Saw 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 days later a film from the strangely zombie-rich days of the 2000s. That film revolutionized the genre but introducing groundbreaking fast zombies. Incredible. This movie takes place after The Rage Virus has ravaged the UK and survivors are now quarantined in the Isle of Dogs. The main character seems to be this fragile sort of man who watched his wife fall to zombies.
The wife's death is great. The film starts doing this over-exposed, jittery thing, focusing on small details and making things very hard to follow but I feel this is a good portrayal of life-or-death panic. The main character seems broken and fragile, which makes his later interactions with his children a little difficult. He can barely choke out that his wife died, but dude, you're their father. Be there for them, ok? His fragility was frustrating to me when I think it should have been affecting.
Anyway, of course there's more zombie business to be done, so soon the film crystallizes into a run-and-gun thriller. There's night-vision goggles revealing hidden shamblers and army men who are more trouble than help. The film becomes boring quickly. There were apparently talks of a 28 Months Later, but from this film, it's clear why that film never came to be. There's not much here that's interesting or even entertaining. Bleh. I didn't like it.
Aug 30, 2020
Paranoid Park
Saw Paranoid Park, a film from Gus Van Sant's "death trilogy." This one was about a teenage skater boy who is questioned about the murder of a security guard. The film is very teenager-y. The main character's parents are splitting up and his best friend's parents are out of town. They're skating under bridges and in empty lots, living in the periphery of society and in the shadows of the adults in their lives. How can the adults understand the deeply idiosyncratic, deeply personal pains and anxieties of our heroes? Even watching over their shoulders, with them performing for us, we can only start to understand.
The film is shot in a very understated, 70s sort of way with grainy footage and old fashioned diners. There's a thick layer of incongruous music on the sound track - we start the film, for example, with backwards music-box music played over footage of skaters in a graffiti-spattered park. The film is like a patchwork, sometimes the juxtapositions are great and poignant and stirring but sometimes they're just confusing and jarring. The whole thing is very unique.
The child acting is a little hit-and-miss. The main character's girlfriend, for example, is not great. She says every line as though it were its own scene. Everything is individually pretty good, but the effect is choppy and jagged. Similarly, sometimes the teenage patter is natural and wonderful but sometimes a phrase clunks and you can hear Gus's script talking through their mouths. Similar to the other experiments of the film, it's hit and miss.
I really liked the film. There are scenes that are so strange they have a sense of realness about them. There's a scene where the main character is bopping along to rap on the radio and then we cut to him listening to classical music. Giving that a try. The film doesn't always succeed, but when it does it's gold.
The film is shot in a very understated, 70s sort of way with grainy footage and old fashioned diners. There's a thick layer of incongruous music on the sound track - we start the film, for example, with backwards music-box music played over footage of skaters in a graffiti-spattered park. The film is like a patchwork, sometimes the juxtapositions are great and poignant and stirring but sometimes they're just confusing and jarring. The whole thing is very unique.
The child acting is a little hit-and-miss. The main character's girlfriend, for example, is not great. She says every line as though it were its own scene. Everything is individually pretty good, but the effect is choppy and jagged. Similarly, sometimes the teenage patter is natural and wonderful but sometimes a phrase clunks and you can hear Gus's script talking through their mouths. Similar to the other experiments of the film, it's hit and miss.
I really liked the film. There are scenes that are so strange they have a sense of realness about them. There's a scene where the main character is bopping along to rap on the radio and then we cut to him listening to classical music. Giving that a try. The film doesn't always succeed, but when it does it's gold.
Aug 23, 2020
These Final Hours
Saw These Final Hours (thanks, Lea!) It was an apocalypse film where the earth had been hit by a meteor and a wave of destruction was speeding around the globe. Everyone is going nuts because they have hours left to live. Like It Follows, this is another film that's more of a thought exercise than a narrative. What would you do if not only you but all humans were about to die? Some folks kill themselves, some folks kill others, some folks just get high and party.
Our main character, a muscular dude who prefers sleeveless shirts, is one of the partying type. We first see him abandoning his girlfriend to go party with his other, rich girlfriend and her/her brother's mansion. He quickly runs into an adorable girl who has been separated from her family. He decides that partying is too vacuous a pursuit and over the course of the film realizes that human contact and selfless support is the only thing that matters now, in these final hours.
I like the philosophical bent of the film. It's an existentialist point of view forced on the characters by the imminent end of everything. In our lives too, we are all ultimately doomed. None of us are getting out of here alive, but others will continue after us, so it's important to be kind, to leave things behind. This is a thought-experiment movie, but one I enjoy thinking about.
Now here's what I didn't like: I thought the adorable little girl moppet was a little badly written. I haven't spent a lot of time around kids but I felt she was sometimes too chill about things and freaked out about things I don't think kids would freak out about. She existed not to be a character but to teach the protagonist a lesson however, so whatever. I also liked and didn't like how dismal the film was at times. There's a scene where the main character drives through a suburb and someone's just hanging from a street light. It's very morbid and makes me feel feelings, but it's so dismal that the following emotional gut-punches feel a bit weak. I feel that some people would be all murdery, sure, but I think most folks are not a disaster away from serial killing. I hope not any way.
I also felt the main character's lesson was not truly learned. He comes off as too much of a douche-bag party-boy and although he embraces his humanity, I feel that if it were not the end of the world, this lesson would fade pretty soon. But the world is ending, so even if he only learns his lesson for a few hours, then that's enough and maybe that's how it is for all of us: we don't need to learn our lessons and be saints forever, just for the rest of our lives.
The film is fairly dismal, but it has its moments. There's the montage of chaos the film starts with and the final disaster is spectacular to behold. There's other moments of too-edgy-for-me realness involving rape and murder and such, which feels lazy and perhaps not unrealistic but just exaggerated to me. The main character was kind of a douche-bag (who has two girlfriends and ditches one to go party with the other?) but he was muscly and nice to look at at least. This film was alright, but I don't think I'll recommend it to any of my friends any time soon.
Our main character, a muscular dude who prefers sleeveless shirts, is one of the partying type. We first see him abandoning his girlfriend to go party with his other, rich girlfriend and her/her brother's mansion. He quickly runs into an adorable girl who has been separated from her family. He decides that partying is too vacuous a pursuit and over the course of the film realizes that human contact and selfless support is the only thing that matters now, in these final hours.
I like the philosophical bent of the film. It's an existentialist point of view forced on the characters by the imminent end of everything. In our lives too, we are all ultimately doomed. None of us are getting out of here alive, but others will continue after us, so it's important to be kind, to leave things behind. This is a thought-experiment movie, but one I enjoy thinking about.
Now here's what I didn't like: I thought the adorable little girl moppet was a little badly written. I haven't spent a lot of time around kids but I felt she was sometimes too chill about things and freaked out about things I don't think kids would freak out about. She existed not to be a character but to teach the protagonist a lesson however, so whatever. I also liked and didn't like how dismal the film was at times. There's a scene where the main character drives through a suburb and someone's just hanging from a street light. It's very morbid and makes me feel feelings, but it's so dismal that the following emotional gut-punches feel a bit weak. I feel that some people would be all murdery, sure, but I think most folks are not a disaster away from serial killing. I hope not any way.
I also felt the main character's lesson was not truly learned. He comes off as too much of a douche-bag party-boy and although he embraces his humanity, I feel that if it were not the end of the world, this lesson would fade pretty soon. But the world is ending, so even if he only learns his lesson for a few hours, then that's enough and maybe that's how it is for all of us: we don't need to learn our lessons and be saints forever, just for the rest of our lives.
The film is fairly dismal, but it has its moments. There's the montage of chaos the film starts with and the final disaster is spectacular to behold. There's other moments of too-edgy-for-me realness involving rape and murder and such, which feels lazy and perhaps not unrealistic but just exaggerated to me. The main character was kind of a douche-bag (who has two girlfriends and ditches one to go party with the other?) but he was muscly and nice to look at at least. This film was alright, but I don't think I'll recommend it to any of my friends any time soon.
Aug 12, 2020
Drugstore Cowboy
Saw Drugstore Cowboy, a drug film about a petty criminal and heroin enthusiast who supports himself and his habit by knocking over drug stores in northwest America. The film came out in 1989 but is set in the early 70s. The mood is very 70s new wave in general. There's a raw, unpolished quality that mixes uneasily with old-fashioned institutions, like the milk man and the private eye.
The main character guy is well preformed and pretty good. He's a little too cool for this film however. Usually in drug films the main characters are cool and sexy but inevitably fall on hard times as the highs run out and reality set in. Unlike those films however, this guy gets off more or less scott-free. Like, his life is not ideal but he regrets nothing. William S Burroughs even makes a lengthy cameo as a priest-turned-junky to tell us "The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots." It's subversive in its own, low-stakes way.
I loved basically everything Burroughs did on screen. He's got this strange cadence that's very Christopher Walken-ish, very otherworldly. I thought the main character's girlfriend was pretty weakly acted however. I think she's supposed to be a sort of den mother but she came across most unlovely - very little chemistry between her and the main character.
Anyway, the film is very chill. It's never very emotional and mostly floats along with one thing happening after another. It seems like the sort of film that could go on all day long. It's fairly interesting but very much a film that you could unwind with at the end of the day. There's no high emotion or melodrama, but no stupidity either, no style overpowering the substance.
The main character guy is well preformed and pretty good. He's a little too cool for this film however. Usually in drug films the main characters are cool and sexy but inevitably fall on hard times as the highs run out and reality set in. Unlike those films however, this guy gets off more or less scott-free. Like, his life is not ideal but he regrets nothing. William S Burroughs even makes a lengthy cameo as a priest-turned-junky to tell us "The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots." It's subversive in its own, low-stakes way.
I loved basically everything Burroughs did on screen. He's got this strange cadence that's very Christopher Walken-ish, very otherworldly. I thought the main character's girlfriend was pretty weakly acted however. I think she's supposed to be a sort of den mother but she came across most unlovely - very little chemistry between her and the main character.
Anyway, the film is very chill. It's never very emotional and mostly floats along with one thing happening after another. It seems like the sort of film that could go on all day long. It's fairly interesting but very much a film that you could unwind with at the end of the day. There's no high emotion or melodrama, but no stupidity either, no style overpowering the substance.
Onward
Saw Onward, a typically winning but kind of muddled Pixar film about a land where magic and magical creatures exist but where for some reason magic has been forgotten because of the success of technology. Apparently only certain kinds of people can do magic (this concept is left mercifully vague and unexplored) but it works exactly like D&D - you have to say a chant and hold a stick and it works.
The protagonist is this lanky blue elf dude who is starting highschool. He's overcome with shyness and embarrassment and is older brother is an unspeakably geeky D&D enthusiast. In the ultimate showdown of the film (spoilers here -->) they fight a dragon in the form of their highschool. With that start and that ending, this really seems like a coming of age film, about this dorky lad embracing his inner awkward and letting his freak flag fly. Instead, it's a road trip movie about the two brothers bringing their father back from the dead.
It has a lot going on. In addition to my fan theory that this film was once about fitting in in highschool, there's issues of fatherhood, found families, and of technology supplanting all that is magical in the world (damn that technology!) It works fairly well as a coming of age story anyhow however. This is Pixar after all, even if it's not always locked on target.
It's a nice film. The emotional climax made me cry real tears and the journey to the ending was good. Some characters learned some lessons, some trials were overcome. It never reaches the delirious highs of say The Incredibles, but it's a solid kid's movie. The way the dad walks is consistently hilarious and inspired.
The protagonist is this lanky blue elf dude who is starting highschool. He's overcome with shyness and embarrassment and is older brother is an unspeakably geeky D&D enthusiast. In the ultimate showdown of the film (spoilers here -->) they fight a dragon in the form of their highschool. With that start and that ending, this really seems like a coming of age film, about this dorky lad embracing his inner awkward and letting his freak flag fly. Instead, it's a road trip movie about the two brothers bringing their father back from the dead.
It has a lot going on. In addition to my fan theory that this film was once about fitting in in highschool, there's issues of fatherhood, found families, and of technology supplanting all that is magical in the world (damn that technology!) It works fairly well as a coming of age story anyhow however. This is Pixar after all, even if it's not always locked on target.
It's a nice film. The emotional climax made me cry real tears and the journey to the ending was good. Some characters learned some lessons, some trials were overcome. It never reaches the delirious highs of say The Incredibles, but it's a solid kid's movie. The way the dad walks is consistently hilarious and inspired.
Aug 2, 2020
Nicholas and Alexandra
Saw Nicholas and Alexandra (thanks, Lea!) It was a historical epic about the fall of the last of the Russian Czars. This is the one that fell to the communist Russian revolution during WW1, and with Anastasia and Rasputin and all. Quite an adventure!
The film is dense and long. It contains many information-passing scenes where we hear that the Duma is doing this or that the peasantry are doing that and Czar Nicholas is going to do thus-and-such about it. Interrupting these fairly dry bits are little cherries of surprisingly moving scenes. At one point a peasant in some kind of fiber-processing-plant has a bitter monologue about his mother's death. How she was born in this place, worked there all her life, and now died there and never had a chance to be anything. Then we go back to Nicholas in his palace or whatever.
The film plays this trick over and over, of juxtaposing terrible strife with Nicholas's opulent lifestyle. He is portrayed as an uncertain leader, thrust into what is essentially a ceremonial role (the real work is clearly being done by "advisors") but frustrated by his own powerlessness and ineffectiveness. He would make a fine leader during times of prosperity perhaps, but is totally overwhelmed by the rising tide of the masses seizing power all over Europe. Trotsky and Lenin are also major characters.
Nicholas's wife is played well but directed badly, I think. She's supposed to be somewhat hysterical and strongly opinionated. She's played like a white-knuckled robot however: all sublimation and implied hysterics. I have a hard time understanding her attachment to Rasputin however, or Nicholas's inability to say no to her. This film was made in the 70s when female hysteria took the form of neurotically clutching at throats and pressing handkerchiefs, but I would have liked some more shouting and carrying on.
The film follows Nicholas even after his fall from grace and in defeat he is quite sad and noble, having been chastened by not only his destruction but the destruction of the entire Czar-ship. We must not forget the first half of the film however, with its juxtapositions. In one of those cherry scenes, a minister harangues him for asking who is responsible for peasant resistance to his armed guards: "How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them? You ask me who's responsible? You ask?" Nicholas is a brutal ruler. Personally perhaps he is only in over his head, but his actions in large part destroyed Russia.
Part of Nicholas's troubles stem from his only son being a secret hemophiliac - unlikely to live long enough to become a Czar in his own right. I feel as the film progresses he becomes a stand-in for Russia in general, or for Nicholas's reign: doomed from the start, prone to resentment and pique, indulging in needless acts of attention-seeking violence. This is my pet theory and small foray into Analysis.
Anyway, the film is largely a character study of Nicholas. He is in over his head, but how much blame should be laid on him and how much understanding and forgiveness is he worthy of? As leader, he must ultimately own the responsibility of all that happens, but is it his fault that he lost track of a complex society, of a no-longer-cowed populace? The film seems to argue that he too is a victim of the monarchy. In another life, perhaps he would have been quite happy as a peasant, his lack of talent for leadership harming no one. As is however, he must command armies and statesmen and he suffers for it. I have a hart time maintaining a ton of sympathy, but we are watching him and he suffers.
The film is dense and long. It contains many information-passing scenes where we hear that the Duma is doing this or that the peasantry are doing that and Czar Nicholas is going to do thus-and-such about it. Interrupting these fairly dry bits are little cherries of surprisingly moving scenes. At one point a peasant in some kind of fiber-processing-plant has a bitter monologue about his mother's death. How she was born in this place, worked there all her life, and now died there and never had a chance to be anything. Then we go back to Nicholas in his palace or whatever.
The film plays this trick over and over, of juxtaposing terrible strife with Nicholas's opulent lifestyle. He is portrayed as an uncertain leader, thrust into what is essentially a ceremonial role (the real work is clearly being done by "advisors") but frustrated by his own powerlessness and ineffectiveness. He would make a fine leader during times of prosperity perhaps, but is totally overwhelmed by the rising tide of the masses seizing power all over Europe. Trotsky and Lenin are also major characters.
Nicholas's wife is played well but directed badly, I think. She's supposed to be somewhat hysterical and strongly opinionated. She's played like a white-knuckled robot however: all sublimation and implied hysterics. I have a hard time understanding her attachment to Rasputin however, or Nicholas's inability to say no to her. This film was made in the 70s when female hysteria took the form of neurotically clutching at throats and pressing handkerchiefs, but I would have liked some more shouting and carrying on.
The film follows Nicholas even after his fall from grace and in defeat he is quite sad and noble, having been chastened by not only his destruction but the destruction of the entire Czar-ship. We must not forget the first half of the film however, with its juxtapositions. In one of those cherry scenes, a minister harangues him for asking who is responsible for peasant resistance to his armed guards: "How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them? You ask me who's responsible? You ask?" Nicholas is a brutal ruler. Personally perhaps he is only in over his head, but his actions in large part destroyed Russia.
Part of Nicholas's troubles stem from his only son being a secret hemophiliac - unlikely to live long enough to become a Czar in his own right. I feel as the film progresses he becomes a stand-in for Russia in general, or for Nicholas's reign: doomed from the start, prone to resentment and pique, indulging in needless acts of attention-seeking violence. This is my pet theory and small foray into Analysis.
Anyway, the film is largely a character study of Nicholas. He is in over his head, but how much blame should be laid on him and how much understanding and forgiveness is he worthy of? As leader, he must ultimately own the responsibility of all that happens, but is it his fault that he lost track of a complex society, of a no-longer-cowed populace? The film seems to argue that he too is a victim of the monarchy. In another life, perhaps he would have been quite happy as a peasant, his lack of talent for leadership harming no one. As is however, he must command armies and statesmen and he suffers for it. I have a hart time maintaining a ton of sympathy, but we are watching him and he suffers.
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