Strange Days

Strange Days (1995)
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, and Juliette Lewis
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Rating: ****

The year is 1999, the world (or at least Los Angeles) is in choas with gangs running wild in the streets, pseduo-martial law enacted, religious prophesiers claiming it's the end of the world and from the looks of things, it very well might be. But don't tell that to ex-vice cop Lenny Nero (Fiennes), true to his name, makes a living (if you can call it that) off of selling people's memories as virtual reality experiences. Now, these aren't any ordinary memories that Lenny sells, no, he sells, to put it bluntly, smut... you know, things like an 18-year-old girl showering herself to a 40-something lawyer looking for the "thrill" of cheating on his wife without actually doing the deed... so to speak. However, Lenny has guidelines and won't deal in memories of people killing or being killed.

While most of us would willingly fork over mounds of cash to be someone else, even for just a short while, we can't.... and technically, neither can Lenny; you see, the device used to record and transmit these memories is federal issue and illegal for civilian use. So Lenny is constantly on the down-low, meeting with people in the back-rooms of bars and in small garages to make deals... in his spare time, he wires himself up, playing back memories of a lost flame named Faith (Juliette Lewis) who left Lenny for some reason that is never explained in the film. However, Faith is still hanging around in Los Angeles, weighing down the arm of a hot-shot manager named Philo (Michael Wincott) who manages a high-profile, highly outspoken gangsta rapper named Jerchio-One (think Tupac Shakur meets Bob Marley) who is suddenly murdered.

You see, Lenny is still head-over-heels in love with Faith, and so he makes the usual, Say Anything gestures like slinking around Philo's club where Faith performs. Lenny does this fairly regularly and, for his troubles, also gets the shit kicked out of him by Philo's bodyguards regularly and gets shot down by Faith regularly. Now, while this may seem like a poor excuse for a romantic comedy with cyberpunk thrown in for a little flair, it's not. The story picks up when a VR tape addressed to Lenny shows the murder of a prostitute he and Faith were friendly with while they were dating. Lenny, with this help of his martial-artist escort Mace (Angela Bassett) set forth to try to solve the murder.

However, in the process of trying to solve this first murder, Lenny and Mace begin unravelling a tangeled web of lies and cover-ups that all lead back to the murder of Philo's number-one client, the outspoken Jericho-One. Being a cop, Lenny begins to put the peices together and realizes that his old flame Faith may be in danger, and he has to try and solve the mystery before she's killed. But unfortunately for Lenny, every clue creates more questions than answers and soon makes Lenny a target himself as he uncovers a coverup running deeper than he ever could have immagined.

Using elements from the Thriller genre, Science Fiction genre, and a surprising ammount from the Film-Noir genre, Strange Days, really surprised me as a very smart, well crafted cyberpunk thriller that doesn't take its audience for granted. The special effects andtechnical aspects of this film are very well done, and this movie would have been solidified as an instant classic if it hadn't been for the execution of the film's "whodunnit" mystery sub-plots. While a "gotcha" ending wasn't what I was expecting, and was happy it was there, the weight of the surprise was lessened by poor character development and wooden acting.

Acting: ***-1/2
The acting was alright for this kind of a movie... better than most paper-thin science-fiction movie dialogue. The major kudos here go to Ralph Fiennes as Lenny Nero, who is very nearly in every scene and creates a level of depth to a character that could have otherwise been very forgettable. Everyone else was alright, with some surprising moments from Vincent D'Onofrio playing a crooked cop, but my major beef is with Juliette Lewis. Lewis was her usual, so-so self in this film... playing a jaded, manipulative ex-prostitue. She actually had me pulled in as the prototypical film-noir femme fatale, but when it was needed the most, Lewis fell flat and couldn't deliever. Ray Fiennes makes a damned good substitute for Humphrey Bogart, but Juliette Lewis is definately no Lauren Bacall.

Plot: ***1-/2
The plot kept me interested... I'm not going to lie, even though the movie is probably too long for its own good (2-1/2 hours? Really?) with some worthless backstory, needless fighting scenes, and a overly-lengthy ammount of time spent on Juliette Lewis' stage performances. The pluses here were the twist ending which I was honestly caught off guard by, even though I shouldn't have. I'm not going to ruin it, but James Cameron (the film's screenwriter) does a fantastic job of showing characters in the right way to make you think twice about the motives of those you really shouldn't be. Also, I really enjoyed the sci-fi aspect of the film... the virtual reality idea, while logistically rediculous for a movie set only 4 years in the future (meanwhile it doesn't look like pop-culture has moved a day past April 24, 1992), it was a good plot device and effective deus-ex machina.

Cinematography: ****
A really, really superb effort from Matthew Leonetti here as he's able to do some great 1st person POV shots for the VR sequences and also create that classic film-noir mise-en-scene. I only remember one scene shot during the day time, the rest of the movie it shot in night-for-night. This allows for some really amazing contrasts in the last hour or so of the movie which takes place New Years Eve in the center of a massive party. Not only did the lighting here had to be perfect for many of the shots Bigelow's shots, but the execution of the camera movements had to be like clockwork to get that true-to-life VR experience.

Direction: ****
Katheryn Bigelow is a director who likes to take chances and that much is pretty obvious when watching this movie. She didn't want to have a typical crime thriller, she didn't want to have a typical cyberpunk movie, she didn't want to do things by the book, she wanted to go out and experiement. Now, granted, the experiments didn't all turn out like they should have, some of the plot could have been axed and replaced to flush out the other characters more and some of the key participants should have been more integral to the overall storyline than they were and others who weren't as integral should have been less so, but on the whole, the story flows very nicely and the movie has just the right balance of action and intellegence.

Entertainment Value: ****-1/2
Entertainment value is something Strange Days has in spades. It is the major redeeming quality of this movie and what will make me want to watch it again and again. It is a 2-1/2 hour movie that really only feels like 1 and that's saying something for how drawn out some of the scenes actually are. There is a great pace to the movie, the time isn't spent on building up the characters and then going to the action, the action is what facilities the buildup of the characters, and the villains and heros in this movie are pretty clear cut which could be a flaw, but in a movie like this, that's how they are supposed to be... with the exception of that one character who plays the role of the film's "surprise," which, also is another reason for the film being highly entertaining. You get VR POV sequences, club rave sequences, car-chase sequences and hand-to-hand comabt sequences in a movie that for all intents and purposes really is a neo-noir. What more could you want?

I reccomend this film for someone who is looking to enjoy a smart action movie... and not Matrix psuedo-philosophical smart, but really and genuinely topical. The movie doesn't come out and say it, but there are poweful themes of love, trust, honor, and power that are food for thought once those final credits role. This movie "exeperience" isn't perfect and at times can be down-right silly... but those moments are few and far between... and if you're like me, you won't notice them until afterwards anyways... just like a good movie is supposed to do.

So with those explinations we get these final ratings:

Acting: ***-1/2
Plot: ***-1/2
Cinematography: ****
Direction: ****
Entertainment Value: ****-1/2

and the final total of **** of 5 for Strange Days.

Sunset Blvd.

Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson and Nancy Olson
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Rating: ****-1/2


After having been a fan of the noir style and emersing myself in neo-noir films like Blade Runner/The Matrix or noir-esque dark comedies like The Big Lebowski or Fight Club I thought I would take a crack at the classic noir films and slowly but surely I've been working my way through some of them... Carol Reed's The Third Man, Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Roman Polanski's Chinatown is on my shelf ready to be watched... but now has the bar set pretty high after I have seen the masterpeice that is Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd.

Telling the story of mildly heralded B-movie writer named Joe Gillis (Holden) who is down on his luck and after some initial success can't sell a script to save his life (almost reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink character) and so while hopskotching across Hollywood trying to elude some repo men who have come for his car, he stumbles in to the dusty, old, and he thinks empty million dollar mansion of former silent movie star Norma Desmond (Swanson) who, in fact, still lives there. She mistakes Gillis for a delivery man who is dropping off a coffin for her recently desceased chimpanzee. Gillis admits his mistake and is in a hurry to get out of this insane woman's house, but when he mentions that he's a writer, Ms. Desmond ropes him in to writing the script for her big "don't call it a comeback" return to celluloid.

Both leads put on magnificent performances with Gillis as the subdued but cutthroat writer trying to make it in Hollywood, but it's Gloria Swanson, a former silent film actress herself, who goes so close to edge of parody in her portrail of a spurned actress that was tossed aside in the era of the "talkies" like many other actresses in Hollywood. What is so interesting about this character, who IS a character in the true sense of the word, is how sympathetic you are of her situation because everyone has that dream to be a Hollywood star and make it big. Swanson's over the top acting is also the perfect foil for the low-key Gillis who seemingly is in the same trappings as the woman who has trapped him in her home. There is a very Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery performance where melancholy is too nice of a word.

What also makes Sunset Blvd. so captivating is how much personal baggage is brought in to the film through on location shooting and cameos from big-name players like Cecil B. DeMille, Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner to make it a truely scathing take on the Hollywood machine mindset. Even Max ,the well meaning but ultimately damning butler/former director/former husband of Norma Desmond, played by former director Eric von Stroheim (who actually directed Swanson in the film that killed her career) brings so much truth to the words he speaks both when trying to protect Desmond from rejection and from the facade that had been put on by Gillis in trying to take advantage of his vein and lonely employer.

There were just so many small touches, mainly in the set design of Desmond's mansion, that really impacted the final message of the film including the home movie theater, the numerous silent-era pictures of the 50-something Desmond and turn on a dime reactions of Norma Desmond when she hears something she doesn't like or doesn't want to believe create a suspenseful atmosphere that is ultimately just a very sad look at how brutal Hollywood can be. A message that is captured perfectly in the haunting ending sequence of Swanson descending the staircase of her mansion, putting on her actress charm which now reeks with delusions of grandeur, as she is being led to a police car with news crews shooting. Her final lines as the audience is treated (or subjected) to a first person shot of Desmond creeping toward the camera lense are true to the film's dark look at the optimism of the American dream: "Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up."

This film left me more chilled to the bone and yet hopelessly captivated more than most horror or suspense films I have seen. Just, the Citizen Kane-like character of Norma Desmond is so sympathetic but at the same time horribly dangerous (as Gillis, our narrator explains throughout his encounters including one very creepy New Years Party scene) that it just terrifies you that you could understand what she's been through and what she is going through having to deal with rejection. In an era of idol worship where stars are on a constant make or break pedastal, this film is as impactful and unwaveringly revealing as it was over 50 years ago.

Acting: *****
Teriffic performances all around from the leading actor and actress to the supporting cast to the extras. Obviously the major props here go to Swanson and Holden which is why the won the Golden Globes that year. Enough has been said about the acting in this film by myself and countless others already though, so no need to go in to it further.

Plot: ****
The plot for Sunset Blvd. is very good... although I felt it could have been a bit tighter in some places. The direction was near perfection to get the message across alright in the end, and key scenes in the plot were neccessary to get the desired effect in the end... although I think the (poor) attempt to hide the otherwise shocking ending through the opening narration was handeled badly (although the opening scene itself was magnificently shot) and the scene where we find out how the opening came to be (in classic noir fashion) almost seemed too forced. I thought it could have been more subtle.

Cinematography: *****
Another perfect example of art direction/cinematography/set design in this film. Just absolutely fabulous from the home movie scene where Norma Desmond's nosferatu-style shadow is cast on the screen while she's grabbing at the projecton light as if to attempt to hold it in her hands all the way to the perfectly shot staircase sequence. There was nothing at all to nitpick about how the film unfolded visually.

Direction: ****-1/2
Billy Wilder is a great director as evidenced by his track record of films before and after Sunset Blvd. (Double Indemnity, Stalag 17, Sabrina, Some Like it Hot) and there is nothing to discredit that assessment in Sunset Blvd. his casting choices, his choice of scenes, his use of dissolves and camera shot changes were all planned to their full effect. I think some of the story appeard a bit muddled in places and could have been tightened which, considering he helped write the script, falls on his head which is why he doesn't get a five-star rating.

Entertainment Value: ****-1/2
Entertaining is a word that you really can't use when describing Sunset Blvd... because of how dark and cynical its world view is. However, through all of the peices that described above, Sunset Blvd. is certainly CAPTIVATING and not only is it captivating, but it is so very strongly held together through getting the audience to be lost in the mood, the characters, the plot, and the meaning behind the story. There are parts of the film however that had me nervous as to whether or not I could keep being involved... but I think upon a second viewing, this movie will captivate me fully for the enitre 1 hour and 50 minutes.

I highly reccomend this film not only for noir fans, or even enthusiasts about film... but anyone who has ever had the dream of going to Hollywood, or has wished for even a second to be like the movie stars on television, Sunset Blvd. will shatter that dream in to millions of little peices just like the shattered psyche of Norma Desmond. This is a much darker, must more scathing Citizen Kane and, in my opinion, more effective and rewarding as a film.

So with those explinations we get these final ratings:

Acting: *****
Plot: ****
Cinematography: *****
Direction: ****-1/2
Entertainment Value: ****-1/2

and the final total of ****-1/2 out of 5 for Sunset Blvd.

Movie Blurbs

Normally I do a full-length review of a film, and over time I hope to go back and try and do as many as I can when I get free time or a movie I see catches my interest... but I also feel like giving reviews of movies that I've seen that I just haven't gotten around to giving the full rundown yet...

So, here are about a half of a dozen films I've seen recently and my short take on them:

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang (2005)
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan
Directed by: Shane Black
Rating: **** out of 5

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a hilarious dark comedy that is top-notch on all cylinders. Downey plays the bumbling pathological liar playing a detective while Kilmer is so good as the self-afacing gay private investigator in this "whodoneit?" mystery that quickly spirals out of control in Go-like fashion where nothing is as it seems.



Blade Runner (1982)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Rating: **** out of 5

Blade Runner's vision of a futuristic distopia is the forerunner for pretty much every modern science fiction film since its release and what makes this classic all the more exciting is the awesome storyline and personalized characters. There are definate shades of the cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer" which was released 2 years after this Phillip K. Dick adaptation which shows just how ahead of its time Blade Runner really was.



Following (1998)
Starring: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw and Lucy Russell
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Rating: ***-1/2 out of 5

In Christopher Nolan's (Memento, Batman Begins) first film which he wrote, directed, shot and edited on a $6,000 budget is a beautifully simplistic yet strangely psychologically dense take on the classic noir genre is near perfection given what Nolan had to work with. While the acting isn't the best, the story can be confusing and the characters are hard to care about in the 1-hour run-time, Nolan crafts a taught thriller that got him ready to tackle his masterpiece Memento two years later.


Capote (2005)
Starring: Phillip S. Hoffman, Cathrine Keener and Clifton Collins Jr.
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Rating: *** out of 5

Capote was the best of the Oscar-nominees for Best Picture film of 2005 but unfortunately that's less a praise of Capote and more of a criticism on the selection the Academy put up that year. Hoffman and Keener are just fantastic as Truman Capote and Harper Lee but the film, despite being a bio-pic about a fairly interesting man in Truman Capote, isn't that interesting to watch.



Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (2005)
Starring: Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Rating: *** out of 5

An adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's infamous novel about a drug binge in Las Vegas while writing a report on the search for the American dream. This is what Requiem for a Dream would be if it were a comedy which, I'm not so sure works on the same level. Depp and Del Toro put on FABULOUS performances in this film, but that and the dark LSD-laced humor aren't enough alone to make this the classic it's been made out to be.



Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman
Directed by: George A. Romero
Rating: ****-1/2 out of 5

Having watched this film several times over the span of the last 5 years... most recently for a paper I am writing on horror films, Night of the Living Dead continues to keep impressing me with how perfect this low-budget horror film is and how it stands the test of time. The acting and the special effects may have been cheesy but when it comes to suspense, Romero's mantra of K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid) pays off in spades. Night of the Living Dead is about as close to perfect as a horror film can get.

The Descent

The Descent (2006)
Starring: Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza and Alex Reid
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Rating: ***1/2

The best horror films are ones that can effectively take a common fear that most, if not all, people have and not only use it, not only manipulate it, but exploit it to its fullest potential and The Descent, the most recent film from Neil Marshall (director/writer of cult favorite Dog Soldiers), is very close to reaching that perfect combination of suspense, violence and surprise that make films like The Exorcist, Alien and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre such staples of the horror genre... but because of a misuse of what seems to be a post-20th century "neo-horror" trend of 1/2 horror and 1/2 revenge, it falls short of its ultimate potential.

The story of The Descent is a simple enough one: Six girlfriends are meeting the mountains for their annual taste of summer thrill seeking... this meeting is taking place one year after an accident that claimed the life of one of the friends', Sarah (MacDonald), husband and daughter. Ever since the accident, Sarah has had problems coping with the loss and so, this summer's thrill seeking adventure, cave spelunking, was set up by Sarah's best friends Beth (Alex Reid) and Juno (Mendoza), to try and help ease the pain. Joining these three are a pair of sisters, Sam and Rebecca (Myanna Buring and Sasika Mulder), as well as a young and adventurous veteran spelunker named Holly (Nora-Jane Noone).

We are shown the individual personalities and compainionship of the six girls through a series of fire-side chats and binge drinking before the big day where Juno leads them offroad to what appears to be a beginners-level adventure but becomes much more complicated than they had atticipated... well, all of them except for Juno, who, after a tunnel collapse when the panicky Sarah gets stuck, explains to the group that they are in an unexplored cave that she thought they could explore and discover together. Needless to say that Juno friends are not happy with her but as they attempt to escape the cave with no sense of how deep it is or where the exits are, Sarah begins to see things in the darkness... things that look human but... also... not. The friends soon discover, as they begin fighting for their lives while they try and find an exit, that it isn't the creatures in the cave they should be worried about... but themselves and each other.

The film is very good at setting itself up, slightly hinting at the tensions between the six friends, namely Juno and Sarah who, it is hinted at early on in the film, left for home fairly quickly after Sarah's accident and may not have been as up front as she could be about her relationship with Sarah's husband... but seeing as how the audience is watching the film mostly through Sarah's point of view, we are never quite sure, even when the film ends, how much of the events are blown out of proportion because of Sarah's mental instability and that is really what makes this film stand out from the crop of current remakes and rehashings from overseas. It's a throw back to the classic paranoia/suspicion horror film that was perfected in films like Night of the Living Dead and The Thing, but with Neil Marshall's vision and willingness to force the audience to experience the violent veracity of the actions taking place, this film is certainly a more visceral take on its predecessors.

Unfortunately it is this same level of violence and the "revenge" on the "creatures" within the cave that make this film seem almost too... tacky for lack of a better word. We've seen this before in films like the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Hostel, Saw 2, the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, High Tension and 28 Days Later where the director, for whatever reason, decides that he's not satisfied enough with freaking out the audience, but wants to gross them out and get their adrenaline pumping too... which, okay, I can understand to an extent but, despite some of the awesome sequences Marshall shows us, The Descent takes a bit too much glee in disecting (literally) the characters one by one through the course of the about 50 minutes they are in the cave. I also think I would have given this aspect of the film more of a pass if the REAL ending was shown to American audiences rather than the bullshit (in comparison) one that I saw.

Here's how the film broke down ratings wise:

Acting: **1-2
I wasn't too impressed with the characters in this film because so many of them appeared to be stereotypes and other than maybe Sarah or Juno, you never got to delve too deeply in to their psyche which, for a film that's basing its fear factor in paranoia, distrust and suspicion, you need more than just cardboard characters who we are merely supposed to assume are friends that would so quickly turn on each other.

I would give the acting 2 stars if it weren't for the awesome scream-queen/Rambo-woman turn by Shauna MacDonald who really does a good job of being the disturbed best friend that really shouldn't be in a claustrophobic situation. To a lesser extent as well, I think that Mendoza does a very ammacable job as the well-meaning but stupid best friend who always needs to be in control. For a horror film, it's not bad, but this type of film is character driven and I've definately seen better acting in similar horror films.

Plot: ***
I have a hard time trying to come up w/ a proper rating for this part of the film because the premise has been done before and I thought there were very many more and better ways that the film could have been executed for a better effect... but at the same time, I think that unlike certain other films that took a good concept and shit on it (*cough* The Cave *cough*), The Descent did a very good job at creating tension and giving enough clues to keep the audience aware of the upcoming twists even though you weren't sure exactly how it was going to all play out. So, I'm giving this film the benefit of the doubt in this case because I really did enjoy it for all of my personal preferences on how it could have been handled better.

Cinematography: ****-1/2
If there is one thing that really just wowed me in this film, it was how beautiful it was. Thanks to creative use of glow-sticks and flares inside the cave to provide lighting, it created a very eeire scene and considering the only two colors used were red and green (quite possibly as foreshadowing for the characters that used them) I was pretty impressed. The other thing that really worked well and one of the things that Marshall improved upon from previous films, was the use of the nightvision aspect of the digital camera one of the girls brought to record their journey... in fact, many of the scariest and best executed in the film came with the audience viewing the cave through the night vision filter.

There is also a particularlly awesome scene near the end of the film that you'll notice as soon as you see it. It's an image I'd really like to has as my computer wallpaper actually... kudos to whomever designed and shot that.

Direction: ***-1/2
I thought the direction of Marshall in this film was actually very good considering the actresses he used and the willingness to put a horror film in the hands of an all-woman cast, something that I can't remember seeing except in movies like The Craft, Susperia or Black Christmas where... in reality, they may have been a female-heavy cast... but not to the extent that The Descent pushed it to. I also give a lot of credit to Marshall being the scriptwriter for The Descent... but as I mentioned earlier, I think that more care should have been taken in developing the characters and the ending should have been executed a bit better.

Entertainment Value: ***-1/2
I thoroughly enjoyed The Descent... it's definately one of the few horror films I've seen come out recently that is actually attempting to BE a horror film and not just some excuse to put blood and guts on the screen. That being said, I think that I would have given the film a full four, maybe even five stars if not for the hurried way the paranoia between the six girls was handeled and the cop-out ending which... I don't think was as effective as an expansion on the European ending could have been.

I also enjoyed how involved the audience I saw the film with got involved... it's something that I really haven't seen in recent movies that I've been to and something that horror audiences used to do a lot more of. I don't think I was every scared by the film... although it did have some pretty unique and effective jump-inducing scenes that made me leave my seat. At the end of the day it's all about whether or not the film was worth the price of admission and I think The Descent was worth not only the price of admission, but is going to be worth the price of a DVD purchase several months in the future.

So, here are how the totals add up:
Acting: **1-2
Plot: ***
Cinematography: ****-1/2
Direction: ***-1/2
Entertainment Value: ***-1/2

We get the final total of ***-1/2 out of 5 for The Descent.

Running Scared

Running Scared (2006)
Starring: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright and Vera Farmiga
Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Rating: **1/2

One of the many (self-described) talents that I pride myself on in my small group of friends is being able to dissern wehther or not a film is going to be one that is going to be fairly decent or even one that I will find myself enjoying based purely on the trailer. Such is the case of the 2006 film Running Scared which I thought looked very cool and sylized from the trailers but ultimately looked like something that would be thin on plot and hard to sit through... something very similar to Domino which I saw for free and really just couldn't stand.

Well, thanks to the wonderful invention that is Netflix, I figured that I would give Running Scared a shot because I had heard so many good things about it from reviewers, imdb.com, and some of my own friends whose opinions I take in to consideration for relation to what I would like or dislike. I thought that maybe I had misjudged Running Scared and it was going to be one of those gems that I let slip through my fingers when it was in theatres like The Matrix or American Beauty... sadly, as I found myself watching the 2 hour and 2 minute mess of a movie that is Running Scared, I couldn't help but ask myself "Why?"

For those who may have forgot Running Scared's short commerical run, it is a very stylized film starring Paul Walker as Joey Gazelle as a small-time gangster and faithful family man (aren't they all?) who gets caught up in a case of misunderstanding with shades of a power grab when a gun that has quickly dispensed of several would-be criminals who actually turn out to be undercover cops needs to be tossed. Gazelle prepairs the gun to be disposed of as he comes home to his smoking hot wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga), 10-year-old son Nicky (Alex Neuberger), and his son's friend Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright) for dinner.

Joey doesn't like Oleg, or rather, Joey doesn't like his son hanging around Oleg mostly because of his parents (John Nobel and Elizabeth Mitchell) who we find out are your typical disfunctional family of Russian immigrants where the mother is beaten on a regular basis by the father who sits and watches old John Wayne movies alone on the couch. Don't we all? Don't we all? Maybe the real tension is because the kingpin of the mob operation he's supposed to be covering for is headed up by Mr. Yugorsky's brother Anzor? Hmmmm. Quite a perdicament.

Well, it seems that Joey had a good reason to distrust his son's friend who, after leaving the Gazelle household, pulls a gun on his abusive father and proceeds to take him down... unfortunately for Joey, the gun little Oleg used on his father was the one he was supposed to ditch for his mob friends and with the cops involved, it'll be an easy connection to be made between the shooting of Mr. Yugorsky and the downing of half a dozen undercover narcotics officers earlier that day. This is all very bad for Joey, who, for the rest of the movie is forced to chase down a frightened Oleg across New Jersey and get the gun back in his possession before the cops... or worse, his bosses come looking for him.

Sounds like a pretty decent plot right? Well... it would be, if the movie could decide what it wants to be. It tries to be a gangster action flick, a moral parable, an urban fairytale and a plot twisting splatter-fest all at the same time never really picking one and ultimately left me with a bad taste in my mouth. But the movie does have some redeaming values and so, here's how I came up with my rating for Running Scared:

Acting: **

It's going to seem like I'm trashing on this movie for the first two categories, but it's just the luck of the draw that acting and plot are on the short end of the "good" things I can say about this movie.

As far as acting goes... there are a few bright spots with the two child actors, Cameron Bright and Alex Neuberger actually putting in some good performances give the subject material. It's almost sad that these two young actors with so few projects under their belts (minus some of the more recent work of Bright) that they can outshine veteran actors like Paul Walker and Karel Roden (who plays the mob boss Anzor Yugorsky). Walker and Roden both overact their parts and considering the big 'twist' at the end of the film (why does every film need a twist?) it all seems even more over the top and cheesy.

Plot: *-1/2

It should be pretty simple to come up with plot devices for a simple mob/chase movie right? Well apparently for Kramer, who also wrote the screenplay, he spent so much time perfecting the cool graphics that the plot was apparently thrown together by those tank dolphins that help write Family Guy episodes. That's what it seems like anyways... that Walker through plot ideas in to a hat and just pulled them out randomly and peiced them together and said "Bam! There's my script."

It's really too bad too, because there were some interesting concepts explored in the film (like the idea of an urban fairytale through the eyes of a scared child) that could have made a film in and of itself if they spent more time fleshing out the idea. Instead what you're left with is a mess of conveneant events which have gun being handed off across Jersey as Joey (who while having his heart in the right place, seems dumb as a brick) continually finds ways to track it down. Meanwhile you have the story of Oleg who, after basically ditches the gun 1/3 of the way through the film, is caught up in trying to hide from the police, or even worse, his father who survived the attack.

What makes the bulk of this movie so frustrating isn't the constant unbelievable series of events (I can suspend my disbelief for a film like this) but how utterly useless they end up being to the end result of the film. I mean come on... at least make the conveneant plot points have some kind of POINT to them if you're going to use them so carlessly. The film acts like it respects its audience enough to handle the subject matter but then slaps them in the face when it comes to wrapping up all the lose ends.

Special Effects/Cinematography: ****

Here we see where Kraymer spent a lot of his time. From the opening sequence to the credits, there is so much fantastic artistry in this film it's hard to take it all in at once. From the gun battle between the mobsters and undercover cops in a very Max Payne style to the black light hockey rink showdown between the mob factions trying to recover the stolen gun it's all very stylized and in my opinion well done.

The only issue I have with it is that no it seems very experimental and unfocused. Things like the Nosferatu-style shadow against the shower curtain when Oleg is trapped in the pedophiles' bathroom (don't ask) aren't really explained very well and seem to occur too quickly for people to really pick up. I don't expect a "trick" to be used constantly through out the film, but if you're going to open with the Max Payne style gun fight sequence, you have to keep giving the audience little tastes of that vision throughout the film instead of shooting that wad 3 more times over the span of 120 minutes.

Direction: **-1/2

I have to give Kraymer some credit for being able to make Paul Walker seem atleast half-way decent... but it would really help if the director had some direction too. It just seems like Kraymer is all over the place and I think he had a lot of good ideas but none of them really ever seemed to be used to their full potential.

Also, Kraymer needs to decide if he's going to respect his audience enough to handle the violent and disturbing subject matter or if he's going to make fools out of them by force-feeding them convenient plot points to keep the story moving to some bullshit Hollywood ending. It just reeks of bad choices and bad direction... and when that comes from a director, you know your film is in trouble.

Entertainment Value: ***-1/2

All negatives aside, for what this film is... it's actually not so bad from an entertainment perspective. It was easy to follow (up until the end) and you could really relate to Walker's character (up until the end) as the mobster who does what he does just so his family can have a better life. And as much as I made a point about the stupid plot, the mini-plots throughout the film, on their own at least, were interesting and really showed the underbelly of society against an overall plot of redemption and salvation.

Good vs. Evil is very apparent in this film, i just wish that idea was fleshed out more and made as distinct as it should have been for a film like this. Kraymer may have been going for the whole "shades of gray" P.O.V. here, but rather than mixing good and evil and having people decide what side Joey stood on, he just ended up having seperate cases of black and white they became dilluted but unmixed.

I really wanted to like this film, I really did, because I wanted to believe my friends that it wasn't such a bad film, but the more I think about it, the more I really dislike Running Scared just like Domino for promising to be a film I had always hoped for to mix a dark storyline with pretty graphics but ultimately fell short of its potential.

The one silver lining to this dark cloud would be that Kraymer's "urban fairytale" concept was something that I really really did enjoy and think it should be expanded on... possibly by Kraymer himself, but definately someone needs to do a good dark fairytale in the real world story with the awesome graphic capabilities film has now... so far all the attempts I've seen (Brother's Grimm, Running Scared, Lady in the Water) have fallen way way too short.

So with a star count of

Acting: **
Plot: *-1/2
Cinematography: ****
Direction: **-1/2
Entertainment Value: ***

We get the final total of **-1/2 out of 5 for Running Scared.

Blood Simple.

Blood Simple. (1984)
Starring: Frances McDormand, John Getz and Emmet Walsh
Directed by: Joel Coen
Rating: *** out of 5

I've seen quite a few of the Coen Bros. movies over the years... starting with Fargo and moving my way to The Man Who Wasn't There to Barton Fink and most recently The Big Lebowski, Millers Crossing and now Blood Simple.

I had heard really good things about Blood Simple. Obviously it was the brothers' first film and had been ranked up with Miller's Crossing as not only one of their best films, but one of the best films in the last 25 years.

So I popped this one in to my DVD player... and it took me three tries to get in to the film so, not such a ringing endorsement on that end... the first... pretty much 45 minutes of this film moves along so god-damned slow it's just really hard for me to get interested. Thank God for Emmet Walsh though, he makes this film what it is and kept me interested enough on the 3rd try to see it through till the end.

So the story is a (now all to common) case of miscommunication where a jealous husband (Dan Hedaya), private investigator turned hitman (Walsh), a cheating wife (McDormand) and the one she's cheating on (Getz) are all tangled up on a web of lies, deciet and paranoia.

Frances McDormand's character (Abby) is contemplating leaving her husband Julian Marty, confiding this information in one of the bar tenders from her husband's establishment, Ray. The two get caught up in the moment and spend the night at the motel. Problem is that Abby's husband Julian, had already suspected her of cheating on him and sent a private investigator named Loren Visser to trail them.

As one would expect, Marty can't just forgive and forget. He calls up Visser a second time, only now that he knows who his wife is sleeping with, he wants both of them dead. As Visser says "Well, if they pay's right... I'll do it." Surprise surprise that Mr. Visser, a real Texas cowboy, isn't exactly a man of his word. He double crosses Marty and takes his money and thinks he's got all of his bases covered and is $10,000 richer. But... as in any good Coen brothers film... things don't always work out quite that... simply.

As with my other reviews, I think that it is definately made up parts that give it a proper final rating so here we go with the categories of Acting, Plot, Cinematography, Entertainment Value... and because this IS a Coen brothers film... how it matches up w/ their other films.

Acting: **-1/2

Joel Coen is really good at not only picking a good cast, but getting the best out of his actors... which is why this film was so surprising in its lack of acting skill. McDormand was pretty good, very good by the end of the film actually... and Emmet Walsh was just fantastic, but the rest of the key parts of this venture fell very flat, especially the lead of the film, John Getz. I'm not sure if it was just the character and he actually pulled it off well... but I was just totally bored by his character and couldn't relate or sympathize with any of them.

In fact, if there was anyone you sympathize with, it's the P.I./Assasssin for scamming three jackasses who have absolutely no respect for each other.

Plot: ****

This is one of the best aspects of Blood Simple. Especially for it's time, this film noir/mystery/thriller was quite a breath of fresh air and even 22 years after its inital release, still holds up very well. You are quite aware of what is going on although there are definately some twists and some tense moments.

In fact, I think the tension in the last 20 minutes of the film is some of the best I've seen in quite a long time and you do find yourself rooting for McDormand in the end, but then, w/ the last lines of the film, you once again end up moarning Visser's fate.

As far as Coen Bros. films go, this plot is actually pretty straight forward and easy to understand which, I suppose, is a good starting point for the duo, but once you've seen Fargo, Big Lebowski, and Barton Fink, you're kind of like... eh, so what.

Cinematography/Editing: ***

The Coen brothers do a good job w/ their cinematography here under the direction of Barry Sonnennfeld (Get Shorty/Men in Black). I especially liked the use of headlights in the mirrors/windows. There weren't a lot of interesting camera angles here... but the tension was built very well in the last 1/2 of the film with the editing and tricks the film used (blood seeping through the towel in the car/bullet holes through the plaster) so it was definately above average in that respect.

Entertainment Value: ***

This is definately a film of two halves... as I explained earlier, it was very hard to pay attention or even remotely care about this film for the first 45 minutes until the big double cross occurs w/ Visser and Marty. Then suddenly things become interesting and it really picks up the pace... but even then so much of the last half is dragged down by the back and forth of Abby and Ray who each think each other is the reason Marty is "missing."

That being said, I really did enjoy the last 20 minutes of this film quite a lot. You know that Visser is out there looking to tie up the loose ends of his double cross while Abby and Ray are fighting amongst themselves, not realizing the real threat that has been there from the beginning.

Coen Comparison: **-1/2

I love Coen brothers films as much as I love Tarantino films and Hitchcock films, but that doesn't mean that I don't have my favorites and will ultimately compare these films when they stack up. When it comes to Hitchcock I enjoy tension where you're not sure why something is happening... this is why I enjoy North by Northwest, The Birds, and more than say The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, or even Psycho... where as w/ Tarantino, I love the films with awesome dialogue which is why Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill are higher up on my list than Jackie Brown and Reservoir Dogs.

I suppose when it comes to Coen brothers films, I like the ones that have comedy mixed in with increasingly complicated situations, hence why I think Big Lebowski, Fargo and Barton Fink are really my favorites over films like The Man that Wasn't There, Millers Crossing and now Blood Simple. As I see it, Blood Simple is just too slow moving and boring for my tastes.

I'm not someone that dislikes slow moving films... I can find myself enjoying slow-moving westerns or dramas as long as the characters are interesting and the plot gets me involved... Blood Simple just really didn't do any of that for me and by the time I got to the end where I was actually interested in the movie, there was only 20-30 minutes left and I had felt like I wasted an hour just getting to that point.

My final thoughts are that this was an enjoyable film... and will probably be much more enjoyable on a second viewing... but Blood Simple left me with such a bad taste in my mouth after being privledged to other, more enjoyable films from the Coen brothers, that I think it's going to be a very long time before I get around to viewing it a second time.

So with all the categories tabulated:

Acting: **-1/2
Plot: ****
Cinematography: ***
Entertainment Value: ***
Coen Comparion: **-1/2

We get the final total of *** out of 5 for Blood Simple.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley
Directed by: Gore Verbinksi
Rating: ***-1/2

It's been a while since I had seen the original Pirates of the Caribbean... but I remembered the basic jist of the story and having played through Kingdom Hearts 2, I got a little bit reacquainted with the characters and being a Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley fan, I was geared up to see the first of two back-to-back sequels to the 2004 film: Curse of the Black Pearl

The basic story with this film (and subsequently, the 3rd installment: At World's End) is twofold. 1st: Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp), back under the command of the Black Pearl, is desperately searching for a new treasure... and like the last film, this "treasure" is important to Mr. Sparrow because the longer it goes unclaimed, the more likely he is to have to repay his debt to Davey Jones (played wonderfully in this film by Bill Nighy).

2nd: After aiding and abbetting the escape of Jack Sparrow from charges against him, Elizabeth Swan (Knightley) and Will Turner (Bloom) are brought up on charges and sentenced to death. Of course, as is a common theme in this film, it seems everyone has a price. Now "Lord" Cutler Beckett of the East Indian Trading Company wants the magical compass that helped Jack Sparrow find the cursed gold in the 1st film. In exchange for his assistance of retrieving the compass, Beckett is willing to give Turner a full pardon.

Of course, as Will Turner eventually meets up with Captain Sparrow, these two stories intertwine in what becomes a fast-paced action movie the likes of which no comic book sequel could ever match and where as with Superman Returns and you were left looking at your watch at the end of that 2-1/2 hour venture, you're left looking at your watch as the credits of Dead Man's Chest saying "What!? It's over already!?"


Here's how the film broke down for me in the key areas of Acting, Plot, Cinematography/Special Effects/Make-up, and Entertainment Value:


Acting: ***-1/2

Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy alone give this film an automatic three stars. There is no character in my recent memory that is played so magnificently as Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. The surprising part of this film though, is that Bill Nighy (Shaun of the Dead) is damned near Depp's equal as the infamous Davey Jones cephalopod form. Thankfully Depp and Nighy's acting takes place (for the most part) as part of two different storylines, so the acting spread evenly enough throughout the film. Of course, compared to these two character actors, everyone else minus the ocassional quick back and forth between two former Pearl crew members, Pintell and Ragitti, out for their own personal gain, the acting is flatter than Keira Knightley's chest.

Plot: **

Sadly, plot and plot holes is what really drags down this film. Thank god there is enough action to try and willfully ignore this heavily forced and loosely tied plotline. From the get-go, everything from the bungled warrants for the arrest of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann to the Lord Beckett desire to have the compass (for a reason that isn't revealed until more than half-way in to the film) a series of convenient circumstances and poorly explained surprises is all that keeps this film from being a poor man's Pulp Fiction... actually no... not just poor... we're talking homeless, living out of a grocery cart and sleeping on heat grate-poor.

Cinematography/Special Effects/Make-Up: ****

Finally! Something that Bruckheimer and Verbinski know how to do... and they do it magnificently here. From the opening scene to the giant wheel fight scene to the oh so scary and ominous KRAKEN (or is it Krayken? Krahken?) it's damned near seemless but CGI is CGI is CGI and it still makes it hard to suspend disbelief when you use it so heavily in some scenes. Also, while I am a guy and Keira Knightley is hotter than the surface of the sun, I don't need to be introduced to her breasts and THEN her character. Also, there were scenes/shots that really should have been cut out of the film and needlessly added length to an already lengthy film... but I suppose that's more of a plot problem then cinematography.

Entertainment Value: ****-1/2

One of the best times I've had in the movie theatre since seeing the Aristocrats... even better actually, because not only was I laughing, I was totally absorbed by the action sequences and was found rooting even harder for Jack Sparrow in the end. For a movie whose originator I saw twice, but hadn't really cared about for the past year or so... this film does an excellent job of making you care for the characters... hell, by the end I was even feeling sorry for Will Turner. Will (Orlando Fuckin' Bloom) Turner. That, my friends, is an accomplishment in movie making.

Easily the most entertaining film of the year so far... and IMO, as far as superhero movies go, not even Spiderman can top this one for entertainment value.

So that's how it breaks down and how we get a 3-1/2 out of 5-star rating for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest but make no mistake that I will be seeing this film once or twice more thsi summer and I'll be eagerly anticipating the release of the third installment: At World's End next summer.

I highly reccomend seeing this film and helping it surge ahead in the box office. There hasn't been a more deserving film to rule the B.O. in quite a while... but that'll all change of course on August 18th when we finally get to see SNAKES ON A MUTHAFUCKIN' PLANE!

Strangers on a Train

Strangers on a Train (1951)
Starring: Farley Granger and Robert Walker
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: ***1/2

Strangers on a Train is one of those movies that I've really wanted to see for a long time and thanks to the power of Netflix, I was able to watch it tonight.

I don't neccessarily consider myself the biggest Hitchcock fan... I mean, I really didn't enjoy Pscyho that much (blasphemy!) and I haven't even been able to get through all of Vertigo yet (The horror!) but I was expecting good things from this film and for the most part I wasn't disappointed.

Everyone pretty much knows how this movie starts out, two strangers, one is a tennis star by the name of Guy Haines (Granger) and the other is a man named Bruno Antony (Walker) who seems slightly deranged from the get go. Bruno begins chatting up Guy while they are in the same passenger car, dropping hints that he's been paying attention to the gossip pages and knows that Guy is in the process of a messy divorce with his wife and has been seen around town with another woman.

Guy tries to ignore the conversation, but Bruno insists... bringing up the idea that Guy probably wants his wife taken care of. In fact, Bruno himself says his father is someone who he doesn't care for much either and the perfect plan would be for them to swap murders... he does Guys and Guy does his. Criss Cross.

While this all seems laughable to Guy... Bruno doesn't seem to be kidding but once off the train, he doesn't think much of it, that is until he is confronted by Bruno in the middle of the night saying that he did his part, now it is Guy's turn to do his... and don't even think about turning him in to the police because Guy will be labeled an accessory. After all, who are they going to believe? The man who never met Guy's wife or the husband with a perfect motive to do away with his wife?

In typical Hitchock style, this is a film about mistaken identity, running from the law, and trying to entrap the real killer so the innocent man can go free. Personally, this really isn't one of my favorite Hitchock films... I was more of a fan of his other train-based venture: The Lady Vanishes and if I had to place it on a list of Hitchcock films I've seen so far, it would be lagging behind North by Northwest, The Birds, The Lady Vanishes, and Rear Window... that being said, this is definately one of the better films in cinema history.

Hitchock is famous for breaking the rules and setting the standard for these types of films... but I can't help but think Strangers on a Train is a rehashing of some of his earlier, British films, but at the same time, a test run for later films like North by Northwest which, IMO, kept things interesting throughout the entire film where as Strangers on a Train really seemed to drag in the middle.

On a 5-star scale, I'd give this one a 3-1/2... like I said, it's definately above average as far as cinema standards go and a neccessity to see (for fans of Hitchock or cinema in general), but with a man like Alfred Hitchcock you can only judge his films compared to the standard he has set in his comparable works and my opinion is that this one just doesn't make the grade.

That being said, I think I'll rewatch this one and see if my opinion changes.