Thoughts: My Weekend in Film 12/1

Hi! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I drove out to Phoenix for the holiday to spend some time with my family. It was nice minus the six hour return drive that took nine hours. There was food, I cooked, my grandmother was in town from Florida, I didn't have to work, I slept. The family drove up to Sedona for an afternoon and I enjoyed the lovely scenery. Of course I forgot my camera and failed to take pictures. Oops. The drive was tiring but it's always nice to be with family on the holidays.

My brain is a bit sluggish at the moment, still slow from the Holiday or something. Bear with me.

Thursday:

After delicious food (turkey for the family, homemade veggie pot pie for myself), wine, and pie, we all settled on the couch and chilled out while we digested.



Fox Movie Channel was running a Planet of the Apes marathon and we ended up watching the original Planet of the Apes.

It's really been a while since I've seen it. In fact, I think Tim Burton's version was actually the last Ape movie I'd seen (I am NOT a fan). I do still enjoy the original. They take themselves so seriously. And of course I remember the first time I saw the ending, and how I really was shocked. I actually watched the movie before I was old enough to have had the ending spoiled for me. So I had no idea that the twist was coming.

One thing about watching movies like this with my family though. Especially with my dad. He never "remembers" anything (which is just silly, he remembers plenty but likes to play like he's forgotten). So of course we're sitting there watching, he wanders off for the last five minutes and then comes back and asks "What happened? Where are they?" My mom says "Come on, you remember Planet of the Apes!" Which of course he does. "Oh yeah, that's what happened, right?" as he lists off all of the major plot points of the last half hour.

Yes dad, yes it was.

Normal banter in my house. Oh family.

Friday PM:

I guess I must be insane because I actually agreed to go to the mall on Friday. It was kind of terrifying. I'm excited that I once again own pants that fit me (I have an issue with that. All of my pants seem to have gotten to be too large for me in the last year). I also finally bought a new pair of sneakers. I should perhaps try and do that more frequently than once every two years.

I did manage to survive the rabid hordes and eventually made it home to the safety of my living room. After Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and time reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, everyone kind of wandered off and I had the TV to myself. Ovation TV was running Andy Warhol themed programming all weekend and I decided to watch I Shot Andy Warhol.



I haven't watched the film since college (I watched it as part of a Women In Film retrospective type thing). I remembered liking Lili Taylor in it a lot, being somewhat shocked by certain parts of it, and just enjoying it as it fed into my fascination with Andy Warhol and that period in NYC.

I still find that scene intriguing. The people and personalities involved, the art and music and film, the lifestyle. I wish I could have seen The Factory, been a part of that at least peripherally. Or maybe not The Factory exactly. But that sort of creative scene.

Anyway. I Shot Andy Warhol is cool.

Saturday PM:

Australia. I had to see it. I'm a fan of Baz Luhrmann, I like romance and daring and adventure, I think Australia is a pretty neat looking place.



Watching the film, I couldn't help but be reminded of many, many other movies. Walkabout comes to mind almost immediately (for reasons beyond the obvious shared location) but it's not the only one. Throughout Lurhmann reminds us of old Hollywood, the Westerns, the War Epics, the Love Affairs. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

The reviews on this one seem to be split and I feel like it's definitely one of those love it or hate it films. I loved it.

Doesn't hurt that Hugh Jackman looks AMAZING. I finally understand his being named Sexiest Man of the Year. Indeed. Also, that kiss between

What really stood out for me though was Brandon Walters. Walters plays Nullah, the half white, half aboriginal child whose fate much of the plot revolves around. Walters is incredible. His performance is definitely something special.

Sunday:

Before embarking on what would turn out to be one of the worst drives ever, I ate delicious apple pancakes. And then I watched Joe Wright's adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Wright also directed last year's Atonement and the upcoming (eventually) The Soloist.



Atonement is ok, it's one of those movies that I liked less the more I thought about it, but I still really enjoy Pride & Prejudice. I like Keira Knightly as Lizzie Bennett (and everyone else as the rest of the Bennetts). Pride & Prejudice is one of my favorite books, it's such a great story with fabulous characters, and I enjoy the different adaptations of it. It's true though that Matthew Macfadyen is no Colin Firth. I still think Firth's Mr. Darcy is better.

I also wish Wickham had had a bigger role in this film. I felt like that subplot wasn't given enough time to develop. However, considering the film is all ready hitting two hours as it is, I suppose something had to be cut.

That's the hard thing about seeing a book you love adapted into a film. Something usually has to go but as a reader you're loathe to give anything up. It's always an interesting question, is the movie a good film or a good adaptation? Sometimes it's one, sometimes the other, and every once in a while it actually manages to be both.

Pride & Prejudice is a good movie, a decent adaptation, and a fair amount of fun.

On The Slate:

Friday Night Lights. The TV show. Seasons 1 & 2. I'm excited.

Play Misty For Me and Day for Night, both in from Netflix.

And maybe some James Bond although at this point I'm beginning to lose hope. So sad!

Trailers: The Uninvited

I had heard rumors for a while that a remake of 2003's Korean film A Tale Of Two Sisters was happening. And now we've got the trailer.



I'm not generally a fan of these remakes as most of them have been terrible (The Ring is a rare exception). I think there's also been a huge failure in adapting the mostly Asian stories to American cinema (there are occasionally films from other places like the upcoming Quarantine which is a remake of the Spanish language film [Rec]). Something about cultural and historical differences. Imagine that.

Anyway, my point is that I'm very not excited about The Uninvited. If nothing else that trailer looks silly and the title is horrible. The Uninvited? That's really the best they could come up with? They couldn't have called it something more generic? Do you have any idea how many other horror movies there are out there called The Uninvited? I can promise you there are a few.

I do however highly recommend the original Tale of Two Sisters. It's an atmospheric, creepy movie that builds the tension well and pays off in the end. I enjoy it quite a bit.

Review: 3:10 To Yuma

Cross posted at Epinions



3:10. It’s the time the train to Yuma Prison arrives in Contention. The air is silent. The men are still. The guns are cocked. The clock is ticking. Praying won’t stop time. 3:10 is coming. Death may be coming with it.

3:10 To Yuma is remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford film and both versions are based on the story by Elmore Leonard. It is the story of gunman Ben Wade and rancher Dan Evans. Wade is caught after robbing a Pinkerton coach with his gang. Evans volunteers to join the posse escorting Wade to Contention. As they move closer to Contention and the 3:10 train, as Wade’s gang closes in on them, as they face a myriad of other difficulties in the wild west, it all comes down to a battle of wills between Wade and Evans. When it’s no longer about the money that will save Evans’s dying ranch, will Evans still make that walk to the train with Wade? When the guns are all pointed in his direction and death seems like the only option, will Evans still make his stand?

What makes a hero? Where is the line between right and wrong? When both sides are comprised of evil men, where do you make your stand? What do you fight for? What do you die for?

3:10 is about the battle of wills; it is about these two characters, men so different that they may actually be a bit the same. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade and Christian Bale is Dan Evans. If you’re not convinced to go see this movie right there, well, you should be. While I’m not always a fan of Crowe I think he is perfect for the Western genre. He has a roughness about him, that dangerous gleam in his eye. He belongs in the untamed, lawless lands, of the old west. He looks like a gunslinger. Christian Bale on the other hand is just brilliant. He is one of the best actors working today and I will see him in pretty much anything. Put the two of them together and nothing else matters. What you are going to see will be brilliant.

Not to say that it is going to be perfect. 3:10 To Yuma is not. There are a lot of problems with the film. I really was not a fan of the script for one thing. I don’t think it was very well written, there were a few plot elements that didn’t work for me, character development wasn’t great. The only thing that saves the story is the performances by the two lead actors. If it wasn’t for Crowe and Bale this would have been a mediocre film at best.

The other performances are all solid. Logan Lerman (The Butterfly Effect) is good as Dan’s son William. Ben Foster’s performance as Wade’s second in command, the psychopath Charlie Prince, is right up there with Crowe’s and Bale’s. Peter Fonda, Dallas Roberts, Alan Tudyk (Serenity), Gretchen Mol, and Kevin Durand are all solid as well. I think Mol, Lerman, and Benjamin Petry, who plays Dan’s younger son Mark, would have all benefited from better writing. As it is they’re all good. They just could have been better. The same goes for several of the other actors.

There is a tense moment when Wade and Evans have taken cover from gunfire. They crouch low together, catching their breaths. Evans is filthy and bleeding, Wade has been shot. Evans looks at Wade and tells him that he is not stubborn. He tries to explain to Wade why saving a small piece of dessert land is so important to him, what it means. Wade’s response? “Why are you telling me this?” Evans: “I don’t know.”

My point exactly. Why are we being told these things? A major flaw of this script is how much is just told to us through dialogue. I don’t want to be told about it, I want to see it. I want the story to evolve out of the visuals and the actions. I don’t want to be told who these men are. I want to discover who they are, I want to believe. Telling me story after sad story doesn’t help me get into a character’s head. His actions do that. It’s the bits that are unsaid that make a character into something more.

The cinematography and direction are not the best either. Director James Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael do not impress me. They did a great job working together on Walk The Line. However, for this film I don’t feel like they really grasped the needs of the story. I don’t really like a lot of the handheld, shaky camera work, especially during the beginning sequence. I found it to be incredibly distracting and off-putting. This improves as the film goes on but I don’t think the visuals are ever as good as they can be. There are a couple of explosions, one of which I definitely did not need. And as much shooting as there is, I almost wanted there to be more (more shooting but a little less gory blood. I like gore but here it felt unnecessary). Of course, that does go back to character development. At the end I did understand what they were going for but I’m still not sure I like how they went about it.

I did really enjoy the music though. The score by Marcos Beltrami is fantastic. It’s the kind of music you want to hear in a western. It complements the action and sets the tone. It just fits.

As a fan of westerns, especially Clint Eastwood’s, there was no way I was not going to see this movie. Especially with it’s cast. While I do think it could have been better, in the end I am happy with it. Again, that is almost completely due to Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. I’ve been a fan of Crowe in the western genre ever since Sam Raimi’s Quick and The Dead. I’ve been a fan of Christian Bale since I was a kid watching Newsies. Seeing them together is an absolute pleasure. 3:10 To Yuma is worth it for that alone.

Review: Black Christmas (2006)

x-posted at Epinions



I don’t like remakes. Really, really I don’t. So when I saw that a remake of Bob Clark’s 1974 classic horror film Black Christmas was in the works, I was not happy. However, when I found out Glen Morgan was attached to it I felt a bit of hope. I admit it, I have a long time affection for Morgan and his frequent partner in crime James Wong. You might even go so far as to call it a crush. Ever since I discovered them through some of my favorite X-Files episodes I’ve followed both of their careers. Yes, I even like Final Destination.

While Wong was not involved in this particular film, Morgan did direct and have a role in the writing of the screenplay. As far as it goes, the film is entertaining. Even as a fan I have to admit that Morgan’s films are not necessarily brilliant but they are all competently done and I always find them to be great fun. Black Christmas is no different.

Granted, the remake cannot compare to the original but at least it’s not a complete atrocity (TCM remake anyone?). The story is more or less the same. It’s Christmas Eve and a killer terrorizes a sorority house. Girls begin to disappear and mysterious, threatening phone calls keep being made from their cell phones. Trapped by a snowstorm the girls must fight or die. Mostly, they just die.

Okay, the plot doesn’t sound hugely original and inspiring from that description. What makes it special is really the back-story and how it plays out. Revealed in flashbacks, the story of Billy Lenz is the most interesting part of Black Christmas. Billy is neglected, abused, ignored, and worse. As the boy grows into a man, he takes his revenge. What exactly is Billy’s obsession with Christmas cookies about? The answer is gruesome, I promise.

The biggest problem that this remake had was that it just never goes far enough. We never get enough of a sense of the characters, there is never enough time for the tension to build, it’s never quite as scary as it could be. Sometimes the issue is just misplaced humor that kills the tension a bit too early, sometimes it’s not enough time taken to develop a relationship. With a runtime of only 84 minutes I’m really disappointed that extra time was allowed for the development of, well, everything. The only thing I felt received enough time was the back-story. Perhaps that’s why it was my favorite part.

There is a lot about the movie that I did enjoy. The casting for one thing. That is one hot sorority. A fan of Buffy and Pete & Pete, I always enjoy Michelle Trachtenberg. Andrea Martin (a cast member from the original) is really fun as the housemother. Kristen Cloke (Glen’s wife!) makes an appearance as well. She’s in many of Morgan’s previous works including Final Destination, one of his X-Files episodes, and Space: Above and Beyond. All of the sorority sisters are absurdly attractive, even if they can be somewhat annoying. Like I said, I wouldn’t have minded more character development but at least they were all nice to look at.

I did enjoy the gore in the film. I have no complaints in that regard. Black Christmas is a slasher and it does not disappoint. It’s bloody, it’s clever, and its effects are all well done. The big climactic reveal wasn’t quite as disturbing as it could have been but that has more to do with the cinematography of the scene than any lack in the gore.

The cinematography I was not a huge fan of throughout. There were some really cool moments, some nice composition and several entertaining references to films like Psycho. Unfortunately I found a reoccurring problem to be with the framing. The shots weren’t close enough, they were too close, the angle was wrong, the framing wasn’t dynamic, etc. Several times I was just not satisfied with the image on the screen and it took me out of the film. I think the way it was shot had a lot to do with the lack of tension as well. A lot of times we saw either too much or not enough and, either way, the scary moment lost its effectiveness.

In the end, I was glad that I saw it. It was certainly a lot of fun to watch a Christmas slasher in the theater on Christmas. And while Glen Morgan may not always be great, he is always good. It’s a solid effort with enough going for it to make it worth the watch. If you can’t get your hands on the original, this remake isn’t a waste of time.

Thoughts: The Italian Job (2003)

I was told that it was a fun movie that I just HAD to watch. And so we rented it and I watched. And it was fun. So that's good. Yup.

Yeah, it was a fun movie. I enjoy actiony films with cool car chases. I could have done with a little more sexy, but that's probably just me being in a weird mood. It really is fun, it was done well, there was enough of a plot, the acting was decent, and the music was cool.

Oh, and the dvd, best easter egg ever. At least if you like seth green, which I really, really do.

Thoughts: Chocolat

Yay for hanging out with the girls. Chocolat is such a great flick for a fun, chill evening. It's kind of like a chick flick, only much much better than that. I think it's pretty well done and I really enjoy the acting. Of course, Johnny Depp is in the movie, so I'm kind of partial. Oh, and that chocolate looks sooo good. This movie definitely makes me hungry. And makes me want to go to France. And makes me want to buy lots of chocolate. So yeah, I like this movie.