Celluloid Hero - Shore Alternative

CELLULOID HERO

I'm Still Here

April 8, 2011

Release Date: September 10, 2010

Joaquin Phoenix's attempt to change careers from acting to rapping was well-known. He blurted out his decision on an entertainment show, and the buzz immediately began. Shortly after, the accusations of the whole thing being a hoax came out. The lines between reality and fiction were heavily blurred, and the final result was "I'm Still Here."

The story is one you probably already know. Phoenix was enjoying the success of movies like Gladiator, Walk the Line, and We Own the Night. In a seemingly random moment, he decided he was fed up with the Hollywood celebrity lifestyle and wanted to become a rapper. His friend and brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, was there to film and document the career change.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to simply critique the movie on its own merits. Once the whispers of "hoax" arose, the media pounced on Phoenix demanding to know the truth. If he had really decided to give up acting and become a rapper, he was now going to have to prove himself even moreso than before. If this was all a stunt, then it failed because everyone was in on the gag before it was supposed to be revealed. These facts make it hard to tell if Phoenix is doing a good job acting like he's gone crazy, or if he's really gone crazy, or if he's doing a bad job at acting like he's gone crazy. It's hard to tell if the people around him are in on the gag, and just reacting honestly to his behavior, or if they were all in on it and working together.

I finished the movie still unsure as to what was real and what was fake. I've read numerous things that support both sides. Phoenix and Affleck have come out saying the whole thing was a fictional movie, an attempt at satirizing the reality-obsessed culture we live in. Many have countered, however, that their excuse is just a coverup, an attempt to back-pedal and say "we were just kidding all along, haha, aren't we clever?" after Phoenix was really unable to make the jump to music.

I would still say this is worth a watch, just to at least experience it and form an opinion for yourself. I give a lot of credit to Phoenix; he did give up two years of his life, and therefore two years of his acting career, just to convince the world that this was real. On the other hand, spending two years to create a persona that most people immediately sniffed out as being a fake seems like he thought this would work a lot better than it really did.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm Still Here gets a 6.

~chris v

Conviction

April 5, 2011

Release Date: October 15, 2010

Conviction is based on a true story. Kenny Waters is accused and convicted of murder in the small town of Ayers, Massachusetts. His sister, Betty Anne, believes so firmly that he is innocent that she devotes her life to freeing him. She goes back to school, gets her GED, gets a BA, makes it to law school, and passes the bar. The story is true, so this isn't really a spoiler, but Betty Anne is eventually able to prove Kenny is innocent and gets him out of jail after 18 years.

It's a stunning story. The lengths that Betty Anne goes to in her attempt to save her brother are truly inspirational. From Kenny's perspective, the thought of being incarcerated for nearly two decades for a crime you didn't commit is incomprehensible. Despite all the gravity of the situations, I felt like I was watching a Lifetime movie.

Understandably, when a twenty year period is condensed to a two hour movie, things get rushed. I have a problem with the film's pacing, but I somehow also have a problem with the real life pacing. When a regular movie is "based on a true story", you expect embellishment. When the "true story" revolves around an actual court case, I expect to see more of the court case than just two witnesses saying "yeah, Kenny did it" and the jury saying "we've heard enough, go to jail forever." I know the story of the movie is more about Betty Anne's trek, but it still felt like the incident that lights the fire under her is almost glossed over.

For such a heavy drama, the acting needs to be of the highest caliber. Hilary Swank totally failed. The worst thing I can say about an actor is that they look like they're acting, and that's exactly how I felt the entire length of the movie. All I saw was Hilary Swank trying to talk like a person from Massachusetts. Sam Rockwell was hard to figure out for me. I have a hard time believing that someone imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit would be so nonchalant about things. Maybe this was an accurate depiction of the real Kenny Waters, but not once did he jump up and scream "I didn't do it!"; instead he actually planted seeds that maybe he did, and maybe his sister wasted her life on a false cause.

The whole thing just left me disappointed. I was bored during a large amount of the movie. I didn't like either of the main characters or any of the supporting roles either. There were about two or three moments where I felt actual emotion, so it's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but I feel like a documentary would have been better suited than a dramatic interpretation.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Conviction gets a 3.

~chris

The Fighter

April 1, 2011

Release Date: December 17, 2010

I'm not surprised this was nominated for Best Picture, and I'm also not surprised it didn't win. It has all the elements the Academy looks for: redemption, turmoil, love, failure and success. The problem is, I felt like the movie was designed to appeal in that sense in the hopes of making an award-winning product.

With any "based on a true story" movie, you always have to wonder exactly how much really happened, how much is exaggerated, how much is skipped over, or how much is total fabrication. Micky Ward and his brother Dicky Eklund are well-documented people. Both were well-known fighters, Dicky had a publicized breakdown, and this takes us through the story of Dicky's lowest moments leading up to Micky's highest.

Dicky Eklund's career revolves around the one night he got to fight Sugar Ray Leonard. He becomes a local legend in the working class town of Lowell, Massachusetts. His younger brother Micky follows in his fighting footsteps. Micky manages to stay clean while Dicky falls into a crack habit. Micky meets Charlene, a local bartender, and decides he would rather have a better life with her and some legitimate promoters as opposed to his extremely dysfunctional family. The story focuses on the fight Micky has to make a name for himself instead of as Dicky's brother, and the fight Dicky has to go through every day just to keep going.

Christian Bale is so good I actually worried about his well-being. There were moments where I felt like the only way he could play a crackhead so convincingly was to have gone out and done it for real. He also manages to portray this amazing quality of humor and charm despite playing a washed-up junkie. If the real Dicky Eklund was like that, it's no surprise that his family constantly turned the other way and shrugged off his behavior as "Dicky being Dicky."

Mark Wahlberg continues to frustrate me. He plays a badass so well, but I'm never really convinced at any of his emotional work. I also have yet to see the appeal of Amy Adams. I haven't liked anything of hers I have previously seen. I know this role was her attempt at something darker and less perky, and she did manage to dirty herself up. It still felt out of place, like an uptown girl heading down to Southie to do some slumming.

I don't know their life, so I really can't know for sure how much was real or not, but I feel like this was made with the plan of creating something for the critics. There were enough moments of drama, enough romance, enough comedy and enough action to appeal to everyone, but it still felt like an example of approved-for-the-masses art.

On a scale of 1 to 10, The Fighter gets a 6.

~chris v

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

March 29, 2011

Release Date: June 26, 1966

It was a strange coincidence that I got this movie just a few days before the death of Elizabeth Taylor. I haven't seen any other of her starring movies, so I decided to introduce myself to what is largely considered her best work. The entire movie is critically acclaimed, and is the only movie to be nominated for every Oscar award category in which it was eligible. Taylor won the Oscar for Best Actress.

Taylor and Richard Burton play Martha and George. They're a couple in their 50s; George is a college history professor, Martha is the daughter of the president of the college. The story begins as they make their way home from a faculty party on campus. Martha is already drunk, but George seems to be the more stable of the two. Martha reveals she has invited a younger couple, a new professor and his wife, for an after-party. The foursome spends the night and early morning spiraling down into a truly dysfunctional world of mental, physical and emotional abuse.

Martha is immediately introduced as loud, obnoxious and impatient. George seems to deal with her in a quiet sense of surrender, as though he has accepted this as his fate and no longer cares to improve it. When the couple are alone, there does still seem to be underlying love. The two jab back and forth, but it seems initially harmless, just a drunk wife poking at a husband who has learned to let her be until she sobers up.

When the young couple (played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis) enters, everything begins to crumble. Interestingly, neither character is introduced or mentioned by name. The credits list Segal as "Nick" and Dennis as "Honey" but the sense of anonymity makes the characters more like observers, an audience watching George and Martha. The drinks continue to flow as Martha continues to grandstand, and finally George has enough. Once the floodgates are open, the damage is devastating and far-reaching. No one and nothing is spared as all four people let loose.

The movie is extremely realistic. It may be a bit dated in some of the "shocking" aspects that initially caused controversy. Some of the language and themes were obscene by old standards, but today are relatively tame. Still, we have all been at some party when one person gets just a bit too drunk, and says one or two things that they shouldn't. There is the awkward moment when you try to excuse yourself, but the host apologizes and insists you stay. I was also very impressed with the pace of the movie; instead of just ramping up the abuse exponentially, director Mike Nichols made it a point to bring things nearly to a halt, revealing key character elements in quiet dialogues as opposed to the loud arguments.

It might not totally stand the test of time, but overall it's an incredible study of four people and the lies they tell eachother and themselves just to get through their lives.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? gets a 9.

~chris v

Flash Gordon

March 24, 2011

Release Date: December 5, 1980

The first time I saw this movie was probably twenty years ago. For some reason I had a random flashback, and felt the need to revisit it.
I don't know what it says about me, either at this age or back then, but my opinion was mostly unchanged.

Flash Gordon was originally a comic strip in the 1930s. It became a trilogy of film serials in the 30s and a TV show in the 50s, but 1980 was the first time for a full-length feature film. There was a definite attempt to keep a campy feel to the movie. Lavish sets, gaudy costumes, over-the-top acting and dialogue all combine to create a cult classic.

The movie begins with an unseen villain attempting to destroy Earth with seemingly "natural" disasters. Earthquakes, hurricanes, even "hot hail" are battering the planet. As the hot hail begins to fall, Flash Gordon (quarterback of the New York Jets) boards a small plane along with journalist Dale Arden. The plane ends up crashing and coming to a stop in the laboratory of Dr. Hans Zarkov. Zarkov was dismissed as a mad scientist by his peers, but his construction of a spaceship to escape proved to be valuable. The trio end up blasting into outer space, only to be sucked into a black hole and stranded on the planet Mongo.

Honestly, the storyline is pretty pointless until they reach the alien world. Upon landing, we meet the villain Ming the Merciless. He immediately decides to brainwash and reprogram Zarkov, kill Flash, and keep Dale for his pleasure. We are introduced to Ming's conniving daughter, his sinister henchman, and a number of clans inhabiting various planets and moons in the surrounding galaxy. The number of twists and turns would actually be able to fill out a season of television episodes, but cramming them all into a two-hour movie made things a bit hectic.

The younger version of myself didn't have a critical eye for acting and such, but I remember just enjoying the characters, the action, and the visual aspects. The current me still loves the visuals, but I also have a newfound appreciation for most of the acting. Sam J. Jones played Flash, and ended up being the weakest point of the cast. Other members were able to find the balance of tongue-in-cheek and serious tones, but Jones always seemed to be trying to play it too straight.
Max von Sydow was great as Ming, bringing a real sense of gravity to a cartoonish villain. Melody Anderson, Chaim Topol, Ornella Muti, Timothy Dalton and Peter Wyngarde all bring real life to their supporting characters. My favorite (then and now) is easily Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan, the leader of the Hawkmen.

The movie cannot be discussed without a mention of the soundtrack. The entire score was written and performed by Queen, and is probably what truly cements the cult classic status. Queen is nothing if not flamboyant, but the technical skills of the musicians keep it from going from campy to just bad.

There is always a fine line between good, bad, intentionally bad, so-bad-it's-good, etc. I feel like Flash Gordon was an attempt at making a so-bad-it's-good movie that was actually not bad in the first place, if that makes any sense. Regardless, it definitely is a cult classic, and I really enjoy it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Flash Gordon gets an 8.

~chris v

Fanboys

March 22, 2011

Release Date: February 8, 2009

I will admit it; I am a Star Wars geek. I'm not at the level of fandom as depicted in "Fanboys", but I think if you looked at high-school-me, there was a chance that, with a few detours in my life, I could have ended up like them.

Hutch, Windows, Linus and Eric all grew up together, and were at the right age to have Star Wars make such an impact on their lives that everything revolves around it. Eric, however, decides he has to "grow up" and abandons his friends. Three years pass before they meet again. After arguments, and a revelation about Linus's health, they reunite. The goal of the reunion is to trek across the country from Ohio to California in order to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut of the upcoming Star Wars prequel "The Phantom Menace" to view it before anyone else.

The story parallels Star Wars in a number of ways. There are unsure heroes, beautiful princesses, father-son anxiety, comic relief. Some of the characters are obvious nods to the original cast, some are composites of multiple characters. The entire thing is a clear love story dedicated to the original trilogy. Nothing is mean-spirited, nothing is done in a derogatory way.

The cast is split between perfect and sort of annoying. Jay Baruchel is excellent as part of an ensemble cast, good for a few jokes here and there and used as the butt of many gags. Dan Fogler was great as the loud obnoxious-yet-lovable Han Solo/Chewbacca blend. At first I didn't like Chris Marquette, but his character ends up being the most endearing of them all. On the negative side, I felt like Sam Huntington just fell short. He played Eric, the betrayer, so his character wasn't meant to be liked initially; I still felt like he was never really able to make the turn. Kristen Bell drives me crazy. She's amazing to look at, and looks even better as a brunette, but I've yet to be impressed by her acting. There were tons of awesome cameos, ranging from noted Star Wars fans like Kevin Smith and Jay Mewes to original cast members Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams.

The whole movie is a fantasy that every Star Wars geek would like to live out. The original movies pulled us in because of the adventure, the clear cut depictions of good versus evil, the memorable characters. There aren't many times in real life that we get to experience these things. Even the ability to use Star Wars quotes in situations that actually fit is something most of us would enjoy.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Fanboys gets a 7.

~chris v

Severance

March 15, 2011

Release Date: May 20, 2007

Take a moment to ponder your coworkers. Now imagine which of those people you would want with you if you were literally fighting for your life. Severance could be described as taking the cast of The Office and throwing them into a horror movie. There is the group of stereotypical office workers (the yes-man, the cocky guy, the inept boss, the hot-yet-unattainable chick) but instead of wacky hijinx, they are trying not to be murdered by a pack of lunatics.

Severance follows a group of people who work for Palisade Defence, a multinational arms manufacturer. They are a mostly-British group (with one American) on a publicity tour through Eastern Europe. While traveling through Hungary (or Romania, or possibly Serbia (the fact that they don't even know highlights the ineptitude of the boss)) they come to an impasse in the road. They decide to get off their charter bus and walk to the lodge for their weekend retreat/team-building outing. Upon arrival at a building that is clearly not the "luxury lodge" they are supposed to be at, things start spiraling down.

The premise for the violence is actually good. There are rumors involving a mental institution that used Palisade nerve gas to wipe out the inmates (with a lone survivor). Another rumor claims they are in a "re-education center" for Soviet war criminals, who also suffered at the hands of Palisade products, with again a lone survivor swearing revenge. The stories are actually told in a creepy enough manner to be simultaneously a campfire ghost story and a realistic scare tactic.

There is a good amount of gore. Plenty of fight action, stabbings, shootings, burning, scarification, loss of limbs, and decapitations. None of the killings are particularly "funny" in the sense of a horror-comedy, which kept things fairly tense. A lot of the deaths are horror cliches, with the victim being slowly stalked by a masked madman. The acting was surprisingly good for a slasher movie. Each of the characters was believable enough that you could really be working alongside of them. They also did a good job of introducing each character and their personality without seeming forced in doing so.

Despite being billed as a "horror comedy", it actually felt like more of a satire of horror movies. There's a blurry line between straight comedy and satire, but I felt like it wasn't really a "horror comedy" in the sense of "Shaun of the Dead". Instead it was more of a satire like "Scream", but less overt. There were enough moments of levity to make me laugh, but overall it was a horror movie that really tried to make it "what would happen if my coworkers and I were in this situation."

On a scale of 1 to 10, Severance gets a 7.

~chris v

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

March 11, 2011

Release Date: May 2, 2010

It took me a little while to get to this movie, which is building it's own cult following. When you have a movie title like this, there's really no surprise as to what you're going to see. The interest is either repulsion or curiosity, perhaps both. Either way, there is a distinct possibly you will be offended. I wasn't really offended by the images on-screen, but more bothered by the weakness of the entire movie.

The setup is complete horror cliche: two hot girls get lost in the woods during a storm, and the person they encounter for help just happens to be a psychopath. Lindsay and Jenny (played by Ashley Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) are two American girls on vacation in Germany. Dr. Heiter (played by Dieter Laser) is the madman, living alone in the woods with no one around to interfere with his experiments and research. Dr. Heiter was renowned for his work on separating conjoined twins. Since his retirement, he has changed his interest to connecting bodies rather than disconnecting them. His previous experiment, involving his three pet dogs, wasn't able to survive long. This time, he sets his goals on human beings.

The tension was barely there through the first half of the movie. It was a lot of typical horror stuff: flat tire, no cell reception, thunder and lightning, bad guy explaining his plan in great detail, futile escape attempts. Even trying to put myself in the situation of being abducted while on vacation wasn't able to get me committed to the story. By the time the actual surgery begins and the shocking images appear, I was already gone. The visuals were surprisingly lame for what I had been lead to believe. Whether or not you've seen or heard anything, just the term "human centipede" should be able to prep you for what the experiments result in.

At times, I found myself thinking this would have worked better as some sort of animated movie. The character of Dr. Heiter was completely mad, and the look of Dieter Laser was already cartoonish; he is very thin, and for most of the movie wears a tight white labcoat buttoned all the way up to the neck, and often includes black sunglasses. I also think the final design of the centipede was lacking, and the choice to animate (either traditional or CGI) would actually have resulted in a better product. I normally appreciate the use of traditional effects, but only if the effects actually look good. In this case, they did not.

I genuinely can't think of anything redeeming about this movie. Many horror movies have tried to put some message, whether subtle or overt, into the story. This was just a crazy doctor torturing people. Even in other horror/shock movies where the violence is seemingly gratuitous, there is at least some sort of meaning. This was just an attempt at gross-out imagery, but outside of one or two scenes, it even fails at that.

On a scale of 1 to 10, The Human Centipede (First Sequence) gets a 1.

~chris v

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

March 8, 2011

Release Date: August 6, 2010

I am incredibly impressionable when it comes to movies. When I watch a sports movie, I get amped up to run out and compete. When I watch a music movie, I run around trying to start a band. After watching The Boondock Saints, I wanted to get a peacoat, take up smoking, and go on a righteous killing spree. The Disappearance of Alice Creed had me genuinely believing that I could pull off the perfect kidnapping.

J Blakeson previously wrote the screenplay for "The Descent 2", but "Alice Creed" is his debut as a writer/director. His directorial style is nothing too cutting-edge, but adding too much flash wouldn't have been appropriate for this movie. It's billed as a crime thriller, but it's actually a well-disguised character study.

The movie opens with two men silently preparing for the kidnapping. Their checklist is thorough enough to make the audience believe the plan was pretty foolproof. Vehicles are stolen, an apartment is completely sealed off to house the victim, clothes are burned, generic outfits are prepped. The two cons do seem to be prepared for anything. Enter the victim, and a truly traumatizing series of events. The girl is masked, thrown into the back of a van, cuffed to the inside, and dragged into the apartment. There, all four limbs are tied to a bed, bound and gagged, her clothes cut off, pictures taken as proof and emailed to her family. It's all done by silent assailants, only the screams of the victim are heard.

Once the actual deed is done, we are brought into the world of the cons. There is a distinct split of personality between the two, one being much more dominant, much colder, much more calculating. The other is submissive, meek, a bit more weak-willed. It sounds a bit cliche in broad sense, but there is an undercurrent that runs through their relationship.

There are a number of big twists which I won't reveal here. The first somehow walked a line between surprising and expected; hard to explain, but I think I was expecting a connection between the cons and the victim but wasn't sure what it would be. The second big twist was one I actually jokingly predicted in my head about a minute before it was revealed on-screen. The twists continue right up to the last scene, and the whole time we are never totally sure as to the motives of each individual.

There are a handful of plotholes, but those only really serve to add fuel to my impressionable fire. Taking into consideration all the prep work I observed, added to the mistakes that I feel I can now avoid, I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to, I could kidnap someone and get away with it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, The Disappearance of Alice Creed gets a 8.

~chris v

Gentlemen Broncos

March 4, 2011

Release Date: October 30, 2009

Napoleon Dynamite was funny. It was quirky. It was something we hadn't seen before. The characters were absurd, but still managed to be somewhat endearing. I didn't see Nacho Libre, so I can't completely comment on the progression of writer/director Joshua Hess. However, just viewing this as a followup to ND, it's a total mess.

I know it's not fair to judge a movie based on what the director did previously, and sometimes unfair comparison arise from that. Still, Hess has made his career with a certain style, and seems to be just repeating himself here. He's set up a theme of misfit characters with bad wardrobes who never curse. It feels like the group of people in Gentlemen Broncos could have just lived a block away from those in Napoleon Dynamite.

Jemaine Clement and Michael Angarano are the saving graces of the entire movie. Angarano honestly doesn't do much, but it fits the character very well. He plays a shy, quiet sci-fi writer. He doesn't overact on the surface, but manages to bring a lot of expression with his face alone. He and Clement seem to be the only realistic characters in the movie. Everyone else is just a bizarre caricature, as though Hess just said "Let's get a parade of the ugliest extras ever, put them in garish clothes, and make them do weird stuff for the sake of doing weird stuff."

Sam Rockwell. Why? Normally a tremendous actor, I don't get why he would take on this project. I understand that, from a character perspective, it was supposed to be "bad acting", but it was so far beyond bad that it went from being a humorous spoof to just annoying to watch.

I finished the movie with the feeling that I was not laughing with the characters, I was laughing at them. More correctly, I was not laughing at them, I just wasn't laughing.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Gentlemen Broncos gets a 2.

~chris v

After.Life

March 2, 2011

Release Date: April 9, 2010

Have you ever watched a movie, then watched some of the bonus features on the DVD afterward, and ended up ruining part of the experience? I watched After.Life and enjoyed it a lot. I had formed my own opinion of the movie and my own theories regarding the questions brought forth and seemingly answered. However, within the first few minutes of the "Making Of" featurette, writer/director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo told me I was completely wrong.

Anna, played by Christina Ricci, gets in a car accident, and wakes up in a morgue. The only other person there is Eliot (Liam Neeson), the mortician. Anna refuses to believe she is dead, insisting the fact that she is speaking with Eliot is proof of her living. Eliot explains to her that he has a gift, the ability to speak with the dead and assist them from this world to the next. Anna refuses to believe, but Eliot is able to counter nearly every argument she puts forth.

Anna's almost-fiancee Paul (Justin Long) is certain Anna is not dead, but everyone else says he's suffering from grief-induced hysteria. All the logical signs point to Anna being dead, but Paul just cannot accept it. Without giving spoilers, I'll just say both possibilities made sense; if it were supposed to be a documentary than obviously no one can communicate with the recently deceased, but since movies are supposed to suspend disbelief, it was okay to go with the premise that Eliot was a mortician with a special power.

Justin Long was rather lame, just projecting a general "I'm sad" vibe without much depth. I've honestly never been wowed by Christina Ricci's acting, but her look was always good to me. Her performance varied, at times being too over-the-top, but other times playing it very mellow. Liam Neeson is always a strong point, and he brought a certain calmness to a character with a lot going on underneath.

My main issue is with the "spoiler" given in the DVD extras. I think the main question brought up is "who is correct, the director or the viewer?" I feel like if a question is left unanswered in the final cut of the movie, that should be it. There shouldn't be a reveal later on, or in a deleted scene, or in something that isn't available to every person during every viewing. Had I seen this in theaters, I would not have had the director's statement in my head at all; instead I end up with a battle raging in my mind. Is a writer/director the absolute authority? Most would argue yes, but with that argument I think the movie itself takes a hit. If Wojtowicz-Vosloo were a strong enough writer, she would have either wrapped the ends up properly, or left them intentionally vague but allowed the viewer to interpret things themselves. Instead, by throwing a conclusion in after the fact, it weakens the foundation of the entire movie.

On a scale of 1 to 10, After.Life initially gets a 7. Wojtowicz-Vosloo's coverup knocks it down to a 5.

~chris v

Sheitan

February 22, 2011

Release Date: December 26, 2006

Never trust the hot girl at the club who invites you to her house in the country. Never.

Sheitan takes elements of House of 1000 Corpses and The Hills Have Eyes and throws them into the French countryside. Three friends are hanging at a club, trying to pick up girls. Bart, Thai & Ladj make up the trio; the seductive Eve convinces them to drive to her family's house outside of the city. Along for the ride is one of the bartenders. Ladj connects with Yasmine, the bartender, despite having a girlfriend already. Eve latches on to Thai, leaving Bart alone. It's apt, because Bart is the biggest chav of them all.

The drive covers far too much distance to really believe the guys would go so far just to get some. Upon arrival, they are introduced to Joseph, the housekeeper for Eve's family. Joseph immediately creeps out everyone, particularly Bart. The guys are persistent in their attempts to seduce the girls, despite the long drive and the obviously creepy inhabitants. Joseph has a pregnant wife who remains unseen for most of the movie, and a larger family of somewhat mutated children. There is a "1000 Corpses/Hills Have Eyes" vibe of the weirdo family living out in the sticks with hints of inbreeding leading to shrieking misshapen kids.

There are a number of horror cliches, but there are also a few original unsettling moments. There is an awkward hot spring skinny-dipping scene, which also involves Joseph's slutty niece doing things to a dog that even made me cringe. The darkness and bulk of the story comes when Joseph tells a folk story about a man who strikes a deal with the devil. In exchange for invulnerability, the man allows the devil to impregnate his wife and promises a gift for the child when it's born. The gift is a doll for the baby, which happens to require human hair, amongst other human parts.

Vincent Cassel is perfectly demented as Joseph. Most of the roles I've seen him in are much more suave, but he totally transforms into crazy country bumpkin with a love for inappropriateness. He's racist, sexist, slightly homoerotic, and most of all, murderous. The rest of the cast bothered me at most points. It's actually a sort of positive, because it seemed like most of the characters were meant to have no redeeming qualities. Ladj is cheating on his girl, Thai is just a general jerk, and Bart is every scumbag-who-thinks-he's-awesome you've ever met rolled into one.

Sheitan was pretty a mostly predictable horror film interspersed with some unique traumatic images. I also enjoyed the ending; there are a couple fake endings that leave you guessing exactly what happened before there is a final resolution. The last image of the movie is an amazing shot of the perfect loving dysfunctional family of backwoods freaks.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Sheitan gets a 5.

~chris v

Buried

February 18, 2011

Release Date: September 26, 2010

From a technical standpoint, this is awesome. The concept, the cinematography, the editing, the lighting; those aspects are all great. From an emotional standpoint, the story had potential but a couple weird twists and some plot holes kept this from being completely amazing.

The first shot following the opening credits is just black. Deep, endless, pitch black. It's silent as well, until we hear slight rustles and scratching and breathing. The audience is immediately thrown into the same situation as the character. We don't know what is going on, where we are, or how we got here. It's an effective technique, and hooked me in right away.

Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driver in Iraq. He has no ties to the military, Blackwater, vigilantes; no political affiliation, he is driving a truck delivering goods to help rebuild. We learn that his convoy was attacked, most of the drivers killed, but for some reason he is buried alive instead. There are a few things left in his pockets or in the coffin with him, including a Zippo and a cellphone. Initially you can't help but try to MacGyver your way out, thinking of what you would do in that situation. The director does a fair job shooting down some of the options, but at the same time provides a number of flaws in logic.

There were times when I felt like the script was trying too hard. A few bits of dialogue were red herrings, designed to throw the viewer off track, but these detours were never fleshed out. It actually felt like a tacked-on addition to try to make it more of a mental thriller than a physical one. The intensity of being in buried alive should be enough without wondering about the motives of those trying to help you.

As said, the technological aspects were great. The entire length of the film is set inside a coffin, forcing director Rodrigo Cortés to work within a very restrictive parameter. It also brings a great performance out of Ryan Reynolds. He has to stay crammed in a small coffin with no one else to react to except voices on a cellphone. I think the choice to stay totally in the coffin brings the audience in deeper. There are no chances to catch your breath, no time spent above ground to regroup. Instead, we are there every second as the heat builds, the air thins, the sand begins to pour in, and hope fades. Countering that are parts of the story. There were just too many loopholes or plotholes, and one specific scene involving Conroy's employer drove me crazy. I understand a movie consisting just of a guy going crazy for an hour and a half wouldn't work, but I think too much was put into what should have been a simpler storyline.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Buried gets a 7.

~chris v

Kick-Ass

February 15, 2011

Release Date: April 16, 2010

During my viewing, I was feeling somewhat bored. The first hour didn't do much to pull me in, I only got interested about halfway through. I felt like it was a decent action movie combined with a mostly unfunny comedy all buried under the superhero genre. It wasn't entirely bad, it did have some good qualities, but overall I was left feeling blah.

Kick-Ass is the alter ego of Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Johnson. He's an average teen, not a jock nor a nerd, not a band geek nor a drama queen. He just hangs out with his friends (one played by the awful Clark Duke), reads comic books and is ignored by girls. He decides one day that he will be the first real person to become a costumed superhero. This results in a severe beating which leads to nerve damage, thereby making him somewhat invulnerable. It's a shaky premise to set up "superpowers", but at least it's more realistic than a radioactive spiderbite.

The realism is the main problem I have with the movie. Pretty much every superhero story is about a regular person coping with their super abilities. Almost none of them WANT to be superheros, they just have no choice (besides being a villain, that is). Bruce Wayne became Batman to avenge his parents, the X-Men were formed to use their powers for good; Kick-Ass is just some kid who thinks it would be cool to do good things. The attempt to keep it very realistic goes back and forth. At times it's good, there's no crazy magical powers to scoff at; on the flipside, so many absurd things really do happen that make you roll your eyes.

I was more drawn to the subplot involving Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, played by Chloe Moretz and Nicholas Cage. The idea of a good cop being framed by a mobster, sent to prison, and developing a master revenge plan could have been a stand-alone movie. Adding in the training of the young daughter could have been a cool element. What knocked it off track was the over-the-top hero angle. They managed to compile a gigantic arsenal of handguns, automatic weapons, even a bazooka. They somehow ordered a jetpack from the internet. The two manage to take out a full squad of bad guys, only needing one shot to take each one out. It's the sort of thing that clashed with the premise that Kick-Ass himself was mostly inept but kept trying; Hit-Girl and Big Daddy were actually competent crime-fighters.

I have heard this movie described as "Superbad meets Kill Bill", which honestly doesn't sound like a great combination to begin with. I understand the comparisons to both, but I don't think it achieves the level of either.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Kick-Ass gets a 3.

~chris v

The Protector

February 11, 2011

Release Date: September 8, 2006

The Protector is the second joint effort of Tony Jaa and director/producer Prachya Pinkaew. The first was the previously-reviewed-here "Ong-bak". In that review I noted the lack of story and the great action and fight scenes balancing eachother out. The Protector takes those themes and actually pushes them to further extremes. The storyline was even more irrelevant and confusing, but the action scenes were even more impressive.

The Protector's backstory involves a Thai tradition of warlords riding elephants during battle. Tony Jaa's character Kham comes from a long line of elephant trainers, and raises a perfect elephant to present to the local political leader. For some reason, when the time comes, Kham's father refuses to give away his elephant, so the leader's aide shoots the old man in public. Kham had been wandering around the village with a baby elephant (the son of the prized elephant) but gets separated when he goes to rescue his father. The lost baby elephant ends up getting kidnapped with his father, and both are shipped to Australia. A female Thai crime kingpin (queenpin?) believes the perfect elephant will bring her power and allow her syndicate to be the most powerful in the country.

Really, this story would not be entirely bad. Lots of stories involve evil warlords trying to get a necklace or spear or diamond that they believe brings power. Using a living creature isn't that much of a stretch. The problem is that outside of the main plot, nothing else makes sense. Characters are introduced then forgotten then brought back randomly. There are twists and turns, but not logical ones, nor ones that are explained in the end. Plot points are revealed in a way that was like "oh yeah, by the way, this cop is dirty, did we forgot to tell you that? cuz it's kind of important".

Despite the lacking story, the action is unbelievable. Tony Jaa is a master, and takes a big step up from Ong-bak. Kham gets to Australia and starts to single-handedly destroy the entire world of organized crime. To be honest, most of the fight setups are just as absurd as the story. Kham fights a group of thugs riding skateboards, dirtbikes and quads; he fights three enemies with different styles in a burning temple; he takes on a group of guys who are all at least a foot taller than him and could be pro-wrestlers. In one of the most fun gang-fight scenes I've ever seen, he takes what feels like fifty opponents and breaks at least one bone in each of them; it's a solid three minutes of compound fracturing. One of the most impressive moments is a long tracking shot with no cuts or edits that follows Kham up a giant spiral staircase, laying waste to dozens and dozens of people on the way to the top. Every fight scene really felt like it could have been the big epic finale of another martial arts movie.

When it comes to critiquing, I again have to refer to my feelings towards martial arts movies in general. They're not known for their storylines, and audiences generally don't watch them for the storylines. Occasionally a great movie will come along that blends story with action, but The Protector is not one of them. The story was basically just filler, and confusing filler at that. Still, the action was amazing enough to make it worth watching.

On a scale of 1 to 10, The Protector gets a 6.

~chris v

Black Swan

February 8, 2011

Release Date: December 17, 2010

I have a great admiration for Darren Aronofsky; he has yet to put out a movie I did not like. Despite that, my expectations for Black Swan were not unrealistically high. I wasn't sure how Natalie Portman would do in the heavy style of Aronofsky, and I wasn't sure about a movie about ballet. I went in expecting an interesting story, good character development, and some cool camerawork; I left with my expectations met.

Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, a young ballerina still living with her controlling mother. The amazing Vincent Cassel is Thomas Leroy, the artistic director for the ballet company. He has written a new version of the classic "Swan Lake", and wants to cast the same girl to play the good White Swan and the evil Black Swan. Nina is perfect for the innocent and sweet White Swan, but is unable to capture the dark and seductive Black Swan. Thomas urges Nina to break free, let loose, open up. The introduction of Mila Kunis's character Lily sparks Nina's change. Lily goes back and forth from supportive to sabotaging, but we're never sure if the sabotage is all in Nina's mind. As Nina falls further into the Black Swan, the lines blur more and more.

Aronofsky's pace may feel a bit slow, but it fits the story. No one goes from normal to crazy overnight. Little things start to happen, strange hallucinations or out-of-character actions. At first it is just a fleeting moment, but as the story pushes on they get more and more frequent, and more and more intense. The hallucinations range from face-swapping to talking paintings to some really cringe-inducing scenes of graphic body harm. Everything also happens at an exponential rate, starting off slow, then building and building and building to a frenetic climax.

The ending still left you unsure as to exactly what happened, which I liked. Some "split personality" movies reveal the twist and backtrack, showing you everything that happened from an outsider's perspective. Instead, Black Swan showed everything from Nina's point of view, so we went along with her at each moment. She walks down the street, sees or hears something odd, and we see or hear the same thing. We're aware that most of the events are in Nina's mind, but there are still enough things that are unexplained.

The visuals, along with camerawork and editing, range from obvious to subtle. Aronofsky makes great use of color, using mostly blacks and whites to contrast the characters and their state of mind. He even uses the performance-within-a-performance technique by showing the same color scheme in the ballet as in the world around it. There is also a mirror, or some reflective surface, in nearly every scene. At times it's an overt reference to how characters see themselves, and other times it's a bit more subdued.

Aronofsky continues to impress. Requiem For A Dream still stays at the top for me, but Black Swan is at the great level of The Wrestler and The Fountain. I was impressed with the emotion he was able to pull out of Portman, and I was totally blown away at the performance of Mila Kunis. Vincent Cassel is always awesome, and Barbara Hershey was perfectly harsh as Nina's mother. The acting was all great, and the cinematography was excellent. Despite not knowing much about ballet or the original story of "Swan Lake", my interest was kept through the whole thing.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Black Swan gets an 8.

~chris v

Ne le dis à Personne (Tell No One)

February 3, 2011

Release Date: July 8, 2008

Take a strong suspenseful thriller, throw in a handful of action scenes and a bit of violence, and put the whole thing on top of an incredible love story. Based on an American novel, but put in the hands of a French director and cast, "Ne le dis à personne" is a great blend of a few genres.

Alexandre Beck's wife Margot is attacked; as Alex goes to save her, he is blindsided and knocked unconscious. He awakes from a coma three days later to discover Margot was killed. The movie immediately jumps eight years forward. Alex is a successful doctor, but still hasn't fully moved on from the events. Even at the suggestion of Margot's mother, Alex is unable to have real feelings for someone new.

There is a perfect coincidental moment that results in two bodies being found near the spot the attacks occurred. The police end up re-opening the case, and the dominoes start to fall one by one. Alex's name makes it onto the news, and he receives a cryptic email from an unknown sender. A link to a live webcam shows images of a woman who looks very much like Margot, sending Alex on a maddening chase to find who he believes to be his wife.

I was thoroughly confused during parts of the movie, but it worked in the sense of putting me in the same situation as Alex. Characters were introduced and it's not known right away just what side they are on. There are close friends, family, police, tenacious lawyers, helpful street thugs, and harmful street thugs. There are theories, accusations, lies, alibis, false alibis, confessions, and false confessions. Every time I thought I figured something out, a subsequent clue would make me start over.

Even with all the crazy twists and turns, I felt like the pervading story was that of love. It's a story of the devotion of one man to his true love; it also shows the love of family members and some of the shocking things they will do for their loved ones; it finally shows the love and loyalty that friends give to each other, especially in incredibly trying times.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Tell No One gets an 8.

~chris v

The Social Network

February 1, 2011

Release Date: October 1, 2010

There were a lot of elements that had me looking forward to this. David Fincher is a great director. Aaron Sorkin is a phenomenal writer. Jesse Eisenberg continues to impress me with every movie I see him in. Trent Reznor scoring the movie = awesome. Even the tagline is one of the better ones I've heard recently. Honestly, with such high expectations, it was almost set up for failure; luckily it avoided failure and kept me totally entertained.

It's been a while since I've watched a movie that I wasn't writing a review of in my mind while watching. I was totally into the story and the characters, and just let everything unfold before me. I feel like part of this was because I knew the "ending", so I wasn't sitting there guessing about what could happen. David Fincher's choice to jump back and forth between legal settings and college flashbacks provided a nice pace for everything.

I genuinely love Aaron Sorkin's writing. It's a similar style to David Mamet, with characters bouncing rapid-fire lines off eachother. Sorkin, however, tends to be a bit less vulgar and a bit more pretentious, but in a good way. All the characters in this are intelligent (Zuckerberg attended Harvard) so naturally the dialogue will be a bit elitist. Jesse Eisenberg's characters have mainly been a snobby sort already, and he stepped naturally into the role of an introverted-yet-confident computer geek.

The entire movie was cast very well. Andrew Garfield was excellent as Zuckerberg's best-slash-only friend Eduardo Saverin. Armie Hammer was great, playing both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the alpha male trust fund jocks. At first, Justin Timberlake didn't feel right, but the more I thought about his character the more he fit. Sean "Napster" Parker was the outsider, the legend, the dream. He was bigger than the Harvard group, so it fits to have cast a bigger name than the rest.

As said earlier, I knew how this movie would end. I knew parts of the story behind Facebook (I even remember having to use my college email to sign up) but I discovered there was a lot I didn't know. The non-linear storytelling, the exceptional acting and superb writing made this one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen lately.

On a scale of 1 to 10, The Social Network gets a 10.

~chris v

House of Games

January 28, 2011

Release Date: October 11, 1987

Con movies can create a complex viewing experience. The audience knows it's a con movie, so our brain is working to figure out the twist before it is revealed. The problem is, we sometimes get too far ahead of ourselves. While watching 'House of Games', I was compelled to try to solve the con before the director chose to take me to the ending. The real problem occurred because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to know things the main character didn't, or if I was supposed to be going along with the con-men, or if I was just over-thinking everything.

Margaret Ford is a respected psychiatrist and author. In trying to help one of her patients, she is pulled into the secretive world of the con artist. Mike is the lead conman who piques her interest. She asks him to let her follow him around, learn his methods, and see what makes him who he is. It's hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but Mike teaches Margaret some of the basics and ends up bringing her much deeper than she anticipated.

Director David Mamet has previously written a few movies I enjoyed, and this was his debut as a director. Mamet established himself first in the theater, and much of this movie comes across like a play. The dialogue at times is stilted, and Lindsay Crouse's performance as Margaret was completely wooden. Despite that, the rest of the cast (Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, J.T. Walsh and others) excel in their roles. One of Mamet's trademarks is quicktalking filled with vulgarity; at times I thought Margaret's stiffness was just meant to provide counterbalance to the smooth nature of the conmen, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Crouse got the role because she was sleeping with the director (really, she was married to Mamet at the time).

I liked Mamet's directorial style as well. I noticed a number of shots that included either mirrors or shadows or both. The mirrors seemed to be a subtle way of showing how all the characters saw themselves; the shadows were a slightly more obvious nod to the shady world they were living in.

My issues still lie in the ability to suspend disbelief. There were a number of actions throughout the movie that made me think "wait, why did that happen?" and in doing so, momentarily pulled me out of the viewing experience. These things are later shown to be essential after being questioned initially. It's a sort of logic loop that I find myself in, trying to figure out if these actions were intentional clues for the audience so that we know more than the character, or if the screenwriter/director was just being lazy, or if they wanted us to think we are smarter than we really are. Mamet's ability to make my brain spin so much actually bumps the movie up a bit in my book.

On a scale of 1 to 10, House of Games gets a 7.

~chris v