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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Europa Report

When a sci-fi movie achieves a certain degree of excellence I have special category of greatness where I place such films. Europa Report, the little known sci-fi film of summer 2013 is placed squarely in this special category.

The farthest than humankind has ever traveled; Europa Report takes us to a moon orbiting Jupiter where researchers believe there may be life. As a crew of scientists and engineers depart Earth they tread the well-worn path of many a space movie. Traveling to Europa the crew have their squabbles, their celebrations, their successes, their letters and videos made for loved ones on earth.

Then the lines go dead. They loose all contact with Earth. They have every possible gear malfunction imaginable, including a few mental and emotional ones. Director Sebastian Cordero permits this display, the usual psychological strains the typical sci-fi film character faces, but Cordero keeps them to a minimum. He does not rely on these typical factors to carry the film.
The clichés become less and less important as the adventure of the actual mission intensifies. 

Once on the crew arrive on the moon Europa, everything goes wrong. When characters we’ve become fond of start dramatically disappearing we realize this is not a story about the power of the human spirit’s ability to overcome all odds. This is intended as a realistic portrayal of a real mission. What it would actually be like to venture to the far reaches of our solar system. It is a stunning achievement.

For 10 million dollars this film transcends basic film devices. The Astronauts’ struggles to survive become incidental. Europa Report takes us past the mere human crusade of survival. Way past.

Errata: Surprisingly the crew miscalculates the temperature of Europa as absolute zero. Absolute zero is a scientific impossibility according to the Smithsonian. Particles not longer move and energy is no longer transferred. At absolute zero, the principle that prevents perpetual motion from existing which is also used as an adjective to describe the decent into disorder- entropy- reaches its minimum value. The scenes on Europa are overflowing with entropy, so this absolute zero declaration is blatantly false.

8/10 


The Grandmaster

Rains drops that shine like diamonds. A choreographed battle becomes a dance of graceful, powerful movement. The violence becomes beautiful. With this incredible fight scene director Kar Wai Wong opens The Grandmaster.

Then Wong replicates the same techniques over and over again ad nauseam, expecting fancy camera angles and beautiful set designs to carry an entire 90-minute feature. The result, a film where absolutely nothing happens.


Phillipe le Sourd’s cinematography here resembles that of Christopher Doyle’s in Hero (2002). That is to say, it’s amazing, but just in case we didn’t recognize its amazingness in the first scene, the second scene, or even the tenth scene, Director Wong insists that we better recognize. Wong pummels the viewer to death with le Sourd’s blazing techniques. Identical shot after identical shot render le Sourd’s imagery utterly meaningless.

This film stars the great of Zizi Zhang of Crouching Tiger (2000) and Hero fame. Here she plays a supporting character, and, oh yeah, is totally wasted as an actress. The disorganized mess of direction spends more time showing slow motion side angles of her pretty face than probably any other single device in the film. Zhang’s combat is graceful as always, but this gets boring fast as there is no discernable purpose to all her fighting.

The main character Ip Man flees whatever Chinese town he’s from as the crisis of a Japanese invasion occurs, but we don’t even care. Eventually Zhang’s character and Ip Man magically meet up in Hong Kong, but by this point, thanks to the miasmic mess that has spewed fourth since the beginning of the film, the only think we do care about as viewers is the amount of time left until the credits roll.

3/10

Sunday, September 22, 2013

World War Z

World War Z must have one of the shortest first acts in film history. The first act, usually the first half hour is generally where the conflict is introduced. This film opens with Gerry Lee, Brad Pitt, a former UN investigator having breakfast with his family. Five minutes later, BAM, zombies. No time is wasted getting straight to the conflict. Begin second act.

The story is not complicated: zombies take over the world and Brad Pitt is obliged to save the day. The assault of zombie movies over the past few years has been such an onslaught that by default the genre itself now gives me an automatic feeling of “I don’t care.” World War Z is very much another zombie film, but a damn exciting one. Even the script’s description for becoming a zombie, turning Zeke, is subtlety refreshing.


“It’s not what you say but how you say it.” With cinematic excellence, Director Marc Forster breaths new live into this tired cliché. It’s all in the delivery, and WWZ definitely delivers. 

As Gerry Lee (Pitt) travels the world trying to solve the mystery behind the infection causing people to turn “Zeke,” the scenes that unfold during his expedition are so exciting that story arc is incidental in comparison. A memorable scene is when a military commander becomes infected. He’s got about ten seconds: “I’m a goddamn Zeke…I got this one boys.” Then, he puts a bullet in this own head.

The exotic set designs of the adventurous locales are the highlights of the film. First an adrenaline pumped escape from an infested Philadelphian housing project, then to a US navy ship at sea, then over to a US military base in Korea where a massive fire fight breaks out. Next Lee arrives in Israel where the citizens have protected themselves against the Zekes in a totally ingenious, but vulnerable walled up construction. The set design here is just incredible and when the situation goes awry, and things start blowing up, the visual effects are some of the best around, bar none.

Errata: Brad Pitt picks up an Israel solider sidekick along the way. They are both the sole survivors of a horrific plane crash. How convenient.
In 28 Days Later a single drop of infected blood causes a subject to turn into a zombie. In WWZ Brad Pitt gets Zeke blood in his mouth and doesn’t turn. This fact is acknowledged early in the film so we know this fact for the remainder of it. There doesn’t seem to be a single, recognized method of contracting zombieism.

Interestingly there is a real drug called Tetrodoxin that is supposedly the closest thing to an actual zombie-causing agent in existence.

7.5/10

Wadjda


The total lack of films that come out of Saudi Arabia make Wadjda, a Saudi film by Haiffa Al-Mansour, instantly alluring. Haiffa Al-Mansour is already accredited as being the first successful woman filmmaker in Saudi Arabia’s history.


This is very much Al- Mansour’s film. She charms the viewer with the common everyday struggles of the Saudi woman, and rather than address the issues in a combative way, her approach is warm, even cute. This draws us into her characters and provides us with some heartfelt laughs along the way.

The precocious 10-year Wadjda is growing up in Riyadh where she wants nothing more than a shiny new bicycle, but not only is she a little short on riyals, in Saudi Arabia women do not to ride bicycles. Saudi moral code bans woman from driving, going out in public unveiled, living unaccompanied, leaving the country alone, and opposing their husbands’ orders in any way.

Small details make grand impressions: In an all girls school teenage students paint their toenails, a sin, and are publicly vilified for it. The mere possibly that workmen half a mile away might see school girls playing in their courtyard forces all the girls to rush inside, lest they be judged impure. Pubescent girls are considered tainted and must use a tissue just to flip the pages of Koran.

Wadjad’s truly beautiful mother spends much of her time perfecting her appearance only then to have to then cover herself with a full hijab. She is never openly defiant; defiance is impossible, but even thought she is obeying age old traditions that we’d assume would have dulled any emotional protest, through the mother’s submission we get a brief glimpse of her distress, the natural human emotional distress that no amount of “aged tradition” or religious subjugation has the right to inflict on any human being. 

In a country where cinemas are banned, Riyadh is not exactly a city where women can just go around shooting films. Females mixing with male co-workers would bring dire consequences. Al-Mansour shot the film anyway, directing much of it from the back of a van, and the result is a film representing the triumph of the defiant feminine spirit, in all forms.

8/10

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Blue Caprice

In 2002, ten people were randomly assassinated in the Washington D.C. area by a duo called the Beltway Snipers. Blue Caprice, a film by Alexadre Moors investigates these events.

The film opens with the lush blues and greens of tropical Antigua, but to the young protagonist Lee Malvo (Tequin Richmond) having just been abandoned by his mother, this island paradise has become a prison. Just in time Lee is saved by John, a caring neighbor played Isaiah Washington. The pair soon depart Antigua for the US, Lee as John’s adopted son.

Fast-forward a few months to Tacoma, Washington. John’s pathological personality has begun to emerge. Father and son drift from couch to couch. John’s other kids have been taken away by their mother, a restraining order officially filed. Enter firearms, and John’s maniacal attempt to transform Lee into an automaton assassin begins.

John locates his ex-wife and kids in Maryland. Out for blood, John and Lee head east in a blue 1990 Chevy Caprice, what will become the epicenter for their killing spree. When they reach the Eastern US John’s psychopathology is unleashed and Lee is forced to help avenge a fictitious, eternal grudge.

Director Moors shows us that Lee is undoubtedly a bright kid. He memorizes his combat manual in detail and applies the instruction with expert precision. Had he been a year older Lee may have applied these mercenary skills in the Army. We sense Lee feels remorse and does not want to become a hardened, senseless killer. In a touching scene, Lee steals, of all things, veggie burgers.

Post Boston Marathon bombings, this film resonates strongly of the psychologically excruciating manipulation of the underling by the elder. After the Tsarnev brothers we why not keep this dialogue open? Or should we wait until after another docum-drama shows us the horrors, or another atrocity occurs?

7/10


The Conjuring

Errata: Before Christianity and Latin existed how did exorcists exorcise? A lingering question after watching The Conjuring, a film by James Wan.

The age of Scary Movie-esque franchises has turned seeing dead people and being haunted by and evil spirits into mundanely comic events. Sexy vampires, farcical zombies, and ridiculous inside jokes about the world’s end begone! The Conjuring is a big horror film that is actually good and scary. Finally!



Still, Director Wan uses all the old horror tricks to build up the suspense: creeping suggestive crescendos in the score, brief uncertain glimpses of unknown beings, and of course, lots of loud and unexpected jolts.

The film opens as the Perron family arrives at their new home, a large fixer-upper in the Rhode Island countryside. As the family starts their life in the new house the haunting becomes apparent. Clocks stop, doors slam, people scream. Terror drives the family to huddle up in the living room where they spend their nights sleeping together. It makes the spirits calmer, they say.

A little too conveniently, famous demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren just so happen to be speaking nearby. Mrs. Perron persuades the Warrens to come inspect the house. Lorrain Warren, a kind of clairvoyant, senses real trouble in the Perron house immediately. Using cameras, Holy magic, and Latin scriptures, the fight begins to save not only the house from destruction, but the people inside it as well.

8/10