Attack the Block

“Attack the Block” is a clever parable about the English class system. It also happens to be a badass alien invasion comedy.

“Attack the Block” is a clever parable about the English class system. It also happens to be a badass alien invasion comedy.

A movie like this gives you the sense that most people in horror movies simply aren’t having enough fun. The teenage kids that run the show in “Attack the Block” chase down these “wolf gorilla motherf***ers” not with fear but with enthusiasm and casual pleasures, and it’s a thrill to be a part of.

The punk heroes of “Attack the Block” are egotistical, territorial little buggers from a project in East London. A gang of five kids led by Moses (John Boyega) mug a young nurse (Jodie Whitaker) and are then interrupted by the crash landing arrival of what looks like an alien creature. They brutally kill it because they can and hoist it around as a trophy. Continue reading “Attack the Block”

Does the cult film still exist?

The definition of a cult film has changed from the ’70s to today to simply mean something nerdy that’s underrated and under the radar.

 

A look inside the IU Cinema Saturday night may have convinced you that the cult film is alive and well.

A sold out audience sat in rapt attention of Stanley Kubrick’s Orwellian mind-bender “A Clockwork Orange.” As the first ever midnight showing at the IU Cinema, this audience had perhaps never seen a film not only as lavish, colorful and alive in cinematic spectacle but also as ironically sadistic.

This is a polite way of saying there is no director alive today like Stanley Kubrick and no cult film that represents what his films once did.

The definition of the cult film has changed along with the industry. For a movie to have achieved cult status in 1971 when “A Clockwork Orange” was released, it needed to build its fan base almost exclusively through midnight shows. Controversial art films like Kubrick’s X-rated masterpiece were quickly pulled from first run theaters and received the most attention on college campuses. Continue reading “Does the cult film still exist?”

Rapid Response: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Robert Wise’s “The Day The Earth Stood Still” is one of the finest ’50s B-Movies of its time.

In terms of ’50s, campy, sci-fi B-movies that are actually pretty good, you don’t get much better than “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

This is your pinnacle Cold War B-movie. Dozens if not hundreds were released in the ’50s, some are remembered, some are exceptionally bad, and a select few, like “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” actually have some merit.

The films played on the fears surrounding a potential Soviet attack and the many forms they could find to strike. We see such methods as toxic shrinking gas in “The Incredible Shrinking Man” and aliens embodying exact replicas of people we know and love in “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

“TDTESS” reverses the assumption that there will be an invading force aiming to destroy mankind. In this film, the enemy is blatantly mankind itself and our lust for violence amidst ignorant fear. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)”

Rapid Response: A Clockwork Orange

“A Clockwork Orange” is a devilish and entrancing cult film, but it challenges its audience more than others like it.

Arguably the most sinister opening shot in all of film is the extreme close up of Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” His intensely focused grimace sets the tone for the entire film, a devilishly and ironically sadistic film.

I watched it in a special midnight showing at the IU Cinema with a gaggle of other co-eds all anticipating a hyper violent cult film. They didn’t leave disappointed (nor did I), but they left surprised, uncertain of how to think or feel. They had never seen a film like it, one with so many gorgeous images, colors and cinematic flourishes.

This audience would likely have more “fun” at a Tarantino movie or a gritty graphic novel blockbuster, many of which are arguably nearing in “A Clockwork Orange’s” quality. But “A Clockwork Orange” tests its audience, challenges it to ponder questions that perhaps have no answers, like what symbolism sitting in an exotic milk bar has or why Alex listens to Beethoven. Continue reading “Rapid Response: A Clockwork Orange”

The Debt

“The Debt” and its characters are torn between the values of romance and honesty. The story behind the former is a surprisingly convincing love triangle, and the details behind the latter are a generic, if not silly, conspiracy thriller.

Three Israeli agents in 1965 are tasked with apprehending a formerly sadistic Nazi doctor, and in 1997, one agent’s suicide reveals the specifics of their successful mission are not what they seem.

We know this because in the future we are first introduced to Helen Mirren as Rachel Singer. Mirren has a wonderful way of revealing both apprehension and regality simultaneously. She and her ex-husband Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) share a few private words in between their daughter’s book tour documenting their heroic endeavors. It turns out that their fellow agent, David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds), has just committed suicide, and a now disabled Stephan requires Rachel to go back into the field one last time.

The plot demands the older versions of the characters maintain a troubling secret, but this truth is not all that life shattering. To me, it would seem as though the truth would merely be an embarrassment and a slight slap in justice’s face, but little else. Continue reading “The Debt”

Tabloid

“Tabloid” is a documentary about Joyce McKinney and The Manacled Mormon. You do not often hear stories about manacled Mormons. I can say with certainty I have never written the words “manacled Mormon” together. Errol Morris has made a film so absurd, so laughably unbelievable and so utterly mind-blowing it becomes better than most fiction. It’s a riot.

The thrill of “Tabloid” comes from being obsessed with its story and its characters. McKinney, a beauty queen from Wyoming in the ‘70s, became “obsessed” with Kirk Anderson. She says she fell in love and thought he was intensely attractive. Other people who knew him describe Anderson as a 6’4’’, 300 lb. missionary with a bad Mormon haircut.

From these “quaint” beginnings, we hear the story from McKinney and a handful of associates, friends and British tabloid editors who reported the Manacled Mormon story as it took place.

Let it be said that McKinney’s view doesn’t exactly match up with what everyone else is saying. Continue reading “Tabloid”

United 93

 

Anyone who thinks it’s too soon to discuss the events of 9/11 has not seen “United 93.” They will accuse it of exploiting the greatest tragedy in American history for the purposes of entertainment, but what they do not know is that this is a masterpiece of filmmaking and a bombshell of the true nature of humanity.

Paul Greengrass’s work on “United 93” pays an honorable tribute to the heroic people killed in the hijacked plane that did not reach its target by staying strictly truthful to the source material. What is seen is not dramatized or exaggerated. It is a reenactment of the day’s events, based on actual conversations from the plane and on the ground, all in real time. Watch it, and try not to be awestruck by the might of this film. To not be is to snub the valiant efforts of the people on board. Continue reading “United 93”

25th Hour

Spike Lee’s “25th Hour” is so closely tied to the immediate aftermath of New York after the 9/11 attacks, and it makes for one of the finest of the 2000s.

Spike Lee’s “25th Hour” tells the story of a man with one day of freedom before heading off to prison, and it strikes an emotional chord of the most complex nature, embodies the mood of New York City in the months after 9/11, paints a visually stunning narrative and reaches out to people of all sorts by examining their common regrets.

Edward Norton plays Monty Brogan in a spot-on performance. Monty is confident, but understated in his emotions, only occasionally going over the top when the film absolutely demands of it. In his dwindling freedom, he sees his achievements vanishing, he begins to question his friendships and he blames the world in the process. Lee stages an absolutely wrenching scene in which Monty stares into a bathroom mirror with a certain four letter word printed on it. His reflection yells back the most profane, insulting, hurtful comments about New York and everyone in it, and imagine the hit we take when he steps back and realizes that in this moment of passion, we are to blame for it all. Continue reading “25th Hour”

Our Idiot Brother

 

A leading man who would use the expression “geez louise” over the F-word is foreign to us in the movies. “Our Idiot Brother’s” Ned proves a character doesn’t have to be a silly man-child to be free of cynicism, snark, bitterness and charm.

Discovering Ned’s ability to survive in the real world (and similarly in the movies) of negativity and deceit is the appeal of this loving and warm indie comedy. That’s because “Our Idiot Brother” is not a film of Ned’s growth but of his sisters. Continue reading “Our Idiot Brother”

Fall Movie Preview (September and October)

“Drive,” “Moneyball” and “Contagion” are amongst Fall 2011’s most anticipated films.

There are enough potentially great movies coming out in the next two months, let alone the remainder of the year, to convince me 2011 wasn’t so terrible for film after all.

And my Summer Movie Preview article worked well enough that I have yet another 30 movies in just September and October worth noting, with the guarantee that I’ll do yet another article come November and December.

But rather than organize the films by my own lengthy subheads as I did in May, I’ve boiled down my level of anticipation to just one word a piece. Continue reading “Fall Movie Preview (September and October)”