Twilight: New Moon – It sucks

Posted on March 25, 2010 by roguespirit

My wife and I finally caught New Moon on DVD. It sucks.

Look, I know Twilight was not a great film, but it had a few things going for it that made it basically enjoyable from start to finish. First, the film had a story set-up, with actual dialog and basic character development, which launched the plot and sustained it through implied structure. It also had narration, and although I generally abhor narration, this was fairly well written and was executed pretty well by Kristen Stewart. Second, there was an actual story based around human issues – she was a kid falling in love, the guy was weird and she was trying to figure out what his deal was, she had friends who were not sure about her boyfriend, she had a difficult relationship with her Dad but was getting to know him, she missed her Mom. This gave the story some basic human resonance. Third, the vampires were cool, and the climax where she’s being hunted was a good action sequence. It even had a hokey 80’s ending which wasn’t too bad.

New Moon has none of this. It’s a perfect example of a totally uninspired sequel on autopilot. There is NO set-up whatsoever – the story just starts up like a crap sit-calm. The narration is gone and there is barely any dialog. I like Kristen Stewart as much as the next person, but she does need lines to speak! (All her lines boil down to “bite me.”) Plus, she is starting to develop some tics, probably because she has nothing to do or say in these wretched roles. The father and her friends are all cardboard cutouts now, and her relationship with them is lifeless and boring. The mother is gone from the picture.

Robert Pattinson’s acting as Edward has gone from a bad Bentley Mitchum impersonation in Twilight, to a mumbling weirdo who looks like Michael Jackson and stares at the ground all the time. Really, I’m not sure what the appeal of this guy is in this role. That leaves Jacob. Something happened to the kid playing Jacob – he is now positively FRIGHTENING! There’s a joke in the film where Bella tells him “you know, anabolic steroids are really bad for you,” but the sad thing is the kid MUST be roiding, either that or all the hormones in our water supply are getting past the tipping point. In one year he put on 30 pounds of muscle and reduced his body fat percentage to less than 1%. His neck is so much thicker than his head the only possible explanation is that he is site-injecting. On top of all this, he is a terrible actor, he and Kristen Stewart have no chemistry, and their relationship is very poorly written. At times their scenes are downright painful, and it leaves you wishing that the mumbling weirdo in “whiteface” would come back.

Lastly, about New Moon’s finale: The Volturi are just lame looking. They aren’t scary, they aren’t formidable, they aren’t beautiful, they aren’t interesting. They could be from a Saturday Night Live skit. The whole thing with the vampires’ different powers was done in the least compelling way imaginable. In the end, you could care less about the Volturi, Edward and Bella, the freak Jacob, or any of them.

Plus, I should add that the music, which was bad enough in Twilight, is now considerably worse and more distracting (and louder,) and the CGI, which was passable in Twilight, is now really unimpressive and overly emphasizes badly done slow-mo. And the wolves look fake.

It just stinks!

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Shutter Island (2010) / Angel Heart (1987) – Scorsese lamely copies the work of a forgotten master

Posted on March 15, 2010 by roguespirit

Surely some critic somewhere must have noticed that Shutter Island is a rip-off of Angel Heart. The spirit of the story, the structuring of scenes, the visual effects, the use of flashbacks, it all hearkens back to the particular genius of  Alan Parker. The problem is Scorsese is just not up to the task of equaling Parker at his own game.

Shutter Island is not a bad film. It’s very mediocre and a bit tiresome, especially once you’ve figured out what’s really going on with Leo’s character in the film. Visually, it’s rather mixed – I liked the look of the grounds of the facility (the old red brick institutional buildings, the abandoned houses, and the hedge-lined country roads) and the over-all setting of the island  (the civil war fort and the Monhegan-like far side of the island with cliffs straight down to the sea.) But I hated the crappy CGI-look of the cliffs, ocean, lighthouse, boat, and the inside of the “fort.”

As for its story, Shutter Island is minimally entertaining. The story is smothered in problematic film-making but basically the fundamental mystery is just barely good enough to keep you engaged throughout the film. The set-up is adequate, but the pacing of the film is quite off – indeed, the film squanders its momentum constantly.

I must say that the supporting acting is pretty bad. The notable exception is Patricia Clarkson, who appears about 3/4 of the way through the movie and in her one scene basically breaths new life into the whole story concept by the shear will of her performance.  She is such a incredibly fine actress! But beyond her, the supporting players range from passable (Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow) to piss poor (everyone else.) Some of this is the writing and direction, of course.

The main problem with Shutter Island is Martin Scorsese’s artistic vision for the film. He clearly wanted to “do an Angel Heart ” with the film, but Scorsese just has none of Alan Parker’s flair, and comparing Shutter Island to Angel Heart is very instructive in seeing how and where it all went wrong.

Angel Heart was Alan Parker’s last decent film. I’m not claiming that it is a great film – far from it. But I also don’t think that it deserved the ridicule and invective that it has drawn from critics over the years. The basic problem with Angel Heart is that by the standard of the great classics of the 1970’s it looks a little fake and antiseptic, which was a general problem for films in the late 1980’s. Its style also embraces some rather hokey-sounding lines like “the future isn’t what it used to be, Mr Angel,” which have drawn unspeakable critical ire over the years, but which really are no worse than lines for which Quentin Tarantino gets best screenplay Oscar nominations.

Beyond these two “problems” Angel Heart is pretty well-written, interesting, well-paced, well directed and edited, and the performances are for the most part good. Rourke’s performance is fabulous, and you bond with his character in a way that you never do with Leo’s character in Shutter Island. Okay, Lisa Bonet is pretty bad, but she’s wickedly hot and evil and that’s all that really matters in that role. Parker even got a decent (and rather funny) performance out of De Niro, which is really saying something.

But the most striking difference is that Shutter Island comes off as laboring really hard to be creepy, while Angel Heart is the genuine article. Both films employ emotionally evocative flashbacks which hint at the truth that is slowly being revealed, but what a difference in quality! I remember the flashbacks in Angel Heart just sending electric shocks through my nervous system, especially the spectacular way they were edited (remember Parker’s spectacular editing in the original Fame – the man has a gift.) With Shutter Island, the flashbacks are just dull, overly long, overly-melodramatic, overly-gory, and about half of them were probably not even necessary.

Let’s talk music for a second. Shutter Island is a study in how not to set a tone for a movie with music. It’s opening theme (which unfortunately recurs) is like a ponderous monster movie score, and the other music is completely nondescript. Compare this  to Angel Heart, which had two amazing themes: the uniquely haunting (even to this day) main theme with the wailing distant saxophone, and the old Johnny Favorite song played on various out-of- tune pianos. Both are quite fabulous and work beautifully in the context of the story.

Lastly, in their respective endings the difference between the two films could not be more stark. Shutter Island resorts to eventually showing you everything that actually happened in a overly long and melodramatic flashback. Angel Heart, on the other hand, simply has the Ethan Krusemark character tell Mickey Rourke the whole story verbally as they stand in the same room together. It’s a fabulous scene, a great use of monologue to create tension and suspense. My wife did not like Angel Heart very much, but remarked that the final scene with Ethan Krusemark basically made the whole movie worth it, that’s how good it is.

If you’ve never seen Angel Heart, Netflix it and check it out, understanding that despite its virtues it does suffer from that certain visual malaise that settled over almost every film made in the late 1980’s. As for Shutter Island, see it if you are desperate. (I did!) I’ve seen a lot worse, but just don’t expect too much from it.

Posted in 2010, Films of the 1980s | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The 2010 Oscars – who will win?

Posted on March 7, 2010 by roguespirit

In last year’s predictions I got all five perfectly. Let’s see how I do this year!

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique – Normally it would be Vera Farmiga: she’s young, she’s hot, she’s blond, and she did a butt-shot in the movie. Case closed! But Precious is not going to win anything else, and the Academy loves flashy roles like this.

Best Supporting Actor: Christop Waltz – The Academy always feels that they owe that hack Tarantino something, so it’s going to be the cartoonish performance of Waltz, which will ensure that abomination of a film will live on, unfortunately.

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock – Okay, they’re not going to give it to the kid or the old person, and they are certainly not going to give it to the Precious woman. So are they going to give it to Sandra Fucking Bullock or are they going to fall back on ol’ Meryl?! As with Julia Roberts, in the end they just won’t be able to resist sending Sandra Bullock out on stage to receive a Best Actress award – simply too temping.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges – They owe him, and it’s a flashy role.

Best Picture: Up in the Air – It’s a topic that is on everyone’s mind right now, Hurt locker is about an unpopular topic and no one saw it, and James Cameron gave a lousy speech last time around, which always hurts your chances (just as a good speech always helps!)

Posted in 2009 | Leave a comment

The Good Guy – a well-made little film

Posted on March 1, 2010 by roguespirit

The Good Guy is a nicely crafted little movie. My wife and I both enjoyed it. The plot develops in a somewhat unpredictable way that leaves you very satisfied – I won’t give anything away. The pacing is good, the music is pretty good, the dialog is pretty good, and the film really captures the despicable dating scene among young male yuppies in Manhattan.

Alexis Bledel should use this film as a template for her ideal movie role.  She needs to avoid films like Post Grad, and instead find well-written movies that are ensemble pieces which have a nice “Rory Gilmore” role for her to hide in. The Good Guy is just such a movie, and she is quite effective in her role as the innocent young woman caught in a strange love triangle. Scott Porter (who was in two of my favorite music movies: Bandslam and Music & Lyrics) is just great in his role as the film’s central character. And Andrew McCarthy is wonderful in a bit part as Porter’s horrible (but completely believable) boss.

In the end, I think that The Good Guy is held back by the character of Daniel (and the performance of Bryan Greenberg.) The role is just not very well written, and Greenberg plays the character a bit too “country bumpkin in the big city” for me. I can’t see that nerd getting anywhere in the cut-throat world of trading, or even wanting to. I also didn’t believe for one second that he could not talk to women. I really wanted to like this character, and the film is strong enough in general that you do like him despite the writing and performance, but at the end of the day the subtle shortcomings of this character add up to the difference between a movie you might return to over-and-over and a nice little film that you enjoy once.

Anyway, all my nit-picking aside, I highly recommend that you check out this cool, well-made little film! It’s quite enjoyable.

Posted in 2010 | Leave a comment

District 9 – bizarre fun!

Posted on March 1, 2010 by roguespirit

District 9 is a surprisingly satisfying movie. I wouldn’t give it an award necessarily, but it is really interesting, fun and strange. It’s like 50% pure camp, 50% serious science fiction drama, with the two blended perfectly and neither half detracting from the other. Frankly, I’m not sure how they even pulled it off, but they did.

The main character is just a trip! The guy is basically an slow-witted bureaucratic a-hole who you don’t even like. As the movie progresses and he becomes the “protagonist” he remains a completely a-hole. The character is perfectly consistent from start to finish, and this gives the whole story a very unusual poignancy. The alien protagonist (called “Christopher Johnson” in the movie) is done superbly – his clothing and facial expressions really transmit a certain humanness to him that makes you like him and route for him (let’s face it, the aliens are for the most part pretty gross throughout the movie.)

The movie is funny, it’s sad, it’s exciting. The alien weapons are very satisfying (you’ll see what I mean if you watch it.) Even the ending of the movie is great.

I know I just said I would not give it an award, but as I think about it, if I was given a choice to re-watch Avatar or District 9, I would pick District 9 in a second. So, given that I said I have no problem with Avatar wining the Academy Award, I guess I shouldn’t say District 9 does not deserve consideration. In my opinion, it’s a better movie.

Go see it!

Posted in 2009 | Leave a comment

Crazy Heart – It’s not a music movie

Posted on February 22, 2010 by roguespirit

The first thing you need to understand is that Crazy Heart is not a “music movie.” It is an “alcoholism movie.” Everything revolves around Bad Blake’s alcoholism. The music is completely incidental – you could substitute almost any career and basically the entire story would translate pretty seamlessly. Try doing that with a real music movie like Music & Lyrics, or That’s the Way of the World, or Hustle & Flow.

Don’t expect any great scenes of songs being written. Don’t expect any talk about music gear, or scenes of songs being recorded in the studio. Don’t expect any great dialog about music or artistic creation (example: Maggie Gyllenhaal asks “where do all these songs come from?” Bad Blake’s answer: “Life.” It gets no deeper than that.) Don’t even expect any good concert scenes, because they are pretty uninspiring and the music is really mediocre.

What you CAN expect are endless, disgusting scenes of Jeff Bridges walking around with his pants undone, acting completely and utterly revolting. He is so disgusting it is incomprehensible that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character would fall in love with him, or ever touch him with a ten-foot poll. The man is not clean. He smells bad. He’s so drunk he can’t walk straight. His body is visibly rotting right on his bones. His skin is disgusting. He walks around with his belly hanging out. He goes on stage with fresh puke all over his shirt. Let me tell ya, I’d be sittin’ on warm maple syrup if I was Maggie Gyllenhaal watching all this! And don’t think for a second that she falls for him because he is interesting. He’s not. He has nothing to say about music, his career, his life. Nothing. All he does is drink. At best he spouts corn-ball lines like “I never noticed what a dump this room is until you walked into it” (which can of course be interpreted two different ways.)

Even as an alcoholism movie, it fails. I suppose it captures the ravages of this terrible disease pretty well, but I never made any kind of emotional connection to any of the characters in the movie. Basically, you just sit there waiting for the movie to end.

The only bright spot is that Colin Farrell gives a really nice little supporting performance as Tommy Sweet, the young country star that Bad Blake supposedly “taught everything.” Colin Farrell is interesting as an actor because he has very few tics – I barely recognized him in this role. I’m starting to suspect that he is a pretty fine actor.

As my wife and I left the theater after watching Crazy Heart, we walked past signage advertising the films that are coming to the theater soon. They were The Bounty Hunter, Clash of the Titans, and a Miley Cyrus movie.  This is why Crazy Heart is getting so much press: not because it’s a good film, but because films are so incredibly bad now that Crazy Heart is what passes for good or edgy.

Anyway, if you want to watch a made-for-TV movie about alcoholism, Crazy Heart is perfect. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and skip it.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is A.O. Scott reading IRREVIEWS?

Posted on February 22, 2010 by roguespirit

I couldn’t help but notice that in A.O. Scott’s latest movie review, his style made a sudden shift toward the reviewing style of IRREVIEWS. He’s still a little pompous and academic, but he does seem to be loosening up a bit. Could he be reading this humble little blog in his spare time? If he suddenly does an about-face on Meryl Streep, we’ll know for sure!!!

Check it out.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Avatar – spectacular, and meaningful

Posted on February 9, 2010 by roguespirit

All I can say is: James Cameron must really hate America.

Just kidding – couldn’t resist. I’m really pleased that this remarkable movie is doing so well in America because it is surprisingly direct and ballsy in its portrayal of a distinctly “western” approach to life priorities and the overall direction of human civilization, represented in the movie by a characteristically American fusion of military and corporate interests. Let’s face it, that was the American army out there slaughtering those blue people.  We’re the people who say (quoting the movie) “killing indigenous peoples is bad, but it’s not as bad as a bad quarterly report!” We’re the people who say “we’re going to fight terror with terror,” referring to people that are simply resisting being slaughtered by us on their own ground and having their lives ripped apart to satisfy our greed and paranoia. We’re the people who consistently over-react with violence every time something happens that does not fit our pampered, myopic view of the world. And we’re the crazy colonel at the end, killing and killing even thought the battle is lost, just to “take as many with him as he can.” The truth hurts, and the truth has almost ZERO air-time in this country. Avatar, in its own small way, makes a counter-argument to it all. It would be better if it was happening in the mainstream news, but at this point I’m grateful for anything that might wake people up a bit.

Avatar is a very moving story about what humanity has lost by glorifying war, technological “progress” and profit over everything else. It’s like a combination of The Matrix and Dances with Wolves, but way better than both put together. I was surprised at how well-paced the story is, and how well characters are developed, both of which are notorious weak points in this genera. The main character even traverses a pretty convincing developmental arc, unheard of in this kind of film. Sam Worthington gives a really fine performance in the lead role, as does Sigourney Weaver in her supporting role.

Visually the film is stunning. Compare how fantastic everything looks in this film to how bad everything looked in 2012 or The Return of the King, for example. James Cameron may be a dick, but the guy has a real talent for this kind of thing. He appears to be the only one who is really able to pull together these massive visual spectaculars and craft them into something truly memorable. I was amazed at Titanic and I’m amazed at Avatar.

I saw Avatar in 3-D. It was the first 3-D movie I have ever seen. In general, my impression is that 3-D wouldn’t add much to most movies, but I want to mention that this particular movie really benefits from it because of all the scenes flying around the extremely vertical world of the Navi. There are many scenes with characters walking on tree limbs with a drop of thousands of feet beneath them, and they look really incredible in 3-D. It gave me an eye-ache, but it was worth it.

It’s so very refreshing to see a hit movie that’s all about cooperation, compassion, love and respect for life, rather than our usual diet of movies that glorify hate and greed. I have no problem with it winning the Academy Award (if it does), and I highly recommend that you make the effort to see it on the big screen.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Inglourious Basterds – Is this the worst film ever nominated for an Academy Award?

Posted on February 7, 2010 by roguespirit

If Inglourious Basterds had been made in the 1980’s, people would laugh at it now. It would be legendarily bad, held up for ridicule as an example of how incredibly awful films were in the 1980s. The camp, the bad music, the dip-shit plot lines, the bad acting, the painful dialog, the pompous over-blown “artistry,” the clumsy attempts at suspense.

But now in 2010 this utter piece of trash is up for best picture and best director. Such are the times we live in.

This is one of the worst films of the year, by any standard imaginable. The only good part is the scene where Brad Pitt addresses his men on their mission, and this scene is in the preview basically in its entirety so there is really no reason to spend money or time watching this film. I thought the film would have a lot of cool guerrilla warfare shit in it, but really the “Basterds” are just a small piece of the movie. Instead, the film is focused on the hateful “revenge fantasy” of different people wanting to blow up a theater containing the German high command. And this primary storyline is so boring it’s incredible, especially given a) the amount and severity of the violence in the film and b) the vaunted and much-celebrated originality of the filmmaker.

Tarantino is such a bad film maker, just flat out bad, and Inglourious Basterds is a perfect case study in his hackneyed artistry. He has no sense of pace whatsoever. Many, many scenes in this film are just excruciating to sit through. They go on and on and on. Tarantino clearly thinks he is building suspense, but everything in his story is telegraphed a zillion miles ahead (it’s called bad writing) and then there you are, sitting though all this endless mousing around as he takes forever to get to the inevitable and obvious conclusion of the scene.

The storyline is like something an adolescent would dream up, an adolescent with rather limited imagination. His dialog is boring and irritating. His use of music is as clumsy and artless as I think I’ve ever seen in film. His camera work is so pompous, so bombastic! He still loves to shoot people’s heads from the back (someone should mention to him that this is a very uninteresting and uninspiring view.) He also still loves extreme closeups that are emphasized to the point of silliness. And there are several instances in the movie where his laziness and lack of skill reaches a critical mass and he resorts to bringing in a highly distracting, Sam Jackson-type narrator to just boringly tell the viewer information that even an average filmmaker would be able to weave into the dialog. All through the movie my wife and I kept laughing and saying “God, he is such a bad filmmaker!!!”

Some would say that I just don’t get Tarantino, that I am unfairly criticizing his work because I just don’t appreciate his “style.” But this is not the case. I realize that his dialog is intentionally stylized – my problem with it is that it is badly done. I don’t mind films with stylized dialog – just of the top of my head, Brick had stylized dialog, so did Juno, so did Ocean’s 11. Those were all pretty good recent films that I enjoyed. The Coen brothers are stylized as hell – I don’t like them, but I’ll admit they’re way better at it than Tarantino. The same goes for his stylized camerawork and his weird story structuring. If you think about it, you’ll realize that both are simply laziness on his part. It is much easier to do something distracting than to do something good.

As my wife pointed out, what is shocking about this film being nominated is not so much that it is bad. It shocking because the film is so unbelievably hateful. I think that’s why it is such a hit. Hate is really big right now. And the main character in the film (played by Christoph Waltz) is getting all this attention because he is basically a modern, self-centered prick who is out for himself, and we relate to that because that is what’s glorified in our society. He’s like the assholes at Goldman Sachs, fucking everyone over for their own material gain. That’s why everyone is so into this character. As for Waltz’s actual performance, in my opinion it is just okay. I personally don’t think you can have a “great performance” with a script this weak, but setting that aside, he is kind of cartoonish in his approach to the character, which strikes me as decidedly taking the easy way out (although I’m sure this is exactly what Tarantino was after.)

Along with Fame, Harry Potter 6, and 2012, this film is at the very bottom of 2009. Let’s hope it doesn’t win anything at the Oscars, so it can begin its fade to obscurity.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Road – A cure for happiness

Posted on February 4, 2010 by roguespirit

A. O. Scott did not like The Road. It was “to positive” for him. Apparently he wanted that cute little boy to eat a bullet at the end! He clearly needs some serious help. He probably didn’t like the appearance of that beetle in the middle of the movie either – too hopeful: everything should be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!!!

What is the point of a film like this? First of all, what happened to the earth in the film is never explained, but the clear implication is that some kind of “2012” bullshit occurred. How much more of this crap are we going to have to endure? We all need to stop pining for the end of the world to halt the march of our misery, ’cause it ain’t gonna happen, people! Give it up!

Secondly, I just can’t believe how fucking bleak this damn movie is! If the camera filter was any grayer, the film would have been solid gray. Normally, post apocalyptic films try to make a point about the essential goodness of humanity. Not here. There’s only one decent guy left on earth, maybe two, and everyone else is a stark-raving lunatic cannibal. I understand: the scenario is that everything is dead, but this just isn’t a very interesting scenario, is it? Sure if we really wind up in situation like this as a species, then whatever happens is liable to be pretty bleak. Do we really need to explore it for two-plus hours?

This film cast me into a deep depression right before Christmas, a depression made even worse by the fact the the Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side (where my wife and I saw it) has discontinued their use of real butter on their popcorn, which was the main reason to go to the Sunshine Cinema! So basically the afternoon was a complete bummer.

The film does hold your attention, though, and there are some pretty horrifying scenes in it. Viggo is pretty good as the father. Charlize Theron again surprises me with her ability to convincingly disappear into roles – I’m starting to suspect that she is quite a good actress. I’ll admit, I never paid her much attention before, and certainly never went out of my way to see her films. The kid was just okay, as was Duvall. Oh, and don’t get too excited about Guy Pearce being in the film – he’s only in it for like two minutes.

If you’ve been feeling happy and want to put an end to it, watch this film.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment