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Centurion (2010, Neil Marshall) [61]
Centurion, along with the following year's Season of the Witch - the return of the B-movie? I don't think I'll ever be on board with Marshall's brand of relentless violence, but narrative-wise I see where he's going. Michael Fassbender plays a soldier during the period where the Roman empire was expanding into Britain and fighting the Picts. He is stationed near the frontier and his outpost is attacked by the Picts, who slaughter everyone but keep him alive to pump him for information. Rome sends in the 9th legion to address the issue, and Fassbender meets up with them after escaping. Not long after they are ambushed by the Picts and lose almost all of their men, including the general. The remaining troops band together and head north to rescue the general. They fail, but kill several Picts during their sneak attack, including their leader's son. Angered, the leader sends a skilled band of Picts to track the remnants of the legion and bring back their heads. During the chase, both sides suffer casualties, and there is a point where the three remaining legionnaires hide in the custody of a Pict witch, played by Imogen Heap. Accused of witchcraft, the Picts physically scarred her face to mark her as such before banishing her. Though most of the tracking / chase scenes aren't terribly useful or captivating, this is an important parallel the film re-addresses later.
The three men return to the outpost only to find that in their absence, Roman leaders issued orders for the other legions to withdraw behind Hadrian's Wall. The band of Picts corner them in the outpost and attack. Fassbender and another man survive, losing only one while slaying the Pict huntress Etain and her cohorts. In a clumsy scene, the other man dies when Fassbender returns to the Roman camp, shot by soldiers because he is not wearing the armor that identifies his nationality; the metaphor of this scene is that Rome is an empire in decline because they no longer recognize humans as individuals, but only as members of a nationality. The Roman leaders welcome Fassbender home as a hero, but secretly plot to have him killed in order to conceal the truth about their unsuccessful venture into northern Britain. Fassbender survives the assassination attempt and leaves in exile, to rejoin the witch.
The subtext here addresses politics, both national and individual. Roman leaders condemn Fassbender because the empire has expanded far and wide, but they fear uprising if word of their failed conquest reaches the new territories. Their decision is counter-intuitive because countries are intangible entities - aggregates of the actions and values of their citizens - that expand when individual prosperity is widespread. Yet here it is the sacrifice of the individual that is fueling Rome's conquest. It is fitting that Fassbender returns to the witch because they are both people whose lives their countries deemed insignificant. The fate of the Roman empire is no secret; this union formed by Fassbender and the witch during the dénouement of Centurion is gesture - a small-scale look at the process by which great nations fall and humans create new ones in their place.
Bitch Slap (2010, Rick Jacobson) [11]
On one hand Bitch Slap is a tale of post-feminism, where three women double cross one another during a diamond heist. One is manly and aggressive while another is feminine and diplomatic, while another is a hybrid. The feminine one plays possum but we learn at the end she's actually the ringleader, influencing the others. (Cue quote from Sun Tzu about using deception during war.) Thus, the eponymous bitch slap is directed at society where women struggle to emulate brute-force male power at the expense of female power - manipulation. Hence the gratuitous fan service - literally a way of putting women back to earlier times, as traditional female wisdom would not fight tooth-and-nail against objectification, but rather see it as one of many weapons in their arsenal of subterfuge. And then on the other hand, Bitch Slap is a complete travesty - a journey following three undeveloped characters - sets of ass-tits-face who arbitrarily operate within a very vague ring of organized crime, navigate a million asinine plot twists involving a bunch of irrelevant sideshow freaks (to think, I had almost forgotten the Tourettes fad), topped off by sloppy CGI and lame off-off-off-Hollywood dialogue. Not a hard choice, but - your move Yugi.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Get That Kid Off My Ice You Little Wankers!
Youth in Revolt (2010)
Rating ... C- (32)
What happens when you try to bridge the chasm between Hollywood and indie quirk? If Youth is any indication, you fall in. Michael Cera plays a frustrated chump in high school who bemoans his inability to get laid. He doesn't understand female behavior nor does he exhibit any desire to educate himself ... but at least he's really bitter about it!
The first part of the film is meant to demonstrate that Cera is packing all the wrong moves. He tries to hit on a girl in his class who's visiting a video rental store with her boyfriend. Her shield incapacitates him in a single line and all he can do is flaunt his hipster cred by bashing her broad tastes and asserting his Fellini pedigree. He needs a big push from the writer, which he receives when his white trash mom and her law-breaking boyfriend skip town. The whole family heads north and upon arrival a brazen young woman forces herself into his presence, causing him to become even more flustered than usual. Cera stumbles over his own words because he's timid and inarticulate. He fails the "I have a boyfriend" test with flying colors and makes up a clearly specious story about his own foreign, glamour model girlfriend in return because he's thin-skinned and bitter about her rejection. Thanks to navel-gazing the conversation improbably turns to film again and he describes a Tokyo Story as a favorite, claiming it was directed by Mizoguchi before she corrects him with Ozu. He swiftly changes the subject because it's difficult to talk about film when one's interest in the subject is not genuine, but rather stems from a desire to appear intellectual and possessing of good taste. (More proof of hipster - the girl recites Cera some sort of odd poetry written by her boyfriend. The content is inscrutable, but whereas an interested person would ask "what does it mean?" he simply muses "Oh... that's a poem...") Sadly, the worst offense may be revealed in a profile shot of the two in a restaurant booth that unintentionally shows that her upper arms actually have more muscle than his.
Despite all of this, the girl is attracted to Cera, and her innuendo is unmistakable. He scrambles to comply with her request to apply sunscreen as if to show off his desperation. Nevertheless, their cringe-worthy fling comes to an end and he pleads for its continuation. Cera hatches plans that will enable him to stay: she must find a job for his father, then he can move in with his father if he annoys his mother enough - hence the title. Cera arrives home thoroughly enamored, an obedient puppy dog to his new goddess-on-high girlfriend - an idea made literal by the pet dog the two acquire just before parting. At this point Cera develops an alpha alter ego to get all the revolting done.
From here the film becomes conventional. Cera occupies the male role of "go to absurd lengths to be even the least bit worthy of worshipping the ground she walks on." It is noteworthy that much of Cera's success stems from the guidance of his alpha ego. This conceit is far and away the most interesting aspect of Youth but the director allows interaction between both Ceras to become diluted with irrelevant, unfunny sideshow attractions including the girl's religious parents and pothead brother, Cera's immigrant-housing neighbor, Cera's even-more-beta best friend, and his rather nondescript father played by Steve Buscemi. It is difficult to tell how Cera's personality changes as a result of the competition between his alpha and beta selves. At the end Cera declares that it turns out to get the girl "being [myself] was good enough" - it's a proverbial trope but, despite being uttered in voiceover, it is clearly not what took place. A film about personality change that can't set forth simple before and after, Youth in Revolt instead marries indie-stutter dialogue with to the Hollywood template of men groveling at women's feet. The desperate and needy Cera pulls out all the stops and travels the country to win over a girl with options; too bad in reality, it just makes you look desperate and needy.
Rating ... C- (32)
What happens when you try to bridge the chasm between Hollywood and indie quirk? If Youth is any indication, you fall in. Michael Cera plays a frustrated chump in high school who bemoans his inability to get laid. He doesn't understand female behavior nor does he exhibit any desire to educate himself ... but at least he's really bitter about it!
The first part of the film is meant to demonstrate that Cera is packing all the wrong moves. He tries to hit on a girl in his class who's visiting a video rental store with her boyfriend. Her shield incapacitates him in a single line and all he can do is flaunt his hipster cred by bashing her broad tastes and asserting his Fellini pedigree. He needs a big push from the writer, which he receives when his white trash mom and her law-breaking boyfriend skip town. The whole family heads north and upon arrival a brazen young woman forces herself into his presence, causing him to become even more flustered than usual. Cera stumbles over his own words because he's timid and inarticulate. He fails the "I have a boyfriend" test with flying colors and makes up a clearly specious story about his own foreign, glamour model girlfriend in return because he's thin-skinned and bitter about her rejection. Thanks to navel-gazing the conversation improbably turns to film again and he describes a Tokyo Story as a favorite, claiming it was directed by Mizoguchi before she corrects him with Ozu. He swiftly changes the subject because it's difficult to talk about film when one's interest in the subject is not genuine, but rather stems from a desire to appear intellectual and possessing of good taste. (More proof of hipster - the girl recites Cera some sort of odd poetry written by her boyfriend. The content is inscrutable, but whereas an interested person would ask "what does it mean?" he simply muses "Oh... that's a poem...") Sadly, the worst offense may be revealed in a profile shot of the two in a restaurant booth that unintentionally shows that her upper arms actually have more muscle than his.
Despite all of this, the girl is attracted to Cera, and her innuendo is unmistakable. He scrambles to comply with her request to apply sunscreen as if to show off his desperation. Nevertheless, their cringe-worthy fling comes to an end and he pleads for its continuation. Cera hatches plans that will enable him to stay: she must find a job for his father, then he can move in with his father if he annoys his mother enough - hence the title. Cera arrives home thoroughly enamored, an obedient puppy dog to his new goddess-on-high girlfriend - an idea made literal by the pet dog the two acquire just before parting. At this point Cera develops an alpha alter ego to get all the revolting done.
From here the film becomes conventional. Cera occupies the male role of "go to absurd lengths to be even the least bit worthy of worshipping the ground she walks on." It is noteworthy that much of Cera's success stems from the guidance of his alpha ego. This conceit is far and away the most interesting aspect of Youth but the director allows interaction between both Ceras to become diluted with irrelevant, unfunny sideshow attractions including the girl's religious parents and pothead brother, Cera's immigrant-housing neighbor, Cera's even-more-beta best friend, and his rather nondescript father played by Steve Buscemi. It is difficult to tell how Cera's personality changes as a result of the competition between his alpha and beta selves. At the end Cera declares that it turns out to get the girl "being [myself] was good enough" - it's a proverbial trope but, despite being uttered in voiceover, it is clearly not what took place. A film about personality change that can't set forth simple before and after, Youth in Revolt instead marries indie-stutter dialogue with to the Hollywood template of men groveling at women's feet. The desperate and needy Cera pulls out all the stops and travels the country to win over a girl with options; too bad in reality, it just makes you look desperate and needy.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Walkaback
Leap Year (2010)
Rating ... D (14)
Has anyone been keeping count? By my tally the score stands at Nature: 12,401 - Civilization: 0. Amy Adams plays a yuppie furniture-pusher hellbent for Ireland so she can propose to her workaholic beau on February 29th for tradition's sake, but she's thwarted by a thunderstorm and diverted to Wales. She's in a time crunch because modern conveniences fail to get the job done (ultimately they're outed as soulless, unnecessary contraptions), but she gets her Important Lesson along the way. It's in the form of a nature travelogue - complete with sightseeing beautiful old castles and gleaning the lowdown on local folklore. She's a decorator who provides temporary furnishing to homes and apartments being sold - glamorizing modernness for the sake of sales, basically - but there's seemingly no limit to Leap Year's vitriol for contemporary lifestyle. How many shots of stiletto shoes sinking into mud, designer clothing being soiled, and high-tech devices failing do we need to get the message? She hooks up with a rugged, country man who's just ornery enough for us to doubt Ms. Adams would swap out her affluent doctor for the real deal. An hour later of course, we're hoodwinked; her old boyfriend is no longer mild-mannered and hesitant but materialistic and a hifalutin' socialite - easy justification for dumping his ass and hitching up with the guy who fits the agenda. The rationale? "I had everything I wanted, but nothing I really needed!" If you can still see the screen through the projectile vomit, cue ending shot of the rolling hills of Wales. Can all these back-to-nature movies please open with this song (1:34) for convenience's sake? I could use one good laugh during 90 minutes, thank you.
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Rating ... D (14)
Has anyone been keeping count? By my tally the score stands at Nature: 12,401 - Civilization: 0. Amy Adams plays a yuppie furniture-pusher hellbent for Ireland so she can propose to her workaholic beau on February 29th for tradition's sake, but she's thwarted by a thunderstorm and diverted to Wales. She's in a time crunch because modern conveniences fail to get the job done (ultimately they're outed as soulless, unnecessary contraptions), but she gets her Important Lesson along the way. It's in the form of a nature travelogue - complete with sightseeing beautiful old castles and gleaning the lowdown on local folklore. She's a decorator who provides temporary furnishing to homes and apartments being sold - glamorizing modernness for the sake of sales, basically - but there's seemingly no limit to Leap Year's vitriol for contemporary lifestyle. How many shots of stiletto shoes sinking into mud, designer clothing being soiled, and high-tech devices failing do we need to get the message? She hooks up with a rugged, country man who's just ornery enough for us to doubt Ms. Adams would swap out her affluent doctor for the real deal. An hour later of course, we're hoodwinked; her old boyfriend is no longer mild-mannered and hesitant but materialistic and a hifalutin' socialite - easy justification for dumping his ass and hitching up with the guy who fits the agenda. The rationale? "I had everything I wanted, but nothing I really needed!" If you can still see the screen through the projectile vomit, cue ending shot of the rolling hills of Wales. Can all these back-to-nature movies please open with this song (1:34) for convenience's sake? I could use one good laugh during 90 minutes, thank you.
-
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Not a Sports Page, Not a Magazine
The Book of Eli (2010)
Rating ... C+ (50)
Nine years after their last film From Hell the Hughes brothers rejoin the fold with another markedly average endeavor. Ordinary is the new brilliant for them, or at least it sure seems that way by contrast; the merits of seeing The Book of Eli are more or less equivalent to the relief of seeing Not Menace II Society.
For a post-apocalyptic tale of individual salvation, The Book of Eli has some awfully ostentatious instincts. Denzel's numerous altercations with cannibalistic riffraff are tiresome; the silhouetted showdowns essentially just reaffirm his status as an insurmountable badass stoic. Moreover they come saddled with the Karate Kid mentality - "I don't wish to fight you, I'm above all that. Oh, no choice? Turns out I'm also an incredible warrior, specializing in machetes, bows, pistols, and having my cake and eating it too." (Pretty good shot for a SPOILER guy.) There's also a cheesy, single-take, check-THIS-shot when Oldham sieges the party from outside a house, resurrected from Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso handling of Children of Men, as though one giant, unblinking eye was roving the battlefield, capturing the action.
Nevertheless, the film's meandering story offers returns. Yes, Eli carries around the world's only remaining copy of the King James Bible amidst amoral ruination, and the movie initially hints he should be some sort of guiding light, despite how he is largely just condescending to those he encounters, reprimanding them for their abject depravity ("we humans didn't realize what was precious!") and unworthiness of learning the book's lessons. Fortunately, the holier-than-thou angle proves to be a red herring; Eli's basically a messiah but his deliverance is a result of persistence in preserving culture and bequeathing wisdom to subsequent generations, here represented by Mila Kunis's character. She makes the same decision during the dénouement, abandoning the enlightened, printing press-equipped society on Alcatraz in the hopes of improving her less refined hometown. Both are exalted for leaving civilization better off than when they joined. Take it or leave it, but it's more than can be said for Menace II Society.
Rating ... C+ (50)
Nine years after their last film From Hell the Hughes brothers rejoin the fold with another markedly average endeavor. Ordinary is the new brilliant for them, or at least it sure seems that way by contrast; the merits of seeing The Book of Eli are more or less equivalent to the relief of seeing Not Menace II Society.
For a post-apocalyptic tale of individual salvation, The Book of Eli has some awfully ostentatious instincts. Denzel's numerous altercations with cannibalistic riffraff are tiresome; the silhouetted showdowns essentially just reaffirm his status as an insurmountable badass stoic. Moreover they come saddled with the Karate Kid mentality - "I don't wish to fight you, I'm above all that. Oh, no choice? Turns out I'm also an incredible warrior, specializing in machetes, bows, pistols, and having my cake and eating it too." (Pretty good shot for a SPOILER guy.) There's also a cheesy, single-take, check-THIS-shot when Oldham sieges the party from outside a house, resurrected from Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso handling of Children of Men, as though one giant, unblinking eye was roving the battlefield, capturing the action.
Nevertheless, the film's meandering story offers returns. Yes, Eli carries around the world's only remaining copy of the King James Bible amidst amoral ruination, and the movie initially hints he should be some sort of guiding light, despite how he is largely just condescending to those he encounters, reprimanding them for their abject depravity ("we humans didn't realize what was precious!") and unworthiness of learning the book's lessons. Fortunately, the holier-than-thou angle proves to be a red herring; Eli's basically a messiah but his deliverance is a result of persistence in preserving culture and bequeathing wisdom to subsequent generations, here represented by Mila Kunis's character. She makes the same decision during the dénouement, abandoning the enlightened, printing press-equipped society on Alcatraz in the hopes of improving her less refined hometown. Both are exalted for leaving civilization better off than when they joined. Take it or leave it, but it's more than can be said for Menace II Society.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Short People Got ... No Reason To Live!
Grown Ups (2010)
Rating ... D (10)
Old people, short people, fat people, black people. Farts, butts, warts, splats. It sounds like Dr. Seuss but it's actually what passes for adult humor in Grown Ups, the latest Adam Sandler yuk-fest and casual nexus for SNL graduates. Humor by derision and ad-lib dissing are the film's building blocks, rather than story and characters; put another way, I don't exaggerate when I say Grown Ups nears striking distance of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell for ratio of unfunny burns to actual dialogue.
I am not averse to aimless, plotless films but Grown Ups monopolizes its free time to play celebrity coffee shop. Dramatic conflict is replaced by digs at easy targets rather than subversive social commentary while the film's casual spousal and filial relationships are renewed by too-pat, hackneyed sentiment. Sandler patches things with Salma Hayek when he vows to stop the lies while the buddies bond heartier when they ultimately stop feigning wealth and status. In other words, a nauseating justification of rampant male gaze via a "look but don't touch" philosophy of marriage and counterpart female gaze is literally the most interesting idea in Grown Ups.
The film's blunt subtext doesn't help. Grown Ups blindly lambasts youth culture for its reliance on modern conveniences, dainty breed of males, and laughably typecasts video games as mindless kill-fests. (To be fair, the fake game on display most closely resembles Grand Theft Auto, so when it comes to specific targets they hit the nail on the head.) Piling on condescension, Grown Ups slams high society luxuriance in favor of down-home simplicity... which it also slams by stereotyping Colin Quinn and his inbred, braindead posse. They're unable to forget a junior league basketball championship loss from three decades prior, and Sandler throws the resulting grudge match to demonstrate his grace towards those in arrested development. It's spreading the wealth Hollywood-style, and it's as repulsive as ever.
Rating ... D (10)
Old people, short people, fat people, black people. Farts, butts, warts, splats. It sounds like Dr. Seuss but it's actually what passes for adult humor in Grown Ups, the latest Adam Sandler yuk-fest and casual nexus for SNL graduates. Humor by derision and ad-lib dissing are the film's building blocks, rather than story and characters; put another way, I don't exaggerate when I say Grown Ups nears striking distance of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell for ratio of unfunny burns to actual dialogue.
I am not averse to aimless, plotless films but Grown Ups monopolizes its free time to play celebrity coffee shop. Dramatic conflict is replaced by digs at easy targets rather than subversive social commentary while the film's casual spousal and filial relationships are renewed by too-pat, hackneyed sentiment. Sandler patches things with Salma Hayek when he vows to stop the lies while the buddies bond heartier when they ultimately stop feigning wealth and status. In other words, a nauseating justification of rampant male gaze via a "look but don't touch" philosophy of marriage and counterpart female gaze is literally the most interesting idea in Grown Ups.
The film's blunt subtext doesn't help. Grown Ups blindly lambasts youth culture for its reliance on modern conveniences, dainty breed of males, and laughably typecasts video games as mindless kill-fests. (To be fair, the fake game on display most closely resembles Grand Theft Auto, so when it comes to specific targets they hit the nail on the head.) Piling on condescension, Grown Ups slams high society luxuriance in favor of down-home simplicity... which it also slams by stereotyping Colin Quinn and his inbred, braindead posse. They're unable to forget a junior league basketball championship loss from three decades prior, and Sandler throws the resulting grudge match to demonstrate his grace towards those in arrested development. It's spreading the wealth Hollywood-style, and it's as repulsive as ever.
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