Donnie Darko (Retro-Review)

Donnie Darko (2001) is one of those movies that wasn’t a hit when it first came out with either regular viewers or critics but which has gradually gained a strong following.

I think that at first viewers didn’t know what to make about a young man seeing visions of someone in a demonic bunny suit prophesizing the end of the world (in fact giving an exact date) and giving the young man specific instructions on what he’s supposed to do about it.  It’s not an easy film to pin down. It has elements of comedy, drama (including coming of age films), science fiction, horror, and psychological thrillers.  Happily the elements all feel like they belong together in this movie.

I finally saw it for the first time a couple months ago (Director’s Cut) and the movie has really stuck with me.  Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie commends this movie, but the supporting cast (particularly Patrick Swayne) is mostly top notch as well.  Even Seth Rogen in a tiny role plays it perfectly straight.  The supernatural elements work because the human aspects are so well developed. For example, when Donnie’s father learns that Donnie has called a teacher who deserved it a bad name, he tries to act disapproving but can’t quite hide the fact that he agrees with Donnie’s assessment of the teacher.

I don’t want to write much more about the film because it’s a story that really needs to be discovered as it unfolds.  I will say it’s one of the great films of the 2000s.  Any film with a guy in a demonic looking bunny suit has me in its corner to start with, but this film keeps me in its corner and won’t let go.

The Long Good Friday (Retro-Movie Review)

While not as well-known as some other gangster movies over the years, The Long Good Friday is still my favourite.  Bob Hoskins plays a British gangster who starts out at the top of his world, about to close a deal with an American crime group.  Unfortunately for him, someone in his group has pissed of the IRA, causing them to systematically target his own organization.

While Helen Mirren as his wife is also excellent, this is definitely Hoskins’ movie.  He doesn't appear until nine minutes in but then he completely takes over the movie.  As Strand he tries to find out exactly what happened to make his group (and thus himself) a target for the IRA, while trying to salvage his relationships with the Americans, who understandably become less interested in closing the deal as people start dying. Strand himself is not above using brutal methods to try to find out what’s happening.  But what makes his character so fascinating is his force of will.  While he’s definitely shaken by the IRA deciding to destroy his group and everyone in it, he remains a force to be reckoned with, never breaking down. No matter how bad things get he remains a proud man.

Also featuring Pierce Brosnan in what is reportedly his first role, though the Internet Movie Database indicates he had quite a few roles in his inaugural year.  His role in the movie is small but pivotal, and certainly his role as Remington Steele and from there James Bond likely stemmed from his cold assassin character here.

Again though, it’s because of Bob Hoskins as Harry Strand that you might find yourself revisiting the Long Good Friday again and again, and likely certain scenes in particular, such as his final scene in the movie.  Well that and one other aspect: it has what is probably one of the ten catchiest theme tunes of all time.  No review would be complete without mentioning Francis Monkman’s compelling theme tune.

Green Lantern Movie Mini-Review

This review of course is for the 2011 live movie, not the two animated films.

Strengths:

·         Some nice special effects and action sequences

·         Some of the more serious moments are effective

·         Not the gorefest that the comics have become

·         Many of the supporting Green Lanterns (e.g. Kilowog, Sinestro) true to the comics

Weaknesses

·         Too much humour to the point where Hal Jordan becomes a bit of a buffoon at times

·         The Earth and space scenes keep trying to crowd each other out; a better move would have been to largely focus on Earth the first movie with a few space teasers, then save the main space bits for a sequel

·         Oa seems pretty barren, like they ran out of money

·         Parallax is best saved for a sequel; he’s not a good first-movie villain, especially if you really want to play him right

Overall: not a great movie, but still better than what superhero movies used to be like. An okay time passer if you set your expectations strictly to “popcorn flick”.

13 More Movies for Halloween

Okay, you took my advice last years and watched my 13 Halloween movie suggestions. You had a good time but time has passed now you’re feeling too relaxed. You wish to change that. Well, the doctor is here to raise your anxiety back up to acceptable levels. Here are my 13 recommendations for this year:

From Dusk Till Dawn: Two criminals pick the wrong bar to hole up in.

Trapped Ashes: People find themselves stuck in a studio tour’s haunted house and must describe traumatic experiences in the hopes of getting out.

Head of the Family: For people wanting their horror mixed with deadpan humour, a gold ol’ boy tries to blackmail a strange family of twins who are not exactly identical. The head of the family is a giant head with a smaller torso.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The first film on the series is easily the scariest, with a madman named Freddy Krueger who kills people in their dreams.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare: You’ll need to see A Nightmare on Elm Street first to really appreciate this, but if you do, it’s a fascinating look at meta-fiction as Freddy, no longer the clown he became in the previous films, invades the “real world”.

Saw: Not for the faint of heart, this film and its sequels involve a madman named Jigsaw who traps people in order to teach then a lesson. If they escape the trap they’ll be a bit maimed but they’ll probably have learned the lesson Jigsaw was trying to teach them.

Bloodsucking Freaks: a studio audience enjoys acts of torture, not realizing that (in the context of the film) what they’re watching is real.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead: Part horror, part satire, part musical, a fast food restaurant is built on an ancient Indian burial ground. This leads to giant zombie chickens.

Vamp: Teens visit a night club that’s infested with vampires.

The Sixth Sense: A psychiatrist tries to help a young boy who talks to ghosts.

Undead: An Australian zombie movie with a twisted sense of humour.

The Last Horror Movie: A “real” serial killer tapes over a fictional serial killer movie.

Unmasked Part 25: As with last year I’m finishing this list that you’ll need to seek out on VHS because there’s no DVD as yet. A Jason-like serial killer falls in love with a blind woman.

13 Good Historical Fiction Movies

Just for fun I decided to compile a list of 13 historical films I like, in rough historical order. To be included on the list, it had to substantially involve people widely believed to have existed, and to use real events as a framework. However, a high degree of historical accuracy is not needed to count on this list (history had proven to be highly malleable and sceptics tend to question widely accepted events). Conversely, documentaries are not included below. While some may dismiss Michael Moore’s films as fiction, they purport to be true or mostly true and are thus beyond the scope of this particular list. Also, I like what I like, so if three out of 13 films below take place during World War II, it just means I tend to enjoy films set during then. Also, I have an admitted bias towards the 20th century. While I did try to come up with more than two films set before 1900 that I love, the only ones I could think of weren’t really historical because the characters were all original. Don’t get me wrong: I like Shakespeare in Love and have it in my collection. I just don’t get super-excited thinking about it.

The Last Temptation of Christ: depicts Jesus growing into the role of saviour and undergoing one final temptation. It is a very human look at Jesus. In recent times more and more people have questioned whether Jesus even existed, let alone was the Saviour. Conversely some religious people were offended by his portrayal. I’ve included this film anyway because many of the broad events, if not the specific details, are accepted by a large number of people.

Cannibal! The Musical: An ill-fated gold rush expedition leads to a man being convicted of cannibalism. Almost for sure the least historically accurate film on this list, but enough of the broadest details are correct, and it’s a lot of fun.

The Aviator: the life of tortured genius aviator Howard Hughes.

The Pianist: a talented Jewish piano player tries to hide from the Nazis during World War II, moving from place to place.

Schindler’s List: A wealthy German businessman puts Jews to work for him during World War II, giving him free labour but saving many lives.

Downfall: A powerful film looking at the last days of the 3rd Reich, with Nazis soul searching whether to keep fighting to the bitter end or recognize their cause as hopeless and cut a deal. Hitler is shown as human but stubborn to the point of costing people their lives.

The Motorcycle Diaries: examines the formative yeasrs of revolutionary Che Guevara, starting out quite funny and becoming more serious as Che years more things.

Hollywoodland: examines the question of whether Superman actor Georges Reeves was murdered or committed suicide

JFK: A bit dry, but this film about the assassination of Kennedy is very detailed and feels a bit like a murder mystery, albeit one where the killer’s identity isn’t quite certain.

The Doors: Examines the rise and downfall of talented, haunting musician Jim Morrison. While not update it’s quite fascinating.

All the President’s Men: Only barely historical when it was made, this is another quasi-detective story, as two reporters begin to suspect the truth about Nixon’s Presidency.

Monster: I have a number of films in my collection about serial killers. This one might not have any mysterious figure, but that’s what makes this film so compelling: Aileen Wournov, while insane, is quite a human serial killer.

United 93: My favourite film about a more recent historical event, this film depicts the initially mundane flight that turned into an attempt to take control of a plane from terrorists during 9/11. Wisely low key rather than sensational.

Review: Punisher War Zone

Punisher War Zone is the goriest movie ever made based on a Marvel character, and boy is it a lot of fun.

This third attempt to launch a Punisher movie franchise is by fast the best effort to date. Both of the previous Punisher movies had their moments, but this is the one where a lot of things really came together.

The filmmakers were wise in what they took from various eras. From the Punisher's early years (1970s) we get Jigsaw. Part of his origin here swipes a scene from Batman (1989) but that's forgivable because the rest of the origin is so visceral. From the 1990s we get Microchip. Perhaps not the best effective use of that character, but the movie juggles a lot of characters, mainly cannon fodder, er, bad guys. From the 2000s, we get Garth Ennis' Lt. Soap character, the comic relief, but wisely not quite as silly as in Garth Ennis' comics. And Bradstreet Hotel is undoubtedly a nod to the cover artist during the early 2000s, Tim Bradstreet.

The Punisher himself is well portrayed by Ray Stevenson, a paradox of deadened yet angry at the same time. When he accidentally kills an innocent early on in the movie he is quite shakened without but Stevenson wisely understates the Punisher's emotions rather than going for melodrama.

The movie is not without its flaws: some bits with Jigsaw move a little too close to Jack Nicholson territory, and there's at least one key scene where the Punisher casually wanders into a spot where people should be waiting for him. But the film is so entertaining with its over thee top violence that it's a lot of fun.

Which brings me to my most important point. As previously noted, the film is quite gory. People familiar with the writer-artist team of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon on Preacher and Punisher should be able to visualize what they're in for in this movie. The violence is delightfully nasty and over the top, well earning its 18A rating (the equivalent of a US R, which it undoubtedly also received). There is no sex and not that much swearing that I can recall (though there is some), but for the violence alone, please leave your children at home. For that matter, if there's any risk of you vomiting during a movie, leave yourself at home; this is not the action movie for you. The movie is very gratuitous in its kills, arguably cheerfully so. This works well in the Punisher's universe (it's chilling how nonchalant the Punisher is in his kills) but they make sense in his world, and the audience is definitely meant to have fun with the kills. In fact the most tasteful kills are the ones you aren't meant to enjoy. But again, if you're not twisted enough to enjoy some creatively nasty kills, this movie isn't for you.

I on the other hand do enjoy a well-orchestrated bad guy kill so between that and and Roy Stevenson's performance, I give this film a solid recommendation. But don't say I didn't warn you about the violence.

Review: Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace has a lot of the elements that comprise a great James Bond film: lots of action, beautiful women, beautiful locations, good one-liners. One area that it falls down a bit on a bit is the lack of gadgets. In fact it's M, not Bond who gets the best toy, a fancy computer. However, they rebooted the franchise with the previous movie, Casino Royale, so I imagine they'll get to the gadgets in the meantime.

One thing I do like about the new Bond is its stronger sense of internal continuity. You can probably enjoy most of the film without seeing Casino Royale, but there are certainly bits you'll enjoy more if you've seen that film (a character from the previous film is mentioned a fair bit). There's also a cute allusion to one of the most famous scenes in Goldfinger (since it's a reboot Bond doesn't comment on the parallels directly, but it's undoubtedly intentional). And there is a nice revenge subplot with Bond's most important allies.

In Casino Royale I thought Daniel Craig struggled a bit with Bond's more human side, but here I thought he handled that side of Bond better.

One nitpick I do have is that, even though the series has always played a bit fast and loose with the laws of physics, Bond should have at least been limping at one point (in the real world there would have been broken bones or death, but in Bond's universe, limping would suffice).

Overall though I thought it was a fun action movie. Now bring on the gadgets!

13 Movies for Halloween

Not going out on Halloween? Want a decent movie to watch (or in one case, a great bad movie)? Here's some suggestions:

The Others: Creepy story of two families sharing the same mansion.

The Nightmare before Christmas: Halloween creatures take over Christmas.

Dead End: A family on a car ride attempt to take a short cut with dire consequences.

Love Object: A shy office worker transfers his feelings towards a woman in his office to a mannequin. Played for creepiness, not laughs.

Return of the Living Dead: Zombies and dark humour. They want your brains!

Halloween (1978): The 2007 version is fine too, but there's something especially creepy about this version.

Dawn of the Dead (1979): Again no slight to the remake, but the original story of people fighting zombies in a shopping mall is still the best.

Chopping Mall: Another good shopping mall horror, only this time with killer security robots.

Plan 9 from Outer Space: The classic unintentionally funny movie involves ghouls, alien invaders, and an obvious stand-in for Bela Lugosi.

Near Dark: A good ol' boy runs afowl of nomadic vampires.

There's Nothing Out There: A guy in a group of campers realizes they might be in a horror movie scenario.

Wilderness Survival for Girls: A group of girls camping either do terrible things in self defense or for no good reason. You decide which.

Highway to Hell: Sadly not on DVD yet, a hellcop kidnaps a woman and takes her to the titular road. Bad puns abound.

Review: Religulous

Note: This is a modified version of an e-mail I sent to the buddy I saw the movie with.

Premise: Comedian/political activist Bill Maher goes on a crusade to convert religious folks to atheism to save the world from Armageddon

This movie is Evil! The people who made it are going to burn in... oh, wait. this blog is called Sane Insanities. Very well, then, here's a sane review of the movie from someone who is in fact religious.

The movie didn't quite work for me. I did find Maher funny at times (the mock translations, etc) and did laugh at points at targets I agree with (I think a lot of televangelists are going to Hell for corrupting their religion). I think if you already agree with most of what Maher says, you'll probably find the movie very funny.

But here's why the film didn't quite work for me, despite the film giving me stuff to think about:

• Maher makes numerous attempts to interrupt the subjects (one of my favourite bits was when the one guy wouldn't let him interrupt him).
• Related to the above, Maher does not always let his subjects finish (he dismisses the one guy who said he had a series of miracles because he didn't agree that the first point was a miracle, and did not let him provide other examples; he did not address the guy's point that one incident in isolation might not be a miracle but that a series of events might illustrate a pattern).
• He engaged in listening to subvert rather than understand: when he asked questions, he was clearly looking for stuff that he could use to throw in a zinger, as opposed to really trying to understand the other side's perspective (which he claimed was his goal at the beginning of the film). This is the reason why my favourite of the current crop of entertainment-based documenters is neither Maher nor Michael Moore but rather Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 30 Days). While he's also funny, he also makes a genuine effort to understand perspectives he disagrees with.
• Maher does not tackle religion from a spiritual perspective, only from a purely logical perspective. While he addresses faith and how illogical it is, he does not address the fact that people seek out religion to feed some spiritual side of them (in fairness the film does show one guy alluding to this). He thus assumes that religion is purely a security blanket and does not really address other reasons why people seek religion.
• Further on the logical bit, he ignores emotions completely beyond the aforementioned dismissing blind faith outright. To really understand religion you do need to look at the emotional side because it's absolutely critical to religion.
• He goes for easy targets and does not address more difficult points when they come his way (the aforementioned pattern argument, plus there was a point in a Jesus-themed park where he dismisses the park's head's claim that people from other religions are welcome; later at that park when a Jesus actor sent a difficult question back at him, he gave a smirk but made no more effort to answer the question than "Jesus" did).
• Related to the above, Maher shows disdain when people make fair points (he smirks when the guy running the Jesus park points out that he lets people come to the park and does not try to force religion on anyone, or even particular beliefs).
• Again related to easy targets, he ignores those aspects of religion that have caused little harm over the centuries (the Wicca for example) and does not examine areas where religion has benefited people (e.g. providing food for the poor).
• He contradicts himself a number of times (again he claims at the beginning he wants to understand religion but then makes no effort to do so in his journey; he claims he does not know, yet other times he claims he does know that there is no validity to religion).
• He basically comes across as bullying the people he talks to; while funny he's also pretty mean-spirited even towards nice people (my gut feeling is that the Muslim woman he bullied probably isn't one of those Muslims who agrees with 9-11).
• Maher does not address the belief that some religious people have (myself included) that while there are some facts in the Bible, a lot of the stories are allegories.
• While he makes some intelligent points his inability to really understand the other perspective and in fact the need to come into people's religious centres with no real purpose than to make fun of them does suggest a certain level of insecurity about his atheism. Why is he so afraid to really understand the other side? Growing up I was regularly bullied by people who were afraid of me because I was different. I do see a lot of that in Bill Maher, at least in this film: he's afraid to let in anything that might chip away at his world view, so he takes a wrecking ball to other people's world views).
• Maher claims, especially at the end that his film is designed to convert people to atheism, let frankly his attitude is more preaching to the converted. While again, he's pretty funny, you convince more people (at least in part) by trying to understand their perspective and comparing notes than by showing a complete lack of respect for deeply help beliefs and openly mocking them. In this area in particular the film must be considered a failure because for the most part it's unlikely to achieve what it supposedly set out to do.
• The friend I was with would probably be annoyed if I didn't mention her pet peeve: that when looking at how gay people have been oppressed by religion, no lesbians were spoken to (they might have been glimpsed in a quick montage).

Now, watching the film wasn't a total loss or else I wouldn't have that much to say about it. I'm definitely not one of those radical bible-thumpers who think the film should be banned. I feel that the true test of believing in freedom of speech means willing to hear perspectives you don't agree with. I just didn't agree with much of what he said (beyond religion being abused by warmongers and televangelists. And yes, the guy who believes himself to be Jesus reborn is probably a crackpot). He also makes some good points on how religion can lead to bloodshed and the risk of us blowing up the planet sooner or later, but I don't think he realizes how distracting the religion part is to the message of "We really ought not to blow up the planet". I'm not saying he can't do a film about how religion can be self-fulfilling in the Armageddon department, but if you do, you ought to realize that religion is a highly complex issue and can't be dismissed as easily as the more extreme atheists want to believe.

Maher is a witty, intelligent guy, and if he were to do a documentary on something I agree with, I would probably laugh a lot. It would probably prove to be a severely flawed film when I dissected it unless he learned from this one, but I would laugh a lot more nevertheless.