Drugs, Telekinesis, Aliens, and and Indie Existentialism
"Dark Skies"
starring: Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton
written and directed by: Scott Stewart
Clearly Scott Stewart is a fan of the old-fashioned alien abduction films of the past. His technique and style is very similar to Steven Spielberg a la "Close Encounters" and even a little bit of "Poltergeist" with the inexplicable things that happen in and out and around the house. Then there's his attempt to pay homage to another scary film like "The Birds" and even possession-style character freak-outs thanks in large part to the "Paranormal Activity" franchise.
The trouble with Stewart's treatment of the subject matter is that he never really attempts to make it his own or put his own spin on things. There's homage and there's rip-off (re: screws unloosening in the boards, heated lamps, birds dying kamikaze-style, etc.). We've seen it all before, so why should we care this time around? And that's when the family dynamic and marriage troubles come into the story, and suddenly the film becomes more of a metaphor or vehicle for "fixing" the trouble.
We are wondering why Stewart has allowed the aliens to steal family photos, as well as steal hours from the characters lives. What is their motivation? Or is it just glaringly obvious?
Keri Russell (absent from films throughout most of her career, well known for "Felicity" and most recently, a comeback sort of role in the great television show "The Americans") plays the mother/wife who is a real estate agent with a busy life, but somehow really only has screen time freaking out and wandering in the dark in a fetching tank top. She certainly does the most she can for such a meatless role. Josh Hamilton plays her stoic husband in a role that does not demand much from him either, other than a few scary moments and worrisome looks.
For a film that could have meant so much more, in regards to the troubled family, Stewart fails to really meet the obligation and the pay off in the third act is not nearly as well done as it could have been, if the script had been tighter. As a director, I think Stewart does a great job with his own material; but that's also the trouble here- it's his own script that fails him. Perhaps if he was directed someone else's words, it would have been better. That being said, it's still a decent way to spend 90 minutes.
...................................................................................
"Prince Avalanche"
starring: Emile Hirsch, Paul Rudd
written and directed by: David Gordon Green
David Gordon Green has made one of my favorite indie films with "All the Real Girls" (which was also one of my first introductions to Zooey Deschanel). He has gone on to make over-the-top comedies with "Pineapple Express" and "Your Highness" as well as episodes of "Eastbound and Down." I like his softer, more introspective films. They speak volumes, even when the characters in his stories don't speak. With "Prince Avalanche" Green finds himself back in the indie film good graces with a very Terrence Malick-inspired dreamscape with his interpretation of an Incelandic film called "Either Way." Much like "Pineapple Express" was a bromance, this film is about the relationship of two men who seem so different, but really end up being rather similar and find a way to lean on each other in the otherwise vacant wilderness.
The story takes place sometime after a severe wildfire has claimed a wide swath of forest near Austin, Texas, in the mid-1980s. Lance (Emile Hirsch) and Alvin (Paul Rudd) are spending the summer working as a two-man road crew in the burned-out state park, painting yellow lines on roads, planting posts, and camping out in the woods each night. Lance is barely present; he’s an airhead whose attitude defines “working for the weekend,” as he single-mindedly longs for a chance to go back into town and hook up with girls. A chunky, longhaired Emile Hirsch channels Jack Black in the role, smartly playing dumb the whole way through. Alvin, on the other hand, is a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who fancies himself something of a modern-day Thoreau. Once again, Rudd plays the straight man hilariously, as the two fight over whether Alvin’s German-language lesson tapes or Lance’s ’80s hair metal cassettes should be the soundtrack to their tedious and rather Zen-like work. (Apparently, their “equal time boombox agreement” isn’t working out so well.) It turns out that Alvin only gave Lance the job because he’s dating his sister, whom he writes long letters to each night. Obviously, relationship woes are just around the corner.
This is a film that relies on its two main characters, how they interact and definitely how they speak to/with each other. Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd are perfect in these complementary roles. And Green's script has a perfectly balanced dialogue, which does not come off as pretentious or heavy loaded, even though it could have very much been about that, especially with topics of life and love. Since these two guys are basically alone in the middle of Nowhere, Texas (except for two separate encounters with an old man and an elderly women, who is more of a ghost of the past than a reality), they of course have conflict amongst each other, especially when all they can do is talk and talk and drink and talk and drink. It has some great, hilarious moments of interaction between the two guys, especially their last dust-up.
"Prince Avalanche" is essentially a road movie, even though these two never really go from Point A to Point B, but that is essentially what Green's story is conveying- we find them in a place where they are exactly in their lives- nowhere. And just when there is a friendship developing between these two opposites, yet the same, and lessons are learned, that's where the story ends. And it's refreshing for a script and a film to know when enough is enough.
.............................................................................
"Carrie"
starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Zoe Belkin, Samantha Weinstein, Karissa Strain, Katie Strain, Ansel Elgort
directed by: Kimberly Peirce
As originally told in the Stephen King novel, Carrie is the daughter of single mother Margaret (Julianne Moore), a dowdy Bible-thumper extremist who will dote on her “little girl” in one breath, and in the next punish her for an imagined transgression by locking her in a “prayer closet.” Margaret is so afraid of the pervasiveness of sin she home-schools Carrie until forced by the state to place her into the public system. Having been left unsocialized by her mother for most of her childhood, Carrie is an extreme wallflower in high school—chum to the sharks of teenage girl bullies. When she gets her first period in the gym showers and freaks out, the other girls mercilessly make fun, raining feminine hygiene products on her while main antagonist Chris (Portia Doubleday) films the humiliation on her phone, and later posts it online. (The brief presence of Internet technology is the sole noticeable difference or update to the story.) This sets off a chain of events during which Carrie learns of and develops her ability to move objects with her mind, and culminates in her being invited to the prom, which of course becomes less gala and more Grand Guignol.
I think what really failed for this adaptation of such a classic and perfect film in the 1970s by Brian De Palma, was the miscast actresses, even though they try their best at such iconic and difficult, deeper than the surface roles, especially the heavy relationship between mother and daughter, not to mention the religious implications and undertones within the story. Julianne Moore, even with frizzled hair and what looks like a lack of makeup just doesn't come off as that crazy mother, enough. I am increasingly becoming a fan of Chloe Grace Moretz and her career choices, even though it seems rather creepy to enjoy her roles (since she is only 17 years old, at the time of "Carrie" in fact, she couldn't work past a certain number of hours in the day and couldn't work past, I believe 8 p.m.). She is almost a good choice to portray Carrie, but she is not emotionally engaging enough for the audience to really feel sympathy for her. Carrie is the embodiment of vulnerability and Chloe Grace Moretz just doesn't evoke that just yet, but hey, she is still quite young and I believe she will be a great actress into her twenties.
And then, there's the director. Kimberly Peirce. She could have done so much more and so much better given her drive towards emotional type of films (re: "Boys Don't Cry" and the military driven "Stop-Loss," the only two other films she has directed). Instead, she focuses way too much on the terror and horror of the genre she invades here. It's over-the-top with the effects and visual presentation of a film that deserves to be less about what you actually see happening and more about the deeper story, especially between mother and daughter. There is a why aspect to the story of "Carrie" that I want to believe was intended by Stephen King when he wrote the novel.
......................................................................
"Good People"
starring: James Franco, Kate Hudson, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Spruell, Diarmaid Murtagh, Francis Magee, Omar Sy, Anna Friel
......................................................................
"Dead Snow"
starring: Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Ane Dahl Torp
directed and written by: Tommy Wirkola
I finally got around to watching this horror/comedy zombie film out of Norwegian cinema upon the request of a friend of mine. And I must say it is nearly perfect, because although it is filled with horror genre cliches, the filmmaker knows this and just goes with it and rides it for the entire film, knowing full-well what he is doing and the film he is making. He is not concerned with the practical, and neither should you be with this film. Instead, you should just sit back and thoroughly enjoy it, because it is fantastic! It certainly sticks with the same formula as our American horror films and does not disappoint. We've got a group of obnoxious twentysomething medical students who are vacationing in the snowy wilderness, where cellphones don't work and they drink and play stupid games with each other. There is even a great outhouse scene. The killings or better-stated dismemberments are some of the goriest in cinema, and yet so obviously fake. But, they still manage to make the faint of heart squirm.
..........................................................................................
"Prozac Nation"
starring: Christina Ricci, Jessica Lange, Jason Biggs, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Anne Heche, Michelle Williams
written by (memoir by): Elizabeth Wurtzel
I really loved Elizabeth Wurtzel as a writer in high school, perhaps because I seemed to be just like her, but then again, now as I look back retrospectively, aren't all teenagers generally just like her and don't we all have similar experiences? Perhaps it's because her downward spiral took place in the 1980s, when antidepressants and depression or addiction were not necessarily as predominantly in the public's eye. It was kept behind closed doors within the family, not exposed for all to see. I was also drawn to Elizabeth Wurtzel, as a teenage boy, because she was a beautiful trainwreck of a women. We have the same birthday, July 31st, except she was born in 1967 (the same year as Kurt Cobain, who I was equally obsessed with back in high school).
The film adaptation of Wurtzel's book of the same name, "Prozac Nation" premiered a few days prior to 9/11 and perhaps if it had been released in the mid- or late-'90s it would have resonated more, but alas it was shelved by the film studio until about 2005 and only released on DVD, never making it to the theaters.
Christina Ricci plays Wurtzel rather well, because she is a very unlikable character of a real person. Self-indulgent, like many 1980s teenagers, but especially since she comes from a privileged family and attends Harvard on a journalism scholarship. There is no denying that Wurtzel is a gifted and talented writer, but the problem is she knows it and is told it. She suffers from a crippling depression, delves into heavy substance abuse, and just spirals out of control, taking down anyone in her path. She finds herself in the hospital and going to therapy, which her mother goes into debt paying for, over what is clearly a simple daddy-issue. She looks for salvation in a nice guy boyfriend, played by Jason Biggs. But she ultimately has too much emotional baggage and her cries of help fall on deaf ears.
Christina Ricci is very convincing as Wurtzel, but the film suggests to the audience that everyone in her own personal life became quite sick of Elizabeth's shit and was fed up with her, so where does that leave the audience in terms of lending sympathy to a very unsympathetic person. You almost want to slap her and just say, "Get over your shit!" and "Nobody really cares about your shit! We all have our own shit to deal with!"
Oh well. Nice try, but I think since I'm 33 years old now, I am less inclined to care about people like this.
starring: Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton
written and directed by: Scott Stewart
Clearly Scott Stewart is a fan of the old-fashioned alien abduction films of the past. His technique and style is very similar to Steven Spielberg a la "Close Encounters" and even a little bit of "Poltergeist" with the inexplicable things that happen in and out and around the house. Then there's his attempt to pay homage to another scary film like "The Birds" and even possession-style character freak-outs thanks in large part to the "Paranormal Activity" franchise.
The trouble with Stewart's treatment of the subject matter is that he never really attempts to make it his own or put his own spin on things. There's homage and there's rip-off (re: screws unloosening in the boards, heated lamps, birds dying kamikaze-style, etc.). We've seen it all before, so why should we care this time around? And that's when the family dynamic and marriage troubles come into the story, and suddenly the film becomes more of a metaphor or vehicle for "fixing" the trouble.
We are wondering why Stewart has allowed the aliens to steal family photos, as well as steal hours from the characters lives. What is their motivation? Or is it just glaringly obvious?
Keri Russell (absent from films throughout most of her career, well known for "Felicity" and most recently, a comeback sort of role in the great television show "The Americans") plays the mother/wife who is a real estate agent with a busy life, but somehow really only has screen time freaking out and wandering in the dark in a fetching tank top. She certainly does the most she can for such a meatless role. Josh Hamilton plays her stoic husband in a role that does not demand much from him either, other than a few scary moments and worrisome looks.
For a film that could have meant so much more, in regards to the troubled family, Stewart fails to really meet the obligation and the pay off in the third act is not nearly as well done as it could have been, if the script had been tighter. As a director, I think Stewart does a great job with his own material; but that's also the trouble here- it's his own script that fails him. Perhaps if he was directed someone else's words, it would have been better. That being said, it's still a decent way to spend 90 minutes.
...................................................................................
"Prince Avalanche"
starring: Emile Hirsch, Paul Rudd
written and directed by: David Gordon Green
David Gordon Green has made one of my favorite indie films with "All the Real Girls" (which was also one of my first introductions to Zooey Deschanel). He has gone on to make over-the-top comedies with "Pineapple Express" and "Your Highness" as well as episodes of "Eastbound and Down." I like his softer, more introspective films. They speak volumes, even when the characters in his stories don't speak. With "Prince Avalanche" Green finds himself back in the indie film good graces with a very Terrence Malick-inspired dreamscape with his interpretation of an Incelandic film called "Either Way." Much like "Pineapple Express" was a bromance, this film is about the relationship of two men who seem so different, but really end up being rather similar and find a way to lean on each other in the otherwise vacant wilderness.
The story takes place sometime after a severe wildfire has claimed a wide swath of forest near Austin, Texas, in the mid-1980s. Lance (Emile Hirsch) and Alvin (Paul Rudd) are spending the summer working as a two-man road crew in the burned-out state park, painting yellow lines on roads, planting posts, and camping out in the woods each night. Lance is barely present; he’s an airhead whose attitude defines “working for the weekend,” as he single-mindedly longs for a chance to go back into town and hook up with girls. A chunky, longhaired Emile Hirsch channels Jack Black in the role, smartly playing dumb the whole way through. Alvin, on the other hand, is a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who fancies himself something of a modern-day Thoreau. Once again, Rudd plays the straight man hilariously, as the two fight over whether Alvin’s German-language lesson tapes or Lance’s ’80s hair metal cassettes should be the soundtrack to their tedious and rather Zen-like work. (Apparently, their “equal time boombox agreement” isn’t working out so well.) It turns out that Alvin only gave Lance the job because he’s dating his sister, whom he writes long letters to each night. Obviously, relationship woes are just around the corner.
This is a film that relies on its two main characters, how they interact and definitely how they speak to/with each other. Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd are perfect in these complementary roles. And Green's script has a perfectly balanced dialogue, which does not come off as pretentious or heavy loaded, even though it could have very much been about that, especially with topics of life and love. Since these two guys are basically alone in the middle of Nowhere, Texas (except for two separate encounters with an old man and an elderly women, who is more of a ghost of the past than a reality), they of course have conflict amongst each other, especially when all they can do is talk and talk and drink and talk and drink. It has some great, hilarious moments of interaction between the two guys, especially their last dust-up.
"Prince Avalanche" is essentially a road movie, even though these two never really go from Point A to Point B, but that is essentially what Green's story is conveying- we find them in a place where they are exactly in their lives- nowhere. And just when there is a friendship developing between these two opposites, yet the same, and lessons are learned, that's where the story ends. And it's refreshing for a script and a film to know when enough is enough.
.............................................................................
"Carrie"
starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Zoe Belkin, Samantha Weinstein, Karissa Strain, Katie Strain, Ansel Elgort
directed by: Kimberly Peirce
As originally told in the Stephen King novel, Carrie is the daughter of single mother Margaret (Julianne Moore), a dowdy Bible-thumper extremist who will dote on her “little girl” in one breath, and in the next punish her for an imagined transgression by locking her in a “prayer closet.” Margaret is so afraid of the pervasiveness of sin she home-schools Carrie until forced by the state to place her into the public system. Having been left unsocialized by her mother for most of her childhood, Carrie is an extreme wallflower in high school—chum to the sharks of teenage girl bullies. When she gets her first period in the gym showers and freaks out, the other girls mercilessly make fun, raining feminine hygiene products on her while main antagonist Chris (Portia Doubleday) films the humiliation on her phone, and later posts it online. (The brief presence of Internet technology is the sole noticeable difference or update to the story.) This sets off a chain of events during which Carrie learns of and develops her ability to move objects with her mind, and culminates in her being invited to the prom, which of course becomes less gala and more Grand Guignol.
I think what really failed for this adaptation of such a classic and perfect film in the 1970s by Brian De Palma, was the miscast actresses, even though they try their best at such iconic and difficult, deeper than the surface roles, especially the heavy relationship between mother and daughter, not to mention the religious implications and undertones within the story. Julianne Moore, even with frizzled hair and what looks like a lack of makeup just doesn't come off as that crazy mother, enough. I am increasingly becoming a fan of Chloe Grace Moretz and her career choices, even though it seems rather creepy to enjoy her roles (since she is only 17 years old, at the time of "Carrie" in fact, she couldn't work past a certain number of hours in the day and couldn't work past, I believe 8 p.m.). She is almost a good choice to portray Carrie, but she is not emotionally engaging enough for the audience to really feel sympathy for her. Carrie is the embodiment of vulnerability and Chloe Grace Moretz just doesn't evoke that just yet, but hey, she is still quite young and I believe she will be a great actress into her twenties.
And then, there's the director. Kimberly Peirce. She could have done so much more and so much better given her drive towards emotional type of films (re: "Boys Don't Cry" and the military driven "Stop-Loss," the only two other films she has directed). Instead, she focuses way too much on the terror and horror of the genre she invades here. It's over-the-top with the effects and visual presentation of a film that deserves to be less about what you actually see happening and more about the deeper story, especially between mother and daughter. There is a why aspect to the story of "Carrie" that I want to believe was intended by Stephen King when he wrote the novel.
......................................................................
"Good People"
starring: James Franco, Kate Hudson, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Spruell, Diarmaid Murtagh, Francis Magee, Omar Sy, Anna Friel
"Nobody's come, nobody's gonna come," Tom (James Franco) tells his wife, Anne (Kate Hudson), not long into Good People. He's explaining why they shouldn't hesitate to spend the 220,000 pounds they found in their neighbor's apartment shortly after discovering his rotting corpse. The reasoning is nonsense, of course, as the neighbor, Ben (Francis Magee), died from an overdose, and the mix of drugs and hundreds of thousands of unaccounted-for dollars tends to eventually attract interested parties. Good People, though, only overcomes its deficiencies and gains a modicum of entertainment value precisely when it commits to this and even greater nonsense—to illogical storylines and exaggerated plot twists.
When trying to play things straight, the film struggles to meld its incongruous elements. The first scene gets things going grittily enough when Ben—still alive at this early point—and his drug-dealer accomplice, Jack (Sam Spruell), rob a rival dealer, Khan (Omar Sy), of a briefcase filled with liquid heroin and a bag full of money. After splattering Jack's brother's brains all over a car windshield, Ben runs off with the drugs and cash, meaning that when he dies, it's Jack and Khan who come knocking, as does John Halden (Tom Wilkinson), a police detective still seeking revenge on Jack for providing his daughter with the drugs that caused her overdose.
The set-up is decent enough for a good thriller, but the casting of the couple is just way way off with Kate Hudson and James Franco. Neither seem comfortable with their individual roles, let alone seem convincing as a married couple, struggling to make ends meet who become thieves of drug money and then badasses looking to save their own lives. And sorry, but Tom Wilkinson is definitely no Liam Neeson in his role as the avenger of his daughter, who died because of her drug-use. So, none of the good people of this film appear to be an equal match for the bad guys out for blood. And since the title, "Good People" wants to convey that we will root for these three characters, it never really lives up to its own hype. This is a film that never really builds up its thrills and tense moments. Everyone seems to be just going through the motions.......................................................................
"Dead Snow"
starring: Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Ane Dahl Torp
directed and written by: Tommy Wirkola
I finally got around to watching this horror/comedy zombie film out of Norwegian cinema upon the request of a friend of mine. And I must say it is nearly perfect, because although it is filled with horror genre cliches, the filmmaker knows this and just goes with it and rides it for the entire film, knowing full-well what he is doing and the film he is making. He is not concerned with the practical, and neither should you be with this film. Instead, you should just sit back and thoroughly enjoy it, because it is fantastic! It certainly sticks with the same formula as our American horror films and does not disappoint. We've got a group of obnoxious twentysomething medical students who are vacationing in the snowy wilderness, where cellphones don't work and they drink and play stupid games with each other. There is even a great outhouse scene. The killings or better-stated dismemberments are some of the goriest in cinema, and yet so obviously fake. But, they still manage to make the faint of heart squirm.
Yes, they are in a cabin so far in the woods, they have to leave their car behind and follow snowmobile tracks, all except for Sara, who decides to trek overland. We suspect Sara will not be getting a lot of dialogue in this movie. The others settle in and break out the beer, but are disturbed by a scary, whiskery old-timer who warns them of a vicious Nazi unit that lurked in these mountains during the war "and probably froze to death." Not with 75 minutes left in the movie, they didn’t.
But how would the Nazis survive until the present day? Well of course they are zombies, which the kids recognize when their cabin is attacked by shambling decaying men in Nazi uniforms. This crisis throws the threatened students into overdrive.
Practical details should not concern us. Particularly not after one of the guys disembowels a Nazi and then another Nazi grabs him, and they both topple off a high cliff but the guy holds on by grabbing the dead Nazi’s large intestine, which is many yards long. If you have a large intestine that will support the weight of two men, you can forget about the colonoscopy.
"Dead Snow," as you may have gathered, is a comedy, but played absolutely seriously by sincere, earnest young actors. At no point, for example, do they notice that the snow is dead. The movie is pretty funny.
It's a film that is very much similar in the "Evil Dead" franchise's vein, and as someone who enjoys that type of film, I thought this was horror genre gold...........................................................................................
"Prozac Nation"
starring: Christina Ricci, Jessica Lange, Jason Biggs, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Anne Heche, Michelle Williams
written by (memoir by): Elizabeth Wurtzel
I really loved Elizabeth Wurtzel as a writer in high school, perhaps because I seemed to be just like her, but then again, now as I look back retrospectively, aren't all teenagers generally just like her and don't we all have similar experiences? Perhaps it's because her downward spiral took place in the 1980s, when antidepressants and depression or addiction were not necessarily as predominantly in the public's eye. It was kept behind closed doors within the family, not exposed for all to see. I was also drawn to Elizabeth Wurtzel, as a teenage boy, because she was a beautiful trainwreck of a women. We have the same birthday, July 31st, except she was born in 1967 (the same year as Kurt Cobain, who I was equally obsessed with back in high school).
The film adaptation of Wurtzel's book of the same name, "Prozac Nation" premiered a few days prior to 9/11 and perhaps if it had been released in the mid- or late-'90s it would have resonated more, but alas it was shelved by the film studio until about 2005 and only released on DVD, never making it to the theaters.
Christina Ricci plays Wurtzel rather well, because she is a very unlikable character of a real person. Self-indulgent, like many 1980s teenagers, but especially since she comes from a privileged family and attends Harvard on a journalism scholarship. There is no denying that Wurtzel is a gifted and talented writer, but the problem is she knows it and is told it. She suffers from a crippling depression, delves into heavy substance abuse, and just spirals out of control, taking down anyone in her path. She finds herself in the hospital and going to therapy, which her mother goes into debt paying for, over what is clearly a simple daddy-issue. She looks for salvation in a nice guy boyfriend, played by Jason Biggs. But she ultimately has too much emotional baggage and her cries of help fall on deaf ears.
Christina Ricci is very convincing as Wurtzel, but the film suggests to the audience that everyone in her own personal life became quite sick of Elizabeth's shit and was fed up with her, so where does that leave the audience in terms of lending sympathy to a very unsympathetic person. You almost want to slap her and just say, "Get over your shit!" and "Nobody really cares about your shit! We all have our own shit to deal with!"
Oh well. Nice try, but I think since I'm 33 years old now, I am less inclined to care about people like this.
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