See it for Sandy

Movies: Gravity

A month or so ago, when Alfonso Cuaron's visually stunning film Gravity arrived in theatres, famed astrophysicist and model for one of my favorite memes ("Watch out, we got a badass over here") Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter to criticize the film's scientific holes. He did so with love in his heart though, concluding that he "enjoyed Gravity very much".

I felt the same as deGrasse Tyson after seeing the heart-wrenching and extremely stressful film. Not that I could even begin to understand the science (or lack thereof) behind Gravity. But simply put, the film is not about being lost in space so much as it is about suffering from clinical depression and choosing to persevere.

*As always, spoilers ahead!*

Gravity focuses on two astronauts: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney). The two (plus a third guy who dies in the first 20 minutes) are taking a spacewalk to repair a hubble telescope when a cloud of unexpected space debris (from a destroyed satellite) hits them, severing Stone from her tether and sending her spiraling into open space.

Kowalski, who is less a three-dimensional character in his own right and more just George Clooney in a spacesuit, finds Stone and, with the use of a jet pack, heads towards a Russian space station. The plan is to use the space station's small escape pod to zip over to another space station (a Chinese one) and use that station's capsule which is equipped to re-enter the earth's atmosphere. Still with me? So, basically, the whole "Sandra Bullock lost in space" part of the film is only a small portion of the movie as a whole and it's more about her making her way to the space station with the correct equipment to get back to earth.

So (and seriously, major spoiler here), Stone and Kowalski make it to the Russian space station, but at the last minute, the tether between the two breaks and, though Stone is able to hold on to Kowalski with a parachute-type thing, he realizes that he's dragging her away from the station and cuts himself loose to save her--so then he spirals out into space, directing her to continue into the space station to save herself.

And this is really where the meat and potatoes of Sandra Bullock's performance emerges. We learn earlier that Stone had a four year old daughter who died. She doesn't have a spouse and doesn't speak of any other family or friends. It seems unbelievable that NASA would send a person clearly in grief with little or no social support into space, but whatever! It's a movie! While many actresses might be tempted to overplay Stone's agony--with weeping and gnashing of teeth and all--Bullock plays her like the actual mother of a dead child might act. When she talks about her little girl, her voice goes flat. Her eyes go a little dead. The way Stone has dealt with her child's death is to let it crush her so completely, that she can't convey an emotional response. This seemed very realistic to me and very much how a depressed person would act--shutting down in order to survive.

As Stone attempts to save herself despite mishap after mishap, there are moments were she is ready to lay down and die. I didn't blame her at all. The agony of losing her child combined with the horror and loneliness of space would have made me want to turn up the carbon monoxide and drift off into oblivion myself. But a vision of the unsinkable Kowalski gets her back on track. Kowalski's insistence on Stone's survival reminded me, perhaps oddly, of Titanic. The same dynamic between Rose and Jack is present between Stone and Kowalski, minus the romantic element: he's a charismatic guy who is optimistic in the face of death, and willing to nobly sacrifice himself to save another human being. It's a bit Hollywood, but again--I was suspending some serious disbelief with this whole movie.

I spent most of the movie curled up in a little ball in my seat due to the stress and tension of the film, but needless to say--Sandra Bullock fucking makes it. She rides her fiery little capsule back to earth and ends up in some lake in Asia somewhere. As she crawls to the shore and tests her wobbly legs out, it's a primal scene. She is an animal that chose to live despite all the shit life threw in her direction.

To sum up: what I didn't like about Gravity was the lack of scientific realism, which seemed to be sacrificed in service the the emotional heart of the film. I also thought George Clooney's character and performance, while not bad per se, was basically just George Clooney playing himself in space. He was a little too cute and charismatic for the role of someone who knows they're going to die.

But what I did like was Sandra Bullock's rock solid performance as a woman who chooses the harder path: life, with all its pain, over death. Also, the cinematography is beautiful and is one of the biggest draws of the film--see it in 3D, and in IMAX if you can. It looks VERY realistic (as far as I know, since I've never been to space).

If you can suspend your disbelief and surrender yourself to this emotionally wrenching film, Gravity does come off as a small masterpiece from a virtuoso director.

4 stars for the film itself, plus .5 for the exceptional visual effects = 4.5 out of 5 stars

His Soul Rose Up Like a Bird

Movies: 12 Years a Slave

The horrors of American slavery cut a deep gash in our nation's history, and that wound has never fully healed. Nor should it. I've written before that the evils of America's past (not just slavery, but Native American genocide, Japanese internment camps, etc) are a burden every citizen should--and can--carry. In the same way that we celebrate the triumphs of our collective past, we must do our part in mending our sins.

American slavery was a genocide in itself. Even if the intent was not to kill the body, it was most certainly to kill the will and the humanity of the slave. If a slave could read and write, that was a threat. If a slave plotted to run away, that was a threat. If you treated a slave as a fellow, equal human being, that was a threat. And so slave owners, slave traders, and individuals who stood by had to make sure they didn't see slaves as human, and more importantly, slaves didn't see themselves as human.

No film I've seen illustrates this cultural, collective choice to systematically dehumanize American slaves as well as director Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. What's more, the film not only shows the dehumanizing effects on slaves themselves, but on those who tormented them.

Based on his 1853 memoir of the same title, 12 Years a Slave is the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in Saratoga, New York, with his wife and two children. Played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Solomon is a gifted musician--a violinist--and a well-off and well-respected member of the community. When he is offered a two-week gig playing for a traveling show in Washington, DC, he can't resist the income. But after a night of merriment, his employers drug him and sell him into slavery.

The fact that Solomon is born free is what makes this story so effective. He not only must deny his actual name (he is given the name Platt when he's sold) and never bring up his wife, children, or the truth about himself, he also must actively hide the fact that he is an educated man--which proves difficult when dealing with vicious, condescending slave owners. Solomon is someone we can all identify with and it makes his random enslavement all the more terrifying because we know what it is to be free--and so does Solomon.

Yet, as torturous as it must be for Solomon to be a man stripped of his freedom, it also helps him survive, and, ultimately (uh, spoiler alert?), regain his freedom. The fire, the anger, and the hope never leave Solomon, even after facing increasingly atrocious horrors.

Solomon is initially sold to Mr. Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch, who I do enjoy seeing outside of memes on the Internet), a relatively kind man who is "sentimental" and fair towards his slaves, and even gives Solomon a violin to keep. But one of Mr. Ford's overseers, Tibeats (Paul Dano, doing his best pathetic, sniveling little worm here), enrages Solomon to the point where Solomon beats Tibeats with his own whip. Ford certainly can't keep Solomon after this incident, and he sells him to the vile Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender, playing an evil man so accurately, it's chilling).

Life on Epps' plantation is hell. The slaves pick cotton by day and those who pick less than they picked the day before are whipped. Epps wakes his slaves in the middle of the night and forces them to dance for him and his wife. Worst of all, Epps is obsessed with one slave in particular--Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o)--and rapes her on a nightly basis. But Patsey's agonies only begin with her master's attentions. His jealous wife (Sarah Paulson) hates that his husband is attracted to Patsey and forces her to endure even further torments since she can't direct her hate where it belongs--at her psychopathic husband.

If my descriptions of this film sound like torture porn, please know that director McQueen, whose previous films Shame and Hunger also went to very dark places, shows the exploitation of slaves in the most non-exploitative, yet honest way possible. His camera doesn't flinch from revealing the welts on Patsey's back after she's whipped or the naked slaves being forced to bathe outdoors while clothed white people watch. McQueen diligently captures these humiliations without snark, without apology, and (thank Christ), without pruriency. 12 Years a Slave is a film that respects the memory of American slavery.

Despite the torture, rape, and death all around him and Epps' attempts to break him, Solomon never gives up--he takes numerous risks to get in touch with his family (in the hopes of having his free papers sent--a depressing detail in an of itself, the fact that Americans with black skin even needed free papers to begin with). Even though these attempts fail, and nearly get him killed, his memory of his family keeps him looking for opportunities to find a way out of slavery.

When at last the opportunity arrives, it's cathartic without being overly sentimental. Solomon is reunited with his family--his children are grown now, and his daughter has a son of her own. I imagined if I were Solomon, I would have gotten down on my knees and kissed my families' hands, feeling like they were angels on earth.

Ejiofor, whose previous work includes the fun (but somewhat silly) Kinky Boots and the underrated Dirty Pretty Things, carries a lot of weight on his shoulders--and in his bewitching eyes. The story of the American slave is not exactly a cake walk, and few directors have succeeded in doing it justice. But the team of McQueen and Ejiofor (both black British men, not-so-incidentally) manage to do this dark chapter justice.

12 Years a Slave is emotionally exhausting, but well-worth seeing. Brilliantly acted, beautifully filmed, 12 Years a Slave stares into the soul of hatred and reveals how love and hope conquer all.

5 out of 5 stars

Deconstructing REDRUM

Movies: Room 237


It is a truth universally acknowledged that pop culture fan theories are a wondrous, beautiful black hole to obsessively get sucked into (usually via the Internet) when you're having a boring day. Certainly, you all know that Neville Longbottom was meant to be the "Chosen One" rather than Harry Potter? That the black briefcase in Pulp Fiction contains Marcellus Wallace's soul? That Ferris Bueller is nothing more than a fictitious fever dream in Cameron's head?

Fan theories are to pop culture fanatics what Illuminati bankers and presidential birth certificates are to your slightly tetched in the head uncle who TYPES EMAILS IN ALL CAPS: we look for hidden meanings where there probably aren't any, but we can't stop and we have a hell of good time doing it (and possibly annoying others in the process).

So Room 237 is an especially fun film for a cinephile: it's a documentary where a group of cultural and film critics deconstruct the possible "true" meanings behind The Shining. The Dissolve has been doing a series of articles on The Shining this week, and it's apparent that this film in particular lends itself very easily to fan theories. As Matt Singer points out in "The many ghosts of the Overlook", the fact that director Stanley Kubrick was a noted genius and perfectionist has led fan theorists to assume that any image in the frame, continuity error, or prop can and should be seen as a purposeful message to the audience. Indeed, in Room 237, one narrator makes reference to Kubrick's IQ of 200 (is this true? Because whoa) as if it is hard evidence that The Shining is meant to be a complex puzzle for the audience to solve.

On some level, I agree that The Shining is, in fact, way more than a horror film about a guy who goes nuts and tries to kill his family. The Stephen King novel The Shining--which is equally atmospheric and scary as the movie--is about addiction, writer's block, isolation, and how the three converge to drive otherwise on-the-wagon Jack Torrance to insanity.

The film certainly keeps these elements as plot points, but they decrease in importance when compared to the creepiness and overall wrongness of The Overlook hotel. The film The Shining is less about addiction than it is about freakin' ghosts and labyrinths, man! This is one reason why Stephen King has been so strongly critical of Kubrick's adaptation. Kubrick put Jack Torrance's alcoholism and writer's block on the back burner and instead made the hotel itself insane--and it's clear that there's something wrong with both Jack (played by wild-eyed Jack Nicholson) and the Overlook itself from the first few scenes. There is no "slow decent into insanity" at the Overlook. There is just insanity.

The best interpretations in Room 237 touch on the giant sense of dread that hovers over The Shining like a fog. One narrator argues (in what is probably my favorite reading of the movie) that it's a film about "pastness"--about The Past and History as concepts. He points out that Danny escapes his father in the hedge maze by retracing his steps, much as we can only escape repeating mistakes by retracing our own steps--personal and collective--and learning from them.

Other interpretations range from unlikely yet intriguing (that The Shining is "really" about Native American genocide or The Holocaust) to downright laughable (The Shining is Kubrick's confession that he helped fake the moon landing footage). In some cases, there is just enough "proof" (for example: abundant Native American imagery and a reference to the Overlook being built on an Indian burial ground) to make you think "yeah, I can see that". But some of the "clues" provided by the critics are so silly, they can hardly be taken seriously (one commenter points out that a paper tray on desk of the Overlook's manager looks like a protruding erection in one frame. I am not kidding).

But my favorite scene in Room 237 is when they play The Shining backwards and forwards at the same time--not side by side, but with one image overtop the other like a transparency sheet. The result is super creepy and mesmerizing--kind of like "Dark Side of Oz", but scarier.

I think this is why Room 237 is so enjoyable: even if you think all the fan theories are completely bogus, the film itself is so aesthetically interesting and so complex that it's fascinating to inspect it closely. Kubrick was known for his unique cinematography: clinical, color-saturated, each shot framed perfectly (now that I think about it, he's like a sinister Wes Anderson. Or perhaps I should say that Wes Anderson is a gentle Stanley Kubrick). Symbolically and thematically, his films are stuffed full. So even if some of the fan theories are silly and "out there", it's a pleasure to dig deeply into one of the greatest horror films of all time.

4 out of 5 stars
(and for the record--I give The Shining 5 out of 5 stars)

Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away

Movies, Books: Higher Ground, Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin

"I've done everything. I've changed everything. I changed cities. I changed countries, careers, friends, boyfriends, hobbies. But after everything I've done to make my life feel right, the one consistent is I feel like shit when I go to church."

~Nicole Hardy, Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin


It's taken me a while to begin composing this entry. I see a lot of movies and I read a lot of books, but it's rare for one to really strike my heart. Nicole Hardy's memoir of growing up in the Mormon church and eventually realizing her religion was destroying her really affected me. Not because my experience is exactly like hers--it's not--but because she writes about the push and pull of religion so perfectly and beautifully--she wants to believe, she wants to obey God, she wants so desperately to feel at home in her church, but the truth is that this church has no place for her, and the spiritual and emotional demands are slowly grinding her down.

On top of this, Hardy was a virgin into her mid-thirties. In her church, premarital sex was a grave sin, and she tried so very, very hard to honor the church's teachings. But loneliness and desire for something all of her church friends got when they married young finally came to a head. Hardy didn't want the things Mormon girls are supposed to want--namely, children. She realized this gradually, and also realized that it would effectively bar her from a Mormon marriage, since the Mormon church is extremely family focused. Hardy also realized she was a feminist, pro-gay rights, intellectual, independent--all things that added to her unmarriageability in her church.

My life mirrors Hardy's in a few small ways: I always knew I was a feminist. As of right now, I've never had a strong desire for children (never say never I guess...my ovaries could explode at 30). I was a late bloomer romantically and sexually, and I still have a nagging feeling that I am "behind"--whatever that means. And finally, I have a complicated, antagonistic relationship with faith. I'm not an atheist. I was raised in a family that went to church, but also valued reason and education. I've never been a sentimental Christian, or a good girl. If I believe in God, I want that faith to reside somewhere deep and meaningful within me, independent of my political affiliation, my sex life, how I spend my Sunday mornings. And so, I struggle with what I believe.

I feel towards religion the way a big sibling feels towards a little sibling: I feel that I should be allowed to mock, criticize, tease, and fight with my own faith...but if others mock and make fun of it, I get protective and defensive of it.

This is why reading Hardy's memoir affected me so much. I understand where she's coming from. How it's not so easy to forsake something that's been a huge part of your life. There's a reason why R.E.M's "Losing My Religion" is a sad song. As freeing as rejecting religion can be, there is a sense of profound loss as well.

After reading about her struggles with confining her sexuality and dutifully attending church as she ages out of her young singles group, I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off of me, the reader, when Hardy finally reaches an epiphany. She is back from a disastrous vacation with a semi-boyfriend. During their trip, she says something that offends him and things just get worse from there. By the end of the trip, they aren't speaking. She confines herself to her apartment for days, crying her eyes out--not just because she lost a potential boyfriend, but because of the enormous pressure weighing down on her from all sides.

She looks at herself in the mirror and thinks: "You are the one who takes care of you, I tell myself. Who will, if you don't? I say it again like a promise, into the blue-rimmed gray of my irises. You are the one who takes care of you. The words inspire a tectonic shift, a click like the spring of a lock, exposing what's been lying in front of me for days, unassuming and cataclysmic: I am finished with my church."

This passage was so fucking profound, I wanted to sob for Hardy. For myself. For everyone. You are the one who takes care of you. It doesn't have to be about church or about relationships. It's about self-respect. Self-affirmation. All the things in the world that weigh down on us--the expectations, family, work, love, sex, religion, body image, social status, money. The ties we form, the acceptance we seek, the improvements we endlessly subject ourselves to...all of it is meaningless unless we can find it in us to love and accept ourselves.

There's a lot more to Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin. At times, Hardy's writing is a bit self-absorbed (how could it not be since she is telling the story of her life?), but Hardy's self-awareness is her strength. There are moments in the memoir where she is the bad guy, or the fool. But she knows this and doesn't try to make out like a saint or a victim. Her struggles are solidly middle-class, white struggles--she knows this also. But even though she is privileged, never hungry, always loved by family and friends, her memoir captures a specific kind of struggle--the relentless demands of conservative religion, and the loneliness of feeling like you don't fit into the social group you were born and raised in.

5 out of 5 stars

***

In the same vein of Confessions, Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, Higher Ground is a beautiful take on one woman's relationship with religion over a few decades of her life.

Farmiga plays Corinne Walker, a woman who comes to Christianity after watching her child almost drown in a freak accident (the teenage Corinne is played by Taissa Farmiga, Vera's younger sister). Corinne and her husband join an evangelical, hippy-dippy church that coincides perfectly with the feel of the time period--the late 60's and early 70's. The members of the church wear homemade frocks and both genders sport long hair. There's a lot of hand-waving and singing. It's basically Woodstock minus the sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

Corinne is presented as a woman with very strong faith. Even when she is chastised by an elder woman in the church for speaking up too often and verging on "preaching to the men", Corinne reacts with surprise and humility rather than rebelliousness.

Her faith is tested when her close friend, Annika (played by the lovely Dagmara Dominczyk, wife of actor Patrick Wilson), is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Annika undergoes surgery which saves her life but radically changes her personality--she goes from a sassy, sexy woman who can speak in tongues to a silent, scowling woman completely dependent on her husband.

Corinne's own marriage has serious ups and downs. Her husband, Ethan (played by Joshua Leonard of Blair Witch fame), is not a dominating, macho man, but he attempts to rule the roost at home in a way that is contrary to the equal partnership the two had in the early years of their marriage. This rubs Corinne the wrong way and it all comes to a head in a terrifying scene where Ethan chokes Corinne during a fight. Not long after, she decides to leave him.

Like Nicole Hardy, Corinne is a woman who naturally has faith, yet finds herself not fitting into (or rather, growing out of) her church. Higher Ground is a movie where no one is the bad guy. It's not a film that is anti-religion, but rather it attempts to realistically portray the natural changes that occur over the course of a person's life-- including changes in the relationship one has with religion.

Higher Ground ends on an ambiguous, yet positive, note. Corinne has left her husband, but still is part of her family's life. She visits her church to watch her girls perform a musical number and then speaks to the church members about waiting for Jesus to knock on her door--some days, he does, and other days she feels she lives in "a lonely place". But that faith is still there, and God has not abandoned Corinne, even though she has grown into a new person and new phase in her life. It's a fitting and beautiful end to a movie that lives solidly in the gray areas of life.

4 out of 5 stars

He Likes to Watch

Movies: Don Jon

Don Jon, is the first full-length film directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has previously directed a few short films) and, perhaps I'm biased since JGL is both attractive *and* incredibly talented, but I quite enjoyed the film despite its flaws.

I have to hand it to JGL: not many directors are capable of tackling the issue of pornography with any sense of nuance or moderation. Previous films about porn (or, rather, the porn industry) include such uplifting films such as Lovelace and Boogie Nights, in which characters (real or fictional) pretty much have their lives ruined by porn.

Don Jon is not exactly gung-ho about porn, but it is slightly more even-handed and light-hearted. However, I felt a bit spoon-fed by JGL's message that real sex between people who care about each other is more fulfilling than jacking it to an erotic video.

Btw...there is adult language in this review.

JGL plays Jon Martello, a young New Jersey guy living a pretty simple life. As he explains in a voiceover, there are only a few things he cares about in life: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls, and his porn. But Jon has a special relationship with porn. He lovingly describes how porn is far better than real sex, even real sex with a beautiful lady (Jon regularly takes home 8s, 9s, even "dimes" he picks up at clubs). In porn, you get the payoff with none of the work. The girls are willing to do stuff that real life ladies aren't willing to do. And there are no STDs or icky emotional complications. So as much as Jon prides himself on being good with the ladies, his true love is between himself and...well, himself (and his computer).

That is, until he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson, playing an equally sultry and grating Jersey girl). Barbara is beautiful--easily a dime, in Jon's estimation--and Jon decides he's in love with her. After catching him watching porn on his laptop one night, Barbara freaks out and makes him promise to never indulge in porn again. Jon agrees in order to placate her.

But over time it becomes clear that Barbara is very controlling--and not just about the websites Jon visits. At first, it seems like she just wants a serious, grown-up relationship with Jon: she insists on meeting his parents and friends, makes him wait to have sex with her, and encourages him to continue going to school in hopes that he can get a "real" job someday (Jon's a bartender). But all of the positives Barbara brings into Jon's life are not because she cares about who he truly is, but because she is shaping him to be the man *she* wants. Barbara has a fixation of her own: romantic movies with unrealistic expectations, and these movies are affecting her ability to accept imperfections in relationships.

The analogy JGL draws between romantic films and porn is not *entirely* accurate, but it does show how the media we consume leads to unrealistic expectations about other people. Mainstream porn promotes a certain body type and certain way of having sex. Romantic movies suggest that your "true love" will be all you need and fulfill you in every way. Both forms of media promote a selfish way of viewing love and sex.

Neither Barbara nor Jon fully understand that their preferred entertainment are fantasy-based and not reflective of reality. And both Barbara and Jon are selfish people with agendas who are stuck in their own ruts about how sex and love should be.

But since this is Jon's film, he begins to break out of his rut and open his mind to what he truly seeks in a partner and how good sex can be when it's actually meaningful.

<Spoilers, dawg!>

Jon engages in an awkward friendship that blossoms into a deeper relationship with Esther (Julianne Moore), an older woman he meets in his adult education course. At first, Jon barely perceives her (she's an old lady, and he doesn't care about old chicks), but by the end of the film, the two have a couple intensely intimate scenes that in my mind make the film. They also engage is some very heavy-handed discussions about porn that, as I mentioned above, feel like JGL is spoon-feeding his message to the audience. That, I didn't like so much.

</End spoilers>

One major drawback of Don Jon is that it treats pornography and porn-viewers as a monolith. We don't see much of the porn Jon watches (it's an R-rated movie, not an NC-17 movie, after all), but his voice over describes the "tits, ass, blowjobs, sex, and cum shots". The kind of porn Jon watches is what I'd consider "mainstream"--fairly vanilla and directed toward heterosexual men. Also, the movie draws a clear line between men and women when it comes to attitudes toward porn. Jon and his guy friends take porn for granted--it's just part of their lives. Barbara is flat-out disgusted by it. The other main female character, Esther, isn't disgusted by it, but points out that it's pretty cheap compared to "the real thing".

The are plenty of women who watch porn (and if you count written erotica, the number shoots up even further). There are also gay people and trans* people who watch porn. And despite the prevalence of mainstream (boring) porn, I can guarantee you that there is pornography for every kink, position, gender, political persuasion, and fantasy in the book. And--you might not believe this, but I swear it's true--there are *couples* that watch porn *together* (or even separately sometimes!) as part of their sex lives. Mind blown, right? Well, something's getting blown anyway.

Obviously, Don Jon isn't claiming to be an academic treatise on pornography, but it would have been nice if JGL had shown a few more shades of a topic that really isn't black and white. Also, the discussion about how much is too much is an important one, but instead of really examining how a person can become addicted to pornography, Jon is able to quit cold turkey when he meets the right person. That seems just an unrealistic as the romantic comedies Barbara is obsessed with. 

Don Jon is a funny, very entertaining movie. The acting is excellent (Tony Danza gives a terrifying and hilarious performance as Jon's macho dad). There are moments of truth and poignancy scattered among a pretty simplistic and on-the-nose take on the topic of porn. But JGL's thesis, that with our world of endless media consumption, we are practically born and raised to objectify other people (particularly, women being objectified and men doing the objectification), is solid. The film makes the case that we have to re-train our brains to see other people as human individuals with needs of their own who aren't there to "complete" us if we want to have meaningful relationships. And I think that's a true and important message.

4 out of 5 stars

Horrorshow

Movies, Books: You're Next, The World's End, American Mary, Night Film


Hello dear readers, it's been too long! I haven't been able to update due to a busy period in my work and social life, so I'm back with a mega-review of some of the movies (plus a book!) I've seen/read lately. Appropriately, with Halloween around the corner, they all fall into (or close to, at least) the horror genre.


You're Next

Adam Wingard's indie take on the classic home invasion film combines dry comedy with blood and guts in a way that reminds one of Scream. It's a very self-aware horror film. The cast is made up of unknowns--some of whom (Ti West and Joe Swanberg, for example) are filmmakers themselves, lending the film a winking sense of humor (especially when two characters get into a passive-aggressive argument over "underground cinema" at the dinner table).

You're Next follows a WASPy clan of adults: Mom and Dad are in their 60's, wealthy and retired, and just purchased a mansion out in the middle of nowhere. They invite their grown children, three sons and a daughter, and their kids' significant others to spend the weekend celebrating the new abode.

Little does the family know that they've fallen into a trap. During a family dinner, all hell breaks loose when one of the guests is killed in a gruesome and unexpected way. The chaos that follows is palpable and the shaky camera and quick-cutting add to a feeling of fear and nausea.


One guest, Erin (Sharni Vinson), the girlfriend of one of the sons, emerges as leader during the invasion and makes for an unusual and ass-kicking heroine. She doesn't use brute strength or karate moves to fight off the bad guys; rather, she is resourceful, calm, and uses her outrage to fuel her when she gets a bad guy in her sights (and proceeds to bash his head in). I loved Erin. She was so unexpected and unique. I don't think I've seen a character quite like her before.

There is a twist and it's revealed early, which works in the film's favor. It also changes your entire perspective and makes you think back to events that happened earlier to see if you can find the clues. I found You're Next to be incredibly intelligent and entertaining with its meta take on its genre--kind of like the low budget slasher sister of Cabin in the Woods.

4 out of 5 stars

***

The World's End

While not strictly a horror movie, this genre mash-up of science fiction, comedy, and drama from the director, writers, and actors who brought you Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has plenty of tension and violence (and menacing robots). It also has a surprisingly emotional core.

"The World's End" refers to the final pub in an epic pub crawl dreamed up by Gary King (Simon Pegg). He and his buddies attempted this twelve-pub marathon, dubbed "The Golden Mile", when they were young, spry lads in the '90's.  They didn't make it to all twelve pubs, but they had a hell of a night.

Decades later, Gary is a washed up loser in serious denial about his alcohol problem. He manages to round up his buddies--now grown, with kids, jobs, and middle-age spread--to recreate the journey they failed at years ago.

As the four friends--including one who is now a teetotaler--hit the bars in their old hometown, they realize something is amiss. The locals, including some people the guys grew up with, are acting very bizarre. After a bar fight with some teens reveals that robots have taken over the town (not exactly a spoiler--the plot twist is in the trailer), the guys have to figure out how to finish the pub crawl with their humanity intact.

What's great about The World's End is that it so seamlessly weaves together a variety of genres. On the one hand, the film is a dramedy about a guy who can't stop living in the past, even as everyone around him has moved on. The film doesn't skimp on the painful confrontations between Gary and his friends--particularly Andy (Nick Frost), a man who years ago made a stupid decision while drunk and had to live with the consequences, and now has to watch Gary continue to destroy himself with booze. The film doesn't celebrate drunkeness in the way movies like The Hangover tend to, but it's also not preachy or overly sentimental.

On the other hand, The World's End is a ridiculous comedy about robots and the apocalypse. Just like in Shaun of the Dead, the horror is suffused with outrageous, kooky humor.

While Shaun of the Dead will probably always be my favorite in Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's "Cornetto Trilogy", The World's End just seems like the best film. It somehow manages to balance sadness with joy, humor with action, and robots with booze without coming off as schizophrenic or overstuffed. No small feat.

4.5 out of 5 stars


***

American Mary

Ah, now here's some good, old-fashioned body horror. Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska (who also plays twins in the movie), American Mary is an indie (and somewhat amateurish) horror film with a female lead who is both the heroine and the villain.


Mary Mason is a medical student who is sick and tired of med school. She's poor, one of her professors is a huge dick, and after a sickening turning point (involving the evil professor), Mary finds herself scoping out the world of extreme body modification. While initially disgusted by the requests of her customers, she finds that she excels at splitting tongues, removing nipples, and adding sub-dermal devil horns to her patients. While the parade of freakish body parts and strange characters is horrific in its own right, there is a subplot about that old, evil professor which *truly* brings the horror to a boil.


Oh, alright, I'll tell you. Spoilers!!

After inviting Mary to a "party" where he drugs and rapes her (and films the whole thing), Mary kidnaps Dr. Grant to use as her own personal guinea pig for practicing weird body modifications. By the end of the film, Dr. Grant is armless, legless, with his mouth sewn shut and hanging from his back skin on meathooks in Mary's apartment/dungeon. God only knows what she did to the parts of his body we don't see! This extremely grotesque torture shocked even me and was very effective horror...although certainly Dr. Grant's punishment didn't fit his crime.

/End spoilers!

American Mary was entertaining, I'll give it that. I definitely felt that strange, naughty delight--like I was watching something I shouldn't have been watching. For a movie directed by two women who were interviewed in Bitch magazine (a pretty staunch feminist mag), the film has some fucked up gender politics. There isn't a man in the movie who treats Mary kindly (except maybe Lance, a taciturn bodyguard). Her "mentors" are horrible assholes, and her "love interest" treats her like an object. Perhaps the message is that in a world of evil men, Mary must be strong--even cruel--to survive? But really, it's just an excuse to see sexy Mary, with her Bettie Page bangs and va-va-voom figure, torture and mutilate folks. Scary fun, but not exactly deep.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Night Film

I read Night Film, by Marisha Pessl, in two weeks. This is a 600 page novel, and I'm a slow reader. But I could. not. stop. There was one day where I got up and read for three hours in the morning, took a break for lunch, and read for three more hours in the afternoon. I haven't done that in God knows how long.

I don't know, it just seems like Night Film was written for me. It's about a girl, Ashley Cordova, who jumps to her death in an elevator shaft in New York City. Turns out, she's the daughter of reclusive film director Stanislas Cordova, a man whose terrifying "night films", shown in underground tunnels and available to purchase on Ebay for thousands of dollars, have earned him a cult-like following. Cordova is part Stanley Kubrick, part David Lynch, and part Dario Argento--an eccentric genius whose legend is larger than life itself.

When Scott McGrath, a journalist who tried to expose Cordova years before, and was promptly sued by the director's lawyers, hears about Ashley's death, he sees his chance to go after Cordova again. He finds himself hopelessly sucked into Cordova's vortex, and witness to increasingly bizarre places and events.

This book has underground websites, creepy sex clubs, witchcraft, mental hospitals--all the fascinating, scary things you can think of. There were passages that actually caused the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Pessl knows how to build suspense and rely on atmosphere and implication to horrify the reader.


Night Film isn't perfect though. There is a lot of exposition. Partway though the book, a pretty clear formula emerges: McGrath and his "partners" (Hopper, a former lover of Ashley, and Nora, a young woman who is fascinated by the case) would discover a lead, follow it, and wind up talking to someone who knew Cordova. That person would end up telling a story about Cordova and his family that would go on for dozens of pages. Usually, another lead would emerge from their story, which McGrath and company would then chase down. Wash, rinse, repeat. Now, while all this exposition was fascinating and thrilling, it's hard not to notice this kind of device when the author uses it over and over.

But despite the hefty amount of exposition, Night Film was such an immense pleasure to read, I forgive the book all its flaws. It's fun, it's scary, it's well-written and meticulously detailed. I'm just sad I can't forget all of it and go back and read it again with a blank slate.

5 out of 5 stars

Anything for his Daughter

Movies: Prisoners

Prisoners, director Denis Villeneuve's first English-language film, is a tense thriller with a weird and inconsistent moral framework.

The film opens on Thanksgiving weekend in Pennsylvania. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) just took his teenage son hunting and the boy shot his first deer. We learn that Dover is a survivalist who values preparedness in all situations. He is also a religious man, who leads his family--son Ralph, young daughter Anna, and wife (played by Maria Bello, who I strongly dislike--more on that later) Grace--in prayer over a meal.

Setting up Dover as a man with extremely strong convictions, who is also handy with a deadly weapon or a toolbox, is crucial to the storyline. We'll see why in a bit.

The Dovers head over to their neighbors, the Birches, for a Thanksgiving meal. As the parents get tipsy on wine, the two young daughters--Anna Dover and Joy Birch--leave to go back to the Dover's house. But they never come back. After a neighborhood search turns up no sign of the girls, the cops get involved and the parents--particularly Dover--get more and more frantic.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Detective Loki (was Detective Thor on vacation?). Loki follows a lead to an RV that the girls were supposedly seen playing near, and finds a mentally slow young man, Alex Jones (played sympathetically and beautifully by Paul Dano) behind the wheel. After interrogating Alex for 10 hours, Loki is convinced the young man is innocent. Unfortunately, Keller Dover isn't convinced, and when he gets word that Alex Jones is being released from police custody, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

*Spoilers below, y'all*

The plot splits into two story lines: one is a noirish whodunnit with Detective Loki chasing down leads to find the kidnapper of the girls. The other is vaguely torture pornish, with Keller Dover kidnapping Alex Jones and holding him hostage in an old apartment building, and then coercing his neighbor, Franklin Birch (Terrance Howard), into helping him "interrogate" Alex by pummeling the shit out of the poor guy. Dover is absolutely convinced that Alex knows where the girls are, despite the fact that Alex has the IQ of a 10-year-old, and barely understands what is going on. This ruthless conviction is a mirror of Dover's religious belief--and we see him saying the Lord's Prayer before continuing to torture Alex.

I found the use of faith as a motif in Prisoners to be distasteful and bizarre, given the plot. It seems, at least at the beginning, that the audience is being set up to view Keller Dover as a self-righteous hypocrite and violent nutcase who believes that the ends justify the means. I found this disrespectful to people of faith, who (mostly) aren't going to interpret Christianity to mean "torture your mentally slow neighbor by pouring scalding water on him until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit". I figured the film had an anti-Christianity bent that was going to reveal Dover to be the true monster, which I thought was simplistic and stupid.

Well...I was partially correct. In a twist, it turns out that although Alex Jones is indeed innocent, it is his "aunt" (Melissa Leo, invisible behind a gray wig and huge glasses) who has kidnapped the girls. Alex reveals a crucial bit of information that leads Dover to the aunt's house where he attempts (and fails) to rescue the girls. So...the moral of the story is...torture is justified? Sort of? [Note: upon further inspection, I remember that, in fact, another character in the film reveals the information that leads Dover to the aunt's house. So, actually, all that torture led to nothing].

More hilariously, when Dover confronts Alex's aunt, she reveals why she has made a habit of kidnapping children over the years--is a a weird sexual thing? Is she a sadist? No. She (and her late husband) were, and I quote, "waging a war on God". By kidnapping peoples' kids, they cause parents to lose faith and become "monsters like you" she says to Dover. All this because her kid died years ago.

WHAT!?? I'm sorry, but this is the stupidest motive a criminal in a movie has ever had. "Waging a war on God" by kidnapping kids? What kind of cockamamie bullshit is that? Children are abducted all the time in real life, and it usually has something to do with relatives kidnapping kids because of custody arrangements, or psychos taking children/teens for sexual and/or violent jollies (Ariel Castro, anyone?). I found the "big twist" to be laughably stupid and insulting to Christians, atheists, and everyone in between.

It also means that Dover was justified. By torturing his way into solving the mystery (before Detective Loki busts in to actually save the day), Dover is (kind of) a hero. And the bad guy is a woman so anti-Christian, she's taken to kidnapping kids and murdering them to force others to "lose faith". The logic is twisted and just...weird.

So Prisoners is a taut thriller up until the final 20 minutes or so when the whole thing falls apart. Hugh Jackman's character is incredibly unlikeable (and dumb! he spends the movie torturing a guy who obviously suffers from a mental disability) and his complacent neighbors are gutless and go along with his delusions. His wife, played by Maria Bello, spends the entire movie in bed, doped out of her mind to avoid facing the pain of her daughter disappearing. God, did I hate the character of Grace Dover--she is such a weak, stupid woman who has no idea what her husband is up to. And I've been side-eyeing Maria Bello ever since she made a comment about women wanting to be dominated by men when she played the role of another violent man's wife in A History of Violence (she made the comment in an interview when asked about the rape-y sex scene she has with Viggo Mortenson). I hate that shit.

On the plus side, Paul Dano's performance as Alex Jones (ironic name, given the career another Alex Jones has made out of bullshit conspiracy theories) is excellent. He elicits such sympathy, while still coming off as creepy. And Jake Gyllenhaal gives another one of his patented sexy, masculine--yet doe-eyed and introverted--performances as Loki. His performance, and the movie itself, remind me of another creeptastic thriller, Zodiac, also starring Gyllenhaal and much superior to Prisoners.

Finally, and this is a relatively small thing, but the cinematography in the movie is spot on. Gray, wet, November/early December in Pennsylvania. It's the perfect setting for a film about desperation and hopelessness.

Prisoners was entertaining and had some excellent performances, but the film's quite frankly wrong-headed message and the unbelievable motive of the bad guy left a bad taste in my mouth.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Was the film worth watching for a tattooed, buff Gyllenhaal? Imma say yes.