Equinox of Insanity

Speaking of Steve the Pirate, I finally got around to watching 3:10 to Yuma this past weekend, and I can say without hesitation that it is the best film I’ve seen this year. Granted, it’s only March, but still.

The film stars Christian Bale as a down-on-his-luck, one-legged rancher hired to escort Russell Crow, as an unstoppable criminal killing machine, to a train that’ll take him to Yuma prison. Oh, and between Bale and the train is Crow’s gang of also unstoppable criminal killing machines, led by Claire from Sex Feet Under’s creepy boyfriend, who is desperate to have his fearless leader back, in a kinda creepy way. To make matters more awesome, Peter Fonda and the aforementioned Steve the Pirate are helping to transport Crow, and Luke Wilson shows up owning Chinese slaves.

The thing that makes this such a great movie is that it’s really a character piece, with both Bale and Crow playing incredibly complex and deep characters. Crow isn’t your typical villain, and Bale isn’t your typical hero. The film takes the time to really flesh out who these men are and what’s really driving them, and that makes the story really worthwhile. Honestly, I think if Javier Bardem is going to get an Oscar for his role in No Country for Old Men then these two guys should have gotten Oscar nominations, too.

I like the film so much I’m debating sending the disc back to Netflix. It’s a really that great of a movie. If I had to quantify its greatness, I’d say it’s about as great as The Prestige, with a little more character work here, and a little bit of a more awesomeness to the story there (I consider Steve the Pirate and David Bowie a push). It’s that kind of movie. Only more westerny.

See this movie. I highly recommend it.

I once read that Alfred Hitchcock characterized the difference between American and British films thusly: a British film can open with a shot of the some clouds, followed by another shot of clouds, followed by a third shot of clouds; if an American film opens with a shot of clouds, the second shot must be of a plane, and if the third shot isn’t the plane exploding you’ve lost the audience.

I’ve found that to be generally true, and I don’t usually like British films that don’t star Keira Knightley. So understand that when I recommend Death at a Funeral, now available on DVD, I’m not doing so lightly.

The film was directed by Frank Oz — who was the voice of Yoda, and therefore totally freakin’ kick-ass — and stars a bunch of uptight British people, a dwarf, and Steve the Pirate. It goes without saying that Steve the Pirate steals the show, but I’ll say it anyway — he steals the motherfucking show!

The story is about a family gathering together for the death of a loved one. The characters have complex and interesting relationships, and through the course of the day they come to terms with their feelings for each other, and decide what kind of future they want to make for each other. Oh, yeah, and this whole time Steve the Pirate is tripping balls. Seriously, he is tripping the fuck out, which is, as you might surmise, absolutely hilarious.

Yeah, the stuff with the dwarf is really funny too, but seriously, it’s Steve the Pirate tripping balls. I mean, isn’t that all you really need in a film? The film’s plot is fine, but all we need is some setup where Steve the Pirate accidentally ingests a hallucinogenic substance and then proceeds to trip balls, and to that end screenwriter Dean Craig thankfully delivers, and in spades. How this film wasn’t nominated for, or win, every Oscar is beyond me. Clearly, Hollywood does not appreciate movies with Steve the Pirate tripping balls. For shame, Hollywood, for shame.

But seriously, it’s a hilarious movie with a bit of heart, and I can’t recommend this film more. Hell, this is the first movie I’ve ever pre-ordered, and I’m glad I did because I’ve already watched it twice since. It’s really great.

And did I mention Steve the Pirate is in it, and that he is, in fact, tripping balls? Just so we’re clear.

Ok, so my awesome run of watching great movies has come to a crashing end with Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. What’s sucks, too, is that for about 1 hour and 12 minutes this was easily one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2008. After that point in the film, things get painful.

The story is pretty simple: at some point in the future the Sun has started to stop burning brightly enough to heat the Earth, and a team of heroes gets on a spaceship, with a giant bomb attached to it, and heads to the Sun in hopes of revitalizing the dying star. Think Armageddon, except instead of our heroes being Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Liv Tyler, we get Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Michelle Yeoh (we also trade Steve Buscemi for Chris Evans, which I’m calling a push). That is to say, real actors who take imaginative roles with depth and class.

The first 1 hour 12 minutes does two things really well:

1. There’s a spectacular sense of wonder about being in space. There’s a very real “to boldly go…” feeling to this part of the film. I’d recommend that J.J. Abrams take a few notes for his Star Trek film, but actually J.J. Abrams wrote Armageddon, so nuts to that.
2. There’s a realism to the characters that leads them to be so clearly unconstructed, much in the same way the characters in No Country for Old Men are unconstructed.

That second point is what is so amazing about the first 1 hour 12 minutes. The film starts with the mission already in full swing, and quickly presents the following question: if you carried with you a bomb that was the last hope to save the human race, would you take a detour from your mission if that meant, maybe, securing a second bomb that might be the last last hope for the human race?

As you might expect, our team of heroes decide that “two last hopes are better than one,” and it is not without it’s consequences. The first 1 hour 12 minutes are full of real character drama, and I found myself completely engrossed in the lives of the crew and the decisions they were forced to make. The actors all brought their A-games, especially the always great Cillian Murphy and Hiroyuki Sanada, who proves that even without a samurai sword in his hand he’s still a badass.

Then comes the 1 hour 12 minute mark, after which the film devolves into a blistering pile of bullshit. A really great sci-fi character drama sudden becomes a really stupid horror/thriller. It’s as if someone accidentally photocopied pages of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon and slipped them randomly at the end of the script. Not the good parts of Event Horizon, either; I’m talking about the ridiculously terrible parts of Event Horizon, which, I suppose, is most of Event Horizon.

From that point forward the film is almost unwatchable. Maybe it’s because the start is so strong, or maybe it’s because the story really does become so preposterously craptastic, but I found myself fast forwarding through large chunks at the end. I felt back and went back to see if I missed anything good, realized that I didn’t, and just started fast forwarding again.

If I had to make a recommendation, I’d say rent the flick and watch the first 1 hour and 12 minutes… hell, actually, just stop after 1 hour and 10 minutes just to be safe, then fast forward your way until the last couple of scenes (the last scene in particular is pretty nice). It’s really such a damn shame, though. This could have been a really great film.

This is when you should stop watching. You have been warned.

I think I’ve been really lucky lately, in that I’ve been seeing a bunch of great movies. I saw Juno two weeks ago, Cloverfield over the weekend, the The Mist (free, courtesy of Zach and the U.S. Navy) on Tuesday, and then The Savages last night.¹

The Savages tells the story of Wendy and Jon Savage, who have to put their ailing father into a nursing home.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like a total downer, but, surprisingly, it’s really not. It’s actually very funny, and not nearly as sad as I thought it would be. Sure, it’s got some real drama at it’s heart, but none of us were moved to tears by the film, and I’m kind of a pussy when it comes to sad movies.

The films stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and they brought their A-game. Great performances, funny film, touching story, what more could you ask for? Yeah, OK, you could ask for ninjas and smoking hot babes, and if you’re willing to forego the great performances, humor, and touchingness of the story then I whole-heartedly recommend DOA: Dead or Alive. Otherwise, go see The Savages. It’s the best movie in which Laura Linney steals a dead woman’s pain medication that I’ve seen in a while, and that’s saying something.

1. Oddly, I think The Mist may have been the best of the lot.↩

I just saw Cloverfield with my buddy Zach and all I have to say is WOW!

Well, that’s not all I have to say. Here’s a run-down of my thoughts:

1) It’s amazing how little character business you really need in a script. Within the first ten minutes all the major characters are introduced and, more importantly, all their relationships are made perfectly clear, including a very sincere romantic relationship that forms the backbone of the story. It only takes one really well done scene to convince the viewer of real love between the characters.

2) The filmmakers make a respectable effort to convince the audience that a jackass would still be running around filming all this with a little video camera. While I think the context of the story does make this more believable than in The Blair Witch Project, it is, unfortunately, still totally ridiculous and did pull me out of the story a couple of times (why is that guy still filming this?). Even though the camera-element turns out to be a very important part of the story, and in that respect is used beautifully, I think it would have just been better to either have the story told through someone’s eyes (literal POV) or just to forego all that and still film it the same way as a disembodied camera. The film would still be completely engrossing, regardless.

3) It’s remarkable how “real” the story is. That is to say, nearly all of the plot feels organic and unconstructed. Of course they’d run there. Of course he’d do that. The problem is that about half way through the story there’s a sequence involving some buildings (one partially collapsed) that feels completely fake and “written”; it’s clear that there was a conscious decision to have this sequence in the film to liven up the story. Had the rest of the film not been so wonderfully realistic I don’t think this particular sequence would bother me, but given how mesmerizing other parts of the story are I couldn’t help but groan a little when this come around.

4) Zach and I also saw 28 Weaks Later (that spelling is deliberate) and one of my remarks for that film had been that were there to be a catastrophic viral outbreak in England that I find it inconceivable that the U.S. government, with or without U.N. approval or support, wouldn’t declare England lost and nuke the hell out of it (or at the very least fire-bomb it into ash). Thankfully, the military’s response in Cloverfield — with little regard for collateral damage — is exactly what I would expect, and is exactly what I would hope they’d behave in a situation like this.

5) Plan to go to a bar after the movie. Zach had to take off — probably to deal with that wife of his — but I could have talked about the this movie for hours. You have to ask, “What would you do in a situation like this?” Cloverfield makes for an excellent precursor to chicken wings and beer.

6) Finally, the monster is awesome. This isn’t like the trailer where you’re not getting to see this thing; the filmmakers put it out there and you see a lot more of it than you probably even want to. The design of it is interesting, but as I think a couple reviews have mentioned this film isn’t about the monster in the same way Godzilla is. This film is about what the monster’s doing to us, and it is horrifying. I don’t think it’s possible to walk out of this movie rooting for the monster; it is, unquestionably, the villain of the film.

If the opportunity presents itself to see this flick again I’d probably take it. It’s really something else. I’m not sure I could watch another monster movie that doesn’t employ the same on-the-ground/personal perspective that this film does. Cloverfield makes all other monster movies seem trivial by comparison.

Ever since Khoi Vinh brought attention to the end credits of The Bourne Ultimatum I’ve been hyper-aware of the way credits are presented. It’s a sickness, really. I mention this because the opening credit sequence to the Luke Wilson/Kate Beckinsale thriller Vacancy is a typographic tour de force. Each credit is displayed on screen, then it twists and contorts into the next credit, each one leading deeper and deeper, until the final credit (always the director’s), at which point the camera pulls back to reveal the credits have formed the pattern of a maze, which then phases into the first shot of the film.

You’re probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Words, especially as poorly written as mine, don’t convey how awesome the credits are, so here the video of them that someone posted on YouTube:

As for the actual movie, I think it’s OK; good but not great. The story is fairly straight-forward: Wilson and Beckinsale are a couple that get lost and end being the only occupants of a motel run by psychopaths. The couple discovers video tapes in their room that show the rooms previous guests being murdered, and realize quickly that they’re being videotaped, and that they’re next.

Right from the start the film gives off a strong Hitchcock vibe. The way the characters are set up, the film’s aesthetic, the strong camera angles, the deliberate pacing, the constant sense of impending doom; all very Hitchcock, and all done very effectively.

So why am I not giving the film a more positive review? Two major problems…

First, there is absolutely no mystery about the film’s villains. I don’t feel I’m giving anything away by revealing that the jackasses that run the motel are the murderers. The film makes no effort to hide this fact. Compare this to what Hitchcock did in Psycho (the film that is most obviously related to Vacancy): in Psycho Hitchcock deliberately misleads the audience into believing that Mrs. Bates is the killer, making the revelation that it’s actually Norman shocking. Hitchcock was a master at creating very real mysteries around his villains; you never really know who you’re dealing with until the very end. Vacancy would have benefited greatly from this.

Second, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale were terrible in the film. Both are certainly capable of doing good work, but Wilson looked fifteen pounds too heavy for the role, and Kate Beckinsale wasn’t wearing a pleather catsuit. That kinda sucked.

Overall I’d recommend the film, though with the warning that you shouldn’t get too excited about it. I think it might be more interesting on a technical level than it is at the basic story level.

Also…

The film was directed by Nimród Antal, who’s previous film was the absolutely captivating Hungarian film Kontroll (a fact I didn’t realize until after I watched Vacancy). Kontroll is set entirely in the Budapest subway, which leads to some incredibly interesting visuals. Between that film and this one I think it’s clear Antal has a very strong eye for film. I also recommend Kontroll… if you’re into Hungarian films set in subways.

As previously noted, I had zero interest in seeing the film The Kingdom until I saw the amazing opening credit sequence, at which point it went on my must-see list. It has since been moved to my have-seen list…

Let me start off by saying that the opening credit sequence is even more powerful on the big screen than I thought it would be, which is saying a lot. The part that depicts the events of 9/11 gets me every time. I saw the film with my buddy Jake and he mentioned that he heard someone next to him comment about how amazing the credits are, though it’s possible that was me muttering to myself. It is unquestionably moving, thought-provoking, and compelling.

The rest of the film: not so much.

That’s not to say it’s a bad film, because it’s not bad at all, it’s just very different than what the opening credits sets up. The film is a really intense action-crime-drama set in Saudi Arabia. Politics are largely left at the door. The film spends little to no time dealing with oil, the intricacies of the ruling class, the proliferation of fanaticism, the US military presence, their interactions with the US government, or how any of that actually plays a part in international terrorism. Come to think of it, there’s really no acknowledgment of international terrorism at all; it’s as if Saudi Arabia existed in a sand-filled vacuum.

Walking out of the theater I was left trying to figure out what the film was trying to say. That is, I couldn’t figure out if there was a point.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like empty action movies as much as the next guy (Live Free or Die Hard anyone), but not only is the opening credit sequence misleading, but I think the subject matter lends itself to some form of intelligent analysis. I’m not looking for another Syriana (crap no!), but, you know, some kind of point of view would be nice.

In all fairness, the film did leave me wondering: where the hell do people in the Middle East keep getting rocket launchers from? Seriously, it’s like every asshole in Saudi Arabia has one. Aren’t these guys supposed to be ass poor? There’s ten of them living in a tiny one bedroom apartment. Maybe, I don’t know, if these guys spent some of their rocket launcher cash on some nicer digs they wouldn’t be filled with so much jihadist fury. Is there an Ikea in Saudi Arabia? Maybe the State Department should look into that.

I have to say, the lack of story depth notwithstanding, the film is incredibly well done. It’s surprisingly funny, has some real emotion, is mindblowingly intense, well acted (generally), and I found the images of Saudi Arabia absolutely stunning. Jamie Foxx did a great job, as did Ashraf Barhom who plays his Saudi counterpart. Chris Cooper is Chris Cooper, which is fine. Jennifer Garner could have easily been replaced by any actress. Jason Bateman and Jeremy Piven were there for comedic relief, and, while appreciated, were extremely annoying.

The story itself is a bit over-Hollywoodized, with a lot of intense American ass-kicking, and one scene that was almost unbearably Disneyesque, but is redeemed at the last minute (I don’t want to spoil it). Personally, I thought the “America! Fuck Yeah!” attitude of the film was fine, but my aforementioned buddy Jake (who actually made the Team America reference which I now claim as my own) seemed to have a problem with it. Just keep that in mind.

Overall, I do recommend the flick, if only for the opening credits. I joked that I could have just walked out after the credits and been perfectly happy, though I am very glad I didn’t do that. If you like intense action movies I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Just don’t go into it expecting to have something to talk about afterwards… unless you’re interested in having an in depth discussion about the proliferation of rocket launchers in Saudi Arabia.

A Word About Intensity

My repeated use of the word intense is something of an inside joke, but it’s actually the best word to describe this movie. It doesn’t hold back, to the point that it might be a bit much to deal with. Specifically, you see every terrorist act in gruesome detail. It’s something I don’t think the commercials prepare you for.

Roe mentioned this film in one of my comments, and I figured I’d give the flick a chance.

Turns out this is a really shitty movie.

I don’t recommend watching this piece of crap.

You’ll walk away really feeling like you stepped in it.

You’ll wonder what the deuce the filmmakers were thinking.

Poop.

Seriously, bad movie. Which is surprising, given the fertile subject matter. Don’t bother. You just be wasting a good spot on your Netflix queue.

It’s pretty amazing that movies like War get huge marketing blitzes behind them while a film like Scott Frank’s The Lookout comes and goes with little fanfare. I noticed a small bit of online advertising for the movie before it came out, was intrigued by the trailer, but never made it to the theater to catch the flick. I finally Netflixed it and, hey, it’s pretty good.

“What?! ‘3rd Rock from the Sun’ was totally the balls! Recognize!”

The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the kid from “3rd Rock from the Sun” and 10 Things I Hate About You) as a young man who used to be the bee’s knees, but has since suffered brain damage in a terrible accident. He’s a bit like the hero from Memento, except with actual brain damage¹, though not as severely. Our hero lives with Jeff Daniels (who will forever be “the other guy from Dumb and Dumber“) — a wise blind man who sees all (yeah, yeah) and watches over our hero in a fatherly fashion. Our hero works nights cleaning a bank, and because banks only appear in movies to get robbed, he meets a strange and mysterious fellow (played by that guy from Match Point), who sets the plot in motion.

The heisting actually gets in the way of what is really a character study about a person who’s gone from hero to zero, knows it’s happened, and knows there’s nothing he can do to change it. It’s a very sad look at a sad situation. Gordon-Levitt’s character was the big man in high school, and now he has difficulty functioning in the real world by himself. He struggles on a daily basis with the weaknesses of his own mind, trying to reconcile what he is with with he was. Then he robs a bank. Nifty.

The heist itself is OK, and the story from then on is OK (you can probably guess what our young hero ends up doing), but I really didn’t care. The meat of the story was elsewhere, and it was pretty good while it lasted. The heist element also introduces a lot of plot holes, which is sad because the story is otherwise well constructed.

Overall I recommend The Lookout. It’s one of those films you can talk about after you’ve seen it. You know, if you have friends. I don’t, so if you see the movie you can talk to me about it.

1. You do realize that the guy in Memento didn’t actually suffer from real memory loss, right?↩

Do you see two faces or a vase? I see a good time.

1. This movie needs punctuation in its title. War is generic and boring, while War! is a battle cried that shakes the heavens and brings the gods to their knees. Being able to respectably use punctuation in the title of a film is a rare occurrence, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked. Sadly, it is here.

Though, honestly, if punctuation was going to be used then this film would probably have been titled War?.

2. San Francisco has both a Yakuza district and a Triad district. They both look asian, so it’s hard to tell which one you’re in.

3. The main villain of the film, the evil assassin named Rogue (no relation to the chick from X-men), uses a special form of titanium encased bullets with depleted uranium tips. I know this because it’s explained in the opening scene of the film. It’s explained five minutes later when someone dies and the hero discovers one of those bullets at the scene (with a flashback to the first scene). Also, it’s explained five minutes after that — 3 years into the future of the film — when the hero finds another one of those bullets at a crime scene signifying the return of Rogue (with flashbacks to both the first scene and the second scene — yes, a double flashback!). I’m pretty sure it’s mentioned about 90 times after that, but I wasn’t really paying attention anymore.

4. Jason Statham is a friggin’ killing machine. No kidding. He kills ninjas, gangsters, cooks, guys with hats. Basically anyone that gets in his way. Except for the villainous Rogue, who at one point is standing right in front of him unarmed and helpless, and Jason Statham does nothing to him. I assume it’s because Jason Statham doesn’t kill unarmed guys, even when he’s been hunting them for 3 years after they brutally murdered his partner and his partner’s wife and kid. I guess Jason Statham is like a Predator in that way.

5. Jet Li can’t speak English. I mean, the guy tries, god bless him, but it’s like sort of like when people teach their dogs to make noises that sound like words. No, wait, it’s exactly like that. Oh the irony.

6. Yakuza ninjas attacking the Triad leader’s hideout will only carry swords with them, which will allow them to kill all the Triad guards, even though the guards are packing automatic weapons like uzis and shit.

7. Swords can pierce giant cement tubes. In one scene Rogue hunts down some asian dickhead and kills him by stabbing him in the stomach with a sword. The sword will go through the dickhead and stay stuck there pinning the dickhead’s lifeless body against a giant cement tube. Rogue will leave the sword there when he leaves, even though it’s apparently the most sharp sword in the world and therefore probably priceless. It’s OK, though, because Rogue seems to have a lot of adamantium swords.

8. When someone who you know has just betrayed you hands you a briefcase with a fake horse statuette in it there’s probably also a bomb in there somewhere. Like, I’m 80% sure there is.

9. When Jason Statham promises to show up to his estranged son’s basketball game you won’t know if he showed up or not because that plot point is never brought up again, even though at the time it seemed like the entire friggin’ film hanged off his promise that he would.

10. Devon Aoki shows up in movies for no reason. Nix that… she shows up to order a salad (chef, to be exact, sans blue cheese and with the dressing on the side). But make no mistake, she’ll order that salad with so much conviction that you’ll swear she thought she was in a better movie. Like 2 Fast 2 Furious.

11. The leader of the Yakuza looks sorta like a Japanese Wayne Newton. Seriously.

12. The hero’s black partner is guaranteed to die. For no reason. Well, I guess there is a reason: movies are racist.

13. Luis Guzmán has no idea what “fate” is. No, really. At one point he and Jason Statham have a heart to heart that goes like this:

Statham: Do you believe in fate? Guzmán: Fate? Statham: The idea that everything happens for a reason…

Look, Jason Statham, if you have to explain to someone what “fate” is then no answer they are ever going to give you is ever going to be worthwhile. Just shoot them in the head and be done with it. To Luis Guzmán, your character in the film is Mexican, not retarded. You play those differently.

14. When the FBI doesn’t have enough evidence to arrest a guy one FBI agent will whisper that to the other no more than six inches away from the guy they’re trying to arrest’s face. Obviously, they’re hoping the guy is deaf. Or just not paying attention. You know, either one, or both.

15. I fucking loved the movie War. No, seriously, I haven’t laughed this hard in the theater since Hot Fuzz. The difference, of course, is that I was laughing with Hot Fuzz and at War. Still, I highly recommend grabbing a few beers and watching this flick with some buddies. Good times!