Capturing Dreams and Saving Cinema

Martin Scorsese makes a powerful case for film preservation through fantasy
by Morgan P Salvo




I have to cut Martin Scorsese some slack for his foray into family entertainment. I saw him on The Daily Show the other night and he confessed a couple of reasons as to why he made Hugo. One was because his wife hounded him to make “something that everyone can see” and then his 12 year old daughter chimed in with, “and in 3D”! Secondly he wanted to make a love letter to the birth of filmmaking honoring Georges Melies (1902’s A Trip to the Moon), the inventor of fantasy and science fiction in cinema. So while we get a kids’ fantasy ripe with mystery we also get a cinematic history lesson. It’s a tricky balancing act and Scorsese handles it with quite a lot of panache, delivering a magical imaginative eye-popping mini-masterpiece where the 3D is not a gimmick but wondrous enhancement.
I saw early avant garde pioneer Georges Melies’ infamous Trip to the Moon when I was in film school (yes it’s true). Ingenious and way ahead of his time, Melies took experimental film to the limits. It’s no wonder that Scorsese is fascinated with the brilliant reclusive filmmaker and who better then Scorsese to use wild camera shots and mesmerizing 3D about the man who invented special effects. Some of the most fascinating scenes are the recreations of Melies’ short films.
The simple tale takes place in a train station circa 1930s Paris where Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls, hides out and winds the clocks. This is a super bohemian setting with a tipping of the hat to Parisian artists big and small. Orphaned and alone Hugo's more important task is to protect a broken automaton (a robotic life-size toy) and notebook left to him by his late father. Begrudgingly befriended by a curmudgeonly toy merchant (Ben Kingsley), Hugo then accompanies the toy maker’s goddaughter (Chloe Grace Moretz) as they embark on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home. The constant the pursuit of the orphans for vagrancy by the station master adds the sense of adventure and suspense.
Spattered with an array of cameos, some culled from the Scorsese alumni, Hugo’s cast includes Ray Whinstone, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, Michael Stuhlbarg and Helen McCrory. With enchanting, stand-out performances from Butterfield, (Son of Rambow/ The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) and Moretz, (Kick-ass!/Let Me In) it’s actually Sasha Baron Cohen (Borat/Bruno) as the dastardly station master who shines the most, continuing to impress with subdued comic timing. The biggest and most perplexing question I had though was why do people in France speak with English accents?
Beginning with a sweeping opening aerial shot that plunges you into the wildly choreographed bustle of the train station, Hugo is artistic beyond reproach. Within the spinning gears, springs, shutters, wheels, tracks and clock pendulums, the 3D really works here. Dazzlingly combining the early days of cinema with the very latest big-screen technology, the visuals are mesmerizing right down to close-ups of the station master’s Doberman. What Scorsese creates is a phenomenal blend of fantasy and mystery that will appeal to adults as well as children. Don’t think Scorsese’s mission to save old film from either being ruined by time or destroyed by misuse goes by unnoticed. Not only is Hugo an homage to a simpler cinematic time, it’s also a lesson in restoring faith in film not to mention the focus on film restoration itself.
A little overly long and meandering, Hugo is reminiscent of Scorsese’s Kundun endeavor. I am reminded of a Sopranos episode where Christopher yells to Scorsese at a movie premiere “Yeah Kundun… loved it!” Well, not too many people felt the same, but I have a feeling plenty of people will be exclaiming their love for Hugo.
With Hugo Scorsese transports audiences to a place beyond belief and exposes his artistic gentler side. Don’t get me wrong, I have a profound appreciation for Marty’s blood spurting shotgun blasts and Bic pen stabbings, but in this passionate cinematic love letter it’s never been clearer how much he loves movies. Now after this melancholy little ditty and his family satiated hopefully Scorsese can go back to making something mob oriented that will amp up the body count.

Hugo
Starring Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz,
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Rated PG
3 ½ stars

Deck the halls with Marijuana

It’s a very stoner Christmas—what’d you expect?

By Morgan P Salvo


On Prancer… on Donner…on Harold…on Kumar??…ok With Halloween just over, Thanksgiving looming in the wind, Bam! we get our first X-mas flick. I have two words for you: Prepare for A Very Harold and Kumar’s 3D Christmas. I think its genius for the guys that bring stoner humor, lame sex jokes, bodily functions and bad taste to the screen to beat everyone to the punch and its in 3D no less. That said this movie is amazingly stupid.
I actually liked H&K goes to White Castle much to my surprise and I freakin’ walked out of H&K escape from Guantanamo it was that moronic. H&K X-MAS isn’t that insulting it’s just in a world of its own suffering from an extreme case of pathetic. Ripe with stereotypes This H&K boasts an extensive list of bad and unfinished ideas. Many setups fall as flat as a squished THC laden brownie while others just glide along in wimpiness and only a few explode with originality. Mainly there is a visible collision course with unsurprising mediocrity. It’s a shame the movie relies way too much on that lame super-predictable (I can’t-stand-more-than-anything) Airplane kind of humor. I have a hard time relating to really simple comedies where I can see the punch lines coming a mile away. Some Claymation allows some wild stoner ideas and blood-letting and other non claymation scenes offered some ultra decent gore.I have to give props to special effects makeup artist Gregory Nicotero whose gory handiwork I recognized. And it’s not everyday you get to see Santa shot in the head.
Obviously Kal Penn is done working with Obama. The most watchable aspects of this flick are Penn and John Cho’s deadpan performances. They stay uncannily believable while the movie stretches the imagination like a rubber band around the equator. This flick milks the stupid out of every scene but the kick-ass 3D actually works in its favor. There were two times I actually laughed out loud. I enjoyed the in-yer-face 3D Marijuana smoke but that antic was dropped too quickly. Even though I don’t smoke pot some of the stuff was clever while other times it was just like "just who do they think they’re kidding?" Although even when I smoked pot I didn’t like stoner humor it was just insulting. There’s stuff in here that I think if you told me about I’d just shrug and shun.

The hit and miss material comes at you like a smorgasbord allowing you to decide which bit is funny (or not) but like a cafeteria line it keeps moving. There’s a rip on occupy Wall Street, a ton of dick jokes and Neil Patrick Harris, referred to with super star status as NPH, is (according to this scenario) only pretending to be gay so he can secretly score chicks and remain a huge babe magnet. There’s an egg chucking 3D massacre a waffle-bot toy that allows a lot of R2 D2 and Terminator jokes, Evil Russian mob boss/dad Elias Koteas, Danny “Machete” Trejo as disgruntled father-in-law, terrible use of Thomas Lennon(Reno 911’s Lt. Dangle) an even worse casting choice of Amir Blumenfeld as the nerd with glasses (I seriously can’t tell if the character or the actor is more annoying) Penn’s in-joke White house job is poked fun at,
But there’s one antic that is so over-the-edge wrong that I don’t know anyone who won’t take issue with it: the scenes of a toddler getting high on weed, cocaine and ecstasy.
Keeping in the Christmas spirit H&K’S 3D X-mas wraps the movie in a weed soaked ribbon and bow, too touching for its own good. It’s like a hallmark card stoner morality code, which defeats the purpose of the entire dementedly satirical gross-out jamboree we’ve been invited to. There’s actually a reindeer named Vixen?? Jeez!
On Blitzen…on Trapper…

A Very Harold and Kumar 3d Christmas
Starring Kal Penn, John Cho, Neil Patrick Harris, Thomas Lennon, Danny Trejo
Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson
Rated R
2 stars

Gonzo Takes it Easy

The Truth Rebel gets a sad origin

 

By Morgan P Salvo

I am going to be Captain Obvious here and say that it really ticks me off when something that is supposed to be good isn’t. Figuring in Johnny Depp’s history of constant chameleon acting and his dear late friend Hunter S Thompson’s Gatling gun writing style I’m sure I can speak for us all when I say I think we had a hit here on our hands. Sadly this is not the case. With The Rum Diary we get a direction that borders on cute and mediocre. The whole thing was meek and needed more punch falling flat way more than succeeding in telling a hugely interesting and compelling story. The one-dimensional plot involves journalist Paul Kemp (Depp), who in 1960 moves from New York to work a freelance job for a local newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Diary follows the sleazy planning and development scam that bleeds into the running of a newspaper, but is mainly a very loose collection of drug and alcohol fueled mishaps. Kemp struggles between corrupt business dealing, romance, and drinking with the expatriates who live there. Thompson himself had unsuccessfully applied to work at the larger English-language daily while in Puerto Rico, befriending many of the writers there, providing the context for Rum Diary's fictional storyline. And it wasn’t until he and Depp came upon the novel together that it became published it in 1998. It is Thompson's second novel he had given up the novel because it had originally "bounced about seven times - I got the standard list of rejection letters -got into the politics of the 60s and 70s, he revisited the book because "it's got a romantic notion...that and money 'ye gods, this is me, this is the world I lived in'…this is only simplified more in this celluloid version.
I read the book a few years back and remember it was pretty engaging with rebellious insight and tons of humor. This unbelievably meek rendition of Rum diary reminded me of the Malcolm Lowry film version of Under the Volcano although helmed by vet John Huston and a great performance by Albert Finney it still could not contain the literary power of the book. Diary seems to be afraid to dig deep and get to the meat of the story just glazing the surface. This flick had all the makings to be another Barfly expanding on Hunter’s manic lifestyle but the route we get to travel takes us to cuteness rather than full tilt debauchery. Maybe that’s the problem; it’s hard to gage the lens of a gut felt writer on film. Best line saved from book “a liberal is a communist with a college degree and Negro thoughts.”
There’s Thompson lingo peppered throughout but the meandering of each scene and the weirdly paced bad timing of the uncomfortable spacing make the lines seem oddly out of place like someone just forced a Hunter line down someone’s gullet and they regurgitate it back up with no idea of what they are saying. Diary is just snippets of easily executed scenes without going to the limit. It lacks edginess. With many promising scenes to take us over the brink instead we just sit at the brink and say “Ok, that’s the brink let’s go back now…”

My first curiosity was “who the heck is this Bruce Robinson character? And what right does he have to infiltrate Hunter’s booze soaked genius? Turns out Writer/Director Robinson has a very eclectic pair of movies under his belt Withnail and I which totally skewers/personifies drunkenness effectively and then there’s it’s polar opposite, the weird thriller Jennifer 8 so that gave me initial hope. Sadly all that hope has been dashed aside.
On the bright side we get some excellent acting from the side characters; Veteran character Michael Rispoli whose range encompasses Sopranos and Death to Smoochy finally gets a chance to shine but when the movie keeps falling down it takes him with it. Ribisi out does himself in a tricky tightrope walk of being super brilliant and super ruined obviously enjoying hamming it up in a very wrecked manner. Jenkins hits every mark and is an all out joy to watch but is just not in it enough. Amber Heard needed to add more sex to her pot and Aaron Eckhart just gets on my nerves these days.
Johnny Depp on Letterman said that he and Thompson dug out the story and Thompson said “hey this would make a great movie” to which Depp’s response was “maybe you should publish it first.” Too bad then, that Depp’s channeling of Thompson comes off monotonous, posing and very cheeky rather than a guy with an axe to grind. Although I get the fact that this is where Thompson found his voice making it his life long goal to “fight the bastards with rage and ink” it still feels like too much of a wimpy homage to his legacy. Whereas Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing went so over-the-top and was all manic energy this flick is all reined in attempting reverence by referring to stories within the novel itself
The music throughout is ill picked and a major distraction beginning with Dean Martin’s Volare to bad Muzak poppy jazz. Between the piss poor editing job and the lame ass music it’s a tossup as to which is the most annoying. As a huge Bukowski and Thompson fan and a one time devoted proponent of all things booze and drug related I can relate completely to the intake of inebriates but the acid trip here is lackluster at best. One surreal shot then cut to the actors walking along a street talking about being high. And correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think they wore bell bottoms in 1960. Don’t bother I know I’m right.
It’s a testament to bad judgment that in showing us the origin of “Gonzo” journalism and “putting the bastards on notice” this movie chooses to play it safe. I feel its part Depp’s lackluster performance and part Robinson’s too risk-free approach. Diary is not necessarily a detour but an all out shortcut. I think if Depp talks to Hunter in the afterlife, Thompson is probably telling him right now to never make a movie about him with such mediocrity ever again. I think Hunter S. should come back from the grave and tell them all how to make this movie correctly. This movie deserves it all. Too bad it’s all facades and no substance. You’d be better served seeing any documentary on Thompson. At least there you can see the world through his warped fish-eye lens.All I know is I could have done with some more high-octane-booze-fire-spitting. At least Kemp used the words “Whore Beast”.

The Rum Diary
2 stars
Starring Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, Giovanni Ribisi
Written for the screen and directed by Bruce Robinson
Rated R

Silence of the Cameras

Things that go bump at the camera are running their course
By Morgan P Salvo


Have you ever watched one of those Ghost Hunter paranormal TV shows? Me neither. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t interest me to watch a bunch of pansy-ass nerds walking around with a bunch of gizmos acting all scared and ready to piss their pants around every corner. Maybe if they actually pissed their pants we’d have something. They might have - like I said, I’ve never made it through a whole episode. I wish I could say the same about the Paranormal Activity franchise. The third installment is now crushing it at the box office and all I can say is that I miss Saw. At least the Saw franchise is an intricate series - we know it continues from the one before and perfectly sets up the next installment. This Paranormal 3 is just a repetition of the same tricks, only ever so slightly embellishing on the last hand held camera “found footage” scare-fest. But scary tricks aside, this is still a one way ticket to Dullsville.
It’s no secret that I absolutely detested the first Paranormal. I skipped the second one and even though everyone said it was way better and scarier than the first (not a tough achievement) I highly doubt it, though it did have things I find scary in it, like babies. This third installment brings all the same supremely irritating qualities because it’s basically the same movie with different people in it. Seriously why continue having more annoying characters with idiotic supernatural plights?
Once again, a family suspects a threatening, supernatural presence has invaded their home so they begin to videotape themselves around the clock in hopes of capturing proof. This takes place in 1988 and is supposed to enlighten us as to why the sisters from the previous films have demons on their tails. Oddly, the footage in this prequel looks like it was shot on digital, with none of the VHS lines that would have existed from 1988, and it blows bazooka holes into the premise of the first two movies. If the sisters had been video taped essentially their whole life you’d think that, instead of constantly being documented, they’d finally throw in the ghostly towel or be wise enough to start one of those aforementioned TV shows where they get paid to almost piss their pants.
This time around the producers reeled in co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman whose first feature was 2010's questionable social-media “real life” mystery Catfish. I have to admit that a couple of the tricks they use are kind of cool (like the oscillating fan cam) and some of the jolt scares are way better than anything the predecessors came up with.
But the big glaring fault in P3 is that, with indisputable proof for what’s been going on in the house, it still takes forever for anything to really happen and an eternity for the characters to get a clue and then of course it’s too late and time for the movie to end with a big scary bang.
It’s amazing that anyone can fall for this ultra cheap super manipulative trick of demons and “found footage” again and again. I guess it’s like riding the carnival funhouse torture dungeon ride, you want to be scared so you get to be scared…plain and simple. The franchise’s brilliance is that it’s so cheap and yet so effective. I think it has to do with our Reality TV quick fix mentality. This movie preys on our childhood fears of the unknown and only gives us one kind of scare. Here the audience gets to stare at the camera footage of a room while some furniture gets thrown around, some doors open, and somebody stands in one place for really long. Then there’s some really loud bangs and clumping noises, as we wait for something to pop out of nowhere for a jolt-scare. Add amateurish fast forwards, jump cut and shaky camera work and formula is complete.
The one thing that is I found impressive and totally mind boggling is that the first Paranormal Activity cost just $15,000—the price of a used 2008 Honda Accord (or so I’m told) and the film went on to earn nearly $108 million at the U.S. box office and $194 million worldwide. Completely undeserved in my book but that’s another story. Update as of Sunday night P3 has raked in $54 million. Hmmm… I guess I might start making them too. YET....Anyone can make these movies in their sleep

Treading on thin ice, the threadbare premise of this franchise is just about worn past transparency. But PA3 dutifully sets things up for the next installment. One doesn’t need any kind of séance to determine that it will probably arrive around next Halloween. With the intention solely to make audiences piss their pants maybe the gimmick for Paranormal 4 will be to hand out diapers in the theatre. Saw, I beg of you, please come back.


Subnormal Stupidity--oh I mean...Paranormal Activity 3
Starring Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith
Directed by: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Rated R

If you can’t take the gore stay out of the theatre

Prequel to a remake holds some mighty frozen ground





By Morgan P Salvo

People booed. Some walked out. One guy even cursed the screen as the credits rolled. I laughed my ass off…nothing like a shameless rip-off of an already shameless remake.
Suffice it to say this is my kind of movie.
I was so primed to hate this movie. Back when I first saw a trailer for this 2011 The Thing all I could ask myself was why? I was afraid that I’m a little too familiar with the material. As a kid I used to watch the original Howard Hawks’ 50’s classic every Halloween afternoon on TV just to sift through all the slow moving technical scientific mumbo jumbo to get the big scary “Thing” payoff at the end. And the 1982 John Carpenter version’s over-the-top gory remake is one of my favorites.

This prequel takes all its cues from the ‘82 version and fills in all the gaps in basically the same formulaic predicaments of how to deal with the unknown entity. Basically the Thing can enter and hide in a human host and from there wreak havoc so it’s always a cat and mouse game of who could possibly be the inhuman culprit. It can only be killed by death by burning so the weapon of choice is the flame thrower. Still a good combo of the first two this Thing pretty much morphs into a replica of the second. Based in Antarctica a Norwegian expedition team (who are about 50 miles from where the Carpenter version takes place) find an entity encased in ice that looks like the Donnie Darko Bunny or an evil lobster claw and the fun starts here. The combination of blood spewing, gut churning, high camp and seriousness that so defined Carpenter’s stay intact in this prequel. Even with Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chick from final destination three and Eric Christian Olsen the guy form that cheerleader movie Fired Up! Hero Joel Edgerton and even Mr. Echo from Lost shows up Ulrich Thomsen is the stern and strict ( the kind you want to see get punched) scientist wearing the same fur hat from the 50s.
During the credits the movie continues and director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr somehow puts an entire European feel to this movie.
‘82 Thing was way before CGI so the special effects that might seem low tech by today’s standards but for the time it was state of the art super gruesome weirdness. But the funniest part was how 2011 Thing’s high tech CGI effects still come off cheesy and hilarious, a lot like the goopy creatures from Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond or Brian Yuzna’s Society. We’re still talking big gooey meaty slits, all teeth and tendrils with whipping fanged tentacles. We also get some of the craziest demon alien morphing onscreen to date. There are plenty of flying alien guts and even an updated head-with-spider legs creature that had me laughing in the aisles. Maybe this version didn’t live up to the disgruntled people’s expectations but all put together the Thing is a formula that can’t go wrong. I know now that I wasted energy thinking that I wasn’t going to like this flick. Whether it’s a prequel or the other side of the ice-slope they can keep making this kind of Thing anytime they want.

The Thing
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr
Rated R
3 ½ stars