Archive for February, 2010
Underdone Oscar controversy
Posted by frothy in 2010 Oscars, Oscars on February 27, 2010
Oscar practically courts controversy. Sometimes it’s in the nominees (“What? Y didn’t get nominated”), but sometimes it’s behind the scenes stuff. Like in this latest example:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering action against a producer of The Hurt Locker who sent multiple e-mails urging academy members to vote for his movie in the Oscar best-picture race and “not a $500 million film” — an obvious reference to close-competitor Avatar.
Essentially, the producer sent out emails telling people to vote for his movie instead of Avatar. Which is fine, except apparently it runs counter to an official Academy rule
against sending mailings that “attempt to promote any film or achievement by casting a negative light on a competing film or achievement,” according to academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.
So it’s not that he was promoting The Hurt Locker, it’s that he was putting Avatar down a bit. (I think we can all agree that Avatar hardly needs more positive press.)
This is what you call a ginned-up controversy. Why? Because this kind of subterfuge happens all the time during the run-up to Oscar night. Agents and crew members send emails to their fellow voters, trying to sway them, and some of them say vote A instead of B. Big deal.
The only reason the Academy is considering taking steps against the producer is that Pete Hammond of the LA Times talked about it in a recent column, drawing (negative) attention to the practice.
The upshot of all of this is that because of this statement from the Academy, voters might be a little more reluctant to vote for The Hurt Locker for Best Picture and – shudder – more likely to vote for Avatar, a bloated CGI cartoon. Even if they don’t do anything, the measures they’re considering – removing the movie from Oscar consideration, taking Chartier’s Oscar tickets away – all seem like gross overreactions. The producer hasn’t been nominated before and might not have understood what he couldn’t do, but even if he knew it wasn’t cool, how his actions harm anyone is beyond me.
517 – The Crazies (***)
The Crazies, a remake of a seldom-seen 1972 George Romeo film, is about a small town whose inhabitants drink tainted water and become deranged. The movie is slick but still terrifying, relying not only on wacked-out effects but also on unadulterated suspense to really rattle your nerves.
At a Little League game in Ogden Marsh, Iowa, a man wanders into the outfield carrying a shotgun. When the man raises the weapon, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) shoots him dead. But the man wasn’t drunk, he’d just gone crazy. Dutton investigates further, with the help of his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson), and discovers that a plane carrying a deadly cargo has crashed into a nearby creek, thus poisoning the town’s drinking water.
From there, events quickly get out of hand, as anyone who’d drunk water from their taps becomes first listless and unresponsive, then mumbly, then completely unhinged. But that’s only the beginning of the nightmare for the town, which is then surrounded by a military force bent on containing the virus by any means necessary.
This is only kind of a zombie film. I mean, no one’s dining on the flesh of their living compatriots, there’s no shambling, and mindless killing. (There’s plenty of killing, but the afflicted people still have the capacity for reason.) One thing I liked about this was that precious time isn’t spend trying to discover the reason for everyone’s behavior; attention is focused on the survivors and how they react to what’s going on. I also appreciated that at no time does anyone, even the sheriff, have this superhuman ability to know what must be done and how to do it. Dutton isn’t a superhero, he’s a sheriff.
Another thing that helps a lot is the pacing. Too often, things either move so quickly that you can’t figure out what’s being done to whom or too slowly so that the suspense angle becomes the boredom angle. This is crucial for a horror film, which basically trafficks in suspense. Director Breck Eisner keeps the action coming without holding up the story (e.g., no drawn-out standoffs when it would look implausible), and there are plenty of creeping-up-on-you moments to choke twelve cows.
Olyphant looks a lot like a younger Bill Paxton here, and he’s a good fit – Sheriff Dutton is a solid leader, but he’s not an improbable one. He’s the kind of guy who rises to the occasion, not surpasses it completely. If you’re looking for a movie where the hero is always armed to the teeth and subsequently never gets much more than a scratch on him, this isn’t for you. Dutton has to constantly fight with his own instincts and change his attitude during the course of the movie (save everyone, save his wife, save a few people, save himself).
People who make horror movies know they’re making them for a pretty select audience. Lots of people don’t like horror movies at all, and those who do are somewhat picky about them (particularly with so many big-budget ones from which to choose), so standards are high. It’s important to grab that core audience, show them something they haven’t seen or haven’t seen done particularly well, then smack them upside the head. Classic horror films used the horror of the unseen to great effect, and more-recent genre films try the same thing. (One reason for this is that we’ve become inured to in-your-face slasher films, because the anticipation of the slasher doing his slashing has largely been eroded. But that’s a digression right there.
Basically, if zombie movies in general are your bag, you should love The Crazies. (If you don’t like any horror films regardless, there’s no way you should see this.) The Crazies is effectively scary, mixing human emotions with raw blood and gore and endless edge-of-your seat thrills.
The Crazies: ***
516 – Whiteout (**)
Whiteout, a murder mystery set at the South Pole, is a frigid cornucopia of cliches and turgid dialog. It’s saved only marginally by the telegenic setting and the perky beauty of Kate Beckinsale, who’s so awesome that she doesn’t even need to cover her pretty face in temperatures of -65 degrees Fahrenheit.
It seems almost masochistic to watch a movie like this during one of the harshest winters that the East Coast of the US has ever seen, but when a movie comes up in the ol’ queue, the movie-watching creed says you have to see it. And then in this case you learn that the masochism isn’t a result of the movie’s cold theme but rather of the movie’s general lack of cohesion or interest. Whiteout is one of those movies that looks intriguing, much like Insomnia did a few years back, but is ultimately a waste of time for all involved. Especially you.
Beckinsale plays U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, who’s at the end of her tour as The Law at a research facility in Antarctica. Yes, she’s just a few days from retirement, so to speak, so you know something’s going to happen. Not only that, but the camp is shutting down, with a massive storm looming – not to mention six full months of night. And wouldn’t you know it, a body shows up in the middle of nowhere, on the cold, cold tundra. With no gear. Where did he come from? Turns out he’s a geologist, which complicates matters further. The man didn’t die of frostbite, after all.
I think that director Dominic Sena (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Swordfish) knew he had only a couple of positives to build on: the exotic setting and Beckinsale. And so he does, with endless shots of snow, ice, more snow, more ice, and lots of foggy breath. Everything looks so majestic, as if ripped straight from one of those old cigarette print ads. Alive with pleasure, indeed!
Beckinsale’s game – and actually looks pretty badass in her eleven layers of clothing (but exposed face) – but she’s fighting with a plot that careens from making little sense to being wholly predictable. The twist ending isn’t much of a twist at all and feels like a real letdown. Tom Skerritt, who plays the camp’s veteran doctor, does an admirable job trying to keep things afloat, but his charm only goes so far.
Whiteout is decimated by hilarious dialog and unimaginative, confusing action scenes. With only a striking subzero setting working in its favor, the movie just can’t overcome its landslide of downsides and is ultimately disappointing.
Whiteout: **
515 – Shutter Island (**)
Posted by frothy in Shutter Island on February 22, 2010
Leonardo Dicaprio stars as a U.S. Marshal sent to a remote and forbidding insane asylum in 1954 to investigate the disappearance of a patient. As he proceeds, Teddy Daniels uncovers far more than he bargained for – or is it? In a movie in which nearly everything is actually something else, the audience is redirected too many times for this to be an effective thriller, and some gaping holes in the plot should relegate this to the dustbin in no time.
We first see Marshal Daniels (Dicaprio) on the way to the island via ferry, with his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo). Immediately, we size up our protagonist: prone to seasickness, a little grizzled, possibly wrestling with inner demons. Also has a prominent band-aid on his forehead, and as we all know any time a character shows up with a bandage and no explanation, that bandage will come into play later in the movie.
The asylum, Ashecliffe Hospital, is run by Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), a pipe-smoking medical reformer who nonetheless looks down his nose at everyone else. His right-hand man is the assistant warden, McPherson (John Carroll Lynch), who informs the marshals that they must surrender their guns before they can enter the grounds. Again, something this obvious means that the concept will come up later in the movie, and sure enough it does.
Something doesn’t quite add up about the missing patient, Rachel Solando. Solando apparently vanished from her room, barefoot, without anyone noticing, on an island. That is covered in rocky terrain. Daniels finds a note hidden under the floor tile that seems to indicate that there’s an additional missing patient who’s not accounted for. Further galivanting around the island simply unearths more and more facts and clues that don’t make much sense. And then we find out that Daniels himself might be hiding something. He fits in very well with everyone else in this regard.
The movie is appropriately shot (by Robert Richardson, who’s won two Oscars): moody, unflinching, terrifying at turns, well matched to the setting. But the movie has too many problems to be wholly satisfying. During the movie, one of the characters informs Daniels that being declared insane means that anything you do afterwards can be held up as evidence of your insanity. That makes sense, of course, but the trouble is that that logic can be applied to anything in this movie as well, a sort of self-justification. I Call it lazy screenwriting.
And, honest to goodness, I still don’t think Leonardo Dicaprio is much of an actor. His matinee-idol looks are already fading – he’s got the head of Charlie Brown at this point – but his range hasn’t really improved over the past decade or so. He seems to struggle with his reaction shots, and he doesn’t have the gravitas necessary for such a heavy role. I’m supposed to believe he’s a federal marshal? I’d have trouble believing he’s dressed up as a marshal for Halloween. Here, he’s supported by a very capable cast – particularly Kingsley, although he seems to be slumming it a bit, and Patricia Clarkson. But for the most part, his character is on his own, and Dicaprio flounders.
Shutter Island is, at best, minor Scorcese, a movie that’s high on mood and atmosphere but a little light on a plausible plot. There are too many moments that don’t make complete sense when they happen and that can only be supported by the notion that someone – or everyone – is insane.
Shutter Island: **
514 – Black Dynamite (**1/2)
Posted by frothy in Black Dynamite on February 22, 2010
I wasn’t watching first-run he-man movies in the seventies, so I missed out on the big blaxploitation craze. The movement consisted of a lot of low-budget, thinly plotted action films featuring a largely African-American cast fighting back against The Man. Black Dynamite, like its predecessor I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, is a decent throwback to those gritty, hardscrabble movies of yesteryear.
Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White, who also cowrote it) is a bad motha in the mold of Shaft. He’s completely bad, as in good; he gets with all the chicks because that’s how he rolls. Then his brother gets killed, and Black Dynamite will have his revenge! And as with similar films 30 years ago, there’s a sinister white man behind everything.
White plays Dynamite completely straightfaced, which adds to the realism and sincerity of the movie. Every trope and cliche from blaxploitation flicks is in here, from heroin being injected (figuratively and literally) in kids, an orphanage in peril, lots of beautiful women, authority figures who just don’t get it, and an insidious plot to bring down the black man. It even has a foxy femme who melts Dynamite’s heart (a little).
Good supporting cast, too, including Tommy Davidson, Obba Babatunde, Mike Starr, Mykelti Williamson, Bokeem Woodbine, and (surprisingly) Arsenio Hall.
It’s all intentionally over the top, of course, but White’s soft touch allows his charisma (and fighting skills) to really shine; the jive talking isn’t beaten to death just to prove that it can be done. Everything has the look and feel of the geniune article. Movies made about drug running and pimps and set in the ’70s are hardly ever beautiful films – they make you feel a little too dirty for that – but Black Dynamite is beautifully written, acted, and shot, with a pitch-perfect, kick-ass performance by Mr. White, who – did I mention – also holds seven different black belts.
Black Dynamite
513 – The Stepfather (*1/2)
Posted by frothy in Stepfather on February 17, 2010
The Stepfather is a remake of a 20-year-old film. Remaking a slasher that was made only a generation ago violates my rule of remakes (25 years!), and the truth is that the original wasn’t really all that great to begin with. Add to that the fact that we’ve seen similarly themed movies recently (like The Uninvited), and you’re left with a wickedly dumb movie that’s both poorly acted and incoherently directed. It’s just plain not fun.
Just as in The Uninvited, a new spouse sort of shoehorns himself into a family that’s undergone some recent changes – in this case, David Harris (Dylan Walsh) runs into single mom Susan Harding (Sela Ward) in the grocery store, sparks fly, and before you know it they’re engaged, just as Susan’s delinquent son Michael comes home from military school.
David ingratiates himself into the family by playing to their softer side, anything to curry favor. Michael’s initially suspicious – he’s a surly teen, after all – but quickly comes around. But as time goes by, David does little things that arouse suspicions in everyone except Susan (of course).
About the best thing I can say about this movie is that there’s no supernatural angle. There aren’t crazy demons possessing David. Nothing is unexplained. He’s just a sociopath. It’s not a mystery, by the way – we know from the very first scene (the best in the movie) that David is Bad News. But not only doesn’t anyone else catch on for quite some time, mom Susan stubbornly refuses to accept what’s going on until the movie is nearly over. And I don’t mean that there’s a series of coincidences that Susan, who’s hopelessly in love, can explain away, I mean that there are some pretty obvious red flags that she blithley ignores for the sake of propelling the plot.
This movie is just dreadfully boring. There’s no anticipation, no suspense, because everything is so blindingly obvious that there simply are no surprises to be found. Kid goes in the basement? David comes looking for him. Girlfriend comes over in the rain? David’s there, outside, waiting. And on it goes.
On the acting front, it looks like everyone wishes he or she were somewere else. Maybe even someone else, someone without the stench of this movie sticking hard to them. Even Sela Ward can’t escape this junk unscathed, as this is certainly not her finest work. At least Dylan Walsh can say he was just playing every other cad/bastard he’s ever played before. And the less said about the thespian skills of Amber Heard (the girlfriend), the better. She makes other blondes look like Steven Hawking.
The Stepfather: *1/2
Yes, another Vacation movie is on the horizon
Posted by frothy in News/Rumors on February 14, 2010
You might remember National Lampoon’s Vacation, in which the somewhat-dorky Griswold family trekked from Chicago to the mythical Wally World (that is, Disney) in California, only to find it closed. You probably want to forget National Lampoon’s European Vacation, but you probably fondly remember National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which rocked. And the less said about Vegas Vacation, the better, I’d say.
Now word comes that New Line, which somehow owns the rights to the franchise, wants to make another Vacation film. Oh, but not just another Griswold adventure, nosireebob. This time out, the focus would be on son Rusty Griswold (played by Anthony Michael Hall in the original and then three other dudes in the three other films) as he takes HIS family to Wally World. I swear I am not making this up.
Part of me wants to see what wacky shenanigans Rusty will get into with his family. Oh, who am I kidding, they’ll take the same route that Grizzles took in 1983, because that there is proven comedy ground, is what that is.
Vote-date
Posted by frothy in 2010 Oscars, Oscars on February 14, 2010
See what I did there? Today is technically Valentine’s Day, so I added “date” to the end of the post title. But what I really mean is “update”! I’m such a wordsmith! This is why they pay me so much.
Our polls have had nine (!) votes so far. Last year we got 60-70 per poll, so I’m expecting an uptick as we get closer to the Oscars show.
Here’s where we stand:
Picture: Avatar (4); Hurt Locker (2); Up, Precious, and Hurt Locker (1) No surprise
Actor: Bridges (5); Freeman (2); Clooney and Renner (1) No surprise here either
Actress: Bullock (4); Streep (3); Sidibe and Mulligan (1) A little surprised that Streep is doing so well, because people generally think – don’t they? – that she’s already gotten her due, whereas Bullock hasn’t.
Director: Bigelow (4), Cameron (3), Tarantino and Reitman (2) Aha, take THAT, King of the World. I hope his ex beats him. Do not like him, I don’t.
Supp. Actor: Waltz (6), Harrelson (2), Tucci (1) No surprise here
Supp. Actress: Cruz and Mo’Nique (3); Farmiga, Gyllenhaal, and Kendrick (1) Wait, didn’t Nine kind of stink? And wasn’t Mo’Nique supposed to be the clear fave? Huh.
Your weekly nag: vote, vote, and then find someone else to vote
Oscars! They need you! I have it on good authority that the winners of the six main categories will be determined by our polls!
Bill Murray on Groundhog Day and life as an actor (plus G3)
Posted by frothy in News/Rumors on February 8, 2010
Bill Murray talked to the Daily Mail, in a rare interview, on all sorts of topics.
I’ll come back in Ghostbusters III only if I get to be a ghost.
I said to them, ‘I’ll do it if you kill me off in the first reel.’ So now they are going to have me as a ghost in the film.
The first 45 minutes of the original Ghostbusters is some of the funniest stuff ever made.
The second one was disappointing, because the special-effects guys took over. I had something like two scenes – and they’re the only funny ones in the movie.
512 – Surrogates (**)
Posted by frothy in Surrogates on February 7, 2010
In the somewhat-distant future, people use robotic likenesses of themselves to go out into the world and, you know, interact with other robotic likenesses. Crime’s declined to the point of mockery, until the son of the inventor of these robotic likenesses – surrogates, if you will – is murdered. FBI guy Bruce Willis stoically investigates the crime by actually going out in the streets and looking for clues.
Agent Greer (Willis) is world weary and sort of burned out. Like everyone else, he spends his time in his own house, experiencing the outside world via his surrogate. His wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) does the same; they don’t even share a bedroom anymore. The surrogates cannot die, you see; or, rather, they can be damaged beyond repair but to no ill effects of their operator. Until a young man dies when his surrogate is shot by an unknown assailant. Then it is on! Because the company that manufactures the surrogates, VSI, has long claimed that the operators cannot be killed if their surrogates are harmed. Intriguing!
It might all have something to do with The Dreads, a group that disdains the use of surrogates and wants people to return to the days when they did junk for themselves. (99% of the world’s populace uses surrogates, although I’m not sure how this is so.) Led by a mysterious man called The Prophet, The Dreads have their own little enclave, shut off from the rest of the world, and they have the motive to take out the son of the inventor. Or at least the inventor. It’s not really clear.
Greer and his partner, Agent Peters (Radha Mitchell) are called to the scene of the murder, but they quickly discover that their suspect has a superweapon that can wipe out surrogates easy as pie. After a blast from the weapon kills five cops and sends Greer to the hospital, his boss takes him off the case (of course) and suspends him. With his surrogate destroyed, Willis must leave the house (no!) and solve the murder! Is it all a big conspiracy? Yes.
Surrogates is a lot like The Sixth Day, only with no Arnold Schwarzeneggar and with robots instead of clones. It’s lightweight sci-fi, which is almost the worst kind of sci-fi. I mean, action and effects are fun, but they better be really groundbreaking if the underlying plot is convoluted and/or nonsensical. There’s supposed to be some kind of theme about how people should learn to live on their own again, but the truth is that the society presented in the movie isn’t really all that plausible to begin with. We’re already at a stage where people do a lot of interacting online instead of in person, but the people who do nothing but interact online are generally the least healthy of them all, mentally and physically. And yet this surrogates-only behavior is really widespread, to the point where you wonder how anyone could even have the strength to operate the surrogate when all they do for themselves is walk down to the bathroom. If that.
There’s too much wasted talent here as well. James Cromwell plays the inventor, and he’s barely on screen; he’s not old enough to play bedridden people, is he? Then there’s Ving Rhames as The Prophet. Throughout the movie, the spectre of The Prophet is raised time and time again, as if somehow his presence will really tie everything together (conspiracy, you know), but ultimately it’s as if he wasn’t even needed. Rhames is given virtually nothing to do.
And finally, those who do have something to do waste their time. Willis sleepwalks through this one – it’s not as if he’s never played a world-weary cop before – and although he’s onscreen a lot, he’s overshadowed by ridiculous CGI effects. For example, in the trailer we see a car slam into the side of the one in which Willis is a passenger (as himself, not as his surrogate). Willis/Greer is fine (why?), but more importantly the crash looks completely fabricated.
Then there’s Mitchell, as Greer’s partner. She doesn’t quite have the gravitas to play a serious role (that is, a role other than that of a damsel in distress or a love interest); she’s no law-enforcement official. But worse than that, she overacts anyway. But maybe it just looks like overacting next to Willis, who mistakes understated for glum.
It’s not that Surrogates is bad, but it’s surely not very good, either. It’s completely forgettable, pretty much like The Sixth Day is forgettable. Or I, Robot, for that matter, or most other low-rent sci-fi that stars high-rent talent.
Surrogates: **
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