Movies By Month: December 2011, part 1

Final Destination 2:  2003 supernatural horror film directed by David R. Ellis and starring A.J. Cook, Ali Larter, and Michael Landes.   Kimberly has a premonition of her own death in a huge traffic pile up, freaks out, the crisis is averted, and now Death is hunting down the survivors of the would-be collision.  Same deal as the first.  You know, without the sweaty, crazy sincerity that Devon Sawa brought to the original, it wasn’t as interesting.  At least the premise was somewhat novel in FD1.  Now there are like five of these stupid movies.

 

Trollhunter:  2010 Norwegian fantasy “found footage” horror-ish film directed by Andre Ovredal and starring Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck.  A group of students are trying to make a documentary about a man they think is a bear poacher, when they fall into the world of the Troll Security Service, a secret government agency protecting humans from trolls and vice-versa.  HOLY SHIT LET’S VISIT NORWAY!  I’ll be honest, I spent much of the movie distracted by the amazing landscapes.  It was really good, but I wanted the trolls to be less cartoonish.

Waiting for “Superman”:  2010 documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim.  Yep, we’re pretty much screwed.  To put it as eloquently as I know how:  the state of public education in this country sucks chode.  This is not news.  This documentary is depressing, but I think it’s necessary viewing if you give even the tiniest crap about this subject.  And no matter where you stand on teachers unions, you should really listen to their arguments about tenure.  In the words of fictional White House Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn:  “Education is the silver bullet.  Education is everything.  We don't need little changes.  We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce.  They should be getting six-figure salaries.  Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense."  At the very least this presents some seemingly viable ideas for how we get there.

The Housemaid:  2010 South Korean thriller directed by Im Sang-soo and starring Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Jung-jae, Seo Woo, and Yoon Yeo-jeong.  Eun-yi takes a job as a nanny for a ridiculously rich couple about to have twins.  When she begins an affair with the husband, the relationship dynamics begin to shift and shit gets strange.  MAN, I love Korean movies.  They’re just so weird.  I never know what’s going to happen next, and even if it makes no damn sense for some reason I don’t mind.  I really liked it, but I would caution you that it’s bizarre and intense and the ending is totally bonkers.

Salesman:  1969 documentary directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin.  The movie follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen, their good old fashioned 1960s racism, and invites many references to Willy Loman and Glengarry Glen Ross.  It’s depressing on a level I was unable to deal with.  I watched about 30 minutes of it before I had to bail.

Bobby Fischer Against the World:  2011 documentary directed by Liz Garbus.  Fischer is arguably the greatest chess player of the modern era, and inarguably the most notorious.  This documentary was fascinating.  It mostly revolves around his epic 1972 World Championship match with Boris Spassky that vaulted him into Cold War stardom.  DAMN chess was popular back then – ABC Sports?  Really?  It also touches on him joining a cult, becoming vehemently anti-Semitic in his later years despite his Jewish heritage, and all the crazy he was spouting after 9/11.  The interviews are awesome (Kissinger, anyone?).  The music was a little stereotypical (I swear, if I hear “Spirit in the Sky” on ONE MORE movie soundtrack I will lose my shit), but perhaps that’s a bit nitpicky.  Definitely worth seeing.

Movies By Month: November 2011

Paranormal Activity 3:  2011 horror film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and starring Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Lauren Bittner, and Christopher Nicholas Smith.   It’s similar to the first, and I’m assuming also to the second.  Are there ghosts?  Let’s set up some night vision cameras and find out!  The twist with this one is the little girl with an imaginary friend.  As a former little girl with an imaginary friend, it freaked me out on that level.  But aside from a few jumps and some surprisingly good acting on the part of Csengery, it was kind of forgettable.  Decent, but not great.

Attack the Block:  2011 British sci fi thriller directed by Joe Cornish and starring Jodie Whittaker and John Boyega.  Sam (Whittaker) is returning to her apartment complex after work when she’s mugged by a group of teenage boys.  In the middle of the attack, a strange object plummets from the sky, giving Sam time to escape.  Moses (Boyega), the leader of the gang, goes to investigate and is himself attacked by a strange creature.  They manage to kill it, but other larger creatures are soon on their tail.  Since it turns out they live in the same complex as Sam, she’s soon dragged into the fight and must work with her former muggers if they’re going to survive the alien invasion.

          It’s funny and exciting and scary and interesting and I loved it and you should see it.  The acting is pretty fair, the aliens are realistic enough to be scary but not gross or ridiculous, the pacing is excellent, and there’s a cameo by Nick Frost!  Seriously, SEE IT.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:  1954 Disney adventure movie directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Peter Lorre, and Paul Lukas.  It’s based on the Jules Verne novel, you know the drill:  some dudes are on a mission to find a giant sea monster when their ship is destroyed, they’re rescued by Captain Nemo who turns out to be master of the submarine that’s being mistaken for said sea monster.  Because he’s sinking ships.  Because he’s totally nuts.

          Douglas is great.  He’s at the height of his vigorousness, he gets drunk with the ship’s pet seal and plays a ukulele made out of a sea turtle.  Just delightful.  And Mason brings his freakish seriousness to the role, which gives it a little more heft than your average Disney movie.  As a child I was hugely into live-action Disney movies of this era, both musical and non-musical, and this one definitely holds up to viewing as an adult.  Assuming you share the same proclivity.

Rocket Science:  2007 dramedy directed by Jeffrey Blitz and starring Reece Thompson, Anna Kendrick, Nicholas D’Agosto, Vincent Piazza, and Aaron Yoo.  Hal Hefner is a sweet kid with a stutter, an unbalanced klepto older brother, and a crush on Ginny, his high school’s rock star debater.  Under the tutelage of Ginny he ends up learning about the awkwardness of crushes and first kisses and emotional revenge.  Oh, high school.  I found the music almost oppressively indie twee (thanks a lot, Clem Snide), and the narration a little much at times.  But Kendrick’s Six-of-Blossom-like speech pattern was adorable, and Piazza is f-ing brilliant as Hal’s older brother.  Overall it’s an OK movie with a few perfect scenes.  And it made me want to be 15 again just long enough to awkwardly and frantically run down a high school hallway.

Breaking Dawn, Part 1:  2011 young adult vampire drama, you already know all this.  I have no excuse.  I would just like to point out that we all have our guilty pleasures, and this is my most shameful.  They’re totally ridiculous movies with little redeeming value and I enjoy them immensely.  Deal with it.

Season of the Witch:  2011 supernatural action movie directed by Dominic Sena and starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, and Claire Foy.  Yet another Black Plague-era witchy movie.  Cage and Perlman are knights escorting a prisoner of the church to some monks so they can perform a ritual that will supposedly end the plague.  But is the girl a witch or a scapegoat? 

          I was feeling ambivalent about everything else in my Instant queue, so I thought what the hell.  Why not.  It was surprisingly not totally awful.  I mean, it certainly wasn’t good, and you should keep in mind that I enjoy ridiculous action movies.  I will say that Black Death is better, but that shouldn’t surprise you.  Who do you want to see as a medieval knight fighting the forces of darkness:  Sean Bean or Nic Cage’s terrible hair?  

Badlands:  1973 crime drama directed by Terrence Malick and starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.  Loosely based on the real-life spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, the film follows teen couple and mass murderers Holly and Kit as they traipse around South Dakota messing people up.  Think Swiss Family Robinson meets Bonnie and Clyde: building tree forts and laying snares and killing the law.  It was visually beautiful, the music was appropriately weird, and the acting seemed to lack . . . pizazz?  I guess?  But perhaps that’s because they’re supposed to be misanthropic teens?  Dunno.  It was fine.  Fun fact for West Wing fans: Kit puts his jacket on the same way Josiah Bartlett does.

Movies By Month: October 2011, part 2

The Last Exorcism:  2010 “found footage” horror film directed by Daniel Stamm and starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Louis Herthum, and Caleb Landry Jones.  Reverend Cotton Marcus is a slick, charming preacher who used to perform exorcisms, and is now on a mission to debunk them.  He and his film crew travel to a remote area of Louisiana to document how he heals a supposedly possessed girl by tricking her with lights and sound effects and sleights of hand into thinking she’s being cured.  But could she actually be possessed?  And if not, can his smoke-and-mirrors routine help her?

          I liked this immediately.  It’s clever, and even though we’re all past the Blair Witch found footage crap I didn’t mind it at all.  It should be noted that I do not scare easily.  I jump in my seat now and then, but it takes a hell of a movie to really freak me out, and this definitely did.  Right up until the WTF ending, that is, which was so hokey and stupid it killed the mood that was so carefully set by the first hour and a half of the movie.  That being said, had it not taken that route, I would probably avoid rural areas and farms and woods and the dark for a long time.

What?  I do yoga.

Of Human Bondage:  1934 drama directed by John Cromwell and starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard.  A medical student pines over a bratty waitress who uses him for his money.  But you can’t turn a ho into a housewife.  Davis’s cockney accent is terrible.  This movie was remade twice for reasons I don’t understand.  It was lame and I had little sympathy for the mopey main character.  Grow a spine, dude; she’s not even that cute.

The Descent 2:  2009 British horror film directed by Jon Harris and starring Shauna Macdonald, Gavan O’Herlihy, and Krysten Cummings.  Have you seen the first?  It’s much the same.  If not, spoiler alert!  A group of hikers has gone missing and the lone survivor has amnesia.  The hiking rescue team takes her back into the cave system and she’s like:  Oh yeah, there are totally creepy blind pale mutant people-things down here who killed all my friends, so we should probably get the frak out of here.  The ending was dumb, much like the first.  But it was all right.  Keep your expectations low if you liked the first movie and you might enjoy it.

Hisss:  2010 “movie” directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch and starring Jeff Doucette, Malika Sherawat, Irrfan Khan, and Divya Dutta.  This guy has brain cancer and steals a snake-god’s mate to get this stone that’ll give him eternal life.  The snake god can take human form and she takes revenge on bad men who are mean to women or something.

          So . . . yeah.  It was campy beyond excuse, the special effects were terrible, and the acting was abysmal with the exceptions of Khan and Dutta.  I mostly want someone to watch it so we can discuss how ridiculous it is, but I can’t endorse you losing hours of your life on it either.

George Washington:  2000 drama directed by David Gordon Green and starring Candance Evanofski, Donald Holden, and Paul Schneider.  It’s mostly about a tragedy in a rural town in North Carolina, and kids wandering through abandoned buildings.  Criterion rarely steers me wrong, but it was plodding, the music was annoying (too loud, maybe?  Too insistent?), and the acting was a mixed bag.  I will give credit to Eddie Rause, who played an uncle of the main character.  He was great.  Skip it.

Hardcore:  1979 drama directed by Paul Schrader and starring George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, Ilah Davis, and Season Hubley.  Jake Van Dorne (Scott) is a religious single father and wealthy businessman in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  When his daughter disappears during a youth group trip to California and it seems she’s run off to be a porn star, he decides to track her down and bring her back home.  Because nothing is greater than the allure of mid-Michigan, folks.  I had a tough time committing to this one.  There’s really no explanation given for why she went so far astray.  She’s not just doing porn.  She’s in on the craziest, far-outiest shit there is.  I just didn’t buy that big of a leap with no details about her thoughts and feelings, what led to this.  The ending also felt unrealistic.  All that being said, Scott’s performance is out-freaking-standing.  So if you’re a big fan of George C. Scott, then see it.

Hairspray:  1988 comedy directed by John Waters and starring Ricki Lake, Divine, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, Leslie Ann Powers, the list goes on.  It’s about zaftig women and giant hairdos and amazing clothes and interracial tensions and awesome music and cameos by Josh Charles and Ric Ocasek and DANCING.  You know I like the dancing.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I danced around my living room quite a bit while watching this movie.  It was adorable, in that very special Waters way.

Rewatch! The Pianist:  2002 biographical drama directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody and many others (sorry, there are a lot of people with small to medium roles all of whom are equally important.  Too many to name).  Wladyslaw Szpilman is a famous pianist working for Warsaw Radio when Poland is invaded in 1939.  As the movie progresses we see the evolution of the lives of Warsaw’s Jewish population:  restrictions, armbands, relocations, camps.  I saw this in the theater and was sobbing by the end.  Then I read the memoir this is based on, and was again sobbing.  So it’s amazing, but prepare yourself for a cry.

Movies By Month: October 2011, part 1

The Rachel Papers:  1989 British romantic comedy directed by Damian Harris and starring Dexter Fletcher, Ione Skye, James Spader, and Jonathan Price.  Charles (Fletcher, who played John Martin in Band of Brothers) is a dating chameleon, changing his personality, tastes, even how his apartment is decorated, to land his conquests.  Skye is Rachel, his Mount Everest.  If you’ll forgive the pun.  Sadly, the perfect girl already has a boyfriend.  And when he does finally get her, he discovers that—surprise, surprise—she has quirks and annoying tendencies like every other girl he’s dated.  It was fine.  I was happy with the ending, at least.  Which is rare for romcoms.  I wanted to see more of the lesser characters.  Price is hilarious as the insane brother-in-law.  Spader was barely present, and dammit, I just want all the 1980s Spader you can throw at me.  Jared Harris also has a small but decent role.

  

The Atomic Café:  1982 documentary directed by Jayne Loader and Kevin & Pierce Rafferty.  Using government propaganda films, old news reels, Army films, and the like, they piece together a history of the atomic age with a bit of snark.  I thought it was pretty interesting, especially the recommendations for supplies in your family fallout shelter and the whole Duck & Cover nonsense, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re really into the Cold War.

The Debt:  2011 thriller directed by John Madden and starring Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Martin Csokas, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, and Jessica Chastain.  The movie is split between the past and the present.  Past:  It’s 1965, and three Mossad agents have been tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and returning him to Israel for trial.  Present:  It’s 1997, and despite being hailed as heroes for the last 30 years, things didn’t really turn out as planned.  There’s been a cover up, and now it’s up to the agents to do some damage control. 

          First I would like to say that Martin Csokas is a joy in my life, and whenever I see him in a movie it makes me happy.  You may remember him from a bit part in The Bourne Supremacy.  Or if you’re a total nerd, you may remember him from the LOTR movies, in which he played Celeborn, husband of Galadriel, Lord of the Galadhrim, co-ruler of Lothlorien.  He’s delightful.  But I digress.

          This sounded like my cup of tea:  Mirren, Mossad, retribution, the Csokas.  But it was utterly predictable until one of the very last scenes, and even then the shock of something unexpected was temporary.  I would say skip it.

Stevie:  2002 documentary by Steven James.  James returns to Pomona, a small town in southern Illinois, to reconnect with a man he used to be a Big Brother to.  They have a brief reunion, then the movie picks up again two years later after Stevie is charged with child molestation.  I’m torn on this one, I have to say.  I like James.  I really enjoyed Hoop Dreams, and I’m looking forward to seeing The Interrupters.  It’s an excellent documentary, but holy shit is it depressing.  And while I think it’s very honest, it also felt a little exploitative at times, of Stevie and his family and the victim, who is sort of glossed over.  The guilt James feels is clear, you get that he’s trying very hard to be fair, but on occasion it starts to drift over that line.

          But it IS excellent.  It shows all sides to the questions it raises.  What is the responsibility of Big Brothers/Big Sisters and similar organizations to those they help?  Is it fair or appropriate to beat yourself up if someone you mentor makes the wrong choices later in life?  Does being a victim excuse victimizing others?  Could you continue to support someone who is guilty of child molestation?  Should you?  Do sex offenders need punishment or treatment or both?

          If there is any light in the DARK PIT OF DESPAIR that is this movie, it is seen only briefly in Stevie’s former foster parents, whose sympathy for this seriously fucked up man is so genuine and pure that it almost almost restores your faith in humanity or the system or whatever.

Tangled: 2010 Disney animated family movie directed by Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard and starring Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, and Donna Murphy.  OK, think Rapunzel with several cute animal sidekicks.  Also her hair has healing powers.  I skipped most of the songs (the one in the tavern was worth watching) because Alan Menken wears on me sometimes.  I mean, I love Newsies, don’t get me wrong.  But there’s only so much I can take.  Anyway.  It was cute!  It was fluffy and funny!  And the Dashing Hero character reminded me of Craig Horner from Legend of the Seeker.  Miss that dude.

In the Company of Men:  1997 “black comedy” (really Wikipedia?  I beg to differ) directed by Neil LaBute and starring Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, and Stacy Edwards.  Two middle-management dickwads decide it would be a lark to simultaneously date and then simultaneously dump their shy, self-conscious deaf coworker.  The acting is great all around, but I didn’t care.  It was awful.  It made me hateful.  People suck.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil:  2010 Canadian horror/comedy directed by Eli Craig and starring Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, and Katrina Bowden.  Tudyk and Labine are Tucker and Dale, two buddies working on their vacation cabin in West Viriginia.  A group of college kids decide to camp nearby and due to a series of mishaps, coincidences, and perhaps seeing Deliverance a time too many, the kids start to believe that Tucker and Dale are backwoods psychos intent on murdering them all.  A theory that is reinforced when they start dying in freak accidents.  Think Shawn of the Dead, but with hillbillies instead of zombies.  I’m sorry, that’s insensitive.  I believe we prefer the term “yokel.”  It was hilarious, definitely see it.

Movies By Month: September 2011, part 2

The Bad Seed: 1956 horror movie directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, and Evelyn Varden.  Rhoda is a perfect little girl.  She wears perfect little dresses and has perfect manners and perfect braids and is a perfect total sociopath.  The people in her life come to realize she’s a homicidal maniac, but how to stop her?  Soooo melodramatic.  Whatever, it was the ‘50s.  Jones and Kelly are way over the top as the creepy maintenance man and high-strung parent.  Talk about chewing the scenery.  But Eileen Heckart is AMAZING as Mrs. Daigle, the grieving mother of one of Rhoda’s victims.  Apparently the book had a different ending, which sounded way juicier, but the Hays Code put the kibosh on that.  Do yourself a favor and skip the hokey closing credits, it kills the tone of the final scene.

The House of Sand and Fog: 2003 drama directed by Vadim Perelman and starring Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Ron Eldard.  Kathy Nicolo is a depressed alcoholic who can’t seem to get her shit together.  Massoud Amir Behrani is a former Iranian colonel who fled to the States with his family, and wound up working menial jobs.  Kathy loses her house due to a clerical error, Behrani purchases it from the bank hoping it’s the investment opportunity he’s been waiting for, and they spend the rest of the movie negotiating with each other over said house.  It’s not as boring as it sounds.  It’s really about two very different personalities from very different cultures trying to navigate a situation that both of their lives depend on.  Kingsley and Aghdashloo (heart) are particularly outstanding, and Connelly, of course, cries in like every other scene.  It’s really good, but definitely a bummer.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall:  2008 romantic comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller and starring Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, and Kristen Bell.  Famous woman breaks up with sweet dude, he goes on vacation to get over her, runs into her with her new famous man, tries to tough it out in paradise while simultaneously developing a crush on the cute front desk clerk.  It must be said:  I hate romantic comedies.  Generally speaking.  But this was much funnier than I thought it would be.  I was totally surprised by Brand.  Jonah Hill was an annoying blip in the movie, and the whole sideplot with Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on 30 Rock) should have been left out entirely.  It added nothing to the plot, provided no real additional jokes, and felt like a distraction.  Overall, pretty solid guilty pleasure movie.

Bill Cunningham New York:  2010 documentary directed by Richard Press.  New York Times photographer and columnist Bill Cunningham might just be the most adorable person ever.  Despite being a HUGELY influential figure in the fashion world, he lives a Spartan lifestyle, wears the same blue work coat every day, rides a Schwinn even to black tie events, and eats mainly at cheap diners.  He’s kind and very particular and honest and you just want to be his friend.  It’s a really great documentary, even if you don’t care much for fashion.  In one of my favorite scenes, he’s waiting patiently to be checked in at Paris Fashion Week.  While a young intern is checking his credentials, another man comes swooping in, takes Bill by the arm, and tells the whippersnapper “Please, he’s the most important person on Earth.”  And Bill just smiles politely and goes inside.  Definitely see it.

Henry & June:  1990 drama directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Fred Ward, Maria de Medeiros, and Uma Thurman.  Anais Nin had a lot of sex. Thurman’s accent is terrible.  That’s pretty much it.

Brick:  2005 neo-noir (stay with me, here) directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, and Emilie de Ravin.  Brendan’s girlfriend winds up dead, and it’s up to him to solve the murder.  Because that’s what high school students do, right?  Think Dashiell Hammett novel.  But with teenagers.  But in a good way.  It’s clever and the pace is exhilarating and the hardboiled detective story dialogue loses you occasionally but it’s fun trying to keep up.  I feel like I could watch this five more times and still catch something new.  Totally see it.

Doubt:  2008 drama directed by John Patrick Shanley and starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.  Sister Aloysius is concerned that Father Flynn has taken an interest in a young altar boy, and the movie centers around her investigation.  Is there really something sinister going on, or is she looking for a reason to get the modern and unorthodox priest dismissed because she doesn’t like him personally?  It’s brilliant.  Streep’s severity is mesmerizing.  She just completely owns this movie.  Her performance is perfect.  Seriously.  She does more with a look, with a gesture, than most actresses can ever achieve with far more effort.  OK, I’m done gushing.  Hoffman is also excellent, Amy Adams holds her own, and despite her very limited screen time, Viola Davis totally earned her Supporting Actress nomination.