Some Quick Thoughts On A Few Titles

Highly Recommended

Big Game - It's a bit silly at times, but this film, starring Samuel L. Jackson as the U.S. President lost in a Finnish forest, is also great fun, features a coherent story, and manages to accomplish something almost every mega-blockbuster simply disregards - character development. I enjoyed it as an adult, and I'm pretty sure I would have adored it as a kid.

Amy - As this documentary begins you are immediately reminded of what an incredible, singular talent Amy Winehouse was. Even if you don't love her music - I like it but am not a huge fan - you can't help but acknowledge her gift. The movie then deconstructs how we forgot that in a haze of tabloid press, erratic behavior, and callous indifference (both from the public and some of the people closest to her). Winehouse is humanized but never in a treacly manner. A fascinating, intimate narrative portrait of a gifted but tragically broken young woman.

Recommended

Castle of Sand - This Japanese film is mostly a fairly straight-forward crime procedural where there isn't a ton of character development and the crime isn't all that compelling. Then the movie suddenly shifts gears into this highly melodramatic drama that re-enacts all of the lifelong drama of the man who committed the crime. It's a jarring shift, but also compelling. It's not an essential film, but an interesting one.

Forbidden Planet - The story isn't terrific, but it works in the same way that a decent episode of the original Star Trek might work (though inferior to most of what The Next Generation accomplished). The effects are fun to watch - while primitive, they also work and look good for the time. This is an influential sci-fi film and worth watching for sci-fi fans, but not necessarily worth going out of your way otherwise.

The Drop - This gangster film with Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, and Noomi Rapace doesn't have a ton worth recommending, but I'm slipping it up to this line because you can pass the time in worse ways, there's an interesting (if not entirely unpredictable) twist, and Tom Hardy delivers a mostly credible performance that helps to make the final act a bit more plausible (Hardy's weird and inconsistent accent is another story, but it's not a huge problem).

Not Recommended

Tammy - The movie has a few decent gags, but not enough to sustain the inconsistent premise and even more inconsistent tone. Writers Melissa McCarthy (also star) and Ben Falcone (also director) spend the first half of the movie painting the titular character as a disgusting, idiotic loser and fool. Then halfway through they want her to turn into, actually, just a pretty normal gal who strikes up a romance with a pretty normal, stable guy. Yes, male comedians have been asking us for years to buy the premise that beautiful people fall in love with childish losers for no reason other than they are the star of the movie, but that premise rarely works all that well, and it gets no better or fresher merely for being a female-centric take on it.

Brainstorm - A classic example of a movie that got made because everyone reacted to the concept, but no one stopped to think about creating a plot. It is boring as hell. Douglas Trumbull's idea of shooting the brainstorm sequences in a different format and aspect ratio does not rescue the fact that what happens is visually dull (not to mention nonsensical, as the movie almost immediately abandons the first person perspective in these sequences as a shortcut). The ending is supposed to be a profound moment, but I was left saying, "Is that it?"

The Swarm - There are a few unintentional laughs to be had (the giant bee hallucinations, some indifferent actors), with Michael Caine at his career peak of, "Just pay me, I don't give a fuck." But the campy laughs aren't sustained, and the filmmakers are never able to find any meaningful thrills to replace them. Perhaps the most memorable part of this film is when the Air Force General in charge of eliminating the swarm of Africanized bees just starts referring to them as "the Africans." So he starts ranting on about how the only way to solve the problem is to "get rid of all the Africans," and makes several other comments in the same vein. I have to believe that someone on the set realized what they were saying; hopefully the writer and director didn't believe that this was some form of social commentary since the movie does ultimately celebrate the eradication of those bees (spoiler!).


Draft Day - I applaud the experiement of trying to make the draft interesting as a narrative film, but ultimately the effort here fails, primarily under the weight of the film's failure to ever once achieve a sense of plausibility. Other characters have to get stupid when the main character needs a victory, so they do, conveniently and repeatedly. There's zero chemistry between Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner, and Denis Leary never convinces as the head football coach. People run around holding their heads at Kevin Costner's character being some sort of crazy man, but I have no idea why. Costner himself is on auto-pilot.

Larry Crowne - I have to believe there's about another hour of this movie that exists somewhere. My guess is they looked at the film, realized it wasn't working, and decided to just carve it down as much as possible to just get it over with (and maybe get a few more shows in for opening weekend). The result is a character movie that feels like it is missing all of its character development scenes - everything happens because, well, it's just that time in the movie when it's supposed to happen. We're supposed to cheer for these characters but we're not given enough to even care.

Terminator:  Genisys - Stick with the first two Terminator films and forget this uninspired and, at times, nonsensical, reboot.



Jurassic World - There's not a single inspired or original moment in this film. The effects do not deliver any sense of wonder, which leaves us with a mostly paint-by-numbers premise and story. I obviously don't understand why this movie has connected so well with audiences this summer. To each their own.

Vigilante (1983)

It's easy to dismiss exploitation films out of hand for their heavy-handedness, often terrible politics, and just sheer trashiness. The thing about exploitation movies, however, is that they must have an audience to exploit, or they don't make any sense. To understand the way people work, and to understand the way the culture is working, it can often be a great idea to head to the exploitation cinema. After all, the filmmakers are only trying to give the audience what it wants.

That does not necessarily mean that the insights gleaned from venturing down to the grindhouse are particularly appetizing. Sometimes what the audience wants is a film that satisfies their very worst instincts and impulses. And so that brings me to urban vigilante movies and, specifically, William Lustig's 1983 film Vigilante, starring Robert Forster, Fred Williamson, Steve James, and Woody Strode.

Vigilante movies go back a ways. Vigilantism is a popular angle in westerns. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the vigilante movie ventured into urban centers of the modern day. It was not just about manly codes of justice or saving helpless damsels in distress. The vigilante movie began to more seriously focus on and reflect other cultural issues, including a legitimately surging crime rate, white flight and angst over the urban areas left behind (where many whites that had fled to segregated suburbs continued to work but allowed to crumble), racist backlash against the civil rights movement and integration, racist angst over miscegenation, and lingering cultural resentment over the Vietnam War.

If you were a white conservative feeling like you were losing the culture war, it might have brought some satisfaction to imagine yourself as a tough guy with a gun, going into the city to blow away some minorities (only the ones that truly deserve it, of course! especially the ones that were raping your women!).

Dirty Harry and Death Wish were making big bucks. There was an audience for this stuff. With all that cash blowing around of course the urban vigilante movie became an exploitation staple.

William Lustig, a legendary exploitation filmmaker who primarily worked in the 1980s and early 1990s, dove head-first into that toxic stew with his film Vigilante, the follow-up to his infamous (and revered in many quarters) horror film Maniac. It came right at the height of the conservative Reagan backlash - euphemistically called the Reagan Revolution. It was a time when conservative whites decided they needed to fight back - or at least wanted to fantasize about fighting back.

Lustig exploits the racist angst and resentments of his audience to the hilt, setting up a scenario where a primarily latino and black gang blow the lead character's small child away (in brilliantly shocking fashion) and rape and brutalize his wife. Lustig caters to the fears and anti-judicial biases of the right-wing by depicting a corrupt and decidedly too liberal justice system that refuses to do anything about the crime. And then Lustig hammers home the belief in the ineffectiveness of government by assuring us that the police either do not care or are too patently incompetent to get anything done. Fucking bureaucrats. Were it not for the blood and nudity, I could see this functioning as a Reagan campaign video.

Given that the overall plot isn't all that coherent, the exploitation is so transparent, there are several truly ludicrous scenes (the courtroom scene is a standout in that regard), and the film swims in a toxic stew of noxious right-wing politics, it would be easy to dismiss this as merely trash that reflects a worse time in America. And it is trash that reflects a worse time in America.

Yet Lustig is too damn good a filmmaker to just leave it at that. He knows how to shoot a movie. The film is really well-shot and properly edited - a level of technical competence far above the normal grindhouse standard. There are some electric scenes, including the opening Fred Williamson monologue, some scenes in a prison, and some of the vigilante confrontations. More than 30 years later the film still has some sharp edges.

The scene in which the gang attacks Forster's wife and kid in particular would be brilliant were it not so informed by racist angst. Lustig knows just where to push and where to draw back. The scene is incredibly brutal but Lustig doesn't play it as violence pornography. It is at times brilliant exploitation filmmaking. Lustig also gets the most out of his cast, including a good, sullen performance by Robert Forster and an intense show from Fred Williamson. The musical score mostly works well and contains a few nice themes.

This honestly is a film that I would recommend even modern-day directors and producers watch as a fine example of what can be done on a technical and visual level in spite of a low budget. For sociologists, this might be a film worth studying to understand how right-wing angst affected the things people believed about urban areas and the justice system. And we can see in the film perhaps an explanation for why police agencies have adopted the reckless vigilante mindset that this film celebrates (to be more effective than the boob police from this movie, of course!).

For everyone else, however, there's just a little too much poison in this toxic stew. In an era where the crime rate is much lower than it was in the 1980s, there isn't as much excuse for buying into the film's unsubtle exploitation. I know some people in the suburbs still want to believe this crap, but there's no reason to indulge - or forgive - their worst impulses. It's an interesting film, but I can't call it a good one.

Screened on TCM.

Balls Out (2015)

After I finished watching Balls Out - which took a great effort not to Walk Out - the key debate for me is who should be more embarrassed: the writer? the director? the actors? whoever is still using Orion's 30 year old bumper? the Kickstarter funders? the costume designer? the people that decided to change the title to Balls Out (capitalizing on a movie title joke that was dumb the first time it was used six years ago)?

I ultimately settled on critics - i.e., the critics, such as the one at the New York Times, that gave this fourth-rate non-comedy good reviews. What were they thinking?

Spring 2015 Catch Up List

Time to catch up again - to the extent I can even remember all the movies I've seen. Actually, this year has been a really slow one for moviegoing. A lot of it, honestly, is that there just hasn't been much out there that excites me enough to see. And, as I've mentioned before, I just don't find myself rushing out to see every studio blockbuster - especially sequels to movies I didn't want to see in the first place. I'll just list as many recent movies I watched or re-watched as I can remember here and maybe add a few run-on thoughts on selected films.

Highly Recommended
     - Mad Max: Fury Road - I worried that I might be disappointed due to how much I had been looking forward to George Miller's latest Mad Max movie. But as soon as the Doof Warrior shot flames out of his guitar, my concerns dissolved away. Mel Gibson is still the best Mad Max, but this chapter as a whole gives Mad Max II (The Road Warrior) a real run for its money as the best, most exciting entry in the series. I saw it first in 2-D and then again in 3-D, and do recommend giving the 3-D theatrical version a shot.
     - Farewell to Hollywood - An emotional documentary about a teenage girl's dying days spent trying to live her dream to be a filmmaker even as she finally succumbs to the cancer that robbed her of her teenage years. The film, as she apparently wanted, shows her struggle with cancer in excruciating manner. Yet the film actually is more preoccupied with the girl's deteriorating relationship with her parents, who appear to have been driven off the edge by the twin realization that their daughter will die and that she is now an adult and not the little happy child they prefer to remember. The film perhaps inadvertently raises some ethical questions with respect to documentary filmmaking. It's worth seeing on a number of levels.
     - 1971 - After a short, limited release in theaters, where I was able to check it out, this documentary received a welcome national release on PBS. This fascinating story of the until now unsolved break-in of an FBI office in Pennsylvania focuses on procedural aspects but deftly interweaves just enough material on how the stand that these folks took led to earth-shaking revelations about FBI abuses - if not necessarily much in the way of actual reform.
     - It Follows - A decent film that probably was a little overhyped, it nonetheless works as a fun horror film with enough levels that filmgoers can leave the theater and have some things to talk about.
Recommended
     - Going Clear - This documentary features just enough interesting material to make it worthwhile, but if you've heard any of this stuff before then it can get repetitive here. It doesn't make quite as compelling a case as the filmmakers seem to believe. Some of the stuff written in the wake of the film and its revelations has been more interesting.
     - Village of the Damned (1960) - This modest little horror film proves that sometimes the creepiest thing in the world is a blonde-haired child. The film holds up fairly well, although it's filled with far too much dialogue that comes off as trying to extend the film so it can qualify as feature-length.
     -  Buzzard - If you are a fan of mid- to late-90s indie cinema, especially the early works of Harmony Korine, then run, don't walk, to your Roku and order the VOD of Buzzard. It works well for a while and features an interesting character study, but it ultimately doesn't add up to as much substance as the early parts of the film suggest.Filmmaker Joel Potrykus shows some promise, but it is not yet fully realized.
     -  Tales of Hoffmann
     - The Last Starfighter
     - Krull
Not Recommended
  - Ice Station Zebra - A few nice moments and a decent concept and climax don't do enough to remedy the fact that most of this movie is a complete snooze.
  - Avengers: Age of Ultron - A formulaic rehash that isn't offensively bad - and can even be enjoyable at times - but that washes away from your brain in a matter of seconds when the lights go back on in the theater.
  - Furious 7 - The films in this series aren't meant to be seriously analyzed. But I do expect more fun moments and would appreciate at least some effort at crafting a coherent plot. Dividing up car chases with dramatic scenes that might make All My Children's core audience cringe does not count as a coherent plot. I had a few good laughs at the absurdity of the last entry, and thus perversely enjoyed it. Here I was mostly bored.
  - Jupiter Ascending - I've been a booster of the Wachowskis in the past few years and and feel that their films Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas will eventually be seen as unfairly underrated. But this one just doesn't work. There are some nice visuals and some nice moments, but not enough to save what is just too messy to work.
  - The Mind of Mr. Soames - This melodrama about an adult male awakened from a coma he went into as an infant covers little interesting ground. The pacing is poor and way too little story develops. As a character piece it suffers from several characters that make little to no sense, as well as a lack of focus on what the film wants to say. Pity the poor two female actresses in this thing, who are forced to portray two ludicrous characters - one a bored housewife that instantly falls for the titular character because he strokes her hair like a curious little child, and the other a younger woman that appears to be in a permanent state of rape panic. Overall, the filmmakers never decide from whose perspective they want to tell the story. Even more muddled than the characters is the point of this whole thing. A movie that does not work on pretty much every level.

If I remember others, I'll try to add them.

Catching Up List

I've seen (or re-watched) a lot of movies in the last few months that I never commented upon here. Just will list as many as I can remember here and maybe add a few thoughts on selected films.

Highly Recommended
     - Citizen Koch - It's should almost be a civic duty to watch this excellent documentary on how money has overwhelmed politics, as seen through the lens of Scott Walker and his patrons the Koch Brothers. It is unfortunate that this movie has been somewhat smeared as more partisan than it really is as a result of PBS' abandonment of the project in an ill-fated attempt to appease their patrons - the Koch Brothers.
     - Missing - Given that much has been learned (or, rather, confirmed) since this film was released in 1982 about the U.S.'s involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup and the murder of American journalist Charles Horman, this movie might seem ripe for a remake. And yet it would be hard to imagine a movie dealing with these events that is more perfectly constructed than Costa-Gavras' brilliant film from 1982 (featuring great work from Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek). Must watch.
     - Duel - Recently had a chance to re-watch this projected in 35mm. Spielberg's 40+ year old TV movie remains a fascinating exploration of white male urban angst. Well worth watching if for no other reason than to explore the seeds of paranoia and insecurity that in current times makes Fox News and talk radio such powerful forces in America.

Recommended
     - The Drowning Pool
     - '71 - Solidly entertaining but the filmmakers' desire to seem non-partisan in a film about The Troubles overwhelms the drama at times. The lead character is also too much a cipher.
     - Milius - Lightly recommended, mainly for Milius fans. This film is more tribute than critical documentary. That means it tends to dance around some of the tougher issues and that it is focused on celebrating the colorful filmmaker rather than seriously critiquing his work.
     - Child's Pose
     - The Internet's Own Boy
     - Top Five
     - Obvious Child - The filmmaker works hard to provide a rebuttal to Knocked Up, and it is interesting in that respect, and decently charming. But I do wish it were a bit funnier.
     - Life Itself
     - Pride - Overly schmaltzy, but good.
     - Inherent Vice - As if taking a conventional noir or detective movie and then loosening each end to the point that the story collapses into deconstruction - which is for better and worse. If nothing else, it's an interesting picaresque revolving around a detective that barely solves anything beyond just being lucky enough to keep getting caught up in strange events swirling around him. As hard as it tries, still not a match for Altman's The Long Goodbye.
     - The World Made Straight
     - Skeleton Twins
     - BlackHat - Deeply flawed and pretty silly but entertaining enough to make the cut-line.
     - The Car - A childhood favorite I was able to see in 35mm in a double with Duel. It remains silly fun and a decent thriller. Worth checking out if you've never seen it. 

Not Recommended
Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter - Both bad and entirely too self-serious. Ugh.

I'm sure there were others that should go below the cut line here, but I can't remember them at the moment, which is probably for the best.

My Belated Top Ten Movies of 2014

 

 

 

There are still a good half dozen movies from 2014 that I really wanted to try and see before finalizing my top 10 list from the year, and there are many more well-reviewed or sleeper films that I wish I could get to. The truth is if I keep trying to fit everything in, however, I might not get to my 2014 list until 2016 rolls around. So while there might be some other films out there that might usurp a spot or two on this list had I seen them, I think it best to just go ahead and put a list together before January ends. So, in alphabetical order, here are my ten favorite films from 2014*:

Boyhood - Linklater's film covers so much territory that it seems to give short shrift to some aspects (and the boy's sister is a strange non-factor for most of the film). Even though the movie flies through events, however, by the end of the movie you can't help but feel emotionally connected to the lead character. That Linklater is able to make things ring true and is able to build an emotional connection to the audience is a testament to his skill.

Cold in July - Jim Mickle's revenge noir is a fascinating exploration of the intersection between masculinity and violence. Featuring an outstanding set of performances and a script that manages to surprise throughout, this film should have had a much bigger audience. Hopefully it will catch on in the video and VOD markets.

The Congress - Another under-seen film from last year, this fascinating movie from Ari Folman is half live-action and half animated. At its core is an intriguing performance from lead Robin Wright, who plays a version of herself. Kudos to Wright for being willing to take on her persona and even her career choices, and then to throw herself into this visually challenging film that explores the need for true human connections even in a world that wishes to turn humanity itself into a fiction.

Gloria - Paulina Garcia's winning performance illuminates this fascinating and fun story of a middle-aged divorcée  rediscovering her own sense of identity, independence, and sexuality. Underlying the feminist story is a subtle exploration of Chilean politics. A group of middle-aged folks that fondly reminisce about their youthful radicalism mostly ignore the rising tide of radical political action taking place around them as they enjoy their middle-class bourgeois existence.

Ida - A haunting story that also deals with identity from a woman's perspective, this time with a youthful novitiate nun who faces a crisis of identity and spirituality just as she is about to finally take her vows. Haunting visuals and a fascinating story in a compact package, I thoroughly recommend this film.

The Immigrant - This old-school historical epic was unjustly dumped mid-summer by its distributor. That's a shame, because it is movie that should be seen. Featuring a great performance from Marion Cotillard, this film from director James Gray aptly explores both the downside and upside of the American Dream.

Kids for Cash - Hey, what do you know: another underseen film from 2014. This outstanding documentary works as a fascinating procedural, an informative work of journalism, and a rousing call to action. The issue is the downside of America's fetish for zero tolerance for juvenile offenders. Kids For Cash builds on the story of a corrupt Pennsylvania judge locking up kids in a private prison in which he had a financial interest. The filmmakers manage to build a broader story about how the modern state of juvenile justice is not improving society, but instead just breaking down and destroying children's lives.

Selma - There are a few iffy moments in this film but it mostly soars as it presents the true story of Martin Luther King's Selma march for voting rights. The debate over historical accuracy is mostly a distraction built around mere details and tangents, and that debate should be mostly ignored by all but academics. Filmmaker Ava Duvernay refuses to turn this into hagiography - she explores King's foibles and mistakes as well as his doubts. The result is an MLK that is ultimately more powerful and admirable precisely because he is so human. Duvernay also does an excellent job of tying these struggles into struggles that are ongoing to this day, without making it obvious (or perhaps there is no other way since we appear to have taken steps backward in recent years to where even 1965 Selma has resonance to today's events). There are several moments that pack astonishing emotional punches - an elderly man's discussion of his desire to vote as he stands over the body of his dead grandson might have been the most emotional moment I had at any point in a movie in 2014. This film is a must-see.

Snowpiercer - There might not have been a more interesting action film all year. Too bad since the distributor also dumped this one. There's plenty of action here but the movie also has a brain and it serves as an interesting exploration of class struggle - and close quarters axe-fighting.

Two Days, One Night - And the best shall be last. The Dardenne Brothers' latest neo-realist film is a brilliant dissection of modern capitalism and how it crushes worker solidarity and pits worker against worker in a brutal race to the bottom. That's not to say that this movie is overly cruel or even all that dark. There are many moments of hope and ultimately a conclusion that suggests, whether a worker wins or loses in the short term, it is the fight that matters. A great film.

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* Technically, some of these movies might have first appeared somewhere before 2014, but if they weren't available to screen in a theater near me until 2014, then they're on my 2014 list.

Three Not To Watch (1/30/2015)

Here are three films recently watched or re-watched that I wanted to quickly review (none of which are recommended):

Band of the Hand - Wikipedia says that this film, produced by Michael Mann and directed by Paul Glaser, was originally intended as a TV pilot but was re-cut into a theatrical release. I haven't been able to 100% confirm that, but it makes perfect sense. It looks and feels like a TV movie with a limited budget and a desire to pander to some lesser instincts without breaching 9pm broadcast standards and practices (i.e., OK to blow lots of people away, but watch the swearing and nudity). The movie has some truly cringe-worthy moments - such as Laurence Fishburne's role as a neighborhood crime kingpin that appears to have been crafted by someone that had no more knowledge of the subject than having watched a few bad 70s blaxploitation movies. Or the ridiculous scenes involving junkies and prostitutes that again appear as if out of only the fever dreams of a white suburbanite Reaganista. The right-wing message of this junker is that what the "inner city" (read: black people) really needs is some folks with machine guns to clean things up. It's basically the same brand of crackpot that you hear out of the NRA every time there's a mass shooting - that somehow what the world needs is more guns and violence, not less. So it isn't entirely irrelevant to modern times and even has some anthropological value for those wanting to further explore the seeds of modern right wing paranoia, white flight, and violence fetishism. If the movie weren't so dumb, it might have been dangerous. Screened via Amazon.

Deep Star Six - This Alien knockoff isn't the worst movie you'll ever see, and you could do worse, but why not try to do better? I mean, why not just rent Alien? Everything is shot in neutral, medium shots, which robs this undersea horror movie of any tension or claustrophobia (which the writer tries to convey but it never comes across visually). There is a bizarre lack of urgency throughout the movie, the result of failures by the writers, director, and actors. The movie also spins off on wild tangents, rather than staying focused on the matters at hand. Instead of creating one ticking clock or one problem for the crew, it tries to create 3 or 4. The result is that there's a monster out there, but it gets forgotten for long stretches. And then everyone keeps getting distracted by this or that challenge that pops up at any given time. There just isn't a coherent through-line, no real interesting characters (Miguel Ferrer's character comes closest), and nothing at all surprising. Nothing worth remembering. Streamed via Netflix.

The Prince - This piece of shit almost comes close to the level of "so bad it's good," but even at that it misses the mark. Jason Patric, Bruce Willis, and John Cusack (the latter two probably only showed up for a few days of shooting, although Willis is purportedly the villain) should be embarrassed to have taken the checks for this one. Patric is supposed to be the hero, a reformed New Orleans criminal who does not speak with a New Orleans accent and a purported badass that does not appear to have worked out in a while. Cusack shows up and reasonably goes through the motions, if flatly so, but Willis seems to be actively angry that he agreed to do this pile of crap. You can tell he doesn't want to be there and seems to be gritting his teeth at having to humiliate himself with this material. That makes the crappy script even worse when a key actor can't even be bothered to give a pro's effort. The script is terrible and there's nothing worth watching. There isn't even much entertainment value out of watching three 1990s superstars slumming in this one. The best part might be counting how many times the extras/stuntmen playing henchmen get killed and then reappear (in ballcaps and sunglasses to hide their faces) to get killed again. Go watch John Wick instead, a movie in the same vein but a thousand times better. Screened in the theater.