Caught On The Flip Side: Exploding Trains, Smelly Werewolves, and Minotaur Junk
Posted: September 30, 2011 Filed under: Brian A. Costello, Caught On The Flip Side, Review Leave a comment3 Quickies.
Source Code: It’s like Groundhog Day meets Inception!
Colter Stevens (Jake Gylllllenhaaaaaaaal) is a soldier who wakes up in the body of another man, on his way to Chicago by train. Eight minutes later, the train explodes. Turns out this is the past and his consciousness has been sent there to discover the identity of the man who bombed the train so he can prevent future attacks. But he only has eight minutes to get it done, over and over again.
I had it wrong through most of this movie. I thought the deal was Jakey G. was reliving all of the aspects of some guy’s memories and was doing his best to notice the specific details that the guy might not have seen in this repeated 8-minute cross-section of time, and that made little sense to me since JG managed to physically go places that this guy obviously did not, and yet still gather enough specific information to solve the mystery at hand. And although that annoyed me on a basic logic level, I still dug this flick. Then, at the end, I realized I was dead wrong- Gylly was actually going back in time and literally affecting the outcome of these events with his actions, essentially changing the present. This turned a pretty good flick into a great one, even though its reality is even more far-fetched the correct way.
Anyway, the former Mr. Darko, Michelle Monaghan (“Christina Warren”), and Vera Farmiga (“Colleen Goodwin”) all put in great performances. The contrast between the dull fluorescent military lab and the oddly hyper-real colorful past-time sequences help you feel the confusion and frustration that Stevens feels. And even though the movie is a series of do-overs, it never feels repetitive. Very surprised by this one. I scoffed at it when it was released back in March, and now I’ve gone ahead and eaten crow.
8 out of 10 Cross-Eyed Leading Men
Red Riding Hood: It’s like Twilight meets The Village!
Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), a girl in a small village (“Daggerhorn.” Ugh.), falls in love with a lowly woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but is promised to Henry (Max Irons)- the son of a wealthy blacksmith. And there’s a werewolf. And a grandmother (Julie Christie). And a red hooded cape.
This movie was directed by Katherine Hardwicke, who is responsible for Twilight, so I knew going in that I was to be handed a pork roll, egg, and cheeeeese (on a Kaiser bun). Basically, the bar was set pretty low already when I pressed “play.” And while what I got was certainly near said bar, I was still surprised that the movie sat on top of it instead of drowning beneath it. Yes, the love triangle was Twilight-laughable, yes the performances from the two men in said love-triangle was so piss poor that I, more than once, uttered, “oh, Jesus CHRIST,” out loud with only my cats around to hear me, and yes, the “whodunit” aspect, by the end, was so poorly handled that literally everybody in the movie was a suspect, but, surprisingly, the negatives and positives almost cancelled each other out in such a way that I didn’t completely hate RRH. Just… disliked it. I enjoyed Amanda Seyfried, I enjoyed Billy Burke, I enjoyed Gary Oldman (duh). I thought the scene in the cave was handled very well- atmospheric, tense, and scary. I initially enjoyed the whodunit thing. I enjoyed that fact that this was a very soundstage/set piece movie, because it added, in a positive way, to the whole fairy-tale aspect of it. I dug the costume design.
But by the third act I had had enough. “The killer has brown eyes!” Oh, good- so I should watch reeeally closely to see who has… oh. Everybody. And when the wolf attacked the villagers I kept getting the image in my head from Army Of Darkness where the mini evil Ash clones were all running around frantically and screaming hysterically. But I’m pretty sure I was supposed to feel suspense, not joy. Oh, and again, those two guys were so horribly, sickeningly, completely awful. Who cast this movie? Was the idea to find not one, but two leading men that constantly have that “I smelled a fart” look on their face? If so, gooooooooooooooooooooooal! Oy. And poor Gary Oldman. You can literally see the precise moment where he stops chewing scenery and says to himself, “oh… fuck. What in Jeebus’ name was I thinking? Aww, fuck it. I look good in purple velour.”
4 out of 10 Awkward Lucas Haas Moments (as opposed to non-awkward Lucas Haas moments?)
Your Highness: It’s like Lord Of The Rings meets Harold & Kumar!
I saw the Unrated version of this movie, FYI.
Lazy stoner medieval second-fiddle prince, Thadeous (Danny McBride), is forced to accompany his heroic brother, Fabious (James Franco), on a quest to save his maiden fair fiancée, Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), from the clutches of the evil wizard, Leezar (Justin Theroux). Along the way they cross paths with adventurer, Isabel (Natalie Portman), who, as it turns out, is also after Leezar. Jokes about penises, vaginas, homoerotica, marijuana, penises, and penises ensue.
Odd, odd flick. I think it was supposed to marry stoner comedies with fantasy… but, strangely, it decided to step further in the latter’s direction and tiptoe around the former. Very strange. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely a movie that had it’s wacko-tobacco moments, like the Alice In Wonderland-esque Great Wize Wizard scene (which existed solely for first-time stoner college freshmen), and it sort of ambled along like a slacker-comedy, but it was the fantasy aspects that got the most love, directorially. Problem was, the cinematography was about as flat and uninspired as it gets. There’s only so many medium-shot scenes of people walking through a generic wilderness, interspersed with close-ups of James Franco (at his most awkwardly earnest) and Danny McBride (and his mullet) that I can take. Any time a digital effect showed up it was in a lazy still shot where actors tried their best to portray lightning coming out of their fingers, or ducking under a naked minotaur’s punch, in that awkward, 80’s sci-fi way. Good effects, poorly used. Look, I wasn’t expecting a big-budget first-person perspective shot that tracks a sorcerer’s attack from his hands to his target’s chest, or anything, but I mention it because I think director David Gordon Green was. Have you seen David Wain’s Role Models (if not, you should)? Imagine the outdoor live-action role-playing “LAIRE” scenes from that movie, but with special effects thrown in. That’s what Your Highness was. Oh, and does Zooey Deschanel HAVE TO FUCKING SING IN EVERYTHING NOW? I love Elf, but it started the trend, so it will always have a very small black mark against it.
Positives? Justin Theroux was so great I wish he was in something with more substance. Danny McBride was solid. His sidekick guy was as well. The aforementioned “naked minotaur” scene was pretty OK, and it’s continuing payoff made me laugh out loud a few times. I dig Simon Farnaby, so even though he hardly spoke I’m counting his presence as a positive. And it was funny, often. It just didn’t know what it was trying to be.
Also, Natalie Portman’s thong put in a brilliant performance and deserves an award.
6 out of 10 Uncomfortably Overused Pedophilia And Incest References
Remake-O-Rama
Posted: September 20, 2011 Filed under: Brian A. Costello, Review Leave a commentGot my computer back from “the shop” yesterday, so… Mini-Review Catch-Up, Part 2. A double-feature I caught a few weeks ago- two remakes of 80’s favorites.
Conan The Barbarian: A bunch of passable, yet unrelated scenes strung together to form a “movie” with no real through line, point, concept of the passage of time, or soul. Jason Momomopa-pa-pa-ooma-mow-mow-a marble-mouths his way through, Stephen Lang delightfully chews through scenery with reckless abandon, Rachel Nichols plays some girl, and Rose McGowan’s forehead sprouts a fivehead, destroying everyone in its wake. Secondary and tertiary characters are introduced so Jason Momoarkhadafi has someone to mumble to, but we don’t give a fuck about any of them because there is literally no fleshing-out of said characters. Morgan Freeman’s voice shows up at the beginning as a narrator, briefly, twice, for no real reason, then is unceremoniously dropped for the rest of the film. I enjoyed the opening ten minutes (or so) when we see Conan as a boy, proving himself to his people and his father (Will Ferrell Ron Perlman). I enjoyed the fight with the sand people (no, not those sand people), even if it was a bit on the repetitive side. I enjoyed Stephen Lang. I enjoyed many of the locations… even though it seems every village, stronghold, ocean, and monastery in this world are only 15 minutes away from each other (what is this, LA?). I didn’t really enjoy Jason MomOm-Namah-Shivaya. I didn’t enjoy banal stupidity like a failed attempt at comic relief via some nobody thief character and a completely unearned sex scene between MaunaLoa and whatsherface. I didn’t enjoy the disastrous editing (best example- Rachel Nichols follows MoMA from a ship to a craggy, sunbleached cliff to a cave, commences with the aforementioned sex scene, then walks back to the ship… through a lush green forest. Wait, WHAT?). But really, most of all, I didn’t enjoy the fact that this flick resembled so many movies (Clash Of The Titans, Temple Of Doom, The Sword And The Sorcerer, Beastmaster, Jason And The Argonauts, Willow…), but completely failed to resemble the one it was supposed to. You know… CONAN THE FUCKING BARBARIAN. Seriously, just like last year’s Clash Of The Titans, this is NOT how you do a remake.
But I still didn’t completely hate it, so…
5 out of 10 Uncredited Actors Named Zlateto*
Fright Night: Now THIS is how you do a remake. Take a horror-geek favorite and update it with snappy dialogue (SOLE screenplay credit- Buffy’s Marti Noxon!), a competent director who both “gets it,” and doesn’t try and reinvent the wheel (Craig Gillespie. Haven’t seen any of his other stuff), a solid cast (Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, David Tennant, McLovin…), cool visuals (yes, CGI. Get over it), and a story that is realistic (I mean, for a vampire-next-door tale), self-contained, and doesn’t try to shoehorn everything and the kitchen sink in to the narrative. It’s a small story, and that’s on purpose. The “returning” characters, while updated for 2011 (sparingly, with one exception), haven’t been given new annoying quirks or obligatory changes in gender or ethnic backgrounds. Clarification on that “exception”- I’m not saying the change in David Tennant’s “Peter Vincent” is annoying, just that he’s been given the only stand-out upgrade. And it makes sense- there are less late-night local TV station horror hosts these days (actually, are there any anymore?), and since the movie takes place in the outskirts of Vegas, making him a spoiled douche Criss Angel-type guy living in a ridiculous Goth suite is both relevant and inspired. The character still gets an arc, and it’s a satisfying one. Anyway, again, great writing, all around. Having your characters speaking fun-yet-natural dialogue in this suburbia McNeighborhood eases you in nicely, gets you comfortable… but not too comfortable- as in most quiet ‘burbs there’s something unseen about to boil over. Here it just happens to be a vampire. What else… well, that Yelchin kid is awesome (he was the stand-out in Terminator: Salvation, not that Worthington guy, and his Checkov in Star Trek was spot-on and funny). He brings that natural, flawed everykid thing to his Charley Brewster, which makes him easy to identify with. Colin Farrell is really great, walking that thin line between creepy and sexy (I’m so glad Hollywood stopped trying to sell him as their “next big thing” a few years ago. It made me (admittedly, unfairly) dislike the guy). “Jane Brewster” could have simply been a generic hot-mom character, but Toni Collette** finds the nuances that (I assume) Noxon included in the script. There’s really nothing I didn’t like, but there were one or two things that stand out as slightly questionable (and totally nitpicky, on my part). First, why a Las Vegas suburb? I get the irony of a vampire moving in to a sun-bleached desert town with no shade, but if there was more to it, it escaped me. I only mention it because it seemed so specific a locale choice. Secondly, there’s plenty of tense moments, but not many truly scary ones. Not a huge deal, just an observation. Lastly, I liked Christopher Mintz-Plasse as “Ed,” but his character is severely underused. He disappears pretty early on in the film, and his return towards the end lacks any kind of punch. If he had been used more in either place he might have seemed less of an afterthought. I get the impression, though, that David Tennant’s role might have been beefed up at some point in the process, so maybe Ed suffered because of it. Dunno. I’ll never truly understand the Hollywood Machine, so I’ll just continue to calls ‘em as I sees ‘em. And I calls Fright Night…
8 out of 10 Chris Sarandon Cameos
*Go to Conan’s IMDB page. As you scroll down, you’ll notice something both hilarious and very, very telling. 10 people listed as simply, “Nun,” 5 as “Monk,” 2 as “Belly Dancer,” and 8 as… –giggle-… –snort-… “Topless Wench.” AND ONE OF THEM IS UNCREDITED! “Hey, mom, guess what? I got my very first Hollywood role!” “That’s great, dear… wait… did they make you take your clothes off?” “Just my top, but I’m secure with my body. Besides, I’m finally on the grid!” “I’m so proud of you, honey. I’ll go tell your father! I’m sure the whole village will love seeing your name in lights!” D’OH!
**Yeah… I was just thinking, “Toni Collette is totally hot for an older woman.” Then I glanced at her IMDb page. She’s 6 months younger than me. FML.
Homemade Flamethrowers & Insane Clowns
Posted: September 11, 2011 Filed under: Brian A. Costello, Review Leave a commentThere’s a few movies I’ve seen, but neglected to write about. Some are months old, now. Yup, I’m lazy. And, uh, busy, and stuff. Writing’s, like, hard. Anyway, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t get something out there, so, I’m going to play catch-up with some mini-type-reviews. The first two were limited releases. I have no idea if they’re still out there.
Someday I’ll stop with the “my view on spoilers” linking thing, but not yet. Click here for that. Or click it up at the top-right.
Bellflower: An overwritten indie film heavy on emotion, light on coherence, with pretty good performances and fantastic cinematography. Two friends obsessed with Mad Max (Evan Glodell and Tyler Dawson) meet a couple of girls while out drinking. Woodrow (Glodell, who also directed) falls in love with Milly (Jessie Wiseman), who then cheats on him with her ex-boyfriend roommate (Vincent Grashaw). Woodrow gets into a bad accident on his bike, goes bananas, and daydreams a nutso fantasy where he sleeps with Milly’s friend Courtney (Rebekah Brandes), burns a box of Milly’s stuff on her lawn with a flamethrower he and friend Aiden (Tyler Dawson) made, then, in turn, gets revenged upon by Milly, who gets him unconscious and has a tattoo artist tattoo a mustache and sideburns on his face, then turns around and gets some re-revenge by bloodily raping her. Then Courtney shoots herself in the head. Then we see it all wasn’t real.
So, some definite attempts at David Lynch-dom. Successful on a visceral, emotional level, but far too convoluted, and ultimately too pointless for me to care about figuring it all out. I saw a random tweet from badassdigest.com’s Devin Faraci that said something (can’t recall the exact wording) about this movie hating on women (and, really, if you read the above synopsis you may agree), but I don’t really think that’s the case. It’s a fact- people cheat. Sometimes those people are women. And if you walked in on your girl hardcore-fucking her ex in YOUR bed, then you immediately got into a head-bashing, leg-breaking accident on your motorcycle, you’d probably have some fucked-up thoughts about her while you’re stuck indoors, healing, as well. Hopefully you wouldn’t ACT on those thoughts, though, just as Woodrow doesn’t. Actually. Again, it’s all about the raw emotion here. And we feel it, in spades. But, as the flyer we were given at the screening (at the Museum Of The Moving Image in Astoria) said, the pacing of this movie can be best described as, “shambling.” Seriously, I was getting pretty bored and annoyed until all the not-real stuff started happening. Then it did happen and I felt as uncomfortable, angry, sad, and just plain wrong as I think the filmmakers intended me to, so… well done? Dunno. Don’t really care. Don’t really care to revisit, either. Cinema of this emotional magnitude only really needs one shot to get the job done. And get it done it did. There’s certainly nothing more to be gleaned from the narrative, and re-viewing it will only produce duller versions of the emotions it sparked. What I do care to do is see Evan Glodell’s next project, whatever that may be. Dude’s got some serious passion, so… bring on the sophomore effort, y’all.
6 out of 10 Cricket-Eating Contests
The Last Circus (Balada triste de trompeta): A Spanish film about the son of a “Happy” clown forced to fight in the Spanish Civil War, in costume, with only a machete. The son, Javier (Carlos Areces), grows up to be a “Sad” clown in a circus, constantly humiliated by Happy clown Sergio (Antonio de la Torre) for the audience’s amusement. Javier falls in love with Sergio’s acrobat wife, Natalia (Carolina Bang), who is ment… wait, her last name is really “Bang”? Oh, boy. Where was I? Right- Javier falls in love with Sergio’s acrobat wife, Natalia, who is mentally and physically abused by her husband, but loves him for his animal magnetism. She also loves Javier for his loving sweetness. But, apparently, you can’t have both, missy, so something’s got to give…
I had a really tough time with this one. Much like Bellflower, the movie lives on a heightened level of emotion, with great performances, and completely awesome visuals. But as it unfolds it becomes almost relentlessly silly. Yes, the image of a clown with a scarred face dressed up like the pope shooting up a diner with a couple of SMGs is undeniably awesome… but what does it mean? What is its place in the story? Does it simply exist to give said awesome visual? My suspicion is yes… but as my friend John suggested on the subway afterwards, there may be a level of subtext that I missed. Now, I freely admit- I’m an undereducated American and therefore know absolute zero about Spain and its historical highlights. I only know who Franco is because I had to sing his name on stage 20 years ago, and that literally had nothing to do with Spanish history. So when John suggested that Natalia might represent Spain and Sergio & Javier might represent opposing political views on how to govern the country, I started to maybe like the film a little more, post-viewing. Maybe. Unlike Bellflower, I will be revisiting this one. The question is whether I’ll read up on foreign history beforehand. I suspect not. I hope everything meant something… indeed, John’s suggestion of the love-triangle subtext sounds pretty great to me… but what, then, does the funny little motorcycle daredevil who constantly begs for more rehearsal, then finally gets a chance to shine, only to comically shoot himself into a stone structure and die horribly during the Tim-Burton-Batman-esque finale represent? Was he, perhaps, representing me, the undereducated audience member, finally letting go and enjoying, only to have my hopes crushed by stupidity?
Yeah… probably not.
I’ll get back to you on this one.
For now, though, 6 out of 10 Naked Fat Men Eating Wild Animals In The Woods
Yeah, Well, You Know, That's Just, Like, uhh... Your Opinion, Man... 