The Necessity of Plot (The Possession and The Master)

A good portion of The Possession is a good movie. Natasha Calis has a strong screen presence for someone so young, and this makes up for the weakness of Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in their performances as her parents. But, in the end, this very plot-driven story comes to an obvious climax--with the requisite "take me instead" detour that comes with just about any movie in the possession subgenre of horror films--with a nice, seemingly tacked on "twist" of an ending that leaves an opening for an unnecessary sequel.

The problem, though is that through all the drama, you know the plot, the story never gels very well. Sure, we can empathize with a divorced dad just trying to do right by his daughters, except the film never gives us too many examples of this--he gives his daughters pizza on his weekend despite his ex-wife telling him not to, which is cute except that his youngest daughter seems to be a vegetarian because of allergies not just moral reasons, so this is actually an example of his bad parenting. His best parenting is in figuring out something is wrong with his daughter, but after she stabs him with a fork he'd have to be blind not to notice that.

There's another man in the wife's life now, and he keeps reappearing but ultimately gets chased out of the story by the possessed girl never to be  seen or really spoken of again. Because Hollywood needs the divorced couple to get back together in the end, you know, and he was in the way. Except, the film never actually gives the husband and wife any reason to get back together. And, his job offer out of state sounds like a good idea... well, it would if the movie bothered to suggest that either of these people were struggling with life monetarily or in any way at all. If he was pining for his ex-wife, if he seemed depressed an lonely without his daughters around in his new house, if there was any depth to any of these characters at all, perhaps we'd have reason to care. Instead, we get a horror film with very few attempts at scares, even fewer successful ones, and a generic, straightforward plot.

That being said, at least The Possession has a plot. Paul Thomas Anderson is a great filmmaker. And, he can tell a good story and get fantastic performances out of his actors. But--and I regret this even as I suggest it, because I understand that PLOT is not actually necessary--I really wish he could discover the idea of having a plot. There's a scene in The Master where the titular Master's son says he sleeps through his father's sermons because he can skip parts here and there and not miss a thing--"He's making this up as he goes," he suggests. And, remarkably, the same seems true of Anderson's film; you could skip a few scenes and still get the whole idea. There are no character arcs, no plot to speak of--well, there is almost a plot, or at least the inkling of a direction, except the film never actually goes that direction and the characters don't change... well, maybe a little, but we don't really see that change happen. We might wonder if there is a real epiphany in Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell walking back and forth and back and forth for at least an entire day, but at best, the epiphany he gets is the same we might get from the sequence: this is going nowhere.

The trailer for The Master includes a few shots that are not in the film, and that happens, sure. But, there is one shot of Phoenix with a gun that hints perhaps at violence or at least the possibility thereof. Maybe he will come to question his Master, maybe even kill him. But, this never happens. In fact, he violently protects his Master and mostly gets away with it.

Chekov would be, well, confused.

Phoenix's Quell has a problem with alcohol, a problem with women, and a problem with his temper. In the end, he's still got at least two of these, and probably all three, albeit perhaps in a more controlled measure. But, this growth, if it is even there, does NOT come from his Master's help, not really. If we believe the Master to be correct in the things he says about aliens and endless battles between good and evil, then this could be one tiny piece of that struggle, but it is so tiny a piece that it doesn't matter. Painted on a cosmic canvas, these two men struggling with their own arrogance and ego is all but meaningless.

One could guess this is the point of the film, but one should expect the point of the film to be, even if only for the briefest of moments, text and not subtext. And, characters should grow (or wither) and change. The order of events should matter. We should not be able to sleep through part of the story and miss nothing.

Then again, at least we get real characters, people with depth in a world where things just happen and demon possessed boxes don't happen into our lives to infuse a plot into the boredom. Arguably, The Master is more realistic--and I do not mean because of the supernatural element in The Possession--in giving us a portrait of life, people who seem real, who have real cares and concerns and struggle with everyday things. But, isn't that why we have life? Shouldn't our fiction have more of a point, or at least a recognizable catharsis? Shouldn't it at least have an obvious endpoint?

The key to a plot is that when it ends, we can recognize that it is over. In The Master, the movie ends, apparently, at the point that Anderson decided for it to end, not at some organic point where the struggles within the story have ended, or at least turned an important corner. There is certainly value to a character study, but even the most aimless and arbitrary character study relies on an arc, something the character wants and in some way seeks. And, failure to obtain can be a reasonable ending to a plot, but a real denouement requires something to come of that failure as well.

The Master is a great film, filled with parts that could probably be rearranged into something far better. But, something is missing.

and i didn't even get to the opening credits... oh, and it's about time i reviewed Cabin in the Woods

In my recent review of Paranormal Incident, I neglected to cover something that should have been right at the beginning--the opening credits... I also should have mentioned the entirely pointless brief flashes of nudity early in the film that served only to titilate and barely to establish some character conflict later which could have been better served by, well, about anything else. But, I digress.

Opening credits. Sometimes, they are awesome and appropriate and set up themes and feelings and tone for the film--I'm thinking North by Northwest, I'm thinking SE7EN, I'm thinking Sleepwalkers, Halloween, any of those Saul Bass style openers... and there are many. I'd like to deal with SE7EN's credits here, because they relate in a way to Paranormal Incidents. There's scratchiness, frames that aren't quite as still as they should be, like the projector is unsteady, there are flashes of creepy imagery that may or may not tie in to the actual content of the film... in SE7EN we get a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at a killer we have not yet been introduced to, and in retrospect we may realize later that we're getting a look at his journals, which show up later. WE also get a good idea of the vibe for the film, that world-os-off-kilter tone that permeates the film...

Paranormal Incident tries this, but doesn't have anything as great as that almost wordless version of Nine Inch Nails' Closer playing. Instead, there's instrumental music that almost contradicts the visuals, which could be on purpose, except that wouldn't fit the tone of the film. It's like the director or whoever put together the titles wanted a creepy vibe, wanted that SE7EN vibe, but didn't quite know how to get it, and just couldn't find his Nine Inch Nails CD (or the money to license one of their songs).

Anyway, sometimes the opening titles work, sometimes they don't. Insidious, which far too many people actually liked, has this discordant and loud stinger-like music to go with its title, like it's going for some classic horror film visual and a jarring audio to, well, get some of that off-kilter vibe also. Except, the film is so lazily put together that the tone never congeals. And, the opening credits seem more like a parody than something as serious as it's supposed to be... Then again, so many people loved that movie and probably totally dug the opening titles. I think that sudden, pseudo-old-fashioned title with accompanying stinger works far better in this year's Cabin in the Woods. Now, this film deserves a review of its own, but the short version is this: while Cabin in the Woods is a horror film, it is not often as scary as its content might seem to require. But, that's kinda on purpose, because Cabin in the Woods IS a parody of a sort, or at least a genre deconstruction. Insidious, on the other hand, is supposed to be taken seriously, is supposed to be a classic in the making, despite Darth Maul's retarded younger brother and all that--go find my Insidious review if you want more on that. The thing is, that stinger title in Cabin in the Woods is so incongruous with what comes before it and what comes after it that it serves as this rather abrupt reminder that what we're watching is NOT real. I mean, we all know the film isn't real, but the fact that it isn't real is part of the point to Cabin in the Woods, arguably...

SPOILERS COMING--Cabin in the Woods is essentially a deconstruction of why we watch horror films, particularly slasher films. Whether or not we the audience are represented merely by the old gods waiting for our sacrifices or perhaps more by the technicians not only leading the victims to their deaths but betting on how it's going to go--well, that's an argument worth having as well. Paranormal Incident gets some of scares in more successfully than Cabin in the Woods, but Cabin in the Woods is not really made for someone new to the genre, needing to be frightened; Cabin in the Woods is made for the veteran audience, the kind of people that populate the edges of the Scream films, knowledgable of the rules of the genre, knowing what's coming and at the same time ecstatic for the moments things twist away from the usual path and completely happy with the moments where eveyrthing happens just as it's happened before and will happen again in the next slasher film (and, yes, it's worth pointing out that the actual plot that gets the characters killed in the film is closer to a supernatural movie like Evil Dead than a straight slasher film, I think it serves the film better in describing it as a slasher because a) it's easier and b) that structure is essentially the same, even if in one you get a methodical killer and in the other you get vengeful spirits or pseudo-zombies... and, that "pseudo" is to separate out the more straight zombies from the likes of Romero's films or even 28 Days Later from the more supernatural ones of the Evil Dead series). Cabin in the Woods is comfort food for people who know what to expect and are comfortable even when cliches are thrown around.

Of course, Cabin in the Woods tears a lot of the cliches apart, makes the stereotypical characters into a part of the story... For those who haven't seen it, the idea is that there are five types of victims for the sacrifice, the jock, the slut, the nerd, the fool and the virgin. These show up (perhaps not exactly) in so many slasher films that they are easily recognizable. But, Cabin in the Woods gives us not screenwriters fitting these characters into a deadly plot but rather other characters turning them into these stereotypes right before our eyes, or at least attempting to. This is already deep into spoiler territory, but I don't want to give everything away.

Cabin in the Woods has the trademark wit of Joss Whedon and a hadnful of good actors for a horror film. This is far more of a "classic" in the making than Insidious (which sucked) or Paranormal Incident (which was pretty good most of the time). The film is intelligent and does serve up a few scares--though, they are comfort scares for we fans of horror films. It's a great deconstruction of the genre/subgenre... now we just need a good reconstructive followup, something new that isn't so-called "torture porn" or mediocre (at best) or bad (at worst) attempts to bring back ghost stories... A recent mediocre example would be The Lady in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe. Its parts are all pretty good, but the whole just isn't very deep or meaningful, and good ghost stories should have some depth to them, After all, ghost stories are about loss, at least in part, and The Lady in Black is about loss from a couple angles. Insidious would be a bad attempt to bring back ghosts. The Paranormal Activity movies (not to be confused with Paranormal Incident) are good attempts to put something new into ghost stories, with the first one being the most original, the second one probably being the best made, and the third expanding the story into something bigger and weirder... Honestly, when I saw Scream 3 and they said the rule for the third part in a trilogy was that you find some secret from the past that changes the way you look at everything (you know like in the original Star Wars trilogy, learning how Luke and Leia are related to one another and to Darth Vader changes the entire story. And Paranormal Activity 3 does this sort of thing to the series. But, the whold found footage thing is perhaps getting a bit played out, used well now and then... Chronicle made excellent use of the idea, and also made good use of Freudian psychology (which my wife deconstructed far better than I could have, and I should still get her to do a guest review). Insidious, on the other hand, could have used something like a found footage restriction. The conceit would have limited its approach enought that maybe it wouldn't have been so full of itself.

Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below... and the films about them that are not quite as good as they should be

The plot for Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below is actually fairly simple. A young girl whose father is dead and whose nurse mother is mostly absent ventures into a mythical underworld with a government agent who believes he can get his dead wife back by going there. It's anime, so it's got some great visuals, some interesting design work--the "God" in the underworld is a great visual, for example, like a multi-oared boat flying through the sky the first few times it's seen then transforming into a many-eyed human-shaped thing when it comes time to assist in the government agent's resurrection of his wife...

And, that last bit is not much of a spoiler. That there is resurrection coming is kinda the point of the story, or rather the plot. The story seems to be leaning toward some deeper exploration into grief and coming to terms with loss, except the main girl never really deals with her father's death and never once considers bringing him back. And, the agent is so inexpressive that his grief is all but nonexistent. Still the movie is entertaining. It is entertaining as an adventure story, these two characters and those who help them or that they meet along the way interact in interesting ways, there is tension and drama and though there may be no clear antagonist, there are some villainous inclusions here and there, and there is some good conflict.

The problem, as I see it, is this movie needs more internal conflict. It needs more of the agent's grief, more of the girl's grief. When--SPOILERS AHEAD, not that there haven't already been some--the agent's wife can only return to flesh by possessing the girl, there should be a bigger dilemma for the agent or he should come across as a villain, but there is really neither. It is simple another thing that happens. When the strange shadow creatures come after the characters, it seems more an exericse in worldbuilding than storytelling and... I must admit I'm not sure if there is some source material here that has greater detail, maybe a comic or something--certainly not an actual mythology, since this one incorporates seemingly Japanese ideas about nature with some South American details; the guardian creatures that keep overlanders out are called Quetzal Coatls for example. There are elements here that seem like windowdressing, even though there's a great plot at the center. The story just never quite gets everything together into one cohesive whole. What could have been a fantastic drama about grief and loss disguised as an adventure yarn is instead simply an adventure yarn. And, I don't mean to judge the film simply on what I imagine it to be; there are points in the film where grief is explicitly brought up, hinting at themes that seem to want to be here but aren't.

All in all, still an enjoyable film. It just needed to be more if it was going to hint at much bigger things; I mean, there's a god and giant animalian guardians, shadow creatures, violence, and even a cute little kitten. This movie should be better but is still quite good.

Paranormal Incident... a movie that is not quite what it thinks it is

(school is over for at least a while so it's time to wake up my blogs)

Just finished watching "Paranormal Incident" which has a 2.5 on IMDb. "The infamous Odenbrook Sanitarium closed after a mass suicide occurred within its walls. Sixty years later..." That's the tagline. Basic plot, a handful of college students go to spend the weekend in this supposedly haunted sanitarium ostensibly for some final project in a class. I am not sure what class they are taking, but I wish they'd had it as an elective where I went. I would have loved to do some ghost hunting for credit. Anyway, there's a framing story that is poorly written, badly acted, and ultimately attempts to turn the movie into something bigger than it is. The setup otherwise is simple, a little cliched, but the found footage scenes (more on some problems there later) are occasionally quite good, getting some tension going with what are otherwise very familiar shots to anyone who has seen even one episode of Ghost Hunters. In some (and only some) of these scenes, the acting is even quite good, nothing to win awards but far better than a small budget horror film might sometimes get... and some of the worst that comes from such a low budget as far as acting goes is on display in the framing sequence. In other scenes, especially as the movie goes on, the acting is subpar, and some actors who seem promising early on sound like they are reading brand new script pages in other scenes.

The movie is also inconsistent in its direction. Again, the framing sequence--which involves the one survivor viewing the found footage with a woman who may or may not be law enforcement--is poorly directed... I would wonder if the film was just too short so this sequence was added later except the character involved would have no reason to be absent for so much of the rest of the movie if this wasn't part of the original script. Anyway, a lot of the investigation scenes are put together pretty well. There are attempts to insert flashes of things that aren't there which come across as creepy at first, a little interesting, then the more they happen, especially late in the film, they seem desperate, like the director didn't know he was doing a pretty good job with the scary bits otherwise. Now, once the scares become more explicit, visible ghosts rather than doors slamming for example, the directing seems lazier and a few shots seem to almost have entirely new color schemes and cinematography--yes, I'm talking about cinemtography and color schemes with a low budget horror film.

Regarding the actual content of the plot, there are some problems, but overall it works. It's generic and cliched, but it works. But, there are some holes. Notably, the found footage was supposed to be edited by the guy in charge who was absent from the action. He's in a hospital--SPOILERS AHEAD, not that it matters much--or thinks he is, has NOT seen any of the footage so certainly could not have edited it. And, if any of the supposed law enforcement had edited the tapes they would already have seen the ghosts and whatnot and know that this guy was not guilty of killing his friends, which is why they are questioning him... of course, given the way the framing sequence ends, with them killing him apparently because he saw the devil and knows there's actual paranormal stuff going on at the sanitarium, maybe they already did watch all the footage and edited it to jog his memory... except, why jog his memory if you want him NOT to remember anything? Why pretend to accuse him of murder if you know he didn't commit it? Why have this sequence at all when it fails to make this movie into something that is uniquely clever or that stands out from a crowd of similarly plotted films? I found it while browsing Netflix for a crappy horror film to watch--and it was better than I expect, at least when it bothered to be good--and it currently has only 35 ratings on IMDb. This movie has no real selling point to get attention. I get that it needs some hook to grab an audience. But, it isn't sold on the hook of the framing story. It is sold on the mass suicide history, which though mentioned in context of the story is absolutely unimportant as far as the plot goes.

Still, for a supernatural slasher type film, this movie is not half bad. In fact, it's only about 20% bad. The other 80% is good, at least for this type of movie. Biggest complaint is the lameness of the framing sequence. Also, the inconsistency of the directing, including use of shots that are obviously not from the any of the handheld cameras or hospital cameras but are cut right in with them nonetheless... District 9 got away with mixing documentary style footage with straight movie footage, but this is NOT that. This is lazy editing, lazy directing, with the occasionally good scene. I certainly didn't regret watching it.

unfinished blog entry - Puss in Boots, In Time, Melancholia

Puss in Boots carries some of the humor of the Shrek films, for which it's a pseudo-prequel, but it has a bit more gravitas perhaps than... well the memory of those films if not the actual films--when I think about the first Shrek, there were a few sequences that tried to turn the drama up, put some real emotion into it, but it seems like the series depended more on amusing sight-gags and jokes more than, say, character growth. Puss in Boots is no less plot-driven, but the character of Humpty Dumpty, for example, has more depth than one might expect from these films. Still, he's available for simple jokes--his Golden Egg costume, for one obvious one (that probably should have been in the trailers... was Humpty Dumpty even in the trailers?)--as are Puss and Kitty Softpaws. There are some nice visuals here that would probably look good in 3D (though I didn't see it in 3D). The plot, while straightforward, isn't simplistic. All in all, a good family film, with a few good jokes for the adults.

In Time is a fairly straightforward critique of capitalism--one character even refers to the use of time as money as "Darwinian capitalism." The film has something serious to say, or a few somethings actually, but it's prettied up with a nice sci-fi veneer and the plot-necessary 25-years old cast. Still, I wonder if there isn't a big part of the potential audience that a) won't get it, or b) won't agree with it, so much so that the audience that might do both is limited... and, being science fiction, the film's audience is already limited. Many who saw The Truman Show might not have noticed commentary on our obsession with television, and many who see this won't get the capitalism thing... or will get hit over the head by it without quite recognizing it for what it is.

There are some good performances here, though some interactions between Timberlake and Seyfried draw attention to the triteness of some of the dialogue. There is some fault in the writing in taking a rather obvious metaphor and trying to work around it without outright commenting on it too often... that isn't to say they don't comment on it, but it's not like there are long monologues about the evils of capitalism... more like an assumption that capitalist greed=bad, rebellion against the system=good. I'm simplifying more than the film necessarily does, but the film also simplifies more than it necessarily has to. Still, this isn't a shallow action film but rather a thinkpiece pretending to be one.

Melancholia, on the other hand, does not pretend for even a moment that it's a shallow, audience-friendly film. It's first half, focused on Kirsten Dunst's Justine, is an extensive exploration of depression and the effect it can have on those around you, and it's about as bleak as one can get from a feature film. It is worth mentioning that this is not an American film, of course. Though filmed in English, this is a Lars Von trier film, a European film (for all that label usually means). The film takes its time (and, most people in the audience will think it's taking theirs as well) and at the point the subject turns to metaphor--a planet hurtling toward Earth effecting Justine and her sister, Charlotte Gainsbourg's Claire (the focus of the second half of the film)...

Reviews: The Ides of March and Real Steel

The problem with both The Ides of March and Real Steel is that neither one does anything particularly original or exciting. There are some great performances--the entire cast of The Ides of March is amazing--but the sums are less than their parts.

The Ides of March reminds me of Good Night and Good Luck, makes me wonder if George Clooney ought to stick to acting (and producing) over directing. His direction only rarely does anything notable... oddly enough, the most interesting moments, as far as direction, also include the most interesting use of music, while Desplat's score otherwise is quite mediocre and forgettable. Those moments involve a few scenes that begin a few beats behind where another film might get going... if you can understand what that means. Anyway, the acting is great, Clooney, Gosling, Giamatti, Hoffman, Evan Rachel Wood, even Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright and Gregory Itzin in smaller roles. But, the storyline, which ultimately--SPOILERS AHEAD--involves the corruption of a guy who starts the film quite ideological and optimistic, should be darker, should be more powerful, shouldn't come across so rote.

Similarly, Real Steel, which crosses a boxing film with a father/son movie, reminiscent of Stallone's Over the Top--except far better--is certainly entertaining, and it hits all the expected notes, but it doesn't hit them in any way that's too unique. Again, some good performances, but overall, the film just comes across as something that's been seen time and time again. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's good to watch things over sometimes (plus, as I said, this film is reminiscent of Over the Top, except done quite a bit better... plus, well, fighting robots).

There's a weird sort of subplot in Real Steel that never quite gets anywhere, also. There are hints that Atom (the robot) is perhaps self-aware but ultimately, that doesn't matter much as--SPOILERS AHEAD--in the end, he doesn't have to fight without someone controlling him, which would have made more sense, that father and son had trained the robot to go beyond his programming and adapt on the fly... instead, Jackman's character effectively fights the big champion robot in the end, controlling Atom through his "shadow" function. This ending fits better with the father/son storyline, of course, but it detracts from any sense of character for the robot that may have come before.

Despite the lack of profundity in these two movies, it was a good morning at the theater. A bunch of good actors with good performances, a couple entertaining films, but nothing too... special.

Cowboys & Aliens, Captain America, and a little bit of The Last Airbender

I had to look up the status of the Dark Tower film (based on Stephen King's series of books) after watching Cowboys & Aliens; Daniel Craig would make a great Roland Deschain. Turns out--and I think I knew this already, but forgot--Javier Bardem is playing him. Really, if we got a string of westerns coming up (though I don't think we do), they wouldn't do wrong to cast both Craig and Harrison Ford. They've both got good western faces, like Eastwood does (and did way back when). Anyway, both men not only look the part for a western but do great service to a film that despite its blatantly non-western premise plays out almost entirely like a western would. Favreau doesn't direct the film like a science fiction story but like a straight western in which the villains just happen to have flying ships, look like monsters, and are called "demons."

That is perhaps the best thing about Cowboys & Aliens, that it plays out as a Western, and doesn't play anything tongue-in-cheek, winking at the audience for knowing exactly what the cowboys are facing here... although, on that note, the film probably should have played up the fear levels a bit. Sure, the preacher calls them "demons" but no one really spends any time dealing realistically dealing with the notion of a) demons actually existing or b) flying things abducting townspeople. Then again, the tone fits with what would probably be in a classic western in which, instead of aliens, Indians are kidnapping people. Still, the film is far better than its graphic novel base deserves. I hated that book when I read it a few years back, not just because it stalled my own mini comic with the same title, but also because it was so poorly written, badly drawn. The film actually has some depth to it, taking its time to draw some 3-dimensional characters--side note, even Noah Ringer does pretty well as the sole child character... I only recently got around to seeing Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, which was a horrid, badly put together thing, and Ringer's Aang couldn't emote a bit. He wasn't an actor when he was cast for that film, but he's almost one now.

The rest of the cast is good, though Olivia Wilde's character, prior to--SPOILERS AHEAD--her burning, could have been played a little less overtly mysterious and peculiar. Another actress could've probably done the job better, but Wilde was serviceable. The various minor roles, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Walton Goggins, Clancy Brown, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine (those last three in fairly small, but important roles), are all well done. All in all, the film works on more levels than one might expect given its appearance as a simplistic summer effects-heavy blockbuster. I think, for this year alone, we've already had a better western film in Rango, but Cowboys & Aliens works well as a western and works ok as a science fiction piece. Favreau knows what he's doing.

Backing up a bit, one of last summer's movies, The Last Airbender, continues the trend of Shyamalan's films getting increasingly bad as they go along. Important note, The Happening is still entertainingly bad, while Lady in the Water is offensively bad, so those two could be switched on the list rating how bad Shyamalan's films are. The Last Airbender is not entertaining, is not well acted, is poorly written, makes changes to its source that, minor (some pronunciation issues) and major (Aang never gets to full-on Avatar mode, destructive giant), serve no good purpose, and wastes some pretty good visual effects and guarantees there will be no good film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender... unless someone pulls a Hulk and remakes this thing before anyone lets Shyamalan try a sequel. Meanwhile, the three seasons of the series are available on Netflix Instant and the new series, Legend of Korra, had a panel at Comic Con and looks to be airing sometime next year. Perhaps we can just put Shyamalan's version behind us and pretend it doesn't exist.

Visual Effects are getting cheap enough that bad movies like Shyamalan's The Last Airbender can have great ones and still be filmic shit. The Effects in Cowboys & Aliens are great in the darker scenes, a little lacking a few times in the daylight shots, but overall pretty good. Captain America also makes use of some great visual effects, including a rather unique effect, making Chris Evans look scrawny for his pre-Captain scenes. This effect has a few notable weak points, making his head and body look a little disconnected in certain shots and lighting. But, overall, the visual is a success. The color timing of the film, a little stylized for the World War II-era stuff, covers what probably wouldn't have worked as well in a realistically-colored sequence. Plenty of other stuff in this film has to be visual effects but doesn't come across as such--the Exposition, the various Hydra bases (though, obviously, parts of those were practical sets).

The acting in Captain America is good, and the film is a lot of fun (like the first Iron Man was and like Thor should have been more), getting plenty of humor in. I was never much of a reader of Captain America, and I'm not very familiar with Red Skull as a character or the various Howling Commandos (who were associated, apparently, with Nick Fury, not Steve Rogers, but the Marvel films can get away with Steve Rogers being frozen and coming back, as he's got the super soldier serum in his system, but Fury is a harder sell for being World War II-era, so the change is understandable). The various commandos, seem designed specifically for the comic nerds who will identify each of them individually, but the film really doesn't give any depth to them or spend much time with them, except as background to Captain America. The montage of the lot of them taking out various Hydra bases has little important content to it and almost comes across as a setup for a video game or a spinoff tv series or something more than an important part of this story.

Bucky gets a little more time than the Commandos, but I've already seen complaints--SPOILERS AHEAD--about his death not having the right tone for such a major character... Of course, when briefly I did follow Captain America, it was long after Bucky was a character, so again, I am not familiar with him. The film, I think, sets him up well enough before going to war, and brings him back fine enough. Inappropriately, as it turns out, when Rogers finds him in the Hydra base, and he's on what looks to be a lab table, I thought he was going to be turned bad as one of Red Skull's experimental soldiers or something (which would probably be a far cry from who Bucky was in Captain America history), but then that wasn't the case. He was not in the cells with the other soldiers because, well, he just wasn't. He does have a good moment just before his death, when he uses Captain America's shield.

Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci do well with their parts. Despite the importance of her role, Hayley Atwell's Agent Carter is such a one-note character that it's hard to judge how well she does with it. While Tucci's scientist role allows for a bit of depth, his counterpart Toby Jones is never given much to do but toady up to Red Skull. As for Red Skull, Hugo Weaving is wasted on a role that really doesn't even give him much to do, not even any good mustache-twirling (which would have been fitting the tone of the film, actually)... though, of course, Red Skull has no mustache. Dominic Cooper's Howard Stark does have a mustache, and he also has a meatier role (though not so important to the plot), and Cooper does a good job of creating a character related to Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, where one could understand the two being father and son even though they aren't in a film together.

The film sets up for The Avengers next year, though the framing sequence has little weight to the film as a whole. When--MINOR SPOILER--Rogers learns how much time has passed, and he simply laments that he had a date, I almost wished Agent Carter would be back as an old woman, they'd get to dance, and while cheesy, their relationship would have had a nice coda (which also would have put more weight on Atwell's role). At this point, the Marvel films are so deliberately tying together in the lead up to The Avengers that it wasn't even surprising that the after-the-credits bit was not a scene but a trailer. So, the framing sequence here is important (and it's important, of course, to know that Captain America isn't dead), but the cut to Rogers waking up in the fake 1940s room seems like a lazy transition for something that could have been far more dramatic, showing them actually get him out of the ice.


All in all, Cowboys & Aliens and Captain America were a good double feature. The former took itself serious enough to work, and the latter had fun enough with its setting to work. I'm not sure either one will be winning any awards, but they do what they need to do as big summer movies, and sometimes that is plenty.

SCRE4M

So, SCRE4M continues the deconstruction of horror films that began with the first Scream film. Craven and Williamson approach this one as a deconstruction/reconstruction of the remake/reboot. For the record, the first one went at the slasher subgenre specifically and the modern horror film in general, the second went at sequels, and the third at trilogies, each of them coming right out with the “rules” of whatever it was, and while some of the basics made for amusing banter, some of them seemed at first like they were being made up on the spot simply to then subvert them afterward. This one has a bit of that in the party scene, suggesting the film has to end at the party, when really, no slasher film that wasn’t specifically built around a party, had that climax. But, Williamson’s script makes it sound sensible, and Craven’s direction makes it work structurally.

The great thing about the Scream films is that, aside from the genre discussion that makes a movie nerd (and horror film fan) like me happy, real actors (though not necessarily huge or great actors) are in the cast. This isn’t just a bunch of random teenagers who will never show up in anything ever again, or will only get cast in a series of increasingly lesser horror films. There are a few actors from the earlier films, of course, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox (and there’s a nice meta scene discussing the likelihood that those last two would have lasted as a couple that was quite amusing). And, there’s the cameos on par with Drew Barrymore’s or Jada Pinkett’s –Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell. But, the various “teenage” roles are filled by relatively familiar (especially if you watch the CW or pay any attention to tv) actors and actresses that all do quite well with Williamson’s script—Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Lucy Hale, Aimee Teegarden, Brittany Robinson, Alison Brie, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Rory Culkin, Erik Knudsen. The only real false note in the film comes from Marley Shelton who—SPOILERY WATERS AHEAD—plays Deputy Hix like she really wanted her character to be the killer, so much so that when she shows up in the final hospital showdown it might’ve made sense if she came in not to save the day but to help the film continue what could have been a grand case of the bad guy winning.  Hix is a red herring so overtly played and so subtly written that her character ends up serving very little purpose in the end.

Back to the bad guy winning, before the hospital, there was potential for a serious reconstrucionist reinvention of the genre in combining the slasher film’s tendency to favor the villain even though he always loses and something more modern, say the Saw films’ villain focus in that essentially he always wins and really isn’t necessarily the villain as much as society is—if you can get past the grossout so-called “torture-porn” aspects of the Saw films, or even the Hostel films (well, at least the first one), they come across as morality plays even more than most any slasher film does, even though the slasher subgenre clearly carries within it conventions and tropes that, in the past, reward the good characters by letting them survive. In SCRE4M, there is actually direct commentary on that when Robbie, Cinema Club nerd (and representative of what the script suggests is the next step in horror, with his POV camera), says the only way to survive in a horror film nowadays is to be gay, the implied subtext being that just being virginal isn’t enough anymore.

Speaking of virginal, it’s worth noting that the Scream films have remained quite chaste as far as sexual content goes, and seemingly deliberately so, another subversion of the genre. But, this subversion comes at a time when more mainstream films are having more explicit sexual content, so it almost seems a move backward rather than further commentary on the old conventions of the genre.

All in all, the film is quite good, a fitting continuation of the series, and containing some great commentary on the notions of rebooting/remaking horror films. One must wonder if there’s a fifth film possible here, a deconstruction/reconstruction of the endless franchise—maybe a jump ahead to the future, a space station (like Hellraiser Bloodline or Jason X) or a deliberate play on the more repetitive, forgettable aspects of, say, Friday the 13^th VI to VIII. But, Sidney Prescott is running out of relatives.

A final note: something that was missing from this film, given its take of reality versus the fiction of the Stab film-series-within-the-film-series was real brutality. SPOILERS AHEAD Until Jill’s injuries at the climax of the film, there is little harshness to the violence, though is occasionally a lot of blood and briefly some intestines. I think this plotline would have been better served drawing a distinction between the more showy violence of the Stab series and some more brutal violence like that exhibited in the better half (i.e. not that bits with the mother and the horse) of Rob Zombie’s recent Halloween II remake. But, then again, such brutality would diminish a lot of the enjoyment in the Scream series, which can still get away with playing for laughs even in the midst of scenes involving a spree killer slaughtering teenagers.

Still, it would be nice to have a horror film, especially a slasher film, that takes itself seriously on all levels, playing with the brutality, with the real-life horror of having everyone you know killed in front of you (Sidney’s isolation early in Scream 3 hinted at the psychological damage, but didn’t really explore it)… of course the larger audience wants to enjoy this stuff. Any serious exploration is left to lower budget stuff like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (if you love the genre, see the film if you haven’t already), but even that film, in the end, drops its serious psychological exploration for a bit of chase and death. The recent Trick ‘r Treat actually comes at the brutality of the violence pretty well, but also has some quite funny moments, and some quite creepy moments.

Anyway, a paragraph or two past my “final note,” I must say for those who enjoyed the Scream films, SCRE4M should be a great followup. For fans of slasher films, it should also do quite well. For movie nerds who like deconstructionism and reconstructionism, like the earlier films (especially Scream 2, which I think is the best of the four), it should be awesome.

The King’s Speech (and The Adjustment Bureau… and just about any movie, really) as Romantic Comedy

The following begins with an aborted attempt at comparing The King’s Speech to a conventional Romantic Comedy. Watching The Adjustment Bureau today, it occurred to me that it isn’t just the Romantic Comedy subgenre that has this same basic throughline; really it’s a fairly basic story structure since as long as humans have had stories. But anyway, before expanding that idea, here’s the aborted King’s Speech blog entry:

I’ve complained before about the generic throughline of The King’s Speech. But, I want to spell it out a little more clearly. The King’s Speech, despite its British pedigree, despite its highbrow historic subject matter, is structured like a fairly basic romantic comedy. Allmovie.com’s description for the subgenre describes it simply: “a subgenre of comedy that focuses on the complications arising from the search for romance, courtship or a new relationship.” The King’s Speech fits that last one, if you go for a literal interpretation. But, going less literally, the structure fits; AllMovie continues: “couples usually started off disliking one another, only to slowly overcome such obstacles and fall in love y the upbeat conclusion.” When Bertie first meets with Lionel, he doesn’t care for the man’s familiarity, for the man’s methodology, for the man really.

Backing up, even before Bertie meets Lionel, the film has—in modern critical parlance (which I don’t care for)—a meet cute when Elizabeth comes incognito to Lionel…

I’d hate to steal from Wikipedia (especially since this entry has no sources [note, after the fact, this Wikipedia bit is actually quoting but not citing filmbug.com]), but this description of the basic plot is a good one:

The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two protagonists, usually a man and a woman, meet, part ways due to an argument or other obstacle, then ultimately reunite. Sometimes the two protagonists meet and become involved initially, then must confront challenges to their union. Sometimes the two protagonists are hesitant to become romantically involved because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or because of social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave clues that suggest that the characters are, in fact, attracted to each other and that they would be a good love match. The protagonists often separate or seek time apart to sort out their feelings or deal with the external obstacles to their being together.

Bertie and Lionel actually have a few small arguments—the dispute right up front when Bertie doesn’t trust Lionel’s methods in recording him reading from Hamlet, Bertie accusing Lionel of treason and ridiculing his failed acting career—before the big one, when Lionel’s qualifications are questioned by the archbishop. That’s the big breakup before the end, the big obstacle keeping Bertie and Lionel from being together.

It was at this point in my blog attempt that I realized I really wasn’t very familiar with the more conventional romantic comedies of recent years, the kind that star, say, Sandra Bullock. I was trying to think of those big breakup moments that always come just before the couple realizes they belong together and maybe there’s a grand gesture or maybe there’s mutual epiphanies and they run into each other’s arms (not always literally, of course)… and I couldn’t think of any really obvious ones. Here’s what I had, in no particular order:

It’s Lisa discovering who Akeem really is in Coming to America.

It’s Anna thinking Will betrayed her location to the press in Notting Hill.

It’s Jack’s inability to tell Lucy not to marry his brother in While You Were Sleeping.

It’s Diane choosing her father over Lloyd in Say Anything.

It’s Linda answering the door and calling herself Robbie’s fiancé in The Wedding Singer.

And numerous other (probably better) examples. I realize in recent years I haven’t bothered with any of the more conventional romantic comedies, so…

After a little more brainstorming, I thought of So I Married an Axe Murderer, but I couldn’t decide if that big obstacle was Charlie’s suspicion of Harriet, or her sister turning up at the hotel, or… well, my whole attempt to boil down the structure of a generic romantic comedy was stalled. Obviously, there’s the two people who are total opposites but deep down are just perfect for each other. There’s some story going on as they get to know one another and outside forces (jobs, family members, or though it’s not a comedy, the titular bureau of The Adjustment Bureau, or conversely the Devil in Two of a Kind, or mortality in Love & Other Drugs) get in the way, building up to that huge obstacle/breakup that sets up the final act. And, then you get the grand gesture, say Lloyd holding that radio over his head, Josie getting on that pitcher’s mound in Never Been Kissed… Patrick singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in 10 Things I Hate About You is a little early in the film, structurally, to qualify, but that’s a good grand gesture kinda thing.

But, anyway. The throughline is pretty basic. Simplify it even more: instead of two people trying to be together, it’s one person or a group of people just trying to do… something. Outside forces get in the way—that is the essence of drama, right? The stuff getting in the way reach a peak, say the destruction of Hometree in Avatar, or, for another James Cameron reference, the ship starting to sink in Titanic. With your basic three act structure of most any film, especially out of Hollywood, inevitably any one of them can be compared to a romantic comedy then. I don’t have to simply pick on The King’s Speech just because I’m still bitter over it winning the Oscar for best Picture over several better films.

The Adjustment Bureau, by the way, is a tragic casualty of Hollywood rescheduling. It’s a great film, touching on some of the same themes as Inception—supposedly, it was delayed from last summer/fall to not be released so close to Nolan’s Best Picture nominee (one of those that was better than The King’s Speech, in my opinion)—free will being a big one of those themes. Of course, The Adjustment Bureau has a different take on it, and doesn’t have us following a bunch of thieves out to potentially ruin a man’s life for a good chunk of money… seriously, the film never actually suggests that Fischer (the son) is capable of making his own way without his father’s business empire. But, somehow it plays like a great idea, the film pulling a good game of suggestion on us almost as well as the characters do on him. There’s a lot of shorthand, universal relationship stuff, father and son, or husband and wife (with Mal and Cobb), without really giving us reason to care about what happens to Fischer in that vault at his father’s deathbed, or what happens to him after all this dreaming is done for that matter. Keep in mind, he’s not our protagonist. Cobb is. Cobb, a guy who make s aliving stealing people’s ideas, and who is essentially as responsible for his wife’s death as his wife wanted him to look (only not for reasons that might necessarily hold up in court), and we root for him, because Hollywood shorthand puts us on his side right from the opening scene. We want to identify with someone up there on the screen, and whoever they give us first, he’ll do.

For the record, I think Inception is a great movie. I even think The King’s Speech is a great movie. But, picking these things apart—this is fun. And, anyway, I was talking about The Adjustment Bureau. It’s take on freewill is more in line with man versus god (or, specifically the “Chairman” of the Adjustment Bureau) in what destiny is. We’re given a likeable enough guy, David Norris, running for Senate (and destined for higher office?) and we get the “meet cute” (that term is kinda growing on me the more I am forced to use it, so I must never again use it) with Elise hiding in a men’s room stall when he comes in to practice a speech (spoilerish but only in a minor way as this is early in the film), his concession speech after having lost this election. This one meeting is supposed to be all they’ve got, enough to inspire him to change his style for the speech, to go off script and come off as the frontrunner for the next senate run and maybe even the presidency after that. But, chance steps in—it’s almost like a Greek drama, chance versus fate, free will or the illusion of it caught in the middle. Outside forces just like any romantic comedy (or drama) get in the way, an ex fiancé, adjustment bureau knowledge making David hesitant to move forward with the relationship, a car crash, and a promise of dreams quashed. The point to my rant against Inception above was that arguably this film should have actually gotten a more positive audience response, since it’s a love story at the heart, not a bunch of thieves taking down an heir to a corporate empire (not that taking him down isn’t a good thing). And, the science fiction is downplayed here. It’s almost omnipresent, but it’s often subtle, such a given for the premise that it’s never really huge. The visual effects are numerous, though often playing on the same element; if you’ve seen the trailer you’d know about the doors opening to places they shouldn’t, and there are a lot of these doors in the movie, a fairly simple visual effect but done expertly and often.

There’s a coup small breakup moments leading up to the big breakup and then (HEREAFTER THERE BE SPOILERS) David has his grand gesture moment when he lets Elise in on what’s going on and makes a run through the bureau’s doors across (if you can apply such a simple preposition to the directionless travel these doors imply) New York, eventually getting into the Bureau building itself, heading for a meeting with the Chairman. Where Inception has its cleverness, dreams within dreams that got a bit too complicated for some viewers, The Adjustment Bureau takes on a bigger idea, effectively debating the existence of and/or the role of god in our individual lives, but plays it straightforward enough that its hardly confusing. It steps past attempts at cleverness and goes right to intelligence, if you can understand the distinction.

Is unfortunate that The Adjustment Bureau got delayed into the doldrums of the movie year. It deserves more attention, and a larger audience, than it is bound now to get… even if it does have a fairly basic structure.