Tron: Legacy

**** - I was three years old when the first “Tron” movie came out, and by the time I first saw it at the age of about twelve in the early 90s the look of the film had become dated enough that it didn’t make a huge impression on me. That is unfortunate; as I think, looking back on it, if I had seen it when first released and been a bit older I would have been blown away by the linear, high contrast, geometrical visual style that is right up my alley. Fast forward to December 2010 and the long awaited sequel “Tron: Legacy” debuts in theatres on my 32nd birthday (although I didn’t see it until now, several months later) and the intriguing but primitive retro-future visions of the 1982 original are updated, amplified and augmented to a level that is quite honestly beyond anything I have ever seen before. While maintaining a distinctively 80s motif, the makers of this spectacular follow-up manage to create an alternate parallel universe to our own that feels both richly authentic and distinct from anything that has come before it. As much as I would like to give this even higher than a four star rating, I can’t do so in good conscience due to its derivative mess of a plot and laughably poor dialogue. But taking into account a glorious mix of the orchestral and the synthetic in the grandiose score by Daft Punk, and I can overlook those faults for the most part. Beyond the music and the mesmerizing visuals and effects, what is perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of this movie is that it lays the groundwork for the extension of a unique mythology that has the potential to become truly legendary. I hope I am not let down.

The King’s Speech

***1/2 - On the list of stuff I despise, religion and hot weather are pretty solidly entrenched in the number one and two slots. In a relatively close tie for third place would be “American Idol” and the concept of royalty. As someone whose economic policies lean toward the extreme socialist end, I don’t think there is a more evil and inequitable way to concentrate wealth than that of the hereditary holdings of a family of good-for-nothing ponces. Nowhere in the world is this injustice more evident than in Great Britain where an enormous amount of the nation’s wealth is controlled by the crown, which nowadays acts as a combination tourist attraction, sideshow and laughing stock. Along with Stargazy pie (if you don’t know what that is, I dare you to Google it and not vomit) it is certainly one of the worst of British traditions. So, while I can’t abide the institution and all it represents and the ridiculous celebrity status of its members, I must be honest in pointing out that like pretty much any group of people that are great in number and have been around for a long time occasionally a fairly decent story is to be found somewhere in the trash heap. The story told in the 2010 multiple Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech” is one of those. Maybe this almost certainly heavily overdramatized screen adaptation of the accession of George VI is not the best story one could possibly dig up, but it is very artfully presented by the filmmaking team. It is surprisingly enjoyable for a movie of its slow pace and extreme Englishness, but how it won Best Picture and Best Director over “Inception” is beyond me. There are some pretty darn good performances in it, though.

Skyline

** - The film industry has always had an obsession with the concept of alien forces descending on Earth to conquer the human race for one reason or another. From the days of “War of the Worlds” all the way up to “Independence Day” to, well, “War of the Worlds” again, extraterrestrial invasion has been a gold mine for people wanting to put FX-heavy visuals together with a dopey plot and terrible acting and toss it up on the screen without having to worry about the movie being unsuccessful. Seriously; name me an alien invasion movie that hasn’t well exceeded its budget in terms of revenue. Even the 2010 clunker “Skyline” which stars a bunch of pretty poor actors, is directed by the Brothers Strause – best known for the special effects work – and has next to no story originality made like five times its input costs in theater receipts, and that doesn’t include Blu-ray/DVD sales. Do I really need to describe the plot of this one? Aliens attack, group of friends stuck in a building, trying to escape, picked off one-by-one, blah blah blah, you know the deal. The obvious highlight of the movie is the effect work, which I must admit is pretty darn good from the mysterious blue light effects to the alien crafts and creatures and everything in between. The dialogue and its delivery from the cast which includes, uh, the black guy from “Scrubs” and, er, some greasy haired white guy who thinks he’s a black guy and, um, a trio of hot chicks and a Spanish guy were pretty terrible from start to finish. It might be worth watching if you’re big-time into visuals, but other than that I’d recommend avoiding it.

The Tourist

**1/2 – Every once in a while a movie comes out that has such an intricately woven and extraordinary plot with an intriguing ending twist that the film becomes an instant classic. The 2010 film “The Tourist” starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie is not, unfortunately, one of those rare and spectacular films. It certainly does give its all to have that sort of vibe, though. I don’t want to give too much away here - in case you decide to see it - so I’ll try to be vague. The main reason the movie fails in its intended goal is that the twist aspect will be either easily figured out from the very beginning or the motivations of a number of the characters will seem so ridiculously incomprehensible that a viewer would be likely to just tune out. Another little peeve I have over this film is in its attempt to pass Jolie off as this supreme beauty that everyone stops and stares and gawks at and immediately falls in love with as soon as they lay eyes on her. Ten years ago she may (and I am being very generous here) have been able to pull that off, but now she looks like a haggard mound of sinew held together by make-up and tight clothes. Despite those qualms, I must admit that “The Tourist” does look very nice and the acting is certainly decent enough. So if you’re in the mood for a dopey Bond-lite sort of romance/action/drama/spy film with fancy scenery and a woman-y clothes obsession and such, and aren’t too picky about good stories, then I suppose I could recommend worse than this.

Mesrine: L’instinct de mort (Mesrine, Part 1: Killer Instinct)

**** – One of the fatal flaws that usually accompany criminal biopics that are based largely on autobiographies is the attempt at portraying the subject in a light that is far too innocent and heroic. Luckily for the first part of this two-part 2008 French film about burglar and murderer Jacques Mesrine, there is little or no intention here to make more out of this guy than what he actually was. And what he actually was was an awful father, terrible husband and even worse human being whose psychopathic tendencies led him to wantonly murder and commit a large number of robberies. So if you remove any sort of bias from the film maker’s viewpoint in a movie with this kind of subject you end up with an entertaining and stylish action film with interesting, realistic characters and a gripping narrative. For those unaware, Jacques Mesrine was a Frenchman who after returning home from duty in the Algerian War of the late 1950s embarked on a life of crime that took him from his home country to Spain, Canada, the USA and even Venezuela. This first half of the film concentrates on his life from his soldier days up to around the early 1970s, when he made probably the most famous of his many prison escapes from a maximum security penitentiary in the deep forest of Quebec. I can’t say that this movie is perfect, as it does seem to skip over some stuff and has a fair amount of dullness in the first half hour or so, but I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys modern day crime drama or gangster-type flicks not also enjoying this.

Splinter

** - The opening scene of this 2008 horror/thriller flick in which a rube gas station attendant gets eaten by what appears to be a rabid porcupine is probably the highlight in what ends up being an otherwise pretty pedestrian entry in the genre. A nerdy guy obsessed with trees and his unrealistically hot girlfriend decide to spend their honeymoon camping out at an experimental oil extraction site but end up destroying their tent and instead head off to a motel to, presumably, bop each other senseless. Unfortunately for them, they are then carjacked by a recently escaped convict and his weird-looking meth-addict girlfriend. Even more unfortunately for them, the fact that they are held at gunpoint by the sweaty prison escapee and his hollow-eyed remorseless trim is probably the high point of their whole trip, as shortly thereafter they become the prey of this weird porcupine creature that hangs around the above-mentioned gas station. It’s all fairly by-the-numbers, as the tough-as-nails girlfriend turns to jell-O and has to be comforted by her weakling boyfriend who all of the sudden becomes more useful under pressure for no apparent reason. The worst part about this movie is the creature, though. It is some sort of spiny mold/fungus thing that can run really fast and ties chunks of it victims together into a hideous flesh pile as it roams around looking for heat sources (which, by the way, it can detect with unbelievable accuracy). It is never really shown very clearly on camera, which was probably a good decision on the film maker’s part as it would have been utterly laughable. By the way, this makes two movies I’ve seen in as many weeks that contain a scene of a guy attempting to chop his own arm off. Come on!

Displaced

*1/2 - In the end, this micro-budgeted 2006 sci-fi action flick seems to have been nothing more than a 100-minute excuse to showcase a series of poorly edited martial arts-based fighting sequences. I watched the little making-of featurette that was on the DVD along with this movie and saw that the ragtag crew of Englishmen responsible for “Displaced” seemed to have genuinely decent intentions in trying to get their rather ambitious story turned into an actual film over a six year period, so I find it somewhat difficult to be too hard on it. However, low budget or not, the plot that was presented and seemed so promising while watching the special feature was not even remotely what I got out of this film which wound up being a randomized jumble of choppy and nonsensical fight scenes. I’ll be completely honest here and say that I’m pretty sure I dozed off a couple of times while watching this and that fact may have added to my confusion. However, seeing as I had no particular outside reason to be tired while watching this, I blame my temporary narcolepsy on the movie as opposed to other factors, which certainly backs up my argument that this was indeed a boring movie. The acting was atrocious, the camerawork was confusing and lacked any real artistry, the story was barely even touched on making it unnecessarily confusing, and the vast majority of the movie took place in a pair of abandoned warehouses. Anyway, it has a ton of faults and nothing really going for it except the earnestness of the film makers and the very tiny tip of the iceberg of a decent idea. Otherwise, it’s pretty worthless.

Special

**1/2 - This wound up on my Netflix queue after having seen a preview for it before another movie that I watched a while back. When viewing the trailer, it seemed like this 2006 indie flick was going to be an irreverent comedy, possibly a hidden and undiscovered low budget gem a la “The Search for One-Eye Jimmy”. Having now seen the movie “Special”, I can certify that it is certainly not a hidden gem, and only very slightly comedic, most of the laughs coming in the first 20 minutes or so. The film stars Michael Rapaport as a loser (much like myself) who never does anything, and sits around his shitty apartment eating microwave dinners, reading comic books and watching TV. He thinks he’s depressed so he signs up for an experimental anti-depression drug trial and ends up thinking that the medication he takes gives him super powers. That description certainly leaves open the possibility for high hilarity. Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to go in a different direction which ended up showing Rapaport get pounded to a pulp several times and show a lot of really disturbing psychotic behavior that is not played for laughs in the least for most of the last hour of the film. Things are left a little bit vague for the viewer, in that it waivers back and forth as to whether the guy is mental or is actually turning into a superhero or something, which offers a small amount of relief I suppose. I’m not saying this was a bad movie, as it was actually pretty affective, but I think it would have been a whole heck of a lot better if it had taken a more comedic bent.

Deadline

*1/2 – Stranded in a creaky old mansion in Louisiana, a young screenwriter who is a part-time lunatic finds herself hallucinating that she is communing with a woman who was drowned in the very same house a few years prior in this 2009 psychological thriller. Unfortunately, aside from some fairly nice scenery and production values, this clunker has no real redeeming qualities. The most disappointing thing is that the underlying premise – although far from original – is fairly intriguing. It revolves around the above-mentioned young woman and her discovery of some video tapes in the mansion’s attic that seem to document a rather suffocating relationship and grisly murder. If the writers had built upon that instead of turning it into a hackneyed ‘hey-it-turns-out-everything-is-a-hallucination’ type of gyp job they may have been able to salvage some entertainment value. Instead, the 85 minute flick devotes a good half of its run time to showing Brittany Murphy wander around the house peeking behind doors and looking in boxes to the strains of eerie strings and whooshing background noises. It seems to be rather intent upon creating a tense and spooky atmosphere but is really only successful in putting the audience through a boring ordeal. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense either, as it went off on some goofy tangents and tried way too hard to be edgy and dramatic. I guess I’ve seen worse, but I can’t in good conscience recommend this to even the most loyal and indiscriminate of supernatural thriller or horror fans.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

***1/2 – Although it takes place in what many would consider the ‘Old West’, this 2007 film is certainly not what one would consider a traditional Western. It is probably the lack of gunplay and rather deliberate pace that makes this movie that is set in 1880’s Missouri more of a period drama than then an old style Western Shoot ‘em up. The plot revolves around the last few months in the life of famed outlaw Jesse James and his bizarre relationship with wormy wannabe Robert Ford. Casey Affleck plays Ford and does a tremendous job conveying a combination of admiration for James and flat-out creepiness that is akin to any modern day stalker that you may read about in the paper. Whether or not this depiction is strictly factual I can’t say, but I would certainly lean toward a mixture of fact and fiction like most movies that center on undocumented and unknowable facets of people’s lives from 130 years ago. Brad Pitt also does a pretty nice job as James, who in this is shown as a sickly, mentally disturbed and sadistic bandit with what appears to be a mild case of schizophrenia. Again, I can’t vouch for truth here, but it is probably more realistic than the silly Robin Hood-esque reputation he had in his day. Besides the excellent acting and beautiful cinematography, this film also has an extensive amount of narration which works surprisingly well in this context. It’s not a perfect film, though; it has a number of dull spots in its two hour and forty minute run time, and seems to try to pack a few too many endings in at the last minute.

Einstein’s Big Idea & Exploring Space: Quest for Life

**** - I got sent this DVD containing a pair of two-hour PBS ‘Nova’ specials for free thanks to my paid subscription to ‘Discover’ magazine, and completely forgot that I was going to be receiving it. That was a nice little surprise in the mail the other day, along with the $50 check I got from the State of New Jersey for ‘Property Tax Relief’ even though I live in an apartment and don’t pay property tax. I guess that’s one of the few advantages in having an obese Republican jackass for a governor. Anyway, back to the Einstein thing. The first special focuses on Einstein’s famous E=MC² equation by breaking down its component parts and showing historical reenactments of Einstein as well as some of his precursors (Faraday, Lavoisier, Maxwell, etc). I’ve always had a certain fascination for the gentleman, as he is truly one of the most amazing abstract thinkers in Earth’s recorded history, and also had the wherewithal to be able back up his theories with pure mathematics. That’s pretty darn impressive. Any schmo can come up with a theory, but to be able to back it up with functions that can be empirically tested takes a truly extraordinary ability that is just not available to large majority of humanity. It is nicely presented by John Lithgow and pretty entertaining, although a bit overdramatized. The second special is a little more traditional in that it juxtaposes images and graphics of the past and future of space exploration with interviews of experts in the field, discussing potential missions to Mars and SETI and things like that. I could watch this stuff all day long (and have in the past), but there’s nothing here that the more intellectually inclined hasn’t already seen a number of times.

The Last Winter

** – Global Warming personified attacks an oil drilling team stationed in the pristine Arctic wilderness of northern Alaska in this 2007 ode to environmentalism starring gorilla-faced behemoth Ron Perlman and some other guy. Perlman plays the crotchety head of an oil-drilling team team who is at loggerheads with a guy hired by the company to validate their rape of the natural world but ends up being an enviro-freak whistleblower who tries to halt the whole project. While Hellboy may not be successful in stopping the environmentalists from closing down the drilling or keeping the weird dinosaur ghost thingies that attack them from killing the vast majority of the crew, he does do a masterful job of cock-blocking the hired analyst, as he manages to also get him killed and therefore unable to bop the marginally attractive lady on the team for whom they both have the hots. I guess your options are pretty limited when you’re in the Arctic. On a non-plot level, this movie was not very well executed. The direction was poor and the editing was very choppy, not to mention the fact that all the attempts at special effects were far from special. It also moved rather slowly and didn’t have anything even remotely creepy, which is a pretty big flaw for something supposed to be a supernatural horror/thriller. Overall, it’s not a very good movie. It seems to have good intentions and it tries pretty hard to be challenging and interesting, but ends up being boring and pretty hard to watch. Plus, Perlman seems to have been having some sort of salivary problem during filming, as he drools and slobbers continuously throughout this thing. That’s rather disgusting.

Crank 2: High Voltage

** - I have to start out by saying that the first “Crank” movie was never really screaming for a sequel, in my opinion. It was kind of decent to watch if you’ve had a few drinks and feel like killing 90 minutes, but having a second one seems pretty unnecessary. So, in a way, I suppose this second film in the “Crank” series is fortunate that when attempting to follow up on a movie with no particular story there is considerably less pressure to have any sort of continuity or connection, or even any particular purpose. After quite clearly dying at the end of the first film, Jason Statham is miraculously back as Chev Chelios in this follow-up to the 2006 original that is probably even faster, dumber, louder, more kinetic and brutally violent than the first. Beyond those factors, this one goes for a lot of really vicious and borderline offensive toilet humor that really falls flat for me, and I imagine would also fall flat for anyone over the age of 15 or 16 who has anything other than a black, black heart of coal. But criticizing a movie like this due to its juvenile humor, extreme violence and exceedingly quick edits is kind of like despising Kid Rock or someone similar for being a shitty musician, in that they really aren’t aimed toward my kind of audience, probably aren’t really causing anyone any harm, and give the lesser plebes something to do besides drink warm Schlitz and beat up their families. What I’m saying is that people who liked the first one will like this one, and people who didn’t like the first won’t be won over by it.

Crank

** – Big, dumb, fast, chaotic, loud and sadistically violent, this 2006 action flick seems on paper to be the type that I would despise. Its plot is simultaneously confusing and stupid, the characters are dopey stereotypes, the score is chuck full of really crappy songs, and it quite often aims for the type of short attention span modern humor that all the kids these days seem to like so much. However, it was quite nicely shot, and despite having about 19 cuts per second and being as confusing as all get out, it left me marginally entertained. The charismatic presence of Jason Statham was probably a major factor in my surprising ability to watch this all the way to the end, as that guy is pretty good in anything, and is an actual bona fide action star unlike these wormy little kids and no-neck macho turds that the film industry tries to keep pawning off on us as such. I do have to point out, though, that if you only watch movies for a good story you are going to be sorely disappointed by this one. Statham runs around and drinks Red Bull and does coke and steals motorcycles and kicks people and bangs his stereotypically ditzy, damsel-in-distress girlfriend up against a newspaper stand in order to keep his adrenaline pumping – which is the only thing keeping him alive – but at points the adrenaline doesn’t seem all that important and Dwight Yoakum is involved somehow. And then he gets shot in the butt, but seems in the next scene to have not gotten shot, so who knows what the hell is going on. It’s really dumb, but decent for a mindless sort of entertainment.

127 Hours

**** - The story of Aron Ralston – known the world over as the guy who hacked his own arm off with a dull knife after being trapped under a rock during a mountain climbing trip – is admittedly a pretty spectacular one. This 2010 reconstruction of those events - and those leading up to them – is helmed ably by the generally reliable Danny Boyle in a manner that is a seamless blend of documentary and adventure yarn. The Oscar-nominated drama’s very realistic and matter-of-fact presentation work very well in its favor for the most part, although those qualities do also provide the film with the only reasons that I docked it a couple points in my rating: the rather gruesome and explicit scenes of flesh hacking and urine drinking. It takes some excellent film-making skills in order to present a story that is pretty well known but allow it to remain suspenseful enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. It certainly did so for me, despite the fact that I know that snapping bones, spurting blood and a full life still lay ahead for the main character. I guess not everyone will have that same reaction, but if nothing else, this film should at least serve as a cautionary tale for all you carefree, extreme sporting, thrill-seekers out there. It’s okay to go out and seek your thrills and whatnot, but make sure you take the proper preparatory precautions or you could end up with a stump for an arm and a hook for a hand like this guy. Wise words.

Unstoppable

** - This week on ‘Blatant False Advertising Theater’ we will take a look at the inaccurately named Denzel Washington action flick “Unstoppable”. Directed by Ridley Scott’s younger, dumber brother Tony, this movie would have more aptly been titled “Somewhat Challenging to Stop” or possibly “Relatively Easily Stopped by Someone Competent” but I’m guessing that either of those names would be problematic to fit on a marquee. The plot revolves around a train with cars full of toxic chemicals and grain (yeah, that’s a good mix) that is accidentally sent hurtling down a track in southern Pennsylvania by a pair of fat idiots played by Willam from “Mallrats” and some other guy. Meanwhile, Denzel and Chris Pine are on another train that is on a collision course with the titular locomotive, and have to act quickly in order to save themselves and keep the runaway train from flying off the track and plowing into a populated area. Most of the movie alternates between shots of Denzel and Captain Kirk pointlessly chatting in their cabin and shots of a number of train company workers and family members watching the action on TV and yelling things like “come on!” and “you can do this!” and such. It’s pretty fast paced, but the action is really dumb and edited in a rather jumbled and confusing manner. The cast – including Rosario Dawson as an unrealistically attractive train yard coordinator of some sort - give it their all, but they can’t save this one from its dull script, silly dialogue and ridiculous amount of train lingo that is probably meant to seem cool, but gets really annoying really quickly. And, yes, the train is indeed very stoppable.

Winter's Bone

**** – Along with the weird and backwards bayou people of the Gulf Coast of Florida and other Deep South states, the hillbilly yokels of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri are amongst the oddest and most primitive of anyone living in the United States. The 2009 film “Winter’s Bone” is set amongst these toothless shack-dwellers who are often hooked on crank and seem to dine almost exclusively on potatoes and squirrel meat. I’m no expert on these sad fiddle-and-banjo playing rednecks, but what is presented on screen in this tale of a 17-year old girl’s struggle to find her reprobate meth-cooker father while also trying to take care of her two younger siblings and debilitated mother certainly has an authentic feel to it. The houses are dilapidated fire hazards, the yards are cluttered with enormous amounts of junk, there are mangy mutts running all over the place, and everyone wears torn camouflage pants and dirty third or fourth hand pop culture t-shirts from the 80s. That’s pretty much what I imagine when I think about those people (not that I think of them particularly frequently, mind you). Anyway, along with the authentic feel, this film creates a pretty good atmosphere and also is rather well shot and acted by just about every participant. It has its slow spots and dull moments, but seeing as this isn’t meant to be an action-packed thriller I can’t really fault the movie for that. Overall, I’d have to say that it is a very nicely shaped and performed artistic work.