The Conjuring (2013)

Directed by: James Wan
Written by: Chad Hayes, Carey Hayes
Starring: Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson
Rated: R

For my money the most important rule to remember when making a horror film is to let the audience scare themselves. Sure, copious amounts of makeup and gratuitous fake blood may get a reaction out of an audience, but is it horror? Less is more, as rising horror auteur James Wan ("Saw", "Insidious") shows us in his best picture to date. Let the people sitting in the audience fill in what's lurking in the shadows and knocking on the doors and let them do the work for themselves.

Inspired by the true events of top paranormal researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren, "The Conjuring" tells the story of the Perron family who move into a house filled with angry spirits dating back to the Salem Witch Trials. Taking no small amount of inspiration from "Poltergeist", "The Amityville Horror", "The Exorcist" and "Paranormal Activity", Wan's movie is nevertheless a terrific addition to a great line of films about haunted houses and demonic possession with a few inventive twists of its own.

Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor play Roger and Carolyn who are the parents of the five little girls who have just moved into a spacious, secluded country home. A ho-hum family deserving of a white picket fence, they fit just right into the target audience of spooks and specters. It begins with stopping clocks and mysterious bruises, escalating to doors opening on their own and phantom voices targeting certain family members. Of course they dismiss them initially (Carolyn convinces herself that her bruises are the result of an iron deficiency), most people don't usually jump to supernatural conclusions, but soon the occurrences are too extreme to ignore.

This is the scariest film I have seen in years, and it came just in time for me. I was beginning to lose faith in horror as a genre, it all having devolved into gore-fests and found footage fiascoes. With a wink and a nod to 70's fright flicks, "The Conjuring" taps right back into the roots of what frightens us all: the unknown. For a solid hour the dread mounts relentlessly to the point that several people actually left the theater. Those moments when people stop eating their popcorn and hold that collective breath are the reason I go to the movies. Wan had us all wrapped around his little pinky finger.

A small reprieve introduces us to the Warren's (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), the just-in-time clairvoyants and ghost hunters come to save the family. Farmiga's character would be eye-roll worthy did she not play it with such conviction. Actually the whole cast played their parts strongly, and coupled with the "true events" opening and closing blurbs it did lend a sense of gravity to the whole situation. The Warren's dealt with thousands of cases, most of concluded with simple scientific explanations, but as the opening tells us this case was the most malevolent, undisclosed to the public until now.

Just the right amount of special effects, very little blood and gore, a nice, creeky house, and the scariest doll it has ever been my displeasure to see are assembled in just the right way to pack the maximum punch. Wan's framing and his usage of space and sound are commendable; he created the right atmosphere with the right story.

I think a solid ghost story that doesn't feel the need to rely on cheap gimmicks always works because it reaches into the backs of our minds and drags out what scares us most. As kids we hate the dark in the same way we fear empty houses as adults. The possibility of what lurks in the shadows is far scarier than what is actually there. For me it was always a ventriloquist dummy under my bed or in that empty hallway or hiding behind the shower curtain. Every groan of my house's foundation was the doll entering my room. Wan's echoing house full of secrets and hidden recesses had that dummy's eyes staring back at me through the black and it scared the hell out of me.

3.5/4      

Red State (2011)

Directed by: Kevin Smith
Written by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Michael Angarano, Ronnie Connell
Rated: R 

Three teenage boys in some backwater city discover a phone app somewhere along the lines of a straight man's equivalent to Grindr. Travis explains to Billy-Ray and Randy that an older woman is interested in a four-way with the three of them, and with the prospect of wild sex tantalizingly close the three venture further into the unmentioned waters of America. But they are tricked and trapped by a group of religious zealots with far more sinister/benevolent intentions.

Director Kevin Smith has tapped into a hot button issue by *very* thinly veiling the Westboro Baptist Church as the Five Points Trinity Church, an inbred ultra-religious sect that even the neo-Nazis have distanced themselves from. Headed by the articulate and infuriatingly charismatic Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), his church of about two dozen pride themselves not only in disrupting the funerals of dead gay men, but in secretly being their killers.

Smith's own brand of horror reminds me of "Hostel", which intermingles politics and wild imagination to take the audience to places of extreme hatred and dread. His idea is a good one, but one curiously similar to Westboro's own brand of terrorism. They spout hellfire and toss angry words in the same way he shows them as a religious cult with no sense of reality. To turn us against them he presents us with the last resort of the Church. Smith uses fear to influence our own political and social attitudes. Not that I really disagree with the message; I rather liked the concept of the film. I do however feel it was not a fully formed idea and was simply something that Smith put to paper and onto screen rather quickly.

The boys are drugged and kidnapped and brought to Five Points compound, a massive property that serves as both church and bunker. Beneath the living quarters where presumably all members reside is a stockroom full of AK-47s and just about every other kind of instrument of terror. (How this very tiny congregation full of people I doubt could ever attain and hold a job is able to afford tens upon tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment like that is never fully explained. I suppose it's because they can't be taxed...and I'm sure Smith would say the same). There we listen to Abin give his fire and brimstone speech before the killings begin, which are only halted when a freak leak in information draws the attention of the police. The last twenty minutes is an overlong standoff between the two heavily armed groups.

The story is as thin as the characters, the only one of which having any flesh is Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) who heads the attack on the Cooper compound. So we go from erotic teenage drama to cultish horror film to gunfire-laden thriller. And all of this is capped off with a monologue by Goodman which was basically Smith's way of explaining the stuff he chose not to film and then to stick his chubby little fingers into the story and blatantly drop some of his beliefs into a story that already spoke for itself.

I fear now that I'm becoming wearied by Smith's lack of editing skills. He says he is only interested in making so many films, but if the guy has this much to say about everything and thinks we want to hear all of it then he should make a few more. Or at the very least condense some of the more outrageous ideas and do the dialogue-heavy drama that I've been waiting to see. If not, then thicken up the premise of your horror film and cut out the nonsense of the third act. He's just squeezing too much muchness into too few films.

There is so much potential from a film about believers as movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "House of the Devil" have shown us. Undoubtedly there are people who are more extreme than the Westboro who would nod their heads in agreement with Abin Cooper's preachings. For all of the squeamish and sickening prospects of a film like this, Smith never explored all of the possibilities of the topic making his final project feel more like a first draft.

1.5/4

Downfall (2004)

Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Written by: Bernd Eichinger
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Kohler
Rated: R

"Life never forgives weakness." That is the law of nature. Oliver Hirschbiegel's blistering adaptation of the memoirs of Adolf Hitler's secretary reveal the final intimate moments of the man and the party as the Russians encircle Berlin. Hitler's will and party member's loyalty to the cause butt heads as we see who really deserves to live and die. But what's more, the precariousness of memoir begs us to question secretary Traudl Junge's own involvement. Life may have forgiven her, but can we?

It is possibly the greatest last paragraph to the most pivotal chapter in human history. Six years into the war for Europe German forces are under control as Stalin's reckless abandonment for human life finally outmatches the skills of the Nazis. With the Soviets now in Germany and just miles from the capitol, Hitler must plan his final counterattack and restore the will to fight in his heavily divided cabinet.

An short prologue shows an interview with the real Junge before her death in 2002. Like many, many others she iterates and reiterates that she was never really invested in the Nazi cause and many times thought of not taking the job as Hitler's personal secretary. From that moment we must automatically question everything that follows, for if she is telling the truth then perhaps the Hitler we see is not the true man; if she is lying then perhaps the whole account is untrue.

I have a feeling, however, that Hirschbiegel stripped away some the glossier hews of her story and attempted to present a logical and well-researched account of the final days of that bunker in Berlin. The German people have fixated on the moment in time, and in retellings of WWII have been unapologetically harsh on themselves. Younger generations are too distanced to fall into that trap, but for older ones it seems to me to be almost cathartic to continuously reopen healing wounds as a perpetual reminder to themselves and to everyone the monster that lurks within each of us.

Largely that is what makes this impeccably crafted film so fascinating. I asked myself what it must have been like for the German Bruno Ganz to play Hitler, and to offer a portrayal that not only gives the bone-chilling, explosive dramatics of a mad man, but to give one that also showed a bitter, defeated, aging man with almost grandfatherly qualities. The moments of quiet reflection of that deeply passionate, deeply disturbed figure chip away the caricature of contemporary film reels. He was a person and honestly believed that he was saving the Aryan race. It is an immense performance deserving of the highest praise.

The film is two parts political drama, one part war film. To begin with the former, infighting amongst the last and most powerful Nazi members nearly drive Hitler to hysteria. The two-faced nature of the whole situation speaks clearly in this time and space--a man fears for his own life and the lives of his family and country, but it's a double edged sword. Either he stays and dies by Hitler's side at the hands of the Reds, or he commits treason and surrenders, giving justification for his death at the hands of the Teutons. How much was real devotion or simply blind faith is called into question. We watch as relationships strain and morph with the Goebbels' (Corinna Harfouch and a terrific Ulrich Matthes), Goering, Himmler, Mohnke and others, effectively tearing down the wall of self-delusion Hitler created for himself.

As to the latter, the believability of the war torn Berlin is almost startling. It's authenticity and the fact that I know none of these German actors who did their jobs so well wholly invested me in the story that is in its core hugely cinematic. Bloody and unrelenting, at times it did venture to test the stomachs of the audience, but like "Saving Private Ryan", it makes no effort to disguise from us the awfulness of war.

Riveting and informative, this is historical drama at its finest. I've always found it difficult to watch films about the Second World War simply because those involved--Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt--are personalities so big that they become almost too synonymous with ideas to be seen as real people. In turn, that makes films about WWII feel more like stories than accounts. This movie accomplished the rare feat of taking away the cartoon color of an engrossing event in order to fill it with life. It was an event filled with love, jealousy, paranoia and betrayal; an event of a man watching his empire crumble and the realization that he was never the savior he promised himself he was.

4/4  

The Attack (2012)

Directed by: Ziad Doueiri
Written by: Ziad Doueiri
Starring: Ali Suliman, Evgenia Dodena, Reymond Amsalem
Rated: R

We begin with the attack. Tel Aviv is rattled by a bombing in the heart of the city, and renowned surgeon Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman) is faced with the maimed bodies of a dozen schoolchildren. It's a wrenching scene, compounded when it is discovered that it was a suicide bombing that took the lives of many. Amin is an Arab, a non-practicing Muslim who was married to the beautiful, Christian  Siham (Reymond Amsalem). The two lived a blessed life, fully integrated into the Jewish-heavy Tel Aviv, with money and prestige. But Amin's life is shattered when he is brought into the morgue of his hospital to identify Siham's body--a body whose remains shows signs of having had a bomb strapped to it.

Skirting the repetitiveness of films about grieving spouses and the ambiguities of a story about Palestinian terrorists, "The Attack" combines the two, sticking its fingers into the open wounds of a nation which is not a nation to explore the possibilities of man learning to cope with the horrible truth that his wife of over a decade was secretly an extremist. Disillusioned and angry, Amin recounts the love story with his wife trying to pull clues out of a sham marriage as he also tries to pick up the pieces of his present situation.

The film is nearly crippled with the amount of questions it poses, which is good as the situation is never cut and dry. Religious, political and social problems emerge almost instantly and they are never really answered. In this case that isn't really the job of the filmmaker; it is not so much a movie with a point of view and a case to make, but rather an impetus for discussion and argument. It's an ongoing dialogue with the audience where the facts are presented but not the bias. It demands to be thought about and talked about post-viewing.

Initially I hated Siham, for who in their right mind could take the lives of children in such an unabashed publicity stunt? There isn't a hope that Israeli nationalists would be turned from their cause in the face of such danger, and even if that were the case the tension wouldn't dissipate. The entire area is a simmering pot waiting to boil over, and her actions make no logical sense. Some label her a psychopath, and we are inclined to believe them.

A bit over halfway through the film, however, Amin travels to another city where Palestinians are the majority in order to get answers about the whereabouts of Siham the day before the attack. Throughout the city he sees poster after poster with a picture of his wife, wreathed in clouds and birds. For the people of the city she has done a blessed thing, advancing the cause to give their people a homeland. So is she a murderer or a martyr? In an area positively soaked in religion and politics where everybody has a clear cut side, there are no clear cut answers.

The drama takes no detour in Ziad Doueiri's beautifully acted piece, and I believe that this could prove to be an immensely important film. Hearkening back to political works such as "The Battle of Algiers", it brings us beyond the news headlines and shows the human component behind the violence. Films like this which force the audience to look at both sides of the issue with as much heart as possible are pure goods in the world of cinema.

"This will never end," Amin states early in the movie, and he is probably right. Think of it as an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Or for what it's worth, here's my take on things: The nation is a coin. One side is Israel, the other is Palestine. A man takes that coin and tosses it into air, catching it in a clutched fist. Which side will he find when he opens his fingers? It doesn't matter, he still has a quarter in his hand. It would be more prudent of him to determine how to spend the money.

3.5/4

I'm So Excited! (2013)

Directed by: Pedro Almodovar
Written by: Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Javier Camara, Carlos Areces, Raul Arevalo, Lola Duenas, Cecilia Roth
Rated: R

Great directors are far and few in between, and I believe Almodovar is a great director. Having created a distinct and instantly recognizable style, as well as making such films as "Todo sobre mi madre" and "Volver", I suppose I can accept a man taking a break and resting on his laurels for a while. That's the case here, as "I'm So Excited!" won't be turning any heads come awards season, but it's still a fun romp around the park with a director relying on fans to let him once again show what he can bring with his hands tied behind his back.

Delving back into the hyper-stylized, campy ensemble work of his roots, Almodovar has tried to tap into what made "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" so smashingly original. Set on a commercial jet, the flamboyant cabin crew of the airline try to keep their eccentric business class calm as they learn that the plane is going to perform a crash landing. Drugging the cattle back in coach to make them fall asleep, Joserra, Fajas and Ulloa use every trick up their fabulous sleeves to make the minutes in the air as enjoyable for their demanding guests as possible.

Certainly not a plot based pic, or really even a character showcase, this is what I would call a trashy little film. But let's be clear, what is trash and what is garbage are two different monsters entirely. Having a trashy movie is not something to be ashamed of, and it does not make it a bad film. This is the type of movie that's mostly style, little substance, forgettable but amusing as hell while you're watching. I could easily have left halfway through and wouldn't have felt that I had missed a thing because the 45 minutes I did spend watching kept a smile firmly fixed on my face.

So if the film is trash, not focused on character or plot, what is left? Almodovar, of course, who is usually the life of his own parties. This sexually explosive little piece from him makes me imagine a much younger man frequenting gay clubs and showing his first short films starring Carmen Maura is some dinky backroom. When I watch this, I think that maybe all the good stuff going on in Almodovar's brain pushed some excess baggage out, and he scooped it up and stuck it on a plane.

But then I remember an interview that I read that the director gave that shed a bit more light on what was going on this film. It isn't just a story about a dominatrix, a hit man, a psychic, honeymooners, and identity-confused pilots. In the interview he stated that the movie was an allegory for the current financial and political situation in Spain. The rich and powerful cause mischief and are a general nuisance for Spain's political leaders who put on a song and dance to keep them amused. The EU flies them about in circles hoping for an open runway that they can crash into and hopefully survive, and meanwhile the masses and towed along with their eyes closed. That makes things a bit more interesting, but I promise you won't really have time to think about it when you're in the theater.

Besides, what fun is that? The film is titled "I'm So Excited!" after all. Frankly, when you cut away the blockbusters and lookalike sequels, the market is so saturated with heavy dramas that it's nice to have a little comedy with some bite. I'd much prefer to spend an evening watching what happens when a dozen neurotics are trapped together with too much alcohol and just the right amount of butt-packed drugs than I would seeing another Adam Sandler flick.

In short, I'd rather take Almodovar on a lazy day than 99% of everything else that's out there. I do hope he gets back to the stuff that has really separated him from the boys, but until then I doubt his fans will be disappointed.

2.5/4

Soylent Green (1973)

Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Written by: Stanley R. Greenberg 
Starring: Chalton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young
Rated: PG

You are what you eat, they say. I suppose that trite little comment is taken a bit literally in "Soylent Green", the cult classic about over-population and the damaging effects of pollution on mankind. The year is 2022 and New York City is bursting with 40 million people, each trying to eek out an existence, not just a living. The city has taken on a yellowish hew from the pollutants in the air, rent money goes to pay for a section of a stairwell, and folks live off of vitamin enriched crackers called Soylent which are made from algae in the ocean.

Chalton Heston stars as Detective Thorn whose investigative work on the assassination of the ultra-rich William Simonson (Joseph Cotton) buries him in the secrets of the men who keep their wretched society from tearing itself apart. Along with his trusted companion, Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson in his last film role), Thorn discovers what tyranny really means to those who don't matter.

A sci-fi and a mystery, I'm not convinced that this film works properly as either. Let's start with the former:

I have stated many times in the past my theory of proper science fiction, and that is that a film in the genre only works if it takes one existing aspect of society, changes it, and then examines all possible repercussions of that alteration. Here we have a swelling of population, greenhouse gas emissions, corruption of the rich and powerful, Big Brother, and the twist ending which I won't reveal, just to name a few. Instead of examining one, it has instead chosen to use over-population as a justification to examine a whole slew of problems without fully analyzing any of them. That makes for a muddied mess.

For instance, Sol is a retired professor who is mainly in the film to flesh out the Thorn character and provide In the Good Ol' Days speeches. Towards the end of the movie he learns a horrible secret and elects to go to a government facility where he is euthanized for free, rather go on suffering in the world with his knowledge. That in itself is a film. When and how was such a policy implemented? How did the public respond? What system of government does the United States have in 2022 to allow such a measure to be taken? Etc, etc. The twist ending is hardly even revealed and the massive questions involved never examined, though theoretically that it what the movie is about.

Now the mystery. As a detective Thorn has to cut through layer after layer of both have-nots and have-alls in order to gain answers which he never really achieves. He makes no big discoveries, but instead puts himself into situation after situation in which we are reminded what a sad life everyone leads, boo hoo hoo. These people can afford a $250 jar of strawberries and I can't. Sob. Those people where handled harshly when the stock of Soylent Green ran out on Tuesday. Cry. And yet we the audience never get any answers. Lame. Oh but wait! We do get a nonsensical and completely irrelevant and obligatory subplot about a romance between Thorn and high end escort.

I will say that the film piqued my appetite, even if I left hungry. It was a competently made movie despite what I imagine was a rather small budget, and when I finished I thought to myself that a sequel or a remake of it could done and I wouldn't be upset in the slightest. I guess to me that means it has promise, I cared about the situation and wanted to know more about the world and the questions that were raised. I only wish that they had stuck to their guns and had quit fluffing up a story that needed exactly the opposite.

2/4

Forbidden Games (1952)

Directed by: Rene Clement
Written by: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost, Francois Boyer
Starring: Brigette Fossey, Georges Poujouly
Rated: NR

I often write on the nature of war and the importance of the filmmaker's job when it comes to remembrance and interpretation of the effects of mass destruction and death for the wider public. Although I can't say I've seen them all, WWII almost assuredly has had the most movies made about it and because of scale, its longevity, the great players involved and...well, the drama of the war its importance in cinema is undeniable. Many of the themes and questions it raises have all but been exhausted, and yet there are movies--like France's "Forbidden Games"--which have been daring enough to examine it from a unique point of view, and for that they become invaluable.

This movie does not look at the soldier or the battle or the war torn city. In fact, apart from an opening sequence in which a little Parisian girl is orphaned during a German air raid, there are only small reminders that a war is even taking place. But in a sense it is WWII as seen through the eyes of little Paulette (Brigette Fossey) and how she internalizes the deaths of her parents. It is probably the first and best film to explore how a child interprets the abstract nature of death. It is a bit morbid, but ironically bursting with life.

Paulette wanders into the countryside where she befriends young Michel Dolle (Georges Poujouly) who brings her into the care of his family. The strike up an immediate friendship, and through the course of the movie we watch as they cope with the effects of pain and death by creating a little cemetery in a rundown mill for all of the dead animals they find.

Director Rene Clement found two gifted child actors to fill his lead roles. Their acting is simple and unaffected and totally captures the innocence and naivety that the circumstances call for. Although the subject matter is troublesome--Paulette anthropomorphizing  chickens and moles to substitute the loss of her parents--it is a surprisingly humorous and charming film. Michel, the hero and big brother figure, cares nothing for himself, instead risking getting into trouble by stealing crosses from all over his tiny village in order to please Paulette. One hilarious scene is set during the services of a funeral where Paulette and Michel sit counting the number of crosses in the church, mischievous glints in their eyes.

One could easily make an argument that the story hasn't stood well over the decades and that its tricks have finally started to show through. I won't spoil the ending but it was certainly contrived to go for the jugular, and maybe not in the most tactful of ways. That said, I still cried in spite of myself because I believed Fossey and Poujouly and the chemistry that they brought to the screen. Each of the characters made me care about them, and because the film pushed to show the human aspect of war as opposed to a casualty list it was much easier to forgive.

In this film God and death are intertwined, and we get to look at the way that an unjaded person who knows little if anything about either can make sense of them under duress. A loss of innocence never really occurs in my opinion, though the film could easily have taken that road. No, by the end of story Paulette has given herself the last name Dolle and seems to have determined what God means to her.

The story isn't bleak, instead choosing to show how compassion and love overcome adversity. I think that message is important for a war film. Too often we see the miseries that come with the fighting, and that's important too, but on occasion it's good to see the everyday people who fight to continue a way of life. People don't often just lay down and wait for the tanks to crush their homes; they're animals and scrappers, and they will adjust to carry on, finding solace in God and in each other in any way they can.

4/4

Ikiru (1952)

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Written by: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Yunosuke Ito, Miki Odagiri
Rated: NR

I have read two interpretations of the title "Ikiru". The most accepted is "to live", the other is "doomed". Both are perfectly reasonable translations, and at varying times of the film seem more applicable than the other. Akira Kurosawa's deeply humanist mediation on mortality and the need for self-fulfillment is both intimate and universal, tapping into the deep-seeded fears of every man and every woman who has been afraid of wasting their precious time on earth. A push and pull of despair and vitality, Kurosawa's protagonist, Watanabe, is the fearful face of death within us all.

Watanabe's end is certain. An early scene at a doctor's office informs him that he has stomach cancer and probably only has six months to live. He is a lonely bureaucrat who has spent his life seemingly doing little more than stamping papers and redirecting members of the public through a never ending cycle of red tape. A senior official in his field, all he has to show for his decades of public service is a certificate hanging on his wall and an ungrateful son who cares for nothing but his inheritance. Watanabe's nickname around the office is "the mummy".

When Watanabe leaves the doctor's office, the physician asks his assistant and a nurse what they would do if they new they were dying. Neither can give him a straight answer, and Watanabe isn't sure himself. As any normal person would do I'm sure, he draws 50,000 yen from his savings, finds another lost man at a bar and they spend his money on a night on the town. But of course sex and alcohol and loud hats do not make him happy, for how could material things be the essence of happiness?

He tries a different tactic. Befriending a young, vivacious coworker, he takes her out and they experience the city together, going ice skating, visiting carnivals, and he simply relishes in her existence as a person who is so alive. Surely that's closer, giving joy to another and bringing a smile to the less affluent. But she rejects him after a time, for he is the mummy after all.

This is what it is to be doomed for Kurosawa. To be directionless and unloved and alone, having spent a life dedicated to working, saving and scrimping and to what end? It's a frightening prospect to have wasted the best part of one's life doing menial tasks only to discover that you've never learned to live. He was dead when he took his job and as the sands of time slip through his fingers it is panic and despondency that fill the void.

Two-thirds into the movie Watanabe dies. We see nothing of his final moments and only know of his death because a narrator tells us it is so. The last forty minutes take place at his wake, where family members and fellow bureaucrats discuss his life and the impression he made. A playground was erected where an old cesspool used to fester, and the people of the community seem to attribute Watanabe's efforts to this perfect good. But self-congratulating members of the government cannot accept this. For who would they be if not the actual public servants?

Slowly we find that Watanabe made the decision to use all of his powers to help those less fortunate, cutting that tape and fighting an immovable object. It begs the question if he undertook the project to make himself feel whole, or if it was an altruistic conclusion he reached when pondering if the needs of the many outweigh the laziness of the few. Kurosawa would certainly argue the latter, but my own cynical nature doesn't allow me to believe something so cut and dry.

That said, a parting shot of Watanabe sitting on swing set, wreathed in snow, cooing the lullaby "Life Is Brief" can do nothing but make an man's emotions swell at the delicate good spirit of a man who wanted to put his 30 years of service to proper use. It is a shot which even though cloaked in the shadow of Death affirms that men can do the right thing when broken from the bonds of servitude to the idea that we work to live. It makes one want to be a better person.

Discussing the various aspects of the film would be a waste and an insult to the messages it imparts. For in this case it is not the brushstrokes but the final painting which matters most. I will say that it was with infinite care and love that rendered such a moving piece. It cries for pause and reflection, for a change in the daily habits of the mundane and useless, for deeds great and small that may not change the world, but ones that make the world a bit nicer to live in.

3.5/4

Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Directed by: Billy Wilder
Written by: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr.
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson
Rated: Approved

Let us first strike a key note before playing the chord and talk about the life of Gloria Swanson, star of "Sunset Blvd.". Biology gave her the face of the 1920's, fate gave her the fame. At the height of her silent film career Swanson was the highest paid actress in Hollywood and she certainly lived the life to prove it, spending outrageous sums of money, marrying seven times and living the quintessential life of the glamour girl starlet. In 1927 the talkies were born and Swanson, that undying celebrity, held on fast. Then quite suddenly, in 1934 she all but disappeared, making only one film throughout the next 15 years. In 1950 Billy Wilder dragged Swanson out of the depths of obscurity to make our picture here, and she tore into it like a bat out of Hell. The parallels between her own life and that of the protagonist are undeniable, and makes "Sunset Blvd." one of the most fascinating and entertaining films ever to come out of Hollywood.

Running from repo men out to take back his car Joe Gillis (William Holden), a hack screen writer in a dry spell, evades them by turning into the lot of massive, rundown mansion off Sunset Blvd. We know Joe will die--an opening shot shows his body floating in a swimming pool, but what brought him to such a fate? That is our story. It is story of love and redemption, of betrayal and mysteries and lies, and the cold world of mean, mean Hollywood.

The owner of the mansion is Norma Desmond (Swanson), a has-been star of the silent era, whose sad life and insane ego has lead her into the life of a recluse. In the dark halls and gaudy rooms of her film set palace, Norma is swallowed up in her fantasies that the public never left her. "I am big. It's the pictures that got small!" she exclaims to Joe in their opening moments together. Joe, needing a place to stay and some easy money to get his creditors off his back, strikes up an unusual relationship with the deranged  movie star from yesteryear, agreeing to edit a terrible, mammoth screenplay that she has written for herself to be her comeback.

The tale is one of gothic romance. Set against a backdrop of wheezing pipe organs, dead chimpanzees in child-sized coffins, a creepy old butler (Erich von Stroheim), and cobwebbed pictures of young Norma which fill every empty space of the house, we watch as Joe is sucked into an existence cut off from the outside world and more generally cut off from reality as a whole. Norma goes about in ridiculous outfits from her old films, signing fake fan letters, smoking and drinking and buying useless articles to stuff into her claustrophobic, decrepit manor. She slinks about with wild eyes, watching her old movies and wrapping herself in a cloud of self-delusion.

The fiercely confident script smells of dust and formaldehyde. It's a tragic anti-love story of a desperate, skeletal woman whose claws latch into a man with nowhere else to go. He fuels her fantasies out of financial need, but that only scratches the surface. It's a complex, macabre friendship that they build together inside those crumbling walls, and one that is full of Hollywood drama at its very best. There simply aren't movies made like this anymore.

Of course Norma falls in love in Joe, that's an inevitability from the start. She dotes on him and buys him expensive clothes. Joe couldn't possibly return the affection, but in an odd way we find that he must care about her at least a little bit. He is a young, virile man with hopes and dreams and aspirations that Norma had decades ago, however, and that can't be contained forever by Norma's wealth and strangely endearing eccentricities. Nancy Olson plays Betty, a fresh young script reader that steals Joe's heart.

Holden's level acting anchors this wildly outlandish story and brings a sense of gravity to a piece that Swanson boldly tries to take to melodrama. It's a fabulous pairing which blends the sense of urgency of noir and the grandness of the Silent Era. Billy Wilder is a daring director who was not afraid to tackle the fickleness of the movie industry and in a way, although Norma is a huge, outrageous character, Wilder makes us feel for her. His piece is a testament to the forgotten actors and actresses who were once so proud and so loved.

The costumes, the sets, the art direction, cinematography, interesting story line and amazing characters all combine to form an engrossing and ultimately heartbreaking movie that has withstood the test of time. It was the imagination and gumption of all involved that have really made this film something of a marvel. Twists and turns and huge themes never take away that sense of pathos that keeps the audience engaged. Of course not many of us can say that we've held private funerals from dead chimp pets, nor that we hold weekly bridge games for our fellow faded silent film stars, but we can connect with that sense of loneliness. Norma is a woman who had it all and lost it all. She was abandoned and hurt and wants nothing more than to have that last glimpse of the spotlight. She wants to be loved. That is drama, that is beautiful, and this is perfect.

4/4

Mulan (1998)

Directed by: Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook
Written by: Robert D. San Souci
Starring: Ming Na-Wen, Eddie Murphy
Rated: G

We've grown accustomed to Disney's new streak of films focusing on independent women who break the mold since their 1989 rebirthing "The Little Mermaid", but even that was becoming formulaic. What a surprise and a beautiful addition to their collection is "Mulan", a fast-paced story of familial devotion, gender norms and camaraderie which proved a huge leap forward in the story telling of the great, animated giant. Full of terrific music, colorful characters and an action-packed plot, Disney's Far Eastern story will prove to be one their best progressive jumps forward.

The Huns are approaching China from the north. An opening scene shows monstrous, fanged men in muddied, muted colors as they scale the impenetrable Great Wall with blood on their minds and the emperor in their sights. A call to arms is sounded and one man from every household is required to fight to protect his leader and his homeland. The historical inaccuracies are rife no doubt, but the threat is perilous and the drama is grand.

Mulan is a the daughter of a great but crippled warrior who seems to be the black sheep of the family. Fiercely devoted to her family, she is nevertheless devoid of the awareness of custom and patriarchal sensibility that surrounds her, and although she is of marrying age, the girl just doesn't seem to fit the specifics that her environment has set out for her. Poor Mulan for all her good intentions wears a scarlet 'A' upon her breast. But when her father's summons comes and she realizes his impending peril, Mulan steals off into the night disguised as man in order to save the life of her dad. Aided my a motor-mouthed, pocket-sized dragon/ancestral guardian named Mushu (voiced perfectly by Eddie Murphy--one would think that the man was made to talk), Mulan enters the army disguised as Ping with the heavy hand of Death looming above her.

Complex stuff, no? Mulan must learn to act like a man, for if she doesn't she runs the risk of being found out, and in this setting that means death. But her tomboyish nature, her penchant for breaking rules and her quick problem solving skills will prove to be invaluable, especially in the last third of the film which is almost entirely made up of beautifully drawn action sequences set against a poetic backdrop.

I appreciate this film for a number of reasons. First and most importantly is the character of Mulan herself. There have been plenty of "strong" female characters who have fronted the films of Disney's second Golden Age--Belle, Ariel, Pocahontas--but they have always challenged authority because they were in love with some superficially attractive male figure whom they knew for a few weeks (I guess with Belle it was a bit longer, but roll with me). For Mulan, however, it was all about a sense of duty, of honor to the nuclear family and to a belief in the importance of ancestry. Even when Mulan does meet that very handsome man in the army whom she will undoubtedly marry, it is not for him that she stays in the army, but rather to prove that she can bring a sense of honor to the Fa family, and for that she is wholly commendable and terrific role model.

I also appreciate Disney's endeavor to introduce children to a culture that will be largely foreign to them. Although as a historian I certainly disapprove of trivializing an entire nation of people whose empire stretch further than any other as barbaric Huns, the film nonetheless attempts to introduce Buddhism and general Chinese culture in an accussible and endearing way, through charming characters and lively songs, and for that I find this to be an important piece of cinema.

Lastly, and although I have previously touched on it I will spell it out, this film does not take the intellect of the audience member lightly. This is a movie that adults and children can appreciate for the depth of its protagonist and for the many questions raised by its content. I almost feel that this would have done better as a live action film set for adults. It absolutely works for a younger audience, but to allow a filmmaker to explore the nuances and problematic issues raised by a woman in a man's army is something that does not deserve to be contained by a G rating.

In sum, this is a rich and lovely piece to add to your Disney collection. And although Mulan may not technically be a princess, she certainly deserves to be among the ranks of Cinderella, Aurora and Belle.

3.5/4

The Innkeepers (2011)

Directed by: Ti West
Written by: Ti West
Starring: Sara Paxton, Pat Healy
Rated: R
A few years ago I watched a movie by Ti West titled "The House of the Devil" about a young, pretty babysitter who finds herself hunted by satanists who plan to use her in a sacrificial ceremony. A total throwback to campy, babysitter slasher films from the 80's, West stood out for making something funny and witty, and also really atmospheric and frightening. It was a really good film and it made me excited for his future work.

"The Innkeepers" flows along that same vein, blending horror and humor while paying respect to the cliches that continue to make scary movies scary. This time it's the ghosts in the creeky old inn, and the two employees with a fondness for the paranormal who try and find the spirit of Madeline O'Malley before the inn shuts down forever. This one was a bit of a let down, however, as West maybe focused too much on the laughs and not enough on the gotcha moments. Never thought I'd say that.

But this particular inn (and by that I mean the movie) is built on a really solid foundation. Sara Paxton and Pat Healy play Claire and Luke, two rather buffoonish characters played terrifically in a very funny script. Paxton stars as the asthmatic, socially stunted cutie with a tomboy streak. She calls Luke "dude" and really doesn't seem to care too much about customer service. One night she scares the shit out of small boy when she tells him about how Madeline O'Malley was murdered and buried in the cellar, much to the displeasure of the boy's divorced, down-on-her-luck mother. Claire is goofy and steals the show.

Luke plays the smaller role. Played as the ever-single, beer drinkin', porn watchin' tech guy who avidly follows ghosts, he seems to be there as the explanation for the ghost-busting gadgetry that he and Claire use in hunting O'Malley. I sat there a while pondering how two people who actually believe in ghosts enough to try and summon one just happened to end up working together to begin with and just happened to be the last two people left working in an old, creepy hotel. But I found that that was counterproductive, so I stopped thinking.

A whole lot of setup leads to a very small payoff when Luke and Claire venture into the cellar where O'Malley was buried, breaking the one instruction given to them by the very convenient psychic (Kelly McGillis) who is one of only two guests at the inn. There is no real explanation for why this ghost is violent or why she decided to wait until that very last week to emerge, but those are just a couple of many openended questions left for you to brood over should you care to.

I think that this film stayed the middle course between comedy and horror too much for it to be particularly effective as either. There are some very spooky moments with some great pacing, but they are too far and few in between, and it's difficult for the suspense to mount when Claire and Luke are constantly setting off jokes. The climax was one of the more disappointing ones I've seen in a while. Had West taken an earlier page from his own book and looked back at what made "The House of the Devil" so successful, I think he would have had a really solid film on his hands. Nothing new, nothing special, but solid.

1.5/4

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

Directed by: Joss Whedon
Written by: Joss Whedon, William Shakespeare 
Starring: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Fran Kranz, Jillian Morgese, Sean Maher
Rated: PG-13

There is a theatre in London just south of the river called the Old Vic which almost single-handedly revived the dying world of Shakespeare in the 1920's. A very talented assortment of artists fashioned their individual points of view on how to interpret the Bard for the stage and brought about a rebirth for a style of theatre that was very much on the down and out. Joss Whedon, the superhero heartthrob who gave us "The Avengers", has taken a page out of their book, probably unknowingly, in his small adaptation of one of the most well known of Shakespearean comedies.

For all of the changes that Lillian Baylis and others made to the Old Vic, one thing was key to bringing Shakespeare back into a rough and dangerous area of England. By their thinking Shakespeare did not write to be dissected and elevated, but rather wrote for the masses. The type of people who surrounded the Old Vic where the types that would have seen the Bard's work some hundreds of years prior. They were poor, they were rowdy, and they simply wanted some Friday night entertainment without breaking their pocketbooks. Baylis tapped into that in Shakespeare's work, stripping down productions and speeding up the dialogue, ridding it of academia and leaving audiences to feel the rhythm of the scenes and engage with actors more than breaking down the words that were being spoken. It was cheap and it was smart.

Whedon has done this here in a way. Shot at his very beautiful home with none of the big budget tricks of some other modern adaptations, he has made a performance-based home movie that really just falls back on the solid foundations of the greatest English writer. I don't think it was a terribly good adaptation and nobody will remember it in a year's time, but it has bounce and for those of you going on a date night it certainly has a rom-com appeal.

Mediocre performances abound in a story that I have never been particularly fond of. Like so many of his plots this one is about love, transgressions, and how the basic elements of human nature stupidly keep us from achieving happiness. The characters do find happiness, of course--it's a comedy after all--but pride and jealousy and naivety threaten to stop the budding romances of Claudio and Hero (Fran Kranz and Jillian Morgese) and Beatrice and Benedick (Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof).

For a while I wondered why Whedon would choose this play to do above all the others. I still can't fully justify it, but I have managed to partly convince myself that there is relevance regarding the overblown problems of the rich and bored. The other part of me says this director just had some extra money lying around and two weeks to spare and decided it would be best spent with some friends doing a play for the camera. That's nice, but it did feel rushed and rather makeshift. Easy attempts at physical humor wore out their welcome quickly and had every sign of rushed direction.

In the end it seemed to me that this would be a blah piece of theatre and was definitely a blah piece of cinema. There was a group of sorority girls sitting towards the front of the venue, however, who cackled and guffawed from the opening credits to the final scene, so maybe Whedon did something correct. Those girls paid their tuppence for their easy breezy entertainment and lo, they were entertained. So what if Denisof couldn't match Acker's fire? So what if Morgese slurred out half of her words and Kranz took his performance to the ugly realm of melodrama? So what if the characters themselves really made no sense in the time and space Whedon designed for them? The film is simple and unadorned, and the masses are pleased. That's probably all Whedon wanted from the onset.

2/4

Frances Ha (2012)

Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Written by: Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen 
Rated: R

I was surprised that upon leaving the theater after having seen Noah Baumbach's artsy explosion, "Frances Ha", there was no fixed gear bicycle ready to whisk me home. In a way the film and the fixie have a lot of common attributes: As far as bicycles are concerned this one is pretty pointless. They clip along pretty nicely but they never seem to be heading anywhere important. Hipsters love them. Even though they seem pretty irrelevant and a bit annoying they still have a quirky sort of charm that keeps you secretly wanting to buy one.

Co-writer Greta Gerwig displays some pretty impressive comedic chops as the 27-year-old would be dancer whose life seems to have stalled. Cleverly framed by all of her temp apartments over the course of several years, this is a story that tips its hat to every starving artist who ever chased a dream, even as they seemed increasingly unattainable. Jumping from job to job, moving in with strangers and bumming off of friends, losing men, losing money, losing pride, Frances still walks her manly walk and sets her sights on finally rising from the ranks of apprentice to full member in a contemporary dance troupe.

A part of me really hated this film. I think hipsters are the most annoying goddamn group of people that ever slithered their way into pop culture (although I do love the irony of that). Spending an hour and a half watching hack artists complain about their lack of success and how much they're struggling when there is no need for them to struggle really irks me. Of course, I assume quite a bit of it was pretty tongue and cheek and I certainly wouldn't classify the characters in the film as "hipster", but at the same time I know that the hipster community would love this movie and would probably watch it oblivious to the jabs at their expense.

I mean, this is set up as a coming of age story with an eccentric, half maddeningly stupid, half bumbling and charming woman trying to find her place in the world. And that would be all well and good were the character not dangerously close to reaching the big 3-0.  Then it really isn't so much coming of age as it is an irresponsible and completely childish woman who has never owned up to her responsibilities and is finally given a giant push into fixing her life. It's circumstance, not will power that encourages her into pushing aside lingering adolescence and accepting the sting of adulthood that awaits us all. Nothing is really her choice then, and that's wrong. We want so much to like Frances because the script is very sharp and character is written and played very funnily, but she's the cause of her own problems and she is the one who pushes others away.

Consider the relationship with her best friend Sophie, which is the continuing arc throughout the story. Frances leaves a very handsome man whom she was dating because she decided she would rather renew the lease on her apartment with Sophie than move in with Mr. Handsome Man. But it turns out that Sophie was already planning on moving into an apartment with another woman, and Frances is left with nothing. Other people, including Sophie, then move on and better themselves throughout the duration of a year or two years and Frances is left in a free fall, yet always clinging on to that one friendship. She may be 27, but she acts like a little girl who is afraid of change, one who just never let go of the fantasy of dressing in tutus and dancing for her mother.

I make the film out to be a lot heavier than it is. Sure, there are some pretty heavy moments, mostly fueled by too much wine or vodka, but for most of it the film is as light and fluffy as cotton candy. It really is very funny and there are some pretty inspired performances. Gerwig will probably grace marquees many times in years to come for deftly tapping into the growing trend that nerds and goofballs are cool. I liked the small jokes such as people being named things like Frances, Lev and Benji, and how it actually worked in glossy black and white. The cinematography was lovely, especially scenes shot in Paris, and I did leave happier than when I went in.

Analyzing it made me less pleased, but maybe I'm just turning into the crotchetiest 22-year-old ever. I suppose if I can condense it down it would be like this: Sophie mentions to Frances that Lev and Benji's apartment is "very aware of itself"--Sophie who wears grandpa glasses, and Frances who marvels at the joy of smoking indoors. Is the hypocrisy intentional? I'd like to think so, but my better judgment says no.

2.5/4