
Friday, December 31, 2010
Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010) -- D+

Friday, December 24, 2010
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010) -- B

Boston, 1954. U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives via ferry with his partner (Mark Ruffalo) to a secluded mental asylum. The objective: find escapee Rachel Solando, one of the institution’s most dangerous patients. No one seems to know how she’s escaped. Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) explains: “It’s as if she evaporated, straight through the walls.” Encountering potentially supernatural beings and confronting his own demons, Daniels’ sanity becomes the crux of the film’s focus.
In taking on a project set in the mid-1950’s, Scorsese affords himself the opportunity to rack his movie knowledge. The string and horn score is indicative of nearly any of Bernard Hermann’s greatest, most notably Psycho. Flashback scenes, set during World War II, clearly recall Sam Fuller’s great The Steel Helmet. Visual motifs signal reverence; a spiral staircase derives from Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes, one of Scorsese’s favorites. Even Kubrick’s The Shining gets a fabulous homage, especially in one of the film’s key scenes.
Thankfully, Scorsese does not let the references run amok. They are not impertinent to the story at hand, and certainly play runner-up to the gripping narrative, held tightly together by DiCaprio, in one of his good performances. He’s especially convincing here, featured in every scene, but maintaining a modesty that doesn’t make his presence tiring.
Shutter Island is a decidedly artistic effort, nowhere near the commercial vanilla that hurt the entertaining, but underwhelming The Departed. You’d have to go back eleven years and cite Bringing Out the Dead to find a truly comparable example from the director’s past films. There is rough material here, presented in a fairly abstract manner, especially in several flashbacks, the best sequences of whole piece. Familiarity with surrealism and expressionism will be required to understand precisely what Scorsese is getting at. The trailers depict fairly conventional horror tropes, but the actual film exorcizes much darker demons and it’s certain that many moviegoers may be turned off by this.
However, once the menacing music, DiCaprio’s vulnerable, but stern performance and the organic aura of despair set in, your blood runs cold. Regardless of being a bit flabby (at least two or three scenes could have been trimmed off) and having an over-explanatory ending, the grasp of Scorsese’s directorial hand grips squarely around the throat. He builds atmosphere, even at 67, like very few filmmakers are able to. Is it anywhere near as good as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver or After Hours? Of course not. However, it’s one of his strongest from the past 20 years and impressively demonstrates that he is still capable of churning out top notch work.
She's Out of My League (Jim Field Smith, 2010) -- D+

Movies like this, not wanting to put forth any effort, depend on introducing character types, more easily establishing the fictitious (but real) world inhabited. Kirk (Jay Baruchel) has worked airport security with his buddies since he graduated from high school. His girlfriend recently dumped him, his friends and family make fun of him, he’s down on himself, etc.
What does a slightly awkward, down-on-his-luck guy need to turn his life around? According to She’s Out of My League, a hot (but nice, sweet) babe. Insert Molly (Alice Eve), the kind of woman that makes every man’s head turn. We know this because her intro is a slow-motion sequence, dance club music blasting, while each and every male (young, old, whatever) turns his head in confounded astonishment, relishing her beauty. Mouths fall agape, husbands get jabs in the sides from their wives – basically, the world stands still. Meeting her after a mix-up with her iPhone (so chic), Kirk’s living out the fantasy his friends say is impossible: He’s but a measly five, dating a ten.
A fundamental problem at the icky heart of She’s Out of My League is the utterly cut-and-paste viewpoint it takes on relationship mores and practices. Kirk’s friends talk like the scheming screenwriters who concocted them: all pizzazz, no veracity. Their dialogue works only as a type of vogue, blanketing the utter lack of connection with real world relationships.
Likewise, Molly and her pal Patty (Krysten Ritter) are allocated only enough screen time to keep the balance of power from completely toppling into the males favor. Why not a film from Molly’s point of view? Or, for that matter, how about a comedy where the woman is the five and the man is the ten? Unfortunately, Hollywood has a problem when it comes to such role reversals, so we’re stuck with yet another comedy pandering to its crowd, offering the underachieving male’s perspective.
Only, it isn’t any sort of discernibly honest perspective (how could it be when peddling easy gags about getting hit in the crotch with a hockey puck, a dog licking Kirk’s boxers after premature ejaculation or Kirk shaving his “man region,” a joke that was old when American Wedding did it back in 2003?). Nope, nothing too gut-bustingly funny about these old jokes and character types, thinly veiled and re-wrapped to try and squeeze every last ounce of comedy out of the already barren barrel.
Hot Tub Time Machine (Steve Pink, 2010) -- C

After Lou (Rob Corddry) tries to kill himself following a drinking binge, his former best friends Adam (John Cusack) and Jacob (Craig Robinson) decide he needs a bit of nostalgia; a trip to the ski lodge which officially marked the best times of their lives over 25 years ago. Tagging along is Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), a chubby, smart-ass type, whose presence becomes wearying quickly. Perhaps not quite as quickly as Corddry’s pervasively foul-mouthed party monster, a character (a performance) unaware of anything approaching subtlety. Once there, boredom turns to euphoria when they discover a glowing hot tub, which, after a night of excessive drinking and nude male bonding (“Have you guys even seen Wild Hogs?”) they wake up miraculously, astonishingly 25 years in the past, at the very point in time their lives took a crucial turn for the worse.
It’s always fascinating in such high concept comedies when the film has so little wonder about the process that has landed its mishap characters in an incredibly uncanny position. Add this one to the list. In fact, the lack of interest in either the premise itself or the mounting of comedic momentum makes it all the more disappointing. Trying to cram far too much into its 100 minute runtime, the film would have been wise to cut a few characters (namely Jacob, a needless inclusion) and really immerse itself in examining the regret and pathos felt by its three main characters. That, and eliminating jokes about digging car keys out of a dog’s ass, a urine spewing catheter, and several overtly homophobic gags.
The only bright spot comes in a small role from Crispin Glover as a long time employee of the ski lodge. I won’t spoil the running gag; it at least gets to the more bizarre, yet dopily inspired type of humor which sadly is in short supply here. Cusack gives it a run, charming and as convincing as any actor could be in such a role. Robinson also has charm, but he’s given far too little to do, usually the recipient of one of several over-the-top and in poor taste gags involving Corddry. Ultimately, without any sense of comedic timing in editing or plot construction, the actors struggle to wrestle laughs, or even mild amusement from the chaotic proceedings.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Samuel Bayer, 2010) -- D-

So passes the glory of Wes Craven’s shockingly inventive 1984 original, which placed a group of handsome, sexy, but modest teenagers in some semblance of an actual American suburb, only to have their middle-class comfort wrecked by Fred Krueger, the return-of-the-repressed personified. In Bayer’s film, beautiful people in their mid-20’s replace that original “average” looking foursome, displacing any sense of vulnerable teens. The star of Craven’s original, Heather Langenkamp, was just 19 during production. Her role in the update is player by a dreadfully dull Rooney Mara, 24 during the shoot. The change makes a significant difference, especially since these characters are supposed to be a clan of high school seniors, but beauty seems to trump logic nowadays.
To exacerbate already dire circumstances, the script (or lack thereof) by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer contains nary an interesting sequence, scene, line, or moment. They aren’t interested in placing any effort whatsoever into meaningful character development, which would necessitate a conversation, at some point, not about trying to stay awake. If these teens had lives before Freddy, one wouldn’t know it from the film. So what’s at stake? Aside from blindly caring for a fellow (wo)man, they’re but ciphers, detached from any perceivable ethos.
Craven’s original keyed into middle class anxieties via the teens, who suffer the brunt of their parents actions. There is a true sense of shattered naïveté there, that violent actions, no matter how seemingly forgotten, linger in the unconscious of the transgressor, one day returning to haunt them. Freddy was a metaphor; a visually startling one, to be sure, but not the one-liner king a slew of dopey sequels turned him into.
At least the regrettable sequels opted for camp over solemnity. Played with an inept level of seriousness, this one’s too interested in being “a real film”, at least according to the perverted sensibilities passing as profound amongst the bulk of the MTV generation from whence Bayer comes. For instance, Freddy popped up in the original, scary for sure, but always within the film’s bounds. After killing one his victims in the new film, he gaily says: “You know, the brain still functions for up to seven minutes once the heart stops beating. We still have time to play.” In order to have a character speak such a depraved concept, a film’s got to earn it. There’s got to be something it’s getting at beneath the surface or using as irony. No irony here. The only thing on this film’s short-term mind is bad setup, kill. Bad setup, kill, seemingly ad infinitum. The fact that Jackie Earle Haley makes a passable substitute for Robert Englund is beside the point, especially once it’s clear the film has such flaccid, literal minded interests.
Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, 2010) -- D

First off, let’s set the record straight: I have no inherent qualms with using an eleven year-old girl as an assassin, dismembering, maiming, and killing dozens of men. However, only when such a character has been put to proper use does it become excusable. Hit-Girl’s role in the film sort of epitomizes what’s wrong with it. Ideally, the character would be used to critique the violence she’s engaged in. Instead, Vaughn merely uses her character for titillation, mindlessly backing a climactic fight sequence with Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.” Even the musical choice makes little sense as context. Rather than serving up irony as a means for off-setting extreme violence, Vaughn plays it up, hoping his viewer engages rather than detaches.
It’s a conspicuous lack of consistency for a film that earlier draws a parallel between superhero and serial killer. Lamenting his inaction, titular Kick-Ass deduces: “But like any serial killer, eventually fantasizing just doesn’t cut it any more.” It’s a pretty convoluted comparison, not the least bit subtle, but at least it’s an attempt at pop culture commentary, if a maladroit one.
Clearly, KA’s sensation on the internet as a knee-jerk fascination is meant as a comment on fickle moral sympathizing. Here’s a guy, a normal guy, who fights crime. Yet Vaughn fails to truly serve up any cohesive comment on how new age media enables the partaking of debased content. For instance: when KA’s friends watch as he and Big-Daddy are tortured and beaten, one of them gets a kiss from a previously platonic friend. Instead of being appalled or enraptured by the live broadcast of violence, their libidos still function. Now the time is ripe for a comment on sex and violence, how the two become intertwined when Faces of Death and hardcore porn are but a click apart. Vaughn, seemingly afraid to get his hands dirty, merely leaves it at that. Now, an argument could be made that as viewers, we’re supposed to revile at their actions, even though the film would have us believe they are meant as our identifiers. Certainly, several of the members in my audience identified, laughing at the character’s misplaced concerns. Anyone privy to such efforts, though, would be remiss to claim Vaughn acting as anything other than facilitator. Vaughn’s not a detractor of such practices. Apparently, he’s a fan.
Only a culture so pervasively disconnected from the real world atrocities committed against children could produce Kick-Ass as a piece of pop entertainment. How about the introductory scene of HG and BD, as their superhero belts conveniently abbreviate? Acclimating his young daughter to the unfortunate nuisance of getting shot in the chest while in the line of fire, the scene plays as a yuck, meant to inspire cackling rather than sobering realism. It immediately recalls the scene in Mateo Garrone’s Gomorrah, where young’uns are forced to take one in the chest to prove loyalty to the mob. In contrast, KA becomes a sick joke, or at least an ill-conceived one. Although, I might argue that Garrone’s film also used such imagery as an exploitation tool itself, but at least it’s driving for a significance that’s not even on KA’s radar. Every sequence of violence is meant to be relished, enjoyed, or engaged with. This isn’t inherently bad, but it seems sorely misplaced for a film that wants to reject comic-book lore. As a gutless exercise that merely adds to the laundry list of post-modern misfires, the content feels right at home.
Were this true satire, the characters, especially KA and his “have-to-be-cynical” friends would all be the problem. They would all meet gruesome fates rather than placid endings. Also, it would seek to reverse frat-boy notions of masculinity by eliminating a sub-plot about homophobia that’s played for laughs. It would turn KA’s girlfriend Katie into more than a superficial bitch. Ironically, the most subversive character is clearly Hit-Girl, but Vaughn can’t even muster enough guile to play with feminist notions of female agency. Nothing about his filmmaking indicates he’s approaching her character any different than he would treat an adult female, say Uma Thurman’s The Bride; a school-girl outfit for HG is shamelessly ripped from Kill Bill, and Tarantino undoubtedly ripped it from someone else prior. This is all third-rate kiddie shit, meandering and searching for a purpose, other than appeasing filmgoers who couldn’t accept anything truly subversive.
True Grit (The Coen Brothers, 2010) -- C

The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010) -- C+

Tuesday, December 21, 2010
2010: Film Report Card
Though the year is not even close to being "finished" for myself in terms of films seen, here's a look at how my grades stack up thus far. I will be updating as I plow through it:
A+
A
A-
Inception
Piranha 3D
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Vincere
B+
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Fish Tank
Frozen
I Am Love
Life During Wartime
Please Give
Runaways, The
Social Network, The
Wild Grass
B
Black Swan
Ghost Writer, The
I’m Still Here
Jackass 3D
Jonah Hex
Killer Inside Me, The
Predators
Prodigal Sons
Salt
Shutter Island
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
B-
American, The
Chloe
Crazies, The
Cyrus
George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead
Greenberg
Last Station, The
MacGruber
Milk of Sorrow, The
Mother
October Country
Ondine
Town, The
Youth in Revolt
C+
127 Hours
Bluebeard
Fighter, The
Get Him to the Greek
Grown Ups
How to Train Your Dragon
Human Centipede, The
Kids Are All Right, The
Other Guys, The
Splice
Toy Story 3
Vengeance
Winnebago Man
Winter’s Bone
C
Book of Eli, The
District 13: Ultimatum
Edge of Darkness
Expendables, The
From Paris with Love
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Prophet, A
True Grit
C-
Alice in Wonderland
Date Night
Enter the Void
Green Zone
Mother and Child
Yellow Handkerchief, The
D+
Easy A
She’s Out of My League
D
Brooklyn’s Finest
Cop Out
Daybreakers
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
Kick-Ass
Losers, The
Repo Men
D-
Nightmare on Elm Street, A
F
A+
A
A-
Inception
Piranha 3D
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Vincere
B+
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Fish Tank
Frozen
I Am Love
Life During Wartime
Please Give
Runaways, The
Social Network, The
Wild Grass
B
Black Swan
Ghost Writer, The
I’m Still Here
Jackass 3D
Jonah Hex
Killer Inside Me, The
Predators
Prodigal Sons
Salt
Shutter Island
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
B-
American, The
Chloe
Crazies, The
Cyrus
George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead
Greenberg
Last Station, The
MacGruber
Milk of Sorrow, The
Mother
October Country
Ondine
Town, The
Youth in Revolt
C+
127 Hours
Bluebeard
Fighter, The
Get Him to the Greek
Grown Ups
How to Train Your Dragon
Human Centipede, The
Kids Are All Right, The
Other Guys, The
Splice
Toy Story 3
Vengeance
Winnebago Man
Winter’s Bone
C
Book of Eli, The
District 13: Ultimatum
Edge of Darkness
Expendables, The
From Paris with Love
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Prophet, A
True Grit
C-
Alice in Wonderland
Date Night
Enter the Void
Green Zone
Mother and Child
Yellow Handkerchief, The
D+
Easy A
She’s Out of My League
D
Brooklyn’s Finest
Cop Out
Daybreakers
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The
Kick-Ass
Losers, The
Repo Men
D-
Nightmare on Elm Street, A
F
Monday, December 6, 2010
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) -- B-

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