Cultivating Familiarity

A somewhat reverent attempt at remake still plays out as sacrilege to the hilt




By
Morgan P Salvo

There would be no slow motion poetic ballet in violence without the genius director Sam Peckinpah. There would be no John Woo or Walter Hill movies. There would never have been The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or Straw Dogs without Peckinpah. Now we have Straw Dogs without Peckinpah. Some may say homage, I say blasphemy

Peckinpah’s ’71 Straw Dogs was his most enigmatic, open wound of a movie, throughout commentary on bigotry, racism, social and religious dysfunction, (and if you look deep enough, health care), extols the fact that the use of violence is necessary. Peckinpah’s hard drinking/hard life influenced his filmmaking style and perpetual “last man standing” theme, be it against the changing time, the protection of one’s home or the preservation of self-respect. It wasn’t just the stories; it was Sam’s vision through cinematic styling that made his films shine with a kind of wrecked dignity. He has every right to spin in his grave for this remake.

Based on a book called “Siege at Trencher’s Farm”, Straw Dogs unfolds as an iconic tale of man’s violence towards man. It originally detailed the attempt of an American professor (Dustin Hoffman) and his British wife (Susan George) to return to the tranquility of her childhood home only to be confronted by mayhem and destruction. Director Rod Lurie has moved the setting to the Deep South, with way more beautiful people, pairing off rednecks and intellectuals. Now as a screenwriter, James Marsden is amiable as the lead, compared with Hoffman’s mathematician nebbish bookworm. Kate Bosworth, although good, is no George, who emanated promiscuous flirty sexual under currents. Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood) dutifully shows off his ability to act steamy and take his shirt off.
I kept asking myself as I watched, what if this wasn’t a remake of a movie in my top five movies of all times - would I like it? The honest answer is, I can’t tell. It’s a gallant effort and creates a certain overall mood and creepiness, but it lacks the tension from the original.’71 Straw Dogs was a very powerful and controversial movie for its time. In the last forty years we have become desensitized to onscreen violence. Let’s see if people are still talking about this version 40 years from now. Time will tell. I guess in the sea of bad movies I’m accustomed to viewing, this one might’ve been a standout. The only problem is, based on my prior knowledge of and commitment to Peckinpah’s version, I’ll never know.

Straw Dogs
Starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgård, James Woods
Directed by Rod Lurie
Rated R
no stars until I figure it out

Creature From The A-Hole Lagoon

 Hoping against hope, my movie going experience proves more entertaining than Creature’s proof that they really don’t make them like they used to

By Morgan P Salvo

New horror movies give me hope. I had high hopes for this flick and for a while it seemed like my prayers had been answered but to my severe dismay this movie couldn’t live up to its potential.

It’s funny that when your dreams are shattered early on something else comes along to take the place. The best part by far was my movie theatre experience. Right when Creature’s big climatic shit is about to hit the fan the film stopped, flinched a little, then burns into a big char hole on the screen shutting everything down. No, this was not Rodriguez/Tarantino’s Grindhouse techno splicing tomfoolery this was an honest to god mistake. I had to go tell the help in the theatre that the film was screwed up. But this gives me a new kind of hope--- that theaters have projectors to show films that are still shot on film and people to bolt in to fix the problem. Ten minutes emergency time and the projectionist gave me and the other guy in the theatre the thumbs up and we were off to see how wretched the ending really was going to be. Until film turns to all digital there’s’ still hope for a good time at the movies.

Creature has special treat, guilty pleasure, drive-in homage all stamped into its very existence and very well could be all of those things if it kept up with its own ideas. What it is, is a cheesy lame excruciatingly cheap movie with no soul and one ridiculous disjointed scene after anotherreature begins with initial promise: in about the first 30 seconds a chick takes off her top goes inexplicably (like all good/bad horror movies) skinny dipping in the middle of a swampy bayou and in the next minute there’s alligator chomping gore. A road trip for three couples goes awry when they take a shortcut into bayou Weird-town and the creepy legend of Lockjaw— the man gator (A cross between a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Pumpkin Head). Main problem here is Lockjaw is always shown in the dark and hard to see But not so for the road trip people. The couples, one just as irritating as the next, are formed from the depths of stereo-typicality. We have the practical joker, serious token black dude, beer guzzling marine, slut, stoner slut and prude-turned-slut. You can’t help but to root for each of their demise.

Taking the low-budget route Creature’s blood-letting action takes place off camera with splattery sound effects while people either get sprayed with blood or wield a bloody stump. To Make matters worse National Geographic type footage is used for shots of alligators clumsily edited into each gator scene. Skewered by too much dialogue it does however bring back my other unfulfilled wish: creepy psycho inbred hillbillies. Headed by Sid Haig (reprising his Captain Spalding antics from House of 1000 corpses) and Pruitt Vince-Taylor channeling Neville Brand in Eaten Alive, this array of backwoods numbskulls gives Creature its spunk. While I am thrilled that something this bad made it to the theaters its mind boggling. Creature really belongs on a shelf in a DVD rental store. Although it feels somewhat futile and even masochistic to derive any pleasure from something this cheesy, and I can’t recommend sitting through this one, as bad as Creature is it’s all one can hope for.
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CREATURE
Starring Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill
Director: Fred M. Andrews
Rated R
2 ½ stars

Blair Witch in Space

Apollo 18 belies its “found footage” scenario and goes for the gusto

by Morgan P Salvo




We all have to make choices. Like if someone tells you a story and says it really happened, you want to choose to believe it. And if it’s an especially good story even better. And if it’s embellished, all over the map and totally unbelievable but makes you laugh then all the better. In other words, so what if it’s not true?
If you want to believe, go ahead, but this movie sheds its “found footage” concept pretty quickly and just digs deep into delivering the horror movie goods. Note that right at the beginning here I am going to tell you: there are credits to Apollo 18.
Apollo’s plot is so simple it’s refreshing: disguised as lost footage of a secret mission to the moon, a few good men go into space and find out something is really wrong and mysteriously deadly. The astronauts quickly realize they’re space bait guinea pigs and now its life or space death at the hands of creepy life forms on the moon. As in Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Alien, their mission is not a return flight. The space program’s head honchos back on planet earth only want a specimen of the dangerous stuff to verify its existence and keep it monitored. So what’s the problem with sacrificing a few astronauts?
Although Apollo 18 comes from the formulaic ilk of frontrunner Blair Witch, the idiocy of the Paranormal Activity chain and the super pathetic The Fourth Kind “found footage” school of filmmaking, it drops that notion like a lead balloon and even lets you laugh at the fact that you know damn well no one could possibly be holding a camera for certain scenes unless it was a union dude from Hollywood. Don’t be looking for Tom Hanks or Ed Harris or the scent of Ron Howard’s fingers on this one. This Apollo goes for intensity with stone cold performances, real NASA footage and sci-fi terror ripped right out of Alien.
And there are monsters. They enter in true horror movie style out of nowhere, darting in silhouette forms across the screen. They also have that Descent kind of monster noise – you know--- the hamster chuckling, woodpecker pecking, trees creaking, gurgling kind of noise. And they are spider/rock demon/crab monsters (like in South Park) so watch out if you ever bought a moon rock as a souvenir - it could turn out to bite you in the ass or drill into your abdomen.
Of course there is a big dramatic pause at the end to let you feel like you’ve just watched something real and inform you to go to “Lunartruth.com” which is basically a pseudo site designed to promote the movie—in fact its frozen and you can’t click on anything (I checked). But sticking around the theatre you’ll see about 12 minutes of credits including actors, writers and a slew of techno post production teams that boggle the mind. A major plus among the credits is editor Patrick Lussier, whose inspired directing skills brought us Drive Angry and My Bloody Valentine. Lussier has a bloody field day throwing images in our faces and using literally every trick in the book: grainy film stock, skips, bleeps washouts, jump cuts, fuzzy film hair, dust scratches, burn holes… you name it, it’s in there. The rewarding part is that though the gimmicks abound they don’t hinder or distract but instead propel the simple yet crazy narrative.
The actors should be acknowledged because they were impeccable. Astronaut Warren Christie is like a stern combo of Luke Wilson and James Caviezel (aka Jesus) and his partner-in-space Lloyd Owen who turns evil through infection is just as Oscar-worthy reliable. There’s also an un-credited third dude who spends his time weightless in the hovering observer ship who does all his acting upside down but he’s still swinging with the script. Everyone else in the cast is portrayed in voice-overs via intercoms and radio transmissions We’re also treated to some very cool music during the credits by a band that I’ve never heard of called Parking Lot.
Unlike the abysmal Paranormal Activity that reeks of phoniness from the get go and wants you to believe so bad that it shoots itself in the foot, Apollo 18 shuns the documentary concept and goes for the jugular, giving the polar opposite effect. Lopez-Gallego, Lussier and company could give a shit if you believe or not. These filmmakers are here to entertain you plain and simple, which in the long run turns out to be a great choice.

Apollo 18
Starring Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen
Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
Rated PG-13
3 stars

Suspicious Minds

Fright Night's Remake exposes its humorous fangs

By Morgan P Salvo

Being on vacation sometimes changes the way you think. After being nestled in the tiny comfortable city of Cianciana, Sicily for a week all calm relaxed and really hot, a chance to take an hour bus ride to visit the ruins of Agrigento sounded cool. But it was even hotter there so the opportunity to grab a gelato and take in the cinema at the main piazza sounded even better than ancient Greek-looking half destroyed columns .I was more than willing to watch Horrible Bosses in Italian if not for just the experience but for the air conditioning to escape the 110 degree heat wave that was bearing down. Alas this was not to be as the movie times clashed with the bus ride back. So in anticipation of my next movie experience being able to write my next movie review I rifled through the upcoming shows in an internet café and came up Fright Night. I fired off a missive to my editor and got the green light for the 2011 remake of the 1985 horror flick that seems to run on every other channel ever other week even way before Halloween.
Fright Night is not nearly as bad as I thought but it has some funny problems and I think that’s its point. The easy to overlook inconsistencies with the plot and its storyline’s many holes one can put aside and just go with the goofy flow of this flick as it relies on part cheese, part ridiculous and well part… fright.

Beginning with an odd shot of tract homes in Las Vegas Fright Night chucks us right into the middle of clichéd horror movie suburban teen world. The skeletal plot revolves around missing bodies, claustrophobic bored people and a new neighbor who could very well be a blood sucking vampire. Vegas is the perfect setting for a neighborhood vampire’s nocturnal existence. The 1985 flick is only marginally redone and mostly updated with things like eBay references and contemporary gizmos called cell phones..
At first I thought FN was yet another installment of “why 3D?” but soon the camera work and images get their gears meshing and it all starts to click. And then about half way in there is a huge 3D surprise death scene payoff. Continuing from there is a lot of blown-to-smithereens vampire floating cinders that you want to swat away from your eyes. Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl Mr. Woodcock) proves again his warped sense of humor while nabbing cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (New Moon, Eclipse) to add more irony to the mix.
In the barrage of “it’s cool to be vamp” era we are constantly subjugated to, it was refreshing to see a real old school vampire tale fairly reverent to the original flick. This wave of vampire movies surely must come to an end and thankfully there is even a Twilight putdown in this flick. No boy-toy glitter or taking off of shirts here.
You can’t fault Colin Farrell with repeat performances as this chameleon actor does something different every time he’s on screen. He does some eye darting and smoldering that has to go down in history as one of the hardest body language signals to read as well as confusingly funny. The TV vampire hunter (originally by hammy Roddy McDowell) Peter Vincent (name coupling of horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price) is played this time around by British television actor David Tennant with a boozy combination of David Frost meets Chris Angel Mindfreak. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Super Bad Kick-Ass) is growing up but still embodies the super nerd. Anton Yelchin and Brit Imogen Poots (these two should seriously consider name changes) fare well together as the teen hot chick goes for nerd lovebirds. And Toni Collette does a “we’ve-seen-this-all-before” hip mom routine.
Fright Night better than I expected but not great, could be easy to pick on but even easier to let go and just have fun with the adequate smattering of sex, gore, suspense and humor. The best part by far was just being at the movies again with about only three other people. And even though Bend hasn’t reached the oven baking heat of Agrigento it sure was nice to sit in a theatre with air-conditioning.

Fright Night
Starring Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, David Tennant, Christopher Mintz-Plasse,
Toni Collette
Directed by Craig Gillespie
Rated R
2 ½ stars

From Sad To Worse

These Beginners have no luck
By Morgan P Salvo

At one point in Beginners, Ewan McGregor’s’ character Oliver, says “Jack Russells are bred to be cute”. The film’s implicit statement about human beings is much darker in contrast – humans are bred to be sad…and depressed.
Oliver meets Anna (Mélanie Laurent) after his the death of his father Hal (Christopher Plummer), who after 44 years of marriage came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full and energized gay life. The flashbacks of Hal’s newfound honesty turn out to be funny and moving, bringing father and son closer than they’d ever expected. Oliver attempts to love Anna with the same courage, humor, and hope that his father taught him but is at a loss as how to do this as he is perpetually morose.
Mike Mills, venturing into the anti-mainstream again since his 2005 quirk fest Thumbsucker, was smart to cast pretty people with problems, because let’s be honest, we all have problems. Oliver and Anna are beautiful messed up people so we tend to want to feel their pain, but really, if it were Paul Giamatti and Kathy Bates just being sad this movie would generate a whole different dynamic.

Saying that Beginners goes against the grain is putting it mildly. I don’t mind if a movie is about slow burn or existential pain, but if the focal point is just about being sad, backed up by loss and more sadness, there’s not a lot for the audience to sink their teeth into. We are awkwardly bombarded with a case of human spirit versus sadness, set in a backdrop of malaise. Though Hal found what he was looking for later in life and had a stellar time with it, why do these two beautiful people feel the need to brood so somberly?
Still there’s something to be said about a movie that sticks to its guns. Beginners sets a quirky yet somber tone and stays on course throughout. I have to give it props for its alternative way-off-the-beaten-path narrative, which saunters back and forth to tell the stories amidst diagram-like time lines, wherein we get to know who was president and what the sky looked like in 1955 or 1983.A bit too arty for its own good, at times its a necessary and rewarding distraction from all that hurt and angst emanating from the screen.

This flick is basically a story of the lost and lonely trying to discard the self-fulfilling prophecy of relationships never working out. This film studies two people who fear their own happiness and choose to betray and deprive themselves of any shred of pleasure while at the same time admitting that they’d like to try. It’s a consummate call of “Why Bother?” with the retort of because we can. Rustling up the discussion of “Do we really care for others or even ourselves?” the flipside is that if we do and get too analytical we can destroy everything.
Alongside kindness and poignancy we get glimmers of hope meshed with dashed dreams. But in this vague setting of nobody knowing why they do what they do, we get to accept that they just are.
Beginners, through deconstructing traditional opinions, conveys that life is hard. But it forgets to tell its two main characters to get over it...it’s not that bad.

Beginners

Starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Mary Page Keller
Directed by Mike Mills
2 ½ stars

Marking the Wrong Territory

Lame sleepy comedy mates badly voiced animals with kooky pratfalls
by Morgan P Salvo



It must be nice to be Adam Sandler’s pal. Keeping it all in the family and never having to make a movie original or sacred, just something mildly pleasing bound to rake in some cash. Kevin James is part of Sandler’s crew and Zookeeper is basically Night at the Museum where the zoo creatures talk when no one is looking. It’s a Dating Game version of Noah’s Ark, with James taking cues from the wild kingdom and peeing and grunting in public.
A typical “written-in-your-sleep” storyline, the plot involves Griffin, the kindly zookeeper, attempting to win back bad romance while good romance stares him in the face. The love the entire menagerie has towards the compassionate zookeeper feel the need to break their silence and lash out their ability to talk in an attempt to help get Griffin’s life together and of course stay at the zoo. We all know zookeeper’s real lot in life is with the critters not with car salesmen and plastic things riches can buy.

I’m sure the talking animals are wildly child-pleasing, but they weren’t realistic in the least. Incorporating real animals with the technologically outdated use of animated mouths, Zookeeper feels like an Animal Planet installment of Look Who’s Talking Too. The voices are a combo of bad chasing after horrid. The characterization of every critter seems wrong, like they were dubbing voices for another movie in an adjacent studio. Adam Sandler’s monkey screeches cute like Gilbert Gottfried and Maya Rudolph’s giraffe gargles in an Ebonics dialect sounding plain ridiculous. Sly Stallone’s lion seems brain damaged (what a shock). Cher’s lioness is weirdly out of place and Nick Nolte’s gorilla is just off the charts wrong. Plus the gorilla looks like a guy in the monkey suit from bad Konga movies.
For those of you that cannot get enough of Kevin James’ King of Queens shtick and/or the Paul Bart Mall Cop slapsticks here it is again in all its pratfall glory. He falls down a lot, runs into and breaks things, acts startled and has this uncanny ability to movie his head while driving to imaginary music, be it rap or heavy metal. Oh and he also busts some dance moves and acrobatics that show he’s still limber even though he’s a big fat guy. Through amazingly unfunny montages and lame dialogue still Rosario Dawson comes of demurely sweet and cool. I have no idea how she does it.
Zookeeper is poorly timed and strangely subdued. I wasn’t expecting Eugene O’Neill but was somewhat taken aback by this idiot fest and what some people find humorous. It’s too bad Sandler and company can’t make everyone laugh.


Zookeeper
Starring Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph, Sly Stone, Cher, Nick Nolte
1 star

Lackadaisical Reinvention

Shamefully unconvincing
by Morgan P Salvo

I have a confession to make. Sometimes when no one’s looking, I’ll force myself to watch a romantic comedy just to see how much I can take before retching. It’s never very long. Like watching a bad accident my mouth hangs open and I begin to wonder what is not only wrong with actors, writers and directors but the world at large. Something is amiss in this vacuum they call Rom Coms. The most recent flicks I attempted were The Ugly Truth and Couples Retreat resulting in my almost committing Hari Kari. I just cannot get a handle on this formulaic crud that happy ending love stories are made of. Fairy Tales do not come true. What works for some decapitates another. So I figured the only way to get through Larry Crowne without hurting myself or anyone in a five mile radius was to make it a date night with my darn fiancé. Well here’s the deal. Neither of us liked it. Larry Crowne is probably the blandest uninventive movie I think I’ve ever seen. It reeks of laziness and bad timing. Now I like Tom Hanks. He’s a sharp witty guy but cute. And here in this movie about a non college educated man losing his job thanks to the financial situation while suffering a mid-life crisis who finally gets around to reinventing himself, Hanks as director/co-writer and star handles everything way too cute. I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember if Tom Hanks has ever said “fuck” in a movie.Besides that we have hand picked character actors and Julia Roberts as Julia Roberts serving as the most misguided and unbelievable love interest.
Larry Crowne’s previews sell the feel good aspect of this move and even though they prepared me for blandness I had no idea that this movie would be propelled by mediocrity. Creating one of the weirdest screen vacuums I have ever witnessed in my movie going experiences, beyond the previews there’s nothing else in this movie. We are left guessing as to what motivates virtually everyone on this flick. Hanks even finds a way to drop the ball with the comedy gold casting of George Takei (Star Trek’s Zulu)
Larry Crowne is the most superficially overdone concept hitting the theatre to date. I cannot even get a handle on what age bracket or target demographic the filmmakers were trying to reach. It seems Hanks is out of touch. With all his Hollywood money he’s attempting to make a statement that no matter what, change can happen even in this over achieving financially doomed climate .Every single scene is handled in slow motion while submerged in a sugary sweet version of fairy tale love and the bettering of one’s self. The weak classroom scenes have no character development. There is no growth; all characters are underdeveloped and never explored. This movie screams out for cursing and nudity. The closest it gets is Bryan (Breaking Bad) Cranston’s character looking at bikini topped internet babes woefully referred to as porn surfing.
Crowne’s witty, charming and “ha-hah we’re all learning and having fun” façade scares me. I start to feel nauseous like someone slipped me a foul tasting slow acting poison. No one can juggle this much inanely kooky and planned out dialogue in the real world. Everything about Larry’s fairy tale of self-reinvention in a mired economy rings hollow and shockingly unconvincing. This movie made me feel queasy. I know Hanks has an electric car which makes him hip but he’s asleep at the wheel here. Tom not only drops the ball but smashes it into the earth and covers it with a milksop’s, milquetoast’s wet blanket. Meandering and tone deaf this is the most vacant movie devoid of anything concrete to entertain. Some of the most forced hideous dialogue comes out of some of the most pancake makeup faces in film history.Move Over Green Hornet, Feel Good Larry Crowne just made worst movie of the year All this flick really boils down to is an empty piece of fluff specifically geared for Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts fans only. And even they will be disappointed. I know my date was.

Larry Crowne
Starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts,
Directed by Tom Hanks
Rated PG-13

Zero stars