The Hurt Locker - "Selfless Selfishness"

Written by Mark Boal
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s film about a bomb dismantling unit in Iraq is an odd duck. What separates it (positively or negatively) from most films about the modern American involvement in the Middle East is that the idea of politics never enters the scene. It is purely an action film disguised as a suspenseful war film. It doesn’t have satire, it doesn’t have a sense of loss, it is a film that follows men, (particularly one man – SSgt. William James, well-played by Jeremy Renner) who are doing a job. This job just happens to be one of the most high risk and life threatening occupations possible.

James doesn’t enter the scene until we have already met Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who along with their team leader (a cameo from Guy Pearce) play by the rules. They always send in the robot first to assess the possible explosive device. If they need to, the leader will suit up and go in to dismantle the bomb himself. It is precisely this situation that sets forth the template for every “adventure” thereafter and leads to James joining Sanborn and Eldridge. Every member of a bomb squad has to be a bit crazy, but James sets a new standard. He literally lives for this stuff, to a fault. He discards the use of the robot, and even the protective suit at times. He makes decisions that endanger his team, at least in the eyes of Sanborn, with whom he butts heads.

Unfortunately, while James is the gung-ho Die Hard “doesn’t play by the rules” action character that we all idolize in movies, placing him into “reality” essentially makes him the villain of the film in this reviewer’s humble opinion. It forces a bizarro twist on the archetype, where he is praised by his superiors in the Army (David Morse, the second of several cameos from known actors including Ralph Fiennes and Lost’s Evangeline Lilly) while his team contemplates simply getting rid of him because of his recklessness. He deserves the “f*** you” he receives as last words from one of his team members. The worst offense of all seems to be that he is a completely selfish jerk to his family. A scene late in the film of his restless civilian life could have been a flashback to before he joined in for his first tour of duty in Iraq. Instead, it rather bluntly is not.

Sanborn may hate James, but Eldridge isn’t quite sure what to make of any of him. Eldridge is the one main character who is simply a good person and he is treated like crap as a result. He puts trust in his superiors, questions baseless violence, and tries to be the best damn soldier he can be. His reward is that he is portrayed as the one person in the film who is seeking psychological counseling. This isn’t just the film reflecting James’ view of him, as someone who has to be pushed to the edge in order to make him a better person, but essentially the film is attacking anyone who feels like Eldridge feels. The resolution for his character is fairly unsympathetic and should be a moment to root for the hero “beating” the villain but instead it plays more like a “good riddance to someone who wasn’t cut out for Iraq in the first place”.

The film is great for reflecting James’ cocksure attitude but at fault for glorifying it. It is sending a bad message about adrenaline rushes. The fact that James will never quit on an IED challenge makes him praiseworthy, but when you realize it is all for him and not the safety of those around him you can’t help but feel saddened. As long as the bomb gets dismantled, does the reason matter? Well when James does fail, is he beating himself up about it because a person died or because he failed himself? James does have his moments of selflessness, though they are few and far between. He cares deeply for a local “base rat” called Beckham and is willing to endanger himself to protect him. Unfortunately, the fact he would go to such lengths for this foreign boy while hanging up on a long distance call with his own wife reflects his completely backwards sense of honor.

As much as this reviewer would like to be able to sit back and just go along for the ride with a well made action-drama about bomb dismantlers who face a new exciting challenge each episode, there has to be more going on beneath the surface. To ignore that is to ignore the idea that film is an art form capable of brilliant levels of subtext. The film makes a case that it is worth having someone abandon every other aspect of life for the one thing they are good at if it helps save lives, but does he have to be such a jerk? Whether it is being accurate to the type of person one has to be to exist under this kind of pressure on a day to day basis or not, there is a terribly mixed message about responsibilities for one’s self and those that care about them.


***1/2 Three and a half stars – Take it or leave it

The Hurt Locker was released on DVD and Blu-ray this week. It is nominated for 3 Golden Globe awards, for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture- Drama. It has also been nominated for and won countless other awards and accolades.

Big Fan - "Hero War Ship"

Written and Directed by Robert D. Siegel

           

How much do you love your passions? At what point would you give up on something; when does undying love die?  Standup comedian and animated rat Patton Oswalt plays Paul Aufiero, or “Paul from Staten Island” as he is known when he calls into his local sports talk radio show to make methodical statements about the dominance of his local New York Giants football team. Paul has a crappy job as a night attendant at a car park, but at least it lets him listen to the radio while he works. On weekends, he and his buddy Sal (Kevin Corrigan, who seems stereotyped into these types of roles) head down to the stadium to cheer on The Giants even though they are too poor for actual tickets. Instead, they sit in the parking lot watching the game on a tv rigged to a car battery. They are die-hard fans, and nothing is more important than The Giants winning it all this season.

When they spot star Quarterback Quantrell Bishop one night in Staten Island, they begin to follow him, which leads them to a strip club in midtown Manhattan. Eventually they meet him, but with dire consequences- Paul is beaten within an inch of his life. The ensuing events pull Paul apart from the inside out. Does he hold Bishop responsible for his actions, bring a lawsuit against him, and get him thrown out of the NFL? Or does he keep his mouth shut and try to put the entire ordeal behind them all so that The Giants can win games? Meanwhile, Paul continues the back and forth rivalry he shares with “Philadelphia Phil” (Michael Rapaport), his Eagles-fan counterpart who calls the NY sport shows just to rile up the local fans.

Staying up nights at work and listening to the radio well past midnight have given him bags under his eyes and a zombie-like sleepwalk through anything that isn’t football related. Writer/Director Robert D. Siegel would like you to think of Paul as a modern day Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver or Rupert Pupkin from The King of Comedy (both portrayed by Robert Deniro and directed by Martin Scorsese). He has the drive, the trauma, and the celebrity worship to follow in their footsteps (and in Pupkin’s case, the berating mother as well). What’s missing is a serious dissection of the mind that ends up a political commentary on par with these predecessors. Most likely, we have become too jaded with professional athletes in recent times to have this story be as shocking as it could be. The idea that a drug addled football player would beat up an innocent fan seems like nothing new.

What does hold your attention is the way in which Paul deals with the event. There is a tension to his love for the Giants that makes one fear the possibilities of what he is capable of. Outside forces are swirling around his head and he would like nothing more than for them to all disappear. But Paul is a weak man. He is well into his thirties and still living with his mother who he has a frighteningly realistic love-hate relationship with. He asserts himself in his convictions but cannot bring the people around him to follow suit (excepting Sal, who for undisclosed reasons is such a loser that he worships Paul as the next man up the evolutionary chain of football fans).

Paul Aufiero is a man that we may all have met at some point in our lives and passed over. He loves football to a dangerous degree, a reflection of how these teams of sport reflect the tribal warfare of the past. With that conviction, you know it will all end in some kind of violence. When the ending comes, and you are expecting the worst- only to basically have your fears met- Siegel plays on the way we subconsciously associate Big Fan with Taxi Driver. The film plays like a parody of ‘Driver’ in a way that befits Paul’s weak will and need to vent his aggression not against the real life villains that he loves but against the villains in his head.


***1/2 Three and a half stars – Take it or leave it

Big Fan is available now on DVD, with too cheery a cover.

Editorial: This week on DVD

This week on DVD is highlighting a few noteworthy films that are coming out that you won't want to miss. All six films release today on Blu-ray and DVD unless otherwise noted. Any purchases made through the amazon sidebar help support this site.

Moon ****
Duncan Jones' haunting sci-fi film with a powerhouse lead performance by Sam Rockwell. Don't listen to award season hype, this was in fact one of the best films of the year. Click to read my review.

The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow's suspense filled tale of an American bomb squad in Iraq. Click to read my review.

Big Fan
Comedian Patton Oswalt plays a man dealing with the dark side of fandom in 'The Wrestler' writer Robert Siegel's film. Available only on DVD. Click to read my review.

The Brothers Bloom ***&1/2
From 'Brick' director Rian Johnson, a whimsical tale of international con men and the woman that throws them off their game.

In The Loop ****&1/2
One of the funniest films of 2009, 'Loop' dissects the way politicians mis-handle international relations, namely between American and British governments. A worthy heir to Dr. Strangelove's practice.

8&1/2 *****
Fellini's classic 1963 masterpiece of the mind finds its' way to Blu-ray this week, thanks to the Criterion Collection.

The Messenger - "Recieved"

Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
Directed by Oren Moverman

The opening shot of The Messenger isn’t that important. In fact, there is hardly a sole image that may sit in your mind when looking back at the film. But man, there will be a feeling. And it will stay with you for a long time. Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is recovering from injuries he sustained in Iraq including a scarred eye and a slightly gimpy leg. For the last three months before he is released from the Army, he has been assigned casualty notification duty, to inform next of kin that their family member has died in service. His new partner, Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) is a tough man assigned to how him the ropes in what is often a terribly stressful job. They must stick to the script, be clear and precise about the death of the individual, and get the news to the family before they could find out from some news outlet or alternative source.

Part of the trauma of the position is that they are representing the U.S. Armed Forces, and as such must follow a protocol to not touch or get emotionally involved with the next of kin. They cannot inform anyone but the listed next of kin. They never know how someone will react to the news, and the film shows a variety of the kinds of things people go through when being informed of such disheartening information. Sometimes it is a slap to the face of the officer, sometimes it is being spat at. Sometimes a person will become sick to their stomach. All of these possibilities must be accounted for and expected, and that’s why it is so odd when Stone and Montgomery inform a woman named Olivia (Samantha Morton) of her husband’s death and she reacts with certain nonchalance.

Olivia and her son become a sort of obsession for Montgomery. But despite the synopsis or the advertising, the film is hardly about his relationship with her or the fact that his trying to start a forbidden relationship with a widow he recently informed. Above all else, this is an excellent account of how war is still very much a battle even when you are “home”. Stone and Montgomery reflect this throughout, and the ways they handle the stresses therein are the real lynchpin of it all.

Foster plays Montgomery as a sort of everyman. This could be any soldier’s story, and the location that the film takes place in is never defined - a sort of general America. This is a key component of the film, because although we are drawn to the extremely dynamic performances on the screen by Foster and Harrelson, we are so enamored because they present themselves not as actors but as people. Foster is sort of quiet through the opening scenes of the film (for good reason) but I hung on his every word because I was curious whether Montgomery was being portrayed as a stereotypical movie soldier farm boy or with some sort of southern accent. In not going this route and giving him a flat Middle American voice, the fact that this could be any soldier’s story is furthered in a subtle but relevant way. Montgomery has anger issues, problems with abandonment, probably drinks too much, and general frustrations that plague a man who has seen the worst the world has to offer in war. Yet he is intelligent, does his job, and sometimes needs to just blow off some steam. The same can be said of Harrelson’s Stone (though he does natively have a southern accent), who is similarly great in his essential supporting role which has been nominated for a Golden Globe award.

One scene portrays a soldier who is having a welcome home party in a bar, and we see it all through Montgomery’s eyes. Similarly, the first time that he and Stone go to report a death in the family, it would have been just as easy to focus the camera on the tragedy- the wild outburst of tears and crippling pain on the faces of the next of kin. But instead the camera stays steadily on the stern and unchanging face of Montgomery who is clearly going through a baptism of sorts. It is only once he has become comfortable in the mission that the camera loosens up a bit and focuses on the mourners more. This was possibly the wisest camera choice in the whole film, next to a scene of Montgomery and Olivia in her kitchen that plays out in one long take.

Sound also has a large presence in the film, arguably more than the visuals. The music that Montgomery (or Stone) listens to is never mentioned, save a neighbor yelling to turn it down. But it is a great decision to have it be a constant stream of hard-rock, all of which seems slightly behind the times. The general sound design in the film often accentuates the mood, sometimes to add a small moment of anticipation or suspense as we wait for the visuals to catch up to what we are hearing. A voice, an approaching person, something unexpected, we often hear these things before it steps on screen. Perhaps this is a subtle allusion to Montgomery’s own eye trauma. If so, it is brilliantly conceived and executed, as it never grabs your attention unless you pick up on it.

Director Owen Moverman and his co-writer Alessandro Camos have brought an intellect to the post-war experience. Being Israeli, Moverman’s own experiences as a paratrooper must have contributed to this understanding. Living in a country where everyone you know has served in the military, you see all the forms people can take after the fact. Yet, this film has very distinctly American details- a scene where Stone and Montgomery sing “Home on the Range”, for instance (which subsequently Willie Nelson plays over the end credits). The fact that neither Moverman nor Camos, who is Italian, are American-born matters as they are evidently wise observers of American life. Just as the Montgomery is the everyman and the setting is anywhere, the experiences of loss and finding a balance are universal.


****1/2 Four and a half stars – Definitely see this film

The Messenger is still playing in limited release. For a list of where it may be playing near you, see the list on this site or check your local listings.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - "For Cast, Good, with Pratfalls"

Screenplay and Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Way back in the distant past known as 2002, MTV was already making the transition from music videos to more half hour programming and Total Request Live was at the height of popularity. There was an animated program that lasted only one season that almost no one watched called “Clone High” and it was the brain child of Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Bill Lawrence. Lawrence, who was coming off the success of Michael J. Fox-starrer Spin City, was also launching his eventual hit Scrubs at this time, and ‘High’ had almost the entire cast of Scrubs voicing characters. Clone High was absurd, hilarious and had a great twist on science much like its spiritual brother, Miller and Lord’s latest project Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

‘Cloudy’ is a freeform prequel to the classic children’s book it is based on, an even looser take than Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are. It sets up a completely new story in the ‘Meatballs’ world, showing in essence how the rain of food first began in the town of Chewandswallow, primarily a sardine fishing town before the rain began. Our hero is one Flint Lockwood (SNL’s Bill Hader), a young man who has known since he was a boy that he would be a great inventor. Naturally, all of his inventions are humorously ill-conceived, like spray on shoes (that can never be taken off) or “rat-birds”, which now plague the town. One day the world realizes that Sardines are gross and the fishing industry all but dries up, leaving the entire town to sustain themselves on an exclusive diet of the salty mini-fish.

Flint decides to make a machine which converts simple water into all the foods that the town never gets to eat. He and his monkey sidekick Steve (Neil Patrick Harris) plan to unveil the device while the town is gathered for the Mayor’s presentation of a new Sardine Land to promote tourism for the remote island town. Through a series of events everything goes awry and the machine ends up in sky, where it begins feeding on the precipitation of clouds and causing a rain of whatever foods Flint requests of it from his computer. A perky young weathergirl named Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) gets involved, and is now covering the ongoing unique meteorological events and brings about one of the best lines of the film, “You may have seen a meteor shower, but I bet you've never seen a shower "meatier" than this.”

Naturally, everything goes to hell by the third act. The story is weak and predictable but it is precisely the above quoted type of pun-laden and blink-and-you-miss-it humor that helps keep the film afloat like a sandwich boat. Most of the credit can be attributed to the cast that Lord and Miller have assembled, who know how deliver the lines to maximally accentuate this heavily cartoonish world. While this reviewer has a low opinion of celebrity casts in general, which take jobs away from excellent voice actors, no one here is too showy. In fact, it came as a surprise who was actually voicing most of the characters when the end credits rolled (James Caan played Flint’s father?!). Frankly, who could have predicted that Neil Patrick Harris was behind the talking monkey Steve, who mostly just says his own name in a computerized voice via monkey thought translator? The only celebrity who made their presence known during the course of the film is Mr. T as Earl, because frankly, you always know Mr. T when you hear him.

Animation’s possibilities are fully taken advantage of as characters like Earl have a Tex Avery-like elasticity to their movements. I would also say that the color palette throughout is as wonderfully colorful as the characters who inhabit this world. Clearly, a lot of work went into the accurate rendering of food, and things like how a cheeseburger would fall apart as it hits the ground. While Disney pioneered the animation of humans and animals, I would say that ‘Meatballs’ has reaches a new pedestal for food animation (as silly as that may be). Though the film was clearly made for a 3D presentation (and was released as such this year), there are never gags that rely solely on that and detract from the 2D presentation of the film. In fact, the depth of field that is beginning to develop in CG animated films in general as a result of thinking for 3D is, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, a step forward for the whole medium. While this is not the strongest animated film this year, it is a fun movie, something to watch when you want to relax.


*** Three Stars – Take it or leave it

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs releases today on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. It has been nominated for a Best Animated Feature Golden Globe Award.

Sugar - "Baseball Uncoated"

Check out my newest DVD review for Chud.com!


**** Four Stars - Definitely see this film

Sugar is available now on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

9 - “Denyin’ 9”

Screenplay by Pamela Pettler
Story and Directed by Shane Acker


The humans are all dead. Life on planet Earth is over, destroyed by an uprising of intelligent robots. All that remains are nine small sackcloth people, each numbered and given distinct personalities. Their origin is somewhat a mystery, and the lives of the first eight consist mainly of trying to avoid death at the hands of a cat-like robot creature. 9 (Elijah Wood) suddenly awakens after a long dormancy to find himself flung into this world, being brought up to speed by 2 (Martin Landau), who he meets first but is quickly captured by the creature and 1 (Christopher Plummer), an old grouch who leads the rest of the group. 9 doesn’t play by 1’s rules, and at every turn follows his own instincts about how to improve their lives and ultimately make life safe for them.

The world they occupy is a bombed out war zone, seen from their six inch tall point of view. All kinds of mechanical pieces of the world and rubble from buildings make up the dangerous world they live in. The church used as a home base is like a football stadium to these tiny numbered men (and woman). The small details and inventiveness of these backgrounds are some of the best aspects of the film. No wonder someone with a passion for production design like Tim Burton would attach himself to the project as a producer.

At its best, 9 is a film that has thrills. The adventures that these sack-people go though are engaging and never dull. The camera often sweeps around the action in such a whirly-bird way that any notions that such a tale would be better served in another animation medium (like stop-motion) are dashed quickly (though Coraline does achieve one or two of these camera moves- tremendously more difficult when not done in CG). Whether it be running from one monster or chasing another, on the whole the fight scenes are well choreographed. That is, except when too many characters are involved, and the film purposely chooses to forget a few of them for a moment. It is these conveniences that help move the plot along at its fast clip, but also contribute to a lot of plot holes and moments when the audience is expected to simply go along with it all because that is what is happening now. Ultimately too many of these scenes with “subtle” gaps in them occur, to the point of becoming the dominant form of storytelling throughout the film.

Dialogue in the film is used frustratingly in a simple manner, where it only occurs to give us a simple line to explain what is going on now. Things along the lines of:
“I’m going to go there to rescue someone now.”
“No, I don’t want you to go.”
“But I have to go to find the thing we are searching for to help rescue life as we know it.”
“Then I will go with you to help, but only so I can serve a plot device later.”
Of course, this is exaggerated. But it really feels like this is what is being said at almost every turn and it hampers the movie from achieving any cohesive emotional impact every time. You get so used to it as an audience member that when a moment comes late in the film where a moment of important planning is completely understated, you get confused. 9 hints a plan to 5, without telling him a single thing. 5 then naturally understands the entire plan, to the point where you question if 9 intended that at all in the first place. And it turns out he did. Oh well. The (almost mandatory at this point for an animated film) celebrity cast that also includes John C. Reilly and Jennifer Connelly is wasted on such dialogue.

There is a certain technological or political lesson lurking below this world, that machines will one day destroy us, or that our government will betray us and get everyone killed. Yet it is a Computer Graphics animated film. Again, why I would make a case for why this film may have otherwise been made with stop motion animation. But like the rest of the story, it is best to not think too hard about that. The film’s ending kind of makes sense, but not really. Somehow 9 knows the secret way to redeem the entire situation through a ritual that he was never shown nor was hinted at (I guess it’s just another of the instinctual gut feelings he has). In the end we kind of get a sense of redemption, an uplifting moment for the human soul, but is it really? Some of the nine sack-people have gone on to another place and we leave our remaining characters alone in this shell of a lifeless world. What do they have? What will they do with their lives from this point forth? Seemingly nothing.

9 Came out in a tough year. Not only is it unfortunately now part of the 2009 “nine trilogy” (with District 9 and the musical Nine), but it also faces stiff competition from more animated films this year than any this reviewer can recall. In any other year, 9 might be a welcome change of pace to the Disney and Dreamworks dominated animation scene. But instead, this inventive and fairly independent (Tim Burton and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov threw their weight behind the project as producers) CG animated film is merely another one on the pile, held back by a weak script.


** Two Stars – Watch it if you Must

9 was released last week and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.