The Grey

February 12, 2012 //
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A scene from The Grey by Open Road Films.

Think Liam Neeson fighting wolves is a good time at the movies? Think again. The Grey is a surprisingly depressing and philosophical survival flick.

John (Liam Neeson) is an oil rig employee in the middle of some remote snow desert. He is alone. It is difficult to imagine him being happy about anything. John and some other rough dudes get themselves on the wrong flight and become stranded in extreme arctic conditions. If that wasn’t bad enough, the local wolves will not be tolerating their new neighbors.

There’s more than one direction to go with this setup. This could be a pretty sweet action movie starring Jason Statham. The trailer featured on the film’s official website gives the impression that this is a fun movie about kicking some wolf ass. No no no.

I can’t call this a bad movie. Neeson’s performance is believable, engaging and controlled. John is a hollowed-out, humble man confident in his professional knowledge and that which he can see and touch. The scenario and its accompanying visuals are engaging. But this is a gloomy ride, and I question the payoff we receive for that burden.

The Grey is a perfectly appropriate title. There’s the gorgeous grey long-shots we’re treated to on occasion. There’s also men on the fringes of survival evaluating what they value (or don’t value) in life, and what waits for them (or doesn’t) in death. It’s all a heavy, uncomfortable run-in with our physical and emotional fragility, unsuccessfully counterweighted by the idea that we can fight to survive a little while longer to enjoy the moments which aren’t soul-crushingly depressing.

I respect The Grey; I just can’t recommend it. I wish it had been the Jason Statham version instead.

****

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Review: The Help

January 24, 2012 //
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The Help poster by Dreamworks Pictures

The Help is centred around the institutionalized racism of 1960s Mississippi. Aibileen (Violet Davis) is an African-American woman working thanklessly as a maid (and unofficial mother) for a white family. There are many others like her. Skeeter (Emma Stone) is a young, white, aspiring writer who chafes against the expectations of her mother and community. They become an unlikely duo striving to give second-class citizens a voice.

Navigating a dominant racism is the root of the film’s setting and events, and the film is worthwhile in that regard. But The Help casts a broader net than that. Celia (Jessica Chastain) is a white socialite cruelly ostracized by the town’s queen bitch and segregation supporter Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). That thread suggests a broader interest in the painful experience of being on the outside looking in. The people who suffer in this film have been reduced to a means to an end. Humans have an ugly tendency to find ways to raise ourselves above others. We’ll take any excuse, including race.

But how bitter would that pill be on its own? Thankfully, this film has a sweet humanity within it that counterbalances that ugliness. The Help never forgets that we can choose to nourish others as well. What better can we do for a person than demonstrate that they’re loved?

Viola Davis is understated and true, and well-complimented by Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sissy Spacek. This is an absorbing film featuring an excellent female-centric cast.

****

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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

January 1, 2012 //
4

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol poster by Paramount Pictures

Ghost Protocol suffers maladies common to its genre:

  • A paper-thin villain who’s more of a prop than anything else. (All we know about him is he’s a wacko.)
  • Goofy computer monitor readouts. (Why is the giant digital tachometer going nuts? Because the turbine’s maxed out!)
  • It involves a nuclear missile.

It’s a series of action sequences garnished with a wee bit of emotional content.

The good news is that those action sequences are, at times, excellent. Ghost Protocol is always on the go, beginning with a nicely-directed Serbian prison break and hardly stopping for breath until all is right in the world. This flick oozes money and style. Our tireless series hero Ethan Hunt drives a priceless BMW concept to a luxurious palace party. That’s after a memorable visit to Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s too bad the producers didn’t allocate some of the massive budget for a story.

Stars Cruise and Renner get about as much out of the material as one could ask, and newly-minted field agent Simon Pegg provides well-earned laughs. The screenwriters deserve credit for injecting the unexpected into otherwise standard-issue Impossible Mission Force scenarios.

At its best Ghost Protocol achieves greatness. But it leaves me unsatisfied, like being at Disneyland with nothing to eat, wishing for a more personal film like J.J. Abrahms’ Mission: Impossible 3.

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Review: A Scanner Darkly

December 4, 2011 //
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Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly"

What a strange and challenging film. It’s Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s novel, depicting drug-addicted weirdness and human disconnect in a police state America.

I assume A Scanner Darkly is best known for its visual format, and deservedly so. A cast including Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder shot the film in a traditional manner, intending to later have their performances traced and painted over, frame by frame, in post-production. The resulting visuals are magnetic, imperfect, and somewhat self-defeating. They’re synthetic while also real; at times they’re off-putting and distracting.

The post-production artists deserve credit for translating human performances into strokes of motion and emotion. But I wonder if the “painterly” (as someone described it in the making of materials) art direction is appropriate for a feature-length flick that’s traditional enough to have just as much reason to focus on the narrative and characters as any other.

I know this movie has something to say about stuff. I just won’t elaborate further; apart from the fact that I don’t know what it’s saying, all that really sticks with me is how it looks.

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“You didn’t prepare me for this.” [Review: Hanna]

September 26, 2011 //
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Poster for the film Hanna, copyright Focus Pictures.

A few reasons why you need to see Joe Wright’s new thriller Hanna:

  • Lead actress Saoirse Ronan delivers an engrossing, sophisticated and career-defining performance as teenage assassin Hanna. Supporting actress Cate Blanchett is perfectly cast and memorable.
  • Beautiful settings and photography are accompanied by a soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers.
  • This is an art film that people who don’t like art films would want to see. It’s absorbing, exciting and easy to watch, while pleasantly unconventional.

The less you know about this film before watching it, the better. So if action-thrillers are your idea of a good time, sneak over to your video store and take a stab at Hanna.

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Contagiously good, or will it make you sick? [Review: Contagion]

September 18, 2011 //
2

Official poster for Contagion

People are dying from a previously unseen virus which is spreading at an alarming rate. Steven Soderbergh directs a hefty cast including Lawrence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Gweneth Paltrow in Contagion, a thriller where it’s up to some good folks in lab coats to save not only countless lives but society itself.

There’s a lot going on in this film, similar to Soderbergh’s earlier Traffic. There’s too many human threads to follow to invest heavily in any one of them. Uniformly fine acting is on display; it’s just that we don’t get to know the characters well enough to fully engage in their stories. I still remember a specific character from Traffic desperately searching for a child unlikely to be found. Contagion is not without it’s own soulful moments. But this is a film less about the micro and more the macro; while this prodigious virus ravages individuals at the cellular level, it’s eating away at society as a whole.

Contagion is interested in the trauma of epidemics. Like disease, not everyone responds to a societal threat in the same way. Some of us trample others to enhance our fortunes, maybe in a mindless rush to get the last scrap of food, or maybe in a calculated effort to profit on the fear and brokenness of others. But there are always those who help themselves last. That is the the warm, bittersweet centre of Contagion, found beneath layers of anxiety, destruction, and human ugliness. Even when it’s hard to find, there’s altruism in us that’s never fully extinguished. As a group we form our emotional immune response to trauma. There is fear, hurt, rage, loss and vulnerability. But somehow, given enough time, we lick our wounds and move on.

Contagion is well worth a theatre ticket for its stylish presentation, creepy (and excellent) soundtrack, engaging story and on-target performances. Just don’t forget to wash your hands after exiting the theatre.

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Review: Boyz N The Hood

September 14, 2011 //
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Boyz In The Hood poster

Then upstart John Singleton wrote and directed 1991′s Boyz N The Hood, a film about broken homes, broken neighborhoods, and broken people, and the chaos, violence, and hatred those things spew out. Perhaps more importantly, it’s about the value of leadership and the consequences of the choices we all make.

The cast is solid. Ice Cube’s performance as drug dealer Doughboy is memorable and authentic. Lawrence Fishburne (who is professionally awesome) plays father and role model to a very young Cuba Gooding Jr. He demonstrates what a gift wisdom can be in someone else’s life, perhaps especially coming from a loving parent. But we are reminded that there comes a point when the recipient of the wisdom chooses to follow it or submit themselves to baser impulses.

Much of Boyz feels old hat. It’s not the film’s fault; it’s all of the stuff that came after it that I’ve already digested, even peripherally. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas clearly attempts to recreate the setting of Boyz, and it does it well.

And here’s the thing: I’m a white Canadian guy from a very white suburbia. I don’t know shit about South Central, about urban decay or gang warfare. And I don’t know anything about being black either. From my 2011 perspective the film is preachy. But I do believe Boyz is coming from a tangible time and place, and saying something important about it. Ending with the slogan, “Increase the Peace,” Boyz intends to reach youth susceptible to fates similar to those depicted in the film. And it probably did.

Worth a view for its historical and geographical significance alone.

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Review: Kimjongilia

September 3, 2011 //
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Painting from the film Kimjongilia.

A demilitarized zone separates the thriving South Korea from its nearly 60 year war with its neighbors, North Korea. Kimjongilia tells the story of the latter.

There’s the story of the founding of the state, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, by the Japanese resistance fighter turned communist dictator Kim Il-Sung. Kim Il-Sung deified himself in a manner I’d like to compare to L. Ron Hubbard, only far more sickening in scale.

There’s the story of how Kim’s communist DPRK became a massive failure, unable to feed its own people or precious army in spite of their crowing about “Juche” (self-reliance), and how starvation continues to this day under the helm of Kim’s heir Kim Jong-Il.

There’s the story of the DPRK’s psychotic policy of complete isolation and control of its people, where simply tuning in to a South Korean radio station is reason enough to send someone to a concentration camp. In the DPRK you can end up in one for no reason at all.

Kimjongilia educated me on those events. But its story and soul is the lives of ordinary North Koreans who have lived through torture and forced labour in DPRK concentration camps, starvation, public execution of family, and daring escapes to China, South Korea and Mongolia. The evil that has touched their lives is baffling and heartbreaking. The worst that humanity has to offer is on display, and it’s not just our history; it is also our present.

So it’s because of this context that I find it difficult and uncomfortable to critique Kimjongilia as I would other films. The presentation is unorthodox (the director says as much herself on the film’s web site). Interview footage is interwoven with North Korean propoganda and interpretive dance. It can feel unpolished, apparently the effort of a passionate but inexperienced filmmaker. I’ll leave it at that because I don’t really care. Kimjongilia works because of what it does well. It provides sufficient background information on the founding of the Koreas and the policies and leadership of the DPRK. Thus we know all we need to know in order to listen to the testimony of people who have lived through hell. As tough as that is I think it left me better off as a result.

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