Martin Scorsese returns to the thriller genre for the first time since Cape Fear in a cat and mouse game on a small island on the outskirts of Massachusetts that houses a federally funded mental institution. Leonardo DiCaprio once again serves as Scorsese's 21st century DeNiro, starring as Teddy Daniels, a Federal Marshall sent to the island with his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) to investigate a disturbed patient that has vanished from her cell and essentially disappeared without a trace. As their investigation continues, Teddy becomes more and more paranoid over something bigger than a missing patient that may be going on at Shutter Island, especially when dealing with the less than enthusiastic head doctors (Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow).
The first thing I will tell you is that Gimme Shelter does not appear in this movie. Sorry. The funny thing about Shutter Island is that this is Scorsese trying to step out of his own shoes and try on someone elses, the closest being Alfred Hitchcock. From the opening ferry ride the film is bleak with this atmosphere of impending dread that every character wears around them like a neck tie. This is a real thriller in every sense of the word, right down to its orchestrated score that leaves shivers down your spine.
DiCaprio once again shines under Scorsese's tutelage, as does the rest of the cast. Ben Kingsley gets another notch in his belt with his laid back role of a head doctor that isn't quite telling Teddy everything. The addition of Max von Sydow as a former German doctor hearkens back to the days of Father Merrin, leaving more gloom in the atmosphere that wasn't there before. It's almost as if Scorsese was casting people known for dark and decadent roles to add to the atmosphere. Jack Earle Haley (A Nightmare on Elm Street and any film that needs a creepy sex predator) and Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs) serve the same purpose as Sydow.
Beautifully shot, Shutter Island serves as Scorsese heading for the ditch as Neil Young would say. It's a great thriller that goes above the normal thrillers of today by actually being a little smart and using the atmosphere to create dread instead of endless corpses lying all over the place. This isn't a happy movie by no means, it's a gloomy affair that delivers what it promises. It may not be one of Scorsese's greatest (that's hard to do) but it is heads above the rest.
Every once in a while a movie is based in one genre, but tries to do something new within it with only two results possible: either you get something fresh, unique, and inventive or you get something that fails as a movie. Law Abiding Citizen falls into the latter category, being a film that is basically a revenge tale that trips and falls on the track half a mile from the starting line.
The film is about Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a man who witnesses common burglars break into his house and murder his wife and daughter. Paired with hot shot lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a man who is more worried about soiling his record than his victims, Clyde watches as the sentence for one perp is toned down in exchange for testimony that will give the other the long walk. As ten years pass Shelton snaps and not only kills the perps in medieval ways, but also begins the assassinations of everyone involved in the case.
There's a quote from of all things an old Batman comic book that comes to mind when watching a revenge film and it is really the essence of your basic vengeance movie: "That's the law, that's not justice." The problem with Law Abiding Citizen is for a man to do the evil that Clyde does you have to sympathize with him and this condones his actions. We're forgiving the dismemberment of the murder of his family. It's when he drives off the deep end and kills everyone in the system that failed him that throws the film into murky waters. Now I'm not saying that it ruins the movie, but it really kills whatever remorse you felt for the character. You begin to loath him. At the same time you're loathing Jamie Foxx because he's a lawyer and that's how we're supposed to feel about lawyers in movies. By the middle of the picture there's no one left to root for, it's just watching a game of cat and cat.
Couple on top of all this the sloppy screenwriting and the film finally falls of the slope into mediocrity. The usual cliches: how is this guy so good with equipment? Oh, he used to be a spook. See the sweet, innocent intern? She will be a sacrifice. It's the same, mundane script writing techniques that get mass produced every year. When we finally get to the ending it's not a moral epiphany or self sacrifice. It's the ending to a Roadrunner cartoon. Wile E Coyote got outfoxed and now he has to pay by getting soot on his face and hold up a witty white placard sign. Sure, we're led to believe that both main characters are changed men by the end, but we don't believe it.
Ultimately Law Abiding Citizen is a great movie during its first forty-five minutes and then falls in quicksand, deciding to commit suicide than grabbing the rope lying right above its head. You could compare this film with Death Wish, but the fact is that Paul Kersey knew who the bad guys were. he didn't start killing everyone that wronged him during this period of his life. His goal was justice. Clyde's goal is sacrifice or terrorism, not justice. That's why when Bronson blows away a guy with a reverse mohawk in Death Wish III, we can still feel for him.
Wow. Just... wow. This film is the rock n' roll equivalent of burning an American flag. It's the equivalent of farting at a wedding. It is the equivalent of making out during Schindler's List. I'm not going to talk about the plot (there isn't one). I'm not going to list the characters (there aren't any). I'm just going to tear this movie apart. Not that it's going to be difficult.
I have to start by letting you know what the producers thought this film was going to be. They considered this as the Gone with the Wind of the '70's generation. I shit you not. They were obviously on good drugs in 1977-78 because I wouldn't even call this film Break Like The Wind.
We have to begin with the leads. You have Peter Frampton, who put out some live album and then was never really heard from again. He's like Warren Zevon except Zevon had TALENT! So we get Frampton butchering Beatle tunes. But that's not all. That's not the worst of it. Guess who else gets to shit on the moniker of Lennon/McCartney. That's right, the Bee Gees. The Brothers Gibb weren't satisfied with destroying most of late '70's popular music, they had to wreck most of the '60's, too.
But that's not all. It's actually down hill from this point with each musical interlude more cringeworthy than the next. Donald Pleasence singing I Want You (She's So Heavy). No, it gets worse. How about Steve Martin puking up Maxwell's Silver Hammer? No, it gets worse. Alice Cooper doing Because. It keeps getting worse and worse until you just can't take it. You have to exit the room and defecate because it's one piece of shit after another.
Sgt. Pepper also jumps on the Star Wars band wagon. There's an odd little duel with hammers that light up and glow like- yes, you guessed it- lightsabers. And Mr. Mustard has to C3PO's with boobs
massaging him throughout the film. Oh, and apparently Billy Preston can raise the dead (and change your clothes).
Films like this are usually horrible, especially when the songs are taken out of the context that they were meant to be. Across the Universe is another such crapfest that features people who shouldn't be singing Beatle songs. Listen, if I wanted to hear people sing Beatles tunes badly around a gazebo I would take my iPod to the park. Such a horrible, horrible film using the music of the Beatles, particularly the Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums is like eating and egg salad sandwich from a gas station- it looks good in the plastic but it consumes worth shit.
The minute John Lennon died his first act was rolling over because of the stench this film has left on society. You may be wondering why if this film is so bad am I giving it one star. Well, not to be a plot spoiler, but the villains spouting off against love and promoting money is the '70's coked up Aerosmith. They're called some kind of villain band and actually do a good coked up rendition of Come Together that still gets a little airplay. As I sat there I realized that this film is really a choice: you can be bad and go with Aerosmith or be good and hang out with George Burns and the Bee Gees. So it looks like I'm going to hell.
Donnie Darko is one of those movies that's a little hard to peg into one specific category. Do you make it a teen angst drama, full of rebellion and shopping mall sportswear. Or is it a sci-fi tale featuring a giant rabbit and an abused Trans Am. It's one of those movies, hard to peg down what's going on until the closing seconds of the film.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays the title character, a teenager that is obvious troubled as hell before the credits run. He's medicated. He sees a psychiatrist. He's a typical teenager today, but in 1988 he's a little out there for the kids of the great suburban heaven he lives in. Donnie is haunted by a giant rabbit named Frank, who initially saves him from a jet engine landing on his bedroom because Frank encouraged him to sleep on a putting green that night. Frank and the jet engine are two of the mysteries that surround Donnie Darko. As these weird events keep piling up one after another he goes through the standard teenager stuff like rebelling against a hypocritical establishment and getting a girlfriend. It's a teen angst picture with a hard, painful twist.
Director Richard Kelly delivers and intertwined tale that is really a look at a suburban area and the odd residents that exist there. As you watch the film, initially thinking that Donnie is nuttier than your great aunts fruitcake, you slowly realize that Donnie may be saner than many of his friends and neighbors. I guess you can throw social commentary in the mic as well.
By a small thread Donnie Darko is really akin to the David Fincher film Fight Club, released a few years before this one. Donnie is one of the pissed off youth that lashes out at the society around them. Donnie isn't quite as violent as, let's say Meat Loaf, but we have to remember he's doped up and tends to spout off at authority from time to time. This could almost be called the closing chapter on that era of 1990's filmmakers that were pushing the idea of breaking down the establishment. Fight Club did it on a global scale. Donnie does it at his school and with the help of Frank the Rabbit.
Donnie Darko is very interesting in that it doesn't take the straight line super highway approach to telling its story. Instead of the quickest, most direct, Eisenhower financed path to its destination this film feels like a twisting, turning ride in the country. Sure, you're going through a little extra wear and tear and it's going to take a little more time, but it's a more fulfilling ride to the end.
The 1980's were full of films from the horror genre that were usually cheap knock offs of films that were cheap and repetitious to begin with (I'm looking at you Friday the 13th). Relics such as The Final Terror and Mountaintop Motel Massacre were retreads of the standard horror/slasher genre throughout the '80's. Looking back on the decade now only three films that flew under the radar actually survived, not to be hails, but to be seen as gems that most of the people in the dark had long forgotten. Night of the Creeps is one of those films.
Fred Dekker's film deals with a college campus plagued by homicidal maniacs in the 1950's and alien induced zombies in the 1980's. After a crash landing in the Eisenhower era leaves a college student in cryogenic freeze, life goes on. Until the student is inadvertently thawed and releases a worm like creature that turns the victim into a zombie while gestating and creating baby zombie worms to continue a reign of terror. It's up to Chris (Jason Lively), J.C. (Steven Marshall), and Cynthia (Jill Whitlock) to stop the alien menace, with the burned out assistance of Detective Cameron (the legendary Tom Atkins).
Creeps is a homage, but not a rip off. It's traveling down a road you've been down before, yet you're seeing it from a different angle, kind of like driving down the street backwards. There's the '50's sci-fi kick. There's the Romeroesque zombies. There's the homicidal maniac traveling the streets with an axe. It's just presented in a way that doesn't take itself to seriously, yet isn't a camp parody of itself. It's like a perfect mix that doesn't fail the viewer. Atkins performance is the real stand out with him playing an over the top character that doesn't become a parody of himself.
Of course, Creeps failed at the box office and gained a slight cult audience from the home video and cable front (where I was introduced to it). As time has passed the film as grown into one of those films that act like a nice, reliable flick that no one has ever heard of, even with the great lines in the movie. Finally released to DVD this past year Night of the Creeps symbolizes that not all horror flicks from the 1980's were crap. Creeps is one of those films that didn't stand the test of time- it grew beyond it.
The Getaway represents another image of the awesomely cool Steve McQuuen etched into our collective minds for an eternity. McQueen plays Doc McCoy, a man on the inside trying to get back on the outside and failing at every attempt. That is until his wife Carol (Ali Mcgraw) starts to play patty-cake with parole board member Jack Beynon (Ben Johnson). Part of the stipulation for Doc's release is that he has to set up a robbery against a bank for Beynon. Of course, as in all movies, the robbery is a dismal failure with the McCoys being chased by Beynon, the police, and left for dead gang member Rudy (Al Letteri).
When I found out that this was directed b y Sam Peckinpah I was surprised that this film was rated PG. Peckinpah is notorious for the over the top violent menagerie, but The Getaway steers clear of any major gratuitous violence. Honestly, the worst you'll see is McQueen slapping McGraw- literally.
The film is a great action piece that doesn't disappoint its audience with the standard cops and robbers uniformity. The McCoys are on the run like Bonnie and Clyde, but they're in a marriage that is strained by Carol's "work" on the parole board and the constant chase from most of the southern United States. The addition of the sub plot featuring Rudy mesmerizing the kidnapped veterinarians wife (Sally Struthers) delivers some comic relief as we watch the McCoy's attempt to salvage their marriage and their lives.
McQueen and Mcgraw deliver great performance, probably due to the fact that they were in a stormy relationship themselves at this point. First and foremost this is a McQueen picture, but that doesn't take away from the rest of the cast who are great in their roles.
So if you're looking for another dose of McQueen cool The Getaway delivers another subdued performance by the man that was taken way before his time.
The first thing I thought of when hearing about Valentine's Day is "Oh, shit "He's Just Not That Into You". With it's Biblical cast that would make Cecil B. DeMille blush, both films certainly lunged head first into sentimental tripe that is typical for a movie made and marketed for one weekend out of the year. These films are the Saw films for the chick flick genre.
The film takes place over Valentine's Day. Wow, there's a stretch! It is so full of characters, situations, actors, and such that it would take way to long to illustrate most of it. Here is a link for the cast: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817230/ I know this seems lazy as hell, but screw it. The only cast member I will comment on is Bradley Cooper, who also appeared in that piece of garbage called He's Just Not That Into and is currently working on his "I Was In Every Movie This Year" award. This movie is full of A list talent. The problem is that there are so damn many of them that they're barely on screen to make any kind of impression on you. Everyone is way underused, which begs the question: why in the hell didn't anyone slash a little bit from the script. There are at least half a dozen plot points that could have been eliminated to give the film a more cohesive flow instead of the jumpy mess we get. Most of the situations are standard chick flick/sitcom cliches that we've all seen since television and bad movies were invented. A movie about two people or even four people on Valentine's Day would have been enough. This flick gives us close to twenty. I am not shitting you.
Garry Marshall actually does a decent job juggling this mess, but it still ends up just a mess on the screen. Still, it made a shitload of money this weekend which is why it was made. I can't wait for the Sweetest Day sequel. Or the action comedy "Take Your Kid To Work Day".
