Movie Review: I Sell The Dead

Have you wondered, like I have, what Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd have been  up to since Lord of the Rings? OK, I did hear that Dom was in a TV show called Lost, but I'm illiterate when it comes to TV, so it doesn't really count in my personal reality.Last night I watched I Sell The Dead, a snarky flick about two graverobbers in the 19th Century who find unexpected success in traffiking in the undead. It was an absolutely delightful film! Unexpectedly, so. Normally, you rent this kind of thing expecting to be able to see the wires and zippers holding the monsters together, with the dialogue and plot of a badly written children's book. And yeah, it had a little of that, but it was quite a funny and well-told story nonetheless. Really, can anything with Ron Perlman in it be all that bad? Don't answer that.I recommend it. If you're looking for something humorous, moderately gory, and fresh (in the sense of being a unique story, not in the olfactory sense), it'll certainly fulfill your Halloween expectations.

Movie Review: Splice

Ooooohhhh, for a deliciously obscene and horrifying time, you must see Splice. This movie will certainly only appeal to sci-fi geeks with a penchant for the deranged: exactly why I enjoyed it so much.Let's start with the cast. Sarah Polley--why isn't she in more movies? If anyone saw The Weight of Water with Sean Penn and Catherine McCormack (and a number of other fine actors, including Ciaran Hinds), you'll already know how subtly frightening she can be, well masked by an outward appearing vulnerability. Polley can just as convincingly portray a damsel in distress as a psychopathic killer, which makes her tantalizing. With characters she plays, you never know if you'll be shuddering in revulsion by the end of the film or crying in your beer. She's just awesome.And yeah, the same can be said for Adrien Brody. It's my opinion that after the amazing success he achieved at such a young age with The Pianist, Brody decided that he never wants to be typecast and has chosen a career path in quiet, sometimes bizarre, and usually thought-provoking roles. Did anyone see The Jacket? What a terrific film, but with so little exposure. Brody gives the same juicy, nuanced performance in every film he makes (alright, maybe not Predators), and adds more depth to any story.SPOILERS AHEAD, be warned.So, Splice. Ewww! You will be cringing from the first scene. The story revolves around Elsa and Clive, a pair of romantically involved biochemists whose work is gene/DNA splicing for a private corporation is the hope of the future. They've managed to create two living blobs that produce a protein that could potentially cure Parkinson's, Cancer, etc. But the pressure comes down from corporate and they're work is cut short before they can take it to the next level--the introduction of human DNA (the hard science in this film is a little ridiculous, but ignore it and you'll get into the characters). Not to be daunted, they decide to use their lab and run the experiment, ending up with a very strange human-bird(?) hybrid that grows into a full adult in fast forward.Chuckle factor here: their lab is called N.E.R.D., an acronym for Nucleic Experimental Research and Development. Teehee. Anyway, the only reason it's important is because they end up naming their "child" Dren in response to her ability to read and copy the word NERD from Elsa's tshirt.Dren becomes their surrogate "child" (yes, again with the quotes) because Elsa doesn't want to have a real child with Clive due to trauma she suffered at the hands of her looney mother when she was young. Since Dren is an illegal experiment, they are forced to hide her outside the lab at a remote farm where Elsa grew up.And things get weird, really weird. We learn that Elsa has used her own DNA in forming Dren, which is maybe not such a good idea because of her family history of mental illness. However, this also creates a weird sexual attraction for Clive. Trust me, your imagination alone will not take you where this film goes from here (if your imagination will take you where this film, I suggest a career in writing).So, let's see, we have: Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller, Suspense, Graphic Violence, and a little Soft Porn. What more could you want in a film? Regardless of the out-thereness of the story, it's really the statement this film makes about science and ethics that draws you in. It's a story about damaged people who fail to see their own flaws and perpetuate truly bizarre behavior out of supposed "objective scientific" motivations. It's not exactly dystopian, but it definitely forces you to think about the reality of any research done by humans. How can any science be perfect when the beings performing scientific studies are flawed?And there's a really cool twist at the end.If you watch it, tell me what you think.

Movie Review: The Blind Side (aka Sleep Soundly White America)

It's been close to a year since this movie came out in theaters and I managed to talk Jer out of renting it for almost that long. Yeah, from the very beginning, there was no doubt in my mind that this movie would trivialize race issues and automatically reinforce some BS notion that racism is just a small impediment that the right mixture of will, determination, and good ole white privilege in the form of benevolence will easily and totally eradicate. Right. If I wanted to watch a fairytale, I'd rent Lord of the Rings.Lo and behold, the film was just as ridiculous and insulting as I suspected it would be. I thought long and hard about posting my impressions of it, and eventually just decided that I'm not terribly interested in turning my blog into a socio-political commentary/diatribe.Then I happened onto Nine Deuce'spost on this very movie the other day, and I have to share it. She goes off in no uncertain terms about all the reasons why this movie is totally bogus, and throws in the added perspective of being a southerner and living around the very same culture this movie is based on. Be warned, no punches will be pulled and righteousness will flow. I highly recommend surfing over and checking it out. Then read the rest of her blog, Rage Against the Man-chine.If you don't have the time, just read a snippet below. It essentially encapsulates everything I hated about this ridiculous movie.

"Every interaction Aaron [Quinto Aaron, the star] and Bullock (or Aaron and anyone else, for that matter) have in the movie is characterized by Aaron’s wretched obsequiousness and the feeling that you’re being bludgeoned over the head with the message that you needn’t fear this black guy. It’s the least dignified role for a black actor since Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s portrayal of James Robert Kennedy in Radio (a movie Davetavius claims ought to have the subtitle “It’s OK to be black in the South as long as you’re retarded.”). The producers, writers, and director of this movie have managed to tell a story about class, race, and the failures of capitalism and “democratic” politics to ameliorate the conditions poor people of color have to deal with by any means other than sports while scrupulously avoiding analyzing any of those issues and while making it possible for the audience to walk out of the theater with their selfish, privileged, entitled worldviews intact, unscathed, and soundly reconfirmed."

Enjoy.

Movie Review: The Brave One

I wrote this review several years ago when the movie first came out, but thought I'd put it out here for anyone who might be curious and hasn't seen it.

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I just went to see the new Jodi Foster movie The Brave One yesterday afternoon with a girlfriend. I hadn’t heard of the movie until I read a review about in the auspicious Eugene Weekly, our local liberal rag. They didn’t love it so much. I thought it was a strange review because they kept trying to compare the character Foster played in this film with Iris from Taxi Driver (you know, the first Scorsese film, amazing, yet a whole ‘nuther story). Yeah, sure, they were both set in New York and they both involved reluctant, slightly disturbed, vigilante-types. But really, the two stories were radically different in one important aspect – their target audience. (Sorry, I tried to find this review, but can't seem to. It's been three years, after all.)

Despite the less-than-stellar review by the Weekly, I was drawn to the film for several reasons. First, I dig Jodi Foster, not least of all because of the character she played in Taxi Driver. She’s just got a hell of a lot of charisma and personal integrity if you ask me. She’s not a pop movie star, she’s got some class. I also love films about revenge, especially when the score is settled by women who won’t take it any more. Predictably, I loved Thelma & Louise, Enough, Girlfight, Elizabeth, and Million Dollar Baby. And I’m also one of those people that just enjoys watching a good bit of gore. This film didn’t disappoint.

So for the latter reason, this film is definitely going to appeal to women who are just pissed off and want to see a little real justice come their way before it’s too late to matter. Such a common failing of our justice system that thinks a court-order is going to keep a battering abuser away from his intended victim. In fact, this very scenario was typified in an early scene in the film where (SPOILER ALERT) a husband recently released from prison goes at his wife with a gun, screaming about how she’s not going to stop him from seeing his kids, and blows her away. How could a piece of paper help in that situation?

Sure, there were some corny, badly delivered lines that were more prose than real, gritty conversation, but that’s what you get when a film wants to make sure the audience is getting the message.  Terence Howard gives a predictably elegant and sympathetic performance, and Foster is her usual understated self. It’s that quiet, internalized self-expressive tendency that makes the characters she plays so appealing – and makes it so much more shocking and gripping when those characters let loose. And she does plenty of letting loose in The Brave One.

I’ll have to concede that the ending was a bit on the fanstastic and never-gonna-happen side, but instead of making me perceive a potential condescension by director Neil Jordan, I kinda liked the fact that (MORE SPOILER) the bad guy’s got theirs, the cop realized justice isn’t always black-and-white, and the heroine didn’t have to die for her right to have her share of that said justice. In the end, the movie left me feeling a little hope for this fucked-up world.

Stayed tuned. Tomorrow I'll share my thoughts on the movie The Blindside. Or rather, I'll piggyback on the thoughts of someone who puts it much more elegantly than I would, Nine Deuce over at Rage Against the Manchine. Buckle your seat belts for this one folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Movie Review: The Town

Does anyone remember that 1997 movie Chasing Amy? In my opinion, Joey Lauren Adams turned the cinema on its head with respect to how lesbians and women's sexuality in general are portrayed. The satirical undertone and real-worldism the movie brought to the screen was unique at the time, and it's the first (and still one of the few) "chick flicks" I could ever stomach.

That's not the point of this post though, obviously. It comes to mind because it starred Ben Affleck, who I'd never seen before and thought did an alright job in that movie playing a horny, clueless, misguided-but-trying-to-do-the-right-thing, twenty something. For a number of years, Ben didn't make many (any?) movies that were worthy of more than an embarrassed cough into your sleeve. Daredevil, Gigli, dear godiva, Pearl Harbor?

And yet, and yet...the guy can certainly write. Good Will Hunting remains one of the finest pieces of small screen gold that's ever been made, and now Ben's done something of a different flavor, but with close to as much impact.

The Town stays with the general thematic grittiness and edginess with which almost every Boston-based crime drama has in the last twenty years. Something about the recipe works, though. Affleck adapted the movie into a screenplay from the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan and directed it. Based in a suburb of Boston, Charlestown is a projects addled neighborhood that breeds car thieves and bank robbers with tragic regularity.

Affleck and three well-cast friends are such a ring of thieves, knocking over banks and armored cars for the town's resident bully, Fergie, played with shocking malice and decripitude by Pete Postlewaite. Affleck's character falls in love with hostage, played by Rebecca Hall, they'd taken and set free during a bank job, and the movie spins out of control from there. Jeremy Renner shines, as always, as Affleck's sociopathic best mate.

Though the beginning is a touch formulaic, the story really begins to pick up a little less than halfway through when Affleck's best mate realizes he's dating the one person who can ensure they're all convicted and sent to jail for a very long time. The tension tightens your guts as you watch the situation devolve, the characters begin to self-destruct, and the FBI close in. Lots of shoot-outs, high-velocity car chases (which are hard to do on narrow 18th Century designed Boston streets) and brothers-turned-enemies moments keep the action going.

The ending is better than you might expect, but I won't spill it. The gem in the film was FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley, played by Jon Hamm of the TV show Mad Men. This show is getting a lot of great reviews and awards, and after seeing Hamm's spot on portrayal of no-holds-barred, get the job done, Fed, I see why.

My only real disappointment was the lack of dimensionality in Rebecca Hall's character, who's only role was to cause conflict between the bank robber clan, and serve as a catalyst for Affleck's character to break out of his dead-end lifestyle. Too many brotherhood movies lack strong women characters. Maybe this shouldn't surprise me, given the "brotherhood" theme. But there are other ways to accomplish these types of movies and give the female characters some real depth and a real role. Vera Farmiga's role in The Departed is a perfect example.

Let me know what you think.

Movie Review: Resident Evil Afterlife

I have been a Resident Evil fan since the first one came out and knocked my socks off. It was such an awesome and original mash-up of science fiction, zombie/splatter film, and vision of a dystopian future. Aside from Paul W.S. Anderson's stunning visual and action sequences, he wrote a solid script that was both cohesive and coherent. Not an easy thing to do when you come from a video game, but then, I've never played the game so maybe the script was just lying there waiting to be picked up.

The second one was even an improvement, with better monsters, higher stakes for Alice, crazier corporate cretins and the same stupendous action and technological creativity. I even enjoyed the third because it managed to capture a post-apocalyptic feel that was easy to sink your teeth into (no pun intended). However, the creators did start to lag a little in the monster department. Nothing new (except for some uber-gory dog zombies) and even the people zombies looked stock and uninspired. Still, the movie left off with some resolution and a feeling that, yeah, Alice is going to get her revenge.

And that's where it should have ended.

Have you ever seen a fourth film in any series that was good? Star Wars to The Phantom Menace? Ugh. Alien to Alien: Resurrection? Puh-lease (though I still contend that Aliens vs. Predators was an awesome movie). I don't know, maybe the Saw franchise hasn't lost any of its verve, but then, there weren't any standards in which to rise to begin with so it could hardly get worse.

Sad to say, Resident Evil has followed the failure trend and totally flopped in Afterlife. I won't give you any spoilers, but Anderson wiped out one of the main elements that made the series interesting to begin with, thus making it like any other showdown at the OK Corral set in an alternate future film. The plot lost all of its plausibility with this one missing element. There were no inspired monsters, the zombies were as dull as in Extinction, and the story just couldn't have been less original, exciting, or surprising. And the hackneyed cliffhanger ending only left me wanting to erase the last two hours of my life that were wasted on this film.

Maybe I'm being too hard on it. Let me know what you think.

Movie Review: Predators

Meh!

Adrian Brody, on the other hand...

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Movie Review: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

WARNING: Spoilers will likely ensue.Watched The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a delightful little film, last night. Terry Gilliam, one of the madmen of Monty Python, was the writer/director, and you can't miss the distinctive overtones from the Python-era. The sets, animations, and yes, a few chorus lines, are all part of this movie experience. Though abstract, the plot was never hard to follow. And the cast, ah, the cast was superb. This is the first movie I've seen in awhile that actually makes me sad about the fact that Heath Ledger died too young. He was an actor with incredible depth and range, far beyond many of his contemporaries. The only actor of his generation that I think can even compare is Adrien Brody.The film follows the trials of a father, superbly played by Christopher Plummer, whose life changed dramatically centuries ago when the devil showed up at his monastery and disproved his worldview. It's quite a lovely worldview, too. The monks of this ancient order were tasked with telling the endless tale, in other words, reading a story over and over forever in order to keep the fabric of the universe whole. When the devil, played by none other than The Great Tom Waits (it's my personal belief that Tom Waits's name should always be preceded with the appellation "The Great"), causes all the monks to become mute, Plummer's character is forced to realize a greater truth--that the soul of mankind is based on our ever-spinning stories. The Devil says it ain't so, and the men commence to place a bet on who's right. The winner--and here's where I get a little puckered--gets to keep Plummer's child, in this case, a daughter. Yeah, another "woman is prize not person" story.In any case, after getting beyond that, I was able to enjoy the way the movie ambles along, interweaving the current life of Plummer, his daughter, and the vagabond troupe of actors with whom he's created a moving stage show, and his continual bets with the devil, desperately trying to find a way to ensure his daughter is spared. Ledger's character becomes the catalyst for greater change in their lives that may, or may not, be for the best.The real beauty of this story is the central idea: Dr. Parnassus (Plummer's character) has created an Imaginarium, a portal through which any person who steps through is transported from their concrete life to the world of their own imagination. Some people's imaginary worlds are more friendly than others. This dimension is where Terry Gilliam's own imagination gets that chance to run wild, and it is quite an engaging place to be. It's within the Imaginarium that Parny's daughter's fate will unfold and we viewers get to share the full experience.

If you're looking for a way to get outside common movie themes and be transported to ideas that require no personal experience to appreciate, this is the movie for you.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Movie Review: Robin Hood

WARNING: I simply can't help it. This post most likely WILL contain SPOILERS.One thing is for sure, this movie is leagues better than 2004's King Arthur.  Maybe it’s because I can’t look at Clive Owen without thinking of some kind of man-ape gone wrong thing, or maybe because I just can’t get behind  a 90lb woman wearing a strip of leather, some blue dye, and nothing else beating the crap out of a 200lb man wearing chain mail and heaving sword that’s bigger than she is, with nothing but an antler. But mostly it’s because the film’s narrator, Lancelot, dies in the end, yet still somehow manages to tell the story of what came first and what comes next. I have a very flexible imagination, but that’s just silly. The idea of a narrator is that they’re the ones who survived to tell the tale. Just ask Dilios from 300.In any case, back to Robin Hood. The most extraordinary thing about this film is how completely Ridley Scott manages to transport the watchers back to 12th century Merry Old, which turns out to have not been so merry. Everything from the settings, sets, costumes, weapons, muck and grime brings you there to the point that you can almost taste Friar Tuck’s mead. The lives of ordinary middle-class Englanders are well portrayed, as are those of conscripted soldiers, and all the way up to the kings and queens. The only people conspicuously missing are the poorest class. Despite that, I still expected to see dirt-farming serfs from Monty Python leap out of the grass and start holding forth on the oppressiveness inherit in a monarchy.To be sure, this is not the story of the Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. This is a genesis story of William Wallace in his later incarnation as Robin Hood, with a light seasoning of young Arthur in TheSword in the Stone. Muscle Show, ahem, make that Russell Crowe, does an excellent job of reviving his finer role as an everyman reluctant hero. Among his finest acting characteristics are the ability to be deeply brooding and fiercely angst-ridden, as he so magically showed as Maximus in Gladiator. Though this moviegave him a chance to revive some of that, the character of Robin Hood lacked much of the nobility of Maximus and had a far lesser personal vendetta to avenge, thus limiting the range Crowe is able to carry the watcher through. But, what Robin Hood lacks in nobility and angst, he makes up for in charm and excellent marksmanship.And the villains, oh the villains, they were the cake of this film. With Mark Strong as Sir Godfrey and Oscar Isaac as Prince John, never have two such deliciously evil and slimy cretins wriggled so deviously together on screen. Mark Strong may be the best character actor villain I've ever seen, and he pulls it off with that kind of old world, mustache-twirling elegance you rarely see in your everyday action and explosion Hollywood films like Crank or Miami Vice. I've never seen Oscar Isaac in anything before, but he is definitely one to watch out for. At the same time sinister and endearing, and with the most bizarre looking blue contacts, this little Prince was titillating to watch as he reached for glory only to fall short thanks to his personal vanity and insecurity.The women in the film were about what you'd expect, with a couple of highlights. They actually made Lady (instead of Maid) Marian, played by Cate Blanchett, someone to deal with, giving her armor and a sword and a will to use them. There was also a wise dowager Queen of England who saw the ruin of her son coming, and managed to affect some small influence over the course of events. But on the whole, there were a lot of lusty bimbettes with a thing for smelly yeomen.While it wasn't a movie worthy of Russell's next Oscar, it was entertaining and held enough building conflict to make watchers care about what was to come next. There were a few anachronistic elements, but they seemed to be thoughtfully worked into the script as a way to draw in the modern audience and make us feel more involved with these thousand-year-old heros and cretins. I'd consider this a good late night film to rent on a quiet Wednesday evening when there's nothing much going on.Hey, I don't think there were any spoilers (unless you count King Arthur).