Preview: District 9

Gritty sci-fi thriller explores an Earth in which aliens suffer apartheid.

Would we welcome alien visitors if they weren’t attractive? What if they needed our help? What if they couldn’t offer us anything? Those are the questions posed by the setup for this month’s District 9, a South Africa-set thriller about oppressed aliens and the human corporation exploiting them for money. It’s the first feature-length effort from commercial and short film director Neill Blomkamp, based on the 2005 short Alive In Joburg that he co-directed. 

Youv’e probably seen the murky, cryptic ads online and on television already. The story takes up 28 years after an alien vessel appeared without warning above Johannesburg, carrying refugees fleeing the destruction of their world. The aliens have precious little in technology or resources to offer humanity, and in time find themselves restricted to the titular outlying area of the city. Most of the world views them as a frustrating letdown, unwelcome tenants better left forgotten. The world governments have left their welfare to the Multi-National United, or MNU, a conglomerate about as interested in the aliens’ welfare as most HMO’s care about their patients.

MNU stands to reap huge profits if they can adapt the aliens’ technology for human use. Without alien DNA such access remains impossible, unti employee Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) contracts a virus while participating in a forced relocation of the aliens’ ghetto. The virus changes his DNA to more closely resemble that of the aliens, instantly making him the target of his former employers. Seeking shelter, he hides among the aliens inside District 9′s network of shacks and warrens. 

We’re intrigued enough by the Alien Nation meets Catch A Fire setup to forgive the kinda stale running-man premise, which for a while now has seemed too much like the default story structure for great settings that need a plot. The alien DNA plot device feels pretty familiar, too, though no real examples of its overuse come immediately to mind outside of the Species franchise and we imagine tons of straight-to-DVD stuff. But there’s an additional potential story potential, presented by some promotional materials, that show some humans working to extend equal rights to the aliens. That would be so much more interesting than the stormtroopers-chase-man footage of the trailer, adding as it would another layer of allegory to the premise.

Still, the film looks great, with tons of gritty veracity and sun-soaked menace, sort of like Terminator: Salvation but without the patina of big money that left so much of that misfire feeling disingenuous. The aliens are oddly pitiable, lonely and disadvantaged even before the plot’s revelations come to light. As such, we hope the cruel streak that has snaked through much of producer Peter Jackson’s work doesn’t extend to Blomkamp’s direction, too, or the film could prove tedious pretty quick. Leaden, heavy-handed science fiction is still leaden and heavy-handed.

Jackson hired Blomkamp after plans for the long-hyped Halo movie fell through, and it’s possible fans will see District 9 as thin soup compared to the big-screen translation of the staggeringly popular video game. It’s been a while since the Lord of the Rings auteur really surprised us, and Blomkamp is largely an unproven talent.  But its mid-August debut puts it as the first real science fiction to come out since July’s Moon, and if it’s half as good as that debut effort by Duncan Jones it’ll make a fine end-of-summer surprise.

District 9 opens nationwide August 14.

- Michael Kabel

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New On Blu-Ray: This Is Spinal Tap

Groundbreaking mockumentary goes high-def with some classic extra features.

How many movies introduced a phrase into the Oxford English Dictionary? Co-writer/director Rob Reiner’s seminal faux-documentary This Is Spinal Tap invites high definition audiences to go “up to eleven” all over again this week, with a Blu-Ray debut that includes most of the plentiful special features on its 2000 DVD release. Though almost all the bands that the film gently, shrewdly satirized are forgotten now, Tap‘s brilliant set pieces and hilarious dialogue keep it as fresh as new vinyl. It’s a bona fide classic, included on the National Film Registry and seen as a major influence on any number of films since, most nobatly co-star Christopher Guest’s quartet of similar escapades.

Yet Spinal Tap, true to the rock and roll archetype, came from humble beginnings. Filmed on a shoestring budget, composed largely of improvisational setups and sometimes buoyed by unexpected cameos, its was something of a flop upon its release in 1984, only subsequently gaining fame on cable TV, numerous home video releases, a guest spot on The Simpsons, and a 1992 “reunion” album titled Break Like The Wind. But originally the cast – Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Guest - may have gone into character a little to much: at the time of its release all three actors were relatively unknown (except McKean, and then only from his role as goofball Lenny on Laverne & Shirley) so a perception that the film was “real” and genuine dogged its box office performance.

Reiner appears as Marty DiBergi, a semi-fictionalized version of himself – how fictionalized is never really made clear - attempting to film the group’s Tap Into America tour, a comeback meant to support their latest album, Smell The Glove. But accidents, miscommunication and bad luck keep getting in the way, thanks in no small part to the members’ cherished delusions and hubris. To quote a review itself quoted in the film, “They are awash in a sea of adolescent sexuality and bad poetry,” with no particular desire to find their way out. They’ve got their own dynamic, and it  works for them: “I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that,” bassist Derek Smalls (Shearer) says while comparing the others to fire and ice, ”kind of like lukewarm water.”

Things gets worse for the hapless Tap quickly. Performance engagements are cancelled with no notice, their record label hates their proposed cover art (its all-black cover presaging Metallica’s eponymous LP by six whole years), and personality clashes drive a wedge between band leaders David St. Hubbins  (McKean) and guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Guest). There’s even a Yoko Ono character in the form of St. Hubbins’ girlfriend (June Chadwick), who pronounces Dolby as “doubly” and suggests the group perform in masks denoting their astrological symbols. The breaking point comes as they attempt to play a dance at an Air Force base while radio signals from the runway control tower overpower their instrument receivers.

Equally hilarious – and just as squirm-inducing for audiences in on the joke – are the original songs the cast composed: titles like “Sex Farm Woman,” “Rock and Roll Creation,” and the epically pretentious concept piece “Stonehenge” nailed metal’s goofy preoccupation with sex and mysticism in the 70s while remaining oddly, imminently hummable. The songs aren’t meant to be great, but they’re not any worse than what they reflected, either. And in a case of life imitating art, heavy metal acts have spent the last 25 years alternately comparing and distancing themselves to Tap’s sound and misadventures. Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, and Eddie Van Halen have all admitted to having events depicted in the film happen to them as well.

Also appearing in hilarious but often brief roles are Fran Drescher, Howard Hessman, Paul Shaffer, Patrick Macnee, Angelica Houston, Dana Carvey, Fred Willard, Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley, Jr. and many others, most notably Billy Crystal in a scene-stealing cameo as a ruthless mime waiter. Highlights of the extra features include in-character commentary tracks by McKean, Shearer and Guest, a featurette entitled “Catching Up With Marty DiBergi,” four music videos, two short films, and miscellaneous promotional materials. Fourteen deleted scenes, also included, almost comprise a second movie by themselves. The set’s second disc features the band’s Live Earth performance and a National Geographic interview with Guest, as Tufnel, about Stonehenge.

Now live, direct from Hell, is Spinal Tap performing their classic “Stonehenge.” It’s comic platinum, but it’s not SFW.

- Michael Kabel

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The Life of Reilly

Chronicling the screen career of the ever-versatile John C. Reilly.

For most people, John C. Reilly broke through as Reed Rothchild, the dim, affable sidekick to Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. Yet the versatile character actor, with his bartender’s face and imposing but not especially frightening physique, had by that point been working in mainstream and independent film for close to a decade. Working steadily, at that, flying below the radar in films with flashier performances by Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and many others.

Revisiting those early films today - including State of Grace (1990), Hoffa (1992), and Georgia (1995) – it’s hard to miss Reilly honing his screen presence while going through the motions of playing the second or third supporting role. He was typically the sad sack friend or dim loser in those early films, but managed to give his parts unexpected depth, fleshing them out as distinct personalities that buzzed in the viewer’s mind even as the camera focused on the films’ glamorous stars.

The seven films below don’t make a comprehensive list, but they show some main points on his career timeline. Each is available on DVD.

Casualties of War (1989): America was already at its tipping point with Vietnam remembrance and director Brian DePalma alike when this overcooked wartime rape/murder story hit theatres, obscuring Reilly’s big-screen debut. Penn leads a group of U.S. soldiers, including a lankier Reilly than usual, that kidnap a Vietnamese girl above the objections of their squadmate (Michael J. Fox). Reilly is essentially a speaking extra for much of the film, somewhat lost behind Penn’s hamming and Fox’s earnest attempts to keep up. He’d go unnoticed, a character actor in a character role, largely because the film met with thunderous indifference from audiences.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993): A film that couldn’t be farther from Casualties of War if it tried, Lasse Halstrom’s (The Cider House Rules) light melodrama cast Reilly as Tucker Van Dyke, the blue-collar buddy to titular suffering soul Grape (Depp). Reilly’s charm starts to bubble up through the stock role about halfway through the plot, when Van Dyke’s enthusiasm for the milkshake of a new-in-town fast food franchise – “That’s real milk!” – fills him with giddy hope for the future. A cult favorite, it’s a sweet movie full of well-pitched performances and slice-of-life grace, thanks to a supporting cast that also includes Mary Steenburgen and Crispin Glover.

Sydney/Hard Eight (1996): Reilly’s three films with Anderson began with the writer-director’s Sundance-fueled debut, a grim neo-noir about losers circling one another between drinking and gambling in Las Vegas and Reno. The film turns on Reilly’s performance as a sweet-natured journeyman gambler caught between loyalty to his mentor (Philip Baker Hall) and his love for a tinsel-like cocktail waitress (Gwyneth Paltrow) who’s not quite sure what to make of his sincerity or how to exploit it. All three stars are excellent, as is Samuel L. Jackson as a thug who sees opportunity in the safe haven the trio create for themselves. The ending is a rare Hollywood example of a finale that makes sense. Anderson would get better – and worse – as a director, but his debut let Reilly and the undervalued Hall do some of their finest work. 

Magnolia (1999) Depending on who you ask, Anderson’s third film was either a work of genius by a brilliant talent or the first warning flare that the young auteur doesn’t know his limitations. We say it’s kind of both, but amid a broad collection of career-best performances (including Tom Cruise and William H. Macy) Reilly stands out as a lovesick, lovestruck LAPD patrol officer not quite callous enough for his job. An early collection of moments showing Reilly’s Officer Jim Kurring greeting the day alone (his wife has left him, taking their child) are propelled by tiny gestures that speak volumes, as is a later scene in which he approaches the drug addict that might present a chance at happiness (Melora Walters).

The Perfect Storm (2000): Besides the ambitious Anderson films and a part in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, Reilly also spent the late 90s cashing in on his growing star power, appearing in high-profile but disposable studio fluff like Never Been Kissed and For Love of the Game (both 1999). The two extremes came together, in a sense, with Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm, based on the true story of a fishing boat caught in the worst oceanic storm of the 20th Century. Reilly sinks into the role of fisherman Dale Murphy like putting on an old flannel shirt, all windblown squint and cheap cigar ameliorated only by love for his young son. A rivalry subplot with a crewmate (William Fichtner) becomes as interesting as the here-comes-the-storm main plotline (Reilly and Fichtner had recently completed The Settlement, a micro-budget indie about life insurance con men.) until it’s resolved with a too-familiar twist. Still, the film is entertaining while remaining just smart enough to avoid making mature audiences feel like they’re slumming.

Chicago (2002): Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the caustic Bob Fosse Broadway musical has its flaws, oft-debated and often valid as they are: it didn’t deserve the Best Picture Oscar, Richard Gere has a tin ear, Rene Zellweger was miscast, and so on. Yet, despite, and nevertheless, Reilly’s song and dance as Roxie Hart’s (Zellweger) cuckolded, cluess husband Amos showed his formidable music hall chops. The film had the same heart of chrome as the musical, but Reilly’s number is all emotion. That same year he appeared as another scorned spouse, this time opposite Jennifer Aniston, in the pseudo-indie The Good Girl. 

 

The Promotion (2008): After years spent as a foil to Will Ferrell and starring in Judd Apatow’s unfairly ignored Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Reilly returned to familiar ground with writer director Steve Conrad’s (The Weather Man) indie dramedy about two assistant grocery store managers vying for the promotion that could bring either of them financial security. Reilly plays Richard Wehlner, a recovering drug addict and family man still rattled enough by a misspent youth to rely on cheap motivational tapes and the occasional joint to get himself through the work day. The script is derivative of any number of earlier films, including Tin Men (1987), Changing Lanes (2002) and Office Space (1999) but gets carried along by Reilly, Lili Taylor as his wife and an unusually strong performance by Seann William Scott as his rival.

- Michael Kabel

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Preview: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

August comedy features Jeremy Piven in possibly the role he was born to play.

With the end of the summer movie season just around the corner, we admit to feeling a little mean-spirited. Star Trek was just okay, Wolverine, Transformers and Public Enemies were disappointing, and Terminator: Salvation aggressively sucked. But with August comes the studio’s middle children, the films in which they place little hope or confidence in turning a profit. And what better film for such a siesta than one about used cars, starring an actor with one of the most love-him-or-hate-him reputations in the business?

Jeremy Piven (Entourage) stars in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, the debut directing effort from Neal Brennan, formerly one of the main creative forces behind the much-missed Chappelle’s Show. Piven leads a cast full of comedy ringers on a mission to liquidate two hundred used cars over a single Fourth of July weekend. Really, though, the plot’s race-against-time conceit is just a timetable for the slapstick violence and raunchy jokes that will make or break the film. If there’s more funny jokes than just appear in the trailer below, hitting that goal shouldn’t be a problem.

Despite its warts-and-all cinematic potential, the retail car industry only gets big screen attention every decade or so. Robert Zemeckis’ (Back to the Future) 1980 effort Used Cars put Kurt Russell and Jack Warden in a typical save-the-family-business setup. 1990′s black comedy Cadillac Man starred Robin Williams as a fast-talking Queens car dealer in career meltdown. Both films seem to sort of influence The Goods, with their loose structure, sleazeball protagonists, and sense of make-or-break plot stakes. (1999′s weird, misbegotten adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions starred Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte as Pontiac salesmen coming unglued. It’s not really relevant here.)

This picture here, for example.

Piven, whose picture could serve as the graphic for Wikipedia’s definition of “acquired taste,” is ideally cast as someone who’s fun to hate. Joining him in his team of liquidators are Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction), the ubitquitous David Koechner (Thank Your For Smoking) and Kathryn Hahn (Step Brothers). Also appearing are Tony Hale (Arrested Development), Ken Jeong (Pineapple Express), Ed Helms (The Hangover), Jordana Spiro (My Boys) and Craig Robinson (The Office). James Brolin also shows up, presumably to give the proceedings a little class.

Despite the cast (who all have their share of clunkers in their resumes) we’d be less enthused about the film if not for Brennan. If one of Judd Apatow’s proteges had helmed the film, or if it came from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, or Broken Lizard, we wouldn’t care less. (And thank God it doesn’t star Will Ferrell or Jack Black.) But Chappelle’s Show was as much as about meaning and subtext as it was about laugh value – America quickly forgot the smart memoir lurking behind “I’m Rick James, bitch” – and with its so-timely subject matter The Goods could be something more than cheap laughs delivered in spitballing fashion: it could become the comedy that years from now serves as cultural touchstone.

Or it could be another late-summer lemon. But after three months of movie hype collapsing into disappointment, there’s little to lose at this point by giving it a shot. Now, how much would you pay?

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard opens nationwide August 14.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: Watchmen

Zack Snyder’s flawed adaptation of the milestone graphic novel arrives on DVD, Blu-Ray, and in Director’s Cut format this week.

Watchmen is a film that wants to be more than it is – at least most of the time. Based on the highly-praised (perhaps overpraised) 1980s-era DC Comics mini-series and at least twenty years in its journey from page to screen, Zack Snyder’s epic vision of a parallel America where super-heroes have worked, thrived and perished for years arrives on home video this week – just in time for the San Diego Comic-Con – with loads of extra features and even an expanded director’s cut promising additional footage. But does the original film succeed? Well, like the ink blot tests at the center of one character’s obsessions, that largely depends on how you see the film as a work of adaptation and as a film in its own right.

On the one hand, Watchmen is slavishly devoted to the comic’s atmosphere, characters, and even dialogue. On the other, Snyder’s insistence on highly stylized violence – the same gimmick that made his previous 300 such a blood-soaked thrill – works against the intelligent-approach-to-superheroes leitmotif that has always served as the comic’s claim to fame and redeeming virtue. Snyder, unwisely, attempts to have his cake and eat it too, presenting haunted characters doomed by their humanity who  nevertheless relish beating the shit out of other people. These two impulses work at cross-purposes to one another, and while the film never lags or suffers for pace, there’s often a sense of it getting winded, too. Superheroes don’t get tired – at least these don’t – but the emotional pitch often warbles and peters out.

The plot is faithfully byzantine, and fans of the comic series (who are going to enjoy the film the most anyway) will recognize dozens of visual and aural references to the world minutely created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. For the layman viewer such density of information will probably prove disorienting, but in broad strokes the world works as a nightmarish amplification of the worst excesses of the Reagan/Thatcher Era, including all the paranoia and shame that accompanied them. A noticeable problem sometimes emerges when the talented cast attempts to bring Moore’s pulp-inspired dialogue to life. Jackie Earle Haley, playing the haunted vigilante Rorschach, has the biggest task in this regard but nevertheless succeeds the most, bringing palpable feeling to his minimalist voice-overs. The rest of the performers don’t fare as well, often bringing to mind Harrison Ford’s famous admonition to George Lucas on the set of Star Wars: “You can type this shit, but you sure can’t say it.”

Amid the dogged loyalty shown by Snyder and screenwriters David Hayter (X-Men) and Alex Tse, the changing of the book’s ending comes both as a surprise and a relief, yet it still doesn’t entirely make sense. Watchmen the comic’s ending has long been a subject of debate and even derision (the book’s own editor, Wolverine creator Len Wein, fought with Moore but relented). To be fair, the original ending is both derivative (though openly so) and quite a bit dated by now. Hayter and Tse’s script turns the central mystery inward but fails to really examine the ramifications of its execution, and Snyder tries to ram the idea past the audience with bluster and speed. Neither tactic really works.

The film would work much less than it does if not for the performances that manage, often against overwhelming odds, to emerge from the special effects and tediously gruesome fight sequences. Billy Crudup (Public Enemies) finds the character of godlike Dr. Manhattan in the estranged superbeing’s lonesome voice, while Patrick Wilson (Lakeview Terrace) disappears inside the flabby self-loathing of the myopic Nite Owl.

Less commendable are the turns by Malin Ackerman (The Heartbreak Kid) as Laurie Jupiter, the second Silk Spectre, and Matthew Goode (Match Point) as Adrian Veidt, the hero turned media mogul. Moore wroter Veidt as a dispassionate, virtually asexual intellectual; while Goode’s glacial good looks fit the part he never brings any nuance to the character’s dark intellect. Ackerman struggles with a role that’s underwritten to the point of insignificance. Perhaps the delicate balance of family versus self and the struggle for a father figure at the heart of Jupiter’s character was beyond the screenwriters’ capability or outside their interest. Whatever the reason, her character was neglected most in adaptation, and the big reveal regarding her paternity doesn’t quite come off as a result.

The action sequences aside, there are finally other problems with Snyder’s sense of staging and scene construction, and even the most casual viewing reveals missed chances. One particular wasted opportunity involves a third-act reconciliation between Nite Owl and Rorschach, as the latter begs his former partner’s forgiveness for being obstinate. Though the scene screams for close-ups, to show the emotions bursting forth from beneath the masks, Snyder frames the moment as a static medium two-shot. Other visual counterpoints to character growth used so masterfully in the comics – a crystal castle splinters and falls as memories come to light, dirigibles hover over death, a perfume advertisement heralds a new future - are all curiously missing.

The cynical response, obviously, is that Snyder or the screenwriters just missed them when reading the comics. And it’s possible a repeated viewing might show that their understanding of the comics’ themes and still-timely message is in fact only skin deep. I hope not. After 23 years, the Watchmen movie shouldn’t feel like a waste of time.

- Michael Kabel

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(Note: An earlier version of this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Review: Moon

Duncan Jones’ debut feature gets all its retro details in smart order.

How welcome, and even encouraging given this summer of disappointments, to discover Moon. Co-writer and first-time director Duncan Jones’ near-future drama is intelligent, well-crafted, and restrained, thanks to a perfect (if derivative in a well-intentioned way) production design and great performances from stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. A small-scale film that articulates its simple ideas while managing some new twists to familiar tropes, the film manages to do what Captain Kirk, the Terminator, and Optimus Prime together could not: bring intelligent science fiction to summer movie theatres.

Rockwell (Confessions of A Dangerous Mind) plays Sam Bell, the sole human occupant of the Sarang mining facility on the dark side of the moon. The station uses huge robotic crawlers to mine for helium-3, a rare isotope powerful enough to solve the world’s energy needs. After three years on the station, Bell is weary, melancholy, and eager to return to the wife and daughter waiting for him on Earth, and kept company only by taped messages from home and by GERTY (voiced by Spacey), the station’s artificial intelligence .

Two weeks before his homecoming, Bell goes out to investigate a malfunction on one of the crawlers, leading to a collision that knocks him unconscious. When “Sam” wakes up in the station’s infirmary, he feels confused and alienated but also paranoid. Returning the crash site, he finds himself – an exact copy of himself – still in the wreckage. Bringing the “other” Sam Bell back to the station, the two men try to discern what’s happened and whether either of them is actually genuine, a clone, or something more insidious.

The film’s story gets a boost from Tony Noble’s production design, which while borrowing liberally from 1960s and 70s genre classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and Alien provides enough scruffy detail to take those classic images a step further along a realistic timeline. Sarang looks and “feels” shopworn, with dirt and scuff marks seemingly everywhere, and hints of mildew and other signs of long use always in its cracks and crevices. Yet the familiarity also grounds the film, from a viewer’s perspective, as part of a larger continuity of science fiction film not really in evidence since the early 1980′s realist heyday of Outland, Blade Runner, and 2010: the sense of outer space and whatever fragile habitats mankind eventually builds there as lived-in environments subject to the wear and tear typical of Earth. So much sci-fi casts the future as either antiseptically barren or completely dystopic, with little or no gradation in between. In striking a middle ground, the sets give both Bell’s character and the story important depth and texture.

Jones, who wrote the story, keeps the film moving forward, using Rockwell’s relaxed screen presence and precise conveyance of emotion to keep the tension building. An exception to this comes about a third of the way through, when an important story development is accomplished largely thanks to some judicious editing. Some viewers might feel cheated, or feel that the film was anyway trying to cheat them a bit. Nathan Parker’s screenplay isn’t overly talky or given to monologues and spoken exposition (no doubt a tempting pitfall, given the film’s man-alone conceit), though it allows Rockwell and Spacey room to flesh out their characters in ways that distinguish them from the influences listed above. Spacey is a natural fit to play an electronic presence immediately reminiscent of the HAL 9000, though the script and his performance take GERTY’s personality in unexpected directions.

But the film rises and falls with Rockwell, who in essentially playing the same person at different points of their life is able to build two very different characters out of one role. It’s an important, but subtly given, plot device that Bell had a violent temper before arriving at Sarang. Rockwell makes one of the Sam’s impulsive and brash, while his doppelganger, from a later point in time, is serene and lonesome. You never doubt you’re watching the same person, or the same actor, even as the two go very separate emotional directions. As good as he is, Spacey’s GERTY is somewhat underused, arriving at times seemingly only to nudge the plot in the right direction. His ostensible warmth and compassion for Bell’s welfare could possibly have used  a bit more explanation, too.

The nation sort-of took notice of the Apollo 11 moon mission’s 40th anniversary last week, even as NASA’s plans to return to the moon begin to percolate in the public consciousness. Amid such news, the film almost seems simultaneously like a coming attraction and a souvenir, prescient and old-fashioned at the same time. With its few flaws and earnest ambition, it’s a lovely reminder of what science fiction can be about. As one blockbuster after another falls flat, even given their diminished critical expectations, Moon is a welcome sight.

- Michael Kabel

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Summer Vacation and Our Recent Best

Enjoy our best features as we enjoy our vacation.

Vacation time again.

It’s July. The sun is shining and the weather’s nice. Screaming Blue Reviews is suspending publication this week to get out and enjoy some time off but also to get caught up on our movie watching. We’ve got a full DVR and several new indies to check out, so our work is cut out already.

While we’re having fun, we suggest you check out some of these other reviews and features we’ve published over the last few months. We hope you like them. Join us when we return Monday, July 20 with our review of this summer’s brainy science fiction spectacle Moon. 

1. We love gangster movies for a lot of reasons, not least of which is their amazing resonance with the times surrounding them. Our Road To Gangsterland feature looks back at eight decades of gangster films, including video clips from some of the best of each era. And for what it’s worth, each film discussed is better than Public Enemies, this summer’s 800lb monster of disappointment.

2. Film Noir is both the gangster movie’s successor and perennial accomplice. Summer, with its steamy heat and oppressive atmospheres, is the perfect climate to take a walk down the genre’s long and seductive side streets. Last summer we talked about five movies to make a good film noir festival, films that merit a place in any film collector’s library but provide an excellent treat for fans of the genre’s bleak worldview and sumptuous textures. There’s a video clip of the notorious scene from Kiss of Death, too, which must be viewed to be believed.

3. If crime and criminals aren’t your thing, consider the careers of seven leading men and seven leading women we think are due for major comebacks. They’re talented performers who’ve made some pretty amazing films, and to a person their presences are missed. Happy to say, but at least two of the actors – a man and a woman – mentioned on the lists have independent films circulating this summer. We hope that’s the start of a trend.

4. With so many comic book movies in the pipeline right now and so much casting news and rumors making Internet headlines, check out this list of seven lesser known comics-to-film adaptations. Some had potential, some never had a chance, some were just… weird. Marvel Comics’ stalwart Captain America has had so many big- and small-screen misfires that he rated a film retrospective all his own.

5. Reading books makes us feel smart, but we’d rather be watching movies – it takes less time and there’s usually some kind of candy. Still, we recently made a list of five books with the potential to become great movies, including ideal casts and directors to do the novels profiled justice. There’s been a surprising amount of feedback on this piece – a surprisingly low amount. Does no one else armchair produce their favorite books into blockbuster films?

6. We also enjoy crap, with our without ironic detachment. Last Thanksgiving we ran a fun piece – we can’t quite call it an expose – on all the cheap knockoffs of American film franchises to come from the nation of Turkey. Some of the video clips will very probably blow y0ur mind. Also, we grew up in the 1990s (the golden age of ironic detachment), and our piece about eight of the worst films from the decade’s first half brought back a lot of memories we were content to leave dormant. We’re also embarrassed by how many we actually saw in the theatre. Be advised each of the cinematic train wrecks profiled comes accompanied with a video clip as proof of its dubious quality.

7. Finally, every now and then we talk about a film we want to encourage people to see, either because it’s under-appreciated or has gotten somewhat obscured by the passage of time. A few are box office turkeys we think got a bad deal from their marketing or public reception. These films include the 1973 realist drama Save The Tiger with Jack Lemmon, 2006′s David Fincher-directed Zodiac, and several more we present together . We’ve also got a list of films that deserve a DVD release but haven’t gotten one yet. Life is too short to watch bad movies, and we sometimes suspect that good movies are made every day. The hard part is finding them to watch.

See you next week.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: The Merry Gentleman

Michael Keaton’s directorial debut is smart, opaque, fascinating.

The Merry Gentleman is a film that will frustrate you. You will sometimes wish it moved faster and that it would open itself more, and reveal something besides only the tantalizing amount of information that its very shrewd and deliberate script wants to divulge. The ending will likely haunt you, not in a satisfying sense but rather in a way that compels you to make sense of its painstakingly-wrought ambiguity. And you might actually love the film for all of those reasons.

Directed by Michael Keaton – an intelligent leading man long overdue for a major comeback - from  a script by relative unknown Ron Lazzeretti (The Opera Lover), the film often manages literary feats of structure and innovation while remaining grounded in a concrete sense of place and tone. Keaton also stars as Frank Logan, a solitary and antisocial tailor, drowning in depression and guilt, who also (though we’re never told why) moonlights as a contract hit man. Yet he is not the real star of the film. That place is occupied – gracefully, charmingly - by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men) as Kate Frazier, a woman escaping her abusive policeman husband by escaping to a nondescript (though vaguely Chicago) major city.

Their solitary existences bring them together at Christmastime, which anyone with depression can tell you is the cruelest time of the year by far. Following a hit on someone in Kate’s office building, Frank attempts to throw himself off a neighboring rooftop, after glimpsing her in a wonderfully constructed moment of grace. But she sees him instead and screams, averting his suicide. Later, the two formally meet as Frank shows her a small kindness, and their friendship begins to percolate. Kate is the type of person you suspect would rather not risk inconveniencing anyone with her company. She’s strong but vulnerable to even the basic ruthlessness that most people take for granted, and her attempts at isolation only draw other lonely souls into her path, including an emotionally needy co-worker (Darlene Hunt) and Dave Murcheson, the police detective (Tom Bastounes) investigating the shooting.

But she’s drawn to Frank, probably as much because he asks nothing of her and doesn’t seem prepared to offer anything for which he might expect gratitude down the line. “I think we’re good for one another,” Kate tells him, and when minutes later she explains, “You’re possibly the sweetest man I’ve ever met” you get a sense of how bad her life must have been to that point. The script moves ahead in time, cleverly, and there’s a sense as spring rolls around that the two are making progress helping one another. Then of course their respective pasts close in on them. Kate’s husband (Bobby Cannavale) tracks her down, spouting born-again Christian rhetoric that, not surprisingly, makes the skittish Kate even more terrified. Meanwhile Murcheson and his partner dog the shooting investigation as well as the apparent suicide of one of Frank’s associates. Frank is unafraid, permanently removing Kate’s husband from her life and continuing his tailoring business.

The pivotal scenes arrive as Murcheson visits Frank’s store. The two men size each other up, instant dislike getting submerged by going-through-the-motions polite conversation. “I tend to see the suit, not the person inside it,” Frank tells him, a pretty unsubtle way of explaining that life is often meaningless to him. Murchison ambles off, ready to confront Kate – the object of his affection as well as a potential witness and accomplice alike – of his concerns. His clumsy, well-intentioned effort pushes Kate and Frank into a confrontation that’s minimal on dialogue but no less emotionally resonant. Kate is ready for them to admit the truth about each other but Frank’s not there yet, setting up an ending that leaves more questions than it’s prepared to answer.

Even when playing the comic buffoon (Beetlejuice, Mr. Mom), Keaton the actor has always prioritized reserve, holding something back from the audience that gave his characters nuance and depth. In directing a film his greatest flaw may be following that impulse with too much trust. The film is slow-paced, and there are times when the script begs for elaboration – even a hint or line of dialogue would suffice. And as good as Lazzeretti’s script is at building suspense and giving its characters lines worth saying out loud, it also often explains something (such as in Kate’s dialogue mentioned above) that’s obvious to anyone paying attention. As the film dares its audience to think, the occasional lapse in artistry feels too much like “gimme” questions. The narrative skips ahead at least once, leaving details in its timeline unresolved.

But these complaints are petty grievances. Keaton knows how to direct himself and (with one exception) his actors, mining fascinating complexities out of virtually every role. MacDonald gives Kate layers of anxiety and innocence, letting her be paranoid in one scene and carefree the next. Bastounes is exceptional as the self-sabotaging Murheson, a man at once reaching out for someone’s warmth but retreating into his police authority whenever challenged. He’s the third part of Frank and Kate’s lonely constellation, dimmer by comparison but no less sincere despite his lack of self-awareness. Only Cannavale fails to impress, bringing too much ham to his rambling fire-and-brimstone monologue. We understand that his character is a petty and vile man because Kate has already sold us on the idea. Cannavale’s overacting only sets her own efforts back.

And the ending: vague, inconclusive, maddeningly open to interpretation. There are dozens of pat endings possible, and if you’ve been watching movies for any length of time you can imagine probably half that many without really trying. If the last five minutes are flawed, they’re still not enough to undermine the beauty and intelligence of the 105 minutes preceding them. The Merry Gentleman is in that sense daring right until its wide-open end.

-Michael Kabel

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Preview: The Invention of Lying

Ricky Gervais leads a sprawling ensemble cast in a high-concept comedy about truth.

We couldn't find an image of the actual poster. Honestly.

Imagine a world where no one ever lies and where everyone is always completely candid and trusting, until one man learns to use the power of bullshitting for his own gain. That’s the setup for Ricky Gervais’ (Ghost Town) September-released farce, which looks to be the kind of sprawling, high-concept piece that Woody Allen could have made in the 1970s and Garry Shandling might have tried a decade ago. Though Gervais (who also co-directs and co-wrote the script with Matthew Robinson) is probably capable of making more of the premise than most other actors, he’s got great backup in a huge ensemble supporting cast that includes at least one legend and a platoon of  hip co-stars.

Gervais plays Mark, a film executive in a world so completely honest that its culture doesn’t even include fiction: performers simply tell true stories based on facts from history. With his career bottoming out and a romance with the object of his affection Jennifer (Jennifer Garner) going nowhere fast, he has a brainstorm: lie about how much money he wants to withdraw from a bank. The teller believes him (apparently it’s also a world without ATM’s), and his lying career is off and running. The film goes on to show the consequences of bearing false witness and, we imagine, the redemptive power of honesty.

Probably the first film that comes to mind here, at least after watching the pretty standard trailer, is 1997′s Liar, Liar. The twist is that instead of Jim Carrey only telling the truth, the plot has one guy telling lies while everyone around him is utterly forthcoming. Gervais’ previous film, last year’s Ghost Town, was about a hapless schmoe given the unwanted gift of communication with dead people. That film eventually sank into the usual Hollywood cliches but was buoyed by Gervais’ and co-star Greg Kinnear’s impossible-to-dislike screen presences. Likewise, there’s little to suggest this film is going to be anything too unpredictable: Gervais-as-movie star remains an emerging marketable brand for audience over 35, as do co-stars Garner, Jason Bateman, and Tina Fey.

Joining them are Rob Lowe as Mark’s nemesis and Louis CK as his buddy, while Christopher Guest, Patrick Stewart and Jeffrey Tambor all show up in various roles, too. That sounds promising enough, but big ensemble groups rarely pay off for comedy: Shandling’s Town & Country (2001) had a colossal amount of talent but ended up the biggest money-loser in motion picture history, a failure caused somewhat by its inability to meet expectations. Yet that comparison is probably unfair. While The Invention of Lying doesn’t share that earlier film’s production problems and budget overruns, it also lacks its pedigree.

Ultimately, it’s somewhat hip to like Gervais, and the film will find an audience among its target demographic while possibly luring a few college kids thanks to the inclusion of Jonah Hill (Superbad). Which is probably all it wants: to find a nice corner of the multiplex and settle in for a pleasant enough and profitable run. Its working title was The Other Side of Truth, but may we suggest Universal Pictures follow the example of its premise and rename the film Adult Ensemble High Concept Comedy for Autumn 2009? Truth in advertising, and all that.

The Invention of Lying opens nationwide September 25th.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD Preview: Near Dark

80s vampire cult favorite gets a new DVD release tomorrow.

Long before the red state chastity of the Twilight series or even the homoerotic glamour of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, vampire films got a strange and visceral twist courtesy of co-writer/director Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 B-flick Near Dark, a gritty take on the sub-genre that was as much Western adventure as it was horror story. A cult classic for decades, the film gets its first DVD re-release in five years July 7, even as the director’s The Hurt Locker opens nationwide to riotous critical applause. Fans of the Whedonverse and HBO’s True Blood won’t want to miss it, while Twilight devotees owe it to themselves to check it out.

Small-town Oklahoma boy Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar, Heroes) gives comely drifter Mae (Jenny Wright, St. Elmo’s Fire) a ride home and gets a bite on the neck as thanks. The next day, as his skin catches fire in daylight, he’s kidnapped onto the open road by her gang of roaming vampires, including their leader Jesse (Lance Henriksen, Aliens) and his psychotic henchman Severen (Bill Paxton, Big Love). Severen wants to kill the newcomer and have done with it, but Jesse gives him a week to prove his worth or face undead exile. But Caleb wins the group’s trust during a daytime gunfight with police at an abandoned motel, and conspires with Mae to sustain him as he refuses to drink innocent blood. Eventually, he must save his father (Tim Thomerson, Trancers), his sister and Mae from the group’s repeated attacks and find a cure for his affliction.

The action scenes that ensue are classic 80s cult: gory, at times romantic in shot composition and texture, flaunting their heavy emphasis on mood and feeling. The film was only Bigelow’s second feature, and though its visual restraint and narrative focus sometimes slip from her control there’s a definite sense of creative voice at work, a voice that informs her more polished (though no less noir-inspired) subsequent efforts such as Blue Steel (1989) and Strange Days (1995). Bigelow was married to director James Cameron in the late 80s, and it’s hard not to see the influence of his mid-decade work present here, borrowing especially from The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986) not just its use of lighting but also in its pervasive skepticism about value of moral standards in the face of violent evil.

Much of the film’s energy comes from its fresh approach to traditional vampire tropes: there is no baroque lore, no sense of tradition or of internal struggles flavored with obsessive self-loathing and loneliness. Jesse is ancient and eerie, suggesting a history to their affliction, but the gang doesn’t resemble the coven or guild commonly routinely found in more mundane vampire adventures; rather, they recall the James Gang, or a touring punk rock band, bound together by their mutual needs and ambitions. By contrast Caleb and his family are the archetypal Western homesteaders, defending themselves as much as their property. The film even includes a massacre at a roadhouse that might just as well be a frontier saloon.

Though absolutely a film of its time, Near Dark also saw a return to treating the vampire subject seriously after a spate of broad comedies like Fright Night and Once Bitten (both 1985) used vampire gimmicks for humorous effect. Its release at the box office was disappointing, no doubt hampered by the release of the somewhat similar The Lost Boys just two months before. That film had major studio backing and a cast that collectively boasted the best cheekbones of any group of the decade. Nevertheless, and like so many other cult films of the 1980s, Near Dark‘s fame rests largely on multiple showings on late-night cable movie channels, a time when those fledgling networks seemed perennially half-starved for programming.

Ultimately, it’s unfair to dismiss Near Dark as a runner up genre excercise or journeyman work from a director still coming into her own. It’s a standout B-movie from an era that was often a Golden Age for such humbler-budget efforts. Perhaps more significantly, it’s become in intervening years a touchstone for a larger cycle in American culture, part of a recurring signal flare about what we’re feeling and when we feel it. Vampires swell in popularity as American cynicism about the nation’s direction grows, whether in the current recession, the depths of Reagan’s Morning in America or the premillennial ennui of the 90s. In taking a grittier approach to the genre and melding it with the Western – the hoariest of the nation’s ego-boosters – Near Dark offers a more visceral reflection of how we entertain ourselves when things start looking grim. Hard times come around again and again, while vampires live forever.

-Michael Kabel

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