I don't get out much. Not to the movies, anyway. It's mostly a time and money thing, mainly the lack of one or both, but also, I'm rarely interested enough in a new movie to spend both time and money to go see it. Not because I don't like movies; I love movies...I just like movies that are good, interesting, compelling, entertaining - and not dumbed-down crapfests aimed at people who don't know any better. Thankfully, my wonderful friend Grace (who indubitably knows better) obtained free passes to an advance screening last night of District 9, I had time to go, and now that I've seen it, I'm actually willing to spend both time and money to see it again. It is that good.
I am, in general, supportive of the "summer movie" that is all about action & spectacle and light on story, as long as whatever story it does have actually works. I may not see those movies, but I support their existence. District 9 isn't one of those movies; it isn't light on anything. It's packed full of action & satire, sympathetic heroes & snarling villains, political commentary & brutal alien weaponry...plus the aliens themselves, which almost never appear to be special effects, even though they are. They look like they're right there in the scene, interacting with props & humans. Sometimes the humans are the props...
What makes this movie work is that the aliens not only don't look like special effects, they're not treated like them either. They're simply characters in the film, a part of the story. No special attention is paid to them; no one is saying "Look at all the work our animators put into making them look awesome, don't they look awesome?" They do, but that isn't the point. They're part of the scene, and only the focus of the scene when the story requires it.
The story itself does not quite go in the direction one might expect. Early in the film, bureaucrat-in-the-field Wikus Van Der Merwe is in the process of evicting aliens from their shacks (during an extended documentary-style opening that is constantly fascinating and entertaining) when he is accidentally exposed to some type of alien fluid...while it's easy to guess what effect this fluid will have on him, the direction the movie takes in the progression of events is not where I thought it would go...and I appreciate that. So if you think the movie is going to be about the widespread effect of these aliens on the Earth's environment...you will be quite happy with the unexpected.
What makes it work is that it doesn't turn into that type of global story; it's a personal story. It actually starts out bigger, with many people involved, and slowly narrows itself down to just a few individuals. And in the midst of this fascinating tale, there are great action scenes, smart writing, quality humor, and extremely heavy satire that doesn't feel heavy at all. The writing and direction maintain the tone of the sci-fi/action movie, when what it's really about is something much more serious and thought-provoking. That's what good science fiction does - creates a story of what is not, while reflecting what is.
Social commentary aside, the movie just kicks ass. It slows down a bit in the middle, but not long enough to lose interest, and there are certainly a few moments throughout where one might question the filmmakers' judgement ("Go on!" "No, I'm not leaving you behind!"), but overall it's just really damn good. The previously unknown lead actor gives an incredibly terrific performance, all the more impressive considering he'd never acted before, and spent much of his screen time talking to characters who weren't even on the set. The action is shot and edited so you can actually see what's going on, instead of most movies where it's cut up so hysterically that I can't even tell what I just saw. And no slow-motion shots at all, if I recall correctly - because when people use slo-mo in their action scene, they just want it to look cool. They usually don't care about the story, and the story in District 9 is definitely driving the film.
Toward the end of the movie, when there's a lot more action and very little downtime, it isn't just about shooting and blowing things up - the actions of the characters are very emotionally motivated. There's truly something at stake for them, good and bad, from beginning to end, and that kind of thing is what makes this film so much more rewarding. Nothing is overdone, everything is well-thought out, and I am thoroughly impressed with the storytelling. Absolutely the best movie I've seen this year. I can hardly wait to see it again.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Redbelt
So I lied again, unintentionally of course, and haven't been out to see a new movie. Things don't always work out the way you plan, and people don't always do what they say they will. It doesn't matter; I decided I'm going to review any movie I see on DVD that I feel is worth writing about, good or bad, so at least I'll be writing. And today, that movie worth writing about is David Mamet's Redbelt.
I hated it. I started out thinking this movie was maybe pretty good but not quite as together as it should be, but by the time is was over I was angry for having seen it. Has Mamet written & directed some incredible films? Sure. Do I like some of them? Absolutely. I really like State & Main, and Heist is a guilty pleasure - it's enjoyable and entertaining and fun to watch and is certainly not what I'd call a brilliant piece of cinema...but it's a good movie. Redbelt is so far off the mark, I don't even know where to start.
How about we start with Mamet. Whenever anyone talks about his writing, they first mention the dialogue. And throughout his career he's written some great dialogue. None of that made it into this script. Here's a small sample:
"You ain't got no bouncer?"
"Just weekends now."
"Officer Joe?"
"Joey the cop? Quit."
"Why'd Joe quit?"
"Hold on a second."
"Officer Joe, why'd he quit?"
"What?"
"Why'd Joe quit?"
"'Cause Bruno wasn't payin' him. They never paid him."
"They never paid him?"
Half the movie is like that...all sorts of repetitive dialogue, and people repeating things as a question. I kept waiting for someone to spout off, something like "What the fuck did I just say? Why do you keep repeating what I say with a fuckin' question mark on the end of it?" But no one did. This is not good dialogue, because it's neither interesting nor entertaining, and it has to be one or the other if it's not going to be realistic. And that little snippet quoted above isn't even the whole conversation; I left out the part with another guy interrupting them, talking about sleight-of-hand magic as he's doing it, which, gee, you think might be important somehow later on in the story?
Speaking of the story, it's a big mess. Like all Mamet films, there's some kind of long con, a grand scheme that ties up the hero in a big knot and we're supposed to hope he finds a way to untie it - only in this movie, there's no point to what they're doing. Call this a spoiler if you like, but apparently a whole bunch of people wanted to get this one guy to fight on the undercard of a mixed martial arts championship so they could fix the fight without him knowing and have him win...but if all they wanted was a fixed fight, why go through the trouble of forcing Mr. Honest Goody-Goody into debt so he'd go against his principles and enter a competition? They had their plan in place to fix all the fights, so why the big scheme? Why involve this guy in the first place? Pointless.
There's an incident early in the story when a woman accidentally fires a police officer's own gun at him, breaking a window. Supposedly this is what sets the whole story in motion, but the entire sequence is so ridiculously staged & shot that nothing which follows it is at all believable. The woman even picks up the ejected shell casing and hands it to the officer - which anyone would do in that situation, naturally! And of course this puts her fingerprints on it, but that won't be an issue later in the story, will it?
The main character just happens to see things that clue him in to the scam being run on him, to the fixed fights, and any viewer with at least half a brain should be asking "Why are these people doing these things right then?" Why is the sleight-of-hand magician "practicing" in front of a mirror in his dressing room with the door open, doing the very same trick he expertly performed right in front of the main character earlier in the movie? So we the audience will realize it was all a setup? Isn't that just a little too convenient, story-wise? Isn't Mamet supposed to be better than this? Shouldn't anyone making this kind of movie be better than this?
Considering this is meant to be a fight movie, the climactic scene involving our hero and his strongest opposition is one of the most boring movie fights I've ever seen. And all he was trying to do was get to the ring and tell everyone the fights were fixed. Just get up to the ring! But the champion, who's agreed to have his own fight fixed, stands in his way. At least I think it was the champion; a lot of minor characters are never properly introduced. Anyway, he's got to fight the champion in order to get to the microphone and tell everyone why he dropped out of his own scheduled fight, but everyone ends up just watching him fight the champion down on the floor instead of in the ring.
So he finally wins this incredibly dull fight and gets into the ring and just stands there, until his mentor, who just happened to be in the crowd, comes up and gives him the red belt, of which there is apparently only one, though we're never told what it's for, or why the old guy carries it around with him, and the movie is over. Sorry to spoil the ending, but if you're reading this far I should hope you decided not to see the movie. We're meant to assume the red belt is given to the most honorable something-or-other, or the master, or some big shot who's somehow better or more important than anyone else. But what it really means, who knows? And who cares. The whole movie is worthless.
The actors are good, but what does it matter when their words and actions are so ridiculous? Director of photography Robert Elswit won an Oscar for his previous film, There Will Be Blood, but Mamet has the most annoying habit in this film of framing many compositions so an object or person is obstructing the view of whatever or whomever we're meant to be looking at. I don't know if that's a conscious choice and it's supposed to mean something, or merely the result of a haphazard shooting method, but either way it's really annoying and doesn't serve a purpose. A good director who composes shots with obstructed views does it in a way that doesn't annoy the viewer's eye and actually conveys meaning - check out Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love for a prime example - but here it's just crap filmmaking.
The worst part of all this is the DVD extras, which is full of people talking about how brilliant David Mamet is, the great dialogue, the layered storytelling....people, reputation has to be maintained, okay? Past work means nothing on current projects. Just because it's Mamet doesn't mean it's great. It has to be great on its own. And this falls far, far short.
I hated it. I started out thinking this movie was maybe pretty good but not quite as together as it should be, but by the time is was over I was angry for having seen it. Has Mamet written & directed some incredible films? Sure. Do I like some of them? Absolutely. I really like State & Main, and Heist is a guilty pleasure - it's enjoyable and entertaining and fun to watch and is certainly not what I'd call a brilliant piece of cinema...but it's a good movie. Redbelt is so far off the mark, I don't even know where to start.
How about we start with Mamet. Whenever anyone talks about his writing, they first mention the dialogue. And throughout his career he's written some great dialogue. None of that made it into this script. Here's a small sample:
"You ain't got no bouncer?"
"Just weekends now."
"Officer Joe?"
"Joey the cop? Quit."
"Why'd Joe quit?"
"Hold on a second."
"Officer Joe, why'd he quit?"
"What?"
"Why'd Joe quit?"
"'Cause Bruno wasn't payin' him. They never paid him."
"They never paid him?"
Half the movie is like that...all sorts of repetitive dialogue, and people repeating things as a question. I kept waiting for someone to spout off, something like "What the fuck did I just say? Why do you keep repeating what I say with a fuckin' question mark on the end of it?" But no one did. This is not good dialogue, because it's neither interesting nor entertaining, and it has to be one or the other if it's not going to be realistic. And that little snippet quoted above isn't even the whole conversation; I left out the part with another guy interrupting them, talking about sleight-of-hand magic as he's doing it, which, gee, you think might be important somehow later on in the story?
Speaking of the story, it's a big mess. Like all Mamet films, there's some kind of long con, a grand scheme that ties up the hero in a big knot and we're supposed to hope he finds a way to untie it - only in this movie, there's no point to what they're doing. Call this a spoiler if you like, but apparently a whole bunch of people wanted to get this one guy to fight on the undercard of a mixed martial arts championship so they could fix the fight without him knowing and have him win...but if all they wanted was a fixed fight, why go through the trouble of forcing Mr. Honest Goody-Goody into debt so he'd go against his principles and enter a competition? They had their plan in place to fix all the fights, so why the big scheme? Why involve this guy in the first place? Pointless.
There's an incident early in the story when a woman accidentally fires a police officer's own gun at him, breaking a window. Supposedly this is what sets the whole story in motion, but the entire sequence is so ridiculously staged & shot that nothing which follows it is at all believable. The woman even picks up the ejected shell casing and hands it to the officer - which anyone would do in that situation, naturally! And of course this puts her fingerprints on it, but that won't be an issue later in the story, will it?
The main character just happens to see things that clue him in to the scam being run on him, to the fixed fights, and any viewer with at least half a brain should be asking "Why are these people doing these things right then?" Why is the sleight-of-hand magician "practicing" in front of a mirror in his dressing room with the door open, doing the very same trick he expertly performed right in front of the main character earlier in the movie? So we the audience will realize it was all a setup? Isn't that just a little too convenient, story-wise? Isn't Mamet supposed to be better than this? Shouldn't anyone making this kind of movie be better than this?
Considering this is meant to be a fight movie, the climactic scene involving our hero and his strongest opposition is one of the most boring movie fights I've ever seen. And all he was trying to do was get to the ring and tell everyone the fights were fixed. Just get up to the ring! But the champion, who's agreed to have his own fight fixed, stands in his way. At least I think it was the champion; a lot of minor characters are never properly introduced. Anyway, he's got to fight the champion in order to get to the microphone and tell everyone why he dropped out of his own scheduled fight, but everyone ends up just watching him fight the champion down on the floor instead of in the ring.
So he finally wins this incredibly dull fight and gets into the ring and just stands there, until his mentor, who just happened to be in the crowd, comes up and gives him the red belt, of which there is apparently only one, though we're never told what it's for, or why the old guy carries it around with him, and the movie is over. Sorry to spoil the ending, but if you're reading this far I should hope you decided not to see the movie. We're meant to assume the red belt is given to the most honorable something-or-other, or the master, or some big shot who's somehow better or more important than anyone else. But what it really means, who knows? And who cares. The whole movie is worthless.
The actors are good, but what does it matter when their words and actions are so ridiculous? Director of photography Robert Elswit won an Oscar for his previous film, There Will Be Blood, but Mamet has the most annoying habit in this film of framing many compositions so an object or person is obstructing the view of whatever or whomever we're meant to be looking at. I don't know if that's a conscious choice and it's supposed to mean something, or merely the result of a haphazard shooting method, but either way it's really annoying and doesn't serve a purpose. A good director who composes shots with obstructed views does it in a way that doesn't annoy the viewer's eye and actually conveys meaning - check out Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love for a prime example - but here it's just crap filmmaking.
The worst part of all this is the DVD extras, which is full of people talking about how brilliant David Mamet is, the great dialogue, the layered storytelling....people, reputation has to be maintained, okay? Past work means nothing on current projects. Just because it's Mamet doesn't mean it's great. It has to be great on its own. And this falls far, far short.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Back In The Fiddle-Faddle
That title makes sense - because I don't ride horses, but I do occasionally eat popcorn, and this page is about movies, so...well I only said that it made sense, not that it was funny or accurate.
It's been a long, LONG winter which has finally subsided, and I believe the time is nigh that I'll be seeing more new movies, thus giving me greater purpose to actually write something here. I have been watching a lot of older movies at home, and kept meaning to mention them here, but the semester was just too crazy to let up and I simply couldn't manage. I even saw a new movie, in a theater, before it officially opened, and absolutely intended to review it here, but...no such luck.
That movie was The Merry Gentleman, screened at the Midwest Independent Film Festival, and I like it enough to recommend it - though the film is not without its problems. A well-written script by Ron Lazzeretti, a wonderful performance by Kelly Macdonald, and a decent directing debut from co-star Michael Keaton make the film worth seeing. The pacing is too slow in spots, it doesn't quite have an ending, and large portions of some characters' motivations don't always make sense...but if you need a break from comic books, tv shows, and sequels with big explosions, it's still playing in a few theaters.
So, with that accomplished, I will be back within a week, spouting a brand new diatribe or exaltation, and maybe a new haircut. Thanks for reading!
Andy
It's been a long, LONG winter which has finally subsided, and I believe the time is nigh that I'll be seeing more new movies, thus giving me greater purpose to actually write something here. I have been watching a lot of older movies at home, and kept meaning to mention them here, but the semester was just too crazy to let up and I simply couldn't manage. I even saw a new movie, in a theater, before it officially opened, and absolutely intended to review it here, but...no such luck.
That movie was The Merry Gentleman, screened at the Midwest Independent Film Festival, and I like it enough to recommend it - though the film is not without its problems. A well-written script by Ron Lazzeretti, a wonderful performance by Kelly Macdonald, and a decent directing debut from co-star Michael Keaton make the film worth seeing. The pacing is too slow in spots, it doesn't quite have an ending, and large portions of some characters' motivations don't always make sense...but if you need a break from comic books, tv shows, and sequels with big explosions, it's still playing in a few theaters.
So, with that accomplished, I will be back within a week, spouting a brand new diatribe or exaltation, and maybe a new haircut. Thanks for reading!
Andy
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