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Inside Job

November 15, 2010:  Inside Job

If you want to be scared about the way the world works in the backrooms and boardrooms, with powerful men (yes, still mostly men) divvying up the world among themselves, look no further than Inside Job.  An eye-opening treatise on the players and the causes involved with the global economic meltdown of 2008, Inside Job does its research and highlights connections which should have made it obvious where things were heading, if the people who were supposed to object to these things weren’t all being paid off by the ones who didn’t want it known.

The sad thing is, even with everything being very well documented and commonly known, for some reason it’s still not possible to fix it.  Powerful entrenched interests have never been easy to dislodge, and it usually seems to require revolution, but modern-day western society will do absolutely anything to avoid such chaotic and potentially violent action at home, despite our willingness to inflict it upon distant lands elsewhere on the planet.  Inside Job is a horror film of a whole different kind, one that can shake a person’s confidence in the fundamental goodness of people.  It turns out that some of us are hard-wired for competition, at all costs, and the rest of us are mere collateral damage.  Don’t watch this one if you don’t want to be outraged.

Heartbreaking insight into real human nature.

2010 12 21 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Machete

November 8, 2010:  Machete

I went back and forth a few times about whether or not I’d bother with this one.  I’m really glad I decided to see it.

Director Robert Rodriguez is known for movies which aim only to entertain, often with over-the-top blood-spraying gleefulness and rock-bottom budgets, and Machete totally delivers on that formula.  From his roots with El Mariachi (1992) through his period of pop-cultural coolness kick-started in the mid-1990s with his association with Quentin Tarantino, to his modern-day career including such diverse material as the Spy Kids films (2001/2/3) and Sin City (2005), Rodriguez has always given me the impression of someone who has a specific vision and doesn’t mind that it’s not always Hollywood-friendly.  I like to see a director follow through on concept projects without being worried about what it might do to his bankability or artistic reputation.  Fortunately, Rodriguez starts from an artistic reputation which gives him a lot of freedom.  Machete is almost a deliberate return to form, just to make sure he still has it.  And he does.

The character of Machete is a Mexican ex-federale, who has escaped to the US after his own police department turned on him for his refusal to become corrupt like everyone else.  He’s like a modern-day Frank Serpico.  Jessica Alba is a US immigration enforcement agent keeping her eye on him while at the same time asking for his help to deal with the deluge of illegal Mexican immigrants, and Michelle Rodriguez is a reluctant resistance leader trying to help her fellow Mexicans successfully sneak into America.  Don Johnson is a Texan border patrol boss who delights in killing illegals sneaking over the border, and Robert de Niro is a Senator who also delights in the sport of killing these poor folks but needs to keep his activities a little more under wraps for obvious reasons.  Danny Trejo is Machete, and this craggy character actor is someone you’ve surely seen playing tough bad guys before, but here he almost seems to have a gruff heart of gold even as he’s simultaneously beheading three people with his trademark long knives.

The violence is ridiculous, and the story is simple, but the characters somehow have depth and the whole exercise is tremendously entertaining even though it’s all a bit icky.  I could probably even go on to explain the timeless themes explored here, but that would be no fun.  I selected Machete as a late-night movie when looking for something which would keep me awake, and that it definitely did.  It’s not for everyone, but if you’ve heard about Machete and wondered whether you might like it, then you probably will.

Senseless, mindless, ridiculous, gratuitous, endless violence.

2010 12 14 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

A Few Good Men

November 4, 2010:  A Few Good Men

Continuing in my effort to re-watch and review older movies that I have seen many times and want to be able to play without any further burden of writing about, I took another look at A Few Good Men (1992).  It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen this film, but I saw it many many times back in the day.  I don’t think the full weight of it struck me upon first viewing, beyond the obvious “you can’t handle the truth!” broad strokes.  I came to appreciate the film for its narrative symmetry, the performances from a number of actors several of whom were still fairly young at the time, and for its fluid watchability.

A Few Good Men is directed by Rob Reiner, who was known to many as “Meathead” on the All in the Family TV series in the 1970s.  He established himself as a comedic director with This is Spinal Tap in 1984, a reputation cemented with the legendary The Princess Bride in 1987 and When Harry Met Sally in 1989, but he is no slouch in the drama department either, as the polished yet imperfect A Few Good Men demonstrates.  I do identify a certain sentimentality in his films, but usually it’s hard to resist loving them.

A Few Good Men comes from a time when Tom Cruise must have had a contractual obligation to have father issues in his movie roles.  Yet again, he is a talented but uncontrollable youth following in his deceased father’s footsteps, in this case a military lawyer.  Still quite green, he is handed his first murder case and slowly comes around to the realization that he has a moral obligation to do things the right way instead of the easy way.  Facing the military machine and hard-nosed proponents of the old school customs, it’s not easy to make a stand and insist that the truth be told.

A Few Good Men is still as crackling and engrossing as ever, but I was noticing some chinks in the armour that I haven’t really noticed before.  It’s more melodramatic than I remember, which betrays its roots as a stage play, but there’s no reason it couldn’t have been better adapted to this medium.  Cruise and Kevin Pollak do their best to make it natural.  I was distracted by glaringly obvious musical cues which popped up at moments of emotional gravity, which struck me as amateurish, but maybe they are just representative of that era in filmmaking.  And it could be argued that at 2 hours and 20 minutes the film runs a bit too long, though it certainly isn’t a major flaw.  On the other hand, this flick has a lot going for it.  The way the possible and likely sentences for the two defendants keep jumping around is carefully constructed so as to look good on one hand but bad on the other, and it helps to demonstrate Cruise’s building confidence as what once seemed like a good deal becomes unimaginably bad.  The final verdict is just, but not entirely joyous, which is appropriate.  There’s some great courtroom sparring as Cruise takes on the likes of Keifer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and the immortal Jack Nicholson.  Gender is at play between Cruise and Demi Moore as a fellow lawyer, but the story wisely stays away from romance.  The widescreen cinematography is amazing, including a bunch of great shots during the opening rifle drill, and some great courtroom compositions.  And there are just a bunch of great little gestures and moments of acting from all the players, from Cruise’s vigorous wiping of his hands after eating an apple, to Kevin Bacon’s weighty nod as he accepts Cruise’s victory, to Nicholson’s eyes darting quickly to Moore and back as he realizes how she fits into the picture.  This is a movie which should be seen, providing great entertainment from a cast and crew working at their peak.  It has maybe lost a bit of its punch in the high-octane cinematic years since its initial release, but it’s still a great way to kill a couple of hours.

Quotable classic revisited.  Still has it.

2010 12 13 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Carlos

October 27, 2010:  Carlos

Living in a big city affords me certain filmgoing opportunities.  Carlos is a sprawling 5.5-hour epic examination of the life of the terrorist popularly known as Carlos the Jackal.  It was created as a European three-part miniseries and will be trimmed down to feature length for North American distribution.  I got to see the full presentation (though admittedly with two intermissions) digitally projected at the new Bell Lightbox facility in Toronto which is the new home of the Toronto International Film Festival.  The facility will run special presentations and retrospectives year-round.

With a cast mostly unknown to me, I was able to immerse myself in this story without distractions, and for the most part it was riveting.  The technical details of this meticulous period piece are breathtaking, and I can’t imagine the enormity of the task of production design for this film which spans over a decade in cities all over Europe and the middle east.  Just the task of wrangling the hundreds of classic and not so classic cars would have been mind-blowing.  Speaking of which, I lost count of the number of times people got into and out of cars in this film.  It must have been over 100 times.  The lives of globetrotting terrorists seem to involve a lot of driving or being driven to places for meetings.

A couple of big set-piece sequences define the pacing of this film, including a big hostage-taking incident which happens early and establishes the range of emotions and the capabilities of the central character.  However, there are plenty of scenes which unfold slowly and take their time, which is quite appropriate since a lot of the group’s time is spent waiting for action, preparing and going over details.  These were the most eye-opening parts of Carlos for me, since I was struck by the fact that this man, who mingled with political royalty, was really not much more than a bumbling petty criminal who just happened to be willing to take the risks involved with doing other people’s dirty work.  Important international weapons smuggling jobs were done by three guys moving stuff from one truck to another in a garage.  Assassinations were based on rough information and brazen actions.  Carlos felt he was important and well-liked since he was able to operate under the cover of intelligence departments which tolerated his presence in return for his services, but once things started to go bad, doors slammed shut and he went through a large-scale version of finding out that you have no more friends – he couldn’t find a country in the world which would accept his presence.  It’s good to see that criminal activities like these don’t go unpunished, and I think the film does a good job of keeping the viewer from getting swept up in the romantic notions of the freewheeling above-the-law lifestyle, emphasizing that it’s really mostly scuzzy and boring work, and will almost invariably implode at some point.  Carlos is a visceral cinematic experience, but with such an actively repulsive central character, it’s hard to “like” it.

Not the usual kind of movie.

2010 12 10 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Nowhere Boy

October 21, 2010:  Nowhere Boy

Nowhere Boy is the latest film to examine some aspect of the younger life of one of the Beatles.  Here we are treated to some of what turned John Lennon into the complex emotional figure he was for his whole short life up until he was callously gunned down 30 years ago.

I was put on alert fairly quickly in Nowhere Boy with a typical movie device as John’s warm relationship with his uncle is shattered as the uncle dies within the first few minutes of the film, leaving John in the care of his strict aunt.  This was an awkward misstep in an otherwise compelling, if somewhat fictionalized, story of how John makes contact with his estranged mother and builds a relationship with her.  They get along well because she is still quite young, but she is a bit crazy and inconsistent so poor John, who is only in his mid-teens, is forced to figure out how to deal with the jumbled reality of his life, and figure out whether his mother or his aunt is best for him to be around.  Kristin Scott Thomas as the unyielding aunt lets on just enough of how she cares for John, until the climax where the secrets come out and she can be judged on the whole story rather than on a half-truth as she struggles to hide the details for John’s protection.

The film is short and flows nicely, but I wouldn’t say it was…necessary.  Based on a memoir by John’s flighty mother, everything in the story must be taken with that under consideration, which almost makes it irrelevant that this is in fact John Lennon as opposed to some fictional character.  The evolution of John’s band into what will ultimately become The Beatles is covered here, but in an almost perfunctory manner which ironically probably achieves greater realism than it might otherwise, since the comings and goings of band members and friends really don’t carry the weight at the time that they obviously do in retrospect.  When John meets Paul McCartney, he’s just meeting another kid who wants to be in the band, which is of course how it must have been.  It wouldn’t have been an immediate earth-shattering moment where they realized they were about to change history.

Perhaps I’m being unfair here with such a pretty wishy-washy take on Nowhere Boy, but I think it sums up my feelings.  Even as a bigger-than-average Beatles fan, I didn’t get much inspiration from this film.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t real enough to be good.  I had wondered where the narrative would end, since it obviously wasn’t going to cover the whole of John’s life.  The filmmakers chose to end the story when the band went to Hamburg, and I think that was a good decision.  I’m glad I saw Nowhere Boy, but I won’t bother to revisit it.

Well-intentioned but lacks a certain punch.

2010 12 07 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Jackass 3D

October 18, 2010:  Jackass 3D

Presently we’re going through the third cinematic attempt at 3D technology, each cycle separated by about 30 years.  We’ve come a long way from the 3D sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s and the monster flicks of the early 1980s – technologically, if perhaps not narratively.  I’m finding it entertaining to watch the chaos as the 3D concept is shoehorned into the third entry in any film series, and also hurriedly applied to big action films long after the point when it can be done properly.  However, I was filled with glee at the notion of a Jackass movie in 3D, and I daresay they have brought something previously unseen to the use of the gimmick – heart.

Now, don’t you all go asphyxiating yourselves laughing and crying simultaneously at my simple-minded delusion that the Jackass franchise can be anything other than putrid trash.  I will certainly admit that Jackass 3D, taken at face value and with none of the history, could be seen as crass and degrading and without any redeeming value.  But the history of the Jackass “characters” and how they interact here is what brings the depth and meaning to this third feature.

The basic concept of Jackass is that there is a group of about 8 or 10 guys who are a motley mix of stuntmen and skateboarders and clowns and daredevils, and they perform various stunts and dares and practical jokes on each other and on their celebrity friends and sometimes on an unsuspecting public.  Each bit may run for several minutes of screen time or for only a few seconds.  It began as a half-hour show on MTV and ran for a few short seasons, and they made the leap to feature films in 2002.  The first film had some hilarious moments but was severely hampered by an imbalance in the material, since for the first time they were able to do material not suitable for television, which led to an excess of gross-out “gags” and not enough of the silly and dangerous stunts that I loved so much. (Apparently I wasn’t alone, since a similarly-themed show called Nitro Circus came to MTV, which focuses almost exclusively on the stunts, and features many of the Jackass players).  The second film had more of an obligatory feel to it and was weak.  But this group has been together now for a decade, honing their jackassery and polishing their presentation, and Jackass 3D not only brings a great mix of material, but we also see the continued camaraderie among this unlikely crew and the real deep friendship which is required in order to torment each other so ruthlessly.  Bam Margera’s fear of snakes is exploited once again, and Steve-O groans as he questions why he has to be himself and get stuck with all of the most disgusting gags.  They each have their individual legends and legacies to live up to and it almost overwhelms them.  Ringleader Johnny Knoxville seems to be the only one who really relishes the continued abuse, and he earns his stripes as the alpha male of this all-alpha gang again and again.  Now don’t get me wrong – I would hate to have these guys as my friends, always needing to be on the lookout – but it’s touching to see them all on the same wavelength, with individuals appreciating the complexity and effort going into the practical jokes even as they are victimized.

Of course, this is not highbrow material and it’s representative of the smashing of taboos which has continued during the past 10 years through which Jackass has existed.  There’s plenty of disgusting material here, and I believe my wife would have thrown up somewhere between 2 and 6 times during this film if she had seen it, triggered half the time by on-screen puking, which brings me back to the usage of 3D.  Aside from set-piece sequences at the start and end of the film, the camera is mostly stationary, but the very clarity and depth of field which arises from an unmoving camera helps to immerse the viewer in the stunt, as we watch the featured players in the centre, surrounded on all sides by other members of the group, some in the background and others seemingly in front of us as they look on and we see their backs.  So when objects are thrown, or the group scatters to avoid getting hit by something gross, or someone pukes in any direction, we’re a part of the action.  It really does help to make the viewer feel like part of an intimate group watching the silly stunt, rather than merely observing from afar.  And of course, for the stunts with cars and ramps and bungee cords and such (yes, port-a-potties can be attached to bungee cords, but only by “professionals”), the 3D effect enhances the realism of the flying objects.  The funniest part of the movie for me and a sequence which is absolutely worth the price of admission has the group at an airport with a plane fixed in place and revving its jet engines, as they throw things into the jetwash and watch them get propelled hundreds of yards VERY quickly.  It’s even better when someone stands behind the plane and these items smash into the people.  Who wouldn’t love to see that in 3D?

Well, I’m clearly not the only one, since Jackass 3D won its opening weekend at the box office with about $50 million in ticket sales.  I was struck by a writeup I saw by legendary film director John Waters after the release of the film, as he marveled at how gross-out images which were once so taboo when depicted in his groundbreaking films of the 1970s, most notably Pink Flamingos (1972), are now presented in multiplexes everywhere as family entertainment with parents and kids laughing along together.  We’ve come a long way, and lots of people would say it’s a bad thing, but is getting a little bit closer to real human nature really something to be condemned?

Venerable franchise has victorious third outing.

2010 11 30 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

October 13, 2010:  The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

Anyone who heard about The Human Centipede or read a review of it was probably disgusted and appalled and wondered why or how anyone could ever make such a film.  Not quite a horror movie, it falls more into the “mad scientist art film” category.

I had wanted to take a look at this film, but didn’t want to spend the time, so I ended up giving it about 30 minutes, jumping around in the 91 minute run-time, and I think I got enough of an idea of it to write a partially informed review.  The basic plot is that we have a mad scientist who kidnaps three people and wants to surgically attach them all together in such a way as to create a single uninterrupted alimentary canal.  Antibiotics and other rudimentary medical measures are taken to ensure that the subjects don’t immediately die.  I’ll leave it to the interested viewer to further research the plot of the film.

The trouble is, while the concept definitely has something to it, it’s pretty much impossible to execute as a feature length film.  Time is filled near the beginning with horror-movie-style escape attempts by the captives, and later with inane scenes of the scientist living his daily life with his new “creature” fetching the newspaper and such.  Again, the creepiness of these ideas carries some weight, but it’s overdone and yet underdone at the same time.  The Human Centipede reviewed quite badly, and I wouldn’t disagree.

Mind you, it’s not all bad.  The Human Centipede is about as tastefully produced as it can be, considering the grotesque concept, and Dieter Laser’s crazed performance as the villain is frighteningly reminiscent of those classically campy Udo Kier turns as the title characters in the old Andy Warhol-produced Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), which have always been personal favourites of mine.  But that’s not enough to save this ill-advised effort.  I didn’t have to review The Human Centipede since I just skimmed through the film, much as I do with many other movies, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of my readers and warn them away.

Confused effort pushes at people’s boundaries.

2010 11 24 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

Millions

October 11, 2010:  Millions

I’m far from a scholar of director Danny Boyle’s career, but it has become more and more clear to me over the years how two seemingly separate and parallel threads in his career are really more tightly linked than is immediately apparent.  I associate Millions (2004) with what I think of as his “bright” films, along with the likes of A Life Less Ordinary (1997) and the very popular Slumdog Millionaire (2008).  Through the same period, Boyle has given us some very “dark” films such as Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002).  Looking more closely, though, these films all deal with serious conflict and people who are in over their heads, and the basic summary of each individual film doesn’t even come close to fully describing it.

Millions is, on the surface, the story of two boys who happen into a big pile of stolen cash, and how they deal with it.  But the film takes the time to carefully ponder the moral questions and the ambiguities of how little errors in this big world can make or destroy your life, or can simply be experiences which help you grow as a person, and a big part of that outcome depends on strength of character.  At the core of the movie is Damian, the younger of two brothers who come across a duffel bag of money which falls off a train.  He is obsessed with the Catholic saints, and has visions in which they give him advice, so he’s not always sure whether what he’s seeing is real.  He wants to use the money to do good in the world, but the scale of the world he knows is his friends and neighbourhood, so he not so subtly splashes the cash around, trying to help anyone who expresses a need for it.  His brother is more cautious but at the same time, he can’t come up with any better ideas about what to do with the money and is conflicted about keeping it for themselves.  The film plays over a fictional deadline for the British pound to convert to the Euro, making all British cash worthless after a particular date, which provides a palpable urgency to dealing with the problem of the money rather than just hiding it away and/or using it over a period of years.

Eventually the grown-ups find out about the money, and by this time the boys are being pursued by the “owners” of the stolen cash, and there are a number of plot and character intersections towards the end of the film which contribute to Millions defying categorization.  I avoided this film for a long time since I thought it would be more maudlin and aimed just at kids, but it’s far from that.  This is an innovative and energetic film, both in the visual imagery which is punched up with CG effects to make the world dreamlike at times, as well as in the character arcs, from the complex and fully-realized children’s personalities to their widower father who needs to make critical decisions while always under the keen gazes of his kids.

Millions is still not for everyone, since it’s so unconventional, but it’s a rewarding film to view and then think about afterward.

Complex entry in a complex career.

2010 11 24 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

The Social Network

October 6, 2010:  The Social Network

This one snuck up on me.  A movie about the rise of Facebook, directed by David Fincher, and I didn’t hear about it until about 2 days before it was released.  My second film of the night, a rare evening when I was watching two movies which both scored in the 90s on Rotten Tomatoes, The Social Network may have its detractors but I am definitely not one of them.

Jumping narratively back and forth between legal depositions by Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook CFO over who should own what percentage of the now-gigantic company, and scenes from their college years when the idea first came to fruition, The Social Network is able to portray the events in enough detail to keep them compelling for those familiar with the rough story, but without losing the viewers who don’t know much about how (and crucially, why) the “little social network that could” ended up becoming the 800-pound gorilla in a hyper-competitive market.  For my part, I was aware of some of the events surrounding Facebook’s rise, but I didn’t know much about the legal battles or the peripheral characters.  How much of the story is true is a matter of some argument – most notably the film doesn’t portray Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) in the most flattering light – but if you look more closely you can see that most people don’t come off very well here.  The source material is the book The Accidental Billionaires, which had input from Facebook CFO Eduardo Saverin, so it’s useful to keep that in mind when weighing the bias.

But to worry too much about the truth of the details of the story would be a disservice to this crackling and engrossing drama.  Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, known for his work on the Rob Reiner films A Few Good Men (1992) and The American President (1995) but perhaps more recognizable for his TV work on The West Wing among other shows, is a master of intelligent dialogue and The Social Network, with its fast-talking super-genius college kids out to take over the world, is the perfect venue for his writing.  I got a sense that lightning-quick dialogue really did come from these brilliant young kids, as opposed to the more stylized manner of speaking in Juno (2007), which was not believable in real life but was totally appropriate to that film.

Director David Fincher, who has moved away from the more overtly dark material of his early career (Se7en in 1995, Fight Club in 1999) to more complex and emotionally dark material of late (Zodiac in 2007 and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008), is also well-suited to bring this story to the screen in a dramatic if perhaps not factually obsessed manner.  Ultimately what we have here is an energetically mounted production, which is terrifically entertaining but makes me want to read the book to get more details.  I’d say that The Social Network is a shoo-in for an Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination, and who knows, maybe this will be the one that wins Fincher the gold.

One of the best this year.

2010 11 24 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

The Town

October 6, 2010:  The Town

Ben Affleck has gone from being a minor character actor 15 years ago to being a respected writer/director.  Bringing an authenticity to films about his native Boston, he sticks to the mantra of “write what you know” and has been quite successful at that.  The Town is a heist caper at heart, but ends up being more than that as it takes a look at what makes these particular thieves do what they do.

I saw The Town because it was getting rave reviews, and while I found it enjoyable and would probably recommend it, I think it’s flawed enough to keep it from going on lists of great films.  The back story about the neglected Charlestown neighbourhood and the tough kids it produces gives the film greater depth than is usually found in this type of story, which is nice, but some logical gaps in characters’ behaviour coupled with an at-times formulaic structure detract from what could potentially have been a near-masterpiece along the lines of The Departed (2006).  Affleck is in the lead role in addition to his writing and directing.  He’s fine when he’s working within his range as he is here, and it’s great to see Jeremy Renner (nominated for an Oscar for last year’s The Hurt Locker) get another role he can really sink his teeth into.  Minor supporting turns by Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite are pure gold and it shows remarkable restraint to not have overused these big guns.

Action scenes are nicely mounted if disappointingly predictable as mentioned above.  The ending is appropriate – not all robbers need to get dramatically shot and killed, but at the same time they don’t usually get to run off scot-free with the woman.  The Town is another Ben Affleck love letter to the city he loves, warts and all, and is engrossing if at times unbelievable.

Passable big city crime action-drama flick.

2010 11 24 mike Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink