My Bloody Valentine 3-D

So it appears that kitschy cinema fad, 3-D has reared it's head to the moviegoing public yet again, and this time with a vengeance. Not since the early 1980's have there been this many flinch-inducing, headache machines being released in such a rapid succession. Starting with last year's Beowulf, this summer's line-up looks to be packed with image-poppery (Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens and Disney/Pixar's Up leading the charge,) though the most successful projects seem to only be animated. Thus far, I've only seen one of the two live-action 3-D movies to come out, and that movie was My Bloody Valentine.

Now, I must warn you. This movie is absolutely terrible. Possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. But I'll be damned if I didn't have the best time ever while hating this movie. There is absolutely no reason to see this movie unless you're in a theater with those ridiculously awkward glasses draped across your nose. The acting is shoddy, the plot is practically non-existent, the dialog is laughable, etc. etc. ad nauseum. While this makes for a terrible horror movie (or movie in general) this is almost the perfect comedy. Probably because no one knew they were making a comedy. It's quite possible I laughed harder at this movie than during Tropic Thunder or Pineapple Express (key word, laugh AT, not WITH.) Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should take notes from this MBV because this is what true parody looks like.

The plot is inconsequential, really. A bunch of teens get murdered at a party at a local mine (apparently, that's the only place to party in the middle of nowhere town that this takes place in.) Murderer wears a mining suit and mask, uses a pick-axe, we've seen it all before. Flashforward ten years or so, the "friends" that survived find themselves being stalked and murdered by a similar killer. Yes, it's THAT original (after all, this IS a remake, kind of.) The kills are many, the ending is cheap but let me tell you why this is so awesome.

Aside from the veritable buffet of laughs this flick serves up, the 3-D was absolutely awesome. There were several points where I found myself actually ducking in my seat to avoid being hit in the face by whatever the character just hurled toward the screen (eyeball, pistol, tiny yapping dog...) In addition to that kind of awesomeness, the scenes that did absolutely NOTHING for the 3-D aspect became that much more funny due to the fact that it makes you feel as if you're ACTUALLY a part of the mundane, contrived BS conversations and arguments the characters are laboriously trudging through.

Again, there is absolutely no reason to see this movie unless it's huge and 3-D. And two months after the fact, I say, good luck. Does Blu-Ray have 3-D capability? Let's hope so. And it might be cheaper than a movie theater considering they charge something like $2 for those stupidly clunky glasses.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In development for years from a director that is shrouded in controversy and frustration, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button stumbled out from behind the curtain during the holiday season. Sadly, it just could not compete with the box-office draw of a yellow-lab puppy (if that's in fact the correct breed...) and was welcomed with lukewarm reception. Regardless, Benny Buttons managed to eke its way into my list of top films of the year on principle alone. Of everything I've seen in 2008 only this film and two others (Slumdog Millionaire, previously reviewed and Milk, review coming soon) evoked a purely visceral emotional response from me.

Using more of the lengthy narrative structure used in his 2006 sleeper hit Zodiac (a frustratingly brilliant film, I might add) Fincher captures the tragic futility and inherent beauty of the human lifespan, skewed from the eyes of a man who experiences it all backwards, and in a lot of ways more forward than anyone ever has. Drawing comparisons from screenwriter Eric Roth's previous work on Forrest Gump, which told the extraordinary story of a simple man, Button tells a similarly parallel tale of an extraordinary man who led a, more or less, simple life. The events in his life aren't groundbreaking moments in American history, but significant moments that make a person who they are, and Fincher captures it with heartbreakingly detailed precision. Drawing the parallels between childhood and old age, the similarities in mentality and the tragic contrast in seeing an old man with the curiousity and wonderment of a 6 year old and the sorrowful depiction of a small child grappling with all the fading memories that once made up who he once was.

A plethora of characters weave their way through Button's life. Benjamin's adoptive black mother, Queenie and her lover (though never husband) Tizzy. The swarthy tattooed sailor Captain Mike (executed brilliantly by Jared Harris, seen on recent episodes of FOX's sci-fi drama Fringe and 2002's Igby Goes Down) and the first person to take hold of Benjamin's heart, Elizabeth Abbott (his Burn After Reading co-star Tilda Swinton) to name a few.

Most notably in the film is Brad Pitt's transformation from a crippled and broken "old" man to the Pitt we've seen in such early 90's films as Thelma and Louise and Cool World (avoid the latter, for your own sake.) The early portion of the film achieving it's effects through the use of body actors and superimposing Pitt's face onto it (there may have been some CG tweaking to make him look extra geriatric.) After the CG scenes had run their course, the makeup for his 70's to late 30's was very well done. However, less talked about is the aging makeup and effects used on Cate Blanchett, who plays Button's lifelong love. Cast as Dakota Fanning's younger sister Elle in the first act, my only major complaint came from the fact that Blanchett's voice was used to overdub Elle's lines. Probably only executed to maintain some sort of familiarity with her later self, it came off as more distracting than anything else.

It's hard to tell what sort of moral Fincher (or adapted author F. Scott Fitzgerald) is trying to convey with this film. It can be taken a series of different ways. Most prominent are these two (a friend of mine read this somewhere, told me and I'm going to rehash it here.) This is a portrait of how beautiful life is when viewed from a different angle, or it is a testament to how tragic life can be, no matter which direction you live it.

Slumdog Millionaire

Unfortunately, I missed the advance screening of Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Millions) latest pet project when it screened at the Virginia Film Festival back in October. Three months later it got a limited release and I was able to catch it at our local avant garde theater wishing I'd had a chance to see it on a bigger screen. Here is the conundrum that breaks my heart. How does a movie this well put together, poignantly delivered and even socially relevant get released on as few theaters as possible to the tiniest audience bracket when a blatant Hollywood pocket liner like "What Happens in Vegas," "Four Christmases" and whatever bullshit Larry the Cable Guy comes up with will release to scathing reviews and still take #1 at the box office? End Rant...

Slumdog Millionaire is a veritable art museum of cinematography and editing. Of course, this comes as no surprise as this tends to be one of veteran director Danny Boyle's trademarks. Genre experimentation has also been his strong suit during the course of his career. Adding his signature visual aesthetic to such genre pieces like 1999's underdog rom-com A Life Less Ordinary, the zombie-esque apocalypse horror film 28 Days Later (which he is currently rumored to be revisiting for the franchises 3rd outing 28 Months Later) and sci-fi mood epic Sunshine. This time he takes on Bollywood and nails it with seeming ease and precision.

Again rooting for the underdog (or Slumdog in this case,) Millionaire follows the extraordinary life of Jamal Malik. Orphaned at an extremely young age, the course of his life is established through a set of flashbacks incited by the trivia questions on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," on which he has been accused of cheating. After all, who would expect a formerly homeless orphan to know the increasingly difficult answers on the widely popular gameshow. And since this is Mumbai we're talking about, the treatment of the perpetrator is less than pleasant at times, so be ready for that, at least. Luckily, for the films benefit, it doesn't fall into a predictable pattern (question, flashback, question, flashback, etc. etc.) It sets the stage this way and then finds it's own growth and narrative structure, all the while making sure to leave no question unanswered (so to speak.)

Hopefully, Slumdog Millionaire will be able to walk away with an award or two this season. An admirable feat considering there's not a single recognizable face in the film (all Indian cast, completely unknown within the US filmgoing community.) So whether you're able to see it in a theater this winter, or have to hold off until it's domestic DVD release, be sure that this film is on your "to see..." list as soon as possible, it's worth the time/wait/whatever might be holding you back.

RockNRolla

There was a time when Guy Richie was on top of the world. He'd had a breakthrough success with his two bit petty thug crime comedy called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and the even more successful pseudo-follow up Snatch (you know, the one with Brad Pitt.) He even went as far as marrying Madonna. It was about this time that he and fellow producer Matthew Vaughn parted ways. Vaughn pursuing projects like Layer Cake (starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig and the Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust) and Richie going on to release Swept Away, starring his wife and Revolver, which was delayed for about 3 years and to this date, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who's actually seen it.

Returning to the well from which spawned his first two successes, RockNRolla, after much deliberation, is a particularly unfortunate spectacle. It seems Guy has come down with what I like to call "George Lucas Syndrome." A small amount of large scale success and the ego is inflated to elephantine proportions wherein a story editor or second or third draft are no longer necessary to efficiently tell a compelling story, resulting in sloppy narrative and self indulgent exposition. In short, I was BORED. That's right, bored. At a Guy Richie movie! In what kind of Bizarro universe does this happen? Though with an impending divorce, I may not be the only one to notice Richie is slipping.

First off is the pacing issue. Now, I'm all for building the mood and character in lieu of dispensing the action for the sake of the audience attention span, but the first hour of RockNRolla is convoluted at best and the exposition does little to move forward or even explain the plot. This would seem formulaic for a Guy Richie film, but his priors (Lock,Stock and Snatch) did it with a more endearing and entertaining quality that culminated in a 3rd act that revealed all loose ends to be lit fuses connected to the same stick of dynamite, which would promptly explode some time before the credits rolled. In RockNRolla, the seemingly unrelated characters and incidents remain unrelated and the plot threads never really mesh for the better part of an hour and a half and then they all get shoehorned into a finale showdown that seems forced and comes off uninteresting and kind of predictable. By the time anything really started to happen, I was more preoccupied with how hungry I was than what was happening onscreen. Either I should eat more often or I was a victim of bad storytelling.

The cast with impressive credentials does very little to impress here. They also have the trademark weirdo gang names. Gerard Butler (making yet another attempt to break into the mainstream without resorting to chick flicks) is a thug that might be gay. Tom Wilkinson has a thick accent and a bald head. Thandie Newton proves once again that she IS in fact British, and Jeremy Piven and Chris Bridges (aka Ludacris) play a couple of record producers with very little to do (apparently the tour was over and Entourage was between seasons.) Relative newcomer Toby Kebbell plays drug addled rocker Johnny Quid who also narrates the tale, for no other good reason than his thick accent, rippling abs on an emaciated skeleton and his pointless contribution to the 3rd act showdown.

I'd hate to think that Guy Richie's career was a fluke at best, but he's done nothing to prove otherwise in the last 8 years since Snatch hit the screen (though his former cohort Jason Statham has proven he can maintain muscletone and be smarmy in EVERYTHING.) With a new twist on the classic Sherlock Holmes on the way starring new fan favorite Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law we'll see if Guy Richie still has what it takes to be the cutting edge director he once was or if his ship has indeed sailed. However, the Ninja Sherlock Holmes he's been pitching sure doesn't bode well. At least RDJr's got another Iron Man in the works to soften the blow.

Quantum of Solace

2006 saw the rebirth of a classic franchise that had been molested repeatedly for close to ten years. The James Bond name became an eye-rolling Disney ride of a cartoon by the time it reached Pierce Brosnan's final chapter (and not a moment too soon, either.) Casino Royale came out the gates with not only a new face to the unmistakable name, but an entirely new feel. Gone were the gadgetry, hokey dialog and world-domination-bent mastermind super villains that have haunted Ian Fleming's slicker-than-thou spy. In it's place was a well put together adaptation of the original novel, updated to make sense in the 21st century and grounding our hero back to a more human playing field.

Since *spoiler warning* Casino ends on a relatively cliff-hangery moment, the sequel was more or less imminent (also taking into consideration the box office intake, it was damn near guaranteed.) Does Quantum of Solace live up to the standard re-set by Casino Royale? Yes and no. It really depends on what you're looking for. The casual aesthetic of Casino is absent in lieu of a more action oriented pace, as the central plot involves Bond carrying out a personal vendetta.

New 007 director Marc Forster (acclaimed director of Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction) gives the film a certain Bourne quality with some excessively kinetic action sequences (I'm still not sure if my confusion came from our unfortunate vicinity to the screen or just extremely shaky camerawork,) though what can be made out is some rather impressive and entertaining spy-violence. Basically picking up mere minutes where Casino left us ("Bond, James Bond..." Bad-ass...) Quantum carves the path of an agent on the verge of going rogue, torn between his loyalty to his country and his desire for a bloody revenge. And, of course, no 007 adventure is complete without the signature "Bond Girl," which even in this case moves away from type and instead of a strict love-interest/sidekick, Camille (played passably by the lovely Olga Kurylenko) acts as more of a skewed mirror image of Bond. Sometimes working together out of happenstance, though never actually working toward the same goal. Two opposing though similar means to an end, which is to say, there are technically two villains to dispatch (one with considerably more screen time than the other, for obvious reasons.) Dominic Greene (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's Frenchman, Mathieu Amalric) is Bond's central target, a third world exploiting businessman with the temperment of a rabid hyena. Jeffrey Wright returns as American CIA agent Felix Leiter and 007's side source and of course, Dame Judy Dench as the cold, yet matronly M.

While sometimes a little confusing and a bit hard to piece together at times, Quantum of Solace is an ample follow up to a series reboot of Casino's magnitude (which was somewhere in the Batman Begins radius, though Quantum doesn't come close to The Dark Knight's sequel appeal, it does it's best.) There are some well placed and tasteful tributes to Ghosts Bond's Past, you may know them when you see them. While it's already debunked that the next installment will not be a further continuation of the Casino/Quantum arc, it's not a huge concern. If Casino Royale reinvented the Bond-Wheel, Quantum puts those wheels on a car, places an angry man behind the wheel and drives it through your living room wall.

Fringe - Season 1 Holiday Break Assessment

It's not surprising that the new J.J. Abrams series Fringe is doing as well as it is. With hits like Alias (first two seasons anyways) and LOST under his belt, this new age horror/sci-fi/mystery hybrid with the dynamic sensibilities of the X-Files of yesteryear has become the mainstay in my Fall season primetime TV watching routine; and not a moment too soon with the slipping integrity of former prodigal series Heroes.

While the similarities to X-Files are present (and sometimes just plain rampant) within each episode, Fringe manages to serve as more of an homage than a rip-off or clone. Replacing the aliens and unexplainable monsters is the seemingly untapped realm of "fringe science" (keep a record, how many times will I say Fringe in this whole thing? Four so far) or more appropriately "theoretical science," yet unproven phenomena such as ESP, cloning, teleportation, etc. There's the FBI, the interdepartmental division involved with the "out there" cases, and a company called Massive Dynamic which may or may not be involved in (wait for it...) a series of bizarre occurances being refered to as "the Pattern." In comparison to the inner workings of the island on LOST this sounds pretty simplistic, but with each new episode the mysteries seem to connect in the least likely of places creating a dark, mysterious and ominous atmosphere that's been missing from serialized drama over the last six or seven years.

Olivia Dunham, FBI (Aussie blonde newcomer Anna Torv) is called in on a case where a terrorist attack has just taken place on an incoming flight to Boston (no, not Oceanic flight 815, Glatterflug flight 627 to be exact but just for fun, Glatterflug is German for "Smooth Flight.") As it appears, all the passengers, including the terrorist, have seemingly melted. The big boss Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick, aka LOST's mystery man, Matthew Abadon) warns that this is part of something bigger and of course she doesn't believe him (but we all know that it's true.) However, in the midst of the case, Agent Dunham's boytoy/work partner, Agent John Scott is pretty much blown up and infected with the contagion from the Hamburg flight. This leads Dunham to her series cohorts Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble, Return of the King's evil madman Denethor) and his wanderlusting, arms dealing, swindler of an estranged son, Peter (Joshua Jackson, in a significant departure from Dawson's Creek's resident whatever-guy, Pacey.) Walter, having experienced a psychotic break in an undisclosed, work related accident alongside Massive Dynamic's founder Dr. William Bell, has spent the past 17 years in a mental institution. Dunham tracks down Peter and with his reluctant help, Walter is released to find a cure for Agent Scott's condition as he may have been familiar with the contagion. And this is just the first 20 minutes of a two hour pilot episode.

This week's episode, entitled "Safe" marks the last episode before the holiday break (not returning until late January, as most shows do in the winter months) leaving us with a pretty hefty cliffhanger. While some smaller questions were answered, like most of Abram's series, these just led to even larger, more prominent questions. Questions I don't think I can wait to be answered (but wait, I will.) I am also predicting some substantially cliffhanging season finales in the coming years.

Thanks to the nice timeslot, following House M.D, enough viewership warranted a full season order from cancellation mongers FOX and it continues to receive positive reviews from those who choose to write-up every week (ahem, Jeff Jensen... where's my Fringe TV Watch on EW already?) While it's proven to be a much more new-viewer friendly series for the most part, keeping the mythology heavy episodes fewer and farther between, I wouldn't be surprised if
the over-arcing storyline takes the lead should the show manage to stay on the air for more than two or three seasons.

Until its return I will likely be rewatching all 10 episodes, not to catch up per se, simply because the show is so damned fun to experience. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Kevin Smith is one of those directors that I'm so mindlessly faithful to he could put out a movie like Jersey Girl and I'd still pay to see it, and even kind of like it. While he's had trouble distancing himself from his roots in Jersey post-Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the summer vacation of a movie that was supposed to "tie off" the loose ends of the original series of preceding films (Clerks, MallRats, Chasing Amy and Dogma,) Jersey Girl rang a bit too sappy and sentimental for die-hard Smith fans and everyone else just plain hates Ben Affleck. So it was back to the watering hole for a final farewell to Red Bank with Clerks II (which underwent about 3 or 4 subtitles ranging from "Hardly Clerkin'" to "Passion of the Clerks.") This time, he's finally put these characters to rest, peacefully and respectfully with his new film Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Zack and Miri puts Kevin back in the seat where he's best. Writing for twenty-somethings. His eloquence and predilection for ten dollar words combined with lewd humor and sex jokes have and always will be his strongest suit and it is back in full force with this outing. Now, Smith is no stranger to controversy. Having previously fended off GLAAD and the Christian Coalition (receiving actual death threats from the latter...) he had to take on the industry's own MPAA this time around. Now it is literally impossible to make a movie entitled "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" without a moderate amount of onscreen sex, whether there's any nudity to go with it or not and while there IS full frontal on both male and female (in a brief comedic context and never onscreen together at the same time) the MPAA saw fit to slap an NC-17 rating across the little film. This is what could be the cinematic equivalent of the Motaba virus and Smith was not about to stand for it. Luckily, through several cuts and pleading his case to the board, he was able to squeeze an R rating before release.

Prerelease drama aside, Zack and Miri is a thoroughly enjoyable film if not a bit uneven at times. A staple of Smith's writing is one or two extended monologues purveying the thematic weight of the piece. Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves did this in Clerks, Jeremy London's T.S. Quint was responsible in MallRats, Ben Affleck's Holden McNeil piggybacked by an opposing Joey Lauren Adams as Alyssa Jones followed in Chasing Amy and so on. Seth Rogen's Zack Brown pulls it off well in this outing, unfortunately it's at this point where the movie loses focus. Now, I'm all about emotional depth and building believable characters, but this should not come at the expense of the narrative story-arc. Without spoiling too much, if the title of the movie states that two people are setting out to do a particular thing, it's probably a good idea to ensure that A) they do just that and B) if said objective is not completed, give us a plausible explanation why. While it's definitely not my least favorite of Smith's filmography, it is far from the best. In truth, it almost seems like a less genuine younger brother to '96's Chasing Amy.

Casting-wise, the only returning Jersey Alums are Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves of Clerks fame) and Jason Mewes (actually NOT playing Jay) who do their thing passably, Mewes actually coming off slightly nerdier than his previous alter ego. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (having worked together on Judd Apatow's 40 Year-Old Virgin) have a chemistry that is both obviously awkward and sweetly endearing. Rogen, apt at playing the stocky blockhead since his debut in Judd's one-season series Freaks & Geeks is pretty much perfect for Smith's brash loudmouth character (he's always got at least one of them, except it's usually Jason Lee.) Though this time, the sensitive guy and the loudmouth are rolled into one person which added a strange sense of inner conflict that seemed like relatively new territory, though it was left mostly unexplored by the film's end. Elizabeth Banks' Miriam Linky is just plain adorable, as most of her characters are. The Office warehouse worker Craig Robinson steps in as Zack's coffee shop work-buddy (we get the idea they would be closer friends if he weren't married) and makes for some particularly funny exchanges. Porn-heir Tracy Lords also makes an appearance (after all, you can't make a movie about porn without a veteran, thankfully this time it wasn't Ron Jeremy) and shows some actual acting chops. However, the show stealer comes and goes within the first 20 minutes. Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers and last summer's Die Hard 4, possibly cast due to his on set friendship with Kevin) displays some character acting beyond compare in a Kevin Smith film as a west-coast gay porn actor with a ironic connection to Zack and Miri's graduating class. Complete with gravelly voice, slicked back hair and what just might have been some well placed ad libs, I was in stitches for the depressingly short duration of his presence on-screen.

While not quite as funny as some of the other comedies of '08 (more laughs per capita are present in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express) it's still well worth a trip to the theater now that we can all put gas in our cars without breaking the bank. And though it gets a little lost in the message, it is a message that we can all aspire to in one way or another. I'm interested to see where Kevin Smith goes from here, having recently announced a horror film (Red State) and a yet untitled sci-fi picture.