Viewed: The Mist

I'm having a contest. Anyone who has seen The Mist is welcome to offer their opinions. In a few weeks' time, I'll put all your suggestions on a d20 table and roll for the winner. The winning contributor will be sent back in time to kick Frank Darabont in the shins until he chooses a better ending.

You're welcome to enter as many times as you want. I have a few thoughts of my own.

1. The film could have ended the way the book did. Our hero and his kid escape the grocery store, drive under a creature so large all they can see are its legs, and head off in the direction of a radio signal that they may have only imagined.
2. Our hero takes the same course of action that he does in the movie. Stranded in the mist without any gas and four other passengers, he decides to do the noble thing with their remaining four bullets. He shoots his son first, then the woman he didn't have sex with, then the old lady. But as he levels the revolver at the old man in the backseat, an army guy taps on the window. "Excuse me, sir. Is there a problem here?" "Nooooooo!" "All right, then."
3. At some point earlier in the film, our hero's son scrawls, "Dear Army Guys, there are monsters," on a paper airplane and throws it into the mist. Then, when the army guys show up at the end, they could have been, like, "Where's Billy? All right, son, where are the monsters? As it turns out, this other dimension is vulnerable to our ordinary earth flamethrowers."
4. It was all a dream.
5. At the very least, they wouldn't have licensed Dead Can Dance.
   

Prepare to enter The Scary Door.

Viewed: Beowulf

Well, that certainly was a movie with Beowulf in it.

Mr. Bile has already commented on it, but I think he's viewing the film through 3-D colored glasses. I'm all for taking liberties with the source material--Grendel really impressed me in high school--and it's great that we finally got to see Angelina Jolie in her true form. Also, I think it's pretty cool that the dragon really fights like a dragon, and not like a gang of 50 disposable bad guys in an old-school Jackie Chan movie who attack him one at a time.

But, man, those boss battles were long. And the cut-scenes in-between? Can we all just agree that Neil Gaiman should never be allowed near movies? I've read Smoke and Mirrors. That man holds a serious grudge.

The plot of the original, as I understand it:

1. There's a grendel.
2. A beowulf rips off its arm.
3. A beowulf kills its mom.
4. Then there's a dragon.

Here's what, when pressed by my wife who was never forced to read Beowulf in high school, I got out of the movie:

1. Grendel's mother is a symbol not necessarily of temptation (though base heterosexual urges and the desire to produce progeny is the ultimate weakness of all men who like to be naked in front of other men), but of the mistakes fathers commit as seen through the eyes of their own sons.
2. Alternatively, the film is really about women discovering what they really want in a man. Grendel's mother and Hrothgar's wife slowly upgrade their relationships throughout the movie, as they learn that the longer a man hesitates to have sex with you, the more noble he is, and the more kick-ass your kids might be.
   
3. Something about Christianity. There's a lot of crosses on evil people and dead people on crosses and burning crosses that fall on dead people. Apparently, Robert Zemeckis is an alternate universe Tim Burton with a cross fetish.

Yes, it certainly was a movie I paid money to see. And, occasionally, stuff pretended to fly out of the screen at me. More often them not, I had to redirect my eyes so I wasn't seeing two things at once.

That's Beowulf, I guess.

Viewed: Southland Tales

Fuck yes.

You may have heard mixed reviews about Richard Kelly's first film after Donnie Darko. They can die and go to hell. I can't promise the movie makes sense. I won't tell you that some scenes aren't awesomely awkward. As for over-exposition and unnecessary voice-over? The movie nearly drowns in it. Hell, I don't even think you'll like it.

Best movie of the year.

Yes, even if The Mist lives up to all my 13-year-old expectations. Even though the previews of The Golden Compass promise both blimps and mercenary polar bears. I loved Once, but that's how many times I feel the urge to see it. Ratatouille moved me, and I think we can all agree that Hot Fuzz is pretty much a perfect movie. But Southland Tales tops everything, even edging out The Host. Unless the people responsible for The Wire magically send us a movie version of Song of Ice and Fire from the future for Christmas, the above pronouncement stands.

Southland Tales is angry. Insane. Flawed. Brilliant.

I just saw Sarah Michelle Gellar drink herself. Justin Timberlake made me sad. The "inconceivable!" guy from The Princess Bride is no longer the "inconceivable!" guy from The Princess Bride to me. He's Baron Von Westphalen. I got a lap dance from Bai Ling.

I wish I was watching it again right now.

Viewed: No Country For Old Men and Beowulf

Sometimes, ignorance is a good thing. For example, I enjoyed No Country For Old Men a lot more than Narraptor did. I haven't read the novel yet, and was blissfully unaware of any health problems among the audience. About the only thing troubling me was the fact that the concession stand was selling obviously bootlegged DVDs, right next to the drink machine.

No Country For Old Men itself is a combination of all things Cohen. The film primarily harkens back to the bleakness of the Cohen's earlier films. Despite this, there are random moments of levity that burst in, transport the story back to the happy wordplay obsessed films the Cohens have been making as of late. A generous viewer can assume that the latter bits help to camouflage the despair that would otherwise be grinding down in every scene. However, an alternate explanation is that the directors just felt like parachuting in a character or two from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, no matter what got broken in the proccess.

This isn't meant to imply that you'll just get what you expect out of the film, or that its quality cannot be objectively judged so you should just give up. But the fact remains that while I enjoyed the film, I'm now concerned that I'll like it a lot less once I read the book.

Lately, I've been a sucker for films that jarringly switch tonal gears with no rhyme or reason. As a further example of this, I left Beowulf feeling strangely satisfied.

If you've seen the previews for Beowulf, you've probably wondered when exactly our hero says "I-Am-Beowulf!" in that strangely halting cadence, and if he kicks a Persian down a well immediately afterwards. I'll inform you that whenever Beowulf or the all-star Beowulf singers announce his name, you must take a drink. Make sure you have a designated driver.

During the inexplicably rocking opening to the film, the credits alone inform the viewer that if they didn't spring for the 3-D version, they wasted their money. During the full IMAX experience, the left projector is displays Neil Gaiman's Beowulf, while the right projector shows Robert Zemicks' Beowulf. When wearing polarized goggles, the two films combine to create a down-to-earth story of xtreme heroes, and the corrupting effects being so awesome has on them.

Its a neat trick. Not many films can get away with feeling respectful to centuries-old source material, even during a ten minute fight scene where numerous foreground objects conspire to hide Beowulf's Beowang from the viewer, while a rotting Crispin Glover Muppet indulges in some wire-fu.

The CGI characters continue the theme of schizophrenia. Many of the male characters are very well done, with only their strange eyes letting you know that they hail from the Uncanny Valley. The women are immigrants from Shrektopia, and exist free of pores, body language, and a human soul. Beowulf himself stands somewhere in between these two extremes. Sometimes he's a real little boy, sometimes he's a Lord Of the Rings NoodleElf, and every once in a while he becomes an animatronic model.

All of this should end up being a mess, but all of the contradictions somehow cancel each other out, leaving behind an enjoyable film. Still, I already know that its the kind of movie that I'll either lover or hate a month from now, and there's no telling which it will be.

Read/Viewed: No Country For Old Men

Just got back from No Country For Old Men. Well, just got back, then took a long walk down the road to think about it, then answered all my wife's questions about plot holes and contrivances based on my book learning, then re-read some reviews, then thought about grinding my way towards the good songs in Guitar Hero III, then looked up the latter and learned there are none. Then I decided to post instead.

I'm going to break, as I often do, from our spoiler policy and split this into two parts. The non-spoiler review follows. The spoiler review follows that.

No Spoilers For Old Men

While I don't think I could stomach reading No Country For Old Men, the audiobook version read by Tom Stechschulte is pretty damn gripping. It's edge of the driver's seat listening, and thematically it's a prequel to the bleak world depicted in The Road. I don't know whether the movie succeeds on both of those levels or not, because a late development in the story may have caused someone in the audience to have a heart attack. The theater neglected to turn the lights on and shut off the film, so the audience was left to grapple with whether they were supposed to ignore the EMTs and watch the denouement, or sit in the dark for 10 minutes and wait to find out if someone had died. Afterwards, another moral dilemma: Is it wrong to complain that your movie-going experience was ruined when someone's life is on the line? I can't say for sure, but as long as you aren't the asshole who leaves the theater saying, "No Country For OLD MEN! Hahahaha!", you're probably in the clear. Yay, date night.

Old Men Who Like It In The Spoiler #18
Seriously! Spoilery spoilers below!
Yo! My gangsta flow! Yo! Yo-ho-ho.
Also...spoilers.

Maybe the book is too fresh in my mind, but even without knowing how the movie ended, I'm almost kinda pretty pissed off. The Coen brothers got the suspense parts right, but they botched the message. My wife's a smart woman, and she wouldn't be asking me, "Why did this happen?", "Why would this person do something stupid?", "How could this be possible?", etc., if the film hadn't skipped over or altered plot points from the source material. While I understand nervous laughter, and that the fragility of human existence is part of the point, we shouldn't be laughing when Chigurh is sitting naked on a toilet picking bullets out of his flesh. He's supposed to be a symbol of unknowable, unstoppable violence spreading in modern times, damn it!

Succintly put, I resent them for turning Cormac McCarthy's thesis on escalating, inevitable chaos into Fargo.

Two things really ruined it for me. One, I could be wrong, but I don't remember Chigurh killing Jimmy James in the book. I'm pretty sure he brought JJ the money for no reason other than to prove he was good at his job. Two, the shocking, unexpected death of the protagonist is fully justified by the circumstances, but the movie rushes it, and cuts out the most heartbreaking part. It's just not the same if he's not shot to death in a hotel room he rented for a female hitchhiker, after renting a separate room for himself. Couple that with the edited down final confrontation between Llewelyn's wife and Chigurh, and the movie just isn't unfair enough.

Viewed: Resident Evil Extinction

I was part of the reason Resident Evil 3 was the number one movie at the box office last weekend. I feel neither shame nor joy over this fact, only a curious dullness. My review would be, "Better than the second one, worse than the first."

Since that description leaves a lot to be desired, I have to fall back on science to determine if my money was well-spent.

Positive Test Results:

• Is a crazy guy with a gun the real enemy? No, they're just in the way.
• Does the movie devolve into Lord Of The Flies halfway through? No.
• Can I tell what's going on in the action scenes? Mostly, except for anything involving zombie dogs.

Negative Test Results:

• Are the zombies consistent? No. Super-Zombies can die when lightly chopped in the neck with a machete.
• Do the zombies need someone to open a door to let them in? Yes. A single chain link fence is enough to stop an unstoppable zombie menace.
• Are people properly suspicious of anyone exhibiting flu-like symptoms? Nope.
• For that matter, does the plot rely on someone getting bitten by a zombie and hiding this from everyone else? Yes.

Inconclusive Results:

• Is there bad Zombie Science? Yes, but the viewer is not subjected to enough of it to hurt.

So, there you have it: Resident Evil 3 has somewhat more bad in it than good. Let's all promise never think about this film again.

Viewed: Once

Talk about a great summer for movies. Although I've discussed Once to no end with my wife after seeing it yesterday, I feel speechless. I have that post Donnie Darko (before I saw the deleted scenes and talked with the man and got that bad vibe from Southland Tales) buzz for the first time in years. Your mileage may vary depending on your musical taste, but as far as I'm concerned Once is fucking brilliant.

I can only imagine the pitch meeting. "It's Blair Witch meets a musical. Two singer-songwriter types confess their emotions through actions and song. Oh, and there are realistic reasons for why they're singing, because it's late at night, they're by themselves, and that's what people do."

If you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/significant other, you should take them to see this movie. If you don't, grab the next beautiful person who inspires you and buy two tickets. You have nothing to lose except opportunity.

Viewed: The Simpsons Movie

I went looking for coverage of this flick out on the Internet, but couldn't find a word. In the absence of a vast sea of fanboy and professional commentary, I feel it's extremely relevant to the movie-going public that I document my experience.

Is it any good? Put it this way, I went in excited, but too cool to be there, and flanked by children on all sides. I was subjected to the first salvo in the Alvin and The Chipmunks live-action movie blitz, and the audience around me would not shut up even after the 20th Century Fox logo appeared. People were calling their friends on cellphones to explain that the movie was starting right now, and they even had the audacity to applaud when the title finally showed up. I mean, what they hell were they on? The show hadn't been funny since [blank], and here they were, carrying on like it was the Phantom Menace. Hadn't they seen the show in [blank] years? Didn't they know all hope was about to be destroyed? Or was I surrounded by crazy people who actually liked seasons [blank] through [blank]?

Then the opening montage started and I forgot about all that for the next 87 minutes.

The Simpsons Movie is pretty fucking funny. I would even go so far to say that it is funny floating, the highest level of funny there is.

My Inner Comic Book Guy tells me that it's too bad so much of the film takes place outside of Springfield, leaving little interaction between the Simpson family and the supporting cast. And Albert Brooks' EPA czar is so similar to Scorpio, both in terms of his manner and his approach to protecting the environment, that it's a sad missed opportunity that he's not actually Scorpio. (He could have at least pulled off a mask or something. D'oh!)

But screw you, Inner Comic Book Guy. As I recall, in the regrettable season [blank], you had sex with Skinner's mom. Your opinion means nothing to me.

Viewed: 1408

Unlike Pulitzer-Prize winning reviewer Stephen Hunter, I still get scared of oven timers. I can deal with this in real life. Whenever I visit a friend's house, the first thing I check up on is to make sure their oven timer is safely broken. It always is, so my visit can continue with only a mild sense of unease. But there's no such thing as a broken oven timer in a movie. The hero is walking in a dimly-lit house, the killer is nowhere to be seen... and then, the klaxon of fear rings throughout the kitchen, letting one and all know that the cinnamon rolls are ready for consumption. Meanwhile, I've curled up into a ball, and have started to quietly sob into my knees.

But I've compensated in other ways. For example, a ghost that has static, fuzz, bad horizontal control, or in any other way looks like it should be communicating to Lord Vader does nothing to me. People holding their heads while the room spins only brings me fond memories of the best episode of Quantum Leap ever. Also, I'm not afraid of Clint Howard.

Which brings me to 1408. It's Steven King's best story in a long time, and now it's back in PG-13 form. This means that going in, you already know that there will be no bleeding nipples. However, you might not know that the theatre will be packed with a crowd of kids. These are the same kids who thought Stay Alive was awesome, and that those horror films that wanted to be clever actually were. They will talk; you will hate.

If you can get past that, the film's probably good. Admittedly, it doesn't all work. There aren't oven timers, but the film does believe that television ghosts and The Carpenters are scarier than they really are. As it progresses, the film can never quite figure out if it's going for subtle chills, or if it wants to press the Poltergeist SFX Attack button. And while "This is Nine," is in the film, it just isn't the same. Despite those gripes, it's been a long while since I've emerged that theoretically happy after seeing a movie. There were plenty of moments I think I would have loved, if I hadn't been so busy plotting ways to kill the audience. More importantly, John Cusack's character is actually a man of normal intelligence. For a horror movie, that means that he's got a fifth-level brain, and that's a beautiful thing. Finally, novice actor Benny Urquidez is utterly convincing in his role of hammer-swinging Clint Howard. Even if he isn't the least bit terrifying.

Half-Viewed: 28 Weeks Later

Welcome to life 28 weaks later. Everything will be fine as long as you stay inside the Green Zone and are willing to forgive yourself for what you had to do to survive the zombie plague. Today's rage round question, for free re-admission to the next movie you choose to see at your friendly neighborhood theater chain: "Who is the real monster?"

A. Man, again
B. Children
C. Cheating
D. Not being able to see what the hell is going on
E. All of the above (i.e. stupidity)

The correct answer, with less emphasis on man in general and more on anyone who decided to move back to zombie town, is "E". Please leave the theater and collect your re-admission pass. We look forward to seeing you next weekend with a more lenient attitude toward the plot holes in Spider-Man 3.

Viewed: Hot Fuzz

This movie is so fucking beautiful, I almost cried.

I've browsed some papers, and reviews and interviews on the net, and I really don't have anything constructive to contribute to this conversation. Hot Fuzz is a better satire of dated pop cultural references than has come out of Hollywood in, well, remind me when the last good one was? Hot Fuzz is a better guns akimbo action movie than any made in Hollywood or Hong Kong since...any suggestions? Hot Fuzz takes all the things you love to hate about over-edited, rote Hollywood blockbusters and cop thrillers and reminds you that you never want to get too old for this shit.

That's all been said. All I can add is that I haven't been this close to tears in a theater since I first saw the Shire up on screen. A part of me I thought dead was brought back to life, screaming, "Die Hard 4 has a guy jumping out of a car as it flies up into a helicopter with a guy jumping out of it! Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker! Opening night!"

Viewed: Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz

The amazing thing about Grindhouse is that the trailer fully conveys to the viewer exactly what they will think of the finished product. This becomes an issue when the movie is a loving homage to the kind of cult classic films that only a select group of people have seen, let alone loved. This translated into the low box-office numbers that are puzzling various media groups. That and potential audiences hearing the phrase, "In one scene, Quentin Tarintino tries to rape a girl before his balls completely liquefy."

I liked it well enough, but was still left with the feeling that the film wasn't for me.

As for Hot Fuzz, I am fully confident that you have already seen the movie, and that we agree that it kicked some serious ass. Unless you're Tomfoolery, in which case we'll just have to agree that you should see it, and that you will presuppose that it kicks ass.

No, I'm not giving you a choice about this.

Viewed: Hell House

No relation to the Richard Matheson story, Hell House is a 2001 documentary focusing on a Texas church that offers an alternative to the traditional haunted house. In a hell house, visitors are lead through a series of scenes that depict the many ways they might end up in Hell. Hell houses are notorious for their political scenarios, and though this one had them as well, the event was primarily concerned with suicide and salvation. What makes the film itseslf so impressive is how it eschews any political slant and leaves the audience to develop their own opinions.

Hell House was made a year before Bowling for Columbine and only saw limited release in 2002. Its apolitical approach probably wouldn't have been possible afterwards, when anyone with a passionate opinion and Final Cut Pro could cherry-pick their famous talking heads; film, borrow, or steal amateur footage; and add in a few cartoons to reinforce their point. The glut of contemporary documentaries are diatribes tailored to specific demographics. They attract audiences who want their opinions to be reinforced, not challenged.

Hell House isn't like that. It can be horrifying, touching, or hilarious, but it's open to individual interpretation. With the exception of a few white-screen interviews where the participants are given a chance to discuss their beliefs, one off-camera question, and a single slate of follow-up text at the end, the editorial slant of the film seems to be to avoid having one. The subjects of the film are depicted as real people with merits and flaws.

I really felt for one of the younger organizers. He fought for years to get a rave scene into the hell house. When presented with the script, he sighed and told the actors that they'd have to improvise, because no one would believe it as it was written. A later scene in the writing room reveals why:

Woman: So, it's-- They're magic cards, but the game is called The Gathering?
Man: I think. It just says Magic: The Gathering on the front.
W: I'm just putting it...role-playing games such as Magic.
M: Role-playing games like Magic: The Gathering.
W: Introduced her to...
M: Role-playing games.
W: ...games, such as Magic and The Gathering?

Other participants in the documentary completely creeped me out. One of the organizers recently went through a divorce prompted by the discovery of his wife's "Internet friend." So what did he do? He added a room where a drunken father learns of his wife's infidelity and takes it out on his daughter. His son ends up taking tour groups through the scene. His daughter is spared the trauma of reliving her father's dark fantasy re-enactment, as she's in the next room bleeding to death.

Hell House is bound to provoke strong opinions. But what's most shocking--refreshing, cold shower shocking--is how it allows the audience to think for themselves.

Things Read/Things Viewed

I've come across a few things that seem worth talking about, but not enough to devote an entire post to. Which is another way of saying that good or bad, none of these things inspired much passion.

Also, please note that right below, Tomfoolery has joined Narraptor and myself as a contributor. In his inaugural post, he talks about one of those subjects that is close to our heart: Buddhism.

Read:
Nightwatch
This is actually a trilogy of short stories, so by the time you've reached page 100-ish, you'll have gone through all of the events of Nightwatch the movie. The plot is similar, except that it removes most of the best and worst parts of the film, leaving a tale that's better grounded, but without any noteworthy scenes. Oh, and each tale ends with the same twist: It Was All My Cunning Plan. Magical Russia is nice, but I can see why most people prefer to do their adventuring in Magical London. (This statement discounts Londoners themselves, who often react to Magical London with abject fear and a strong desire to return to their terrible job and lame friends.)

Un Lun Dun
This one actually would have been it's own post, except that Narraptor pretty much said it all for me.

A nice touch is the glossary in the back, which includes none of the Magical London terms used in the book. However, it does explain all the British slang for American kids.


Viewed:
Ghost Rider:
Do you want to see an old issue of Ghost Rider come to life? Because that will pretty much determine what you think of this film. For one thing, the dialogue ought to have been put in word balloons, especially whenever the movie's central themes are used. Also, most of the fight scenes follow a traditional old-school comic formula.

1- Villain enters and gets a few good hits on Ghost Rider. Oh, no, what can he do?
2- Ghost Rider figures out the villain's weakness and takes him down in a matter of moments.

(That weakness is unusually some variation of, "Wait! What if I use my demon-killing chain to kill this demon?" Don't expect any epic fights.)

If you care, they changed the Ghost Rider's origin story. I guess they felt that the audience wouldn't be invested in a guy who willingly summons Mephistopheles, The Secular Satan, and signs his contract of doom. "Yes. He fooled you... that's what he does. I thought you spent months studying about this guy."

Sublime
A video release recent enough to include a trailer for The Reaping, Sublime is advertised as a pure horror movie. This is as much of a lie as the image on the cover. It's about a guy who goes into a hospital for a routine surgery and everything goes weird on him. If you don't already know where this movie is going, you haven't seen enough of these films. But there's another element involved... there are long, lingering shots. Questionable shots that linger on their own artiness. Superficial discussions about what it means to be a superficial person. A sea of electronic music letting you know how you should feel. And then, it all comes together. Some poor fool combined a horror movie with Grand Canyon.

Viewed: I Think I Love My Wife

I'm pretty sure I saw this movie. I just can't remember any lines from it. It was St. Patrick's day, after all, and I celebrated in the traditional Irish way, off-brand Dharma initiative wine, an expensive Japanese dinner, and high quality sake. I went to a restaurant where they pour the sake so it overflows onto a plate on purpose. This, I was told, is how it is traditionally done in Japan.

Really, who am I supposed to trust? Me and my personal experiences in Japan, a magical land where kitsune and cosplay girls were always presenting me with tiny amounts of alcohol and the concept of fusing Jack Daniels and Coke confuses the general populace, or an overpriced LA restaurant with the sake equivalent of a Big Gulp?

I would not normally go to a theater to see a comedy I expected to be less than stellar (see the forthcoming review of Hot Fuzz), but my wife was in the mood to laugh, and again, sake was involved. Conveniently, there happened to be a showing of the new Chris Rock movie right after we finished our dinner.

Though my memory of the film is fuzzy, I think the reviewers were somewhat harsh. I Think I Love My Wife is a thoroughly modern megaplex comedy. Jokes are thrown against the screen in the hopes that a third of them will stick. There are safe "Married life means no sex" jokes everyone can feel laugh at. ("That's true! We're so lame!") There's an extended Viagra gag for you to enjoy or avert your ears during--your choice. And there are throwaway bitter asides that you might not laugh at if you're on a date.

My wife and I were the only people in the theater to audibly appreciate the latter. As this became more apparent, I laughed harder and louder on purpose, calling attention to the couples in the audience that, "HA! I'm in a relationship where I can laugh at that without consequences!" It was opening night of the Dungeons & Dragons movie all over again, except this time no one told me to be quiet, and I Think I Love My Wife, when it is funny, is funny on purpose.

It was an interesting social experiment, and I think critics would have liked it more if they had lowered their standards or drank a plate of sake beforehand.

It does have its problems, though. I was a bit confused as to why Chris Rock would be tempted by a woman whose only good quality was that she dated guys from The Wire. But given the murmurs of approval from the men in the audience whenever she did something desperately slutty, Kerry Washington has ineffable qualities that make one forget about Gina Torres. And then there was the ending. When given the chance to consummate his affair with the other woman, Chris Rock went as far as removing her panties before remembering that he had kids, at which point he went fleeing back to his wife. That scene destroyed all suspension of disbelief, but my wife insists that the woman sitting next to her was clapping at that point.

I thought everyone was booing with me.

Sometimes I just appreciate films on a different level than everyone else.

Viewed: The Messengers

To take my mind off of my current woes, one of my friends took me to see The Messengers.

The good news is that it's by the Pang Brothers, which means that there's some honest spookyness to be found, as well as nice treatments of standard horror tropes. This surprisingly decent film ends the moment the "We don't believe you saw ghosts," subplot rears it's ugly head. From that moment on, you'll be reminded of the time each of your friends had come up with an ending for The Eye that would've been better than the one that was actually filmed. That is, assuming your friends told you about that moment... they might still be worried that you'd be upset you were never invited to their The Eye party.

Are you ready for the big spoilers? Because if not, then not only should you have stopped reading this a few minutes ago, but also stayed away from every other review of the film. Let's take this one for example. It doesn't want to give much about the film away, except to tell you that the ghosts aren't the villains of the piece. And that the ending's obvious, and uses generic twists you've seen many times before.

I am quite confident that you are an intelligent person. Now that you know that the ghosts aren't the villains, but there is a villain to be found, the sudden introduction of a friendly farmhand with an undefined past is going to set all of your alarms ringing. I'd go so far as to say that you might not have made this connection without this preknowledge, since it honestly doesn't make much sense. While I can buy ghosts not being great communicators, there's a difference between being misunderstood, and beating the hell out of people.

The genericness of the plot is something the reader ought to know, but there has to be a better way of going about it. At the very least, the review fails just by trying to compare parts of The Messengers to The Shining, The Ring, or The Grudge. When the movie was meeting my low expectations, I didn't really feel like comparing it to any of those films. And when it wasn't, the only thing that sprang to mind was a dimly-recalled Halloween special on The Lifetime Network.

Of course, just comparing the film to a Lifetime Movie would also probably have given the game away. But at least then you'd be wondering if it was the husband or the handyman who dunnit.

Don't Beleive The Hat

Now might be a good time to remind you about our spoiler policy.

Narraptor has developed a relatively foolproof system for judging newly written fairy tales; More Monster = More Movie. By this yardstick, we can clearly prove that Spirited Away is ten times as good as Princess Mononoke, and a hundred times as good as Howl's Moving Castle. And yet, this also means that Pan's Labyrinth should be infinitely worse than the Pan-less Labyrinth. (And that is without taking the standard Muppet Modifier into account.)
In this case, I am going to have to leave science behind me, and cling to my belief that Pan's Labrynth is as good a film as I think it is.

I can understand if you don't have any faith left for DelToro's films, though. I can't remember a thing about Mimic, and I remember too damn much of Blade 2. Hellboy was fun at the time, but immediately afterwards I've only been able to recall the film's many flaws. I was willing to believe that The Devil's Backbone was DelToro's good film, but I've never had enough interest to seek it out.

But somehow, this movie finally delivers on the promises DelToro's been making all these years. It helps that the promise is fairly simple: That he's made a dark and fairly straightforwards fairy tale, placed in a modern setting. By the same token, I reject the slur of Magical Realism that Narraptor's leveled at the film.

The viewpoint in Pan's Labrynth is relentlessly objective. There is no narration to inform you that this is a Ofelia's personal journey. No visual cues that each character sees things in different ways. Some characters shoot at commie rebels, some make roast rabbit, and one person talks to mantis fairies. Each is handled with the same detached air. Then at the end of the film, we are treated to a scene where the drugged up Capitán Vidal sees Ofelia talking to the air, instead of the Faun.

At this point, you get to choose which movie you've been watching all along. One of them is a tale where the military commander just can't see the faun for some reason. Perhaps it was the drugs, or perhaps it's just a magic thing. Not a strong point of the film, I'll agree, but not a dealbreaker.

Instead, you can decide that it could have been all in Ofelia's head. At which point the movie breaks apart. After all, if the movie's willing to lie to the viewer to the point that Ofelia can walk through walls on multiple occasions due to coincidence, what else is it lying about? Perhaps Capitán Vidal only thinks he's a brutal killer, when in reality he breaks down sobbing in a corner, and lets someone else do the work. Perhaps the mysterious French rebel leader never existed either. After all, if Ofelia's obsession with fairies brought them to CGI life, then what validity should I place with a group of friendly communist rebels who are at the beck and call of a communist-loving Mercedes? Is that magically realistic? I'm honestly not sure... without a person flying into space from sheer beauty, it's hard to tell.

There's supposed to be some ambiguity in the ending, but you still end up picking which option you prefer. You can believe in the magic, and end up with a good movie that has a happy ending. Or don't, and you're left with a badly directed film with an unhappy end.

That is, assuming you like dark fairy tales that contain four and a half monsters. If you don't, you're not going to come out of this film happy either way.

My Hat of Magical Realism

I was waiting for Mr. Bile to write his review of Pan's Labyrinth before posting a rebuttal, "Panned Labyrinth," but I was exposed to even deadlier levels of magical realism in the meantime. So allow me to fire the opening shots. Perhaps he will fight back later this week with his magic chalk that has the power to draw on walls.

In one week, I've seen two films that embraced magical realism to some degree. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, magical realism is a contemporary genre in which magic or magical creatures appear in pretentious fiction obstensively set in the real world (Not The Real World. That would actually be kind of cool. "Dude, there's a kappa in the hot tub!"), often to little effect. It's fantasy that refuses to come out of the closest. I mean, you can't expect to get your MBA with a thesis novel titled The Tengu Trilogy, Book 1: The Goblinwood Oxcart, can you?

Pan's Labyrinth is a good example of what I hate about magical realism. Though there is a connection between the fairy tale C-story and the Spanish Revolution plot, the consequences of the the fairy tale could be interpreted as coincidental. Goat Boy and Eye Hands never come out of the walls to aid the Resistance. Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's remake Big Trouble in Little China and have all the monsters only appear to Egg Shen and Eddie Lee. (Actually, that sounds pretty cool, too. It would at least explain why Miao Yin looks about as Asian as Pamela Anderson. "They were crazy Asian guys the whole time!")

Pan's Labyrinth is textbook magical realism. Did the magic make a difference or was it all imagined? What if there are invisible beet creatures that interact with us on a karmic level that we can't see? What if I cared?

Then last night I watched the first 20 minutes of Little Miss Sunshine. While those minutes didn't appropriate fantasy tropes in the traditional sense, the movie does focus on a family of faux Wes Anderson characters who could not exist in the real world. If my ugly teenager decided to stop speaking for several months...fine. Take away his paper, his pen, his computer, his text message allowance, his Scrabble tiles, and his food until he does. (This is probably why Mr. Bile tells me I'd make a good parent.) Unless you admit you're making a full-fledged fantasy or science fiction story, I refuse to take your kid who doesn't speak until dramatically appropriate seriously. Hodor!

Monster Get

At the same moment that Narraptor was watching The Children Of Men, I was watching Little Monsters for the first time.

There is an almost inconveivably vast list of movies that every member of my peer group has seen, except for me. In High School, this never came up very often. In College, the cracks started to show, and I'd attract suprised looks for comments like, "Aliens? Was it really that good?" Now, they just sigh and shake their heads when they find out that I've subjected myself to four out of six Children Of The Corn films, but I had never bothererd to see any of The Exorcists.

This is not to imply that Little Monsters is a classic film of its time. The 80's has far better monster and Howie Mandel kid's movies for your collection. But the important thing is that by 2015, I should be able to fake my childhood Pop Cluture Cred.

Viewed/Read: Children of Men

I finally took advantage of living in Los Angeles and went to see a film in limited release. Of course, all that really means is that for the first time in a year, a movie came out that was intriguing enough to be worth the extra effort and parking fees. Raleigh's highways may be confusing, and Tyson's Corner more crowded than a Wal-Mart on the wrong side of Pennsylvania, but both pale in comparison to the terrors of The Grove.

It was worth it. Children of Men is fantastic.

Assuming you've browsed other reviews, you're familiar with the "most realized dystopian future since Blade Runner" meme. I can't argue with that, though I would add a caveat. Blade Runner is a projection of what the world might have looked like if everything continued to go wrong after 1982. Children of Men depicts a horrible future that is already happening.

The novel The Children of Men uses the premise of an infertility pandemic to explore issues of civil liberties versus security; the consequences of selfishness at personal, familial, and societal levels; and what drives people to power and how power affects those who acquire it. Those aspects are all featured in the film's plot, but it struck me as having a more singular theme: what little value we have for human life. With one or two exceptions, every time a character died in Children of Men, I was shocked. When characters who had only been on screen for 15 seconds were killed, I was horrified. In contrast to the other "serious," "political," and "adult" movies previewed before the film, when something exploded in Children of Men, it wasn't flashy and pretty. It was senseless.

I'm not a war movie person. Even when the message of a war movie is that war is bad, I know a lot of people will watch it and think, "Dude, that part where the guy's flamethrower tank blew up? That was awesome!" What amazed me about Children of Men is that its portrayal of violence was so unglamourous. Even justified deaths lacked satisfaction. You'd have to be a sociopath to enjoy the waste of life in this movie, and this is coming from a guy who thinks a world without children would have its advantages.

The idea that if people became incapable of reproduction we'd still be killing each other is haunting. To imagine that if someone was suddenly able to procreate in such a setting we still wouldn't put down our guns is even worse. But the greatest impact this movie had on me was that this random, pointless waste of life is happening every day, and we just don't see it.

Children of Men isn't science fiction. It's what we ignore about today.