Michael Clayton

This movie opened a long time ago to excellent reviews. I have very little to add, except to say that the reviews are right. What makes the movie so smart is that it appeals to mainstream audiences with a solid John Grisham-esque story and appeals to the move-savvy viewer with excellent direction very much in the Stephen Soderbergh vein. The character’s are basically recognizable lawyer fiction types, but they are all at a much more human level of ambiguity, which is excellent. The “villain” in particular stands out because it would have been so easy to make her into a monster who has simply lost touch with humanity. It even would have worked with the theme. But as someone who is losing her way in the film we are watching, she is so much more compelling.

I wonder what I would say to someone who complained Michael Clayton was derivative of Soderbergh, who is an executive producer. It does feel a bit like a house-style: washed out colours; tense but subtle, smart music; hearing the audio of an earlier or later scene superimposed on a present one; deeply ambiguous moments, like Michael with the horses, or the closing credit sequence. But it a style I very much want more of, so I certainly will not fault the film for a lack of originality. Michael Clayton is the directorial debut of Bourne screenwriter Tony Gilroy – the guy is absolutely solid on every point. This is my favourite kind of film – one with such technical mastery that it makes something fundamentally dumb transcendent. It is not unlike Lost or Angel, on this point.

[I do not know if people are frustrated with these short, somewhat haphazard posts. It is a mode I want to try more, but it will not take over this blog for too long at a time. I like to put something small up, especially on a day with a guest blogger because I do not want to steal the spotlight from our new writers with a huge essay, but I am also trying not to disappear under a hail of guest-bloggers either.]

Saw: A Pedantic Bore

Scott91777 found this pretty good article on Slate about how annoying and dull the Saw movies are, and why. It chimed well with the AVPR review I just put up, so I thought I would link to it.

Slate on Saw

Aliens versus Predator: Requiem

I knew going in this was going to be bad. The Onion, who I usually trust, gave this an F, which surprised me since they are usually pretty stingy with those. (They rely heavily on the "gentleman's F" -- the D). I sort of liked the previous Alien versus Predator movie, which I thought did a pretty good job within the parameters of the PG-13 rating -- the buried temple with hidden passages had a kind of goofy boy's adventure novel exuberance, and I thought it was cute how the human became the "sidekick" rather than the savior. Not a good movie really, but I found a lot of reasons to cut it some slack.

If you were looking for the essence of the word "perfunctory" AVPR would be a good place to start. At 94 minutes long it is so boring you cannot believe you are not sitting through an extended cut of My Dinner with Andre. I understand that all movies have the potential to be boring, but I felt that there was some kind of lock on how boring a Predator-Alien movie could be, as opposed to say, a British period piece. You feel that on a scale of 1 to 10, one being the most boring, a monster movie that has inherited some good basic creature designs, and has a pretty good mythos to draw on, could not really get below a 3. And yet here is Alien versus Predator: Requiem. The most boring movie I have ever seen. I cannot put my finger on what was really the cause. The humans are the most awful kind of cardboard cutouts, but I feel like I have seen movies with cardboard cutout characters that were bad movies of course, but still not anywhere near this purely "check your watch every five minutes" dull. From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, for example. One person I saw it with claimed the problem was long shots, but I am not sure that was it. I know one thing that hurt a lot was the rigorous insistence in the first half of the movie to the structure "A scene with the creatures, a scene with the people" so that when you cut from an alien to something in a child's bed, you know the thing in the bed is a fake-out -- it was just her own hand reaching for something on the night-stand. It HAS to be a fake-out because the film cannot break from the patterns it establishes.

I think at least one culprit is the total lack of respect for both the Aliens and the Predators. It just feels like the directors -- and yes it actually took two people to direct this movie -- took everything for granted. You know what the monsters are so no effort is put into reintroducing them. The monsters worked before, so no effort is put into rethinking them. The Predator-Alien hybrid is barely distinguishable from the Predator or the Aliens. I actually thought at one point it was killed, and realized later that that fight was just between the Predator and a regular Alien. And the Predator-Alien does nothing new. It is just maybe a little bigger. In the fights they just lumber after one another, and it is assumed that is interesting enough, even though you can barely tell who is who, or see anything that is going on. The Predator does not seem to be very skilled. The aliens do not seem more threatening than large tigers. There is no thought given to the specifics of the creatures at play.

The film has a lot of problems but it is the boredom it causes that is just fantastic. Algebra-class level dull. The next film could be called Alien Versus Predator: The Sailboat Race, and it would be better just for the absurdity.

Movies like this make me appreciate Southland Tales so much more. Whatever went wrong there, Southland Tales is at least up to something, is at least pushing the edges of something. If I said it was boring that is only because too many good movies made me forget what the word properly meant.

Comics Out December 28, 2007

X-Men. I have now read chapters one, five and nine, and was pleased to discover that since Bachalo is drawing the final part I will get to see how this all turns out without being suckered into buying a lot more books than I really want when I suspect that a summary of those books would do just as well. A new character, one I always loved, gets thrown into the mix, and Bachalo uses blood spatter liberally to distinguish those on the front lines from those clean and safe. A gay character is something, I suppose, but I feel like I have seen the dark future where mutants are in camps about a hundred times now, and it makes me glad I am avoiding the other books.

Batman. SPOILERS! I love the understated cover -- this could be any issue of Batman -- that does not hint at the insane last page, or anything like it. This issue is intriguing, but I think I am going to need either more issues, or more background, to figure out what to make of it. Part of the problem is that my entire Morrison Batman run is lent out so I cannot check to see if Commissioner Vane is from 666, or the year that story takes place -- will this Devil Batman become the Batman of issue 666? Time Travel? Just a concept chiming? The Bruce Wayne sequence did not really hold my attention, until he jumps out of a balloon and his Neil Adams lifestyle, and is figured as the Dark Knight Returns; then our Batman is reverse "crucified" on his own Bat-signal by the Devil Batman; gets shot in the chest revealing the shielding plate -- as in Dark Knight Returns; dies, as he does in Dark Knight Returns of heart failure; in his final moments sees the most iconic image from Year One, the full page bat breaking though the window; BUT in one of the strangest non-satiric revisions I have seen calls the Bat-Mite for help at the last moment, something Miller's Batman could never have done -- Morrison is doing what only he can do here, which is smart. Also there is something with a purple mask that I am not clear on -- is this from 52 or something? I am not quite sure how to put all of this together -- and anyone who has ideas should not stay quiet in the comments -- but Morrison does have my attention, at least, for the first time on this book I think. I hope he has a better point than "Batman has a wonderful history, can't we just embrace it all?"

As a side note, does anyone else think that DC pulled the rug out from under Morrison -- or he did it to himself -- with the whole return of the multi-verse thing at the end of 52? Morrison using excised pre-crisis stuff in Animal Man and JLA for example seemed so much more daring before DC decided to canonize so much of the weird stuff in other worlds. Isn't Bat-Mite a more interesting thing to use when you feel Morrison is "breaking the rules" a bit, than when "Zur En Arrh" or whatever turns out to be one of the 52 universes, right next to Wildstorm?

In Comics News Spider-Man: One More Day ended -- someone give us a detailed spoiler.

Scott on Grindhouse Revisited

[Guest blogger Scott revises some of the comments on Death Proof around here in his slightly longer argument about Grindhouse, and makes an interesting conclusion.]

First of all, I maintain that Grindhouse is a single film or at least a singular entity, bottom line being that both films must be viewed in the context of the other to be fully appreciated. This is especially true of Death Proof, which I will explain shortly.

Planet Terror is the least complex of the two and, as a result, the one most capable of surviving on its own, however, without Death Proof as its companion it is merely a fun homage to grind house films of the past (It also makes sense for Rodriguez to do the straight-up homage because he's more of a chameleon whereas Tarantino is much more of an auteur).

Death Proof is the more complex of the two films. Not only is it stronger on a technical level in terms of the actual filmaking; it is far more subtle. This isn't a recreation of grind house films like Planet Terror it is a deconstruction/revision of them (specifically the slasher, revenge, and car chase genres). This is why it relies on Planet Terror. If I say to the average movie go-er "Death Proof" is a revisionary narrative of grind house films" Their response would, most likely, be "Great! What are grind house films?" Few people today would have any idea what I'm talking about. Pop Culture Junkie that I am, even I don't know first hand what grind house is.

This is why Planet Terror (and, in my opinion, the trailers) are necessary. It acclimates the un-ininducted into the experience. Then, with Death Proof, something strange happens: The film begins to evolve. It's no secret that both Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up and drew inspiration from this kind of movie. The thing is, they took what they learned from these movies which were, let's face it, fairly disposable pieces of cheap, exploitative entertainment, not good for much more than a few laughs, and , in their own work, transform it into art (arguably, Tarantino is much better at this than Rodriguez). So, as Death Proof begins we are introduced to typical stock grind house characters only with greater depth and better dialogue (something Tarantino is famous for) but, still they remain characters rather than being real people. Jungle Julia and her crew are the typical victims in slasher flicks: they are 'doing bad things'; drinking, smoking pot, hooking up with/teasing guys. In other words, they're just asking for it.

Then, the change over, the film loses the faux aging and we're introduced to the second group of girls (by the way, the black and white segment in the extended edition adds nothing to the film other than another opportunity for Tarantino to display his foot fetish). This group is a departure, they are completely 'real' characters. It has been pointed out that they're all movie people but, so what, to Tarantino movie people are the real people in his day to day life. In fact, these might be the most believable, realistic characters that Tarantino has created. So, in the second half, he takes these 'real' people and puts them in a grind house situation. Still, take out the false scratches and such, the film can function on its own. Most people would still see it and 'get it'

The point that the film again changes is after the first leg of the car chase (which, by the way totally kicks ass and the use of traditional stunting and Zoe Bell as the star add a tension rarely seen in modern film making). Specifically, things go awry when, after Zoe emerges from the bushes unscathed, the point where any normal, rational person would say "Oh, Shit... we gotta call the cops!" a perky Zoe says "Phew, that was a close one... Let's go get 'im"

At this point, these 'real' characters begin a regression into the revenge seeking women of grind house cinema. Still, I'm buying it... I even buy the one chick shooting him. That's a plausible reaction. Where it falls apart (at least without the context provided by Planet Terror). Is the final few seconds where they drag Stuntman Mike from his car, knock the shit out of him and, ultimately, crush his head in.

So, these 'real', 'normal' characters have suddenly become cold blooded killers? It is also worth noting that during this sequence Abernathy's skirt, worn at a respectable knee length for the most of the film, is now worn at an exploitative point high up on her thigh. It is an, admittedly, cheap ending but it is a grind house ending. Death Proof has now taken us full circle back to the cheap thrill of Planet Terror. When viewed on its own, this ending makes no sense. However, as part of the larger Grindhouse film... project... whatever you want to call it. It makes perfect sense. In fact, in order for it to be a true grind house film. That's how it has to end.

So, in short... Planet Terror is a fun recreation of the grind house experience whereas Death Proof really makes you think about the genre (and all its various subgenres). Both films are great but I still see it as one big movie.