Under the Skin Review

Here’s the thing: I don’t know how to describe my reaction to Under the Skin, the latest effort from Sexy Beast director Jonathan Glazer.  More accurately, I don’t think that I can describe my reaction to it in the liked it or not sense.  It is hard to say for sure what is going on most of the time because there’s very little dialogue or plot to give us insight into what is going on.  Not that that is really the point: it’s clear early on that this is going to be a challenging ride.  I also don’t want to dismiss it with an “I don’t get it” either because I don’t want to be the guy who dismisses stuff that goes outside of the traditional boundaries of narrative film.  Ultimately however much you enjoy or appreciate this film depends on how willing you are to embrace this film’s weirdness.  If you’re ready to turn it off by the time the title flashes on the screen, this film is not for you.

The film stars Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious woman who seduces random men on the streets of Scotland and kills them.  There is also a man on a motorcycle (professional motorcycle racer Jeremy McWilliams) who is trailing her.  The volume of ambiguity in the film makes writing a synopsis a fool’s errand, especially those who aren’t looking up the Wikipedia entry to try and get a purer response.  Johansson, who has done well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has a good hot streak with smaller films like Her, deserves a lot of credit for taking on such a daring role.  Obviously she was cast in part because of her sex appeal, but she definitely has the chops.

With the lack of plot or character, the film makes up for it in technique.  It looks amazing.  The film’s use of light and dark imagery helps establish this bizarre, dreamlike world that runs parallel to our own.  Daniel Landin’s camera work could be enjoyed with the film on mute, but the sound is another vital piece.  With the lack of dialogue, the sound design and soundtrack steps up in a big way.  It’s hard not to think of the soundtrack to 2001 with some of the more droning pieces of music, especially in the opening sequence.  I have to imagine this film plays better on the big screen.

Under the Skin has been considered one of the best films of the year, but it is decidedly not for everyone.  There is minimal plot or story and nothing is spoon fed.  It is easy to see how it almost has as many 1/10 reviews as it does 10/10 reviews on IMDB and I definitely am looking forward to reading more of what other people thought about it.  While I often have a hard time with these types of films, top notch filmmaking and Johansson’s performance are what make it worth seeing.  For even true cinephiles, throwing in a challenge like this may seem like a chore, but I believe exercising your brain with a film like this can only benefit a viewer, even the ones who can’t make it to the end credits.

Grade: B?

Snowpiercer Review

Five years ago, roughly the same time Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was poorly received by just about everyone yet made a ton of money, a bit of sci-fi counterprogramming occurred with the release of Duncan Jones’ Moon.  While Moon never came close to transcending its cult status into mainstream success, its reputation has gone on as one of the better cult films of the late 00s.  Now we have an even worse received Transformers filling multiplexes and another small sci-fi film, Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer, based on the French comic book Le Transperceneige.  Cursed from a major release because Bong wouldn’t agree to the Weinsteins’ cut (I know, the Weinsteins cutting a film from an Asian filmmaker, huge shocker), Snowpiercer has been relegated to limited and VOD releases in the states.  Although it is a shame this great film isn’t available to a wider audience, that treatment may make Snowpiercer the next great cult classic.

Set in 2031, we find humanity has been decimated by a new ice age, the product of an experimental attempt to stop global warming.  It has been 17 years since and the remaining life on earth is stuck on the eponymous train, speeding around the globe in perpetuity.  The society that has emerged in that time is decidedly split between the direst of poor and the rich, the former rebelling against the latter often.  This time they’re lead by Curtis (Chris Evans), who has spent half of his life on the train and wants to speak to the mysterious leader Wilford.  They manage to break out train door builder Namgoong (Song Kang-ho), who helps them open the doors to get them to the front, where the rich and powerful hold court.  Like many dystopias, the idea of how man can survive this ordeal runs throughout, and this film posits the idea that maybe it shouldn’t.  A little less than 24 hours since I’ve seen it and I’m still wrestling with these ideas, and no doubt they’ll be on my mind when I see it again.

The film is quite amazing to look at (I have to imagine it looks even better on the big screen).  Aside from a few brief glimpses outside, cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo places his camera only from within the cars, creating a great claustrophobic effect of only being able to work on sets the width of a train car.  As the rebels make their way further up the train, we are treated to a variety of train cars that serve a variety of different uses from non-stop raves to a school that is a thinly veiled indoctrination center.  Although some of the mythology may be a little fuzzy, the art direction brings this world to life.

Snowpiercer’s cast is filled with some impressive talent: John Hurt co-stars as Gilliam, the amputee mentor of Curtis, Bong Joon-ho mainstay Song offers some color as the eccentric architect and addict Namgoong and the always reliable Tilda Swinton delivers as the jittery mouthpiece Mason.  However, it is star Evans that stands out.  He has to hide the Captain America muscle, but the world weariness is there.  There’s no flashy quirk here.  A monologue towards the end, where he outlines just how bad it can be back there, is some of the best work of his career.  I can only hope he changes his mind about retiring from acting when he finishes his work at Marvel.

For his first English language film, Bong Joon-ho has created a relentlessly grim version of the future.  Despite that, the film never drags and has enough thrills that it could be a decent sized hit if it got a release similar to other summer blockbusters—it’s right at home with other dark summer films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla.  It’s done very well in Bong’s native South Korea, becoming the 10^th highest grossing film there domestically of all time.  Unfortunately, the Weinstein Co. isn’t giving it the push it deserves in the US.  However, maybe that’s OK.  Thinking about this predicament, it’s hard not to think about another dystopian film that flopped at the box office and dealt with similar studio meddling, Brazil (there’s even a character named Gilliam).  Like any great cult film, no matter how much interference gets in the way, it will find its audience.

Grade: A-

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

When reviewing movies, you always have to be aware of the idea of “spoilers”.  While the whole “spoiler” notion had gotten way out of hand, most of us would prefer to learn the major plot events the way the creators intended, through experiencing it first.  However, sometimes the “spoiler” is right there in the title, as has been the case with Rise of The Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, its new sequel.  Regardless of how one may end, ultimately the series is going to end with the humans losing big and the apes taking control.  So ultimately the answers we look for with these sequels isn’t “what” so much as “how” and as both ROTPOTA and DOTPOTA prove, it is all about the presentation that makes it an entertaining ride.

The film begins with a callback to the credit sequence from ROTPOTA, as red lines circle the globe, spreading what the film calls “Simian Flu” around the world.  It destroys the majority of humanity to the point where a decade after the first film the apes hadn’t had any contact with humans in two years.  The apes, led by Caesar (Andy Serkis) from the first film, have created their own society.  It is practically a utopia until they come across a human expedition.  This incident shatters the isolation of both communities, as the humans need to reach into ape territory to access a power plant in hopes of solving an energy crisis.  The apes agree but the uneasy agreement that, as you can expect, eventually crumbles.

The story is ultimately a tragedy, as the humans are afraid of these hyper intelligent apes while the apes, in particular former lab experiment Koba (Toby Kebbell), have some issues trusting the humans as well.  Ultimately it can only result in the world from the original series of films, but it is still compelling to see that process unfold.  It doesn’t get quite as dark as I wanted, but considering the box office this film is raking, we’ll be seeing increasingly grim chapters to come.

Of course you can’t mention this film without praising the work of Andy Serkis.  Serkis, who I believe gets top billing for the first time in his career, continues to shine as ape leader Caesar.  Serkis is best known for his work in motion capture acting, roles that don’t get him even the glory of a great character actor, but he deserves all the praise he’s gotten for Caesar.  His work here rivals that of his other best known work, Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series.  Serkis conveys all of the confusion Caesar had as far as supporting his apes, but still caring about the humanity that raised him.  It is a shame his work isn’t considered Academy worthy.

The great acting is assisted in superb special effects.  From the first shot after the prologue, the level of detail of the apes is stunning.  Director Matt Reeves (Let Me In), coming in after ROTPOTA’s Rupert Wyatt, does a great job in blending the effects into real world.  He also handles the action well as the apes and humans have their inevitable showdown (a particular POV shot from a tank is a highlight).

Although it may be saving the darkest stuff for future films, DOTPOTA is an exciting, entertaining film.  Much like what made the initial reboot work, they were able to mine a human story (mutual distrust between factions with different agendas trying to co-exist but escalating into all-out war) and use state of the art special effects well in service of that story.  This series is heading towards the inevitable moment where the title is the truth rather than the promise.  Despite knowing that fact, it doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of this new series one bit.

Grade: B+

Notes (SPOILERS):

-It may be splitting hairs, but I think Rise would’ve been the more appropriate word for this film title.  The first film in the reboot showed the beginnings of apes becoming smarter (the dawn), now we see them form their society and begin setting the stage for the war (the rise)

-I probably should mention something about the human characters, who are also good, but really, we’re here for the apes riding horses with a machine gun in each hand.  Jason Clarke’s Malcolm and Gary Oldman’s Dreyfus serve as a parallel to Caesar and Koba, and those fundamental differences between the two eventually lead to the war that humanity will lose.

-In a way, Caesar and Koba’s struggles mirror another conflicting relationship from earlier this summer, the one between Charles Xavier and Magneto from X-Men. 

-How long do you think we’ll have to wait until the Statue of Liberty falls?  I figure the next one, and that’ll be the stinger for the trailer.

-The dream director for a future installment would be Herzog, whose oeuvre is filled with nature overpowering humanity, but that would likely be another “Edgar Wright directing Ant-Man” scenario.

-I was expecting maybe a grizzled James Franco to make a cameo.  It is interesting to have a franchise like this where none of the human characters from the first one are in the second.

-Caesar’s son gets his scars so we can tell him apart from the other apes, right?

-I think it is telling that Koba’s ultimate fall to his death (nice foreshadowing with the gesture of forgiveness resembling helping someone up) isn’t just a straight fall, but one punctuated by him getting caught on a wire and hitting some equipment, then falling.  Definitely a major sea change in the ape world.

The Raid 2 Review

Released stateside two years ago, Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption was a surprise hit.  The Indonesian martial arts film was a shot of pure adrenaline for action movie fans.  Its concept was simple: a SWAT team is sent to take out a 30 story building filled with criminals and psychopaths.  Evans made a simple martial arts movie because he couldn’t get funding for the film he really wanted to make.  What he lacked in budget he made up for in some of the most dazzling fight choreography in years.  Rather than helm the English language remake, Evans decided to make the film he really wanted to do as the sequel.  The Raid 2 (sometimes subtitled Berandal) is a larger scale, more expensive follow up that still delivers the thrills of the original.

Before he can even recuperate from the events of the first film, SWAT Team rookie (and one of the few survivors of the first film) Rama (Iko Uwais) is recruited to infiltrate a powerful gang to expose the corruption of the police force.  As he befriends a major mob boss’ son (Afirin Putra), Rama finds himself spending years in prison building a cover while his wife and infant son go on without him.  Meanwhile, the Indonesian mob Rama infiltrates finds itself on unstable ground with the Japanese, while independent mobster Bejo (Alex Abbad) proves to be a wild card.

As that previous paragraph indicates, there is a lot more plot and character moments in this film than in The Raid.  It is almost 50 minutes longer, but with probably the same amount of time spent on the fights.  Unfortunately the plot isn’t that great and it could’ve been trimmed down or clarified.  Between the warring factions, the dirty cops and Bejo, it’s hard to keep track of what is happening and why whereas the original was rather straightforward.  That said, the shortcomings of the plot are more than forgiven in the fights, which are just as good if not better in some cases than the ones from the original.  Evans had a bigger budget and the money is there, with plenty of variety in daring set pieces.  They also seem to want to challenge themselves in the fights, with several fights taking place in confined spaces or using just about anything in the room to help out in a fight.

There are no weak links in the fighters in this film.  Uwais has to be in the vanguard of the next generation of martial arts stars.  The things he and his co-stars do in this film boggle the mind.  There are prison fights, an elaborate car chase and a brother/sister assassin combo who are adept at baseball bats and hammers respectively.  The punches and kicks come so fast you’d think these guys weren’t human.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bathtub filled with ice for Uwais (or just about anyone else) that he could lie down in during breaks in filming.  These fights look brutal and real to the point where one fighter towards the end has his entire face red from bruises.  Best of all, there isn’t a clunker among the fights to be found.

They’re all serviced by Evans’ direction.  For everyone sick of rapid cutting and incoherent action, The Raid films are for you.  Alongside the recent Fast and Furious films, The Raid 2 shows us the action and doesn’t jumble it up in excessive (and probably concealing) editing.  Even in the chaos of the rapid fire blows dished out, it’s not at all confusing.  When someone delivers a painful blow, you feel it too.  It’d be hard to see these guys dealing out this type of punishment without garnering a reaction.

Even with a subpar plot, The Raid 2 still shows Hollywood action movies (often made for much more than The Raid 2’s $4.5 million budget) how it’s done.  The original is a leaner production for sure, but this one takes advantage of having more money and a bigger canvas to use.  These films should be game changers for how action is seen in movies these days, or at least the perfect film to show a group of people looking to discover something many bigger productions have been missing: a series that blends both brutality and vitality equally.

Grade: B

22 Jump Street Review

I’m not the first to say this, but of the genres, it seems that comedies have the hardest time making a good sequel.  Sequels often get bogged down with the mindset of “do what you did in the first one, but more of it”.  This leads to comedies that tell basically the same jokes, just search and replaced to make it different enough.  We get the comfort of the familiar, but not the thrill of discovery (look no further than the difference between the cameo filled fight scenes in Anchorman and Anchorman 2).  This is at the forefront of the minds of Phil Lord & Chris Miller, the directors behind 22 Jump Street, as well as its predecessor 21 Jump Street and this year’s The Lego Movie.  These seem to be the guys you go to to make well received hits out of concepts that on paper look like surefire flops, and 22 Jump Street continues that trend.

22 Jump Street finds the undercover odd couple Schmidt (Jonah Hill) & Jenko (Channing Tatum) infiltrating a school (again) looking to stop a new street drug from spreading beyond the campus (again).  The film is so meta you’d think Abed from Community wrote the script.  Certainly the self-referential jokes, including the introductory spiel by their chief (Nick Offerman), are very funny, but in between those winks to the audience is a sharp lampooning of sequels and the mindset that goes into making them.  Throughout the film the characters will literally tell each other to do what they did the first time.  However, in a fun commentary on the diminishing returns of sequels going back the well, what worked the first time doesn’t always work again.

What does work again this time around is the chemistry between Hill and Tatum.  21 Jump Street showed Tatum’s surprising comedic chops which he continues to showcase here with Hill.  Their relationship ultimately drives the film.  This time Jenko finds himself attached to the frat/jock side of college, bonding with a possible lead (Wyatt Russell) who is hilariously similar to himself, while Schmidt bonds with an art student (Amber Stevens).  Schmidt and Jenko’s relationship works so much that it helps give the film something substantial on top of the jabs made at lazy sequels.  The rest of the cast is also solid.  Ice Cube’s no nonsense Captain Dickson is often a part of some of the biggest laughs, Peter Stormare is just one of those character actors I always enjoy and keep an eye out for a ton of cameos.

In a time when the summer movie season has found itself a victim of diminishing returns from overextended franchises a little more each year, 22 Jump Street is a welcome change.  While it is on the surface a sign of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy, actually watching you see a film that is clever and fun.  Lord and Miller continue to take a questionable idea at best and make it fresh.  That they made a good comedy sequel is reason enough to celebrate.  If only there were more of these guys for some of the direst movies in production.

Grade: B

Random notes:

-I was disappointed that there was no mention of Schmidt’s love interest from the first film, Molly (Brie Larson).  Perhaps her rising star made her unavailable to be in this one, but it feels like a missed opportunity not to make a joke about that cliché of sweeping the love interest in the first film under the rug in the sequel.

-Definitely stick around for the credit sequence, although you’re fine skipping the post-credits scene.

The Last Playlist

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my dad passed.  I still don’t know exactly what to say.  Obviously the past year has been difficult and it’s hard to sum up all that in a blog entry, nor is much of it stuff I want to air out in public.  For this sad anniversary, I wanted to focus on what may be considered a small detail of his memorial service: the music played beforehand.  As far as I know he never gave any specific requests as to what he wanted to be played.  Ultimately, I took it on myself to craft about an hour or so of music that was not only appropriate for a funeral, but also music I knew he enjoyed.  In the end I whittled it down to 18 songs, and was proud of the end product.

Playlists were something my dad really got attached to when he found iTunes, and that was something I had in mind while making it.  It wasn’t just 18 songs played at random, I wanted a certain rhythm and flow to it: to have the songs about mourning the loss early on and finish with celebrating what we had, touching upon some of his favorites along the way.  So here is a breakdown of that ultimate playlist, with a little commentary:

1) “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Bob Dylan

The funeral staples are a little tricky, but fortunately this was a right fit.  My dad was a big fan of Dylan, and this was a good choice to kick it off.

2, 4-6) “Day After Day” – Badfinger, “Time of the Season” – The Zombies, “Johnny Too Bad” – Taj Mahal & “Spooky” – Classics IV

I lump these together because they aren’t really funeral type stuff (although The Zombies doesn’t sound like a band you would want to play at a funeral) and were songs my dad really liked to listen to.  These songs were frequent in playlists he’d play on Saturday afternoons (music on Saturdays were an unofficial tradition growing up) after we transitioned to playing the music primarily on the computer.

3)  “In My Life” – The Beatles

Another funeral staple.  My parents turned me on to the Beatles and this song is one of their best.  Perhaps it has a different meaning for my generation than the previous one since John Lennon was dead before I was even born.  Now it seems more like looking back at someone already gone than someone looking back on their own life.  Regardless, I knew the Fab Four needed to be represented somewhere.

7) Nightswimming – R.E.M.

I picked this one because it feels bittersweet, as the song’s narrator reflects on the passage of time and how fleeting things are (“September’s coming soon”).  It’s also just a gorgeous song and I will take advantage of any excuse I have to play it.

8) “Keep Me in Your Heart” – Warren Zevon

I think this may be the only funeral staple made by someone who was near the end of his life (the album was released about a week and a half before Zevon died from cancer in 2003).  It always amazes me when an artist can hit something as profoundly true as he does here, facing the end.  It acknowledges the sadness of death, but also the fact that life goes on, and the memories of those we’ve lost stay with us.

9) “Hey Jude” – The Mutato Musika Orchestra (From the film The Royal Tenenbaums)

Here is where I tried to turn it around a little bit, leading to the uplift at the end.  I’d already used a song the Beatles wrote, but The Royal Tenenbaums was a favorite of ours, and for a hint at what’s to come, this soundtrack has a lot of songs that work for funerals.

10) “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” – Elvis Costello

My dad was a huge fan of Elvis Costello.  He owned an enormous, wall sized poster of him that he’d put up in his office (I believe my sister has it these days).  We even saw Costello do an acoustic set at Woodstock 99.  Most of his music I found a little hard to fit with the rest of the playlist, but with the title I couldn’t resist (though I don’t remember my dad owning any red shoes).

11) “I’ll Fly Away” – Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch

My dad became more in touch with his spiritual side in the last decade of his life, and I wanted to include that in the playlist.  Plus I really enjoyed this version, recorded for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack.

12) “The Fairest of the Seasons” – Nico

The second song from The Royal Tenenbaums, maybe the most somber from the second half, but it felt right as a part of saying goodbye.

13) “What a Wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong

Perhaps the funeral staple, if not top 5.  My dad loved jazz and Louis Armstrong.  Armstrong’s music played at the house all the time, especially his work with Ella Fitzgerald.

14) “We’ll Meet Again” – Vera Lynn

Besides the spiritual implications this song can have in the funeral context, this song has a connection to my relationship with my dad because of its use during the end sequence of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  Dr. Strangelove was one of the first films my dad showed me when I started to get interested in movies beyond entertainment and it is still one of my favorite films.  Plus it adds to the uplift I was hoping to get as the mix nears its close.

15) “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” – Talking Heads

Of course our parents influence our tastes by passing down what they liked to us, and my dad loved Talking Heads.  So I wound up loving them too.  This song is simple and beautiful and evokes a strong feeling of peace (I could see the song working at a wedding as well).

16) “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – The Rolling Stones

This song definitely encapsulates the “acceptance” piece of the grieving process.  Obviously it was tough to lose my dad at only 60 years old and I’ve done a lot of thinking about it.  While I’m still making my way there, I know ultimately that life isn’t going to be fair and that this ordeal will make me stronger.

17) “Everyone” – Van Morrison

The third and final song used in The Royal Tenenbaums (not meant to imply dad was anything like Royal).  I loved how it ended the film, as the characters moved on from the experiences and how that was ultimately a good thing.  Also the Moondance album this is from got a lot of play growing up.

18) “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – Monty Python (From the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian)

Like it was going to end with anything else.  Dad turned me on to Monty Python and their brilliant comedy when I was a teenager and it was a major building block for my sense of humor and the way I’d see the world.  While we feel pain for what we’ve lost in funerals, we also need to remember how much good they brought us.

There are of course dozens, if not hundreds, of more songs I could’ve put in but for an hour’s worth of material, I think he would’ve liked it.  It was obviously the toughest playlist I’ve ever had to assemble, but it needed to be done.  He would’ve wanted something carefully and thoughtfully curated because that is some small bit of his legacy carrying on to me.  Of course I got a lot more out of my dad than that, but it is something like this that gives me a little comfort as I continue to process life without him.