The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Controlled, featuring great performances, and nihilistic, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE is one of the best films ever made. From scene composition to shots that don't scream out their originality, from "we don't need no stinkin' badges" to mythical obsessions centering around fate, it's a great film
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: ★★★★

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Despite liking the Swedish version and liking the novel quite a bit, I found myself completely enraptured with David Fincher's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Bound to be overlooked and under-appreciated is his direction, which is so apparent in every single scene, and, in the Swedish version, only carried a tone. Fincher's version is obsessive, like the book, and the character of Lisbeth Salander. Rooney Mara especially gives one of 2011's best performance as Salander, making me forget Noomi Rapace ever made me wince. This is a great film though, modern in its embrace of dirty, modern living consisting of cigarettes, cokes and ramen, but buried in what the cost of an obsession is, and what the end result is. A great film.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: ★★★★

The Night of the Hunter

The first time I saw Charles Laughton's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, I remember a sense of bafflement after it. What to make of it? It references nothing (accidentally so, German Expressionism), but, truly, purely, is a work of originality. Seeping between fairytale imagery, animal life, shadows, civil war songs, and Robert Mitchum's towering presence is great filmmaking intertwining everything together. Out of nowhere, shot in a swoop, Mitchum's Preacher enters the lives of two children with a dead father, a teddy bear filled with cash he stole, and a ditzy mother. He takes advantage of them, seeking the stolen money after hearing of it from the father when they were jailed together. H-A-T-E written on his left hand, L-O-V-E written on his right, Mitchum gives one of cinema's best performances, singing, killing, and in shadows all the time. The film is such a mystery though, its imagery, camera movements, sensations could have only come out of Laughton's head. His only film, it's a masterpiece: a work of all-out expression depicting good and evil.
The Night of the Hunter: ★★★★

Big Wednesday

BIG WEDNESDAY is a brutal film, depicting the so-called coming of age of three young men who've buried themselves in drugs and surfing in the late 60's. John Milius, the overt, conservative director of the film isn't allowed for any of his silly ruminations of life to seep into the film. Rather, true life takes over, and cinematic gestures that depict the war are overcome by our perception of the war. Poetically told over the course of the Vietnam War, BIG WEDNESDAY perfectly fits a building tension into its storyline. Through the use of bigger and bigger surfing waves, until the ultimate big wednesday waves, the film takes its immoral and cruel characters and plows them through the mud. But what BIG WEDNESDAY gets right is what it's like to feel an oncoming sense of reason to madness. Instead, that reason never comes, and you see that what you've experienced is just populated with you being an asshole and fucking up a lot in anticipation for a cleansing event. Violent and gross, BIG WEDNESDAY watches the deterioration of people, the break-up of friends, mistakes, and beautifully shot waves. It's one of the best films ever made about youth and its myth.
Big Wednesday: ★★★★

Touching the Void

TOUCHING THE VOID is a documentary that re-stages a mountain climb of Simon Yates and Joe Simpson in the Andes in 1985. While on that climb up an untraversed mountainside, Joe Simpson was lost to the cold, and Simon returned believing him dead. Miraculously though, based on luck and skill, Simpson made his way out of a crevice he fell in with a broken leg, and made his way all the way down the mountain. The film uses two actors to re-stage the events, which are harrowing, but what makes the film really shocking is Joe and Simon's voiceover narration. The men, much older, have a perspective on the events, a clear-headed, intense way of telling the story. TOUCHING THE VOID is extremely intense, despite the audience knowing the outcome, but the sheer unlikelihood of Simpson's survival, and the mental processes that take place on the mountain are riveting. Directed by Kevin Macdonald, TOUCHING THE VOID also has a clear sense of timing. The photography is also beautiful, and, unlike a counterpart, 127 HOURS, the film has no clutter: its just Simpson and Yates telling us about the worst week of their lives.
Touching the Void: ★★★★

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

A lot of respect has to go towards Tsui Hark, the director of DETECTIVE DEE. A quasi-historical film rooted in absolute craziness, there's still some control over the wealth of ideas at play. In the film, Detective Dee is brought out of prison to help the empress solve a series of spontaneous combustions. Originally jailed for having spoken out against the empress, Dee's freedom is ensured by the high priest who is also a bad-ass samurai. The high priest is also a deer. So begins the creativity, but, really, every set piece is a work of great imagination: a towering buddha tower that overlooks the vast city: complete with old-age pirate ships, odd bearded elders, and a lush palace. Spurring itself with the fires that combust the victims of the Dee's case, and populated with transfigurations of the face, the deer samurai, poison darts, exiles, morality, and a great idea in every single scene, DETECTIVE DEE is a melting pot of colorful cinematic vegetables. It's weird, but it grows on you from being just weird to being pretty poignant. The end scene is moving, but its sentimentality doesn't come out of nowhere. A good film.
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame: ★★★

All That Heaven Allows

Douglas Sirk as a filmmaker is a master. His colors, tones, direction, staging, is all flawless. His stories are daring too, soaked in sap, but so wonderfully handled, that such a thing can be embraced. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS burrows into the culture of the 1950's, and of a widow living alone who falls in love with her gardener. Cary (Jane Wyman), the widow, is well-off, sees her over-schooled children almost every weekend, and only has to deal with the snide remarks of a cruel neighbor. She's a member of a higher class, but that position is broken after the death of her husband. Instead, she has to look out for herself, and that's not popular at the tea parties. Unhappy with a myriad of suitors, Cary finds her gardener to be most alluring. Ron (Rock Hudson), the gardener, is a sort of pure environmentalist. He has a friend who reads Walden every day, but he's never read it because to read it would be to be ordered by Thoreau. Ron's a man of that tradition though, he thinks purely for himself, and has little influences. He becomes enamored with Cary, and they end up falling in love: Cary swept off her feet and into a woodside cabin. She becomes afraid of how everything will look to the public, and Sirk handles the middle section of the film as a social commentary on the wrongheadedness of judging high class members. In resolution though, Cary makes many failures, and then rectifies them. This is the boldest part of the film to first admit that Cary could make such failures, but has the power to rectify them. This is so much more worthwhile than tales that paint the woman as infallible, for isn't that just as myth-like? Sirk's film is beautiful and vast.
All That Heaven Allows: ★★★★

Passion of Anna

Told elegiacally, Ingmar Bergman's PASSION OF ANNA could easily be seen as a minor work, for it doesn't have anything new to say, but I see it as a perfected version of earlier ideas. In the film, Andreas (Max Von Sydow) is a reclusive loner who works and thinks. He meets two women, Anna (Liv Ullmann) and Eva (Bibi Andersson). He sleeps with Eva, who, by doing this, proves herself to be a deceptive woman, for right afterwords, Andreas goes to be photographed by her husband Ellis. He is warned of Anna, who he is beginning a lax relationship with, but thinks little of it. Anna, however, is a widow. Her husband and son were killed in a car crash, she claims. Andreas takes a masculine role in her life, and their relationship from acquaintances to lovers highly resembles Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Also at play though is the idea of deception, and people who are pretending to be one thing when they are another, and even the idea that those people surrounding them know that they are being deceptive but let it go. PASSION OF ANNA is clean and colorful, one of Bergman's first films in color. It's dreamy and a little off-putting, but ultimately rewarding in its collage of assembled ideas. The end is a marvel.
Passion of Anna: ★★★1/2

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Not that one should take an action movie too seriously, or, especially, a Mission Impossible movie, but there should be some level of plausibility. I'm not talking about whether Tom Cruise can swing around the Burj Khalifa and walk around afterwords without a scratch, no, I can buy that. What I couldn't buy though, was the cartoonish fashion that MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL caked itself in. Brad Bird, a director of animated films for Pixar must have approached the film in this fashion, and in some of the action scenes this works. But Bird has no sense for what characters are like outside of being funny in a Pixar movie. Without being able to discern a colorful animated character from a colorful real-life character, Bird falters. For, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, in between its clunky, over-apparent chase scenes, is populated by downright weird dialogue. There's a congratulatory drink with the boys after the film seems to be over where everyone smiles and talks about how great they are, there's a shitty subplot with Paula Patton and Cruise's flirtation and then a throwaway subplot involving Jeremy Renner. But, like a cartoon, any problem or shocking twist that occurs within the film, eventually evens out like a bad sitcom never wanting to change the structure. There's flirtation with change, but no actual change. Instead, Bird supplies a few good scenes that should lace the film together, but don't because in the grand scheme of things, they just aren't that cool, and when all the characters get together at the end to convince (?) us that it was, it looks pretty stupid. Over-lauded, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL is a mess of bad screenwriting and misled direction. The only thing that does work is Tom Cruise, who despite his offscreen antics is really, most importantly, a movie star.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: ★★1/2

The Myth of the American Sleepover

THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER is an attempt at authenticity. In showing the so-called teenaged experience, David Robert Mitchell treads slippery territory. For, always when showing an experience that's supposed to be specific to a certain group of people at a certain time, what you really end up getting is the experience of David Robert Mitchell's. Nevertheless, there's a lot of things in the film that ended up authentic regardless, which sadly accentuates the film's delusions, which, considering the knowledge at work, must just be dishonesty. What works though is Mitchell's dialogue, and the staging of that dialogue between the teens. There's also a lot of dubiety in age (he even has twin 23 year-olds play 14 year-old), no shying away from the amount of drugs done (which still, frankly, isn't realistically enough), and a lot of authentic material circling around glances, smirks, and movements. Deluded though, is the films sense of danger and stakes. In Mitchell's film, the night is a fantasy world where everyone can walk around (nobody walks in real-life by the way) and never have to worry about parents or other meddlesome adults. This makes for an unrealistic setting, and despite the nostalgia / etherial feelings that are obviously being attempted, it undermines the authenticity of the rest. However, the characters are all solid, and there's a lot of suspense that builds around what'll happen. Unsureness is the film's strength, but it also seems to be a flaw of the directors that leads to the film's major weaknesses.
The Myth of the American Teenager: ★★★

Amélie

AMÉLIE is soaked in whimsical cuteness, caked in stylish gestures, and yet, it's the reason I almost disliked the film. Telling the story of young Amélie, a waitress who was kept indoors as a child because she was erroneously thought to have a heart condition, and has thus become a socially awkward cultural-oddity, in between every interesting character or creative setting is some unrealistic jolt into Amélie's specific take on the world. She wonders how many orgasms people in Paris are having at the moment. In this film, it seems cute or weirdly funny because Amélie gives a grand smile at the end of the statement, but really, it's only weird, and even desperate. For a long time, and the film is long, moments of actually intensity or interest are drowned by an excess of style. Furthermore, the whole film relies on the performance of Audrey Tautou as Amélie. If you buy into her cuteness then you'll love the film, but if she's occasionally irritatingly weird, then you'll feel as I do: divided. For despite the film's problems, it assembles a group of interesting characters who grow on you within the 2 and a half hour duration. The romance at the center, is also well handled, and I found myself wanting Amélie to get with her man despite my divided feelings towards the character. Ultimately, AMÉLIE is problematic, but a fun time.
Amélie: ★★1/2

Man on Fire

MAN ON FIRE is a thrilling, unapologetic, two-part action film from Tony Scott, who blossomed into a great director at the dawn of the 21st century. MAN ON FIRE, while not reaching the brilliance and balance of UNSTOPPABLE or DEJA VU, at least hints at the brilliance to come. MAN ON FIRE centers around a quasi-true story of a bodyguard who tracks down the kidnappers and thus, kidnapping rings, in Mexico. Intentionally or not, a very Christian theme seeps into the movie when, in the first part of the film, Creasy (Denzel Washington) the bodyguard attempts to shoot himself and the bullet fails. Taking this as a sign that he's meant to do something, Creasy stays on his current, throwaway job for a man of his skills, and befriends the girl he's looking after, Pita (Dakota Fanning). Living only for this connection, Creasy is devastated when she is kidnapped and killed in a following ransom-deal gone wrong. Committed to killing everyone involved, and seeing that action as the reason the bullet didn't kill him from earlier, Creasy goes around Mexico shooting up places because he has nothing to lose. Scott's camera tricks, lighting, and pace come into great use here in contrast to the first part of the film which develops the characters more than any generic action film. There's some real contradiction, though, in the second half, which does the movie good, and makes for kinetic fun. The last scene, especially, is well staged and finely executed by melding all of the things that worked about the film from earlier into a few shots. MAN ON FIRE has its flaws, like why the unstoppable Creasy of the second half of the film was unable to save Pita in the first half, or a couple of too-over-the-top sequences that actually burden the film, but overall these flaws pale in front of the film's strengths. Also, the film has been attacked for the sadistic nature of a seemingly human character in the second half, but I would argue that Creasy's sadism is very human and the reaction any father would have to the kidnapping and killing of their daughter. As we learn in the film too, that's the relationship the two have. This is great fun, and occasionally emotionally powerful.
Man on Fire: ★★★1/2

Looking for Richard

Largely successful on the part of Al Pacino, LOOKING FOR RICHARD is a foray into the actor's ideas about Shakespeare. Overlong and uneven, the film shies away from expert opinions on Shakespeare and instead tries to tackle about two questions that it doesn't fully answer. The first is 'What is Richard III about?' The second is 'Can American actors pull off Shakespeare'? The answers to these questions are 'look it up on wikipedia' and 'yes', but Pacino looks into the questions over the course of 2 + hours. Annoyingly unknowing, but obviously knowing this to thus show what the play is about, LOOKING FOR RICHARD never really succeeds at explaining what the play is about because it does so in confusing rambles by Pacino that oversimplify the play, but does however convince us that American actors can pull of Shakespeare because no shit sherlock, of course they can and any notion otherwise is just born out of wrongheaded british pretension that doesn't take into account that the speakers in Shakespeare's time would sound like inner-city people in present-day America. Pacino never goes this deep though, and his scattery film shows this also. I wouldn't say, however, that I disliked LOOKING FOR RICHARD. Many people will, especially due to the length and the lack of substance within that length, but, for me, being used to long films, I found Pacino to be extremely likable despite the film that surrounds it. Still, however, this is not technically a good film at all.
Looking for Richard: ★★

The Hours

Perhaps due to my reaction to Stephen Daldry's THE READER, I was not hopeful for his earlier, 2002 film, THE HOURS. THE READER was one of the worst films I've ever seen. It still resonates in my mind how much I actively hated it. So many films like THE BOUNTY HUNTER or Katherine Heigl movies I despise, but they eventually subside in my mind. Not Daldry's films. THE HOURS, like THE READER is a work of terrible direction. I place all blame on Daldry, who I would name as one of the worst directors alive, especially because he is so wrongly lauded. With THE HOURS, Daldry takes three lives of three women and likens them to a book nobody's (or at least, few seeing this film) read: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The first story is that of Virginia Woolf herself, played in a pure, waspy impression not performance by Nicole Kidman. In it, the camerawork is most seductively dank, but the story is a pure impression, a pure 'this is what Woolf looked like' kind of depth. The second story takes place in the late 50's. A mother (insufferable Julianne Moore) considers suicide after reading Mrs. Dalloway. Sadly though, her husband is extremely likeable, the child is unrealistically knowledgable and fakey, and the camerawork, as it is in many of the so-called emotional bits of the film is invaded by grating, manipulative music that isn't a step away from Superbowl commercial sentimentality. Most unlikeable here is the selfishness of the mother. She doesn't come across as independent, but as a sad bi-product of feminism: misplaced selfishness and misinterpretation of independence in the form of self absorption. She leaves her children and husband to live her own "fruitful" life, which seems so full of the knowledge that she abandoned her family. The third story takes place in modern times. Meryl Streep plays a sad lesbian who's arranging a party and seems happy but isn't (as it is in Mrs. Dalloway). She feels none of the constraints of Moore or Kidman's character, but she is just as mopey. Daldry at least convinced me here that people will never be happy with what they get if they're meant to be unhappy. What an anti-feminist statement, unintentionally of course. Gratingly, Daldry plows every scene into our faces with an overuse of music and a poor sense of morality and art. He dilutes everything to simplistic terms, emotion and art both. Every actor is so actorly and over-directed, that they become fake and obvious, pure oscar bait actually. It's the kind of acting where it's so obviously fake and, well, acted, that it seems like good acting. This is a terrible film.
The Hours: ★

Bronson

BRONSON is an odd film at first, opening with an in-your-face narration by Charlie Bronson (Tom Hardy), his bald, mustached face biliously moving about in jolts. Bronson's sort of irritating as he begins to tell his tale before a large, audience, but we learn that this is the point of the film. Bronson was touted by the papers of London as Britain's Most Dangerous Criminal. This, Bronson is, despite having been in solitary confinement for over 90% of his jail time. Still though, Bronson is an obvious character, more intrigued with how he can turn his violent impulses into fame than stop those impulses. His speechifying all over the film is a comment on this, for, it is who Bronson wishes he could be, when instead he's just a freak show of iron fists and incessant workouts. Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn, who directed 2011's DRIVE as well as VALHALLA RISING, BRONSON is a more minor effort, a little uneven and occasionally, self-admittedly unimportant and uninteresting. Fight scenes with Bronson are great, and Hardy plays the guy well, but the whole film isn't filled with what is the most interesting part of the character. Rather, a lot of the film is filled with uninteresting summary. The film is short, but it should have been even shorter for pure punchiness. Instead, the film is sort of languorous, and Bronson becomes grating when he's not doing something interesting like beating up guards. Even though this may be part of a point that Bronson's only real talents lay in beating the crap out of people, it doesn't make for a very entertaining film.
Bronson: ★★

Hugo

Martin Scorsese's HUGO is a film that arrived with much fret among his loyal followers. For Scorsese to make a children's film, especially a very mainstream one, was seen as a betrayal, a trifle, a bore. And yet, HUGO is one of his most personal films and one of his cleanest. Basically told in two halves, HUGO is about a young orphan named Hugo (Asa Butterfield) who literally lives within the clockwork of a Paris train station. Taught by his drunk and absent uncle how to mind the clocks, the authorities below just assume Hugo's uncle continues to care for the clocks, rather than Hugo. His father dead in a tragic fire, Hugo clings to an automaton his father and he were attempting to repair. Chased around in comical relieves by Sacha Baron Cohen, and stealing from a host of colorful train regulars, Hugo begins lightly, with fun and gorgeous 3D from Scorsese. This first half concerns itself with Hugo and his life in the train station, how he loses his father's notes on the automaton, and is chased around. Then however, there is a big reveal. Along with Isabelle (Chloe Grace-Moretz), the daughter of the ornery toy shop owner (Ben Kingsley), Hugo deciphers clues about the automaton, and connects with Isabelle over the enchantments of the cinema. Very present here is a sense of old vs. new, and in finality: the union of the two to create what is modern. Scorsese's camerawork, and the look of the film: its embrace of animation and CGI, serves to accentuate this simplistic but joyful message. Cleanly balanced, and cleanly told, HUGO looks safe on the surface, but is really a step into foreign territory for Scorsese. It's a joy, though, that the film is so good despite this, and that, in fact, it's one of Scorsese's best in a while.
Hugo: ★★★★

Hunger

HUNGER is a powerful film, practically silent except for a long, twenty minute take of a debate. Conveying the story of Bobby Sands, and IRA prisoner in the 90's and the hunger strike he started while in prison, artful grossness is exemplified by artist turned director Steve McQueen. McQueen directs smartly, and apart from his images and his politics lie a strong performance and buried humanity. HUNGER follows three stories (not stringently, as many multiple-character dramas do, but with convenience). The first is of a duo of IRA prisoners, one who is seemingly reluctant in what he's partaking in. For, the prisoners are defiant and rebellious, caking the walls of their cells with their own shit and dousing their piss under the doorways into the hallway. The reluctant prisoner is not belittled by a decision or by explanation, but shown. We sense his fear. What has he gotten himself into? This is the ultimate battleground. The second story surrounds the daily toils of a prison guard. He seems motivated by macho sensibilities and misplaced fears around prisoners. The way his story goes is unexpected, gross, and overtly sad. The third and central story is that of Bobby Sands, who is played greatly by Michael Fassbender. Sands partakes in all of the protests, and as a sort of ringleader, he is usually the most volatile prisoner. However, at some point, Sands determines that his protests are minor, and that only a great statement will last. He thus decides to enter a hunger strike. He will begin with himself, and two weeks after he starts, another prisoner will stop eating. Sands' descent, and Fassbender's loss of thirty-five pounds for the role is astonishing. More daring though is the 20 minute talking scene, which is between Bobby Sands and a priest. They discuss suicide, and whether Sands' killing himself makes sense if it is for a cause, because he will never be able to see the fruits of his efforts. Later though, as Sands dies, is one of the best sequences of the film, in which Sands recollects an event that he used in the conversation with the priest to justify his actions. In his tale, Sands said that as a cross country runner, he discovered with other boys a dying boy in a lake. He says that he did what had to be done, and killed the boy, putting him out of his misery. Everyone else knew it had to be done and wished to, but were unable to gather the courage. Sands' tale is left to be a mystery. Whether it happened or not is unclear. Despite this though, Sands is still dead, and all that remains of him are some artful shots of shit on a wall.
Hunger: ★★★★

High School

Frederick Wiseman's 1968 documentary is an interesting film for two reasons. The first is that it shows a world very similar to a universal experience, but its world is specific and mired in time and culture. The second is that it exhibits a group of people on the brink of liberation who acknowledge individualism, but deny its place in school. HIGH SCHOOL is filmed with intimacy. Wiseman practically gets right in the faces of the students and teachers, and perhaps just because of the medium of film or the camera itself, he gets a lot of candid and unattractive material out of the teachers and students. It's an interesting look at particulars, and an interesting stylistic approach to a documentary. It shows, there are no voiceovers, and there are no outside interviews. Still pretty relevant as well.
High School: ★★★1/2

Summer Hours

SUMMER HOURS is a great film: encompassing many different aspects of people and life within wonderfully directed scenes of naturalism and honesty. I've not seen a film with greater honesty about teenagers, or greater honesty about families. In SUMMER HOURS, three siblings gather around the impending death of their mother. Their father was never around, and so she is their beacon, their matriarch. The first quarter or so of the film depicts the family joking and happy around the matriarch in her home: a gorgeous, lurid house filled to the brim with un-calculatable art and culture. It's the 21st century, and the siblings move about each other in defensive mechanisms, each going to see the mother at different points and manipulating her for some sort of material item. What SUMMER HOURS gets right is this: the time that passes between seeing people when you're disconnected, the sibling battle between desires for parental attention and a common bond against those parents descent or ascent, and the teenagers obliviousness to it all expect on base levels of: dad's being a dick. As Olivier Assayas films SUMMER HOURS, as he directs his actors, the film grows to a greater level of greatness. The acting is perfect, people talk over each other, whisper, blink, like a symphony of images and reactions to each other. And then in the second half, Assayas makes SUMMER HOURS even more modern and relevant. For, Assayas is a director who concerns himself with money. Money. Money, how it works, how it's complicated, how it divides the family, how sensibilities and greater truths transcend that desire for money, and then reality crashes into them in the form of closer family. A great film.
Summer Hours: ★★★★

Encounters at the End of the World

Not without great images, some great voiceover work, ideas, and comedy, Werner Herzog's film where he travels to Antarctica is somewhat underwhelming. Beginning with an underwater shot of breathtaking quality, Herzog tells us that such images inspired him to make the film. He goes on to document the scientists who live at a compound in Antarctica. All are quirky and some are entertaining. These people seem to have made a greater effect on Herzog than most else in the film. He lingers on them for too much time, I think, and that pulls the films quality down. For, although Herzog is experiencing Antarctica first-hand, and he thus finds lesser subjects more interesting, we aren't in his position, and I wanted more of the imagery that was at the beginning of the film. It's also spaced out throughout the duration of the film, but its not enough for the promise that Herzog gives. There's some greatness here; especially concerning a suicidal penguin, and the film as a whole is worth seeing, but I feel as if on some level it's a bit of a failure. It's scope is too narrow. I admire Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS a whole lot more because it lingers on the images rather than dubiously entertaining or quirky scientists. Will I remember the scientists a month from now, and how one told a lot of funny jokes at Antarctica bars and another liked to watch sci-fi films? Or will I really remember the underwater stalagmite-esque eeriness? This is what I think Herzog neglected. Sure, people are interesting, but the film is about the End of the World (Antarctica) and also, in a way, a realization of eventual death. But you can question anyone about this anywhere and discover this simplicity. If you're going to Antarctica, you better have something real to show us.
Encounters at the End of the World: ★★1/2

M. Butterfly

M. BUTTERFLY is a sad misfire from David Cronenberg. Based off of a play, and definitely creepy, M. BUTTERFLY's creepiness actually undermines it. Rather than taking its political / social statement seriously, the story becomes mired in silliness and weirdness. The story is about an Englishman named Rene (Jeremy Irons) who lives in China working for the British embassy. He meets an opera singer who he dubs Butterfly, who teaches him about Chinese culture. One of her theories centers around the opera Madame Butterfly. She tells him that the Chinese hate the opera, because it's about an oriental woman sacrificing herself for a white man. Rene, however, becomes infatuated with Butterfly, and over the years fashion her as his own Madame Butterfly. The joke however, is on him, for, quite obviously so, Butterfly is a man, and is stealing secrets about the embassy from him. This is an interesting premise, but Cronenberg doesn't handle it well. The film is occasionally boring and disingenuous. Either Cronenberg doesn't trust that the audience knows Butterfly is a man, or he knows that we will and goes through boring reveals anyway. Basically, M. BUTTERFLY is a real disappointment and probably Cronenberg's weakest film. There's a story to tell here, but the way that Cronenberg tells it is too unattractive to be appealing or even admirable.
M. Butterfly: ★★

Graveyard of Honor

Takashi Miike's GRAVEYARD OF HONOR is unlike anything you'll ever see. I can describe two films that this GRAVEYARD resembles, and those two are in their own right controversial and shocking. Like Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS, GRAVEYARD shows the inner workings of the mob, and exhibits a special interest of the director in the mob. Like Scorsese, Miike is no member or even possible prospect of the mob, but he is intrigued by them. In his film though, Miike has a particular interest in the mechanisms of the mob. Certain words and terms are explained in subtitles, commerce and killings are also explained at length. The other film GRAVEYARD resembles is HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. That film is gross and raw, featuring a disgusting rapist who acts without emotion. GRAVEYARD OF HONOR's main character is similarly evil and unemotional. Entering the mob after saving the boss' life, Ishimatsu (played perfectly by Goro Kishitani) rises quickly. After a kill, or a job, or an escape, Ishimatsu rapes a random girl brutally. Filmed in handheld, Miike exemplifies Ishimatsu's crime, and later, the girl becomes his wife, continuously raped and abused. Ishimatsu goes off the rails, but he's a powerhouse, and Miike shows how an insane character like Ishimatsu in unknowingly used by different mob families. GRAVEYARD OF HONOR is one of the best films ever made about the mob. It is raw and powerful.
Graveyard of Honor: ★★★★

Family Guy (Seasons 5 & 6)

"Family Guy" is basically a bad show, over-reliant on making fun of celebrities who aren't much higher morally or in terms of talent that the creator himself, with poor writing that feels as if it were randomly selected by manatees, and an over-reliance upon parodying superior storylines and passing them off as its own to viewers who aren't as knowing of current pop-culture. The characters are uneven, and some of the events or actions that take place are borderline gross, desperate in their necessity to shock or be funny. Despite all of this, which makes "Family Guy" a technically bad show, its still pretty funny, and decent lazy television. It's not "good" in any way, but its not terrible. Indefensible in any way, but not bad for stupid entertainment.
Family Guy: ★★1/2

Vera Drake

VERA DRAKE is a strong, powerful film of naturalism by Mike Leigh. Starring Imelda Staunton as Vera Drake, Leigh creates in a wonderful meeting of talents, a natural period piece. Set in 1950, Vera is a happy older woman living with her husband and children. Her daughter is being courted by an awkward but well-meaning neighbor boy, and her entire family is shown as a generally kind and gracious one. Vera, however, harbors a secret. She is an abortionist. As provoking as this sounds though, this slow and unostentatious revelation and way of life is portrayed with such obviousness and matter of factness, and Vera is shown to be so well-meaning, that even detractors to the practice would have to make admissions here. Vera believes that she's helping these women, and in many ways, she really is. Her practice is obviously seen as sinister by the people and the times though, and in many ways VERA DRAKE is about how well-meaning people can be screwed by a system that holds power over them and even members of the system on her side. From a technical point of view, VERA DRAKE is impeccable. The production design, lighting, acting is all superb: the world that Leigh creates is believable and clean. This makes the film even more of a tragedy. Small instances and small hardships are stressed. Despite the punishment for Vera's practice being seemingly minor, in the scope of her life, it's massive. Also present here is something that exists in a rarity in contemporary cinema: burrowing into all of the unattractive aspects of a subject. For despite Vera Drake being seemingly kind, there is a sinister nature to the way her process is filmed, her detachment from her subjects, her children's hatred toward her, the questionable loyalty of the family's best friend. VERA DRAKE is a pretty great film, modern and relevant, but also filmed with talent and intelligence.
Vera Drake: ★★★★

Cigarette Burns

Despite 2011's THE WARD marking the official return to cinema of John Carpenter, CIGARETTE BURNS was a tv episode that Carpenter directed for a series called "Masters of Horror" in 2005. It serves, along with Carpenter's entire body of work, as a really entertaining film mired in the history of cinema. CIGARETTE BURNS, especially, concerns itself with this. In the film, Kirby Sweetman, the owner of a failing nostalgia-theater, takes a job from a rich oddball who lives in a creepy house on a hill. Kirby is requested to find an old, lost film called LA FIN ABSOLUE DE MONDE (THE ABSOLUTE END OF THE WORLD) that, upon its premiere, caused mass chaos and death. Kirby traverses among a host of creepy characters, including a lost-film hoarder who kills people, but as he becomes obsessed with discovering LA FIN ABSOLUE DE MONDE, he begins to see cigarette burns (the mark in films to signify that the reel has to be changed) filled with horrific images. Kirby has a damaged past though: a dead girlfriend, and she begins to effuse into his insane visions. With a combination of creepy imagery and historic film craziness, Carpenter accomplishes a story funnier and weirder than what it can accomplish. Carpenter's poor actors and poor production design are nevertheless overwhelmed by style and oddity, and CIGARETTE BURNS is ultimately a fun time.
Cigarette Burns: ★★★

Putty Hill

PUTTY HILL is a luridly shot film with a structure a lot like Richard Linklater's SLACKER or BEFORE SUNSET in its lingering upon regular townsfolk and their experiences and sensibilities. Following the death of a local, PUTTY HILL is a pretend-documentary that interviews a few people who knew the boy. What PUTTY HILL accomplishes though, by contrasting its imagery with its dull, meaningless people, is that it shows a diminishing importance of death. The complete meaninglessness of the townspeople, and their realization of their unimportance, puts a new light on the death: that it doesn't even matter if people don't matter. And thus, PUTTY HILL is a film about decline. Filmed so luridly though, it seems to suggest a preciousness of the small down, but a sad and inevitable, pervasive decline. Everyone realizes this decline, and yet there is little resistance, but a lot of 'oh wells' and small pleasures out of tragedy. In an odd and disturbing scene, the townspeople have a party in remembrance of the dead boy, but rather than walk around in black lightly eating and lightly talking, they literally party. They get drunk and dirty dance, and it becomes completely clear that this town will die slowly and painfully.
Putty Hill: ★★★

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

One of the greatest films ever made, here, George Lucas left his darling creation, STAR WARS, off to another director. With Irvin Kershner,  EMPIRE became a film that was trenchantly of the style and tradition of Lucas' original, but left a lot of the corniness of Lucas' film for all-out oddities. The worm scene, Boba Fett, carbonite, and some of the most memorable lines in cinema, all populate EMPIRE. The film is so clean in its characterizations too, that its able to take some real time and suspense. A lot more is at stake in EMPIRE, characters aren't so perfect, but are vulnerable and reliant upon each other. The galaxy, and the aliens that exist in it, are fleshed out and brought into great visual compositions. EMPIRE is an improvement on NEW HOPE, but it its also an improvement upon the mythology and even the storytelling. There's a cleaner narrative in EMPIRE, and a newly realized vastness. NEW HOPE could almost be a standalone because the Death Star is utterly destroyed, but EMPIRE suggests a much larger, pervasive evil. Great.
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: ★★★★

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Rickety and clunky, dirty and tattered, A NEW HOPE was not the film that I expected to see when I put the VHS tape into the player. As a child, I think, A NEW HOPE was one of the first films I ever saw, or at least one of the first that I can remember seeing. Every single bit of it seemed real and extraordinary, and now, approaching my two thousandth film, cluttered with the easy technicals of AVATAR and b-movie GI-JOE, A NEW HOPE seems rickety and old. The film, with the Millennium Falcon described as a "heap of junk" even in the duration, and a lot of corny moments next to convenient jumps in time, A NEW HOPE is still one of the best looking special-effects creations ever, and still one of my favorite films of all time. A NEW HOPE behind a lot of its own notions, is a film of young vs. old, of good vs. evil on a simple and primal level. The Coen Brothers have made a career of their belief in absolute evil, and A NEW HOPE proclaims it with a winking eye, knowing where its story will eventually end, and maturing in that revolution. No bulbous, over-shiny spaceship of modern films even looks as good as the dubiously flyable Millenium Falcon, or the Star Destroyers of Darth Vader. The idea to actually create these flying creatures was a great one, for there is no question to their authenticity. The plastic models, puppet aliens, and labyrinthian fights are pure and great.
A New Hope: ★★★★

My Son My Son What Have Ye Done?

MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE? is a film of pure oddity from Werner Herzog. It could almost be seen as Herzog's reaction to "whimsy" in its overuse of completely batshit notions, animals, and characters. The film opens with a cop (Willem Dafoe) arriving at the scene of a murder. He passes by a man, Brad, (Michael Shannon) who mutters to him "razzle dazzle them, razzle dazzle them" and enters the house, seeing a woman with a sword through her. It turns out that the strange man from outside is the murderer, and that the woman inside is his mother. He lives across the street, and starts yelling that he has hostages. In a series of flashbacks, Dafoe's cop interviews the man's fiancé (Chloe Sevigny) and his theater director. After seeing his friends die in a rafting accident after having a premonition about it, the flamingo obsessed Brad returns with the type of grandeur in his motions similar to that of the man he plays in a Sophocles play. With odd detail to Dafoe's interview, which seems more out of pure interest that real, relevant worth, Herzog shows us a descent into insanity that is surrounded by insane notions and gestures. Flamingos, ostrichs, etc. all inhabit the film in the same weird way that Iguanas were intriguing to the cracked-up cop in Herzog's BAD LIEUTENANT. As a serious film, or even one to stand up in Herzog's oeuvre, MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE isn't much. Its insanity, which is the compelling factor of the film, also bogs it down because explanatory sequences can be ostriches. But there's some really great pallid imagery here, which is almost a reason to see the film in itself. Ultimately, the film's pretty fun, and always entertaining.
My Son My Son What Have Ye Done?: ★★★

Road to Nowhere

Modern and confusing, creepy in its languor, ROAD TO NOWHERE is one of the strangest films you'll ever see. Directed by lionized cult director Monte Hellman, who hasn't made a film in twenty-one years, ROAD TO NOWHERE is about put-ons and how that translates in films. The film considers Mitch, the director of a film also called ROAD TO NOWHERE that only exists within Hellman's film. Mitch finds an unknown actress to play the coveted role of the lead. His adaptational film of true events is somewhat high profile, and role is especially so. Thus, when Mitch puts in an unknown (brilliantly played by Shannyn Sossamon), there's a lot for Hellman to work with in terms of identity. A lot of the time in ROAD TO NOWHERE, we're not sure which film we're actually watching, and it's never spelled out. Thus, characters like Sossamon's have a lot of liberties to act in different conflicting manners, none of which are ever very clear. But the way in which people act towards their directors (bosses) or towards other actors (while acting) or in supposedly authentic ways (in romance) is always dubious. Which one are they employing? Hellman's film is masterful. Every scene is, by itself, a perfect composition. But in the scope of the entire film with its jumps in time, dubious characters, and which film you're watching, ROAD TO NOWHERE becomes intricate and complicated. It's one of the most challenging films of 2011, but ultimately, its payoff is worthwhile.
Road to Nowhere: ★★★1/2

Bringing Out the Dead

Here is one of the most under-appreciated films Martin Scorsese has ever made. It is practically unmentioned in his legacy of films, and yet it is one of his best and most modern. Starring Nicholas Cage as an ambulance driver with insomnia, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is haunting and beautiful, every shot calculated to a pastel work of color, night lights and striking power. I love this film. Cage's Frank Pierce is the modern version of De Niro's Taxi Driver. Both characters traverse the streets of New York City, and both have a deep and intense hatred towards the people of the city. Both work at night, and both were thought up by Paul Schrader and Scorsese. Pierce sees specters of the people he failed to save on every streetcorner, there's a gross routine to his work, and a number of illuminating characters. Shot with great charisma, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD considers Pierce's failures and the role he plays with them. These ambulance drivers avoid their duties, but in telling gestures. The hatred of people is most intriguing, Pierce is disgusted with a sort of immorality within his world in the same way that the taxi driver was, but he is stagnated and unable to act. BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is more frightening because it represents a constant stewing but never a boil.
Bringing Out The Dead: ★★★★

The Rum Diary

Based off of a Hunter S. Thompson novel but basically attempting to stand with FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS as a "here's Johnny Depp playing Hunter S. Thompson" movie, THE RUM DIARY is so uneven a film its impossible to enjoy. Depp plays Paul Kemp, a journalist who flies into Puerto Rico to help write for a failing paper. There's a manager (Richard Jenkins) who's an idiot who thinks he's smart because he's surrounded by Puerto Ricans and drunks, there's a photographer Bob (Michael Risposi whose voice is a dead ringer for Michael Madsen's), and an extreme drunk named Moberg. Kemp begins to meander around in sexy cars, getting too drunk to make smart decisions: lighting a policeman on fire, running a car through a building, and becoming involved with a real estate scheme that doesn't really matter. He does acid in a really funny scene, is photographed beautifully in Puerto Rico, and becomes involved with Chenault (Amber Heard). The problem with THE RUM DIARY is it's so infrequently fun. Most of the time it's pretty boring, and even funny or interesting scenes don't lead up to anything, mean anything, or change anything. Simply put, the film's a bore.
The Rum Diary: ★★

Beginners

For many reasons, BEGINNERS shouldn't be as good a film as it is. It's got weird little sum-upances of the world, liberal jumps through time, and a few too many quirks. However, its still not bad, and in fact, it's pretty good. Probably due to the acting presence of Ewan McGregor, BEGINNERS' quirks come off more melancholy than they would have in the presence of any other actor. The story consider's McGregor's Oliver, a sad sack who endangers his own endeavors through fake senses of incompletion. The story jumps between his father's battle with cancer and simultaneous coming out of the closet, and Oliver's romantic pursuit of a frenchwoman named Anna (Melanie Laurent) months after his father's death. Here is the strength of the film though: everything that could have been grating is under a strong control by director Mike Mills. All of Oliver's quirks and over-explanations are sort of sad, so they aren't annoying. His father's (Christopher Plummer) exploration of his gayness isn't exploitive but also sort of depressing because he's exploring this side of himself briskly and he has little time to explore it because soon he'll die. This fleeting nature of Plummer's character strengthens the Oliver-Anna relationship because Oliver has the realization that he can't be fooling around with his desires. This simplicity is handled well. Furthermore, BEGINNERS has a wonderfully modern look about it: filled with all of the yellows and oranges and that have colorized 21st century films. If this film has a weakness, it exists within Melanie Laurent, who is underused and practically an emblem. If her character had been strengthened, and some of the quirks dialed down to the point of nonexistence, BEGINNERS would be a really great film. Instead it is flawed, but entertaining and occasionally beautiful.
Beginners: ★★★

Terri

TERRI is a largely successful film because it daringly tells a conventional story, but falls into none of the clichés or pitfalls that usually inhabit those types of films. Directed with real intelligence and honesty by Azazel Jacobs, TERRI tells of an obese fifteen year old named Terri (Jacob Wysocki) who doesn't really feel so diminutive in his secluded position, but really quite comfortable. Terri is called in by the vice principal Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly) one day for some minor offense, and Fitzgerald projects his own view of a loser-child upon Terri. The two develop a mutual understanding, but their friendship is mapped over by a few realizations of dependency. For, despite Terri's independence, he is still a little pathetic, and despite Mr. Fitzgerald's assumed solidarity, he's really just projecting a bunch of things he experienced as a child upon a group of students he's deemed as losers. Fitzgerald is compelling in this way, for he has in a way become a form of bully, especially by singling out kids he assumes to be outcasts. In this manner, Terri shows Fitzgerald his true intents. A lot of TERRI relies on the idea that people are always doing things for themselves. This also expresses itself in a complex and honest part of the story involving a hot fellow classmate of Terri's, who is fingered in science class and in danger of expulsion. Terri stands up for the girl, but she herself was implicit in the fingering, and uses Terri in subtle ways. TERRI is an honest film in its willingness to show us things that people usually shrug off about high school students. It's also a very good film.
Terri: ★★★1/2

The Joneses

Odd for a film like THE JONESES to be so transparent and simplistic in its title, which refers to the saying 'keeping up with the Joneses'. So facile a title would not reflect some of the real fun that exists within the film, but such an idiotic title is also reflective on the downfall of the film, which is that its expectations for itself were never set very high. The story, which is, of course, ludicrous, is about a company which sets up fake families of people in rich neighborhoods who are given all the new, hottest stuff to parade about and force sales up. This fake family, consisting of the nymphomaniac Amber Heard as the daughter, David Duchovny as the inexperienced "father", Demi Moore as the weathered and ambitious "mother" and Ben Hollingsworth as the closeted "son". At first, Steve (Duchovny) is doing horrifically in his sales, and for a while the film tracks his struggle and unlikely ascent. Some of the methods the Joneses go through are pretty funny, and the odd humanity the "family" finds resembles that same good, buried movie. How the film fails though, is that it becomes so simplistic as to become stupid. It has a message of how we don't need to be keeping up with the Joneses, and a neighbor even kills himself because he has bought so intensely into their ideology. Steve Jones feels terribly, as if this is his fault, but there is no fault put on the idiots who buy in, and they are here excused. This then humanizes the Joneses, who are really just idiotic hogs who bask in their new shit and whine about how their lives aren't perfect. Such half-notions about 'money doesn't make you happy' and you can't 'keep up with the Joneses' is what makes this such a simplistic drag.
The Joneses: ★1/2

The Strange Case of Angelica

I was a huge fan of last year's ECCENTRICITIES OF A BLONDE-HAIRED GIRL, which is by the same director as this film. The director, Manoel de Oliveira is not to ever be taken lightly. He will be 103 years old this year, and he is the second eldest film director ever behind George Abbott, who lived to be 107. ECCENTRICITIES was an introduction to Oliveira's work for me, and I expected a lot out of THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA, which is similar to ECCENTRICITIES in many ways. For one thing, the films both have a very similar look, for Oliveira re-used the cinematographer of the previous film for this one. The look is brilliant still, there's an old-world look to his modern city. In THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA, just as languid a film as ECCENTRICITIES, a young photographer is beckoned to the estate of a rich family, whose daughter Angelica has just died. He is to photograph the corpse, and he is overwhelmed by Angelica's presence, even though she's dead. Angelica looks placid as she lies in brilliant yellow, and the photographer goes on to photograph men working across from his flat. His obsession deepens though, and he sees Angelica blinking in the photographs, and she finally separates him from his body and takes him through the sky. There is no ridiculousness here though, for Oliveira treats the tale as if it was an old folktale being retold through film. This is such a quiet and gorgeous film, and perhaps it does not deserve the 'not enough' feeling I harbor towards it considering how it came after my introduction to the director, and thus his style realized.
The Strange Case of Angelica: ★★★

Anonymous

It's too bad that Roland Emmerich made ANONYMOUS. But it's also a great joy that he made it. Emmerich, the director to schlocky, idiotic, coherent dialogue sparse films like GODZILLA, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, INDEPENDENCE DAY and 2012, would never have been expected in a million years to make a film about the Oxfordian Theory, but he did. This, I think, (his track record especially), has caused ANONYMOUS to be ridiculously and unfairly nit-picked, and even dismissed by many critics. That's a shame, for if Emmerich's name, and the allegory he places within the film that invigorates his worth were absent, ANONYMOUS would be revered across the board. Sure it's overcomplicated, and its been described even as muddled, but it adds to the fun. Emmerich crafts an extreme-version of the Elizabethan days perhaps because of the exaggerated nature of his disaster films. The film makes the case for (or entertains us with the idea that) William Shakespeare never actually wrote any of the plays attributed to him. Rather, the plays, poems, sonnets, were all the work of a nobleman named Edward de Veer. de Veer, the film exhibits, was a genius, and he is played as such in an Oscar worthy performance by Rhys Ifans. (Again, it's too bad such a performance will be overlooked because the film is made by Emmerich). Skipping around through his timeline with little to assist us but aging hair and a few different actors, Emmerich shows us a labyrinthian world. For ANONYMOUS is, in fact, so complicated and fun, ridiculous and overwrought, that it's affecting. de Veer is brilliant and captivating, and the political trials are so burdened with melodrama that it becomes fun rather than instructive or argumentative. I have one quibble though: would the works of Shakespeare really be so easily explained through the trivialities of de Veer in any grand scale? Of course not, and that's why the Oxfordian Theory is really, really stupid. But who cares, it makes for a pretty great movie: one of my favorites of the year in its unintentional pleasures, and its pure fun with words. Cronenberg once said that he didn't even see the difference between action in the form of violence and action in the form of talking. This is a film that embraces that idea.
Anonymous: ★★★1/2

Breaking Bad (S.4)

Season four of AMC's "Breaking Bad" is not only the best season of the show, but has about three episodes that deserve to be placed near the zenith of television perfection. Explored more, or perhaps just fully realized in the show's fourth season is the idea that middle class, timid white guy Walter White has the desire to be like what the low class, crude Jesse Pinkman is. "Breaking Bad" is a brilliant show, deserving of high praise and wider audiences.
Breaking Bad (S.4): ★★★★

Carrie

CARRIE is a problematic film, one that has a great beginning, great middle, and an end which is so atrocious, is repurposes the previously great segments, and ruins the film. Directed by the occasionally unwieldy, but talented Brian de Palma, CARRIE is a simple horror story, but its artful and creepy in its opening. de Palma begins with Carrie, an outcast at school and daughter to a religious nut, naked in the locker room at school. Many directors have started their films with blatant female nudity (see: PLEASE GIVE), but it acts as a pretentious precursor to a pretentious film. de Palma's decision to start the film this way is sort of brilliant though. Carrie looks like a naked animal, like a cat shaved and thrown in water. She's bony and creepy (played with real knowledge by Sissy Spacek), and while in the shower, she reaches down between her legs and her fingers come up blood tinged. Because of her idiot mother, Carrie (who is a senior in high school) doesn't even know about periods, and past the obvious creepiness of a stunted puberty, Carrie runs at her fellow seniors, bloody fingers outstretched like a mad creature. Her classmates laugh at her and humiliate her, and this sets up de Palma's world as an immoral creature itself. Even the teacher who pities Carrie is at heart just as disgusted with her, but acts towards her in kind gestures just to prove a point to herself. Then the horror bit sets in, and we discover that Carrie has the power of telekinesis. This changes her life, and she is even asked out by the only goodhearted person in the film to the prom as a pity-gesture. Despite these motives, de Palma creates a great sequence here, showing Carrie and the boy dancing round and round as his camera follows them round and round. There is a plot at work though, for the girls from earlier plan to humiliate Carrie by dousing her in pig's blood. Carrie is now beautiful at the Prom: her face is clean and scintillating, but we know that it will soon be stained by pig's blood. Then de Palma fucks up. In the last scenes of the movie, he throws all of these wonderful ideas out the window, Carrie goes batshit crazy, and we've lost any true beauty or true horror to pretentious camera tricks, confusing and unnecessary split screens, and yells. Any animalism that existed, and quasi-Cinderella horror story that de Palma set up is ruined. For me, CARRIE is one of the saddest failures I've ever seen, because it had so much potential. Turn off the film right when Carrie gets doused in blood and you've got a really fine film, but that is not the case, and as a whole, de Palma makes CARRIE not work. A real shame.
Carrie: ★★1/2

Body Snatchers

BODY SNATCHERS doesn't really deserve to be held up against its predecessors, for it exists on an entirely different level of filmmaking. Directed by the treasured Abel Ferrara, this is a film about people more than it is a film about body snatchers. Humanity, and guilt are in play here within a story familiar to us. A family goes to a military base because the father has work to do there. The mother is the first to go, possessed by a body snatcher that kills her and imitates her body. The little boy suspects the mother of this change, and warns his older sister (Gabrielle Anwar). Everyone starts to turn and the older sister flees with a military boy to destroy the aliens. Ferrara's spin is specific and seductive. For one thing, the ending (which I shall not reveal) ends the film on a note contrary to the usual: everyone's fucked mentality. But for another, more integral piece of work, Ferrara creates a tension with the family. The sister and brother don't like each other because they don't share the same amount of time with their parents. The sister hates the father because he's a constricting asshole, and the mother is a stepmother which makes her a foreigner inhabiting a specific persona just like how the alien inhabits her. BODY SNATCHERS is well filmed and fun, scary but substantial in every scene and every gesture. It's a great film.
Body Snatchers: ★★★★

The Others

THE OTHERS is a superior horror film, one that pays attention to style, but also one that goes a long way in terms of substance, in finality. Beyond being entertaining, the end of THE OTHERS is one that puts a new light on an old idea in the form of a twist. Well made, this twist was perhaps problematic in other hands, but in the eyes and under the camera of Alejandro Amenebar, I accepted it. There's a lot of muddle near the middle, but that only comes from frustration, but the vastness created in every room and every eyeball is enough to make an entertaining film pretty great. Starring Nicole Kidman is a great performance, THE OTHERS tells of a wealthy widow living in a mansion. Help appears at the door one day, and she hires the trio, a group of elderly workers who had worked in the house many years prior. The children in the house (two of them, and played wonderfully) are allergic to light, and thus the doors, shutters, and curtains all remain closed and locked. From this creepy premise we're given a conventional but well filmed ghost story. The children begin to see ghosts, and there are some mysteries looming, but nothing seems out of the ordinary in terms of narrative approach until the end. It's a great twist, one that I admire and enjoyed, but it shouldn't define the whole film. The first hour and a half or so is a very good, conventional ghost story, and the last thirty minutes is a great movie. Still though, 'very good' and 'great' combined makes something very worth seeing: well acted, shot, and paced.
The Others: ★★★1/2

Theater of Blood

THEATER OF BLOOD is an exercise in self-parody, accentuating the serio-comic persona that made Vincent Price famous in the later part of his career. That subtlety of his earlier work is here taken to an extreme, as Price plays Edward Lionheart, a disgruntled Shakespearian over-actor panned by the critics and seeking revenge. After faking his own death, Lionheart returns with a group of meth-riddled bums as his cronies, and in an old, derelict theater, murders each any every one of the critics. Specifically angered over losing the critics choice award of 1970 for best actor, Lionheart formulates his murders based after deaths in Shakespearian plays, and as he recites a passage from the play, plunges a knife in his victims' hearts. Lionheart is hammy but sort of endearing as he makes the case for himself, saying that the talentless critics panned him and ruined his life for little relief but for their careers. It's easy to take him seriously too considering how each and every one of the critics are complete buffoons in one way or another. But that adds to the fun. Who wants to see an inventive death not happen? Price is over-the-top but all the better for it too. This isn't the flaw of the film, but parades as it to purport itself as trash. The real flaw is in the pacing, which is sort of languorous. THEATER OF BLOOD is no great film, but an odd one, and a creepy one, which makes it worth seeing for its weird decisions alone.
Theater of Blood: ★★★

Last Man On Earth

LAST MAN ON EARTH was the first film adaptation from the novel, I am Legend, which was made into the popular, but problematic I AM LEGEND with Will Smith. LAST MAN ON EARTH, however, while not even sharing the same title as the book, is a much better adaptation of the general idea the book conveys. Vincent Price is the lead in this film, giving the film its first main flaw: an overbearing self-narrative, despite the power Price conveys, which is more powerful than anything Smith ever really gave in I AM LEGEND. The film follows Price around a post-apocolyptic world after being struck by a plague that turned everyone into vampires. Price keeps up his life in his house, boarded up, and venture out into the city by day to execute sleeping vampires and search for food and supplies. We also get a long flashback about how the disease came about, and its effect upon society. As Price searches for remnants of the human race, the defining qualities of that race is challenged. He, Price, executes these creatures, but only on the pretense that they're evil, and without the knowledge of their own constructed night-society. There are some striking images in LAST MAN ON EARTH, and Price is a likable lead, but the story is a little thin, and in terms of real content, the film lags. Not great.
Last Man on Earth: ★★1/2

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Despite much of the talk that has been made about HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, it is no horror film in the conventional sense of that terminology. It's too slow, too biliously building to be that kind of abrupt horror. Rather, HENRY fits into a disturbing group of cinematic quasi-breakthrough. Released Unrated in the 80's in order to avoid an NC-17 rating, HENRY tells the sickening tale of a tall, stoic drifter named Henry (Michael Rooker). He lives in an apartment with a drug dealer just out of jail named Otis. Henry kills people, he's a serial killer, but no enigmatic, hammy type like Hannibal Lecter. Instead, Henry is cold and gross. We see his mangled victims, each killed in different ways to keep the cops off his trail, and the camera pans in on their empty eyes, their screams acting as background music. One day, Otis' sister Becky comes into town. She begins to live with Henry and Otis, and takes a great liking to Henry. She's a damaged person though in the greatest sense of that elusive phrase. Molested as a child, Otis has the same tendencies as their deranged father, and Becky's in danger. Henry and Otis start killing people together, and Becky stands on the sidelines in some sick admiration and some ignorance. What is ultimately devastating about HENRY though is the coldness of its subject, and the relentless sickening scenes after sickening scenes. There's not even a style to the kills, but an ugly abruptness followed by quasi-methodical ritual. As what it purports itself to be, a 'Portrait of a Serial Killer' HENRY is a good film, but just that. For reasons I cannot pin down, its detachment, and the general pathetic-ness makes the film appear as disaster porn. Still, however, worth seeing.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer: ★★★

Battle in Seattle

This film seems so relevant today, and even more worthwhile because it's major flaw repurposes it to apply to any kind of protest. BATTLE IN SEATTLE pretends to be specific though, and that's a false pretense given the smart filmmaking apart from any of those scenes. Through the eyes of six people: protester, cop, and official alike, director Stuart Townsend attempts to incite us against the WTO (World Trade Organization). The WTO is supposedly cruel and business oriented, but Townsend's film is an utter failure under this light, and a triumph under another. Despite the six stories Townsend follows, none of these convinced me one way or the other that the WTO is wicked, but in every single story, Townsend convinced me of police brutality. Most interestingly seen through Woody Harrelson's frightened cop and his pregnant, in danger wife (Charlize Theron), the effects of chaos are seen. The film uses a shaky-cam to capture the insanity, and what comes across in distinct tones, scenes, and yells is the brutality of the police. We see in BATTLE IN SEATTLE the modern protest, and that makes it sort of relevant. Any of its scenes of protesting could be interchanged with any other modern protest (like, say, the Occupy Wall Street protests of today) by just replacing the signs. BATTLE IN SEATTLE is inept in its purpose, but it finds another niche of worth, and that's really just as good.
Battle in Seattle: ★★★

NINJA KIDS!!!

It's spelled in the exact way I spelled it above. But, NINJA KIDS!!! is a film by Takashi Miike, one of the best directors alive in the world. It's insane. It's completely fucking cuckoo and good for it. It's bright, colorful, cheesy, dumb, irreverant, funny, retarded, thrilling, instructive, and great. It tells the story of Rantaro, a young, cute Japanese boy who leaves his family to go to the Ninja Academy. There, he will redeem his family in the eyes of the ninjas. Except, Rantaro is in 1st grade. The young ninjas learn all about how to be a ninja in the most entertaining part of the film. We get instructive insights into every weapon and style, and then the teacher bangs the head of a young kid on the desk, spewing snot everywhere and thrusting the boy out the window where he plummets, hits a rock with his head, and falls peacefully asleep. Then an assassination attempt occurs, but the assassin isn't allowed in because he won't sign in. Then there's ninja hair stylists who fight people by giving them silly hairstyles, a race, more snot, a devious dog, small fish!!! NINJA KIDS!!! is fucking insane, but Miike handles the insanity. The film is funny, repetitive in its comedy over the span of twenty minutes, and we are reminded of things that we found comical earlier. There is obvious parody at work, some heart, and some ridiculousness. When some sappy scene threatens itself, Miike handles it perfectly with some oddball revelation. NINJA KIDS!!! is purely fun, terrific entertainment without any convention.
NINJA KIDS!!!: ★★★1/2