Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

There’s something a little silly about the fact that as all hell is breaking loose just outside your window during the apocalypse, the best thing you can think to do is whisper sweet nothings into the ear of the girl you just met.

This is both the strength and the crutch of “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” essentially just a romantic comedy but with the fortune and misfortune of being set at the end of days.

An asteroid is destined to hit the Earth within weeks, and Dodge’s (Steve Carell) wife literally runs off as soon as the news breaks. He’s left depressed and aimless until he meets Penny (Keira Knightley). The two escape their home during a riot and agree to help each other get to Penny’s family in England and Dodge’s high school sweetheart. Continue reading “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World”

Rapid Response: Freaks (1932)

Tod Browning’s “Freaks” may only have ever been made in that twilight period of the movies where sound pictures were still in their infancy and the Hays Production Code had not yet been established. And yet this cult, horror classic seems both ahead of its time and repulsively dated.

The film is a love story between a collection of sideshow performers in a circus, and “Freaks” is so strikingly notable because Browning, coming right from the traveling circus himself, successfully cast individuals with actual disabilities and deformities. There’s the two lovely Siamese twin girls, a half man/half woman, a man without legs, another with only a torso, a bird lady, an armless woman and the Pinheads, the latter of which are simply horribly deformed.

The central characters however are two dwarfs, Hans and Frieda (actual brother and sister Harry and Daisy Earles), who are engaged to be married until Hans develops a crush on the ravishing trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). She uses Hans for his money and laughs at him behind his back with her lover, the circus strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). The two try to poison Hans, and the circus freaks collectively get their vengeance by murdering and mutilating the two normals. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Freaks (1932)”

Your Sister’s Sister

Jack, Iris and Hannah are three lonely people spending the weekend in a remote cabin in the woods. But you wouldn’t know how lonely they are because now that they have each other, they really can’t bring themselves to shut up.

“Your Sister’s Sister” is a cozy romantic triangle drama between Jack (Mark Duplass), his best friend Iris (Emily Blunt) and her sister Hannah (Rosemarie Dewitt). Jack has been in a funk for the past year since the death of his brother, who was also once Iris’s boyfriend. She sends Jack to spend time alone in the wilderness, only for him to bump into Hannah. Hannah just broke up with her girlfriend, and with enough tequila shots, flirty compliments, and adventurous encouragements, she’s willing to forget she’s a lesbian for an evening and spend the night with Jack.

Surprise! The next morning, Iris shows up, and while Jack and Hannah try to cover up their dirty deeds, Iris confesses to her sister that she may be in love with Jack.

These are all steamy, awkward conversation topics, but they approach them with nonchalant ease. Jack makes blunt comments about Hannah’s sexy butt, Hannah rudely brings up an embarrassing story about Iris’s bush, and Iris and Jack take turns sarcastically judging each others’ choices in relationships. It’s as if they gloss over serious conversation that might get real or uncomfortable by keeping up the chatter.

It’s so bogged down under their words that the movie forgets that Jack has serious psychological problems in his life and that Hannah may actually be an unstable person. Occasionally the movie name drops Fleet Foxes or “Hotel Rwanda,” but it mostly steers clear of any conversation topic that isn’t relevant to sex.

“Your Sister’s Sister” then is an actor’s movie. It certainly isn’t a visual one, because a majority of the film is seen in extreme close ups during these back and forth conversations. It annoyingly gets us right up into their faces and problems.

But some of it works because the three are all wonderfully convincing as friends and sisters. Iris and Hannah have a mutual understanding of one another that only comes through years of sisterhood, and the quiet moment they share looking at each other under the covers in bed is the movie’s finest.

The big argument near the end gets close to psychotic, and for all the talking that came before, “Your Sister’s Sister” suddenly runs out of important things to say just when things get tense.

2 1/2 stars

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Let’s forget for a moment that you and I have both seen “The Wizard of Oz” more times than we can count. Let’s forget that it’s been parodied to death, that its been remade as “The Wiz,” that it kind of syncs up with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” that “Wicked” ever happened (seriously, I’d like this one to actually be true) and that some of us have likely been over the rainbow to Munchkinland dozens of times.

No one needs to write or talk about “The Wizard of Oz” anymore than has already been done, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?

I probably hadn’t seen “The Wizard of Oz” in full for a solid five years. I knew very well that it was a classic, but its one of those movies that people give carte blanche. Would I actually love it as much as when I was younger now that I could think of things I never thunk before? On the weekend of Judy Garland’s 90th birthday, I decided to sit and think some more.

My sister asked me as we began watching “The Wizard of Oz” what I could possibly write down in my notes. “It’s a timeless masterpiece,” she said, which I responded is precisely something I would write down. My goal was to see what really makes this movie tick. It is wonderful, but why? How is it different? How would I have reacted seeing it for the first time in 1939?

“The Wizard of Oz” is a wonderfully imaginative piece of Old Hollywood filmmaking at the era’s best. It’s epic and sprawling, but economical. It’s silly, but also smart and self-aware. It’s heart-warming and light, but also creepy and surreal. It’s the kind of movie that people forget also deserves the label “masterpiece” because it’s fun. Continue reading “The Wizard of Oz (1939)”

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Steven Soderbergh takes the heist movie to the art house with his “Ocean’s Eleven” remake.

 

“Ocean’s Eleven” was when Steven Soderbergh took the art house to the mainstream. It wasn’t Oscar bait like “Traffic” and “Erin Brokovich,” and it wasn’t gritty and experimental like “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” It was just pure Hollywood fun in the biggest way possible, which is probably the reason why most critics were unkind to it. To see such a gigantic studio picture with no lofty ambitions come from an otherwise serious director was like a concert pianist pounding out a little honky-tonk, as Roger Ebert put it in his 2001 review.

But to see how much it gets right, how different it feels and how unique it looks at every moment in comparison to similar Hollywood capers like it is to realize that “Ocean’s Eleven” is a great film after all, and a fun one. Continue reading “Ocean’s Eleven (2001)”

Rapid Response: Rififi

Jules Dassin “Rififi” is the basis for the modern heist movie and helped to inspire the French New Wave way ahead of its time.

The word rififi, in the film of the same name, refers to toughness, style and cred on the streets, and Jules Dassin’s 1955 movie has plenty of it.

“Rififi” is a stylish, sultry, sexy and shadowy noir that laid the groundwork for the modern heist film. It tells the story of the washed up crook Tony “The Stephanois,” (Jean Servais) who is just out of prison, isn’t needed anymore, isn’t trusted by his poker buddies and is ultimately a lonely, tragic film noir figure.

He joins a group of three other hoods with a goal to rob the biggest bank in Montmartre. Their initial plans are simple: smash the windows and grab the jewels in the display for a handsome haul. But Tony proposes to go for the big bucks. The thing is, he has no reason to truly do this job. He’s got no ambitions for what to do with the money, whereas his three companions all have admirable home lives. He’s cruel to his former lover Mado (Marie Sabouret), and with no cares in his life except for his godson, he can do nothing but be vicious to himself and those in his life. “A man’s gotta live,” Tony says, but his job is near suicide. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Rififi”

Rapid Response: Aliens

What is a greater hell for Ellen Ripley? Watching your entire crew be slaughtered by a near invincible alien being or having to suffer through the bureaucratic bullshit of humans who don’t believe her story?

In some ways, it seemed more appropriate to watch “Aliens” after seeing “Prometheus” than “Alien” itself, mainly because both “Aliens” and “Prometheus” are action films rather than a horror movie. But while both films are special effects titans for their times, it’s embarrassing how badly cliche “Aliens” is in comparison to Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi epic. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Aliens”

Prometheus

For all of its green computer readouts and drab, ‘70s styling, Ridley Scott’s “Alien” has aged remarkably well. It’s still an absolutely riveting classic because Scott creates such an encompassing feeling of dread in every moment. The movie’s shadows make us afraid not for what we can see but all that we can’t, and even more so for what we can hear.

It’s possible that a horror movie hasn’t been made since that’s quite as good, not because today’s directors are incapable of it but because the kids crave a new kind of queasy spectacle these days.

That’s why my anticipation for “Prometheus” was as high as any movie still to come out this year. To combine the special effects wizardry of the 21st Century with the atmospheric slow burn of one of the greatest horror movies all time would be a marvelous achievement.

To capture that mystique, Scott would have to be ambitious. “Prometheus” then is more than a closed-door horror movie where the characters are picked off one by one. It has lofty aspirations about the questions of life and existence with a glossy sci-fi finish. It’s a breathtaking epic that on a technical level leaves “Alien” in the dust.

And yet in its attempt to get bigger, it actually got smaller. Continue reading “Prometheus”

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Tilda Swinton said in an interview with Roger Ebert that just about every mother at one point has a twisted nightmare that her child will turn out badly. The child will do something horrible someday, and the fear is that she may be responsible.

Does this sound like a horror story? It kind of is, but “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is more than an art house retread of “The Omen.” It’s a psychological examination of a woman whose life has been changed by motherhood and is now alone with her twisted thoughts. Continue reading “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

The White Ribbon

Rebellion can be as large as a barn being set on fire or as small as a toddler pushing a bowl off a dinner table. Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” views rebellion at its conception in a small, rural town in Germany just before the dawn of World War I. His film is a dark parable for how evil can be the precursor to an even greater evil. Sometimes, it’s just human nature.

The slow ripple effects of silent unrest begin to simmer when a doctor (Rainer Bock) riding his horse topples over an unseen wire. It looks to be an accident, and there are no suspects, but this wire did not get there on its own. Nothing this serious or mysterious has ever happened here before, and everyone begins to ask questions. The doctor’s son is the first to learn the blunt truths of life. He asks his sister what “dead” is, and she can’t bring herself to lie that she, his father and he will eventually die. She also confesses their mother didn’t just go on a long trip. When he pushes that bowl off the table, such an act never meant so much.

This is not the only incident. A mother falls through a decrepit roof while on the job, and the family believes that the Baron who runs the town is responsible. One of the sons retaliates by vandalizing the Baron’s (Ulrich Tukur) private harvest of crops, but there’s even more suspicion when the Baron’s son turns up tortured.

This is a patriarchal society, as was common in the early 1910s, and it’s a society of quiet, bleak obedience to elders and to the Lord. Thus everyone is on edge when the town is stricken with equally quiet mysteries.

To keep everyone in line, one father and the town’s Pastor (Burghart Klaussner) ties a white ribbon on his children’s sleeve to remind them to stay pure and good. His guilt and mistrust of his children is worse than any abusive father. There’s one devastating scene in which he punishes his children by paddling them with a cane. It’s not enough that the child’s siblings must watch, but the boy must bring his father his tool of destruction. The moment takes place behind a closed door to us because we must know how confined and repressed this society is.

Many critics have said “The White Ribbon” is a film about the start of fascism, but Haneke is content with the truth that the small acts of rebellion and assertions to authority are the start of something. The Whodunnit is not as intriguing as the slow burn to something bigger.

That’s because Haneke’s film is wonderfully atmospheric It’s been converted to black and white from color film stock, and the effect is starkly monochrome. There is no color in this antiquated society. No one shoots a funeral the way Haneke does here, with the camera as distant and centered as can be to the mourners, and it’s just one of the many stunning landscapes Haneke creates with his camera.

And yet for all its subdued pacing, “The White Ribbon” is a film of immense gravity. The Doctor’s blunt disgust with his mistress is as heartless a thing to say to a woman as anything I’ve ever heard. The Pastor’s constructed judgments about his son’s masturbation is as surprising and tough to hear as any other parental scolding. The standards of this town are grave, and the performances by Bock and Klaussner equal the film’s severity.

“The White Ribbon” won the Palme D’Or at Cannes back in 2009, and now Haneke has done it again with his follow-up film “Amour.” It beat some powerhouse films including “Inglourious Basterds,” “Fish Tank,” A Prophet” and “Gomorrah.” It likely resounded with the Cannes crowd because it connects on a primal level. It’s a dark film with a scary truth, and it’s mesmerizing to watch.