As Above, So Below is not a good film but it tries to rise above the rest. It features an Indiana Jones type heroine and an unexpected ending that left me satisfied and not thinking about the nausea inducing camera work. In a day and age of horror remakes, sequels, remakes, reboots and spin-offs I liked the new direction of As Above.
The story revolves around an intrepid alchemy scholar named Scarlet (Perdita Weeks) hunting down the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scarlet is intelligent, selfish, driven and the child of a lost adventurer. Her globe-trotting quest leads her to the catacombs of Paris where things will eventually go wrong. While in Paris she reunites with her ex-boyfriend George (Ben Feldman) and the reunion is far from pleasant. The last time she saw George she was leaving him to be arrested in a Turkish prison. He isn’t happy about the ordeal but Scarlet armed with new evidence convinces him to take the journey into the catacombs.
I like that the characters push themselves into dangerous situations because of their obsession with history. It is refreshing to see a kamikaze female character that has a black belt in Krav Maga (which she doesn’t get a chance to use in hell) and doesn’t think twice about putting herself in danger. She is a driven individual who you do not want to hang out with (you will probably end up dead or stuck in a Turkish prison).
They gather a crew of Parisians who know the tunnels and they embark on a quest that will not end well for most of them. There are several moments when your hand will slap your head due to incredibly poor choices. For instance, if you see a cult singing music underground maybe you shouldn’t go deeper and deeper into the weirdness. Eventually, pianos pop up out of nowhere and they will enter a tiny tunnel that has “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” written above it. However, Scarlet lives by the motto “you have to break an egg to make an omelette” and her crew suffers many cracks in her omelette making.
The fact that they shot most of the film in the actual Paris catacombs is impressive. However, due to the shaky camera work the locations become moot. This is a shame because it is no easy feat to fit a production down there. They had amazing access to a great location and tried to waste it via pinballing camera work. The directors John Erik and Drew Dowdle (Devil..which I think is underrated) had this to say about it.
They’re 200 miles of tunnels, five stories underground, that hold the remains of six million bodies. So there’s bones and skulls. It was cold, it was dark, there was no bathroom down there. Water up to your waist some days. You’d sometimes have to crawl around on all fours for an hour at a time. It was gnarly. We’re the first feature to get permission to shoot in the off-limits areas. We were like, “We’re not bringing lights, we’ll just do it docu-style.” In a lot of scenes the actors light the scene themselves with their head lamps.
Here is what I love about As Above (SPOILERS!!!!!!!). They eventually find themselves in hell and many of the team start to die. As things get bleak Scarlet makes a mad dash through the catacombs in order to replace the sorcerers stone and turn the world around. Just as you think bleak will prevail (Think Blair Witch), Scarlet saves the day and three people survive. I realize that several young people died but it is kinda nice that we don’t get the stock everybody dies ending (Think Grave Encounters). It seems like another day in the life of Scarlet and you are convinced she and George will find themselves in more shenanigans in which a couple of red shirts will die.
Many horror films annoy me due to inevitable borrowing, repeating and blood-letting. As Above combined horror with adventure and I left the experience feeling satisfied. It won’t become a cult classic and the 27% Rotten Tomatoes score is understandable. However, I had fun with the film and I really liked the idea of it.
Watch As Above, So Below. Appreciate what you see of the catacombs and let me know what you think about the ending!
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Only Lovers Left Alive: The Vampires of Detroit
Jim Jarmusch sure is cool. Only Lovers left Alive is a laid back treasure that takes its time and builds super cool characters. The story of two vampires exploring the Detroit landscape is wonderful, literate and always entertaining.
Tom Hiddleston plays a melancholy vampire named Adam who is increasingly annoyed by the zombies (humans) and spends his days in isolation. He is a popular underground musician whose music is known world wide. He has one human friend named Ian (Anton Yelchin) who is the only “rock and roll kid” he likes. Ian runs his errands, buys all his musical equipment and is given a final task. Adam wants him to find somebody who can make a solid wooden bullet.
Sensing that her husband is in a funk Eve (Tilda Swinton) makes plans to visit. When we first meet her she is chatting about olden days with Christopher Marlowe (which finally put my lit degree to use!). I love how Marlowe (John Hurt) wishes he would have met Adam before he wrote Hamlet. I also love when Eve explains why Adam might be sullen:
“I mainly blame Shelley and Byron and some of those French assholes he used to hang around with.”
Eve leaves Tangier and heads to Detroit in order to cheer up her morose lover and partake in conversations about Shakespeare, quantum theory and Jack White. Eventually, her kid sister shows up and much to Adam’s annoyance drinks his friends, blares his music and forces them to music clubs.
Swinton and Hiddleston are wonderfully cool and they immediately build a lived in chemistry. The two love each other deeply yet have different personalities. Basically, she married a tortured musician and has to deal with him for hundreds of years.
After Snowpiercer, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom Tilda Swinton is proving herself to be the best actress around. She is a chameleon who disappears into her roles and I still can’t believe she was Mason from Snowpiercer. She worked with Jarmusch before in Broken Flowers and her performance gives in to his style of cool detachment. Tom Hiddleston is perfect as the sulky vampire who is simply getting older. The new generation bores him and he misses the days of playing chess with the world’s best writers. Hiddleston carries effortless cool on his shoulders and he makes the role look easy.
Only Lovers Left Alive is a cool experiment that will live on as one of the best vampires films ever made. It flips the genre on its head and I love how it shows the evolution of the creatures. They may be getting wiser and more mature but they still are vampires who need blood. There is a danger to them even as they lay around listening to pretentious music.
Watch Only Lovers left Alive. Then, check out Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. I guarantee it is the only movie where Bill Murray drinking out of a coffee pot chats with RZA and GZA.
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Ragnarok is an earnest little Norweigan film that centers around a family looking for Vikings and finding an angry prehistoric beast. It has a refreshingly simple A/B/C structure and plays like National Treasure met Jurassic Park and they went to Norway.
Ragnarok opens with a tribe of 9th century vikings on the hunt for treasure and glory. They arrive at a lake and are promptly slaughtered by an angry beast. Cut to modern times and we meet a widowed archaeologist named Sigurd (Pal Sverre Hagen) who is obsessed with the lost viking ship. Sigurd is right about the ship but his unfounded and wild ideas cause him to lose funding and receive a demotion at the museum he works at. Luckily, his friend Allan (Nicolai Cleve Broch) shows up with some new evidence and the game is on.
The movie borrows heavily from other films (Raiders, Jurassic Park 1-3) and the name Steven Spielberg comes up in many reviews. However, despite the similarities Ragnarok has a personality all its own. Director Mikkel B. Sandemose used his limited budget well and focused on believable character dynamics instead of bombastic action. Sigurd is the classic absent-minded father who loves his children but is too caught up with his work/grief to take care of them. The kids love their father but are annoyed by his love of all things Viking lore. It isn’t surprising that Sigurd would take his kids on a wild goose chase into the unknown Finmark wilderness to find proof of viking life.
The journey is beautiful as Sandemose and his cinematographer Daniel Voldheim break out the wide-angle lens and let the scenery speak for itself. The journey eventually leads them to an isolated island where nothing good will happen. An unexpected treat of Ragnarok is the badass female heroine Elisabeth (Sofia Helin). Elisabeth works with Allan and it is evident why he hired her. As things go bad Elisabeth starts taking care of business. The movie becomes a series of problems to be solved which leads to an exciting centerpiece involving ziplines, flare guns and an angry monster.
The monster of Ragnarok is a curious creature. I was never quite certain if it was a total jerk or a misunderstood monster who only wants its stolen eggs back. Nevertheless, he is a formidable beast who should be left alone. Ragnarok does a solid job of introducing the monster. If they previews hadn’t wrecked the surprise the introduction would have been pretty amazing. You know nothing about the monster and I like that. It wasn’t explained away and there is a supernatural vibe to it. How long has it been alive? Is it an ancestor of the original beast? Does it just want to be left alone? Is it protecting something?
Ragnarok is a fun little film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but does tell a neat story. I love all things Vikings and angry sea monsters so I enjoyed the film. I appreciated the original story and can’t wait to see what the director does next. This may sound random but a double feature of Ragnarok and Rare Exports would make for a fun holiday treat.
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The MFF Oscar Nominations: Celebrating the Films/Performances/Scripts That Weren’t Nominated
Hello all. Mark here
The Oscar are readily approaching and the world is in an uproar! There are front runners, snubs and for some reason people are still shocked. The whole process should not be looked at with emotions or logic. It is clinical, political and kinda easy to predict. Now that all eyes are on the nominees I want to let you in on some of 2014’s best offerings that weren’t nominated. I’ve put together an MFF special list that nominates the scripts/movies/performances that could be left behind.
Sidenote: I’ve left out movies like Selma, Nightcrawler, Cake, Interstellar and the like because you will be hearing enough about how they were snubbed.
Without further ado here are the eclectic nominees!
Best Picture
Calvary – Next to Boyhood Calvary is the best film of the year. John Michael McDonagh’s follow-up to The Guard is beautifully told and features a wonderful performance from Brendan Gleeson
Edge of Tomorrow – The blockbuster of the year. Tom Cruise is back in form and Emily Blunt was fantastically badass.
Snowpiercer – Controlled chaos at its finest.
The Guest – The Guest plays like Terminator, Halloween and Universal Soldier had an awesome kid.
Cheap Thrills – It should have been a gross little thing yet managed to create a grounded story with mysterious characters.
Blue Ruin – A Tension bomb. It will stress you out.
Under the Skin – Once you watch a Jonathan Glazer film you cannot forget a Jonathan Glazer film.
The Raid 2 – The Best action film since The Raid.
Only Lovers left Alive – Jim Jarmusch sure is cool.
Winner! Calvary
Best Director
Gareth Evans – Raid 2 – There was almost too much awesomeness in The Raid 2
Jonathan Glazer – Under the skin – Under the Skin was haunting, memorizing and uber memorable
Jeremy Saulnier – Blue Ruin – I don’t where he came from but he made something amazing for next to nothing.
John Michael McDonagh – Calvary – He can write, direct and tackle big issues with ease.
Bong Joon-Ho – Snowpiercer – This film juggled so many odds aspects it could have come crashing down with ease. Bong Joon-Ho kept it on the tracks.
Winner! Gareth Evans
Best Actor
Tom Hardy – Locke – Tom Hardy + One car = A whole lot of acting. Dude was awesome.
James McAvoy – Filth – McAvoy’s performances gave humanity to a monster and turned him into a sad little fellow.
Brendan Gleeson – Calvary – Hands down the best performance of 2014. After In Bruges and The Guard he needs some recognition.
Chadwick Boseman – Get on Up – He really went for it and pulled off a pretty great James Brown.
Nicolas Cage – Joe – Cage can still act and it makes me happy.
Winner! Brendan Gleeson.
Best Actress
Shailene Woodley – The Fault in Our Stars – The film had all the trappings of teenage sad fluff. However, Woodley carried the film with a stubborn grace that make the film infinitely better
Eva Green – 300: Rise of an Empire – Eva Green chewed the scenery and kicked ass.
Emily Blunt – Edge of Tomorrow – It could have been a throwaway sidekick role but it became so much more.
Scarlett Johansson – Under the Skin – Scarlett really went for it and captured vulnerability and awe.
Essie Davis – The Babadook – Davis had to play so many emotions I lost count after two minutes.
Winner! Scarlett Johannson
Best Supporting Actress
Regina Hall – About Last Night – The funniest female performance of the year.
Maika Monroe – The Guest – I just really like The Guest.
Tilda Swinton – Snowpiercer – Tilda Swinton is awesome. She owned Snowpiercer.
Kelly Reilly – Calvary – She was a big reason why Calvary had so much heart.
Alison Pill – Snowpiercer – In her few moments on screen Pill proved to be psychotic, violent and a pretty good teacher.
Winner! Tilda Swinton
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Pattinson – The Rover – Pattinson dissapears into the character and it all culminates with him singing Keri Hilson’s song “Pretty Girl Rock.”
Rob Brydon – Trip to Italy – Rob Brydon remains likable even as he is being a little punk. You gotta watch these movies.
Ben Mendelsohn – Starred Up – He plays the best/worst dad ever. Dude is amazing.
Michael Pena – Fury – With End of Watch and now Fury Michael Pena needs some recognition.
Ethan Embry – Cheap Thrills – Just watch the movie. Embry does a great job.
Winner! Rob Brydon
The 10 best scripts that won’t win any awards.
Guardians of the Galaxy – I am Groot. Drax has great reflexes.
Calvary – You have to watch this film.
The Double – Richard Ayoade is pure gold.
Starred Up – Brutal, believable and features a neat father/son relationship.
John Wick – It opens with puppy death but totally redeems itself with its world building.
Oculus – The Best WWE produced film about an evil mirror ever.
Only Lovers Left Alive – You drank Ian!
Snowpiercer – I really love this film.
Grand Piano – Grand Piano has no right to be so fun.
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa – Knowing me. Knowing you!
Winner! Calvary AGAIN!!!!!
What movies would you nominate? What did I miss?
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2015 Horror Movie Preview: Mark’s 10 Most Anticipated Horror Films
Hello all. Mark here
2015 is looking like a fun year for horror. Some of the big hitters (Shyamalan, Del Toro) are going back to their roots while Vin Diesel grows a beard and battles witches. I’ve compiled a list of ten films that I cannot wait to watch.
Here is the list!
The Visit – 09/11/2015
M. Night has gone back to his indie roots and I am stoked to see what he comes up with. Night independently financed the film with Jason Blum (Insidious, Sinister, Purge) and he shot it somewhat secretly in Pennsylvania. The guy has talent and hopefully rights his ship with The Visit. We need more people telling original horror stories and hit or miss M. Night always creates something original (sans After Earth and Airbender).
It Follows – 03/27/2015
Currently sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes It Follows is building a lot of momentum. The film starring Maika Monroe (The Guest. Great movie!) plays with conventions and people are noticing. This could be the sleeper horror hit of 2015.
High-Rise – ?/?/2015
Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers, Field in England) is amazing. He makes memorable films that walk a tight rope of insanity/realism. I’m not sure if High-Rise will be a horror film but from my experiences with other Wheatley films it will be violent, dark and exhausting. High-Rise stars Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Jeremy Irons.
Crimson Peak – 10/16/2015
I am hoping that this will be more Devil’s Backbone/Pan’s Labyrinth than The Strain/Pacific Rim. When Del Toro goes little things get better. The cast is amazing with Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam and Mia Wasikowska entering the haunted house. I can’t wait for the set design and 800 page backstory Del Toro wrote for the story.
Poltergeist – 07/24/2015
I am not a fan of remakes, prequels, reboots and sequels. However, Sam Rockwell is starring in the film. It can’t be that bad.
The Lazarus Effect – 02/27/2015
The Lazarus Effect centers around medical students bringing people back from the dead. Guess what happens? The cast is solid (Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, Donald Glover, Evan Peters) and most interestingly the guy who directed the fantastic documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi is helming the film.
31 – ?/?/2-15
Here is the synopsis for Rob Zombie’s crowd funded new film.
Five people are kidnapped on the days leading up to Halloween and held hostage in a place called Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31 where the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns.
The craziest thing about 31 is that Rob Zombie is saying it will be more brutal than House of a 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. This film will hurt to watch.
The Last Witch Hunter – 10/23/2015
Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie and Elijah Wood battle witches. I kinda need to see it. Also, Breck Eisner directed the surprisingly effective Crazies remake so this film has a chance.
What We Do In the Shadows – 02/15/2015
A vampire horror comedy mockumentary starring Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) sounds amazing. Stoked to see what they do for day jobs!
Insidious: Chapter 3 – 06/05/2015
Insidious: Chapter 3 has a few things going against it. It is a prequel, James Wan isn’t directing and Patrick Wilson/Rose Byrne won’t be returning. However, I do like that Lin Shaye and her team of cheeky demon fighters are back. Chapter 3 could be pure garbage or a pleasant surprise. I can’t wait to find out.
What horror films are you excited for in 2015? Let me know!
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John’s Horror Corner: The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014), a creepy horror mystery about Alzheimer’s disease and nosy academic researchers
MY CALL: This film came out of nowhere and blew away viewer expectations by bringing us smart characters, a creepiness that developed with the story, and a not-so color by numbers plot. Very good horror film. MOVIES LIKE The Taking of Deborah Logan: Try Oculus (2014) and The Babadook (2014) if you’re looking for recent releases that break the mold.
The Taking of Deborah Logan tells a story that we haven’t already heard a dozen times and it tells the story well. Deborah (Jill Larson; Shutter Island) is a charming early stage Alzheimer’s disease patient living with her anxious caregiving daughter (Anne Ramsay; Planet of the Apes, Critters 4). In exchange for much needed financial compensation, they agree to let PhD student Mia (Michelle Ang; Underemployed) and her audio-visual team stay with them, record them, and study the effects Alzheimer’s disease has on the unafflicted surrounding family members.
Isn’t Mia a cute, spunky little grad student?
Something that I always must point out is when a horror movie does a good job of getting to know its characters and getting us to like them and invest in their well-being. From the very start, I wanted to learn more about Deborah, her daughter, and the academic team studying them. First-time feature-length director Adam Robitel did such a GREAT job, in fact, that it didn’t feel like a horror movie at all at first…and I didn’t care. If this movie turned out to be a family drama I still would have wanted to see these characters develop. What’s more is that the story in no way relied on the characters’ stupid decisions to move forward. The story unfolded as the characters, in fact, made wise or at least credible decisions in an incredible situation. Amazing job–and a great storytelling victory for the horror genre to close out 2014.
Mia’s team watches as Deborah’s episodes and symptoms worsen at an accelerating rate and, with these episodes’ intensity, we also see a greater and more frequent danger to Mia’s team. The characters great freaked out for good reasons, and things just keep getting creepier and weirder as we begin to learn more about what is causing Deborah’s disease to become so aggressive and more about her mysterious history with her close friend living next door. The story finds good synthesis, great creepiness, and appropriately effective gore and shock value without trying to compete with overblown shock cinema.
This film was rich with scares and all of them for legitimate reasons….no loud noises and camera angles to spur needless jumps. The scares had effective, creepy build-up and even when you saw them coming they were still shocking. What’s more is that the shocks and their creepy build-ups both appropriately amplify as the movie shifts from its subtle beginnings to its moderately intense end.
Yeah…it gets pretty weird.
You may have noticed that I have gone out of my way to reveal EXTREMELY little about this film (other than the photos in this review). Why? Well, it’s one of the best horror films of 2014 and it deserves to not be spoiled….and YOU deserve to be surprised. Just know this—it’s NOT a found footage film although there is a good deal of documentary style filming/camera-work, it is supernatural in nature, and it’s something of a horror mystery.
See this movie. Right now it’s on Netflix.
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The Guest: A Very Welcome Visitor
Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett made a big splash with the horror film You’re Next. The movie had a lot of issues but it excelled at creating a fantastic heroine. Sharni Vinson owned the film and she totally belongs in the pantheon of horror survivors. Her character is a practical marvel who has no problem holding her own against idiot killers. In fact, you start to feel bad for the villains because they are in so far over their heads.
The best thing about You’re Next and The Guest is that they create memorable characters. In a world full of lame horror/suspense films it is refreshing to have memorable new creations. Too many of the horror icons are being recycled into oblivion. The Michael Myers, Freddy Kreugers and Jason Voorhees of the horror world have been homogenized and made soft. Dan Steven’s character David is a welcome new addition to a tired genre.
The Guest is a throwback action hybrid film that makes Downton Abbey’s Dan Steven’s an unstoppable badass. The story revolves around a family being visited from an unexpected guest. Their son died in Afghanistan and a fresh faced soldier shows up at their door. He claims to have known the deceased son and his polite demeanor wins over the family. He forms a bond with the bullied son and their 20 year old daughter has an obvious crush on him. However, nothing is as it seems, things go violently bonkers and the phrase “what the f**k is used to perfection.”
The Guest is a pure genre experiment that is equal parts nasty and fun. It borrows heavily from other films (I love this Grantland article) but it adds something different to the norm. Wingard and Barrett got the idea for the film after a double header of Halloween and The Terminator. Wingard had this to say about it:
The Alien and Michael Myers movies … you couldn’t really put together what they were. They were these like shapes. They were terrifying in their obscurity. That’s something that’s influenced so many people. Horror, in many ways, went way down that rabbit hole for many years. People are still riffing on those concepts, with the masks and facelessness of the killers and stuff. And I thought, What would it be like to do the inversion of that? What if Michael Myers, instead of being this shapeless guy following you around town from a distance, what if he lived in your house?
The Guest is bloody, gory and at times very uncomfortable. The goth techno soundtrack blares loudly while Dan Stevens kicks ass in a nearly monotone voice. I had to laugh as everybody chooses to ignore the oddness of Steven’s because of his clean cut looks and relaxed persona. There is obviously something wrong with him but he honeypots (Thank you The Interview) everyone into ignoring his constant violent actions.
The film eventually goes off the rails (in a good way) and devolves into a whole lot of insanity. It gleefully revels in its dark humor and the sarcasm is evident. You may have watched similar films but you’ve never seen anything like this.
Watch The Guest. Revel in the insanity. Enjoy the ride. Check out the soundtrack. Keep yout eye out for Maika Monroe.
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Despite its length, bombast and unnecessary love triangles I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit trilogy. It most certainly kept the New Zealand film industry alive and featured a never-ending barrage of creativity (battering ram ogres!). It was a ballsy move when director Peter Jackson turned one book into three movies. The trilogy paid off as the story of a Hobbit named Bilbo, a wizard named Gandalf and a plethora of dwarves has pulled in $2,698,072,440 (as of 01/05/14) worldwide.
I am happy the one book was split into three films. Anytime you have a mad genius like Peter Jackson behind the camera it is a treat. His adherence to amazing visual effects have given us game changers like Gollum and now Smaug the dragon. I feel bad for any film currently featuring a dragon because it will always be compared to Mr. Smaug.
The films could have been edited down as there were unnecessary love triangles, monologues and rabbit riding. I still don’t understand why there is an elf/elf/dwarf love triangle and it sucks that a great actor like James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday) was given nothing to do. I only remember a handful of the dwarves names and poor Evangeline Lilly was stuck swooning for a dwarf in between fight scenes. Instead of featuring 30 minutes of Ryan Gage’s annoying Lake Town character Alfrid why not give the dwarves something to do?
The Battle of the Five Armies revolves around the battle for Smaug’s treasure in the Lonely Mountain. Thorin Oakenshield’s gold lust and recent passing of a large flying creature set off a battle for middle earth that involves a predictable number of armies. Elves, dwarves and humans have their hands full as copious evil converges on them for a bit of the ultra violence. The final hour features a whole lot of carnage and Peter Jackson channels his Dead Alive self and brings the awesome. You will see death via strategic Legola’s arrow, axe decapitation and antler impaling.
Due to the protracted shooting schedule Jackson and his special effects outfit Weta were able to fine tune some amazing visuals. For instance, they created an Ogre who acts as a sprinting battering ram. The ogre has a concrete wedge on his head and uses it to full concussive effect. My favorite moment of the film is a battle royale between the evil Nazgul and Gandalf, Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and Saruman (Christopher Lee). The fight is thrilling to watch as some of the oldest and most powerful people on the planet swing swords at each other.
I finally understand why actor Richard Armitage spent a year in dwarf makeup after watching Five Armies. He glowers, monologues and has a helluva battle with the jerky Azog. Martin Freeman is great as always and he imbues an earthiness to the fantasy elements. His character Bilbo was lost a bit in The Desolation of Smaug. Aside from his scene with Smaug, he took a backseat to the barrel and lake town shenanigans. In the Five Armies Freeman’s scenes with Armitage are wonderful and finally resemble some of the emotional beats from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a fitting way to end the trilogy. It is a bombastic spectacle that features neat character arcs and wonderful violence. I’m hoping that this isn’t the end of Middle Earth. I’d love Jackson to come back and direct The Silmarillion or a new adventure.
What did you think about the film?
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The Interview: The Honey Pot and the Despot
The Interview provides the biggest laughs of 2014. It swings for the fences, strikes out often and when it connects you laugh really hard. It is a ballsy film that blends dick jokes with political satire then reverts back to a man crapping himself. In a day and age of repetitive sequels, remakes and prequels I love that this movie exists. It may not be the satire many were hoping for but I wasn’t expecting Dr. Strangelove from the guys who made Pineapple Express and This is the End.
The story revolves around Seth Rogen and James Franco interviewing North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Kim is a big fan of their show Skylark Tonight and wants to do an “everything is great in North Korea” interview with them. The duo have been working together for ten years and specialize in getting Rob Lowe to declare he wears a wig (It started on The Outsiders) and eliciting a casual coming out from Eminem. Their show lacks substance and that makes them the perfect candidates to ask a violent despot questions about karaoke.
Rogen once again plays the straight man to Franco. Rogen longs to become a legit producer but stays under the influence of the certifiably crazy and occasionally stank dicked Franco. Franco’s Skylark is full-blown dumb/smart and you never know how many synapses are sparking in his brain. He is easily swayed by puppies, confuses Stalin with Stallone and loves making Tolkien references.
Before they embark on their interviewing journey Lizzy Caplan’s CIA agent honeypots (wears a low-cut top and glasses) them into a plan to assassinate Kim via poison laced handshake.
What she doesn’t plan on is that nothing will go as planned. Franco almost immediately ruins the mission because he hates the CIA issued bag that features the necessary secret pouches. So, he brings his Gucci bag and stuffs the poison into a gum wrapper. This leads to a North Korean man chewing on the poison. The death gum then forces Rogen to shove a metal object in his butt. From there fingers go missing, tigers die and Katy Perry is referenced many times.
Randall Park (Veep, Five Year Engagement) does a great job of making Kim Jong-un momentarily likable. His honeydicking of Franco is a highlight of the film as they play basketball, drive a tank and discuss the merits of margaritas. His Kim comes across as a dictator with daddy issues who sharts when things go bad. Park has such a likable screen presence it is easy to see how he could fool Franco. I can’t wait to see what he does next
The Interview is foul-mouthed, loud and lots of fun. It pinballs all over the place and the jokes come so fast you won’t be able to pick up on them the first go around. It has intelligence beneath the dick jokes and fits alongside This is the End and Pineapple Express in the pantheon of Rogen’s smart bromances featuring dumb people.
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Nightcrawler: I’m Looking At You
Nightcrawler features the perfect combination of Dan Gilroy’s writing/directing and Jake Gyllenhaal’s wired performance. The film never fully explains its lead character and that is why I love it. Gyllenhaal is a mixture of Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle and a slimy chameleon. He isn’t a sociopath because everyone knows he is weird. He isn’t a complete psychopath because he can control his impulses. He is a unique creation and one of the best characters of 2014.
Nightcrawler revolves around a total maniac’s rise to owning a successful business. We know nothing about the guy other than he does all his research on the internet and is adept at using people’s weaknesses against them. He begins filming crime scenes for money and this leads him to Rene Russo’s early morning news producer. From there the movie gets bloody, wild and sorta like Taxi Driver.
This may seem like a random aside but Dan Gilroy is fantastic at showing and not telling. He wrote the The Bourne Legacy and his introduction to Edward Norton’s character says everything about him. He is running in the cold rain at 4:00 AM. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that he is a driven man who won’t let rain or cold stop him from running early in the morning. Many films explain away the bad guys and don’t let the audience learn about them organically. Gilroy peals away the layers of Lou Bloom and he becomes scarier and scarier as the film moves along.
My favorite scene takes place in the beginning of the film. Gyllenhaal is stealing some fencing and is caught by a security patrolman. Gyllenhaal realizes the man isn’t a cop and he has a great watch. He pounces on the man and either knocks him out or kills him. Nobody ever looks into the crime so I am assuming he killed the guard and stashed the body. There is no back story or explanation. We understand that this character will kill to get a better watch. It leaves a lot of questions about his history that will never be answered and I love that.
After End of Watch and Prisoners I’ve been waiting for Gyllenhaal to get the critical acclaim he deserves. His character Lou Bloom is a unique creation that walks a tight rope of control. If he goes too far he becomes a caraicature. If he mimics a performance it won’t have any personality. His Lou Bloom character is the scariest creation since Heath Ledger’s Joker.
He and Rene Russo have one of best scenes of the year. There is no action or sex. We get two people, one dinner table and several margaritas. The two light up the screen and the calculated manipulation is delivered in a evil and practiced manner. Lou Bloom is skilled at using people’s weaknesses against them and he does so in this scene with aplomb.
Nightcrawler may not draw you in emotionally but it will impress with its acting, writing and directing. It gave us an original story and a great new character. I hope that Gyllenhaal is remembered during the awards season.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
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