Review: Monsters (Gareth Edwards, 2010)

Six years after the arrival of extraterrestrial life forms, security in the Infected Zone south of the Mexican-American border is tenuous at best.  Magazine photographer Andrew Kaulder is tasked with safely seeing home the owner's daughter Samantha through lawless quarantine areas and slums.  Make no mistake, however: this movie is actually an atrophied, ham-handed love story wrapped in a delicious monster movie coating.

The winning aspects of the movie are in the periphery; the resultant subtlety of the low budget lends itself well to Edwards' visual storytelling.  Squalor permeates the landscape and the residents near the Infected Zone have a tense desperation about them.  Shorelines, jungles, and city streets are littered with reclaimed plane, boat, and truck carcasses serving as a grim reminder of the daily horror these people have been living for years.  Even the CG effects, programmed by the director on his laptop, are completely serviceable. 

All these aspects would combine to make an effective thriller, but unfortunately the film chooses to focus instead on the interpersonal relationship between Kaulder and Sam.  Forcing the viewer to suffer through the generic, cliché ridden dialogue, awkwardly telegraphed jokes, underdeveloped motivation, nonexistent chemistry, and cringe inducing pseudo-philosophical pondering of these characters completely derails any potential emotional investment.  I can't emphasize enough how painful it is to watch these two people interact with each other.

Even considering the multitude of characterization faults, I'm looking forward to seeing what Gareth Edwards does next.  As a director, the newcomer shows a lot of promise.  His steady hand and cinematography are two definite standouts of Monsters, but in the future I'd suggest sticking to scripts from other writers. 

Review: The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010)

The Fighter follows true life amateur boxer Mickey Ward (an understated but relatively strong Mark Wahlberg) as he attempts to come back from a string of losses and finally make a career of boxing.  A strong sense of authenticity is added by the presence of many of the actual people and their family members who lived out the story in the early nineties, including Mickey's trainer playing himself.  Christian Bale again see-saws his weight to play Mickey's crack addicted brother-from-another-father Dicky Eklund.  He isn't "Machinist" thin in this one, but a very long way from his Batman bulk.  No, much more impressive than his weight loss is his complete personal transformation into the character.  I don't think Bale has ever disappeared this completely in a role before, and multiple times during the film I'd forget I was even watching an actor.  Melissa Leo is no less arresting as the boys' mother, alternately enraging and subtly earning sympathy from the audience.  

The movie itself is actually quite hilarious.  Despite my initial worries, the extremely comical tone thankfully gives way to emotional resonance in the middle third.  Through his brother, mother, and sisters, Mickey explores themes of failed dreams, letting go, and the importance of family so by the time the final bout hits the screen you're as invested in his triumph as they are.

After Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees a true life based boxing drama would have been the last thing I'd guess for Russell to direct, but that sense of unpredictability serves to complement him well here with the otherwise meat-and-potatoes underdog sports story.

Review: I'm Still Here (Casey Affleck, 2010)

In late 2008, Joaquin Phoenix threw the entertainment industry for a loop when he offhandedly mentioned his permanent retirement from acting in the pursuit of a rap career.  Over the course of the following two years, his weight ballooned along with a wild shock of hair and a beard that could make Jeff Lebowski jealous.  His increasingly erratic, obtuse television and press appearances (including an inaugural rap performance) fueled rumors of a meltdown even as seemingly inside information pointed at the debacle as an elaborate ruse.  This was later confirmed by Affleck himself, not even two weeks after the film saw release.  I'll try to sum things up using as few sarcastic quotation marks as possible.

The "mockumentary" follows a fairly linear format, filming Phoenix as he abandons acting in favor of his real dream: rapping.  Nervous foul-mouthed breakdowns ensue throughout aimless, meandering sequences of obnoxious, drug influenced behavior.  It's like watching a bizarro version of 8 Mile without any purpose or narrative structure.  Some sequences abandon any pretense of reality and become exaggerated to the point of disbelief as the film takes on a tone that seems almost antagonistic towards its audience.  Despite an unfortunate use of the word "faggot", a parade of full frontal male nudity, and pretentious soul searching montages I'd still hesitate to classify this as a mockumentary or even the brand of discomfort comedy that's become popular in the past decade.  It's definitely painful to sit through, but clearly the creative team here is nowhere near the league of Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, or Larry David, though Andy Kaufman seems the most obvious influence.

The only real poignant moment arrives in the form of a metaphor from Edward James Olmos on the transitive nature of fame and perseverance.  What would have been the high point of any other movie just serves to reflect all the tedium surrounding it.

The bigger pieces of media coverage are woven through the film quite well and there's some fascination to be had by guessing if the other celebrities were in on the joke, but overall I'm Not There feels about ten times longer than its hour and forty minutes.  Even if they had maintained their gamesmanship long after the movie released, the legitimacy would have added only marginal interest to an utterly boring film.  Maybe try to focus harder on the "mock" part of "mockumentary" next time.

Review: Splice (Vincenzo Natali, 2009)

Splice is an extended allegory for parenthood masquerading as a science fiction film.  To be sure, it has elements that strain at the imagination, but by and large it is more concerned with exploring the stages of child rearing than it is with the titular genetic fiddling.

Clive (Adrien Brody, sporting his dumpy scientist look emphasized by the giant anime poster hanging in his room) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are geneticists whose funding is pulled just as they're about to crack the mystery of human DNA splicing.  Rather than acquiesce and severely shorten the movie's running time, they continue testing in secret.  The result is a creature named Dren (spoiler alert: it's nerD spelled backwards.) I can't say much more without giving away too many plot details, but Splice manages to lightly touch on themes of euthanasia, (late stage) abortion, stem cell research, and unplanned pregnancy.  It mostly ignores the hard science behind the proceedings in favor of an ethical and emotional focus as the two leads convincingly portray the psychological struggles of caring for and raising children.

The film comes off as drab though.  The set design and special effects are routinely excellent, giving Dren a number of eeriely human characteristics that seem real but at the same time very unsettling.  These become more and more prominent towards the ending which, while exciting, seems out of tune with the rest of the movie.

Much of the joy of Splice is following Clive and Elsa as they cope with the weight of their decisions and new roles, so I'll leave it at that except to say this is one of the most fascinating movies I've seen in a long while.

Review: Centurion (Neil Marshall, 2010)

Neil Marshall has been in somewhat of a slump lately.  Dog Soldiers, while not the best werewolf movie ever made, was easily one of the most entertaining.  The Descent was a masterpiece of claustrophobic panic with the kind of strong female characterizations seldom seen in film today, let alone horror movies.  Unfortunately, Doomsday was overly reliant on masturbatory post-apocalyptic movie references to stand on its own as a legitimate piece of entertainment. Centurion is more "generic swords-and-sandals" to Doomsday's dystopian plagiarism.

Centurion follows (or attempts to, since there's more running in this movie than Gallipoli) Roman Centurion Quintas Dias (Michael Fassbender) as he runs away from, and then back to, and then away from, and then slightly back to the aboriginal "Pict" warriors as the Roman legion attempts to push farther into the northern reaches of the British isles, circa 112 AD.  All of the peripheral plot details are shared through Dias' mostly unobtrusive narration and thin stretches of dialogue before returning to more running and gouts of CG blood.  Somewhere in all of this there's a Pict tracker (Olga Kurylenko, permanently scowling former Bond girl) and woebegone tales of Roman atrocity, but it's definitely more 13th Warrior than it is Gladiator.

Marshall's direction is solid, if unimpressive, and he still has an ear for writing banter, particularly between soldiers.  His characters move with an easy camaraderie that you can find in most his films.  This does lead to a problem, however, when the gratuitous cursing becomes completely incongruous with Centurion's period setting, not to mention a late love interest is treated with laughable disregard.

From the groin stab that opens the movie, it displays a comical, almost ridiculous enthusiasm for violence that's infectious if you're into that sort of thing (bludgeoned with trees, bisected soldiers sort of thing).  The computerized blood is, unfortunately, extremely obvious and a wildly different color than the practical blood effects only seen in about five percent of the movie.

If you're in the mood for something you don't have to think about, or you're interested in seeing a disgustingly graphic depiction of deer entrails, you might consider this one.  I strongly believe that Neil Marshall has another great film in him, but Centurion isn't it.

Review: The Square (Nash Edgerton, 2008)

Is a compelling character one who reacts organically to their environment, or someone who is weathering ceaseless misfortune despite efforts they've made to the contrary?  I'll get to that, but first, the plot:

Married Ray (David Roberts) is having an affair with the much younger Carla (Claire van der Boom), who is also married to a criminal named "Smithy" (Anthony Hayes, coming off as a mulleted Australian analog of Tyler Labine).  The film follows the unfaithful couple as they try to score one last bundle of cash to start a new life, and the increasingly horrific circumstances that arise because of it.  Simple, yes, but the director knows how to work these minimal plot elements for a fantastic amount of tension with a nervy, handheld camera style. Unfortunately, with a slight foundation certain things get left by the wayside.  You'll notice I didn't mention Ray's wife's name, because The Square doesn't seem particularly interested in her either and she's completely absent from the latter half of the running time.

The main problem with the film is that ninety percent of the misfortune befalling our protagonists is too random.  They don't make rash decisions, the consequences of which will haunt them for the rest of their lives;  they are simply dogged by a stream of predictable accidents growing to an almost antagonistic din by the end.  This takes almost all characterization out of the plot and turns it into a 100-minute-long exercise in Murphy's Law.

It's not all bad, though.  The film knows its subtlety: the sly reveal of Ray's married status after the opening tryst when he checks his watch, the unspoken implication that a man-for-hire is an unstable pyromaniac evidenced by spot-on acting and burn scars.  The recurring scene of a runaway dog is loaded with subtext of guilt and inevitability.  Also, Santa shows up on a boat.

There are better examples of Neo-Noir out there, but few of them generate the kind of tension that The Square is capable of, when it wants to be.

A Statement of Purpose

I've been in love with movies since I first saw Vertigo when I was 15, which I rented specifically because it was from Hitchcock. Having previously been aware of only Psycho and The Birds, my teenage mind had no idea that it would spawn another decade and a half of unrelenting, alienating pretension. Some of that excitement, adoration, and not a small amount of vitriol will hopefully be spilling through here roughly twice a week as I post reviews, articles, and various other film-related nonsense.  I don't have a specific format nailed down right now, so I'll be trying out a few things until I find one that fits.