Feb
26
“The Crazies” Review
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I went into this one cold, having not seen any trailers or TV commercials. In high school, my buddies and I made it through about five or 10 minutes of the original, George A. Romero-directed version. I had no idea what to expect from the new film. But the reviews seemed surprisingly positive for a film that’s A) a remake, B) a zombie movie and C) directed by the guy whose only other film credit is “Sahara.” So is “The Crazies” one of those rare horror flicks that delivers?
No, it’s a piece of shit.
The film isn’t horrible, but it isn’t good either. Movies that are so very middle-of-the-road are difficult to review because I have a hard time forming an opinion about them one way or the other. As such, I tend rank average or “meh-worthy” films alongside the crap movies I truly hated. I’d never give a two-star review of anything. It’s either a great movie or the filmmakers shouldn’t have even bothered. Home video and cable TV have created a niche market for mediocre films and filmmakers to limp along rather that fade into obscurity. Movie fans, for esoteric reasons I find baffling, will often subject themselves to ho-hum dung heaps when they become available on Netflix or On Demand? Why? Hell if I know. I’m trying to break the habit of seeing virtually everything in an effort to keep up with the zeitgeist. The fact “Cop Out” exists — and that people went to see it at midnight last night! — proves to me that the zeitgeist needs to have some taste bitch-slapped into it.
Even so, I still catch the occasional misfire like “The Crazies” and wonder just what the stink everyone else found to like about it.
In the film, Timothy Olyphant plays Sheriff David, whose last name I don’t think is spoken once in the film. I don’t care enough to look it up on IMDb, so I’m going to call him Sheriff David. At any rate, Sheriff David is a folksy, small-town lawman in Ogden Marsh, IA. He’s married to the local doctor, Mrs. Sheriff David (Radha Mitchell), and manages to find the the time to attend high school baseball games while on duty. Odgen Marsh is one of those sleepy, one stoplight towns that’s so boring, even the town drunk’s been on the wagon for two years now. But when the town drunk stumbles onto the baseball diamond while toting a shotgun, Sheriff David smokes that fool, and the quiet little community slowly becomes unhinged due to some virus that’s gotten into the town’s water supply.
The military — the sort of go-to villain in disaster/horror pictures like these — comes rolling in, and faceless troops in haz-mat suits become the stuff of every Libertarian’s worst nightmares, herding the sick into quarantine zones at the point of a gun. Sheriff David, Mrs. Sheriff David and Sheriff David’s Deputy manage to escape and try to make it to the next town undetected. Mrs. Sheriff David is pregnant, which gives the film a tension-building device called a “ticking clock;” unfortunately, it appears to be a nine-month ticking clock because Radha Mitchell has the body of a yoga instructor in this film. The visual shorthand for establishing a super-skinny woman in a movie is pregnant but doesn’t look it is to have her significant other lovingly place his hand on her stomach during a tender moment.
The zombified “crazies” in the movie pop up every now and then, but it’s never established what they’re deal is. They’re slower and less vicious than the infected in “28 Days Later” and far fewer in number than the ghouls in the “Night of the Living Dead” pictures. That makes them not terribly scary.
There’s exactly one clever kill in the whole movie. It involves a guy with a knife stabbed through his hand grabbing someone by the throat. But for the most part, the crazies die like any normal human by taking a bullet to the torso. Part of the fun of movies like this should be the spectacular levels of carnage. “The Crazies,” though, is fairly unremarkable when it comes to splatter. What a gyp.
Director Breck Eisner, son of former Disney CEO Michael, doesn’t seem like a good fit for the material. The movie is fairly interchangeable with any other recent horror pic with elements borrowed from Zack Snyder’s vastly overrated remake of “Dawn of the Dead” as well as Alexandre Aja’s moderately overrated remake of “Hills Have Eyes.” When you’re aping bits from crummy remakes, you’ve really got to reevaluate your directorial vision. Steal big, is what I’m saying.
I wasn’t crazy about “The Crazies.” Oh, it could’ve been way worse, but it also could’ve been a hell of a lot better. I simply don’t get what other people liked so much about the film. Don’t believe that crazy-talk.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
24
Superman Lives?
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The last time an excellent Superman film was made I hadn’t been born yet. I think the second film, released shortly after I came into the world, is good but not great and I still maintain that the third is not irredeemably bad. No, movie four holds the honor of being atrocious. “Superman Returns” ultimately fails as a sequel and a reboot. In splitting the difference between embracing the established mythology and laying groundwork for a new film series, it alternates between being straight up fan service and a crushing bore.
Warner Bros. isn’t about to give up on creating a viable film franchise out of Superman, though. I think much of that has to do with the fact they’re in danger of the rights to the character reverting to Jerry Siegel’s estate if they don’t get something off the ground by 2012. And so, the studio’s taking another stab at Supes by hiring David S. Goyer, co-writer of “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” to script “The Man of Steel.”
From what I’m reading, this will not be a reboot, thank Krypton. The film will begin in medias res. My most despised of narrative crutches — the origin film — is going to be skipped entirely in favor of, hey, telling an actual story that isn’t two hours of exposition. Frankly, if you can’t set up a story world in your first act, you shouldn’t be making movies.
I’m curious to see how this shakes out. Warner Bros. doesn’t really seem to get Superman, and as such, has hired scads of filmmakers with the wrong sensibilities to develop projects that don’t go anywhere. David Goyer’s a geek but might be a little dark for Supes. One tired meme I often read about Superman is that he’s a boy scout. I don’t think this is entirely accurate. Superman has a lot of interesting potential for a character. Where people lament that he can pretty much do anything and is virtually invulnerable, they seem to neglect the things Superman can’t do, like solve real-world problems (war, famine, disease, poverty, the Tea Party movement) or feel completely at home in his adopted world, being an alien from outer space. A villain who personifies some issue Superman can’t simply defeat with brute strength and a love interest who swoons over only one of his dual identities creates plenty of narrative potential for a character. I just hope they don’t make him brooding and emo and pour him into a black costume. At the end of the day, Superman should embody the sense of idealism we seem to have become too cynical to embrace.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
22
“Human Centipede: First Sequence” Review
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How do you review a film like Tom Six’s “Human Centipede: First Sequence?” The premise alone is enough to make the average movie-goer dry heave. But those are the kinds of films I actively seek out. Horror fans like me are never content with whatever level of desensitization they’ve reached. Instead we have to keep challenging ourselves with films that redefine the “WTF movie” genre. Last year, Lars von Trier’s “Anti-Christ” fit that bill. 2010 brings us the first flick about three young people grafted together, head-to-tuchus, by a mad scientist in “Human Centipede: First Sequence.”
I somehow bullshitted my girlfriend into seeing “Human Centipede,” and I’m more than a little surprised she’s still talking to me. I’ve stomached some pretty staggering examples of the “body horror” subgenre. Even so, I was grossed out by this pic. None of the “Hostel” or “Saw” films really hold a candle to this. Those are straightforward gorefests. “Human Centipede” doesn’t wade around in graphic violence and rather spends more time on the psychological horror of waking up and finding your face stapled to someone else’s butt. I think it’s a stronger film because of it.
Dieter Laser, an actor with probably the best name ever bestowed upon a human being, plays Dr. Heiter, a crazed German surgeon who once specialized in separating Siamese twins. Now he’s obsessed with sticking people together. Although his initial experiments with his Rottweiler “three-dog” end in failure, he kidnaps three tourists — BFFs Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlyn Yennie) and a young Japanese man named Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) — and tries again. The end result is the human centipede of the title, Siamese triplets linked by their digestive and excretory systems.
You know how they say there’s no such thing as an original idea? They have clearly never seen “Human Centipede.”
This is an audience movie. I attended a sold-out show hosted by Cinefamily, and the communal experience was part of the fun. This is a blackly comic movie. The level of absurdity here is so staggering, you’ve got to laugh at times. Laser’s performance as Dr. Heiter is on the level of Peter Cushing’s manic brilliance in the Hammer “Frankenstein” pictures, and Kitamura’s turn as Katsuro is a study in why I love subtitles.
I can see a strong cult building around this movie. I hope so, anyway. It succeeds at what it sets out to do. From what I’ve been reading, a sequel’s in the works, “Human Centipede: Full Sequence.” The next one apparently will have twelve people linked together. The mind reels.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
19
“Shutter Island” Review
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In every book about screenwriting I’ve ever read, and probably in every one I haven’t, it says you should avoid flashbacks and dream sequences at all costs. And so, it came as a surprise to me that “Shutter Island” is teeming with flashbacks and dream sequences. I’m almost surprised the damn thing didn’t have tons of voiceover or a lengthy text crawl in its opening moments. At any rate, a film professor of mine told me way back in the day that you can never make a good movie out of a bad script. Regardless of how artistically brilliant Martin Scorsese is as a director, he can’t make “Shutter Island” work because the script is full of fail.
“Shutter Island” was originally slated to open last October, but Paramount bumped it back to February for whatever reason. Studios have a tendency to prolong the inevitable when it comes to bombs. Look at how Universal kicked “The Wolfman” down the road for years before dumping it last weekend. My prediction is that “Shutter Island” will have a respectable opening and then tumble in its second weekend as word-of-mouth gets out that it’s an incomprehensible bore. It takes over two hours to reach a conclusion that’s telegraphed by the trailer, a trailer that’s seemingly been omnipresent in theaters for months and months now.
If I never hear the line, “We are duly appointed federal marshals,” in a shitty Boston accent again, it will be too soon.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s still desperately trying to make it through puberty, plays Teddy Daniels — a duly appointed federal marshal! He’s been dispatched to investigate the disappearance of a lunatic who escaped from the booby hatch on the titular island. During his investigation, he meets creepy headshrinkers and barrel chested guards, has flashbacks, follows up leads that don’t really amount to a hell of a lot, has dreams, grapples with bald and battered inmates, dreams about flashbacks and flashes back to dreams he had. It’s endless.
I almost never get up to go to the bathroom during a movie, but I’d had two Newcastles and I was completely lost watching this film. So I ducked out of the auditorium for a couple minutes to shake hands with the unemployed. Along the way, I had a WWII flashback, dreamed of my wife who’d died in a fire, and had visions of my daughter. I splashed water in my face and told myself to get it together. Then I returned to the auditorium, where Leo was still climbing rocks and making scrunched up faces during lengthy scenes of info-dump. I began doubting my own sanity. Was I really watching a bad Scorsese movie?
Again, the script is what ruins it. Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (whose name I spelled correctly on the first try, FTW) obviously tried to remain faithful to Dennis Lehane’s novel when she adapted it for the screen. As such, the pacing is uneven, there are too many characters/flashbacks/subplots that go nowhere, and the ending doesn’t really work. I’m currently taking an adaptation class. In fact, I’d just gotten out of said class when I went to see the film last night. A solid psychological thriller could’ve been gleaned from the source material by simply trimming away all the fat from the book, especially the second act twist that sinks the final third of the film.
It drives me crazy, wondering what “Shutter Island” could’ve been.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
16
I waited two years for Universal’s remake of “The Wolfman.” A troubled production from the start — director Mark Romanek left the project two weeks before shooting began — the film would go on to miss one release date after another, as it spent many moons in post-production. Endless reshoots tried to beef up the film’s action quotient. A new composer was brought in before the studio decided to use Danny Elfman’s completely forgettable score after all. Two top-flight editors came on board to save the film. This is Hollywood filmmaking at its most incompetent, burning through millions of dollars to bring audiences a “Wolfman” picture that’s boring and toothless.
Never mind that the very same studio cranked out a terrific “Wolfman” picture almost 70 years ago.
I revisited the original 1941 version of “The Wolfman” — itself a quasi-remake of 1935’s “Werewolf of London” — to see how it stacks up against its big-budget follow-up. In the film, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) returns to London after spending the past 18 years in the States and reconnects with his father (Claude Rains) in the wake of his brother’s death. Larry quickly falls in love with the otherwise engaged daughter of a local shopkeeper, learns a shitload about werewolves from all the resident experts on the subject (the townspeople are like walking Wikipedia entries when it comes to the topic of lycanthropy) and is bitten by a werewolf while visiting a local gypsy camp to have his fortune read. At 70 minutes, the movie wastes no time.
Larry recovers from the werewolf bite in no time but finds himself a person of interest in the murder of a gypsy named Bela (played by Bela Lugosi). Though he’s convinced he bludgeoned a wolf to death with his silver-topped cane, the authorities find a shoeless Bela lying dead in the woods with a crushed skull. However, Larry’s father is loaded, so Larry manages to stay out of jail for the time being. Then night falls, and Larry undergoes a lap-dissolve transformation into the buttoned-down Wolfman. Oddly, the Wolfman changes clothes before going on the prowl. A grave-digger is killed, Larry begins to think he’s a werewolf, the authorities close in, and it all races toward an extremely brief third act. Universal monster movies of the period all seem to end very abruptly. The monster’s killed…THE END.
Of all the A-list Universal monsters that burst onto the scene in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, the Wolfman is the only one whose film didn’t have a direct sequel. Rather, Larry Talbot returned from the grave in a couple of Frankenstein follow-ups, “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman” and “House of Frankenstein,” as well as a Dracula sequel, “House of Dracula.” The Larry Talbot/Wolfman character is also unique in that Lon Chaney Jr. is the only actor to play him in each monster mash-up. The roles of Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy and the others were often recast with different actors in many of the subsequent entries.
For the 2010 version of “The Wolfman,” Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot. Del Toro seems to be on some sort of horse tranquilizers throughout the film. It’s a stunningly awful performance for the actor, whose work I’m usually very impressed with. The remake is set in Victorian England, where the original takes place in the least blitzkrieged quadrant of WWII-era London. The remake seems to want to evoke the style of the Hammer horror films of the ’50s and ’60s. Del Toro even vaguely resembles Oliver Reed in Hammer’s “Curse of the Werewolf.”
But it’s just so damn boring, this movie. I looked over at my girlfriend about a third of the way in, and she was fast asleep. It takes forever for Talbot to transform into a werewolf the first time. Once he does, the limb-splitting mayhem is so choppy and blink-and-you’ll miss it, you’re left confused as to what’s going on exactly. There’s no dread, no suspense. It’s a series of cheap scares and flashes of violence. You expect that from crappy B-horror movies. Here, I was hoping for a fuzzier take on “Jaws.”
Director Joe Johnston, who can always be counted on for a middling picture, seemed like an odd choice after Romanek walked. He’s out of his element when it comes to Gothic horror. Ten years ago, Tim Burton made his last great film, “Sleepy Hollow,” within similar genre trappings and nailed it. Johnston’s completely at a loss, uneasy with the setting and tone. This is such a bland and humorless film. Anthony Hopkins has one good line, but even he appears to be as bored as the audience with the proceedings.
I can’t wait to see Johnston’s mediocre take on “Captain America!”
“The Wolfman” (2010) was hardly worth the two-year wait. After all the farting around that went on behind-the-scenes during its lengthy post-production process, Universal ultimately delivered a film that fails to live up to the original. They should’ve let sleeping dogs lie.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
12
For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d review my two favorite movies that are set around February 14th, the original “My Bloody Valentine” as well as the 3D remake. How do they stack up against each other? The original is one of countless holiday-themed cheapies that tried to capitalize on the slasher craze of the early-1980s. The remake is one of countless reboots that tried to capitalize on the 3D craze of the aughts. They’re both cynical cash-ins! And those are my preferred dead teenager movies, the ones made be semi-competent directors looking to earn a quick buck. They’re not directed by some music video wunderkind and Michael Bay protege. Heavens, no! A good slasher takes itself super-seriously, stars actors you’ll never seen in another film again and has the production values of a regional car dealership TV spot.
By that criteria alone, “MBV” (1981) is terrific. A Canadian-produced stab at emulating the success of “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th,” the film is about a batch of disposable young people who live in a mining town that’s still reeling from a massacre that took place some 20 years ago on Valentine’s Day night. After the town dance is canceled due to a pair of gruesome murders, the group decides to throw a hush-hush party at the Hanniger mine where they all draw a paycheck. One by one, they’re bumped off by a pickaxe wielding psychopath in a mining outfit. It seems that Harry Warden, the multiple murderer from two decades ago, has returned!
Last night, I watched the unrated director’s cut of the film that restores all the ultra-violent kills that had to be removed to get an R-rating. The MPAA has historically been cruel to the slasher film genre but tends to look the other way when it comes to carnage in mainstream Hollywood films. In other terms, they’re sons of whores. The director’s cut of “MBV” (1981) is spectacularly gory. You can easily spot all the moments that were excised, too, since the quality of the film stock dips considerably, giving viewers the full “grindhouse” experience. The color timing is a little off, there are scratches on the source print. It’s beautiful.
As far as character development goes, “MBV” (1981) has some, believe it or not. There’s a love triangle involving our three vacant heroes, TJ Hanniger, Axel Palmer and Sarah. Sarah used to be with TJ but now she’s with Axel. TJ briefly went to the West Coast, where he admittedly “really fell on [his] ass;” I assume he was chasing his dream of becoming a professional screenwriter. At any rate, he returned home to find his best girl in the arms of his former friend. I don’t see what the big deal is about Sarah. She’s probably the most useless Final Girl in any slasher film I’ve ever seen. During the showdown, one of the male characters fights the killer to a standstill. Weak sauce.
“MBV” (1981) was seen as a box office failure, so the creepy open ending was never paid off in a sequel. I think the eviscerated theatrical cut is part of the reason the film didn’t resonate with audiences. For a movie called, “My Bloody Valentine,” the R-rated version is pretty bloodless. The director’s cut is excellent, however, and rockets “MBV” (1981) to my top five list of stalk-and-slash pictures.
As for last year’s remake, “My Bloody Valentine 3D” (read my mixed-positive review here), I think I’ve warmed to the film since my initial viewing. I’ve seen the film twice more on DVD — regrettably in 2D — and it’s still the strongest reboot of a slasher movie to date; the competition isn’t that fierce, all things considered. Even so, the 3D gimmick really elevates the material. “MBV” (2009) doesn’t have the “immersive” 3D of, say, “Avatar.” No, this film wants to poke you in the eyes at every opportunity with pickaxes, shovels and even boobies. The effect becomes unintentionally hilarious in two dimensions, not unlike the visual feast that is “Friday the 13th: Part 3D.”
The plot of “MBV” (2009) mirrors the original to an extent. The love triangle remains intact, and a Harry Warden copycat is doing the killing. This version front-loads the drunken party bloodbath in its first fifteen minutes. The slow build of old school slasher pics is eschewed in favor of piling on as many CGI-enhanced kills as possible.
What’s also noteworthy is that “MBV” (2009) is that the characters are generally aware of the fact that a psychopathic killer is on the loose in their small community. Slasher movies often confine a diverse group of young people to a remote location and gradually chip away at their numbers in ones and twos. Near the end of the second act, the surviving members — who all think some elaborate and “not very funny” prank is being pulled — are still oblivious to the fact that someone’s butchering their buddies. The success of “Scream” has modified these conventions slightly, but it’s got to be challenging for a masked killer to avoid the police and the angry townsfolk while getting his sweet revenge. But I digress.
So how do the two films compare? They’re both products of their times, that’s for certain. It’s interesting to see how sensibilities have changed over the past 30 years and how they’ve stayed the same. I prefer the original to the remake, but only slightly. I’m just partial to big hair, ringer tees and rank amateurishness on display in front of and behind the camera. Your mileage may vary. At any rate, watching either version of “My Bloody Valentine” is the perfect way to celebrate Single Awareness Day.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
11
Quintessential Quadrilogies | Alien
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After “Star Wars” became an unexpected box office behemoth, the executives at 20th Century Fox scrambled to greenlight more science fiction B-movies dressed up as A-pictures. One of those projects was “Star Beast,” a script by the late Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Retitled “Alien,” the film was directed by the brilliant Ridley Scott, who took the simple concept of “‘Jaws’ in space” and created a unique vision of sci-fi/horror that’s still aped to this day by lesser filmmakers. The film also put the 30-year-old actress Sigourney Weaver on the map and advanced the role of the female hero in genre films a full five years before James Cameron called “action” on the set of “The Terminator.”
“Alien” spawned three direct sequels as well as two piece of shit “Alien vs. Predator” spinoffs that I don’t count as part of the film cycle because they play fast and loose with the continuity of the previous installments. Let’s just ignore those, shall we?
Scott’s “Alien,” released in 1979, is so perfectly streamlined story-wise. From what I understand, most of O’Bannon and Shusett’s script was thrown out, and the actors were encouraged to improvise. But the story spine remains intact. A civilian mining ship way the hell out in the cosmos receives a distress call. When they answer it, one of the crew is attacked by some spidery parasite that plants an embryo in chest. The gestating creature inside him comes to term during dinner, and explodes out of his torso, ruining everyone’s meal. The monster grows to its full seven feet in height in short order and lurks within the bowels of the ship. It bleeds acid and has a tongue that doubles as a fanged mouth. Remaining members of the crew are picked off one by one until only Sigourney Weaver’s Lt. Ripley remains and must face down the hideous beastie in her underwear.
Seven(!) years came and went before James Cameron’s “Aliens” (plural, FTW!) opened in ‘86. Gone is the psychological horror and psycho-sexual business. “Aliens” is rather a rip-snorting action movie, easily one of Cameron’s most satisfying efforts and a game-changer in its own right. How many subsequent genre movies have had an elite team of commandos confronting some sort of science-fictiony freaks? In the film, Weaver returns as Ripley, who’s awakened nearly 60 years after she went into hypersleep aboard her escape pod. She now suffers from PTSD and receives a demotion from the Company when little evidence corroborates her story about the “xenomorph” (great word) that killed her fellow crewmembers. When the Company loses contact with colonists on the planetoid where the monster from the first film originated, Ripley reluctantly joins a team of space marines who are sent in to investigate. It turns out that LV-426 is crawling with xenomorphs that promptly make a meal out of the troops. The alien queen then kidnaps an orphaned little girl that Ripley’s been looking after, and what follows are some of the best setpieces of the series. Ripley’s final confrontation with the queen has one of the most chest-thumping zingers (“Get away from her, you bitch!”) to date. The final showdown with Ripley in a power loader and the queen gnashing and clawing at her is absolutely terrific.
“Alien 3″ is where the franchise comes off the rails. (For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to review the theatrical version of the film rather than the so-called director’s cut.) The project was doomed from the start when 20th Century Fox teased the film with trailers that boasted, “On Earth, everyone can hear you scream,” then went back on their promise to have an Earthbound “Alien” picture. After numerous scripts and directors came and went, music video virtuoso David Fincher was hired to direct. The script was unfinished with new pages being delivered daily. Rather than Earth, the film is set on a murky, rusted-out prison planet, where anonymous bald-headed convicts are picked off by a lone xenomorph until Ripley destroys the monster and sacrifices herself to save the human race from weaponized star beasts.
If anything, “Alien 3″ is a victim of the franchise’s success. The studio, to their credit, wanted to try something bold and new with each installment. After all, it had worked twice before. The first two films also had troubled shoots as well. But “Alien 3″ is too uncommercial in its approach to the material. The Space Truckers in movie one and Space Marines in movie two are characters whose deaths the audience mourns, and in both instances, Ripley emerges as the unlikely hero we root for because the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked against her. In movie three, who gives a shit if the xenomorph kills a bunch of rapists and murderers? They’re rat bastards. Meanwhile, Ripley’s driven into suicidal depression because she discovers an alien fetus growing inside her, so she spends a chunk of the movie moping around and wanting to kill herself. She’s decidedly unheroic in that respect. The movie’s an ugly, confusing and overwhelmingly dour slog.
And that’s the point. Fincher clearly wants to strip away all the crowd-pleasing trappings of the previous film and surprise the audience with a downer of a blockbuster. But it doesn’t work. It’s an exercise in atmosphere and it makes for a hell of a trailer with some great visuals. As a film, it comes up short. I don’t think the blame should fall squarely on Fincher, who was at a disadvantage from minute one. No, the studio wanted more to make a release date than a worthy second sequel.
After “Alien 3″ underperformed at the box office in ‘92, it seemed like the franchise had run its course. Then “Alien: Resurrection” opened in 1997. Set 200 years after “Alien 3,” the film delivers on its title by cloning Ripley and the Alien Queen aboard a military starship. Another corporate entity is determined to weaponize the xenomorphs. The xenomorphs, however, have other plans. They break free from their containment cells, and the mayhem begins. This time, Ripley allies herself with a gimmicky band of space pirates. She’s not the same Ripley from the earlier film, but a weird hybrid of a human and a xenomorph. This gives her the ability to retain the memories and pragmatism of her previous self as well as corrosive blood. The xenomorphs’ attitude towards her is kind of confusing. There’s a funky bit that could be interpreted as a sex scene between Ripley and a xenomorph. And yet, later on the Newborn — one of the shittiest looking rubber monsters I’ve ever seen in a commercial Hollywood film — seems to want to kill Ripley because that sort of thing is what you build a climax around.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who would go on to direct “Amelie” believe it or not, cobbles together elements of the previous three films. It’s a horror movie and it’s an action movie and still it’s got an indie sensibility. Winona Ryder’s in it, FTW. Joss Whedon’s script is a little hammy and self-aware for the franchise, but that particular screenwriting style was omnipresent in the 1990s. Thing is, the biggest problem with “Alien: Resurrection” isn’t its general weirdness, but that it doesn’t really break any new or interesting ground. It’s more of the same. We’ve done all this before and better. This is the third time in the series where Ripley and some xenomorph fight it out in an airlock.
“Alien: Resurrection” didn’t set the box office on fire, and as such, the “Alien” series has been dormant ever since. For years, there were threats of a fifth film. Now it appears a prequel might happen. You never can tell. I think all the worthy stories featuring Ripley and the xenomorphs have been told and a couple unworthy ones as well. But when the franchise soars, it’s light years ahead of almost everything else in the sci-fi genre.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
10
Pitching and Moaning
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I pitched my screenplay in class last night. I don’t particularly like pitching, nor do I think I’m very good at it. But I think it went okay, all things considered. I was a little flummoxed when I realized that my classmates thought the script was set in the modern day after I’d mentioned the Cold War twice at the top of the pitch. Still, I hit upon all the major story points in the two minutes I had allotted. So what if I forgot to mention the hero’s name?
We’ve been reverse-engineering tons of films in class and examining their component parts. I find that sort of thing fascinating. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s redundant when a critic attacks a film for being formulaic. Well, yeah. It’s supposed to be, goofball. The trick is disguising that formula with a fresh approach to the material. Of course, therein lies the challenge of making your film sound like what Joel Silver calls, “uniquely familiar.” Once you’ve done that, you’re halfway home. Then you’ve got to condense all your genius ideas into a two-minute pitch and a two-sentence logline, distilling all your brilliance into something so reductive, it’s hard for the layperson (or some development executive schmendrick) to muster much enthusiasm.
Hey, we’ve hit upon why I hate pitching! As a writer, my last instinct is to be concise. Look at some of my overly wordy blogs about movie quadrilogies. Stripping my script down to a short pitch is physically painful. I have to leave so much out, and then everyone’s confused by the big friggin’ holes in my story. It sounds disjointed and not very well thought out. I’ve been banging away at this idea for over a year. In that time, I’ve solved many of the problems that my classmates brought up after my pitch. And so pitching’s almost an exercise in confusing the hell out of people.
One thing we’ve been doing in class is breaking down popular mainstream films into short pitches, movies like “Gladiator” and “E.T.” Problem is, we’ve all seen those movies and can fill in the narrative gaps, like how does Maximus go from being a Roman general to a slave? That seems like a bit of a leap in logic, but in the context of the film in works. The same goes for “E.T.” He dies and then he comes back to life? That sounds awfully convenient. Again, in the movie, it’s terribly effective. These are two films that either won Best Picture or sat at the tippy-top of the ten highest grossing films of all time. If you pretend you haven’t seen the movie, though, their pitches sound like they were made up on the spot.
That said, I guess I shouldn’t take it to heart when people don’t understand certain elements of my story because I couldn’t flesh them out in the pitch. There’s a lot of world-building (well, world-destroying) that’s going on in my script. I might not be able to shoehorn all of the details into a short pitch, but maybe next time I can get the character’s name in there. And I should bring up the fact that it’s the 1960s.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
5
“Frozen” Review
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There’s great line in “Open Water,” the movie about the bickering couple who are stranded in the middle of the ocean and being preyed upon by sharks. Shortly after they discover they’re pretty much doomed, the wife says, “I wanted to go skiing!” Well, Adam Green’s new film, “Frozen,” does for skiing what “Open Water” did for scuba diving. And people wonder why I have such a fondness for staycations.
“Frozen” is about three college students: a boyfriend and girlfriend and a third wheel. They’re on a weekend skiing/snowboarding trip as well as a tight budget, having to bribe the chair lift operator when they can’t afford lift tickets. There’s some tension in the group. The boyfriend character and the third wheel character have been bros since grade school, and the new girlfriend has driven a wedge between them. She also can’t snowboard for a damn. So the weekend’s been a bit of a bust. Happily for the audience, it gets much worse for them.
After the three of them beg the operator to let them go up for one final run and halfway up the mountain, the chair lift is shut down. The lights go out. And they find themselves dangling at an immense height over the ski run with no way to get down and no way to call for help. Good times. If you’re willing to suspend your disbelief that three college students in this day and age don’t have cell phones practically grafted onto their bodies, the movie just might work for you.
It’s a terrific setup because it’s so simple and straightforward. Horror sometimes gets bogged down in too much complicated exposition that doesn’t quite make sense. I’m looking at you, “Drag Me to Hell.” Here’s a situation that could potentially happen and is all the more engaging as the audience imagines themselves in the same situation, coming up with half-assed plans of survival and escape. My plan: make a rope out of your clothes. It could work.
The heroes’ attempts at saving themselves are full of fail. I wouldn’t recommend jumping is what I’m saying. Also, the cable the chair lift is dangling from is sharp as hell and can cut right through a pair of heavy gloves. Even if someone does get down, there’s pack of hungry wolves lurking below. Of course, staying up there means exposure to the elements, frostbite and pants-pissing.
I generally dug “Frozen.” I think it could’ve gone a little further, thrown even more complications at the heroes; what I wouldn’t have given for a sasquatch to show up. Not surprisingly, the characters are too thinly drawn. I’d have liked to gotten to know more about them before they’re thrown into the thick of things. Movies like this work best when you’re honestly pulling for likable folks to get out of there in one piece. Well, it’s good to have one douchey guy, too, who you want to see things end badly for.
Director Green’s definitely redeemed himself in my eyes after his weak sauce slasher throwback, “Hatchet.” Here, he stretches himself a bit instead of trying to simply revisit old tropes. But he still can’t break from the trend of casting genre vets in walk-on roles. Eagle-eyed horror fans will recognize Kane Hodder, an actor/stuntman who essayed the role of Jason Voorhees four times(!), in a cameo as the most oblivious snow plow operator in film history.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
4
NC-17
Filed Under Culture | Leave a Comment
I recently saw David Cronenberg’s 1996 film, “Crash.” Not to be confused with Paul Haggis’ crappy 2005 Oscar winner, Cronenberg’s movie is the one about people who are car crash fetishists. I don’t mean they’re like the dimwitted lookie loos I’m stuck behind on the 405 whenever there’s a fender-bender. No, the folks in the Cronenberg film get into pileups because it turns them on. Pretty much every review written about the movie, including this one, makes mention of the scene where James Spader frottages Rosanna Arquette’s Freudian-looking scar.
I’ll wait while you open up another tab on your browser, log in to your Netflix account and add “Crash” to your queue…
Are you back? Good, let’s continue.
For reasons completely beyond my comprehension, “Crash” — the Cronenberg version — is rated NC-17. Now I’ve seen a movie where a guy has sex with pie, and that particular gem was rated R. So what gives? I don’t even think the pie sex was consensual.
As far as I’m concerned, the NC-17 rating has virtually no purpose or place. Movies slapped with that rating are generally reedited and resubmitted to the MPAA for a softer rating. Why? Well, newspapers won’t advertise movies that are rated NC-17, and major theater chains won’t exhibit them. NC-17 was supposed to replace the X rating, but not have all the baggage. And yet, it absolutely does. NC-17 is still equated with hardcore pornography. Never mind that hardcore pornography isn’t ever submitted to the MPAA for a rating in the first place.
Still, the occasional ballsy distributor will put out a flick with an NC-17 rating. Those films will play in art houses, and if they’re any good, do respectable business. I’ve seen NC-17 movies like Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers,” starring Bond Girl Eva Green; “Lust, Caution,” directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee; and Lars Von Trier’s talking animal picture “Anti-Christ” theatrically here in the L.A. area. None of those films are pornographic and actually have some prestige talent on both sides of the camera. Now “Anti-Christ” does have a penetration shot, something that normally crosses the line that separates an art film from wank material. But Von Trier’s making a statement with his graphic imagery, so it goes from being art to porn to art again. And that’s just the opening scene!
Perhaps the most famous NC-17 movie is also probably the worst: “Showgirls.” What an unholy piece of shit that movie is. People can somehow wring some semblance of entertainment value out of that flick’s overwhelming badness, but nothing surprises me anymore. At any rate, “Showgirls” has the distinction of being a rather resounding flop during its initial release, grossing less than half of its $45 budget. Not only did it fail to set the box office on fire, but it continued to delegitimize the NC-17 rating. Again, it seemed like a designation for the trenchcoat crowd only.
What’s so bizarre and paradoxical about the ratings system is that theater chains won’t exhibit NC-17 movies, like I said earlier, but video rental outlets like Blockbuster as well as big box stores like Best Buy will stock their shelves with films that are unrated. Remember I also said that most movies initially given an NC-17 rating are cut down for a softer rating? Well, it’s the NC-17 version that’s released on video, but without a rating to eschew retailers’ insipid policies about distributing NC-17 films. Hell, many of those unrated movies sell themselves as “The version you couldn’t see in theaters!” Now you know why. You’re watching an NC-17 flick!
The NC-17 rating doesn’t even make sense on its face. It originally meant no children under 17 were permitted to see the film, but was later changed so that 17-year-olds weren’t allowed in, either. You have to be at least 18 to see an NC-17 movie. Whut?
Having been legally an adult for well over a decade now, ratings have become fairly meaningless to me. I pretty much watch whatever I want, and I have a tendency to gravitate towards stuff that’s “challenging” (read: loaded with sex and violence). That said, it’s pretty absurd that the MPAA has conspired for two decades now to strip movies of the things I enjoy seeing most by forcing filmmakers to conform to a bogus and wildly inconsistent set of guidelines in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
-Brad Lohan