"Accomplishments"
At home: I didn't even know Exit 8 was a game before deciding to watch it, so I wouldn't have been able to spot overt references to the game. For all I know, it acts as a walkthrough! Well, no, I guess not. They for sure added the metaphorical brickwork of this being about a man walking around in circles inside his own head wondering if he's ready to become a father. And while they hit us on the head with it - with many of the "anomalies" that keep our boy from reaching the metro exit mirroring his fear of parental commitment - I think it works. I especially like how they end it. But for the most part, this is a necessarily repetitive affair, as people are trapped in the same section of a subway tunnel, looking for clues as to whether they should keep going or go back. If the game is anything like this, it must be aggressively frustrating, although, like the film, there is probably something fun about finding the next crazy anomaly around the corner. And to be fair, the film knows to switch up its POV to keep things from getting too stale.
There is no doubt that Channing Tatum is sympathetic in Roofman, playing a true-life "nice guy" armed robber who never really thought he was causing harm, but since the story is told from his perspective, it's kind of a self-serving portrayal, isn't it? Still, it makes for a sweet - sometimes saccharine - heist movie, with a lull in the middle as we get into the love story with Kirsten Dunst's character, and ye olde biopique tropes bringing in the rear to show the real people and news items that spawned the film. I suppose there'll be some mid-aughts nostalgia with the old Windows screensavers, flip phones, and our boy hiding out in a Toys R Us (since they've all been closed down in the U.S.), and as part of this takes place around Christmas, it's all quite pleasant, even though you're just waiting for him to get picked up. That's another biopic problem: This story couldn't be told (at least not from this perspective) if he got away and disappeared. So the ending can't exactly be a surprise. A lot of clever heisting ideas and dumb criminal comedy, but feels rather basic otherwise.
While Veronica Mars premiered the year before Rian Johnson's Brick was released, both projects would have been in development at the same time, but it's almost hard to believe neither production ever took a peek at the other one's paper. Johnson's first murder mystery takes place in high school, but is dressed up as a classic Noir, with all the character tropes (all the women are fatales, the principal is a police captain, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's flawed protagonist is like a hard-boiled detective) and a convoluted, near-opaque plot (which really isn't my favorite Noir trope, I'll admit - I'd rather know what's going on). It goes HARD into the Noir aspects, to the point of feeling quite artificial. It's a little like those Shakespeare adaptations reset in a California high school, that kind of stylized filter. In this case, it's hardly worth it because the no one feels or acts like a student or even a teenager. They have no parents and don't go to class, so it's just a weird setting for a story that could have been written for the mean streets of the 1940s. It out-clevers itself. It's interesting, well-made, atmospheric, and has some really good ideas (the chase with the heavy-footed man, for example), but I do wish it had a clearer narrative that I could latch onto as well.
If you threw a yellowish-green filter on Bound, I'd believe the Wachowskis' first film took place in the Matrix. No one ever took the red pill, is all. Because look: It's about two hot chicks in leather jackets, everyone is acting like they're in a Film Noir, the bar scene has some weird paranoid stares attached, and the photography is quite stylish, with odd prespectives and slow motion. Seriously though, I don't know why I wasn't expecting these latter flourishes from the Wachowskis even absent the big genre effects they're most associated with. Truth is, Bound is a very cool and well-constructed Neo-Noir thriller where each action has a palpable consequence, amd you're not sure if the trust between the two protagonists will fall apart, or if they'll even make it out alive. Gina Gershon is great, Jennifer Tilly's innate fakeness works for the film (is she a Fatale or not?), and Joey Pants, from whom they steal mob money, has a fun breakdown. The Matrix was more influential and technically audacious, but I don't think the siblings have ever bettered this one.
It's been three years, in-story, since Banlieue 13, but despite the French government's promises, nothing much has changed. Time for a sequel! District 13: Ultimatum reunites parkour master David Belle and martial artist Cyril Raffaelli - who looks much better in action than in the first film, where they shot him too close and robbed him of spectacle - as they go up against a new conspiracy to destroy the ghetto instead of fixing its problems. You know what that means: A bunch more crazy fights and chases, and total badassery. I think I like this plot better even if its final ask is rather silly, because it feels like something that could actually happen in this day and age. There's also so nice world-building. In the first film, District 13 was a couple of concrete buildings where gangsters hung out. We see much more of it here, and it comes across as a multi-ethnic city with private armies around every corner. More interesting and it raises the stakes, not to mention motivate some cool international beats on the soundtrack. A lot of fun, just like the first one.
2014's Robocop remake is... fine. It doesn't understand (or WANT to understand) what made the original a classic, so it's turned into a perfectly ordinary sci-fi action thriller rather than a hyper-violent comedy, trading satire for plain political messaging. So it gave me real Total Recall Remake vibes (seems to me Verhoeven really HAD something because no one can replicate it - for when, our gritty Showgirls remake?). If the OG didn't exist, we'd think this was an okay flick. Certainly, its got a cast that's punching well below its weight - Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Michael Williams, Sam Jackson, Marianne Jean-Baptiste - but no one is putting in a performance as memorable as those of Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox or Kurtwood Smith, much less Peter Weller. Joel "Rick Flag" Kinnaman is fine, but he's playing an emotional Robocop instead of a man trapped inside a machine whose peeking out is a punch the air moment (he's the robotic Robocop for maybe 15 minutes, an hour into the film). Really, the only people who are having fun are Jay Baruchel (as Douchey Marketing Guy) and Jackie Earle Haley (as Cruel Robot Handler). Everyone else is taking is soooo seriously - the predicted American invasion of Iran and the faux-Fox News programming bring in more accidental seriousness in our context - that fans of the original will be left wanting. Yes, it was extreme and violent, but it made us laugh and so it was COOL. I wouldn't buy this for a dollar, but I also don't think it's bad-bad. Just comparatively bad.
Seemingly written by a douchey landlord who really, really, really hated California's laws regarding tenants' rights, Pacific Heights has Michael Keaton as a Mr. Ripley type who moves into Melanie Griffith and Mattthew Modine's enormous house without paying a damage deposit, then driving them insane and potentially homeless with whatever his scheme is. It starts with a Neo-Noir aesthetic, but soon moves into comfortable (i.e. tired) thriller stuff, which only gets interesting for me when Griffith takes things into her own hands and gets a modicum of revenge. It's perhaps especially satisfying because Modine has been sidelining her throughout the film, and it's almost a surprise that she has any moves at all. She should definitely drop Modine off on a corner somewhere, however, but I don't think the film knows he's a terrible partner. Alas, her little run as the heroine of the piece doesn't last long and we're back to cliché town for the finale. Ultimately, Pacific Heights' problem has always been that Keaton's scheme is a bit too abstract to warrant all this drama. Unanswered question: Why doesn't Beverly D’Angelo get credited for this film?
The romcom to heal a nation! (Cough.) Speechless has Geena Davis (yes, please) and Michael Keaton as speechwriters working for opposite candidates in a Senatorial race who, beyond their blind meetcute, find they can hardly trust each other once they discover who the other person is working for, but can't seem to keep their hands to themselves. Obviously, politics have mutated in the most monstrous way since 1994, but they're pretty dirty here, too. Which is what made me hope for a bit more verisimilitude. Unfortunately, political actors all seem to think both sides are the same and it's just a matter of who pays the best, and nothing matters anyway, because both candidates are foolish AND corrupt. The only "pure" soul in the movie is Davis's character, and even SHE jumps the fence for a rather objectionable Keaton (actively scheming to break her and Christopher Reeve up? That's some BvS s#!t, right there!) I find all this dangerously apolitical, but then, it's a romcom - it's not designed to give me what I want (and what I feel is promised). But even if I let that go, the movie is still tonally compromised, going from a pleasant and witty West Wing-ness to seriously dumb physical humor and "screwball" from the romantic climax on.
I've read and enjoyed Simon Garfield's Just My Type, so I already knew a lot of what Gary Hustwit's Helvetica wanted to teach me. Although unlike THE book about fonts, this little documentary is ONLY about Helvetica, side-swiping other fonts as a contrast to the most ubiquitous (some in the film would say "perfect") font of all time. The focus is on designers and their nerdy feelings about fonts, both fans and detractors of Helvetica, through which we get a history of what we call fonts, or at least the later chunk of it, which often seems to center on Helvetica (you're either going with it, or against it). I like this because I love passion, and the interviewees are certainly filled with, discussing deep philosophical issues related to typesetting and taking hardened positions in an invisible war that's already been won by their gods (the letter shapes themselves). If you're into graphic design at all, this will speak to you. If you're not, it's at least amusing to watch grown adults argue about something most take for granted. Personally? I've done enough graphic work to say I'm not one of those hegemonic Helvetica users... but maybe I wish I were!
With Urbanized, Gary Huswit takes his interest in design to the macro-scale, and his camera to various cities, all over the world, to learn about urban landscapes and what urban planners (both professional and amateur) are doing to counter the problems linked to the rapid urbanization of the planet. With half of everyone alive now living in a city, trending to 75% by 2050, cities have to prepare for the resource drain (including space, pollution and public safety), and stay (or in many cases, become) livable. We see different projects at different scales, some attacking these problems directly, some more concerned with beautification, and the tug of war between conservation and modernity. We also explore some mistakes, either made wilfully or by negligence. As usual, Hustwit isn't interested in giving his own opinion, but simply lets the talking heads speak, and you decide whether they're self-serving, or indeed, full of it. Some ideas seem very good indeed. Having been made in 2011, it's sad to see these have not since become the norm, quite the opposite.
The weakest of Gary Huswit's design documentaries, I think Objectified fails for two basic reasons. One is that the interviewees, especially up front, aren't very interesting. I was often wondering what they were trying to say exactly, or found their philosophy too broad or obvious, or that perhaps, they just weren't very engaging speakers. Second, and more importantly, is that the subject matter is too expansive and could have done with a more focused approach. The doc covers the design of chairs, cars, computers, etc., when any of these could be its own niche documentary (à la Helvetica). In fact, it almost feels like this is all B-roll from Hustwit's other films (while in Germany for Urbanized or Helvetica, why not talk to this other guy at the same office about product design?). I'll throw in a third grievance: It's just too glib in the way it treats consumer culture, obviously because the interviewees have to be sold on it to do the work they do. There's some social conscience brought to it, but generally, they don't seem TOO bothered by the crap being produced and thrown away on a daily basis. Objectified DOES end on the right note, however, so I still think it's fine, if not great.
[1963] The Sword in the Stone: My friend calls it "45 Minutes of Merlin Effing Around", but he's wrong, it's way more than 45 minutes. I call it "Cinderella 2: Arthurian Boogaloo". But either way, Disney correctly intuits that what's fun to animate in the story of young Arthur being mentored by a wizard while he waits for his destiny to hit is magical shenanigans. And so it's almost entirely that. Taking its cues from T.H. White, Merlin turns Arthur ("Wart") into various animals to train him to be an underdog - and at one point, encourages him to mate with a lady squirrel, what is THAT about?! - and sing and upbeat tune or two (okay, that bit's not in White's Once and Future King trilogy). And while the boy is quite virtuous, there's really not much to the character - he just gets wrenched around either by the wizard or Sir Kay to whom he ineptly squires. This is Merlin's show, and in Disney's hands, he's a prototype for Aladdin's Genie, using knowledge of the future (as per White) to make anachronistic jokes. It's all fun and games (and little plot) until that really very dumb coda, which is fine for animation, but Arthurian scholars may blench.
[1964] Zulu: The film is now prefaced with a content warning about insensitive cultural content, but it's not the depictions of the Zulus that are problematic. Their culture is given some weight (the tribal dances go on a bit), they are portrayed as extremely effective warriors, and the film knows its British protagonists have no business being there (indeed, it's about as pointless a battle as you're likely to see). The few slanders put on them come from the mouths of Victorian soldiers, and are pretty tame compared to the likely reality. So what's dated here, in terms of historical epics, is that we only see the Colonizer's point of view, and even if the British are painted as anti-heroes at best, it's hard for audiences to tap into what is essentially an "othered", "savage" horde. Nevertheless, the Brits are outnumbered 40 to 1, and you wonder if this will be The Alamo or 300. Just who is the underdog? One side has numerical supremacy, the other technological supremacy, so in a way, they both are. Our "hero" is Stanley Baker, a Royal Engineer who takes the reigns of leadership from dandy nepo-baby officer Michael Caine (in his first major role) and starts fortifying a tiny hospital post from some 4000 Zulu warriors. There's some strong tension building, and when the extended battle hits, though a lot of its hits are unconvincing (blade wounds are hard), the film really makes you understand both sides' tactics. That's where it really shines. Amazing landscapes, too.
Books: China Miéville's first collection of short stories, Looking for Jake feels very much like his early work (King Rat and the Bas-Lag trilogy) which was steeped in the kind of geomantic urban fantasy of the 90s/early aughts. The city as a living, possibly sinister, thing. Especially London. As such, it can feel at times like variations on a theme. I'm not particularly in love with the title story, but it's a title that fits the collection because most of the stories ARE searches, mysteries, paranoid fantasies. The best is kept for last, as The Tain, a longer novella, is a cracker about the true nature of mirrors and our reflections rebelling against their vain oppressors. I also affect Familiar, Go Between, and an End to Hunger. For fans of Perdido Street (or really, of Iron Council), there's a story that's part of that world. A Christmas story. A comics story (a bit opaque, and consequently, the weakest part of the book). Though it's part of the urban fantasy movement of its day, I think the main inspiration here is Borges (who happens to be one of MY greatest inspirations), and the faux-essay style of many stories are right up my alley. Now if my alley would stop jumping around...
Sometimes, you just want to read an indie comic, and Johnny Ryan's Fatcop (out from Fantagraphics) certainly fits the bill, in an R. Crumb kind of way (the acknowledged inspiration, but I rather think it's like Chester Brown on steroids). Folks, it is VILE. Ultra-violent. Pornographic. It's meant to shock, principally, and its 12-panel grid is relentlessly forcing you to watch grotesque characters trapped in a freight train of a narrative filled with odious events and personalities. Honestly, if I read it one go, it's a little bit because I didn't know if I would pick it up again if I put it down. Beyond the shock values (they let this guy write Looney Tunes Cartoons?!), this is an extreme satirical expression of America. We have the most corrupt cop since Bad Lieutenant, strapped to a new partner who is a sadistic fitness freak, tracking a serial child predator working out of a Trader Joe's basement, with plenty of asides (some of them supernatural) that mock Americana. If this sounds like your jam, have at it. I enjoyed the ride well enough, but I did get bored with all the random sex scenes after a while. You can't shock me with something I expect and have seen before. That said, I think this thing gave me nightmares (is that a plus or a minus?).
Comments