STOP LOSS Lost Me But RUN FATBOY RUN Had Me Pegged

As good as TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE and 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, & 2 DAYS (reviewed last time out) were they failed to gain an audience (at my hometown theater at least) so it's on to a couple of the new Spring crop of movies: 

STOP LOSS (Dir. Kimberly Peirce, 2008)

The opening scene with mobile phone footage of soldiers in Iraq razzing each other with ethnic and whitebread stereotypes raging brought to mind unpleasant memories of REDACTED. 

For a short bit, this film appears to have a higher purpose than that base insufferable Brian DePalma cinematic bloodstain then it drastically drops to a lower level. 

With his trademark worried eyes, squad leader Ryan Phillippe serves what he thinks is his last combat mission (involving a particularly hellacious gunfight which kills 2 of his men) and comes home with his surviving men to his hometown. They are greeted with a parade full of applause and teary eyes but Phillippe is told shortly afterwards that he is being “Stop Lossed” - that is, his term of service is being involuntarily extended, and he is to be sent back to Iraq. 

Phillippe immediately responds in anger and escapes from the army installation becoming an AWOL fugitive. His plan is to appeal to a Senator who shook his hand and said “if you ever need anything...” back at the celebratory parade so he sets off for Washington D.C.

Phillippe's squad, who mostly remain back on the Stop Lossed sidelines, is quite the clichéd crew: there's the thick headed bully (Channing Tatum), the short-fused guitar-playing cut-up (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the religious square nicknamed “Preacher” (Terry Quay), the smooth Hispanic player (Victor Rasuk), and of course, the tough token black guy (Rob Brown). 

Try as they might neither the characters or the film rise above well worn cliches. Such can't be disguised by the quick-cutting MTV * technique of flashing hundreds of photographs in front of our eyes at supposedly key moments. 

Phillippe talking with an awful Texas accent and brooding squint-eyed as if the movie is a foggy shadowy stage has shown more layers previously like in last year's BREACH, but here seems to have retreated back to the wood board mode that he walked-through CRASH with. His co-star and somewhat love interest is Abbie Cornish - ex-girlfriend to Phillippe's fellow soldier friend (Tatum). 

Cornish travels with Phillippe across country in scenes that have an '80s road movie sensibility in the same sense that every element of this film feels borrowed. As for being Peirce's first film for nearly 9 years since BOYS DON'T CRY this is quite a let down filled to the brim with cringe-worthy acting and weak dialogue. 

For all its anti-war pro-troops posturing STOP LOSS, though based on a very real and hard to stomach government policy, has a extremely low percentage of plausibility. * The film is an MTV Films Production after all.

RUN FATBOY RUN (Dir. David Schwimmer, 2007)



An unlikely movie-star if there ever was one, Simon Pegg still seems to have nudged a notable niche into the world of hip pop culture. 

Bit by bit - the first bit being his little seen, but great British sitcom Spaced then his and director Edgar Wright's hilarious satires SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, and now a just revealed big bit is that he is tapped to play the iconic role of Scotty in the new STAR TREK reboot. 

In the present meantime though Pegg goes mainstream with this romantic comedy about marathon racing. How mainstream? Well, this is directed by David Schwimmer - Ross from Friends! So Pegg is a slacker sloth we gather right off as he abandons his pregnant fiancée (Thandie Newton) at the altar literally running down the street away. 

The movie cuts to 5 years later and Pegg's still running but this time running after shoplifters as a low level security guard for a women's clothing store. 

Pegg still pines for his ex and longs to be more of a hero to his son (Matthew Fenton) but that is increasingly difficult as Newton has taken up with Hank Azaria - a well-to-do muscular all too perfect suitor who runs marathons. 

“Why would you want to do a thing like that?” is Pegg's reaction to that last bit. He realizes though to gain his son's respect and possibly win back his ex he will have to take something seriously and see it through to the end and the Nike River-run in London may just be the ticket.

It's fitting that Pegg's shabby apartment has a poster of TEAM AMERICA up because as that film told us in song “you've got to have a montage!” and so a shaping up sequence of the sort is on. Pegg's SHAUN OF THE DEADSHAUN OF THE DEAD co-star Dylan Moran, who has some of the best lines, bets on his friend completing the 26 mile marathon as do his landlord's (Harish Patel) cunning daughter (India de Beaufort). 

Among the wacky physical humor in the training scenes and the underdog insults there are affecting face-offs with Azaria down to the starting line gunshot and beyond: “I can lose weight... but you'll always be an arsehole!” Pegg deliriously exclaims.

Though not in the same comedic league as and HOT FUZZ, RUN FATBOY RUN is extremely likable, as fluffy and predictable as it is. 

It's not a laugh a minute, it's more a mild chuckle per scene but its big heart and sunny nature made me smile often throughout its running time (no pun intended). 

Doubt this will make much of dent in the U.S. box office but like the folk that gather behind Pegg FORREST GUMP-style as his lovable louse stumbles through the miles of the marathon RUN FATBOY RUN will no doubt accumulate fans. Pegg may not have completely arrived Stateside yet but this is one cheeky bit closer.

More later...

Abortion & Torture At The Movies - Happy Easter Everybody!

As 2 of the most obscure titles my hometown movie-house has had in a long time the following films are hardly crowd-pleasers.

Varsity Theater owner Bruce Stone said on a sparsely attended opening night - “Neither is really THE SOUND OF MUSIC you know?” Still, I recall Roger Ebert's proverb: “No good film is depressing, all bad films are”. With that in mind let's take a look at the films I heard that a fellow co-worker referred to as “a downer double feature”:

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (Dir. Cristian Mungiu, 2007)


Sadly ignored by American audiences despite being at winner at Cannes and the Golden Globes, this affecting Romanian film had an intense grip on me from the first shot.

That first shot is a cluttered table next to a window in a shabby ass dorm room. The camera pulls back and we are introduced to Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) who appears to be taking care of the every need (buying cigarettes, arranging schedules, etc.) of her room mate Gabriela 'Găbiţa' (Laura Vasiliu). 

It is 1987 in Bucharest, Roma under the Ceauşescu regime - as a 1930's stage narrator would tell us - and Găbiţa is pregnant so a shady meeting is set up with a stranger for an illegal abortion. Every required task for the plan gets botched - the hotel insisted upon is booked, Găbiţa lies about what month her term is (hence the title), and worst of all the man called upon to do the deed, Mr. Bebe played by Vlad Ivanov, an asshole who bullies the women on every point.

There are so many unpleasant draining circumstances that the stressed-out Otilia often has to sit down and regroup. I was right there with her catching my breath. One certain lengthy dialogue-free sequence (don't worry - no Spoilers) has an amazing display of body language entangled with tension. Grueling and degrading as the scene is it has a tone so much more human than in many recent movies. 4 MONTHS... is mostly constructed out of long unbroken shots - very little cutting - which enforces the air of being in the same room not just with these people but their worries and regrets.

A family dinner, an obligation to Otilia's boyfriend (Alex Potocean) that takes her away from the scene of the crime, is as cluttered with folks in the frame as it is crammed with everybody's (some not in the shot but overheard) opinions. 

They pontificate about class relations, whether you'd be arrested if you didn't go to church on Easter, and why young folk shouldn't smoke in front of their elders. The scene by itself could be a great short film with Otilia squirming in a manner that doesn't necessarily need our knowledge of the uneasy background. A dark tale told with natural rhythms and as one character remarked at the dinner scene “a sense of what's real”, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 WEEKS is a stirring portrait of mislaid agendas. 

Speaking of mislaid agendas: 

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (Dir. Alex Gibney, 2007)

Everybody gasped (me included) at the Oscar party I attended when this won Best Documentary over SiCKO and NO END IN SIGHT. 

At first glance one has to sigh and think “another anti-Bush administration talking heads piece of pop propaganda” and yes, that can be said but watching it such cynicism drops and the picture, as horrifying and disarming it is, becomes frighteningly necessary. In 2002 an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar is taken into custody by American soldiers. He dies 5 days later after being chained to his cell's ceiling getting his legs pummeled repeatedly by several guards and suffering numerous other forms of assaultive abuse. 

Later it is revealed from leaked documents and press inquiries that Dilawar was innocent and that he and his passengers were “no threat” to American forces. Angering interviews from a few of the soldiers involved as well as the architects of the invasion fit into the framework purposely especially the clip of Dick Cheney a week after 9/11 saying “We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows.” 

Another such chilling moment is when one of the accused soldiers says he had never heard of the Geneva Convention before. Rewriting the rules on what defines torture is the slipperiest of slopes as we see over and over what can happen on a ginormous generalized dehumanizing scale. 

We are shown countless disgusting photographs, hear excruciating first hand accounts, and see for the first time on film inside Bagram Air Base where the horrendous activity occurred. Of course none of this sounds like fun but it is one of the most startling and compelling documentaries this side of NO END IN SIGHT. It very much deserved to win the Oscar over that extraordinary film. Gibney's work here has a passion and drive that with hope will gain a bigger audience. 

Since the film was bought by HBO and the Discovery Channel that is sure to happen. TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE must be recognized as not just another damning governmental practices diatribe. It is a film about torture that is not tortuous to watch for it calmly and calculatingly lays out a tale that can not be dismissed. 

Familiar footage of Bush has him stating of terrorists: “wherever they are, we will hunt them down, one by one, until they are no longer a threat to the people who live in the United States of America.” 

One by one the offenses against America that Bush and his cronies have committed pile up into towers that will cast shadows on us all. 

Still thinking of Ebert's proverb I have to write that it is not just depressing that we yet again need a documentary to shine a light on these horrors it makes me miserable that people ignore them when they come around. 

Wake up, open your eyes, and get out of bed America and pay attention or we'll have nothing but films like this. TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE only plays for 4 more days at the Varsity Theater so if you live in Chapel Hill try and make it out to see it.

More Later...

SLEUTH & A Few New DVD Reviews

"The film was a sadd'ning bore, 'cause I wrote it 10 times or more." - David Bowie from the song "Life On Mars"

Bowie's couplet above could serve as perfect criticism of the following film. I wanted to see it on the big screen last fall but it played for only a week at a local theater and was roundly panned. I loved the original so I put it in my queue and wished for the best. 

Well, what I got was the worst:

SLEUTH (Dir. Kenneth Branaugh, 2007)

This entire production screams "high concept!" It's a slick streamlined remake of the much beloved 1972 mystery which pitted Sir Laurence Olivier as a wealthy novelist against Michael Caine as a gold digging hair salon manager who is having an affair with Olivier's wife. 

The high concept here is that Caine now plays the wealthy novelist and Jude Law, fresh from remaking ALFIE, again steps into Caine's old shoes as the young gold digger.

The gothic old house of the original has been transformed into a high tech palace with surveillance cameras and monitors in every corner - a cold and sterile museum of a house that Caine says was designed by his wife but it's hard not to think he took some notes from Batman.

Taking the concept higher is a new screenplay by noted playwright Harold Pinter which throws out all of the original's dialogue and replaces it with even more twisted mental trickery. Branaugh's sharply stylised direction inhabits every frame - the film actually looks shiny like an expensive ad in GQ magazine. So why doesn't any of it work?

Hmm, It's not because it's ridiculous, contrived, and over the top - the original was all those things and even more unbelievable in its conceit.

The conceit being that these 2 men perform a series of double crossing mindgames over the never seen wife. There is one giant plot device that I won't give away, though if you watch the trailer you can probably guess what it is, that is handled so horribly it should have been discarded all together.

Caine has sleepwalked through better material than this but he does give it the old college try. Jude Law, is well...just what I expected - glib but hiding overwhelming insecurities but just like with Caine we never believe these are people with lives outside of this movie. They're both constrained by their empty caricatures.

Like I said before - the film looks great, the actors are apt, and the direction is solid so I guess I can only really blame the script. Pinter's dialogue is simplistic yet over-reaching - he uses all of the original's hot premise points but retains none of their humorous charms. 

If the plan was to break down a grand theatrical melodrama down into a souless modern psychological thriller package with as much depth as a Tom and Jerry cartoon then Pinter is indeed a genius as he's been often called. 

With all due respect to the Nobel Laureate, the original was an amusing trifle; this is high concept tripe.

The 2007 model SLEUTH only has 2 good things going for it: 

1. At 86 minutes it is an hour shorter than the original so at least they didn't try and stretch what was already as thin as Shelley Duvall as Olive Oil. 

2. The prospect that because this film was a critical and financial failure we can be spared any future Jude Law remakes of Michael Caine movies. Though come to think of it though, in the right hands Law could maybe pull off DEATHTRAP - if they stick to the original script, that is.

This next film isn't new but I'm writing about it because there is a recent English language remake that just came to my area. It's not playing in Chapel Hill however possibly because in the light of the tragic death of UNC student Eve Carson it could be seen to be in bad taste. Hearing that the remake is a shot-by-shot replay of the original from a decade earlier by the same director I got it from NetFlix and do strongly feel that yes the timing would be bad.

Not sure though, if the time will ever be right for:

FUNNY GAMES (Dir. Michael Haneke, 1997)

                                         

In a calm soothing manner we are introduced to a cultured Austrian family (A husband and wife played by Ulrigh Mühe and Suzanne Lothar with their son played by Stefan Clapczynski) arriving at their lake house.

10 minutes into the film a couple of creepy young men dressed in white clothes with white gloves appear - the first (Frank Giering) innocently asks to borrow some eggs from Lothar which he supposedly accidentally breaks. He asks for more, breaks those too and an awkward confrontation occurs when the second (Arno Frisch) assaults Mühe with a golf club severely injuring his right leg. 

The home invasion is in full swing now with the family taken hostage and a series of sadistic mind games with rules and deadly consequences set in place by Frisch. Frisch "breaks the frame" early on by winking at the camera then later asking the audience to bet on the fate of his victims: "You're on their side so who will you bet with?" 

Many critics have labeled FUNNY GAMES - high art disguised as torture porn (or vice versa) and point out that we don't actually see much of the violence because it occurs off screen. That may be true but there is still enough voyeuristic violence with screaming and blood in sight to disturb not just the squeamish. Haneke has said that he intended to make "a film about the portrayal of violence in the media, in movies... an attempt to provide an analysis of the work within the work." 

I'm afraid that even with that lofty purpose and artsy asides to the camera we still just have another violent piece of work here - a pretentious and tedious one at that. Repeatedly the suffering family asks their tormentors "why?" - "Don't forget the entertainment value" Giering responds and it is the only thing that ever comes close to a sincere answer. The entertainment value of this pointless exercise however is non-existent. 

If Haneke is making a statement critical of the mass consumption of media violence and he is ideally chastising viewers with his own work then as someone identifying themselves as Fuckhead on a Onion A.V. Club message board * asks "I guess the way to pass this film's test is to not see it? Is that it?" 

Yes, that's it. I failed that test by watching the original. But I expect to pass with flying colors when it comes to the remake. 

* Actually from the comments on the article "A funny response to Funny Games" by Steve Hyden (March 17, 2008) 

I AM LEGEND (Dir. Francis Lawrence, 2007)

                                         

I was planning on skipping this flick but some friends thought it would be good mindless fun one recent eve. They were right - this Will Smith fighting zombies spectacle (big enough to warrant an IMAX release) isn't too dumb for fun. Mind you, it considers itself to be too highbrow to call them zombies or mutants - they're called The Infected or Darkseekers. 

Based on the 1954 novel (which took place in the 70's) by Richard Matheson, the story is simple - in 2012, 3 years after most of the world's population is hit by a massive plague a man (Smith) who believes he may be the last alive on Manhattan Island struggles to find a cure for the virus. 

Dodging constant attacks, Smith talks to himself and his trusty dog Sam (who you just know won't make til the end) as he stockpiles food, broadcasts radio transmissions in hope of finding other survivors, and has several flashes to backstory about his departed family.

Smith captures Infected ones in order to test treatments and thinks he may have found a possible anti-dote.

Of course, this plot seems designed as an elaborate laundry line on which to hang a series of immense bombastic set pieces including a scene involving the Brooklyn Bridge which cost $5 million (the most expensive scene ever filmed in the city at the time according to Wikipedia). 

The CGI demon dogs and Darkseekers provide some genuine scares, while the shoot-out scenes (as one-sided as shoot-outs can be) are actually fairly compelling. 

Despite the sci-fi action formula limits, Smith is able to build upon his acting standard set by THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS last year and again shows he can carry, pretty much on his shoulders alone, another overblown blockbuster with poise. Don't get me wrong though - it's no movie masterpiece; I AM LEGEND is a brisk 1 hour and 40 min. piece of populist entertainment - nothing more. So just put a cork in your brainhole and sit back and enjoy.

More later...