be accidental, Baby Jane takes an ad out in the paper looking for a piano player to revive her act; Davis took an apparently famous work wanted ad out one year prior to the release of this film. The animosity between the two is palpable in nearly every sequence, and Davis' mocking impression of Crawford's line delivery is either scarily good, or, if a voice over was used, an impressive technical trick that elevates what would be an ordinary moment in the film into truly disturbing sequence. The emotionally disturbing appearance of Davis resonates and reminds me of a similar performance by Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream (2000). Especially disturbing is the soundtrack, which plays off variations of a hauntingly sweet song entitled "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" written for the film. The mix of delusion, frenzy, and hopelessness that Davis brings to her performance of that song as a broken down and embittered late-life failure provides a moment in the film that leaves the view with a singular sense of pity.
The film has quite a few Hitchcockian moments (Rear Window comes immediately to mind as the wheelchair bound Blanche desperately tries to attract the attention of a neighbor). There is also some heavy commentary on the nature of the film industry itself. This film might not pack the same amount of suspense into two hours as some of it's better contemporaries, but it is still relevant and gripping today. If you share my apprehensions about classic film this would be a good place to start working your way into the black and white era.
8/10
Monday, January 3, 2011
To Hell with the critics: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Dir. Jim Gillespie, 100 min., on Netflix Instant Watch
Right off the bat, I already F-ed up by not watching Scream. Strike one. I planned on watching it on New Year's Eve, but I fell asleep after about thirty minutes since we started it at 1 a.m. or so. But it got me thinking about two things in particular:
1. I watched a lot of movies in the 90's that I only barely remember;
2. I tend to re-watch so called "bad" films, and I usually find them not nearly as bad as I remember.
In any case, I'm starting a feature called To Hell with the critics, where I'll do my best to convince you that the films that critics (and possibly you) hated are much better than you remember. To qualify, a film must score lower than 50 on either RT or Metacritic (or both).
I picked a dandy to start with, 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddy Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe. Watching this film, it's hard to believe how much it blatantly rips off of Scream (1996) and how much Urban Legend (1998) rips off from I Know What You Did Last Summer. They are all spinning off the same skein, drinking from the same well, etc.
The plot itself, if you've never seen the film, involves the accidental killing of a man by the four principle actors, and the events leading up to the anniversary of that killing. I remembered the plot being extremely simplistic, but there were actually quite a few nuances that I had missed when I saw the film in theaters 13 years ago.
For all of the exposition we get in most films nowadays, this film is surprisingly light on explanatory material. In fact, if the film has a real flaw (apart from the dreadful line delivery by the principles), it's that the exposition is so poorly handled that when the big reveal comes at the end, it's almost impossible to figure out what is going on unless you were paying very careful attention to the few bits of material that develop the backstory.
In terms of action/suspense sequences, it's no Hitchcock, but the film delivers repeatedly. Take this sequence, which I would rank at least in the top 20 of horror film chase sequences. Underscored by Hoverphonic's eerie "2 Wicky" muted in the background, this scene was one of the few that I remembered from my original viewing.
The sense of foreboding that accompanies the eventual reckoning for the characters is enhanced by the ominous score and lingering, contemplative shots. That being said, the score is somewhat obtuse, punctuated with heart-clenching jump points; likewise, the camera doesn't linger nearly long enough. A film that takes a similar fatalistic approach is Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002) which represents a much better vision for horror films that plays to the both the campiness and eerieness that horror film watchers expect without making it so obvious. In a particularly forced move, the hook-handeded lunatic urban legend is shoehorned in at a couple points.
Although a lot of the conventions seem dated and trite, the film was decidedly made for the masses and it was a wild success (at a budget of $17m, it grossed over $70m). A large part of that has to be attributed to the films four principle actors, who inhabit almost their own world. Part of that must have been due to the expense of casting: JLH was a successful TV star from Party of Five (remember when that was big?) and SMG was Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the two male leads were relative unknowns at the time (this film made them 90's icons), though RF did have several bit parts going in.
The consensus amongst critics seemed to focus on the numerous slasher cliches, and coming off of the heals of Scream just one year prior, it would be easy to see why critics would trash this film (a lousy 39% on RT, a slightly better 52 on Metacritic). I would argue that the film does not take itself nearly so seriously as to deserve the vitriolic rants that it garnered at the time of it's release. The killer is a crazy fisherman with an ice hook dressed in a rain slicker. C'mon, are you seriously going to sit at your desk and blast the film for failing to cross a few T's?
This film gives the female (and to a lesser extent, male) leads a space to dress scantily and brood. The fact that there are numerous creepy details added in and a fabulous cameo by Anne Heche as a slightly imbalanced rustic are what make the film re-watchable; the performances from the fab four of the 90's are relatively forgettable.
Clearly the director had an eye for details, regardless of the hack horror setups.
In part, films with an ominous deadline just seem to play better in that regard, in that the pacing is (or should be) relatively straightforward, leaving more time to work in details (e.g. the handwritten notes, the tired looking floats and parade from the beginning of the film, etc.). This film gives you a sense that things are building to a climax, while retaining the sense of danger that the characters (are supposed to) feel.
What happened to the actors (and director for that matter)? Not much. Much like the brat pack, they have seen little in the way of post-twenties success. From the action Gillespie has seen in the subsequent years, you would think that this film was a commercial disaster; he's hardly directed anything of note. In terms of cultural ephemera, the film mostly misses the mark (other than the soundtrack which is somewhat dated), which is both disappointing and strangely affirming of my defense. I would argue that the film has aged well, in fact, divorced from the hype of it's release. You'll have to grit your teeth to get through some of the dialogue, but if you can let that go, the film is well worth the short running time.
7/10
Right off the bat, I already F-ed up by not watching Scream. Strike one. I planned on watching it on New Year's Eve, but I fell asleep after about thirty minutes since we started it at 1 a.m. or so. But it got me thinking about two things in particular:
1. I watched a lot of movies in the 90's that I only barely remember;
2. I tend to re-watch so called "bad" films, and I usually find them not nearly as bad as I remember.
In any case, I'm starting a feature called To Hell with the critics, where I'll do my best to convince you that the films that critics (and possibly you) hated are much better than you remember. To qualify, a film must score lower than 50 on either RT or Metacritic (or both).
I picked a dandy to start with, 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddy Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe. Watching this film, it's hard to believe how much it blatantly rips off of Scream (1996) and how much Urban Legend (1998) rips off from I Know What You Did Last Summer. They are all spinning off the same skein, drinking from the same well, etc.
The plot itself, if you've never seen the film, involves the accidental killing of a man by the four principle actors, and the events leading up to the anniversary of that killing. I remembered the plot being extremely simplistic, but there were actually quite a few nuances that I had missed when I saw the film in theaters 13 years ago.
For all of the exposition we get in most films nowadays, this film is surprisingly light on explanatory material. In fact, if the film has a real flaw (apart from the dreadful line delivery by the principles), it's that the exposition is so poorly handled that when the big reveal comes at the end, it's almost impossible to figure out what is going on unless you were paying very careful attention to the few bits of material that develop the backstory.
In terms of action/suspense sequences, it's no Hitchcock, but the film delivers repeatedly. Take this sequence, which I would rank at least in the top 20 of horror film chase sequences. Underscored by Hoverphonic's eerie "2 Wicky" muted in the background, this scene was one of the few that I remembered from my original viewing.
The sense of foreboding that accompanies the eventual reckoning for the characters is enhanced by the ominous score and lingering, contemplative shots. That being said, the score is somewhat obtuse, punctuated with heart-clenching jump points; likewise, the camera doesn't linger nearly long enough. A film that takes a similar fatalistic approach is Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002) which represents a much better vision for horror films that plays to the both the campiness and eerieness that horror film watchers expect without making it so obvious. In a particularly forced move, the hook-handeded lunatic urban legend is shoehorned in at a couple points.
Although a lot of the conventions seem dated and trite, the film was decidedly made for the masses and it was a wild success (at a budget of $17m, it grossed over $70m). A large part of that has to be attributed to the films four principle actors, who inhabit almost their own world. Part of that must have been due to the expense of casting: JLH was a successful TV star from Party of Five (remember when that was big?) and SMG was Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the two male leads were relative unknowns at the time (this film made them 90's icons), though RF did have several bit parts going in.
The consensus amongst critics seemed to focus on the numerous slasher cliches, and coming off of the heals of Scream just one year prior, it would be easy to see why critics would trash this film (a lousy 39% on RT, a slightly better 52 on Metacritic). I would argue that the film does not take itself nearly so seriously as to deserve the vitriolic rants that it garnered at the time of it's release. The killer is a crazy fisherman with an ice hook dressed in a rain slicker. C'mon, are you seriously going to sit at your desk and blast the film for failing to cross a few T's?
This film gives the female (and to a lesser extent, male) leads a space to dress scantily and brood. The fact that there are numerous creepy details added in and a fabulous cameo by Anne Heche as a slightly imbalanced rustic are what make the film re-watchable; the performances from the fab four of the 90's are relatively forgettable.
Clearly the director had an eye for details, regardless of the hack horror setups.
In part, films with an ominous deadline just seem to play better in that regard, in that the pacing is (or should be) relatively straightforward, leaving more time to work in details (e.g. the handwritten notes, the tired looking floats and parade from the beginning of the film, etc.). This film gives you a sense that things are building to a climax, while retaining the sense of danger that the characters (are supposed to) feel.
What happened to the actors (and director for that matter)? Not much. Much like the brat pack, they have seen little in the way of post-twenties success. From the action Gillespie has seen in the subsequent years, you would think that this film was a commercial disaster; he's hardly directed anything of note. In terms of cultural ephemera, the film mostly misses the mark (other than the soundtrack which is somewhat dated), which is both disappointing and strangely affirming of my defense. I would argue that the film has aged well, in fact, divorced from the hype of it's release. You'll have to grit your teeth to get through some of the dialogue, but if you can let that go, the film is well worth the short running time.
7/10
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