Category: 2009

Chaw (2009, Shin Jeong-won)

Chaw tells the familiar tale of a man-eating wild boar and the brave villagers who confront it. The boar’s descended from the mutant boors the Japanese created when they invaded Korea. These abominations have been low-key terrorizing the countryside for decades and as the hipsters started doing weekend trips from Seoul into the countryside, things have gotten worse. The boars have gotten a taste for man-flesh, which post-grads Jung Yu-mi and Ha Sung-kwang have been investigating for years in hopes of breaking it big into tenured positions. They just happen to be in this one particular village when the giant man-eating boar attacks, and the timing coincides with Seoul cop Eom Tae-woong getting reassigned to this one particular village, which is important because Jung and Eom are going to be the third act action heroes.

Eom’s brought along mom Park Hye-jin and wife Heo Yeon-hwa; Park’s got dementia (you wouldn’t feel good about it, but you’ll laugh at her dementia antics too) and Heo’s pregnant. Heo and Eom might have chemistry together, but they’re never in the movie long enough together for anyone to find out. Heo’s got home stuff to do, not protagonist work like Eom.

Eom initially shares the spotlight with absurd Seoul detective Park Hyuk-kwon. Chaw actually has an incredibly complicated first act, lots of characters, lots of layers. But the movie starts with a horrific Jaws-inspired death scene, followed by exceptionally straight-faced slapstick. Director and co-writer Shin isn’t shy about setting Chaw’s tone, which is one of its greatest assets. Along with his confidence. Chaw’s finale, which attaches the second half of Predator to the first half of Jaws, with some Aliens thrown in, is exceptional action direction. Especially since the film’s shot in frequently iffy DV. Shin and cinematographer Kim Yung-chul compensate—and the silliness but thoroughness of the CG wild boar helps a lot (it’s intentionally cute)–and it all works out.

But the first act is a lot. There are multiple victims to remember—and to remember who, if anyone, knows about the victim (since it’s a vacation town, I’m pretty sure at least one victim gets forgotten). Eom’s subplot initially seems to involve Park and Heo, but it doesn’t. Instead he becomes best friends with adorably weird detective Park—who never breaks character, which is the point, and it’s superb work start to finish, especially since all the village cops are buffoons. It’s like a mix of Se7en and Keystone Cops.

Eventually–Chaw’s real confident in its runtime—Shin knows they can keep this going for a couple hours, they just need to make it to the second act, and so the first act throws a bunch of spaghetti at the wall. All of it pays off in the end, which is chef’s kiss; Shin and Kim Yong-cheol’s script is so narratively sound it rings. But the first act. So lots of comedy, lots of characters.

The second act brings in master hunter Jang Hang-seon. He quickly becomes everyone’s grandpa. What if Robert Shaw was cuddly? Jang’s great.

So then it seems like it’s Eom, Jang, and Park. Jaws. Including some great homage scenes. Though much grosser with mammals than fish.

Then the movie adds Yun Je-mun to the mix. He’s Jang’s former protege who’s become a TV celebrity hunter. Yun’s weird. He does this macho thing until he gets sweet on Jung, then he’s very… inappropriate at times. Harmlessly? But grossly? Don’t sniff girls’ hair when they’re asleep, fellas.

It’s a neat, very amusing subplot the movie introduces in the second half for Yun and Jung. There are a number of major subplot resolutions in the second act. Chaw’s clearing the deck for the finale but also compensating for it not having an infinite amount of space for the hunting party to cover. There are only so many places the boar can be.

Chaw’s great. The main cast members all get nice standouts, the script’s strong, production’s good. Shin even knew not to show off too much when shooting with DV because who’s going to notice? It’s a delight.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009, Rebecca Miller)

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is a narrated character study. Protagonist Robin Wright is talking herself through her life while the film observes her, seeing where she’s gained the perspective of time and where she hasn’t. The film starts in the present, with Wright and husband Alan Arkin having just moved to a retirement community from New York City. Arkin is a successful publisher who’s had three heart attacks and needs to partially retire. Wright’s his dutiful, doting, much younger third wife; the perfect “artist’s wife,” their friend Mike Binder calls her in the opening scene, even though she married a publisher.

Arkin and Wright’s relationship is central to Pippa Lee, except it turns out the most important parts aren’t when Wright’s playing the role because Pippa Lee is Wright recounting her whole life for examination starting with her birth. Maria Bello plays her mother. Tim Guinee plays her father, a pastor of some cloth who’s never around. Bello’s got something like five sons and then Pippa, played by Madeline McNulty as a child. Bello’s phenomenal, with these early flashbacks laying foundation for later. She treats McNulty like an object, which will be a recurring theme.

In the present, both Arkin and Wright are having trouble adjusting to the new setting. They’ve got a couple grown kids; Ryan McDonald is the son in law school. He’s the rounded, quiet one, who loves mom and dad. Zoe Kazan plays the daughter; she’s the wild one—a photojournalist traipsing around the world’s war zones—and she hates Wright and adores Arkin. Kazan and Wright’s relationship will be significant in the third act, so it’s exceptionally impressive how well writer and director Miller slow cooks that subplot.

Wright makes a local friend in Shirley Knight, who’s awesome (lots of awesome performances in Pippa Lee but Knight’s special even among them). Knight’s got the common problems for community’s residents—her son’s a mid-thirties burnout, not a still succeeding twenty-something. Keanu Reeves plays the son. There’s a lot of impressive direction from Miller, and, obviously, the way she directs Wright and Wright’s narration and Blake Lively as young Wright is the film’s most masterly achievement.

But, damn, does Miller get a great performance from Reeves. He and Wright form a tender, tentative friendship; in reality, Reeves is a couple years older than Wright—cinematographer Declan Quinn’s going to shoot Arkin in flashbacks with soft, forgiving light; presumably, Reeves got some of it, too–but it works. Something about it just works.

They get to be friends because Reeves is a clerk at the convenience store Wright frequents. She needs help one night, and he’s there.

The film’s second act is mostly the flashbacks with Lively. She starts as teenage Wright and goes to early twenties Wright (the film teases the transition between the two actors in dialogue then later does a great job with it). Lively gets all the great scenes with Bello, running off to live with her aunt Robin Weigert and aunt’s late seventies, early eighties “roommate” Julianne Moore. Wright’s narration from the present packages these memories in three layers. There’s the original impulse for the memory, whether it’s reacting to something in the present or just the next scene in a subplot, Wright’s combination observation and explanation narration, then what the film sees about Wright, through present-day connection, framed narration, and Lively’s performance in the flashback.

Lively’s got it rough for a while—running away from home, complicated new living arrangements, early eighties New York art scene floundering—so she doesn’t smile. But her expressions so closely match Wright’s in the present; when Wright smiles, you know what Lively’s smiling will look like. As events progress, Wright’s got more sadness, contrasting a happier Lively in the past, but the expressions are all from the same pool. It’s a fantastic two-person performance.

The most drama in Lively’s flashbacks end up involving how she meets Arkin, who’s still married to second wife Monica Bellucci at the time. Bellucci’s a wealthy, glamorous eccentric who Arkin can’t stand anymore; he’s immediately taken with Lively. They “meet” about halfway through the film, and it’s got to inform Wright and Arkin’s relationship, which the film established in the first scene, but then Wright and Arkin need to forecast where Lively’s going. Such good work from Miller, just achingly good work.

If the film’s a series of echoes rhyming between the past and present, the second act ends with a drum solo, the sticks hitting so fast the beats overlap; no one has a chance to slow down.

Then Miller has to wrap it all up in the third act, putting it all on Wright to synthesize this performance she’d only been partially responsible for (plus and minus the narration, which keeps Wright very present in the Lively scenes), and it’s a resounding, gentle, careful success.

So good.

There aren’t any bad performances. Binder’s annoying as the annoying author friend with the mad crush on Wright; he’s married to poet Winona Ryder and doesn’t like her having interests other than homemaking. It never occurs to him Wright’s homemaking might not be her whole thing. Ryder’s got a relatively important role in the present-day story, and she’s excellent.

Kazan and McDonald are good as the kids. They never have the heaviest lifting in any scenes, though Kazan’s got a particularly lovely little arc.

Moore and Weigert are good in their cameos. Bellucci’s got a similarly sized role, but it’s more important, and she gets a killer scene while Moore and Weigert are just support.

Bello’s phenomenal. Arkin’s good, Reeves’s great.

Wright and Lively are mesmerizing. It’s more surprising when Lively’s so good because it seems like the flashback device will constrain her, but she’s got a movie of her own in Wright’s movie.

No surprise, the film’s technicals are strong. Miller’s composition’s good, beautifully shot by Quinn, perfectly timed by editor Sabine Hoffman against Michael Rohatyn’s score. It’s a great-looking film, great sounding film.

Miller, Wright, and Lively make a remarkable Pippa Lee.

This post is part of the Other Than A Bond Girl Blogathon hosted by Gabriela of Pale Writer and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Ondine (2009, Neil Jordan)

Ondine is very committed to the bit. The film opens with Irish owner-operator fisherman Colin Farrell bringing a woman up in his nets. A beautiful woman. She seems very confused to be breathing air and doesn’t tell him very much about herself. Alicja Bachleda plays the woman. She refuses to go to a hospital, and instead, Farrell puts her up at his dead mother’s waterfront cottage. I kept wondering if there was electricity, but the film deftly ignores that issue time and again. Lots of Ondine is writer and director Jordan deftly ignoring things or even distracting from them. Usually, he’s distracting from the very flat expository dialogue. If it weren’t for Farrell being lovable, Bachleda being charming, and Alison Barry (as Farrell’s tragically ill but precocious daughter) being adorable, Ondine would be in real trouble. Jordan can get away with a lot thanks to Kjartan Sveinsson’s music and Christopher Doyle’s photography, but only the actors make that script happen.

Well, the actors and editor Tony Lawson’s cutting. Ondine is always on the move. Jordan and Doyle are shooting with digital video, and they’re able to leverage the inherent truthiness of the format with Doyle’s succulent lighting. The little seafront town is gray, and the muted green is vibrant, teeming with life. It’s the perfect setting for a modern fable about a fisherman (Farrell), a selkie (Bachleda), and his kid, Barry, who immediately loves the idea of a land-sea romance. Farrell’s a dry alcoholic who used to be the town drunk. His ex-wife, Dervla Kirwan, is still a drunk (she dumped him for sobering up) but has custody of Barry because kids say with their moms in Ireland. Kirwan’s got a new boyfriend, Tony Curran, who’s a potentially dangerous prick. We know he’s a prick because he’s mainly from Barry’s perspective, and she’s uneasy around him.

But he’s also a jerk to her dad. Ditto Kirwan. Jordan doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue going for Ondine, but he’s got it absolutely layered with angst. Barry spends most of her time in a wheelchair because of failing kidneys. The other kids don’t exactly bully her, but they also don’t really leave her alone, creating these parallels to Farrell, who everyone treats dismissively. Even the town priest, Stephen Rea. Rea’s an adorable cameo. Farrell’s not religious but uses the confessional for his AA since there are no meetings nearby. Except Rea’s never run an AA, Farrell’s never been, so they both wing it.

Of course, Bachleda sees Farrell differently than everyone else. And he’s got to balance that different and welcome kind of attention with his responsibilities for Barry, who basically gets to school on her own, but then Kirwan lets Farrell do the rest so she and Curran can get drunk.

Besides the character relationships, which manage to shine even with the clipped banter dialogue—Farrell and Barry are like a comedy duo back and forth at each other, Farrell and Bachleda are a guarded flirtation where it’s unclear how much they understand each other, then everyone else is just hurling abusive one-liners at Farrell. But thanks to the acting and Lawson’s cutting, it’s okay. And when there are big character moments, they’re always a success, and they never let up on the bit. Is Kirwan a mermaid or not? Farrell’s not even sure she’s real, and she won’t let him get anyone else for outside verification; she only wants him to see her, which turns out to be part of the legend. Because Farrell tells Barry all about it, framing it as a fairytale he’s made up. Barry’s engaged–apparently Farrell’s never told anywhere near an exciting story before—and starts doing research into the legends, which then informs the audience (and Farrell). Jordan only worries about being effective; obvious never matters. Especially not with the digital video realism.

Great performances from Farrell, Bachleda, Barry, and Rea. Kirwan and Curran are both good, but they’re not the good guys in the fairy tale. The only other significant supporting part is Emil Hostina. He’s real good.

Jordan’s direction is strong. Occasionally uneven, like he can’t figure out what to do with a shot once he’s been able to do it with video. Doyle’s lighting keeps it smooth, ditto Lawson’s cuts, and then Sveinsson’s music. Ondine looks and sounds great.

It’s a particular kind of delightful.

Passing Strange (2009, Annie Dorsen and Spike Lee)

From the start, Passing Strange is a spectacular filming and presentation of a stage production. Lee’s direction, Barry Alexander Brown’s editing, Matthew Libatique’s photography, they’re all great from go. Lee and Libatique have highlights throughout—and Brown’s cutting excels during the busiest sections—but it’s clear Strange will look great no matter the content. Of course, Lee directs for the actors’ performances, which I’ll get to in a bit, so again, he still gets occasional peaks thanks to them.

Strange is the story of a young Black man (Daniel Breaker) who moves from Los Angeles to Europe in his late teens, searching for a place where he can be himself. Narrating the story is Stew; Stew and his band have songs throughout; it’s a narrated memoir rock musical, with Stew, Lee, and stage director Annie Dorsen all taking big swings with the medium. Stew isn’t just the narrator; he’s also the critical viewer; we’re watching him watch his remembered past unfold to music, a Technicolor dream. Dorsen’s staging—which has the musical cast interact with the band—is incredible. Then Lee’s direction just adds another layer. Passing Strange is so good at making the experience feel like watching a live performance, it’s weird not to stand and applaud at the end, especially as Stew—in terms of performance (he’s got the narrator and musician hats on especially for the third act, as he interrogates himself)—keeps upping the dramatic ante. Passing Strange is about a lot, being a Black man in the United States, being a Black man raised in Christianity, being a son, being a parent, being a friend, being an artist, being a white European girl, being a gay, closeted preacher’s son, the list goes on and on because almost everyone ends up getting a spotlight. There are only six cast members, and only Breaker and Eisa Davis (as his mother) play one part; the other four create multiple distinct characters throughout, which turns Strange into a showcase for the exceptionally talented cast. For the first act, it seems like the performances are going to be the best part. It changes once Stew—as writer—takes more significant swings, but the performances are always singular.

The first act takes place in L.A., with teenage Breaker arguing with Davis about going to church. However, he changes his mind once he sees pastor Chad Goodridge do a rockabilly sermon. Breaker’s enthusiasm for the music lands him in the youth choir, which seems terrible until he finds out preacher’s son Colman Domingo, who runs it, starts every choir practice with a good smoke out. Domingo and Breaker bond over unrealized dreams. But while Domingo is resigned to his private trap, Breaker’s able to get out of his—he saves up and moves away to Europe, abandoning mom Davis and the punk rock band he made out of the church choir.

His first stop is Amsterdam, in search of public weed-smoking, espresso, and European freedom. There he immediately finds a community who simultaneously sees the color of his skin but assigns no fear to it. The piece about new friend De’Adre Aziza letting him crash at her place is the first singular song, play, and film combination. Aziza’s first part in Strange is as a fellow (Black) teen at the church, but she’s now a Dutch girl. Goodridge, Domingo, and Rebecca Naomi Jones all play Dutch or at least European roles now. They’re all going to do fantastic work, with both Aziza and Jones showing off until Domingo turns in the most eighties German rock performance ever.

But first, it’s time for Aziza to show off. Everyone’s going to get their chance, though Goodridge’s best sequence is the rockabilly church performance; his acting’s good, his characters are never integral to the plot. Aziza and Jones both play love interests, with Jones as a West German girl. Breaker’s a bad artist boyfriend to both of them, which gives them lots of acting and singing material. Aziza’s so good it seems unimaginable Jones is going to be able to compare, but then she’s phenomenal as well. There’s always good interaction between the actors—particularly during the musical numbers—so there’s never any one-upping quality about it.

Though the third act belongs to Breaker, Davis, and Stew. At the beginning of the film, when Lee’s establishing the camera’s narrative distance, Davis sets the bar for acting in close-up. She acts the hell out of it when, since it’s a stage production, she really doesn’t have to act the hell out of it. But everyone’s going to do it. It makes the performances all the more impressive when you see the supporting cast still working even though no one, not even the camera really, can see them.

Wonderful acting. Wonderful music. Wonderful everything.

The third act has some exceptional emotional heft, which the play heaps on, starting with Davis, then adding it to Breaker, while revealing Stew’s got the sum total of it all. Then once he confronts “himself,” there’s a whole other level. And Stew’s not done. After the first set bows, when it feels like there should be an encore—any encore—he goes with one to add yet another layer onto Passing Strange.

It’s superlative work from all involved.

Emma (2009, Jim O’Hanlon)

Somehow this four hour adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma has rapidly delivered dialogue but never manages to work up any energy. It’s just people talking fast at one another, then lengthy “action” sequences, then more fast talking, then more dragging out. It’s especially noticeable with something like the oft-adapted Emma because there apparently isn’t a lot the half as short adaptations missed. Four hours doesn’t reveal anything new about Romola Garai’s protagonist, other than she really wants to go to the seaside but can’t.

This Emma isn’t just a four hour movie, but a four-part BBC miniseries. The four separate parts don’t have any inherent epical structures, just the scenes strung together for director Jim O’Hanlon to badly direct. He’s got a handful of shots he goes through, over and over, medium shots mostly, the same other the shoulder reaction shots, over and over, never getting a good moment of the actors’ performances. If they have any good moments, it’s never clear thanks to O’Hanlon and editor Mark Thornton. The way Thornton works is shot on person talking, cut to next person talking, no people listening. Even though Emma’s all about people talking and therefor listening to one another.

It’s really badly done.

Slight pun intended.

Also whoever told composer Samuel Sim to try to make up for O’Hanlon’s lethargic, inept direction with the music… the music tries, but it can’t compete against the technical inadequacies.

Though Sandy Welch’s teleplay doesn’t do Emma any favors. There’s a prologue tying together Garai, Laura Pyper, and Rupert Evans. All their moms died, two of their dads—Pyper and Evans—send their kids away. Michael Gambon keeps Garai and her older sister, Poppy Miller. So while Garai feels this connection with Pyper and Evans, they don’t share the same feelings at all. Possibly because Garai’s incapable of expressing her feelings, not even when she’s narrating (it does a terrible job with the narration—which only picks up after the first part; the first part has some dude narrating, presumably straight from the novel, which at least has some personality; Garai’s narration does not).

Over the four hours, Garai’s performance goes from silly—her catalog of expressions is a bunch of literal sitcom mugging, which stands out even more as neither Welch or O’Hanlon finds any of the very obvious humor in Emma—to just plain ineffective and finally, way too late, to at least effective. It’s never going to be great with O’Hanlon’s lousy composition but for the last half hour, even with Welch’s melodrama plotting, she’s effective. It’s not easy because she’s usually opposite dad Gambon, who manages to be so bored he doesn’t even look bored; he’s visually present on film. Garai and love interest Jonny Lee Miller only occasionally ever have chemistry. Jodhi May—as her former governess and closest confidant—is fine. Louise Dylan’s okay enough as Garai’s friend who she keeps trying to marry off and always just ends up getting Dylan’s heart broken. This adaptation avoids any of the hard talks because it can’t figure out how to keep Garai sympathetic after she’s so incompetent at the match-making.

Quite a few important performances are middling or worse. Tamsin Greig’s not good. Blake Ritson’s in the middling class but gets worse as it goes, more because of Welch’s plotting. Evans is bad. Pyper’s okay. Christina Cole’s pretty good. Dan Fredenburgh’s another middling performance but he’s also the only character Welch tries to give any personality in the script so he at least gets some consistent personality. Obviously the characters are supposed to be very reserved and proper but O’Hanlon directs them like they’re tabula rosa every scene and Welch doesn’t deign to figure out how to express character development in the adaptation.

Maybe if Adam Suschitzky’s photography weren’t so muddled and gray there’d be some visual personality. Probably not with O’Hanlon but it’s really muddy so an actual sun beam might do wonders. Especially since it’s a plot point. Though O’Hanlon doesn’t seem to have read the script before filming; it’d be better if he’d never thought about the scenes and then directed Emma than to have tried. Because an incomplete is better than a fail.

And nothing at four hours should be incomplete.

The miniseries format does reveal there’s plenty of possibility for a longer Emma adaptation—imagine doing long-form serialized character development instead of throwing all the big conflict into the last fifty some minutes of 240—but this one only gets to the finish thanks to Austen’s source material and the professionalism of the cast.

It’s disappointing and frustrating, but at least never boring. Again, got to be thanks to Austen.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e17 – The End of Time: Part One

At least the Ood are doing okay. They’ve gotten Brian Cox to voice their leader even.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself.

The End of Time: Part One aired a year and a half after the last regular episode, so it probably played a lot different on air than marathoned. Which isn’t going to make Timothy Dalton’s narration good—he’s off screen for most of it, narrating writer Russell T. Davies’s version of foreboding Christmas exposition (Dickens Davies ain’t… also who wrote Mickey’s Christmas Carol, that narration was much better too)–but it might make you forget Davies has just used the same kind of lines in the same kind of crises.

Except instead of a “Doctor Who” supporting cast mega-crossover, Time: Part One is all about David Tennant finding out he’s doomed in his current incarnation but the universe is in trouble too. At least they don’t say the stars are going out. Davies loves the stars going out.

Anyway.

Back on Earth, Bernard Cribbins—who manages admirably to get through these “Doctor Who” episodes while never being particularly endearing or good, just not bad and unlikable—is the only person who remembers his nightmares, which is a big deal because everyone in the universe is having bad dreams about John Simm.

Not John Simm, the actor, rather his “Who” character—from two seasons ago now I think—The Master. He was the second-to-last of the Time Lords who would rather have died than be Tennant’s sidekick.

Turns out Simm started a cult in order for a bunch of ladies to resurrect him—really—only things don’t go right and instead he’s a little off when he comes back, eating lots of meat and absorbing the flesh off people. There’s a weird Christmas food monologue you’ve got to imagine really hit home with grease-loving Britishers.

Cribbins is trying to get in touch with Tennant, getting his fellow pensioners to help him look—including wonderfully horny June Whitfield—while getting messages from a mysterious woman in a pantsuit, Claire Bloom, telling him not to tell the Doctor they’ve been talking or something.

Eventually we get Cribbins and Tennant teaming up, which is nowhere near as amusing as whoever thought it was a good idea thought it would be, and trying to stop Simm from whatever he’s got planned.

Actually, whatever he’s able to get planned once rich guy David Harewood kidnaps him to repair an “immortality gate” for daughter Tracy Ifeachor. Harewood and Ifeachor should’ve passed on this one, “Doctor Who” Christmas special or not.

The acting from Tennant and Simm has its moments—director Euros Lyn can’t handle the dramatic conversation scenes and it’s unfortunate they didn’t get someone who could—and it’s amusing. It feels like a double-sized episode, even though it’s basically a one and a quarter.

Simm loses the big moment at the end to Dalton, who spits his way into an onscreen narration performance.

There’s a really weird Obama thing—he’s going to end the global recession—and everyone wants to watch his address; it’s concerning on many levels.

But since Obama’s president it means making “Master Race” jokes isn’t racist anymore, apparently.

Mesmerize Me (2009, Kate Hackett)

Mesmerize Me is frustratingly middling. It keep seems like it has to be going somewhere, only for it to go nowhere. It’s not a short short—it’s twenty-four minutes—and there’s a disjointed act structure. The third act is way too short, leveraging the “twist” ending way too much. Only it’s not a twist ending. It’s not exactly predictable, but only because it’s such an unbelievably tepid finish you don’t want to anticipate it. You’re hoping for something better.

The short is a period piece set in the late 1800s California. Good costumes, okay locations, not great attention to detail on making things dirty—clothes and people, competent direction, shallow but not inept cinematography (by Cat Deakins), and good music (by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum). If it were even slightly sensational, Mesmerize Me might at least come off as a romance novel cover turned into a movie. But it’s not sensational. At all. Even when it ought to be, like when lead Natalie Smyka seduces her opium-addicted fake doctor Cameron Cash while her parents are asleep elsewhere in the house.

Me opens perfectly solidly with Smyka seeing the ghostly apparition of her dead fiancé (Ned Hosford). Smyka’s really good running around in a panic and she’s got great expressions throughout the short. She doesn’t have any good line deliveries, but her expressions are awesome. Though it’s never believable she likes Cash at all because Cash is unlikable. Not because of the opium or because he’s a know-it-all. Cash is a mesmerist. Either Mesmerize Me takes place in a fantasy world where mesmerism isn’t bullshit or it takes place in some kind of reality. Writer (and director and editor) Hackett implies the latter a lot, but never definitely says the former is out. If we’re supposed to accept the ending, we also have to take Cash believing in his own “powers” too.

It’s problematic.

Also problematic is how it always seems like the characters are going to have a good conversation than Hackett cuts the shot. After a while (where the runtime works against the short)… it seems like Hackett’s cutting away from even worse line deliveries. Like it’s obvious Smyka and Cash couldn’t handle more.

Sarah Lilly plays Smyka’s mom. She’s kind of disappointing too. John Beck is fine as the dad, though his lack of interest in his daughter’s condition doesn’t come across right.

Hackett’s direction and editing instincts are often good; they can’t save Me from itself.

Triangle (2009, Christopher Smith)

Triangle suffers. It suffers from a bad script, it suffers from wanting performances, it suffers… bad hair continuity. There’s just something off about lead Melissa George’s bangs. Not just she doesn’t seem to acknowledge when they’re in the way, but when she turns around (in an obvious cut because there’s so much post-production on the lighting you can tell) and the position doesn’t quite match. Or the length.

There’s just something… off about them.

Kind of like George’s performance.

The film relies on a lot of twists and turns to get through. I was going to say to justify itself but the twists and turns aren’t really for narrative justification, they’re to kill time. Triangle builds towards reveals, it doesn’t build characters. Even when character development is intricately tied to the reveals, well, writer and director Smith still isn’t going to build character. Though it wouldn’t exactly be easy with his cast. Because something feels a little off about them too.

One might guess it’s because they’re a bunch of Aussies pretending to do an American movie. They’ve all got “American” accents, which don’t ever drop out but they also exaggerate the narrative distance from the characters. Not a good thing in a horror movie where you’re ostensibly supposed to care once they start dropping like flies.

The film starts with George going on a yacht day with local rich guy (presumably) Michael Dorman. She’s a waitress he knows, so he invites her for this annual yachting trip. He always takes friends Henry Nixon and Rachael Carpani, who always bring a girl to fix him up with (this time it’s Emma Lung). Except, of course, Dorman wants George along. Carpani doesn’t like it because single mom George must be a gold digger. Carpani’s character is odious, which makes it all the less fun to have her around once she’s in danger, because Smith doesn’t care if you empathize with any of the cast. And most of them aren’t sympathetic.

Also along for the trip is young stud Liam Hemsworth, who was homeless but now lives on Dorman’s yacht with him and knows how to tie knots and do all the other important yachting stuff. There’s some confusion about why Dorman needs a hunk around but at least Hemsworth is likable. There’s something creepy about Dorman and his Robin Hood beard and something’s clearly going on with George and the movie is obviously manipulating the audience about it.

So is it worth it?

Heck no.

Smith knocks off a couple famous movies for Triangle; visually, The Shining, narratively… well, if I told you it’d be too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say, Smith’s not just not reinventing the wheel with his tricky story, he’s not even worried about keeping the tire inflated. He’s really lazy with the logic. Really lazy. He goes for visual shock value and often gets it; his special effects team, lighting mismatches aside, is phenomenal. More than half the movie takes place on this old, abandoned cruise ship with Shining hallways and Triangle makes it look real big, even when it’s kind of clear it’s not and they’re just adjusting the lighting to lens flare for emphasis.

So technically it’s fine. It’s just got a dumb script and an either not trying hard enough or just not able to do it lead with George. After a while you wish George’s bangs would do the acting heavy lifting because George obviously isn’t up for it. She does fear well like twice, then never again. And her messy arc, even with Smith’s questionable scripting, does have a lot of potential for the right performance.

George’s isn’t it.

Halloween II (2009, Rob Zombie)

The only good thing about Halloween II are the end credits. They run like nine minutes, meaning the movie is closer to ninety-five minutes than 105. Even though the ninety-five minutes feels like an eternity.

The movie starts with director Zombie making fun of the idea of making another Halloween II. He’s not remaking Halloween II; well, he does for the first twenty-five minutes of the movie but only to make fun of the idea of remaking Halloween II. It’s kind of the best sequence in the movie? If only because there’s not as much cynicism as the rest of the picture. Less cynicism, less “lead” Scout Taylor-Compton trying to emote, less Sheri Moon Zombie as a color inverted Morticia Adams ghost making scary-ish faces as she inspires Tyler Mane to kill people. It’s a hallucination but not. Chase Wright Vanek, as the young version of Mane, is also in the scenes. He could be worse. Moon Zombie couldn’t be worse, but Vanek has some lines in the prologue and he’s atrocious so it’s a surprise when he’s better later. Because he doesn’t get dialogue. It’s a good move from Zombie amid a film full of bad moves.

After the riff on the original Halloween II, Zombie jumps ahead a year to Taylor-Compton trying to recover from her trauma. Meanwhile, Malcolm McDowell is on a book tour capitalizing on Taylor-Compton’s trauma. McDowell’s not good and the part’s thinly written–all the parts in the film are paper thin–but he’s bad in entertaining ways. Taylor-Compton isn’t bad in entertaining ways. She’s got a terrible part and gives a terrible performance in it. She’s living with fellow Halloween I survivor Danielle Harris and her dad, sheriff Brad Dourif.

Harris is just about the only likable character in the film. She also doesn’t give a terrible performance. Many of the cast give terrible performances, so Harris is constant refreshing. Dourif’s haircut gives more of a performance than the actor, which is too bad. It’s a crappy part though.

The worst supporting performance is Angela Trimbur. She’s one of Taylor-Compton’s friends; she gets to personify Zombie’s prevailing conjecture in the film–empathy doesn’t exist, which is problematic because Taylor-Compton’s only in her current situation because of empathy. Halloween II is the perfect storm of cynicism and stupidity, with Zombie trying to cushion the stupidity in symbolism so he can get away with it. But it’s stupid symbolism so who cares.

The best cameo performance is Bill Fagerbakke as a deputy. The worst is Mark Boone Junior. Margot Kidder is somewhere in between, mostly because her therapist isn’t believable at all.

Technically, the film’s competent. Brandon Trost’s photography is definitely competent. Glenn Garland and Joel T. Pashby’s editing gets all the jump scares. Zombie relies heavily on them. He starts with gore, then he goes to jump scares. They’re effective but entirely cheap.

Tyler Bates’s music… could be worse.

Garreth Stover’s production design–presumably under Zombie’s instruction–is grungy to the point of absurdity. Since surviving their serial killer attacks, Taylor-Compton and Harris have apparently embraced nihilism based on their interior decorating but never in their characters. Taylor-Compton’s behavior sometimes flips scene-to-scene so Zombie can move things along. It’s not like she’d have essayed the role better if the writing were better.

Trost’s photography holds things together. Without it, the movie would be stagy. If the acting were better. And if Zombie cared about the acting. It’s really bad.

But it could be worse. It could be much, much worse. The end credits could run eight minutes instead of nine and there might be another whole insufferable minute of content to Halloween II.

Creation (2009, Jon Amiel)

Creation is the not the story of how Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) and the ghost of his oldest daughter (Martha West) collaborated in the writing of On the Origin of Species. That story would make a much better movie.

The film opens with a title card explaining it will be about Darwin writing that book, released in 1859. Some conversation early on places the present action in 1858. So a year. At this point, it’s been twenty years since he published Voyage of the Beagle. Some of those adventures show up in flashback–a flashback’s flashback–as Bettany recounts stories to West.

Well, at the beginning. Then not. The Beagle flashbacks are the biggest budgeted sequences in Creation and director Amiel treats them as set pieces. Only then such flashbacks (in flashbacks) stop and so do set pieces. Instead, it’s just Bettany hanging around at home, making churchy wife Jennifer Connelly real upset with his blasphemous manuscript and research. It seems like this narrative floundering is covering a lot of time but it turns out it isn’t. Amiel and screenwriter John Collee are terrible at pacing. Why do they need pacing when they can have Bettany talk to West (not an actual ghost, just a narrative contrivance). If only the exposition moved the film along.

After a promising first act, Creation settles into that “ghost” story. Amiel and Collee tease out details of West’s death in the present while flashing back, at first, to unrelated family bonding scenes. The flashbacks eventually get confusing because Bettany’s makeup for Darwin age forty-nine is bald with stringy hair, very pasty skin, a paunch. The film skips back seven and eight years to the West flashbacks–those seven actual years in between Darwin’s daughter’s death and the Species’s completion are apparently empty of worthy story material. Darwin age forty-two makeup is bald with stringy hair, mildly pasty skin, general nineteenth century upper class flab. It’s not hard to tell them apart, but only because Bettany’s good. But in terms of filmmaking–Amiel’s direction, Jess Hall’s flat photography–well, it’s good they have Bettany.

Also because it’s an entirely thankless part. Collee’s script is deceptively worse than first impression. It’s not bland biopic stuff, it’s bland biopic stuff without any characters. Amiel, whose direction is never better than mediocre (outside the special effects sequences of animal decomposition and so on), he at least tries occasionally. He really likes his close-ups. So the actors can spout either ominous lines (because of hiding daughter West’s fate in flashback) or exposition.

While Bettany’s got it bad, he at least gets to walk around in his make-up. Connelly is left to take care of the kids and give disapproving looks when Bettany doesn’t take his “war on God” seriously. And Connelly never really gets a role. She ends up with one poorly written, well-acted scene. It’s exceptionally impressive filmmaking from Amiel, Hall, and editor Melanie Oliver. It’s this entirely manipulative, cheap, soapy scene and it still works. Because Bettany and Connelly. Connelly gets some character motivation at what might as well be the end of the movie. There’s still more movie and it’s bad, but that moment is when Creation could’ve got out in the black.

But it doesn’t. Because Amiel and Collee are entirely artless with Creation. They want all to benefits of melodramatic contrivances without ever embracing those contrivances. There’s also the issue of how the film characterizes the religious. Caricaturizes. Connelly and Jeremy Northam (extended cameoing as the village clergy) are inappropriately villainized. But meaning they need to be villainized differently. There’s no dramatic fodder in it as is.

Bettany’s good. Not great. Better than decent or fine. West is decent. Connelly is problematic; the part’s crap. Northam’s cameo is too thin. Ditto Toby Jones. He’s bombastic though. Energy is a lot in Creation, as the film stops producing any once the second act hits. Benedict Cumberbatch is good. He tries.

If there’s a great film about the final year of Darwin writing Species, Creation sure ain’t it. Amiel’s just too bland a director to save the film from the script. It could’ve at least maintained mediocre, but as it becomes more and more clear how bad Collee’s plotting and pacing is going to get… well, mediocre’s way out of reach.

The awful Christopher Young score doesn’t help either.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Jon Amiel; screenplay by John Collee, based on a story by Amiel and Collee and a book by Randal Keynes; director of photography, Jess Hall; edited by Melanie Oliver; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Laurence Dorman; produced by Jeremy Thomas; released by Icon Film Distribution.

Starring Paul Bettany (Charles Darwin), Jennifer Connelly (Emma Darwin), Martha West (Annie Darwin), Jeremy Northam (Reverend Innes), Benedict Cumberbatch (Joseph Hooker), Jim Carter (Parslow), Bill Paterson (Dr. Gully), and Toby Jones (Thomas Huxley).

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