A Review of This is the End

“Is this movie more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?” The Gene Siskel Test.

It seems someone decided to skip the middle man and just make the documentary in the case of This is the End. And it works wonderfully. The actors involved have always been so naturally funny. Putting them in a situation where their personalities are able to bounce off each other. It’s one of the more natural recent comedies I’ve seen.

There is a lot of subtext as well with the fact that it takes place during the biblical apocalypse. I know those crazed Left Behind fans will probably hate that aspect of the movie. And it is not philosophically satisfying – if the Book of Revelation is true, I highly doubt salvation will come through transient gestures. But that’s not the point of This is the End. The ultimate point of the film is to show some of the funniest people working right now just hanging out and trying to have a good time while their world collapses.

Actually, the apocalypse aspect did not even have to be included. The first act is simply about Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel going to a party at James Franco’s house. Baruchel does not like Rogen’s Hollywood crowd, while Rogen is desperate to introduce Baruchel to his friends. Each of the guests at the party (which includes Michael Cera, Rhianna, Jonah Hill, Emma Watson, Aziz Ansari, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and probably a few other people I have forgotten) are exaggerated caricatures that exist to intimidate Jay. Cera in particular steals the scenes at the party, blowing cocaine into others faces and otherwise being a womanizing party animal that the others view as an embarrassment. These are great scenes, ones that show these comedians as people who are tired of doing what they do and use their stereotypical slacker personalities to at least give some meaning in their lives. Even with all their money and fame, they are unhappy. Some will find such complaints annoying, but Jay and Seth in particularly make the situation seem universal. Keep up this momentum, rename it A Night at James Franco’s House, and it still would have been a good movie.

But the apocalypse happens, and the film takes a more dramatic turn (although there is still plenty of room for jokes about genitals and other people pointing out that Danny McBride is a jerk). The five or six survivors, after wasting time filming home video sequels to their own movies and doing drugs, realize that this is the biblical apocalypse and they have not been good enough to ascend into heaven. It creates quite an existential crisis for them – doesn’t the fact that they have given the world laughter mean that they are good people? Slowly they reveal to themselves just how selfish and terrible they really are, even in the most subtle ways. My favorite gag in the entire film has Jonah Hill praying that God kill Jay. “Hi, it’s me, Jonah Hill,” he starts his prayer, “from Moneyball.” The eventual response to this prayer cannot be repeated here, but it’s those moments that keeps a potentially boring premise alive for its run time.

It also allows us to ponder the meaning behind what these actors face internally. The disaster could have been any number of things – an earthquake, global warming, alien invasion, anything that would have kept them stuck in their mansion. But the morality elements allow the people to look inward. I know it’s all sarcasm, but they’re all committed to it. And not all of them receive happy endings. I know that Bozo the Manic Depressive has become a cliche, but the cast makes it seem fresh just by being themselves and doing what we can expect them to do.

There is a certain amount of melancholy to the idea behind the film. The Slack Pack (as I like to call them) have been an integral part of comedy for almost ten years. Unfortunately, that means that some audiences will look at them as old hat and their film personalities as false and obnoxious. They may not be able to keep doing what they’re doing. Just look at Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, who waited eight years to make a follow up to Wedding Crashers and watched the results bomb with audiences. This is the End gloriously thumbs its nose as such an option. Even if audiences grow tired of their antics and their careers end (certainly an event seen as apocalyptic in Hollywood) they’ll still be there to help each other. And that’s all that matters.

The Greatest Soundtracks that No One Ever Mentions

There are some soundtracks that eclipse their original film. Everyone knows more about The Harder They Come from Jimmy Cliff’s rousing anthem than from the Perry Henzell film. Easy Rider’s soundtrack was just as iconic to the counterculture as the movie. But there are some film’s that had equally great soundtracks that have been basically forgotten. Even if they are remembered, they do not carry the amount of weight that they should. I make no statement that these are the greatest soundtracks of all time. Hopefully this look will suffice at some of the great soundtracks that no one seems to ever talk about.

The Crow -  As a film, The Crow is so obsessed with its visual detail that it forgot to include any interesting characters.  What was moody in the comics comes across as bombastic in the film. Eric does nothing but talk, and none of his internal struggle is reflected. Luckily the soundtrack makes up for it, featuring covers of the gothic punk songs that inspired James O’Barr to write his book, and bands like The Cure and Rage Against the Machine before they became walking punchlines of themselves. Sadly, as alt rock died, everyone seems to have forgotten the soundtrack. Shame – it’s better than the film and you can’t get through one Halloween without seeing some overweight teen trying to cram himself into leather pants while liberally applying pancake makeup.

Drive-This is the most recent film on the list, so the soundtrack may still achieve legendary status. Indeed, there was already a “Drive Tour,” showcasing the songs and the style. Still, had this been released forty years ago, it would have caused a sensation and catapulted the bands to instant stardom. Ah well. The songs still effectively tell the story of a man who is so anonymous he does not even have a name and his quest for identity to become a hero. The songs are undoubtedly mechanical in nature, but that’s the point. Ryan Gosling’s driver could barely crack a smile, much less develop a human emotion. The songs were perfect in accomplishing their goals – too bad the soundtrack barely qualifies as an EP. Had it been expanded, who knows how many people would still be pointing to it as a musical landmark?

Harold and Maude-Everyone seems to always talk about the music to The Graduate. No one mentions Harold and Maude, event though both the music and the film are better. The movie is a terrific exploration of alienated youth and pointless rebellion, while the songs come from a Cat Stevens that didn’t yet think Salman Rushdie deserved to die for expressing himself. The songs are melancholy, but they also present an upbeat world view. “If you want to sing out, sing out” Stevens croons as Harold realizes what Maude taught him. People may not understand you, but so long as you express yourself, you’re living life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains-Ever wonder what helped women finally found a voice in rock and roll? Well, listen to an Aretha Franklin song. But The Fabulous Stains managed to truly be rebellious by combining punk with women – something that the body hating nihilists could not comprehend. The only reason that no one heard the music is because no one could see the film for many years. It was not given a wide release until 2008. But it was made as a parody of punk at the height of the movement. As such, it is more revealing about the nature of the industry than the nostalgic retrospectives made today. Punk was just as shaped as Justin Bieber, with people like Johnny Rotten being asked to join bands by record executives because they looked the part. Stains has all of that. The music starts off awful, but by the end, the band has broken free of their restraints and finally manages to get their point across. The soundtrack works much the same way. Some of it is pedestrian, some of it is brilliant, and all of it is urgent and honest. Punk music to the core.

The Last Days of Disco-It’s a lot easier to talk about Saturday Night Fever and its soundtrack when talking about disco.  So, naturally, that’s what everyone does. But The Last Days of Disco is a better film and contains a much better soundtrack. The film is not really a nostalgic look at disco, nor does it attempt to make it glamorous. The soundtrack is much the same way – it goes from excitement (Diana Ross) to gloom (Harold Melvin, although even that still sounds like something you want to dance to)  to nostalgic (Love Train) capturing both the good times and the bad. The film operates much the same way, unlike Saturday Night Fever, which was just meant as a silly showcase. If you want to know why people ever made this the most popular form of music in the world for a time, check out this. Together, we can overcome the Bee Gees.

Moulin Rouge!-The soundtrack is vastly superior to the film. For those who have done what they can to block it out, Moulin Rouge! tried to create a link between turn of the century bohemia and 1970s progressive rock. The film was a mess of visual incoherence. But the soundtrack was able to perfectly capture its themes, utilizing everyone from David Bowie to Elton John to the classic “Come What May.” The soundtrack is genuinely one of the best ever, showcasing some fantastic singing from the leads (that was mostly buried in the film) and a great song selection that is able to capture the lost love and dedication of desires through art themes of the film.  It was popular for a while. but when was the last time you heard someone spin Fatboy Slim’s “Because We Can” at a party?

Natural Born Killers/Lost Highway-Before Trent Reznor won an Oscar for The Social Network, he produced these two soundtracks. Of the two, I prefer Lost Highway, but they are almost inseparable as works of art. Reznor’s soundtracks really helped the film, creating a sense of confusion and disorientation. In Lost Highway, Reznor explores how the then current pop stars managed to fit right in with David Lynch’s mad vision (and how Lou Reed and Marilyn Manson were equally capable of creating covers of fifties rock). In Natural Born Killers, Reznor mostly digs into his own back catalog and ropes such Americana figures as Patsy Cline and Bob Dylan into the proceedings to present the fable of a country gone wrong. Both would be as legendary as his Social Network score (and both are as effective) had he written all of it. I guess I should be thankful that there are still people who have heard “The Perfect Drug.” 

One From the Heart-The movie killed Francis Ford Coppola’s career, and forced him to direct strictly commercial fare for the next fifteen years. None of that was fair – One From the Heart is not even close to a bad film. Coppola just aimed too high and missed. The fact the film was a catastrophic bomb also means that the film’s haunting soundtrack has been forgotten. But it contains some of Tom Wait’s best lyrics (particularly “Little Boy Blue”), and Crystal Gayle voice is enough to bring the dead to tears. It’s the perfect soundtrack to a failing romance, and deserves to be heard..

Streets of Fire-This is the film I have viewed most recently on this list. As such, the soundtrack is freshest in my mind. My inclusion of the material on this list may simply be a result of my enthusiasm for a new film experience. But still, this soundtrack was incredible. The film is advertised as a “rock and roll fable” and boy does the soundtrack reflect that. Much like the film’s obsession with fifties slang and style, the soundtrack goes through the entire history of the sound from rockabilly to jazz to the popular power metal that defined the eighties. The film, an action noir that takes place in a universe where cultural development pretty much stopped after James Dean died, is full of visual motifs of forgotten blockbusters. The soundtrack helps this more than any visual element, from The Blasters Bill Hayley strumming to Dan Hartman’s imitation of early Motown. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who’s listened to it since 1985, but that is a reflection of the fickle natural of pop than the songs, which like the film, thumbs its nose at the present and shows the squares how it’s done. 

A Review of Star Trek Into Darkness

I am going to get this out of the way right now – I don’t particularly care about Star Trek. It’s not that I hate it. I acknowledge the impact that it’s had on science fiction and I did like First Contact. It’s just never been something that I got worked up about. I don’t understand what quality it has that continues to attract people. Off the top of my head, I can think of several space operas (Farscape, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica) that utterly dominate Star Trek in terms of quality. I recognize the fact that they would not exist without Trek, but at the same time, the Mona Lisa would not exist without the color brown. Does this mean I have to give more praise to that color than the later painting?

I surrendered myself because the things I’m going to complain about are probably the same things that fans like about the franchise. I suppose fans are going to be very pleased with this film. The rest of us, though, will be less than impressed.

I think my biggest problem with the original Trek characters is that they’re too sterile. They had no motivation and no real personality – they’ve practically been carried over from random TV Tropes pages. This is no more evident than in Kirk. I don’t blame Chris Pine – he looks like he’s having fun. But I don’t get how his Kirk managed to build the confidence that he has, or why he “won’t follow the rules,” except for the fact that he says so. And why does Starfleet put up with this? Why do they keep putting him in a position where he’ll easily regain his command of the Enterprise, even after he constantly breaks the rules? I have no idea. Well, OK, I actually do – it’s because this is a Star Trek movie and Kirk needs to be the captain. His relationship with the crew is woefully inadequate. Yes, he states that he loves them several times. How? What does he do to show this affection before the big statement where he asks for their lives to be spared? Nothing. The only character I liked in the film is Simon Pegg’s Scottie, because he was allowed to have a life outside of the ship. Benedict Cumberbatch also gives a fine performance, but he’s given so little material to work with that it doesn’t really amount to much. He’s the villain because there must be one.

Later space operas gave their characters motivation and personality. We know why their in space, why know how they grew into the characters they are. Firefly had a bunch of war veteran smugglers looking to better themselves. They had relationships. They had dinner together. They fought in a natural way. Some of them were only interested in their own desires and were willing to sacrifice their friends to achieve their goals. Farscape had a bunch of fugitives that grew to love each other. Some fell in love. Again, sometimes they fought. There was palpable tension in their encounters, more than just the light bickering in Trek. Some of them even seemed to hate each other, but they always came through for each other in the end. Star Trek has…

I am not sure how to finish that thought. And that’s the biggest problem with the Trek franchise. Into Darkness does nothing to address this, giving the same characters we’ve always had and not challenging them in any way.

The other problem is that the film has no major plot points or ways to deviate from the Star Trek formula. There are several gigantic set ups that have no pay off. Even (minor spoilers) death is treated as a minor inconvenience and an excuse to work in a classic catch phrase. Character actions also make no sense. Why would a villain stop in the middle of a chase to pick up a long coat, except so the filmmakers can work in a scene where the villain is wearing a long coat? For that matter, why does someone turn evil immediately after another character says he needs to turn evil? Why incorporate a death scene with no pay off other than to reference an earlier film? None of it makes any sense to me.

I’ll admit that the film follows the Trek formula very well. The music and effects are properly good, and the action is also well paced. So, once again I’m at my usual crossroads – do I praise a film for following a formula well, or condemn it for following a formula in the first place? The answer is easy in this case. Star Trek has become tired and dated, which is why they rebooted it in the first place. But rather than exploring new ideas, they keep calling back to the old franchise and keeping their characters as stagnant as they always were.

I stated at the beginning that I was not qualified to discuss the film from any sort of fan perspective. Maybe there are others who are able to explain why this film is a work of genius that captures what Star Trek is about. But for me, the film was another formulaic retread in which the plot was designed seemingly to throw in as many references to past films as possible. This is not a sign of cleverness – it is a sign of laziness. I’m still waiting for a Trek film that will show me just why this material is special and has become the biggest cult property on the planet. I guess I am going to have to keep waiting.

Hate mail to the usual address, please.

A Review of The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann and I have not been getting along. I can stand here and listen to someone talk about how gifted he is as a filmmaker and how meticulous he is in crafting his work. I would probably agree with every word. But I find his most popular films (Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!) to be unpleasant sensory overloads. They certain affect me – in that they make me seek out the nearest bottle of Advil to combat the sensory overload.

Besides, Luhrmann is also rather short on ideas. You mean popular culture tends to be cyclical, with the same ideas being repackaged for new audiences? Don’t stop the presses. Or at least, most people would not want to make a big deal. But using the printing press metaphor, Luhrmann has taken this idea, smashed the printing press to pieces, went forward with his idea, printed it, and is now sitting there demanding a Pulitzer Prize for his cleverness.

The soundtracks to his films are consistently among the best, including the one to The Great Gatsby. Go take a listen – Emili Sande’s  cover of “Crazy in Love” is amazing. However, when the best thing about your films is the element that does not require images, you are in trouble.

That was the mindset I went into The Great Gatsby possessing. The great Jazz Age tragedy, in which a simple man turned himself into a garish monster in order to win the love of an utterly vapid (but rich) simpleton requires a certain amount of subtlety and care to translate.

Well, Luhrmann tried his best. This is the finest film he’s made – but that really isn’t saying much. I wish I could say that his translation of Gatsby is the one that finally managed to do justice to Fitzgerald’s legendary work. It’s wonderful to look at, the casting is immaculate, the performances fantastic. But it utterly failed to translate the point of the novel to the screen. In fact, it seemed downright ignorant of the fact that Gatsby is a fool, not a hero. It takes a complex satire and turns it into the typical “star crossed lovers” story that Luhrmann loves so much.

I did like the fact that Luhrmann finally realized that films are supposed to look like films and not extended music videos. The Great Gatsby is an beautiful film, looking at the Jazz Age through the eyes of an Art Deco poster. Everything is bright and glistening, with the people constantly drinking and dancing surrounded by confetti and fireworks. Everything also looks false and silly, as though it could crumble at any moment – which, of course, it did.  There is a brilliance in the design that captures what was wrong with the Jazz Age. And at least the design ensures the film is never boring.  The party scenes are delightfully hedonistic – which was the whole point of them. Of course we know that the attendees would eventually wake up the, hungover and in the Great Depression. It helps exemplify the tragedy of the novel – one of the few elements of the film that does so (more on that in a moment).

The performances are spot on. Tobey Maguire is perfect as the wimpy Nick Carraway, who is barely noticeable to the people he encounters. Practically every character overlooks him. Even Jordan Baker towers over Nick. Even Maguire realizes the tragedy that Nick was Gatsby’s only friend. And DiCaprio is the perfect Gatsby. He manages to convey that enigmatic spirit that is hiring a nervous wreck. At times, DiCaprio plays Gatsby as though he is intimidated by his wealth. Gatsby is a man who is sequestered in a fantasy realm, and DiCaprio reflects this by imitating every other rich man around him. When the mask drops, the man who remains is damaged beyond repair. It is exactly the performance necessary to reflect one of literature’s most famous characters.

But it is another character that destroys the work. The film’s characterization of Daisy is utterly wrong. Fitzgerald characterized Daisy as an empty vessel, a woman who barely had a functioning brain cell. When Nick first meets her in the novel, he describes how the people in Chicago are mourning her absence by painting one of the tires on their cars black. And she seems to believe it. Gatsby’s desire for her was meant to make us laugh that he would sell his soul for someone who was not worth the effort. The dream girl Gatsby sought was based on a figment of his imagination. Nick’s statement that one “cannot repeat the past” was a warning. Gatsby’s dismissal (“Of course you can”) was to show how far gone he was in his fantasy realm.

None of that is in the film. Luhrmann sees Daisy as an intelligent woman who says all of Daisy’s classic lines with knowing sarcasm. She is trapped in a marriage to a racist brute (which, to be fair, is what Tom was in the novel, but Daisy did not seem to mind that much) who equally longs for Gatsby and views him as the love of her life. Even her daughter (the symbol of how doomed Gatsby’s quest to turn back the clock is) is barely mentioned at all – all to give us a more sympathetic view of the two. Dasiy is presented as the ultimate dream woman who deserves Gatsby, a man that truly loves her.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is taking one of the great American novels and turning it into something slightly above a soap opera. Maybe that’s why I am responding so negatively to it – The Great Gatsby has, in the ninety years since its publication, become something more than a novel. It has become the history of the Jazz Age and an official chronicle of all foolish dreamers.  It’s become a classic plot in its own right. Why make it a cliched romance?

This isn’t Carey Mulligan’s fault. Sure, she is not portraying Daisy at all, but it is clear that she was not told to. But it is still inappropriate. The character is as vapid and empty as any stereotypical dumb blonde. Mulligan, I suppose, was too good for that.

 

I guess that people who are not familiar with Fitzgerald’s novel will probably enjoy this more. But then, who at this point has not read it it? It’s been required reading at any decent high school for decades. Ignoring the film’s biggest tragic element is a glaring error that almost everyone will notice it. The Great Gatsby has not survived the ages for being a doomed love story. The film is wonderful to look at and features great performances, but the film doesn’t even hit the same target as Fitzgerald’s book. What’s the point of adapting The Great Gatsby if you’re going to completely ignore the point?

A Review of Iron Man 3

I still believe that the first Iron Man is the best of the cinematic Marvel films. I haven’t seen them all, granted, but I don’t think there’s too many people who would step up and claim that Captain America revolutionized the medium.

With that, I looked forward to the sequels whenever they were announced. Iron Man 2 was, of course, so ground breaking that I can barely remember what happened in it, and have no desire to ever watch it again. Sure, it was entertaining, mostly due to Robert Downey Jr’s performance, some nice action sequences, and…some more nice action sequences. But I could not help but feeling disappointed that the film did not live up to its predecessor.

Iron Man 3 is more of the same. It was entertaining and actually did have more ideas than 2. It’s a good way to spend a Friday night. But it’s not a film that will stay long with me.  And the ending is one of the most rushed I’ve seen in some time…I can’t imagine anyone being too satisfied with that conclusion.

Now, Iron Man 3 is not bad, and it is entertaining (but avoid the 3D if you can – it looks terrible and made me miss a lot of the details in  the frame). Downey Jr. seems to have found the role he was born to play. Stark is as clever and witty as ever, helped by Shane Black’s script. “That’s the title of my autobiography,” Stark replies when a character asks him if all he has is a girl and a cheesy one liner. Stark is, despite his wise cracking exterior, the most conflicted hero of the Marvel group (and the film also frequently mentions the events of The Avengers as having severely traumatized Stark). He’s a great character who presents endless possibilities – it’s a joy whenever he’s on a screen anywhere.

Why he devolves into a standard action hero rather than grow in his methods is confusing. I do like the fact that, for most of the film, Stark is without his suit and, at one point, has to use items he bought at the hardware store in order to storm a villain’s compound.  It really gave the opportunity for growth in the character. But by the third act, the film is just eager to get to its big action sequence. Now, that sequence is exciting, but it also feels like it’s being done at the expense of the character. And I don’t want to get into how the suits are magically able to stop Stark from being injured. Any suit that sustains the beating shown in Iron Man 3 would kill anyone inside of it. But all big budget films seem to have that problem.

There was one thing about the film I thought was exceptionally clever – the way Mandarin is handled. Ben Kinglsey was a prominent part of the ad campaign, and the Mandarin is apparently Iron Man’s arch villain in the comics. Yet he and his character only play a small part in the overall plot – Guy Pearce’s Dr. Killian is an equally important antagonist. The revelations about Kingsley’s character leads to one scene that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense early in the film, but I think that it was a great way to handle the themes of putting a “face” on evil. Pearce is a much greater foil for Stark, and Kinglsey’s presence demonstrates the continuing bias about terrorists in the U.S. It’s also one of the few times the material tries to evolve beyond the standard action film template the film seems stuck in.

Now, I am going to get to my biggest complaint – the ending. I am going to try to avoid giving specific  details, but let me just say that suddenly stopping a film is never great storytelling. It’s as though Shane Black (or someone at Marvel) decided that, since this is the third film of the trilogy, they’d better try to wrap everything up. But there is no build up to the conclusion and it does not appear as if what happens is a natural decision Stark made. I don’t know who thought this would be a satisfactory conclusion, but they are wrong. Surely such a strong deserves a better conclusion than a shrug of the creator’s shoulders.

I don’t regret seeing Iron Man 3 but at the same time I felt let down. The franchise has taken a great main character, gave him a great first chapter, and then just took him through the motions for the rest of his films. A superhero movie cannot only be about the costume – we have to know the man inside. Iron Man knew that. Iron Man 3 gives up on that mentality about halfway through.

A Review of The Lords of Salem

I still enjoy Rob Zombie’s first two films, including House of 1000 Corpses, something that never seems to be taken seriously by most people. The Halloween remake left me cold (I didn’t see the sequel) and The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is the sort of film that makes me think God abandoned us a long time ago.   In other words, Zombie has been an inconsistent filmmaker but one who is also very smart.

Lords of Salem is a film that combines his good and most of his bad techniques (thankfully the third grade level humor that was Superbeasto’s purpose is gone). It’s genuinely creepy and is expertly made. But it also has very few moments that link all the creepy scenes together. There’s practically no character arc, no story, and no ending. It all makes for a difficult film to analyze. I’ll get this out of the way – if you’re interested in seeing it, then you should. But as to whether this is a good or bad film…well, read on .

There are some great, haunting moments in the film. It plays more like some midnight art film at the Waverly than something that will get a theatrical release these days. There are scenes of priests forcing characters to perform oral sex while spewing black bile from their mouths, scenes of naked witches and a grotesque child birth (which look like outtakes from Ken Russell’s The Devils), a moment involving a hairy dwarf creature, and a bizarre ending that simultaneously pays homage to Fulci and the sort of Renaissance depictions of Judgement Day.

Zombie’s really grown as a filmmaker, and there are some great moments that require a lot of skill to execute properly. The scenes I described could easily elicit laughs in the hands of a filmmaker who didn’t know what they were doing. But Lords of Salem is appropriately creepy. It is not shocking in the same way House of 1000 Corpses is, but the images are bound to stay with everyone who sees them.

Still, there is no characterization in the film at all. One question that kept running through my mind is why these events are happening to the main character. Heidi (Sherri Moon Zombie) has no internal struggle, no emotional problems, nothing along the lines of a Rosemary Woodhouse. Now, the film does explain what is happening (something to do with her ancestry and a curse) but that does not address anything about her specifically. It’s the purpose of a protagonist – we must know why these things are happening to them. But Zombie’s attention was elsewhere.

Think about Rosemary Woodhouse or Carrie White. Their ordeals were a reflection of their internal struggles with burgeoning motherhood and puberty, respectively. Their external supernatural threats were something that came from within.

Lords of Salem was missing that, because Heidi is such a blank slate. Yes, there are moments that establish her as a recovering drug addict, but these moments have no pay off. Indeed, the events of the film may as well happen to anyone, regardless of the plot point about the curse.

It’s that flaw that prevents the film from achieving a “horror classic” status. It needs a strong protagonist to make us care about it. I have a feeling the ending will confuse more than frighten, actually. Unless you are aware of what Zombie was trying to do going into the film, then you’re going to come away scratching your head. If people are coming out of a film asking, “what’s the point,” then something somewhere has gone wrong.

Rob Zombie said that one of his goals in making this film was to create the sort of psychological horror piece that Roman Polanski or David Lynch used to make. At that, he succeeded.

But he forgot that some of Polanski’s stuff was downright stodgy, and Lynch’s technique of inserting unsettling images and moments into a film has lead to some pedestrian efforts. Zombie didn’t care. He wanted to make a seventies psychological horror film, and he was going to make one, mistakes and all. Zombie’s maturing as a filmmaker, and that is very clear with The Lords of Salem. There are some moments that have been missing from most mainstream American horror efforts, so I am tempted to praise the film for at least trying to be scary rather than merely shocking. But I cannot, because there’s nothing to link those moments together. Zombie had too many things he wanted to incorporate, and as a result, sacrificed cohesion. Hopefully next time he’ll be able to step back and pick out the best bits of his material, rather than commit all of his ideas to one project.

A Review of Django Unchained

I saw Django Unchained in theaters, and although I included it on my top ten films of 2012, I never managed to review it fully. But the Blu Ray release provides ample opportunity to correct this lapse.

I stand by my original assertion – it was one of the ten best films of 2012. But there are many who will say that this is a let down, and nowhere near as funny as Pulp Fiction or Inglourious Basterds. That isn’t true at all. It only seems that way because Django does something far more important – it captures the emotional truth of slavery far more than any other film in recent memory.

The result will probably make people feel uncomfortable. Indeed, many people criticized the film for being historically inaccurate or otherwise trivialization the national shame of slavery. Those people missed the point. I’ve said it before – films are not about facts. If you want facts, go find an encyclopedia. Films are about emotions. It is one thing to read about the Holocaust on Wikipedia. It is quite another to watch Liam Neeson’s tearful speech in Schindler’s List about the death and destruction it caused.

Django Unchained, with its fights to the death, sadistic slave owners and house slaves, and satisfying revenge by a former slave against his oppressors is bound to make any American uncomfortable, even with the exciting action sequences and the hypnotic performances by every actor. And you know what? A film about slavery and racial hatred is supposed to make people uncomfortable. If we judge films by the emotional truths they reveal, Django Unchained  may be the greatest film Tarantino has ever made.

It’s certainly more overtly satirical than Basterds. One scene, which has a proto KKK organization preparing to hunt down the former slave Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) and German immigrant Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) after they kill a slave master to collect the bounty on his head. The problem is that the eye holes are cut so badly into the bags that no one can see as they ride on horses.

What follows is a sketch that could be inserted into Chappelle’s Show with no revisions. The group argues amongst themselves, attempts to tear the holes to make them bigger (which makes the problem worse) considers going home, considers taking the bags off even though this would defeat the purposes of anonymity, and otherwise completely making fools of themselves and the racism they represent. The scene ends with a giant explosion rather than a punchline, but there has been nothing like it in Tarantino’s entire filmography.

Now, Django Unchained is primarily a spaghetti western, a revenge story in which Django is on a quest to free his wife Brunhilda (Kerry Washington) from a brutal plantation where slaves are made to fight to the death. It’s structured in the same way as a Leone film – that is, the plot is secondary to the amazing visuals and set pieces. Indeed, the plot thread about the Brittle Brothers prominently mentioned in the trailer is resolved in a half hour or so. Calvin Candie and Brunhilda are the two primary driving forces – as are the scenes of Calvin feeding runaway slaves to dogs and sticking Django’s wife in a hot box to punish her. Yes, a coherent story is secondary to the emotional set pieces, but Tarantino’s plots have never been strong. He’s about creating characters and their obsessions. Those items have never been as urgent in his films as they are here.

Of course, the fact that the film is also the most poignant and revealing in Tarantino’s career means that people have attacked it. They attack the scenes of Django proudly killing white men for the reward money (even though another white man assists him), they attack the plantation owners to force their slaves to fight to the death (mandingo fighting) as unrealistic, and they attack the finale as a glorified revenge fantasy meant to incite racial hatred. These are strengths, not hindrances. The fact that those elements are being attacked demonstrates that Django Unchained has caused the appropriate reaction in audiences. When was the last time a film about slavery provoked any reaction in anyone? We’ve grown up watching Roots. We know slavery was bad. Django makes us feel it.

There are many moments that do well in causing this, but for me, most of the emotional core was created by the two villains. Waltz won the Oscar, those two were the most interesting characters in the film and the actors tackled them with a rare ferocity. Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the head house slave Stephen (Samuel L Jackson) are confident in the roles, and act as though that their place in society is predestined. They are both seemingly obsessed with their evil, and take an almost Bond villain style glee in their actions. Waltz won the Oscar, but he was nowhere near as fearless as those two actors in their roles. They held nothing back.

Jackson in particular stood out for me. Late in the film, a monologue of his where he discusses how Django will be forced to work in a mining facility and what that would be like, is among my favorite scenes of the last year.  Jackson, in that moment, disappears into Stephen and speaks with such a convincing manner that most people will be planning protests at the fictional mining company for crimes against humanity. He was the man who truly deserved an Oscar nomination. The character was just too evil for most Americans (those outside of Mississippi trailer parks) to want to praise.

Just because Django Unchained is not as pleasing to watch as some of Tarantino’s other films. But then, it deals with far more important issues than the usual “70′s B grade schlock and old cereal was great” themes of Tarantino’s filmography. But those grindhouse films could insert important messages that would not be allowed by a studio picture. Indeed, at the time, certain underground films and B-grade westerns were among the few films that could be aimed at minorities and discuss some important themes. Remember how Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was “rated X by an all white jury” and helped usher in a new trend of black filmmakers making movies on their own terms? Tarantino has taken those movies to their logical conclusion, portrayal the disturbing emotional truth of slavery in a slick action film. Come for the explosions, stay for the important revelations about our past. What more can you ask for?

A Review of The Evil Dead

After Ebert’s death, I became convinced that I had to go to a theater. It didn’t matter the film. It was something I had to do.

It’s also what cemented my decision to see The Evil Dead in theaters. I was not sure what to expect, especially from a remake of the first film of a franchise that people are unable to describe. When most people talk about Evil Dead, what they usually end up describing is Evil Dead 2. That was the one with the slapstick humor and the tongue in cheek ideas behind the premise.

The first Evil Dead film was a relatively straightforward, low-budget horror film. It’s a very well made low-budget horror film, but still not the sort of thing that its reputation would suggest. Indeed, I am not entirely sure what has created the cult surrounding it, except for the sequels. Make no mistake – I like the first film. But I’ve seen plenty of items about how this remake of Evil Dead is supposed to be “funny” and concentrate on slapstick.

Warning: The trailer below is a red band trailer and includes scenes of explicit gore. If that bothers you, don’t watch it.

Well, it doesn’t. This is more of a concentrated remake of the first film – and as such, is a horror film that is guaranteed to shock everyone. But what’s most shocking  is how well written it actually is. There is a reason for the characters being in this situation, and why they don’t leave the second that their friend starts acting possessed. The friends in the cabin, as I am sure many have heard, are there in an effort to help their friend Mia (Jane Levy) kick her drug habit and help her go cold turkey. When she starts randomly screaming about demons and wanting to get out – and when she runs into the woods and comes back scratched from tree branches – well, why should they believe her? Yes, the film does include the obligatory “trying to leave after it’s too late” scene, but the biggest question with horror film is why anyone would stay in the first place. Evil Dead does address the biggest problem the franchise had in the past.

The introduction of drug addiction also makes the film more psychologically disturbing than any of the other films were. Oh, they had isolated moments, but there was never an attempt to make the Deadites mean anything. They were simply evil ghosts that possessed bodies. The Evil Dead turns them into the “demons” of addiction. I know it sounds a mite corny, but it’s true. One person, while in the throes of possession, graphically cuts off pieces of her face with a shard of glass before attacking her boyfriend. It is reminiscent of the “bath salts”attacks  – it is certainly not drawn from any moment in the first two films. The best horror films are those that draw us back into real life – we are more easily shocked when we realized that something can happen. A ghost turning someone evil won’t happen. What they do to people may….that is where the film actually does become shocking.

Another item that I respected about this remake is how it felt it could experiment on its own terms, rather than copy every famous moment from the original. Although the tree rape sequence from the first film is repeated here (although the film’s implausible treatment of that moment makes it appear as though it is a hallucination or supernatural occurrence, mostly because it is more explicit than it was in the original film) There are references to each of the films – the famous “cutting off the possessed hand” sequence from Evil Dead 2 is recreated, as is the “possess-ee singing a lullaby” scene. The third act of The Evil Dead can be described as “good Mia vs bad Mia.” Upon reading that sentence, everyone whose seen Army of Darkness is no doubt thinking to themselves “little goody two shoes! Little goody two shoes!”

The great thing about these moments is that they are organic to the plot. Most reboots point out every little nod to the original in an effort to appear smart (or to please fans). All of these moments work within the plot of the film, and so are so subtle that they won’t be noticed at first. Evil Dead rewards people who are fans, but does not do so at the expense of the plot.

For example, this moment comes from the second film

I was surprised how strong The Evil Dead actually was. Even the original franchise abandoned the hope of actually squaring people pretty quickly. This film tries, even though its basic premise has been reduced to pretty thin soup over the years and (as Cabin in the Woods demonstrated) it’s more likely to generate laughs than screams. Evil Dead, like it’s predecessor, does not try to play nice like most remakes do in an effort to win audiences. It goes for broke, the same way that the first two films of the franchise did. As such, it is breath of fresh air at a time when no one even tries to make cult horror films any more.

One more thing – there’s a post credits sequence that’s quite…groovy. Be sure to stay for that.

A Review of Cosmopolis

When I first heard that Robert Pattinson was going to be in a Cronenberg film, my initial reaction was to declare him (Cronenberg) a sell out and get rid of my Naked Lunch DVD out of spite. When I heard that it was going to be an adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel, my reaction was “Robert, you’d better not screw up Cronenberg’s vision.”

Now that I’ve seen it, my reaction can be summarized as “criminally underrated, and Pattinson actually does a good job in his role as a detached billionaire, but not close to Cronenberg’s best.”

Why? Because the film doesn’t make the sort of impact it needed to make in order to be successful. It’s the equivalent of setting up a grand bonfire with material that will burn well into the night. And then someone forget to bring the matches.

Pattinson plays Eric, a recently married 28 year old man who has earned a vast fortune via currency trading. He’s driving across Manhattan in a modern limo that he rarely leaves (or rarely has to). It contains toilets, TVs, computers, food – everything to live in. It also ensures he’s dead to the world.  Pattinson is not far removed from Patrick Bateman of American Psycho. He’s a man whose success is meaningless to him, who views trivial pursuits as the ultimate end.  What’s his goal in Cosmopolis? To get a haircut. And he’s willing to brave Manhattan traffic that is at a gridlock and the President is in town, so security on the roads has been expanded. Of course, we never see any speech by the President. Why would we? It is not important to Eric.

The tone kind of reminds me of Eyes Wide Shut, in many ways. All of the wealthy characters act as though they are robotic entities that have been programmed to be obsessed with sex and power.  And in some ways, they are. Yes, the dialogue is stilted, but that’s kind of the point. These are ideas of people, to borrow from American Psycho again.

Of course the film is set to the backdrop of the Occupy movement. Eric is the ultimate representation of the young, callous entrepreneur unable to relate to anyone they meet (see Mark Zuckerburg for another example).  The limousine that Eric rides is vandalized by the protestors about halfway through the film. Clearly, something is being set up between these parties. Except not. Was there ever such a confrontation in real life? Both sides pretty much ignored the other. And that’s what Cosmopolis reflects. Why should Eric address anyone but those in his limo? As far as their concerned, they don’t exist.  There’s a great scene in which the protestors vandalize his car, while he continues his discussion of the yuan and currency exchange. It’s the sort of darkly comic scene that would not feel out of place in Dr. Strangelove.

So far, so good, right? After about an hour, I was convinced I was watching another Cronenberg masterpiece. Indeed, a lot of his fans will probably come away with that feeling. But the lack of cohesion and purpose kept me from fully enjoying Cosmopolis. The rhythm makes the film seem like a series of short films that just so happen to star the same person. If I seem like I am having trouble describing the plot – well, that’s because there is no plot.  This does not do justice to the characters in the film, who are begging to have something done with them. I have not read the novel, but it seems like the work is convinced just to have the characters sort of bounce of each other and hope for the best. Some characters (like Paul Giamatti’s Benno) seemingly come from the woodwork just so that the story has some sort of third act. Does that really do anyone in the story justice? I wanted more connections, more purpose, and more relevance to what was happening to us. That may seem unfair, but the film’s backdrop was just asking to enter our world. For whatever reason, everyone backs away once they have their hand on the doorknob.

Still, I don’t think Cosmopolis was given a fair chance, especially considering Pattinson’s presence. It’s still an effective character study of some very empty people who use their wealth to lead very empty lives. But I do wish that the film was more. It should have at least been brave enough to leave that insular, graffiti covered limo.

My Tribute to Roger Ebert

I thought that my next post would be a review of the Evil Dead remake. Or my review of David Cronenberg’s underrated but still not great Cosmopolis. I did not think it would be this. I did not think I would have to type this for a long time.

Roger Ebert, long time film critic of the “Chicago Sun Times” and the first critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, died today after a long battle with cancer. He was 70.

As I typed that preceding sentence, I felt more sadness than I logically should. I never met him in person, and there would have been absolutely no chance when we could have. He would never have read this blog – there was no reason for him to ever read it. But still, I feel as though I have lost a dear friend, a man whom I could always go to when I had troubles, and who would know exactly what to say. He was a film critic first and foremost. But he wrote about far more – life, death, love, travels – and did so with more insight and wit than any of his contemporaries.

I could talk about his accomplishments; his Pulitzer Prize, his nationally syndicated TV show, his NC-17 scripted Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which he was proud of his entire life. I could talk about his struggles with cancer and how it took his voice.

But what’s the point of regurgitating information everyone knows? What matters at this point (as it does for everyone when they shuffle off this mortal coil) is the impact that he left on the people who read him. I cannot speak for everyone. But I can speak for myself, and describe the profound impact he had on me.

Honestly, I am not sure the first time I ever saw him. By the 1990s, he was such a huge part of popular culture that practically every single show referenced Siskel and Ebert to some degree.I absorbed him through a kind of osmosis. If I had to venture a guess, it was probably from this Sesame Street clip.

When you have become popular enough to share screen time with the Muppets, you have accomplished something in your life. But, as a kid, I did not see the value of it. It was another little bit featuring characters who were there to teach me my ABCs. Nor did I really appreciate his show with Siskel when it was at his peak. In many ways, I still feel it was the wrong format for their profession. That is more due to the restrictive nature of television; Siskel and Ebert were never given the chance to really explore films, with only a few exceptions. Besides, I was a young kid at the time. What possible use would a Nickelodeon watching child have for a show about film criticism? Especially a film criticism show that was forced to reduce its hosts to latter day Roman emperors judging fighters at the Colosseum?

I didn’t really rediscover Ebert until later in his career, after he announced his cancer diagnosis. His writing was almost a shock to discover and far removed from the mental image I had built of him. Someone who had more to say than could be expressed in a hand gesture? I am sure it began with me stumbling to his website, but I was hooked on everything the second I found it. I read every review I could – even for the films I had never heard of. I was still young, so reading his reviews of long forgotten New Hollywood films was as bizarre to my peers as if I had walked into school with a nose ring. But I loved it and found that he was broadening my horizons. His “Great Movies” series was one that I treasured, and still use to judge what belongs in my Netflix queue. I don’t know if I would have watched Dark City or The Third Man without his recommendations. Certainly, I would not bother taking a chance with any unknown film.

And, with increasing urgency, I started reading his blog. I saw his ups and downs, and his entries about the illness that cost him his voice. When I read that, I was not sure what was going to happen. I didn’t expect it would lead to the most insightful and revealing writing of his career. His blog entries became just as important as his reviews to me, as I tried to imagine the life he was living and writing about. I still cannot, and admired the tenacity he would always display. Even when he appeared on TV, he did not try to hide who he was. In fact, after the famed “Esquire” photos were published, Ebert said that he had nothing to hide. “No one looks perfect,” he said. “And this is how I look.” Look at this interview – he says just as much with his eyes and head as he does with his computer. And he’s dead on about what makes a great film – it’s a feeling I still cannot explain.

When he announced that his cancer had returned a few days ago, I knew that things would change, but I had hope that he would still be around to talk about the films he was watching, the films he was using to alleviate the pain from his treatment, and the support he was getting from his family and friends. I was looking forward to reading all of it and debating him. I didn’t expect to always agree, but I knew I would learning something from his reviews.

I still don’t always agree with him. He gave my two favorite films (Brazil and Edward Scissorhands, for those who don’t remember) two stars (more than the two and a half stars awarded to Gigli) while promoting trash like Crash and Lost in Translation, even insulting those who stated they could not see the merit in them. And even when I agreed with his low score, I sometimes disliked his approach.  I gave Kick Ass a bad review, yet I thought his objection to the film would have been better served in a turn of the century Christian revival meeting than a serious discussion about what the film accomplishes and how it accomplishes anything. And his blanket statement that no video game could ever be art was something that I (and many others) simply could not comprehend.

But this is all ignoring how much Ebert impacted countless writers (including me), especially as the internet rose to replace news papers in offering film criticisms. Listing everyone who can claim Ebert as an influence would take the rest of the night. But I can easily summarize what attracted me to his writing. He was erudite, he was witty, he was insightful, and he knew what was needed when he wrote. Nothing more, nothing less.

If there was one thing he wrote that I would pick as a “favorite,” it would be this journal entry on his struggles with alcoholism that was later reprinted in Life Itself. I had never known that he had those problems in his life. A man as successful as him, who did what he loved, still felt the need to escape using alcohol? And had hit rock bottom? It came as a shock, but what was equally shocking was how poignant and revealing he decided to be about that moment in his life. And honest; he didn’t hold back about that experience. But unlike lesser writers, he did not try to moralize or preach. His alcoholism wasn’t a ticket to become a Hubert Selby Jr character, nor was it something he would use to tell people to stay away from intoxicating beverages. It happened, and here’s what he took away from it. His approach to criticism was much the same way. That’s more effective than what a lot of critics do these days. Look at Room 237, which spends all its time trying to crack a code to solve The Shining without ever explaining why it’s an important and great film. Look at the number of critics who insist on wearing their emotions on their sleeves and think an experience stops there, like Harry Knowles. Look at Armond White, who seems to think that going against everyone else indicates that he’s a more highly evolved form of life. None of them would be capable of writing that blog entry.

When Ebert posted his last journal entry on his website, I posted the following comment. Many others commented, wishing him a speedy recovery and looking forward to his new writings. The comment is live, but I doubt he personally ever saw it. I didn’t think it would be the last chance anyone would have to talk to him:

“Sometimes I thought your reviews were dead on. Sometimes I vehemently disagreed with what you wrote. But I treasured every word.

I’m not sure if I’ve said this before, but thank you for everything.”

I don’t think there’s anything else I can say. The only thing I can do is repeat that last sentence. Thank you.  Thank you for everything.

Rest in Peace, Roger Ebert.