Hype is a weird thing. I wouldn't say Holy Motors was particularly hyped in the mainstream, but the festival hive-mind effect seemed to be in overdrive for this one. I saw what seemed like an endless supply of "best of the festivals" and "it will change your lifes" at Fantastic Fest, but that's Fantastic Fest. You get a lot of like-minded people seeing the same movies, talking about them together afterwards, and while I don't think that necessarily changes anybody's mind, I suspect it strengthens and reinforces opinions: Those who like it, like it more, and insights and theories that each individually might not have come up with.
And that's cool; it's better to write from a position of more information than less, and there's nothing in the handbook that says a movie review should reflect first impressions only. Besides, given that I generally share the same tastes, I generally tend to find that sort of unanimity a good sign; I just wonder if the level of affection for it is heightened.
I wonder, because for all the enthusiasm displayed by people writing about it at festivals, this was one of the quietest theaters I can recall for a movie with this much weird and intentionally funny stuff, and it's not like it was an empty room. I don't know if it's just me projecting my feelings on the rest of the audience, but I think that the most excited the crowd got was the bit with the accordions; it just seems like a purely fun moment that doesn't get undercut.
Holy Motors
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 6 November 2012 in Landmark Kendall Square #8 (first-run, digital)
Holy Motors is the sort of film that will occasionally get its maker described as "drunk on cinema", just so utterly filled with passion for the medium and its possibilities as to be voluble and more capable of expressing emotion that mere rational thought. Of course, it's also the sort of state where a person stumbles around, throwing up on the people he passes and rambling on about things that just sound silly to the sober. At least he's got a designated driver.
That would be Céline (Edith Scob), who arrives early in the morning to pick up Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) in a limousine and drive him to a series of "appointments". Oscar is an actor of sorts, and the car his mobile dressing room where he removes his wigs, dons prosthetic makeup, and transforms himself into a new person for each stop, only occasionally allowing the audience to see the man behind the blank when he interacts with Céline or other actors between gigs.
The main problem with Holy Motors is, as can often be the case with ambitious and unusual works, also the thing that makes it interesting: An ambitious conceit that allows it to leap between genres and styles while commenting on the nature of cinema itself. Writer/director Leos Carax has a nifty idea, an actor quite capable of handling his chimera of a role and the crew to make it work on-screen, but for as much power as both the idea itself and the individual bits may have, they seldom connect, or even come close enough to have a spark jump between them. The film only rarely produces delight, and when its goal appears to be satiric, that falls flat, too.
Full review on eFilmCritic
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Friday, November 09, 2012
This Week In Tickets: 29 October 2012 - 4 November 2012
World series done, the Brattle starting a series I want to see a great deal of, a special presentation by Emerson, and a fairly intense week of new releases. Things just got busy at the cinema:
How busy? Well, let's break out some Horrible Photography!
That's the line at the Brattle waiting to get into The Haunted House of Pancakes, presented by the International Pancake Film Festival. Now, I've got no idea if the IPFF is part of a culture of Boston-area pancake fandom that I was previously and sadly unaware of, if people just happened to see it on the Brattle schedule or entertainment listings and thought it sounded like good cheap fun, or if a program with a dozen shorts made by locals is going to fill a room just by having cast and crew show up, but it drew a nice crowd. Previous shows have mostly been in smaller venues (the host said this was their first time in an actual theater), so there was a lot of waiting in line - both to get in (because they didn't start selling tickets until the 7pm start time) and for the pancakes being cooked in the back of the auditorium. At least it made for a fun time.
I'd be back at the Brattle later in the week for the start of the Universal's 100th Anniversary celebration, with All Quiet on the Western Front on Friday and the Monster Marathon - Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man - on Sunday. It bears mentioning that Universal is doing a great job with their centennial celebration: Bunches of new prints and box sets (I love my new Hitchcock Blu-ray set!), and a curated program done in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive that is touring many cities, finding a natural home at the Brattle in the Boston area. Paramount, meanwhile, celebrated their 100th by re-releasing the usual catalog titles on video with new trade dress, clearing their theatrical release schedule, and licensing more or less their entire catalog to Warner Brothers.
Saturday was a sort of back-and-forth day - on the train early to get to the cheap 3D show of Wreck-It Ralph at Boston Common, out the back and into the next theater over for Hugo in 35mm, back to Boston Common for The Man with the Iron Fists, kill some time and a sandwich at Potbelly's while scribbling reviews in a notebook (the movies I chose to see first this weekend because they had no reviews on EFC would, amusingly, have other reviews posted while I was writing mine), and then over to the Cutler for the Georges Méliès Ciné-Concert, which yielded some real no-exaggeration Horrible Photography:
There was a "no flash photography" rule in place, but even if there wasn't, I think this picture just wasn't happening. From left to right, that's translator Barbara Bouquegneau from the French Cultural Center, narrator Marie-Hélène Lehérissey (Méliès's great-granddaughter), and pianist Lawrence Lehérissey (her son and thus Méliès's great-great-grandson). It was a nifty little affair.
And, finally I finished the weekend off with a screening of The Bay in the Cooldige's screening room. It only played a week there, which is a shame; it's a nifty little movie that's more grounded than many of its found-footage brethren and uses its believability to great advantage.
"The Haunted House of Pancakes"
Seen 30 October 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (International Pancake Film Festival Presents, digital)
With all the pancakes and syrup being served in the back of the theater, I'm fairly surprised that the Brattle wasn't winning an award for All-Time Stickiest Move Theater Floor (Non-Porno Division). But that didn't happen, because people who go to the Brattle are generally cool.
To give star grades and critique the filmmaking of these shorts would not quite be a bit pointless; I'm guessing that the vast majority are one-offs made by folks who say that the IPFF exists and thought it might be worth a lark. There are some noteworthy entries, though - "Pirates of Pancake Island" by Shannon Daly, Jeanne Flanagan, Melitta King, and Bill Trudell of Somerville is a kind of adorable bit of Lego-based stop motion, and while "Jophaboia" by Adric Giles of Watertown is more amusing than most spoofs of artsy French films. Speaking entirely seriously, I like that Giles and company didn't process it to look like a scratched up piece of film, but allowed the shortcomings of low-end digital to come through rather than trying to imitate yesterday's aesthetics. Let your movie honestly represent its time, for better or worse! I also had a good chuckle or three at "The Fall of the House of Pancakes" from Somerville's Collective Fedora.
But let us never speak of Tim Stigliano's "Enough is Never Enough" again. I haven't yet had nightmares about a naked dude pouring batter on himself and cooking flapjacks while narrating the process in a dead-eyed trance, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
All Quiet on the Western Front
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 2 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Despite this movie being made in 1930, there isn't necessarily a whole lot to be added to it on the subject of the way war takes young men and destroys them. The later likes of Saving Private Ryan may make the violence more graphic, and other movies may home in on the specific details of different conflicts, but everything important is here, from the promise to young men of glory and honor to the difficulty of coming home afterward.
It's somewhat fascinating to me that this movie was made from the German point of view, though. If I recall my history correct, American sentiment wasn't particularly against Germany at this point, but it was still a movie (and book before it) that took a sympathetic view of the soldiers that many in the audience had fought against. Did this make it easier to portray the institutions that used them up in a more positive light than shifting the story to America or England would have?
In terms of look and feel, it's a movie of its time, no question - actors were very much still trying to figure out what worked right in a talkie versus stage or silents - but much of the direction still holds up today. The opening shot in which a camera tracks through a window and the sound of a professor's lecture takes a while to assert itself is particularly impressive.
Hugo
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in the Paramount Theater Bright Screening Room (Celebrating Méliès, 35mm)
If one measures "favorite movie" by how many times one watches them, Hugo is certainly right up there for me among recent movies - I believe I saw it on consecutive weeks during its initial release, then again when it got an Oscar-nomination re-release. I haven't watched my Blu-ray of it yet, so this makes a mere four; it's also my first time seeing it in 2D or on film.
Predictably, the movie itself is still fantastic. At its heart, it's still a kid-friendly mystery with some amazing visuals and a great performance by Ben Kingsley, and its low-key but always moving forward pace is kind of masterful. I do think it loses just a little bit by not being in 3D - the opening sequence is clearly designed for that format, and the scene where Sacha Baron Cohen's station inspector is leaning into intimidate Hugo definitely loses something with him not actually impinging no the audience's personal space. Movies intended for 3D also seem to go with wider shots.
It's still pretty marvelous, and I'd still love it if Scorcese did a family-friendly project like this much more often.
Full review on eFilmCritic
"Méliès The Cinemagician"
Seen 3 November 2012 in the Cutler Majestic Theater (Celebrating Méliès, DVD+)
An interesting night, to say the least. Having seen Hugo fresh that afternoon, it was natural to compare the shorts shown with Scorcese's reproductions, leading me to come away impressed with his attention to detail. One thing I found somewhat surprising in the comparison was just how frantic Méliès's films were. Often running mere minutes or even seconds, they feature Méliès and his co-stars running all over the place, not stopping for dialogue of any kind (not even the silent type where there are no intertitles but the thoughts are clear), with a ton of special effects that make the image jumpy or otherwise busy. It's no wonder that Méliès tended to prefer showing them in this sort of "Ciné-Concert", with someone playing an instrument and a narrator telling the story that the film itself literally cannot slow down to explain. In their original run, Georges Méliès himself would perform this task; he later passed it down to his opera singer son André, who passed it on to his granddaughter, who performed in Boston.
It was, admittedly, a bit rough at times - I gather English is her third language after French and Spanish and she mentioned that it was only her second time doing this for an English-language audience (despite 30 years carrying the torch). Mostly, she narrated in French and sometimes added an English translation, and I know just enough French to get frustrated - I listen, catch the occasional word, and then find myself concentrating enough on trying to translate that I'm missing everything else. Even when an English translation came, it would be a bit out of sync in my head.
Still, there were some amazing bits of the program. "A Trip to the Moon" is always welcome, for instance, and "The Coronation of Edward VII" had a nifty story behind it: Méliès had wanted to film the actual coronation (England's first in 60-odd years after Victoria's long reign), but was denied. So he staged it himself, and because the coronation was delayed, his "recreation" appeared at roughly the same time as the actual event. The new king saw it and would mention to Méliès that he had been ill and thus they had had to rush and compact the program, so the other version was arguably "better".
In any event, a very nifty experience, and probably the most authentic way to see these early, pioneering works of cinema.
Frankenstein
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Depending how much time I can find, I may go back and review the Universal movies I'm zipping over here, although I've already done so in the case of Frankenstein. So this might as well be quick.
It is, of course, fantastic, in large part because of Boris Karloff's legendary performance as the Monster. I must admit, that as a fan of the book, I find it a bit odd that that performance, the furthest possible from the intelligent creature of the novel, is the thing that resonates. I think that the reason this quite frankly massive change works is that film and text are different: In the book, Mary Shelley builds her case for the Monster being deserving of the rights of humanity intellectually; we see through his cunning and intellect that he is our equal. In the film, director James Whale and the writers do it emotionally; we feel his humanity. That's indicative of the different strengths of the two media, and how adapting the themes of the book meant changing a huge part of it.
Full review (from 2006) on eFilmCritic
The Bride of Frankenstein
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
That star rating is a promotion over what I gave this when I last wrote it up five-plus years ago; I'd like to think I'm older and wiser now.
One thing I recognize in this one (and it's the reason I'd really like to write a full review) is that it's thematically much darker than even most horror movies. Frankenstein is, as the book's title puts it, about the Modern Prometheus but the theme made more accessible by grounding it in the Monster's human, wounded innocence. This one is about love making people better, but in order to get tot hat, it mines a deep vein of self-hatred. Both Henry and the monster despair about their own lack of worth throughout the movie and SPOILERS! (for an 80-year-old movie) when the Bride is animated and suddenly, instantly reacts to her own face in horror, it's a real emotional self-loathing and despair that few horror movies really go for. The film ends on perhaps the saddest, most pessimistic note it can ("We belong dead."), and while it plays in the story as a noble sacrifice, it's heart-breakingly tragic. !SRELIOPS
I'm half-convinced that this is why the Monster doesn't have dialogue in later Universal Frankenstein films - he's never going to say anything as good as that last line.
The Mummy
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Go figure - the other time I saw this, it was also back-to-back with Bride of Frankenstein. It's improved a little in my estimation on a second viewing, but not by that much.
I do admire its scale - the filmmakers sell the theme of reincarnation much better than many, and I think it gets downright intelligent toward the end. What initially seems like a mess of "you've reincarnated so I have to kill you so you can live forever" actually becomes a strangely nuanced story of the reincarnated princess realizing that the immortal stasis her old lover Imhotep is proposing is another kind of death, that she's moved on and can't simply go back to what she was. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it works better than one might expect.
One amusing thing - I suspect that the film wound up unusually progressive in its attitudes toward archaeology (for the time) almost by accident: They needed to keep the action in Egypt, so the treasures are not shipped back to the British Museum as likely would have happened with such a find in the 1930s. While that seems eminently sensible today, it rubs characters the wrong way in the film. Kind of funny.
The Invisible Man
* * (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Something I wonder about with The Invisible Man: Is this basically the first time a big name that a name actor was hired to basically voice a character made out of special effects, maybe doing some motion capture? After all, it's not like Claude Rains's visage appears much in this movie at all, and there's not really enough done with body language that his stunt double couldn't have done most of the work.
As I mentioned on seeing it about three years ago, The Invisible Man is really not a good movie at all beyond some impressive-for-the-time visual effects. We never get a real glimpse of the non-monstrous form of the title character, and the story seldom becomes more than is required.
Plus, Una O'Connor as one of her shreiking harridan characters. Seriously, how does a homicidal invisible man not kill her character out of sheer annoyance at the start?
How busy? Well, let's break out some Horrible Photography!
That's the line at the Brattle waiting to get into The Haunted House of Pancakes, presented by the International Pancake Film Festival. Now, I've got no idea if the IPFF is part of a culture of Boston-area pancake fandom that I was previously and sadly unaware of, if people just happened to see it on the Brattle schedule or entertainment listings and thought it sounded like good cheap fun, or if a program with a dozen shorts made by locals is going to fill a room just by having cast and crew show up, but it drew a nice crowd. Previous shows have mostly been in smaller venues (the host said this was their first time in an actual theater), so there was a lot of waiting in line - both to get in (because they didn't start selling tickets until the 7pm start time) and for the pancakes being cooked in the back of the auditorium. At least it made for a fun time.
I'd be back at the Brattle later in the week for the start of the Universal's 100th Anniversary celebration, with All Quiet on the Western Front on Friday and the Monster Marathon - Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man - on Sunday. It bears mentioning that Universal is doing a great job with their centennial celebration: Bunches of new prints and box sets (I love my new Hitchcock Blu-ray set!), and a curated program done in partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive that is touring many cities, finding a natural home at the Brattle in the Boston area. Paramount, meanwhile, celebrated their 100th by re-releasing the usual catalog titles on video with new trade dress, clearing their theatrical release schedule, and licensing more or less their entire catalog to Warner Brothers.
Saturday was a sort of back-and-forth day - on the train early to get to the cheap 3D show of Wreck-It Ralph at Boston Common, out the back and into the next theater over for Hugo in 35mm, back to Boston Common for The Man with the Iron Fists, kill some time and a sandwich at Potbelly's while scribbling reviews in a notebook (the movies I chose to see first this weekend because they had no reviews on EFC would, amusingly, have other reviews posted while I was writing mine), and then over to the Cutler for the Georges Méliès Ciné-Concert, which yielded some real no-exaggeration Horrible Photography:
There was a "no flash photography" rule in place, but even if there wasn't, I think this picture just wasn't happening. From left to right, that's translator Barbara Bouquegneau from the French Cultural Center, narrator Marie-Hélène Lehérissey (Méliès's great-granddaughter), and pianist Lawrence Lehérissey (her son and thus Méliès's great-great-grandson). It was a nifty little affair.
And, finally I finished the weekend off with a screening of The Bay in the Cooldige's screening room. It only played a week there, which is a shame; it's a nifty little movie that's more grounded than many of its found-footage brethren and uses its believability to great advantage.
"The Haunted House of Pancakes"
Seen 30 October 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (International Pancake Film Festival Presents, digital)
With all the pancakes and syrup being served in the back of the theater, I'm fairly surprised that the Brattle wasn't winning an award for All-Time Stickiest Move Theater Floor (Non-Porno Division). But that didn't happen, because people who go to the Brattle are generally cool.
To give star grades and critique the filmmaking of these shorts would not quite be a bit pointless; I'm guessing that the vast majority are one-offs made by folks who say that the IPFF exists and thought it might be worth a lark. There are some noteworthy entries, though - "Pirates of Pancake Island" by Shannon Daly, Jeanne Flanagan, Melitta King, and Bill Trudell of Somerville is a kind of adorable bit of Lego-based stop motion, and while "Jophaboia" by Adric Giles of Watertown is more amusing than most spoofs of artsy French films. Speaking entirely seriously, I like that Giles and company didn't process it to look like a scratched up piece of film, but allowed the shortcomings of low-end digital to come through rather than trying to imitate yesterday's aesthetics. Let your movie honestly represent its time, for better or worse! I also had a good chuckle or three at "The Fall of the House of Pancakes" from Somerville's Collective Fedora.
But let us never speak of Tim Stigliano's "Enough is Never Enough" again. I haven't yet had nightmares about a naked dude pouring batter on himself and cooking flapjacks while narrating the process in a dead-eyed trance, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
All Quiet on the Western Front
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 2 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Despite this movie being made in 1930, there isn't necessarily a whole lot to be added to it on the subject of the way war takes young men and destroys them. The later likes of Saving Private Ryan may make the violence more graphic, and other movies may home in on the specific details of different conflicts, but everything important is here, from the promise to young men of glory and honor to the difficulty of coming home afterward.
It's somewhat fascinating to me that this movie was made from the German point of view, though. If I recall my history correct, American sentiment wasn't particularly against Germany at this point, but it was still a movie (and book before it) that took a sympathetic view of the soldiers that many in the audience had fought against. Did this make it easier to portray the institutions that used them up in a more positive light than shifting the story to America or England would have?
In terms of look and feel, it's a movie of its time, no question - actors were very much still trying to figure out what worked right in a talkie versus stage or silents - but much of the direction still holds up today. The opening shot in which a camera tracks through a window and the sound of a professor's lecture takes a while to assert itself is particularly impressive.
Hugo
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in the Paramount Theater Bright Screening Room (Celebrating Méliès, 35mm)
If one measures "favorite movie" by how many times one watches them, Hugo is certainly right up there for me among recent movies - I believe I saw it on consecutive weeks during its initial release, then again when it got an Oscar-nomination re-release. I haven't watched my Blu-ray of it yet, so this makes a mere four; it's also my first time seeing it in 2D or on film.
Predictably, the movie itself is still fantastic. At its heart, it's still a kid-friendly mystery with some amazing visuals and a great performance by Ben Kingsley, and its low-key but always moving forward pace is kind of masterful. I do think it loses just a little bit by not being in 3D - the opening sequence is clearly designed for that format, and the scene where Sacha Baron Cohen's station inspector is leaning into intimidate Hugo definitely loses something with him not actually impinging no the audience's personal space. Movies intended for 3D also seem to go with wider shots.
It's still pretty marvelous, and I'd still love it if Scorcese did a family-friendly project like this much more often.
Full review on eFilmCritic
"Méliès The Cinemagician"
Seen 3 November 2012 in the Cutler Majestic Theater (Celebrating Méliès, DVD+)
An interesting night, to say the least. Having seen Hugo fresh that afternoon, it was natural to compare the shorts shown with Scorcese's reproductions, leading me to come away impressed with his attention to detail. One thing I found somewhat surprising in the comparison was just how frantic Méliès's films were. Often running mere minutes or even seconds, they feature Méliès and his co-stars running all over the place, not stopping for dialogue of any kind (not even the silent type where there are no intertitles but the thoughts are clear), with a ton of special effects that make the image jumpy or otherwise busy. It's no wonder that Méliès tended to prefer showing them in this sort of "Ciné-Concert", with someone playing an instrument and a narrator telling the story that the film itself literally cannot slow down to explain. In their original run, Georges Méliès himself would perform this task; he later passed it down to his opera singer son André, who passed it on to his granddaughter, who performed in Boston.
It was, admittedly, a bit rough at times - I gather English is her third language after French and Spanish and she mentioned that it was only her second time doing this for an English-language audience (despite 30 years carrying the torch). Mostly, she narrated in French and sometimes added an English translation, and I know just enough French to get frustrated - I listen, catch the occasional word, and then find myself concentrating enough on trying to translate that I'm missing everything else. Even when an English translation came, it would be a bit out of sync in my head.
Still, there were some amazing bits of the program. "A Trip to the Moon" is always welcome, for instance, and "The Coronation of Edward VII" had a nifty story behind it: Méliès had wanted to film the actual coronation (England's first in 60-odd years after Victoria's long reign), but was denied. So he staged it himself, and because the coronation was delayed, his "recreation" appeared at roughly the same time as the actual event. The new king saw it and would mention to Méliès that he had been ill and thus they had had to rush and compact the program, so the other version was arguably "better".
In any event, a very nifty experience, and probably the most authentic way to see these early, pioneering works of cinema.
Frankenstein
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Depending how much time I can find, I may go back and review the Universal movies I'm zipping over here, although I've already done so in the case of Frankenstein. So this might as well be quick.
It is, of course, fantastic, in large part because of Boris Karloff's legendary performance as the Monster. I must admit, that as a fan of the book, I find it a bit odd that that performance, the furthest possible from the intelligent creature of the novel, is the thing that resonates. I think that the reason this quite frankly massive change works is that film and text are different: In the book, Mary Shelley builds her case for the Monster being deserving of the rights of humanity intellectually; we see through his cunning and intellect that he is our equal. In the film, director James Whale and the writers do it emotionally; we feel his humanity. That's indicative of the different strengths of the two media, and how adapting the themes of the book meant changing a huge part of it.
Full review (from 2006) on eFilmCritic
The Bride of Frankenstein
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
That star rating is a promotion over what I gave this when I last wrote it up five-plus years ago; I'd like to think I'm older and wiser now.
One thing I recognize in this one (and it's the reason I'd really like to write a full review) is that it's thematically much darker than even most horror movies. Frankenstein is, as the book's title puts it, about the Modern Prometheus but the theme made more accessible by grounding it in the Monster's human, wounded innocence. This one is about love making people better, but in order to get tot hat, it mines a deep vein of self-hatred. Both Henry and the monster despair about their own lack of worth throughout the movie and SPOILERS! (for an 80-year-old movie) when the Bride is animated and suddenly, instantly reacts to her own face in horror, it's a real emotional self-loathing and despair that few horror movies really go for. The film ends on perhaps the saddest, most pessimistic note it can ("We belong dead."), and while it plays in the story as a noble sacrifice, it's heart-breakingly tragic. !SRELIOPS
I'm half-convinced that this is why the Monster doesn't have dialogue in later Universal Frankenstein films - he's never going to say anything as good as that last line.
The Mummy
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Go figure - the other time I saw this, it was also back-to-back with Bride of Frankenstein. It's improved a little in my estimation on a second viewing, but not by that much.
I do admire its scale - the filmmakers sell the theme of reincarnation much better than many, and I think it gets downright intelligent toward the end. What initially seems like a mess of "you've reincarnated so I have to kill you so you can live forever" actually becomes a strangely nuanced story of the reincarnated princess realizing that the immortal stasis her old lover Imhotep is proposing is another kind of death, that she's moved on and can't simply go back to what she was. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it works better than one might expect.
One amusing thing - I suspect that the film wound up unusually progressive in its attitudes toward archaeology (for the time) almost by accident: They needed to keep the action in Egypt, so the treasures are not shipped back to the British Museum as likely would have happened with such a find in the 1930s. While that seems eminently sensible today, it rubs characters the wrong way in the film. Kind of funny.
The Invisible Man
* * (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (Universal Centennial, 35mm)
Something I wonder about with The Invisible Man: Is this basically the first time a big name that a name actor was hired to basically voice a character made out of special effects, maybe doing some motion capture? After all, it's not like Claude Rains's visage appears much in this movie at all, and there's not really enough done with body language that his stunt double couldn't have done most of the work.
As I mentioned on seeing it about three years ago, The Invisible Man is really not a good movie at all beyond some impressive-for-the-time visual effects. We never get a real glimpse of the non-monstrous form of the title character, and the story seldom becomes more than is required.
Plus, Una O'Connor as one of her shreiking harridan characters. Seriously, how does a homicidal invisible man not kill her character out of sheer annoyance at the start?
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 9 November 2012 - 15 November 2012
Photobucket's down for maintenance, so "Next Week" goes up before "This Week" this week. This should go quickly, at least - the theaters have declared that you'll see James Bond or Abraham Lincoln and like it.
My plans? Still living at the Brattle, with brief trips elsewhere for Skyfall (maybe to Reading on Sunday?) and Linclon. I'll probably also take in It Came from Beneath the Sea at the Coolidge on Monday.
- The new James Bond film, Skyfall, is the only movie opening at the multiplexes, but early word is that it earns that massive booking by being one of the very best in the long-running series, right up there with From Russia with Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, reintroducing some of the familiar, whimsical elements back to the series while still retaining the more modern feel of the post-Casino Royale Bond. Anyway, it's all over the place on a bunch of screens, including the Somerville Theatre (on the main screen over the weekend), the IMAX screens at Jordan's Furniture in Reading and Natick, Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including the Imax-branded screen), and Fenway (including the RPX screen).
- Kendall Square is, for this week at least, the only place to see Lincoln, Steven Spielberg's portrait of the sixteenth President's last few months. By all indications, it is less a biography than a look at how Lincoln engineered the end of the Civil War and slavery, with Daniel Day-Lewis looking excellent in the title role.
For the most part, they are able to keep most of their other films by splitting houses and cutting things down to one screen from two, so there's also room for a planned one-week booking of This Must Be the Place, with Sean Penn as a rock star who looks an awful lot like Ozzy Osborne returning to America for his father's funeral and taking up his late father's mission to find the Nazi war criminal who tormented him during WWII. Frances McDormand plays his wife. They've also got a one-night booking of The Doors: Live at the Bowl '68 on Monday, including a few songs that were not in the original release of this concert film. - It's still Universal's 100th Anniversary, at the Brattle, and that's a very good thing! the prints so far have been fantastic, and the line-up for the second week looks pretty good: An early-evening double feature of Chip Off the Old Block & James Whale's Show Boat on Friday, followed by a stand-along 10pm Late Show of The Last Starfighter; a noir double-feature of Black Angel & Phantom Lady on Saturday, with Tremors as the late show at 9:30pm; a western double feature of Winchester '73 and High Plains Drifter on Sunday; the silent Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday; a Rock Hudson double feature of Pillow Talk & Written on the Wind on Wednesday; and a sci-fi pairing of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (in old-fashioned anaglyph 3D) & The Incredible Shrinking Man on Thursday. Chip off the Old Block, Show Boat, and Pillow Talk are new prints, and all are slated to be 35mm.
There are also a few other special events. The world premiere of Jonathan Carr's new short film, "Once Again", is Saturday at noon; it's a free screening with donations being collected for the Rich Cronin Hope Foundation for Leukemia. There will be other shorts and live music as well. The Annual Gala takes place on Sunday evening at the Charles Hotel across the street with dinner and a silent auction among other events (dress fancy). Monday night is a combined CineCaché/DocYard/Harvard/Emerson event, An Evening with Tony Buba, with the unique documentarian presenting his first feature (1988's Lightning Over Braddock) along with two earlier shorts, all of which are part of his continuing observation of his hometown of Braddock, PA. - The Coolidge pulls in a few films that opened at the Kendall last week: A Late Quartet, Holy Motors, and The House I Live In. Quartet splits time between the film and video rooms, while the other two are in the screening room and GoldScreen all week; check the site to see which is showing where when. I'll have a full review of Holy Motors up later; it's often impressive, but might be too self-aware for its own good.
Absent from its traditional place at the Brattle for Halloween the past two years, Evil Dead II is the featured midnight movie this weekend, playing on the big screen on both Friday and Saturday night. Should be a party! Friday night also features a midnight screening of The Room because it's been about a month. They also go for a horror vibe with Monday's "Science on Screen" show, where the University of Chicago's Michael LaBarbera will introduce It Came from Beneath the Sea and then discusses why it's Ray Harryhausen-animated monster probably wouldn't fly in real life. - The Coolidge is also one of several venues screening programming as part of The Boston Jewish Film Festival from Saturday to Thursday, including screenings at the Somerville Theatre, Arlington Capitol, Cinema Salem, Framingham, Patriot Place, and others. There's actually relatively few shows at The MFA compared to previous years - an already sold-out show of Paris-Manhattan on Saturday and two screenings (Oma & Bella and Emma) on Sunday.
They are playing host to another festival, with screenings from the Belmont World Film's Family Film Festival on Friday evening and through much of Saturday. There's also a final screening of High Ground Friday evening, while Wednesday marks the first screening of Tales of the Night, a French animated filmthe includes fairy tales from six different cultures that will hang around at various times through the end of the month. And there's one more series starting on Wednesday, as Flowers of the Steppe: A Festival of Kazakh Cinema kicks off with Letters to an Angel with a Q&A afterward. - Soldiers undergoing stress in the field and coming home is the theme at ArtsEmerson's film program this weekend. documentary Lioness plays Friday evening, with Hal Ashby's Coming Home running later that night. Best Years of Our Lives plays Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, and The Hurt Locker plays later Sunday night. The Hurt Locker is 35mm; all the others are digital formats.
- The Harvard Film Archive returns to its Michelangelo Antonioni series this weekend, with The Eclipse playing Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, with encore screenings of The Cry Friday night, Red Desert and Blow-Up Saturday night, and Chung Ko - China Sunday night. On Monday, they welcome Ute Aurand with a program of 16mm "Film Portraits" on Monday night.
- The Regent Theatre in Arlington has three music-oriented shows this weekend, including the same Doors concert that the Kendall is showing on Monday. They also have an encore presentation of Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day on Wednesday and a Jimi Hendrix 70th Birthday double feature on Thursday (Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child & Jimi Plays Berkley). If that's not enough Hendrix for you, the Regent is co-hosting a panel discussion on Tuesday the the Arlington High School Media Center and will have two live shows on Friday the 16th ("All Star Jam") and Saturday the 17th (the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra) playing Jimi's music.
- It's mostly unsubtitled stuff on the Indian screen at Fresh Pond this weekend, although subtitled Hindi takes over with Jab Tak Hai Jaan starting Tuesday the 13th and having the screen to itself through Thanksgiving. It's the final film of one of Bollywood's most respected directors, Yash Chopra, and features Shah Rukh Khan as a former soldier in London who must choose between his wife and his lover (Katrina Kaif & Anushka Sharma) It's apparently the season's big Diwali release and expected to be a big hit.
- The Somerville Theatre appears to have one screen dark over the weekend, but has a couple of special bookings later in the week. On Monday, they have the CD Release party and documentary premiere for Brendan Burns' Timestamp, an experimental album improvised and recorded in the theater itself. On Wednesday and Thursday, they've got a ski movie, Warren Miller's Flow State. They also re-open Sleepwalk with Me for a second run, and to make room Looper and Cloud Atlas head up the Red Line to The Arlington Capitol. The Capitol is planning a Twilight Saga Marathon on Thursday; apparently the last of those things is opening next weekend (as does Fenway and Boston Common)
My plans? Still living at the Brattle, with brief trips elsewhere for Skyfall (maybe to Reading on Sunday?) and Linclon. I'll probably also take in It Came from Beneath the Sea at the Coolidge on Monday.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
The Bay
It's been a while since I've been in the Coolidge's screening room; I generally go for film when I can, and I've had some bad experience there, when it wasn't yet using full HD and I literally would be better off waiting for the movie to come out on Blu-ray and watching it in my living room. Sunday night's screening looked better than I remembered from before, but it's still sort of a last resort: The screen is barely wider than the center aisle, so the room really doesn't have a sweet spot. Better than watching at home, but...
Anyway, it's interesting to see Barry Levinson doing this. Brian De Palma did a movie in this sort of style a few years ago, and I'm curious about how much of it is "want to" and "need to". As storied as these guys' careers have been, that doesn't necessarily count for a lot in the present day - it's kind of fascinating how household names like Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson can have their movies go direct to video or VOD, and directors who haven't had a hit in a while are even more in that boat. Levinson, arguably, hasn't had a real hit since Sleepers fifteen years ago, so folks probably aren't lining up to finance big movies with his name on it. You take the gig you can get, although this does seem to be something he believes in (he's got a story credit), and it is worth noting that The Bay seems to have a more substantive story than many horror movies of its ilk. Maybe a veteran has to have something to say to do a movie like this, where a rookie just likes the hook.
The Bay
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Coolidge Corner Theatre Video Screening Room (first-run, digital)
First-person horror is generally a young filmmaker's game, a way to produce a movie with little in the way of resources where the cast being unknowns is a plus, maybe sneak into a genre film festival, get seen, and start working one's way up the ladder. That makes it a bit of a surprise to see seasoned veteran Barry Levinson dipping his toes into these waters, and he does it well enough that audiences might think twice about doing so literally after the movie.
The Bay doesn't label itself "A Barry Levinson Film" at the start, though; it presents itself as the work of Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue), a former communications student piecing together what happened in Claridge, Maryland on July 4th, 2009 from footage found on a WikiLeaks-inspired website and her own memories. She was an intern at a local TV station, doing video blogs for the website and puff pieces like interviewing Mayor Stockman (Frank Deal) about the Independence Day activities. It's not going to be a slow news day for long - soon enough people are developing strange blisters that ER doctor Jack Abrams (Stephen Kunken) is calling the CDC and the small sheriff's department is being overloaded with strange calls.
"Found footage horror" is the name often given to these sorts of movies, but Levinson and screenwriter Michael Wallach make their movie stand out in part by not trying to build a mystery around the source of the material: Donna lives through this, and The Bay looks and feels like her movie. Although mostly fairly linear, it jumps forward to her narration in 2012 and back to an earlier connected incident; the music is sometimes a little too much and Donna drops "he'll die later" in enough to make it a little less effective as ominous foreshadowing. But those apparent flaws are part of what makes it feel genuine, like the work of a talented but inexperienced young woman who is still extremely close to the material.
Full review at EFC.
Anyway, it's interesting to see Barry Levinson doing this. Brian De Palma did a movie in this sort of style a few years ago, and I'm curious about how much of it is "want to" and "need to". As storied as these guys' careers have been, that doesn't necessarily count for a lot in the present day - it's kind of fascinating how household names like Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson can have their movies go direct to video or VOD, and directors who haven't had a hit in a while are even more in that boat. Levinson, arguably, hasn't had a real hit since Sleepers fifteen years ago, so folks probably aren't lining up to finance big movies with his name on it. You take the gig you can get, although this does seem to be something he believes in (he's got a story credit), and it is worth noting that The Bay seems to have a more substantive story than many horror movies of its ilk. Maybe a veteran has to have something to say to do a movie like this, where a rookie just likes the hook.
The Bay
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 4 November 2012 in the Coolidge Corner Theatre Video Screening Room (first-run, digital)
First-person horror is generally a young filmmaker's game, a way to produce a movie with little in the way of resources where the cast being unknowns is a plus, maybe sneak into a genre film festival, get seen, and start working one's way up the ladder. That makes it a bit of a surprise to see seasoned veteran Barry Levinson dipping his toes into these waters, and he does it well enough that audiences might think twice about doing so literally after the movie.
The Bay doesn't label itself "A Barry Levinson Film" at the start, though; it presents itself as the work of Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue), a former communications student piecing together what happened in Claridge, Maryland on July 4th, 2009 from footage found on a WikiLeaks-inspired website and her own memories. She was an intern at a local TV station, doing video blogs for the website and puff pieces like interviewing Mayor Stockman (Frank Deal) about the Independence Day activities. It's not going to be a slow news day for long - soon enough people are developing strange blisters that ER doctor Jack Abrams (Stephen Kunken) is calling the CDC and the small sheriff's department is being overloaded with strange calls.
"Found footage horror" is the name often given to these sorts of movies, but Levinson and screenwriter Michael Wallach make their movie stand out in part by not trying to build a mystery around the source of the material: Donna lives through this, and The Bay looks and feels like her movie. Although mostly fairly linear, it jumps forward to her narration in 2012 and back to an earlier connected incident; the music is sometimes a little too much and Donna drops "he'll die later" in enough to make it a little less effective as ominous foreshadowing. But those apparent flaws are part of what makes it feel genuine, like the work of a talented but inexperienced young woman who is still extremely close to the material.
Full review at EFC.
Monday, November 05, 2012
New Releases: Wreck-It Ralph & The Man with the Iron Fists
Huzzah, MoviePass worked for The Man with the Iron Fists! Both the "one per day" and "no 3D" rules kept me from using it for Wreck-It Ralph, but that's OK, as this was a festival-full weekend and I had to squeeze what I wanted in while I could, and it's going to be that way through November.
Anyway, not a whole lot to say about The Man with the Iron Fists that isn't in the review other than that it's quite possible where I sat may have skewed my opinion. I like being toward the front in general, but by the time I got to the theater and got a snack (the first three movies of the day were stacked right on top of each other) I was looking at the front row if I wanted to be toward the center, so... front row it was. For something like Iron Fists, with a lot of fast-moving action that uses the entire wide screen, it's especially problematic. That may be a large chunk of why I thought the action direction was choppy while a lot of other people seemed to like it.
I must also say, I dug the credits. Great Shaw Brothers homaging on the one hand and blaxploitation style on the other.
Wreck-It Ralph was darn good, and the whole package was even better because it included the short film "Paperman" at the front. I'd actually heard a bit about it before, but forgot that it was going to be in front of Ralph (I was half-assuming another Toy Story short, though I gather then new one premiered online). It's really beautiful, using what feels like the same sort of CG models as Tangled to create something with a bit of the character of traditional cel-based animation, even if it is obviously CG and 3D. It does a great job of telling its story without words, just letting action, character expression, and music make the point. And it's sweet.
It was just what was needed after a pretty rough set of previews. There were trailers for a half-dozen animated/"family" films, and some were pretty rough: Dino Time and Escape from Planet Earth both look like they've got no business hitting the same theaters that play movies from the big studios, really; the animation is basic and characters look plastic less as a matter of style and more because there just isn't enough computing power to throw at it for textures or enough time to really get movement right. The Smurfs 2 looks like the studio has staked out a release date but don't have any idea what sort of movie it's making, and it ironically has the opposite problem as those other two - too much texture and dimension compared to Peyo's simple drawings (and the voice also seems totally wrong for someone who watched the cartoon when younger). Despicable Me 2, on the other hand, looks enjoyably absurd with its focus on the Minions, and The Croods at the very least looks interesting - the character animation looks like they got it as close to photorealistic as they could and then pulled back to what works. And the trailer for the 3D re-release of Monsters Inc. looks pretty good - you'd almost think it was built for that.
It's worth mentioning how relatively uninspiring the next batch of animated films looks because 2012 was actually crazy-good: We got Arietty, The Lorax, Pirates!, Madagascar 3, Brave, Ice Age 4, ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, and the upcoming Rise of the Guardians. PLUS Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris from last year's Oscar-qualifiers and three Disney 3D re-releases. That's a pretty nice selection of movies, and it doesn't count any of the pretty good ones I saw at Fantasia that may wind up on the Oscar list (Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, Gyo, A Letter to Momo, The King of Pigs, Asura)
Here's hoping 2013 can try to keep up with 2012, although that's a really high bar.
Oh, one more thing about Wreck-It Ralph... Stay through the end credits. The bit at the very end isn't that great, but the 8-bit styled gags in the titles amused me as did some of the music.
Wreck-It Ralph
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in AMC Boston Common #14 (first-run, Real-D)
Wreck-It Ralph might be said to be the next generation's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and that can be taken as a compliment or a dig depending on who says that how: The cynical will claim that the video games it references are inherently inferior to the Disney and Warner cartoons previous generations grew up on, and that it lacks a certain satiric edge; those who like it will point out how well it integrates original characters into a world filled with old favorites and mixes and matches them in clever ways. I lean toward the latter, even if I could see where the former are coming from.
Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) is the bad guy in "Fix-It Felix Jr.", a game that's been in the local arcade for thirty years now. And when the characters from various games hang out together after the kids go home, he admits that it bothers him that no-one appreciates what he does. But when he's not invited to the machine's thirtieth anniversary party, he flips his lid, and enters first-person shooter "Hero's Duty" to try and win a medal of his own, though he eventually winds up in karting game "Sugar Rush", where glitchy outcast Vanellope von Sweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman) leads him on a merry chase. His absence from his own game leaves it declared out of order, though, and if he's not found by the next day, it will be unplugged, leaving the characters abandoned, so Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer) goes looking for him, teaming up with Sgt. Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch) of "Duty", who fears a different kind of disaster.
At the very least, Wreck-It Ralph is going to be a fun movie to freeze-frame once it comes out on video, not just to see how many videogame in-jokes have been placed in the background but to see if an important clue to what kicks off the finale has been hiding in plain sight since early on. I sort of suspect it has, which means that the filmmakers' attention to detail isn't just about cramming all of their favorite game characters into the background. That is a lot of fun, though, especially since they dig into the 1980s games that might not have the highest profile (Q*Bert and Tapper, for instance) and have some fun with the more modern ones, too.
Full review at EFC.
The Man with the Iron Fists
* * * (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, digital)
I'm going to guess that it's no coincidence that Gordon Liu and Pam Grier play important figures in the life of The Man with the Iron Fists's title character; his kung fu flicks and her blaxploitation movies provide a lot of DNA for this one. And while it retains a fair amount of their weaknesses, it captures a great deal of their pleasures, too.
The governor has a shipment of gold heading to the northern border and has hired the Lion Clan to protect it as it passes through Jungle Village. But leader Gold Lion (Chen Kuan Tai) has been betrayed by lieutenants Silver Lion (Byron Mann) and Bronze Lion (Cung Le), abetted by Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu). The local blacksmith (RZA) is selling weapons to everyone who will pay, aiming to buy out the contract of girlfriend Lady Silk (Jamie Chung) at the brother run by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). But all that gold makes an irresistible target, so warriors from Jack the Knife (Russell Crowe) to Brass Body (Dave Bautista) to the Gemini Killers (Andrew Lin & Grace Huang) to Gold Lion's son Zen Yi (Rick Yune) are all converging on Jungle Village.
Say this for the folks both behind and in front of the camera for this movie: They know exactly what film they want to make and generally nail it. That's trickier than it sounds; part of the characters of the movies that inspired this one is their imperfection and occasional broad comedy (intentional and otherwise), but recreating that too deliberately makes it easy to drift from loving homage to easy mockery. What writer/director/star RZA does is keep things loose until the fighting starts, never making fun of the genre into which he's inserted himself but well aware of its conventions. He has fun pushing already outsize things a little farther and letting his characters swagger.
Full review at EFC.
Anyway, not a whole lot to say about The Man with the Iron Fists that isn't in the review other than that it's quite possible where I sat may have skewed my opinion. I like being toward the front in general, but by the time I got to the theater and got a snack (the first three movies of the day were stacked right on top of each other) I was looking at the front row if I wanted to be toward the center, so... front row it was. For something like Iron Fists, with a lot of fast-moving action that uses the entire wide screen, it's especially problematic. That may be a large chunk of why I thought the action direction was choppy while a lot of other people seemed to like it.
I must also say, I dug the credits. Great Shaw Brothers homaging on the one hand and blaxploitation style on the other.
Wreck-It Ralph was darn good, and the whole package was even better because it included the short film "Paperman" at the front. I'd actually heard a bit about it before, but forgot that it was going to be in front of Ralph (I was half-assuming another Toy Story short, though I gather then new one premiered online). It's really beautiful, using what feels like the same sort of CG models as Tangled to create something with a bit of the character of traditional cel-based animation, even if it is obviously CG and 3D. It does a great job of telling its story without words, just letting action, character expression, and music make the point. And it's sweet.
It was just what was needed after a pretty rough set of previews. There were trailers for a half-dozen animated/"family" films, and some were pretty rough: Dino Time and Escape from Planet Earth both look like they've got no business hitting the same theaters that play movies from the big studios, really; the animation is basic and characters look plastic less as a matter of style and more because there just isn't enough computing power to throw at it for textures or enough time to really get movement right. The Smurfs 2 looks like the studio has staked out a release date but don't have any idea what sort of movie it's making, and it ironically has the opposite problem as those other two - too much texture and dimension compared to Peyo's simple drawings (and the voice also seems totally wrong for someone who watched the cartoon when younger). Despicable Me 2, on the other hand, looks enjoyably absurd with its focus on the Minions, and The Croods at the very least looks interesting - the character animation looks like they got it as close to photorealistic as they could and then pulled back to what works. And the trailer for the 3D re-release of Monsters Inc. looks pretty good - you'd almost think it was built for that.
It's worth mentioning how relatively uninspiring the next batch of animated films looks because 2012 was actually crazy-good: We got Arietty, The Lorax, Pirates!, Madagascar 3, Brave, Ice Age 4, ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, and the upcoming Rise of the Guardians. PLUS Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris from last year's Oscar-qualifiers and three Disney 3D re-releases. That's a pretty nice selection of movies, and it doesn't count any of the pretty good ones I saw at Fantasia that may wind up on the Oscar list (Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, Gyo, A Letter to Momo, The King of Pigs, Asura)
Here's hoping 2013 can try to keep up with 2012, although that's a really high bar.
Oh, one more thing about Wreck-It Ralph... Stay through the end credits. The bit at the very end isn't that great, but the 8-bit styled gags in the titles amused me as did some of the music.
Wreck-It Ralph
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in AMC Boston Common #14 (first-run, Real-D)
Wreck-It Ralph might be said to be the next generation's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and that can be taken as a compliment or a dig depending on who says that how: The cynical will claim that the video games it references are inherently inferior to the Disney and Warner cartoons previous generations grew up on, and that it lacks a certain satiric edge; those who like it will point out how well it integrates original characters into a world filled with old favorites and mixes and matches them in clever ways. I lean toward the latter, even if I could see where the former are coming from.
Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) is the bad guy in "Fix-It Felix Jr.", a game that's been in the local arcade for thirty years now. And when the characters from various games hang out together after the kids go home, he admits that it bothers him that no-one appreciates what he does. But when he's not invited to the machine's thirtieth anniversary party, he flips his lid, and enters first-person shooter "Hero's Duty" to try and win a medal of his own, though he eventually winds up in karting game "Sugar Rush", where glitchy outcast Vanellope von Sweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman) leads him on a merry chase. His absence from his own game leaves it declared out of order, though, and if he's not found by the next day, it will be unplugged, leaving the characters abandoned, so Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer) goes looking for him, teaming up with Sgt. Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch) of "Duty", who fears a different kind of disaster.
At the very least, Wreck-It Ralph is going to be a fun movie to freeze-frame once it comes out on video, not just to see how many videogame in-jokes have been placed in the background but to see if an important clue to what kicks off the finale has been hiding in plain sight since early on. I sort of suspect it has, which means that the filmmakers' attention to detail isn't just about cramming all of their favorite game characters into the background. That is a lot of fun, though, especially since they dig into the 1980s games that might not have the highest profile (Q*Bert and Tapper, for instance) and have some fun with the more modern ones, too.
Full review at EFC.
The Man with the Iron Fists
* * * (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2012 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, digital)
I'm going to guess that it's no coincidence that Gordon Liu and Pam Grier play important figures in the life of The Man with the Iron Fists's title character; his kung fu flicks and her blaxploitation movies provide a lot of DNA for this one. And while it retains a fair amount of their weaknesses, it captures a great deal of their pleasures, too.
The governor has a shipment of gold heading to the northern border and has hired the Lion Clan to protect it as it passes through Jungle Village. But leader Gold Lion (Chen Kuan Tai) has been betrayed by lieutenants Silver Lion (Byron Mann) and Bronze Lion (Cung Le), abetted by Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu). The local blacksmith (RZA) is selling weapons to everyone who will pay, aiming to buy out the contract of girlfriend Lady Silk (Jamie Chung) at the brother run by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). But all that gold makes an irresistible target, so warriors from Jack the Knife (Russell Crowe) to Brass Body (Dave Bautista) to the Gemini Killers (Andrew Lin & Grace Huang) to Gold Lion's son Zen Yi (Rick Yune) are all converging on Jungle Village.
Say this for the folks both behind and in front of the camera for this movie: They know exactly what film they want to make and generally nail it. That's trickier than it sounds; part of the characters of the movies that inspired this one is their imperfection and occasional broad comedy (intentional and otherwise), but recreating that too deliberately makes it easy to drift from loving homage to easy mockery. What writer/director/star RZA does is keep things loose until the fighting starts, never making fun of the genre into which he's inserted himself but well aware of its conventions. He has fun pushing already outsize things a little farther and letting his characters swagger.
Full review at EFC.
Friday, November 02, 2012
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 3 November 2012 - 9 November 2012
Hopefully MoviePass and I have got all of our differences ironed out, because I intend to start using it a lot more starting this weekend. Admittedly, it won't be getting the full, borderline abusive level of exploitation until I get back from vacation in December, because I'm going to be living at the Brattle for the next month.
My plans? Living at the Brattle for as much classic Universal stuff as I can see while also trying to fit in the three new major releases and The Bay, the Cine-Concert (and maybe Hugo again, as I've only ever seen that digitally and in 3D). AND Holy Motors, although I've got no idea when all this is going to happen.
- Why? Universal's 100th Anniversary, that's why - the good folks at the Brattle are dedicating pretty much the entire month of November to that studio's centennial. It's not quite in chronological order, but this first week's worth is mostly early stuff: All Quiet on the Western Front on Friday and Saturday; a Sunday "Monster Marathon" of Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man; a Dracula double feature on Monday (with the Spanish version in the prime 7:15 slot and the Bela Lugosi version before or after); Traffic in Souls (Universal's first feature) and Where Are My Children? on Wednesday; and an early double feature of The Good Fairy and My Man Godfrey on Thursday. There are also 10pm late shows on Friday (Repo Man) and Saturday (Streets of Fire).
As of right now, only the Wednesday silents listed as digital, with All Quiet, Frankenstein, Bride, and the Draculas new restorations and prints.
There are a few one-off screenings scattered among the Universal series, too. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has a membership drive event Saturday morning that includes a screening of America's Wild Spaces: The Appalachian Trail. Tuesday night is a Balagan show, "Spectral Evidence, a set of four short films examining the way women's bodies are used in politics. And late Thursday night is the Found Footage Festival, a touring show of random VHS tapes people have found. - It looks like a pretty entertaining set of new releases at the mainstream multiplexes. Flight, for instance, is the new one from Robert Zemeckis, his first live-action movie in years. It stars Denzel Washington as an airline pilot initially hailed as a hero after a spectacular crash only to have further investigation potentially paint a different picture. It plays Somerville, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and Fenway.
On the other end of the spectrum, experience-wise, is Wu-Tang Clan frontman RZA, whose first movie as writer/director is The Man with the Iron Fists, which mixes a Chinese and Western cast in a tribute to the martial arts films he grew up on. It plays Fenway (including the RPX screen), Boston Common, and Fresh Pond.
And for the kids, there's Wreck-It Ralph, Disney's new CGI-animated feature with John C. Reilly as a character from a 1980s video game who runs off when he gets tired of being the bad guys. I fully admit that I would be all over this even if it didn't appear to have Q*Bert in it. Why isn't there a legit version of Q*Bert on Android? While pondering that, the movie is playing (in both 2D and 3D) at the Arlington Capitol, Fresh Pond, Fenway, and Boston Common.
With a little extra space to fill, Boston Common also picks up The Sessions, which opened at Kendall Square last week. Fresh Pond, meanwhile, opensAmber Alert for 10pm-only shows; it's a found-footage movie following a group of people who think they recognize a car from the news. - Kendall Square has two movies opening that are pegged for one-week bookings. Holy Motors has been getting rave reviews from the festival circuit, with Denis Lavant as a character who morphs into a new persona from moment to moment (including his character from director Leos Carax's segment in Tokyo!). One week is also all that's initially been allotted to The Loneliest Planet, which played IFFBoston this year, which has a young couple meeting up with a third person on a hike.
Two other movies get more open-ended bookings. The House I Live In is a documentary focused on the negative impact of the war on drugs, while A Late Quartet focuses on the members of a string quartet. That one's got an impressive cast - Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Wallace Shawn, and Imogen Poots. - The Coolidge opens a couple new movies in the digital rooms that are worth some attention. The Bay is the new movie from Barry Levinson, who is probably the last person you'd expect to be doing a found-footage horror movie. That's what it is, though, and word is that it's a good one, following a nasty outbreak in a harbor town. It splits the screening room with The Big Picture, while the GoldScreen has documentary Love and Other Anxieties, whose director is looking for meaning on the subjects of love and commitment. They also pick up The Perks of Being a Wallflower for a quick one-week run, mostly on screen #2.
The midnight movie this weekend is the original Predator, which plays screen #1 at 11:59 on Friday and Saturday. Apparently, tracking down a 35mm print of one of Schwarzeneggar's most popular movies was surprisingly difficult! Moving from cult classics to "Big Screen Classics", Chinatown plays Monday as part of that series - one of Jack Nicholson's most memorable roles. - ArtsEmerson pays tribute to silent movies this weekend in two different ways at two different venues. The Bright Screening Room in the Paramount Theater runs two recent movies set in and around that world - The Artist on Friday (9pm) & Saturday (4:30pm) and Hugo on Friday at 6pm & at 1pm Saturday/Sunday; both are presented in 35mm. They will also have a Ciné-Concert at the Cutler Majestic Theatre on Saturday at 7pm, which will feature films by Georges Méliès accompanied by narration and piano accompaniment provided by his great-granddaughter and great-great-grandson.
- The MFA's film program continues showing High Ground, which started on Thursday; it plays at various times on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. They also have a number co-presentations with the Boston LGBT Film Festival running at the same time: Elliot Loves on Friday, Cloudburst and Question One on Saturday, with a shorts program and Facing Mirrors on Sunday. Wednesday has a short documentary on architecture, "Coast Modern", with director Gavin Froome present for a discussion afterward. An on Thursday the 8th, they have their first screening of the Boston Jewish Film Festival with Melting Away, one of the few Israeli films to tackle transgendered characters.
- The Harvard Film Archive welcomes Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahmimik for a retrsopective, Behind the Bamboo Camera with Kidlat Tahimik, highlighting his whimsical but earnest works. The series starts wtih video diary project Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? on Friday, continues with a double feature of The Perfumed Nightmare and its even more seldom-seen Who Invented the Yo-Yo? Who Invented the Moon Buggy? on Saturday, and wraps on Sunday with another set of video diaries at 4pm and his sole fiction feature, Turumba, at 7pm. On Monday, they welcome a different guest, as a program of The Animated Art of Caroline Leaf is presented by the Canadian animator herself.
- The Regent Theatre in Arlington has a pair of screenings this week: Gen Silent, a film about the special challenges and isolation of older LGBT people will play with post-film discussion on Sunday; the screening is free and all are welcome. More typical is Charlie Is My Darling, a behind-the-scenes look at the Rolling Stones on tour in Ireland in 1965, recently restored with new interviews added.
- The new Bollywood opening this week is Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, a comedy in which Kunal Kapoor plays a man returning to his village in Punjab to escape debts in London, reconnecting with his childhood sweetheart (Huma Qureshi) and trying to rediscover the famous recipe that his senile grandfather has forgotten.
- The Arlington Capitol picks up a couple of movies second-run: Paranormal Activity 4 plays Friday to Sunday (no 9:30pm shows during the week there), while Searching for Sugar Man plays afternoons and early evenings.
My plans? Living at the Brattle for as much classic Universal stuff as I can see while also trying to fit in the three new major releases and The Bay, the Cine-Concert (and maybe Hugo again, as I've only ever seen that digitally and in 3D). AND Holy Motors, although I've got no idea when all this is going to happen.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
This Week In Tickets: 22 October 2012 - 28 October 2012
Feeling well and getting out!
MoviePass finally got my card to me, although it was still a frustrating week of not actually getting to use it properly: The browser on my phone wasn't allowing location data to be sent on Tuesday, so (already being at the theater) I wound up shelling out for Seven Psychopaths. Wednesday I discovered that it apparently doesn't acknowledge the existence of Landmark Kendall Square at all, and then Saturday, when I finally thought everything was working, it didn't work on Cloud Atlas at all. Turns out that because my first card never arrived and I had them send me a new one, their system and my pocket had different card numbers. Hopefully that's cleared up, but Sunday's issue was that the system no longer includes 3D and IMAX movies, even if the ticket for Silent Hill: Revelation actually cost less than the one for Cloud Atlas.
Frustrating. I'm hoping to try it out for real in the coming days, but this new, easier, more flexible system tripping me up is kind of funny.
In between those incidents, there was ShudderFest at the Somerville Theatre on Friday night, featuring American Mary and Murder University, which wound up being a fun (if late) night. The former was pretty darn good while the latter was pretty darn acceptable.
And, finally, there's no better way to wash the ick of a pretty bad horror movie off than seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 35mm.
Seven Psychopaths
* * (out of four)
Seen 23 October 2012 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, digital)
I was expecting much better things out of this one based on the talent involved, particularly considering just how well Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell worked together on In Bruges. Instead, things wind up pretty bland and inert: Even when what should be exciting things are happening, McDonagh and company seem determined to talk things to death.
The big trouble is that this movie is much too self-referential and roman-a-clef-y; it's Irish screenwriter Martin McDonagh writing a movie about an Irish guy named Martin agonizing over a screenplay. A large chunk of the film seems to be exposing the fallacy of "write what you know" - if you knew cool stuff, you'd be off doing cool things and not writing screenplays - and then the last act has characters continually talking about how cinematic final showdowns work and how this place is perfect. That can certainly be clever in some situations, but in this one they wind up mostly setting a bar they can't clear either in terms of pure action or having a really clever satiric take on it.
It's not all bad, obviously - not by a long shot. When McDonagh sets things up so that two people are in a room and just acting with each other, there are some great moments. The best is probably between Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken in a hospital waiting room just after something big happens; the promise of the title suddenly seems much more real. Walken, in particular, is good throughout the movie, but really steps it up there; a number of the other memorable scenes feature him, too.
Unfortunately, there just aren't nearly enough of them to even knit into an "uneven but good more often than not" movie, just the occasional incongruously well-done bit in a generally disappointing couple of hours.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 28 October 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (special engagement, 35mm)
When Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing on the big screen in your area, you go and see it.
I admit that I have occasionally not obeyed this imperitive, but I do try, even when it's been less than two months since I saw it in digital "Imax" (a booking that was apparently successful enough that the movie hung around in regular digital projection for a week or two afterward). I get a fair number of opportunities; both the Brattle and the Coolidge seem happy to show the movie once a year or thereabouts, so it's possible that I'll never have to actually use the Blu-ray in the new box set.
I've got to say, though, this was perhaps the best I've ever seen it. The Brattle folks had raved on Twitter about just how amazing the new 35mm print looked, and while I was initially a bit skeptical - the first reel did look a bit scratched - I was soon a believer; it looked better than what I'd seen at Boston Common in September. That may be influenced in part by the placebo effect/confirmation bias - I expect 35mm to look better than digital, so I tend to see it that way. Or maybe it came from seating; I was close enough to the front at the Common to need my peripheral vision, while the front row at the Brattle still has a fair amount of stage between the viewer and the screen. As much as Raiders is a big-screen adventure, it's not quite built for Imax-type viewing.
At any rate, this new print looked stunningly good, and I'm guessing that the restoration (which almost certainly took place inside a computer) was done at a fairly high resolution - even on a modern film print, I can usually spot jaggies in the titles, but they were pretty smooth here. And since the movie was just as good as it was two months ago (nigh-perfect), the fact that there are new prints that look this good floating around means that the opening imperative holds doubly true now:
When Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing on the big screen in your area, you go and see it!
(Eagerly awaits Dave's corrections on the technical stuff)
MoviePass finally got my card to me, although it was still a frustrating week of not actually getting to use it properly: The browser on my phone wasn't allowing location data to be sent on Tuesday, so (already being at the theater) I wound up shelling out for Seven Psychopaths. Wednesday I discovered that it apparently doesn't acknowledge the existence of Landmark Kendall Square at all, and then Saturday, when I finally thought everything was working, it didn't work on Cloud Atlas at all. Turns out that because my first card never arrived and I had them send me a new one, their system and my pocket had different card numbers. Hopefully that's cleared up, but Sunday's issue was that the system no longer includes 3D and IMAX movies, even if the ticket for Silent Hill: Revelation actually cost less than the one for Cloud Atlas.
Frustrating. I'm hoping to try it out for real in the coming days, but this new, easier, more flexible system tripping me up is kind of funny.
In between those incidents, there was ShudderFest at the Somerville Theatre on Friday night, featuring American Mary and Murder University, which wound up being a fun (if late) night. The former was pretty darn good while the latter was pretty darn acceptable.
And, finally, there's no better way to wash the ick of a pretty bad horror movie off than seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 35mm.
Seven Psychopaths
* * (out of four)
Seen 23 October 2012 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, digital)
I was expecting much better things out of this one based on the talent involved, particularly considering just how well Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell worked together on In Bruges. Instead, things wind up pretty bland and inert: Even when what should be exciting things are happening, McDonagh and company seem determined to talk things to death.
The big trouble is that this movie is much too self-referential and roman-a-clef-y; it's Irish screenwriter Martin McDonagh writing a movie about an Irish guy named Martin agonizing over a screenplay. A large chunk of the film seems to be exposing the fallacy of "write what you know" - if you knew cool stuff, you'd be off doing cool things and not writing screenplays - and then the last act has characters continually talking about how cinematic final showdowns work and how this place is perfect. That can certainly be clever in some situations, but in this one they wind up mostly setting a bar they can't clear either in terms of pure action or having a really clever satiric take on it.
It's not all bad, obviously - not by a long shot. When McDonagh sets things up so that two people are in a room and just acting with each other, there are some great moments. The best is probably between Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken in a hospital waiting room just after something big happens; the promise of the title suddenly seems much more real. Walken, in particular, is good throughout the movie, but really steps it up there; a number of the other memorable scenes feature him, too.
Unfortunately, there just aren't nearly enough of them to even knit into an "uneven but good more often than not" movie, just the occasional incongruously well-done bit in a generally disappointing couple of hours.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 28 October 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (special engagement, 35mm)
When Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing on the big screen in your area, you go and see it.
I admit that I have occasionally not obeyed this imperitive, but I do try, even when it's been less than two months since I saw it in digital "Imax" (a booking that was apparently successful enough that the movie hung around in regular digital projection for a week or two afterward). I get a fair number of opportunities; both the Brattle and the Coolidge seem happy to show the movie once a year or thereabouts, so it's possible that I'll never have to actually use the Blu-ray in the new box set.
I've got to say, though, this was perhaps the best I've ever seen it. The Brattle folks had raved on Twitter about just how amazing the new 35mm print looked, and while I was initially a bit skeptical - the first reel did look a bit scratched - I was soon a believer; it looked better than what I'd seen at Boston Common in September. That may be influenced in part by the placebo effect/confirmation bias - I expect 35mm to look better than digital, so I tend to see it that way. Or maybe it came from seating; I was close enough to the front at the Common to need my peripheral vision, while the front row at the Brattle still has a fair amount of stage between the viewer and the screen. As much as Raiders is a big-screen adventure, it's not quite built for Imax-type viewing.
At any rate, this new print looked stunningly good, and I'm guessing that the restoration (which almost certainly took place inside a computer) was done at a fairly high resolution - even on a modern film print, I can usually spot jaggies in the titles, but they were pretty smooth here. And since the movie was just as good as it was two months ago (nigh-perfect), the fact that there are new prints that look this good floating around means that the opening imperative holds doubly true now:
When Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing on the big screen in your area, you go and see it!
(Eagerly awaits Dave's corrections on the technical stuff)
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
ShudderFest: American Mary & Murder University
Huh, no trick or treaters this Halloween. What gives, local children? I got home by eight o'clock and hung around for, like, forty-five minutes before heading out to the comic shop!
Pretty nice show put on by the All Things Horror crew - they got upgraded to theater #3 rather than the screening room or one of the even-numbered houses, and American Mary was kind of a big get for them: It got a lot of attention at Fantastic Fest, although some of it, frustratingly, for the specific thing I figure the movie is about: Folks giving the Soska twins crap for being attractive young women and having fun with cosplay and the like as their way of expressing love for the genre (nerd sexism can be an ugly, ugly thing). I'm not sure it's quite as good as the superlatives that came out of those screenings or which were recited before this one, but it's a pretty good movie that has something to say about its genre without sinking into full-on navel-gazing. That's pretty impressive.
A little bit of a bummer on both ends, though - the Somerville's screening of Darkman got delayed until tonight when a print didn't arrive, so I had a couple hours to kill after having already eaten. Not ideal; I wound up spending money at Newbury Comics. And, of course, a midnight movie at the Somerville means walking home. Not so bad in and of itself, but it leaves me with the blood flowing all too well at 3am.
American Mary
* * * (out of four)
Seen 26 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #3 (ShudderFest, Blu-ray)
I'm not sure what its Canadian filmmakers figure is so specifically American about American Mary, but, hey, what's in a name and all that. Jen & Sylvia Soska have made an impressive little movie that may not exactly be horror but can certainly make even a jaded audience squirm.
Maybe crippling student loans are uniquely American; certainly, the high cost of education is what's staring medical school student Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) in the face. With every bill imaginable about to come due, she's ready to take a job stripping to make ends meet. Good thing she had med school on her résumé, though - an employee of club owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) has a sudden need to be stitched up during her audition. This leads her to dancer Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk) and the body-modification community, who are much more welcoming than her instructor (David Lovgren).
The Soskas don't quite turn exploitation film on its head with American Mary, and that often makes what they do manage that much more effective. There's a "gruesome revenge story" thread that maybe shouldn't be called conventional but will still be somewhat familiar for horror fans, serving up a fair quota of blood and guts while the strip club delivers the requisite skin. The body-modification stuff will likely gross out the more straight-laced audience members, though I suspect that community will appreciate the filmmakers not treating it like a freakshow (though characters may). It's got solid enough horror credentials that the sexy young star not actually working as a stripper might fly under the radar.
Full review at EFC.
Murder University
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 26 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #3 (ShudderFest, digital)
The punny theme song that plays over the opening credits of Murder Universitymay be the best part of the movie, although it's close and at least an example of what's coming: A jokey flick that's surprisingly entertaining for how low-rent an affair it is.
It's the 1980s, a time when almost nobody had a mobile phone to screw up serial killers' plans, and Josh Greene (Jamie Dufault) is about to start classes at the local university with a heavy heart, as his father was recently killed in an accident. Just as hijinks are starting to ensue, people start dropping dead, killed by a man in a devil mask. Josh is injured in one of the attacks, which Detective Forrester (Michael Thurber) believes are linked to a murder he investigated twenty years earlier. Josh and Forrester's daughter Meg (Samantha Acampora) go back to the school to act as bait, and...
Well, a lot more people get killed. If you like folks losing their heads, this is the slasher movie for you; heads come off at a rate second only to Taiwanese decapitation epic Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, and I've got to say, I've got my doubts as to the authenticity of this. Those ax blades barely look wide enough for skinny college-girl necks, let alone some of the more solidly-built victims. And, really, I suspect that lopping off someone's head is a lot harder than it looks, especially if they're not up against a wall or something. Not that I'd know anything about this myself, mind you.
Now, the movie does have more than heads popping off with questionable ease; it is, at heart, a comedy, and watching Josh get stymied by weird roommates, hostile professors, and anangry jock who gets upset with him for looking at his girlfriend's breasts during a wet t-shirt contest is actually fairly entertaining. There's a politically incorrect streak that actually works to much of the humor, and the filmmakers are confident enough to actually build jokes out of the characters either being weird or reacting to the others being weird rather than weak "look - 80's thing/anachronism!" stuff. There's also genuinely enjoyable chemistry between John and Meg.
Full review at EFC.
Pretty nice show put on by the All Things Horror crew - they got upgraded to theater #3 rather than the screening room or one of the even-numbered houses, and American Mary was kind of a big get for them: It got a lot of attention at Fantastic Fest, although some of it, frustratingly, for the specific thing I figure the movie is about: Folks giving the Soska twins crap for being attractive young women and having fun with cosplay and the like as their way of expressing love for the genre (nerd sexism can be an ugly, ugly thing). I'm not sure it's quite as good as the superlatives that came out of those screenings or which were recited before this one, but it's a pretty good movie that has something to say about its genre without sinking into full-on navel-gazing. That's pretty impressive.
A little bit of a bummer on both ends, though - the Somerville's screening of Darkman got delayed until tonight when a print didn't arrive, so I had a couple hours to kill after having already eaten. Not ideal; I wound up spending money at Newbury Comics. And, of course, a midnight movie at the Somerville means walking home. Not so bad in and of itself, but it leaves me with the blood flowing all too well at 3am.
American Mary
* * * (out of four)
Seen 26 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #3 (ShudderFest, Blu-ray)
I'm not sure what its Canadian filmmakers figure is so specifically American about American Mary, but, hey, what's in a name and all that. Jen & Sylvia Soska have made an impressive little movie that may not exactly be horror but can certainly make even a jaded audience squirm.
Maybe crippling student loans are uniquely American; certainly, the high cost of education is what's staring medical school student Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) in the face. With every bill imaginable about to come due, she's ready to take a job stripping to make ends meet. Good thing she had med school on her résumé, though - an employee of club owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) has a sudden need to be stitched up during her audition. This leads her to dancer Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk) and the body-modification community, who are much more welcoming than her instructor (David Lovgren).
The Soskas don't quite turn exploitation film on its head with American Mary, and that often makes what they do manage that much more effective. There's a "gruesome revenge story" thread that maybe shouldn't be called conventional but will still be somewhat familiar for horror fans, serving up a fair quota of blood and guts while the strip club delivers the requisite skin. The body-modification stuff will likely gross out the more straight-laced audience members, though I suspect that community will appreciate the filmmakers not treating it like a freakshow (though characters may). It's got solid enough horror credentials that the sexy young star not actually working as a stripper might fly under the radar.
Full review at EFC.
Murder University
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 26 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #3 (ShudderFest, digital)
The punny theme song that plays over the opening credits of Murder Universitymay be the best part of the movie, although it's close and at least an example of what's coming: A jokey flick that's surprisingly entertaining for how low-rent an affair it is.
It's the 1980s, a time when almost nobody had a mobile phone to screw up serial killers' plans, and Josh Greene (Jamie Dufault) is about to start classes at the local university with a heavy heart, as his father was recently killed in an accident. Just as hijinks are starting to ensue, people start dropping dead, killed by a man in a devil mask. Josh is injured in one of the attacks, which Detective Forrester (Michael Thurber) believes are linked to a murder he investigated twenty years earlier. Josh and Forrester's daughter Meg (Samantha Acampora) go back to the school to act as bait, and...
Well, a lot more people get killed. If you like folks losing their heads, this is the slasher movie for you; heads come off at a rate second only to Taiwanese decapitation epic Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, and I've got to say, I've got my doubts as to the authenticity of this. Those ax blades barely look wide enough for skinny college-girl necks, let alone some of the more solidly-built victims. And, really, I suspect that lopping off someone's head is a lot harder than it looks, especially if they're not up against a wall or something. Not that I'd know anything about this myself, mind you.
Now, the movie does have more than heads popping off with questionable ease; it is, at heart, a comedy, and watching Josh get stymied by weird roommates, hostile professors, and anangry jock who gets upset with him for looking at his girlfriend's breasts during a wet t-shirt contest is actually fairly entertaining. There's a politically incorrect streak that actually works to much of the humor, and the filmmakers are confident enough to actually build jokes out of the characters either being weird or reacting to the others being weird rather than weak "look - 80's thing/anachronism!" stuff. There's also genuinely enjoyable chemistry between John and Meg.
Full review at EFC.
Monday, October 29, 2012
New Releases: Cloud Atlas & Silent Hill: Revelation
No real theme for these two, other than both being released on the 26th and a little bit of MoviePass-related frustration in getting the tickets (in previous months, I would have been able to buy IMAX and 3D tickets at the independent theaters supporting the program, but not any more, even when they would have been cheaper than the regular-priced evening tickets), even before the whole mess with the card not working at all...
I have to wonder if I would have looked at Silent Hill 2 the same way if I hadn't seen Cloud Atlas the day before. It's a big "be kind and love each other" story, and that colored my impressions of the other - after Sharon/Heather makes a big production about how she and her new classmates aren't going to be friends, and the movie reiterates that she is the empathic part of "Alessa" (it's a thing), so it seems like there's an interestingly humanist spin on the horror movie.
It doesn't fully go that way, and backs off what it does somewhat. That's a shame; it's the most interesting thing the movie's got going for it with Christophe Gans out of the picture. Speaking of which, what's with him working so little? No movie since Silent Hill, which came five years after Brotherhood of the Wolf, itself six years after Crying Freeman. It seems like he's prone to biting off more than he can chew, and he winds up putting a ton of effort into movies that just never happen.
Cloud Atlas
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 27 October 2012 in Regal Fenway #12 (first-run, digital)
Cloud Atlas is like a whole week of going to the movies compressed into three hours (and that's for the likes of me; for the less fanatical, a month or two). It would be a pretty good week, though maybe not a great one, but these filmmakers have definitely made something greater than the sum of its parts.
In 1849, lawyer Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) has traveled to the South Pacific but finds himself returning not only with a signed contract, but a runaway slave (David Gyasi). In the 1930s, Robert Frobisher (Ben Whisaw) takes a job as the assistant to composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) while pining for his lover Rufus (James D'Arcy). In 1973, writer Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) investigates suspicious goings-on at a San Francisco nuclear power plant. 2012 has publisher Timothy Cavendish (Broadbent) needing to hide out from an author's violent friends but not much liking how it turns out. In the 22nd century, fabricant Sonmi-451 (Bae Doo-na) shows signs of individual thought and is broken out of her dormitory by rebel Chang Hae-joo (Sturgess). Finally, on an isolated island 106 years after the fall, hunter/stroyteller Zachry (Tom Hanks) and visitor Meronym (Berry) find they need each other's help.
My usual tendency when reviewing an anthology movie is to examine each of the elements separately, and there would be a certain logic in attacking Cloud Atlas that way even if the filmmakers choose to cut from one story to another rather than present them as individual short films. After all, the six stories come from different genres - a historical adventure, two flavors of science fiction, a drama, a thriller, and even a comedy - so describing what works and what doesn't would certainly be easier that way. That would sell the movie far short as a whole, though - a large part of what makes it remarkable is how well it comes together. Indeed, there's an argument that the most valuable part of the crew might be editor Alexander Berner, who helps sew together the directorial work of Tom Tykwer (the 1930, 1973, and 2012 threads) and Lana & Andy Wachowski (1849 and the future) so that no single element ever seems to dominate and the whole keeps a remarkably good pace. This movie never seems to drag; even though all six stories climax together, they get there by routes just different enough that the movie never seems to drag.
The stories being cut between are not terribly complicated, but there's enough to them that any could be expanded to an entertaining movie with a little effort, and even the lesser threads are well-done. And while the connections between them are fairly obvious - a common birthmark and a tendency to be drawn to the stories of the other protagonists - the way Tykwer and the Wachowskis (working from David Mitchell's novel) handle those connections is just right. Instead of forcing a somewhat obvious and rote story of karma and reincarnation despite the detail that two of the characters' lives almost certainly overlap, these devices instead serve to highlight that things like social position, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are random and not the signifiers of a person's worth, and one should find love, inspiration, and respect from whatever sources one can. It makes what could just be a story about a single soul into a story about humanity.
It also lets the cast reappear in some fun ways. Sure, they tend to be most noteworthy in their lead roles - Bae Doo-na, especially, is fantastic as a clone rapidly learning what it means to be human, while Tom Hanks does a very nice job of making Zachry understood despite a language that has drifted toward pidgin in the future. But it's also great fun to see them flipped around as familiar faces reappear in different contexts - we get two different sorts of chemistry between Hanks and Berry, for instance, while Jim Broadbent gets to play darker reflections as well as broad comedy. And while some folks seem a bit underused - Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon, for instance, only have a few noteworthy moments even after even after the end credits reveal which heavy makeup jobs they were under - others can't help but rise to the top: Hugo Weaving proves a most flexible villain, threatening even when made up as a stern matron, while Keith David proves able to grab the screen in three different threads.
As you might gather from that description, the makeup work in this movie is something to behold; that old-age makeup doesn't look terribly is hardly surprising given that actors are routinely cast as people of different sexes and ethnicities, and while that's a bit weird at times - recognizing Sturgess, Weaving, and Grant as residents of "New Seoul" isn't quite balanced by seeing Bae in her other roles - the execution is so flawless and without caricature that the quick shots of each actor in his or her various roles in the end credits is more likely to elicit surprised delight rather than offense. That's just the most visible part of an astonishingly well-executed shoot - or actually two, as the end credits are divided between "Team Wachowski" and "Team Tykwer", with the cast by and large the only ones shuttling between the two. While the Wachowskis create astonishingly detailed future worlds, Tom Tykwer's 1973 San Francisco seems equally perfect, with both having a chance to stake some impressive action and getting the characters' quieter moments right as well.
The ambition on display is incredible, to the point where this would be a remarkable movie even if the filmmakers didn't hit so many of their marks. That they do is kind of amazing, and I honestly can't wait to see it a second time just to see how much more is packed into what seems like a very quick three hours.
Originally posted at EFC
Silent Hill: Revelation
* * (out of four)
Seen 28 October 2012 in AMC Boston Common #18 (first-run, digital 3D)
I'm not sure why, exactly, I went to see the second Silent Hill movie; I didn't like the first and the people who drew me into it are either absent (director Christophe Gans) or reduced to cameo appearances (star Radha Mitchell). Surprisingly, Revelation proves to be a minor upgrade, with a much less stupid script making up for a parallel reduction in style, but that still doesn't bring it up to "good".
Christopher DaSilva (Sean Bean) and his adopted daughter Sharon (Adelaide Clemens) have been on the run since Christopher's wife Rose (Radha Mitchell) disappeared inside Silent Hill, West Virginia six years ago, settling in new towns and taking new names on a regular basis; today they're "Harry" and "Heather". Heather doesn't remember her ordeal in Silent Hill, but she has strange dreams and when her father is taken (and "come to Silent Hill" scrawled on their new house's wall in blood), she and fellow new kid in town Vincent (Kit Harrington) head out to rescue him.
The main way that writer/director Michael J. Bassett improves on the first movie is in the script; where Silent Hill is a mess of idiot-plotting and demonstrations that the video game routine of "go place, find strangely-hidden clue, repeat" looks ridiculous in any other context, the new movie has some understanding of cause and effect and at least suggests an interesting theme of Sharon/Heather's enforced isolation being the true enemy. Bassett even has a nice moment where he just gets an inevitable "surprise" out of the way rather than dragging it out until the last act.
Of course, he's hampered by the fact that this is a Silent Hill movie, which means that it's tied to a mythology that is much more convoluted than the scale of the plot requires (because video games need to last more than ninety minutes) and ultimately just seems random. What information the viewer who missed the first movie (or doesn't remember the details from six years ago) gets is vague and doesn't necessarily fit with the story. For instance, there's a reasonably creepy sequence involving mannequins that might work damn well in a mannequin-themed horror movie, but just doesn't seem to have anything to do with everything else that's going on. It's a well-made sequence that has no reason to be in this movie specifically.
At least that one is executed fairly well; many more feel like Bassett and company just throwing grotesqueries with a monochromatic color scheme up and expecting that to scare. Other bits are just ridiculously telegraphed - cut to an otherwise inert amusement park mascot suit enough times and it's no surprise when the head finally turns. Still others just feel like obligatory repeats from the first film or ports from the game, just not done quite as well (remember the sequence with the weird nurses from the first? There's another one here, only more obviously choreographed and with more close-ups of their boobs). Any genuinely scary moments are dwarfed by ones where people just go through the motions.
The cast is somewhat guilty of that as well. Adelaide Clemens is game enough as Sharon/Heather, but doesn't quite give the sort of performance that boosts a lackluster movie. Harrington's first line is his best, while Bean gives the sort of performance that this sort of movie so often winds up with: Making an effort, but never having enough takes to really nail it. Carrie-Anne Moss and Deborah Kara Unger show up but don't make much of an impression, so it's nice to see Malcolm McDowell tear into his scene with gusto even if it's ridiculous.
The first "Silent Hill" was saved from being a complete disaster by its director's style, while this one is able to manage basic narrative competence. It ends (clumsily) with the potential of more, but maybe the producers shouldn't press their luck: Eventually, they're not going to be able to climb up to "below average" from "terrible".
Originally posted at EFC.
I have to wonder if I would have looked at Silent Hill 2 the same way if I hadn't seen Cloud Atlas the day before. It's a big "be kind and love each other" story, and that colored my impressions of the other - after Sharon/Heather makes a big production about how she and her new classmates aren't going to be friends, and the movie reiterates that she is the empathic part of "Alessa" (it's a thing), so it seems like there's an interestingly humanist spin on the horror movie.
It doesn't fully go that way, and backs off what it does somewhat. That's a shame; it's the most interesting thing the movie's got going for it with Christophe Gans out of the picture. Speaking of which, what's with him working so little? No movie since Silent Hill, which came five years after Brotherhood of the Wolf, itself six years after Crying Freeman. It seems like he's prone to biting off more than he can chew, and he winds up putting a ton of effort into movies that just never happen.
Cloud Atlas
* * * * (out of four)
Seen 27 October 2012 in Regal Fenway #12 (first-run, digital)
Cloud Atlas is like a whole week of going to the movies compressed into three hours (and that's for the likes of me; for the less fanatical, a month or two). It would be a pretty good week, though maybe not a great one, but these filmmakers have definitely made something greater than the sum of its parts.
In 1849, lawyer Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) has traveled to the South Pacific but finds himself returning not only with a signed contract, but a runaway slave (David Gyasi). In the 1930s, Robert Frobisher (Ben Whisaw) takes a job as the assistant to composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) while pining for his lover Rufus (James D'Arcy). In 1973, writer Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) investigates suspicious goings-on at a San Francisco nuclear power plant. 2012 has publisher Timothy Cavendish (Broadbent) needing to hide out from an author's violent friends but not much liking how it turns out. In the 22nd century, fabricant Sonmi-451 (Bae Doo-na) shows signs of individual thought and is broken out of her dormitory by rebel Chang Hae-joo (Sturgess). Finally, on an isolated island 106 years after the fall, hunter/stroyteller Zachry (Tom Hanks) and visitor Meronym (Berry) find they need each other's help.
My usual tendency when reviewing an anthology movie is to examine each of the elements separately, and there would be a certain logic in attacking Cloud Atlas that way even if the filmmakers choose to cut from one story to another rather than present them as individual short films. After all, the six stories come from different genres - a historical adventure, two flavors of science fiction, a drama, a thriller, and even a comedy - so describing what works and what doesn't would certainly be easier that way. That would sell the movie far short as a whole, though - a large part of what makes it remarkable is how well it comes together. Indeed, there's an argument that the most valuable part of the crew might be editor Alexander Berner, who helps sew together the directorial work of Tom Tykwer (the 1930, 1973, and 2012 threads) and Lana & Andy Wachowski (1849 and the future) so that no single element ever seems to dominate and the whole keeps a remarkably good pace. This movie never seems to drag; even though all six stories climax together, they get there by routes just different enough that the movie never seems to drag.
The stories being cut between are not terribly complicated, but there's enough to them that any could be expanded to an entertaining movie with a little effort, and even the lesser threads are well-done. And while the connections between them are fairly obvious - a common birthmark and a tendency to be drawn to the stories of the other protagonists - the way Tykwer and the Wachowskis (working from David Mitchell's novel) handle those connections is just right. Instead of forcing a somewhat obvious and rote story of karma and reincarnation despite the detail that two of the characters' lives almost certainly overlap, these devices instead serve to highlight that things like social position, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are random and not the signifiers of a person's worth, and one should find love, inspiration, and respect from whatever sources one can. It makes what could just be a story about a single soul into a story about humanity.
It also lets the cast reappear in some fun ways. Sure, they tend to be most noteworthy in their lead roles - Bae Doo-na, especially, is fantastic as a clone rapidly learning what it means to be human, while Tom Hanks does a very nice job of making Zachry understood despite a language that has drifted toward pidgin in the future. But it's also great fun to see them flipped around as familiar faces reappear in different contexts - we get two different sorts of chemistry between Hanks and Berry, for instance, while Jim Broadbent gets to play darker reflections as well as broad comedy. And while some folks seem a bit underused - Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon, for instance, only have a few noteworthy moments even after even after the end credits reveal which heavy makeup jobs they were under - others can't help but rise to the top: Hugo Weaving proves a most flexible villain, threatening even when made up as a stern matron, while Keith David proves able to grab the screen in three different threads.
As you might gather from that description, the makeup work in this movie is something to behold; that old-age makeup doesn't look terribly is hardly surprising given that actors are routinely cast as people of different sexes and ethnicities, and while that's a bit weird at times - recognizing Sturgess, Weaving, and Grant as residents of "New Seoul" isn't quite balanced by seeing Bae in her other roles - the execution is so flawless and without caricature that the quick shots of each actor in his or her various roles in the end credits is more likely to elicit surprised delight rather than offense. That's just the most visible part of an astonishingly well-executed shoot - or actually two, as the end credits are divided between "Team Wachowski" and "Team Tykwer", with the cast by and large the only ones shuttling between the two. While the Wachowskis create astonishingly detailed future worlds, Tom Tykwer's 1973 San Francisco seems equally perfect, with both having a chance to stake some impressive action and getting the characters' quieter moments right as well.
The ambition on display is incredible, to the point where this would be a remarkable movie even if the filmmakers didn't hit so many of their marks. That they do is kind of amazing, and I honestly can't wait to see it a second time just to see how much more is packed into what seems like a very quick three hours.
Originally posted at EFC
Silent Hill: Revelation
* * (out of four)
Seen 28 October 2012 in AMC Boston Common #18 (first-run, digital 3D)
I'm not sure why, exactly, I went to see the second Silent Hill movie; I didn't like the first and the people who drew me into it are either absent (director Christophe Gans) or reduced to cameo appearances (star Radha Mitchell). Surprisingly, Revelation proves to be a minor upgrade, with a much less stupid script making up for a parallel reduction in style, but that still doesn't bring it up to "good".
Christopher DaSilva (Sean Bean) and his adopted daughter Sharon (Adelaide Clemens) have been on the run since Christopher's wife Rose (Radha Mitchell) disappeared inside Silent Hill, West Virginia six years ago, settling in new towns and taking new names on a regular basis; today they're "Harry" and "Heather". Heather doesn't remember her ordeal in Silent Hill, but she has strange dreams and when her father is taken (and "come to Silent Hill" scrawled on their new house's wall in blood), she and fellow new kid in town Vincent (Kit Harrington) head out to rescue him.
The main way that writer/director Michael J. Bassett improves on the first movie is in the script; where Silent Hill is a mess of idiot-plotting and demonstrations that the video game routine of "go place, find strangely-hidden clue, repeat" looks ridiculous in any other context, the new movie has some understanding of cause and effect and at least suggests an interesting theme of Sharon/Heather's enforced isolation being the true enemy. Bassett even has a nice moment where he just gets an inevitable "surprise" out of the way rather than dragging it out until the last act.
Of course, he's hampered by the fact that this is a Silent Hill movie, which means that it's tied to a mythology that is much more convoluted than the scale of the plot requires (because video games need to last more than ninety minutes) and ultimately just seems random. What information the viewer who missed the first movie (or doesn't remember the details from six years ago) gets is vague and doesn't necessarily fit with the story. For instance, there's a reasonably creepy sequence involving mannequins that might work damn well in a mannequin-themed horror movie, but just doesn't seem to have anything to do with everything else that's going on. It's a well-made sequence that has no reason to be in this movie specifically.
At least that one is executed fairly well; many more feel like Bassett and company just throwing grotesqueries with a monochromatic color scheme up and expecting that to scare. Other bits are just ridiculously telegraphed - cut to an otherwise inert amusement park mascot suit enough times and it's no surprise when the head finally turns. Still others just feel like obligatory repeats from the first film or ports from the game, just not done quite as well (remember the sequence with the weird nurses from the first? There's another one here, only more obviously choreographed and with more close-ups of their boobs). Any genuinely scary moments are dwarfed by ones where people just go through the motions.
The cast is somewhat guilty of that as well. Adelaide Clemens is game enough as Sharon/Heather, but doesn't quite give the sort of performance that boosts a lackluster movie. Harrington's first line is his best, while Bean gives the sort of performance that this sort of movie so often winds up with: Making an effort, but never having enough takes to really nail it. Carrie-Anne Moss and Deborah Kara Unger show up but don't make much of an impression, so it's nice to see Malcolm McDowell tear into his scene with gusto even if it's ridiculous.
The first "Silent Hill" was saved from being a complete disaster by its director's style, while this one is able to manage basic narrative competence. It ends (clumsily) with the potential of more, but maybe the producers shouldn't press their luck: Eventually, they're not going to be able to climb up to "below average" from "terrible".
Originally posted at EFC.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 October 2012 - 2 November 2012
I keep checking, but the Jordan's IMAX in Reading is apparently going to keep Paranormal Activity 4 instead of picking up Cloud Atlas. I don't get this, but that's this upcoming weekend for you: Cloud Atlas, Halloween stuff, and the occasional other thing.
My plans? Cloud Atlas, American Mary, Raiders, Nosferatu, Darkman, maybe Smashed.
And the Haunted House of Pancakes, because I friggin' love pancakes.
- Cloud Atlas is the big release this weekend, a sprawling movie by Andy & Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer that features much of the same cast playing echoes of the same characters across six separate eras from the past to the far future. It's incredibly ambitious, based on a book many considered un-adaptable. Could be great, could be a disaster, and I can't wait to see which it turns out to be. It's playing Somerville, Fenway, and Boston Common (including the Imax-branded screen).
There's two very different movies planning to capitalize on Halloween open this weekend: Fun Size actually uses the holiday as a backdrop, with a couple teen girls searching for one's younger brother after he goes missing while trick or treating. It looks like something trying to split the difference between family-friendly and raunchy and satisfying neither. It plays the Arlington Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and Fenway. The horror movie opening is Silent Hill: Revelation, a sequel to 2006's video game adaptation from the director of Solomon Kane, this time in 3-D. I'm oddly curious, despite not being terribly fond of the first. It plays Fresh Pond (in 2D), Boston Common (in 3D), and Fenway (2D and 3D, the latter on the premium screen).
There's also Chasing Mavericks, a curious project with two noteworthy directors (Michael Apted took over for an ailing Curtis Hanson) telling the true story of a surfing prodigy who befriends a local legend. It plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and Fenway. - Time to start with the spooky stuff! The Brattle has a pretty great line-up for Halloween. On Monday the 29th, the CineCaché presentation for the week is the local premiere of The Loved Ones, a fantastic and twisted thriller from Australia that hit festivals a few years ago (I loved it at Fantasia in 2010) and whose release Paramount botched horrifically earlier this year. See it. Tuesday the 30th has a presentation from the International Pancake Film Festival ("Haunted House of Pancakes") - several pancake-themed short films for five bucks, with a complimentary stack of the things. Halloween itself has the greatest vampire film of all - Murnau's Nosferatu - with live music by the Andrew Alden Ensemble. Tuesday and Wednesday have late shows of Cabin in the Woods, with the film also playing a full schedule on Thursday.
And the weekend before? A new 35mm print of Raiders of the Lost Ark! Sure, it looked nice in digital a month and a half ago, but film is better. It plays Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as Monday afternoon. Saturday afternoon, they have a special presentation of Pui Chan: Kung Fu Pioneer as part of the Boston Asian-American Film Festival, with the director, subject, and Wah Lum Kung Fu making appearances. - The bulk of the Boston Asian-American Film Festival will screen at ArtsEmerson's Bright Screening Room at the Paramount theater. Highlights include documentary Mr.Cao Goes to Washington with director S. Leo Chiang in attendance, Wedding Palace with Margaret Cho, Model Minority, and closing film Shanghai Calling.
- There is one other BAAFF program playing at the Somerville Theatre, I Am a Ghost, which plays as part of All Things Horror's Shudder Fest 2012 on Friday night. The initial 7pm show sold out, but a second one is scheduled for 9pm. The centerpiece is the 10pm program, American Mary, a big hit at Fantastic Fest scheduled for the big theater. There's also locally produced Murder University at midnight. On Saturday, they've got a shorts program and Video Diary of a Lost Girl.
Also on tap at the Somerville for Halloween weekend: Sam Raimi's Darkman on the big screenat 8pm on Friday the 26thon the 31st (print got delayed). No, it's not the Halloween tradition of Evil Dead 2, but how often do you get to see this on the big screen? - More scary stuff! The Coolidge wraps up its Oc-Tobe-r series of midnight movies on Friday with Poltergeist, in which Tobe Hooper teams up with Stephen Spielberg for one of the most popular horror movies ever. That's just a warm up for their 12th Annual Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, which kicks off with the original theatrical cut of The Exorcist and John Carpenter's The Thing. $15 gets you in to see those two; another $5 lets you stick around until noon for a mystery line-up (although hints dropped on their Facebook page suggest Shivers, Phantasm, Candyman, and Day of the Dead), live music, and burlesque. But that's not all; they've also got Edward Scissorhands on Monday as part of the "Science on Screen" series (Professor Jeremy DeSilva will discus "mosaic hominids"), a special "Devils Night" screening of The Crow at 10pm on Tuesday, and a 35mm print of What Eve Happened to Baby Jane? on Wednesday the 31st, the 50th anniversary of its original release date.
With all that going on and Argo and The Master continuing to hang around, they only have room to open The Big Picture in the screening room; it's a new film from France with Romain Duris and Catherine Deneuve in a story about a man who flees to the Adriatic Sea after an accidental murder. - Kendall Square turns over a good number of its screens, but most of that appears to be to make way for The Sessions, which features John Hawkes as a poet stuck in an iron lung determined to lose his virginity with the help of a professional sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) and the friendship of his priest (William H. Macy). It plays on three screens, but as of yet nowhere else in the Boston area.
Having seen a preview earlier this week, I can vouch for The Other Son, a pretty good story about two boys - one Israeli, one Palestinian - who were switched at birth during the Gulf War and are just now discovering their true parentage. I'm curious about Smashed, in which Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul play a young married couple who bonded over their fondness for alcohol, and what happens when one decides to get sober. Could be a breakthrough role for Winstead, who has been good in a lot of thankless parts. And the scheduled one-week booking is War of the Buttons which moves a celebrated 1912 novel to World War II and has a pre-teen troublemaker fall for a Jewish girl whom he must protect from the occupying Nazi forces. - The MFA continues their Jazz on Film series, with more screenings of The Connection playing sporadically over the weekend and another film by Shirley Clarke, music documentary Ornette: Made in America, playing Friday night. The series also includes Theolonius Monk: Amerian Composer and the Monk-scored 'Round Midnight on Saturday. Another music doc, Big Easy Express continues its run on Friday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. There's a last screening of All Together (a French comedy featuring Jane Fonda) on Wednesday, and the November calendar kicks off on Thursday with the first screening of High Ground (playing irregularly through the 9th), a documentary that follows a group of disabled veterans as they ascend a 20,000-foot mountain.
- This weekend, the Harvard Film Archive welcomes Tariq Teguia, the latest Geneviève McMillan - Reba Stewart Fellow (the McMillan-Stewart Fellowship in Distinguished Filmmaking celebrates and supports Francophone filmmakers of African nationality or descent). The Algerian filmmaker will be around Friday and Saturday to present his first two films, Rome Rather than You and Inland. The HFA will also welcome Sooni Taraporevala, who will present a free screening of her film Little Zizou on Saturday afternoon to tie in with her photography exhibit, which will be elsewhere in the Carpenter Center through 20 December. The rest of the weekend is more of their Michelangelo Antonioni Retrospective - The Lady without Camelias Sunday afternoon, massive documentaryChung Kuo - China Sunday evening, and The Vanquished on Monday evening.
- The English-subtitled Hindi movie at Fresh Pond this weekend actually opened on Wednesday; Chakravyuh is a thriller set among India's Naxalite movement, which apparently makes it controversial (many reviews seem to feel a frequently violent conflict with Marxists doesn't mix well with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Bollywood movie). Student of the Year is also hanging around, and there are a screenings of Denikaina Ready and Cameraman Ganga Tho Rambabu for those who speak Telegu.
- The UMass Boston Film Series presentation on Thursday the 1st is a short one - "Poster Girl" is only 38 minutes long - but it's a pretty fantastic, Oscar-nominated documentary short that I liked a lot when I saw it last year. Both director Sara Nesson and subject Robynn Murray will be on hand to talk afterward and the screening itself is free1 so it's worth dropping in.
- The Regent Theatre in Arlington has a couple of interesting events that also play elsewhere - Big Easy Express has a screening there on Sunday the 28th in addition to its MFA schedule, and they'll have three HD screenings of John Carpenter's Halloween between Tuesday and Wednesday (Kendall Square also has one on Tuesday night).
My plans? Cloud Atlas, American Mary, Raiders, Nosferatu, Darkman, maybe Smashed.
And the Haunted House of Pancakes, because I friggin' love pancakes.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
This Week In Tickets: 15 October 2012 - 21 October 2012
This week's distractions: More baseball (the Yankees being stomped by the Tigers was great fun) and trying to make my way through Charles Stross's Rule 34. I love the guy, but an entire book with multiple viewpoint characters in the second person would be kind of a tough slog even without the Scottish slang. Plus a cold that is lingering a bit more than I'd like.
Stubless: The Other Son, Sunday 15 October at Coolidge Corner (no ticket, just a box to check off).
Once more, not hugely busy during the week as I was sort of in a "check mail for MoviePass card / not there / watch baseball / hope for tomorrow" sort of loop. Monday's CineCaché film was the sparsely-attended Headshot, which I liked well enough though everyone seemed to agree that it could have used more use of its central gimmick. The IFFBoston crew was co-presenting it and used the opportunity to plug Tai Chi Zero, the crazy martial arts movie that opened at Boston Common the next Friday (and is getting another week! go see it!). That was actually a lot of fun, and had one of the biggest audiences I've seen for a Chinese movie at the Common in a while.
I was at the Common again the next night for Sinister, which I'd meant to see anyway but which I hit that night because Argo was sold out at the Coolidge when I got there. First time I've seen a horror movie with a large crowd of this type in a while (as I mention in the post, a genre festival crowd is no less enthusiastic, but different, more likely to applaud the scare moments than jump at them), and it was fun.
Finally, it was a busy back-and-forth Sunday: The 10am Talk Cinema show of The Other Son at the Coolidge (and, wow, can that be too early, especially on a Sunday morning when the buses don't quite line up to beat walking), heading to Somerville for The Phantom of the Opera with live accompaniment, after which I had to decide which of those two theaters would get my money for Argo in 35mm, with the Coolidge winning out in large part so I could run some errands and eat in between.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Special Event, 35mm w/ live accompaniment)
I should have snapped a picture of both accompanist Jeff Rapsis and projectionist Dave Kornfeld in their Sunday best before the film. Mostly for Dave; projectionists are usually dressed pretty casually since booths can get hot (I wonder if digital is making that less true). An amusing sight.
I've seen this movie before (in the same theater, even) with the Alloy Orchestra providing the music, although it was too long ago for me to really have much of an opinion on how different the two experiences were. It remains an excellent flick, especially when you consider that it was somewhat groundbreaking for its time, and the print they borrowed from a California collector was pretty spiffy, with original tints and hand-coloring for the ball sequence.
After the film, Rapsis mentioned that they were planning a few more silent films, including Harold Lloyd in Girl Shy come Valentine's Day. Can't wait.
Argo
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 October 2012 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (first-run, 35mm)
Argo is what I want from my movies: A good story, well-told. That this particular story is true barely matters; what's important is that it's a neat idea, witty, filled with nifty little moments, and confident enough in itself that it doesn't have to pump things up more than it has to.
As much as director Ben Affleck gets the visual style of the 1970s just right, it's interesting just how much he's got the vibe and pacing there too. It compares well the stuff I saw a week and a half earlier, unspooling its story at a deceptively leisurely pace, making it seem like relatively little is happening but still increasing the tension steadily. Argo doesn't need big action scenes as punctuation; it establishes danger in the first scene and never moves too far from it.
You can do that when you've got a cast full of great character actors. Affleck himself is a movie star, sure, but he goes with the beard and mild-mannered nature that allows his character to blend into the scenery (itself sort of a throwback to 1970s movies). He bounces between multiple settings, but there's always someone great to work off: John Goodman and Alan Arkin in Hollywood; Bryan Cranston at the CIA; Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan et alia in Iran... Heck, an uncredited Philip Baker Hall shows up in one scene to be paired with Bob Gunton as both the punchline to one of the movie's best jokes and a scene that is amusing without it.
Argo is deceptively low-key, and while it's rough in a spot or two, it's a delightful throwback and a ton of fun even without a lot of context.
(Plus, Jack Kirby as a character! How cool is that?)
Stubless: The Other Son, Sunday 15 October at Coolidge Corner (no ticket, just a box to check off).
Once more, not hugely busy during the week as I was sort of in a "check mail for MoviePass card / not there / watch baseball / hope for tomorrow" sort of loop. Monday's CineCaché film was the sparsely-attended Headshot, which I liked well enough though everyone seemed to agree that it could have used more use of its central gimmick. The IFFBoston crew was co-presenting it and used the opportunity to plug Tai Chi Zero, the crazy martial arts movie that opened at Boston Common the next Friday (and is getting another week! go see it!). That was actually a lot of fun, and had one of the biggest audiences I've seen for a Chinese movie at the Common in a while.
I was at the Common again the next night for Sinister, which I'd meant to see anyway but which I hit that night because Argo was sold out at the Coolidge when I got there. First time I've seen a horror movie with a large crowd of this type in a while (as I mention in the post, a genre festival crowd is no less enthusiastic, but different, more likely to applaud the scare moments than jump at them), and it was fun.
Finally, it was a busy back-and-forth Sunday: The 10am Talk Cinema show of The Other Son at the Coolidge (and, wow, can that be too early, especially on a Sunday morning when the buses don't quite line up to beat walking), heading to Somerville for The Phantom of the Opera with live accompaniment, after which I had to decide which of those two theaters would get my money for Argo in 35mm, with the Coolidge winning out in large part so I could run some errands and eat in between.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 October 2012 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Special Event, 35mm w/ live accompaniment)
I should have snapped a picture of both accompanist Jeff Rapsis and projectionist Dave Kornfeld in their Sunday best before the film. Mostly for Dave; projectionists are usually dressed pretty casually since booths can get hot (I wonder if digital is making that less true). An amusing sight.
I've seen this movie before (in the same theater, even) with the Alloy Orchestra providing the music, although it was too long ago for me to really have much of an opinion on how different the two experiences were. It remains an excellent flick, especially when you consider that it was somewhat groundbreaking for its time, and the print they borrowed from a California collector was pretty spiffy, with original tints and hand-coloring for the ball sequence.
After the film, Rapsis mentioned that they were planning a few more silent films, including Harold Lloyd in Girl Shy come Valentine's Day. Can't wait.
Argo
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 October 2012 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (first-run, 35mm)
Argo is what I want from my movies: A good story, well-told. That this particular story is true barely matters; what's important is that it's a neat idea, witty, filled with nifty little moments, and confident enough in itself that it doesn't have to pump things up more than it has to.
As much as director Ben Affleck gets the visual style of the 1970s just right, it's interesting just how much he's got the vibe and pacing there too. It compares well the stuff I saw a week and a half earlier, unspooling its story at a deceptively leisurely pace, making it seem like relatively little is happening but still increasing the tension steadily. Argo doesn't need big action scenes as punctuation; it establishes danger in the first scene and never moves too far from it.
You can do that when you've got a cast full of great character actors. Affleck himself is a movie star, sure, but he goes with the beard and mild-mannered nature that allows his character to blend into the scenery (itself sort of a throwback to 1970s movies). He bounces between multiple settings, but there's always someone great to work off: John Goodman and Alan Arkin in Hollywood; Bryan Cranston at the CIA; Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan et alia in Iran... Heck, an uncredited Philip Baker Hall shows up in one scene to be paired with Bob Gunton as both the punchline to one of the movie's best jokes and a scene that is amusing without it.
Argo is deceptively low-key, and while it's rough in a spot or two, it's a delightful throwback and a ton of fun even without a lot of context.
(Plus, Jack Kirby as a character! How cool is that?)
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