Category: Movies and TV

I went with Day & Nicole last night to go see Saved, one of those teen comedies, but this time with a religious twist. I’d seen the previews, and it looked good (featuing Martin Donovan, so how could it go wrong?), and it certainly held up to its promise.

Now, if you don’t like teen comedies, you won’t like this one either, and I also suspect that if you liked The Passion of the Christ, you won’t like this one, as this one pokes fun at religion (specifically church-going youth culture). It’s certainly not biting commentary, and indeed, I would have preferred a little harsher satire (or at least not the sudden held punch at the end), it succeeded in making me squirm as I watched these kids in rapture, or the desperately-hip pastor try and ‘speak in youth’.

The story is essentially that Mary (Jenna Malone) tries to ‘save’ her gay boyfriend by having sex with him, ends up pregnant and then begins to question religion (although, I thought the reasoning her wasn’t shown so well), and hijinks ensue as she befriends the outcasts at her Christian school, and her former friends try to save her (including an attempt at exorcism).

The most interesting thing about this film (I can’t speak for the veracity of this, having no knowledge of christian youth culture) was the crass mixture of commercialism and religion that pervades the culture, and the curious imposition of ‘christian values’ into everyday aspects of ‘normal’ youth culture (wanting to be popular, going to the prom, looks, etc).

There’s no particular reason to see this on the large screen, as there’s no real effects or thumping soundtrack, but it is definitely worth seeing. Also of note is yet another decent performance by Macaulay Culkin, slowly re-entering popular Hollywood (although by no means as good as his turn in Party Monster, which you should all go out and rent.

Leah and I went to see Troy, Wolfgang Peterson’s take on Homer’s The Illiad (ok, perhaps ‘inspired by’ is the better word for it). It’s had quite mixed reviews, but I was fairly stoked to see it — I like the story (the Trojan horse, etc), and was looking forward to a popcorn movie — you know, all light and fluffy and pretty to look at — and it delivered on all of those fronts for me.

If you know the original story, please leave that at home — use it as extra backing, but if you’re looking for a faithful adaptation, you won’t find it here. Actually, in many ways, its the Illiad with a modern western sensibility — the omens of the Gods are meant to be viewed with derision, the astoundingly atheistic (or more properly, anti-theistic) soldiers are the norm, and contemporary power-gains are the driving force here.

But the story moves along at a lickity-split pace, nicely intermixing battle scenes with quick, stereotypical men-discussing-war-and-life scenes which masquerade as character development. The scenes are well-shot, easily comprehendable while exemplifying the confusion of the battlefield.

The cast does a fine enough job, with a buffed-up Brad Pitt as Achilles, looking, if I may say so, inhumanly gorgeous in this film; Eric Bana as the doomed Hector, all stoic and glaring & honorable; and Orlando Bloom as Paris, proving that he’s a great bowman (LoTR, Troy) and a not-so-great swordsman (PotC,Troy). Brian Cox made for an enoyably rapacious Agemmemnon, but Peter O’Toole was perhaps a little lost as the Trojan king, Priam. I’m not sure that Helen (Diane Kruger?) was really all that and a bag of chips, but that’s down to personal preference. Of course, her face was just the pretext for those 1000 ships in this story, not reason. Sean Bean played a smirking and devious Odysseus in a somewhat throw-away role, I felt — He didn’t really inhabit it so much as haunt it, slipping in and out of scenes almost unnoticed.

Hopefully, many others will come away from the film with the same desire I did — to read The Illiad, and delve into the whole story, and all that surrounds it. If not, I certainly hope you enjoy the film as much as I did.

I saw The Punisher on Friday night. Growing up, I was a big fan of the comic Punisher: War Journal, for which the great Jim Lee was artist, and an ever-rotating collection of writers provided stories for. Unfortunately, I’d also sat through the 1989 Dolf Lundgren version of the comic, which was a terrible, wretched mess of a film (also — only loosely based on the comic and notably, the famous skull was nowhere to be seen). So I had high hopes and low expectations for this version.

I was, I must say, pleasantly surprised. Thomas Jane was good Punisher, John Travolta chewed scenery enjoyably as the villain, and there was lots of guns and fist fights. Also, The Punisher took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’, which is sort of his bag in the comics. He, being a non-superpowered guy, is virtually always overmatched, but comes through on sheer perseverence, which I think came through in the film quite well. There was a number of times where you could visibly see him ‘pull himself together’ and get on with it, despite injuries, etc.

The side story of the outcasts providing and proving humanity was sweet, but definitely the clunkiest of the storylines — the direction just felt more forced, less fluid, whenever moving away from the main storyline into this more backdrop story.

If you’re a fan of the comic, or the shoot-’em-up genre, definitely see this movie.

For good measure, here’s my unofficial good-to-bad comic book recent adaptation list (Note that I don’t include American Splendor in this list because of the nature of the film. It’s definitely the best of the lot, IMO):

1. X-Men
2. Spiderman
3. Ghost World
4. Hell Boy
5. X2
6. The Punisher
7. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
8. Daredevil
9. The Hulk

Leah and I went last night to see The Triplets of Belleville (original title: Belleville Rendez-vous) over at the fifth ave. The theatre was in fact the main reason I hadn’t yet seen the film. I kept hoping in vain it would go an play at Tinseltown, or really, anywhere but the Fifth, which is possibly my least favourite theatre in Vancouver.

The film, however, was excellent. Beautiful animation, a classic style with some modern twists, endearing characters, great music and numerous gags. The story, such as it is, is about a cyclist who is kidnapped by the French Mafia, and his grandmother & dog bruno, who both set out after him to rescue him from Belleville (a twisted New York, it would appear).

I won’t say too much, because it’s best to experience the film with fresh eyes, and virtually anything I say could be considered a spoiler in this film where the visual delights far outweigh any plot elements. But I will say this: Definitely see the film, if you’re a fan of animation, or comedy — you will enjoy it. The film is essentially in french, without subtitles, but none of the dialogue is important to understand the film (although there are some hidden gags within it — particularly if you’ve ever watched any french sports coverage).

So this movie is, for the most part, just as good as the first one (which if you haven’t see, you should: it’s got pop(-culture)-intelligent feminism and horror and camp and satire and Canadiana), if a little different. It follows horror convention by being darker and upping the bodycount from its predecessor. It’s also suitably ‘older’, as several years have passed since the first one. B(rigitte) is all alone, her sister dead.

There is, of course, another werewolf on the loose, looking for her. This indirectly leads to her being locked up in some sort of juvy-hall/detox centre. There’s of course some funny double-entrendres relating to the whole drug-abuse vs. staving of lycanthropy, and your usual cast of rehab-ward inmates and wardens.

I personally, not being a horror movie fan, and generally being a ‘fraidy-cat, found this movie quite scary (significantly more so than the first, in fact. That it took place within the confines of a hospital-like setting certainly helped), but also engrossing. I wanted to cower and hide my head, and at the same time, couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

Most importantly, Leah, who chose the movie, really enjoyed it. I suspect this means that we’ll end up owning the Ginger Snaps trilogy when all three are out on video, but that wouldn’t be so bad.

So go see this film, and not just because it’s Canadian.

Leah and I took in ‘The Corporation‘ on Tuesday. I’d been quite resistant to seeing it, but decided that it was one of those films that should be seen. And in many ways, it lived up to my expectations: The hype was overrated, there wasn’t much new in it (except for the Bolivian water thing — that was new, and horrifying, to me), it was too long and felt a little too self-congratulatory, and it was one of the best critiques of corporate culture I’ve ever seen.

The usual Talking Heads were found in it, along with some opposing voices, and interesting characters. The premise, that a corporation (legally, an individual) is a psychopath, was humorous and well executed. The footage was decent and the interviews were all compelling. I wish that they’d been able to find more recent footage (in particular vis-à-vis Shell), and some more diverse examples of bad corporate citizenship (none of the case-study corporations were unexpected, really), perhaps some quotidian examples of smaller corporations, or something slighly more relevant to the average person (it’s quite easy to view these mega-corporations as untouchable/unchangable. But what about something smaller? Does, let’s say, Subway, have bad practises that we could affect? Or O’Reilly Publishing?).

Of course, my last complaint has to do with audience: Looking back at everyone else there, I would say the vast majority were already the converted. It’s alot easier to watch this movie when everyone agrees with it. What are the producers doing to get their opponents to see it? I’d love to show this film to, say, anMBA class, or some commerce or economics students, and have a Q&A on their reactions. Now, hopefully, that is the intended destination for this film, and once it’s had its run in theatres, there will be a concerted effort to get it into the hands of educators around the globe.

I still think that every one of you, even if you don’t think you’ll learn anything, should see this movie — and not just to support Canadian cinema.

We caught Butterfly Effect last night out in Richmond. This was a movie Leah had been really interested in seeing, so we didn’t even wait for cheap Tuesday — we paid full price.

It was a decent enough movie, I suppose, although I’m not sure I can say that I liked it — it was far too stressful to watch. The story is essentially that Evan (Ashton Kucher) suffers blackouts during a fairly traumatic childhood, and as a young adult, he figures out the cause of them (or at least how to recover them), inheriting the ability to essentially time travel from his dad (played by Callum Keith Rennie). His blackouts all corrsespond to rather traumatic events in his childhood, and every time he goes back to change something, the ripple effect is huge (hence the title. For more info, read about Chaos Theory, In particular, I recommend James Gleick’s ‘Chaos’). With each change, his ‘present’ life is drastically different, including vastly different outcomes for his friends. After a series of rather disastrous attempts to ‘fix’ things, he finally settles on one he can accept, making a small sacrifice for the greater good.

I had a hard time not seeing Kelso, Kucher’s character from That 70’s show everytime he did anything. Amy Smart, had to play a variety of different characters. While she was particularly believable as a sweet sorority girl, her turn as a junkie prostitute was less than stellar — she seemed very uncomfortable in the role, stiff & unnatural. What was well done was the matching of mannerisms between the adult actors and those who acted them as children. Most noticeably was the similarities between adult & child Evan – played by 3 actors, including Kucher, and they all looked similar and were very good at mimcing Ashton Kucher’s mannerisms.

The film was shot in Vancouver, and several notable landmarks are apparent through out, not the least of which is UBC, playing ‘State’ (didn’t say which one), the college the adult Kucher is attending.

If you like thrillers, and are willing to suffer through watching some truly horrible events, then this film is worth seeing. If like me, you’re kindof a sissy when it comes to ‘realistic’ sadism & violence, you might want to give it a miss, as it will really trouble you.

Leah and I, as I mentioned, saw ’21 Grams’ on Tuesday night. It’s a film that’s been out for quite a while, and had always been on my list to see, but I never quite got around to it. I’m quite glad I did see it though.

It starts Sean Penn, Naomi Watts & Benicio Del Toro, and all of them are deserving of some award nominations. The acting was impeccable, and their ability to convey the raw, hurt emotions that was required of them was amazing. They were all quite believable as the characters they were portraying. The supporting cast was excellent too, with the lone exception of the priest, whom I found sursprisingly unbelievable in the role. He simply didn’t convey the conviction required of his role, I think.

The plot, the story, the cinematography were all great, with the film shifting from clear to grainy to match the mood of the scene & characters (understandably, it was mostly grainy). It was well directed too, however I’ve a couple of qualifications to both the direction and editing: It was really, really good, and really distinctive. However, I felt very much like I was watching an over-ambitious film-school graduate’s first film. There were so many ‘artisitic’ devices, with the jumping chronology and cut-scene shots, it was like watching a ‘top 10 art-film effects’ movie. It seemed a clear indication of a lack of maturity on the part of the director & editor, as while they were all well-executed, there was just so much that it detracted from this otherwise amazing film.

Finally, I was somewhat disapointed in how little a role the title idea played in the film (the idea is that at death, everyone loses exactly 21 grams, so what’s contained in that (that’s not a spoiler, it’s in all the commercials)). There’s a Sean Penn monologue at the end that goes over that, but there’s never really a reason given for it. Nor did it totally tie everything together, I thought. It is possible that I missed something in it (the visuals were engrossing, distracting me from the monologue, which may be indicative of something), but I felt like if that was their ‘thing’, they should have made more of it – maybe start the film on the monolgue, to get people thinking about it, then come back to it to fill in the blanks at the end again. I’m not sure what (which is why I’m an armchair critic and not a director), but something wasn’t quite right.

So again, I’m seeming overly critical of these good movies, but I think it’s because they’re so close to glory, it’s agony that they’re not. I highly recommend seeing this movie, in theatres on on video. This is the sort of film it’s worth paying for, if only so the directors get some success and get a chance to make another film.

I dutifully went to go see ‘The Return of The King’ yesterday, skipping out early from work and so on and so forth, making my way down to the big screen in Richmond. Arriving late (the movie started as we sat down), there was nothing left but the very front, which the ticket lady told us as if that would be a problem. Little did she know that I like sitting right up at the front.

So but and of course this is one of the mostly unreviewable films: no matter what, I was going to see it, and unless it was putrid, I was going to really like it. And so I really liked it. It may well be the weakest of the 3 films, in a filmic sense, but because it wraps up all those storylines so well that it’s excusable. And certainly Peter Jackson deserves much credit for actually completeing the films at retaining as tight control as he managed, given the overabundance of elements he could have filmed.

The title of this post comes from the Globe & Mail’s review of the film, which I unfortunately read before I saw the film, and so I couldn’t get that image out of my head whenever I saw the Eye of Sauron. I also couldn’t get past some of the homo-eroticism in this movie — it seemed like they really played that up in this one, with lots of longing, deep gazes shared between the various hobbits, and of course Gimli’s seeming unrequited love for Legolas. So perhaps this is fact a very faithful interpretation of Tolkein’s books (because once you’ve taken any sort of class of po-mo literary critique, it’s hard to read these books with an eye towards hidden homoerotic themes).

Should everyone see this film? Yes, but again, only if you’re a fan and have seen the other two. Otherwise, well, it just wouldn’t make sense. And if you’re a fanatic, I suspect you’ll have the most to quibble about in this film, but hopefully by this time you’ve accepted Jackson’s vision, because this film certainly completes his trilogy well, keeping consistent to the themes and elements introduced in the earlier ones.

Mystic River is a curious kind of film, for me. It is gorgeously directed, well-acted and subtly shot. It’s well-written too, and well-deserving of all the accolades it has received. It does indeed seem to be a culmination of all the directorial forays by Clint Eastwood; Sean Penn (Jimmy) is at his best, and Tim Robbins (Dave) is great as a disturbed/creepy guy, and Kevin Bacon (Sean) gets to do his stoic sufferer thing. So I should have liked it alot right? Well, I didn’t. And there’s 2 reasons why I didn’t. As a warning, the first is somewhat of a spoiler, so you may want to skip this if you’ve not seen it yet.

My biggest issue with the film is Laura Linney’s monologue at the end of the film, puffing up Jimmy, who’s experiencing some guilt pangs. It came as a complete shock to me, seemingly out of character with her and the established family dynamic. Her cold, calculating mafia-wife stance didn’t even make a lot of sense to me: standing by her man, showing compassion as he struggles with what he did, forgiving him — even saying it’s ok is fine. But the bit about ‘ruling this town’ just went way overboard. And it went on from there. Perhaps he really is some kind of minor crime boss, but there was no cinematic effect to establish this through the back-story. All of a sudden, he graduated from minor former criminal to criminal mastermind. And everyone just kind of accepted it. The nod from Sean to Jimmy across the parade was totally cop-to-enemy style, but I didn’t buy it, and it left a really awkward feeling in me as the film ended. Coupled with the lack of compassion for Dave’s wife as the wanders frantically, Laura Linney eyeing her coldly, just struck a wrong chord with me.

So the end of the first point leads firmly into my second disapointment: It was an incredibly manipulative film. One of the things I’ve always liked about Clint Eastwood as a director is that he’s been an underhanded, casual director, mostly letting the acting speak for themselves. But throughout this film, I felt like I was being manipulated to follow his vision of the truth, not simply letting the story reveal them to me. The particular aspect was the over-head shot/cut-to-focus technique. Each one would cover at least 2 possible avenues of focus, then would drop to one — the director saying: I could show you this or this, but this is what you need to think about now. Some films, such as American Beauty take this approach and run with it, raising each manipulation to a level of Symbol, then repeated throughout the film to drive it home. This film fell somewhere in between, I felt, which left it seeming heavy-handed to me. Or, left far too concious of the directorial actions, so I couldn’t lose myself in the storyline, thus making it harder to engage the story, and more importantly, the characters.

So I guess a somewhat mixed-bag review, but I would say that this film is definitely worth seeing, but perhaps just as a renter.