Archive for December, 2009

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432348/

Dir. Darren Lynn Bousman

It’s time for Saw II and another tour with Jigsaw the whiny dying murderer who is impossibly skilled at avoiding consequences for his convoluted deathtraps.

I’m roughly seven minutes in and the cops have already been stupid beyond words, going into Jigsaw’s lair without checking for traps. He’s been doing this for eight, nine years and they hurf-a-durf their way through the doors and into certain death. Brilliant.

Now I’ve been introduced to our staple of victims being watched on the monitors of blatant after effects filters. They’re uninteresting and unlikeable from the off and I already don’t care about any of them, which is a very poor start to the proceedings. My guess right now is that actual horror and fear is far from the aim of this, it’s acting more like a gore-hungry slasher where the victims are mere meat. I’m not against slasher movies themselves, I enjoy a good laugh through an Elm Street or Friday the 13^th sequel (and genuinely love the original Nightmare), but the few good slashers that exist are either clever and actually scary or very dark comedy. This is currently neither.

What isn’t working for me in terms of horror is that the situations are so completely ludicrous that I am not afraid. In the first film the main setup in the room is improbable, but it is just grounded enough to feel possible, unfortunately the other flashback stories are somewhat idiotic (especially code flambé) and quickly detract from the idea that could have worked much better.

The performances are pretty awful from a lot of the victims in this, especially captain rough and tumble Xavier, he’s so horribly overplayed and poorly written. Out of all of them the kid, Erik Knudson is by far the best but Shawnee Smith is ok. Donnie Whalberg and Dina Meyer are passable, the other cops are poor. Finally Tobin Bell is actually quite good as Jigsaw, he’s just a stupid character with idiotic motivations, but I can see why he’s being latched onto as a new horror icon character.

I’ve just hit the point where they’ve stumbled into the original bathroom from the first film which is a dumb link. It’s a very lucky property he found with the massive house, secret underground passages to a bizarre underground bathroom, and an apparent upstairs floor so deep you could dig a pit into it.

Now the film is over and had a mixture of a decent idea and utter stupidity for the finale. The video feed not being live was a great idea, an actual clever twist in a film that was otherwise idiotic. It set up an incredible amount of plotlines that went no-where, the “link” they all had was never explored, the game itself was never really looked into, they barely touched on Jigsaw’s point, the characters were just meat and the whole film was built around the bloody overblown traps.  The final twist with Amanda becoming the new Jigsaw is painfully stupid.

The film just doesn’t work, it’s not scary, it’s not tense and it’s not particularly enjoyable. The direction and editing was pretty dire, the enormous flashback sequence was almost as painful as Silent Hill’s “All the plot in the final 10 minutes” pacing. Despite all these problems I am, partly for the purpose of study, but partly out of a weird curiosity to see how the series develops, going to watch Saw III when I can get my hands on it for cheap.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327850/trivia

Dir. Peter Berg

Part two of “The Rock” double bill is a silly romp through the jungle with Sean William Scott and Rosario Dawson. There’s not a lot I’d actually like to say about the film, it was a silly action movie with great stunts, really brutal looking stunts, and that’s about all that stuck with me.

The only major point that comes to mind is in the casting and performance of the villain. Christopher Walken has become quite a cult-favourite as far as actors go with his unusual looks, voice and comedy performances and he keeps that up throughout Welcome to the Jungle which lends his character a kind of fun charm, making the audience like him. The problem with this is that his character is doing despicable things, he’s meant to be a genuinely evil guy but unfortunately you like him too much to really go along with the other character’s hate. It’s a strange split that doesn’t work and is the major flaw I found in the film.

Other than that, an enjoyable action film, but nothing more.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351977/

Dir. Kevin Bray

This is a remake of the 1973 Joe Don Baker film of the same name. The original film was a fictionalised take on Sheriff Buford Pusser’s efforts to clean up his home town and was, on its release, very popular. It was a simple tale of good vs. evil, with some harsh moments along the way, and thanks to that was something everyone could easily get into.

This remake fictionalises the story further, taking out most of the real elements, even Buford’s name, and making everything simpler and sillier. This is emphasised by the casting of The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) and Johnny Knoxville in the main roles, two people who aren’t known for their great acting talent, but they possess some enjoyable screen charm.

The story is basically The Rock smashing the crap out of bad guys who are working for his former friend, Neal McDonough. They get rather annoyed, target him and his family, and so he beats them up even more and they lose. The plot’s predictable, occasionally preposterous and likely fraught with holes but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The film doesn’t aspire to any higher goal than simple time-filling entertainment, and on that level it works just fine. The production is adequate, the dialogue competent and that’s all I can say honestly.

I enjoyed it well enough as both a film to watch and one to make fun of. Far from the worst, and far from the best I’ve seen but a passable piece of simple entertainment.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464141/

Dir. Juan Antonio Bayona

A problem I find when watching a lot of horror is that more focus is placed on jumps and gore than on atmosphere and psychology. Fear is a complex emotion, what scares one person may not scare another, and so more time is spent just making cheap jumps rather than putting the effort to create something effective and resonating. This isn’t a new problem, genre film is always filled with hack work, but there has been a recent boom with the popularity of ‘torture-porn’ movies like Hostel.

The Orphanage is entirely removed from these issues. It’s a slow-burning, well crafted ghost story that allows the horror to be formed through the atmosphere rather than with cheap jumps or graphic gore. It tells the story of a woman, Laura, who spent her childhood in an orphanage and has returned, as an adult, with her husband and son to reopen it as a home for handicapped children. Shortly before opening her son begins to act strangely, talking to his new imaginary friend, and things don’t seem quite right.

Often when visiting old genres or styles of horror a film can lack effectiveness or impact, the fear stolen away by cliché or predictability and while The Orphanage is a traditional ghost story it doesn’t fall into this trap thanks to its impeccable production. The visuals are crisp and beautifully designed with the Orphanage itself an imposing location both inside and out. It has great turn of the century architecture and keeps a sense of decay and age, even when the family have moved in and done some renovations. The lighting complements the production design using shadow and highlight to enhance the atmosphere of each scene, which ranges from the lighter, happier scenes, to the creeping horror that builds.

The two things that I found the most impressive and effective in creating a fearful atmosphere were the sound and the editing. The sound design is stunning, the Orphanage itself feels like it has a voice, one of escalating malevolence throughout the film; each creak, each footfall, each crack of metal feels portentous. This works so well because it plays on sounds we are used to in our own homes and lives. Everyone’s house has its own personality of noises, a blend of building stresses, boilers and appliances that you get used to over time, yet in a strange building these sounds become amplified in our minds and have a strong mysterious power to scare.

Editing is, without a doubt, one of the most important things in horror cinema. Timing is what creates horror (and comedy) and if it is out by even a split second, the fear is lost. The Orphanage has absolutely perfect timing; building the atmosphere and tension of its scenes without ever letting shots linger or lose their impact.

I was impressed with the performances throughout. Belen Rueda as Laura is absolutely perfect, the film is carried on her shoulders and she does it with incredible intensity. Roger Princep as the son, Simon, is surprisingly good, it’s not often a child of his age can act as well as he does, and from watching the special features on the DVD it’s clear a lot of this came from the careful and passionate direction. I think seeing how he worked with Princep from the rehearsals to the filming is something that all aspiring directors should watch.

Finally I’d like to talk about one of the events within the film. I won’t say what part of the film it is, but it will be clear to anybody who has seen it and will stay vague enough for those who still want to watch it. There is a moment, a reveal, which is stunningly harsh and emotional that it took me aback. I was absolutely amazed by it, it felt so raw and yet so appropriate but I had not expected it to be done in the film. It is these kind of elements that raise The Orphanage to lofty heights in modern horror cinema, and it’s probably the best Spanish-language film I’ve seen yet.

I’m saddened that there is an American remake on the way, solely because people are unwilling to read subtitles, because the film is an obvious labour of love. It needs no alteration, no “Hollywood touch” and I cannot imagine any way that the remake could come out anything other than as a bastardisation of the original.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/

Dir. James Wan

I’m not much for the ‘torture porn’ genre of films, they’re there mostly just appease gore hounds and usually have no point. Still, in the interest of furthering my understanding of films I’m watching Saw right now. As such my paragraphs will be somewhat disconnected as points occur to me.

I’m around 50 minutes in and what is hitting me the most is that there is a total lack of atmosphere. Things are happening and while they’re competently directed the editing and music choices are ruining any atmosphere the piece could have, especially the awful fast-motion with nu-metal sequences, they’re more comical than scary. There is the germ of a good idea in here, unfortunately it’s underdeveloped and as such feels like the first draft of a student film which thinks it’s cleverer than it is.

I cannot believe a bloody minute of this film. The idea that jigsaw has been doing these ludicrous rube-goldberg traps for years on end without being caught is completely stupid, there would be a critical mass of forensic evidence given how much preparation is required. I know it’s a film and you’re meant to be more forgiving, but this is just idiotic. The cops are so stupid it hurt; after successfully finding Jigsaw they just act moronic, forget all their training and let him get away. In this scene there are many times they could have easily disabled, caught or killed him but they don’t.

The performances in this are exceedingly hammy. I’d imagine if the scenery weren’t so covered in shit and rust they’d be chewed thoroughly. The most convincing has been Danny Glover and it’s a role he’s very prepared to play, the angry ex-cop. These hammy performances have meant that the build-up to the moment the title is referencing hasn’t worked at all, it’s not got the power they wanted.

The ‘moral challenge’ idea is awful  because it’s naive and childish, it would have needed much more time being developed with a lot more thought put into the idea. It could have been a proper moral challenge with a real motive instead of just a dying whiner who wants other people to ‘appreciate life’. It just feels like pathetic setup.

The ending montage was terrible, fast cuts of obvious reveals with loose ends flying everywhere. No resolution, no point and no satisfaction in watching it.

The film was not what I expected, its reputation as a torture-porn gore film is undeserved. It’s got torture as a theme but it is far from graphic, especially when you look at other films like Final Destination 3. It feels like James Wan and Leigh Whannel watched Seven, missed out on what made it great, and tried to copy it.

http://www.saintsrow.com/

Developer – Volition

This blog is mostly about films, but I’d like to examine some of the elements of other mediums as well where it is appropriate to my studying. So along that vein I’d like to look at some parts of the PC version of Saints Row 2.

Saints Row 2 is an openworld game where you’re playing an unnamed gang boss who has been unconscious for several years and when they wake up the whole city they took over in the first game has been taken over by rival gangs. The aim of the game is take back the city of Stillwater.

The gameplay itself is a lot of fun, there’s a large variety of missions and distractions which are, for the most part, enjoyable and well rewarded. It’s a game that knows you want to have as much fun as possible and so throws as much at you as it can, it’s not all successful but enough of it works that you can have a good time regardless of the bad parts.

The game engine is buggy as hell and the conversion to PC is ham-fisted at best. Thankfully the majority of bugs, for my time playing, were cosmetic rather than game-altering. The only consistent and aggravating bug was that the game kept forgetting I was holding down accelerate and my car or character would just stop moving forwards. This was manageable though and it seemed to occur in odd situations rather than in common situations.

Those are the basics of play but what I’m interested in examining most is the games attempts at storytelling. The GTA series, which is SR2’s main influence, has tried to advance the quality of its stories in each game and have become highly praised for their cinematic presentation. SR2 tries, in vain, to do the same by having cutscenes before and after missions, unfortunately there is nothing more to the story than “I want to get rid of this other gang! Rargh!” There are some attempts at making a larger story with the death of a character and another getting stabbed but you just don’t care, there is literally nothing to make you involved. The cutscenes attempt to evoke gangster or action films and are generally unsuccessful due to poor direction; it’s a shame because in some of them there is the hint of a good idea that is never realised.

The protagonist is completely customisable: gender, physical appearance, clothes and even the voice can be selected by the player and altered at in-game locations whenever you wish. It is interesting because while the characters actions will never change, the voice style will instantly lend them a different quality. Each person will take different accents and inflections in different ways, leading the player to select part of the story’s atmosphere themselves. I myself made a woman with a comical male cockney accent who would appear, especially in cutscenes, as an entirely different kind of character to a suit-wearing straight laced Mafioso type. It has an impact on the storytelling in way that cannot be accommodated by the developers, which is a story problem, yet the choice for a player is fantastic.

The game highlights one of the issues with storytelling in an interactive medium. The videogames industry is as large as cinema or television these days and has broken through into the mainstream, but it is still very young. It’s evolving at a rate that the creators are having trouble keeping up with and due to the distribution and investment model there has not been a lot of chance to study and answers the questions required for great storytelling. Do you give the player choice and possibly relinquish control of the story or do you take choice away and force them down a single path? How do you tell a story in a first person shooter as opposed to a platformer? How can you handle pacing when the player is in control? Do players want cutscenes or seamless storytelling?

There are no definite answers for these questions, they rely on making a solid judgement on a game-to-game basis, but they do need to be examined and considered. The games industry needs to build a greater bank of knowledge and look towards creators in other arenas that could help them understand the elements they wish to evoke. The medium has great storytelling potential, without losing the crucial interaction, but it is currently mired in financial, distribution and management issues that take away the time for mainstream studios to examine it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/

Dir. Neill Blomkamp

The trailers for District 9 drew me in. The striking visuals and the idea of a film that combined sci-fi and an examination of apartheid attitudes and injustices were irresistible to me. I was curious but unsure of how it would form a two-hour story as the trailers, rather nicely, did not allude to the character tale. What I found upon watching was an absolute masterpiece and the most accomplished piece of sci-fi cinema for years.

The opening sequence of the film does a fantastic job of explaining the backstory of the aliens arrival and gradually introducing Wikus. His status as the main character of the piece is brought in quietly, turning the film from its documentary style into a traditional narrative piece without making the transition awkward or unwanted. The world is built very carefully and convincingly with the appropriate visuals of South African slums (and was filmed in a real slum) and the creation of derogatory language and attitudes. It takes established racist ideals and applies them to the aliens, allowing for a very harsh and realistic portrayal which connects with the audience deeply. This allegorical setup allows for a chance, albeit a slim one, for some actual bigoted people to re-examine their own attitudes as they will be less affected by their established prejudices, though this is really just some idealistic thinking on my part.

The main character of Wikus is portrayed in an astonishing performance by Sharlto Copely who had never acted before. He starts off as a despicable, but believable, bigot. He is a horrible character, seeing himself as much more important than the ‘prawns’ that he is charged with forcing out their homes to what is, essentially, an internment camp. What makes his performance, and the writing and direction of the piece, so brilliant is his evolution. It’s common in a film that has societal tensions at its heart to have a character who learns the error of their ways, but usually it is done in a single act, a shining Hollywood moment where they redeem themselves without ever showing that even an iota of thought has gone into this transformation. In District 9 Wikus does evolve but it is slow and honest; he keeps some of his bigoted and selfish nature for the majority of the film, even after seeing what the company he was working for has been doing to the aliens, even after they try to kill him simply because he can operate an alien weapon. He has to think, to make mistakes and to truly understand the plight of the aliens before he changes and it is done with absolute perfection in performance and direction.

The rest of the cast, and the digital performances of the aliens, are uniformly excellent. You feel connected to the aliens in exactly the same way you would a human, which is the true test of a CGI character when surrounded by real people, and one that I think has only been done this well once before, in The Lord of the Rings with Gollum. Blomkamp has said in that he felt a little disappointed that he had to have a humanoid alien because it is the only way to create real empathy with the audience, but while it does not fit to his original vision, it does not take from the story and emotion he wants to tell.

The production of the film is among the very best there is. The direction is fabulous, the cinematography both beautiful and appropriate in the right situations, the effects are convincing and the score is expertly integrated. It is a stunning first feature and I cannot wait to see where Blomkamp will go, he is already an accomplished director and it seems from this he could become a modern great.

I have heard from people who didn’t like the film, or called it boring, but I honestly cannot see where they are coming from. Often you can understand another perspective on a film but this is one of the few films where I literally cannot fathom how someone couldn’t enjoy it. Possibly my favourite film of 2009.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199849/

Dir. Godfrey Ho

Godfrey Ho is an infamous cinematic criminal; a director who butchered the medium of film mercilessly throughout the 70’s, 80’s and into the mid-90’s. If you’ve ever watched an incomprehensible martial arts film with white guys in ludicrous ninja outfits (and sometimes sporting massive moustaches) that seems to be constructed from two or more unrelated films, you’ve watched a Godfrey Ho picture.

Ninja Terminator is one of his many, many films that are vaguely related to ninjas. It has a plot of some form, muddled in among some waffling about ninja statues, about a detective who is investigating… something. The film is, as are all that Godfrey Ho directed, a total mess thanks to their production. They were produced by acquiring old Hong Kong action films, spending two weeks filming entirely different footage, and then slicing and dubbing them into a new film. The result is always insane and always hilarious in how terrible it is.

The most fantastic things can appear in a Godfrey Ho feature such as a wonderful outfit for a villain, a deadly messenger robot, a high-class phone or even an innovative way to deal with loose crabs. It’s these insane things, these unintentional hilarities that keep people watching these films. I myself have seen three Godfrey Ho films, each had its own bizarre, ham-fisted production and each was nearly impossible to stop laughing at from start to finish.

It would take much too long to list all the faults in Ninja Terminator, it’s an absolute cavalcade of failure; from the shots that mistakenly have no-one in frame to continuity errors so large the dead keep coming back to life. Suffice to say it’s not a film you watch to enjoy on a normal level it’s firmly for the ‘so bad it’s good’ crowd (of which I am a member) and when viewed that way, it’s a masterpiece of trash.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014429/

Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor

An iconic Harold Lloyd silent comedy, famous primarily for the sequence where he dangles precariously from the hands of a clock 15-storeys off the ground.

I went into this screening curious, I had read about Harold Lloyd years earlier when researching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, yet I had never seen his work. Sometimes when watching a silent movie they can feel like a lot of work, you have to keep in mind the era in which they were produced, but this was far from the case for Safety Last! It was a fantastic comedy, its age apparent in its production, but not in it’s humour or character; I think that laughed and cringed just as much as the audiences did on it’s original release.

It’s a classic farcical tale, Lloyd has gone to the big city to earn his fortune, only he is failing miserably and resorts to lying to his fiancé back home about his successes, when she comes to visit he tries to cover his real status up. It’s packed with old gags but they are perfectly performed, even if you can predict many of them you still laugh thanks to the impeccable timing of Harold Lloyd. I was honestly amazed at how much I laughed throughout the film, genuine belly-laughs, not just a polite “I’m a film student so I must appreciate this” weak laugh. It is one of the funniest films I’ve watched all year and it’s 86 years old, that’s a hell of an achievement.

I was astonished by how convincing the production was. The pivotal sequence of the movie involves Lloyd climbing up the side of massive building. When watching this you are absolutely convinced he is making the perilous ascent, you can see the buildings and the movement of the traffic down on the ground behind him, and every wobble and slip makes you feel that gripping internal gasp. It was achieved by building a fake building side on top of several other buildings and while safer, it was still a risky stunt. It’s telling that the reality of the sequence and the knowledge that it predates the trick photography to create it makes it that much more tense.

It’s a real gem of a film, a treat that everyone who enjoys a good comedy should watch, regardless of its age.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450405/

Dir. Paul Weitz

I ended up seeing this entirely at random and it was a waste of my time.

The film is a total and utter mess. It’s the story of Darren Shan (who is definitely not a self-insert for the author Darren O’Shaughnessy) a boy who is obsessed with spiders and his friend, Steve, who is obsessed with vampires. One night they go to a super-secret freakshow, which consists mostly of talented actors embarrassing themselves, and see a vampire, Mr Crepsley, perform with a deadly CGI spider. Once the show is over Steve insists that Mr Crepsley should turn him into a vampire, Crepes refuses because Steve’s blood “tastes evil” and Steve gets in a huff and storms off. Darren, meanwhile, nicks the CGI spider and goes home.

Darren, cleverly, takes the insanely deadly spider to school where it gets pissed off with being a waste of rendering time and bites Steve. In order to save his friend’s life Darren goes to Crepes and asks if he’ll give Steve the antidote. Crepes agrees, providing Darren becomes his half-vampire assistant, which he does.

Then there’s a whole bunch of crap about a fat guy who wants to bring about a war, Vampires and Vampaneze (the latter kill, the former don’t), and Steve getting really whiny about Darren “taking his place” as a vampire and becoming a Vampaneze and then fighting Darren.

The story is just trite, a mash of uninspired concepts and bland fantasy. The characters have nothing about them and it’s completely bizarre to see stars like Selma Hyack and Willem Defoe lend their time to them. The film has no idea whether it wants to be a comedy or a fantasy drama. Jokes will be followed seconds later by serious events but there’s no transition or subtlety which means neither element works. The performance of Darren is ham-fisted and flat, there’s nothing about him; bland and boring he’s essentially a fart in the wind.

It’s a film obviously made to cash in on the popularity of vampires, which has been roused by the teenage obsession for the godawful Twilight series, and feels like a rushed project. It’s not horrifically bad, but it’s not good either, it’s mediocre and forgettable on every level.