Movie Review: October Movie Roundup and Guns, Guns, Guns, No Funs!

I binged hardcore this month—the month it seems like I've been waiting all year for—and went to all the films I most wanted to see. Included in the list are: Sicario, The Martian, Crimson Peak, and The Last Witch Hunter.

If you know me, you would expect the one I'd pick if I had to pick one to recommend everyone go see would be Crimson Peak. Of course, this would only be natural. I think Guillermo del Toro has the greatest vision and quirky storytelling style of any contemporary director/writer in his class right now, even better and more exciting than Peter Jackson's, Jerry Bruckheimer's, or Joss Whedon's. He brings monsters and stories to life on the screen so beautifully and vibrantly that you can only sit back and absorb his epics and instantly watch them a second time afterward to relive all the elegance and moments you might have missed.

You'd think my pick would be Crimson Peak, but this time you'd be wrong. For once, GdT's vision became a little overburdened, in my opinion, by his movie's simplistic story and stifling set. Yes, the movie was about a specific manor and the events that transpired there in the late 1800s, but because of this, audiences weren't treated to the grander scope of place and story that usually typify his movies. After 2013's Mama, a GdT haunted-house story doesn't have quite the same impact as it might have, regardless of the quality of acting by the main characters (which was wonderful, particularly Jessica Chastain's, which was marvelous!). However, this was the only one of the four that excelled in passage of the Bechdel Test.

If I had to pick one to laud without reservation, (and because I'm too nice to make you read this whole post to find out the best of them) it would be Sicario. This film is a study in building tension and excitement. Unlike most films, The Martian for example, you can't quite be sure from one scene to the next what the movie's ultimate climax will be, but there are plenty of breadcrumbs to keep you riveted to the trail along the way. Benecio del Toro is a master at understated intensity, and Emily Blunt absolutely knows how to carry a dramatic role without being in the slightest melodramatic. This film is 5-plus stars without question. Failed the Bechdel Test however.

The Martian lived up to the hype, but I don't think you can get Matt Damon in a movie without it being an automatic hype machine. (We'll just pretend Elysium never happened.) While nothing in it surprised me, even though I haven't read the novel, and every turn was predictable to the point of being cliché, it still had enough hero appeal to make an audience root for the movie's namesake. Nope on the Bechdel Test, but that's not surprising given it being a high-budget male-main-character film. Shitty, but true.

And finally, The Last Witch Hunter. Not quite there when compared to the Riddick series, but fun and light nonetheless. Both An Aging Hipster and I were surprised by the slower pace of the story itself, yet we were still entertained by its lack of campiness and better plot development than expected. The costumes and CG were fun, but overall, this one is definitely best rented on a night when the cheaper IPA and $2 bottle of wine are flowing freely. Vin smiles a lot, which surprised me. Bechdel Test fail.

Now we get to the substantive part of these overall reviews. For those who don't care about social commentary, this is where you may bow out. I'm going to recap the events surrounding our viewing of The Last Witch Hunter, which added a shocking and unfortunate turn to the experience. No matter how you feel about guns and the right to bear arms, here is the result of living in a country where gun ownership prevails.

File this story under "gut check." Before the lights dimmed as we sat in last night's theater, I observed a solo white man in a hooded sweatshirt, baseball cap, and sunglasses (in a dark theater) walk up the aisle and stand awkwardly in the row for a while before finally taking a seat. Oh, and he was carrying a heavy-looking black backpack. An Aging Hipster and I have started sitting in the back row at theaters because…well…we like to keep an eye on things. I pointed this strange-looking and strange-acting dude out to Hip, and we both couldn't help but stare at him until he settled in and a pulled a large bag of chips from the backpack. Okay, we thought, just a guy having a picnic at the movie. And yet…

After the film ended, we left the theater behind this guy and a another couple. The three of them were in some kind of heated exchange, but I wasn't sure over what. It seems one may have bumped into another. It quickly escalated to the point that when we reached the exit, both the freaky dude and the man he was in an argument with stopped and wouldn't go through. It was a standoff. Rage was flying. The next thing that happened is the freaky dude says he's not going out first, he's not going to walk in front of the other man, and that he was going to "put something in the back of his head." He then unshouldered his backpack and reached to unzip it. Hip and I squeezed out, and he urgently asked the counter staff (in his drill sergeant's voice, which is formidable) to call security. The kid at the counter stared at Hip blankly, as if he'd spoken in Klingon. Hip repeated himself, and asked if they even had security. The kid said no. Mind you, I've had my bag searched twice by the ticket takers at this theater, yet still they had no security. Um…? Last night, however, no bags were searched.

Within another couple of minutes, the man whose life had just been threatened and his girlfriend finally managed to ease past the crazy, yelling, threatening dude to the parking lot. Crazy dude followed them out, still yelling, and then continued to rant like a madman long after they were no longer in sight. Jeff and I could still hear him when we got to our car.

My instincts knew this dude was off the second I laid eyes on him. People: ALWAYS listen to your gut. This is America, home of the mentally ill gun-toting crowd that only gets worse with each passing year. It grieves me that even the act of going to see a Vin Diesel movie requires such intense situational awareness that I now sit in the back row to avoid getting shot from behind and spend the previews not looking forward to new films, but analyzing the other people at the theater, wondering which one might pull a weapon and where their blindspot might be in case they need to be tackled. What the fuck? As the Jello Biafra and Guantanomo School of Medicine song says, "When you jump at the sight of your neighbor, arm yourselves against them instead. Stiffened up like a porcupine, welcome to Panic Land."

At what point do we recognize that there is a sickness in a society where one has to measure the risk of getting shot against the decision to do such basic things as go to school or the theater? The question I keep struggling with is what I as an individual can possibly do about such an endemic and multifaceted problem, which is only exacerbated by the conflicting agendas of personal rights vs. making responsible social agreements and laws. It's so easy in the movies to beat the villain and live happily ever after. Maybe that's why we sometimes prefer our fantasy worlds to these more and more frequent examples of what our real lives in American are becoming.

PS: I'm not actually proposing we all arm ourselves. I'm pointing out that's where we're headed. Imagine your next Sunday outing:

"Well, dear, do you think we should take the Sigs with us?"

"No, dear. Don't be absurd. You know the theater is going to be filled to capacity! Damon's latest Oscar is sure to draw the crowds. We should take the ARs. We might have to lay down a heavy suppressive fire to get clear should anyone lose their shit."

"You're right, of course, dear. I'll go grab some extra magazines."

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Movie Review: Mama

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icPgMEePkXU&w=560&h=315]G. Or perhaps, G-Dog. Nah, I think I'll just go with Mr. G. I'm speaking, of course, of Writer/Director/Producer Guillermo del Toro. I surprise myself for having been lax at effusing as much over Mr. G as I ordinarily do over filmmakers that blow my lobes, but with the release of Mama, his day has come.Mr. G already has a healthy montage of spine-chillers under his belt that have provided more discerning horror and thriller fans hours of entertainment for years. For many of us, del Toro first made an earthshaking impact on us with 2006's Pan's Labyrinth, a surprisingly gory fantasy story. Or was it more of a surprisingly fantastical historical film? Or perhaps, a surprisingly historical thriller? Therein lies the beauty of Mr. G's storytelling; in many of his films, he brings his viewers on a journey that can't be neatly tucked into a single category to be lined up, compared to, and forgotten along with the string of other movies that fit the same category. His films tend to linger, to strike a low bass chord that reverberates in our subconscious long after the lights have gone dark and the credits have rolled. Even Cronos was quietly and insidiously disturbing in its inexplicability. And when the lights are out, many of us continue to wonder: what might have oozed into corporality and been left behind to inhabit the darkness with us?With Mr. G as producer, there could be no doubt the creep-out factor of Mama would be huge. Remember the Orphanage? The Devil's Backbone? And creepiest of all, *shudder*,  Mimic? Unarguably, one of his greatest movie-making talents is incorporating believable and frightening monsters, tangible fairytale characters, and nebulous creatures of both the light and dark that are so realistic in their make-up, prosthetics, and puppetry that they appear to be actual, living beings. Remember Hellboy, and again, Mimic?So, Mama. The story begins with an unfolding tragedy where, in a complete psychotic break, the father of two girls who are one and three years of age kills his estranged wife and kidnaps the children with the intent to end their lives and his own. Within the first ten minutes, viewers are already hugely sympathetic to these young, adorable girls and want nothing more than that they be safe. If there is one theme consistent with almost every movie Mr. G is involved in, it is that the strongest character will be the child/children. Just something to note.To minimize spoilers, I'll simply tell you that the girls' father takes them to a remote cabin in the woods, where they are rescued by Mama. The plot then moves forward five years where the girls are discovered and brought back into civilization. The dead man's brother, a cartoonist, and his girlfriend, the bassist for a punk band (win!), are made the legal guardians of these wild, unsocialized, badly damaged children.What follows is a scare-fest of the kind movie-goers have come to expect in films about ghost hauntings, such as the Grudge or the Ring or Stir of Echoes, with lots of strange noises, creepy camera effects, and things jumping out of the dark at you. Which still works, no matter how many times you see it. However, in true del Toro fashion, the end of the movie jumps far past the obvious conclusion and leaves viewers with both the heebie jeebies and, unfortunately, a gaping inconsistency in the overall premise of the story.And that, dear readers, is the biggest takeaway. While the storytelling in Mama has much of the elegance and complexity we all enjoy about del Toro's films, the enjoyment of Mama is consistently derailed by story inconsistencies that are clearly the results of editing room mistakes, and in the final scene, out-of-step writing. I won't list them here, as they wouldn't make much sense out of context, but there are enough of them and they're so obvious that you'll instantly recognize them when you watch the movie. The final letdown is that Mama relied completely on computer-generated graphics, which, try as they might, never appear real enough to actually get under your skin.My faith in Mr. G is not shaken however, and I am, much as I'm sure you are, thoroughly pumped for Pacific Rim later this year. We've already seen how capably he handles stories that are larger than life, e.g., Hellboy, and giant robots and monsters from another dimension couldn't be a better playground for del Toro's brilliant imagination. In the meantime, Mama would make a comfortable night on the couch with the lights out, but don't expect to have your lobes blown by anything new to the genre.Bechdel Test: pass.

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Movie Review: Lawless

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Manchester, England marveling at the greyness of the skies, the wetness of the air, and the innate knowledge in my primal systems that I am very close to the ocean. Having grown up near the Oregon Coast, but being landlocked for the last two-plus years in Colorado, that information sends zings of joy and excitement through me. There is definitely some metaphysical setting in the subconscious of people who've ever felt the pull of the sea ~ once it's in your blood, your blood will forever be composed of part seawater. Not to mention, I'm hanging out in the country that brought us both Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish.Back on track. I realize that splash of personal divulgence is not the reason you're visiting this post. If you're like me, the reason you're here is simple: Guy Pearce. Okay, or maybe Nick Cave. Tom Hardy? Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain? Shia LeBeouf, even? Can't say I blame you at all. As the central cast of Lawless, these ladies and gentlemen comprise spicy and delicious complements to a story made of unadulterated Appalachian moonshine and violence.First, the warning. If, like me, you were knocked nearly off your literary and story-conscious feet by the dark maelstrom of brilliance and creativity of Nick Cave's book And the Ass Saw the Angel and his and John Hillcoat's (of The Road fame in the States) collaboration on the movie The Proposition, you know to tote an impact-ameliorating pillow on which to land (possibly in the form of a giant flask of whiskey) along with you to see Lawless. (And if you didn't read or see the other two, let this post serve to inform you of the need).Second, the not-so-awesome disclosure. Imagine Lawless as pure gullet-busting White Lightning moonshine. Now imagine what happens to that deadly but pellucid 'shine when the taint of a film studio's pandering to a mass audience is mixed into it. Clouded, limpid, disjointed, and probably berry or licorice flavored. Like a Charleston Bog cocktail, Lawless became much harder to swallow after Hollywood's saccharine influence was added.A quick story description. In the Prohibition Era, three Appalachian bootlegging brothers refuse to kowtow and pay tribute to corrupt law officials in order to protect their moonshine business, instead opting to go rogue (but not like Sarah Palin) and keep their own full proceeds.Don't get me wrong, the twisted violence that only Cave and Hillcoat can bring to the screen in such gruesome, animated detail remains in full effect in Lawless—and I have to say, if those two ever work with David Cronenberg, we're all in for a very vivid look into one of the seven levels of hell—but somewhere during the adaption and editing, this movie lost its heart. The story itself lacks the usual focused, clear, and driven-by-a-single-purpose goal audiences have come to expect from Cave and Hillcoat, instead meandering through a number of subplots and walk-on characters that served merely to dilute what should have been a story of greed, murder, family, and revenge. It isn't until three quarters of the way into the film when one of the bootlegging crew is killed that any real resolution or purpose to the overall events is even articulated. (Note: The last is hardly a spoiler since we already know the film is about bootlegging and violence. What else could possibly happen?) By then, audiences who are still invested in the movie at all are really there just to see what happens to the antagonist, played by Guy Pearce.A word (or thirty) on Guy Pearce. I'm going to go completely off the rez here and bravely compare the transformative and transcendent acting skills of Guy Pearce to such great method actors as Gary Oldman and Johnny Depp. If you want a character who is truly evil, you need look no further than Pearce's villain in Lawless, Charlie Rakes. His role in this film will have you squirming in your seat, and make even the most charitable and forgiving soul pray for his bloody and screaming death. The trainwreck of brutality perpetrated by Rakes in nearly every scene, both those he's present in as well as several he's off-screen for, render the audience helpless to look away.Pearce pulls off such exquisite depravity in Lawless that it's easy to forget that he's also the actor that brought us Leonard Shelby from Memento and Capt. John Boyd from Ravenous. Or maybe it isn't. Pearce's mild on-screen presence belies a subtly disturbing yet beguiling persona that infuses each of the characters he plays with a kind of charisma and a kind of magnetism that audiences of discerning taste can't help but be drawn to. Much like Cave's songwriting, each time Pearce takes the screen, you know that something unexpected and markedly genius is going to happen.Overall, I recommend Lawless for three reasons: One, it's Cave's baby. Two, Guy Pearce takes the audience on a gruesome but entertaining ride. And three, despite being tainted by Hollywood, Lawless still has enough independent flair that audiences who are bored with the usual action or angst of most big screen releases will still feel they're being treated to a fresh and unique story.Bechdel Test status: Does not pass. Not even close. Not one tiny bit.Related and Also Recommended: Lockout with Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace.Next on my list of To See Films: Seven Psychopaths.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Summer Movie Review Mash-up

I know I’m a little late writing up reviews of the following three movies, despite the fact that I went to all three on opening weekend. That should give you a pretty solid sense of how underwhelmed I was by all of them. *frowny face* Am I being obtuse, or has Hollywood simply forgone strong plots and characterization for off-the-reservation special effects? Or maybe it’s the writer in me; I spend so much time focusing on the story arc and development that I have lost touch with the point of sitting in a really dark room, surrounded by ten foot high speakers, staring at a screen that is large enough to serve as a helicopter landing pad. In other words, experiencing complete auditory and visual overload (which is a completely separate experience from the cognitive and cerebral experience of absorbing a good story). Do the other writers out there have this same issue?

And also, after the lobe-blowing let down of Prometheus, I do believe I have become hopelessly jaded.Abraham Lincoln: Vampire HunterI’ll start out with this one because it was by far the best--for what it was. I had no expectations for ALVH other than being entertained by some unbelievable special effects and general storyline silliness. In these things, it did not disappoint. ALVH had three exceptional things going for it: fun characters; interesting plot, especially in terms of reinventing history; and outstanding fight scenes. The one complaint I have is that the story covered far too long of a timespan to really allow viewers to settle into the characters and vicariously experience their inner struggles. There was a lot of glossing over of interpersonal conflicts and psychological development. That being said, there was enough of a hint at the grander details the story must contain in the novel that I definitely left the movie wanting to read it. And, surprisingly, it passes the Bechdel Test.The Amazing SpidermanI have to admit, I was confused about this one. What happen to Mary Jane? What happened to Norman and Harry Osborn and the Green Goblin who I thought were integral to the original Spiderman origin story? Granted, I haven’t read a comic book since I was maybe ten, but I found a re-telling of this story without the original cast of characters to be very off-putting. All of the actors in TAS did a good job and were believable in their roles, and the special effects were generally fun, but the story just really dragged along. Essentially, it’s the story of a fringe-dwelling teenage genius who solves incredible genetics-based problems (that the world’s top scientists can’t??), struggles to impress a high school beauty (who somehow has the time and lab experience to also work in a genetics lab??), copes with the loss of both his parents and his beloved uncle, and is transformed into one tough hombre through a spider bite. There are holes, and lots of them, throughout the plot (like, how does he manage to synthesize the benefits of the genetically-modified spider’s bite, while his nemesis can’t? And how did no one in this high-powered lab notice that the spider’s venom could lead to such amazing benefits in the first place?), and the story itself took quite a long time to actually head in any definitive direction, like saving the world from an evil scientist. Not to mention a scene lifted directly out of Gleaming the Cube. This one was a solid “meh” and a full failure in regards to the Bechdel Test. I’m sure fifteen year old boys loved/will love it, however.Total RecallThis iteration of Total Recall had a couple of marked improvements over the first: the settings and special effects (which kind of go without saying since it’s been gasp twenty-two years since the original came out). The fight scenes were fantastic, especially those involving Kate Beckinsale, who pulled off quality bad-assery nearly as fine as Sharon Stone in the original, and the overall look and feel of the two cities (plus a bonus ruined landscape) where all the events take place were quite elegant and well designed. But that’s where the magic ends.One complaint I have with Total Recall redux is that all of the characters are completely cardboard. All of them. Kate’s character, Lori Quaid, runs around pissed off and intent on killing Quaid. Quaid, played by Colin Eyebrows, er, Farrell, runs around confused and ready to fight, and Jessica Biel’s character, Melina, runs around bummed that Quaid can’t remember her but intent on making sure his brain gets dissected by a new character, leader of the resistance, Mattias (played by Bill Nighy, who really looked like he just wanted to take a nap instead of be in this film). Besides Nighy, everyone, as described, does a lot of running around and fighting or shooting things, and not much else.There are two other major flaws in the film, which are inter-related. For an unknown reason, the writers dramatically changed the plot from Schwarzenegger’s TR. Instead of the story taking place on Mars with a focus on its alien artifacts and the element turbidium, the mining and distribution of which is being controlled by a corporation run by the evil Cohaagen, everything occurs on earth and Cohaagen is transformed into a despotic political leader played by Bryan Cranston. The new story is that Earth was devastated by chemical warfare and there are only two livable regions left, basically the UK and Australia. The people living in Australia are low-paid servants to the metropolitan dwellers of the UK and commute every day through the Earth’s core to work in UK-based factories (why the factories, which would seem to be giant waste-producing facilities that would muck up the pristine metro environment of the UK aren’t based in Oz isn’t explained). SPOILER: The gist is, the UK is running out of living space (because they didn’t realize how much room the factories would take up, presumably) and Quaid knows that Cohaagen is planning to wipe out the population of Oz to make room for the excess UK population (which would leave no one to work in the factories???). The only obstacle is the Resistance, which Quaid, in his original role as a member of Cohaagen’s goon squad, is supposed to infiltrate, much along the lines of the original movie.So, the flaws. Besides the traveling through the Earth’s core idea being rather boring when compared to the elaborate infrastructural implications and physiological variations resulting from the Mars motif in TR One, not to mention the ever-present threat of the livable Martian infrastructure being breached and the inhabitants dying an eye-popping, tongue-extruding death, Cohaagen’s character is completely inconsistent with the world he apparently leads. The idea put forth in the thin storyline is that he rose through the ranks in the chemical wars as a ruthless warlord, yet somehow becomes an esteemed and respected leader in a fairly mellow, egalitarian, and orderly modern society in the UK. Yet, in all of his screen time, his character does nothing but revel in the idea that he gets to wipe out a couple million people and can’t wait to share the fun with his good buddy Quaid (once Quaid is reverted back into his original persona as a bloodthirsty assassin). None of it really makes sense. How does a bad guy thrive as the leader of the free world when all he wants to do is wipe out half of said free world?Long story short, TRr had a gaggle of sparsely drawn characters running around inside a very thinly fleshed out plot. Worst of all, really, is that there were none of the classic one-liners Schwarzzenegger is so adept at. Plus, it fails the Bechdel Test.See you at the party, Richter!

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.