Olyphantastic vs The Crazies

It's a shame that most of the current crop of horror remakes are shit. Friday the 13th, The Hitcher, Texas Chainsaw, Prom Night, Day of the Dead, Sorority Row. All below par or outright crap. Halloween was a great effort. So with the odds stacked against it, The Crazies has risen to the top, along side he Hills Have Eyes and Dawn as the Dead, as a remake that at least gives the original a run for it's money.

Like George A Romero's 1973 original, it shows a small, middle American town come under the deadly influence of a mysterious, contagious virus. As the resident's begin to catch on to what is happening to them, a faceless and ruthless military move in to stop the spread of the condition which turns people into psychopaths. In many respects, it's a zombie movie (although the victims retain their personalities and their heartbeats) with the added threat of the military who are as cold and inhuman as the infected residents.

Sahara's Breck Eisner does a stunning job on a limited budget ($19 million). It has a slow, tense build up, a frantic middle act as Timothy Olyphant and Rhada Mitchell escape the clutches of the army and a great collection of taut set pieces as they make their way to freedom. With a 48 hour incubation period, the 'disease' allows for paranoia and mistrust to build amongst the principals, building the tension further. The cinematography has a gloriously rich, old fashioned CinemaScope feel rather than the hyper stylised Michael Bay stuff or colour drained J-horror genre, while Mark Ishim's score helps create an unnerving, eerie quality. The only downside is that the film jettisons Romero's Vietnam inspired subtext for nothing much else. You could argue there's a parallel to Iraq but it's unclear and muddled.

But The Crazies is a confidently made, nerveracking and atmospheric movie that needs to be seen with the lights dimmed and the sound cranked way up.

I Suggest Another Strategy. Let The Ninja Win.

I used to argue, and still believe, that in addition to L.A's Disneyland and Universal Studios Tour, Warner Brothers should enter the movie theme park business. The title? Joel Silver World. Yep, visitors to the park could run around Die Hard's Nakatomi Towers, ride on the Lethal Weapon roller coaster, take tours around The Matrix's Zion City while Predator, Demolition Man and Action Jackson mascots have their pictures taken with visiting children. Since The Matrix, Silver has veered away from the medium budget action film he used to be master of, choosing instead to concentrate on either intelligent action thrillers (V for Vendetta, The Invasion), crap horror films (House of Wax, Ghost Ship) or riskier, experimental fare (Rocknrolla, Speed Racer, Fred Claus).

With Ninja Assassin, Silver returns to the wisecracking, high-octane, zero narrative action movie of the 80's and 90's. What there is of plot has Ben Harris (that bloke from Coupling) and the cute Naomi Harris (she of Miami Vice and the Pirates sequels) investigating the myth of Ninja clans. Meanwhile, Rain (the Korean pop sensation...apparently) in a pissed off Ninja looking for retribution. While the two Interpol agents do their snooping, we get flashback scenes to establish the root of Rain's grumpiness and to also illustrate what bad asses Ninjas really are. When the principals meet up the bloodletting begins.

And what glorious bloodletting it is, with bucket loads of CGI type O negative washing across the screen in frantic, ninja action. It's good fun in a turn-your-brain-off action kind of way. And, if you've seen other examples of this kind of movie in this blog, you'll know I'm a champion of the bullshit action movie.

So while I enjoyed this film, I also have to acknowledge it could be much much better. That's thanks to a couple of visual choices by director James McTiege (V for Vendetta). First off it's murky as hell. Many contemporary action movies use a film processing technique to make the contrast in the image more extreme, but mcTiege pushes it too far. Then he makes the mistake of many western martial arts directors; he edits the fighting far too fast. The result is some exquisitely choreographed (probably) fisticuffs that you can barely see. Therefore most of the fighting looks repetitive...making the action boring after a while. Also, watching the series Spartacus: Blood and Sand has reduced my sensitivity for the stylised blood gushing in Ninja Assassin, as the gladiator programme is far more graphic than what's on show here. The script, co-written by Babylon 5's J Michael Staczynski, reflects his usual style; the everyday stuff is a little corny while the ninja stuff is mythic and cool.

Still this is a fun movie that needs to be seen if you're into this type of thing. I just wish McTiege had the balls to shine an extra light on the kung-fu while removing the caffeine from the editing suite. Then we might have been presented with a modern bullshit classic.

Gumby & Belushi-The-Lesser Go West

Director Walter Hill, when he's not actually making westerns, makes contemporary westerns. And so it came to pass that Hill, already a co-creator of the buddy genre with 48 Hours, made another western variation with Red Heat. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Russian cop sent to Chicago to retrieve a Georgian drug dealer (a sleazy Ed O'Ross). When things go tits-up, Arnie is forced to partner with wisecracking James Belushi to get his man. So in Walter Hill's mind, this is a big city sheriff, going to the wild west to arrest a wanted outlaw.

It has all the hallmarks of a Walter Hill thriller. Sleazy hotel shootout? Check. Topless strippers? Check. Bar room brawl? Check. Sparring protagonists? Check. Walter Hill's guns don't sound like guns. They're bloody cannons which never need reloading, and whose bullets send their targets flying across the room. It's gritty, adult in tone, but unimaginative compared with the likes of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, released around the same time.

After The Running Man, it was great (and still is) to see Arnie doing something that was a little more well-made and serious in presentation. Schwarzenegger wisely plays to his strengths, keeping the acting tightly reigned in, allowing Belushi to mug his way through the rest of the movie. But like the Smith and Jones pairing in Men In Black, the gulf in personalities allows for some epically sharp one lines amongst all the the fire escape chases and fish-out-of-water humour. In a world where Arnie has yet to have a successor (Vin and Dwayne don't seem up for it) this may not be the Guvinator's best work, but it's stood the test of time really, really well.

Mr Tron Goes To Hobbiton

Babylon 5: In The Beginning is to the science fiction series Babylon 5, what The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. It's a prequel movie which builds up a picture of what pivotal characters were doing during important events that were referred to in the epic fantasy series that ran during the 90's. However if you've never seen any B5 then I wouldn't recommend this as a place to start as it gives away too many mysteries and spoilers that were deliciously constructed and revealed during the course of the show. For a newbie, watching this would be like starting to watching Lost during it's final season. What it does do is allow a familiar audience to immerse themselves in events that were only glimpsed in the show's five year run.

As usual with B5, the budgets are low so the sets are small, the sound a bit stagey, the acting by some occasionally "daytime-soap" and the effects a little "lap-top". But B5 always turned the negatives into positives...so the sets and costumes are richly detailed, the story scope epic and awe inspiring, the remainder of the acting powerful and Shakespearean while the effects have a strong visual style and scope that make the vast universe believable.

Story wise this isn't as well structured as the series best instalments, as it has to adhere to the story beats of the Earth/Minbari war that's already been established, but there's enough of writer J. Michael Straczynski's theatrical speechifying to satisfy. This series finished over a decade ago but with huge science fiction franchises dominating the last ten years from Star Trek, Star Wars to Avatar, none have come close to competing with the epic scope on show in Babylon 5.

You Can't Be Anal-Retentive If You Don't Have An Anus

Dogma is writer/director Kevin Smith's fourth project and his most intelligent work to date (but alas not his greatest). It's basically a religious-comedy-road movie as Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) is instructed by the Metatron (God's spokesperson) to stop two renegade angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, reunited again) from crossing the threshold of a Catholic church, thus creating a religious loophole which will destroy the whole of existence.

It's perhaps not Smith's most hilarious offering but it has the most to say, causing a healthy dose of controversy in the States, on its release. Dogma is a little long winded and rambling but is balanced out by some sharp characters, memorable banter with the entire cast putting their heart and soul into it. Damon and Affleck show great chemistry as the angels on a mission, with Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, Jason Lee and an almost indecipherable Salma Hayek giving the religion-bashing a touch of class. Smith's masterstroke is to cast singer Alanis Morrisete as God, playing it with all the innocence of a child in adult form.

The satire isn't aimed at faith, but rather the religious organisations that pimp faith to the masses, with Catholicism being the target. Some interesting issues are raised such as the missing 18 years of Jesus's life from The Bible (because he had brothers and sisters), that Jesus was a black man and that God is a bit of a wrathful bastard actually. Essentially, it argues that Man has corrupted belief in God to meet his own ends and purposes and that that to hold to a idea about faith is better to believe in a faith, because an idea is open to change. And that's a surprisingly full, intellectual meal from a movie that contains enough pratfalls, swearing and nob gags to fill three American Pie movies.

The Rock 'N' Roll Over And Die

Poor Dwayne Johnson. As "The Rock" he was once king of the ring...a true master of the wrestling world. Then he moved to movies. Since then he's proved what a skilled and adept actor he is, delivered a string of modest hits in a variety of genres and slowly weaned the public off of his stage name. However, he's still not broken through into the big time...perhaps because he chooses weak material to star in like Doom, Race To Witch Mountain, Southland Tales and Be Cool (although, to be fair, he is great in all of them).

After taking a cue from Arnie and dipping into the family movie market with the smash hit The Game Plan, Dwayne's taken the kiddy flick route again...only this time it's with Twenieth Century Fox (and we all know what that means). Like The Game Plan (and Junior, Kindergarten Cop, The Pacifier) the joke here is to but an imposing, aggressive beefcake moviestar and put him into an embarrassing situation where he's forced to interact with kids and/or dress and act in a wimpy, non-masculine way. So in Tooth Fairy, Dwayne becomes a, erm, Tooth Fairy.

People have been right to label The Rock as the new Arnie in many respects. He's built like a brick shit house, is very charismatic and is comfortable at poking fun at himself (something Stallone failed miserably at in "Stop! Or My Mon Will Shoot"). But in Tooth Fairy, Dwayne take it too far. I mean, Jesus man...running around in a tutu, talking in a chipmunk like squeak and those abysmal blue tights he has to wear for half the movie. With Tooth Fairy, fun and laughter is replaced with pity and discomfort as we witness a genuinely great movie star oblige his shitty contract and goof around like a twat. You almost feel like a charity hot line number should run regularly at the bottom of the screen urging you to donate generously to save The Rock.

The story is the usual kiddy fair with Dwayne being a selfish realist who's inconsiderate of his ice hockey team mates, fans, girlfriend (a cute Ashley Judd...more movies please) and her kids. When he takes his girlfriend's daughters tooth money to pay for his gambling he's forcefully recruited to become a real tooth fairy for three weeks by Julie Andrews (looking like she wants to use fairy dust to magic herself out of this crap). Of course, Dwayne learns an important life lesson and does good at the end.

As usual with Fox stuff, it's not badly made...just bland, watered down, predictable drivel without an once of originality. The rest of the cast, including Billy Crystal, are going through the motions, although fairy case worker, Hollywood newcomer Stephen Merchant, is chucklesom (although that may be due to his West Country accent). The characters are paper thin, there's no sophistication for an adult audience but like Night at the Museum, it will be fine to shove in front of a six year old on a Sunday afternoon.

Dwayne, this is twelve feet below the bottom of the barrel stuff. Carry on doing kids stuff, after all, you're good at it. But next time...LOOK AT THE SCRIPT!

The West Country Van Helsing

A strange thing happens a few minutes into watching Solomon Kane. From the mouth of James Purefoy, who portrays the rugged, battle-scarred anti-hero comes an unusual accent. Unusual in the cinematic sense, but not unusual in reality, for the accent in question is West Country, that of English counties Somerset and Devon. Now being from the West Country, and understanding that our accent is often associated with inbred simpletons, I was a little startled at the choice to portray Robert E Howard's badass in such a faithful way (I assumed Purefoy would be vocally assertive and plummy).

After that revelation settles in, you can settle down for a hugely enjoyable pulpy, swashbuckling adventure. It's great to see a mixing of the mystical and the medieval and done on a scale that allows for some big action set-pieces. You can see that it's filmed on a limited budget, but the film-makers have stretched their funds and structured their script to make every penny count. Solomon Kane looks authentic and gritty but embraces the sorcery elements without making them feel alien to the rest of the movie.

Purefoy is commanding as Kane, in a plot reminiscent of The Shadow where an evil warrior has a moment of clarity and renounces his evil ways. After he befriends a kindly family, including the suitably innocent looking Rachel Hurd Wood, they're attacked and (mostly) butchered by the forces of dark magician Malachi. Then it's off to Devon to his troubled childhood home to confront the evil and save the girl.

The action is well staged, the cast are fine (including Jason Fleming, Max Von Sydow, Alice Krige, Mackenzie Crook and Pete Postlesthwaite)and the story fast paced and exciting. On the downside, there's some overly familiar elements. Klaus Badelt's score rips of Hans Zimmer's King Arthur themes (but it's a damn good score to rip off anyway and works well in this context), Solomon himself looks too much like Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing half the time and the climatic, satanic monster is a little too Balrogy for my liking.

But these are only small criticisms in an good, old fashioned historic, fantasy adventure. Catch this if you can because Hawk The Slayer, this is not.

I Still Know What You Did Last Semester

This weeks horror remake is Sorority Row, a stalk and slash movie that has a prank backfire on the bitchy, student heroines. So 8 months after they unwittingly murder their fellow sorority sister, the unlikable girlies start getting picked off, one by one, in true 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' style. This is essentially the Scream 4 we never got; young people being eradicated in a variety of violent encounters with the search for killer's secret identity forming the main narrative thrust. Yep, another horror whodunit with an obvious conclusion.

The averageness of it's execution is acceptable for two reasons. It's plainly not as shit as Michael Bay's efforts, being a step above The Hitcher, Friday The 13th, etc. And it stars a bunch of hot chicks. Jamie Chung, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis (daughter of Bruce and Demi) and Briana Evigan (yes, daughter of Greg...who you may remember from such shows as Tekwar and B.J. and the Bear) may all be unlikable sluts but they are at least perky and cute. And that, ladies and gentlemen, has been the basis of ALL stalk and slash movies since time began. Amen to that.

Bettany Kicks Arse For The Lord

God, it would seem, is a moody git. Having once cleansed the earth (well, nearly) of humanity in a great flood, many moons ago, He loses faith in humanity once again, this time sending a flood of angels to wipe mankind out of existence. Fortunately, The Big Man doesn't count on renegade angel, Michael, to make a stand against Him. Since a fallen, wingless angel doesn't stand much of a chance against a bazillion, mace wielding adversaries (and a wrathful deity) it's bloody lucky that there's a soon-to-be-born saviour of mankind baby on it's way for Michael to protect (although how this savior child came to be conceived if the all knowing Lord was that pissed off with humankind, is a tad illogical). Being an angel, Michael is jolly good at blowing shit up with rocket launchers, automatic weapons and his kung-fu flailing puddies (it seems the dearly departed Bruce Lee has passed on his knowledge to his eager, angelic pals).

But I jest. Legion is a freaky, action-packed biblical horror film. It's a siege movie with a sprinkling of The Terminator, as Michael protects the pregnant mum-to-be from the unstoppable arc-angel Gabriel and his holy minions (so disturbing that if this is the kind of heat God is packing, hell knows what monstrosities Satan would unleash on the people of the Earth). It's not big and it's certainly not clever, but it's delivered with an assured hand and a glossy-but-gritty style.

Besides when you've got an all-star, b-movie cast including Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson and Charles S Dutton facing off against a swearing, ceiling crawling, undead Grannie, you've got to give the movie a break.

Universal Monsters Vs Goonies B-Team

Holy crap. The Monster Squad so desperately wants to be the unofficial Goonies sequel, it hurts. While it may not be as good as Donner and Spielberg's kids adventure flick, it has enough talent, energy and originality to still be a fun little romp, even after all these years. Basically, Count Dracula comes to contemporary Los Angeles searching for an mystical amulet (for some reason...wasn't paying attention) and recruits a load of other classic Universal monsters, including Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolfman, The Mummy and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. A bunch of kids with an obsession of monsters, form a club called The Monster Squad to save their town from evil. Hi-jinks ensue.

Fred Dekkar (yes, he of the awful RoboCop 3) delivers his best work here thanks to some script input from Lethal Weapon's screenwriter Shane Black. Bruce Broughton provides a lavish score, Bradford May's photography looks sharp 23 years later, Richard Edlund's effects still impress, Stan Winston's bats-on-a-wire embarrass and Tom Noonan (Cane from RoboCop 2/The Ripper from Last Action Hero) does his best Sloth impression, as the simple minded Frankenstein's Monster who befriends the kiddywinks.

A daft, formulaic romp...but a well made, lovingly told romp with a genius central concept. No wonder they never made a Goonies sequel; The Monster Squad imagined up a storyline far superior than Donner or Spielberg ever could. Now that's impressive.

Moist Tart In The Deep End

M Night Shyamalan. His fans predominantly favor two movies; The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Then there are his detractors who, from The Village onwards, think he's pretentious, boring and predictable. I seem to have fallen into the gap where I love all his films (except The Happening) but prefer a much disliked fantasy as my favorite of his work...that film being Lady In The Water from 2006.

Lady In The Water is a self proclaimed 'bedtime story' that sees Cleveland Heep, caretaker of The Cove apartments, meet Story, a young woman that looks to have appeared from the apartment's swimming pool. After a bit of investigation, Cleveland soon believes Story is a Narf (a sea nymph) who has come to dry land to inspire a writer, by her very presence alone, into producing a civilization changing work. Meanwhile Cleveland is hiding a dark tragedy from his past. It's a fairy tale for adults...not in terms of graphic language, sexuality or violence...but in theme and content.

So why don't people like it? There are 3 main reasons and I think they're less a problem with the film itself, and more about the baggage that hinders the detractors.

1/ It's silly and badly structured. Bollocks to that I say! More than any of Shyamalan's other movies, Lady is very self aware of what it it. So it's structured deliberately as a bedtime story...finding out details of the plot and fantasy world as you go along (rather than the carefully constructed placement of character and information you might get in say, The Village). And yes, it's a fantasy. It's supposed to be silly. All that talk of Scrunts, Narfs and giant eagles, how could it not be a little silly. But Shyamalan acknowledges this through Cleveland himself, who is told he must listen to the Japanese fairy tale as if he was an Innocent again. A child. In doing so, Shyamalan is challenging the audience to become child-like in their approach to the silly, fantasy aspects of the story.

2/ It's arrogant and pretentious. There's a few reasons why people think this.
First of all, Shyamalan himself plays the individual who will go onto inspire all, and change mankind, with his writings, 'The Cookbook'. Is the director suggesting he will change the world and make it a better place? Hah, I don't think so. Having a storyteller play a storyteller in the narrative only strengthens the subtext; that a story can inspire others to achieve great and good things. In Lady's case, it's quite literal, as the character, Story, is the one doing the inspiring. And sorry to disapoint/shock those critics, but Lady MUST be inspirational; as a practicing artist whose primary interest IS storytelling, Shyamalans drama IS categorically insightful.

It's very self referential and post-modern, and many don't like that kind of showy cleverness, preferring a more conventional, inconspicuous subtext. But what better way to explore the wonder of storytelling than in a story?

The nature of stories are deconstructed. Each resident of The Cove, a microcosm of society, represents a different aspect of language (the building blocks of story telling). For example, Jeffery Wright represents language where words are open to interpretation and Cindy Cheung's student uses words to educate herself. Other use words to explore feelings, to record events, for social formality, to debate, and in Bob Babalan's case to deconstruct stories and critique them. This aspect of having a film critic within the movie riled many in the press, especially when the critic was seen to be overconfident and inaccurate in his conclusions as to what is going on in The Cove. But despite their objections, the majority of critics plainly missed the point and failed to get it...just like in the film.

3/ The direction is poor. All too often I've seen criticism that a shot was out of focus or a person's face was clumsily half framed. But Shyamalan has very carefully considered his shots prior to filming and any such oddities are because he's trying to communicate an idea. In the above examples the shot is out of focus because Cleveland's life is out of focus too, and Story's face is only half in shot to show that Cleveland isn't looking directly at her. But Lady is littered with such compositions, all adding to the narrative, character or themes of the film.

The production design supports this too with the grid like construction of the apartments to represent the orderly human world and the natural elements like trees, grass, water and rain to represent the primal, fantasy world. More than once Cleveland's head is framed by a TV with war footage on it (a metaphor for the unrest in his head) or Story has a conversation, hidden by the wall of the shower (just as keeps hidden important information). As with the best directors, the storytelling isn't all in the words but in the choices in the images shown as well.

As to the film as a whole itself, it's yet another Shyamalan reworking of a man trying to regain faith and restore hope in his life. In this case Cleveland needs to forgive himself for being absent when his family were killed, which is movingly achieved in 'the healing' scene near the movie's conclusion. As with the best feelgood movies, the whole narrative dovetails beautifully into this one powerful moment, resolving the internal character conflict before achieving success (just as Luke has to turn off his targeting computer before destroying the Death Star). In a classic bit of direction, the apartment's sign has only been seen, reversed, from the inside of the building. Only when Cleveland is free that we escape the confines of The Cove, to see it from the outside-in.

Giamatti is superb as the confidence lacking, stuttering janitor but is matched by an eclectic cast from Sarita Chouwdhury's bubbly sister to Bryce Dallas Howard's enigmatic sea nymph. The score is one of James Newton Howard's most powerful to date while ILM's effects, while subtle, compliment the fantasy aspect of the film in an unfussy way.

This is simply great storytelling about the power of belief and imagination. More often than not, Shyamalan turns the pages of his fairytale in such a subtly skillful way that the resulting story revelations are literally spine tingling. If you're unable to free your imagination, you wont get this. If you're a critic that can't get over criticism yourself, don't try it. And if you're not prepared to put the effort into the meaning of the film...or are just plain dumb (hello Sarah Palin!) don't be disappointed when you don't understand something onscreen (it must happen a lot anyway). For everybody else who's avoided this up until now, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you give it a go.

Oscar Predictions 2010

I've not done this on the blog, but before the Oscar ceremony on Sunday March 7th, I'd thought I'd publish my predictions for the big night. Not only is it based upon my evaluation of each film up for an award, but on the recognition they've received so far (from the SAG awards, Golden Globes, Directors Guild) and on the political buzz that surrounds them (Oscar loves overlooked actors and performances of disabled true life folk, for example).

In addition (and as is tradition in other parts of the internet), I'll chuck in my preferred winner, so I can credibly voice my indignation, come awards night.

BEST FILM
Will Win: The Hurt Locker
Should Win: Inglorious Basterds (can you imagine the speech that Quentin would
deliver!)
Must Not Win: The Blind Side (Bullock's great, but don't get carried away)

BEST DIRECTOR
Will Win: Karhryn Bigelow
Should Win: James Cameron (the man's got vision)
Must Not Win: Lee Daniels

BEST ACTOR
Will Win: Jeff Bridges
Should Win: (I'll get back to you on that one)
Must Not Win: George Clooney (he's only playing himself...very well, of course)

BEST ACTRESS
Will Win: Sandra Bullock
Should Win: Carey Mulligan
Must Not Win: Gabourey Sidibe (as good as Precious is, she's a bit 'one note')

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will Win: Christoph Waltz (no one came close, acting-wise, in 2009)
Should Win: Christoph Waltz
Must Not Win: Matt Damon (a great actor who does absolute bugger all in Invictus to
deserve this)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will Win: Mo'nique
Should Win: Mo'nique
Must Not Win: Maggie Gyllenhaal (just out of spite for replacing Katie in The Dark
Knight)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will Win: The Hurt Lock
Should Win: Inglourious Basterds

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will Win: Up In The Air
Should Win: In The Loop

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Will Win: Up
Should Win: Fantastic Mr Fox

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Will Win: Up
Should Win: Up
Must Not Win: Avatar (average and derivative)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Will Win: Absolutely No Idea!
Should Win: Ditto!

BEST ART DIRECTION
Will Win: Avatar
Should Win: Avatar

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will Win: Avatar
Should Win: Inglorious Basterds

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Will Win: Nine
Should Win: ????

BEST MAKEUP
Will Win: Star Trek
Should Win: Star Trek

BEST FILM EDITING
Will Win: The Hurt Locker
Should Win: Avatar

BEST SOUND MIXING
Will Win: Avatar
Should Win: Star Trek

BEST SOUND EDITING
Will Win: Avatar
Should Win: The Hurt Locker

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Will Win: Avatar
Should Win: Avatar
Must Not Win: Anything else (as good as District 9 and Star Trek are they don't compare with the Na'vi and Pandora in Avatar. Besides, the only credible competition here, 2012, hasn't even been nominated!)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will Win: The White Ribbon

Does Your Wolfman Bite? That Is Not My Wolfman.

I entered the cinema with high hopes, yet low expectations, for Universal's reworking of The Wolfman. I'm not a classic horror fan, an ardent werewolf follower or an admirer of director Joe Johnson's work (although I do enjoy horror films, werewolf stories, and Joe Johnson's The Rocketeer). Also, with all the behind the scenes drama, including the director replaced two weeks before filming, poor test screenings, major re-shoots, a complete musical re-score, er twice, and some negative reviews leading up to it's release, things didn't look good.

Fortunately, The Wolfman managed to stalk me as it's prey and take me down...a delighted and happy putter. What has emerged isn't a drama of great depth or an adaptation of great intelligence...but a lavish, gothic horror movie that maintains it's credibility thanks to the sterling efforts of all involved..despite the fuck ups during production.

The cast are all excellent. Benecio Del Toro is perfectly cast as the title character, Lawrence Talbot. He presents an intense, serious minded fellow who always seems very grounded and well rounded. Del Toro subtly shows us the mans desires and fears without making it silly or over the top. The rest of the cast follow suit with the gorgeous Emily Blunt, as Gwen (Talbot's brother's widow), doing the reserved, stiff-upper-lip thing as well. For both actors, it's whats going on behind the eyes that sells their characters. Anthony Hopkins, surprisingly and impressively underplays it too, in an eccentric role where a triple serving of ham could have been ordered instead. Entertainingly, it's Hugo Weaving, as the London Rozzer, who dips his toe into a more distinctive acting style; like his Agent Smith portrayal, Weaving plays it serious and restrained...but with an instinctive knack for the the timing of his lines and the intonation of his line readings.

But it's the style of The Wolfman that remains in the memory. Like the acting it's mostly played straight...but has a layer of the hyper-real and fantasy, gothic stylisation to the sumptuous production design and photography. There's a graphic, bleak, black & white feel to the movie that's enriched by some textured set dressing, may it be the vines that crawl over the decaying Talbot manor house or grubby carpets and dusty ornaments that cover it's interior. Other stylisations include the larger-than-life full moon and the speeded-up clouds (reminiscent of the Blade movie) that dominate the sky scape. It's the first step towards Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (if you were to take 9 more steps, of course).

In this heightened reality the old-fashioned, classic, 1940's Wolfman design works well. It's quite a camp look that would backfire if played absolutely for real. But in the fine line the director has chosen between fantasy horror and reality, the creature convinces. Helping are some early scenes of creature carnage which sees the lightning fast wolf tear apart a gypsy encampment and it's residents. A later attack sequence keeps the wolfman in the shadows, making the gory, internal organ strewn massacres even more effective. Rick Baker's makeup effects are as impressive as you'd expect while the CGI transformations don't disappoint for the most part. Only the close ups of the creature's eyes during transformations betray the digital illusion (it seems James Cameron hasn't yet passed on his solution to the dead-eyed CG thespian he pioneered on Avatar).

Perhaps due to the dreadful test screenings, the film has been ruthlessly edited down to a pretty fast pace. It gets down to business from the start and doesn't muck around when it comes to meeting the characters and getting to the wolf stuff. The downside is that we don't get much in the way of character depth or much exploration into the psychology of what it must be, to become a werewolf. But the upped pace does provide a compulsive piece of period horror that perhaps would become diluted if more chat were injected into the mix. A longer cut would be of interest to see how it plays out.
The film has a simple three act structure to keep audience interest up, with the first (set around the country manor) being the most engaging, the second (a trip to London) opens the scope up considerably and allows for a huge rooftop chase, while the final confrontation feels like it's going through the motions to wrap up the story in an all too predictable way.

But this is damned good fun in a film where all the money is up on the screen. Johnson films can tend to bore (Jurassic Park III is painfully dull, as is the terrible Hildago) but here he mixes the drama, horror and action in a well judged mix. With today's technology obsessed youth market it's refreshing to see a period horror movie on a big scale. Consider me bitten.

The Bees! What's Happening To The Bees? Anybody?!?

After the critical drubbing and behind the scenes controversy that had plagued Lady In The Water, I was keen for M Night Shyamalan to be seen to get back to top form (something I'd never felt he'd left in the first place, to be honest). The Happening sounded like the movie to do that; a horror, thriller with an A-list cast and important ecological message. Alas it was not to be as The Happening is a complete cluster fuck. Well, nearly.

It looks, plays, talks and feels like an M Night Shyamalan movie. Just less so. Visually the long takes are still in place...just less of them. There's less of the clever, inconspicuous compositions that inhabit his best work. The cinematography is strangely flat while James Newton Howard's score is his least effective of all the Shyamalan collaborations.

On a story level, you can see the cogs working, but it never achieves the subtlety of Unbreakable or The Village. Once again there's a story of faith, in this case of a society that's lost it's faith in science (thanks to it's own greed and arrogance) and of a couple that's lost faith in each other. There's some interesting subtext about communication, or lack of it, as presented in Zooey Deshenal's emotion suppressing girlfriend, the near mute little girl and the cottage rooms you can talk though via the connecting pipe. It's an interesting statement about how we can live together (man and woman / man and nature) if we're prepared to pay attention and communicate.

With so much at work under the surface, why doesn't it work? Well, there's a couple of reasons. It lacks momentum and tension...and both are faults of Shyamalan as writer and director. You never really feel like the cast are about to die. You never really believe in the 'cause' of threat (the wind or the trees) even though you're aware a threat exists. As a director, he never solves the problem of making the trees, the breeze and the grass menacing...or even when he does (like a rip in the roof of John Legozamo's ride) he doesn't milk the tension for all it's worth. Maybe it's studio interference, after all this is a Fox movie. Maybe they told him to dumb down the script and direction after the alleged pretentiousness of Lady In The Water.
Perhaps. But that doesn't really explain the next issue. The legendary issue.

Mark Whalberg is shit. Overwhelmingly awful. He's like an amateur who, never having an acting lesson in his life, can only project two emotions (concerned and confused)...and then only doing that extremely badly. It's like a car crash to watch, and on my initial viewing, couldn't quite comprehend what Whalberg was doing. His entire performance is delivered with a gasping, nasally, high pitched whine. Together with his furrowed brow... it's just embarrassingly uncomfortable to watch. But in moment's where he's required to be sincere (see the scene where he convinces the old lady he's not a thief) Whalberg hilariously descends into unintentional farce. He's really, really bad (which is unexpected after his scene stealing in The Departed)

If it was just Whalberg I'd pin the blame directly on him (he's bad in any leading man role anyway...see Planet of the Apes or The Italian Job). But Zooey Deschenal looks like she's giving Marky Mark a run for his money too. Her delivery is stilted and wooden...far from the likable, quirky actress we've come to know and love. It's like she knows her character is supposed to be bottled up emotionally, but has been on the piss the night before, and hasn't bothered to learn how to act that particular personality trait. Again, amateurish....but ugly and annoyingly so.

So if it's both of them, did Shyamalan direct them to act in such a misjudged way.? Was he just not into the whole affair, so gave up on his cast too?

At least he presents a few of knockout scenes in the early stages of the film as the 'attacks' take hold. The best of these, as construction workers plummet from a high rise building is 'classic' Shyamalan (long steady takes, building tension and the feeling of goosebumps as a character slowly realises the horror of what they're witnessing). But they're few and far between and often outweighed by misjudged scenes of attempted humour (Whalberg talking to a plastic house plant should be chucklesom but it backfires as the plant obviously has more acting credibility than the movie star).

A frustrating movie; you can see the intent and the signature storytelling devices in play, yet it frequently fails to work at all. As for Whalberg, he ought to stick to supporting roles. For all our sakes.

Snake Plissken Goes To Hollywood

Another month...another John Carpenter flick to rewatch. There's no way to talk about Escape From L.A. without talking about Carpenter's 1981 classic original Escape From New York. The sequel is practically a remake anyway, with the President's daughter standing in for the big man himself, Cuban freedom fighter Cuervo Jones replacing The Duke Of New York as the city ruler and an E.M.P aiming device now utilised as the reason for the urgent escape. Oh, and a manufactured virus replacing the explosive in the neck which forces anti-hero Snake Plissken to act on the government's behalf.

Given New York's limited budget, 15 years of technological advancement plus a much bigger budget should have made Escape From L.A. a bigger, more accomplished follow up, if not necessarily a better film. But it's not any of these things. In every possible way, the sequel is inferior to the superior original. Cinematographer Gary Kibbe's flat, insipid photography combined with Shirley Walker's misjudged score drains any of the atmosphere this film might have had. It's just a poorly strung together selection of wacky situations that Snake finds himself in. While they're all quite cool in their own way (Beverley Hills plastic surgery freaks/ the coliseum basketball game to-the-death/ surfing the tsunami through central L.A.) each scene is let down by shoddy acting (Cliff Robertson, Stacey Keach and George Corraface are poor substitutes for Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence and Isaac Hayes), catatonic editing (will somebody wake me up after the motorcycle chase) and some of the worst effects in a recent mainstream film (the chopper and the nuclear sub look CGI...no attempts been made to make them appear, or move, realistically).

On the plus side...and it's a major plus...it has Kurt Russell returning as war hero/criminal Snake Plissken...one of the greatest characters ever to grace a movie screen. He might be channelling Eastwood, but who cares, because it's refreshing to see a character shoot first...and not give a shit (George Lucas, please take note).
Thanks to Russell we're able to navigate the choppy plot and arrive at the ballsy ending. A reworking of New York's downer twist, L.A. ups Snake's bluff to deliver catastophic global consequences. But the real beauty is...Snake still doesn't care!

Terribly flawed, predictably derivative and bordering on the amateurish Escape From L.A. isn't a Carpenter film to recommend. But the film contains enough barmy ideas, enough of Russell's legendary performance and a fraction of the style that is John Carpenter to make this a beer and popcorn, Friday night, escapist treat, once in a while.

TV Round Up - February 2010

RETURNING SHOWS

BEING HUMAN

This continues to be the best written thing on television, picking up the the story where we left off at the end of the first season, as we follow the attempts of a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost (who co-habit), to lead a 'normal human' life. As before, the balance is beautifully maintained between humour, drama and horror. Story wise, writer Toby Whitehouse is exploring his mythology in much greater depth including the vampire society, the laws of the afterlife and the biology/psychology of werewolves. A must watch.

24



Kiefer Sutherland's long running, real-time, TV thriller hits it's 8th season with purpose, as it seems to have shaken off the bullshit factor of it's 5th and 6th year. The New York setting provides something fresh to look at, along with the swanky new C.T.U. headquarters (reminding me of the Hollywood police station in Last Action Hero). It's the same formula but it's still damn riveting. Hell, the formula is something to look forward to; who will be the traitor working inside C.T.U ? When will Jack go rogue? Which returning cast member will die brutally? At what point will the President's life be put at risk? Mint.

LOST



The mind fuck that is Lost has just returned for it's 6th and final season. Anyone expecting answers will find very few, but will instead be bombarded by a significant twist in the series storytelling format. After the cast detonated an atom bomb on the island (in the 5th season finale) in an attempt to reset 'time', and thus never go to the island in the first place, we're now faced with alternatives. Instead of having flashbacks (or flash forwards) to events off of the island, we now have two time lines; one is set on the island where the bomb didn't work. The flash forward replacement is an alternative reality where the Oceanic flight 831 doesn't crash on the island, showing what happened to our heroes if life had continued as normal.
Ahhhhh, my head!
Each season of Lost has a theme (The Others, The Hatch, Time Travel) and this season it seems to be the magical/ancient culture of the island. At least the question of what the smoke monster is has been answered. Now the question is 'who'. And 'why'.
Sob...

NEW SHOWS

HUMAN TARGET



These days most TV shows have adopted a serialised story-telling structure that plays out over a year, or several seasons. Also mainstream American TV has gained in integrity and intelligence causing many critics to dub the last decade as a 'golden age' of TV. But if you yearn for the self-enclosed plots and carefree dumbness of 80's television (The Fall Guy/ The A-Team) then you might want to check out Human Target. It's produced by McG, he of fun-but-fluff 'Chuck' and uber cinematic bullshit Charlies Angels. And it's damned good throwaway fun. Essentially Mark Valley (Fringe guest star) plays a bodyguard for hire. His business is run by the quippy Chi McBride and he's frequently helped out by shady underworld-type Jackie Earl Haley. Each episode is high concept, bringing a cute leading lady for the leading man to banter with.
Undemanding tosh with the comfort of a reset switch at the end of each episode. Now where did I but my 80's Knight Rider DVDs ?

ARCHER



A new animated comedy from MTV, Archer follows the misadventures of Sterling Archer, a James Bond wannabe; an overconfident, under-experienced stud with mother issues. It's essentially an office sitcom with espionage overtones. The flash-style animation looks good and the voice cast are excellent. It's not-gut bustingly funny but is, at least, mildly diverting humour.

SPARTACUS: BLOOD & SAND



Now this is more like it. Produced by Zena's Sam Raimi and Robert Tapart from their New Zealand stronghold (away from the Hollywood censor's prying eyes) comes a retelling of the classic Spartacus story. Imaging telling the Gladiator movie in the style of the 300 movie. Ok? Then make it 20 times more violent. Add in tons of swearing (cunt, cock, etc)...as much as you can cram in, in fact, and liberal amounts of shagging and titties. Sound good?
It is. The cast are a bit stoic, apart from slave owners John Hannah and Lucy Lawless, but frankly that's not why I'm watching this ludicrously over the top drama. Off with his head Centurion!

I Had The Shirt For It...But You F**ked It Up!

There's something special about Schwarzenegger's early back catalogue. From Commando through to Red Heat, that period brought a new, high concept, medium budgeted, no-brain action-fest from the Govinator every year, without fail. In the midst of this, Arnie gave us 1987's The Running Man, based on a short Stephen King story. A high concept science fiction tale set in a totalitarian police state, Ahnuld's cop is imprisoned for disobeying orders. When the lunk escapes, he's swiftly captured and forced to participate in the game show of the title; a televised gladiatorial event designed to empty the prisons of scum while keeping the increasingly unrestful population off the streets. Arnie, of course, gets mad.

On the downside, The Running Man, always looked and felt a bit 'basic'; bland cinematography, cheap, uninspired sets, and a director (in Starsky and Hutch's Paul Michael Glaser)lacking in imagination.

Fortunately it's nowhere near enough to scupper a fast moving story, great one liners, Haroild Faltermeyers great 80's score and some varied and superbly staged action sequences. It's the broad character stuff that really brings this to life whether it be Richard Dawson's charismatic but ruthless game show host, Maria Conchita Alonso's feisty latino sidekick or the array of 'stalkers' sent to hunt Arnie down (I wonder what Senator Jesse Ventura thinks of this now as his performance as the posturing, yet cowardly stalker, Captain Freedom, is a spot on comedy showcase for his talents).

There's a nice bit of social satire running through this about where future TV's morality might be heading (although in the case of fake TV show 'Climbing For Dollars', I swear the Japanese have already got there). It's a bit dated now, on virtually every level, from the cheesy 80's glam rock that adorns the end-titles to the baggy, late 80's fashions. But it's sooooo easy to watch and re-watch The Running Man that all criticisms are forgiven. Even the yellow spandex.

Infestation Not Causing Any Tremors

Infestation is a competently directed, adequately produced comedy horror that's obviously shot on the streets of Vancouver. As such it often has the feeling of a U.S. TV show...slick but not very cinematic. It stars Chris Marquette as a standard issue geek/slacker who hates his boring office job and has issues with his ex-military father, a cool Ray Wise. After arriving at work and immediately being sacked, he. and everybody else in the world fall unconscious...only to awake to find aggressive giant bugs over-running the cities.

This falls into the category of "nice try...but not good enough". It wants to be an all round comedy horror like Tremors or Eight Legged Freaks...movies that balanced the thrills with great characters and smart humor. But Infestation's thrills aren't big enough. The cast aren't memorable enough and the humour just doesn't quite hit the mark...although you can see it's trying really really hard. This gets points for being a competent, well meaning horror movie (with bonus points for Ray Wise, the legend that is). But it's a bit like eating a McDonalds; it might taste OK at the time...but it doesn't taste like meat, no matter how hard the scary Ronald McClown might be trying to convince you otherwise.

I Prophesize A Riot

With Legion, a tale of a war in heaven spilling over onto Earth, about to be unleashed on the world, I'd thought I'd check out a similar story in 1995's The Prophecy. Directed by Highlander writer/produced Gregory Widen, it has 'bad' angel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) seek out the most evil human soul on Earth, to tip the scales in his favor, in a millennia old war that rages in heaven. Fortunately, 'good' angel hides the recently departed soul in a child and then it's up to priest-turned-cop Elias Koteas and school teacher Virgina Madsen to keep the child from Walken's clutches.

While I have fond memories of The Prophecy, I had a recollection that it was a little unimaginative and dull in comparison with Widen's original Highlander movie. Not so in actuality, as it's a strongly directed supernatural hide and seek movie with a well constructed mythology and serious tone. The cast are strong, but Walken is tremendous as the driven archangel, jealous that God has turned away from angel-kind to favor His human creations. There's a nice line in humour provided by the unfortunate sidekicks that Walken manipulated into driving him around and Viggo Mortensen pops up as Satan, determined to have an influence on the heavenly conflict.

Simple in story but weighty in themes and myth, small in scale but epic in imagination, it's a shame that Widen never directed anything else as the guy definitely had a flair for it.

Vernon Wells: 80's Fashion Icon

Forget Tango & Cash and Passenger 57. They may seem like the ultimate in Bullshit Action Movies, but they're not. After Rambo II pretty much invented the plotles, one man army destroctofest, it was up to Schwarzenegger's 1985 extravaganza Commando to bullshit it up. And, by golly, does it dumb it down in such a dizzyingly entertaining manner that it's easy to maintain this is still king of the hill. Here's a few reasons why:-

1/ The pre-title assassination montage.
2/ The title sequence including parent/child bonding, chopping trees and eating questionable sandwiches.
3/ Major General Franklin Kirby, doing the Richard Crenna role of bigging Arnie up, just in case we never got what a bad-ass he is.
4/ Arnie smelling the baddies coming...downwind.
5/ Vernon Well's memorable bad guy, Bennett.
6/ Arnie's digital watch...counting the seconds down in mega-loud "24"-style bleeping.
7/ Rae Dawn Chong's exasperated Kate Capshaw impression. Plus some great one-liner reaction shots.
8/ Vernon Well's camp, leather trousers.
9/ "Don't disturb my friend. He's DEAD tired".
10/ Vernon Well's camp moustache.
11/ The classic blooper...the yellow Porche is written off on the drivers side...yet appears unscratched moments later!
12/ Little Alyssa Milano, she to be in TV's Charmed as an adult actress, as Chenny (er, Jenny).
13/ Vernon Well's pot belly.
14/ "You fuckin' whore".
15/ James Horner's definitive action score (see 48 Hrs, Gorky Park, Red Heat for inferior derivatives).
16/ "Fuck you asshole"...."No, fuck YOU asshole!"
17/ Vernon Well's weedy arms.
18/ John F Leonetti's reliably, gritty photography.
19/ "Attention all units, emergency on theater level, suspect six foot two, brown hair. He's one gigantic motherfucker".
20/ Vernon Well's camp, string vest.
21/ Wow! It's been so long since I've seen this that there's actually scenes of character development, as Arnie explains his crap history as a father for Chenny, to a bewildered Rae Dawn Chong.
22/ The tool shed massacre in the directors cut, with glorious extra gore. 56 additional seconds are in the original cinema release (and the Aussie DVD).
23/ Hey, isn't that Bill Paxton in a small role as a navel radio operator!
24/ "Let off some steam Bennett".