Monday, January 25, 2010

Capsule Reviews - January Doldrums Edition

The January Blues are making it hard for me to write too much at any one time about any one thing. I beg your indulgence as you read yet another edition of Capsule Reviews (plus one long-ish review). Onward!

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Big Fan (d. Robert Siegel) - I had very high hopes for this, coming as it does from the pen and director's chair of Robert Siegel, best known for writing The Wrestler, one of the very best films of 2008. And its subject matter -- a study of a particular kind of obsessed sports fan, and the dark places his obsession and social awkwardness take him -- was something I hadn't quite seen portrayed, or at least focused on, before. And I had a feeling that its lead actor, comedian and heretofore unproven dramatic actor Patton Oswalt, could, if he had any real acting chops at all, knock this role out of the park (to borrow a sports metaphor from a sport other than the one his character is obsessed with). And the film isn't bad. Oswalt is very good, and ultimately I did have a lot of affection for this wreck of a person and the outrageous lengths he'll go to preserve what he incorrectly regards as his personal dignity. The film's major problem is that it's too plotted. And it's not even all that plotted -- there are really only two major turns in the story -- but I think I would have preferred a day-in-the-life approach to this kind of character, than the unlikely, though not implausible, series of events we get.
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Moon (d. Duncan Jones) -I never realize how badly I miss big-screen takes on genuine science fiction themes and ideas until I actually see a new one. David Bowie's son's first film may wear some of its influences too prominently on its sleeve (Silent Running, for instance, and, most blatantly, 2001: A Space Odyssey), but Moon is not doing the same thing as those films, just nodding at them. Sam Rockwell, in what is essentially a one-man show, is superb as Sam Bell, an astronaut who is based on the moon, mining something-or-other, when he has an accident a couple of weeks before his three-year contract is up, and he's sent back home to his wife and child. When he wakes up in the infirmary (cared for by HAL 9000 stand-in Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey), however, he's forced to ask "Who's that other guy?" Gripping, sad, thoughtful, eerie, and pretty wonderful.

In the Loop (d. Armando Ianucci) - It was funny. I don't deny that. But I have a hard time giving full credit to a film that is unambiguously a fiction, but asks us to credit it for being insightful satire. And it may be insightful up to a point, but the satirical absurdity of the last third doesn't cut to the bone, because it's fiction, so...maybe my problem is more with satire than this particular film. Anyway, it's brilliantly acted, and personally I preferred Tom Hollander's uneasy deadpan to Peter Capaldi's relentless profanity, entertaining though that was.

Halloween II (d. Rob Zombie) - Rob Zombie's serious movie. Halloween II (a remake of a sequel that I haven't seen) is positively aching to be embraced by the same kind of arthouse crowd that put Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the MoMA all those years ago. The difference is, Hooper wasn't aiming for that -- he only got there because the film he made was so singular. Zombie's not-even-armchair psychonalaysis of his serial killer is also the polar opposite of what made not only Hooper's film, but Carpenter's original Halloween, so chilling. Explanations are for simpletons, and it's frankly beyond me why Zombie is convinced the opposite is true. And yes, I did see the director's cut, which I've been hearing has an added richness so overwhelming as to make the theatrical version look like House of 1000 Corpses. Which I suppose is entirely possible, but so what? The last shot is kind of creepy, though.

The Hurt Locker (d. Kathryn Bigelow) - Bigelow's Iraq War masterpiece really is as apolitical as everyone says (although I suspect there's enough covert cynicism about military brass, etc., in the film for certain kinds of interpretation to take hold), and focuses on the men who defuse roadside, and other, bombs, and how the adrenaline that's generated from such work can be addictive, and cause some men to become reckless. The Hurt Locker is relentlessly intense, and almost never steps wrong -- the one or two times it did are so minor that I don't think they're worth bringing up. The masterpiece within this masterpiece is an extended sniper duel in the middle of the desert. Brilliant.

The Roost (d. Ti West) - On the surface, this film wouldn't seem to merit more words written about it than, say, The Hurt Locker, but as it happens I have more to say about it. Ti West's most recent film, The House of the Devil, is getting quite a bit of play on-line, and is being hailed as, if not a great horror film, than at least a pretty darn good one. A lot of people are pleased by that film's 1980s horror throwback qualities, which is to say that it's a no-frills, solid, spooky piece of work, with a nice mood and some good jumps. That's what a lot of people are saying about it, and, in fact, I liked it pretty well myself, largely because the set-up was so engaging, and Tom Noonan's too-brief supporting performance is, I think, sensational. The payoff to that set-up, and to Noonan's strange and oddly sympathetic (until we reach the end, anyway) character is less satisfying, but at least it has its moments, and also weren't 1980s horror films a lot of fun? Yes, some of them were, though if I were to pick a decade's worth of horror films that I wanted my modern horror films to emulate, it wouldn't be that one. In general, though, I'd prefer far less of this, period. The same could probably be said of most genres, but horror is the genre whose practitioners most believe that to look forward is to look back, and to make sure you know that they know that they're looking back. Not in terms of influence, but rather of insularity.

Still, why look a gift horse in the mouth? The House of the Devil is pretty good, and let us all be satisfied with that. And I am. I've even defended the film to a friend who liked it somewhat less than I did. But one look at Ti West's previous film, The Roost, and I'm forced to ask "Why are so many horror fans so easy to please?" This is a question I've asked repeatedly, and I'm no closer to an answer now than I was any of the previous times I've asked, but The Roost got quite a bit of good press itself, at least from genre outlets (Fangoria and the like), and I'm becoming more and more convinced that if horror fans fear anything, it's change. The Roost, you see, is also a throwback, an even more self-conscious one than The House of the Devil. Tom Noonan is also in this one, though in a smaller role, this time as one of those fake TV creature-feature hosts that a lot horror filmmakers like to toss into the pot, so that the audience knows what kind of horror movies they watched growing up. Noonan's character is ostensibly introducing The Roost to us, and coming in here and there in the middle of the action to comment on it. At one point, he even pulls a Haneke, and rewinds the film so that the characters can behave differently (with no impact to the story that I could tell, but I was losing focus on the film by that point, so maybe I missed something).
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In other words, West doesn't think any of this matters. And he's actually right about that, because the main story of The Roost -- four friends find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere and are attacked by bats that turn them into zombies -- isn't worth a hoot, though, in all honesty, it might have been worth at least a minor hoot if West hadn't been so busy laughing up his sleeve. What matters to West, at least in The Roost, is making his film feel like it wasn't made when he made it, and I'll be damned if I can figure out why that's supposed to matter to me. I'll admit that sort of thing can be amusing, but it's a pretty thin kind of amusement, even when done well, and in The Roost it isn't done well. The film image is covered in an artificial grain that reminded me of all those fake films-within-a-film, shot specifically so that characters can be shown watching them, and the filmmakers won't have to pay to use images from real movies. On top of that, West uses technology and effects that wouldn't have been available in the 80s, or the 70s, or whenever he wants us to think The Roost was made. As a result, the whole affair comes off as utterly phony and insincere, which is probably A-OK with West.

22 comments:

  1. Great capsules, Bill. I especially echo your thoughts on the eerie feeling of Moon and your reaction to The Hurt Locker.

    One question: Is Halloween II (I haven't Zombie's first attempt at it, either) even worth it as a curiosity? I liked Zombie's other horror films, and the trailer intrigued me when it was in theaters, but I just can't bring myself to sit down and watch these re-imaginings. But as a horror fiend I feel compelled to because I know Zombie has the chops to pull off a decent horror film. Anyway...just curious if it was worth adding to the queue or getting at Redbox for a buck.

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  2. Kevin, if you like Zombie, then I don't see why you shouldn't check out these remakes. I can't stand Zombie, and I've still seen all his movies (minus that animated one) because I'll watch any horror movie, if given the opportunity. So I guess, as a curiosity, yes it's worth seeing. Sort of. Depending on your defintion of "worth".

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  3. Two movies I've been aching to see: The Hurt Locker and Moon. I've got Hurt Locker already uploaded in HD but the kids are off school here today, tomorrow I have errands to run all day and Wednesday I have to take the car in to get the brakes worked on. So... aaaaarrrrggghhhh!!! I don't have a lot of time at night to watch movies so it may be three or more days before I can see either and you're blasted capsule reviews make me want to see them even more! Damn!

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  4. I think MOON would play better on the small screen than theatrically. I liked it. But it felt like something that would have played better as a short, like a TWILIGHT ZONE or OUTER LIMITS episode.

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  5. I don't want to oversell THE HURT LOCKER, Greg, but when I was renting it from Blockbuster, I took it off the wall and an old guy who was browsing nearby said, "Did you just pick up THE HURT LOCKER?" I said yes, and he said "That's an incredible movie. I've never seen a military movie like it. Whoever directed that deserves an Oscar!" I don't know if he was a veteran (if he was, he was too old to be an Iraq veteran), but I thought it said something about how deep an impact the film is having on some people.

    But really, beyond all that, it's just a great piece of suspense filmmaking. The sniper sequence I referred to is one of the best of its kind I've ever seen.

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  6. Tony - I thought MOON was pretty much just long enough. If you start cutting too much, you'll lose the sense of isolation at the beginning, or what I feel is the very important, and well-handled, change of relationships that come in the movie's later sections. Although I did also see it on the small screen, so you could be right about that, for all I know.

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  8. Adam - I don't see any problem with Siegel focusing on these sorts of outsiders. Why shouldn't they get movies, too? Anyway, THE WRESTLER was more heartbreaking, and less funny, than BIG FAN. BIG FAN is a bit more contrived, though I did like it.

    MOON's homages are on the surface. Otherwise, it is its own film. Give it a shot.

    I don't think Bigelow has claimed she, herself, is apolitical, but the story of THE HURT LOCKER lends itself -- at least it should, in my opinion -- to a certain universality regarding war, that I think the apolitical approach is entirely appropriate.

    I didn't like either STRANGE DAYS or NEAR DARK, so Bigelow's name never carried much weight with me, until now. I keep hearing a lot of good things about K-19 lately, so I might have to actually give that one a try. I had no interest in it before, but...

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  9. Feel free to try K-19 out, Bill. But I wouldn't get your hopes up. It could have been as effective a thriller as Bigelow has always been capable of. In this case, I think the miscasting of Ford is what brings it down. Accents are not the man's specialty, and it contributed to a lack of confidence in his performance. I think it would have been far more honest to come up with a device like the one in HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to render that issue moot.

    I'm curious regarding why you didn't like NEAR DARK or the admittedly flawed but still interesting STRANGE DAYS. I own every film of hers except her first, and am a big fan. My favorite is POINT BREAK which I actually cnsider the best film of its year of release. I think it's a wondeful example of "pure cinema" in much the same way THE HURT LOCKER comes close to being.

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  10. I agree that The Hurt Locker was great, and I also thought Moon was very smart.

    Re: Ti West, I like House of the Devil a lot, so I checked out an earlier film of his, Trigger Man, which I found pretty deadly. It didn't even have Tom Noonan in it, though Larry Fessenden shows up briefly.

    It's about a trio of incompetent hunters from the city who end up prey to a human-hunting psychotic. They don't even realize they're being hunted until a good 40 minutes in. Which would be fine if there were anything interesting about them aside from the fact that they're being hunted. I think West is talented, and HotD is a huge leap forward, so we'll see...

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  11. Tony - Somebody recently said that STRANGE DAYS is pretty great until it goes off the rails at the end. That's almost what I think. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but the plot resolution struck me as absurd, and condescendingly ripped-from-the-headlines.

    NEAR DARK, meanwhile, struck me as a movie that was trying SO HARD to be the new big thing in vampire movies. It wanted to make them hip and cool, and its efforts were so transparent that I just resisted it at every turn. I didn't think the film was half as cool as it thought it was.

    Schloofy - Yes, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is a huge leap forward (from THE ROOST, anyway; I haven't seen his other films, and in fact didn't know until earlier today that he even HAD other films), and maybe he's on the right track, but that leap forward started from a pretty horrible place, so we'll have to see.

    Fessenden has a brief scene in THE ROOST, too, by the way.

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  13. Hell, I'd pick POINT BREAK over JFK, and I haven't even seen it.

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  14. Definitely would kick POINT BREAK over JFK. And I'd kick it over BARTON FINK too, Adam.

    BARTON is great, but a tad self-indulgent. Still, that is only a minor knock agains the film. The Coens are a favorite of mine, and BARTON is probably in my top 3 of theirs. That should tell you how much I like POINT BREAK.

    As for JFK, now there, Bill, is a propaganda flick executed atrociously. Interesting when it first came out because of some outlandish allegations made in the film, stellar casting before it became de rigeur for Stone, and some admittedly great editing and cinematography, the film is lesser than the sum of its parts and has aged poorly.

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  15. JFK has aged atrociously. It went from being a movie that I thought wasn't very good, with a point of view I loathed, to a movie I think is basically trash, top to bottom. It's visually spastic, to no good end. Stone doesn't know how to place the camera in the exact right spot, so he covers that by placing it everywhere at once.

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  16. Nice capsules, Bill. Gotta see "Moon." Love Sam Rockwell.

    One of my favorite SFs is "Silent Running." It's kind of dated now, I think, but crazy Bruce Dern is great.

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  17. I seem to be the only person I know who loves Big Fan. I thought the character study was intelligent and nuanced. We're begging for Paul to grow, but like his family, we're out of luck. It was daring to thwart the audience that way - and apparently, it hasn't paid off by the negative comments the film has received - yet it really is more true to life than all the grow-and-change films out there. I thought the script was exceptionally well written as well.

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  18. Thank you, Rick. I haven't seen SILENT RUNNING in ages (and, in fact, may not have ever seen the whole thing), but I also love Bruce Dern.

    Marilyn - My problem with BIG FAN wasn't that he didn't change -- I liked that, actually. I was bothered by a vague sense that the film was simply not as good as I'd hoped. And also that the story is a bit too contrived to be a realistic portrayal of this kind of sadsack. But overall, please remember, I did enjoy the film.

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  19. I don't feel it was contrived, unless it's the part about him seeing Quantrell in Queens. Yes, that's the device that gets the crucial plot point in motion, but it could happen. I didn't think it was out of the question.

    And I realize you liked it, but I've seen so many comments that have called it amateurish and somewhat mediocre. I really don't understand them.

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  20. Yes, that could happen, and no, that didn't really bother. Everything in the movie COULD happen. No, my problem centered more on the Moichael Rappaport charactern the lawsuit, and that sort of thing, that I thought slightly junked up the character study aspect of the film.

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  21. Plus, I should say, I thought the film went a little soft at the end. Not that I think the ending they seemed to be heading for would have been better -- I think that might have been too far in the other direction -- but by the end the whole thing felt more amusing than sad, or dark, and tonally I thought the film took a dip.

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  22. That's fair, Bill. The ending did make a shift that was a little disappointing.

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