A remake of Funny Games US so soon? The Strangers aims to please more than it aims to provoke. So while critics everywhere will probably compare it to Funny Games there’s no doubt a more apt comparison to last years Ils which was released last year in the US by Dark Sky Films as Them. Exactly why that comparison is more apt might be giving too much away but safe to say any of these films raises the question of just why home invasion cinema seems so resonant these days.
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We’ve given this film a lot of press on Twitch cuz we like it and think you will too. It’s more than just another quirky movie rding on the coattails of napoleon Dynamite, or Eagle vs Shark. It’s even more than a riff on that quaint British style of heartfelt kiddie comedy you might associate with War of the Buttons. Son of Rambow is a brave attempt to grapple with film as more than an art form, and it succeeds I think, despite some noticeable faults that would doom a less bold effort. Kids are cute but movies are dangerous and Son of Rambow offers two very dangerous kids that have something to teach us about friendship, filmmaking and how important it is to make sure the two collide whenever possible.
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Hard to believe its only been 11 years since Ang Lee was supposed to make his English language debut with this stunning snapshot of early seventies family life in an upscale Connecticut suburb. But the producers of Sense and Sensibility tapped him in time to preempt it. And upon The Ice Storms subsequent release it was buried under the avalanche of marketing and publicity generated by Titanic. Luckily for us there’s always Criterion. This is a movie that only deserves to be a Criterion Collection release but needs to be because it is one of those films that everybody knows they should get around to watching but never quite find the time for.
I was about eight or nine when the events in the film take place and not only can I testify to the accuracy of Lees mis en scene but more important I can testify to the way his characters resonate. These are people that less canny storytellers would judge harshly but they are clearly lost not only in their morally confused times but in their bankrupt hearts, reaching out to connect in the most surface ways and ending up more lonely and confused than before. Lee and his cast realized early on that the least loveable of these characters was still a human being, that the most dysfunctional family was still a family, and that grace might be found even in the midst of degradation. Good choices, bad choices, seemingly random tragedies and the ice storm itself mix to tell a story that offers hope against the bleakest of historic backdrops
The assembled cast here was simply insane. Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Katie Holmes, Elijah Wood, Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver and a number of other recognizable talents form a sort of acting supernova and in the excellent and lengthy documentary we are treated to a genuinely in depth look at the actors process from their point of view offering much more insight that most DVD documentaries would instead of glossing over this sort of stuff merely to get to the next anecdote.
The chance to sit down and talk with Erol Morris was without a doubt one of the most exciting opportunities I’ve had this year. His new film, Standard Operating Procedure looks at the importance of photographs in establishing what we know about Abu Ghraib and what is still hidden outside the frame. Featuring interviews with most of the major American military players SOP quite literally stuns. The horrors of Abu Ghraib in photograph form threaten to overtake the larger truths even when those truths are contextualized by eyewitness testimony. Who is responsible, what if anything is likely to be done to enact needed change? And why should the average person care?
Three other journalists and I spent about half an hour with the veteran documentarian and the results of that multi-person interview are offered here.
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The idea of waking up under the surgical knife is a horror indeed. So why rob such a premise of its core appeal just so that you can make a been-there-done-that mystery thriller? Because you are American!!! In any other country this would have made deeply compelling stuff. Heck, as an independent film this film would have been made because those making it would have had something to say. If all Awake did was parade the lead characters life before him as he was forced to watch and listen it could have been a real triumph. It could have been a horrifically disturbing horror film, an insightful comment on the state of American medicine, instead we get a half baked plot involving the patients adulterous wife, a possibly complicitus doctor and a film with noirish pretensions that might have been realized if the filmmakers weren’t so solidly focused on making a tired medical thriller.
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This is a movie tailor made for those who feel guilty about watching movies like Atonement. Confused? I’m guessing writer director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice 2005) was too. After all he adapted a well known novel to the point of being unrecognizable and then made exactly the sort of film that would render the novels central premise as inert as possible. The end result a movie that is pretty to look at because it is mainly interested in being pretty to look at. Everything else about it seems subtly insincere and peripheral except the performances which are doomed because they are written to play on our emotions in exactly the fashion of a Harlequin romance. Having thus far made a career out of making such films one can only appreciate the irony of Wright’s inability to win any of the Academy Awards he’s so good at reaching/getting nominated for. Oh well, what is grumpy old reviewer to do? I admit it’s harder to forgive mon director when his basic premise had so much promise. A young girl catchers her sister in the arms of a childhood friend and is driven by childish jealousy to tell a lie that wreaks havoc she could not have imagined. This is the stuff of legendary insight put to the shallowest of aestethic ends. The DVD contains the sort of extras you’d imagine including deleted scenes, a making of and directors commentary.
I often invite my friends over to watch screeners with me. I hadn’t heard of this one at the time (this was before its theatrical release) but we were all blown away by it. Them has to rank among the best of films I’ve seen that bank on threat of the unknown and have something to say to boot. The premise is threadbare involving a young couple who are attacked in a vacation home for no reason by a group of unknown hooded assailants. But what makes the premise work is, among other things, the delicate balance the film maintains between our awareness that the threat is human and our suspicion that it might be more than that. When the hoods finally do come off we are still left uncertain. Can this threat simply be described as human? Our questions about the nature of evil are deep at the heart of this movie and best of all they might just resonant with the core audience of casual thinkers who swallow whatever clichéd schlock gets hyped in the horror field.
And for sheer filmmaking craft you certainly don’t have to look any further. I don’t fault the recent Inside or other highly suspenseful efforts like High Tension for their gore. On the contrary those films clearly have disgust and biology at their center. But while the filmmakers here could have fallen back on the sorts of cheap scares and gore thrills that often pervade lesser works that offer up simple plots supposedely at the service of high minded provovacteurs and their dialogues about movie violence etc. (see Eli Roth) they instead choose the much more difficult road of actually scaring the crap out of you and barely hinting there’s any point to it at all until the end. The only hint is the absence of more intense onscreen violence.
Dark Sky getting into the theatrical business appears to have started off well. There are some extras here but not enough. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a serious special edition of this made available by somebody down the road. Three featurettes include a making of, a look at the composer and examination of a particular scene.
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So often DVD reviews are a way to recommend what you may have missed. This intense psychodrama is that rarest of rare independent movie birds. It is well acted, well directed, well written and well…. it just flies. Where most films dealing with madness tend to over emphasize genre elements this movie barely acknowledges they exist instead Inside offers deep character development and a chance to ponder the relationship between grief, madness and evil by setting its events well within the boundaries of near reality. Anyone who doesn’t think this story could unfold in real life almost exactly as it does here is invited to start paying closer attention to the news.
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Man was I happy to get this. The Mist isn’t just a solid adaptation of one of Stephen King’s best works. This film blends political and social commentary with 50s sci-fi horror movie monster archetypes to create something only the makers of Cloverfield have and The Host have gotten right in recent memory. This movie goes all the way with its dark vision of the future and probably suffered for it at the box office but I’m betting that as time goes on The Mist, will sadly, be seen as all too relevant a fable hinting at the dark place we increasingly think of as an inevitable future.
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I was excited to interview with Chris Cooper and Ira Sachs before I knew what a great movie Married Life was. Chris Cooper has gone the exact opposite route of most actors in that after winning his Oscar he actually went out and made some great movies. Heck even his genre stuff is much better than average. One reason, I think, is the man just exudes intelligence and craft. The same, minus Oscar, could be said for director Ira Sachs, who has such a fine grasp on his material that excellence seems almost a foregone conclusion. I was super excited to interview them both and got my chance along with four other journalists in a round table. The conversation that followed is reproduced here practically word for word and, in the interest of timeliness, edited as little as possible. That and the larger than average size of the piece and two film reviews meant I had to run this basically as is with a quick spell check. Participants are listed by initials and we lowly journalists by the term INT.
PLEASE BE ADVISED I’VE INCLUDED SOME SPOILERS THAT TOOK PLACE DURING THE INTERVIEW BECAUSE I THOUGHT THE INSIGHTS OFFERED ABOUT THEM WERE SIMPLY TOO GOOD TO EDIT OUT.
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Married Life has the sort of story that can win you over with a simple plot description. A middle aged man is worried that leaving his wife for the new love of his life would be too cruel so he decides to do the merciful thing and kill her instead. Of course such a plot description also begs a lot of questions? Is this a comedy? A suspense thriller? A drama? The answer, to director Ira Sachs credit, is that Married Life is, just as marriage is in real life, all three of these things and more. What could have been a simple morality tale overdrawn with cliché emerges as a complex totally organic look at the nature of true love, disillusionment, and human folly replete with enough emotional touchstones to win a bevy of well deserved acting, writing and directing Awards.
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I present to you one of the braver choices a filmmaker has made in recent memory and a film that, while far from commercial- I don’t think this will make a dime- is more urgent than a hundred other recent “thoughtful” horror films. Director Michael Haneke understands not only that we are being played with by those who promise safety and security that isn’t theirs to give but that those who threaten that security look an awful lot like us and our children.
Continue Reading "Canfield Talks Funny Games US"...
Okay I was supposed to do this interview in person at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in Chicago. As luck would have it I got food poisoning and woke up on the train only two or three stops from home to this tiny Goth chick shaking me and asking if I was okay. Evidently I had passed out and was moaning. I then did the only thing guys like me do in a situation like that. I projectile vomited all over her, the train, myself and stumbled out the door at the next stop. Goth chick wherever you are I owe you some dry cleaning. Needless to say I had to go home (another adventure) and reschedule my interviews for the day.
Neil Marshall is much classier than me. he didn’t throw up once during our interview- or if he did he covered the phone receiver.
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What more is there to say. Content wise Anchor Bay has let me know the following. I’m not sure excatly what will be new and what will be included from older editions of these films although I am to understand that both Tenebre and Phenomena will be available separately. Read on for the specs.
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Universal Pictures has just debuted the theatrical trailer for the upcoming fantasy-thriller - Wanted starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Common! Personally it seems like an awful lot of these kinds of flicks come and go without leaving an echo. But then again this has a solid cast even it also has a high level of that CGI driven energy that you either dig or don’t.
Also- is it just me or does Angelina look a little too much like the present day Eartha Kitt in this pic? The sad thing is this picture is actually taken from the front.
