CinemaPsycho
Introduction / Film Reviews / PsychoTherapy / Contact the Psycho
"Not if your ambition is to get
high and watch TV"
- Melanie (Bridget Fonda), Jackie
Brown
Recently
Reviewed
Let The Right One In / Death
Race / Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull / Forgetting Sarah Marshall
September 18,
2008
Summer Catch-Up
’08 #2: Are
You Ready For the Summer (to be Over)?
Well, as I approach
my
almost-40th birthday, I actually feel pretty good for the
most part
about the cinema landscape as I see it. I’m happy to say that
I’ve seen a lot
of really good films this year so far, and a few genuinely great ones.
With the
fall and Oscar season approaching, that list will only increase, and
that
pleases me. Even in the middle of nowhere, I generally get to see most
of the
films I really want to see badly, and for the rest, there’s
always Netflix. I
really can’t complain too much on that front. I don’t have
unrealistic
expectations about it, and I don’t expect the latest 3-hour
Iranian goat-herder
film to show at the local multiplexes alongside the likes of Death
Race and Disaster Movie.
That’s what DVD is for,
kids. I know people who live
in major cities who don’t go to see indie or foreign films as
often as they’d
like, so I’m not exactly shocked when they don’t play in an
area where there really
isn’t a market for it.
However, I’m
starting to see
a strange trend at my local cineplex that disturbs me a little. This
weekend,
something called Proud American is
opening at the local Regal, which is the closest theater to me and the
one I
visit most often. I’ve never heard of this film (and I’ve
heard of just about
everything that gets a decent release) and as far as I know, no one in
my area
has heard of it or is anticipating seeing it. I believe it’s a
documentary of
some kind, apparently a response to what the filmmakers (mistakenly)
believe
are “anti-American” films. I know that the Regal chain is
owned by conservative
billionaire Phillip Anschutz, and I imagine that had something to do
with the
booking. Politics aside though, I don’t really get why a film
that no one has
heard of is opening at a theater near me. I don’t see anti-war
docs like Taxi
to the Dark Side showing
here, so why
does this film get special treatment? Does anyone expect this to make
money?
Why not use that screen to show something that local film fans might
actually
be interested in seeing, such as Vicky Christina Barcelona (which has yet to play here, but is opening
at another
theater further away this weekend)? If you’re a documentary
person, wouldn’t
you be more interested in a screening of American Teen (for which this theater showed the trailer
for months,
then never booked) or, for the hell of it, how about Werner
Herzog’s Encounters
at the End of the World? If
you want
to bring in the cult-film audiences, how about showing Hell Ride,
Stuck,
Transsiberian, Sukiyaki Western Django or
Mother of Tears? For
people who
like the classy stuff, how about Brideshead Revisited? Do you see where I’m going with this?
There are plenty
of options out there, so there’s no reason to book a no-name film
just because
the guy who owns the place happens to be a Bush supporter. I’ll
be surprised if
they sell 5 tickets to this thing. As for me, I’ll be at that
other theater
this weekend, not because I’m boycotting anything but simply
because they
booked a film I really want to see. That’s why they’re
getting my business.
And I have to say
it –
nothing depressed me more recently than being forced to sit through the
trailer
to David Zucker’s An American Carol at
that same Regal theater. Good Christ does that thing look awful!
I’m not going
to get into the political stuff here – god knows this isn’t
the place for it.
But man does this look
like a
piece of shit. My rule of thumb with comedy is, I can forgive just
about
anything if it’s genuinely funny. This
looks about as dated as an average episode of Laugh-In, and some of its washed-up cast actually go
back to
that era! Watching pieces of this sad, backwards, anti-intellectual
spectacle
just made me ill. Literally. If I have to explain why, you’ll
never understand,
and if you understand, I don’t have to explain it. But I have to
wonder how the
co-creator of Airplane!, The Naked Gun and Top Secret justifies
attacking and slandering a filmmaker for practicing his First Amendment
right
to free speech. And I wonder if Zucker would’ve made a movie
defending Nixon
after Watergate. Artistically speaking, there is simply nothing
“brave” or
“outrageous” about supporting the powerful and corrupt.
Satire as an art form
is at its best when it defends the underdog, when it asks questions and
provokes thought and discussion. American Carol does nothing but take easy, stupid shots at
people who
are smart enough to make real films that ask real questions about the
real
world we live in. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Bill
O’Reilly (who’s
actually in the film, god help us) – loud, blustery and bullying,
with
absolutely nothing of value to say. I don’t even want to go near
any theater showing this
thing. That’s my right and my
choice as an American. Do Zucker and company have the right to make
this stuff?
Of course they do. Do we have the right to call it garbage and ignore
it?
Absolutely.
Besides, we all
know that Beverly
Hills Chihuahua is going to
crush it
anyway. And I never thought I’d say this, but… thank God
for Beverly Hills
Chihuahua.
Anyway…
getting back to the
summer movies, which is what I initially intended to write about. I
actually
think it’s been a really great summer for movies (Death Race notwithstanding), quite possibly the best
we’ve had in
years. Looking back on it, I think I genuinely enjoyed more films this
summer
than the past few all put together. We’ve had great
action-adventure movies,
superhero movies, comedies, animation, even horror this year. Usually
we get
maybe two of those at the most. This is what summer movies are supposed
to be,
in my book – a veritable cornucopia of coolness. And where the
second half of
the season is usually pretty lame, this year wasn’t totally
front-loaded, with
some of the best stuff appearing in July and August. What more do you
want?
Anyone who’s complaining about this year’s selections
either saw the wrong
movies, or just likes to complain for the sake of it. Screw ‘em.
The rest of us
were having too much fun to care.
So without further
ado,
here’s some brief thoughts on the second half of the summer:
WALL*E
– you know, I love
Pixar like any good film geek, but I
honestly can’t say that any of their films have really blown me
away the way a
great live-action film does. Until now. Andrew Stanton’s
masterpiece is a
terrific old-school sci-fi flick, a wonderful love story and a
thought-provoking satire of a possible future based on our present. I
was
expecting nothing more than a decent kiddie movie, and I can’t
even tell you
how much this knocked me flat on my ass. A truly awesome piece of work,
absolutely brilliant filmmaking and easily my favorite film of the year
so far.
Is that enough hyperbole for you? This movie deserves it. Fucking
beautiful!
****
Hellboy II:
The Golden
Army – OK, from
now on, can we
just let Guillermo del Toro do whatever he wants? Audiences everywhere
would
appreciate it. Possibly this summer’s most unfairly overlooked
comic-book movie
(having opened a week before The Dark Knight – great scheduling move, Universal), del
Toro’s superior
sequel to his really good original finally gives us what his fans have
all been
waiting for – the emergence of the guy who made Cronos, The
Devil’s Backbone
and Pan’s Labyrinth
into the mainstream. Not that
his previous Hollywood
movies were bad or anything (certainly not) but for once this really
feels like
the same guy. It’s a del Toro film through and through, and what
a wondrous,
crazy, nasty, joyful experience it is. I could watch Ron Perlman and
Selma
Blair in a dozen Hellboy movies. They’re such an odd but
compelling pair, and
that’s exactly why it works so well. The one thing that
didn’t work for me was
the opening flashback sequence, with a young Hellboy in the 50’s.
Didn’t really
come off that well, and seemed like mostly an excuse to bring John Hurt
back.
After that, it’s all terrific, weird, wild entertainment, del
Toro style.
***1/2
The Dark
Knight – well,
what can be said that hasn’t been already?
Christopher Nolan’s work of mad genius dropped a megaton bomb (in
a good way)
on audiences and cast a spell that’s still working on millions of
fans. The
late Heath Ledger played the Joker exactly the way he should be played
– as an
insane anarchist who lives to fuck with the system and the people in
it. He is
chaos personified, and his very existence in the universe is a major
problem
for the rest of humanity. Ledger gave the performance of his career,
and it’s
just sad that we can’t see him build on it in years to come.
However, Aaron
Eckhart kicked just as much ass as Harvey Dent, the would-be savior of
Gotham
whose tragic fall is the true beating heart of the film. Much has been
said
about the parallels between Batman’s use of privacy-invading
technology to
catch the Joker and the similar usage of such technologies in the
real-life War
on Terror. But, as I think the movie makes perfectly clear, Batman knows
that what he’s doing is
a moral compromise and treats
it as such, whereas Bush and his cronies seem to have no such issues
with the
abuse of power. Another main difference being that Batman actually caught
the Joker. Anyway, it’s
a pretty amazing film, one
that positively quakes with the echoes of 9/11 and justifiably plays
for keeps,
building on Nolan’s excellent Batman Begins to create one earth-shaking shocker of a
comic-book
film. And they weren’t kidding about the Dark part. Fantastic. ****
The X-Files:
I Want to
Believe – OK, so
it wasn’t the
masterpiece that everyone was hoping for. As a fan of the show, I still
enjoyed
it for what it was – an old-school sci-fi/horror mishmash that,
at least for
me, was creepy and unsettling. In terms of content, it seems to be
Chris
Carter’s homage to early Cronenberg, while visually it seemed
like his homage
to early 80’s Canadian slasher films. But I like that stuff, so
it was cool
with me. I guess I just liked seeing Mulder and Scully together again,
doing
what they do best, even if it took some convoluted plot contrivances to
get
them there. That’s what the show was always about at its core
– these two
people searching the darkness for the truth. The movie delivered that,
at least
for this audience member. I don’t really know what anyone else
was expecting
from it. All I expected was another X-Files mystery/adventure, and I definitely got that.
If this
turns out to be the last go-round, well, I’m OK with that. If it
continues, I’m
cool with that too. ***
Step Brothers
– I really
expected to like this one a lot more than I
did. The McKay/Ferrell Anchorman is
one of my favorite comedies of the last decade, and I thought Talladega
Nights was a blast. This,
however, is
a case of diminishing returns, and maybe it’s time for these guys
to actually
write a script next time rather than rely solely on improv. Ferrell and
John C.
Reilly are essentially playing slight variations on the same character
here,
and that’s the least of the movie’s problems. They’re
literally 8-year-olds in
the bodies of 40-year-old men, and it’s difficult to buy that
anyone of such an
advanced age would be so utterly immature and uninterested in the
outside
world, even if they lived at home all of their lives (although the
thought that
they might be Republicans did cross my mind). And then the
movie’s sudden
third-act turn, in which they become responsible adults very easily, is
equally
ridiculous and unbelievable. Were they literally making this story up
as they
went along? It sure felt like it. Don’t get me wrong, there are
some genuine
laughs here, but most of them seem to come from the supporting cast,
especially
Kathryn Hahn as Ferrell’s sister-in-law who inexplicably becomes
hot for Reilly.
Plus there’s the best use of “Ice Ice Baby” ever in a
movie, and I really
despise that song. But much of it is just kind of grotesque and icky
rather
than genuinely amusing. It’s the kind of movie that just goes,
“hey, we’re all
funny people here, so we’ll just show up and the movie will be
funny, right?
Right?” That’s the same mentality that brought us the Cannonball
Run movies. And I’d
rather watch Dom DeLuise than Will
Ferrell’s nutsack, thank you very much. But it’s nowhere
near as bad as The
Love Guru, and I have to
give them
credit for that, at least. **
Midnight Meat
Train – Lionsgate
released the first American film by Ryuhei
Kitamura (Versus) into
theaters
nationwide. Dollar theaters. I believe they actually made history by
pulling
that dickhead move, and while it saved me a few bucks, it also pretty
much
screwed the movie over big time. That’s a shame, because this
horror flick
based on a Clive Barker story is actually pretty good, an effective,
old-school
shocker that could have cleaned up around Halloween. It’s the
studio’s loss
financially, but it’s the filmmakers who get the reaming
career-wise, even
though they have nothing to be ashamed of here. Vinnie Jones is
genuinely
menacing as the silent villain, and Kitamura gives the film an eerie
atmosphere
that’s sadly lacking from many horror films lately. I
wouldn’t call it a lost
masterpiece or anything, but it’s a decent film that deserved a
lot better than
it got. And while most boxoffice analysts considered it a flop during
its
second-run theater run, they stupidly forgot to multiply the
movie’s take to
see what it would’ve taken in had it showed in first-run
theaters. Because most
audience members only paid $1-2 to get in, retards. Do the math,
literally. So
thanks to new prez Joe Drake, Lionsgate is no longer a horror-friendly
studio
(unless it’s the latest Saw
sequel, apparently). Enjoy that Disaster Movie money, douchebag. Oh wait, there isn’t
any! Let’s hope
the genuinely talented Kitamura has better luck next time. ***
Pineapple
Express – easily
the best stoner comedy-slash-action movie ever
made. Also the only one. Co-writer/star Seth Rogen continues his run of
playing
marijuana enthusiasts with issues in this rollicking piece directed by,
of all
people, indie maverick David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls,
Undertow,
Snow Angels). That David
Gordon
Green. Weird. But the movie works, with genuinely funny turns by James
Franco
(a real revelation here) as the world’s nicest, most sensitive
pot dealer, and
the strangely hysterical Danny McBride (also good in Tropic
Thunder). Another one goes
in the Apatow pantheon (that he
didn’t direct). Keep ‘em coming, I say. Not quite as good
as Rogen’s Superbad
(which he also co-wrote with
Evan
Goldberg), but still very funny. As the movie’s characters might
say, this is
good shit. ***1/2
Mirrors
– Keifer
Sutherland goes Jack Bauer-style ballistic
against evil mirrors in this atmospheric horror flick from Alexandre
Aja (High
Tension, The Hills Have Eyes). Remember
the old days, when horror films were genuinely creepy and unsettling
despite
potentially ridiculous premises? Aja does too. Not great, but weird
fun, with
the nuttiest go-for-it ending I’ve seen all year. Priceless! ***
Tropic
Thunder – I
honestly can’t say I’ve ever been a huge fan of Ben
Stiller. As an actor, his “male humiliation” shtick has
worn incredibly thin
for me over the years (how many times can one guy get kicked in the
balls in
the movies?). As a director, he generally seems to take one-joke
premises and
stretch them far beyond the point where they might have been funny (Cable
Guy, anyone?). And
he’s married to
Christine Taylor, the bastard. But I have to say, this is the one where
he
really pulled it all together and made a genuinely funny movie.
It’s kind of
bizarre that this is such a big hit, because it’s about as
“inside” Hollywood
as a mainstream movie can possibly get. But audiences seem to really
“get it”
without needing the jokes explained to them (hey, maybe people are
smarter than
Hollywood gives them credit for?). In a terrific cast, the standouts
are easily
Robert Downey Jr. as Australian actor Kirk Lazarus (the Oscar-winning
Russell
Crowe type), who actually dyed his skin black to play the role of a
black man
(has this been Downey’s year or what?) and, it has to be said,
Tom Cruise as
the nutty, foul-mouthed studio head (perhaps based on Sumner Redstone?)
who is
willing to kill to protect his profit margin. I also really liked Nick
Nolte as
the burnt-out Vietnam vet with a secret, and even Matthew McConaughey
scored
some points as Stiller’s anything-for-his-client agent (finally,
the Dazed
and Confused guy with balls
comes
back! Enough with the shitty romantic comedies already). Even if the
movie’s
Hollywood satire goes a little askew at times (since when are Vietnam
movies
back in vogue? And since when is Jon Voight still being offered
Oscar-worthy
roles?), the general idea of spoiled big-shot actors who are finally
confronted
with the real world and don’t know how to handle it is sound and
solid. There’s
a lot of comic potential here, and Stiller really pulls it off. Even if
the
movie seems a little too busy
at
times, there’s enough room for each of the main cast to score,
and they score
big. Don’t get me started with the “retard jokes”
– they’re clearly making fun
of actors playing mentally challenged roles to get Oscar cred, not
actual
mentally challenged people. Audiences seem to get it, why can’t
anyone else?
Damn funny stuff, and quite possibly the best comedy of the year. Nice
going,
Stiller. ***1/2
Traitor
– well, after
suffering through the
lowest-common-denominator horseshit that was Death Race, I desperately needed something
“serious” and “adult”,
and this absolutely hit the spot for me. The hugely undervalued Don
Cheadle and
Guy Pearce in a smart, tight terrorism thriller that probably
won’t appeal to
the “too soon” people, but will absolutely do nicely for
anyone seeking
entertainment that reflects the real world that we actually live in.
Based on a
story idea by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), it’s one of those rare
movies where the plot twists and
turns actually feel earned and natural. Not to give anything away, but
it’s the
kind of film where things go one way, but had they gone the other way
it would
have also felt totally right. That’s the kind of balancing act
that Cheadle and
first-time director Jeffrey Nachmanoff pull off here, and it’s
incredibly
satisfying stuff. No idea what such an accomplished work is doing being
released at the tail-end of summer, but I’ll split the difference
and consider
it an early fall film! Destined to be overlooked, and absolutely
undeserving of
that fate. ***1/2
So, that about
covers it from
here. I’ll be spending my birthday at the movies (where else?)
and I’m
genuinely looking forward to the fall and winter movie slate and all
the
potential gems it has to offer. Talk to you soon!