Off the Beaten Path

Extreme detour lands in radiation land as Chernobyl Diaries follows horror movie aesthetics 101

By Morgan P Salvo

Oren Peli has ruined my movie going experience one time too many. The dude responsible for the Paranormal Activity atrocities has had me running screaming down the aisles in disgust rather than fright. But now Peli has nearly redeemed himself by way of producing and co-writing the screenplay for Chernobyl Diaries. This flick is nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated; in fact it’s down right fun.

Looking like we’re in found footage territory from the get-go, this is merely a trick to help set up the characters on a European vacation, though found footage is wisely incorporated again later. We begin with the formulaic technique of spending time with couples vacationing before they’re detoured from Moscow and treated to mutated cannibalistic humanistic underground dwellers. (C.H.U.D. Remember?)

There are three couples: Chris (Jesse McCartney) and his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), their friend (Devin Kelley), Chris’ brother (Jonathan Sadowski) and some European backpacking love birds (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and Nathan Phillips of Wolf Creek fame) plus extreme tour guide Uri (a supremely engaging Dimitri Diatchenko) who venture into the Ukrainian town of Prypiat, which has been abandoned since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in 1986 left it uninhabitable. The trip’s main is draw is Chernobyl’s fun facts, like nothing lives there, radiation levels are high and everything is deserted just like the people left it when they fled.

Most of the time is spent touring some dilapidated housing projects and then… a noise! Oops, they are not as alone as they thought even after their ludicrous comment of “look, no birds anywhere”. And then, just like having your very own crystal ball, you can call out loud that the van won’t start and all horror movie cliché hell breaks loose. The characters go berserk running around in circles, through endless hallways and flights of stairs or trapped in the van screaming yelling and cursing in fright as they get picked off one by one. Sure it sounds familiar, but that’s what’s fun about this flick. Wherein Cabin in the Woods took the genre to extremes, Chernobyl stays right on the mark delivering the creepy goods in a tried and true formula. This is exactly what scary movies are supposed top be like - an unknown entity that is REAL, threatening to kill the shit out of you if you do not high tail it the hell out of there.

All along we’re kept guessing. Could it be redneck Russian hillbilly cannibals or radiated mutated crazy people? Soon enough we know what we’re dealing with:  a plethora of menacing creatures, including rabid wild dogs that look like they just got out of grooming school and some wispy-haired zombie-like sub-humans. But there’s not enough monster footage as first time director Brad Parker, via jumpy hand-held camera work, avoids long-drawn-out shots of the pale creatures, instead giving us sudden glimpses that only hint at their ruined features and physical deformities.

Still after all the big scares and chases down corridors and tunnels there isn’t enough of a pay off. This movie could stand to be even longer with more focus on the “mutants-gone mad” to up the stakes and explain why the hell they are so darn mean. There’s absolutely no rhyme or reason as to why the creatures either eat their prey right away or drag them around until their cohorts can stumble upon them. And after all is said and done, we still get the big cover up, sell out ending. Chernobyl conjures up images of better movies past like The Ruins, I am Legend, The Descent, and the more recent Stag Night (a similar set up in the subway tunnels of New York). Filmed in Hungary and Serbia, the locations and realistic production design and sets are by far some of the coolest things in this movie.

Even though most people will still praise the ever-wearing thin Paranormal franchise, Chernobyl faithfully returns to the horror movie genre. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see a bunch of well intentioned freaked out dumb-shits running into more peril instead of away from it like rats in a maze with creepy monsters around every turn? Give credit where credit is due. This film is as fun as a barrel of uranium enriched monkeys. And that’s the point.

 

Chernobyl Diaries

Starring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Dimitri Diatchenko, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Devin Kelley, Jesse McCartney, Nathan Phillips, Jonathan Sadowski

Directed by Brad Parker

Rated R

2 ½ stars

War of the Scholars

 Footnote gives new meaning to ‘like father like son’

 by Morgan P Salvo 

Filmmaking gets a dazzling fresh take with Footnote, thanks to director Joseph Cedar’s even keel approach to a whirlwind of dynamics surrounding mind games, intellectual suffering and guilt. This flick is a mind-bending chess game between two rival scholars who just happen to be father (Shlomo Bar-Abba) and son (Lior Ashkenazi). But don’t let that fool you. These two are scholars who read about reading, write about writing and live and breathe investigation into both, their main focus being the Talmud transcripts (a central text of mainstream Judaism, recording discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history).

The gist of the plot is that dad has been passed over for the Israeli prize (considered to be the state’s highest honor) for over twenty years and finally gets the call he’s been waiting for his entire life - that he has been awarded the prize. The problem is the call was intended for his son, creating a terrible dilemma for everyone. Pride, integrity and legacy are at stake along with some very decisive and deceiving pratfalls. It’s never what you think.

The film starts with an ingenious close-up of dad listening to his son deliver an acceptance speech for another academic award with a backhanded recognition of his father’s influence. As Dad shows no emotion except for a smidgeon of blithe indifference we get the set up for the turning twists of events to come. The way the scholars handle things goes beyond the call of decency at times but thanks to the genius writing and filmmaking we have to rewind and play out in our heads what has transpired throughout the movie to discern the motives. Dad is in a perpetual state of stewing in his own juices while the son is a little more carefree and modern as they approach each other from opposite schools of resentment. Different levels of disdain, tradition and reverence are achieved and it seems the generational dysfunction will be handed down like a family heirloom.

With serious and comic overtones, Footnote at times garners a Coen bros movie perspective (especially A Serious Man) particularly with the use of the billowing Hitchcockian whodunit music.

Ashkenazi captures his side of the dilemma perfectly. His subtle acting is interrupted by bursts of manic rage while Bar-Abba does all his acting from the inside out. Seething turmoil from within, he’s a no win kind of guy in a no win situation.

Both scholars’ main objective is to make the other one suffer and then gloat, sometimes delivered by doing the right thing and saying the wrong thing and vice versa. Through the cinematic magic we’re allowed to witness that through stubbornness, pride and tradition it’s still all about the power of words. Curiously clever and insightful, this flick will have you thinking and debating days after you see it.

 

Footnote

Starring Shlomo Bar-Abba, Lior Ashkenazi, Alisa Rosen, Alma Zak, Daniel Markovich

Directed by Joseph Cedar

Rated PG-13

3 stars

Suffering Life in the Bubble

 Warning: Boring beyond help, Damsels in Distress causes high anxiety

by Morgan P Salvo

Writer/director Whit Stillman has made his presence known after a 14 year break with Damsels in Distress which will cause great distress not for just damsels but for anyone viewing this dud. After the highly over-praised flicks Metropolis and Last Days of Disco, this comeback speaks volumes as to why Stillman should stay away for good.

With a recipe of super self consciousness, Damsels is a low budget fiasco and feels as if Jared Hess took time out from Napoleon Dynamite and teamed up with Diablo Cody’s wretched writing smugness from Jennifer’s Body and just turned out a flat pretentious hunk of crap. In the hands of say John Waters or Wes Anderson this self aware flick might’ve played out better, but really no amount of genius could have stopped this misguided crap out of the toilet tank.

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 Stillman tries to steer us through the inane plot surrounding a trio of girls (Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke) who set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, low standards of every kind and extremely poor choices in men. Immediately inducting a new student (Analeigh Tipton) who questions their motives, they are off to save the campus world from the evils of mundane living by running a suicide prevention center. Basically what we get are lowbrow, subversive bland characters, moronic men and laconic, sharp-witted yet ignorant women. Plus with this title you’d figure you’d see at least one chick tied to a railroad track. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Weird timing and expressionless monotonic delivery comprise the style employed here and it weighs the flick down, making the time spent sitting in the theatre all the more painful to endure. The connection between the four girls makes no sense. There is no common thread as each contains elements of individuality impossible to share with others. This is a world where BO is an overblown drama, handsome is a problem and tap dancing is used as suicide prevention and depression therapy.

This sounds somewhat promising but Damsels falters every step of the way in its execution. The script is merely a stage to showcase Stillman’s sardonic wit and use of language which seems only put onscreen to serve his own amusement. Thanks to Stillman’s need to daunt us with deadpan intellectualizing this is a classic case of writing outweighing acting. Putting big smart words in people’s mouths in artsy-fartsy topical debates about nothing does not make art or a good movie but rather smacks of haughty pretentiousness. Even though there are some funny lines amidst the pandering to self consciousness, I don’t get where Stillman is coming from at all.

We can blame the director for the poorly stylized acting. The actors come off horribly because the material thwarts them every time. The cast is dull with the exception of Tipton who shines with believability, but right when her character gets an arc she is dropped like a suicidal potato. Gerwig’s acting is as irritating as her character is to behold.

This flick is intentionally the Anti-Animal House, galvanizing the premise of losers versus social pretentions but that façade quickly dissipates into mundane gibberish. Too much moronic intellectualizing is just plain boring.

Every so often the release valve in my brain would let out a huge SO WHAT?! I have never wanted a movie to be over this much since Babies. I wanted to bolt every five minutes. And just when you think it can’t get worse, in turns into a damned musical. Lars von Triers did a great job with Dancer in the Dark incorporating musical numbers into a dreary super depressing movie. Stillman gives us just a dreary movie with an ambiguous plot and meandering babbling of the incoherent. Ending nonsensically with a dance number called “Sambola” (complete with subtitled directions), Damsels hurts and not in a good way.

When the credits finally appeared, I high-tailed it out of there so fast my head was spinning with a bad taste in my brain. I know this movie shouldn’t stimulate or conjure up such strong emotions because it certainly is not worthy, but I really hated this flick. There’s a campus newspaper in this flick called The Daily Complainer—where do I sign up?

 

Damsels in Distress

Starring Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Analeigh Tipton, Adam Brody,

Directed by Whit Stillman

Rated PG-13

½ star