Uncategorized

Performance artist Miranda July writes and directs her first feature film
Christine (Miranda July), part-time video artist, part-time elder care driver takes one of her clients shopping for shoes and spies the love of her life, the wide-eyed, newly separated, shoe salesman, Richard (John Hawkes, Deadwood). She knows nothing about his life, but, she is in love and determined in her quest of him, almost to the point of seeming like a stalker, a benign stalker.

Richard, still healing from many wounds, one self-inflicted (he purposely pours lighter fluid on his hand, lights it on fire and seems surprised that he is burning) and his emotional wounds. He is trying to start a new life without his wife, in a cramped apartment, with two sons, preteen Peter (Miles Thompson) and grade school age, Bobby (Brandon Radcliffe), both of whom are like strangers to him. They are silent in their anger and have shut him out of their lives. They prefer to connect and communicate with strangers in online chat rooms, playing the game of not being themselves, online, just like adults.
Young neighbor and school mate of Peter, Slyvie (the excellent Carlie Westerman) is obsessed with order and buying household items for her dowry. Her happiness comes from connecting with neatly ironed towel sets and the latest kitchen gadget, dreaming of her perfect future. She has connected with her soul mate and doesn’t know it.
Two, much too adult, fourteen year old neighbor girls, Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend) find their connections by teasing Richard’s co-worker, Andrew (busy character actor Brad William Henke) to the point of where he leaves them explicit messages, taped to his living room window. In their quest to find out which one on them is better at fellatio, they capture and use a strangely detached Peter for their own version of a double-blind study. No doubt this scene will make some uncomfortable in its frank look at the activities of today’s sexually aware, but still naïve, youth.
All of these different narratives and more mix, match and intersect to tell an off-beat love story.

…

Me and You and Everyone We Know Is MagicalRead More »

Funny, Funny, Funny. And stupid. But funny.

I think I should just lighten up.
Big dumb comedies have been back in fashion for the last few years and I have been very resistant to them. American Pie, There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Old School, Anchorman, and Dodgeball are just a few that seem to wallow in extreme slapstick, vulgar sex jokes, and totally unbelievable situations. Sure, I laughed a lot when I saw American Pie in the theater but I later felt a little dirty about it.
This is where my friends tell me that I should lighten the hell up, and after seeing Wedding Crashers, I think they’re right. Here’s the deal: Wedding Crashers is stupid, dirty, far-fetched, and terribly predictable, but I laughed my ass off while watching it. It was thoroughly entertaining, even though it did make me feel a little dirty for liking it.
Here’s the story: John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Klein (Vince Vaughn) are divorce lawyers who work together and have been best friends since adolescence. When they’re not hearing the horrendous details of people’s marriages breaking up, they’re pursuing their main hobby, which as the title of the movie suggests, is crashing weddings. They come up with elaborate schemes to get into weddings, party with the families at the receptions, and most of all, pick up chicks and go to bed with them.
After a particularly busy wedding season, the two decide to crash the biggest one of the year: that of Treasury Secretary William Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) daughter. John is immediately taken by the bride’s sister Claire (Rachel McAdams) and proceeds to woo her. Meanwhile, Jeremy sets his sights on the other sister, Gloria (Ilsa Fisher), who just happens to be insane. Wackiness ensues as the two join the family in a post-wedding weekend celebration at the Secretary’s house and John tries to get Claire away from her psycho-jock boyfriend.
I went into this movie with extremely low expectations because although I really like Owen Wilson, I have had a big problem with Vince Vaughn. Maybe it was that ultra-crappy remake of Psycho that literally turned my TV into a toilet bowl when I watched it or his performance in Dodgeball that was even too wooden for a stupid comedy. Well, Vince really does quite a good job in this flick at playing the rough but loveable guy that ends up being the film’s comedic punching bag. He has a variety of violent things happen to him and gets the most psychotic abuse from members of the Secretary’s wacko family. I actually liked him by the midpoint of this film. Way to go, Vince!
Owen Wilson is great, as always, and does a good job of making this tremendously stupid movie work. I may even go out on a tiny limb and say that it’s the stars’ charisma that elevates this movie above the other horny, schlocky, comedies that seem to be popping out by the dozen these days. And of course Christopher Walken is great in this movie doing his requisite “creepy man” thing that he naturally does; he manages to be funny and creepy at the same time.
I laughed often and loudly in the theater when I saw this. You can’t really argue with that. I guess after being bludgeoned for two hours with the crazed sledgehammer of a movie that was Oldboy, I needed to watch a movie where I could just shut my brain off and enjoy it. So I suggest that you do just that: go to your local theater, stop thinking, and revel in the cinematic retardation that is Wedding Crashers.

Rock and Roll! Drugs! Furry Animal Costumes! Ladies and gentlemen, The Flaming Lips!

The Flaming Lips SMASH!

One of current rock’s most creative forces, The Flaming Lips, have had a rather unusual success story. Hailing from Oklahoma City in the early 80’s, they created a noisy and anarchic brand of psychedelic punk rock that found a cult audience of true freaks but bewildered most. As time went on the band somehow secured a major record label contract in the early 90’s, had a novelty alternative hit with a song called “She Don’t Use Jelly”, and was poised to be the next one-hit-wonder band of the mid 90’s to never be heard from again.
Then, a curious thing happened. They came out with two stellar albums in a row, 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which gave them both critical raves and commercial success. A newly released documentary DVD, The Fearless Freaks, takes a look inside the band members’ personal lives while giving a slight history of how they got to be where they are today.

In The Fearless Freaks, filmmaker Bradley Beesley tries to give us two things: a history of the band and an intimate look at what makes them tick. The history is very disorganized and doesn’t give the viewer a very good idea of how the band progressed from scrappy, noisy punks to adventurous purveyors of orchestrated pop. None of the band’s five albums before their breakthrough Transmissions from the Satellite Heart are really discussed and there are few insights given into how they actually create any of their music.

While Freaks fails on the historical front, it wholly succeeds in providing a very personal document of the band’s origins, home lives, families, and even some of their troubles. The bulk of the movie is made up of current interviews with singer/guitarist Wayne Coyne and drummer/keyboardist/guitarist/all-around musical whiz Steven Drozd. Wayne’s childhood is discussed extensively, with a good portion of the film’s running time devoted to interviews with his family members (one of which was the band’s original singer). While watching these scenes it quickly becomes apparent that growing up in a culturally isolated place like Oklahoma City in the 70’s created the foundation of the band’s weirdness. The gang mentality that Wayne and his siblings had combined with the strange white-trash nature of the people involved make Oklahoma in the 70’s almost seem like a different planet (and this is coming from someone who grew up in Oklahoma about three hours away from the Coyne’s). All of this actually makes the band seem more mythical and strange.

A real turning point in the band came in 1991 with the addition of Steven Drozd. His musicality and ability to play multiple instruments gave the band a sharper focus and eventually steered them towards the kind of music they are making today. Of course, being a talented artist has its price, and Steven’s problems with substance abuse nearly ended the band on a few occasions. This is discussed with such openness that parts of the last third of the movie are a bit shocking, but it makes for very compelling viewing.

…

Yes Meets The Sex PistolsRead More »

Feeling dirty never felt so creepy!

There comes a time in all of our lives that we have to face the fact that life can be unbelievably cruel. Since good art should express the wide range of human experience, it is necessary for artists to sometimes explore the darker side of life, including the unbearably cruel events that people put each other through on a daily basis. However, there must be a purpose in explicitly showing this cruelty and that is where viewing disturbing art can become difficult. Does watching horrible events unfolding on a movie screen make us think about our own lives and how we treat the people that we come into contact with? I believe that in addition to exploring the darker side of human nature in his film Oldboy, director Chan-wook Park wants us all to think about our everyday actions and how they may affect those around us.
In Oldboy, seemingly regular guy Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is kidnapped and held captive in an apartment for fifteen years. He never sees his captors and has no idea why he has been imprisoned. While in his unusual cell he watches TV, racks his brain about who he could have pissed off to get him in this situation, and eventually trains himself for revenge if he is ever to be released. Without warning he is released and then given five days to find out who his captor is and why he was imprisoned. Oh Dae-su meets up with sushi chef Lee Woo-jin (Yu Ji-tae), who takes him in and helps him with his quest. Oh Dae-su leaves a trail of blood in his wake as he scours the city for clues and sweet vengeance.
Let me just start out by saying that this is a very beautiful film as well as one of the most truly disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Bad things happen to the main character from the beginning and continue throughout the movie’s 120 minute running time. Any bit of happiness that any of the characters seem to feel is immediately immolated and castrated on the spot. Hatred, spite, depravity, and rage are the order of the day and most events are played out with extreme violence and anger. Yet, Chan-wook Park has managed to present this in a very eye-pleasing and well-constructed thrill ride of a movie, and for that he should be congratulated.

From the outset you will realize that this film is masterfully made and inventively put together. The whole first portion of the movie documenting his fifteen years of captivity is very schizophrenic, reflecting the fragmented state of the character’s mind as he deals with the madness of not knowing why he is suffering in this way. The rest of the movie features some great action scenes including one where Oh Dae-su fights off what must be a hundred guys armed only with a hammer! The film looks great and was made by a director who truly knows his craft.
I just want to warn you, by the end of this movie I felt like my soul had been raped by a jackhammer. Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but still, it left me feeling deeply disturbed and exhilarated. However, there’s a real beauty to be found in all of this tragedy; a beauty made all the more poignant in the film’s finale where Oh Dae-su has to make an impossible moral choice just to be able to live what he’s discovered about himself. It is one of the biggest and most powerful emotional payoffs you’ll ever see in a movie, and one you’ll not soon forget. Oldboy is definitely not for the faint of heart, but those who enjoy involved storylines, gritty fight scenes, and explorations of the seedier side of things will find much to appreciate here.

Great horror movies keep an audience on the edge of their seat, engaged, wondering what could possibly happen next.  Good horror movies keep you interested through bizarre plot twists, gruesome death scenes, and lots of blood.  This movie made me want to pee.

Dark Water
1 & 1/2 Stars

Great horror movies keep an audience on the edge of their seat, engaged, wondering what could possibly happen next.  Good horror movies keep you interested through bizarre plot twists, gruesome death scenes, and lots of blood.  This movie made me want to pee.  Dark Water is the latest Japanese horror movie to be remade by Hollywood.  I have never seen the original Honogurai mizu no soko kara, but I will assume it was better than this.  It’s really quite a shame considering how much this movie had going for it that the end result is a tangled ball of missed opportunities.

In the midst of a messy divorce and custody battle, Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) moves with her daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) to a rather strange apartment building owned by Mr. Murray (John C. Reilly).  The building appears relatively old and rundown, and the caretaker of the place Veek (Pete Postlethwaite) tries to keep everything working while blaming any accidents on a pair of kids who live on the tenth floor.  There’s also a strange stain in the corner of the bedroom ceiling that seems to fascinate Ceci.  Immediately after moving in odd occurences start to happen.  The numbered buttons for the elevator are burnt off and the elevator that often has a small wet spot in the corner likes to move to the top floor all on its own.  Dahlia’s ceiling begins to leak, Ceci begins to be talking to an imaginary friend with the same name as the girl who once lived in the upstairs apartment and makes her do bad things.  Dahlia ‘s life quickly begins to fray as she can’t get anyone to take care of the leak in the apartment, which is caused by all the faucets in the room above hers being turned on, her husband is suing her and citing examples of her unfitness as a parent, and Ceci starting to have episodes at school.

Sounds kinda’ interesting,right?  Well, it’s sad because it really could have been.  All the elements are here for a very tight intriguing psychological drama, but the movie decides early on that it would prefer to be your standard run of the mill Hollywood ghost story.  Very early we see Ceci talking to our ghost and we hear the ghost talking back.  This really takes the wind out of the sails as they keep playing the “is she crazy” storyline even though they have already told us there is a ghost.  The problem is the psychological parts work far better than the ghost scenes.  If you are going to do a ghost movie in the horror realm, which this movie claims to do, then you have to have a scary ghost.  A little girl who starts water leaks around the building isn’t too scary to me.  Nothing that happens justifies the effect it has on Dahlia so they had to write in a back story halfway through the film about her being abused and abandoned by her parents.  I guess this is supposed to explain why all these inconveniences scare her when they wouldn’t scare a four year-old child, but I’m sorry I couldn’t buy it.  Water just isn’t scary.  The big special effects sequences are far from impressive.  We get water running down floors, water dripping, water shooting through pipes, water shooting out of sinks and toilets, and water running down walls.  I’ve seen effects on Sesame Street that are scarier, and more impressive.  An odd note, most of the water is a very dark color almost like blood which is a nice touch, but is wasted because no one in the movie, even though it is everywhere, seems to notice or comment.

So they abandon the suspense angle early on, the horror angle never pans out, is there anything that works in this movie?  Well yes, it does have some nice performances.  Reilly is very good as the apartment owner/slum lord who resembles more of a used car salesman.  There are good performances by the Ariel Gade as the child and Tim Roth, who has a very interesting turn as Dahlia’s lawyer who works out of his SUV.  Connelly is very good in the opening quarter of the movie, but her performance becomes strictly one note as the odd occurences begin, which isn’t helped by the script calling for her to self medicate herself continuously through the end of the movie.  Postlethwaite’s character never really is defined.  He’s either the mean and creepy old guy who lives in the basement, or he’s a nice guy who fixes problems for the tenants, depending on the scene.  Dougray Scott is fine as the ex-husband, though he’s a little too nice and concerned for us to understand Dahlia’s anger at him.  Camyrn Manheim has a nice role as Ceci’s teacher, but there’s really not much for her to do in the movie other then tell Dahlia something might be wrong with her daughter.  The apartment building is very strange, but never really scary.  The director never takes advantage of play on the oddness of the surroundings.  In addition, it does seem rather empty.  We only see three other tenants from the building throughout the entire movie, Veek’s two michievious teenagers who could have been much creepier, and a man Dahlia meets on the elevator.  Considering the huge building and Murray’s need to sell apartments fast, fast, fast this doesn’t seem to make much sense.  The director might have been going for a ghost town feel, but we are told and shown that this is a thriving town with one of the best schools in the nation.  Maybe the studio ran out of money and couldn’t hire any more extras.

This movie just doesn’t work.  I could see what the director and the writer were going for in different scenes, but the choices they make never pan out.  To give you an example, without explaining too much, the last scenes in the movie are supposed to be moving.  I laughed out loud.  The ending doesn’t seem to translate well, while it might work well in the Japanese version, here it just looks contrived.  The opening sequence with Dahlia as a little girl, which we see again and again in flashbacks, does nothing to add weight to the character or the storyline.  The movie is beset with countless boneheaded decisions are made simply because of the need to advance another ghost scene in the plot.  The movie wastes a great cast and a very intriguing set up for a psychological drama for what amounts to a pretty lame ghost movie.  If you want to see a good suspenseful movie about a kid that talks to dead people I’d recommend you go out and rent M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, unless water scares you.