THE MESSENGER / CRAZY HEART

Dir. Oren Moverman US 2009

Dir. Scott Cooper US 2009

So I've divided movies I'm reviewing that I don't see in theaters into two categories (loosely): Things that I'm watching for the first time and things I've already seen. This review will contain the former. As you may have guessed.

I'll start with The Messenger, since it's freshest in my mind. If you don't know the premise, it's a good one, the kind I wish I'd thought of. Ben Foster plays Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army Sgt. sent home after sustaining heroic injuries in Iraq. While rehabilitating, Will is assigned to serve out the last three months of his enlistment with the Casualty Notification service (the soldiers who go door to door informing people that their sons/daughters/whoever have been killed in action). His CO, Captain Tony Stone (an Academy-Award nominated Woody Harrelson) is an irritable, by-the-book hardass who has become jaded toward his morbid duty. Together they must deal with the horror of war as it has affected them and the families of their fellow soldiers.

So yeah, it's a bit of a downer. But it's great, for a variety of reasons. The gripping premise alone is a fascinating look into a world of grief that most of us will never experience and an aspect of the armed forces that most people don't really think about. Also excellent are the two leads. Ben Foster is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors. In addition to being the best thing about the 3:10 To Yuma remake, he's turned in some great supporting performances in 30 Days Of Night and Alpha Dog. It's nice to see him featured as a lead and he definitely earns it, bringing serious anger and pathos to the role. Even better is Woody Harrelson, who also starred in Zombieland at the time The Messenger came out. Although his performance in the former film is the type that most people associate him with nowadays, he earned a well deserved Oscar nod for this film, playing a soldier dealing with a different kind of guilt than you'd find in most 'war' films. Never forget that Woody Harrelson comes from some pretty hardcore stock. Goddamn.

The only small complaint I had about the film was the subplot in which Ben Foster's character gets involved with a war widow played by Samantha Morton. Samantha Morton is great in the film (not to mention realistically attractive, which I appreciated; a lesser film would have cast someone like Charlize Theron in the part, which wouldn't have worked), but I felt like that plot line just stopped and started at random. I always found myself more interested in the relationship between Foster and Harrelson's characters than anything else. Nonetheless, the film is moving and topical without being political, and succeeds at being one of the few well made movies about the current war (other than The Hurt Locker).



Crazy Heart, while ultimately more uplifting, is also a pretty heavy film starring the great Jeff Bridges (in a well-deserved Oscar-winning performance), as 'Bad' Blake, a country singer in the vein of Waylon Jennings. Blake, once immensely popular, has become a washed-up drunk, reduced to playing in bowling alleys and bars in no-name towns, while his protege, Tommy Sweet (an uncredited and surprisingly subdued Colin Farrell) is selling out stadiums. While playing a show in Texas, Blake meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a local newspaper reporter who wants to write a story on him. He eventually grows close to her and her 4 year old son, setting the stage for redemption, angst and all the good stuff in between.

So, despite 'Bad' Blake not being a real person, Crazy Heart does end up feeling a bit like a Oscar-bait biopic at times. It hits all the same emotional notes and ends more or less where you'd expect it to. What really elevates this movie above the rest of its kind are the music and the performances.

The music, composed mostly by T-Bone Burnett (who also netted a well deserved Oscar for this film) makes for a great soundtrack, with catchy tunes that inform the plot and state of the characters. Definitely something I wouldn't mind owning. Jeff Bridges (and Colin Farrell) do all their own singing for the film, and both seem to have a real talent for it. You'll definitely finish the film with a greater interest in country music than when you started.

Acting-wise, Jeff Bridges give what I could tritely call the performance of a lifetime in this film. 'Bad' Blake seems superficially similar to Bridges' other famous role, The Dude; both are cavalier substance-abusers, one notch above homeless, grinding toward their declining years with what seems to be not a care in the world. Bridges, however, brings a sense of sadness and desperation to the part that cuts through his drunken antics and showboating, making you feel bad for him despite the fact that he has no one but himself to blame for how fucked up his life is. I think people give Bridges less credit than he deserves (until this movie apparently) because his acting is so natural that it's easy to miss all the nuance and detail in his performances, especially when it seems like he's playing himself. Equally believable is his May/December romance with Maggie Gyllenhaal's character which, given the 28 year age difference between the two actors, had the potential to come off as laughable or creepy. Luckily, Maggie Gyllenhaal projects a maturity (both in her character and in real life) that makes it work.



Seeing as how these were both limited run releases late last year, I imagine a lot of people were aware of them, but never got around to seeing them. They both come highly recommended.

THE A-TEAM

Dir. Joe Carnahan US 2010

"I love it when a plan comes together."

So, just to be upfront, I've never seen an episode of the TV show. And I probably never will. I appreciate its place in the annals of pop culture, but in never struck me as something I needed to experience. I went into this with modest expectations to say the least. I had recently been crushed (as you will know if you read this regularly) by the epic disappointment that was The Losers, which has a premise remarkably similar to The A-Team. Additionally, I was disappointed in Joe Carnahan's last film, Smokin' Aces, which was all style, no substance. He had made a brutal, heart-breaking cop drama called Narc in 2002, and I was saddened to see him go the commercial route, a path that The A-Team seemed deadset on following.

It's nice to be wrong once in a while. The A-Team was much more fun than I expected and, while definitely ridiculous, never gave me a second to think about it, which was nice. I won't bother with a plot recap, since I imaging anyone reading this pretty much knows how the A-Team rolls. I will say that the updated plot (set in the very near future and concerning the US withdrawl from Iraq and missing plates capable of printing illegal US currency) was nicely topical without overreaching for any kind of greater meaning.

While this movie would technically fall into "The Gritty Reboot" category, it is still fairly light hearted, which one would expect of an A-Team movie. The action/violence, which hits often and relentlessly, is almost completely bloodless, and despite featuring Bradley Cooper as the super-suave Faceman, the film features almost no sex or nudity of any kind. This is all strictly PG-13 territory. Normally that alone is enough for me to call bullshit on any action movie, but this movie has such an unabashedly fun (one might be tempted to say self-satisfied) tone, that it never bothered me. If you go to this movie to get your action fix, you will not be disappointed. While not gamechanging, some of the sequences are pretty inventive. The truck heist that ends the first act is exactly what The Losers should have been, and the "flying tank" scene that dominated the trailers features a finale that is so awesome I can't believe it hasn't been done before (that I'm aware of).

Again, I've never seen the original show, but I'm familiar with the four man dynamic of the team, and the new cast they've assembled is pretty brilliant. Liam Neeson is reliable as ever as Hannibal, the too-cool-for-school team leader (although I could have done with about half as many instances in which he verbalized his love for plans and how they come together. We get it.). Bradley Cooper, with the same super smug, 'you-want-to-punch-him-but-goddamn-is-he-handsome-and-charming' schtick that served him so well in The Hangover, slips easily into the role of Faceman. Both of them seemed shoe-ins for their parts, but the biggest surprise was Sharlto Copley as the wacky pilot, Murdock. Copley, who turned in a tour-de-force in his first role as the lead in last years District 9, successfully goes the classic route of most foreign actors when migrating to Hollywood by taking a safe, fun part in a big-budget movie (Christoph Waltz is making the same move, following Inglorious Basterds with Green Hornet). Well done. The dark horse award for the film, however, goes to Patrick Wilson for bringing some smarmy humor to Lynch, the shady CIA handler who alternates working with and against the team.

On the weaker side of the acting spectrum, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson has admittedly big shoes to fill, replacing Mr. T as B.A. Baracus, but it was fairly obvious that he was struggling to keep up with the other actors in most scenes. Far worse was Jessica Biel, as a completely unnecessary DOD officer hunting the A-Team once they go rogue. The character is poorly written, existing only to have sexual tension with Faceman and explain the fairly simple plot as it happens. This is all compounded by Jessica Biel's ability to be completely boring in everything she's in. Sure, she's gorgeous and all, but I can name you dozens of other actresses who are also super hot, while actually having a compelling screen presence.

A week later, it sucks to see that this movie came in a distant second at the box office behind The Karate Kid, but I hope that people will consider it. The action is fun, the humor is consistant and everything speeds along at a impressive pace. It's nice to be able to call a summer movie big and fun, while leaving out the dumb.

SPLICE

Dir. Vincenzo Natali US 2010

I don't expect that anyone had realistically high hopes for Splice. Not only did it come out in early June (when was the last time anyone released a horror movie between May and July?), but it came out on a weekend with three other major studio releases. Most surprisingly though, Splice is a hell of an interesting little film, combining horror, sci-fi, family drama and some challenging/fucked-up gender issues. Definitely not what the masses want out of their summer movie fare.

I'll keep the plot recap short, since I don't want to give too much away. Clive (Adrian Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) star as a couple who work for a small genetics company that is about to get a major contract from a pharmaceutical company for their work in gene splicing. Not satisfied with the results they're getting from working with animal DNA, they decide to throw some human DNA into the mix and see what happens. The resulting hybrid, which they name Dren, matures rapidly into an increasingly human, increasingly dangerous creature which they cannot control.

So. There's quite a bit to be said about this movie, both for and against. I would personally put it in the win column, but my girlfriend, who did not like it, gave me some well-articulated points for the other side. And while I don't deny the flaws the film has, I believe that any genre flick with something interesting to say merits some thought, no matter how inarticulately it may say it.

There are several scenes toward the end of the film (don't worry, no spoilers) that will stick out in your mind after you see this film. They are terrifying, grotesque, haunting, and in some ways, laughably absurd. You'll probably be able to figure out what happens in the first one of them early on, but the film hits you hard and fast with the follow-up, and the ending, while not quite a twist, is probably not what you saw coming when you sat down at the beginning of the film. The movie can be read through the lens of sexuality, focusing on several very specific types, but it also works as a metaphor for stem cell research, abortion and the difficulties of raising a child. It's a lot to address in 90 or so minutes, and everything doesn't quite balance, but you'll definitely have a lot of interesting thoughts swirling around in your head after you leave.

I realize how vague that all sounded. Way to take a whole paragraph to say, "This movie will make you think about interesting stuff." But I really don't want to give anything away. So lets discuss something a bit more tangible. One unreservedly positive thing I can say about this film is that the special effects are well worth the price of admission. Using a combination of CGI, prosthetics and a live actor, the filmmakers have created an admirable addition to the pantheon of great movie monsters in Dren. Starting out as a mostly computerized creature (a weird chimera of a rabbit, a kangaroo and a dinosaur), Dren is later played by two actresses, the 8 year old Abigail Chu and the 31 year old Delphine Chaneac in various stages of computer and make-up enhancement. Together, they succeed in making Dren something truly bizarre, but believably human; alternately repulsive and alluring. The performances, especially Cheneac's, are compelling enough to make you forget that you're watching something deadly, while the love Clive and Elsa come to feel for her is both believable and understandable.

On the flipside, Clive and Elsa's relationship beyond Dren is a bit spotty. Brody and Polley are both compelling actors (Brody a bit more so, but I do have a soft spot for Sarah Polley; she's like the blonde Winona Ryder next door), but their relationship seems to operate based upon the needs of the plot. This movie suffers from what my girlfriend would call Winchester Brothers Syndrome (after the two main characters on Supernatural), which features two characters alternating between being pig-headed and reasonable in order to create conflict in the story. One minute Elsa is the one making rash decisions while Clive tries to talk sense into her, and in the next scene, the parts reverse. I understand why writers do it, but it makes for some spotty characterization. Brody comes out looking better in the end, as Clive has a fairly direct character progression, but I found myself torn between sympathizing with Elsa and wanting to smack the shit out of her for being so silly.

Otherwise, the film is shot very well, almost never relying on jump scares or other horror movie nonsense to keep you on the edge of your seat. The entire movie takes place in the confines of only three or four locations, keeping it grounded and claustrophobic without feeling cheap or poorly made. And I can guarantee that no matter how much you like or dislike it, you'll definitely be thinking about it when you go to bed after watching it. Highly recommended.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK

Dir. Nicholas Stoller US 2010

"English singers never die. Ozzy Osbourne is going to out live Miley Cyrus."

With the exception of Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is indisputably my favorite Apatow Family production. I laughed consistently and loudly through the entire film and I remember being a little pissed that it didn't receive the same attention that Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin enjoyed. It seems to have achieved a greater level of appreciation since it came out in April of 2008 and was apparently successful enough to generate this spin-off. This film was announced while Forgetting Sarah Marshall was still in theatres and it seemed both obvious and premature. Sure, Russell Brand came out of nowhere (I know he was big in England before this, but America doesn't care about that) and stole the movie, which was filled with plenty of other great comedic performances to begin with. But by 2009 Brand had seemed to wear out his welcome, being the MTV Awards creepiest host yet and becoming tabloid fodder due to his engagement to Katy Perry. I would have thought the smarter career move would be to distance himself from his breakout role which was, in many ways, autobiographical.

Turns out, doing what you know (or lived) is the best way to go. In Get Him To The Greek, Brand plays the character of Aldous Snow, an immensely successful rock star who has released one of the most critically villified albums of all time (the ludicrously un-PC African Child) and subsequently fallen off the wagon. In an effort to revive his career (and apparently, the music industry) Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a record label peon is charged with transporting Aldous from London to the Greek Theatre in LA, where he is to perform a 10th anniversary concert commemorating the biggest show of his career. Wacky hijinx ensue.

Comedies belonging to the Apatow genre tend to succeed or fail based on their characters and the actors playing them. The plots are often extremely straight-forward, a loose construction of events around which the characters can riff and be funny. In this regard, Get Him To The Greek is something of a mixed bag. The character of Aldous Snow doesn't feel quite as fresh in this film as he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where his prescense was completely unexpected and his humor fairly unpredictable. This film attempts to cash in on the promise of an Aldous who is completely unhinged from reality, as compared to the first incarnation, who had been sober for seven years. And while several of Aldous' antics live up to the hype generated in the first film, it all still feels a bit predictable. Which isn't to say that Brand doesn't take the character further. One of the things I liked so much about Aldous in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was that, despite essentially being the antagonist in a romantic comedy (a thankless part if there ever was one), he managed to be so goddamn likable (best exemplefied by Jason Segal finally admitting, "Fuck, you're cool."). And despite doing several unbelievably douchey things throughout the course of the film, Brand manages to create an engaging arc of redemption for Aldous. By the end of the movie, I was definitely rooting for him to get his act together.

On the other hand, I felt that Jonah Hill got the short end of the stick character-wise in this film. Playing a watered-down version of his usual irritable yet eager to please persona, his character does feel a bit too much like a stick in the mud for most of the film. Of course, that's exactly what he is to Aldous, so it makes sense, but the attempts to create a story arc for his character are less successful. Most of his solo scenes concern his failing relationship with his workaholic girlfriend who wants them to move to Seattle so she can pursue her medical career. It wouldn't surprise me for an Apatow movie to feature a shrewish, naggy wife/girlfriend, but at least when Leslie Mann plays the character, its kind of funny. Elizabeth Moss (of Mad Men fame) plays the character fairly straight and doesn't really get any jokes of her own. Jonah Hill's character is equally selfish in his desire to continue pursuing his floundering career, and both of them come off poorly in their scenes together. Consequently, the movie feels like its missing a major supporting pillar in their relationship.

Much more successfully done (in terms of female characters and relationships) is Rose Byrne as Jackie Q, Aldous' pop-star ex-wife, played as a crazed combination of Lady GaGa and Amy Winehouse. In addition to being incredibly beautiful, Byrne brings the same slovenly charisma to Jackie that Brand brings to Aldous. From her overblown posh London accent to her ridiculous music videos, she was the one character that I wanted more of.

Also surprising was the humor and self-awareness in Puff Daddy's performance as Jonah Hill's megalomaniacal record executive boss. Playing up on the image he cultivated for himself on Making The Band, Mr. Combs has the same (if not quite as hilarious) effect on this film that Tom Cruise had in Tropic Thunder. The climactic scene in which he attempts to out-rock star Aldous is one for the books.

All in all, I'd say this is one of the less successful Apatow ventures (the scope of movies he seems to be involved in nowadays is massive, it's almost tough to catalogue) but still worth the time spent watching it. One thing I would love to spin out of this film would be a CD of the music written for the film. Aldous Snow's "Clap" is a genuinely fun song in the EuroRock vein of Franz Ferdinand and Jackie Q's "Ring Round", a barely veiled ode to her own asshole, had me pissing my pants in the theater. I would totally buy that album.

Ok, New Rules

So, given the rate at which my roommates and I watch movies, combined with my tragic inability to actually sit down and write these fucking reviews, I am currently about 7 movies behind schedule. I am deeply discouraged by the fact that something I started doing for fun has become a chore that I worry about all the time.

But never fear. I am not giving up. What I am going to do is give priority to movies I haven't seen before, since I seem to be watching fewer of those and reviewing movies that are currently in theatres will be more useful to the three people that read this blog. I'll keep a backlog of movies that I've been rewatching and get to those when I have big gaps between new stuff. Get Him To The Greek and The Messenger. The were both varying degrees of good, to give you a preview.

Anyway, wish me luck and thanks for reading.

TREMORS (Mild Spoilers)

Dir. Ron Underwood US 1989

"Goddamn underground monsters!"

I didn't have any overarching plan when I started this blog to have the films I watch complement each other, but it seems to just occur naturally every once in a while. I believe I brought up Tremors in my review of Deep Rising, given that the films have similarly designed monsters and a broadly similar horror/comedy tone. But whereas Deep Rising is mostly just stupid, I think Tremors is a great example of how to do schlocky, B-movie horror in a way that manages to be enjoyable without pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Plot Recap: Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) are two handymen/professional shit-kickers who live out of their blue pick-up truck and making their living doing manual labor and odd jobs for the good people of Perfection, Nevada (Population: 14). Frustrated by the dismal prospects of their current situation, they resolve to abandon the isolated town for bigger and better opportunities. Their escape is waylaid by a rash of mysterious deaths and disappearances, which are revealed to be the work of massive carnivorous worms lurking beneath the desert sands. With the townspeople trapped and no way to call for help, it's up to Val and Earl to save the day.

This movie was yet another staple of my formative years and it stands the test of time for a number of reasons. Foremost in that regard are the effects which, for a $11 million budget in 1989, hold up pretty goddamn well. One of the major problems with Deep Rising was its over-reliance on CGI in an era where computer effects were still rudimentary and kind of shitty looking. Even now, when TV-budget CGI is reasonably convincing, I'm still of the opinion that practical effects give a movie more texture and will always communicate to the viewer the presence of something real on the screen. This is especially effective when it comes to creature FX. Tremors uses a combination of animatronic and stop-motion effects to create the monstrous Graboids plaguing our heroes. As demonstrated in this scene, in which Michael Gross and Reba McEntire (yes, Reba McEntire) prove that libertarians are not to be fucked with, practical effects really come through in terms of making you feel the prescence of the creature along side the actors, as well as creating a more tangibly gross experience than something you'd get from a computer. Seriously, that thing is like a dual Freudian nightmare. Giant phallic monster with tentacles coming out of a gaping vaginal mouth. ::Shudders::

Second reason that Tremors stands above many other horror movies: none of the character do anything that doesn't make sense. You know how in a horror movie, characters who are well aware that something is out to kill them will split up, or explore an extremely dark room or do something similarly stupid that makes you go, "Who the fuck would do that in this situation?!" Yeah, that never really happens in Tremors. The characters come up with reasonable plans and put them into action, with varying results. I was astonished while rewatching the movie at how completely I agreed with the decisions the characters were making, given the knowledge that they had. A rare thought to have during a horror movie, sad to say.

By extension of this lack of plot-driven stupidity, the characters in Tremors all end up being pretty likable. Despite some broad racial stereotyping (Mr. Chang, the thrifty shopkeeper, played by the grandpa from Three Ninjas, jumps to mind), the characters are surprisingly well-balanced. Val and Earl, being blue-collar bumpkins and constantly engaging in goofy banter, are competent and level-headed. Rhonda (Finn Carter), while obviously in over her head, is an equally competent and sensible female lead, as well as realistically cute for a seismologist (As opposed to say, Alone In The Dark, in which Tara Reid played and archeologist/museum curator. Seriously.). The entire film is well cast, the standouts being Michael Gross and Reba McEntire as a survivalist couple who live in Perfection to escape government meddling. Also, its nice to remember that, given the right material, Kevin Bacon is both an effective comic actor and a pretty decent action hero.

If you've ever enjoyed a 50's horror flick, Tremors updates the goofy thrills of those old movies quite nicely and features some pretty impressive creature effects to boot. Plus, you can use it to connect Kevin Bacon to the little girl from Jurassic Park if you ever need to while playing Six Degrees. So there's that.