2009 – Page 2 – Late to the Theater

UP!: A Movie for People Who Truly Hate People

If a person can view the first 12 minutes of Up without feeling anything, without feeling at least a smidgen of the pain of Carl and Ellie’s ups and downs and ultimately Carl’s heartbreak over losing her, that person is probably a great candidate for forced sterilization.

Who doesn't love balloons? — I am cheered by this image. Aren't you?

Up! is a movie that is impossible to hate. It’s also a movie that is impossible to be apathetic about.

Not that I think reproduction is a privilege rather than an inalienable right, but rather what child would want to grow up in such a joyless and apathetic environment? Even the most misanthropic bastard will be sniffling by the time Ellie and Carl are sitting in the doctor’s office, finding out they can’t have children.

That said, UP! is strange for being ostensibly a children’s movie. The sort of wacky children’s stuff doesn’t begin until almost a half-hour in, and there was talk at the time of its release how Disney was not heavily pushing the merchandise like they did for other Pixar films. Which is sort of understandable, if disappointing. I’m a huge fan of ‘children’s’ movies that entertain on multiple levels (ask anyone who knows me about my ‘Babe’ fixation) and so Up! couldn’t have been more perfect if Thor had descended from on high in his goat-driven chariot and handed the movie to me gift-wrapped. It’s a strange, meandering journey with a little old man as the protagonist, and it was a huge gamble as to whether children would enjoy it or not.

By and large, I think they did. Certainly in the theater I was in the children laughed when appropriate, were quiet during the somber portions, shouted in excitement during the scary parts, and did ask questions during the introductory vignette but that’s something to be expected in a crowded theater of a children’s movie. To be honest I kind of like that sort of thing in children’s movies, since I have none of my own and I enjoy peoplewatching. I also think that entertainment which causes discussion, no matter what level, only adds to the enjoyment. I don’t want to hear long discussion in the theater, but I do like to hear a parent explain something rather than just ignore or shush their child. The most popular entertainment of the last decade arguably has been entertainment that evokes discussion–HBO and Showtime series, LOST, or movies where people leave the theater talking about what happened.

Up! and its story of an old man, a young boy, another old man and his army of electronically-enhanced dogs and a giant bird with incredibly festive plumage has something for everyone–is it the perfect movie? Far from it–there are long moments of inaction, lots of dialogue, and a great deal of character-based conflict. It is after all a character piece about an antisocial old man coming to terms with the loss of his best friend, and attempting to carry out the last wish of the only person he ever really cared about. Then there’s Russell, a small round boy of Asian descent going to heroic lengths for the chance that his absentee father will pay him little attention–his mildly irritating presence provides one of the big plot complicators for Carl as he goes about fulfilling Ellie’s last wish.

Pixar has yet to make a disappointing film. I hope a day never comes where I leave the theater after a Pixar film feeling unfulfilled.

Ink

INK is the kind of film that gives critics and viewers hope that films have not completley become monetized, that there is still room for creativity, for risk. It’s undoubtedly a strange film, and there are some slow parts, and sometimes the acting (particularly of Storyteller Liev) meanders into extreme melodrama, but it’s also a breath of fresh air for anyone worn out by modern cliches and lackluster filmmaking.

INK is the sort of fantasy movie that you would think isn’t being made anymore. The only fantasies being made are the ones with with someone famous attached, like Neil Gaiman or Terry Gilliam, and with a watered down story that has usually defanged the source material. Now that’s certainly changed in the last two years or so, but the vast majority of fantasy films are based on books or graphic novels with an established fan base. If it’s Neil Gaiman or Terry Gilliam, there’s a good chance of it being made.

Ink is a wonderful anomaly to that pattern, since the movie was made on a budget equal to a four-bedroom house, by a group of no-name filmmakers. The film was never even sold to a major studio–instead, the intrepid Winans went straight to DVD and Blu-Ray distributers, and the film was reportedly downloaded over 400,000 times from BitTorrent. Now the film is selling like gangbusters, and stands as a marvelous example of moving outside the studio system.

The story is resonant of the aforementioned Gilliam’s Brazil, and the entire body of Gaiman’s work. The importance of Dreams, and the high cost of allowing one’s nightmares to become one’s motivation in life are explored here. The action focuses on a young girl and her itinerant father, and on a quest between a group of people who give dreams and their battle with the Incubi, who give nightmares.

Its rare for something in a film to creep me out these days, especially a Hollywood piece. There’s just too much money at stake, think the execs, to take a real risk and show something truly frightening or unsettling, which i’m pretty sure is what led to the popularity of foreign horror and other genre films–the chance of actually seeing something NEW. I still haven’t seen Paranormal Activity, but I attribute its success to the fact that it was an underground, indie-made film. INK, another independent film, delivers on that, while still trodding ground familiar to anyone who’s studied Jungian archetypes or read fiction concerned with dreams. The Incubi, a group of rubber-clad creatures with smiling screens for faces and who serve as the film’s main villains, are suitably disturbing and owe much to Brazil’s steampunk, anachro-tech look, albeit updated with an 80’s flair.

The story centers on a man, John, who has fought and clawed his way to the top of the corporate ladder, WallStreet-style, and in the journey lost much that was precious to him. Part of the charm of the film is in the delicate unfolding of the story, so I won’t ruin it; suffice to say that much of the film is concerned with him learning a lesson, but that trite description doesn’t do the film justice.

Some very realistic fight scenes give the film necessary thrills, and though the characterizations of the good guys trying to rescue a little girl is heavily influenced by the Matrix, they remain interesting enough to become more than just a pale comparison. Jacob the Pathfinder is particularly memorable, and though his acting is a little uneven and sometimes seems amateurish, it’s a refreshing change from the robotically poised constructs ambling across screens in many of this summer’s blockbusters. I look forward to the day that the Sam Worthington Acting Unit’s servos break down and the whole thing is shipped back to the factory, and when the Megan Fox RealDoll becomes too stained and stretched out to be filmable in anything but Jhorror rebirthing scenes. I’m sure Takashi Miike is counting the days.

INK is the kind of film that gives critics and viewers hope that films have not completely become monetized, that there is still room for creativity, for risk. It’s undoubtedly a strange film, and there are some slow parts, and sometimes the acting (particularly of Storyteller Liev) meanders into extreme melodrama, but it’s also a breath of fresh air for anyone worn out by modern cliches and lackluster filmmaking. Given half a chance, the movie delivers on its promise of reawakening hope and the joy of a pleasant dream. Which is not to say that the film isn’t suitably dark–there’s a reason it has an R rating after all, but its the kind of dark that is earned, instead of just filmed in back alleys and shitty abandoned hospitals.

The film is available for viewing on Hulu and on Netflix’s Instant Watch feature, and I highly recommend it. It washed the bad taste left by Prince of Persia right out of my mouth.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Many people will watch the film and treat it as a huge joke; a drug-frenzied romp in the tradition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which the ends justify the means and the hero overcame all odds, including his crippling addiction and gambling habit. There’s a certain charm in laughing at the character after all, but for me it was more like whistling past the graveyard. We laugh at things for different reasons–sometimes it’s because something frightens us or makes us uncomfortable, and that could certainly be applicable here.

In another universe or dimension, Werner Herzog’s remake would have made a truly amazing horror film; in certain communities, I would hazard, the unfolding events are more terrifying than any vampire, alien or zombie.

Think about it: An unhinged, drug-addled cop with a gambling problem and a predilection for shaking down citizens for drugs, who steals from the evidence locker, terrorizes the powerless and ignores rules he doesn’t like. This character is essentially a boogieman of the ghetto, a story the disenfranchised and economically/racially oppressed tell their children to keep them from a life of crime. ‘Drop out of school, or steal a car, and Officer McDonaugh will get you!’

In one scene, McDonaugh shows up at someone’s house (I honestly don’t remember the context) and proceeds to smoke weed in the man’s bedroom with uniformed officers waiting outside. The former rambles a terrifying and unhinged theory on life, the universe and everything after sending out the other officers so he can ‘be alone’ with the frightened suspect, even offering him a hit. The fellow is being coerced into giving up information, with the veiled threat that McDonaugh will plant the very weed he’s smoking on the man once he’s being arrested.

This plays into the general populace’s ambivalence about The Thin Blue Line: we all want to believe in Office Friendly, but movies and TV have convinced us that at their worst cops are a sadistic brotherhood who viciously protect their own, and at their best are brave men and women who secretly daydream about vigilantism after years of witnessing horror.

Perhaps that is the entire reason the film (ostensibly a remake except for the fact that Herzog insists it isn’t) is set in New Orleans, a city whose pre-Katrina police force was legendary for being the most corrupt in the United States. McDonaugh’s actions certainly have consequences, and the descending steps of his downward spiral are less news to his peers and colleagues than cuneiform. But we aren’t interested in seeing him punished for his misdeeds; after all, it’s more than clear the character’s life is punishment enough.

Nicholas Cage’s performance has been widely discussed and praised; indeed, the story and other characters take a backseat to McDonaugh’s unraveling, and really aren’t missed. In one scene, a slowly closing door reveals him lying in wait for an old woman and her nurse in order to interrogate them. His eyes are wide and unblinking, his clothes and hair disheveled as he hasn’t showered, slept or eaten in days. As he menaces them from behind the door, struggling not to let the effects of the heroin he accidentally snorted get to him, while running an electric shaver over his face. Never has an act of self-maintenance seemed so menacing, so cold, and so hilarious at the same time.

Upon my viewing I found a monster much more terrifying than any of the paltry CG threats crowding the big screen these days. Dirty cops rank somewhere above ghosts and below flesh-eating bacteria on my ‘Nightmares’ hierarchy.