The Human Centi-WHUT

I'd like to address an issue that is facing modern cinema, and that deeply concerns me. It has to do with a genre of film that I don't have a lot to do with, because I have a serious problem with horror. Any horror movie you watched that made you say, "Hey, that wasn't so scary," I guarantee it terrified me. There are TRAILERS I can't watch because they scare me so deeply. I once saw a trailer for the movie Slither and repressed it so deeply that when I had a nightmare about it, I had no idea where the images came to me from.

But I'm fascinated by horror: I can't watch it, but I read all about it. I beg people to know the ends to the movies I'm too chicken to see. I can spend hours on Wikipedia reading about these movies that I'll never see. You can imagine my fascination when I stumbled across a film called The Human Centipede, accompanied by a poster of a silhouetted person with two extra sets of arms. "Oh," I thought. "It's a monster movie. About a mutant person. With extra hands, and maybe extra legs."

Oh, how little did I know...

The trailer didn't work on my computer and now I know this is a blessing. The Human Centipede is a nightmare film the likes of which I hope never to see again. The plot is grotesquely simple: a mad doctor kidnaps three people and stitches them together into a "human centipede," connected by their digestive systems. Mouth to ass. And this is where I died a little inside.

Is this really what the horror film genre has sunk to? What happened to subtlety? What happened to letting our own minds provide the scare? Hitchcock knew how to scare without blood. Stephen King and his movie adapters understood that a a skillfully placed noise could make you shudder better than a medical freak show. When did filmgoers decide they'd rather experience vomit-inducing imagery than eerie cinematography?

How To Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks doesn't have a very good reputation with moviegoers right now, and I only understand part of that. I skipped Monsters Vs. Aliens, with good reason I think, but the first two Shrek movies where a romping good time and Kung Fu Panda was fun seasoned with the right amounts of comedy, sweetness, and old-fashioned ass kicking. So I wasn't as skeptical going in to How To Train Your Dragon as some people may have been, and I feel like my open-mindedness was justly rewarded.

Every part of this movie is good. Dreamworks has definitely stepped up their game in terms of animation, and Dragon is visually their best work by miles. Sweeping skies and pounding waves make up the backdrop of this Viking story, with a few idyllic forest scenes and a waterfall tucked away for emphasis. One of Dreamworks' flaws in the past has been over-filling their scenes, so that you get overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF in the frame (that isn't rendered nearly as well as, oh, Pixar) but here wide spaces are used to dramatic effect. Watching the little black dragon sweep through a backdrop of mounded clouds is breath-taking.

Speaking of that little black dragon, Toothless and his lizardy friends are the absolute show stealers here. Jay Baruchel's Hiccup doesn't compete with them for the attention they command; instead, he seems to spend most of the time presenting them for appreciation. Toothless, his sleek, black adopted friend, is somewhere between a housecat, a leopard, and a really big snake - he's intelligent, and fierce, but inclined to roll in the grass to scratch an itch, or prepare a pounce from a rocky ledge. I was fascinated by the other varieties of dragon that are also in play; a two-headed beast, a long and pointy one that sets itself on fire, a stubby fat one that resembles a junebug. They're unique, and exceptional, and they're not pretty - these dragons are not romanticized, and I appreciated that.

The Vikings are, for the most part, not nearly as interesting, but they fill their story roles well. The voice cast helps enormously with that: Baruchel is funny, self-deprecating, with perfect vocal inflection for the max amount of comedic timing possible. Gerard Butler is gruff and awkward (and doesn't hide his Scottish accent, THANK GOD) and the perfect duo with Craig Ferguson, who plays a blacksmith missing several limbs. The Vikings are funny but never clownish, which went a long way to keeping the tension in necessary places; even though, intellectually, I KNEW everything would turn out ok in the end, the film kept enough gravity that I was at the edge of my seat as it neared its climax.

Even if you don't like fantasy, even if animation isn't your thing, see this one. It's touching, poignant, silly, and will cause you to gasp in excitement. (As a side note, I did not see it in 3D and I didn't feel like I was missing anything.)

Clash of the Titans

I grew up watching the glorious, campy, jerky-effects ridden Greek mythology movies. Jason and the Argonauts, the myriad Voyages of Sinbad, and especially Clash of the Titans - Ray Harryhausen productions are an indelible part of my childhood. So when I first heard a rumor of Clash of the Titans being revamped, I was absolutely thrilled. What could be better than taking the familiar story and giving its Eighties-era aesthetic a shot of adrenaline? Converting Harry Hamlin into Sam Worthington, pitting Liam Neeson against Ralph Fiennes, and gigantic scorpions; how could it go wrong?

Damn the 3D technological movement, is what I have to say about that. Damn it and throw it out the window.

The remake, which I saw on Saturday with my parents and my boyfriend, simplifies the story from the original, sticking closer to the myth itself. What we lose is basically the Calibos storyline, which is tragic only in that we also miss out on the eternally brilliant line, "Calibos! Be merciful!" Zeus and Hades are the only gods that get screen time (although there is a fabulous call-back to Athena from the original when Worthington unearths Bubo the mechanical owl from a chest of armor). The battle with Medusa has survived basically intact, and Medusa benefits hugely from the improved effects, becoming a sleek and terrifying monster that moves through her temple with sibilant ferocity. The film is fun, exciting in moments, and as fabulously violent as I'd hoped.

Where it suffers, and it does suffer greatly, is in the cinematography. The decision to add the 3D element halfway through filming was a TERRIBLE one - Neeson as Zeus is already filmed through a soft focus lens, and adding the 3D tech makes him almost completely out of focus. It doesn't add anything and it detracts quite a bit. Especially in the shaky-cam, close-up fight scenes, which bothers me in better filmed movies; I hate not knowing who's killing who, and I lost a lot of perspective on the action scenes (which take up the majority of the film).

Clash also obnoxiously hardly ever gives us wide-angled shots. We are treated to an overabundance of close-ups, which in some cases makes sequences tense and exciting. In others, well, I just want to see the damn Kracken, ok? I get that he's huge, and terrifying - show me the breadth of his size. Let me SEE him in comparison to Argos and the cliff; that will truly show me what Perseus is up against.

I'd like to see Clash again in 2D, and see whether or not the viewing quality improves like I hope it will. Otherwise, I'm glad that I saw it, and it was definitely enjoyable, but I think I'll be sticking to Hamlin and Harryhausen.

Up In The Air vs. The Blind Side

I've now seen eight of the ten nominees for Best Picture, and of the last two (Precious and A Serious Man, which I have been reading as A Single Man for a long time now, and explains why people look at me weird when I talk about "the best picture nom with Colin Firth in it) I am only vaguely interested in seeing A Serious Man. I've discussed my thoughts on Avatar pretty freely, y'all know how I feel about District 9 (it should win), and I did a pretty in-depth review of The Hurt Locker. An Education was a thoughtful coming-of-age story and Carey Mulligan was charming in it; I really, really, did not enjoy Inglorious Basterds, and Up, while wonderful and whimsical, will have a better chance in the Best Animated slot than this one.

So. To the last two nominees, both of which I had a chance to see quite recently.

Up In The Air was, quite simply, fabulous. Clooney, who is really playing himself here, bounces his wittily written dialogue off his two formidable supporting actresses with aplomb, both of whom hold their own with the leading man in a really interesting way. Anna Kendrick, fresh off the Twilight stage, is an absolute find here - her anal retentive, idealistic Natalie is both refreshingly real and irritatingly superior. She knows what her life is supposed to be like, dammit, and God help you if you get in her way.

Vera Farmiga is the perfect counter-point to Natalie's youth and naivete, and I felt that the weakest scene the film had was due to the writers and the director getting confused about her character. Alex is a sexy, strong, intelligent philanderer and the movie falters when it tries to steer Farmiga away from that; it is best when it lets her and Clooney do what they do naturally (or, you know, what I assume to be natural) without a lot of directorial interference.

I do wonder if the story will age well; it is SO severely topical that it is a great movie for our age, but if when the economy does get better and unemployment is no longer quite such an issue, will it seem as poignant? I hope so - I'd like to think that Clooney's odyssey of self-discovery against the backdrop of such a hopeless, bleak environment is really quite stunning.

Now. Let's all ask ourselves the important question: why the HELL The Blind Side even got nominated.

I saw this, I enjoyed it - I like Sandra Bullock, and she was quite charismatic as the Southern housewife-turned-personal activist. Goodness knows I love uplifting sports movies. The problem was that there was hardly anything TOO The Blind Side. There was no tension; I was never afraid bad things would actually happen to any of the characters, no matter how much the film wanted to make me think so. Part of that is because it's a true story, so you know how it ends, but it isn't as though this is the first time someone has turned a true story into a film. I also thought that one of the central "conflicts" was COMPLETELY ludicrous: a woman from the NCAA tries her damndest to make me think that it could possibly be a bad thing for rich, privileged people to help impoverished, troubled minorities, because SOMEHOW this makes it UNFAIR for universities because they might send talented athletes to their alma maters.

Make sense to you? Me, neither.

I've been thinking about it, and I think that The Blind Side got nominated because the Academy didn't want to double-dip in genres. Star Trek was out because Avatar and District 9 amply fulfill the science fiction quota. The Messenger is out because of The Hurt Locker. (500) Days of Summer was beat by the other indie darling, An Education. It's a place filler; a bad one, but a place filler nonetheless. I don't like it much, but since there are only three real contenders here anyway (no matter what Tarantino wants you to think) I'm not sure how much it matters.

Which in and of itself is a pretty sad thought, in the grand scheme of cinema.

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.