The cast deliver their lines so nonchalantly and with so little emphasis, It's as though the dialogue means nothing to them. So much emphasis seems to be placed on making the prose sound like natural dialog, but why? They seem to just recite words as they walk through the stylish but hollow production. Visually beautiful and totally forgettable.
Reviews
12 Reviews
The Tragedy of Macbeth
(2021)
Like listening to people have a conversation on the phone
2 August 2022
Eye in the Sky
(2015)
Manipulative, intellectually dishonest, cowardly
22 November 2016
Since 2008, around 2800 people have been reported killed in drone strikes. The vast majority of those strikes run up the chain of command and back down relatively quickly, and are carried out without hesitation.
But you'd never know any of that watching this film, where prominent, decorated, diplomats sit, white-knuckled, solemnly carrying out their duty to get a single drone-strike right. You may infer from the film that this happens commonly, or even for every strike. If that were the case, strikes would take up a significant amount of these poor people's time. The unusually high-level nature of this strike is never addressed.
Conveniently, the British have their finger on the trigger, not America. Conveniently, it's not the British Airforce pulling the trigger, but the American. So there's an international inversion happening that keeps this film from being important, valid or thought provoking.
A Non-American has to make the hard call and kill for the greater good, which lets us off the hook. Conveniently, the drone-operators, who are American, get to be the heroic conscience of the film. They just won't take the chance of accidentally killing a young girl. They're just too valiant and honorable. They stand up to the chain of command, but a Britt is at the top, which makes their act hollow and without statement.
The melodrama is so dishonest, so clearly politically manipulated, I am baffled that anyone would ever take this film seriously. Alan Moore once said the film V For Vendetta was made by "people too timid to set a political satire in their own country." Well this is a film about the American drone program that doesn't have the guts to discuss the American drone program. Five stars given for being exceptionally well made. Five stars withheld for being insultingly brazen propaganda.
But you'd never know any of that watching this film, where prominent, decorated, diplomats sit, white-knuckled, solemnly carrying out their duty to get a single drone-strike right. You may infer from the film that this happens commonly, or even for every strike. If that were the case, strikes would take up a significant amount of these poor people's time. The unusually high-level nature of this strike is never addressed.
Conveniently, the British have their finger on the trigger, not America. Conveniently, it's not the British Airforce pulling the trigger, but the American. So there's an international inversion happening that keeps this film from being important, valid or thought provoking.
A Non-American has to make the hard call and kill for the greater good, which lets us off the hook. Conveniently, the drone-operators, who are American, get to be the heroic conscience of the film. They just won't take the chance of accidentally killing a young girl. They're just too valiant and honorable. They stand up to the chain of command, but a Britt is at the top, which makes their act hollow and without statement.
The melodrama is so dishonest, so clearly politically manipulated, I am baffled that anyone would ever take this film seriously. Alan Moore once said the film V For Vendetta was made by "people too timid to set a political satire in their own country." Well this is a film about the American drone program that doesn't have the guts to discuss the American drone program. Five stars given for being exceptionally well made. Five stars withheld for being insultingly brazen propaganda.
The Comedians
(2015)
like a hologram of a trainwreck
24 June 2015
This is a truly unique show.
It's a unique show in that it does so many things wrong, and does them wrong in such complex and convoluted ways, that it's interesting to watch just to try and unpack what you're seeing. There are so many meta-levels happening, where the show is being knowingly bad, but simultaneously accidentally bad, that while watching it I sometimes feel like I'm traveling through time.
Structurally, the show is 30 Rock-esque. Crystal and Gad play fictionalized versions of themselves having been cast to play off of one another in a 2 person sketch TV show. The show is them going about their lives, but also staging and executing the sketch show.
The timing is off. the staging is off. Gad, Crystal and the supporting characters aren't just one dimensional, they're unconvincingly one dimensional. No one is likable, but not because they're unlikable, rather, because they're so poorly realized that they may as well be absent.
The Comedians regularly tries to manufacture awkward situations, but those situations are so contrived that the discomfort doesn't come from the situation they're staging, but from your own understanding that you're watching a failed attempt at staging an awkward situation. It's some unintentionally next level stuff.
The show makes jokes that intentionally fall flat, then comments on the fake bad jokes with worse jokes that are supposed to be the real jokes.
The characters are playing fictionalized versions of themselves which are deeply self aware in unintentional ways. Peering through so many levels of characterization like this and, ultimately, hitting the motivations of the real-life actors playing the roles is strangely unnerving.
And let's not leave out the sketch show that everyone is collaborating on that's so... The sketches are intended to be knowingly "wink-wink" bad, but also broadly funny, but they're not, not even a tiny bit. They're bafflingly bad, and that's where, again, this fascinating "meta-muddle" thing comes in.
There's a phenomena that happens when you watch Billy Crystal pretending to be high, improvising a Sammy Davis Jr. Impression that would have been tired 30 years ago, being played for big laughs. Or seeing Gad knowingly make tasteless statements that are then treated like unintentional tasteless statements and, by extension, played as fraudulent commentary on his generation of comedians... It's incredibly surreal. Crystal's improvising. If he drops a couple bombs, it's not on him. He's putting himself out there, trying things out and trying to get a laugh. It's on the directors, editors and producers for keeping it in.
I apologize for using the words intentional and unintentional so often here, but that's what's so fascinating. Much of what we see are intentional layers of irony, but unintentionally, they're all disastrously executed. There's no question that the cast is incredibly talented, so where does the blame lie? I believe it's in the writing, directing and editing. Directors aren't giving performers the feedback they need to make the correct adjustments. Writers aren't work-shopping their jokes enough to see that they won't land, and editors don't have the guts to cut what's not working. Frankly... everyone's probably afraid of pissing off Billy Crystal.
I don't know what more I can say. If you love comedy, watch this show. It's a study on how to do literally everything wrong while maintaining excellent production values. I've never laughed once but I can't stop watching it.
May god have mercy on our souls.
It's a unique show in that it does so many things wrong, and does them wrong in such complex and convoluted ways, that it's interesting to watch just to try and unpack what you're seeing. There are so many meta-levels happening, where the show is being knowingly bad, but simultaneously accidentally bad, that while watching it I sometimes feel like I'm traveling through time.
Structurally, the show is 30 Rock-esque. Crystal and Gad play fictionalized versions of themselves having been cast to play off of one another in a 2 person sketch TV show. The show is them going about their lives, but also staging and executing the sketch show.
The timing is off. the staging is off. Gad, Crystal and the supporting characters aren't just one dimensional, they're unconvincingly one dimensional. No one is likable, but not because they're unlikable, rather, because they're so poorly realized that they may as well be absent.
The Comedians regularly tries to manufacture awkward situations, but those situations are so contrived that the discomfort doesn't come from the situation they're staging, but from your own understanding that you're watching a failed attempt at staging an awkward situation. It's some unintentionally next level stuff.
The show makes jokes that intentionally fall flat, then comments on the fake bad jokes with worse jokes that are supposed to be the real jokes.
The characters are playing fictionalized versions of themselves which are deeply self aware in unintentional ways. Peering through so many levels of characterization like this and, ultimately, hitting the motivations of the real-life actors playing the roles is strangely unnerving.
And let's not leave out the sketch show that everyone is collaborating on that's so... The sketches are intended to be knowingly "wink-wink" bad, but also broadly funny, but they're not, not even a tiny bit. They're bafflingly bad, and that's where, again, this fascinating "meta-muddle" thing comes in.
There's a phenomena that happens when you watch Billy Crystal pretending to be high, improvising a Sammy Davis Jr. Impression that would have been tired 30 years ago, being played for big laughs. Or seeing Gad knowingly make tasteless statements that are then treated like unintentional tasteless statements and, by extension, played as fraudulent commentary on his generation of comedians... It's incredibly surreal. Crystal's improvising. If he drops a couple bombs, it's not on him. He's putting himself out there, trying things out and trying to get a laugh. It's on the directors, editors and producers for keeping it in.
I apologize for using the words intentional and unintentional so often here, but that's what's so fascinating. Much of what we see are intentional layers of irony, but unintentionally, they're all disastrously executed. There's no question that the cast is incredibly talented, so where does the blame lie? I believe it's in the writing, directing and editing. Directors aren't giving performers the feedback they need to make the correct adjustments. Writers aren't work-shopping their jokes enough to see that they won't land, and editors don't have the guts to cut what's not working. Frankly... everyone's probably afraid of pissing off Billy Crystal.
I don't know what more I can say. If you love comedy, watch this show. It's a study on how to do literally everything wrong while maintaining excellent production values. I've never laughed once but I can't stop watching it.
May god have mercy on our souls.
The movie that is, and yet isn't
11 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I guarantee you, once the movie's over, you will have already forgotten most of it. There is such a disconnect between the core cast, the murderer, and the murderer's victims, it's like they're all in different films. There are no stakes, there's no real villain. Billy Connolly's character contains the heart of the film, which is why it's especially bizarre that in the denouement scene we're simply told "Father Joseph died." Mulder and Scully's constant shifting from believer to skeptic and back again had already gotten old by the end of the TV show. 10 years on, with the zeitgeist having shifted noticeably away from conspiracy and supernatural wonder, Mulder needs to re-establish what it is that he believes, why he believes it, and why "belief" is a worthy pursuit at all. This movie seems to want to tackle those subjects but fails. It's competently shot, and I suspect that a lot of it's problems stem from editing and rewrites, but this film is a near total failure, both as a good story, and even as fan-service. Think of it as The Silence. Unless you're looking directly at it, you'd never know it existed at all.
Speed Racer
(2008)
Be fun, don't be too cool for this film
3 February 2015
Sit down, suspend your disbelief, and watch this visually insane and surprisingly affecting film. In the spirit of the classic anime, it's full of fun characters like Snake Oiler and Inspector Detector, cool cars, ridiculous racing, and a warm family core. At the very least, you have to appreciate this as an exercise in fearless film-making. The visual vocabulary of the cuts and pans and wipes, the way the characters move in and out of frame, is incredibly unique and original. And it's, shockingly, mostly successful. This got lost among a flood of blaring Technicolor green-screen films like Shark Girl and Lava Boy and the Spy-Kids films. Also there was, and still is, a social backlash against the Wachowski's because of the Matrix films. In terms of the film-making risks I mentioned above, this was unfairly dismissed. This is for fun, it's a family film, (In the best ways), and it doesn't take itself too seriously. If you're too cool for it, you're only cheating yourself. There will be more fresh, ice-cold milk at the finish line for the rest of us.
Batman: Assault on Arkham
(2014 Video)
Tripe
1 August 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Here's the thing, if you're going to claim that these DC animated features contain graphic violence, sexual content and language because they're aimed at a more mature audience, then why are they still written for 10 year-olds?
Batman:Assault on Arkham is a prequel story to the video-game series Batman:Arkham Asylum. It involves a group of villains being recruited by a shadowy agent and tasked with infiltrating Arkham and killing the Riddler. And that's about all I have to say about this movie's specific content.
DC animated features used to be a high-water mark in the direct to video market. Assault on Arkham sees their continuing decline.
Given the voice talent here, I don't understand why the acting is so flat. Deadshot looks and sounds so much like Bruce Wayne I took it for granted that he was; it was actually a shock when it turns out that it's actually Deadshot.
Characters speak almost exclusively in clichés. And there's a lot of perverse sexuality that's thrown around.
There are major tonal issues. Very serious and disturbing themes pervade the movie, and yet it clings to an easy going, tongue in cheek "punchin' shoulders" tone. In his introductory sequence, King shark is shown in a room surrounded by bloody corpses hung from the ceiling, and then later when he meets killer frost he violently grabs her by the leg yelling "Time for meat." The implication being that he's probably going to murder her horribly. But from this point forward, he is the comic relief. Killer Frost shows overt sexual attraction towards him, and he then becomes just a big dumb guy. It's as though the movie wasn't just written for 13 year-olds, but actually written by 13 year-olds.
Probably the single biggest problem with the movie is editing; everything takes a 1/2 second too long. Shots linger for about 1/2 second too long. Lines of dialogue, either spoken or responded to, take about 1/2 second too long. It lends an already uninspired movie a kind of stilted laziness. It gives you time to take in how dumb what you just heard was, or take in just how little the character's faces move when they speak.
DC is better than this. I hope they soon find a new Bruce Timm to step in and right the ship.
Batman:Assault on Arkham is a prequel story to the video-game series Batman:Arkham Asylum. It involves a group of villains being recruited by a shadowy agent and tasked with infiltrating Arkham and killing the Riddler. And that's about all I have to say about this movie's specific content.
DC animated features used to be a high-water mark in the direct to video market. Assault on Arkham sees their continuing decline.
Given the voice talent here, I don't understand why the acting is so flat. Deadshot looks and sounds so much like Bruce Wayne I took it for granted that he was; it was actually a shock when it turns out that it's actually Deadshot.
Characters speak almost exclusively in clichés. And there's a lot of perverse sexuality that's thrown around.
There are major tonal issues. Very serious and disturbing themes pervade the movie, and yet it clings to an easy going, tongue in cheek "punchin' shoulders" tone. In his introductory sequence, King shark is shown in a room surrounded by bloody corpses hung from the ceiling, and then later when he meets killer frost he violently grabs her by the leg yelling "Time for meat." The implication being that he's probably going to murder her horribly. But from this point forward, he is the comic relief. Killer Frost shows overt sexual attraction towards him, and he then becomes just a big dumb guy. It's as though the movie wasn't just written for 13 year-olds, but actually written by 13 year-olds.
Probably the single biggest problem with the movie is editing; everything takes a 1/2 second too long. Shots linger for about 1/2 second too long. Lines of dialogue, either spoken or responded to, take about 1/2 second too long. It lends an already uninspired movie a kind of stilted laziness. It gives you time to take in how dumb what you just heard was, or take in just how little the character's faces move when they speak.
DC is better than this. I hope they soon find a new Bruce Timm to step in and right the ship.
The Spoils of Babylon
(2014)
Could barely stand the wait between episodes.
23 April 2014
One of the freshest, funniest, most original things I've seen in a while.
Will Farrell, bored with the formulaic dopey man-child projects that made him rich, has been spending his time and money on gold like this. The premise is that this is a forgotten TV mini-series from the late 70's based on a book by the same name, shot and financed by the author. It follows the rise of oil tycoon Jonas Morehouse, his daughter and adopted son.
The primary direction given to the cast was that they were really bad actors in a TV drama. Wiig is the only one who doesn't play it straight, and the contrast works.
I've watched this about 4 times so far. It's so full of quotable lines, the only downside being that there are few people that would recognize them. From Jonas Morehouse's constantly changing accent, to Kristen Wiig's scenery chewing, to the characters constantly calling Dixie Melonworth by the wrong name, I don't think there's a true misfire in here. This is classic screwball comedy with class and style.
More please.
Will Farrell, bored with the formulaic dopey man-child projects that made him rich, has been spending his time and money on gold like this. The premise is that this is a forgotten TV mini-series from the late 70's based on a book by the same name, shot and financed by the author. It follows the rise of oil tycoon Jonas Morehouse, his daughter and adopted son.
The primary direction given to the cast was that they were really bad actors in a TV drama. Wiig is the only one who doesn't play it straight, and the contrast works.
I've watched this about 4 times so far. It's so full of quotable lines, the only downside being that there are few people that would recognize them. From Jonas Morehouse's constantly changing accent, to Kristen Wiig's scenery chewing, to the characters constantly calling Dixie Melonworth by the wrong name, I don't think there's a true misfire in here. This is classic screwball comedy with class and style.
More please.
The Machine
(I) (2013)
Stylish, atmospheric, refreshing
9 April 2014
Warning: Spoilers
It is such a relief to see an honest to god B-movie these days. A film with a somewhat flawed script, limited budget, tons of vision and the balls to take itself seriously.
The machine is about a future where elite scientists are able to re-animate the dead into powerful robot bodies, or graft advanced thought-controlled prosthetics onto the living. The robot's intelligence is the final hurdle, trying to make a subject that is both intelligent and entirely controllable. One of our protagonists is a scientist hoping to bring back his daughter as a machine. He's working with a mysterious corporation to achieve that goal. The rest of the movie is the movie.
If this sounds like a cheesy predictable premise, it is. But many many productions would take this story and do far less with it.
The Machine understands why Sci-fi was so vivid and memorable in the 70's and 80's, it's about art. Bold, heavily featured, skillfully realized art design-much of which here is brought to life through skillful practical effects. It really shows. Things feel real. Sets feel real, violence feels real, CGI is used well and, as the case should always be, doesn't draw undue attention to itself. It also has a fantastic synth-score that gets that synth-scores weren't great because they were cheesy, they were great because they were cold, otherworldly and isolating. Also that the good ones kicked ass.
In the final act, the Machine does what B-genre films do and turned into a gun-fight; but who cares, I'd already seen a good film.
I'm not sure what it was trying to say about artificial intelligence. It was sort of about innocence and sort of about man's inhumanity to man, sort of about procreation and creation. In the end it was mostly about kicking and punching. But it doesn't really matter if a movie wraps things up in a neat package. As long as it presents a premise, gives that premise a little room to breathe, and presents you with bold iconic imagery, I'm in.
The machine is about a future where elite scientists are able to re-animate the dead into powerful robot bodies, or graft advanced thought-controlled prosthetics onto the living. The robot's intelligence is the final hurdle, trying to make a subject that is both intelligent and entirely controllable. One of our protagonists is a scientist hoping to bring back his daughter as a machine. He's working with a mysterious corporation to achieve that goal. The rest of the movie is the movie.
If this sounds like a cheesy predictable premise, it is. But many many productions would take this story and do far less with it.
The Machine understands why Sci-fi was so vivid and memorable in the 70's and 80's, it's about art. Bold, heavily featured, skillfully realized art design-much of which here is brought to life through skillful practical effects. It really shows. Things feel real. Sets feel real, violence feels real, CGI is used well and, as the case should always be, doesn't draw undue attention to itself. It also has a fantastic synth-score that gets that synth-scores weren't great because they were cheesy, they were great because they were cold, otherworldly and isolating. Also that the good ones kicked ass.
In the final act, the Machine does what B-genre films do and turned into a gun-fight; but who cares, I'd already seen a good film.
I'm not sure what it was trying to say about artificial intelligence. It was sort of about innocence and sort of about man's inhumanity to man, sort of about procreation and creation. In the end it was mostly about kicking and punching. But it doesn't really matter if a movie wraps things up in a neat package. As long as it presents a premise, gives that premise a little room to breathe, and presents you with bold iconic imagery, I'm in.
Nothing But Trouble
(1991)
The kind of movie that can only happen by accident.
28 March 2014
An inexplicably disturbing film that makes you feel you're watching a dream you'd normally have forgotten. A dream that you retain a slight nauseous feeling from; like you vaguely remember your sister being naked in it or something.
Alone, NBT could be seen as some brilliantly avant-garde misfire. But when placed in context with The Burbs, Beetlejuice, Gremlins and Ghostbusters, you can see what they were going for; a popcorn comedy with horror elements, nothing more.
It's hard to believe the studio didn't shut this down during production. I would assume that Aykroyd repeated again and again that Ghostbusters looked like a train-wreck on paper but was a smash.
NBT shares some Jungian thematic elements with The People Under the Stairs and Flowers in the Attic, all films about inescapable labyrinthine houses and villains with perverse and mostly unknown motives. The sanitized, focus grouped, cookie cutter Hollywood we have today is a result of insane projects like this, and an effort to not repeat them.
As Roger Ebert used to say, it takes a talented filmmaker to make a truly bad film. Not just boring, not just forgettable but, poignantly, insistently bad. I don't think anyone would disagree that Mr. Aykroyd is a talented man.
Alone, NBT could be seen as some brilliantly avant-garde misfire. But when placed in context with The Burbs, Beetlejuice, Gremlins and Ghostbusters, you can see what they were going for; a popcorn comedy with horror elements, nothing more.
It's hard to believe the studio didn't shut this down during production. I would assume that Aykroyd repeated again and again that Ghostbusters looked like a train-wreck on paper but was a smash.
NBT shares some Jungian thematic elements with The People Under the Stairs and Flowers in the Attic, all films about inescapable labyrinthine houses and villains with perverse and mostly unknown motives. The sanitized, focus grouped, cookie cutter Hollywood we have today is a result of insane projects like this, and an effort to not repeat them.
As Roger Ebert used to say, it takes a talented filmmaker to make a truly bad film. Not just boring, not just forgettable but, poignantly, insistently bad. I don't think anyone would disagree that Mr. Aykroyd is a talented man.
After the Dark
(2013)
Anything can happen, until nothing does, for 100 minutes
24 February 2014
Warning: Spoilers
The setup for this film is brilliant. A lot of, we assume, very intelligent students pile into a beautiful philosophy classroom for the last day of their senior year. They expect an easy final class but instead are given a brutal and challenging thought-experiment: There is to be a nuclear holocaust and a bunker can support exactly 10 people for 1 year. Of 21 students, who gets into the bunker? From the start, the movie comes off as razor smart. wWhen a film does that it amps up expectations of what's to come. "This script is smarter than you are" it seems to say, "You're in for a treat and a surprise." Not so. By the end of the film we find that it placed all of its cards on the table up front and left nothing for the rest of the run-time.
There were so many possibilities about where this film could go. Is there an underlying purpose for this experiment? What is its goal? Is the metric it is tracking something that the students are unaware of; how they accept authority, how they perceive and treat their fellow man etc.? Will there be unknown consequences? What are the motives of the professor in all this?
The above questions are all addressed but in flat anticlimactic ways. The results of the experiment itself end up being no different than they would be if any group of people were given the same exercise.
As expected the real story is happening outside the thought-experiment. But that story is too small, too understated and too unsupported to be the real meat of the mind-game. The final revelation and conclusion, though it makes thematic sense as a statement about life or the way authority can quietly influence who we consider a worthy member of society, or new generations leaving previous ones behind, land with a heavy thud. That story is an interesting and worthy one, but it's too small and subtle for the expectations this film cultivated up front.
It doesn't hand you all the answers, and the underlying thread of the story is complex and well told, but I'd like to see the film that this one claimed to be from the start. As it stands, I wouldn't recommend After the Dark.
<-------------SUPER SPOILERS------------>To anyone who is completely baffled by this movie being about nothing, here's what it's about.
Up to this point the students have been in Mr. Zimit's class. The professor is the voice of authority. He's the gatekeeper. Only on his say-so, can they graduate from the class and continue on to make a new future beyond his influence. The beginning of their time at school is analogous to the first run-through of the experiment. Without his blessing/key-code, they cannot continue on. As he said, he's the one that "enforces the rules." The class acts as a sorting mechanism, just as the bunker does. You're in or you're out. You pass or you fail.
The second run-through of the experiment adds complexity. Each of the students has revealed hidden strengths or flaws that may influence their place in the new coming society. It introduces uncertainty into the simple model of doctor, architect etc by showing that profession alone cannot predict success. It's also at this stage that the professor begins to more clearly interfere with the experiment, just as he's apparently (again spoilers) throughout the semester been interfering with the heroine Georgina.
Here his role as gatekeeper is put into question. by intentionally manipulating the card that James is dealt, he demonstrates the corrupting, or rather, manipulative influence of authority. He, being in a position of power, can use his influence to paint James as unfit, in essence existentially failing him. His criteria for doing so are possibly personal, and possibly objective, it doesn't really matter.
(I can't remember how the second run-through ended because I was getting bored and starting to zone out.)
Notice that Mr. Zimit is never allowed into the bunker. He is the authority, the old-guard. His annihilation is a foregone conclusion. This is the story of young people making the future.
In the third run-through, Georgina takes ownership of the experiment. She rejects the criteria that Mr. Zimit set up and, despite his threats to her final grade, runs the experiment based upon her own values, just as she will run her life now that college is at an end. Rather than considering an abstract of the human race as a whole, she thinks in terms of individual preference and happiness. Under those terms, survival of a race is irrelevant, only the quality of the individual experience matters. In which case, only the fact that she cares for James is important, that he isn't the most fit or most suitable, by Mr. Zimit's criteria, doesn't matter.
Once again Mr. Zimit is left outside the bunker, and the young-guard stand fearlessly against the old to declare that they would rather be destroyed than play by his rules. And thus the young move past their authority figures—partly because of and partly in spite of them—into a new future where they will put their values into play, risk destruction, and see if a successful society will arise.
Mr. Zimit's suicide is a literal representation of his inevitable irrelevance. He is left to die as the new society moves on. He didn't meet the only criteria that matters in most cases of evolutionary advancement, the criteria set by a woman seeking her own happiness in a mate. This is also an explanation of the Gaia imagery that, throughout the film, surrounds Georgina (name meaning tiller of the soil). It's not philosophy that shapes the future, it's philosophers making choices based on immediate values, not abstract notions. A society has never arisen from 10 people suited to build a society; only from a group of people trying to live.
There were so many possibilities about where this film could go. Is there an underlying purpose for this experiment? What is its goal? Is the metric it is tracking something that the students are unaware of; how they accept authority, how they perceive and treat their fellow man etc.? Will there be unknown consequences? What are the motives of the professor in all this?
The above questions are all addressed but in flat anticlimactic ways. The results of the experiment itself end up being no different than they would be if any group of people were given the same exercise.
As expected the real story is happening outside the thought-experiment. But that story is too small, too understated and too unsupported to be the real meat of the mind-game. The final revelation and conclusion, though it makes thematic sense as a statement about life or the way authority can quietly influence who we consider a worthy member of society, or new generations leaving previous ones behind, land with a heavy thud. That story is an interesting and worthy one, but it's too small and subtle for the expectations this film cultivated up front.
It doesn't hand you all the answers, and the underlying thread of the story is complex and well told, but I'd like to see the film that this one claimed to be from the start. As it stands, I wouldn't recommend After the Dark.
<-------------SUPER SPOILERS------------>To anyone who is completely baffled by this movie being about nothing, here's what it's about.
Up to this point the students have been in Mr. Zimit's class. The professor is the voice of authority. He's the gatekeeper. Only on his say-so, can they graduate from the class and continue on to make a new future beyond his influence. The beginning of their time at school is analogous to the first run-through of the experiment. Without his blessing/key-code, they cannot continue on. As he said, he's the one that "enforces the rules." The class acts as a sorting mechanism, just as the bunker does. You're in or you're out. You pass or you fail.
The second run-through of the experiment adds complexity. Each of the students has revealed hidden strengths or flaws that may influence their place in the new coming society. It introduces uncertainty into the simple model of doctor, architect etc by showing that profession alone cannot predict success. It's also at this stage that the professor begins to more clearly interfere with the experiment, just as he's apparently (again spoilers) throughout the semester been interfering with the heroine Georgina.
Here his role as gatekeeper is put into question. by intentionally manipulating the card that James is dealt, he demonstrates the corrupting, or rather, manipulative influence of authority. He, being in a position of power, can use his influence to paint James as unfit, in essence existentially failing him. His criteria for doing so are possibly personal, and possibly objective, it doesn't really matter.
(I can't remember how the second run-through ended because I was getting bored and starting to zone out.)
Notice that Mr. Zimit is never allowed into the bunker. He is the authority, the old-guard. His annihilation is a foregone conclusion. This is the story of young people making the future.
In the third run-through, Georgina takes ownership of the experiment. She rejects the criteria that Mr. Zimit set up and, despite his threats to her final grade, runs the experiment based upon her own values, just as she will run her life now that college is at an end. Rather than considering an abstract of the human race as a whole, she thinks in terms of individual preference and happiness. Under those terms, survival of a race is irrelevant, only the quality of the individual experience matters. In which case, only the fact that she cares for James is important, that he isn't the most fit or most suitable, by Mr. Zimit's criteria, doesn't matter.
Once again Mr. Zimit is left outside the bunker, and the young-guard stand fearlessly against the old to declare that they would rather be destroyed than play by his rules. And thus the young move past their authority figures—partly because of and partly in spite of them—into a new future where they will put their values into play, risk destruction, and see if a successful society will arise.
Mr. Zimit's suicide is a literal representation of his inevitable irrelevance. He is left to die as the new society moves on. He didn't meet the only criteria that matters in most cases of evolutionary advancement, the criteria set by a woman seeking her own happiness in a mate. This is also an explanation of the Gaia imagery that, throughout the film, surrounds Georgina (name meaning tiller of the soil). It's not philosophy that shapes the future, it's philosophers making choices based on immediate values, not abstract notions. A society has never arisen from 10 people suited to build a society; only from a group of people trying to live.
The Art of the Steal
(2013)
Flat, meta, and too self aware to be clever.
24 February 2014
This movie feels strangely much like Kevin Smith. The dialogue is loose and lazy. Every character speaks with the same voice, and it's the voice of a self absorbed twenty something filmmaker.
Throughout this by-the-numbers heist film about a rag tag team of lovable clean cut art thieves who'd never hurt a fly, I was distracted by the feeling that I was sitting in a room with 3 people as they brainstormed about writing a movie.
I'm a big fan of Kurt Russel. I hate to see him pick 3rd rate role after 3rd rate role. But this hasn't broken his streak. Maybe re-watch Soldier instead.
If you love Heathers and Mallrats, the good news is that you'll really enjoy this movie.
The bad news is, you like terrible movies.
Throughout this by-the-numbers heist film about a rag tag team of lovable clean cut art thieves who'd never hurt a fly, I was distracted by the feeling that I was sitting in a room with 3 people as they brainstormed about writing a movie.
I'm a big fan of Kurt Russel. I hate to see him pick 3rd rate role after 3rd rate role. But this hasn't broken his streak. Maybe re-watch Soldier instead.
If you love Heathers and Mallrats, the good news is that you'll really enjoy this movie.
The bad news is, you like terrible movies.
The Kings of Summer
(2013)
Budget and talent but no ideas
2 January 2014
Never trust a movie with more than two intro sequences, it's a sign of desperation.
This movie has many of the elements of a good film, but can't decide how to assemble them. The supporting talent is excellent, but the leads are so so. Photography is competent and attractive, but would be more at home in a commercial or a music video than a coming of age comedy. Though out of place photography is just a symptom of the film's overall uneven tone.
At times a contemplative artistic study, at others a screwball comedy, the one tone keeps the other from sticking. The film's identity crisis at times makes it seem like it's 30% filler material. One completely out of place scene cuts from the standard narrative perspective to a fantasy sequence of a girl blowing up a truck and then back. Are we suddenly seeing, the protagonist, Joe's thoughts? Is that a part of this film's style now? Don't worry, it's the one and only time it'll ever happen.
And then there's dramatic investment. Should I have been worried when Joe was alone in the woods? When he's a 6 minute walk from a road and a Boston Market? Personally I didn't believe for a moment that these kids could have built that house, scavenged the materials, had the patience or skill to assemble it, or that they ever would have stayed in it for more than 2 nights. The premise, that they would live there for good, was never believable even for a moment; at most a month, or until it became uncomfortable. Where is the peril? Where is the risk?
It's very clear after the first thirty minutes that the film had completely run out of ideas. We see long sequences of pretty DSLR footage inter-cut with a couple days of the cast and crew messing around with an expensive slow motion camera. By the final sequence in the hospital I was begging this film to end. We had been four steps ahead of it since the second introductory sequence and by the third we had lapped it.
The movie is made watchable by Funny Or Die veterans Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally and Kumail Nanjiani, as well as by a show stealing performance by Moises Arias, though we never really know who his character is. He remains two-dimensional throughout, a sitcom style "breakout" character whose every action represents the writer directly asking the audience 'isn't this guy wacky?'.
Not to give anything away, but in the movie's finale the main character seems to claim that he knows about a certain subject, but then does all the worst things that he could possibly do while dealing with that subject. Ten minutes on Wikipedia could have shown the filmmakers what he should have done in the situation. It's sort of baffling, and adds to a particular tone that this film already dripped with; that is was made by entitled, insulated film students seeking artistic approval.
I wish them all luck in their future endeavors. I hope all of their next projects suit their personal styles a bit better.
This movie has many of the elements of a good film, but can't decide how to assemble them. The supporting talent is excellent, but the leads are so so. Photography is competent and attractive, but would be more at home in a commercial or a music video than a coming of age comedy. Though out of place photography is just a symptom of the film's overall uneven tone.
At times a contemplative artistic study, at others a screwball comedy, the one tone keeps the other from sticking. The film's identity crisis at times makes it seem like it's 30% filler material. One completely out of place scene cuts from the standard narrative perspective to a fantasy sequence of a girl blowing up a truck and then back. Are we suddenly seeing, the protagonist, Joe's thoughts? Is that a part of this film's style now? Don't worry, it's the one and only time it'll ever happen.
And then there's dramatic investment. Should I have been worried when Joe was alone in the woods? When he's a 6 minute walk from a road and a Boston Market? Personally I didn't believe for a moment that these kids could have built that house, scavenged the materials, had the patience or skill to assemble it, or that they ever would have stayed in it for more than 2 nights. The premise, that they would live there for good, was never believable even for a moment; at most a month, or until it became uncomfortable. Where is the peril? Where is the risk?
It's very clear after the first thirty minutes that the film had completely run out of ideas. We see long sequences of pretty DSLR footage inter-cut with a couple days of the cast and crew messing around with an expensive slow motion camera. By the final sequence in the hospital I was begging this film to end. We had been four steps ahead of it since the second introductory sequence and by the third we had lapped it.
The movie is made watchable by Funny Or Die veterans Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally and Kumail Nanjiani, as well as by a show stealing performance by Moises Arias, though we never really know who his character is. He remains two-dimensional throughout, a sitcom style "breakout" character whose every action represents the writer directly asking the audience 'isn't this guy wacky?'.
Not to give anything away, but in the movie's finale the main character seems to claim that he knows about a certain subject, but then does all the worst things that he could possibly do while dealing with that subject. Ten minutes on Wikipedia could have shown the filmmakers what he should have done in the situation. It's sort of baffling, and adds to a particular tone that this film already dripped with; that is was made by entitled, insulated film students seeking artistic approval.
I wish them all luck in their future endeavors. I hope all of their next projects suit their personal styles a bit better.
Tell Your Friends