The Crooked Review

2011 - A Year in Film?

2012-02-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

Every year an obligatory round-up must be made of the films to be remembered. Despite an altogether lackluster 2011, there are still a few films that I saw (and still have yet to see) that stood out above the rest. Or maybe at least to the side of the rest? Starting with #1...

1. Attack the Block - This one took forever to finally come stateside so it was hard not to have anticipation and excitement surrounding it. By no means is this a perfect movie, but it is absolutely fun, entertaining, original, intense, funny, charming, well-made, beautiful to look at, and pays homage to all the right cult movies and film makers from the past while keeping things fresh and contemporary. It delivered everything I wanted from it and then some, which is all you can hope for when watching a movie.

2. Drive - Sometimes all you need is pure stylistic nirvana, which Drive delivers in waves. An LA cityscape flooded with neon glow and brilliant rays of sunlight is brimming with over-the-top characters that play out like a modern film noir. Gosling steals the show in a symbolic role that will haunt him (and us) forever. This movie drips and hums with a synergy of masculinity and fragility that really creates something truly unique.

3. Martha Marcy May Marlene - Who would have thought an Olsen sister would have acting talent? Elizabeth Olsen (who absolutely shows potential in paving a Michelle Williams-like career) knocks this one out of the park. Throw John Hawkes in as a creepy cultish leader of a commune, give me interesting cinematography and an edge-of-your seat ending, and you get MMMM. It's no coincidence what that spells.

4. Hævnen (In A Better World) - Winning the Oscar for best Foreign Film last year, Hævnen came to the states this spring, and was actually pretty awesome. Quite stunningly well-made, it had me constantly on edge and really tested out some ideas with vengeance, manhood, and compassion, that worked quite well.

5. Shame - The cinephilic Criterion collector in me has to acknowledge Shame, which is compelling, but doesn't tread into lame, well-worn territory when dealing with a sex-addicted and somewhat prickish main character. Fassbender delivers the goods (while showing us his) and his second teaming up with Steve McQueen proves that they are both here to stay.

6. Tree of Life - Terrence Malick is one of those director's I've always felt pressured to love despite having made so few films. I was instantly intrigued by Tree of Life, and watching the film really did feel like a full experience. After seeing it, I said "I can never watch that again", really because re-watching it would only detract from my original appreciation of it. I'm standing by that statement, so I'll probably never watch it again, which also makes it difficult to rank.

7. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil - a low-budget, "Hey, let's get our friends together and make a movie" kind of feel, that brilliantly approaches the other side of a slasher movie gone wrong. There are a few rough patches, but in the end, you cannot hold much against this funny romp that really hits the mark it set out for.

8. Moneyball - Why not? This feels like a Tin Cup or Field of Dreams classic that I would typically pass on. It's a biopic/based on a true story. It's about the Oakland A's. It's got Jonah Hill. And yet, I enjoyed it. Pitt flipping tables is a huge selling point for me as well.

Other good ones: Buck, PJ20, Super, MI:4, Contagion, Green Hornet (I know...I know)

Living in a world where I am at the mercy of the theaters around me, I have unfortunately not seen all of the films I wanted to this year. The four that show great promise of being really good...?

1. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lynne Ramsey has been one of my favorite directors for a while, with a Malick-like career that is sparse but incredibly strong. I've been wanting to talk about We Need To Talk About Kevin for so long, and it finally comes to the Pickford in a few weeks. I expect it to be amazing.

2. Oslo, August 31st - Another director who I have been wanting more from, Joachim Trier. His last film Reprise was stylistic and fresh, up for an Oscar, and a hidden gem I stumbled upon from a few years back. He seems to have a lot of the same players and subject matter here as in Reprise, so I hope it remains an original and interesting story.

3. Take Shelter - This was in town for a week, the one week I was absolutely busy, so I missed it. I've heard good things, and I am all about psychosis and apocalyptic threats. This one comes out on DVD in a few weeks.

4. Psycho Gunslinger - Who made this, Terry Gilliam? It keeps getting pushed back, but once this finally reaches completion it should be well worth the wait.

I must also mention some of the worst of 2011, as well as those that really let me down.

1. Hobo With A Shotgun - Just about everything I dread about amateur film making in one movie. Muddled storytelling, crappy dialogue, over-blown everything. I like me the Hauer, but ugh, this one was appalling.

2. Colombiana - Just a complete mess. Casting a 100% Māori actor to play a Latin American is a little weird. Historical inaccuracies pertaining to Xena: Warrior Princess. Ridiculousness abound. Yucky.

3. Paul - A huge letdown that proves that you can't get laughs with two out of three stooges. Where were you when we needed you Edgar Wright? Where were you when we needed you Simon Pegg and Nick Frost?

4. Super 8 - Firstly, I am not saying this was a bad movie; it was fun and entertaining at times. I will re-watch this one to be certain, but I have to say I had no emotional attachment to anything going on in this movie, which surprised and jilted me. There are basic elements of the story that should have had me bawling in my seat, but for some reason I never got to that point. Maybe it was all the hype that it failed to measure up to, but it left me cold and dissatisfied where I fully expected to feel warm and satiated. Hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned.

There it is. It's not everything I want it to be, but it's pretty representative of the 2011 year in film. As we enter the brave unknown of 2012, I hope to find myself with a more definitive attitude towards what was not just good, but great. Please oh please...let them at least be greater than this year's yield.

An American Carol...of pure hell

2009-03-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

I must have some really bad karma saved up for me, because my unfortunate task to review David Zucker's An American Carol was so unpleasant, I actually felt my brain melting in my skull. I must preface my review with the knowledge that multiple customers who have rented this fine feature film from the video store where I work have returned it out of pure disgust, demanding some sort of justice for their mistakes (aka refund). And then I found out I would have to watch it. I must really like you guys...

Within the first 5 minutes, I had a good sense of how the rest of this "film" would play out, as Zucker and co. show a group of hapless terrorists (all named Mohammed Hussein no less) as they make sordid attempts to suicide bomb everything in sight. They of course fail, and only manage to blow up their own leader's car after all their efforts to murder infidels. Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious...No other movie could better illustrate the distinctions between distasteful humor and actual humor as clearly as this one. I'm not too concerned with taste more often than not, but c'mon, even I know that these are bad jokes gone worse with no consciousness as to how delicate these situations are; jokes about terrorism and Nazi's and concentration camps and homosexuality can be funny (if even barely so), but the attempts to somehow antiquate and justify the humor here falls so flat, it's embarrassing. And how did Zucker get so many cameos? C'mon Kelsey Grammar? Dennis Hopper? Jon Voigt? Have some sense of dignity.

If anything else, this is an attack on Michael Moore and...well that's kind of it. It seems almost pointless though, as even Zucker and co. don't prove anything contrary Moore or anyone else's "anti-American" sentiment. The movie basically promotes America as a land of backyard barbeques and happy suburban families, and equates fighting in the Civil War and WWII as justification for our nation's actions in the Middle East. If A is B, and B is C, then A is C right? Oh, and country music is awesome, can't forget that. But the problem is that while there is obviously some attempt being made by Zucker to criticize those who would doubt/protest American policies, the movie is still a really poorly designed farce/comedy and so we can't really take anything they say to heart. This is nothing more than a movie that is saying everything that we (America) do is right, so there. It's basically a 9-year old who is trying to present some semblance of a real debate armed only with "Because" and "Nuh-uh".

This movie didn't even provoke me to combat it's message, it was just stupid. There wasn't any new information here, and instead of tackling one issue and really exploring it, the movie spewed garbage about every issue it could in an hour and half, white-washing over everything and putting it all under one category of being "wrong". I don't think Zucker will be fortunate enough to ever make a comedy again (if there is justice in the world) but this is clearly one comedy that is best left to rot. Forever and ever. Oh yeah, and if you need a real indicator as to how messed up this movie's message is, this is the only time I've ever seen Bill O'Reilly levelheaded and considerate and not screaming at the top of his lungs. That just doesn't happen in reality, because this movie is O'Reilly's wet dream.

GUMMO

2008-04-01T00:38:00.001-07:00

When I first received word from Ben that a review of Gummo would be my contribution to the 2008 White Elephant Blogathon, I groaned. Far, distant memories of watching Gummo back in high school came back to me, suddenly transporting me to a time when shock value was what made a movie worthy of watching. "Man, you gotta see this movie, it's so f**ked up!" I had only bits and pieces in my mind about what Gummo was from those days, nothing concrete, just enough to put that pit in my stomach and bring back a lingering taste of unpleasantness. Nonetheless, here I was, challenged to face this film once more. I suppose I am thankful to be forced to watch this, because frankly, it wasn't anything like I remembered. Well it was...just...differently?

Harmony Korine (whom I admit I had thought was Chloe Sevigny for the longest time) leaves us for dead in a hum-drum town, devastated in the aftermath of a tornado. The film is a collage of backwater characters who patrol this town, biding their time with little left to amuse. There are the two boys who hunt stray cats for money, which of course provides glue for huffing. The nigh-twin sisters with bleached, white hair and dirty, stankin' mouths. The "rabbit" who patrols the town as a silent figure somehow interjecting himself into this dark, dire life at every turn. There are a handful of other aliens who both appall and bewilder. I say aliens, not in the extraterrestrial sense, but rather a breed of society I have little or no connection with, i.e. the redneck. Everyone here is completely bored out of their mind, with no real escape or ambition to rise to, all of them just passing time, getting through life (err herm...Bellingham anyone?).

Initially, I felt Korine was exploiting this culture, using the shock of such a downtrodden crew to force our minds into submission, dismissing them as crude and unpleasant all along the way. When subjected to watching skinhead brothers punching each other in the head for sport, children flea-bitten and without any parents in sight, teenage kids flinging racist comments left and right, your bound to have a rather negative opinion of these folk. I felt dirty, myself used as a part of this circus with the role of the witless onlooker of a bloody car wreck. After all, who kills stray cats for money? Who wrestles helpless chairs into submission? Who shaves their eyebrows off laughing all the while? The mind boggles.

By the end of the film, after being numbed to the harsh "reality" that I was being exposed to, I realized the true horror of the film, the key element that was making my stomach churn. Despite the absolute far-fetchedness of everything I just watched, it just might be true. The line between reality and fantasy is so blurred throughout; some scenes obviously being acted, others, I'm not so sure, that I was suddenly nervous and scared for the human race. The film does a great job of toying with this idea of "reality" and "what we would expect to be reality" with Korine managing to blend documentary with horror film seamlessly.

I was surprised to find myself not necessarily enjoying Gummo, but certainly engaged by it. It's certainly unsettling to say the least. I don't know if I will ever look at a chocolate bar or spaghetti the same way again, but I'm glad that this was my assignment. I do know one thing - I will probably never, ever, ever go to Ohio.

Thanks Gummo for ruining Ohio for me.