Tag: Julie Benz

Kidnapping Caitlynn (2009, Kat Coiro)

Kidnapping Caitlynn is a couples’ film and not just because it’s about a woman breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s house. Stars Jenny Mollen and Jason Biggs, who concocted the story together, are married (Mollen scripted). Director Coiro is married to supporting actor Rhys Coiro.

If it were just four people making some stupid home movie because they got bored on a Saturday night, it might be all right. As an actual effort, however, Kidnapping Caitlynn is horrific. Either Mollen is intentionally emulating stupid Hollywood comedies or she’s just a terrible writer—her performance is awful, so I’m guessing the latter.

Biggs spends most of his time mugging for the camera, which is an odd use of him. When he does talk, he can’t overcome the script.

Coiro’s direction is adequate; the film’s not her fault. Wait, Rhys Coiro’s performance is awful… did she cast him?

Julie Benz doesn’t embarrass herself.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Kat Coiro; screenplay by Jenny Mollen, based on a story by Mollen and Jason Biggs; director of photography, Paula Huidobro; edited by Adam Catino; music by Bret Johnson; produced by Lauren Bratman and Coiro.

Starring Jenny Mollen (Emily), Jason Biggs (Max), Julie Benz (Caitlynn) and Rhys Coiro (Daniel).

RELATED

Rambo (2008, Sylvester Stallone), the director’s cut

I just went back and reread my response to the theatrical release of Rambo. I haven’t seen it since the theater and, while I could pick out some added scenes (Stallone’s director’s cut, titled John Rambo, runs about ten minutes longer), I couldn’t remember if my problems with the director’s cut are the same as my problems with the theatrical.

They are not. Not entirely.

Stallone’s director’s cut is much more thoughtful. It raises these great human contradictions–for example, a pastor hiring mercenaries to kill brown people to save his white people, white people captured while trying to stop brown people from getting killed.

Rambo‘s still incredibly problematic–this cut doesn’t fix the ludicrously unearned and unexplained end–and raising questions is far better than trying to answer them.

This time through–and this cut through–Stallone’s treatment of the Christian missionaries is, while I’m sure it’s unintentional, rather damning. Julie Benz’s character is a good fundamentalist Christian woman who uses sex (the idea, not the act) to bewitch Stallone. This development is new to this version. Maybe in the spinoff, Benz will run for vice president.

It makes Stallone’s Rambo pathetically attached to this woman who abandons him for her tool of a fiancée (John Schulze).

Most interesting, reading my first response, is the idea Stallone portrays Rambo as an animal thrilled at killing. He doesn’t in this cut. He gives Rambo a soul the whole time, not making him earn it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t improve the movie.

Punisher: War Zone (2008, Lexi Alexander)

Punisher: War Zone got a theatrical release (sorry for the passive voice, but pointing out Lionsgate released it in the theater sort of kills the emphasis). I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to describe the terrible script. Watching an early exchange between mobsters, I kept wondering if Italian American associations were aware of the film (I’m guessing they aren’t). The characters are so stereotypical, the portrayal so offensive… it’s incredible. But the mob being the movie’s big villains elucidates War Zone‘s biggest (narrative) idiocy–it’s just a hodgepodge of superhero movies. The movie rips off an opening scene from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One comic book, but then cribs the entire approach from Batman Begins (where the hero doesn’t actually fight crime unrelated to the plot’s main villain). But there’s a Superman reference in the subway hideout and some other malarky I’m sure. The script’s idiotic.

So why watch Punisher: War Zone? The terrible opening credits don’t give any indication of it, but Michael Wandmacher’s score is good and Steve Gainer’s photography is fantastic. The photography seems to go for HDR (high dynamic range), which makes the Panavision frame wondrous at times. Lexi Alexander intercuts Manhattan skyscrapers with Montréal streets to poor effect–actually, Montréal’s a decent stand-in, physically, for New York, but Alexander’s movie New York is one of the most absurd I’ve ever seen. It’s like she’s not only never been there, she hasn’t even watched a movie set there. Alexander’s actually a decent director. She has an annoying Panavision habit of putting people, in cuts, on opposite sides of the frame, but by the end of the movie, she’s got it working. She’d direct great commercials or music videos, since she can’t impart any emotionality to her work. There isn’t a single subtle moment in War Zone, it’s just too stupid.

Some of the stupidest developments in the film are the inclusion of Wayne Knight as a sidekick and the revelation the Punisher dropped out of seminary. I don’t know why the latter got included, maybe so they could have a dumb scene with the Punisher at church, but it’s one of the stupider things in the film. Knight’s sidekick, who seemingly funds the Punisher’s war on selected criminals from a tiny apartment, is also something else. Knight–even with the goatee–isn’t bad. He’s got some dumb lines, but he isn’t bad.

Producer Gale Anne Hurd has made some big movies and some good movies. Presumably, while on set, she must have noticed Ray Stevenson couldn’t act. He’s atrocious as the lead. Punisher: War Zone has a future as a drinking game. Alexander barely gives him any lines, but he flubs every single one of them. Julie Benz (is she the Lionsgate version of 1990s Miramax Neve Campbell or something?) is awful. Colin Salmon, who’s usually good, gives a terrible performance. Talking about him, I forgot to mention the stupid last names. Everyone in the film has a super-ethnic last name, presumably to make it more authentic. Dash Mihok, in the movie’s supposedly comic role, is terrible. Alexander and the script don’t understand humor. They should have brought Rob Schneider or the guys who wrote Beverly Hills Ninja in to give it some oomph.

But talking about the actors brings me to the real reason to watch Punisher: War Zone. Dominic West. He’s not stretching any thespian muscles in his portrayal of a psycho (oh, another comic book movie reference, the Burton Batman), but he’s a joy to watch. Given the filmmakers were able to hire West to appear in this cinematic turd, it’s a testament to their jaw-dropping lack of intelligence they didn’t fire Stevenson and put West in the lead. If he can make this underwritten goober of a role work, imagine what he could have done as the Punisher.

As West’s cannibal sidekick, Doug Hutchinson is fine. He’s been acting for a long time, so Alexander’s ineptness at directing actors mustn’t have contaminated him.

Punisher: War Zone is watchable dreck. The movie looks good–Alexander’s action scenes concentrate too much on the gore instead of, well, any action–and West is a joy to watch. I wonder if anyone involved in the film has seen “The Wire,” but all evidence suggests not. And it’s definitely one of Lionsgate’s less appalling pictures.

Rambo (2008, Sylvester Stallone)

First, I need to get the theater-going experience out of the way. I do not remember the last time I’ve been in a theater filled with stupider people. They did not shower for the most part. Their girlfriends had to explain the complicated parts to them. I can only imagine what seeing Rambo III would have been like for people with IQs above eighty-five back when the series was popular.

On to the film.

Stallone tries hard to give Rambo the Rocky Balboa treatment and he succeeds on a few levels. He really gets across how awful things in Burma are going–the genocide. He manages to make it the setting, not turning the film into an infomercial. It’s impressive. The more important level is the character himself. In a very poorly constructed voiceover, Stallone eradicates the “Rambo the tortured Vietnam vet” thing he’s had going for twenty-five years. Rambo, Stallone decides, kills people because he likes it (which might not sound like much, but just imagine a Lethal Weapon or Die Hard featuring that thesis about its protagonist). Stallone’s observation, of course, would be a heck of a lot more profound if the movie worked out in the end….

Stallone doesn’t find the balance between action movie and thoughtful observation in Rambo, because he plays toward a general realism. It’s not Rambo running around the jungle trying to save the missionaries by himself, there’s a team of mercenaries with him. Of these mercenaries, Matthew Marsden and Graham McTavish give the best performances. As for the missionaries, Paul Schulze is surprisingly bad and Julie Benz is fine. Benz kind of plays Fay Wray to Stallone’s Kong. It’s a wonderful relationship to watch, because Stallone really gets how to make it work.

So, oddly, the problem becomes Stallone’s unwillingness to go the distance, to have a crazy action movie with Rambo running around killing bad guys (and these bad guys are bad… the worst bad guys I can remember seeing in such numbers in a movie). He goes for something resembling realism and the movie loses out. It’s not dumb fun. It’s dumb pseudo-realistic action violence. Stallone’s very big on showing how awful violence is in the film, it’s graphic and it’s intense.

Rambo, the character, doesn’t deserve the Rocky Balboa treatment–the redefined sequel treatment–because there’s just not enough of a character there. The proof is easily identifiable–Rambo‘s lame closing scene. But it seems like there’s a good mix–and Stallone finds it quite a few times in the movie… he just can’t sustain it.