I haven't been this excited about a crop of upcoming movies since I don't know when.
And that's due not in small part to some particularly compelling trailers. (I'm hopeful that the films will live up to the hype. I stubbornly cling to faith in the art of filmmaking -- perhaps the only example of eternal optimism on my part.)
After a year in which we saw a dozen films, maybe, the anticipation is all the more welcome.
So take a look, and be enthralled. Set aside the skepticism. Downplay the disbelief. Get your hopes up, people! Maybe, if enough of us believe, we can will the movie world back to excellence.
Here's the rundown on what I can't wait to see:
Clash of the Titans
I have quite a nostalgic fondness for the 1981 original, stemming from middle school studies of Greek mythology for Super Bowl -- the academic battle of wits, not the one with all the Roman numerals. (Laurence Olivier as Zeus! Harry Hamlin as Perseus! An epic battle for our hearts!) So I was rather skeptical when I first heard rumors of a remake. But having watched this trailer. I'm sold, and I'm psyched.
The Wolfman
We've been waiting for this one a long time. It's been years since the news that Benicio Del Toro was to play the iconic Universal monster -- a great choice, I thought then, and still do.
Then, the movie got pushed back. And back.
But now, it looks like our wait might finally pay off.
The buzz has attributed delays to the need for time to work on fx. With Rick Baker, of An American Werewolf in London fame, on set, surely it will be worth it.
The A-Team
I know what you're thinking. Another remake?!? I thought I was sick of them too. But here I am, talking up a third one. And the source material for this one is classically '80s, too. But ever since the release of the first official picture of the main characters, I've been wildly hoping for the best.
The trailer showcases all the kitschy cache of the old TV show. (And, for you District 9 fans, note that Murdock is played by Wikus himself, Sharlto Copley.)
It promises to be a fun summer romp.
Shutter Island
Another long-anticipated film, the release of which was pushed back. Scorsese does terror. I reeeeally hope it works. And I really hope patient 67 isn't who I think it is.
Inception
Another Leo DiCaprio film, another thriller. Add Christopher Nolan (director of Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), and I don't need any convincing. This trailer messes with your head, leaves you with questions begging for answers ...
Hot Tub Time Machine
Continuing with the '80s theme ... This looks like it might be fun. And John Cusack comedy? Yes, please. The premise is simple: Four funny guys time travel by way of a hot tub. Hilarity no doubt ensues. (The trailer is red band for language. If you're offended, you can't say I didn't warn you ... )
Other notables
The Green Hornet -- I have to be honest and say that I don't know much about the source material. The Green Hornet's no Batman, after all. But director Michel Gondry is one of my favorite filmmakers -- such an artist! -- that I'm completely intrigued nonetheless.
Eclipse -- No trailer yet, but I have been looking forward all along to seeing what David Slade -- director of the great and terrorising vampire flick 30 Days of Night -- would do with the story. My prediction: Steve will hate it, I will enjoy it. The series (books and films) has its faults, but I'm tuned in till the end.
Machete -- So, seems as if the what-ifs might've gotten out of control on this one. It seemed like such a simple little story back when it was a mock trailer in the Grindhouse package. But now that it's materialized, in addition to the great Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin, it has Robert DeNiro, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba and ... Lindsay Lohan?!? I love Robert Rodriguez, but I dunno ...
The Expendables -- Seems it's the year of the macho renegades. This one's no exception. Sylvester Stallone (directing and starring), Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Danny Trejo, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Zayas (Angel Batista from Dexter) and more. It's definitely got potential.
The Lightning Thief Greek mythology redux. Modern kids are the progeny of the gods. Director Chris Columbus has quite a pedigree (Adventures in Babysitting. Gremlins. Goonies.) Might be fun ...
The Last Airbender --M. Night Shyamalan. Dev Patel (of Slumdog Millionaire fame). Looks interesting. But compelling? Jury's out.
Morning Glory -- JJ Abrams. A newsman with scruples(?). Rachel McAdams. It's got good things going for it. Will I see it in the theater? I don't know. Maybe the trailer will get me more excited ...
Yes, we're all pretty sick of the '70s horror retreads that Hollywood has been throwing our way in recent years.There for a while you couldn't listen to a horror podcast or peruse a horror website without someone wanting to flog that old (un?)dead horse. But these days it seems that everyone has resigned themselves to the fact that crappy "re-imaginings" are inevitable. In fact, complaining about these remakes has already transitioned from being a quick and easy way to acrue geek-hipster cache to being a tired cliche that nobody in the scene wants to touch anymore.
Interestingly enough, way back in 2002 it was Rob Zombie, director of the new remake of Halloween and former astrocreep, who threw in his own two cents on the subject of horror remakes. In a quote from Are You Going? magazine concerning remakes, Zombie said, I feel it's the worst thing any filmmaker can do. I actually got a call from my agent and they asked me if I wanted to be involved with the remake of Chainsaw. I said no f***ing way! Those movies are perfect -- you're only going to make yourself look like an a**hole by remaking them. So the obvious question that raises itself is whether Zombie was able to take Halloween, a bonafide fright classic, and put his stamp on it while avoiding the curse that brought down the slew of remaking a**holes that came before him. And if you'd asked me for an answer two days ago, my answer would have been, "I don't care."
To be honest, Halloween was not my favorite of the big three horror franchise films. I adored the Nightmare on Elm Street series, dug many of the Friday the 13th films, but, at best, I was ambivalent to the Halloween movies. That is not to say that I did not recognize their place of honor in the genre. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of being freaked out watching the original through my fingers at my grandparents' house. But in the end, much like with the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and The Fog, I was never invested enough in the original to warrant outrage upon hearing of a remake. But as the end of August grew nearer and nearer (much like a lurching, knife-weilding shape in the shadows) my desire to see Zombie's latest grew too big to ignore.
I had only recently seen his previous two films. To be honest, I enjoyed parts of both House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, but in the end felt that they were lacking. I didn't know why I had such on overwhelming urge to check out Zombie's Halloween, but I suspect its similar to the urge you get to stare at an accident as you drive by. You know its gonna be horrible, but how else are you gonna be able to explain to your friends and family just how horrible it was? No, you go into these things with a morbid curiosity, you wanna see just how bad things can be, and on this front, Halloween did not disappoint.
The primary problem with Zombie's version of the film lies in the very reason he cited as impetus for remaking the original. In interviews he stated that a remake would provide opportunity to look into Michael Myers' past and to see what made him into the ruthless killer that he is. And, in fact, Zombie spends nearly half of the film tracing Myers' backstory. But in both the original film and in the remake, Dr. Loomis is quick to point out that Myers is evil incarnate. And if he is the embodiment of evil, then he don't need no reason to do what he do. Rob Zombie goes outta his way to show that Myers makes no distinction in killing those who have wronged him and killing those who've been kind to him, but in providing a "reason" for the murderous activity, he has kinda dulled the blade.
In addition to being unnecessary, Zombie's portrait of a young serial killer is quite flaccid. As you would expect, the director wastes no time in taking the audience straight into the perpetually dingy world of American low-culture. Be certain, Rob Zombie considers himself quite the expert on the white-ghetto aesthetic. It's all flop sweat and carpet stains as we first enter into the white trash world of the Myers home, but what we're really supposed to be appalled at is the treatment of the aspiring slasher. He has a layabout step-dad who just doesn't understand him and, horror of horrors, a slutty big sister that picks on him! I have to say that if everyone who grew up in a similar situation ended up as murderers, it wouldn't be long before they ran outta people to kill.
I'd have much rather seen Zombie go the other route. We've seen him do the hillbilly horror thing already. If he absolutely HAD to show a Michael Myers backstory, it would have been much cooler to go all David Lynch. Do it up as middle class suburbia ... but with a dark side. I mean, that's actually truer to life, right? Jeffrey Dahmer, suburban middle-class childhood. Ted Bundy, suburban middle-class childhood. At this point, everyone knows that it's not the freaks that get picked on at school that grow up to be serial killers. They discover drugs. No, it's the quiet, seemingly well-adjusted ones. Those are the guys that go on to stockpile disembodied genitals in their grandparents' basement. Young Michael Myers should have never donned a Kiss T-shirt, but instead a turtle neck and sweater vest combo.
Another pitfall that Zombie falls into with this film is the silly mythologizing of franchise iconography. It's a pretty standard affair with remakes such as these. Sometimes it's merely a quick homage to the original film. Sometimes a little pomp and circumstance to make the occasion a little more momentous, but there's always a point in these movies where the villain gets his knife or axe or whatever, and the audience is supposed to be all like, "Hell yeah!" In Halloween, of course, this moment is when Myers gets his iconic mask. In the new version of the film, Zombie decided to introduce the mask quite early. In fact, it's introduced during a sex scene between sister Judith and her boyfriend. This was undoubtedly done so that the audience would get to see a 10-year-old Mikey Myers don his famous mask (looking much like a bobble head doll) as he commits his last murder before being locked away in the asylum. Of course, the problem that arises in introducing the mask so early is the fact that, when he comes back all those years later, he needs to have that exact same mask. Of course, young Michael did what any psychotic prepubescent on a killing spree would do: He buried it under the floorboards, thus preserving the mask in pristine condition for more than a decade. Lame.
Now, I know that I'm being pretty harsh on the movie. But please understand that it deserves it. It is, in fact, a steaming loaf. But despite this fact, I can still point to a couple of things about the film that I found mildly interesting. A lot of people talk about the visual sophistication of Zombie's films. To be quite honest, I don't see it. The stylistic flourishes and such that he throws in are pretty cliche in the genre these days. I mean, seriously, if I see one more cut away to grainy black and white "news footage" I'm gonna go on a murder spree of my own. But at one point in Halloween, Zombie did something that I found interesting. As the police are processing the crime scene at the Myers' house, he puts the action on pause and does a kind of living tableau. It's not a freeze frame or one of those 3-D whirl-arounds like from The Matrix. It was simply a pan of the entire cast as they held their positions. Nothing too profound, but just an interesting idea that would have better served just about any other scene in the movie.
Another thing that was decent in this version was the depiction of the adult Michael Myers. While I can already hear all of the fans decrying this film as the worst entry into the franchise (and that's saying something ... I mean, Halloween III: Season of the Witch?) one thing that can't be denied is the fact that Rob Zombie's Michael Myers is the most brutal depiction of the killer ever brought to the screen. Sure he's armed with his everpresent kitchen knife, but his worst blows are dealt out by hand. Umpteen times in the movie he assaults people, slamming them up against walls and windows with such speed and ferocity that I actually cringed and squirmed in my seat with every rapid-fire thud. While it was difficult to imagine that these skull crushing blows were being dealt by the chubby 10-year-old that has been locked away for 15 years, the brutality of the attacks was undeniable.
I guess if nothing else good has come from Rob Zombie's Halloween, a lot of genre stalwarts are gonna get a pretty sweet payday. In fact, the best part of the movie (that is to say ... one of the only good parts of the movie) was pointing out the parade of horror and cult film vets that make appearances. Of course, this goes to show that Zombie is the ultimate horror fan's filmmaker. As a fan himself, he wants to pay tribute to those "perfect films" he enjoyed growing up. Somewhere along the line, however, he began to assume that he was above the criticisms that other remakers have endured and in doing so has proved himself to be every bit of the a**hole that he accused them of being. Here's hoping next time around he'll treat us to an original vision.
Make no mistake... I went into Grindhouse expecting it to be the greatest film ever made. Yeah, I know that's a pretty ridiculous expectation for any adult to have (heck, ask any Star Wars fan), but I couldn't help it. I was giddy with anticipation and could hardly bring myself to wait a single day after its premiere so that my wife could go with me. (Somehow I managed, but those 24 hours were excruciating.) Honestly, there was no way that ANY movie could have lived up to the expectations that I had for this one. I mean... this movie was made FOR me... or people like me, anyway. So, it had to be the greatest spectacle to ever hit the screens, right? Well, as I surely suspected in the deepest recesses of my brain, it wasn't. But I'll be damned if it didn't come real close.
As I'm sure you know, Grindhouse is not so much a movie as it is two separate and distinct movies presented in a "double feature" format. So for ease of reading and writing I will review the two films as separate .
Planet Terror
(2007)
The other day I was at my parents house, and my dad was watching Sin City on cable. I asked if he'd seen the trailers for Grindhouse, and he asked, "Oh, you mean that movie with the girl who has a machine gun for a leg?" That little scenario proves that if Robert Rodriguez learned nothing else from the masters of exploitation cinema, he sure learned the most important rule: Give the audience something to remember. Even if Grindhouse fails miserably at the box office and is shuffled off to the bottoms of $5 dvd bins around the country, you can rest assured that twenty years down the line people our age are gonna remember "the movie where the girl had a machine gun for a leg." It's the kinda thing that catapults an already good chunk of storytelling to the sublime.
Rodriguez offers up a pretty straightforward zombie apocalypse story, but deftly weaves so many interesting story arcs throughout the chaos that you are absolutely riveted from the first tattered frame to the last. Dakota Block is a doctor and the wife of a doctor looking to escape from beneath the domineering hand of her husband. El Wray is the local misfit looking to rekindle an affair with unipedal go-go dancer Cherry Darling. The local police are as clueless as they are bumbling and must unite with the town's rag-tag crew of survivors to take on the shadowy military agency responsible for the viral outbreak.
One of the film's major strengths lies in its character actor-populated ensemble cast. Just like in the classic exploitation films, you'll find no bona fide movie stars here. At least not in leading roles. Planet Terror is a bizarro world in which Bruce Willis is relegated to the sidelines to give more face time to genre stalwarts such as Jeff Fahey, Michale Biehn and (cue heavenly choirs) Tom Savini. Rose McGowan is pitch perfect as the stoic non-victim Cherry Darling and successfully cements her position as the Reese Witherspoon for the horror set.
It's impossible to talk about Grindhouse without addressing the lengths the filmmakers went to in order to make the films look like authentic artifacts from years gone by. While every second of the entire "double feature" was created to evoke the feel of vintage exploitation cinema, it's obvious that Rodriguez took the most care in preserving the "grindhouse experience." With all the grit and grime of a war-torn print that's travelled movie houses from coast to coast, Planet Terror certainly has the look and retro-cool visuals to spare, but it's the music that makes this feature seem so legit.
Taking cues from John Carpenter, Rodriguez composed the sparse, pulsating score for the film and in doing so succeeded in giving the film more of a retro feel than any amount of faux dust n' scratches could have. The primary theme, a bluesy guitar and sax piece, is revisited throughout the film in a series of synth riffs remeniscent of the Goblin score for Dawn of the Dead.
As the horror genre continues in its current "retrospective" phase, it's nice to see filmmakers who choose to pay homage to the past with an original and innovative vision instead of bland "remakes." I'd much rather see a quick, wink-wink nod to Fulci than an unnecessary update of one of his films, and that's exactly the kind of thing that Rodriguez excels at. He's a cinematic remix artist, mining the depths of forgotten celluloid and making something fresh, cool and new.
Coming Attractions:
As you are probably well aware, one of the more novel concepts that serves to round out the whole "double feature eperience" was the inclusions of trailers for imaginary exploitation titles. It's no secret that the majority of these exploitation films failed to top the trailers that advertised them. In truth, the trailers most often contained all of the best bits from the film, in hopes of getting as many butts in the seats as possible. So, basically in a grindhouse trailer you got a condensed, easily digestible version of the film itself. It's amazing how ahead of their times those filmmakers were.
Machete
Danny Trejo's spectacularly craggy face takes center stage in a trailer that kicks off the ride that is Grindhouse. It's a revenge story about one bad Mexican taking on a group of suited baddies who've duped him into a faux assassination attempt. With assistance from a heavily armed priest, the pair take on "the man" with more intensity than any blaxploitation anti-hero you can imagine. Rodriguez gives us a brand spanking new subgenre of exploitation cinema. Call it, Mexploitation! Oh yeah, I dunno what happened, but the word going into this film was that there were three trailers directed by guest directors and one each from Tarantino and Rodriguez. Obviously we got Machete, but was where was QT's sexploitation trailer, Cowgirls in Sweden? What gives!?!?
Werewolf Women of the S.S.
Rob Zombie takes on the most taboo subgenre of exploitation cinema, nazisploitation. I particularly love how the trailer keeps coming back to the same clip again and again to punctuate the title. You just know that if this film really existed, that would be the only scene with a werewolf int he entire film! I don't know how many times I've seen that kinda thing in real trailers from the era.
Don't
Edgar Wright rocks the kind of trailer that films with few shocking images to entice an audience have to go with. We're talking about 80% style and 20% substance. Sure you get little snippets of story, but in the end... it's all about raising questions that only viewing the film can answer.
Eli Roth rounds out the coming attractions right with a season-specific slasher flick in the grand tradition of the 80s classicks My Bloody Valentine and Silent Night, Deadly Night. As far as the trailers go, it's obvious that the film makers saved the best for last. I mean, how did this film not get made.
Death Proof
(2007)
The name Quentin Tarantino calls to mind such certain expectations that it is nearly a film genre unto itself. Explicit violence, "deep cuts" from forgotten albums and copious amounts of pop-culture-peppered dialogue are the hallmarks of his films and, believe me, in Death Proof you get plenty of all that. The only problem is that you get it in the wrong ratio. The classic exploitation films were cinema boiled down to their most basic components. They were immediate and visceral and were crafted by workhorse directors who understood that if you want to keep your audience, you have to keep the action coming.
In interviews about Grindhouse the directing team expressed a desire to create exploitation films that actually made good on all of their trailers' impossible promises, but I think the two directors came at their projects from different angles. Rodriguez created the ultimate exploitation film: unabashedly over the top. Tarantino, it seems, wanted to beef-up a classic exploitation-type flick and turn it into a full-fledged film. He wanted to keep the moral ambiguity, the brutality, the sleazy swagger and add in all those "real movie" things that the typical grindhouse fare lacked: well written dialogue, character development, you know... basic storytelling-type stuff. The only problem is that stuff simply doesn't belong in exploitation cinema.
Remember, for every classic exploitation title you've heard of there are probably fifty more that don't even exist any more in any form. That's a lot of trial and error. In the handful of grindhouse "success stories," though, dialogue and character development are never major strong points. People come into these types of films with a certain set of expectations, and sitting through scene after scene of people talking is not on the list. For the first twenty-odd minutes of Death Proof, that's exactly what you get. Girls driving around Austin, talking. Girls sitting in a taco joint, talking. Girls at a bar, listening to T. Rex and talking. And their conversations, for the most part, have nothing to do with the story. I understand the idea of establishing a backstory for your characters, but when your audience has come out to see a film that's actually called Grindhouse, you can't let them go that long listening to the idle chatter of three abravise young ladies without tossing in a little violence or nudity to snap them back into the story. It's just against the rules. Now, I don't do spoiler warnings, so if you're a big baby, go ahead and ignore the next sentence or two. The fact that Death Proof spends an entire half of the movie introducing characters that are killed off is a travesty. Any grindhouse director worth his salt would surely agree that character development for murder victims is a waste of time and, more importantly, money.
The second half of the movie involves the villain, Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, tracking down a new set of babes to vehicularly assassinate. Unfortunately for him, the crew he's set his eyes on includes a couple of no nonsense Hollywood stuntbabes. Obviously, this group isn't going to put up with his antics lying down. These girls represent the amazonian godesses that doled out many a much deserved ass thumpin in 70s exploitation films. They are so obviously destined to give Stuntman Mike his comeuppance that you actually want to know a little something about their background. Sure you get little snippets of backstory here and there, but what you actually glean is just this side of nothing. It's ironic. The first group of girls... their function in the story was essentially that of a plot-advancing device, and we knew everything about them. This group essentially represents the collective hero of the piece, and we get next to nothing. I would have felt better about it if we would have gotten too much info on both groups, or no info on either group, but as it is in the film it just seems backwards and wrong.
Don't get me wrong. Death Proof does not ruin Grindhouse as a total film experience. In fact, there is much in it that could warrant a full ticket price as a standalone movie. Kurt Russell turns in a great performance playing a disgruntled relic from the grindhouse heyday. He's not so much a monster as he is a charming "regular guy" who just happens to enjoy offing young ladies with his flat black Chevy Nova. The stunts have all obviously been performed live for the camera and at times they had me squirming in my seat. And the two major kill scenes... one is so abrupt that, even though you know it's inevitable, it still takes you by surprise and leaves you feeling a bit hollow. The other is presented like a horrifying, slow-mo ballet that you'd look away from if it weren't so sickeningly captivating.
I truly appreciate what Tarantino was trying to do with Death Proof. I don't know how many times I've fantasized about taking an obscure film and making it into a "real" movie (keep an eye out for my sleazy-cool take on Beat Girl coming out sometime around two thousand and never!). But as a filmmaker with a true love of all cinema and a special place in his heart for exploitation films, I would have expected him to understand the fundamentals of the genre he was attempting to pay homage to. Instead, he allowed a love of hearing his own voice (I mean, a "hot chick" referencing Zatoichi? C'mon!) to make what could have been a mindblowingly wild ride into what was at its highest point an okay film and at lowest, the very definition of tedium.
If you haven't seen it one of the other hundred times I've posted it on the blog, you can find the Grindhouse trailer here.
With wildly popular film series based on Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and reboots for both the Superman and Batman franchises in the recent past, the movie industry is scrambling to mine the comic book world for their next golden geese. The appearance of a film based on Marvel's Ghost Rider character makes it seem as though Hollywood has finally begun scraping the bottom of the comic book barrel. I mean, what's next? A film adaptation of Andy Capp (sponsored by Hot Fries, naturally)?
Yes, it's painfully obvious that the Ghost Rider character is merely the default, 2nd tier hero to get the film treatment in the wake of the comic film boom, but in reality, the character completely warrants a movie on his own merits. He's a a flaming skeleton sent by the devil himself to harvest the souls of the damned... on a motorcycle. It don't get much cooler than that. Plus, the themes in the story are cultural touchstones embraced by artists as diverse as Stephen Vincent Benet and the Charlie Daniels' Band. It's just too bad that the filmmakers couldn't seem to keep this one as simple as it needed to be. The character is essentially a refugee of the 70s and the film should have reflected that. Instead, in Ghost Rider, we get a mish-mash of style and substance that never quite coalesces.
The film starts off promisingly. You can't go anymore "classic" with your storytelling than to kick things off with a voiceover narration. Normally, I'm not a big fan of this device (film is a visual medium, after all), but in this case it really set a tone that should have been the foundation for the entire film. Instead, Sam Elliot (voiceover king) sets us up for a mythical chunk of hillbilly gothic that never quite materializes.
When we meet up with the team of baddies that our hero must confront, it becomes painfully obvious that the remainder of the film will consist of Ghost Rider devising clever ways to dispatch each of the underlings (ghostly manifestations of earth, wind and fire... the elements, not the soul group) and finally the big boss, Blackheart (the very son of the devil). It's almost like the screenwriter (director, Mark Steven Johnson) was working from the same set of notes as the creators of any third tier video game. In fact, I'd much rather have seen Ghost Rider take on Bowser than the puny demon Wes Bentley portrays.
As much as I was disappointed by this film, I do have to still recommend getting out to see it, as it is your first opportunity to see the Grindhouse trailer on the big screen. The old man sitting behind us commented, "Wow, that looks like total garbage." To which I say, "Yes it does. Sweet, sweet garbage."
It's strange that a fantastic world like the one explored in Guillermo del Toro's latest film would feel so familiar.
As I watched the movie, fascinated, I wondered why I felt so at home.
There was, of course, the mastery of the writer/director, del Toro, weaving a heartbreaking story between two worlds -- the early days of Franco's fascist Spain and the magical one beyond the labyrinth.
And, of course, there are obvious parallels between a classic children's tale so recently brought to life on the big screen, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as other stories of children finding new worlds in their imagination as a way to escape the fear, violence and pain in their real world -- Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Tales from the Neverending Story come to mind. (With the lingering questions in all, of course, about whether the worlds really were imaginary, after all.)
But it was more than that.
Then, as I was reading and thinking about the film -- and what I was going to write here -- it hit me.
Magical Realism.
It's a long literary tradition, with particularly strong ties to Latin American cultures. It's been a while, I'll admit, since I read anything that would fall squarely into that genre. In fact, the only specific work that sticks in my mind is Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. But this film fits into that tradition beautifully.
In Magical Realism, there is only a thin veil between the real world and the world of magic and spirits, and each has undeniable ties to and effects on the other. The characters that are able to cross the boundary need only to be open to the possibilities.
It occurs to me that an author with more cache (Oprah's book club, anyone?) but with strong Magical Realism tendencies is Toni Morrison. She's more watercooler-friendly, so her stories are a great place to start if you want to explore the fine line between reality and "fantasy".
And while the magical world is not necessarily spiritual, there are obvious parallels. It seems to me to be no coincidence that the same parts of the world that nurture mystical systems of belief like voodoo and santeria also cultivate tales like this one.
And, in a world where organized "religion" can be maligned (and not unjustifiably) with the simple assertion that across the centuries millions have died in the name of God at the hands of men gripped by evil, is it any surprise that magic and spirits feel more comfortable, more real, than liturgy and priests?
(In Pan's Labyrinth, watch for the comment by the priest at the dinner party where plans are made to squeeze the rebels into submission. A wolf in sheepskin if there ever has been one ... )
And this story in particular, which is clearly populated by mythical creatures with no ties to Christianity, centers on undeniably Christian themes: Judgment and redemption.
Young Ofelia (aka Princess Moanna) will learn soon enough, her mother informs her, that she'll have to compromise her beliefs if she wants to survive. The real world -- a fallen one (a Christian worldview that is not spelled out in the film, but is obviously illustrated by the irrational violence that reigns in fascist Spain) -- is nothing like her fairy realm.
Yet we see other characters -- and adults, at that -- making choices with very harsh consequences in an effort to turn things right again. In the words of one such character who pays with his life, what other choice do they have?
Ofelia is ultimately faced with the same choice that we all are: Will we blindly obey the urgings of the world (or our own selfish human nature), or will we strike out on faith and put it all on the line for what we believe is right?
So is this a tale of tragedy or triumph?
That depends on which is more important: the "real" world or the fairy world, our bodies or our souls.
What if, right now, all progress in the world were to come to a screeching halt? What if every trend or cause or fight were allowed to continue to spin on to its natural outcome, but there were no more improvements? Can you see that future? I saw it today. It played out on a screen at my local movie theater. And it wasn't pretty.
The world presented in Children of Men is a familiar one. The TV news is insipid and intrusive. There are advertisements everywhere. The cubicles are cramped and cluttered. The coffee shops are crowded. And there are bombs. But there are no babies.
And it's disturbing because it's so plausible.
The world - our world - gets what it wanted all along: control over life and death. But it turns out that we pick death. Maybe not knowingly. But is it that far-fetched? How much value do we really place on a human life now? Promiscuity is chic. (Nothing special here, I might as well give it up for what little I can leverage it for.) Depression is rampant, and we drown the pain with drugs. (Why try to find the answers when I can just forget the questions?) Selfishness reigns. Abortion is acceptable. Death is routine. Hate is powerful.
There are plenty of things to fear in the world of Children of Men. Chaos spins by on the ubiquitous TV screens, martial law is alluded to, and there isn't even a veneer of happiness, or cleanliness for that matter. And it is a world that sees its own extinction coming. With no births for 18 years, the death of humankind is only a few decades away. There is terrorism. Fascism. Racism. Nationalism. There is plenty of blame to go around. But there is no hope.
Watch this movie. If you come out unaffected, then I'm pretty sure you're sleeping your life away.
Much has been made of Sofia Coppola's use of contemporary music in this lush period piece. Something about seeing the 18th Century French court set to strains of lesser new wave hits puts me in mind of the teen-oriented dramadies made popular in the eighties. You know, Marie Antoinette really has a lot in common with Hughes-ian, popular female characters. Much like Claire from The Breakfast Club, Marie is a teenager of privilege. Sure she's got lots of money and few responsibilities, but a life of luxury does not mean a life without problems.
Marie has been married off to the Dauphin (and future King Louis XVI) in order to maintain good relations between her native country Austria and France. Forced to leave everything she has ever known behind, Marie spends the first act of the film in a typical "fish out of water"-type scenario. It's apparent quite early that young Louis (Jason Schwartzman in a pitch-perfect 18th Century nerd performance) is a bit apprehensive in "closing the deal" with his new bride. Marie is essentially the cheer captain forced into attending the prom with the chess club president. It's Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall ... but with powdered wigs.
As the story progresses and the royal couple go longer and longer without an heir to the throne, Marie begins to take ownership of her position and in doing so endears some and alienates others. Alongside an ever-present entourage, Marie creates a fantasy world within the walls of Versailles. With extravagance to spare, her royal court exists within a bubble unaware that the world around them is on the brink of collapse. And though you may believe her when she denies making the "let them eat cake" remark, you'd have a hard time denying that the sentiment rings true. She's become the "mean girl" who doesn't understand the damage she's doing, and when the French hoards come knocking it takes her by surprise.
About half-way through this movie, it dawned on me that the amount of dialogue spoken was surprisingly minimal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are more words in the review I am writing right now. Still, the movie doesn't suffer at all for it. Coppola is skilled at telling stories in a purely visual way. She's adept at capturing moments - sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, always powerful - that serve to tell the story on their own. Redundant dialogue is trimmed away, leaving a lean, beautiful and direct film that doesn't underestimate the intelligence of the audience.
A lot of people have insisted on pointing out the number of production flaws in the film. Supposedly boom mics dip into the shots on ten or more occasions in the movie. In fact, I never noticed a single incident of this, but even if I had, I'd have to point out that it's the price you have to pay for actually filming on location in the palace at Versailles. The film is a work of beauty and a testament to the power of film as a visual medium. Instead of a stuffy biopic, Coppola has adapted classic teenage drama to the royal court of 18th Century France, and surprisingly loses nothing in the translation.
Growing up in the smallest of Midwestern small towns in the late eighties and nineties (the leanest of lean years for punk rock) we didn't have any kind of "scene" to speak of, so a person dissatisfied with the offerings of MTV and radio had to actively seek out music that was outside of the mainstream. In middle school, I was already into Devo and the Ramones and got turned on to the Misfits by a like minded friend. Soon, I was full-fledged punker in a world where punkers were few and far between. In American Hardcore, The Zero Boys' Paul Mahern comments on this exact idea saying that in the mid-west we didn't have anyone paving the way. We had to "dig the well" ourselves. So, as you can see Midwesterners are the only true punks.
But then, as the movie goes on, we learn in interviews with the most important names in punk that this can't possibly be true. Westcoasters were the only true punk rockers... they started the hardcore movement. Oh wait, what about DC and the straight edgers? Latinos? Queers? Yup, in American Hardcore they're all, to one degree or another, credited as being the one and only embodiment of punk. Even with a relatively short running time of 100 minutes, the parade of self-importance gets tiresome pretty quickly.
Don't get me wrong. If you're into punk rock, there's a lot to love about American Hardcore. The performance footage in this film has to rank up there with some of the rarest concert footage ever committed to celluloid. Plus, there's just something that makes me smile about seeing third and fourth generation bootleg videos of basement gigs blown up to fit on the big screen. Now that's punk rock. It's obvious that director Paul Rachman has a deep love of all things punk and d.i.y. The movie appropriately looks and feels as if, much like Minor Threat's earliest seven inches, it was manually assembled by loving hands. It's like a Kinko'd show flyer brought to life. Few films give the motion graphic artists significant billing, but in this case it is obvious t hat John Vondracek's work is the heart and soul of the film.
Of course American Hardcore has more than its fair share of talking heads outlining the history and philosophy of the hardcore movement. As you'd expect, Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye are pretty informative and objective. The aforementionedMahern and The Circle Jerks' frontman Keith Morris also serve to highlight a story that snakes from one end of the country to the other and back again in no discernible pattern. All is intertwined with the history of a single hardcore band, Bad Brains. As the elder statesmen of the movement, the Brains seemed to orchestrate the hardcore movement, grooming young bands, teaching them the ropes, and eventually even showing them when it was time to grow up and move on.
American Hardcore is an interesting film for the rare footage and historical perspective it provides, but for real insight into the philosophy of punk, I'd look elsewhere. In a trailer for a completely unrelated punk rock film, Ian MacKaye bemoans those who would claim ownership of a concept as undefinable as punk. But time and time again that's what you get in this film. These are grown men who peaked at fourteen, refusing to recognize anyone carrying on the d.i.y. legacy today. Look around, fellas. The independent spirit is more alive today than ever before. From music, to print, even... independent movies! These guys need to realize that you can't claim your own role in shaping history until you validate the new generation. Check out the trailer.
Because my formative years were the early to mid-80s, my opinions of Rocky Balboa (the character, not the film) will forever be tainted by the third and fourth installments of the series. Is that good or bad? It's hard to say. I mean, at the time I loved those movies. The third one features Rocky facing off with Mr. T AND Hulk Hogan (Richard Belzer being the only other person to accomplish this) and in the fourth one he single-handedly ends the Cold War. What more could pre-pubescent boy ask for? If I were to re-watch these movies today, I'm sure that I'd be more than a little disappointed. They're pretty hokey. Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago character is about one mutant gene away from being ripped directly from the pages of Marvel, but by the fourth movie where else could have they gone with the Rocky story. The only worthy opponent would have been God himself. That's why Rocky V bit the big one. I mean, Tommy Gunn... please.
The awesome part about Rocky Balboa is not that his opponent is an unstoppable punching machine. Sure, Mason "The Line" Dixon (Antonio Tarver) is an undefeated heavyweight champ, but questions abound as whether that is due to skill or a dearth of worthy contenders. No, what makes the movie interesting is the fact that time has stripped Rocky of everything that made him a great fighter to begin with. Strength? Gone. Speed? Gone. His loving and supportive wife, Adrian? Yes, she's gone too. The only thing he has left is a faint burning in his gut that tells him that he still has things to prove in the ring.
When ESPN stages a fight between CGI versions of Rocky in his prime and current champ Mason Dixon, the nation is thrilled to see Balboa win. The results fuel the disdain for Dixon and help to renew interest in the Italian Stallion. In an astoundingly believable turn of events, an exhibition match is set up between Rocky and Dixon. Yes, I said "believable." I don't care how old he is. You know those Golden Palace folk could pull that off (c'mon... Uwe Boll, anyone?).
Now don't get me wrong. The movie has its flaws. The relationship between Rocky and his son is hardly fleshed out at all. We get a hint of Rocky Jr.'s frustration early in the film, but he essentially goes from having complete contempt for his father to serving as cornerman over the course of a single scene. Also, the "love interest" seemed a little forced and, in the end, unclear. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that the character Little Marie (Geraldine Hughes) is supposed to be a "love interest" at all. She certainly fills the void left by Adrian, but the relationship seems to be a creepy mix husband/wife and brother/sister dynamics. Weird stuff.
When all is said and done, however, this film is probably a more deserving sequel to the original film than any of the other four films in the series. In Rocky Balboa, thirty years after the fact, we have gotten the perfect post-script to the Rocky saga. We didn't need superhuman Russians or be-mohawked baddies. All we needed was the same underdog and the same spirit of determination that we were introduced to in 1976.
Machete
