Diary of a Film Geek: Weekend Round-Up 9/25/09
Hello everyone and welcome to the weekend. We have at least 8 movies coming out. I have currently seen six of them. I didn’t get to see FAME cause I went to see SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE at First Ave instead, but I will see it today and post the review tomorrow. Also, PANDORUM’s press screening was the same time as SURROGATES, so I missed the former. I will be seeing that today as well. But here’s what I thought about the other six films.
SURROGATES is the new sci-fi thriller from director Jonathan Mostow. Based on a graphic novel, the movie begins with a brief introduction to the futuristic world that our story takes place in. For the past 15 years, there have been robots created to take humans place in life. You can hook up to your “Surrogate” in the comfort of your own home and go out in the world to do whatever you want without worrying about getting hurt. Crime rate is down by 99% and everything seems to be great. However, there are humans that disapprove of this and believe that surrogates are a perversion. They are about to start a revolutionary war. Now that the setup is over, I can tell you the plot. Bruce Willis plays a cop named Greer, who uses a surrogate like everyone else. While on a murder investigation, he discovers that someone died while they were connected to their surrogate. How did this happen? Apparently, there’s a weapon that can do this. Some electro gun that zaps the robots so hard that it makes it’s way to the real person. Greer has a close encounter with the alleged killer and his surrogate is destroyed. Now that he is forced to live in the real world, he looks at things differently. He tries to convince his wife to unplug but she’s too addicted to the robot life. Also in the mix is Greer’s partner Peters, Ving Rhames as the resistance leader, and James Cromwell as the creator of the surrogates. The best thing that can be said about this movie is that it’s full of interesting ideas. I mean when everyone that lives in the world doesn’t want to live there life anymore… I just thought that was kind of cool. And the military aspect, which is briefly touched on, was kind of neat. When a robot dies, the soldier unplugs, then reboots another robot and off they go to battle again. Unfortunately, these ideas aren’t properly executed. First, it doesn’t help that the script is poorly written. Most of the supporting cast is flat and it doesn’t help that they have to say lines like: “Hey! Meatbag!”. Bruce Willis does a decent enough job, but his character is shallow. He’s given an arc, but we never see any transition for the arc. How does he feel about surrogates? Why does he prefer to live for real, and when did he begin so feel that way. Rosamund Pike does her usual generic job. Radha Mitchell is fine, but again the material is bad. Rhames and Cromwell literally have nothing to do. The only other actor that made an impression was Devin Ratray as Bobby, who kind of gives a Jack Black (but not as annoying) performance as a computer hacker that doesn’t believe in using surrogates. You might know him best as Kevin’s older brother Buzz from HOME ALONE. The direction is awful. Let’s go back to 1997. Back then a movie called BREAKDOWN starring Kurt Russell came out and was directed by a first timer named Jonathan Mostow. That movie promised a fresh new filmmaker. Then he made U-571, which was okay. TERMINATOR 3 wasn’t very good. And now, with SURROGATES he has shown that he’s completely forgotten how to helm a coherent piece of action. Everything has the production value of a FOX Sci-Fi show. Bad CG and laughably bad greenscreen work. Might be passable for television, but this is the big time baby! Get a better effects team! Looked like crap! Bruce Willis’ face looks horrible when he’s a surrogate. Hard to look at, but at least we know what he’d look like after plastic surgery. The ending piles on the plot twists and by that point I just didn’t care. The amateurish acting, the slapdash writing, the inconsistent color tones, the hack editing, the direct to dvd sounding score, and the lack of compelling characters make this one awkward and bland movie to watch. At 88 minutes, this was tedious to sit through. It proves that you have to possess more than just an interesting idea to make a good movie. The filmmakers need to have talent. Also the movie gives away the ending in the trailers, so beware. But it doesn’t really matter cause it sucks! When the screening was done, I thought to myself… “Why wasn’t Nicolas Cage starring in this movie?” Enough said!
Next up is THE BURNING PLAIN. It’s the directorial debut of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, who co-wrote BABEL and 21 GRAMS. Like those films, this also has multiple storylines happening at once, or at least it seems that way at first. Here are the stories: 1. Syliva (Charlize Theron) is a manager at a high end restaurant who sleeps with anything that moves. But her life is about to change drastically when a mysterious latino enters her life. 2. Gina (Kim Basinger) is an unhappy housewife who has an affair with a married man (Joaquim de Almeida) that ends drastically. 3. Carlos (Jose Maria Yazpik) is grieving the loss of his father and ends up forming a relationship with Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), the daughter of the Gina, the woman his father was having an affair with. 4. The other storyline involves a crop duster and his daughter. All of these threads weave together. I actually didn’t think it was too hard to figure out, the script isn’t as clever as it wants to be. But it’s not bad. I liked watching everything come together, even though I guessed what was going to happen. It’s melodrama, but it’s good melodrama. The reason it worked for me was because of the strong acting and beautiful cinematography. Charlize Theron is excellent as usual as the tormented Sylvia. Kim Basinger is very good as Gina. I love character actor de Almeida, who usually plays a villain, who does some great understated work as Gina’s lover. The highlight for me was the performance of Jennifer Lawrence as Mariana. She’s easily the most interesting character in the movie, and Lawrence, who was only 19 when this was shot, is fantastic. The movie simply looks gorgeous. Every story has it’s own color scheme. One of my favorite shots is when you see a plane crash from the point of view of someone looking out the window of a house. That was amazing and must have been a bitch to set up. Like I said, the story is pretty melodramatic, but if you don’t mind that sort of thing, and like watching a plot unfold through some great acting, then you might find yourself engaged. Just don’t expect it to be as good as BABEL.
THE OTHER MAN is only going to Lagoon, but back in 1997 this probably would have gotten a major release. Thankfully, times have changed. Liam Neeson is Peter who is happily married to shoe designer Lisa, played by Laura Linney. During dinner, she asks him if he has ever been tempted to cheat on her. He just laughs it off, but when she seemingly disappears out of the blue, he begins to look through her emails to discover she was having an affair with a man who calls himself Ralph (Antonio Banderas). Peter tracks him down to Milan and “accidentally” runs into him in a Coffee shop where the two men play chess together. Peter also begins to play a sort of battle of the wits in order to find his wife. This movie is flat out stupid! I hated every second of it. The plot itself is so trashy that I’m surprised that any of the A-list cast signed on. Speaking of the cast… WOW! Okay, Laura Linney does a good job as usual, but she isn’t in the movie much and she has to deal with horrible dialogue anyway. I’ve never thought Neeson was an Oscar worthy actor to begin with. Even in SCHINDLER’S LIST, all I could see was the cheesy actor from DARKMAN (which is awesome by the way). He was perfect in TAKEN cause it was a B-movie. Well, this isn’t even a B-movie, it’s one of those films that you would find on Cinemax at two in the morning in 1994. Neeson’s performance is so over the top gruff and angry in this melodramatic mess that I laughed almost every time he spoke. Antonio Banderas is possibly even worse. He seems to have no clue on how to play his character as he’s suave and sophisticated one minute, then innocently naive like a child the next. The thicker the drama, the more the actors try to out do the other by shouting at each other and tightening their facial muscles. Both actors are worthy of a Raspberry Award this year. The cinematography is slick, but the glossy look can’t hide the fact that this is D-Grade trash. This is from the director of NOTES OF A SCANDAL, which I thought was trash disguised as an Oscar winner. This one is even worse. Every plot turn in this movie is laughable. Just wait until the finale. Ugh! It’s cliched, it’s dull, it’s embarrassing. This is a film that should have been made with Christopher Lambert and Billy Zane, and have gone straight to video. Better yet, this shouldn’t have been made at all! One of the worst films of the year! It probably would have been better if Neeson kicked everyone’s ass looking for his wife the same way he did in TAKEN. Then battle it out with Banderas at the end. Now THAT would have been a movie!!!
PARIS is a French ensemble piece that has many characters in separate stories that connect with each other somehow, either directly or inadvertently. Now, I saw this almost 2 months ago so I will do my best to remember it. I think the main storyline was about a man who finds out that he has cancer who doesn’t have long to live. He begins to reconnect with his sister Elise and her kids. Elise is lonely and doesn’t have time for love since she is taking care of her brother. There’s also a professor who is having an affair with one of his students (Melanie Laurent from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS). The professor’s brother is an architect, and I can’t remember too much about his story, sorry. I can’t read my notes cause I have awful handwriting. I suck! Anyway, this was a nice little movie. It’s about real people dealing with real situations. It isn’t overly sentimental, which was nice. The acting all around is terrific. I am really beginning to become a fan of Fabrice Luchini (also great in GIRL FROM MONACO), who plays the professor. He has some great scenes, I love when he dances to one of his old records in front of Laurent, who also does a good job. Juliette Binoche is great as usual. She can never really be bad. Everything ties together eventually, and sometimes in clever ways. Like the cancer victim sees Laurent’s character undressing from his apartment as he looks across to her building. Roman Duris as Pierre (cancer victim) gives the film it’s heart. It’s great work. It might get a little long here and there. I thought the movie could have been trimmed a bit, but for the most part it was a pleasant and breezy film that shows both the good and bad sides of life. This could also serve as a travelogue for the city Paris. The locations are simply stunning to look at. If you like movies with multiple characters and storylines, it’s a good one.
SOMERS TOWN is the latest from Shane Meadows. His DEAD MAN SHOES is kind of a minor cult classic, and I still need to see it. This one focuses on two teenage boys. Marek and his father have moved to London from Poland. Tomo is homeless and gets robbed of all his money by a bunch of bullies. The two meet each other in a cafe, where a beautiful French waitress named Maria catches their fancy. They become friends and both try to woo Maria. It’s basically a coming-of-age story with the kids bonding, getting drunk, fighting over a girl, etc. This could have been a memorable film if it was fully developed, but this one’s not even put in the oven. Meadows shoots the film in black and white and it looks great. The direction is pretty good too, shot in a raw, handheld, long take style. The acting by Thomas Turgoose as Tomo is very good. I think he has a long future in playing hard nosed characters. Piotr Jagiello as Marek isn’t as good though. He’s stiff and doesn’t feel comfortable in front of the camera. The role of Maria is barely developed. Why do the kids like her. We don’t learn how Marek began to like her, it just sort of happens. It turns out to be a lame plot device. Some of the character interaction is amusing between the two teens is amusing and I enjoyed the relationship Marek has with his father. But the movie is way too short, clocking in at 67 minutes with credits. That’s hardly enough time to get to know everyone well enough to care. It’s too bad, cause this had potential.
PONTYPOOL is part of Oak Street Cinema’s late night horror series that began last week with I SELL THE DEAD (which I didn’t review, but eventually saw and kind of liked it). This one stars Stephen McHattie as Grant Mazzy, a radio DJ in a small Canadian town. The entire movie takes place during one of his shows, as a snowstorm carries on outside. The only other people in the building are his Producer Sydney and Technician Laurel Ann. During the show, they get a report from the weather man about a horde of people storming an office occupied by a Dr. Mendez. It’s a little odd, but Grant plays it off as a joke. But then they get more calls from listeners claiming that people are eating each other. As the day goes on Grant and his team begin to panic, as the cannibals get closer to the station. But Grant insists to stay on the air to inform the listeners on what’s happening. What makes this movie work as well as it does is actor Stephen McHattie as Mazzy. He has an awesome presence, looking cross between an older Hugh Laurie (Dr. House) and Lance Henriksen, with a touch of Billy Drago. He’s got a wonderfully grizzled voice. His outstanding work really makes Mazzy come to life, who’s a very interesting character. He’s kind of a mean old bastard who doesn’t care what people think of him, usually trying to piss people off, especially his producer. Lisa Houle also does a good job as Sydney. Her and McHattie have good chemistry together, and after I viewed the movie, I found out why. In real life, they actually have a kid together. Bruce McDonald does a good job keeping the tension. What makes the film so intense is that we don’t see what’s happening outside of the station. We only hear what people are describing on the air, and seeing the reactions of Mazzy and his team. This was very effective. Eventually we see some violence and gore towards the end, and that stuff is all right too. The real reason why everything is happening was kind of lame, but I still went along with it because I liked the characters enough. The movie isn’t really anything special, but for 90 minutes I found myself entertained. And that’s all you can really ask for from a horror film. With a solid performance from McHattie, this is a pretty intense ride. Fans of the genre should enjoy it enough.
Here’s a recap of the movies released this weekend:
(I use a four-star rating system)
SURROGATES [PG -13] – *1/2
THE BURNING PLAIN [R] – ***
THE OTHER MAN [R] – 1/2 a star
PARIS [R] – ***
SOMERS TOWN [NR] – **
PONTYPOOL [R] – ***
So it’s safe to say that it’s best to head over to the art houses this weekend. Both PARIS and THE BURNING PLAIN were decent. And I liked the indie-horror film PONTYPOOL. Everything else isn’t worth it this weekend. I’ll be back tomorrow with reviews of PANDORUM and FAME.
Take care!
Be Geeky!
And watch movies!
