The Wolfman

The Wolfman was AWESOME.

No, really, it totally was. It struck all of the right notes, from the dry-ice fog on the ground to the overwrought Gothic castle (complete with dry leaves crumbled on the floor!) and the tension-building violin music in the background. The story itself had some problems, but watching it was a joy. Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving are a triangle of fabulous acting and you can tell they were having fun: each of them owns their character, delivering a perfectly balanced triad of hunter, hunted, and orchestrator. Hopkins is perhaps the standout, portraying a loving, if distant, father figure with such subtlety you don't notice until its too late that he's been hiding dangerous insanity. Weaving and Del Toro have somewhat less complex characters to play, but they still deliver with a ferocity and believability that is engaging to watch.

Emily Blunt is completely wasted in her role as Gwen, the fiancee of dead brother Ben and later love interest of Del Toro's Lawrence, which is a criticism of the role rather than the actor. She is given hardly anything to do but simper, although she, also, takes hold of her role and acts the hell out of it. It is a testament to her skills as an actor that she is interesting to watch onscreen, even when all she is doing is running away.

There are moments of real fright in the film, moments that make your skin crawl and moments that make you jump out of your chair. The score plays a big part in this - in any other instance, I would have said it was over dramatic. Here, though, EVERYTHING is so over dramatic that it loops back around to believable. The movie picks an aesthetic and sticks to it like nothing else, and it is SO over the top that you can't help but get drawn in. Right down to the end credits, which are played over various medical sketches and diagrams attempting to illustrate some of the "science" behind lycanthropy, the film owns its vision, and it is a vision I love.

What I loved most about The Wolfman is that it, somewhat like Underworld, takes pop culture back to the roots of lycanthropy: unromanticized and violent, deformed and doomed. These are not Stephanie Meyer's "werewolves," they are not Anne Rice's, they are not the self-aware shapeshifters that run freely with the wolf pack and can change at will. They are MONSTERS. There is nothing romantic about Benicio Del Toro's plight, and Gwen KNOWS that - as she frantically searches for a way to save him, she comes to the same realization that the audience does. For Lawrence, and for anyone cursed like this, there is only one solution, and there's no getting around that. Not a happy ending, but a necessary one, and I personally don't think it could have ended any other way.

My mother's quest

My mother, like myself, is a very big fan of cinema and also of the Oscars telecast. Every year, she makes it her personal mission to see most, if not all, of the films that have been recognized by the Academy, because it makes the show more interesting to watch. I also try to do this, because I enjoy having a knowledge of the performances - this way I can agree or disagree with the Academy's choices on an informed basis.

This year is no different - my mother made up a list of all the films nominated for the major awards and planned her attack thusly. I am to be taken along for the ride, because my father is not quite so invested in the Oscars as we are. It's a bit tricky at the moment, since some of the films on her list (Invictus, The Last Station) were not wide-release to begin with and are now almost vanished from theaters. But some are actually out on DVD or available on Pay-Per-View, which was how we came to see The Hurt Locker.

Do not doubt that The Hurt Locker deserves all the praise it has been receiving. Ms. Bigelow has created something raw and gritty, that gave me insight into something I didn't know much about before. She captures the tense moments perfectly and for exactly the right amount of time - it is easy, I think, to over- or under-play those "edge of your seat" moments, and Bigelow gets them down perfectly. The opening scene had me sweating in my chair after only a few minutes; a scene in which Jeremy Renner works on a car bomb made me near forget to breathe.

The one technique Bigelow overplayed, in my opinion, was the shaky real-cam. I developed a bit of a headache by the end because of all the bouncing around; this style of shooting does give it somewhat of a documentary type feel, but it is a conceit that the movie is strong enough to do without. I would have felt the impact more if it had been used more sparingly to highlight the peak moments of stress.

Renner is fair brilliant as the adrenaline-addicted bomb diffuser; I had to ingest the film for a while after I saw it, to reconcile the two distinct halves of the film, but I think they ultimately mesh so well because of how Renner folds the mechanics of bomb diffusion show-cased in the first hour into the deeper examination of his psyche in the second hour. (Immediately after viewing I had a problem with two deaths that I thought were unnecessary and cheap - on further thought, I still think that of one, but not the other.)

The Hurt Locker suffers by occasionally overplaying its hand. As I mentioned above, Bigelow takes two easy shots, one of which she convinces me is worth it at the end and one of which she doesn't. I already know that war is hell and that there are no winners and it's unfair and all of that, and the film does a good job of reinforcing those points; I don't need the extra, predictable, unnecessary death to prove that. I also felt the end was too obvious; I won't go into details, but a quote opens the movie and then you get slammed in the face with it at the end.

Worthy of the Best Picture nom? Absolutely. Worthy of the win? Moreso than Avatar, but District 9 is still my favorite - D9 and Hurt Locker are both movies about war and about marginalized people, but D9 tells a stronger story in a more impressionable way. And it doesn't overload you with shaky-cam.

REALLY the 50 Worst Movies? Are You Sure?

I was directed to Empire Online's list of The 50 Worst Movies Ever recently, and I have to say, if I was making this list it would have turned out a little differently. I understand that there are some occasions when I am a little more forgiving of quality because I am entertained, but I think that's the point - a Worst Movie Ever should have NO redeeming features, and entertainment is pretty much the prescribed purpose of cinema. Why SHOULDN'T I enjoy a movie that, despite a cheesy script or dubious acting, makes me want to watch it again because it's fun? And at fifty slots, I am POSITIVE I could come up with enough vacant, mindless piles of dribble to fill it.

Here are, specifically, the ones I disagree with:

41. Van Helsing (2004)

Yes, the Dracula in this film bares little to no resemblance to Stoker's creature of nightmares, but Hugh Jackman and David Wenham made a charming pair with some good banter. Jackman is a pretty awesome Action Hero, but he also has the acting chops to bring some meat to what could have been an empty-headed muscle man; his Van Helsing was intriguing and likable. Kate Beckinsale struck the right notes of over-the-top and sympathetic, in her leather corset and take-no-shit-from-these-vampire-hookers attitude. Plus the visual effect is gothic and interesting.

30. Scary Movie (2000)

Anna Faris alone makes this one worth watching (or at least, makes me pause for a scene or two whenever it's on Comedy Central). I will always defend the Scary Movie franchise because there are nuggets of actual, belly-laughing humor in there. I don't disagree that this film is bad, just that there are worse films (with no comedic value whatsoever) that should have been called out before this one. If the list went to 100, then maybe. Otherwise I'd advise you to enjoy watching Faris stretch her comedy legs.

28. The Sweetest Thing (2002)

I genuinely thought this film was sweet and enjoyable, with a solid cast and just the right ending (my dad owns it because he likes it so much). In a world where Cameron Diaz only makes something worth seeing every fifth movie or so, I thought the harmless rom-com environment of this film (you know how it ends, and frankly that's ok with me, because one watches this sort of film for the predictable ending) was good for her. She got to be awkward and unsure and I believed her. It's a feel-good movie that does its job, and I don't fault it for that.

25. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

While it did not deliver in the same grand way that its predecessor did, Fallen still made good on all that it promised: big fucking robots fighting each other and destroying large chunks of the landscape. Director Michael Bay could have used more restraint in the number of bots and the visual effects needed to be more streamlined (can I PLEASE get a slow-mo of someone transforming? It looks SO cool but I just can't SEE), and every scene with the two idiot twins could have seen them replaced with Sideswipe and Ironhide, but this film never pretends to be anything other than what it is. And what THAT is, is a two-hour roller coaster that leaves you energized and rooting for Optimus Prime as well as that (already in production) third film.

And finally, let it be said that I am not arguing Batman & Robin's place on this list, but surely it should not be #1? Bloodrayne (2006) didn't even MAKE this list, and that's arguably the worst film I've ever seen. Other notable "snubs" (in my humble opinion):

Anything Uwe Boll has ever done, ever

Manos: Hands of Fate (1966) - You know, pretty much anything that is improved by being MST3K'ed.

Dead Alive (1992) - In my opinion, this doesn't even qualify for "so-bad-it's-good" status.

Cabin Fever (2002) - Dear Eli Roth: Grow up a little. Then you can make REAL movies.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003) - SO much potential.

Aeon Flux (2005) - Although they did get Ultraviolet (2006) at #33

AVPR: Requiem (2007) - The first AVP (2004) was at least fun to watch. This one, when you could actually SEE what was going on (only about 25% of the time due to poor lighting and effects) was so boring I almost injured myself.

Balls of Fury (2007) - Ping pong as a gladiatorial event. About as exciting as that sounds.

Good Luck Chuck (2007) - Oh Dane Cook. Please go back to stand-up comedy. At least there, you're actually FUNNY instead of painfully awkward.

Dragon Wars (2007) - Scratch the Bloodrayne comment. This is the worst film EVER made.

Unnecessary Sequels

It is no mystery that Hollywood is obsessed with sequels, and as much as it (sometimes) annoys me, I totally get it. Cinema is, like everything else, first and foremost a business. People who work in film, whether they are actors, producers, set people, studio monkeys, whatever, are just trying to make a buck. So I don't begrudge them the desire to make money off a sure thing. If a movie is successful there's a good chance a sequel will be coming out, because if the first one was a hit, a second one is more likely to make money than a totally new idea (see also: remakes).

But there are some things that really, shouldn't be touched. Like this.

First of all, based on my above analysis, I'm not entirely sure that making a sequel to Watchmen even makes fiscal sense. It only recovered its cost of filming after international sales, and it got pretty reamed in the reviews. I liked it, actually quite a bit (I also love the comic, before you even ask), but I know I'm in the minority. What part of that makes sense to make another one?

In the article I linked to above, Snyder AND the actors agree with me: this is a Bad Idea. DC, why do you want so hard to sabotage your film studio? As Malin Ackerman, an actress I don't even LIKE, says, "... I don’t really know how [a sequel] would ever be possible. Because ‘Watchmen’ is ‘Watchmen,’ and we covered pretty much the whole novel."

DC is hardly short of good superhero material. As long as they keep making Batman movies, I will keep seeing Batman movies (I ALSO wish that Brandon Routh would reprise his delicious turn as Superman, but unfortunately, his contract ran out and there hasn't even been a whisper of a rumor of that being renewed). So please, leave well enough alone. Let those of us who enjoyed the movie keep watching it, and rejoice that you made the comic more accessible to more people. This sequel would just cost you time, money, and credibility.