Looper

            Despite taking a month off to recharge my batteries and prepare for the fall movie season, I'm still not actually ready for it.  Not only do I not have a backlog of Wednesday reviews, I managed to take on more writing challenges.

            But I'm glad to be back!

            On to the review!

            Back in little ol' 2005, the most impressive film of the year was a little nowhere film from a nobody guy.  It was called Brick, and it was written and directed by Rian Johnson, a relative unknown who, at the time, only had 2 short films under his belt.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it completely reworked the old noir detective story for modern audiences.  Also, it was freaking amazing.

            Now it's 2012, and not only is Mr. Johnson back, but he's also brought Gordon-Levitt with him.  Hopefully this will be a long and beautiful friendship.  In fact, I'll even go so far as to hope that Rian Johnson becomes the next Christopher Nolan.

            His new film is Looper, and it's one of the most well-written, fun, interesting, and surprising sci-fi action movies I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.  Not as confusing as Primer, and not as crazy as Twelve Monkeys, it nonetheless manages to entertain you even as it unspools its plot until the very end of the film.

            Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, an assassin in the year 2044 who volunteers to shoot people sent to him from the future.  In return, he's well-paid enough to have all the fun and drugs he wants.  However, there is one tiny downside.  The contract he signed promises that someday he'll be forced to 'close the loop.'  That is, he'll have to assassinate his future self.

            This being a movie, things go horribly wrong.  When he finally faces Old Joe in the guise of the well-aged Bruce Willis, he is unable to close the loop, no matter how much he would like to.

            "But I saw all that in the trailers!" you moan, thinking I'm just going to rehash what you already obviously know about the movie.  So here's something for you to consider:  Everything after that is batshit insane in a good way. 

            The trailer would have you believe it's a simple chase film.  The trailer tried to make you look like a dumbass. 

            Joe is perfectly willing to take out Old Joe.  Old Joe has better things to do than get shot dead.  The syndicate Joe works for isn't interested in giving him another chance.  Old Joe has a plan to fix things.  Joe doesn't want to hear it.

            This is where things start to go absolutely, fantastically off the rails.  The movie is well-written, and you can stay one step ahead of the characters only if you're seriously paying attention.  References become plot points, and things that seem important can become irrelevant.  It's that kind of movie.

            The acting is phenomenal.  Gordon-Levitt continues his streak of impressing the shit out of me, and I think I'm developing a man-crush.  Bruce Willis delivers his finest performance in a very long time, and even the secondary characters are convincingly real.  Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan and Jeff 'Fuck Yeah' Daniels all deliver their roles perfectly, helping to flesh out the world that Looper wants so hard to convince you could be a very real future.

            The movie does a great job in the makeup and wardrobe department as well, making Gordon-Levitt actually look like a young Bruce Willis (because come on, nobody is going to put makeup on Bruce Willis).  The clothing and styles are all pretty cool, as are the little hints that this really is a dystopian future. 

            Many of the vehicles have either solar panels or what look like some sort of fuel recycler hooked up to them.  The buildings and streets have a strange, futuristic run-down look going on; Think Back to the Future Part II only with a bigger budget.

            The only downside is the special effects.  Wisely, Looper keeps them few and far between, but when they occur, they tend to be cheesy.  The one scene that really looks out of place involves a jet bike and a cornfield.  Trust me, if you don't notice it, you're not paying attention.

            However, a crappy greenscreen effect is absolutely no reason to avoid seeing Looper.  After leaving the theater, I decided then and there to buy it when it comes out on Blu-Ray.  While that may not mean much to you, keep in mind that I purchased a total of one movie released in 2011 and am the proud owner of not a single damn film from 2012 so far.

            Go do yourself a favor and watch Looper.  If you end up liking the action but find that you wanted a little more realism in your time travel, go home and blow what's left of your mind with Primer.  

September Vacation

            It was a tough decision, but I'm going to take September off.

            I love Mainstreamin', and I love having an excuse to watch terrible movies like Total Recall and make fun of them.  Although, I love getting to see movies that I expect to suck, like Warrior, and finding out that they do indeed not suck. 

            You either get to read my angry tirades or you get a solid recommendation without any fluff like Four Stars or This gets a 8/10.  From the beginning, I wanted to recommend movies by comparing them to other films that the reader has hopefully seen.  It requires a slightly more extensive knowledge of film on my part and yours, but I still feel like it's a lot more accurate than random letters or numbers.

            Unfortunately, the month of September isn't very kind in the movie department this year.  Sure, some things are coming out, but nothing looks very good and nothing looks very bad.  Simply bland films, as far as the eye can see.

            I don't think I'm losing motivation.  I love watching movies, and I always look forward to writing about them.  What I am losing is time.  I need a few weeks to build a backlog, do things at my own pace, and settle in to my new home. 

            I worried about losing readers by taking such a long hiatus, but I think enough of you find my style of rambling entertaining enough to come back that I can continue my amazing weekly readership of around 8 hits.  (Seriously, you think I'd actually tell you how I'm doing?  This is a blog, people.  Nobody finds out until I get sponsors.)

            I still reserve the right to change my mind with Looper or Dredd, but for right now the first peep you'll hear from me is when Taken 2 hits theaters.

            Until then, good luck finding the films that you love, the ones you hate, and the ones you love to hate. 

The Possession

            Teenagers:  The bane of the movie going experience.  Second only to young children, their incessant noise is difficult to ignore when in large groups.

            PG-13 horror movies:  Teenagers are oddly attracted to them, hoping for a few scares from a film they're legally allowed to watch without adult supervision.

            On Friday, I went to see The Possession.  Since it's produced by Sam Raimi, I wish I had mostly positive things to say.  But just like Santa Claus, wishes aren't real.

            So let's start with the positive: The acting is excellent. 

            Okay, I'm out of positive.

            On to the review!

           

            In  The Possession, Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a newly-divorced father who gets his girls on the weekends.  Of course, mother Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick, whom I will always have a crush on) is a bit of a new-ager, so the kids aren't allowed pizza or junk food, as the youngest has 'allergies.'  Clyde tries his best to be a fun and caring father, but he too often puts his career as a basketball coach ahead of his family.  Hence the 'newly-divorced' part.

            The older sister Hannah is played by Madison Davenport, and she's more or less exactly what I expect from a Hollywood version of a teenage girl.  Her little sister Em is played by Natasha Calis and she brings actual nuance to the movie.  Yes, nuance.  To a horror movie.

            The plot gets going when Hannah makes dad stop at a yard sale, commenting on how he needs new dishes.  While there, Em finds a large, hand-crafted wooden box that she asks her father to buy.  After some horrible, blatant foreshadowing, we watch as Em discovers how to open it up completely by accident, and then we get to the creepy. 

            As the days go by, Em starts to act more and more out-of-sorts.  She even claims that she 'doesn't feel like herself' at one point.  Yes, as good as the acting is, the script tries its best to force everyone down to its level.  As Em gets more and more erratic, Clyde becomes ever-more-concerned.  Finally, he confronts her in an effort to figure out what is going on and, without ruining anything, he ends up losing his joint custody.

            Stephanie, having been privy to none of this, genuinely believes that Clyde has turned into an asshat, but it doesn't stop Clyde from continually trying to help his daughter.  Finally, with the help of a completely random college professor, he learns what the box truly is and who he needs to go to for help.

            Of course, that person is Matisyahu, playing Tzadok, a very kind-hearted Orthodox Jew.  Tzadok takes Clyde and the box to his father, but daddy refuses to help, deciding that it's too dangerous.  Tzadok can't bear to see a child suffer, so he offers his own services. 

            By the time Clyde and Tzadok get back home, Em has been hospitalized due to her erratic and dangerous behavior.  So all that stuff you saw in the trailer?  Yeah, it mostly happens in the last 15 minutes.

            Here's the biggest problem with The Possession.  It doesn't know what kind of horror it wants to be.  It builds slowly.  I mean really, really slowly.  The plot takes its time to develop and reminds you of some of the older horrors like The Exorcist or Poltergeist.  Unfortunately, the scares are nothing more than modern day meh.  Every time you expect a jump, there's a jump.  When you expect the character to do A, they do A.  There are no twists, no surprises, and everything is so neatly laid out that it becomes just another crappy PG-13 horror. 

            What I really want to do is take all these actors and put them in a better, scarier movie.  One that's not afraid to take chances and risk alienating the audience through some bold decisions.  Like maybe actually killing someone you don't expect to die, or at the very least leave some genuine emotional scarring.

            Final verdict?   Save your time and money.  Go rent TheExorcism of Emily Rose instead.

Session 9

            There will be no Horror Origins this week because Netflix still hasn't delivered the next movie.  Unfortunately, while I'm not running low on horror series, I'm running low on easily accessible ones.  So in honor of my new life as a bachelor living in an apartment far larger than I need, let's talk about insanity.  More specifically: slow, simmering insanity and how a location can make or break the creepiness of a film.

            On to the review!

            I first saw Session 9 when I was stationed on Okinawa.  For most of 2002 I was on a huge horror kick, and I was renting as many of them as I could get my grubby little hands on.  I had never heard of the movie, but after viewing, it quickly became one of my all-time favorite psychological horrors.

            The movie itself is sparse on people and focused on plot.  Gordon (Peter Mullan) runs a floundering asbestos removal business and needs a good job to get himself and his crew back on their feet.  Thus, he grossly underbids his competition in an effort to win a government contract cleaning up an abandoned mental hospital.  It's a 2-3 week job, and he promises to get it done in one.  If they pull it off, they'll all receive a $10K bonus.

            Unfortunately, as these things typically go, shit does not get pulled off.  His only concession to the difficulty of the task is to add one more person to their usual 4-man crew.  Along with right-hand man Phil (David Caruso), possible future lawyer Mike (Stephen Gevedon) and kinda-asshole Hank (Josh Lucas), Gordon brings in his nephew Jeff (Brendan Sexton III)  to help out.  When one of the crew stops coming into work, they replace him with Craig (Larry Fessenden), a guy who has one of the best IMDB photos around.

            While all the characters are deeply flawed, their flaws play off each other, giving you the feeling that these actors actually spent years working together.  Their personalities clash and complement, making you feel that they like, hate, and respect each other just like actual coworkers do.  Their ability to play so well off each other is also what helps make Session 9 such a well done film.

            Before I go on, I think I need to single what makes the film amazing, rather than just good.  The Danvers State Asylum in Danvers, Massachusetts is the secret ingredient.  It's this sprawling, acres-wide institution that manages to impart true creepiness and, counter-intuitively, a strong sense of claustrophobia.  I really cannot stress enough just how perfectly they picked their location.  The place absolutely oozes paranoia.

            At first, it's just another job.  Yeah, they've gotta bust their asses, but work is work.  It's not until Mike finds a box labeled 'Session 9' that things start to get creepy.  As Mike tries to find more and more time to listen to the recordings of Mary, a woman with multiple personalities, things around the work site become increasingly dangerous and disturbing. 

            What works so well is the combination of men breaking down due to stress with these recordings overlayed on top of it.  Mary has three personalities inside her:  Princess, Billy and Simon.  Billy protects her from reality, Princess does most of the talking, and Simon...well Simon is a bit of a problem.  The doctor constantly tries to coerce Simon out in an effort to make Mary understand just what happened to her when she was a child.  Throwing these strange tapes on top of the film's events is what create an trulymulti-layered creepfest.

            Since getting into the plot would mean ruining a phenomenal movie, I'll leave you with this.  People are fallible.  They are susceptible to events around them.  Whether you're sane or not, we all have breaking points.

            Yes, Session 9 has its problems.  There are some ridiculous lines.  There are over-the-top moments of foreshadowing.  The entire thing, when broken down, is absolutely ludicrous.  But it's to the credit of the actors and the location, as well as the real, truly disturbing location, that makes it my second-favorite psychological horror.  Only The Changeling is more disturbing, or has a better 'twist' ending.

Hit and Run

            Here's today's story:  I went to the movie with a buddy of mine who happened to be the ONLY coworker who was actually excited to see this weekend's film.  There were about 10 people in the theater when we got there and, as is my wont, we sat in the back row, centered to the screen.  Only 3 more people entered the ginormous, nearly empty theater after us.

            The first two were older women, probably in their 50's.  They sat right next to my buddy and lady #1 proceeded to show off her new flashlight app.  During the previews.

            The third person was a morbidly obese woman who sat two seats down from me and proceeded to make phone calls.

            So you're lucky that I even did this review, because I briefly considered getting kicked out of the theater.

            On to the review!

            For those of you who don't have time to read the rest of the article:  Hit and Run was hit and miss.

            For everyone else, buckle in.  It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

            My first problem with Hit and Run is its complete inability to suck you into the film.  It opens up with our two main characters, Charles Bronson (Dax Shepard) and Annie Bean (Kristen Bell) having an intimate conversation in bed.  By intimate conversation, we mean he's insulting her in a cute yet very-not-cute way.

            You see, the trailers were very insistent on this film being brought to you by the producer of Wedding Crashers in order to make you think it's going to be interesting, funny, and, well, good.  Yeah, you were misled.  The trailer is so cut up that misleading is no longer a good enough term.  Even though it has 1/3 the characters of WeddingCrashers, not a single one is developed enough for you to actually give a shit.

            In reality, Bradley Cooper's character, Alex Dmitri, doesn't even show up until nearly halfway into the film.  The true (dumbass) bad guy is idiot ex-boyfriend Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) who figures out who Charles really is and brings his past back to haunt him.

            The catalyst for all this?  Annie gets a job offer in L.A. and Charles isn't supposed to leave his small town in the middle of nowhere, since he's in witness protection.  His witless protector is Randy Anderson (Tom Arnold) who overplays incompetence to the point that you're not sure he work for Burger King, let alone the government.

            So of course shit happens and Charles tries to take Annie to L.A. where the only job in her PhD in conflict resolution exists.  Yes.  Sadly, this is the most intelligent joke in the film.

            There are a bunch of chase scenes, some shoot-outs, and a few random conversations shoved in to remind you that this is a 'thinking man's movie.'  Of course you'd have to average about 3 thoughts an hour to actually see it as deep or interesting.

            You know what?  I'm done here.  I recommend that you go see Premium Rush.  Even though I haven't seen it, I guarantee it's better than Hit and Run.  It's no Wedding Crashers.  Hell, 30 Minutes or Less has better chase scenes.

Horror Origins: Saw

            I have to say, with this being my 12th Horror Origins review, this is my first time encountering a series that has clearly, flagrantly and painfully wasted the original film’s potential.  But here it is:  A good movie with wretched, terrible, no-good shitty sequels.

            On to the review!

            In 2004, a new, long-lasting horror franchise was born the moment Saw hit theaters.  While not a groundbreaking film, it had all the hallmarks of an entertaining, well-done horror/thriller.  There was a genuinely mysterious villain, gruesome deaths, dark and gritty camerawork and plenty of people who were not what they seemed.

            While the killer, Jigsaw, would later go on to become the ‘star’ of ever-more-tepid sequels, in this one he's merely the catalyst.  Yes, a mysterious killer is kidnapping people and forcing them into life-or-death situations.  Yes, many of the scenes show what happens to said victims.  However, in the first film, Jigsaw just was.  We didn’t care about why or what or who.  They had not yet started to try and justify his motives or develop his past.  He was just an evil, merciless killer.

            Thus, when the movie opens to two people waking up in an abandoned room, both chained to pipes, it’s a mystery for both them and the audience to solve.  The two men, Adam (Leigh Whannel) and Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) aren't familiar with each other, yet they must both try to survive a twisted game.  Meanwhile, a driven cop played by Danny Glover is trying to catch Jigsaw before anyone else dies.

            The story is told in a deliberately disjointed way, constantly flashing back to past victims and important events.  This way, we are allowed to ever-so-slowly figure out just what Jigsaw is after, and why these two specific guys have been chosen as victims.

            What stands out about Saw is just how little it resembles the sequels.  As Jigsaw's character becomes more fleshed out, the movies themselves become less interesting, less well written, less intense and too stupid.  The murders in the original are creepy and inventive.  It seems that the writers quickly ran out of inventive and moved on to the profoundly ridiculous.

            Plus, while there is some gore, much of the violence is left to the imagination.  There are not gallons of blood flowing freely.

            Specifically, I want to mention the scene where a man is trapped in razor wire and must painfully crawl his way out or die of blood loss.  The scene is shown sped-up, with lots of eerie lighting and frantic screaming.  While we do see a few quick close-ups of the razor wire and skin, the cameras never linger on the gore, instead focusing on the crazed, mental anguish of a desperate man in his last moments.

            As a movie, Saw holds up surprisingly well.  As a horror film, I believe it's still better than a large number of horrors new and old.  As a franchise, well, Jigsaw should consider the writer's room for his next victims.

The Expendables 2

            Sometimes you know exactly what to expect when you walk into a movie theater.  It's rare, but once in awhile you get what you want out of a movie.  Nothing more, nothing less.  This weekend's big release is such a film.

On to the review!

            Of course, like every other American male between the ages of 25-50, I spent lots of time watching 80's action flicks.  So when Sylvester Stallone got a few of his fellow cheesy action flick buddies together and made a movie about them running around and blowing shit up, I was there.  Now, 2 years later, his merry band of violent pranksters are back and they've got a few more action buddies in tow.  Welcome to The Expendables 2!

            This time Jason Statham's character Christmas isn't the youngest.  That honor goes to Liam Hemsworth, whose vague similarity to his slightly-better-known-brother Chris is just unnerving enough to make you wonder if it isn't just the same guy using age-regression software.  Along with Liam, the other good-guy newcomers are Chuck Norris as The Lone Wolf (yes, he even gets a Chuck Norris joke into the movie), Nan Yu as a specialist attached to Stallone's team.  Ostensibly she's a love interest, but it almost feels like they've included her just to reduce the number of homoerotic jokes you could make throughout the film.

            Unfortunately, we're far too light on the bad guy side of the film.  All we get Jean-Claude Van Damme as the big bad heavy, Vilain (haha, see how similar it is to Villain?  Clever writing, guys!) and his psychopathic sidekick, Hector, played by Scott Adkins.  A quick visit to his IMDB page shows that roughly 80% of his movie roles have been 'henchman' or 'fighter.'  I'm not saying it to mean that Van Damme is nothing special, it's just that I would love to see 3 or 4 badasses on the other side of the line.  That's just the greedy kid in me.

            Now here's where I reassure you that everyone you knew and loved in the first film is back.  Statham, Li, Stallone, Lundgren, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Crews and Couture are all present and accounted for.  Well, to varying degrees.  At this point, there are so many people and puns that Stallone wants to cram into the movie that some guys suffer from an even bigger dearth of screen time than they did in the first film.

            Plot-wise, it's even flimsier than the original Expendables film.  Van Damme wants to sell plutonium to terrorists, and Stallone and the others must stop him.  Ok, yeah, it's more convoluted than that, but I wouldn't want to spoil any surprises.

            The violence is to the original what Rambo 4 was to Rocky 1.  What I mean by that is: holy shit there's blood everywhere.  If you get so much as teabagged in the Expendables 2 universe, you are going to spew a mist of blood from your mouth and nose.  If you look closely during the opening scene, you can see daylight through the torso of more than one enemy shot by a .50 Cal, and it gets more ridiculous from there.

            I really don't have anything else to add.  By all means, go see this film if you want to shut your brain off.  I'll allow it this time, because it's just so damn cheesy, and unlike most Sandler flicks, there isn't any lowest-common-denominator humor involved.  Just a bunch of big guys with big guns.  (Sex joke?)