There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson | 2007 | 158 min | USA

When I took my seat last night at the advance screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, There Will Be Blood, I didn’t know anything about it other than what the trailer gives away – which is next to nothing. I knew Daniel Day-Lewis starred in it, and I knew he was an oil man with a sinister and menacing demeanour. That’s it.

Pretty much, that’s all you need to know going into this two and a half hour epic, a deep and disturbing character study set against the backdrop of the western frontier as it transforms from a place of homesteaders and cowboys into a cold and industrialized expanse, waiting for the right man to come along and harness the wealth it has to offer.

Without giving anything away about the film, here are three reasons to see it, even if you aren’t a fan of Anderson’s films (and really, why wouldn’t you be?), because while there are parallels of theme and tone, it is actually quite a departure from his previous work.

First: Daniel Day-Lewis. He acts the living hell out of this role, transforming his voice, his posture, adding a calculating glint in his eye and creating a perfect image of a man whose sheer force of will and unrelenting drive will chill you to the bone. Day-Lewis is one of those great character actors who’s cursed with a pretty face. Maybe it makes him work twice as hard to prove himself. Either way, I thank him for this, perhaps the most show-stoppingly incredible performance of the year. Paul Dano (the sullen older brother from Little Miss Sunshine) as the creepy, cherub-faced preacher is no slouch either.

Second: The soundtrack. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has never done better work. His creepy, avant-garde orchestral score made the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end for 158 minutes. It’s haunting, beautiful, and fits the tone of the film perfectly. In a way, it reminded me of Damon Albarn's work on the score for 1999's highly enjoyable tale of cannibalism during the time of the Mexican-American war, Ravenous, except way better. Both those guys should quit their stupid bands and do this full time.

Third: The ending. Along with No Country for Old Men, this film is ushering in a new era – not since the 1970s has mainstream American film been able to deliver such satisfying finales. Thank god for these brave soldiers who are willing to step inches outside of the usual script writing formula to surprise, delight and confound the movie going public just a tiny bit.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Jon Turteltaub | 2007 | 124 min | USA

I knew when I rented the first National Treasure that it wasn’t going to really be a good film. I figured it’d be a decent, America-centric Indiana Jones knockoff, crossed with the less weird parts of that Tom Robbins book where he talks about the pyramid in the dollar bill a lot. Essentially, I like conspiracy theory adventure / mystery films. And I have to be honest, on that front, National Treasure delivered a satisfying rental experience. Considerably more satisfying than The DaVinci Code, if that gives you any sense of my personal rating system.

However, by no means did I consider it stellar enough to warrant a sequel, so when I saw a preview for National Treasure: Book of Secrets a few months ago, I was genuinely puzzled. I went to see it mostly because I wanted to find out how they could concoct yet another convoluted plot about secret signs that the Masons have embedded all around us without it seeming a bit hackneyed. The answer is, they didn't really.

In a way, I wasn’t disappointed. In another way, this movie was crap. The plot centres around the Gates’ boys (Nicholas Cage and John Voight) transcontinental crusade to clear their ancestor’s good name, after a handsomely aging Ed Harris comes forth with a document that implicates him in Lincoln’s assassination. There are a few pretty funny moments, at least one decent car chase and some solid fake history.

Unfortunately, large chunks of this film feel like they've been copied straight out of the first one, only none of the excitement of putting the puzzle together is really there, because “uncovering the secrets hidden in the elaborate web our founding fathers wove around us” is actually a bit of a one trick pony, as far as film premises go.

By far the strangest part of it all is that the film left itself wide open for a third installment by introducing a new mystery in the third act, then clumsily reminding us of it again in the film’s final scenes. I kind of hope they rush National Treasure: Curse of the Monkey’s Paw, or whatever, so that it comes out in time to compete with Indiana Jones and the Kindgom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. Excellent double bill of stupid ideas.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Brothers Strause | 2007 | 86 min | US

Don't listen to anybody who tells you to avoid this movie because it is quote unquote bad. Of course it is. From doctoral candidates to retards, everyone knows this is going to be a bad movie in every traditional sense of the word. No one is going to be let down to find that an Aliens vs. Predator movie is full of poor acting and cliched, predictable plot points. This isn't going to knock em dead on the festival circuit, but who wants to think all the time? This is a wildly fun, frenetic, and gory break from thinking.

Thankfully the 'Brothers Strause' (the visual effects nerds behind The Nutty Professor, Constantine, et al) have done away with the finer points explored in the prior Aliens vs. Predator in favour of a higher body count and a much higher melted-body-parts to non-melted-body-parts ratio. Your effort is appreciated, friends. The set-up is fast and nigh wordless; the action relentless. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem could stand as a silent movie, save for the importance of those alien skittering and predator rattling/ gurgling sounds. You might want to bring headphones and an ipod loaded with the Iron Maiden catalog.

AVP:R had more in the way of character development than I wanted (ie. more than none), but it did help to answer such burning questions as: can two old friends on opposite sides of the law work together? Can an estranged mother reconnect with her young daughter? Will the bad boy win the cute girl? Are babies afraid of aliens? AND MORE.

Destined to become a B action-horror classic.

Juno

Jason Reitman | 2007 | 92 min | USA

Juno has some fantastic moments, and a great cast, but writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman have made the filmic equivalent of Joss Whedon, Kevin Williamson, and Cameron Crowe jerking off into the same cup and then inseminating a desperate to regain some sort of relevance, Amy Heckerling.

If this is the new Napoleon Dynamite, I'm going to cry.

Walk Hard

Jake Kasdan | 2007 | 96 min | US

Judd Apatow has become a powerhouse over this past year. His comedy brand, for lack of a better term, deftly combines gutter humour, identifiable underdog characters, and sweet sentimentality. His style could not find success on television, but he seems to have found a loving home in cinema. Walk Hard continues his roll.

The Walk Hard trailers create the impression that the film might be a one trick pony with barely enough material to fill those two minutes. In the hands of lesser talents that might very well have been the case, but Walk Hard is loaded with talent behind and in front of the camera. The result is a note perfect parody of the musical biopics that have flooded the last couple awards seasons. It includes all the prerequisite elements: childhood tragedy, shocking rise to fame, drugged debauchery, and clumsy namedrops. Filling the roles of historical music figures are hilarious cameos by Frankie Munix, Jack White, and Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, and Jason Schwartzman as The Beatles. The leads John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer are hilarious to watch as star crossed lovers, and Apatow alum Jonah Hill has a scene stealing bit part, as well.

The laughs are steady, and the movie does not overstay its welcome with a breezy ninety minute runtime. What more do you want? Greedy.

Black Sheep

Jonathan King | 2006 | 87 min | New Zealand

Black Sheep takes the classic zombie outbreak set-up and transplants it to a pack of genetically modified sheep in sheep-heavy rural New Zealand. Though it was promoted as a comedy in the vein of Shawn of the Dead it is really anything but. Certainly the concept is comedic and the movie is not without some gags, but for the most part it is played as straight horror. In fact, it works far better when it is played straight than when it is played for laughs. It is much heavier on the gore than one would expect, too. The effects and make-up work are outstanding, especially considering how modest the budget was for the film. It is not the greatest movie, but I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected to. There are some genuinely tense moment, some good jolts, and some ridiculously over the top violence. Always appreciated. If there is gore to be seen let the people know, movie studios.

Death Race 2000

Paul Bartel | 1975 | 84 min | USA

I got a chance to see Death Race 2000 on the big screen this week, not knowing much about the film going in except that it is “awesome” and “totally mind blowing”. The basic plot of the film is that, in a totalitarian future United States, the most popular annual sporting event is a cross country race in which drivers get points not only for arriving faster than their opponents, but for pegging off as many people as they can along the way. Five top notch driving teams assemble, made up of a motley crew of ridiculous characters (Sly Stalone as Italian-stereotype Machine Gun Joe Viterbo is a favourite) and hot babes.

The film provides some pretty satisfying gore as the drivers run down an assortment of victims on the roads, as well as some excellent explosions as part of a sub plot involving an anti-race resistance movement. The good guys and bad guys seem pretty clearly identified at the outset, but as with most good action films, nothing is quite as it seems.

I expected to like the film. What I didn’t expect was that I’d fall in love.

Enter: Frankenstein.

Paying homage to the classic horror character, this indestructible driving champ is first wheeled on screen under a white sheet, where he rests in suspended animation, awaiting the big race. As he lumbers past the reporters, shot from behind in his all black outfit (consisting of a skin-tight leather jumpsuit, satin cape and mask to hide his hideously disfigured face) he is indeed a terrifying sight.

However, as his foxy navigator Annie soon discovers, the mask is just that – a clever ruse hiding the handsome face of a young David Carradine. On their first pit stop, when Frankenstein strips to nothing but a black pair of briefs and his mask, and asks Annie to dance with him in their ultra-modern red & white hotel room, I couldn’t help but lean over to my seat mate and whisper “he’s my ideal man”.

I’m pretty sure that she thought I was joking at the time, but as the film progresses, and the villainous Frankenstein starts to show his softer side, it became clear that I’d chosen wisely. Unsurprisingly, the soft hearted, flaxen haired Annie turns out to be a resistance sympathizer, assigned the dangerous task of capturing the hard-edged man she now finds herself falling in love with. And, perhaps somewhat more surprisingly, Frankenstein turns out to be more complex than he appeared at first glance.

A clever commentary on an all too familiar dystopian future, a stylish action flick and goofy gore-fest, and oh, what a dreamboat.

American Genius: Charles Burnett (retrospective)

When Cinematheque Ontario recently presented four features (and a bunch of shorts) by Charles Burnett, I decided to watch them all. I felt woefully under-informed about this apparent ‘lost genius’ of American filmmaking, but what I knew of his cinema-vérité approach, naturalistic acting (often aided by the obvious mix of professional and non-professional actors, scripted scenes and improvised ones), and 'sombre but not hopeless' tone, really appealed to me.

Charles Burnett is singularly fixated on the theme of male impotence. His leading men are broken, defeated, paralyzed, ghettoized. Whether it’s real or imagined, their feeling of being unable to give to the world what the world asks of them is so ingrained, it leaps off the screen in every film. His depiction of a deeply disturbing and real African American disaffection is more effective than any I’ve seen on screen.

He's also incredible at endings. Not one of his films falls apart in the third act. The endings are all pretty much perfect. Basically, all these films are totally worth seeing, and I feel a bit ashamed that it took me till the age of 30 to see them for the first time.

Here’s a quick rundown of the four features:

Killer of Sheep
Director: Charles Burnett | 1977 | 83 min | USA
Arguably Burnett’s most famous accomplishment, follows slaughterhouse worker Stan as he goes through the motions of his life, unable to enjoy his time with his family, unable to make love to his desperately lonely wife, and unable to change the circumstances that keep him down.

My Brother’s Wedding
Director: Charles Burnett | 1983 | 115 min | USA
Young Pierce Mundy helps out in his mom’s dry cleaning shop while his yuppie brother plans to get married to a rich girl. When his troublemaking best friend gets killed and the funeral is scheduled for the same day as the wedding, Pierce has to decide between the two. He’s disaffected, resentful and totally incapable of making a real decision about which direction to take his life in.

Bless Their Little Hearts
Director: Billy Woodberry | 1984 | 80 min | USA
Written but not directed by Burnett, follows a similarly downtrodden man, Charlie, as he unsuccessfully tries to get a job and maintain peace in his home while having an affair across town. As Charlie’s wife (Kaycee Moore from Killer of Sheep) reaches the end of her rope, the two begin the film’s climax, a long, no-holds-barred improvised fight that lays it all out on the table in a gritty, real and powerful way.

To Sleep With Anger
Director: Charles Burnett | 1990 | 92 min | USA
This later film is a pretty great example of the Burnett style, made subtler and more refined by the passage of time. Danny Glover gives the performance of a lifetime (seriously) as Harry, a friend from the past who disrupts a middle class family’s comfortable existence. Harry is a charming trickster whose influence seems to corrupt anyone who comes into contact with him. His dark power is chilling and palpable from the first moment he comes onscreen. Strange, dark, full of subtle, nuanced characters – I think this one was my favourite of the bunch.

Wilderness

Michael J. Bassett | 2006 | 93 min | Scotland

Imagine Predator set on a deserted Scottish island, where Dutch and the gang are a bunch of juvenile delinquents left to rot, and where the Predator is a man who the young and tender hooligans would probably rather be the actual Predator. Oh... And it's directed by the director of Waking Ned Devine's Electronic Press Kit.

I really loved it, if that wasn't clear.

The Exile

Max Ophuls | 1947 | 95 min | US

I can't believe I waited so long to track down a fun swashbuckler parable about escaping Nazi Germany! The Exile stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (who also wrote the script) as the dashing King Charles II of England. He is in hiding in 1660's Holland, trying to stay one step ahead of the Puritan "Roundheads" and awaiting the day when he might return to reclaim his crown. I think. Look, I don't know history, but I do know sword fights, and this film has some ace sword fights. Plus a whole lot of escape-skipping and what I like to think of as Post War Parkour.

Loaded with long takes, long shots, and painted backgrounds, The Exile is very reminiscent of the live threatre. It amazing how much conventions have changed in popular film. It is not just the visuals of the film that are strikingly odd, either. The delivery of every line by every bizarre faux-foreign accent creates a picture which is impossible to be totally absorbed by. For the better, I think, particularly when there are so many nods toward the heavy underpinnings of the story. Still, it is strange to think that the widely used aesthetics of only sixty years ago are now wildly alienating.

And yes, it is very clearly a parable about escaping Nazi Germany, despite what that woman whom I argued with outside the cinematheque thinks. No? Let's look at the evidence: It was Ophuls first American film after World War II; Ophuls was himself exiled from Germany to Holland; Holland was a stronghold for resistance forces where many fled to after being persecuted in Germany; The Roundheads of the film are portrayed as severe, black leather uniformed soldiers. What else? Should I include that it is an airy celebration of freedom and romance that is unparalleled in modern cinema? Cause it is.

La Chinoise

Jean-Luc Godard | 1967 | 96 minutes | France


Jean-Luc Godard’s visually lush film about a small group of Maoist students in France was incredibly prescient. Made in politically tense mid-60s France, just before the events of May 1968, the film in retrospect serves as a great commentary on that turbulent time.

One thing about Marxist-Leninists that hasn’t changed since the ‘60s is that they’re generally a bunch of self-righteous bores. Godard’s Marxist disposition, which was only starting to become explicitly public at this point in this career, thankfully didn’t stop him from creating a wonderfully critical film which elevates the ideas while poking fun at their fervent adherents.

A loose collection of Maoist monologues (didactic to the point of self-mockery) are tied together with the pop-art-y visuals and bold primary coloured sets that make great use of stacks of Mao’s little red books. Jean-Pierre Léaud and Anne Wiazemsky are delightful as Guillaume and Veronique, both absolutely nailing the inexperienced idealism of the generation’s young, and of course, bourgeois, university students.

As the film progresses, the students’ discussions grow closer to the inevitable conclusion that violence will shake things up and start the revolution they yearn for. Unfortunately, their plans for revolutionary action are as ill conceived and naïve as one might expect, and at the film’s conclusion we see that the only changes that have been affected are in the students’ own disillusion. Clearly, Godard was commenting on the politics of the time more than expressing his personal political views, and more than being a film about Marxism, La Chinoise is an affectionate and incisive study of the naïveté of youth.

Beowulf (3D)

Robert Zemeckis | 2007 | 113 min | USA

Robert Zemeckis hasn't made a good film since the Back to the Future trilogy, but in some strange way, this latest atrocity makes me want to tip my hat to him. It's so ill advised and mind-bogglingly ballsy that I'm impressed it actually got made.

At face value, this film is an insult to both cinema and literature. The very idea of adapting the epic poem to film, then CGI-ing the hell out of it and marketing it as "not your grandpa's Beowulf" is pretty ridiculous. But creating a 3D version of the adventure? Verging on genius. Seeing it on the IMAX screen kind of made me wish all films were released on 3D. How much more would I have enjoyed No Country for Old Men if Javier Bardem's creepy, watery eyes had been hovering inches from my face instead of being contained on the flat screen?

Seriously though, using live actors and then computer-animating them only works well for the action sequences, while leaving the quieter scenes unwatchably wooden. Least recognizable behind her computerized mask is Robin Wright Penn as the Queen, who is decades younger than the actress and has a totally different face. Even Crispin Glover is easier to spot under his many layers of gross goop, as the fantastically whiny Grendel.

The next worst thing about this film, after the bizarre video game aesthetic, are the accents. Only Anthony Hopkins and Ray Winstone (who maintains his native Hackney accent pretty much throughout, thank god) escape the harsh and ludicrous lilt that is apparently intended to represent 'the mythical past'.

The film's writers also inexplicably waver between a modern English translation and the original text, often giving Grendel gibberish-sounding Old English lines. Maybe Neil Gaiman thought it would make him seem more alien and monstrous, but it comes off as a silly gimmick in spite of Crispin Glover's quite decent delivery.

The tale of Beowulf is amazing. This film is not, and anyone who sees the non-3D version of it is a fool. If you're going to waste $15, at least get the roller coaster thrill of having Grendel's blood spill off the screen at your feet.

Oh, I nearly forgot. John Malkovich is in this, and he really acts the fuck out of his role.

Meatball Machine

Yudai Yamaguchi + Jun'ichi Yamamoto | 2005 | 90 min | Japan

A love story about two people who stumble into a war between bio-mechanical parasites that have invaded Earth. Meatball Machine is low budget, action-packed, and gore-tastic.

This movie is very similar in execution to Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It is a viscous, violent mess of homemade costumes, old-timey physical effects, spraying blood, and origami paper thin plotting. Yes, it steals wholesale from Tetsuo, but how many movies can you say that about? Maybe two? So it's acceptable.

And just what is the "meatball machine"? Oh, that tantalizing secret is saved for the very last moment of the film. I wouldn't want to ruin it.

The Smashing Machine

John Hyams | 2002 | 93 min | US

Mixed martial arts is an extremely taxing sport, both mentally and physically. If you have any doubt, please take a look at this portrait of fighter Mark Kerr.

Kerr was once a successful, popular heavyweight in the premier UFC and Pride Fighting organizations, but is in the process of trying to climb back to the top when this documentary catches up with him. Kerr is very forthright about the highs and lows of his involvement in mixed martial arts. He openly discusses his addiction to the opiates which allow him to dull the hits and fears of each fight and ease the painful recoveries. His troubled personal relationship with girlfriend Dawn Staples also falls under scrutiny. As the relationship comes into focus it becomes clear that it has as ill an effect on his professional performance as his drug addiction, though the couple are the only ones not to realize it.

The Smashing Machine also spends a lot of time with Mark Coleman, a friend and colleague of Kerr's who's name will be familiar to long time fans of the UFC. 'The Hammer' Coleman was once a heavyweight champion, but is well past his glory days by the point of this shoot. He plainly admits that he continues fighting to feed his young family, and is doing worse and worse as the sport evolves further beyond its brawling origins.

The doc is stark and visceral in its portrayal of the physical toll of the sport, showing both the in-match hits and the scars following in a brutal macro one never sees in pay-per-view. I am no stranger to watching televised fights and I still found myself wincing a lot more than I would watching a typical UFC match. The soundtrack is also an unusual, though welcome, choice. The grating nu-metal and hard rock typical of these events is eschewed in favour of languid atmospheric guitar work.

The Smashing Machine is definitely recommended viewing for fans of mixed martial arts, but it is good enough a feature to appeal to any who enjoy documentary portraiture.