Hitchcock’s Psycho contains just two on-screen deaths, but can arguably be credited with the transition from “classic” horror to modern horror and the very creation of the slasher movie. Before 1960, horror films usually centered around the supernatural: monsters, ghosts, and traditional gothic lore (i.e. the various incarnations of Dracula or Frankenstein). Traditional thrillers, meanwhile—especially Hitchcock’s—featured more realistic elements and plots, and did indeed contain murders, plot twists, and elements of suspense. But while the thriller’s aim was to excite (or, naturally, to “thrill”) the audience, Psycho was perhaps the first non-supernatural film to assign high value to the objective of scaring the audience. Hitchcock’s pre-Psycho cinema had psychological suspense (Rear Window), white-knuckle close calls (Notorious) and breathtaking, escapist-entertainment chase sequences (North by Northwest). But Psycho made audiences scream. It relied less on a sense of foreboding and ominous impending dread and more on sheer shock value. The psychological “thrill” was no longer just in the audience’s head. Now, Hitchcock had added a physiological component that caused the audience to jump out of their seats—or cover their eyes—in a knee-jerk reaction.

The film’s first death scene is the murder of Marion Craine, played by Janet Leigh, by a shadowy feminine intruder as she showers in the Bates Motel. Leigh enters the tub, turns on the water and takes obvious delight in its familiar, sensual comfort. While she is awkwardly framed in the foreground of the shot, a human figure creeps into the stark-white bathroom in the background, blurred behind the shower curtain. Nearly a hundred abrupt cuts and less then three minutes of film time later, audiences had witnessed perhaps the most iconic scene in film history. Leigh’s screams rip through the theater. The killer’s arm lurches out at its slippery, struggling victim. Blood mixes with water and spills down the drain. The metallic, stabbing strings of Bernard Herrman’s jarring score echo the killer’s knife as it plunges into Leigh’s naked, defenseless body. Or does it?

Closer frame-by-frame inspection reveals that only once does the knife actually seem to touch Leigh’s skin, and even then no explicit penetration is evident. It’s likely that, as the saying goes, necessity was the mother of invention here: Hitchcock had the dilemma of shooting the brutal murder of a nude woman in the most terrifying way possible—and then getting it past the conservative eyes of censors in 1960. Fortunately for us, he found a way. Turning to the technique of montage sequence popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Hitchcock formed new meaning from the juxtaposition of certain shots at specific angles. Though the eyes never see Leigh’s character get stabbed, the brain unconsciously chooses to see it happen. Eisenstein himself explained montage as “juxtaposing representative shots that…are neutral in terms of their meaning, in meaningful contexts and series.” Hitchcock thus placed otherwise implicitly “neutral” shots of a screaming woman, a plunging knife, an outstretched arm, and a thick, dark liquid running towards the drain, in such a way that audiences “saw” something that wasn’t necessarily there. While Hitchcock did not invent the montage sequence, he revitalized the technique for a new genre.

The influence of Psycho was so far-reaching as to inspire a young filmmaker to weave his own psycho-killer tale nearly twenty years later, casting Leigh’s own daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, as the lead in an homage to Hitchcock’s film. Inspiration aside, John Carpenter’s Halloween emphasized considerably different techniques in its murder scenes, displaying an original style that would itself further influence the genre. Though no less brutal than Psycho’s, the deaths in Halloween are not chopped up into jarringly abrupt quick-hits, but rather take place in long, extended cuts reminiscent of Bazin’s style, in plain view of the camera, and centered rather deliberately within the frame.

Carpenter intended his masked, faceless villain, Michael Myers, to be nothing less than evil incarnate—a murderer without motivation fueled by an unquenchable bloodlust. Thus, unlike Psycho’s gut-wrenching shower scene, the emphasis is not on the terror of the victim but the calmness of the murderer. Myers first expresses his psychotic nature as a child in the film’s opening scene, killing his sister on Halloween night with a knife taken from a kitchen drawer. An exterior establishing shot of the house is revealed to be young Michael’s point-of-view through the eyeholes of a clown mask. The equivalent of a first-person narrator in literature, this technique literally places the audience behind the killer’s mask and, subsequently, “inside his head.” Michael watches voyeuristically through a first-floor window as his sister and a boy fool around on the couch before moving upstairs, echoing Psycho (Norman Bates watches Leigh through a hole in her motel room wall). The ensuing, long-take P.O.V. shot follows his room-by-room path for several minutes, stalking through the back door, into the kitchen, and up the stairs, where he stabs his sister to death.

As an adult—now recently escaped from a mental institution—Myers first kills a teenage babysitter in her car, strangling her. The static camera captures her struggle for nearly a full minute, while cutting just five times. Two more murders are shown on-screen, each with a noticeably limited amount of cuts and—quite contradictorily to Hitchcock’s shower scene—hardly any visible bloodshed at all. Perhaps the most disturbing murder is that of another teenage girl, Lynda, as she talks on the phone with Curtis’ character. Myers, donning a ghostly white sheet, creeps up behind her, strangling her with the phone cord. A score like Herrman’s is conspicuously lacking; the only audible sounds are the muffled gasps coming from Lynda’s tightening throat filtered through the other end of the phone. As the static shot holds on the killer and his victim, Lynda slowly slips toward the bottom of the frame until she is completely offscreen. Still, the director and editor decide to not cut away. The shot lingers until the sheet finally falls off Myers, revealing once again his haunting white mask and re-emphasizing his cold, calm demeanor.

If Psycho created the slasher sub-genre, then Friday the 13th made it relevant to mainstream audiences for decades to come. Along with Halloween, it laid down the thematic ground rules that would govern the slasher film throughout the 1980s and 1990s, among them being the now-clich©d virginal “final girl” and the cause-and-effect relationship between sexual activity or substance abuse and impending death. Like Halloween, Friday makes no secrets about its debt to Psycho, echoing its overprotective-mother motif in the person of the vengeful Pamela Voorhees and employing the surprise twist with the reveal of the killer’s identity. However, also like Halloween, its take on the specific moment of the kill scene is undeniably original, leaving its own distinct mark on cinema.

Friday takes place at innocuous, picturesque Camp Crystal Lake where, legend has it, a young boy, Jason Voorhees, drowned while the camp’s counselors were neglecting their duties in favor of partying and fornication. Years later, the camp reopens and a predictably similar group of horny teens show up, oblivious to the camp’s history and unaware of the killer now stalking the surrounding woods. The aforementioned parallels to Psycho are quite apparent, and director Sean S. Cunningham also owes a debt to Carpenter for his contributions. Cunningham makes liberal use of the P.O.V. shot from the murderer’s perspective that was so effective in Halloween, again placing us inside the killer’s head. This technique also has a more practical use, as it enables Cunningham to keep hidden the identity of his killer, which will not be revealed until the film’s denouement.

Friday popularized the modern slasher model in which, as one film historian puts it, “there is no building of a climax—only variations on the theme of slashing, creating a pattern that is more or less reversible.” While Halloween stoked its slow-burning plot into a climactic showdown between Curtis’ virginal Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Friday essentially uses a micro-formula that shrinks the “suspense package” from the full duration of a film to just several minutes. Sacrificing characterization in order to maximize instances of suspense (a “quantity-over-quality” approach, perhaps), Cunningham quickly establishes characters in comfort, then introduces an element of dread (i.e. the ominous sounds of footsteps outside, or a creaking floorboard), and creates suspense that leads up to the moment of the victim’s death. The buildup is neither gradual nor implicit: Cunningham makes a conscious effort to create a painstakingly tense atmosphere as efficiently and economically as possible. The people in the film are essentially interchangeable, since we learn nothing about them that would make them stand out as individuals. Like a recipe, the process is repeated with calculated precision over the film’s seven onscreen murder scenes. Friday also diverged from its predecessors’ paths by taking advantage of Hollywood’s growing adeptness in special effects and makeup artistry to create truly unprecedented representations of gore. Now-renowned makeup artist Tom Savini led the way in creating groundbreaking, realistic prosthetics. Whereas Hitchcock implied murder, Friday the 13th actually showed it, repeatedly, in a disturbing variety of ways.

Though these films borrowed from one another and showed little attempt to hide their predecessors’ influences, they are considered landmarks for combining this with each filmmaker’s own originality. Psycho essentially created modern horror and the slasher sub-genre for all intents and purposes, and its influences on the themes and techniques in Halloween and Friday the 13th are hard to miss. But their moments of originality and creativity are best illustrated by their varying approaches to the kill scene. Psycho’s unsettling, abrupt edits assaulted the audience with an unprecedented shock value, creating a biological reaction to go with the psychological suspense that, to Hitchcock, was now old hat. Eighteen years later, Halloween created a new form of shock by showing just the opposite—a haunting, lingering depiction of brutal murder that dared the audience to look away. Friday the 13th pushed the envelope even further, condensing Carpenter’s P.O.V. technique with Hitchcock’s suspense and amping up the gore quotient. Unfortunately, horror has long since resorted to an over-reliance on the repetition of these same ideas without that element of originality mixed in. Just as these three films are landmarks of the genre for both their shared themes and variety of styles, horror has become relatively stagnant due to its lack of these creative and original qualities.

Related Reading:

• Culture Warrior: Horror 1960
• Culture Warrior: What is Hitchcockian Suspense?
• Movies We Love: Halloween
• Quick Trivia Burst: Born on Friday the 13th
• Commentary Track: Slasher Films as Art
• 30th Anniversary Halloween DVD Set
• Awesome Art From Tom Whalen
• Iconic Shots: Empire Captures 50 Picture Perfect Film Moments

Resisting the temptation to overreach for ‘rookie sensation’ status, Frank is spare and efficient behind the camera, forgoing tricky maneuvers for a straight-ahead workmanlike adequacy. He’s equally economical behind the keyboard, fitting a hell of a lot of characterization into a 99-minute movie, and sprinkles occasional humor to break up the script’s periods of tense drama.

More than anything, The Lookout is a character study of Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt), a once-promising high school hockey star who now exists in the day-to-day purgatory of brain damage after a one-car accident on prom night four years ago. Two friends died in the crash. Chris was the driver. Guilt haunts him as much as his mental affliction, which breeds an incessant absent-mindedness and inhibits his ability to sequence the order of events properly. He takes a low-paying, pride-swallowing job as the night janitor at a local bank, attends remedial classes, and sees a therapist (Carla Gugino). Ashamed of his dependence on his parents for everything from his car and rent to the clothes on his back, Chris is intrigued when approached by a former acquaintance named Gary about a way to make his own money. “Whoever has the money has the power,” Gary insists. Chris is sick of his lack of self-sufficiency. He wants to be his old, independent self. He agrees to help Gary rob the bank, and things begin to spiral out of Chris’s control.

The performances in The Lookout are nothing short of awesome. Jeff Daniels is sharp-witted and wise as Chris’s blind roommate Lewis, Matthew Goode is superbly sleazy as the manipulative Gary, and even Isla Fisher as ex-stripper Luvlee Lemons…actually, she sucks pretty bad here. But Gordon-Levitt, whose voice is quite regular and face is not particularly expressive, is nonetheless outstanding, effortlessly coaxing empathy from the audience and delivering Chris’s mannerisms as pointedly as his lines. If you’ve run into the critical acclaim for his acting in nearly every other Lookout review, believe the hype. He smartly follows up his role in last year’s Brick, which was especially lauded here at FSR, with another small, intelligent film that might not blow up the box office, but should find a loyal audience through word of mouth.

It may not sound like high praise, but The Lookout is succeeds because it’s content to be just a quick, straightforward crime thriller with a welcome emphasis on characterization. In a genre that has become far too reliant on quirkiness, plot twists, and gimmicks, it’s rare that a film comes along so unpretentiously and serves up an enjoyable 90 minutes of character-driven tension and drama. The Lookout is filmmaking done the right way.

Related Reading:

• The Death of the Print Critic
• Movie Review: Diary of the Dead
• Movie Review: Be Kind Rewind
• Movie Review: Vantage Point
• Movie Review: Witless Protection
• Sundance Review: ‘Be Kind Rewind’ is Michel Gondry for Regular Folks
• Early Reader Review: Witless Protection
• Movie Review: Vantage Point

Discussion of the plot in detail would do a disservice to the potential viewer, but certain facts are admissible. In turn-of-the-century England, magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) develop a heated rivalry around the “Transported Man” trick, in which the performer disappears before the audience’s eyes, only to reappear seconds later across the stage. Competition soon breeds obsession, as neither of the two are willing to stop before he has perfected the trick with an unmatchable degree of authenticity. Angier travels halfway around the world in search of Borden’s secret, eventually seeking out world-renowned (and historical) scientist and engineer Nikola Tesla (unexpectedly downplayed by David Bowie). Suffice it to say that Angier and Borden have a very personal history, and that a lovely assistant, Olivia (Scarlett Johannson), will figure into an intrigue-filled love triangle. Obviously, The Prestige isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, and, typical of a Nolan film, the story unfolds out-of-sequence, adding to its cleverness. Nolan begins to peel back layers of depth to the shared obsession, and just when you think you understand how much these men are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the trick, he peels back even more. Ah, but to digress any further would be irresponsible of me, as part of the fun of The Prestige is being surprised.

The real measure of the cast’s effectiveness is proven by the fact that Nolan’s cleverness does not exceed the emphasis on his theme. Jackman and Bale inhabit their roles wholly; neither character could be considered the protagonist or antagonist, but both are consumed by their desperation to surpass the other. Michael Caine is also wonderful, as usual, in his supporting role as the magicians’ mentor, Mr. Cutter, and David Bowie takes a low-key turn as Nikola Tesla, with a great accent. The script, by Nolan and his brother and frequent collaborator Jonathan and based on a novel by Christopher Priest, also serves this purpose well, with biting dialogue (”I don’t care about my wife, I care about his trick”) that reveals the magicians’ true natures. Add to that the Oscar-nominated cinematography of Wally Pfister and flawlessly convincing art direction, and The Prestige is as thoroughly well-made as any studio film of last year.

While The Prestige is certainly not what I’d call flat-out predictable, there are enough hints and clues embedded in the layered dialogue and visual cues to enable you, if you really want to and pay close enough attention, to guess at some of its big secrets. After all, the film repeatedly urges you to “watch closely.” My advice? Don’t. I watched with the intention of figuring it out, and I may have handicapped the effect of the film’s powerful denouement, if only slightly. It’s better to turn off your detective instincts and let this story unfold for you.

Luckily, the film is set up as a magic show, not just one big trick, so there are a number of revelations awaiting the patient viewer along the way (but mostly, needless to say, in the third act). And yes, repeated viewings are certainly rewarded. But best of all, The Prestige’s endless cleverness does not exist merely for the sake of entertainment, but to enhance the plot, and to quantify the stunning depths of sacrifice and obsession human nature is capable of. That is what I’d call high entertainment, and it’s why, in The Prestige, Nolan is the greatest magician of all.

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

But every so often, a film crashes the party at the kids’ table, eschewing suburban idealism for inner-city realism and replacing nostalgia with documentary-style objectivity. Kids was one of those films; so was The Basketball Diaries. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, the film debut of writer-director Dito Montiel and based on his memoir of the same name, is also one of those movies. The title comes from Dito’s retrospective conclusion that, in escaping the same fate as his childhood friends in Queens, many of whom are dead or in jail, he must have been somehow protected by divine forces. Guide is unique in that it crystallizes that post-innocence, pre-real-world-responsibility age between the ‘teens and young adulthood when your actions are just beginning to have real consequences–a point of view that, no doubt due to its complexity, is often overlooked in films. In the mid-eighties, Dito (Shia LeBeouf as a teen, Robert Downey, Jr. as an adult) and his friends still operate under the notion that they’re invincible, and they move through their Astoria neighborhood accordingly, cursing, fighting, drinking, smoking, screwing, and engaging in assorted forms of property destruction without fear of repercussion.

Dito’s crew is led by his best friend, the headstrong, fearless, and insecure Antonio (relative newcomer Channing Tatum, who is tormented and explosive in the film’s finest performance), who avoids being his father’s punching bag by spending as much time as possible on the streets and at Dito’s house. Antonio, who appears with a fresh wound each time we see him, develops a special bond with Dito’s father Monty (Chazz Palminteri), who he considers the father figure willing to provide the approval he seeks. The fatherly affection reciprocated by Monty is enough to spite Dito, who begins to push both of them away. Complicating matters for Dito are a fued with a neighborhood vandal, Reaper, who causes him to fear for his life, and his new friendship with Mike, a Scottish immigrant who introduces him to a world outside of his increasingly claustrophobic Queens bubble. Dito is suffocating and growing desperate for a way out.

Guide’s parallel storyline follows the present-day Dito as he returns to Astoria for the first time since he ran away nearly twenty years ago to visit Monty, whose health is failing. Fortunately, these scenes account for just a fraction of the screen time (despite top billing for Downey and Rosario Dawson), as they lack the energy, passion and feverish electricity that buzzes through the flashbacks. It doesn’t help that the grown-up characters, with the exception of Dawson’s, look and sound almost nothing like their teenage counterparts (honestly, does anyone think Shia LeBeouf will grow up to look like Downey?); this blunder causes what should have been one of the film’s most important scenes, Dito and Antonio’s climactic reunion, to flop with a thud.

Montiel’s greatest success in the film is capturing an authenticity and rawness from his young cast that makes for some of the most convincing teenage drama in recent years. There are no pretensions in Guide about what real kids do or say, and the ensemble, especially the visibly conflicted Tatum, is a joy to watch. Almost none of them are entirely likable; but each one of them is entirely believable. Montiel’s free-flowing, unconventional style is fitting for the spontaneous lives of his teens; it has a non-linear plot line, characters address the camera, passages from his book are narrated over corresponding scenes, and text from the script occasionally appears onscreen. The film might have benefited from eliminating the present-day bookends, which, compared to the engaging flashbacks, almost have a “who cares?” quality to them. See this film for the performances and the dramatic tension in the ’80s, but have a remote ready to skip past the rest.

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

Obviously, studios and comics publishers can further expect to cash in on the comics boom by combining the more affordable medium of traditional 2-D animation with the suddenly lucrative DVD market. Henceforth comes The Invincible Iron Man, an insipid and unnecessary origins tale with bloated epic ambitions and epically flawed execution. For having an 80-minute run time, Iron Man takes quite a while to get its legs, and even then is bogged down by superfluous characters and overstuffed plotlines. Hardcore fanboys will likely be turned off by the major liberties taken with the Iron Man mythology, which here is entangled with an overemphasis on ancient Chinese lore as opposed to the comic’s classic storyline.

While Iron Man’s ambitions imply commentary on the dichotomies of East vs. West, mysticism vs. technology, and old vs. new, it loses sight of any introspective presentation of its characters, including its hero’s alter ego, Tony Stark. Stark, a wealthy industrialist playboy-type in the mold of Bruce Wayne, has always been one of Marvel’s flawed heroes, most notably due to his infamous struggles with alcoholism. However, the flick doesn’t introduce this plotline at all, preferring to spend more then ample time exploring the Chinese folklore surrounding Iron Man’s first enemy, the Mandarin.

Iron Man’s 2-D animation is nothing special, but it’s glaringly exposed when juxtaposed with the computer animated action sequences. Few and far between, these scenes (usually involving the super-cool baddie henchmen known as the Elementals) will make you wish the whole film had ditched the old pen and paper and gone digital all the way. That’s not to say 2-D heroes ‘n’ tights pics can’t be good–look no further than the now-classic Batman: Mask of the Phantasm or, more recently, last year’s impressive Ultimate Avengers. But Iron Man drops the ball, and the rushed 2-D scenes easily deflate the momentum of the computerized sequences.

Even The Invincible Iron Man’s climactic battle can’t salvage the wreck–in fact, it makes the film fall even harder. Rather than the traditional red-and-gold suit fans are accustomed to, Iron Man battles the Mandarin in a lame, roundish grey suit (an ill-advised homage to the costume from his ’60s debut). In fact, he does little fighting, as the Mandarin is ultimately defeated not in a spectacular set piece, but by a supporting character’s internal triumph over evil. And to cap it off, the film steals its epilogue almost beat-for-beat from Batman Begins.

Marvel flicks usually come equipped with some pretty cool extra features, though The Invincible Iron Man’s package seems a bit thin. Even so, there is an interesting behind-the scenes doc, some always-impressive concept art, and a fairly extensive gallery of Iron Man’s various armors. Also included is an alternate opening sequence, which is equally as boring as the final cut’s, and a scene previewing the Marvel’s next animated feature, Doctor Strange, which is actually more exciting than them both.

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

Truelove, played by Emile Hirsch, is a 20-year-old dealer who has acquired enough wealth, power and notoriety to command his own small gang of tattooed thugs. Hirsch is considerably over matched by the role, in which he’s miscast as a kind of mini-Scarface for the late ’90s: his diminutive stature, slender features, patchy beard and whiny attitude do little to correct his lack of gravitas. When Jake, a speed-addicted, anxiety-riddled debtor (Ben Foster, who is especially overwrought here) fails to square up, Johnny takes matters into his own hands and spontaneously kidnaps the deadbeat’s 15-year-old brother, Zach (Anton Yelchin, spot-on as a picture of innocence).

Upon learning of the grave consequences of the crime, Truelove decides to lay low and places Zach into the care of his right hand man, Frankie, played by Justin Timberlake in his film debut. Frankie is easily the most likable character in the film, mostly because Timberlake’s role, which is essential to the plot, requires the most depth—and he delivers. This is a movie full of villains without a hero, but Frankie is the closest thing to a true heart in Alpha Dog, and Justin still manages to maintain the type of grit and street cred (effortlessly shrugging off pop-star status) Hirsch so sorely lacks. Unlike Hirsch, Foster, and Sharon Stone (as Zach’s manic mother), who all suck the life from the film, Timberlake’s presence seems to turn on an extra light, grabbing the audience’s attention back, if only for a short while.

Yelchin and Timberlake’s on screen chemistry provides all of Alpha Dog’s few endearing moments, as captive and captor form an unlikely bond and the “kidnapping” becomes more of a vacation. The coming-of-age theme, in which Zach clearly emulates Frankie (and Frankie, in return, relishes the big brother role), works spiritedly until, under the weight of consequence and reality, it crumbles away and Alpha Dog takes an unwelcome grim turn. It’s this type of mood-swinging indecision that represents most of Alpha Dog’s flaws. Elsewhere, Cassavetes occasionally jots datelines across the screen and includes faux interviews in documentary style; later, this method is puzzlingly offset by the MTV-style split-screen camera views.

There’s much to be said here about idle youth corrupted by power, or the consequences of impulsive bad decisions, or a score of other themes touched on in the film’s usually watchable, yet equally frustrating two hours. And that’s just the thing—they’re merely touched on, never sufficiently explored. Inevitably, due to the nature of its plot, Alpha Dog can’t end well for most—if any—of its characters. It’s just a shame we couldn’t have learned something with them on the way down.

Related Reading:

• The Death of the Print Critic
• Movie Review: Diary of the Dead
• Movie Review: Be Kind Rewind
• Movie Review: Vantage Point
• Movie Review: Witless Protection
• Sundance Review: ‘Be Kind Rewind’ is Michel Gondry for Regular Folks
• Early Reader Review: Witless Protection
• Movie Review: Vantage Point

Elvis (played to deadpan perfection by Bruce Campbell) may or may not actually be Sebastian Haff, a one-time Elvis impersonator with more than a few screws loose, but the ambiguity is irrelevant, only adding another layer to the gag (you know the joke’s on you when you find yourself actually debating whether or not this character could legitimately be Elvis). With a miniscule cast and a paper-thin plot, this is as close to a “star vehicle” that a scene-stealing cult-film vet like Campbell is going to get. Far from playing the usual parody of himself, he’s wonderfully eccentric in this role. The genius of his performance is not the spot-on impersonation of Presley’s voice and mannerisms, but in his understated depiction of a pessimistic, washed-up legend increasingly plagued by reminders of his impending mortality (”What do I care? I got a growth on my pecker,” he muses).

Campbell’s ruminations on death, aging and past regrets invite sympathy, but never overwhelm the absurdity enough to take Bubba Ho-Tep into “dramedy” territory, and his Elvis idiosyncrasies keep the laughs at a regular clip. He creaks up in bed, squinting, and with a straight face, puts on his studded silver shades as if they were your grandfather’s coke-bottle bifocals. He describes a bug as “the size of my fist–the size of a peanut butter and banana sandwich,” referring to the King’s famous favorite snack.

While Campbell is both physically and mentally immersed in the Elvis persona, his sidekick (Ossie Davis), who thinks he’s President Kennedy, may as well be just another patient, since there’s very little to suggest that he is who he claims. For starters, he’s black, a factor he attributes to his assassin’s resourcefulness (”They dyed it! What better way to cover it up?” he shrewdly observes). “Jack”, as Elvis calls him (it’s an informal relationship, after all), is, not unexpectedly, a huge conspiracy theorist, and convinces the skeptical King that a cursed mummy stalks the grounds of their hospice and is sucking the souls of other patients out through their–well, as JFK puts it, “any major orifice” will do.

Only when they realize that they’re the only two people loopy enough to actually believe each other do Elvis and JFK decide to join forces. Ditching the bathrobes and pajamas for a sequined jumpsuit and a presidential three-piece, they break out the walker and electric wheelchair and devise a plan to defend their fellow patients against “Bubba Ho-Tep”. Having nothing left to salvage of their once-great legacies, the two now, in the twilights of their crumbled lives, aim to poignantly recapture what little slice of pride and dignity they can. Y’know, by taking out the soul-sucking mummy.

Bubba Ho-Tep is hilarious, zany humor with an unintentional heart, never so much as touching but always absurdly charming. It’s sometimes cynical and doesn’t rely on feel-good gimmicks, and certainly never takes itself too seriously–but dammit if you aren’t pulling for the two protagonists, especially Elvis, by the end. Bubba Ho-Tep belies its low-aiming B-movie aspirations, and is executed with the effortless joy of a major-studio production.

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

Blowin’ Up’s 7-episode stint is structured around the various misadventures of the duo, who had already shopped an LP around to several labels before filming began. While the merits of the album it promotes are largely questionable (despite guest spots from E-40 and Paul Wall), Blowin’ Up, taken purely as a comedy/reality series, is very funny. Kennedy hilariously quips, “Federline’s on the red carpet? He should be selling it by square footage.” Rapping with a Houston mattress mogul, auditioning booty girls with Kennedy’s elderly mother, getting fitted for blinged-out grills, and simply the concept of “Rollin’ With Saget” elicit genuine humor: it’s fun to watch these two guys act ridiculous together. The chemistry between bickering best friends Kennedy and Stone is undeniable, and their love-hate relationship is good for some true belly laughs. Jamie, who’s already “made it” in Hollywood, never misses an opportunity to dump on Stone, a part-time cartoon voice-actor who has a history of losing gigs to Jonathan Lipnicki. Stone, in turn, repeatedly brings up Kennedy’s involvement in the criminally bad Son of the Mask (currently a 2.0 rating on Imdb).

Cameos range from hip-hop heavyweights (Ice-T, Snoop Dogg, Method Man, the RZA, Bow Wow, Russell Simmons, and Mike Jones, to name a few) to Hollywood stars (Jason Biggs, Tara Reid) to the unexpected (George Lucas is in Jamie & Stu’s first video). And, of course, there’s Bob Saget, who steals the show in his recurring appearances, going so far as to flirt with Kennedy’s mother.

What’s unique about Blowin’ Up is that there’s no pretense in the fact that its entire concept revolves around unabashed self-promotion. From the start, the whole point is to create buzz about Jamie & Stu’s music project. The stunts (like an incident involving Jessica Simpson’s lost virginity ring, or a staged paparazzi shoot with an unsuspecting Mena Suvari) are real attempts to gain publicity, not created for the sake of the show. Kennedy’s no stranger to hidden-camera antics (you may recall The Jamie Kennedy Experiment from a few years back), and Blowin’ Up uses the technique less to sustain a tenuous narrative structure and more to get Jamie’s name–and music–in the tabloids. The only thing that feels contrived about Blowin’ Up is reducing entire months’ worth of footage into self-contained half-hour segments. Even so, it’s good for a lot of laughs. Even if the music sucks.

Blowin’ Up’s special features disc is highlighted by a truly candid feature commentary with Jamie & Stu and producer George Verschoor. Aside from the consistently funny bickering between the two stars, the commentary offers unique insight about Hollywood circles from an insider’s perspective. For example, Jamie doesn’t hang out with Saget if he knows the “Pie Crew”–Biggs, Seann William Scott (whom he actually refers to simply as “Stiffler”)–is going to be there. Also included are a slightly forced infomercial-spoof for the duo’s CD and all of the online bonus material offered on MTV Overdrive. And, as expected when you whittle several months’ worth of footage down to less than three hours’ worth of actual show, there’s an epic amount of deleted scenes. Though sometimes not even forty seconds long, each serves as its own extra joke.

The Upside: It’s just funny. Maybe a bit ridiculous, but funny. Hip-hop heads will appreciate the way their favorite artists’ moral support for Jamie & Stu reflect their true love for the genre, even when the odds are against them.

The Downside: It does get a bit hard to take Jamie Kennedy seriously, and the subsequent ambiguity over his intentions is frustrating. Ultimately, he’s for real, but you may have to delve into the commentary to realize that. The music is a little too Weird Al-gimmicky to like.

On the Side: Stone’s voice credits include The Magic School Bus and Babar.

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) does not make action movies–he makes crime dramas. Never was this distinction more apparent than in Miami Vice, which hits DVD in an unrated director’s cut after a disappointing midsummer theatrical run. Perhaps the most misunderstood and mis-marketed film of the year, Vice, which was billed as a warm-weather action shoot-em-up, confused audiences with its artistic complexities and unique blend of grit and sensitivity.

A more thoughtful viewing, devoid of these false expectations, reveals Vice’s truer nature: a beautiful expression of life on the edge told in the vibrant visual language of Mann and Director of Photography Dion Beebe. Here, on the rooftop of a downtown Miami nightclub, we see a dark night sky highlighted by a burning, deep magenta amid ominous lightning strikes. There, across a midtown freeway, the action is bathed in the buzzing amber luminescence of street lamps. Mann and Beebe reprise their use of digital film, which they employed to great success in Collateral, and the results are often stunning. Indeed, almost any given frame from Vice could be hung on a wall as a piece of art.

But Miami Vice isn’t just about impressive imagery. It’s the documentation of an undercover narcotics operation that takes detectives Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell) to South America and back. Mann’s detached camera angles do not merely tell their story; instead, the audience bears witness to the interplay of crime and consequence. Matters become complicated when Crockett finds himself romantically entangled with Isabella (Gong Li), a major player within the narcotics op they’re supposed to bust. Meanwhile, mid level dealer Jose Yero (John Ortiz), who is skeptical of Tubbs and Crockett from the start, plots their downfall. It’s fascinating to watch the cops try to sell their assumed undercover identities to the bad guys, using a mix of arrogance, sheer badassness, and the everyday paranoia you’d expect from career criminals.

Foxx and Farrell were criticized by moviegoers for their apparent lack of on screen chemistry. Unfortunately, those looking for Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte won’t find them here. But in reality, emotional detachment is a way of life for these lawmen. Tubbs and Crocket, two loners who work together, speak with an economy that suggests years of experience and deep personal knowledge of one another. Before an undercover sting, Tubbs asks, “Who are we [pretending to be?]“; Crockett responds, “How’s your Creole?” Period. Before Tubbs can even warn him of the combustible nature of a relationship with Isabella, Crockett quips, “I know what I’m doing.” Understood.

In fact, in avoiding the cliched buddy-cop formula, Mann’s taut script and his two controlled leads have created something real and authentic. Farrell in particular shines. You can see the tension between his feelings for Isabella and his duties, and sense the masculine pride he uses to cover it all up. As an undercover cop, Sonny Crockett exists in more than one layer, and Farrell gradually, patiently lets the cracks show at just the right times. We are not watching an actor; Farrell simply is this character.

Just as he did in Heat, Mann uses action almost exclusively as a plot enhancer. When two feds are ambushed and shot in their car, the camera filters the action from inside the vehicle–in a sense, the audience feels what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the shootout. A trailer park raid boils over with the uneasy tension you’d expect from the real thing. A climactic final shootout echoes with the hollow sounds of real gunfire, and drops of blood splash onto the lens. In Miami Vice, we aren’t just watching a movie. Mann takes the whole audience undercover until, along with the Vice Squad detectives, we’re experiencing this world from the inside.

Special Features: Aside from an opening boat race scene, the director’s edition footage is not altogether noticeable. Special features include the usual making-of and behind-the-scenes looks, including a worthwhile glance at Colin Farrell’s undercover training. Michael Mann’s feature commentary goes into such depth, you’ll think you’re in a film class lecture (weren’t you curious about the horsepower on those Go-Fast boats?)

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

After a pre-credits opening scene that simply bellows ‘B-movie’ (you can practically see the strings holding up a miniature airplane), we’re introduced to an anonymous, sleepy New Zealand town and its unassuming residents. There’s Paquita, the superstitiously romantic drugstore clerk; Lionel, our endearingly awkward hero; and Lionel’s jealous and overprotective mother (in an homage to Psycho). Like most films in the genre, Dead Alive’s plot functions basically to create gory, over-the-top set pieces, and is centered around an uncomplicated boy + girl love story (and boy’s attempt to secretly hide several un-dead zombies in his basement, but we’ll get to that). Lionel’s mother is the first victim of the rabid, diseased Sumatran Rat Monkey (a nightmarish horror unto herself, she impales its head with her stiletto heel). The Rat Monkey is portrayed in such crude claymation that it’s a wonder this Jackson is the same person who has worked such FX magic in his later films.

Lionel spends one night with Paquita before awaking to find his ‘mum’ in a progressively zombiefied state. Needless to say, her disease spreads, creating other zombies, and havoc ensues, giving way to slapstick of the foulest variety (usually centered around fully or partially dismembered body parts). As someone relatively familiar with the genre, I was caught off guard by just how far Jackson would go. One early fight scene between Lionel, his mum and her nurse had my jaw on the floor (figuratively, of course, though in Dead Alive’s world, the literal meaning holds just as much water). There’s also a dining room lunch scene (two, actually) that may have you losing your own lunch, as I almost did.

There’s always the potential for this type of ‘on-purpose’ B-movie to become corny, like when Snakes on a Plane tried just a bit too hard to be bad. The reason why Jackson succeeds is because he goes even further than you’d ever expect. Take, for example, a zombie-decapitating kung-fu priest (I know, you’re rolling your eyes already). “I kick ass for the Lord!” he sneers, in what presumably was a good line on paper, but made me cringe because it was just so cheesy. But Jackson, instead of being complacent with this gimmicky character, goes further with the gore. In doing so, he takes the joke to that next level, and he crosses the line from unfunny-corny to hilarious pandemonium. The same thing occurs with Lionel’s fight with a zombie baby (which, in some scenes, is clearly a small adult wearing a baby mask). It’s so awful, it’s funny, and not in the corny way you’d expect. Jackson progressively piles on the outrageousness and gore as the movie unfolds. (Yeah, and you thought it was bad when mum ate her own ear after it fell into her soup? Tip of the iceberg)

If you make it that far, Dead Alive’s final act is probably its funniest, and naturally, you’ll be amazed by the sheer volume of blood. There’s also some recurring jokes that grow on you after repeat viewings, such as the ball of organs that constantly hounds Lionel, or the zombie baby’s disturbing laugh. However, this movie is not for everyone (as if that wasn’t obvious by now), so the faint of heart–or the full of stomach–should be forewarned. You’ll either love it or you just won’t get it. Whether you’re laughing too hard or whether you’re just plain disgusted, Dead Alive will have you doubled over in one way or another.

The Upside: There’s more intentional cheese than Lambeau field on Sunday, and most of the time, it works.

The Downside: It’s far from perfect, and some jokes fall flat. Not everybody’s sense of humor can handle this type of thing–and that’s to say nothing of their intestinal fortitude.

On the Side: Dead Alive is frequently referenced in Jackson’s later work; i.e. the “lightbulb-in-head” gag that appears in The Frighteners and the crates in King Kong stenciled with “Sumatran Rat Monkey” on the side.

Final Grade: B

Related Reading:

• The Death of the Print Critic
• Movie Review: Diary of the Dead
• Movie Review: Be Kind Rewind
• Movie Review: Vantage Point
• Movie Review: Witless Protection
• Sundance Review: ‘Be Kind Rewind’ is Michel Gondry for Regular Folks
• Early Reader Review: Witless Protection
• Movie Review: Vantage Point

It’s called Mission Impossible, but for obvious reasons this series has never completely lived up to its title. These missions are not impossible, and given a big enough budget and sufficient plot, Impossible Mission Force (IMF) super spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) will make sure you get your money’s worth by the end of two hours. The latest installment in the franchise, Mission: Impossible III  is no different, and it delivers all the hallmarks of the M:I franchise: unnecessarily globe-spanning locales, those uncannily realistic masks (and the clever mistaken identities that result), and–you guessed it–Tom Cruise overload.

M:I III is such an ego-stroking star vehicle for its action hero (and producer) that the next logical step would be to manipulate the identity-switching mask-play in order to get multiple Cruises on screen at once. But action-hero antics aside, there are actually several scenes suggesting Cruise’s desire to be taken seriously as an actor. Of course, you won’t mistake this for his brilliant turn in Magnolia, but in between the grandly chaotic set pieces and action sequences, he’s capable of conveying genuine emotion.

One such scene is the intense opener, a media res flash-forward preview of Hunt’s showdown with the bad guy de jour, international arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Hoffman overcomes the handicaps of a role with no backstory whatsoever, sparse screen time and even skimpier dialogue to create a memorably icy villain. As the famously intense Cruise emotes, Hoffman remains chillingly, amorally indifferent.

Davian’s latest arms deal, and therefore the “impossible” mission of the plot, revolves around the coveted “rabbit’s foot”–a device so ambiguous that, quite frankly, it’s never explained at all. There’s also the issue of a mole within the IMF and the surprise reveal of the mole’s identity. We’ve seen this before in M:I films, but by now we’re all wise to the fact that this movie is not about the plot; rather, the plot merely functions to create certain dangerous circumstances (read: lots of gunplay and explosions).

We get a brief glimpse at Hunt’s home life–he’s engaged to Julie (Michelle Monaghan, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Katie Holmes), drives a Volvo (!), and pretends to have a Dept. of Transportation job so boring that no one would even be interested enough to expose his cover. After sufficient introductions to Hunt’s team of IMF experts and allies (Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, franchise vet Ving Rhames, stunning newcomer Maggie Q, and Shaun of the Dead’s very funny Simon Pegg), we’re whisked away to Berlin, the Vatican, and Shanghai (why not?) for a frantically strung-together series of action sequences and excuses to see Cruise run really, really fast.

Director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) clearly knows his way around an action scene, and the action in M:I III is some heart-pounding stuff. I must give credit where credit is due – the thrill seeking 44-year-old Cruise performs most of his own stunts, often incredible, and the authenticity of the action benefits hugely. Keep an eye out for a shot of him getting blown off his feet as an explosion sends him violently smashing head over heels into a parked car.

Let’s face it – you pretty much know what to expect from Mission: Impossible III before you ever pop it in your DVD player. And yes, the movie indeed delivers on those expectations. As far as action flicks go, this is a top-tier movie in a B-genre.

The Upside: Despite his off-screen antics, Tom Cruise on screen is still thoroughly watchable as both a movie star and action hero, and at times, actor.

The Downside: Okay, honestly, this might be a bit too much TC for many (Cruise-ophobes should avoid the bonus features at all costs). What’s worse, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s delightfully despicable creation is not on screen nearly enough.

On the Side: Cruise’s sheer footspeed, on display in most of his films if you watch close enough, has inspired a tongue-in-cheek cult following (check out tomcruiserunning.blogspot.com).

Final Grade: B

Related Technorati Tags: Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible, DVD, Film, Review

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party

United 93, the gripping and inevitably heartbreaking account of the doomed flight of the same name, is an intense and soberingly fair study of human courage in a time of despair. The tale of its passengers, who overtook the plane’s hijackers and probably diverted another 9/11 attack, has become an almost mythical rallying point for Americans. But the film’s greatest triumph, perhaps, is in its overt rejection of the jingoistic, super-patriotic hype that has been the downfall of similar 9/11 projects, and its embrace of respect, honesty and empathy.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass emphasizes this sense of objectivity and fairness from the very opening scene, in which the four hijackers are shown making final preparations and saying final prayers in a hotel room. Already, it is evident that these are not villains, nor are they the heroes they’re perceived to be by the “other side”. They’re just young men, Greengrass subtly suggests, and from the looks on their faces, they’re nervous as hell. One revealingly intimate scene shows one of the terrorists making a last phone call to a loved one before boarding the plane. “I love you,” he says, foreshadowing both the identical phone calls from passengers and the empathy with which the film will treat the terrorists.

For the airline staff and air traffic controllers, this day begins as just another Tuesday on the grind. Conversations hover around the usual topics, like the weather, families, and work-related details. in fact, much of the film’s dialogue is almost exclusively air traffic control (ATC) jargon, which is authenticated by the fact that many of the key players in these scenes are portrayed by themselves, not actors. Sometimes this works, and in a few rare cases it’s a distraction. The clear standout here is Ben Sliney, who was on his first day on the job as FAA Director of Operations on 9/11, and whose screen time probably benefited from his natural screen presence.

The flight’s passengers are not referred to by name–these people are strangers to the audience just as they were to one another that morning. They are not “characters”, not the heroes the media will later canonize. They order eggs for breakfast. They flip through travel guides. Some try to catch up on work on a laptop. When flight 93 is delayed at first, it’s a mere inconvenience.

Once the hijackers overtake the plane and the action picks up, Greengrass uses his documentary background (and no shortage of a hand held camera) to re-create the claustrophobic confines of a hijacked airplane and the frantic control rooms tracking it. Very rarely is the camera stable; we feel the same urgency as the people on-screen. Even the few exterior shots are cluttered with buildings, antennae, and other airport apparatus. For Greengrass, point of view comes first, and we are forced to identify with the on-screen personalities. The other events of the day, for example, are only referred to through a lens–a phone call, a TV broadcast, through the window of a New York City control tower.

United 93’s inevitable fate is not taken for granted by its heroic passengers. Their genuine hope for survival, though largely based on speculation, reflects the only kind of logic imaginable (how does one truly react in such a situation?). Their frantic plotting and subsequent actions make up the film’s harrowingly intense final act. Some movies are billed as “roller coaster rides”; United 93’s closing minutes are the closest thing to the actual plane crash it depicts. Hushed phone calls, frequent extreme close-ups and meticulously lightning-quick editing form the adrenaline-drenched atmosphere that can only breed such acts of courage.

Perhaps the most poignant scene in the film comes near the end, after the terrorists have already hijacked the plane. Shots of them uttering nervous prayers in Islam are juxtaposed with shots of terrified passengers choking out verses of the “Our Father” in between sobs. United 93 does not judge either, and it does not attempt to inspire, deify, demonize or moralize. Rather, it succeeds in recreating the events as they were and placing us in their midst, allowing us to think–and feel–for ourselves.

The Upside: Greengrass’s devotion to objectivity and his relentless pacing at the end make the film both important and entertaining.

The Downside: Some of the “as them self” casting moves were a bit misguided (i.e. the female officer at Herndon, Sliney’s military liaison) and could be an occasional distraction.

On the Side: Ben Sliney was originally connected to the project as an advisory. He impressed Greengrass enough to land a small role at first, and eventually was offered the chance to play himself.

Final Grade: B+

Related Reading:

• Coroner’s Report: Release Date Update
• DVD Review: Sicko
• DVD Review: Offside
• DVD Review: Damages: The Complete First Season
• DVD Review: Missionary Man
• DVD Review: American Gangster
• DVD Review: Golden Door
• DVD Review: The Hunting Party