Film School Rejects » Movie Review

Review: The Box

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:16:42 +0000

I can’t imagine that adapting a short story that’s already been adapted into an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and attempting to extend it into a feature length is an easy task. Especially when the original story has that built-in single-note ethical spin that seemed perfect for Serling and company to weave into their morality tales. There was a chance that Richard Kelly could have built a huge framework for The Box around a single ominous punchline. A chance. But to no avail.

A mysterious stranger named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) delivers a box to the doorstep of Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) and gives them the opportunity to push a button that will kill someone they don’t know and earn them a tax-free million.

The central premise of the film is a fairly fascinating moral question of how much another person’s life is worth and what lengths you’d go to set your finances in order. But that heavy lifting was really done when author Richard Matheson wrote the story in the first place. In fact, most of the heavy lifting of this film comes not from Richard Kelly, but from either the source material or the original episode. Adding onto the pile, Kelly creates a longer narrative about a middle class couple that spends too much money, drives a really, really nice car, and can’t afford to send their child to private school anymore on discount.

If it seems like I have little sympathy for their situation, you probably won’t either.

And really, without that sympathy – without a true question of what depths one would have to go to before they take someone else’s life – the rest of the story falls pretty flat.

It also falls flat because the acting from Cameron Diaz is about as good as a regional theater actress stumbling her way through a Tennessee Williams play. Her southern accent is atrocious and she delivers almost every line with a incredible lack of emotion. On the other end of the spectrum is Frank Langella who places a quiet, business-like creepiness (even if his CGI scarring helps him sometimes and hurts him in others) onto the table next his diabolical box. Marsden is also a stand out, a great actor in a good role who is only hampered occasionally from some flowery dialog that even he seems to get sick at the sound of.

I also feel compelled to mention the score because of just how incredibly beautiful it is. It’s strange and experimental, beautiful and haunting, but it doesn’t belong anywhere this movie. Even as transcendent as it is, it plunks down into inappropriate times during scenes that almost give a Ba-Bum-Bum! quality to some of the dramatics.

On the whole, the moments before the button-pushing question is answered aren’t played to much intensity. Neither is the rest of the film. It’s also a mess in the same way that plagues all of Kelly’s work and it could use a keen editing knife to help it make more sense. However, unlike Donnie Darko, Kelly seems desperate to overexplain and infantalize his audience. He comes off as if he believes he’s the first person to ever understand his primer on Sartre – the directorial version of the kid waving his hand in the back of your philosophy class just a little too desperate to prove he knows the answer. He achieves this hand-waving through far too many scenes of exposition for things which come naturally out of the context (and even repeats some of the exposition or has random characters enter a scene solely to ask a question that will lead to more exposition and then dip back off-camera only to be seen as “NASA Worker #2″ or “Reporter in back of room” in the credits).

Without those moments, and with some far better acting from the lead, the movie could have been a great, strange entry. Instead, it ends up being fairly tedious with some weird moments that work sincerely and others that really add nothing to the story or the characters (like an abandoned chance at salvation, and a moment where a character is in one place and then another through the magic of editing).

While it seems natural for any movie or story with a moral question at its center to leave audiences discussing the conundrum afterwards, my friends and I stood around in the lobby instead questioning whether or not we should have bothered going to see The Box in the first place.

The Upside: Some good performances from Marsden and Langella, and several scenes that are really rewarding.

The Downside: A muddled story that doesn’t line up, a score that doesn’t line up, and a director who can’t be esoteric without attempting to let you know what he means.

On the Side: Richard Matheson is still alive, so he can watch it!

Review: ‘The Fourth Kind’ Should’ve Been Narrated By Robert Stack

Brian Salisbury — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:20:50 +0000

With the Saw films firmly on the ice flow of sequels toward apocalypse, the question I keep coming back to is, “where are horror films going to go from here?” Saw, and its subsequent imitators, satisfied the bloodlust of modern horror audiences for a time, but the cycle of desensitization continues and if horror films are no longer striving to gross out the public, it is once again time for them to break new ground. It appears that horror is now targeting the fourth wall to achieve that purpose and The Fourth Kind champions the concept.

It strikes me as appropriate that this film should be released on the heels of the sensational Paranormal Activity. Both are movies that attempt to breakdown that invisible barrier of disbelief that detaches an audience from the terror on screen. Both claim to be based on a true story which, again, eliminates that safety net of it being “just a movie”. But The Fourth Kind takes even that idea to the next level by actually incorporating video and audio recordings from the actual incident into the fictionalized account starring Milla Jovovich and Will Patton. They are working so hard to blur the line between fiction and reality that there are literally moments when the line in the split screen dividing the two segments wanders to and fro. I have to admit, at first I scoffed at this concept. When Milla comes out at the beginning and informs us what we are about to see is both real and very disturbing, I thought I smelled the distinct aroma of a William Castle gimmick. To me, it felt like someone had finally found a way to adapt a segment of “Unsolved Mysteries” into a film. I actually kept waiting for the disembodied spirit of Robert Stack to pop up and narrate the events while standing next to a creepy streetlight.

But the fact is that the images in The Fourth Kind are among the most disturbing that I have ever seen. The film is about a psychologist who is convinced that several of her patients have been victims of alien abduction. They all report eerily similar symptoms and they are all having trouble sleeping though they don’t know why. Under hypnosis, they become shockingly unstable and exhibit a level of panic and fear like I have never seen. It’s actually in the hypnosis scenes, where we get to see the footage of the “actual” patients where the freakiest shit occurs. It was kind of like Paranormal Activity meets Signs, so do with that what you will. All I know is that, even as I sit and remember these moments, the hairs on my arms are standing at attention. I found it inescapably haunting and chilling like few other horror films can deliver.

I fear that people are going to get bogged down in the debate over how much of the footage is actually genuine and, indeed, if this entire story is fabricated. Personally, I think it’s completely inconsequential to the experience of the film. I honestly don’t believe the footage we are seeing is authentic, there are lines of dialogue that completely negate that, but that didn’t prevent me from sitting slack-jawed and bug-eyed at what I was seeing. In fact, I think one of the big problems with this film is how staunchly it proclaims to be real. The movie tries so hard to convince you it is legit, but then shoots down its own credibility with bad dialogue and a hoaky credit sequence featuring actual yokels calling 911 to report UFO’s. Riveting, if stupid. I think the film would have done better to tone down their assertions and let the audience decide how much they want to believe (even though the last line Milla speaks is “what you choose to believe is up to you). No Milla, don’t pretend you are giving us a choice after cramming picture-in-picture “evidence” down our throats.

The Fourth Kind is a solid film with some great scares and horrifying images. If the story is true, then it definitely deserved to be told. If this is all in the name of meta-horror, then we can still appreciate the artistry that went into crafting such a badass film. If nothing else, this will make you realize that anal probes are not the scariest part of alien abduction. Cue the “X-Files” theme.

The Upside: Really disturbing images that will prompt the perfect level of fright.

The Downside: Really should have just been a fake documentary; the facile assertion that it is a true story will be its downfall.

On the Side: The film’s producers went so far as to insert references to Dr. Tyler, who never existed, into websites such as the “Alaska Psychiatric Journal”. This film out Blair Witches The Blair Witch Project.

A Christmas Carol: ‘Twas a Spiritless Affair, Indeed

Brian Salisbury — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:03:11 +0000

Movies have supremely warped my conception of time. No longer do I judge the fragments of the year in terms of trite notions of spring, summer, fall and winter. Instead my calendar is notated with marketing strategies of major studios. For example, the beginning of the year is award season, followed by a dumping ground, followed by the blockbusters, another dumping ground, horrorween, and finally holiday season. Having just hurdled horrorween relatively unscathed, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a number of films ready to bank on the inescapable jubilance of the next two months. For me, this is the cinematic season that garners the highest level of concern. The thing is there are very few holiday films that I watch on a regular basis that were released after 1987. Elf would be an exception to that block given that I find it to be a pitch perfect holiday film that captures the child-like wonder of the season and is destined to be a classic. But for every Elf or Love Actually we’ve gotten over the last decade, we’ve had to suffer through a dozen Christmas with the Cranks and a smattering of Jingle All the Way’s. So when I found out that Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was getting yet another film adaptation, I cringed. However when I heard it was going to be an animated, 3-D spectacle directed by Robert Zemeckis, my interest was officially piqued.

I am not going to waste time describing the plot of this film because if you don’t know it by now, I have serious cause to doubt your status as a citizen of Earth; you goddamned toaster! Sufficed to say, there are elements in this particular adaptation that are more faithful to Dickens’ classic unseen in most versions. Jim Carrey steps into the role of Ebenezer Scrooge while the supporting cast is stacked with some truly fine actors: Robin Wright-Penn, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, and Gary Oldman. Oh, and Carey Elwes is also in this. I am also not going to judge the optical quality of the 3-D because I believe the theater in which I saw it did not offer the best environment for full appreciation. I just don’t think it would be an objective analysis.

Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol is a mess. I’m sorry to write those words. It’s a rehashing of something we’ve seen time and time again…for the most part. As I mentioned before, there are elements included that offer a more honest interpretation of Dickens, but while that is respectable, it also destroys the pacing and flow of the film. I applaud Zemeckis (who also adapted the story for the screen) for including the more horrific elements of what was essential a Victorian-era ghost story. But why then temper that with an over-the-top abandon of intelligence by making your inexplicably shrunken Scrooge surf an icicle down a roof? When the film is faithful, it is equal parts boring and incomprehensible. When it deviates from the book and tries to add something fresh, it is mind-numbingly ridiculous. I can understand adding a measure of whimsy in order to market this as a family film, but the horrific elements will assuredly incite tears and nightmares from younger audience members anyway. I know this to be true, because I witnessed children in the theater seek refuge on the laps and inside the jackets of their parents.

Let’s talk performances, and by extension the animation of the characters themselves. Jim Carrey gives what is easily one of his worst performances to date. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Carrey in both his goofball and more pensive material, but he struggles in this. His voice work rings of an “In Living Color” sketch featuring a bad Scrooge impression. He delivers jokes in the quieter moments with so little skill that they fall completely flat and there was a thunderous silence in the auditorium each and every time. Judging by his lack of timing, you would think he had never before delivered a joke on screen; troubling considering the actor. I reject the notion that he was shackled by the old English text because the jokes that he fails to land are divorced from the archaic dialogues and are intended to juxtapose them. On the other hand, Gary Oldman’s performance is excellent. He brings a warm, unflappable optimism to Bob Cratchet and his relationship with Tiny Tim is heart-breaking. In a film in which I had no emotional investment, Gary Oldman’s performance made me want to cry. I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the spot-on casting of Bob Hoskins as Fessiwig; that rotund little madman is about as energetic as it gets.

I will say that most of the characters look fantastic; the special effects employed are phenomenal and there are moments wherein the line between animation and using live actors gets a little blurry. But unfortunately that artistry did not trickle down to many of the background characters. There is one scene in particular in which this is most jarring. During the big dance number at the Fessiwig party, all of the ancillary characters look as if they are wearing pig masks. Their faces are all overly rounded and the features are completely washed out. It is strikingly flimsy animation. And while I won’t judge the visual quality of the 3-D, I have to say that it is among the most gimmicky 3-D this side of My Bloody Valentine. Things that would not naturally be in the foreground are thrust into our faces in a desperate grab for reaction. 3-D does not have to be a gimmick in animated films and can instead add depth and scale to the story, a la Up, so there really is no excuse for the way it’s used in A Christmas Carol.

A lot of the elements added from the original text will come off as nothing short of bizarre. The ghost of Christmas present makes some portentous warning about trusting men of the cloth and has scary child zombies under his robes. Meanwhile the ghost of Christmas past, a candle, does this weird little dance where he shimmies his head back and forth for no reason at all. I don’t know if it was supposed to be funny or what, but again the audience was dead silent afterwards. Now, I am not sure exactly how much of that is from the original work, but most of the moments you will see that will have you scratching your head are from the Dickens classic; minus Jim Carrey’s ice surfing of course. These moments not only befuddle the audience but also suck the wind out of the pacing. They are like little speed bumps that jump up whenever the movie gets rolling.

But worse than that, the inclusion of the long-lost aspects of the story into the film forces well-known, often crucial points to be glossed over. It’s kind of Newtonian in that the classic bits and the relics cannot occupy the same space. The most offensive truncation is Scrooge’s tragic love story. The plot of the film literally fades from the first time they meet to their tearful goodbye. In the actual story, when they first meet, Scrooge is a jovial, caring lad with dreams and ambitions. When they part ways, he has become consumed with money and greed causing a rift between them. Zemeckis’ version offers no A to B progression for this. Suddenly the bright-faced, happy lad is a young miser counting money and railing about how he would rather die than be poor; quite a storytelling leap if you ask me.

All in all, A Christmas Carol offers some things we haven’t seen before, but at the expense of congruity and pacing. The animation is gorgeous in some areas and unforgivably lacking in others. I think my overall biggest beef with this adaptation is that it in no way got me into the Christmas spirit. I felt nothing, apart from a few brilliant moments from Oldman, and that is an enormous fault to assign to a film based on the novel that perfectly gives voice to the power of the season. This version feels mostly old hat with a few misguided attempts to reinvigorate the story. Parents will not want to take kids to this because of the more frightening material (with the added issue of it being right in their children’s faces) and adults will take one look at the trailer and write the film off as kiddy fare.

Kevin Carr’s Weekly Report Card for 11.06.09

Kevin Carr — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:34:36 +0000

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Studio: Disney

Rated: PG for scary sequences and images.

Starring: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins and Robin Wright Penn

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

What it’s about: If you don’t know this by now, you should be barred from the holiday season worldwide.

What I liked: By this time, you should know exactly what to expect when you get a Robert Zemeckis motion-capture film. Like The Polar Express and Beowulf, A Christmas Carol is heavy on the effects and virtual camerawork and relatively weak on the character and plot.

We’ve seen this story adapted so many times in so many forms – from feature films to re-tellings on our favorite 80s sit com – that there is almost no unique way to approach it. The uniqueness of this version is that the full-blown CGI extravaganza hasn’t been done yet. In this sense, it does work. The visuals are pretty cool and the IMAX 3D experience is a sight and worth it for no other reason that you won’t be able to recreate it at home.

What I didn’t: There are a lot of reasons to dump on this movie. If you don’t like Jim Carrey’s cartoonish acting, you’ll not like it in this movie. (Although I will admit that he is directed down in a good chunk of the film.) Also, because the movie is shot with motion capture technology, it allows Carrey to play all forms of Scrooge as well as the three Ghosts. Likewise, Gary Oldman plays several roles, including Bob Cratchit and Jacob Marley. Again, the coolness factor in this respect tends to overpower the story.

Movies like The Polar Express are famous for making CGI humans that are permanently camped in the uncanny valley. The human emulations have gotten better in this film, but they’re still in that valley. Most of the work has been done to make Carrey’s characters look more realistic while Gary Oldman just gives me the willies throughout.

A lot of people will say this version is completely unnecessary, and also pretty terrifying for a young child to watch, and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Who is gonna like this movie: Families… as long as they aren’t easily scared.

THE FOURTH KIND

Studio: Universal

Rated: PG-13 for violent/disturbing images, some terror, thematic elements and brief sexuality.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Will Patton, Hakeem Kae-Kazim and Corey Johnson

Directed by: Olatunde Osunsanmi

What it’s about: Milla Jovovich plays Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychologist from Nome, Alaska, who is investigating sleep disorders. After putting her patients under hypnosis, she discovers that these cases are possibly reflections from UFO abductions. The more she digs, the more she learns about the terrifying reality of abduction cases, which eventually hit close to home.

What I liked: I will admit that The Fourth Kind does capture a certain level of suspense and atmosphere. It’s pretty damned intense in some scenes, and the set-up is intriguing if not entirely thought out.

What I didn’t: The Fourth Kind really pushes the whole “based on actual case studies,” to a fault. It really rams this concept down your throat, going as far to presenting the video footage alongside the reenactments. Yet every time something interesting is happening, the case studies footage gets distorted so we can’t really see anything. Hmmmm… isn’t that convenient.

I like a solid alien abduction movie, although there are very few of them that have been made. This one just tries too hard. The set-up is interesting, having actress Milla Jovovich walk right up to the camera in an early scene and swear that everything’s real. But this hook is the only thing keeping the movie alive. All the other elements that make a movie good – characters, story, plot, empathy, heart and soul – are noticeably absent.

Maybe if rookie director Olatunde Osunsanmi had spent more time crafting a decent story instead of reminding the audience that these are “actual case studies,” we would have a better film.

Who is gonna like this movie: People who though Paranormal Activity was a documentary.

THE BOX

Studio: Warner Bros.

Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.

Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Basil Hoffman and Gillian Jacobs

Directed by: Richard Kelly

What it’s about: In 1976, a mysterious stranger shows up on a couple’s doorstep with an offer. They are given a box with a red button on it. If they push the button, someone they don’t know somewhere in the world will die, and they will be given a million dollars. The couple struggles with whether or not to push the button, which has greater ramifications on their lives – and the lives of everyone around them – than they ever would have thought.

What I liked: First off, let me say that this movie is not for everyone. It’s waaaaaay out there, and that’s saying something even for Richard Kelly fans.

The movie has a brilliant set-up, courtesy of writer Richard Matheson’s original short story. (If you don’t know who Richard Matheson is, he wrote about a third of the original Twilight Zone teleplays.) So, it’s not surprising that the film has a whole Twilight Zone feel to it. About half-way through the film, it starts to go bat-shit crazy, which might alienate some of the audience, but Kelly is fearless about this.

Ultimately, The Box is a bizarre morality tale that sets up a very slick atmospheric feel. It should make you think about what you would do in a similar situation, and it delivers a story that really isn’t like anything else out there right now… for better or for worse.

Kelly manages to capture the feeling of 1970s with the cinematography, production design, wardrobe and sound design. In a strange way, it feels more like a movie that was shot 30 years ago rather than in the modern era, and that’s really pretty neat in my book.

What I didn’t: I’ll admit this movie is not without its faults. Cameron Diaz is a beacon of bad acting in this movie, slathering on a southern accent so thick, you’d swear she was pretending to be from the deep south. Were it not for Frank Langella and James Marsden to temper her, the movie would crumble from an acting standpoint.

There are several moments in the film that drag, which seems to be a trademark of director Richard Kelly, but they only show up once in a while.

Some folks will take issue with the story and its Twilight Zone elements, but I was okay with them. The film kept me interested throughout, and that’s pretty rare for a movie to do nowadays.

Who is gonna like this movie: People looking for a different brand of thriller.

Review: Disney’s A Christmas Carol

Rob Hunter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:07:26 +0000

My feelings towards Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol have always been of two minds. I love the tale from the wit and greed-filled banter to the ghostly apparitions to the grand redemption at the end. The same goes for the multiple film and TV versions of the story. I’m partial to the George C. Scott version from the eighties, but Scrooged and The Muppet Christmas Carol tie for a close second. The problem I have with the story though is that very same magnificent redemption I mentioned as loving not three sentences ago. I’ve just never been convinced that Scrooge honestly changes for any reason other than selfish self-preservation. Sure he seems concerned about Tiny Tim’s imminent demise, but it’s his own untended gravestone that really pushes him towards turning over a new leaf isn’t it? Now thanks to Robert Zemeckis’ continuing desire to avoid telling original stories in favor of digitally manipulated versions of older ones, yet another adaptation of Dickens’ tale is hitting the screen… but can 3D animation make it any more convincing?

I shouldn’t have to summarize the story of A Christmas Carol for you heathens, but in the interest of proper film review format I will anyway. Ebenezer Scrooge is a cranky, miserly, and rudely practical old man living and working in Victorian-era London. His view on the Christmas holiday can be summed up in his sentiment that those who celebrate the day with merry and cheer should be boiled in their own pudding and “buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” He’s visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, who was equally as cheap and unlikable in life as Scrooge and who in death must drag around the chains he forged while still alive. Marley warns Scrooge of three more spirits coming to haunt him and advises the old man to heed their warnings lest he end up with an eternal fate like Marley’s.

Story-wise there’s very little to review or criticize here really. Dickens’ tale is a classic for a reason, and you’d have to go out of your way to really screw it up (cough, The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, cough). Zemeckis wisely keeps his rendition very close to previous versions with their very precise structure of character introduction, ghostly visitations, and then celebratory redemption. The scenes you recall from earlier versions are pretty much all recreated here in beautifully done animation. The characters look great, but it’s the details of the world around them that truly astound. From the bricks and cobblestones to the fabrics in clothes and curtains to the visible exhalations in the cold London air, Zemeckis and friends have created a fairly impressive world.

I’m no fan of Zemeckis’ previous 3D motion-captured films, The Polar Express and Beowulf, but A Christmas Carol has somewhat redeemed at least one aspect of the format for me. It helps that the original story itself is almost perfect (motivational veracity of Scrooge’s life change aside), but Zemeckis has improved the visual style of his ‘actors.’ Both Polar Express and Beowulf overlayed their herky-jerky mo-cap with plasticine characters that exuded more style than humanity. Christmas Carol keeps the stylized visuals but has now managed to imbue some of the characters’ faces with real warmth. They’re obviously still not going for photo-realism, but the quality of these CGI creations no longer keeps you at arm’s length emotionally.

But it’s not all good news… The major misstep Zemeckis makes here in regard to the 3D animated format is his need to up the “ride factor” of the movie. Scrooge gets pulled through the sky above London a few times, and while it looks absolutely briliant and delightful each time it is done strictly for the effect. Those flights of fancy are obvious enough, but Zemeckis crosses the imaginary line during Scrooge’s visit with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Scrooge is shrunken to mouse-size and chased through the streets by Death’s horse-drawn carriage. Why? The phantom reaches for Scrooge several times, just missing him at the last second, and it makes no sense. The whole set piece exists solely for cheap thrills and laughs. Pratfalls, sewer runs, rat shenanigans… it all stands apart from the rest of the story and it makes you imagine the Disney execs with a checklist featuring a minimum number of action scenes required.

It’s obviously difficult to gauge the acting on display in an animated film, even a mo-cap one, but it’s easy enough to praise Carrey’s work here in his multiple roles. He brings Scrooge to life, but he also inhabits the three Christmas ghosts that haunt him. While the final spectre is mute and without facial detail, the others (as well as Scrooge) are all distinctly different creations. Carrey does such a fine job with the cantankerous and fearful Scrooge that I almost wish he would have played the character in a live action film instead. His best work in the film however is with the first two ghosts. Carrey’s Christmas Past is perhaps the creepiest non-horror film ghost I’ve seen since Ghost Dad. His face is recreated as a candle flame, constantly smiling, potentially unstable, and he speaks with a pitched Irish whisper. It’s more than a little unsettling at times. His Christmas Present thunders with a strong Scottish voice full of cheer, joy, and the occasional bits of fierce anger. All are Carrey’s creations, but they still each manage to be unique.

Carrey’s multiple roles impress and make thematic sense as Scrooge is after all being haunted by his own life, but the others who tackle multiple characters aren’t always as successful or logical. Gary Oldman plays Bob Cratchit with a mix of innocence, joy, and devastation, and it all translates well to the screen. He also portrays the ghost of Marley and the (unrecognizable) voice of Tiny Tim, but since there’s no narrative reasoning behind this it seems more of a ploy than anything else. His characters were different enough that it was more of an oddity than a problem, but the same can’t be said for Bob Hoskins. He plays Scrooge’s long-dead first employer, Fezziwig, but then appears later in the film as the husband of Scrooge’s cleaning woman. It caused a brief bit of confusion while I tried to figure out why Fezziwig looked like a hobo (and why he was still alive at all). Colin Firth, Robin Wright Penn, and Cary Elwes round out the recognizable cast. (Especially Elwes who’s very round indeed.)

Will Disney’s A Christmas Carol worm it’s way into your hearts and homes and become as much of a holiday staple as rum balls and spotted dick are now? Possibly, but maybe not. It’s fun, occasionally frightening, and often beautiful, while at the same time staying true to Dickens’ classic tale, but it also never needed a 3D update. Kids will be the film’s biggest fans thanks to the multiple whiz-bang-wow scenes, and while adults won’t be bored they also won’t find any more heart or Christmas cheer than we’ve already seen from Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, or even Bill Murray. Because as good as it looks it’s still artificial when compared to real flesh and blood actors portraying real joy and tear-filled emotions. Which should answer the question as to whether or not this new Scrooge’s redemption is any more believable…

The Upside: 3D effects are more about texture and depth than obvious thrusts towards the audience; ghosts are sufficiently spooky; animation is sharp, detailed, and stylized; has a few laughs

The Downside: segment where Scrooge shrinks seems designed purely to add more “ride” scenes and physical comedy; dual use of an obvious Bob Hoskins caused minor confusion

On the Side: A species of snail native to Fiji was named Ba humbugi upon it’s discovery in 1976.

Fantastic Fest Review: First Squad

Neil Miller — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:41:01 +0000

Over the years, I’ve been exposed to a lot of animated filmmaking. You could say that when it comes to feature-length animated works, I’m a connoisseur of sorts. And whether it is the CGI-driven stories of Pixar and Dreamworks or the 2D hand-drawn fairy tales of Walt Disney, I’m always jumping at the chance to see something new and different in the animated world. And that love for animation doesn’t end with the borders of the United States, but expands out into the rest of the world, reaching all the way to Japan and even as far as Denmark (as we saw earlier in Fantastic Fest when I reviewed Journey to Saturn).

Which brings me to the Russian/Japanese hybrid film First Squad. Writer by Russian scribes Alijosha Klimov and Misha Sprits and animated by the folks at Japan’s Studio 4ºC (the same studio that put out Batman: Gotham Knight last year), First Squad follows a young Russian girl with special telepathic powers named Nadaya, who was once a member of an elite squad of psychic warriors trained to fight the Nazis in World War II. But after a deadly attack leaves the rest of her squad dead and her without anywhere to go, she sets out on her own. That doesn’t last very long, as she’s quickly picked back up by the army and brought in for a very special mission. You see, the Nazis are in the process of bridging the gap between our world and that of the dead, and they intend to bring back Baron Von Wolff, an ancient knight whose power is unmatched in either realm. Von Wolff and his army of the dead would have no problem taking out the Soviets, thus ensuring Nazi victory on the Eastern front. To counter, the Soviets use Nadaya and a special dimensional travel machine to make contact with her old squad, now on the other side of death, and get them to stop Von Wolff before he can cross over into our world.

It’s a very unique and interesting concept for a film, which unfortunately gets bogged down in its own desire to create a method of narrative delivery that is completely unique. Allow me to explain. The film begins with some incredibly beautiful animation, mostly of news reel-style footage that leads in with the history behind the story, explaining what is happening on the Eastern front as Germany and the Soviet Union wage war. It melts quickly into some incredibly intense and visceral action. Then, the film begins to cut to live-action, documentary-style talking heads — Russian scientists and historians who give additional background information to support the animated story at hand. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem, if it wasn’t stretched throughout the film, causing the entire feature’s pacing to be painfully clunky. As well, the doc-style moments get lost in minutia, with one scientist taking several moments to explain what sedatives are — a little too much talk, with too little substance.

Between these boring, drab live-action moments though, is where First Squad shines. The animated portion of the story is deeply engaging, fast and furiously vibrant. The only downside to the onslaught of action is that, when set against the somber tone of the live-action, some of it comes off more like the banging of pots and pans in a once quiet room. It is a storytelling strategy that is intended to be jarring, but ultimately ends up being quite an annoyance. And that’s where First Squad ultimately loses its audience — in its inability to maintain a consistent tone. Or for that matter, ever decide what sort of story it wants to be. If it were recut as a strictly animated film, it could be a very entertaining, blistering 40-minute adventure. But as a 73-minute hybrid of many colors, it falls on its own sword in the same hard and fast manner that characterize its visceral action sequences.

The Upside: Animation is beautiful, action is visceral.

The Downside: The story is paralyzed by the infusion of live-action, doc-style interview footage.

On the Side: The human realm battles shown in this film are all based on real World War II battles and are choreographed exactly as they happened, with the exception of the army of deadites that ultimately show up.

Review: Thomas Jane’s Dark Country 3D

Robert Fure — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:58:13 +0000

October 6th, 2009 saw two very momentous occasions. Firstly, and most importantly, it was my birthday. Secondly, Thomas Jane’s first feature directorial effort (he’s listed as having directed Jonni Nitro, but even I’m clueless as to what that is) Dark Country was released on DVD. Our own Rob Hunter listed the film as a rental in his DVD recommendations but that didn’t stop me from heading out and purchasing it. Then, in a bit of good fortune, I promptly tossed it on the “to watch” pile and forgot about it for three weeks. I say good fortune because not watching the standard, 2D version of the film allowed me to walk into a small, one of a kind screening in late October, the first ever Annual Halloween screening of the film – in glorious 3 dimensions. So my first experience with the film would be as intended – in a theater, with the full effect of the 3D, not on some TV with a flat picture.

Cut to late October and I’m settled in at a Halloween screening, complete with decorations and, no joke, a string trio playing along. The film is introduced by Tom Jane and some characters in face paint as he takes a very Crypt Keeper like approach to the night, complete with “gaping chest wound” t-shirt and flashlights. After a brief intro, the glasses go on and the film comes up.

Dark Country is a Twilight Zone-esque thriller that follows a newly-wed couple Dick (Tom Jane) and Gina (Lauren German) as they drive out of Las Vegas in a vintage car, heading deep into the dark desert country with some steamy love between them and plenty of questions between them. In the dark night on the empty roads, things quickly go south when they come across a car wreck and a badly injured man in the road. Attempting to do the right thing, they load his bloody, disfigured body into the car and go off in search of a hospital. As one might expect, soon they’re lost and the bloodyfaced hitchhiker in the back reveals he’s got some murderous secrets of his own.

Walking into a film like this, I often don’t know what to expect or what I’m in store for. I’m no stranger to lower budget Tom Jane movies, like the not-great Mutant Chronicles or the totally-awesome Give ‘em Hell Malone of late, two different sides of the coin. One works, the other not as much. What makes Dark Country both smart and impressive is the budget – under $4million dollars. For that price, most movies only get the gift bags for their star actors, but Jane and crew get a coherent 3D motion picture up on the screen. I mention smart because when you’re working with little money, you can’t over extend yourself. Shooting for a sci-fi epic (a la Mutant Chronicles) you’re probably going to come up short. But if you’re smart, you find the right story with the right location and $4 million becomes just enough to put out the finished product. Indeed, when you hear about all the ingredients to this film, that it turns out as well as it did, it’s downright amazing. Firstly, you have Tom Jane, a hard-working guy taking his first crack at directing who decides to make it even more difficult on himself by jumping right into 3D. Secondly, toss in a low budget, the untested 3D technology, brand new (aka untested) equipment, night shoots, a short 25 day shooting schedule and the freaking New Mexican desert. The cards were seemingly stacked against the production, that was mired with freezing cold nights and equipment that didn’t always want to work correctly. In one story relayed by Jane after the film, a fancy shmancy piece of equipment meant to raise and lower the camera malfunctioned, stopping production. One for practical solutions, they replaced the machine with the simplest of tools – the human hand – then set the camera onto the road and let the car drive harmlessly over it. That’s how you stretch a budget.

About the movie itself – overall, I liked it. The film is by no means perfect and, personally, started off on the wrong foot for me. I wasn’t engaged in the first few minutes and was beginning to fear a long ride into mediocrity. Luckily, once Dick and Gina had moved into the car, the story quickly shifted gears, sunk in its hooks, and managed to be an enjoyable ride through the dark country. Not until writing down their names (Dick and Gina) did I realize that their names are in fact Dick and (va)Gina. I don’t say this in jest, but perhaps this was a very intentional choice to have them symbolize masculine and feminine sex. Perhaps a wayward thought – until you see the steamy scene in the car. Then the theory gains about a metric ton of weight behind it. We’ve seen terrible sex scenes in cars, like in The Chase when two people somehow engage in coitus while in the middle of a high speed car chase without crashing. The scene in Dark Country is not Dick in Gina (haha, I crack myself) sex, but it is one of the most effective and exciting sexual scenes I’ve seen on film in years. That is the moment when the film really has you and from then on in, it was a far better experience than the first minutes indicated.

Plot wise, the story has that Twilight Zone esque twist you know is coming from the very start. Many of you will probably be able to predict it correctly, but that said, it’s not a deal breaker. I’m a huge fan of The Twilight Zone and even when you know what’s coming, it’s still a fine drive to the finish.

The biggest divider of people who see this movie is going to be style. It’s a love it or leave it type deal, that most likely works far better in 3D than in 2D. Make no mistake, the look of the film is very intentional. Both Jane and Tim Bradstreet (famed artist, Dark Country unofficial production designer and Raw Studios honcho) talked at length about the look of the film, describing it as “intended for a comic book audience.” This is an accurate way to describe much of the film, from the color palate to the angles. Color wise, the film is silvery, channeling in bits of noir and vintage film, while in shot selection, Jane proves himself to be visually very deft with the camera. Certain angles (namely a low angle looking at Bloodyface and out the back of the rear window of the car) are rarely seen in movies, at least in my experience, but are fairly common in graphic novels.

There was a lot of attention paid to the sky with almost every scene having a brilliant, colorful night sky composited in. The photography was taken especially for the film by one of the nation’s only 3D nightsky photographers (a very limited position, one assumes), who spent days up in the hills taking shots of the night sky. To call the images breath-taking is an understatement, though some may be unable or unwilling to look past the fact that it’s a stylized nightsky, the kind you’d never see with the naked eye. I say, when you’re dealing with a stylized film, let’s do it – go all out. The sky worked for me.

Now, I haven’t fully watched the 2D version of the film, but from what I have seen the 3D element makes the entire picture look better. The compositing (green-screening), which is one of the main criticisms of the 2D version, looks far better in three dimensions than it does in two. Dark Country is also one of the first films to fully utilize 3D for image depth rather than gimmicks. In the entirety of the movie there are only two “gimmick” 3D shots, with everything else being about the expansion of the image rather than making you giggle. I have long championed the return of 3D as a valuable and viable tool for creating image depth rather than jump scares. (I saw my first RealD live action movie in 2006 and have supported the technology ever since) Dark Country goes miles down the road in proving that 3D is here and it isn’t a joke or a toy for a kid’s movie. For any photographers out there, you understand the real magic of photography is in the depth of field and focal lengths and 3D technology opens an entirely new window.

I would be remiss in not talking briefly about the acting, but I do want to keep it brief as I’ve gone on for some time now. Tom Jane has always been an effective actor, whether it’s in comedy or drama or Punishing, but lately it seems that his game is fully realized. Mainstream critics have come around to him and praise his performance in Hung, telling us what we already knew – the guy is good. In Country, he plays a more dramatic role and nails a wide variety of emotions. I feel like he turns in a fantastic performance here. Lauren German is also good, though after her ice-cube-masturbation scene (there, I said it) she could sit there with a blank expression on her face the rest of the time and I’d still praise her performance. Ron Perlman appears late in the game and he’s Ron Perlman – nuff said.

In conclusion, Dark Country is not a perfect film, but it’s a much better film in 3D. The story isn’t groundbreaking and again I’ll mention The Twilight Zone, but the acting is top notch from Jane, the style of the film is very much grounded in the comic world, and several scenes are over the top awesome. If nothing else, Jane has proven two things: The guy can direct and 3D is awesome. As I’m sure many of you are fans of Jane, Bradstreet, and Raw Studios (hey, we’re all nerds here), be on the lookout of “Raw Cola” early in the film.

During the Q&A after the film, Jane and Bradstreet mentioned a desire and intent to tour several cities with the film and show it in 3D. Hopefully this gets off the ground and gives people more opportunities to see the film the way it was meant to be. If we’re lucky in LA, they’ll also keep that “Annual” promise and continue to show the film every Halloween.

Final words? Definitely worth checking out in 3D.

You can purchase Dark Country on DVD at Amazon.com

Review: Michael Jackson’s This Is It

Dr. Cole Abaius — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:24:42 +0000

It’s impossible to divorce the images on the screen from the reality that’s still so fresh in our minds regarding Michael Jackson’s death earlier this Summer. In fact, with the opening scroll of text reminding us of the best laid plans for a comeback/farewell tour that was shut down due to tragedy, it seems as though director Kenny Ortega was clever enough to understand that mental hurdle and take the sting out. Even though there’s a surreal moment in just how recent the history they’re recounting is, that’s the end of it, and the rest of the ride is a pure celebration of the music of an enduring icon.

Documentary style footage that was meant for Jackson’s eyes only is compiled with rehearsal footage and the special filmed segments that would have acted as backdrop for the show to create a shockingly intimate view into a show that never was. It’s funny and sweet, ethereal throughout and human at times, but at the core of it, it’s damned entertaining. After all, it’s essentially two hours of Michael Jackson’s most beloved songs being played in a sort of Warts and All version of a huge stage show. Even if there’s nothing beyond that to find in the film, your toes should still be tapping, your heart beating with the bass drums, a smile forming on your face along with the memories in your mind.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big Jackson fan. But who isn’t? The man is an incredible musical presence (which is rare in pop music these days), and knows how to put on a show. With This Is It, the polish and flash of the concert that sold out in 50 cities becomes a grainier portrait of a family of very talented entertainers building something together. There are missed cues, flubbed notes, and Jackson even forgets some lyrics, but it all forms together to display something so close to being complete. Something far more interesting to watch because it’s not quite perfect.

Jackson himself is as magnetic as a presence as you’d need. He prowls the stage in equal parts to grab the spotlight and to fade into the background and let his dancers take some time to shine. Although seeing him is a bit jarring, it’s still the closest thing to an enigmatic figure that anyone will ever come. Instead of bathing him in some sort of Godly light, Ortega is reverent to his creative partner in a different way by showing just how normal he is. On stage, he ranges from a calm dictator who seeks perfection (and needs things a little more funky) to a true fan who stands back and revels in the spectacle that’s being created all around him. His constant use of the phrase, “this is why we have rehearsals” belies a certain sweetness that, without this film, fans would never know. He’s funny, disarming, and in a moment where his music director uses the word “booty” to describe what Jackson needs from the beat, Jackson’s reaction proves him to be the person he is instead of the superstar we see him as.

But, as I said, he fades into the background at times. Inasmuch as it’s a film about Michael Jackson, it’s also a film about the people around him creating the show from the costume designer to the dancers. You only catch glimpses of some of them, but they help paint a more complete portrait of the true star of the movie – the concert. If there is a standout, it’s Orianthi, who looks like a prettier version of Lita Ford and absolutely shreds on guitar. Vocalist Judith Hill also shares the stage with Jackson during “I Can’t Stop Loving You” where Jackson choreographs her movements in real time. It’s awkward and strange but also intimate and loving.

And the music. Goddamn, the music is all there. Every major song you’d want is lit up brightly on stage, set on fire, placed behind a fat bass beat and danced the hell out of. The crew for the concert shot extra footage for several set pieces including placing Jackson in an iconic film scene (Edward G. Robinson seemed surprised to see him) for “Smooth Criminal,” a rain forest scene, and fantastic new graveyard footage for “Thriller.” All of them feature the dancers from the show (as they were set to be played on the jumbotron behind the stage) and they are shown in full, crisp glory to break up the slightly harsh look of the rehearsal footage.

If there is a flaw it’s that the movie gets repetitive – constantly showing a segue which builds into the song and ends when Jackson explains how he wants the ending done when they get to show time. The movie itself doesn’t benefit from the same energy the stage show would have, so when it hits a slow song, the momentum gets a little lost in the fog. But on the other hand, the movie delivers song after great song played by the live band and sung by the man himself.

As a blend of backstage footage, a few testimonials praising Michael, sharply-produced show elements, and the musical performances – This Is It is a stunning look at something that’s both epic and personal. Beautiful. Thrilling. Revealing. This film is a great documentary that delivers a larger-than-life figure in his natural environment as both a mega-celebrity and just a man standing alone on a stage.

The Upside: A fantastic look at a great show put on by a musical icon.

The Downside: When the songs slow down, so does the film.

On the Side: If you stay past the end of the credits, there’s another cool segment with Jackson at rehearsal and an…interesting…CGI little girl who hugs the planet.

Fantastic Fest Review: Under the Mountain

Rob Hunter — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:08:11 +0000

Fantasy films are a tough genre for any but the biggest studios to produce. They’re usually large in scope, require copious amounts of expensive CGI, and ideally stem from a well-known literary source to give the film a built-in audience on opening weekend. This is doubly true for children’s fantasy as the wee little ones require enough spectacle and effects to keep them coming back to the theater again and again. So what do you do if you don’t have a production deal with Walt Disney or Walden Media? What do you do if your film is based on a book with immense popularity… in New Zealand? You hire WETA Workshop for their special effects wizardry and Sam Neill for his general bad-assery. That’s what. But will it be enough…?

Theo (Tom Cameron) and Rachel (Sophie McBride) are twins living in New Zealand who share the gift of psychic ability and the curse of being red-heads. They’ve recently lost their mum, and their dad’s way of dealing with it all is to send the teens to Auckland to stay with relatives. They’re welcomed warmly by their uncle, aunt, and horn-dog older cousin Ricky (Leon Wadham), but the siblings find themselves at odds with each other as Theo shuts Rachel out emotionally in his grief. The twins try to settle in, but problems quickly arise when curiosity and script necessity lead to them exploring a creepy old house across the lake. It belongs to the Wilberforces, a family of shape-shifting mausoleum employees with waxy features, who’ve been waiting for just such a pair of red-headed twins to complete their centuries-old effort to destroy the Earth with gigantic creatures residing beneath the city’s multiple dormant volcanoes. Humanity’s hope comes in the form an older man named Mr. Jones (Sam Neill) who has a fondness for gingers, a tale the size of a T-Rex to tell about aliens and destiny, and a pair of stones in his pockets that need to feel the warmth of young teenagers’ hands.

I haven’t read the best-selling “Under the Mountain” novel by Maurice Gee, nor have I seen the very popular Kiwi TV series made from it, but I have to imagine both of them did a better job at telling an engaging and interesting story than this new film does. Theo and Rachel are introduced briefly as being quite close before their mother dies and grief forces Theo to shut down emotionally. That makes fine dramatic sense, but Theo also develops an anger towards Rachel and an unexplained loss of faith in her that affects their psychic bond. It becomes important to the plot later on but it makes no sense in its inception. Instead of naturally grieving teens we’re left with a prickish boy and an ineffective girl. She literally can do little to nothing without him which isn’t exactly a message you want to spread to young girls is it?

With uninteresting leads it falls to the film’s story to captivate and engage the audience, but it’s only slightly more successful here. Using psychic twins as a catalyst is nothing new (see Escape to Witch Mountain), yet the specificity of their being red-headed seems extraneous (and offensive to those of us allergic to their ilk). The basic setup is also a bit too convoluted when it comes to the dueling alien races, their motivations, and their abilities. Twins have the inherent power of ‘twinness’ and therefore are the only ones who can stop the Wilberforces, and yet they need magic pet rocks in order to do so. The fate of the entire world is at risk here but the most threatening thing we see is a bunch of guys in suits who look like they’ve spent the last few weeks dead under water. Director Jonathan King has done a 180 degree turn around from his last film, the fun little gorefest called Black Sheep, but he seems to have bitten off more than he can handle here. The film needed a grander scope to tell a story about aliens trying to destroy our world, and King just can’t seem to find it.

The acting and characters in Under the Mountain are a mixed bag. Neill obviously shines in his role as a cantankerous alien because the man is awesome in every role, but even he can’t make the term ‘twinness’ sound anything but stupid no matter how many times he says it (about thirty-four times). Silly terminology aside, he still has that adventurous and playful glint in his eyes that reminds you positively of films like Jurassic Park, In the Mouth of Madness, and Sirens. Wadham has nothing memorable on his resume, but he still manages to steal each of his scenes in the film as the constantly interrupted and sexually frustrated teen who simply wants a taste of his girlfriend’s Kiwi. He’s got the film’s best lines and some solid comic timing as well. Less fortunate are Cameron and McBride as the twins. I’ll admit I have a general bias against gingers, but their serviceable acting and one-note characters don’t help any.

There are parts of Under the Mountain that do work, and they start with Auckland itself. This is an absolutely beautiful location and King has captured it brilliantly from the volcanic landscape to the lush forests. He shows us a world both inviting and dangerous, and the shots of Auckland’s incredible geography are as much moving postcards for New Zealand as The Lord of the Rings films were. WETA also impresses with creepy and gross practical effects for the Wilberforces and various other creatures. They’re effectively slimy-looking and frightening, but the same effectiveness doesn’t hold for the film’s digital work.

Under the Mountain isn’t a bad film, but I can’t help wonder what it would have looked like with more money behind it. Not that money equals quality, as big-budget fantasy stinkers like The Golden Compass have showed us, but a grander scale behind the story’s setting and dangers could only have helped. As it stands we’re left with a film that will probably play extremely well in its native land where viewers can fill in the narrative gaps with knowledge they possess from the book and TV series, but international audiences will probably be left wanting quite a bit more.

The Upside: Sam Neill; some cool creature effects

The Downside: Too silly to take seriously; the two teens are morons; the danger feels arbitrary and underwhelming; gingers!

On the Side: This is actually my 100th review for Film School Rejects. Ideally it would have been for a better film…

Fantastic Fest Review: Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

Dr. Cole Abaius — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:38:49 +0000

When I was thirteen, I remember specifically complaining that there weren’t that many books being written for 13-year old boys. There are children’s books, classics, and novels, but nothing really made featuring the interests that come between youth and adulthood. Most likely because the only thing 13-year old boys are interested in is 13-year old girls.

I’ve had the same complaint about movies since I was about that age. It seems like directly aiming for PG-13 is harder than it looks, but The Vampire’s Assistant nails down a story and action that seems perfect for that age.

Darren (Chris Massoglia) and Steve (Josh Hutcherson) are best friends despite different upbringings and personalities. They both attend a mysterious Freak Show populated by fantastical beings, and Darren joins the ranks of the undead by becoming a vampire, but Steve will have his own, darker journey to go through.

This movie is a ton of fun. It shoots for the middle in the ways that it has to, but it’s tailor-made for a younger crowd that needs the sex and violence toned down a bit. Even without the geysers of blood that I love so much, the action is engaging, well-choreographed and shot strongly. Plus, the whole thing benefits greatly from John C. Reilly (in the mentor role as the vampire Crepsley). He brings a weight of dramatics and the ease of a dry sense of humor for a character who has been alive long enough to have seen almost everything.

But it’s not without its flaws – most of which stem from having to shoot for the middle. Chris Massoglia is a passable talent, but he’s nothing to write home about as an actor. Essentially, he fulfills the role of an un-noteworthy kid with the incredible skill it takes to be un-noteworthy. Hutcherson has been around longer and flashes a bit more acting strength in a role that’s new to him. Unfortunately, although most of their performances are clever and sweet, the freaks have very little screen time which makes it hard to tell a movie about a boy rejecting his former family for a new one a little lopsided. This is probably most symbolized by Jane Krakowski’s character where the production had to do an intense amount of CGI for a character with less than ten lines of dialog.

There are also some scenes that lay flat on the screen without much life to them – hampered mostly by line delivery and the generic pitch of the script in the first place. The problem with a movie like this is the problem lying at the core of why there aren’t many movies like this. It’s aiming at an audience in limbo between childhood and adulthood and has to self-lobotomize a bit in order to keep the emotional range (as well as the sex and violence) muted. It’s a hindrance to good storytelling, but it’s probably a necessary almost-evil.

In a lot of ways, it feels like a lot of young adult entries from the 90s – like Blank Check mixed with Little Monsters. The premises are straight from the fantasy-life of a pre-teen, the world is a little more grown up, but the emotions and dramatics are a bit too schmaltzy to be remembered. And maybe it’s because it’s such a confusing time in the life of the target audience that the movie (and others like it) come out looking gawky and awkward with more blemishes than we’d normally want a film to have.

But the filmmakers walk the line fairly well here, only tripping off the balance beam a handful of times. For the most part, the flick is engaging with an interesting take on the best friend dynamic and the ultimate question of whether a friendship can survive as two people grow up and grow apart. Toss that in with some strange carnie folks, a vampire civil war, and a love interest with a tail, and it makes for a fun family movie.

The Upside: Some good characters inhabiting a strange world and John C. Reilly calling everything bullshit.

The Downside: It dims the lights but doesn’t go too dark, and it stays middle of the unremarkable road from time to time.

On the Side: This is Chris Massoglia’s first movie.

Kevin Carr’s Weekly Report Card for 10.23.09

Kevin Carr — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:08:11 +0000

SAW VI

Studio: Lionsgate

Rated: R for sequences of grisly bloody violence, torture and language.

Starring: Costas Mandylor, Mark Rolston, Betsy Russell, Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith

Directed by: Kevin Greutert

What it’s about: This sixth installment of the popular horror franchise sees Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) continuing the work of the serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell). However, even with a new game targeting a greedy insurance tycoon afoot, there’s more surprises for Hoffman from the police and from beyond the grave of Jigsaw.

What I liked: Unlike many critics, I have really enjoyed the Saw franchise, and this film is a worthy successor. If you’re looking for gore and violence, you’ll get plenty of that. But also, if you’re looking for a film that gives more twists and turns in the already complex story arc, you’ll get that as well.

Like the other sequels, Saw VI uses a lot of the elements of the previous films to lay a trap in the plot for the viewer. Tobin Bell returns in full force as Jigsaw in flashbacks (as does Shawnee Smith), so there’s something there for the long-time fans. The movie works to a wicked-cool conclusion that, of course, sets itself up for another sequel.

What I didn’t: At one point early in the film, I was watching a random act of human mutilation, and I caught myself thinking, “Is this going too far?” Then I remembered that it was a Saw movie. They’ve been going too far for years. But if you’re squeamish or have a soft stomach, you’ll probably throw up watching this movie.

The acting in these films are pretty awful, and Costas Mandylor is no Tobin Bell, but that bar was set very low in the first film with Cary Elwes cutting his foot off in the first movie. The film is more predictable than the others, but it still serves its purpose.

Who is gonna like this movie: Gore hounds and Saw fans.

CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT

Studio: Universal

Rated: PG-13for sequences of intense supernatural violence and action, disturbing images, thematic elements and some language.

Starring: John C. Reilly, Ken Watanabe, Josh Hutcherson, Chris Massoglia and Ray Stevenson

Directed by: Paul Weitz

What it’s about: Based on the first few books of the popular young adult series, The Vampire’s Assistant tells the story of Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia), a teenager who visits a freak show and becomes a vampire at the hand of one of the star acts. His friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson) is jealous because he’s always wanted to be a vampire too, and a band of evil vampires help him out in that respect.

What I liked: There are so many vampire movies and television shows out there that live in the same realm: the angst-filled sensual blood lust. The Vampire’s Assistant is a breath of fresh air because it doesn’t fall into the same cliches as Twilight and True Blood. It’s a teen vampire movie without all the bellyaching. In fact, it can be rather refreshing, to quote John C. Reilly.

The movie has a slick production design that really got me in the Halloween spirit, and it introduces some really neat characters that should get some excellent stories if the movie makes enough green to warrant a sequel. But the bottom line is that The Vampire’s Assistant is a relatively safe monster movie that you can enjoy with most of the family.

Oh, and John C. Reilly steals the show as a 200-year-old vampire who is simultaneously cool and goofy. He sets the tone for the whole film.

What I didn’t: The film does have some slow moments, especially in the middle when it tries to figure out what it’s trying to be. Let’s say it eventually settles on iCarly with teeth, but in a good way. Also, the movie is a pretty obvious set-up for a series – even more so than other juv fantasy attempts like The Golden Compass and City of Ember – but all that did is whet my appetite for more.

Who is gonna like this movie: Teenage vampire lovers, with less emphasis on the lovers.

ASTRO BOY

Studio: Summit Entertainment

Rated: PG for some action and peril, and brief mild language.

Starring: Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland and Nicholas Cage

Directed by: David Bowers

What it’s about: The classic magna series comes to life in this CGI action film. A brilliant inventor accidentally vaporizes his son in a weapons test. He’s so distraught that he builds a new robotic son which he gives his boy’s memories. However, when he realizes that it will never be a replacement for the real thing, he plans to deactivate the robot, until it seeks a life of its own.

What I liked: There’s some really cool action sequences in this movie, and it is definitely a boys’ film. There’s such a spectrum of CGI films nowadays, and this movie falls in the middle – somewhere between WALL-E and Space Chimps. That’s a pretty wide divide, I am aware, but this is the landscape we are given.

Astro Boy has some excellent animation and humorous moments. Oh, and it has a hero with machine guns in his butt, and that’s always a selling point for kids.

What I didn’t: Having never read the Astro Boy magna, I couldn’t tell you if it is an accurate adaptation or not. All I can say is that it has some rough patches in the story. In the middle of the film, Astro Boy falls to Earth and swerves into a bizarre Oliver Twist sort of story that would work on its own but just seems like a huge diversion to the rest of the film.

Also, as grim as some folks said Where the Wild Things Are was last week, Astro Boy seems worse. The movie opens with a kid getting vaporized, for crying out loud. And it deals with themes of abandonment and loss throughout the film, so be prepared for that.

Who is gonna like this movie: Kids who want to see a robot with machine guns in his butt.

AMELIA

Studio: Fox Searchlight

Rated: PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking.

Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Mia Wasikowska and Christopher Eccleston

Directed by: Mira Nair

What it’s about: Hilary Swank stars in the title role as the legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The film follows her final journey in an attempt to circumnavigate the Earth, flashing back to her career in aviation and her various lovers.

What I liked: Well, I respect the hell out of Amelia Earhart, and it’s nice to see her get her own film. I just wish it was under better circumstances. There are decent elements to the film, including some decent acting moments from both Swank and Richard Gere (although their performances border on caricature with the over-the-top personalities they are portraying). And the flying scenes were neat to watch, if you don’t mind a healthy dose of green screen.

Oh, and unlike last week’s The Stepfather, this film was in focus.

What I didn’t: Biopics are hard to achieve without making them puff pieces, and here’s where the film failed. Amelia Earhart was presented with her only flaws being her awkward oppression in beauty and sexuality. But her biggest flaw was being boring. Earhart was a legend, but her life as presented here was frightfully dull.

We all know how this movie ends, but unlike Titanic which had a predictable climax presented as an awesome action sequence, Amelia’s climax is about as exciting as watching a trucker talking on a CB radio.

Who is gonna like this movie: Amelia Earhart fans… and Hilary Swank.

Review: (Untitled)

Robert Levin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:19:31 +0000

(Untitled) is a satire with its finger squarely on the pulse of the 21st century art world. It’s a film for anyone who’s stood in a modern art exhibit, stared at one of its installations and pondered the age old conundrum, the source of many a freshman lit essay: What makes this art? Director Jonathan Parker, who co-wrote the screenplay with Catherine DiNapoli, expands from that fundamental starting point to consider the types of people that might me driven to make such things and whether, in the end, to dismiss them is to be robbed of a defining component of the age.

It’s a sharp movie, pitched at a tone located squarely between archness and sincerity. The combination of its twin settings of blindingly white galleries and garishly designed New York apartments, when blended with an all-around cacophonic feel, lends the picture a surrealistic edge. Starring Adam Goldberg and Marley Shelton, two actors well-equipped to give a certain convincing air to their affectations, it traces the collision of the experimental sound band headed by Adrian Jacobs (Goldberg) with the world of ambitious gallery owner Madeline Gray (Shelton). She, like he, hears beauty in the discordant sounds, jumbled aesthetics and strange digressions. Others hear nothing but noise. Conflicts, both personal and professional, take shape.

Parker has some fun with the more outsized personalities comprising the milieu, smartly applying Vinnie Jones’ characteristic tough guy persona to the self-obsessed Ray Barko, whose gory taxidermy is regularly featured by Madeline and seems more befitting of a Coney Island freak show. Goldberg plays angry well, successfully wearing the hat of the self-serious artist, snarling and brooding as he’s tormented by the need to fulfill his vision but always attuned to the vulnerability at Adrian’s core. Similarly, Shelton – who dons pairs of faux eyeglasses, tight creaky leather and bushy grass skirts – builds her character’s self-obsessed, too-serious demeanor with such relentless focus that it’s clear she’s compensating for a profound inner emptiness. They’ve all mastered the art of being funny without trying to be, mining the humor inherent in a situation rather than forcibly applying it.

Cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko pointedly emphasizes the background in most of the shots, framing the characters’ absurdist behavior and purposefully pretentious conversations against a backdrop of garish hanging objects, bare walls and minimalist paintings. The environment informs the proceedings in much the same fashion as rolling hills and vast streams might inform an epic, or a gritty industrial wasteland might draw out the grimy unpleasantness of a brutal thriller. It’s a strange, foreign world and entering it throws off the rules of normal human engagement. One understands why Adrian and Madeline feel so at home there: Far from the mainstream, it’s the only place that understands their avant garde sensibility and celebrates it.

The picture functions as a primer into some of the most unanswerable questions surrounding the ways art is socially received. It does periodically come across as an overly intellectual exercise, an exploration of Aesthetic Theory more befitting of the classroom than movie screens. Still, it presents a memorable cast of characters, proves humorous in a sly, deadpan way and evokes some smart surrealistic touches in its depiction of its insular, heightened setting. Mostly, (Untitled) is worth experiencing for its willingness to grapple with ideas larger than itself, to function on a base dramatic level and as a careful consideration of the complex forces than shape an artistic legacy.

The Upside: The movie is both funny and smart; two qualities that are too often lost these days.

The Downside: It’s occasionally almost too smart, and the absurdism can be tiresome.

On the Side: It’s a rare lead role for Adam Goldberg, an excellent character actor best known for his work in Saving Private Ryan and (unfortunately) The Hebrew Hammer.

Review: Amelia

Bethany Perryman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:12:26 +0000

Amelia Earhart’s accomplishments include:

Woman’s world altitude record: 14,000 ft (1922)
First woman to fly the Atlantic (1928)
Speed records for 100 km (and with 500 lb (230 kg) cargo) (1931)
First woman to fly an autogyro (1931)
Altitude record for autogyros: 15,000 ft (1931)
First person to cross the U.S. in an autogyro (1932)
First woman to fly the Atlantic solo (1932)
First person to fly the Atlantic twice (1932)
First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (1932)
First woman to fly non-stop, coast-to-coast across the U.S. (1933)
Woman’s speed transcontinental record (1933)
First person to fly solo between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, California (1935)
First person to fly solo from Los Angeles, California to Mexico City, Mexico (1935)
First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey (1935)
Speed record for east-to-west flight from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii (1937)

And now, 72 years later, we can add to this litany of acheivement:

Terrible Biopic (2009)

All of the elements of a good film are there: money, accomplished director (Mira Nair, The Namesake), one of the great American stories, Academy Award winning principal cast (Hillary Swank, Richard Gere), the unmistakable styles of roaring ’20s (and early ’30s), and several scenes with a child version of Gore Vidal. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out.

I’m not sure who to blame here. Is it the screenwriters, the producers, or director Mira Nair herself? No matter. Whomever decided which elements of Earhart’s life to feature in this Oscar-grab-of-a-biopic should find work at Lifetime Movie Network. Instead of exposing to us Earhart’s motivations for flying, we’re given a one-dimensional love story about an open marriage, and a flat tale of celebrity. We learn nothing about why she must fly, how she got interested in aviation, why exactly Earhart is a pioneer. We aren’t left with a message about women breaking boundaries, or even with a renewed appreciation for aviation. The relationship between aviation and Earhart is severely lacking — and that’s the only reason that anyone cares about her today. We came to the theater to fly, but Amelia never gets off the ground.

The dialogue, adapted from two separate Earhart biographies, is overly calculated and unworthy of its subject or its deliverers. Swank, Gere, and Ewan McGregor (whose character spends most of his screen time being seen and not heard — and not in a good way) do well with what they are given, but it’s just not much. Gere’s accent is a bit cartoony, but Swank clearly studied and practiced Earhart’s accent. She lands both her tenor and the timing of the era. It’s too bad that the dialogue she’s given to work with is dry as dirt.

With flat characters, unclear motivations, and blank words, you’d expect the score to be memorable or the movie itself to be beautiful. Not so. While there are sparse few moments of hope — a tickertape parade for Earhart that’s particularly well-shot, some magnificient roving landscape shots of blue whale families in the ocean, a cool thunderstorm in the clouds, Victoria Falls, and the Masai Mara — most of the scenes are just bland, with the obvious, clamoring score only serving to make things worse.

Most offensive is the insult to our intelligence, and the lack of any lesson learned by or about Ms. Earhart. I want a story to take home from this movie, but I’m fed a tacky montage of newspaper headlines that quickly coast through Earhart’s celebrity and career. Throughout the film, I couldn’t help but think Wow, I want to see what I just read in that fake newspaper actually happening on-screen, and Why am I reading about The New Deal? Instead, I’m given Earhart cheating on her husband, hanging out with a young Gore Vidal (I’m sorry, that was just stupid, historically inaccurate, and weird), and inappropriately having a “let them eat cake” moment concerning The Great Depression. We want inspiring, we’ll take beautiful. What we get is aggressively schmaltzy.

The Upside: Two standout performances: A convincingly tragic Christopher Eccleston as Earhart’s navigator Fred Noonan, and Earhart’s Lockheed Electra. It’s a damn shame that beautiful bird was never found.

The Downside: 89% of the movie.

On The Side: Joining the Film School Rejects crew at the screening were the Austin, Texas chapter of the Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots whose founder and first president was Amelia Earhart.

Watch the Amelia trailer:

Review: Saw VI

Dr. Cole Abaius — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:50:37 +0000

Last year, I wrote a rather scathing review of Saw V because, well, because it was an awful movie that sticks out like a sore thumb in the series. Tonight at midnight I watched the follow-up to that ignoble effort, and I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face. The gore is great, the weight of the drama is good, and the franchise has been redeemed.

After Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) is killed, Jigsaw’s replacement Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) goes through with the plan to frame him for the murders, but the FBI is delving deeper and getting closer. Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) big picture is finally realized in a game which sees a major insurance company executive (Peter Outerbridge) forced through a game that will have him questioning the cold calculations that decide who lives and who dies.

It would seem natural that anything after Saw V would have to be a breathe of fresh, rusted metal air. But believe me when I say that a lot of what made Saw great in the first place is back on all cylinders with this entry. Admittedly, the first trap doesn’t thrill completely, but the ones involved in insurance man William’s game are well-thought out and usually double as metaphors. One particularly gruesome trap sees an insurance lawyer working her way through a maze of steam jets and fire, and the carousel scene involving 6 people, a shotgun, and an ultimatum squeezes every last ounce of drama out of the situation that it can.

Chalk that up to a return (on screen at least) of Jigsaw as his story is further told through flashbacks. This is admittedly a slight pitfall of structure – having to constantly flashback to reveal more of us his life – but, 1) they at least never flashback during a flashback (Seriously, Saw V?) and 2) it’s a welcomed bit of medicine to take if it means having Jigsaw back in the mix in a big way.

While the gore and cleverness of the traps is a main draw (and an abundance of practical bones and blood), the story here is really strong. It’s a little heavy handed, specifically in one quick scene, but seeing a health insurance executive put through one of Jigsaw’s elaborate games involves a ton of opportunity for depth. It’s a figure in our lives that sticks to, or in William’s case invents, a prescribed formula that essentially decides who can afford that operation they need and who can’t. It seems like a ready-made villain, but Saw VI doesn’t cheaply put him on the chopping block and bring the hammer down. Instead, they display William as more than just bad because of his job title and then send him off through a harrowing journey that’s compelling, and he actual shows growth.

So dealing with the health insurance world does get a little political – something sort of refreshing from a movie like this – but it also fits in with Jigsaw’s history perfectly and gives him something large enough and meaningful enough to feed into his games. The film borrows fairly well tonally and thematically from Saw III where a man is put to the test by having the power to save or kill, but this film moves beyond that concept to torture William more psychologically than anything else. And it works really well.

Of course, it’s not just his game. Hoffman is on the other side of the glass, and his story is filled in alongside some other details about Jigsaw’s other accomplice, Amanda (Shawnee Smith). Sadly, Hoffman is still played by Costas Mandylor who continues to be just about as cardboard as an actor can get. I’m also not a fan of Betsy Russell, the actress who plays Jigsaw’s wife. Something about her seems far too soap opera-esque even for a flick like this.

But the acting isn’t all flat. Tobin Bell excels even more than in other entries. I still wouldn’t want him singing me happy birthday with that voice, but it’s obvious that the man can deliver, and he brings a thoughtfulness and compassion even to a gruesome mind like Jigsaw’s. The ethical conundrum of his non-murder that should have been beaming bright in the rest of the films is finally present front and center as you watch Bell deliver a strong, empathetic performance while mentally rooting for Peter Outerbridge’s insurance man to suffer.

Fortunately, Outerbridge also gives life to what could have easily been a cliche, having to stretch from cold crocodile tears to appreciation for the people around him. In a way, this film is like a fucked up adaptation of A Christmas Carol in that way with William as Mr. Scrooge. If, you know, if Jigsaw is the Ghost of Christmas Past and a bear trap strapped to your face is the Ghost of Christmas Future.

The film suffers in a few spots from its quick-cut editing and two noticable Duh Reminders (those flashbacks that show you something that happened ten minutes ago). The acting, as stated, is weak from some characters, and the score doesn’t make itself known as much as it could have. But over all, Saw VI is a great, sickening, rounded entry into the franchise and a fun horror film in its own right.

The Upside: More Jigsaw, clever traps and gruesome kills. A story with impact and weight to it.

The Downside: Costas Mandylor, some jarring shots, and the film’s belief that I won’t remember something ten minutes later.

On the Side: Director Kevin Greutert has extensive editing experience including editing all of the Saw films and has a last name that’s difficult to pronounce. The franchise is returning to Saw V director David Hackl for its next entry for some strange reason!

On the FSR Side: This is somehow post 56-666. Well played, fate.

Foreign Objects: The Baader Meinhof Complex

Rob Hunter — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:15:50 +0000

Foreign Objects travels the world of international cinema each week to look for films worth visiting. So renew your passport, get your shots, and brush up on the local age of legal consent, this week we’re heading to…

Germany!

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I don’t know everything. The range of what I don’t know is actually fairly impressive in it’s own right and includes (but is not limited to) the solution to the Hodge conjecture, what another word for ’synonym’ is, the justification behind pea soup, the location of the Holy Grail, and much, much more. My ignorance is most notable (and most shameful) though when it comes to historical events. I blame the Catholics and their close-minded school system, but many Americans are in the same boat when it comes to being unaware of even recent historical events outside of our borders. For example, did you know there was an active domestic terrorist organization in West Germany for thirty of the last forty years? (You probably did, but it was news to me.)

My admission of historical ignorance has probably made this clear already, but my review below and the events I’m referencing are based on the film not the history. Multiple claims have already been made against The Baader Meinhof Complex’s authenticity and veracity, and since my source for factual information is Wikipedia please remember I’m reviewing the film and nothing more.

The Baader Meinhof Complex tells the story of West Germany’s homegrown terrorist group called the Red Army Faction from their creation in the early 1970’s to the point of irrelevancy less than a decade later. The film focuses on the seventies but starts a few years earlier to introduce the players and set the stage for what’s to come. Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) is a journalist for a left-wing publication known for her critiques of the German government’s policies. As a child who lived through Germany’s experiment with Nazi insanity she’s appalled by and fearful of a government run by some of those very same ex-Nazis. She meets Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) and finds in them a couple who share her anti-establishment beliefs but to a much more radical degree. After being arrested for various crimes including department store arson, Baader escaped from custody with Meinhof’s aid and soon the three of them form the core of the RAF. They commit bank robberies (to fund the revolution!), bomb US military buildings (to protest American imperialism!), bomb a German newspaper building (to stop the presses!) and kill police officers (err, because they got in the way!) The trio is eventually arrested in a sweeping (and brilliantly orchestrated) day of anti-terrorism planning and placed in prison. The remainder of the film follows their protracted and controversial legal battle as well as the activities of next generation RAF members on the outside trying to win their freedom through kidnappings, assassinations, and bungled hostage situations.

The film opens with people enjoying the beach on a warm summer day. Men, women, and children… all completely and utterly nude. Were I European I may not have given the scene a second thought, but as someone unaccustomed to seeing naked eight year-old girls (let alone naked kids interacting with naked adults) it struck me as gratuitous and intentionally shocking. As the film went on however, I realized that the scene serves an important purpose. This is the one and only time we’ll be seeing characters and people completely exposed and purely innocent. The rest of the film is filled with violence, infidelity, mistrust, deceit,and deception. No one is immune, and there is no “good” to combat the “evil” because everyone on both sides is tainted and guilty to varying degrees. But that opening scene shows people with nothing to hide and nothing to fear… at least until it ends with Meinhof noticing her husband’s wandering eye.

The first hour or so of The Baader Meinhof Complex is fantastic . The leads are all introduced effectively, and we get an easy sense of their personalities as well as their cause. A peaceful protest being held against visiting dignitaries from an oppressive country sets the stage for the rebellion in stunning fashion with protestors being attacked and pummeled first by the regime’s supporters and then by the police. A riot ensues and the screen is filled with absolute chaos as people are beaten, trampled, and arrested, and the entire mayhem-filled scene is scored with adrenaline to the point where you’re as worked up as the crowd. (It’s actually scored by Peter Hinderthur and Florian Tessloff, but they work under the collective name of Adrenalin. That last part isn’t true.) The university rally that follows is equally impressive in scope and presentation, and it helps bring the film and the times to life. And those times are a fully realized 1970’s from the wardrobe and personal styles to the cars, set dressing, and intercut news footage. It’s all beautifully and faithfully done. By the time the three radicals takes a misguided trip to Jordan for terrorist training we have a good sense of what each one of them are truly after.

Once Baader, Meinhof, and Ensslin are arrested though the film loses both it’s focus and narrative drive. Hunger strikes and media attention lead to the prison granting the terrorists more freedom within their walls. They’re allowed to mingle, and they’re given radios, TVs, and bookshelves. It’s a ridiculous amount of leeway and it returns to bite everyone in the ass as their trial progresses. The film splits at this point into two unfulfilling paths. One follows their travails in prison and the other shows new RAF members acting on the outside. The problem is that the characters we know have become inert and inactive leaving the film’s energy in the hands of generic and interchangable radicals on the outside. They run around causing havok but we have no investment in the characters and we often don’t even know their names. By the time the film culminates in 1977 with the chaotic maelstrom of violence and death that came to be known as ‘German Autumn’ we’ve already lost interest in both the characters and their cause.

There’s also the potential problem of identifying the RAF as either heroes or terrorists. The movie does a fair job of showing both sides of their personality coin… they’re strong and charismatic some times and weak and egotistical at other times. It’s easy to see why and how they could build a following of fellow radicals as well as gain the support of some in the population at large. Their arguments were valid and their message was clear, but it’s just as easy to see that they were also little more than bullies, thugs, and attention junkies. One exchange between the trio highlights their differing aspects well. Ensslin says they’re ”forming a group. We’re going to change the political situation” to which Meinhof replies, “How is that possible?” Baader retorts immediately and forcefully, “What a fucking bourgeois question. We’ll just do it. Or we’ll die trying.”

The film has multiple strengths to counter it’s long running time (two and a half hours) and rambling second half. In addition to the immersive cinematography and set design mentioned above, the acting is exceptional across the board. The stand out performance is Gedeck’s portrayal of a woman who moves from a loving mother and wife with leftist (but pacifistic) beliefs to a radical reactionary who slowly sheds her family and loyalties as she falls prey to ambition and her own growing agenda. The film’s violence is also plentiful and realistic. Gunfights are brief and sloppy with bullets missing their marks more often than they connect. When they do impact flesh it’s done with an appreciated and gritty realism. Pacing is never a problem for the film either, even during the second half where our interest wanes, thanks to a steady mix of action and prisoner shenanigans.

Is The Baader Meinhof Complex factually accurate? I don’t know, but it is an engaging and incomplete look at a time and a place that Germany and the world at large should never forget. As one German official leading the fight against the RAF says, “In the long run it’s pointless to bash heads… those in political power must change the conditions that lead to the rise of terrorism.” Whether or not those words were actually spoken at the time or were added for today’s relevance the conclusion remains a definitive one on the part of the filmmakers. Director Uli Edel and writer Bernd Eichinger (from the book by Stefan Aust) have created a flawed film that tells an important story. It’s thought provoking on several levels, entertaining at times, and ultimately encourages the viewer to explore issues that may have occured elsewhere but that are just as relevant wherever they may live.

The Upside: Interesting and eye-opening account of Germany’s encounter with domestic terrorism; violence is fast, brutal, and believably messy

The Downside: Too long and too much time spent on time in prison; second half loses focus; ending should have included an update of some kind on both the people and the cause

On the Side: The RAF officially disbanded in April of 1998 with a letter sent to Reuters stating ”Almost 28 years ago, on 14 May 1970, the RAF arose in a campaign of liberation. Today we end this project. The urban guerrilla in the shape of the RAF is now history.”

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