Category: 2010

Shadows in the Cave Digest #06 – June 2010

Features
My Top 40 Favorite Film Moments: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma
Casualties of War
Bonfire of the Vanities
Carlito’s Way (Movie of the Month)
Snake Eyes

Reviews


DocuMondays
We Live in Public
Objectified
Dogtown and the Z Boys
Art and Copy

Wild Card Tuesdays
Someone’s Knocking at the Door
Bad Lieutenant 2
Three Days of the Condor
Afterschool
True Stories

Newbie Wednesdays
Mystery Team
Get Him to the Greek
I Love You Phillip Morris
MacGruber
Toy Story 3

Jolly Good Thursdays
Five Minutes of Heaven


Criterion Fridays
Knife on the Water
The Loves of a Blonde
Amarcord

Next Month:
Jolly Good Thursdays alternates between Hypothetical Film Festivals and It Should Be A Movie!
Character Actor Month!
We come to the end of Brian DePalma’s films!
Vote for the next Director in Focus!

Newbie Wednesdays – Toy Story 3



Toy Story (2010, dir. Lee Unkrich)
Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton, Jodi Benson, Estelle Harris

In 1970, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “The Uncanny Valley”. Basically, it refers to the point when a robot or human facsimile (CG animated character) resemble real humans so closely it evokes a sense of revulsion in the viewer. CG animation walks that very fine line, and in the case of Robert Zemeckis’ animated works (The Polar Express, Beowulf) it reaches the revolting atmosphere. This is where Pixar gets it right, in that it never tries to make its humans look like exact copies of humans. Instead, the real humanity in the film is infused in the inanimate who have a larger ability to express emotion than ever before. For me, Toy Story 3 marks a clear point in history where, in the right hands, CG animation is a clear challenger to live action cinema.

Andy is eighteen and about to head off to college. The time to cast out his toys, which have been long ignored anyway, has come. All but Woody end up in a trash bag destined for the attic, while the cowboy ends up in Andy college-bound boxes. With the fear of being separated from his pals, Woody makes a daring escape and goes to save Buzz and company who have accidentally been put out for the trash. They all avoid the landfill but end up in Sunnyside Daycare, which is ruled over by Losto Hugs Bear, a 80s relic. They also meet a host of other toys, more generic than specific products and engage in what is essential a prison break movie, with some very strong themes about aging and obsolescence threaded throughout.

The situation the toys are placed in is one that speaks across generations. The children, whom most assume the film is squarely marketed at, will see their own feelings of powerlessness reflected in the plight of the toys. When faced with the circumstances of simply moving to a new town all the way to dealing with the divorce of parents, children are without any say in where they go. The same theme is applied to children transitioning into adulthood, like Andy, who are pressured by society to abandon toys and play. The issues Andy is grappling with reflect a lot of those who were children when the first Toy Story came out. Bumping up another generation, the themes of a child leaving home are very palpable and those wistful feelings as days when your child was little and playful. Laurie Metcalf and the animators behind her character deliver a very short, but beautiful performance in the moment where she enters Andy’s now empty bedroom. Finally, through Lotso we have the resentment of elderly and those who are left behind. Lotso has taken the moment he realized he was no longer wanted by his owner, and has allowed those feelings to become anger and rage, which is merely a form of hurt.

Pixar is a company that makes perfect films (I refuse to acknowledge Cars). They are writing scripts that are light years (no pun intended) richer and more complex than the majority of those shopped around Hollywood. The production staff also has a strong sense of creating rich worlds, they fill their universes with so many details that we want to inhabit them just a little bit longer. The Toy Story trilogy now stands a perfect trilogy, with themes that develop and mature just like Andy. The technical side of the animation has also evolved in a similar fashion. While buzz of Toy Story 4 has recently hit after the current release’s box office success, but I hope the Pixar crew treads carefully in adding on to an already complete masterpiece.

Newbie Wednesdays – MacGruber



MacGruber (2010, dir. Jorma Taccone)
Starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe, Maya Rudolph

It began with The Blues Brothers and it was a long time before another one was made. Then with Wayne’s World, followed by The Coneheads, Night at the Roxbury, Superstar, and The Ladies’ Man. The idea of adapting a skit from Saturday Night Live series is not new, but never has the source material been so brief. MacGruber is originally a thirty second bumper to commercials, so the idea of making a feature film around the character is a bit of an oddity. It’s also a very simply parody of the MacGyver television series, which itself is almost twenty years past. So how does this longshot stack up as a full length movie?

The premise borrows its plot from films like Rambo, with MacGruber (Forte) as a former Pentagon agent who has been living in a monastery for the last decade after the tragic death of his bride. When the villainous Dieter Von Cunth (Kilmer) steals a Russian nuclear missile, MacGruber is called back into action alongside straight arrow Lt. Dixon Piper (Phillippe) and his former sidekick Vicki St. Elmo (Wiig). The trio engage in a series of episodic attempts to either get in contact with Von Cunth and foil his plans. These typically involve Piper suggesting a reasonable military tactic, while MacGruber does something outlandish (i.e. hopping naked with a piece of celery sticking out of his butt). The plot hits all the expected points, and delivers a very hard R-rated comedy.

The sources being parodied here are done by people who know those sources well. Director Taccone, part of The Lonely Island and a writer for SNL, most definitely grew up watching the awful Golan-Globus military action films of the 1980s (Death Wish, Cobra, American Ninja). From that perspective, its an amusing film but nothing terribly special. I believe I chuckled once or twice, but for the most part I felt myself slogging through the picture, simply trying to make it to the end. Of all the current cast of SNL, Will Forte is far and away my favorite, but when he is constrained by SNL material he’s never as funny as he could be. Such is the case here, the jokes feel very lazy and the payoffs are never clever or surprising. In the end, its a case of a flimsy premise being stretched beyond its abilities to hold together, resulting in an incredibly disappointing and forgettable film.

Newbie Wednesdays Bonus! – Get Him to the Greek



Get Him to the Greek (2010, dir. Nicholas Stoller)
Starring Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Sean Combs, Elizabeth Moss, Rose Byrne, Colm Meany

There is the way Apatow films are perceived by those that haven’t seen them, and then the what the films actually are. Most people who don’t see these movies discount them as gross out frat boy movies, and that’s sad because they will be missing a rather poignant film about relationships. That’s what the Apatow circle has done an amazing job of, making movies about very real relationships. The women in this film are not harpies or shrews, they are not holding these men back. Instead, they are equal partners in the mistakes and travails of our main characters.

Aaron (Hill) is a young music executive tasked with the job of getting washed up rocker Aldous Snow (Brand) from London to L.A. for an anniversary concert at the Greek. Aaron is also dealing with his live-in girlfriend Daphne (Moss) who is in the midst of med school and has just got a transfer to Seattle. Aaron leaves LA on a sour note with her, but quickly gets involved in the insanity that surrounds the hard drinking, drugged out Snow. Aaron is constantly impeded by Snow in getting the man first to an appearance on the Today, and then to the Greek theater. They are sidetracked by Snow’s proclivities for sex and drugs and Aaron usually ends up on the losing end of this. He drinks absinthe unaware of what it is and ends up a buffoon in a nightclub. He is forced to store Aldous’ heroin on his person in a rather uncomfortable place. He is injected with a needle full of adrenaline and goes on a rampage in a strip club.

The character of Aldous Snow first appeared in 2007’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, there he was  put together, Zen-like sage. Here his career has seen a downturn, he’s lost the woman he loves, and his career seems to be over. This version of Snow has much more in common with Brand’s own life. If you have read his autobiography Booky Wook, then you know that Brand suffered from a drug and sex addiction. He also has some major emotional issues when it comes to his father. Snow’s father also plays a significant role in the film, as a figure responsible for much of his son’s current state. Snow also has a more successful ex (Byrne) who is at first presented as an absurd character, but when we meet her later, comes across as someone who has moved past the gutter Snow seems to be stuck in.

Every performance here feels very unforced and natural, and I think that’s why Apatow’s productions are so enjoyable. Every one feels like they are these characters, the lines roll effortlessly from them and never feel like actors acting. The friendship between Aaron and Snow feels genuine, and this comes from the fact that in real life Brand is a very open and friendly person, as glimpsed in his many British television series. Director Stoller is also not afraid to end Snow in a place that doesn’t wrap everything up perfectly. Snow doesn’t get the girl, he ends up going on stage right after receiving a horribly painful injury, and tells Aaron in a heartbreaking scene that this is the only thing he has left that makes him feel like a good person. In an odd sort of way Snow is a comedic version of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. They are both playing characters based more on themselves than any fictional creation.

Shadows in the Cave Digest #05 – May 2010

Features
Asian Cinema Month
Eat Drink Man Woman – China
In the Mood For Love – Hong Kong
Thirst – South Korea
Yi Yi – China
Ponyo – Japan
Hard Boiled – Hong Kong
My Neighbor Totoro – Japan

Summer Blockbusters
1975-1985 – Sharks and Droids
1986-1995 – Dinosaurs and Robots
1996-2009 – Superheroes and Sequels

Director in Focus – Brian De Palma
Blow Out
Scarface
Body Double
The Untouchables


Hypothetical Film Festivals
Best Horror Remakes Evrrrrrrrrr!
Happy Birthday Ariana 2010!

Reviews
DocuMondays
Tales from the Script
The Weather Underground
Koko: A Talking Gorilla
LoudQUIETLoud

Newbie Wednesday
Harry Brown
Iron Man 2
Daybreakers

Jolly Good Thursdays
Nil By Mouth
Girly
I Capture the Castle

Next Month:
Hypothetical Film Festivals takes a vacation
My 40 Favorite Movie Scenes
Criterion Fridays

Hypothetical Film Festival – Ariana Birthday Edition!

So today is my beautiful girlfriend, Ariana’s birthday. She is in Puerto Rico and myself in Nashville so it can be a little sad some times to have to wait and deal with overpriced airline tickets and saving up enough to live in the same place. That said, she has gotten a few creative birthday gifts from me recently (a solo D&D campaign designed for her, my class from student teaching wishing her happy birthday over the phone). Here is her third gift: a blog post devoted to her 😀



Persepolis (2007, dir. Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud)

This was the first film Ariana and I saw in the theater. She came up to visit in February of 2008. She had read the graphic novel the film was based on recently and by sheer lucky it was playing for a couple week at the Green Hills 16. It was a cloudy afternoon and, after stopping by Lipscomb, we walked over to the theater and saw it. Afterwards, it was dinner at Cheeseburger Charlie’s and grabbing some groceries before heading home. In a lot of ways it was the first official “date” if you think of dates as consisting of things like a “dinner and a movie”. The film is great, I think particularly because Satrapi was directly involved.



Airplane! (1980, dir. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker)

This was on the same visit as Persepolis above. Airplane! was being shown as a Midnight Movie at the Belcourt and sort of structured a night around it. First, we visited the Frist Museum, they had an exhibit on the Impressionists at the time, and Ariana being an graphic designer major enjoyed it. We played around in the kid art exhibit afterwards, making prints and goofing off. Then it was dinner at Jackson’s where I had some amazing grilled tuna, thinking about it makes me hungry. Then Airplane! where the employees of the Belcourt introduced the film the same way flight attendants prepare a plane for takeoff. It was lots of fun.



The Happening (2008, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

Without a doubt one of the funniest experiences I have ever had in a movie theater. During my first visit to Puerto Rico we decided to go see this picture. We both a little lukewarm about M. Night but I figured it might be good. Boy, were we wrong. Throughout the film we kept turning to each other with looks of “Is this for real?”, I kept reassuring her “I’m sure there’s going to be some twist to explain why everyone is acting completely unnatural”. The film became a madcap comedy to us at the point where Mark Whalberg sings “Black Water” in an attempt to prove to some people he and his companions are not affected by the virus. You can see the clip here. I knew I loved Ariana when she noticed two shots with boom mikes in the frame that I completely missed. The Happening has become a comedic touchstone in our relationship.



The Dark Knight (2008, dir. Christopher Nolan)

As soon as I saw the first trailer of this one I thought, “I want to see that movie with Ariana.” This is something we tell each other frequently when an upcoming films looks like something that appeals to our geeky sensibilities. I’m not exactly sure why, but there is just something great about sharing that first viewing of an amazing film with the person you love. I remember us both leaving the theater in a sort of dazed high, the geek centers of our brains overloading with stimulation. I saw the film many times since, but no viewing has matched as great as it was seeing it with her.



Waltz With Bashir (2008, dir. Ari Folman)

I first saw this film by myself, then during a visit by Ari I want her to come see it with me. Being a graphic designer she liked the visuals. I was a little ticked that she fell asleep during the middle (she was getting a cold if I remember right) but I made sure to keep her awake. Afterwards we got some amazing Indian food at a restaurant that got turned into a taco place now. It sucks because the saffron rice at that place made me happy to be alive.

Newbie Wednesday – Iron Man 2



Iron Man 2 (2010, dir. Jon Favreau)
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwenyth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Slattery, Jon Favreau, Paul Bettany, Garry Shandling

In 2008, two major comic book based films were released: The Dark Knight and Iron Man. By the end of the summer I had seen The Dark Knight three times, Iron Man only once. Now, I admit a predisposition towards the DC Comics characters, but I have enjoyed many of the Marvel movies (X-Men 1 & 2, Spider-Man 1 & 2). The first Iron Man was an enjoyable film, I just never found it as amazing as it seems much of the movie-going populace did. Robert Downey Jr. is a great, witty actor but the character is where my problems lie, because Iron Man/Tony Stark just isn’t that interesting.

It’s been two years since Tony Stark went public with his superhero identity of Iron Man. The news made its way to Russia, where Ivan Vanko, son of a Soviet physicist betrayed by Stark’s father sees his pop’s designs being used in the Iron Man armor. Vanko spends awhile building his own cobbled together suit to attack Stark but is arrested. The second villain in the picture is Justin Hammer, a military industrial complex billionaire who is frustrated with being unable to copy Stark’s technology. These two forces will inevitably come together to create a force that will challenge Stark’s resources. And these are two of the myriad of half-hatched plots and sub-plots that turn the film into a complicated mess.

Iron Man 2 is definitely suffering from sequel-itis. The pressure to up the ante in comic book franchises is hard to fight and so many new elements are introduced to try to keep the series feeling fresh. The part that is missing though are motivations. Stark is given a very weak motivation do something in the film and it definitely comes across as a plot element thrown in about a dozen drafts into the screenplay. Hammer’s motivation is only a few shades different from Obadiah Stane’s in the first film and Vanko’s reasons for revenge are just as hackneyed. Every thing felt like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle you had pieced together so many times that it just wasn’t fun anymore.

What the picture did have was a lot of “sound and fury signifying nothing”. There were “hot babes” and “sweet rides” but for an hour and a half that’s pretty boring. There were a lot of attempts to hint at the Thor movie coming next summer (all the mentions of New Mexico from the SHIELD people) and of course more hinting at the inevitable Avengers film. But all the actual material dealing with Tony Stark fell flat. Vanko didn’t ever come across as a formidable enemy and Hammer was the sort of character you knew was doomed to fail from the moment he showed up on screen. Scarlett Johansson was stage prop, but her stunt double did an amazing job. Looking at it all together, its not much better than some of the mediocre Marvel movies (Daredevil, Fantastic Four), sadly not even the power of RDJ could save it.

Shadows in the Cave Digest #04 – April 2010

Features
Charlie Chaplin Month –
Part I – The Life and Times of a Tramp
Part II – The Women
The Kid
A Woman in Paris
The Circus
The Great Dictator
Limelight
Other Films

Director in Focus: Brian DePalma –
Carrie
Sisters
Obsessed
Dressed to Kill

Hypothetical Film Festivals
Ernest Saves The Film Festival
80s Comedies for Grown Ups
Working Class Heroes

Reviews

DocuMondays
Kurt and Courtney
The Nomi Song
Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth
Dirt! The Movie

Wild Card Tuesdays
Eve’s Bayou
Dead Silence
Last Days of Disco
Nightmare on Elm Street

Newbie Wednesday
How To Train Your Dragon
Clash of the Titans
Kick Ass
The Imaginarum of Doctor Parnassus

Import Fridays
MicMacs
Mother (Movie of the Month!)
Lilya 4-Ever
The Lives of Others

Next Month: 
Asian Cinema Month!
Orson Welles!
Movie Musings!
And a very special birthday surprise!

Newbie Wednesday – Kick Ass



Kick Ass (2010, dir. Matthew Vaughn)
Starring Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong

There’s a sort of geek wish deep down in those that read comics that somehow, someway they could don a cape and cowl and fight the criminal element of this world. The superhero idea goes all to the mythological heroes and into figures like King Arthur and Robin Hood to the Three Musketeers and the pulp mystery men and finally into comics. So our protagonist proposes a very legitimate question early on “How come no one has ever tried to be superhero?” It’s obvious that there are plenty of crazy people in this world and it comes as no surprise that there actually *are* people who have tried this. You can check them out at the World Superhero Registry. So how does the hero of our film try to tackle the nuances of masked crime fighting?

Dave is a high school student who is invisible to the opposite sex, but very visible to the bullies and street thugs of his city. After being robbed one to many times, Dave purchases a few essential components and becomes the mystery man known as “Kick Ass”. Kick Ass is immediately sent to the emergency room after his first battle and has steel rods and plates put in him that ironically grant him a certain level of invulnerability. And this is where the film completely goes off the tracks of its premise “What if superheroes were real?” and decides to be no more different than any other comic book flick. The duo of Big Daddy and Hit Girl are introduced, a father-daughter team of armed to the teeth avengers as well as The Red Mist, the son of a local mafia don who suckers his pop into stocking him up. The film goes through a lot of tonal changes and shifts, finally settling into a fairly predictable final battle sequence.

The movie is only shades different than Superhero Movie, a descendant of the Scary Movie parody genre. Whereas that film knew it was a comedy and behaved thusly, Kick Ass seems to want to be aloof and post-modernly ironic, yet still be a “bad ass” super hero movie. I’m not willing to go as far as Roger Ebert in his review, calling the film “morally reprehensible”. After watching the 2006 remake of Hills Have Eyes I think it could serve as a contender for that. I didn’t have a problem with the concept of this young girl, trained to be a super soldier by her father, slaughter masses of mob men on screen.

My problem with the film came from a couple elements that diverged from the comics which actually lent it real world credence. If you know me well, you know that I am not one of those comic book geeks who natters on about minutiae that differs slightly from the source material. I’m a geek who can be reasonable about conceits that have to be made in the process of adaptation. However, the first divergence from the original mini-series that irked me was when Dave reveals he is not truly gay to his love interest, she has mistaken him as such for the majority of the film. In the film, she is unnaturally forgiving and its implied the two have sex, after which they are a couple. In the comic book, she is pissed and eventually has her new boyfriend beat Dave up. That would be the actual real world way the story would play out. So while the film wants to be a wry commentary on the implausibility of superheroes in the real world, through this change it actually invalidated its premise to me.

The second divergence colors the audience’s entire perceptions of a character in a disturbing manner. In the film, Big Daddy was a police officer whose career was ruined by the mob, sending him to prison, while his wife went broke and died on the table giving birth to Hit Girl. Once out of prison, Big Daddy began training Hit Girl. In the comics, Big Daddy raised Hit Girl with this story. In reality, he was a no body, an accountant who had a mid-life crisis and kidnapped his daughter to create this more exciting existence. Once again, the film compromises its original intent for the sake of “superhero-ing” it up. I found the film to be enjoyable, but nothing I would watch again. Because it is too scared to make its characters truly real and give then the downbeat ending that naturally would happen it ultimately fails and ends up being yet another generic comic book movie.

Newbie Wednesday – Clash of the Titans (2010)



Clash of the Titans (2010, dir. Louis Leterrier)
Starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Artherton, Jason Flemyng

When I was 8 years old I went through the entire Webster’s Dictionary so I could catalog the Greek gods and monsters listed therein. Afterwards, I got the idea the library might have books on these things, and from there I devoured the stories of Greek mythology. Once, while visiting Nashville’s local to scale replica of the Parthenon around the age of 10, I began telling my mom and visiting aunt whom all the figures in the statues and carvings were. An man touring the structure began following and listening and remarked to my mom “Your son knows a lot!” I tell you these things to show that I am onboard when I hear about films based around Greek myths. How does director Louis Leterrier’s (The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk) remake of the 1981 fantasy film stack up?

Perseus, son of Zeus and a mortal woman has his adoptive family taken from him when they are bystanders to an vengeful act of the gods. The hero ends up in Argos, where its citizens are rebelling against the Olympian Pantheon and Zeus has decided either they all die or they sacrifice the princess to his beast, the Kraken. Perseus and a rag tag group of Argosian soldiers head out into the wilderness to figure out if there is a way to defeat the unstoppable beast. Along the way they battle giant scorpions, blind witches, a beast who bleeds acid, and finally the classic Medusa. Oh yes, there’s flying horses, too.

Why does Hollywood insist on continuing to cast Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation, Avatar) in films? The man is an uncharismatic bore. He has two acting settings: “grunt” and “brooding”. It can be said that the action films of the 1980s and 1990s were inane, but at least the leads were charismatic. Think about Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone, etc. They all had charming personalities that made us root for them. With Worthington you root for him out of default, he’s the protagonist on the screen so you hope he wins because that’s what mainstream cinema has taught you. I also was flabbergasted at the actors cast as gods. Why cast Danny Huston as Poseidon if you give him one line? Just cast an generic actor for the role! And Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, Skins) as Eusebios, what a waste of great talent. And he’s a million times more charismatic than Worthington!

The plot is a mix of the original film, mixed with attempts to “bad ass” it up. It became apparent to me that the screenwriters and art directors seemed to want to make a God of War film rather than a remake of the 1981 Clash of the Titans. Every encounter feels like a stage in a video game, complete with boss battles. I can forgive discrepancies between the original myths and the film (Example: Pegasus is the name of one specific winged horse, in pop culture we refers to the species as Pegasi now), I’m not one of those fanboys who harumphs when they change a detail. I understand the need to create a fluid, organic script. However, there are some pretty glaringly dumb subplots in the film that were attempts to blend elements of the original picture. I also rolled my eyes at their attempt to be clever by giving Bubo the Mechanical Owl from the original film a cameo. Bubo has more charisma than Worthington, people!

At the end of the day, this is yet another dull CG-dependent action flick. Leterrier’s previous films have left me bored and with this one I was literally falling asleep halfway through. His upcoming Captain America movie has my expectations about as low as they could get. But, if you are hoping to cleanse your palette for Greek myth based flicks, Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) has one coming out November 11th, 2011 titled Immortals. Hoping he shows Leterrier how it is done.