Leftovers

natebell — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:18:29 -0800

Back from Thanksgiving break, and filled to bursting with new cinema experiences. With so many films backlogged in my brain, I thought I might jettison a few:

Paranormal Activity. Exhibitionist horror on a micro budget and in a realistic vein: unknown actors, digital video, a pseudodocumentary style. The premise is simple beyond belief: a twentysomething couple set out to record a ghost or demon or what-have-you that’s been disturbing the furniture and that seems to have special designs on the girlfriend. The feeble development of a deeper plot is shoved aside for a series of well-timed shock effects: a creaking door, a shadowy shape, a bedroom attack, and much worse. One shot in particular, a wide angle on the sleeping couple, has a Pavlovian conditioning effect: every time we return to this setup, something worse transpires. Hokey and harmless in retrospect, fun and gripping if viewed under the right conditions (specifically a packed theater with good sound).

Where the Wild Things Are. A hip kids film, a frolic, but a downer just the same. Extrapolated from Maurice Sendak’s vivid 28-page children’s classic, it follows an imaginative, misbehaving, misunderstood boy to a magical kingdom ruled by mega-sized Muppets who, in a weird twist, turn out to be just as obstinate as he is. Fascinating at first as a sort of Freudian dream film (with the beasts reflecting the boy’s latent insecurities), it has nowhere to go, and gets there quickly. Spike Jonze’s zippy direction is hamstrung by his own saccharine screenplay (co-authored by Jonze and Dave Eggars), although an early episode involving a crushed igloo is stingingly realistic, and cuts to the heart of childhood experience. The creatures (furry yet fearsome) are beautifully realized, courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

Gentlemen Broncos. Another grotesque comedy from Jared and Jerusha Hess, the Mormon auteurs behind the bona fide cult classic Napoleon Dynamite and the less cultish but still bona fide Nacho Libre. Unfairly yanked from theaters after poor early box office and pitiful reviews, it’s a sometimes strained but often inspired lampoon of science fiction nerd culture. (The titles of some of the books provoke chuckles: “Yeast Lords,” “Cyborg Harpies,” “Troll Hole,” etc.) Two supporting actors emerge triumphant: Jemaine Clement, as a pompous fantasy author with Michael York’s sonorous voice; and Jennifer Coolidge, as a harried single mother and aspiring designer of hideous women’s fashions. The poop-and-barf jokes are misjudged and onerous, but the close kinship with marginalized losers betrays sympathy and even wonder. Perhaps only the faithful will dare find value in it. I, alas, am one of them.

The Box. Stone cold sci-fi, beefed up from a slim Richard Matheson story (“Button, Button”), and given the Richard Kelly treatment. In other words: solemn in approach, portentous in mood, ambitious in scope, and finally confusing in whole. What begins as a simple moral test in the style of W.W. Jacobs evolves (or rather devolves, depending on your view) into a cosmic crossing of Jean-Paul Sartre and Arthur C. Clarke. Frank Langella manages a few creepy notes as a shadowy figure with a crater where his left cheek used to be, and Arcade Fire’s husband and wife duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne contribute an offbeat score.

Me and Orson Welles. Richard Linklater in a lighter mood, recreating the conditions under which a pre-Citizen Kane Orson Welles led the Mercury Theatre to triumph in an edgy rendering of Julius Caesar. Zac Efron is the assertive teenager who falls in love with art and Claire Danes, and whose illusions are shattered by the infidelities of theater folk. The ensemble cast is all-around excellent, with an extra round of applause going to Christian McKay who not only approximates Welles’s distinctive elocution, but also his arched brow and creased forehead. His image here as a titanic egotist and serial philanderer is a matter best left to his biographers and close friends.

Review: The Box

Brett McCracken — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:26:51 -0800

I didn’t think The Box looked that great from the trailers. The premise was brilliant but, well, Cameron Diaz was the star…

Alas, The Box is actually quite entertaining and surprisingly thought provoking. It has a great spiritual/philsophical/sci-fi craziness vibe to it (similar to Knowing, which I suggest you rent soon if you haven’t seen it). If you liked Richard Kelly’s earlier films (Donnie Darko and Southland Tales) you will like this one too. Plus Win Butler of The Arcade Fire composed the score! And it’s great.

Here is an excerpt from my CT review of the film. Click here to read the whole thing.

The Box has one of the most intriguing, if deceptively simple, loglines of any movie this year: A normal family in 1976 suburban Virginia minds its own business at home until a strange box appears at the doorstep, along with a strange proposition by a mystery man. The mystery man, Arlington Steward (Frank Langella, fresh off his Oscar-nominated turn as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon), wears tailored suits, has a horrifying face (half of it is missing), and changes the lives of Arthur and Norma Lewis (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) forever.

You see, the box at the doorstep has within it a button. According to Steward, if the Lewis family presses the button, two things will happen: 1) someone in the world who they don’t know will die, and 2) the Lewises will receive $1 million in cash. Arthur and Norma have 24 hours to make the decision. Thus begins a compelling sci-fi melodrama—based upon Richard Matheson’s short story (and 1986 Twilight Zone episode) “Button, Button”—that is full of moral dilemma, high concept philosophizing, pop culture pastiche, and oodles of Sartre references.

Nothing much can be said of the rest of the plot, save that it has something to do with NASA’s Viking Mission to Mars and includes Kelly’s usual cadre of quirky scientists, brooding youngsters, self-reflexive Americana (evinced in framed wall photos of President Ford, bicentennial footage of the World Trade Center towers, etc.), and obscure/outlandish sci-fi theories such as Arthur C. Clarke’s “Third Law”: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Suffice it to say, The Box is out there and full of “like nothing you’ve seen before” imagination. If that sort of messy, unpredictable movie excites you as much as it does me, you’re in for a treat. For those who prefer order and narrative cohesion, The Box will be a bit of a chore to sit through. The film overreaches, to be sure, taking us in enough multifarious directions to make even the most daring postmodern get a touch of vertigo. But if this sort of “all in” commitment to anarchy is the film’s biggest fault, it’s also its biggest asset.