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My Bloody Valentine 3D
By Scott Mendelson
For all the hub-bub about how 3D will save the theatrical experience, it can only do so much to enhance the package that it amplifies. Movies like Meet the Robinsons or Beowulf used the 3D gimmick to immerse audiences in a world that is already well worth visiting. Lesser films such as Superman Returns attempted to disguise the hollowness of its action set-pieces but only ended up magnifying their flaws and dramatic irrelevance. If a movie like My Bloody Valentine plays like a dime-store slasher picture, then adding 3D to the proceedings will only make it look like a 3D dime-store slasher picture.
Some plot - A loose remake of the 1981 George Mihalka cult film, this update still concerns the sleepy town of Harmony that is shadowed by terrible events from long ago. In the Hanniger Mine, an accident claimed five lives and turned the lone survivor into a perfect example of the classic hypothetical Speluncean Explorers legal debate (think 'Custom of the Seas'). Having no desire to become Supreme Court precedent, survivor Harry Warden immediately escapes from the hospital to conduct a legally unambiguous killing spree that claims 22 lives. Ten years later, the town is still recovering when the return of Tom Hanniger, the young man who caused said accident years before, stirs up bad memories and bitter feelings. Right on cue the gruesome carnage begins anew, casting suspicion on an allegedly deceased Harry Warden, as well as the many other local citizens with motive and opportunity to paint the town blood-red.
When playing in the genre of 'closed room mystery', there are two ironclad rules. First of all, the eventual killer or killers must be someone that the audience is familiar with and someone that an audience member could theoretically suspect at some point in the film. Second of all, we must be able to trust our eyes. Everything that happens onscreen must be accepted as the truth as we saw it occur. My Bloody Valentine is a film that doesn't play fair and in terms of character development and story structure, it out and out cheats. Key character beats occur off screen, major developments are mentioned merely in passing, and there are at least a few moments where director Patrick Lussier out and out lies to his audience concerning explicitly onscreen events. That these occurrences are doled out evenly enough to not favor one suspect over another is irrelevant. The only way to solve this mystery is to flip a coin and hope it comes up heads.
What you say? No one cares about the story, characters, or acting? They just came to see 3D slasher killings and R-rated blood and gore? Well, fair enough, except after an incredibly violent and gruesome initial ten to fifteen minutes, the film settles down into a stock template of one killing every ten minutes or so. In the downtime, we get the usual melodrama that fills these kinds of films- infidelities, town elders hiding dark secrets, red herrings, and errant suspicions. And if you're going to make the audience care about the mystery at the film's core, you'd best play fair with said audience. For a film that seems to hold no regard for human life and encourages the audience to laugh and mock the onscreen carnage (which isn't in itself a criticism), it sure spends a lot of time in the realm of human interest.
And that's a shame, because the 3D effects are completely immersive and utterly impressive. Gore hounds will have a field day with the blood and guts on three-dimensional display, but they will surely tire of the overly repetitious killings. Unlike the original film, or even most slasher films, nearly every single murder in this film is done by the same pick-axe of doom. The 3D effects occasionally succeed in spicing up the routine murders (an eye-ball flying at the screen went over like gangbusters), but the majority of the violence is basically of the chase and hack variety. The film is quite violent and gruesome, but it is rarely if ever truly scary.
In the end, My Bloody Valentine 3D is a completely route slasher picture, with only the added gimmick of 3D violence as a selling point. If that's enough for you, you'll get your money's worth. But the same-old same-old nature of the killings, the relatively fake looking 3D CGI blood, and the complete lack of any real tension or drama dilutes what should have been a popcorn-flying party movie. In the end, as an apt metaphor for a picture set in a mining town - 3D effects cannot turn coal into a
diamond.
THE LODGER
By Theodore Ott
This movie feels as if whomever was in charge was in its first twenty minutes and was serendipitously replaced for the rest of the film. For the first twenty or so minutes someone tries a number of film school camera tricks that would have been interesting when first seen back in the 1920s, but quickly become off putting eighty years later. However, once we're safely past those first twenty minutes, it's a case of 'fasten your seat belts we're off on a hell of a ride!'
In a 'who dunit' the usual idea is to provide the audience with one easy guilty guy, and a not so easy one and one innocent distraction and then watch them duel. In The Lodger there are almost any number of possible bad guys who pass into and out of camera range with the smoothness of ballroom dancers. Trying to match them all up so you can point a finger and yell, "Ah ha!" is as maddening as trying to put a Rubik's cube back in order after your four year old has been playing with the 'pretty colors.'
There were only two recognizable names in the cast, both of them seen way too infrequently - Simon Baker who may or may not be real and may or may not be a killer just for the fun of it and the great Alfred Molina as a Sheriff's detective who may or may not be a) trying to re-create interest in his long past greatest case by casting his original solving of it in doubt or b) may have slipped a cog and become what he's always pursued - a murderer, having been pushed over the edge by a woman who doesn't understand him and a daughter who picks sides between her parents.
Alfred Molina's presence is reason enough for any fan of great acting to plunk down the ducats and buy a ticket. And if that's your motivation, then you get Simon Baker as an extra bonus. But if you go to this movie you have to be grown up enough to be entertained by the idea that, this one time at least you're not going to have it all wrapped up in a nice little package. In fact, as you go out the door you won't know if he did it, or he did, or he did, or she did, and did she make him up entirely or only partially, or not at all, and if so did he do it, or was it someone else we glimpsed with only maddening infrequency as a dark retreating back? It's enough to drive a person to commit . . . oh, never mind.
Being Angelenos you'll know that nothing really good gets released to compete with the Oscar® mayhem and ordinarily you'd be right, but every once is a while someone lets one escape and this is one of those times. So take advantage of it while you can.
PAUL BLART: MALL COP
THE SEGWAY COMEDIAN
By Sean Chavel
If there was one movie I wasn't looking forward to it was Paul Blart: Mall Cop which appears in ads as a movie that Deuce Bigalow spit out. Although it shouldn't be mistaken for "quality" the shocking revelation is that it is not a bad experience at the movies. This is owed to Kevin James, the star of the movie, who makes the art of slapstick look appealing again. He's clumsy, he's goofy, but as the title character he takes his job very seriously. Which is an asset to this comedy.
"Mall Cop" is really two movies in one. The first movie is about Blart as a dorky and ineffectual patroller who travels the super indoor mall on a segway - one of those two-wheeled standing room only electric vehicles. Blart is a lonely single dad, a failed applicant at the police academy, and basically a putz. Like a bad but guilty pleasure 80's movie, Blart is hopelessly in love with a counter sales clerk named Amy (Jayma Mays, "Red Eye") who tosses her beautiful locks around like a glamorous shampoo commercial.
Their encounters succumb to a new low in awkwardness. Blart overreaches in his humor, he verbally stumbles, he makes his crush on her way too apparent. At a restaurant bar where mall employees go for an after-work party, Blart - who doesn't touch alcohol - accidentally downs a spiked beverage. As this drunk stumbling buffoon, Blart makes lofty pronouncements, he inundates his love for Amy, he picks at people's faces, and he participates in a karaoke performance that ends in unlikely destruction.
In one of the weirdest reasons I have ever almost recommended a movie, I was covering my eyes through most of this. Not in due of fear for Blart's safety, but because the comedy was so unbelievably lame. I'm always looking for a new experience at the movies, something that provokes a reaction unlike anything I've had. And here's this reason that I was enjoying myself - because I covered my eyes more often during these scenes than during any hardcore horror movie I've seen in the last decade. Perhaps out of embarrassment verging on shame, I couldn't believe I was watching Blart, the-lamest-guy-on-the-planet crashing and burning with his social awkwardness. Especially during his ham-and-cheese encounters with Amy, the pretty girl who's way too forgiving of this nincompoop.
Unfortunately, the second movie involved here is a tepid hostage-and-thieves action fantasy. The dumb band of crooks hold off a combat-ready S.W.A.T. team while holding six or seven hostages - Amy and Blart's daughter included - inside a vault holding cell. Only one man can come to the rescue and he's not John McClane. Blart crashes through every store window imaginable, and outruns the skateboarding thieves on his segway, in a series of ho-hum sight gags. This might have all worked had the action hi-jinks not taken up the bulk of the movie. And it doesn't help that the leader is a colorless villain (Keir O'Donnell) who is a shopworn story creation. A zanier actor, say, Crispin Glover, might have done wonders with the role.
Having lost its mojo, I can't recommend the movie as a whole. I do think that kids will like the entire movie, especially the youngsters that haven't had a lot of experience with hostage flicks. For the older crowd, expect mixed results. I imagine that I myself will actually watch the first half of the movie again with pleasure once it hits cable before channel surfing once it goes into transition into the second half. Certainly, that first movie featuring Kevin James making a willing embarrassment out of himself is worth seeing. With your hands covered over your eyes. Get ready to scream, "No! Nobody on the planet is that lame!" In a word, Wow. Once again, really too bad that the second half of the movie will put you on snooze alert.
'NOTORIOUS'
B.I.G. DEAL
By Sean Chavel
No, it's not the 1946 Alfred Hitchcock film garnering a re-release. Notorious is the new music biopic on Christopher "Biggie" Wallace whose hip hop name became Notorious B.I.G. The fury of the story lies in the feud between West Coast rappers and East Coast rappers which resulted in a violent eruption that eventually cut Biggie's life down short. In effort to honor his memory the filmmakers trace Biggie from his early youth to his gold record success.
Pudgy and spectacled, Biggie is a lonely Brooklyn kid insecure about his inability to stand-out. Young Biggie is a nerd with a journal, pouring outrage onto page with his pen that transform into lyrics, eventually growing courage to perform rap slams on street corners. By his teens, Biggie skips school regularly to become a crack dealer, using proceeds towards fathering his first child. There is a well-written scene early on of tough mother love between Biggie and Mom Voletta who wants him to clean up his act and drop the music dream. Voletta is a mom that would prefer her son to do well in school so he can become something like a doctor or dentist.
With poor sense to moral issues, the movie glamorizes the good and bad aspects of Biggie by constant buttering humor into every one of his situations. The soundtrack provides more introspect - Biggie's famous hit singles surround the movie - that selling crack was a method of surviving the streets which meant swooping into unsavory territory and protecting dangerous friends out of respect. While the script's moral adjustments are questionable, one performance isn't. Newcomer Jamal Woolard as Biggie in the lead role is unquestionably good, maybe even great in a couple of scenes.
Similar physical attributes aside, actor Woolard digs deep into Biggie's persona by capturing his off-the-cuff jive thus making every line feel fresh, but also by building his character from inner-city desperate hustler into nationwide popular Notorious, an en vogue gangster rapper with swagger. The casting of Woolard is the movie's crucial benefit, but the casting of Angela Bassett as the Jamaican-born mom is a stretch that never convinces that her nature and personality meshes with her Brooklyn neighborhood.
The script is a rags-to-riches prototype with visual razzle-dazzle that attempts to make an old storyline feel new. The key offense however is sugarcoating Biggie's sins, so that the movie has that "personal triumph" feel instead of a no holds barred docudrama that doesn't preach nor judge - which is the kind of honest feel it should have had. If triumph of the spirit inspiration is what you're looking for, check out "Slumdog Millionaire" instead. But legions of fans will be curious to check this out anyway; Notorious B.I.G. music still shakes up nightclubs to this day.
After getting busted a couple of times for possession, Biggie decides to go straight by hooking up with record producer Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs (played by Derek Luke, making an OK play with his performance, considering the actor and charactor look nothing alike). Biggie's first performance at a college auditorium is a great concert scene, at first getting heckled at for his plump weight before wowing the crowd with his music and a fakeout background scuffle act. From there on, it's champagne and recreational no-no's, and his first marriage with Faith Evans (Antonique Smith rocks), ups-and-downs with Lil' Kim (Naturi Naughton, good with naughty), and the turbulent and finally destructive relationship with Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie, in a madly alive performance).
Biggie's famous hit single "Hypnotize" plays multiple times throughout the running time of the movie. Curiously "Mo' Money Mo' Problems," an enormous popular signature of B.I.G.'s is missing entirely from the movie, leaving one to assume that the filmmakers somehow could not secure the rights to the song. I'm sure some more unflattering character details are missing from the movie, too. But overall, this is not a boring movie. The mid-passages of the concert scenes especially kick things into hyperdrive - this will certainly play well on DVD in the background at parties.
Waltz with Bashir
By Scott Mendelson
Even in this day and age, the art of animation is still considered something primarily for the amusement of families and children. Even the more artistically challenging cartoons, be they Pixar films like Wall-E, or Hayao Miyazaki epics like Spirited Away, are inherently appropriate for children. As a result of this self-imposed (American?) segregation, there is still something uniquely shocking about seeing realistic or graphic violence in animated form. Be it the heavy-metal carnage of Japanese anime, or the occasional lethal violence in 1990s cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series or Gargoyles, the act of killing and scenes of bloodshed are that much more pungent when displayed in a medium that is still primarily known for entertaining the youngest of audiences.
As a result of this mindset, the tragic, violent true-life tale that concerns Waltz with Bashir is rendered even more powerful in animated form than it would likely have in live-action. Ari Foleman's film is technically described as an 'animated documentary', and the term fits well enough. The animated recreations of historical events are no less in keeping with the genre than something like The Thin Blue Line. Was this a live-action documentary, it would feel like any other war story, albeit with a more intriguing narrative that propels said historical docudrama. But in the realm of animation, the brutal, bloody violence feels like even more of a violation when depicted as, to put it bluntly, a cartoon.
A token amount of plot - In 2006, Ari Folman meets with a friend from the army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to the 1982 Lebanon War. Ari is stunned to realize that he remembers next to nothing about that period in his life. After a disturbing dream/flashback that seems to be linked to his time during the war, he decides to track down fellow soldiers in order to deduce what happened during that period, why he can't remember it, and what it has to do with the infamous two-day Sabra and Shatila massacre that occurred in Beirut.
The film takes shape in documentary form, alternating between first-person testimonials and flashbacks (animated recreations) of the events of Israel's campaign against Lebanon, which was in response to an assassination attempt on Israel's UK ambassador. For those who do not know the history, I will not divulge the secrets that Folman uncovers, but it is a morally complicated situation involving morality in wartime, the responsibilities of occupiers, and the notion of evil occurring via good sitting silent.
Whatever influence the current Israel Gaza offensive has on the reception of this picture, the film itself is strikingly apolitical. Although it is worth noting that a film of this nature could only have been made by an Israeli. With the hyper-sensitive nature of the one-sided Israel /Palestine debate in America (more so than in Israel itself), a film like this, which dares to paint Israeli soldiers as, well, human, would likely face accusations of anti-Semitism were its maker of any other nationality. Its strong moral judgment is one that condemns evil regardless of nationality or creed, be it evil through action or inaction.
Instead the film makes an effort to create a surreal template of what it feels like to be inside a war, inside a battle zone, and thus inside the mind of a soldier. Ironically, the animated medium lends this footage a bizarre emotional realism that would not be as effective in live-action. The film is ultimately about the madness of war, and the madness that occurs in a combat zone. Not a new idea to be sure, but the stark drawings and vivid images make this timeworn cliché into something new and stunning. While animation often has the ability to show us things we've never seen before, it also has the ability to take old images and older stories and render them strikingly raw and blindly fresh. Waltz with Bashir acknowledges that war is hell, and then proceeds to give us a first-person view of that very unique form of purgatory, as well as the guilt and self-recrimination that comes from surviving it.