http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:06:26 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/08/18/200626.php David WesterSpoilers abound.Snakes on a Plane has the good sense to provide the titular snakes on the titular plane and not much else. It's not a great bad movie or a decent film -- it's an average bad film, the kind-of movie you see on TBS all the fucking time. The great relief is that, besides the obligatory "motherfuckers" spoken by (and clearly re-shot by) Samuel L. Jackson, it doesn't wink too much at the audience, letting them do their own nudge-nudging. Jackson, in fact, provides a sturdy anchor for all the improbability and good God is David Koechner a goddamned relief whenever he's onscreen, wasted as he is. The rest of the characters are pretty weak and bland, one-dimensional archetypes representing segments of society like the cast of one of those disaster movies from the 70s (did Airport '77 have it so good/bad?). During the first act, when the film establishes these characters, it's nigh well intolerable and anytime the action slows down to focus on the emotional turmoil of these stand-ins for humanity, the dullness is depressing. It reveals that not much has changed in the slasher-movie paradigm. Have sex? Die. Do drugs? Die. Are snobby? Die. Fat? Die die die! The only thing that seems to have changed is that "The Brother" doesn't die first and "the sissy" is found to be useful and not some sort-of burden to the brute masculinity needed to overwhelm the snakes (sorry right wing fundies Snakes on a Plane is the official death-knell to your anti-gay crusading, the zeitgeist has officially shifted). The movie has a few fun geek-show gore moments where people die in surprising and graphic ways, but completely misses the chance to have some visceral bloodthirsty, vengeance-filled snake-deaths. With one or two exceptions (including a shout-out to Gremlins), anytime the movie offs a snake, it's vague, unclear, and coy about it. Call me human, but when I see a poisonous snake bite a man in the junk, I want to see that motherfucking snake get his motherfucking head bitten off in all the gory detail.The movie plants some seeds that could have really blossomed into some absurd and delightfully logic-free moments. But it's playing it far too safe to launch into the stratosphere of absurdity. Why introduce the kickboxer if you're not going to use him? Sure, he gets a moment of heroism, but what he does is so average that you'd believe any other character could do the same thing. The premise itself is ridiculous enough that I wouldn't have minded seeing a kickboxer kickboxing his way through the snake-pile -- I would have relished it. And why build up the entrance of the bizarre-looking croc-o-snake (or, if you will, allisnaker), a giant constrictor with two rows of teeth accompanied by Jaws-esque music, if you're not going to have the passengers, or Jackson, or even the girl with the dog have a show-down with this behemoth? If one is interested in seeing this film, it is imperative to see it opening weekend with the amped up, self-aware, irony-soaked crowd of youngsters ready to cheer, chortle, and mock the very things that are usually taken for granted in movies of this ilk. I was fascinated that the crowd, primed by months and months of Snakes on a Plane Internet jokery, was ready to lambaste any moment the film tried to be genuine. I wondered if this would have been the case, absent the months and months of buildup. And I wished everyone would watch all of movies with such a generous, yet critical eye as the audience turned toward Snakes on a Plane. The world would be better off if audiences could be counted on to sneer and boo at, say, Tom Cruise during some of the schmaltzier Mission: Impossible 3 moments the way they did when Samuel L. Jackson advised Julianna Margulies to stay strong. Anyway, Snakes on a Plane does deliver some effective and compelling snakes-on-a-plane peril. It's a sometimes-fun goofball film that, despite earning instant kitsch status, will probably fade from memory like a silly dream had four years ago. It reminded me of the Kurt Russell vehicle Executive Decision more than once. Even that barely-average film had the capacity to wring applause from the crowd as the nerdy Kurt Russell, sweating like Robert Hays, semi-successfully landed a huge commercial airliner. This movie climaxes on a nearly identical note and it's just as stupid and yet rewarding. We're living in a post 9/11 world now and we could all use a United 93 that ends on a happy note. Well, for most of us. The sex couple, the peeing man, and that fat lady clearly had it coming. Video51728@blogcritics.org Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:06:26 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/07/07/163937.php David WesterThe baby scares me. This malformed mockery of human reproduction taps some primal ganglia in my cerebellum. It terrifies me on a very deep and personal level to watch the thing as it wails, spits the food it's been fed, gets sick, and lies there, wriggling. Without hyperbole, I will admit that the intensity of my abhorrence is such that I struggle to even continue watching this film, though it's a personal favorite. It is one of the best special effects ever put on film, utterly convincing from its appearance to its departure.Put in such a state of fear and anxiety by this nightmarish creation, I, staunch atheist that I am, am relieved to hear the pleasing voice of the Lady in the Radiator assure me that, "in heaven everything is fine." What's more: I actually believe her. There are no atheists in a fox hole and no atheists staring at a sputtering, hideous demi-child. Eraserhead scared me so much when I saw it in high school, I had trouble sleeping that night. It was the last movie to affect me in this way, the last to inspire fear of the dark. From this earlier viewing, I remember only the thrill of being so terrified and the thrill accompanying the click of previously underutilizied neurons firing with abandon. Thinking about Eraserhead helped me learn how to read films better than I had been trained to by my more mainstream viewing habits.So many of the conversations I've had about this film have focused on the topic of "what does it mean?" This may have more to do with the company I keep, but I suspect this experience is not unique to myself. And, while it can be fun to try and suss out the meaning of Eraserhead through its symbolic imagery and all that, it's depressing to me that so many feel that the film needs to have any objective meaning outside of the viewer's own imagination. Even more befuddling is the anger I often hear expressed at this marvelous work, a reaction from those who feel they are having their leg pulled by some sort-of con man who's had the good luck to be recognized as an "artist" by the "establishment." This isn't to say that not "getting" Eraserhead makes one a philistine. The film, like much of David Lynch's work, is asking for this hostility. After some confusing imagery at the beginning of the film, it settles into what seems to be a strange yet conventionally handled narrative. The movie has characters, establishing shots, dialogue, and the normal sort of narrative criss-cross in the editing. When the non-literal, confusing imagery from the beginning begins interfacing with all of this (relative) normalcy for reasons defined only in the creator's head, it feels arbitrary at times and even a touch malicious. And maybe it is. I don't know. I don't care.The imagery in the movie is, alone, enough to recommend it. The baby is terrifying, but it would not be so if it were not surrounded by such a hostile, howling landscape of urban decay. The black and white photography is brilliant, hearkening back to the wonderful imagery found in German Expressionist films of early cinema while simultaneous forging ahead with new images all its own. The movie is scored with a collection of masterful sound effects. These serve to heighten and broaden the scope of the film outside the boundaries of its frame, revealing the character of the world that cannot be seen but is most definitely felt by the people that inhabit it. Combine these elements with the fractured, abstracted narrative and we're effectively in the world of dreams. I'm pretty sure it's become a cliche to say that Eraserhead captures the feeling of a nightmare, but this aspect of the film cannot be dismissed. That the characters express themselves mainly in terms of heightened emotions enhances this feeling as well. Everyone in the film is bouncing from one extreme emotion to another, sometimes within the space of seconds. This makes a lasting imprint on the memory, though, like a dream, it is incredibly non-specific. You can't remember exactly what was said, just that someone was furious or ecstatic or horrified. Further, because these people seem to live in purely emotional states, their actions can seem irrational or unmotivated. Thus the linear progression of events in the film becomes jumbled when trying to remember the film.Describing the film and the horror it tapped in me feels like transcribing the hazily-remembered beats of a powerful nightmare from two weeks ago. In either case, stating plainly what terrified me about the experience sounds banal or even dull. The more one tries to grasp one detail, the more others slip away. Few films in my memory have been as successful at creating the stream-of-consciousness feeling of dreams as this one. And fewer have embraced the non-literal qualities of film, eschewing the realism that comes so easily to the photographic medium in favor of an impressionistic quality that somehow feels more true. This remains one of my all-time favorite films and is, I think, one of the greatest films ever made. Video50108@blogcritics.org Fri, 7 Jul 2006 16:39:37 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/25/180749.php David WesterThe name of this film screams out for a pithy, glib assessment of its quality using a structure parallel to the title. "It" stands for the movie and a present-tense verb describes the experience of viewing "It". This is appealing in that it has the simplicity of the thumbs up/down Siskel & Ebert style of review but adds the subtle connotations of the verb one chooses to place after the subject.While it's easy enough to think of how one expresses the most extreme reactions to a film using this new method (for instance: It Rocks! or It Sucks!), so much more fun can be had with vaguely absurd yet honest assessments such as It Meanders!, It Suffices!, or, my own favorite and one that describes my reaction to It Waits perfectly, It Tries!My patience, to be precise, is what It Tries. It Waits is wrapped up in a sturdy package of inconsequence. The story is pat: a young lady is forced to draw upon her deepest survival instincts to save her skin from a threatening, mysterious beast in the deep, treacherous forests of the American wilderness. The direction is a stale rehash of overused tried-and-true horror filmmaking: POV shots of the monster stalking its prey, gore, etc. In fact, the only things that distinguish It Waits from others of its ilk are a talking parrot that reminds one of Gizmo from Gremlins and an unusually affecting back story for its protagonist. The young woman, you see, is a forest ranger, overcome with guilt over her culpability in the death of her best friend. Despite the strapping young boyfriend who's willing to talk about her problems to a fault ("Whatever it is you're hiding... it's diminishing you," says the concerned beau [awww]), she'd rather take the jobs that let her remain alone in an isolated cabin. Here she sort-of tends to her rangerly duties, but most of her time is spent grieving and talking to the parrot (who, with a perfect mimicry of cold-blooded intelligence, keeps asking innocently posed questions about the grieved-for dead friend). As our mythmakers would have it, nature abhors a young lady of child-bearing age withdrawing herself from society, and, so, must send forth a demon to help her regain her cultural faculties. Of course, this means she'll have to get in touch with her fightin' parts and find that, despite having monstrosity within her, she's really an okay person and fit to rejoin the living. And that's what happens here. Ho hum. All of the interesting character bits are swept aside once the monster attacks start; the heroine's defensive maneuvers aren't any different from Laurie Strode's or Ellen Ripley's.Too bad, then, since her self-loathing makes her more interesting as monster prey than is usually found in the pristine virgins or warrior moms of other horror films. Too bad, also, that the acting of Cerina Vincent as our heroine is best left unmentioned. Whatever strengths are found in the characterization of the heroine can be safely attributed to the writing.Worse still: the monster is uninteresting. The opening scene and an exposition-spouting character suggest that this blood-thirsty creature has something to do with Native Americans, but these intimations fade into vagaries and are left behind as the movie fulfills its plot obligations. The design of the creature doesn't help matters as it has a simplistic skeletal look and wings borrowed from the baddie in Jeepers Creepers. There's no identity to the thing, nothing about it that centers it as an aspect of this particular environment or as an aspect of the main character's psyche. The creature in It Waits would be perfectly comfortable scaring things wherever you put it; whether it was in a forest, a space station, or a studio apartment, the results would be about the same. (It Makes Do!) Thus, we're left with a generic monster terrorizing a bland actress. Not exactly the stuff that freezes one's blood or quickens the pulse. Video48318@blogcritics.org Thu, 25 May 2006 18:07:49 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/04/19/044527.php David WesterPeople far wittier and more clever than I have surely written about the myriad of weaknesses in Uwe Boll's House of the Dead, a zombie film composed of the shadows projected by other films. I'm aware that adding to the conversation about this film is completely unnecessary (not to mention super-untimely... the movie contains a line in which a character doubts that George Romero will complete a fourth Dead film). Those with masochistic viewing tendencies probably have seen this movie and/or are aware of it. Those without such tendencies are probably unaware of its existence or, if they are, aren't bothered by the fact that they haven't seen it.I do have such a masochistic pull towards movies such as this. I enjoy the moving pictures in much the same way a dog enjoys thrown sticks. This poses a problem when baffled friends, well-wishers, and enemies want to know how on earth I could have enjoyed, say, Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes. (I thought it was all supposed to be a joke. Wasn't it all a joke?) The masochistic pull I feel towards seeing a film that has such an awful smell surrounding it is, most likely, some underhanded way in which I challenge this dog-stick relationship I have with the medium and, thus, play a game of relationship brinkmanship with film. This is no doubt because I am, for reasons I can't yet fathom, deeply ashamed of being so interested and passionate about the movies. So, anyway, in this doggish way, I found House of the Dead an enjoyable film as the image was properly exposed, in focus, and, failing that, the audio was intelligible. So there.Nevertheless, this film is certainly as bad as it is reputed to be. But my mind reels at just calling it bad and moving on. There are certain bad movies that achieve such a quality of illogic and absurdity that one wishes that this quality was the intent of the filmmakers (while knowing that it was not and, had it been, the result would probably be impossible to watch). This is quite entertaining, since it provides a nice mental challenge to try and tune into the logic of the film and just when you think you've got it all figured out... the hay zombies show up. These films feel like some sort-of Star Trek mind-trap devised by God-like beings who turn out to be insane children. House of the Dead is not this bad. It is the worst kind of bad movie: a vapid bad movie. Sure there are some howlingly bad lines in there ("Guys, check out this book. Looks pretty old, maybe it'll help us.") and nearly every bad decision that could have been made in the making of this film is represented with gusto. (Who knows why the decision was made to splice in clips of the arcade game the movie is [it turns out] prequel-izing.) But, despite the exuberant nature of the movie's awfulness, the underlying tone is one of pale, pathetic imitation. Other, better films are, if I'm being generous, referenced and imitated often and in such a one-to-one manner that, in a non-generous mood, I'd say outright theft of intellecutal property occurs more than once during this film's running time. In this way, House of the Dead feels like Resident Evil's little brother. This is bad news for House of the Dead since Resident Evil is pretty piss-poor to begin with. It's pathetic to watch the movie run through the motions of what makes a successful zombie movie in this day and age, playing the rhythms right, but missing every single note in the process. This isn't as maniacally fun to watch or to try and figure out as Zardoz or The Keep. It's ultimately an embarassing experience because you can see exactly what the film's trying to do and you can see it clearly fail every step of the way. What's more, what the movie's aiming for is so lowest common denominator that it never, with one exception*, makes any so bad - they're funny extreme boners of commercial calculation or pushes itself into any ground untrod by braver films before it. So, yeah. House of the Dead is a bland awfulness.Film, I wish I knew how to quit you.*I'm supposed to believe Sega has a banner ad at a rave? What the fuck?! Video46559@blogcritics.org Wed, 19 Apr 2006 04:45:27 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/01/07/044949.php David WesterIn a statement issued to the press this morning, Pat Robertson denied allegations that he had a hangnail. "The Lord Jesus protects me," he said, "and punishes those who do not believe. If you are sick or dead, it is because you did not believe in God enough. One need only look at the millions of dying people around the world to see that we live in troubled times, filled with debauchery and sin." When asked if he had ever gotten sick or even felt any discomfort in his life, he replied, "No, that's what happens to sinners like Ariel Sharon." He then sighed and addressed the reporters as if they were children who'd asked too many questions."Look," he said, "through Jesus I have eternal life. You all out there, you'll be dead, dead, dead while I'm driving my rocket car to get the morning's issue of the Space Times. These rumors about this hangnail? It's the devil saying these things about me. My nails are in perfect condition. Look." He then showed off his expertly groomed fingernails and then, despite assurances from reporters that it wasn't necessary, took off his shoes, showed off his diamond-studded toenails, and insisted that photographers take pictures of them. Politics41924@blogcritics.org Sat, 7 Jan 2006 04:49:49 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/16/151815.php David WesterLet me get the gripes out of the way. The movie's definitely overlong, with many scenes that could be cut by half. The structure of the film is a bit wonky in that, despite spending a rather lengthy amount of time developing characters on the journey to Skull Island, the romance between Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow is given so little time that it feels even thinner than the romance in the original version. There are some really awful choices scattered throughout the film; Adrien Brody typing out "SKULL ISLAND" in jittery, strobe-effect slow motion is one of the worst, most bullshit things I've ever seen in a movie of this caliber, and there are a few other similarly indulgent, boneheaded moves. And the score, while effective at times, is at turns too sentimental and obvious (they really, really should have trusted Howard Shore to do this, especially since the score often sounds like an imperfect emulation of Shore's fantastic work for The Lord of the Rings [which makes one wonder why he was replaced at all]). And this only makes more apparent the times when the movie itself is, at turns, too sentimental and too obvious.Okay? Can I gush now? The film really works on a level I hadn't expected from it. They've taken a tale about men trying to tame savagery and bestial instincts in order to save women, and turned it into a film about how the women these men are trying to save need this savagery within themselves. The character of Ann Darrow goes from shrieking scream-box in the original to main character in this film, a vaudeville actress plucked out of New York during the depression by a savage, primal movie producer (a pretty great Jack Black). When they get to Skull Island, they encounter a scary, savage (and when I say savage, I'm speaking of the random killing and decapitating kind of savagery) and, what's more, matriarchal group of natives who eventually abduct Ann and offer her to Kong. Ann is understandably terrified of Kong at first, but, after some harrowing encounters with the local wildlife, she comes to see him as a protector, a necessity for survival in the hostile land. When Kong is brought back to New York, Ann, in a turn of character that is shot similarly to the moments right before her abduction, seeks him out, apparently unable to resist the primal connection they have.The secret behind Peter Jackson's work as a director has always been the writing. As a director, he's got a flashy style that's hyperkinetic to the extreme and has always tended towards the mawkish and the sappy, even when the heroes of his films are doused with zombie blood. But the written structure of the movies he's made in the past, and the exploration that happens within those structures, has always been interesting, the characters are sketched out nicely, and the plots of his films are often pleasant in the inventive way they harvest seeds of narrative planted at the beginning to find a satisfying ending (I, perhaps unfairly, usually give credit for this to Fran Walsh, who seems from what I've heard in interviews and commentaries, to be the more conscientious writer of the two. But I really don't know.). Generally, the work put into the script results in the sappiness feeling earned.While the film's script is hampered a bit by the structure of the original Kong and with the notable exception of the Jack/Ann romance, this strength is on display here as well. The world, its characters, and their relationships are pleasingly etched in little gestures that build upon themselves, allowing us to fill in the gaps with our own baggage and, thus, creating an engaging, involving experience. This is no more apparent than in the early scenes between Kong and Ann, scenes in which very little dialogue is spoken and even the non-verbal communication has a distinct species barrier. Yet, Kong seems to have a personality that Ann (and we) can understand, though he's still rather alien in his behavior.Another thing this film hammers home, something I didn't realize and am now smacking myself on the forehead for not having seen sooner, is the influence on Jackson's style from silent comedy. So often in films, action set pieces are mindless exercises in kinetic movement coupled with kinetic editing. In King Kong, the set pieces are funny, cheeky, and, in their inventiveness and their use of the inevitability of physics, reminded me of The General and some of the cinematic stunts found in Harold Lloyd's work. Thinking back this has been the case since, at least, Meet the Feebles (it's been years since I've seen Bad Taste).A few words about Kong, the effect: Convincing. Utterly. I forgot he was in a computer, and he's the second fully-fledged, well-wrought CGI character from these people. Some of the effects in the movie are spotty, but Kong is so good, it bears no further discussion as far as I'm concerned.I wish the makers of this film had reined themselves in more. There's a great 2 hour movie in this, probably even a great 2 and a half hour movie. In between the unfortunate choices and the excess, King Kong is notable in the way it takes its silly premise quite seriously, and finds a reason for its own existence, despite the original's place in the pantheon of cinema. When the natives in Carl Denham's stage show are represented in exactly the same way they're represented in the original film, it's a strange comment, a criticism even, of the naïve and condenscending attitude toward beasts and men found in the original film. This film's Ann Darrow character, meanwhile, is a sharp reproach to the original film's notion that when encountering a scary behemoth of primal rage and instinct, her only correct response is to scream, scream for her life. Video41108@blogcritics.org Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:18:15 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/14/144550.php David WesterYears ago, I was in a book store and saw a children's book version of King Kong. It was a simple retelling of the tale with illustrations and, aside from the fact that it told the same story, it never referenced the original film. It just was: Kong as mythic a creature as the Big Bad Wolf or Rumplestiltskin, a fable about the hubris of man versus nature or the explosiveness of rage. It was then that, though I was a stop motion nut, King Kong really began to excite me. I realized that Kong is one of the first, if not the first, filmic myths, myths whose origins began when the lights went down in some movie theater somewhere (I'm hard pressed to come up with another one right now, though I think Freddy Krueger might be another example of a purely filmic myth). So, while I loved the idea of Kong, every now and then I'd remember that I had never actually sat down and watched the whole thing from beginning to end. As a kid, I watched bits and pieces of it when it came on TV, but I had a short attention span back then and had trouble accepting anything in black and white. So this was, I believe, my first viewing of King Kong from beginning to end, though I'd probably seen the entire movie in chunks prior to this.And, finally watching it, I realized why it was a myth that refused to die and why children still know through cultural osmosis about Kong atop the Empire State Building (how many know about Mighty Joe Young's fight with lions?). King Kong is made of the same stuff as the Grimm Brothers' Tales. It's got the logic of a fairy tale (particularly when he randomly climbs up the Empire State Building) and whatever the moral of the tale is, it's delightfully obscured by the sheer narrative of it all, slim though the narrative may be.I don't have anything to say about it that hasn't been said to death, but while watching it, I was tickled to notice that every single time Jack Driscoll showed affection for Ann Darrow, something Kongish would happen. He tells her that he loves her on the boat and then she's whisked away by the "primitive people", given over to a hulking monstrosity of pre-human (read: id-like) impulses. He puts his arm around her in New York and the same giant bundle of animal instinct breaks free! He comforts her in a hotel room (I mean, a hotel room, wink wink, nudge nudge) and Kong breaks through the window with a giant furry appendage and takes her away. Is Kong simply a hyper-Freudian manifestation of Jack Driscoll's repressed sexuality? Why not?There are a bazillion reads on Kong (including the "miscegenation read," something I leave to better folk than I). And I take that as evidence that it's the stuff of myth, the stuff of enduring folk tales. Like Dracula, Frankenstein, or the Wolf Man, Kong is a manifestation of something primal, something dangerous, but also something loveable. The difference between him and these other monsters, though, is that Kong is a direct result of industrialization. He's a natural warning about how, as we build our buildings bigger or have the ability to take to the sky, there's a danger that grows in accordance with this "progress." Strangely enough, the threat looks a lot like we do, represents our evolutionary past and, god dammit, when it dies, everybody gonna cry. Of course we cry. He's a symbol for everything we've lost or left behind in our development as a species and, if that wasn't bad enough, we're forced to slaughter him if we want to continue this development. Video40984@blogcritics.org Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:45:50 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/29/132652.php David WesterA lot of apocalypse movies focus on "survivors," people who size up the situation and find that there's benefit to be found in the destruction of society. Watching these industrious folk take advantage of the freshly wiped societal slate to build their version of a utopia (Dawn of the Dead) or maybe survive through brute force and manipulation (Mad Max 2 & Beyond Thunderdome) is always pleasurable. It allows one to project themselves into the scenario and conjure up a wistful world where survival seems, for some reason, simpler than a world where you have to go through endless loops to achieve the means to convince the guy at the store that he benefits by giving you a bag of marshmallows (this is usually done with currency, a form of communication that allows us to buy CDs without dragging a prize cow into the store).The Time of the Wolf is an apocalypse film of a different flavor, though it contains many of the same trappings of other films of the (sub?)genre. It reminded me of Testament at times (a movie I saw at the height of a delirious fascination with nuclear weapons and one that I could subtitle for myself: how I learned to start worrying about the bomb) with its bleak and unrelenting outlook on how humans behave as society crumbles. And yet, though the movie contains familiar plot devices like the characters not knowing exactly what is going on, the struggle for resources, or the paradox that the safety found in numbers can be, at times, a perilous one, the movie jettisons the familiar concept surrounding "survivors" in the face of danger and instead features a group of social animals known to some as "humans."It's well written, insightful, and naturalistic throughout, so much so, that any degree of familiarity I might have felt for the material was replaced with anxiety. The movie's an anxiety-laden endeavor, never ebbing enough to make one feel comfortable (and any time you might think that it's about to, it ratchets up the intensity). This is the case from the beginning to the end. It opens with a nuclear family arriving at a home in the country, starting to unpack the car only to be held at gunpoint by another desperate family and ends with the little boy from this family about to jump into a raging fire. It's not, exactly, a pleasant experience, but then, in retrospect, because it's so spot-on in its observations, this is one of the few apocalypse movies I've seen that actually gives me hope for my own survival. The novelty of the movie is that it presents an argument that, in the absence of all the security we're used to, there is safety to be found in numbers, though it comes with a price. Certain notions of justice and retribution must be either discarded or dealt with differently than we're used to. Two scenes in the movie feature a person in the group of survivors (note the lack of quotes to protect myself from charges of contradiction) accused of committing a crime, a crime that offers up no external proofs and are quickly reduced to "he said/she said" argumentation. The group, which has no de facto leaders (though some people do step into that role when they feel it's needed), decides there's nothing that can be done about these perceived crimes. The matter is dropped out of necessity: punishment would only increase tensions, thus making it harder to complete what's needed to survive.As more people get involved, the group of survivors evolve a social structure that reminded me of the social habits of chimpanzees (or, to be fair, my idea of the social habits of chimpanzees; I'm only glancingly familiar with chimp life). Conflict breaks out between them, is resolved through the most resource efficient means, and on they go... busying themselves with their day-to-day necessities. When a young boy is rightfully accused of stealing, he's ostracized. Though the boy is given a chance at redemption, he knows he can never fit into the group again, stigmatized as he is. And yet, he still hangs around, stealing from the main group when he has a chance because they're his only reliable source for survival.Technically, this is a first class operation all the way. A scene where the main characters are plunged into darkness and lit only by the quick flame of a lighter or by burning hay is particularly resonant. And all aspects of the movie are geared toward a type of naturalism that gives it a welcome legitimacy. The realism only adds to the underlying tension in the movie's plot, a tension so great, at times I felt like I might vomit. And yet, the tension, the uncomfortable anxiety... they exist because of the accuracy in depicting human behavior and it's in this accuracy that the movie's hope lies. So, even with the near-vomiting feeling, The Time of the Wolf is the most heartening, comforting movie I've ever encountered about the destruction of everything that keeps us safe from one another. Video40235@blogcritics.org Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:26:52 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/22/141758.php David WesterMy face hurt from laughing after watching this. It hurt most after watching a dinner scene during which Cary Grant left the table frequently to follow a dog. After leaving a couple times, he returns, looks at the table and complains to the flabbergasted people at the table, "My soup's gone!" There's something so effortlessly charming about this movie, due in large part to the chemistry between Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. She's on fire in this role, shooting out fast paced dialogue with a devilish grin and an infectious lust for life. Her character is impulsive (to the point of madness, I thought) and forgetful. In lesser hands, the character would be completely annoying in how she disregards the other people around her, but Hepburn adds an element of caring and class to the role that, ultimately, avoids this pitfall (though it's a close call at first). Cary Grant is a great match for her too as an ineffectual nerd, bursting with latent aggression. His bumbling and stuttering would also be annoying in lesser hands, but the way Grant bursts out of it from time to time is a joy to behold. These characters have a volatile relationship from the start. But after a psychiatrist informs Katherine Hepburn that the male love impulse often expresses itself in terms of conflict, she decides that Grant loves her and that she'll love him too. Then, the plot places a leopard named Baby between the two, and their efforts to control the volatility of the wild animal teaches them how to control the volatility between themselves. As you can see, this is an entry in the "couple hates each other until they fall in love" genre, featuring the staple mismatched characters and many plot contrivances to bring them closer together. But where other movies fail, this one succeeds because most of the contrivances are character-driven. After our introduction to the characters, we could honestly believe that Hepburn would be sent a leopard by her brother or that Grant's character is good-hearted enough to see a task through to the end, no matter how horribly he's treated. And the leopard is, I must say, a nice touch. It gives the couple an external force to reckon with, causing them to unite (and it does it without all the super-serious fuss of something like a war to hone in on the fun). To be sure, it left me a little exhausted with all of the running around and fast-paced talking. And a couple characters are played so broadly that they were never, ever funny (the Constable being the worst offender to my mind) though they were clearly trying to be. And, you know, there's not much on the surface of Bringing Up Baby that differentiates it much from something like Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. There's a lot of mugging and a lot of jokes that fall flat because of this. The action onscreen is, at times, as stupidly zany and reckless as it was in Goldfoot. And, yeah, some things bugged me, like Hepburn deciding on a whim to love a man she hardly knows. But it's all so whimsical, anyway, and the movie hits more often than it misses, so why bother? This is a solid effort all the way through with good writing, a sure-handed pace, and wonderful chemistry between its co-stars. The chemistry is so good that I forgave all of the absurd (and ultimately unconvincing - Grant's fault) declarations of love in the final scene the way everyone forgives them in the last act of Shakespeare's comedies.This is an utterly charming movie and a funny one at that. The dinner scene mentioned above is a perfectly pitched, farcical scene. It's played so well that peals of laughter came out of me, and I don't use the word peals lightly. Video39914@blogcritics.org Tue, 22 Nov 2005 14:17:58 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/21/160959.php David WesterRight, right: the acting by Philip Seymour Hoffman is phenomenal (that's nothing new) and the movie's got a boffo look and color palate that makes it seem like things are out of focus in a creepy, unsettling way. But what really gives this movie its punch, what takes it beyond something for Philip Seymour Hoffman's personal acting (and undoubtedly Oscar) reel, is the way it captures Kansas and the Midwest. I can't remember another movie that captured the feeling of the Midwest quite as well as this movie did. It's not just the romanticism of the wide open spaces or the banality thereof, but the casual, unthreatening way Chris Cooper's KBI (Kansas Bureau of Investigation) officer threatens Truman Capote's life while simultaneously allowing him to access investigation files. The way Amy Ryan, as Cooper's wife, cagily smiles at Capote, delighted to have a celebrity in her midst, but unable to fully express it. The movie conveys not only the beauty and monotony of the landscape's blight, but also the way the landscape inspires gentleness, even while its citizens are in the midst of overpowering emotions.A great deal of this gentleness must be credited to Clifton Collins Jr., playing one of the killers featured in Capote's In Cold Blood. His Perry Smith is quietly reflective, lonely, and, very, very sad. In this way, he's the perfect rural foil for the flamboyant and effusively urban Capote and the actor excels at the role, holding his own against Hoffman. He turns a confession scene late in the movie into a powerful moment about the triviality of murder. Capote describes Smith as someone who might have, had circumstances been different, turned out much like himself and so, it's clear that what we're watching is Capote face part of himself. Collins, as much as Hoffman, makes this interesting.While noting this, it really is Hoffman's movie all the way. The movie faces two giant, cliché-ridden genre hurdles: the biopic and the struggling writer movie. The movie clears both of them, mostly through the editing. Much like the equally successful Ed Wood, the movie uses the microcosm of Capote's research into In Cold Blood to illuminate the life of the man, rather than give us a sweeping account of his entire life. As such, Capote is edited within an inch of its life to focus squarely on Capote's perspective during this period in his life. The writing is taken for granted, so there's actually very little struggling, though events in the real-life make it impossible for him to finish his book. Hoffman carries the film on his shoulders, disappearing into the role and capturing the essence of Truman Capote, if not pulling off an accurate impersonation.The movie's keenly observant about everything: from the details of a Kansas execution to the way Capote relates to his lover. And it carries an impressive authenticity about its time and place due to the fact that all of the usual period "goods" (costuming, sets, etc.) are less interesting than the main conflict. Still, for all its authenticity and observation, it's a dreamy movie, languorously paced and soft on the eyes. It's a great biopic, finding exactly the right tone (in this case, it's a counterpoint to Capote's flamboyance) to elucidate the inner life of the person it's focusing on.Oh, and it's always nice to see Bob Balaban. Video39865@blogcritics.org Mon, 21 Nov 2005 16:09:59 EST