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Movies

Red 2 (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Back in 2010 the movie Red was released.  The term, which stands for “retired, extremely dangerous”, involved the goings on of a retired CIA agent named Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), his looney tune friend Marvin (John Malkovich) and Sarah (Mary-Louse Parker) a “civilian” Moses pines for.  Into that mix appeared ancillary characters such as the deadly British assassin Victoria (Helen Mirren) and ex-Russian KGB superagent Ivan (Brian Cox).

The movie was an action adventure with the (mostly) over the hill ex-agents kicking some serious ass while Moses romances the somewhat flighty Sarah.  While I admittedly don’t recall too many of the movie’s details, I recall the film was a pleasant diversion, made especially so because of the presence and interactions of all those veteran actors.

Three years later, Red 2 hit theaters and I’ll be damned it it didn’t have a really great theatrical trailer:

Would the film live up to its advertising?

Well…yes and no.

On the one hand, there were plenty of great gags in the film, including several instances where deadly assassins in the middle of planning or executing some kind of skullduggery take a moment to talk about how Moses can maintain a vibrant and positive relationship with Sarah.

On the other hand, as the film played out, I got the feeling what I was seeing was either a “rush job” or was whittled down from a too long run time…or both.  After a terrific opening act (the best part of the film) scenes kind of whizzed by and slammed into each other without much grace.  It simply didn’t flow very well.

Part of the problem may well lie with the film’s very, very large cast, which this time around includes many new ancillary characters.  We have Anthony Hopkins’ potentially looney Bailey.  There’s Byung-hun Lee’s deadly assassin Han.  There’s also Katherine Zeta-Jones’ Russian agent Katja (sadly, the most wasted of the big name stars).

And that’s not getting into the smaller roles!

Red 2 winds up being a globe trotting affair, with the team trying to figure out why they have been marked for assassination.  The peculiars of the plot are quite interesting, involving the possibility of a weapon of mass destruction hidden away in Moscow, but it is the characters and their interactions which are still the main draw.

Perhaps one day a “director’s cut” of the film might show up and smooth over the film’s rushed feeling, but I doubt it.  While not an outright bust, Red 2 is a decent film that flirts with being a damn good one…all while just missing the mark.

Trivia Alert!  Is this the first film to feature the two most famous actors to play the villainous Hannibal Lector?  Sadly, neither Brian Cox, the original Hannibal Lector (from the criminally -pun intended!- underrated Manhunter, which featured the first appearance of the character) nor Anthony Hopkins (the most famous actor to play the role, starting with SIlence of the Lambs) share any screen time together.  Might have been fun to see them face to face!

Ah well!

In case you’re not familiar with it, here’s the trailer for Manhunter.  Years later this film was remade with Anthony Hopkins in the Hannibal role as Red Dragon (the original title of the novel it was based on).  You can see Brian Cox’s Hannibal Lector for the first time at the 1:20 mark…

Bonus, bonus trailer: That of Red Dragon (why the heck not?)…

Movies

White House Down (2013) a (mildly) belated review

A little while ago I reviewed the 2013 Gerard Butler starring Olympus Has Fallen (read about it here) a variation on the Die Hard formula but rather than set in the Nakatomi Plaza Building, our hero has to deal with deadly terrorists that have assaulted the White House itself.  I enjoyed the film, finding it a pleasant enough time killer despite some pretty silly stuff to swallow if not much else.  Lurking in the weeds, waiting to be seen, was the second Die-Hard-in-the-White-House film of this year, the higher budgeted Channing Tatum/Jamie Foxx White House Down.

A few quick questions and answers:

1) How similar are these two films?

Answer: Very.  Both feature leads who are “damaged” (again, a Die Hard trademark).  Both feature (duh) assaults on the White House with the people behind these assaults seeking to get their hands on the President of the United States and radically change the world as we know it today (I won’t say more to avoid spoilers).  The heroes in both films also have kids (in one film a boy, in another a girl) who are caught in the middle of all this danger.  Bullets are fired and the bad guys (including an “inside man”) manage to barricade themselves in the White House with the hero plays cat-and-mouse with the villains and is the only one capable of restoring any kind of order.

2) How are the films different?

Let me think here…hmmm….Well, in Olympus Has Fallen the President is played by Aaron Eckhart emulating your typical blue-eyed square-jawed all-American Anglo Saxon Commander In Chief while in White House Down the President is played by Jamie Foxx who is clearly emulating President Barack Obama, complete with wife and daughter (one, not two) and a fight against a cigarette habit.

What else?  As mentioned before, Olympus Has Fallen was a far lower budgeted affair compared to White House Down. Further, there was more going on in White House Down’s script, both in terms of story and ancillary characters, than the previous film.

And that, I believe, is about it for the differences.

So let’s return once again to the films’ similarities.  White House Down, like Olympus Has Fallen, is a perfectly OK action/adventure film that succeeds in killing your time without causing you too much pain or regret.  Having now seen both films, however, I can sincerely state that I no longer want to see either again.  The fact is that both White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen are very much disposable entertainment.  Once seen, I seriously doubt that some time in the near or far future I’m ever going to want to revisit either of these films.

Having said that, one final question: Which is better?  I’d probably have to give a very slight edge to White House Down.  That film benefits from its larger budget as well as the slightly better script and a slightly more interesting cast of characters around the hero/President.

Still, I’ve reached my lifetime quota of White House assault films.

Movies

The Kings of Summer (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Found the trailer for The Kings of Summer attached to another movie and found it quite humorous:

So I put the film on my Netflix que and soon enough it arrived.  Yesterday I finally had a chance to see the film.  Did it live up to this delightful trailer?

Well…

Kinda.

The first half of the film, which is most in evidence in the trailer, is damn good as we meet the three leads, a trio of high school friends who decide to make a home in the woods so they can live as “men”.  First up is Joe (Nick Robinson), the instigator, who finds it increasingly difficult to live with his moody widowed father (Nick Offerman in a role that while still using what are his standard -and very humorous- comedic tropes, nonetheless gives him a chance to present a character who is genuinely hurting inside).  Next up is Joe’s friend Patrick (Gabriel Brasso) who also has considerable trouble with his parents, to the point where he has developed hives.  Rounding out the group is the genuinely bizarre Biaggio (Moises Arias), who is given the lion’s share of funny lines and reactions.

Along with a need to get out of his house, Joe also pines for Kelly (Erin Moriarty), a High School crush who likes him as a friend, though it is his sincere hope that one day they might become more.

In that first half of the film the boys run away from their homes and build their “new” house in the woods while their worried parents engage the police (a bungling -and also quite hilarious- duo played by Mary Lynn Rajskub and Thomas Middleditch) to help find them.

With me so far?

As I was saying, I loved the first half of the film but, unfortunately, the second half was nearly as good.  The second half of the film tries to tone down the humor and bring in more drama.  I didn’t really mind the shift that much but was bothered by a feeling that Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the director, was drawing things out and, to be blunt, becoming too “artsy” in his presentation.

What was until that point a delightful rush became a slog.  There were several sequences that didn’t feel like they needed to be in the film and should have either been cut down significantly or removed entirely (why did we need to see the extended preparation of the rabbit?  Why did we need to see those two young impulsive lovers who bump into Joe in the river?).  The “artsy” bits and pieces presented here and there, of nature and flowers and animals and water, after a while also felt like overkill.

By the time the film ended, I was truly torn.  On the one hand, the first half plus of the film was delightful and achieved a beautiful balance between being laugh out loud funny while still presenting a realistic/serious picture of what it is like to be a young teen with “difficult” parents.  The adults, who could have been treated as cardboard “jokes” were given more depth than initially met the eye, in particular in the portrayal of Joe’s father.

But that second half of the film ruined most, if not all, that goodwill.

In the end, I find it difficult to recommend this film in spite of the many, many good things to be found within it.  Truly, that is a shame.  However, even if the movie didn’t ultimately work for me in its entirely, director Vogt-Roberts created enough good stuff for me to keep him on my radar.

I’m looking forward to seeing more from him.

Movies

Prince of Darkness (1987) a (very) belated review

Bear with me on this…

The first -and until yesterday- last time I ever saw the John Carpenter directed/written Prince of Darkness was in a theater with a friend back in 1987 during its initial theatrical run.  I remember both of us walking out of the theater in disgust at having wasted a perfectly good afternoon watching a perfectly wretched film.

Fast forward to last week, when I had to buy some stuff via Amazon and, to make the delivery free (I’m cheap that way! 😉 ), I added a few items to meet the minimal free shipping total.  For whatever reason I was thinking of the 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth)…

…but had never seen the supposedly better TV show it was based on (this according to several people who had seen both), also titled Quatermass and the Pit, that aired nearly a full decade before in 1958.

So, being in an adventuresome/curious mood, I ordered the 1958 Quatermass and the Pit but still needed another order to make that all important free delivery (Yes, in order to save $5 in postage I was willing to spend another $20 for merchandise…never said I was logical!).  Anyway, I looked around the DVD/BluRay sections and, having been pleasantly surprised by SHOUT! Factory’s BluRay release of John Carpenter’s The Fog, a movie I didn’t think all that highly of but proved quite the revelation on BluRay, I decided to bite the bullet and, after 26 years (!!!) revisit Prince of Darkness.

The order arrived a few days ago and yesterday, finally, I had a chance to take a look at Prince of Darkness.  Watching those first few minutes of the film proved a pleasant surprise.  The establishing mood was good, almost deliciously Lovecraftian, and Jameson Parker, who I didn’t recall thinking all that much of when I originally watched the film ages ago, proved to be compelling…at least in those initial moments.

Without giving away too much of the plot, Prince of Darkness involves a fraternity of Catholic Priests who have been tasked for centuries to secretly guard a container of glowing green liquid that, they fear, holds a great evil.  The last of the Priests to oversee the material has passed away, and the Priest investigating this order (played by the always interesting Donald Pleasence) contacts Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) a teacher of high level theoretical physics at a University to assemble a team of students and professors to find out what this container actually holds.

Spoiler Alert: It isn’t anything good.

The students, teachers, and Priest hole up in the old rundown church hiding this liquid and soon experience odd sensations while noting an odd assortment of apparently homeless people surrounding the church, intent on keeping them there and, should they try to leave, doing them great harm.  The killings soon start and, yes, the film becomes a “siege” tale, something director/writer John Carpenter has worked on plenty of times before and since.

By the time the movie reached its climax and I realized Mr. Carpenter was using a familiar element from one of my favorite films, 1949’s Orpheus (the mirrors) and another familiar element related to the legend (the loss of Orpheus’ lover, Eurydice)…

…I abruptly came to another realization: Prince of Darkness was essentially a remake or reimagining of Quatermass and the Pit!  Basically, Mr. Carpenter (writing under the alias of –how could I miss this?!– Martin Quatermass) took all the main elements of Quatermass and the Pit -the strange object found in a run down area of the city, the impulses it creates in people around it, the world level threat, the bizarre “mind transmissions”, and, especially, the sacrifice of one of the major characters to end the threat- and added a few other elements (perhaps a pinch of the Exorcist) and, voila, he created Prince of Darkness!

What are the odds?!

I purchase Quatermass and the Pit (the TV version) and Prince of Darkness on the same day via Amazon and come to the stunning realization that one film very much influenced (or, if you’re less forgiving, was ripped off) the other!

Ok, now the big question: Is Prince of Darkness any good?

Before I get into that, let me state that many consider this movie John Carpenter’s last truly “great” film, even though he followed it up with They Live and a little later, Into the Mouth of Madness, both works which are considered “good,” if not “great” Carpenter.  There are others, however, who consider Prince of Darkness Mr. Carpenter’s first really big misstep and a harbinger of the lesser works that followed.

Myself?  Well, after watching the film once again I find myself in middle.  I have to admit I didn’t hate Prince of Darkness quite as much as I did when I first saw it in 1987.  On the other hand, I certainly didn’t walk away loving it.  The story features too many characters who are bland and ultimately unrealized.  The script really could have used some tightening and the direction, while decent, wasn’t quite as interesting as I’ve seen in other Carpenter works.  A good example of this is the attack of the green water.  Though it pains me to say this considering how much I admire so many of John Carpenter’s films, this proves to be quite laughable.  Unintentionally so, alas.

So in the end, I can only recommend this film for someone like me who has a fondness for Quatermass and the Pit and is curious to see John Carpenter’s reinterpretation of the themes/story.  SHOUT! Factory’s BluRay is a beauty and features razor sharp images and clarity probably not seen in the film since its initial release.  If you’re interested in seeing it, this is certainly the way to go.

Movies

This Is The End (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Dying is easy.  Comedy is hard.

Now this is a tough one to grade.

On the one hand, there were many scenes in This Is The End, the Seth Rogen/James Franco/Jay Baruchel/Danny McBride/Jonah Hill/Craig Robinson film that had me laughing out loud…

…yet there were an equal number of moments that tested my patience.  Eventually I had more than my fill of the movie and turned it off perhaps a half hour before its end (no pun intended!).

Once I shut the film off, I didn’t think I’d return to it.  That’s how tired I was of the whole thing.

Nonetheless, I knew there wasn’t much left to see so I decided to finish the film off.  Lo and behold, I greatly enjoying the movie’s climax/last act.  I’m certain the one day rest away from the film greatly helped as I found these parts fun and very funny.

The moral of the story?  Watch This Is The End in at least two sittings.

So that’s the crux of the movie’s problem:  While quite humorous at times, the film feels way, waaaay too long at 107 minutes.  The film’s concept, by the way, is this: Seth Rogen and his Hollywood friends play Looney Tune versions of themselves and while partying at actor James Franco’s house the Apocalypse hits Earth and their numbers dwindle as they ineptly fend for themselves.

Had the boys brought a good editor with them, s/he might have trimmed down the film’s excesses while sharpening the admittedly funny jokes and giving us an overall better product.

A good example of this is the sequence involving Emma Watson beating the boys up and stealing their food/water supplies.  This sequence, as presented in its abbreviated form in the theatrical trailer below, is hilarious.  In the movie, we get this extended -and not as funny- bit where the boys let Emma Watson back into James Franco’s house and then get into a discussion of the fact that she’s the only female in this house full of men…and of course the dialogue gets into the potential for one or more of them getting the urge to rape her.  Emma overhears this conversation and this is why she ultimately splits.

But the joke, to my mind, works better in the abbreviated form of the trailer: Emma breaks into the house, intimidates and beats the boys up before stealing their supplies and they lament the fact that they got their asses kicked by “Hermione”.

As I said before, the film does have its share of very humorous sequences.  The problem is the film is way too overindulgent and could have used more judicious pruning.  A shame.  Had the film run perhaps 90 minutes or so it might have been far better.

Movies

Europa Report (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Heard about this low budget thriller a while back and was intrigued by what critics said, specifically that this was a “realistic” thriller involving an expedition to Europa.  For those unfamiliar with Europa, it is one of Jupiter’s moons and a source of great scientific curiosity.  The moon has ice on its surface and liquid water below and, therefore, may well have some kind of life forms within.

Anyway, I was intrigued.  Would the film live up to the critic’s kind words?

To this I would say yes.  For the most part.

Europa Report is a “found footage” type film.  We watch the story unfold in “real” time (to a degree) via cameras positioned within the spacecraft as well as “contemporaneous” statements by the people behind the mission, one that we are clued in from the very beginning met a very bad end.

The ship features an international crew (the best known of the actors playing the crew, to me at least, is Michael Nyqvist, who made a villainous turn in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and was Mikael Blomkvist in the European version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy).

The group’s trip to and eventual arrival and exploration of Europa -and the mysteries they encounter there- form the backbone of the story.  I don’t want to get into too many spoilers, but suffice to say the mission encounters plenty of problems on their way to discovering if Europa contains life forms.

The film is a very low budget affair but manages to get a maximum for its money, at least in the early going.  The effects are way more than adequate for the space flight and even the arrival on Europa.  Unfortunately, as the movie closes in on its climax the small budget hurts the film’s revelations.  I suspect the screenplay asked for more than the budget could effectively show, and while director Sebastian Cordero did a pretty good job with what he had, there came a time when the movie demanded more spectacle and it simply couldn’t deliver.

It was also during the later half of the the film that I realized…well, this might get into SPOILER material, so I’ll get into it after the trailer below…

Still there?  SPOILERS FOLLOW!

Ok, so after the astronauts reach Europa I come to the realization that this film, like The Blair Witch Project and a few other “found footage” thrillers I had seen before, was building up to a final, shattering image as its conclusion.  I was even more certain I knew what that image would involve.  And, when it came, I was disappointed.

That final image, meant to fill us with equal parts awe and terror, was simply…ordinary.  The image wasn’t bad, mind you, but I’ve seen far more chilling and startling effects in many movies and video games.

Too bad.

In the end, I do recommend the film, but with the caveat that this is a low budget affair and that low budget does hurt the overall product.

Movies

Iron Man 3 (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark/Iron Man in Iron Man 3 (I’ll refer to it as IM3 from here on out).  After the general disappointment with 2010’s Iron Man 2 and the euphoria over 2012’s The Avengers, would this film be a keeper?

To my mind, yes…and no.  No, no, no.

Robert Downey Jr. remains an absolute joy to watch and absolutely commands the screen and our attention with his continuing quirky characterization of Stark/Iron Man.  This alone makes the film worth watching.  Then again, Mr. Downey Jr.’s take on Tony Stark made the far more meandering Iron Man 2 eminently watchable as well.

While Iron Man 2 was meandering and felt out of focus, IM3 moves like lightning, hitting us with something new and interesting every few seconds while giving us plenty of Mr. Downey Jr.’s characterization.  Thing is, as great as the ride is, the moment IM3 was over and you find yourself thinking about the story that just play out…the more of a mess you realize it is.  Ironically enough, IM3 wound up hitting me almost the same way as fellow 2013 summer blockbuster Star Trek Into Darkness did:  I enjoyed it while it played out, but afterwards was left decidedly less impressed.

Now, in the interests of not spoiling anything, I’ll stop here and get into story details in a second.  The short review is this:  Iron Man 3 is an incredibly entertaining “popcorn” film that most people should enjoy.  Just don’t think -or focus!- too much about the story.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

Still here?  Ok, let’s get to this.

The movie begins with a flashback to 1999 and a science convention where a then much wilder/partying Tony Stark simultaneously meets up with an off-putting (and geeky) Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and a beautiful Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall).  Stark ditches Killian, who wants investors for some high tech he’s developing, while one-night stand bedding Hansen.  But not before she reveals she is working on a formula to re-grow plant limbs.  Naturally, these two elements are important for what follows…

Fast forward to today and a mysterious terrorist named the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) appears on TV claiming credit for several mysterious -and gruesome- explosions he claims to have set off around the world.  He is now targeting the United States and it is increasingly clear the Mandarin’s endgame involves the President of the United States himself.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark is an emotional mess and is experiencing anxiety attacks -or perhaps even post traumatic stress- related to his experiences in The Avengers movie.  At one point, he tells his lover Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), he’s a “hot mess”.

Past and present collide when Killian reappears, much handsomer than before, still seeking an investment in his company.  Meanwhile, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is nearly killed in another of the Mandarin’s explosions while following one of Killian’s henchmen.  This leads Tony Stark to personally call out the Mandarin through the media.

That day, Hansen shows up at Tony Stark’s home to warn him that she thinks her boss -Killian- works for the Mandarin.  Stark’s home is assaulted at that moment and Potts, Stark, and Hansen barely make it out alive while the home is destroyed.

Ok, so the plot is a little convoluted to this point but it makes a certain logical sense.  It is roughly after this opening that things start to go a little…bonkers.

I don’t want to go over every beat and element of the film that follows and assume those still reading have already seen the film.  Thus, the problems start:

Why exactly were the badguys in that small town where the mysterious (apparently non-Mandarin) explosion took place?  Didn’t the explosion happen a long while before?  And if so, why didn’t they take away all evidence beforehand and not the very moment Tony Stark is there?

While in that town, Tony Stark winds up downloading some incriminating video over the net.  Were the badguys really stupid enough to leave material accessible -though granted thanks to high level encryption- over the net showing their criminality?

While I don’t mind the reveal of who the Mandarin really was -on the contrary, I think it was a very clever bit- it also is hard to believe that there could be someone that dumb out there willing to go along with that plan, knowing their face would subsequently be public enemy number one.  Seriously?

Then there’s the character of Maya Hansen.  She’s good, she’s bad, then she’s good again.  I don’t mind shifty characters, provided their allegiances/betrayals make sense.  Hansen’s first “modern” time appearance, however, involved her almost becoming a victim of the Mandarin’s attack on Tony Stark’s home.  But if, as we later find, she was bad all along (and was aligned with the Mandarin), why would she choose to endanger her life that way?  Likewise, why did the Mandarin’s forces attack knowing she was there?  Couldn’t they have timed the attack for the moment after she left the home and was away from mortal danger?

But all these above problems pale compared to this:  Pepper Potts being kidnapped by the villain who sadistically shows off this fact, via video, to Tony Stark.  Instead of simply torturing and/or killing Potts before Stark, the villain instead injects her with his formula…which makes her, like the other villains, a superpowered creature capable of kicking major ass.

Seriously?!

Can you not see the…uh…wrongheadedness of doing this?  Can the villain not see how a superpowered Pepper Potts just might –might!!!!– come back to bite him in the proverbial ass?!  (Note: She does)

I could go on (trust me, there’s more!) but I really don’t want to engage in overkill.

My initial comments remain:  IM3 is a fun “popcorn” film that whizzes by and entertains…provided you don’t think about it too much.  Otherwise, your opinion may suffer.

Movies

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) a (incredibly) belated review

There are certain movie posters from the past that have stuck with me.  The poster for Jaws is certainly a classic…

Jaws

Though I’m not huge fan of the film (one of the very few, I admit), this one is pretty memorable, too (I know, I know, I’m a master of understatement)…

Star Wars

I could go on and on, but I’ll get to the point:  There is another movie poster that is perhaps not as memorable to the general public yet has stuck with me for many years, and that is the one of the (for the most part) forgotten 1978 Faye Dunaway starring film The Eyes of Laura Mars…

Eyes of Laura Mars

Unfortunately, the graphic above doesn’t quite do the poster justice as it looks way too dark.  Other images I’ve found online (check them out here) tend to overly lighten up Ms. Dunaway’s face, so this is about as close to the original piece as I could find.

I first saw the film many moons ago, probably right around the time it was released in the late 1970’s or shortly thereafter in the very, very early 1980’s.  There were bits and pieces of the movie I remembered, the bloody murders, the sleazy kinkiness (this movie, to my then very young mind, featured an awful lot of nudity!), and the general dreaminess/nightmarish tone.  Other than that, the image of that movie poster was what I recalled the best.

Until yesterday, when I gave the film a whirl for the first time in over thirty years.

The movie’s story (brought to you by John Carpenter!) involves controversial fashion photographer Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) “seeing” crimes as they are committed through the eyes of a serial killer…a serial killer who is targeting her friends and associates.

The movie starts with just such a killing as “seen” through the killer’s/her eyes.  In this scene the killer looks through an advanced copy of a book featuring Mars’ work and finds his target, the publisher.  She is killed with an ice pick and Laura Mars is introduced, waking up from a sleep with those violent images going through her mind.

Unsure what if anything they mean, she heads out to a well attended, glitzy art gallery showing off her latest work and promoting this upcoming book.  Here we find that Laura Mars’ photography is very controversial as it includes very sexy images merged with very violent images.  Laura Mars wanders the floor of the gallery and bumps into John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones in one of his very early movie roles), a New York detective who, she will find out shortly, is investigating the death of the publisher of her book.  We are also given a glimpse of the many people in her life, all of whom could be the mysterious killer…

Shocked that her publisher is indeed dead, Laura Mars abruptly leaves the show.  Shortly afterwards and during a wild daytime photography shoot on the streets of New York, Laura Mars has another vision.  She rushes away from the shoot and arrives at her friend’s house…but it is too late.  Her friend becomes another victim of the serial killer Laura Mars can “see” through.

I won’t go into too many more details of the plot, but suffice it to say that some of the shocks I felt upon first seeing this film way back when are much more muted today.  Upon re-seeing it I realized the movie was very much an American version of the Italian Giallo horror/thriller.  This definition, presented in the Wikipedia, effectively defines The Eyes of Laura Mars:

Giallo films are generally characterized as gruesome murder-mystery thrillers that combine the suspense elements of a Hitchcock film with scenes of shocking horror featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork, and often jarring musical arrangements. The standard plot, used in countless films, involves a mysterious, black-gloved psychopathic killer who stalks and butchers a series of beautiful women. The killings are invariably violent and gory, including throat-slashings and decapitations. These murders often occur when the victim is most vulnerable (showering, taking a bath, or scantily clad). The literary whodunit element is retained, while being filtered through Italy’s longstanding tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. There are also stories that involve supernatural forces, ghostly spirits, etc. Giallo films often include liberal amounts of nudity and sex, with several actresses becoming strongly associated with the genre such as Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bach, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Suzy Kendall, Ida Galli, and Anita Strindberg.

Gialli typically introduce strong psychological themes of madness, alienation and paranoia.

Check…check…and check.

The Eyes of Laura Mars is all that, though in comparison to some of the better Giallo films out there, isn’t quite on their level.  Nonetheless, it is a stylish film that is very much of its time, offering an intriguing look at a far more sleazy New York than most may find today.  And because the film is about fashion, we also get to see plenty of late 1970’s fashion trends, and they’re a hoot!  The music is also very much of its time, featuring some memorable disco songs, including “Let’s All Chant”.

As for the plot and the identity of the mysterious killer, it is pretty easy to figure out.  With the very second killing most of the suspects are at Laura Mars’ side when she experiences her “vision”.  Given that her “visions” are concurrent with the actual crimes, all those around her are thus eliminated as suspects in one quick swoop and we are left with only two possibilities…and one of those suspects is so strongly presented as likely to be the killer that you immediately discount him for that very reason…and therefore all is revealed.

The Eyes of Laura Mars was directed by Irvin Kershner and his work here apparently so intrigued George Lucas that it is rumored he hired him to direct The Empire Strikes Back on the basis of this movie.  Mr. Kershner manages to retain a good level of tension but sometimes the acting is really over done to an almost comical soap opera level.  Still, despite its age the film is very watchable if not a “classic”.

In the end, The Eyes of Laura Mars is what it is, an American Giallo complete with blood, murder, sex, and psychology, along with a delicious late 1970’s visual vibe.  If those elements alone intrigue you, you could do far worse than spend a bit of time with Laura Mars.

One little note:  Actor Tommy Lee Jones, intriguingly enough, has appeared in two films written, but not directed, by John Carpenter:  The Eyes of Laura Mars and the 1986 thriller Black Moon Rising.  He has yet to appear in any film John Carpenter has directed!

Movies

Gravity (2013) a (right on time!) review

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One of the most anticipated films, post-summer, has to be the Alfonso Cuaron directed, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney starring Gravity.  My own interest was high following seeing a few of the released clips from the film, depicting a mind-boggling amount of space destruction.

By the time the film was released a couple of days ago, the reviews were incredibly good.  As of today, Gravity is scoring a remarkably high 98% positive among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a slightly lower -yet still quite impressive- 90% positive among audiences.  Yet I’ve noticed rumblings in various sites from people who felt the movie was a let down, a beautiful visual spectacle that featured a decidedly less impressive story.  Are they being contrarians…or do they have a point?

To begin, Gravity’s effects are among the very best I’ve ever seen in film.  The movie is, if nothing else, a visual spectacle and if you’re going to see it, please go see it in the largest available movie theater screen possible (I caught it on IMAX 3-D, but unfortunately not at the biggest IMAX theater screen around these parts…for whatever reason, that particular theater chose not to air the film).

The movie’s opening sequence, approximately thirteen or so uninterrupted/uncut minutes showing us Earth, then the shuttle and its astronauts -and our introduction to Ms. Bullock’s Ryan Stone and Mr. Clooney’s Matt Kowalski- achieves what it sets out to do: Give us a sense of the wonder of being in outer space.  This one long sequence concludes with one of the two biggest effects showpieces of the film: High speed debris hitting the shuttle and sending Stone flying away, helpless and lost in the cosmos.

Stone is soon rescued by Kowalski and the film follows the two as they try to make their way back to some kind of safety.

I’ll stop there because I don’t want to get too spoilery.  However, I will say this:  Not all those who criticized the film’s story were simply being contrarian.  The fact is that in the end Gravity features a very simple story which some people far more clever than me noted was little more than “Open Water in space”.

Does that make the film bad?  Not really.

However, the simplicity of the story eventually made me realize the movie is -let’s face it- all about those wonderous effects.  Yes, there are some very tense sequences and both Ms. Bullock and Mr. Clooney acquit themselves very well in the film (Ms. Bullock in particular took on a dramatic role the likes of which I’ve never seen her do before, and she’s quite terrific).  Yet there isn’t all that much there there and that fact was bound to impact my overall feelings for the film.

That is not to say Gravity is a high-tech visual “bust”.  It is an exciting and interesting -if mildly limited- film that nonetheless is very worthy of your time…even if one could have hoped for perhaps a little more meat on those terrific visual bones.  On a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being a bonafide classic, I would easily give Gravity 4 stars.

Therefore, with some mild reservations, I highly recommend catching it.

Movies

World War Z (2013) a (mildly) belated review

On the surface and just before it was released, World War Z (I’ll refer to it as WWZ from here on) looked like a disaster in the making.

First, you had a modern zombie film that, completely against the grain, choose to go PG-13.  A very daring choice, considering that ever since the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead ushered in the modern movie zombie, showing ample amounts of gore appeared to be one of the stronger elements present in all these films.

Next, there were reports WWZ went way over budget and strong rumors emerged that the studio was unhappy with the final product.  This produced a secondary rumor, that director Marc Foster and star/producer Brad Pitt had a falling out.  Eventually, we learned a whole new ending was belatedly made for the feature.  Finally, when WWZ approached its formal release, the early commercials showed us zombie attacks that looked way too obviously CGI…and somewhat silly to boot.

So when the film finally was released last summer, there was little wonder many figured we were looking at a potential mega-bomb.

Such proved not to be the case.

Indeed, World War Z became one of the bigger box office successes of the typically busy summer movie season, and while I remained skeptical, I was happy to give the film a try.

Would I fall in with all the others who enjoyed it?

In a word: Yes.

Granted, it remains strange to watch a zombie film that features almost no blood and absolutely no guts at all.  In lieu of this, WWZ tries -and for the most part succeeds- in instead being a large global adventure with several tense action setpieces.  The set up is simple and not all that different from all the other hundreds of zombie films out there:  A zombie plague has hit the world and live humans are becoming an endangered species.  These zombies, unlike those in almost all the other zombie films, are much, much quicker than any seen before.  Worse, these speed demons act like ravenous ants and are as a group single minded in their pursuit of living flesh.

Finally, infection is quick as well.  If you are bitten, you have roughly ten seconds before becoming a zombie yourself.  Therefore cities and countries fall very quickly and it is up to Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) a one time “hot zone” investigator for the UN, to figure out how to stop -or at least slow- the zombie invasion.

We first meet Lane and his wife and two daughters as they make their way into New York City.  They wind up experiencing first hand the zombie plague and barely make it out of the city with their lives.  It is during this first attack that we are presented with a first hand/first person look at Lane’s powers of observation when he realizes how long it takes before a person becomes infected.  We will come back to his observations again, and this proves to be a very clever bit as it allows us to effectively enter Lane’s mind and see the world as he does.

There’s little need to get into the specifics of the plot.  Suffice it to say that Lane travels around the world seeking the key to solve the zombie dilemma.  Each visit presents Lane with allies and dangers and each is, in my opinion, handled well.  WWZ, in the end, is a film that gets going quickly and never stops yet manages to stir sympathy for Lane’s plight and his fear for not only his family’s survival, but that of humanity itself.

Yes, one can quibble and say the film goes overboard in showing Lane’s near supernatural ability to survive  The criticism is valid…Lane does manage to survive some pretty long –very long- odds in his quest.  Yet in Brad Pitt we have a hero worth rooting for, a quiet, intelligent family man whose mission is one everyone can sympathize with and hope for his ultimate success.

World War Z may not be your typical zombie film but there is plenty there to enjoy…even if you aren’t a big fan of CGI zombie hordes.  Recommended.