Cinemaniac Reviews

Believe it or not, you may not want to see that movie.

Archive for the category “Mystery”

16 May 2013
12 Comments

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Review No. 474

Watch watch “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” now now.

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DIRECTED BY SHANE BLACK. STORY AND SCREENPLAY BY BLACK. STARRING ROBERT DOWNEY JR. (HARRY LOCKHART) AND VAL KILMER (“GAY PERRY” VAN SHRIKE). ALSO STARRING MICHELLE MONAGHAN, CORBIN BERNSEN, DASH MIHOK, ANGELA LINDVALL, ALI HILLIS, LARRY MILLER, ROCKMOND DUNBAR, AND SHANNYN SOSSAMON. DISTRIBUTED ON NOVEMBER 11, 2005 BY WARNER BROS. PRODUCED IN ENGLISH BY THE UNITED STATES. RUNS 1 HOUR, 42 MINUTES. RATED R BY THE MPAA, FOR LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE AND SEXUALITY/NUDITY.

KISS KISS BANG BANG WAS WATCHED ON MAY 5, 2013.

Gay Perry (Val Kilmer): “Look up idiot in the dictionary. You know what you’ll find?”
Harry (Robert Downey Jr.): “A picture of me?”
Gay Perry (Kilmer): “No! The definition of the word ‘idiot’! Which you f###ing are!”

So here we are in L.A. We have Harry (Robert Downey Jr.), a thief who has been mistaken for a method actor and used that to reach a sudden career pinnacle; Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), the femme fatale who wanted to be an actress, but never earned any recognition for her talent; and “Gay Perry” (Val Kilmer), Harry’s own lifelong friend. The plot is a murder mystery, which is anything but simple: over the course of four days, Harry and “Gay Perry” are determined to prove that they didn’t commit a murder, often times “playing detective” according to the pulp novels Harmony reads in her spare time. Sounds bizarre? Let’s just say there’s a severed finger used as a major plot point, and I couldn’t help but think of the severed ear that set Blue Velvet into action.

A great film can melodically separate style and substance. A work of genius can blend the two with dynamic results. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is in the latter camp. While the story darkly satirizes old-fashioned crime capers, it also feels just like them. There’s atmosphere everywhere, and for nearly two hours, we finally have something definitive of unique: an indie movie that echoes the Golden Age of Hollywood. And as if this isn’t enough, the “fourth wall” seems to be composed of drywall; the movie has Robert Downey Jr., so it’s obvious he’d be the one to break it down. Yes, he is a “bad narrator,” in a sense that he often forgets what to mention (and humorously acknowledges this misstep); he tells us to stop complaining about how he’s ending the film on several notes (could the movie, you know, not end?); etc. But he’s not doing this on purpose–writer Shane Black is, and it’s fully original. Nobody’s really written a “bad narration” before, so it makes Downey’s character even more unique and likable.

I had a blast watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The film toys madly with realism, yet at the same time, I can envision myself quoting it on a daily basis. It’s wild, rowdy, violent, hardboiled, dark, and unforgettable. In any politically correct state of mind, it should be flat-out depressing, but god, does Shane Black give it levity. The film is well-written, well-acted, and well-played. That’s to say it’s the perfect crime, it’s the perfect crime about crime, and it’s the only crime we’ve ever needed. Right?

Harry (Robert Downey Jr.): “I peed on the corpse. Can they do, like, ID from that?”
Perry (Val Kilmer): “I’m sorry, you peed on…?”
Harry (Downey): “On the corpse. My question is…”
Perry (Kilmer): “No, my question, I get to go first: Why in pluperfect hell would you pee on a corpse?”
Harry (Downey): “I didn’t intend to! It’s not like I did it for kicks!”

A PLUS

STAY TUNED FOR MY “EVIL DEAD II” REVIEW @4:30!

Posted in Action, Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
11 May 2013
20 Comments

Shutter Island

Review No. 470

Try and “Shut” it out of your memory.

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DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE. SCREENPLAY BY LAETA KALOGRIDIS. BASED ON “SHUTTER ISLAND” BY DENNIS LEHANE. STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO (EDWARD “TEDDY” DANIELS), MARK RUFFALO (CHUCK AULE), BEN KINGSLEY (DR. JOHN CAWLEY), MICHELLE WILLIAMS (DOLORES CHANAL), PATRICIA CLARKSON (DR. RACHEL SOLANDO), AND MAX VON SYDOW (DR. JEREMIAH NAEHRING). ALSO STARRING CHRISTOPHER DENHAM, ELIAS KOTEAS, EMILY MORTIMER, JACKIE EARLE HALEY, JILL LARSON, JOHN CARROLL LYNCH, KEN CHEESEMAN, MATTHEW COWLES, ROBIN BARTLETT, RUBY JERINS, AND TED LEVINE. DISTRIBUTED BY PARAMOUNT PICTURES ON FEBRUARY 19, 2010. PRODUCED IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN BY THE UNITED STATES. RUNS 2 HOURS, 18 MINUTES. RATED R BY THE MPAA, FOR DISTURBING VIOLENT CONTENT, LANGUAGE AND SOME NUDITY.

SHUTTER ISLAND WAS WATCHED ON APRIL 28, 2013.

“Which would be worse? To live as a monster, or die as a good man?” –Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio)

I’ll admit that Martin Scorsese’s rendition of Shutter Island fails when compared to Dennis Lehane’s source novel. It’s nothing mind-blowing or remotely unforgettable. Seen as its own work, this is a successfully chilling piece. I’ve always respected Scorsese as one of few directors who can successfully develop a character, regardless of our expectations. He could direct a biopic about Charles Manson and he’d find a way to make us side with the quote-unquote “hero.” Shutter Island gives its hero a unique, somewhat bizarre turn. Let’s just say once we’re submerged in his head, the experience grows much more unsettling.

Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a U.S. Marshal who has traveled to Ashecliffe, a hospital for the criminally insane, on an island at Boston Harbor. The protocol is a part of the investigation for Rachel Solando, a crazed woman who has drowned all three of her children. What unfolds from here on is a psychological tale that studies one paramount question: “Where is the line between sanity and insanity?” It seems obvious to us, but Teddy, in his journey through the asylum, begins to discover that every mental patient thinks of him- or herself as perfectly sane.

Shutter Island is a well acted thriller, set a step ahead by an intriguing protagonist. We know he’s delusional, but we don’t know when he’s experiencing reality, when his hallucinations represent reality, or when he’s just purely delusional. And his delusion could be either because a) he’s insane or b) he’s recently lost his wife and is now experiencing post-traumatic stress. DiCaprio understates his performance incredibly in order to attain the several mysteries that surround his situation.

The picture is incredibly subtle, so much that when we get to the twist ending, it’s perfection: shocking, yet ingeniously sensible. The term “twist ending” has been beaten to a negative connotation; it’s films like this that demand a new word for how sublimely they end. Again, Shutter Island isn’t perfect; a fan of the book (such as yours truly) would expect something with more consistent pacing, as well as the pulp inspiration that was present Lehane’s novel. But if this isn’t a satisfying thriller–dare I say one that echoes the style of Hitchcock himself, with superior results–I’m not sure exactly what it is.

A MINUS

TOMORROW, ON CINEMANIAC REVIEWS…

Parental Guidance

Posted in Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
20 Apr 2013
12 Comments

L.A. Confidential

Review No. 463

The real crime is that it was robbed of all but two Oscars.

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Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Screenplay by: Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland
Based on: “L.A. Confidential” by James Ellroy
Narrated by: Danny DeVito
Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes: Kevin Spacey
Officer Wendell “Bud” White: Russell Crowe
Det. Lt. Edmund “Ed” Exley: Guy Pearce
Lynn Bracken: Kim Basinger
Sid Hudgens: Danny DeVito
Capt. Dudley Smith: James Cromwell
Pierce Morehouse Patchett: David Strathairn
Also Starring: Amber Smith, Darrell Sandeen, Graham Beckel, Gwenda Deacon, John Mahon, Marisol Padilla Sánchez, Matt McCoy, Paolo Seganti, Paul Guilfoyle, Ron Rifkin, Shawnee Free Jones, Simon Baker

Distributed by Warner Bros. on September 19, 1997. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 138 mins. Rated R by the MPAA–graphic violence, profanity, sexual situations.

L.A. Confidential was watched on April 7, 2013.

“Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.” –Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito)

BY “THE CINEMANIAC”
Film Critic

LOS ANGELES ― Sometime in 1953, we find three officers for the Los Angeles Police Department investigating a homicide at the Nite Owl café.

Detective Lieutenant Edmund “Ed” Exley (Guy Pearce) is no one we would imagine to be a police officer, but he is determined solely to live up to the reputation of his honorable father, a former cop. Officer Wendell “Bud” White (Russell Crowe) is an obsessive feminist, but when his volatile mind takes control, havoc tends to unleash itself. Detective Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a relaxed, calm narcotics detective who works on the field as the technical adviser for a televised police procedural, known as Badge of Honor.

And when their naïveté takes over their honor, Exley, White, and Vincennes find themselves caught up in punishable scandals of their own–be it realized to their own eyes (i.e. prostitution) or unrealized (i.e. tabloid journalism).

In 1990, crime fiction writer James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia) churned this story out into a novel which he titled L.A. Confidential. The title refers to the 1950s scandal/exposé magazine Confidential, which became the novel’s Hush-Hush, the periodical organized by character Sid Hudgeons.

Seven years later, director-producer Curtis Hanson (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle) and co-producer Brian Helgeland (Assassins) collaborated on a screenplay that would become the adaptation of Ellroy’s novel.

The film is true perfection and a paradigm of the term, “a work of art.” One could only be impressed by a story that takes formula into its hands so well and unpredictably. The writing is fantastic, but in combination with tour de force performances, it soars.

Exley is the generic hero, underestimated by everyone but himself. “Lose the glasses,” he is told on several occasions, with regard to his geeky attire–and he never does, despite his daily work at the less-than-appreciating LAPD. One is led to believe this due to Guy Pearce’s performance, despite having seen it a million times already. White is almost a caricature in his aggressive nature, but Russell Crowe says differently in the façade he uses to cover up any morsel of gratuity in his character. Vincennes the written character seems to constantly say, “Look, I know this was a murder, but calm down.” Vincennes the character, as acted by Kevin Spacey, seems completely serious in his slick role, and yet still likable for his relaxed attitude.

The most outstanding portion of the film, given the choice, is Kim Basinger. The woman represents a femme fatale in this neo-noir drama, in a subtle, unassuming, and seductive manner that only Veronica Lake and Lana Turner–both who earned winning nods in the film–could truly pull off. Ms. Basinger portrays a prostitute, yet even the most morally authoritative viewer would have difficulty not enjoying her performance.

What is meant is that the film is a performance all on its own. And at that, it is not a dash below absolute perfection. ☚

A PLUS

TOMORROW, ON CINEMANIAC REVIEWS…

A Quick Announcement

Posted in Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, [Film Reviews] and tagged
14 Apr 2013
14 Comments

Cape Fear

Review No. 458

A Scorsese film with the word “Fear” in the title means something.


Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay by: Wesley Strick
Based on: “Cape Fear” by James R. Webb; “The Executioners” by John D. MacDonald
Max Cady: Robert De Niro
Sam Bowden: Nick Nolte
Leigh Bowden: Jessica Lange
Danielle Bowden: Juliette Lewis
Claude Kersek: Joe Don Baker
Lt. Elgart: Robert Mitchum
Lee Heller: Gregory Peck
Also Starring: Charles Scorsese, Fred Dalton Thompson, Illeana Douglas, Martin Balsam, Zully Montero

Distributed by Universal Pictures on November 13, 1991. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 127 mins. Rated R by the MPAA–mature themes, graphic violence, profanity, infrequent rape/sexual abuse.

Cape Fear was watched on March 30, 2013.

“Every man… every man has to go through hell to reach paradise.” –Max Cady (Robert De Niro)

Martin Scorsese has himself well-established as a director of crime dramas, usually upbeat and set in urban territory. Cape Fear is somewhat different. This is a crime film, but it’s presented not as a whimsical drama but as an eerie, psychological thriller. Yes, Scorsese has gotten into his characters’ heads several times before, but not like he does here. What’s most perturbing is that the film is easy to relate to: we are told this story through the eyes of the victims, who live in a typical, peaceful suburban area.

Fourteen years before, Max Cady (Robert De Niro) was put on trial for raping an adolescent girl. He was shocked that he was being tried for the crime, as he had assumed that since she was promiscuous, it wasn’t even a crime. What shocked him even more was when he landed in prison. Now Cady has been released, and he still feels as if his lawyer, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), has betrayed him. Nobody believes the recent ex-con to be a psychopath any longer, and Cady uses that to his advantage: he stalks the house and seduces Sam’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Danielle (Juliette Lewis)–who, like the rest of the town, believes that the insanity is all in the paranoid minds of the Bowden family.

This was the seventh of eight Scorsese-De Niro collaborations; he’s portrayed a sly, likable “bad guy” in most of them. I’ve seen all of these efforts, save for Taxi Driver (1976)* and New York, New York (1977), and I’d have to say that they’re all stellar. Cape Fear is especially stellar as the odd one out. The film is an intensely unsettling thriller, and it’s all due to De Niro’s attitude in the film. It’s ironic that we hate him so much–it’s difficult not to side with the victimized family, even with their flaws–yet his approach so cleverly mimics the evilly seductive appeal of Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter (this came a mere nine months later).

It was in 1962 that Cape Fear was first made. On several occasions, it’s easy to tell. I don’t want to use the word “amusing” to describe anything of a movie like this, but it is amusing watching Nick Nolte lovingly homage Gregory Peck (who gives a brief cameo in Scorsese’s remake as Cady’s new lawyer). Furthermore, Elmer Bernstein resurrects Bernard Herrmann’s musical score. It sounds like a lazy, B-movie approach, but god, does it work.

Where the film falters, at times, is in trying to use this score and still seem like a movie from 1991. There’s several clichés in Wesley Strick’s screenplay. Here’s an example: A woman looks out the window and sees “the stalker” standing nonchalantly by the fence. She screams and tells another person within five feet to look out the window. He or she does, and “the stalker” is gone. I’ll advise you not to use that scene to identify any movie. You could land on John Carpenter’s Halloween or you could land on Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear.

Other than these clichés, however, the film is very well-written. Say we compare Halloween and Cape Fear. I do love Halloween, but you can give me a holler when John Carpenter manages to pull off a twist ending like this one.

*As of 4/6, I have seen Taxi Driver. My review is due to appear on 4/19 at 2:00 PM.

A MINUS

TOMORROW, ON CINEMANIAC REVIEWS…

An Important Editor’s Note

Posted in Crime, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
11 Apr 2013
2 Comments

Blood Simple.

Review No. 455

There’s nothing “Simple” about a mystery like this one.


NOTE: This review regards the director’s cut, which was released in 2001. This is a rare example of such an edition that is shorter (by 6 minutes) than the theatrical release. Per the usual, I don’t know what the theatrical cut is like, but my review states that I’m not moved to watching it.

Directed by: Joel Coen
Written by: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Ray: John Getz
Abby: Frances McDormand
Julian Marty: Dan Hedaya
Meurice: Samm-Art Williams
Loren Visser: M. Emmet Walsh
Also Starring: Deborah Neumann

Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on January 18, 1985. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 93 mins. Rated R by the MPAA–violence, infrequent profanity. Director’s cut released unrated by the MPAA.

Blood Simple. was watched on March 27, 2013.

“You left your weapon behind.” –Ray (John Getz)

Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen can deny all they want. It took them years to admit that Fargo was not based on a true story. They claim to have made O Brother, Where Art Thou? without having read the oh-so-similar epic poem Odyssey. And they can deny that Blood Simple. is an homage to one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time.

Make no mistake, Blood Simple. is a reverent nod to Alfred Hitchcock. The Coen brothers designed this movie–their collaborative debut–as a loop of vignettes that resurrect elements we only really knew of the Master of Suspense.

A bored man gets pissed off one night and rashly hires another man to kill two people: his wife and a man with whom she is having an affair. Sounds like Strangers on a Train, right? In another instance, we experience Dial “M” for Murder: the wife is suspicious her husband wants to kill her. Oh and as the film progresses, she begins to see her husband, but isn’t he dead? The same sort of thing Jimmy Stewart goes through in Vertigo.

Where the film trips is in the manner it explains its story. Sometimes a perplexing story can be inventive enough to beg for a revisit, but Blood Simple. is a “once is enough” sort of film.

I’d say this was told in a nonlinear fashion, but if that’s so, the Coens could have presented that technique accessibly, and symbolism would have been presented much differently.

I give you fair warning that my logic up ahead my befuddle you half as much as Blood Simple. befuddled me. The recurring symbolism here is the appearance of blood. The lead character is bleeding from his broken nose, the gunshot wound in his heart, and his lacerated finger. It’s possible that after he’s been shot, he’s no more than a figment of the surrounding folks’ imaginations, but god, there’s so much that suggests otherwise.

Mr. Joel and Ethan Coen, I don’t want to criticize (well, technically, I do, considering the noun form), but you could have done a lot more using just one more Hitchcockian device: perspective. I love the cinematography here and the sound effects, but there’s scarcely a point-of-view. We know the characters, we just don’t know what they’re seeing or feeling here.

There certainly isn’t as much comedy in Blood Simple. as in the Coens’ later works, such as Fargo or The Big Lebowski. It’s a rather quiet, brooding, atmospheric film that manages to create chills in its technical style as well as its Hitchcockian setup.

Despite its dreadlocked story, I didn’t dislike Blood Simple. I expected more of it, but if one thing impressed me, it was that it manages to hold its own, though, as a gritty, mysterious thriller. It’s essentially nothing more than an homage to the better, more straightforward flicks of its ilk, but at the very least, it manages to entertain its audience.

B MINUS

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Who’s That Knocking at My Door

Posted in Crime, Cult, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, [Film Reviews] and tagged ,
09 Mar 2013
3 Comments

Friday the 13th: Part 2

Review No. 328

NOTE: The following review is far shorter than my average review (to be exact, 294 words). Please don’t bypass this review, especially now that you’ve opened it and have begun reading it, but let me preface it with: Since Friday the 13th: Part 2 is a cheerful rehash of Part 1 (not that it’s any less commendable for that), my review of Part 1 is linked here whenever you feel the urge to read it.

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The Bottom Line: You’ll find yourself laughing so much at this “guilty pleasure,” that you may need to make sure you aren’t a necrophile.

Directed by: Steve Miner
Additional Scenes: Sean S. Cunningham
Written by: Ron Kurz and Phil Scuderi
Ginny Field: Amy Steel
Paul Holt: John Furey
Alice Hardy: Adrienne King
Jason Voorhees: Warrington Gillette
Pamela Voorhees: Betsy Palmer
Also Starring: Bill Randolph, Kirsten Baker, Lauren-Marie Taylor, Marta Kober, Russell Todd, Stu Charno, Tom McBride, Walt Gorney

Distributed by Paramount Pictures on May 1, 1981. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 86 mins. Rated R by the MPAA (mature themes; graphic violence; brief nudity; language; gore).

Friday the 13th: Part 2 was watched on February 23, 2013.

“There is someone in this room.” –Ginny (Amy Steel)

Allow me to synopsize the opening scenes in Friday the 13th: Part 2. A teenage girl is having nightmares. We see flashbacks from the previous film and discover that she’s the only surviving cast member from that one. She walks downstairs and hears a loud noise. Scared, she pulls out a kitchen knife to defend herself. There is a bang. She screams and then realizes the bang was from her cat jumping back inside through an open window. The cat meows. The girl goes to get something from the fridge. When she opens the door, she sees a severed head and screams. Suddenly, a killer appears behind her and skewers a sharp object through her brain. The cat meows again. A teakettle, which had apparently been there the entire time, begins whistling frenetically. Irritated, the killer puts forward a veiny hand and moves the teakettle over to the other side of the stove to cool down.

If you can’t enjoy a Friday the 13th movie for what it is, I wonder not about your taste in the horror genre but about your outlook on movies in general. It’s my firm belief that movies are, first and foremost, unpredictable, then fun. Especially after one outing, Part 2 is far from unpredictable, but damn if it isn’t fun. There’s nothing “fun” in any sense of the word seeing teenagers sliced and diced mindlessly. It happens every day, unfortunately, and it’s never a laughing matter. With Friday the 13th: Part 2, a laughing matter is often everything it is, maybe with a few cheap jump scares during the intense ending. It’s dumb, but dumb enough that it must be seen to be truly believed. The film runs clocks in at 86 minutes and you just can’t help wanting more.

“Please help me!” –Ginny (Amy Steel)

Postscript: This is the first film to feature Jason Voorhees as the main killer (his mother, Pamela, was the subject of its predecessor), but he has a flour sack over his head here. As I understand it, it’s Part III that introduces the notorious hockey mask.

B

The Two-Week Torturefest Pre-Game Post

Posted in Cult, Horror, Mystery, [Film Reviews] and tagged
27 Feb 2013
5 Comments

Flight

Review No. 419

flight_ver3

The Bottom Line: Cancel it.

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Written by: John Gatins
William “Whip” Whitaker: Denzel Washington
Hugh Lang: Don Cheadle
Ellen Block: Melissa Leo
Nicole Maggen: Kelly Reilly
Harling Mays: John Goodman
Charlie Anderson: Bruce Greenwood
Also Starring: Brian Geraghty, James Badge Dale, Nadine Velazquez, Peter Gerety, Tamara Tunie

Distributed by Paramount Pictures on November 2, 2012. Poduced in English by the United States. Runs 138 mins. Rated R by the MPAA for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity and an intense action sequence.

“I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.” –Denzel Washington

Flight was watched on February 16, 2013.

Flight went in with an excess of cash and a huge plate to fill; instead, it starved itself. Okay, I mustn’t start off making the film seem so emaciated. It does have two substantial nutrients. One, of course, is Denzel Washington. I’m very pleased and not at all surprised to see that the Academy has nominated him, but let’s not state the obvious. The other nutrient of the film is something I’m quite surprised I hadn’t come across at all since Flight’s November 2012 release. These were the film’s last lines (yes, as in they don’t show until the very end). I’d love to quote them right now, but as I’m at the very beginning of this analysis, to do so is to run the risk of misleading you, dare I say to make you curious.

The look on my face as I watched.

If I shall be straightforward, Flight is a stillborn drama, often times exhaustingly so. I’m fine with protagonists who we’re clearly supposed to hate. Fact: I developed a chronic Facebook aversion after watching The Social Network, and at the same time, the film happens to be one of my favorites of 2010.

My problem with Whip Whitaker, the supposed “hero” in Flight, is that he’s as flat as a pancake. That is until the final moments, when a few contrived moments redemption are forced in ever so suddenly, and in a way that couldn’t be very much less convincing. That Washington portrays Whitaker flawlessly—let alone keeps an audience awake—is about as miraculous as the happenings on which the film centers.

Please allow me to give some constructive criticism to Flight. It’s my theory that what was intended to show through in this overlong profile could be far more successfully channeled in merely the first thirty minutes. It takes significantly more than two hours for Whip Whitaker to have the same epiphany we’d had at the thirty-minute mark. Is this supposed to suggest that alcohol slows your reaction time? Seems so to me, but I digress.

The first thirty minutes are really all we need. We find Whip, a divorced man, waking up in his room with a depressed heroin addict. He no longer has a family because of his cocaine addiction and alcoholism. Whip receives a phone call, reminding him that he is to pilot a plane in the morning. He’s already had two glasses of wine, and when he reports the next morning, there’s severe turbulence. Whip pours himself more alcohol to calm himself.

And then, before he knows it, the plane is falling apart and cannot be taken out of a nosedive. Ultimately, Whip is confirmed a “hero” for his deeds. He and the crew were willing to endure comas from the massive impact upon crashing, so long as the passengers remained safe. Unfortunately, he’s also on trial for manslaughter, given that six lives were lost; it’s not likely that, if and when he makes it to court, the passengers will be so swift to support him, since those who lived were no less than mentally scarred by the barrel roll Whip put the plane into.

This is where Flight should have landed, once and for all. The moral is that alcohol can destroy you right before your eyes; no matter how quickly you recover from your physical wounds, that one mistake you made will always be there to tear you apart. Strangely enough, the rest of the film finds Whip so depressed, so isolated from every possible community that he’s drinking straight from the bottle all the time—exactly the reason for all the catastrophe in his life. At several points throughout the film, Whip denies that the accident was due to his drunkenness, and that it was because the plane was malfunctioning. Though true the claim may be, we just can’t believe him, not because he’s inebriated, but because he’s been almost begging for us to hate him for the entire picture’s length.

Flight is based on a true story. I’m sure many nominal bits were diced here and there, but if the real-world Mr. Whitaker was ever considered a “hero,” this film has done a huge disservice to him. I’m sure Mr. Whitaker was something more than an ordinary, depressed alcoholic, particularly since he has an entire film to his name. It becomes clear early on that the end could be one of two things. To put it shallowly, either Whip is arrested, or he’s proven innocent. Sometimes it’s a good thing when I don’t care how a film will end. That’s not the case with Flight.

The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, and I know some of his characters by heart. If the real-world Whip Whitaker was hoping to be Hollywoodized as the new Forrest Gump or Marty McFly, chances are he deserved better.

C MINUS

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Posted in Drama, Mystery, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
23 Feb 2013

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Review No. 417
harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince
The Bottom Line: A step up that even prepares new audiences for the final entry/entries.

Directed by: David Yates
Screenplay by: Steve Kloves
Based on: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Albus Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Tom Riddle (child): Hero Fiennes-Tiffin
Tom Riddle (teenager): Frank Dillane
Also Starring: David Thewlis, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Timothy Spall, Warwick Davis
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 15, 2009. Produced in English by the United Kingdom and the United States.
Runs 153 mins. Rated PG by the MPAA for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was watched on February 12, 2013.

“Did I know that I just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No.” –Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon)

For quite a while, I’ve imagined the “Potter” saga as one character drama after another; it’s for this reason that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the most demanding entry of the entire canon. In fact, you’d need some of the most fluent debating techniques to assert that the sixth installment to J.K. Rowling’s tale is not the most vitally important to the series’ outcome. It took me several viewings to realize that this film suddenly draws away from a focus on Harry himself, mainly so it can establish that he will be virtually alone against Voldemort, the dark sorcerer who murdered both his parents.

Instead, Half-Blood Prince centers on three characters that have been prominent for the entire series. Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) is one of these individuals. This is the man Harry has hated since day one. It seems Snape has always hated Harry so much and for no reason at all. We learn here that there is a reason and, although Harry has no control over what Snape thinks of him, the reason is indeed valid. Then there’s Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), the stuck-up, rich snob who can’t go a day without insulting anyone. We learn here that although he seemed like a standing object in the prior half of the series, Draco actually isn’t as heartless as he seems.

Among these other two, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), the school’s headmaster, is practically the pivotal role in the film. Throughout the film, Dumbledore grows quite fond of Harry. I mean not to sound like a broken record, but this is where writer Steve Kloves stumbles in adapting J.K. Rowling’s text. Not that this is unexpected, considering the novel is over six-hundred pages long, and it intertwines several elaborate subplots. Dumbledore never trusted Harry as much as he does in Half-Blood Prince.

This entry sees him putting every ounce of trust in a student, one who has yet to reach his seventh year, for that matter. Dumbledore entrusts Harry with going deep into the past of Lord Voldemort, from the day the two met face-to-face, to the day the dark wizard learned the grim, dangerous secret to immortality. On one hand, this gives the story much depth as we further toward the end. On the other, none of these lingering questions are explained. In case Dumbledore did not remember, it was only a year before that Harry was constantly and intensely angry, even to the point of fearing he was becoming more like his parents’ killer. Why would anyone be so suddenly willing to trust Harry, then, with knowledge that can be so easily misused?

Half-Blood Prince isn’t the best of its series. Some of it is rather underworked (particularly the cinematography), but it does have shades of excellence. One is that it does something the series hasn’t done since the first entry: open up well enough and clearly enough to fully engage “Potter-newbies.”

B PLUS

Oscar Sunday is here!

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14 Feb 2013

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Review No. 411

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The Bottom Line: It’s worth watching, but it’s also pretty esoteric.

Directed by: Mike Newell
Screenplay by: Steve Kloves
Based on: “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Rubeus Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Albus Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Minerva McGonagall: Maggie Smith
Sirius Black: Gary Oldman
Lord Voldemort: Ralph Fiennes
Alastor Moody: Brendan Gleeson
Also Starring: David Tennant, Frances de la Tour, Jason Isaacs, Miranda Richardson, Robert Pattinson, Timothy Spall

Distributed by Warner Bros. on November 18, 2005. Produced in English by the United Kingdom and the United States. Runs 157 mins. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was watched on February 4, 2013.

“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” –Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is like the word “floccinaucinihilipilification.” That word, which I will not dare waste any more time with, likely has an important placement in the dictionary. It’s 29 letters and several syllables long, so it’s likely the word itself, its own definition and derivatives require at least a page of more space in your standard dictionary. But this word (which ironically means the act of describing something utterly worthless) has placement in only the most bizarre of dialects. Similarly, Goblet is a significant installment to the Potter canon, but its placement among the rest of the fantasy genre is quite scarce.

Obviously I’m exaggerating quite a bit. I do enjoy Goblet of Fire for what it is, but I’ve read the book on which it is based two or three times. I can’t imagine anyone new to the series would understand anything going on. Maybe if he or she had heard talk from friends who had read it, and maybe if he or she had seen the series’ second installment (Chamber of Secrets). Who wants to leave a movie that spent two-and-a-half hours on “That’s why you should always read the book first”?

Moreover, the book was printed at 735 pages, nearly twice as long as its predecessor. The choice of sacrificing unnecessary subplots is admirable, but the novel has several potentially deep additives as well. This was all in the name of staying at a reasonable amount of time. Ultimately the film clocks in at 157 minutes, but if a true Potterhead were watching, would he or she have the slightest problem with a three-hour movie? I sure wouldn’t.

Once again, the series welcomes a new director, Mike Newell. I’ll confess this is the only of his films I’ve seen, but almost all of his other titles are recognizable. The man has been behind the camera for both charming romantic comedies (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and hardboiled crime flicks (Donnie Brasco). I’m sure that either Newell is a narcissist who had read J.K. Rowling’s source and knew he was perfect for the job, or whoever pinned him knows the series very well. Newell’s direction—save for the rushed opening sequences—is quite gleefully enamoring, with much humor, new caricatures, and a strange yet brilliant amalgamation between downbeat and upbeat moods.

Harry Potter is fourteen years old. It’s acceptable that he looks 17 (Radcliffe was 16 at the time, but the different hair “makes him look older”), only because is seen alongside three seventeen-year-olds for most of the film. This is the year of the “Triwizard Tournament.” Three students from three different wizarding schools are selected for three highly life-threatening and professional tasks. Somehow Harry has been selected as a fourth, but if he isn’t old enough, who could have possibly put his name in while posing as himself?

The tradition at Hogwarts, we are told, is that there is a dance called the “Yule Ball” to preface the tournament. This is a subplot that was touched on so much, but ironically, it would have been better off as another segment. I understand the series loves to have fun and pose a giddy nature, but during these sequences, the film depletes into a silly modeling infomercial. Yes, the scenes are delightfully humorous, but they’re also incredibly distracting. Director Newell touches on the theme of love all throughout the film. It’s what saved his life as a baby, and now it’s saving his life more than ever. I believe the ball scenes were a single chapter in Rowling’s novel; they amount to at least fifteen percent of this adaptation.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn’t a great film, but it’s definitely enjoyable. Special effects and performances are worth a quick, honorable mention, for those who haven’t figured that out already from previous films; when they combine, the climactic moments are absolutely stunning. If I’ve piqued your interest, but you haven’t read the book, however, please do so beforehand. It’s quite irritating that this time around, writer Steve Kloves didn’t show any knowledge of the esotericism, “never judge books by their movies.” It most certainly does not mean “Never think that a book’s going to be bad just because you couldn’t understand what happened during the adaptation; it was your fault in watching the movie beforehand.” For those in oh-so-desperate need of proof: after writing that sentence, I glanced up at my copy of Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally. I have not read it yet, but the movie is a three-hour adaptation which I love enough to put in my all-time top ten.

B MINUS

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Posted in Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, [Film Reviews] and tagged | Leave a Comment
29 Jan 2013
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Mulholland Dr.

Review No. 397

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The Bottom Line: As much as I love David Lynch, I wouldn’t recommend this as a starter.

Directed by: David Lynch
Written by: David Lynch
Betty Elms / Diane Selwyn: Naomi Watts
“Rita”: Laura Elena Harring
Also Starring: Ann Miller, Justin Theroux, Robert Forster

Distributed by Universal Focus on October 12, 2001. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 147 mins. Rated R by the MPAA for violence, language and some strong sexuality.

Mulholland Dr. was watched on January 21, 2012.

“The concept of absurdity is something I’m attracted to.” –David Lynch

Did you view Blue Velvet as a common murder mystery? Were you able to accurately predict who killed Laura Palmer within the first episode of Twin Peaks? Perhaps you could decipher David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.

The film is easily the strangest from its stylistically bizarre director. It isn’t one story, but a mosaic of several different stories, in which the two lead actresses (Naomi Watts and Laura Hanning) portray multiple characters.

Starting off, this is a quiet period piece, set around the late ’50s or early ’60s. We begin with two women, one who has suffered a car accident in Los Angeles; the other an actress who is helping the car crash victim recover from a state of amnesia…before going insane.

I did my best with putting the story in a nutshell, after watching the film and doing a bit of later research. But I’m undoubtedly way off. Mulholland Dr., while centered on that story, narrates on the side with a series of vignettes. Often times, it’s difficult not to wonder what the hell is actually going on.

These vignettes seem completely unrelated to the main plot, but David Lynch’s feverish style, sided with longtime collaborator Angelo Badalamenti’s musical score, makes the film almost impossible to stop watching.

At the end, Lynch connects these pieces. Half of the climactic scenes are utterly incomprehensible. What isn’t, is mind-blowing.

Mulholland Dr. is an engaging thriller. Sure, it has its flaws. Neither one of the leads seems to actively deliver; they almost seem to be reading directly off a TelePrompTer. There’s also a rather unexplained last line that leaves the viewer in a state of confusion. Oh, and Lynch’s use of symbolism is present here, but it’s all too cryptic.

Overall, the efforts are commendable, but if you’re looking for something with similar themes, amid an accessible plot, please try Blue Velvet. Satisfaction guaranteed.

B MINUS

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