"Inception" (2010)

• Written & Directed by: Christopher Nolan
• Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page

     So, Christopher Nolan's epic follow-up to "The Dark Knight" is finally here. Everyone has been speculating as to what he would come up with, and have been waiting with bated breath (well, besides me, probably... I never paid attention to the ads). It turns out that what he came up with is the film "Inception", his first original film in about 10 years.
     "Inception" is essentially a heist film with a science fiction twist: Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a conflicted fugitive who has found a way to make money through a process called "extraction", in which they break into a person's dream-consciousness in order to steal an idea or some important information. This all goes well until Dom is given a proposal to plant an idea, instead of simply stealing it, known as "inception". What follows is his attempts to gather a team of inception experts as well as confront his own subconscious demons.
     Now, before I get into the actual review itself, I should probably clarify that I liked the movie before a whole bunch of Chris Nolan fan-tards bitch at me. I enjoyed it. It was fun, well-made and suspenseful. HOWEVER, I do have some reservations with it. For a long time I couldn't figure out what bothered me so much about the movie. I enjoyed it, but just something about it wasn't blowing me away and I couldn't figure out what. But after thinking about it for a while, I've finally figured it out, and I have several problems with the film itself.
     Firstly, the main thing that really bothered me about the film was that it never got very visually crazy. There were a few (admittedly amazing) setpieces such as the rotating hallway and the world of "limbo", but overall the film felt very normal and very confined.
     In other dream-related movies such as "The Cell" and "Dreamscape", the dream world is much more vivid and strange and reflects the look of dreams much more faithfully. Half the time I kept forgetting that I was watching a movie about the invasion of dreams and felt more like I was watching a regular old heist movie.
     Perhaps budget constraints kept the film from becoming very surreal, but I find it much more likely that Chris Nolan was his usual cripplingly realistic self and purposefully kept the film to a very surrealistic minimum. Because, you know, FUCKING DREAMS are well known for being incredibly believable and realistic.
     Secondly, the films supposed intelligent, philosophical undertones are not nearly as radical and mind-blowing as everyone would like to believe. The idea that the world around you isn't real and that you must question your reality 24/7 is basic philosophy, hell, ever since The Matrix this idea has become commonplace, pedestrian even. But the movie has a kind of smug, serious attitude to it, as if Chris Nolan believes that his themes are deep and complex and totally original.
     I don't mind the theme of exploring your own reality, hell, I expect it in a film like this, but like the visual style, this theme feels really subdued, they touch on it but they never really explore it, and Nolan's screenplay is so overwrought and takes itself so seriously that it's almost as if he expects us to bow down to him immediately. The film also isn't as confusing as everyone thinks it is. Sure, it's a long-ass movie, with multiple plot threads and ideas running through it, but if you really pay attention you should have no problem what's going on.
     Thirdly, while the concept is great and the heist itself is exciting, there isn't a whole lot of emotional weight to any of the characters. Apart from Cobb's character, who is the centerpiece of the film, none of the other characters have any development whatsoever, they're only there to get Cobb where he needs to be or to serve as a cheap way for the filmmakers to rack up suspense (e.g. Saito). Apart from that, they're just window decoration, basic heist film archetypes.
     Another thing that bothered me about the plot itself is the fact that a lot of the film's logic seems like an incredibly amateurish way to amp up the suspense. I've already mentioned Saito, but the whole aspect of "limbo" bothers me. The idea that you can stay in a dream for years and go crazy sounds interesting on paper, but in execution it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Generally when people have dreams for 10 hours it doesn't involve them living out a whole other life and then going insane. Neither do people go insane when they DO have dreams where "years" pass (and yes I have had dreams like this before).
     I get what they're trying to do, but Nolan really could have come up with a better way to "raise the stakes", so to speak. Since almost the entire film takes place in a dream, there's not really any reason for us to worry about what's going to happen to the characters. If they die they go in limbo, sure, but really I'm not convinced of the whole logic of limbo, and beyond that there isn't much else at stake here, besides Cobb not seeing his children (which I didn't end up giving a flying fuck about in the long run).
     Now, those are my biggest problems with the film. But now I've realized that I've made it sound like the film is a piece of shit and I hated it, which is far from the case. I actually really enjoyed the film. It's very well shot, has a great musical score, it's well-acted (I particularly liked Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and is (mostly) thrilling and suspenseful.
     Cobb's backstory is rendered well, although whenver it comes into play it tends to slow down the action, but I can forgive it. There is also a liberal use of practical special effects, which I am always an ardent admirer of, and this leads to some amazing scenes. The aforementioned zero gravity hallway fight had my jaw on the floor. Sure, it felt very "Matrix-y", but it was executed extremely well and I couldn't believe they actually built and maneuvered that hallway in real time.
     When it all comes down to it, this film really feels like nothing more than a great idea with some good bits that wasn't really carried through as much as it should have been - honestly, I have to say that I was only so immediately invested in the film because I loved it's concept so much. However, I'm glad that films like this are being given a chance in Hollywood. It shows the money-grubbing fatcats that high-concept, high budgeted action films can survive, and that (mostly intellectually dead) summer films can have a brain as well as muscle - but it's simply just not the amazing work of art that everyone so desperately wants it to be, and Nolan is NO Kubrick.

"Predators" (2010)

• Director: Nimrod Antal
• Written by: Michael Finch & Alex Litvak
• Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace

I have to admit, despite possessing a huge knowledge of horror film, I actually am not as well-versed in the medium as I'd like to be. I've only seen "Alien", none of the sequels. I've also never seen the first two "Predator" films and neither have I seen the two "Alien Versus Predator" films. I suppose they just never came my way, or I never bothered to really sit down and watch them. So it's possible, then, that this review is moot and doesn't really mean much, but I enjoyed "Predators", the semi-sequel/reboot to the Predator franchise. I was pleasantly surprised how good the film was. I went into it with almost zero interest in seeing it but came out very satisfied.
     The plot fires off right from the start as we see several humans wake up in a strange forest. None of them know each other, however they all come from military operations around the world. Royce (Adrien Brody), an American Black Ops agent, leads the group to the edge of the forest, where they realize they are on some sort of strange alien hunting reserve, with several monstrous alien predators stalking them. The group must figure out how to hide from (or kill) the aliens while simultaneously attempting to formulate a plan to escape the planet.
     I love stuff like this. Stories where a group of disparate characters are thrown into some sort of arena or competition and forced to fend for themselves really do it for me. "Battle Royale", "Death Race 2000", even gladiator films. I love 'em all, so seeing another film like this was a real treat for me.
     Beyond the basic plot/concept, the first thing that struck me about the film was it's style. It's very gritty, but unlike the recent "Clash of the Titans" remake, this gritty, dark tone fits with the story and the characters. There are lots of long, low-lit, slow-paced shots where we're simply meant to take in the vast landscape that the group are traversing. I was so happy that the filmmakers decided to take this very subtle, slow approach. We don't see an actual Predator until we're about 45 minutes in, and they don't figure out the whole situation until a little more than halfway through. I like that, because even though anyone going in knows the creatures that they're facing, this contemplative pace slowly builds the tension and the atmosphere, and it piques the viewer's interest, drawing them into the film.
     The film is also incredibly well-shot. As I said, there are lots of dark, far away shots, but there are also lots of shots where we get long looks at the jungle that the characters are wandering around in, which are vibrant and green, and seem to go on forever. Like in "Avatar", the jungles have a very similar look to the original "King Kong", where the jungles seem to go back into forever, getting lighter as they go. There are also lots of great shots where the trees cover up most of the sun, with small fractured rays of sunlight peeking through the leaves. The cinematography, coupled with the slow pace of the film, creates a killer atmosphere, and is pretty much the only thing that keeps the movie from falling apart (I'll get to that in a moment).
     One of the other things that made me happy (that a lot of people probably won't notice in the long run) is that the special effects in the film are almost all practical, with CGI only used for extreme motion shots, (some) creatures, spaceships, and backdrops. Almost all of the gore is practical, and there is a liberal use of physical props. The predators themselves are also costumed actors, which is great because it makes the interaction between the predators and the humans much more convincing, because the actors actually have something to react to. It's very rare these days that a film relies on practical effects, but I hope that this becomes a trend.
     The action scenes were also choreographed well, and were fairly creative. My favorite action scene was a sword-fight between a Japanese Yakuza and one of the Predators. Adrien Brody also has a big fight scene at the end, and he does surprisingly well as an action lead. He's very fit and has a nice gravelly action hero voice, which is not what I would expect of someone like him.
     But the best thing about the action is that it doesn't overtake the film. The action scenes are few and far between, and this is a good thing, because rather than spending the first half of the film building up all of this suspense and atmosphere and then careening the other direction into a full-on action film, it keeps it's explody boom boom scenes to a minimum, and it plays them very low-key. They're not full of explosions and epic music, they're very... well, tense, lonely, and confined, much like how the characters might actually fight on a planet full of aliens.
     Unfortunately, the script leaves something to be desired. The story isn't god-awful, I loved the concept and I liked that they didn't blow their load and give every little trite plot point away in a 30-minute explanation. The ending is also well-done and unexpected, and I also liked that they didn't force Adrien Brody and the French sniper woman (Alice Braga) into a relationship. No, the problem with the script is really in the characters themselves. They're complete one-note cardboard cutouts, character archetypes that get zero character development.
     Oh sure, they briefly mention some backstory, like how the Russian guy has children and that the Japanese Yakuza guy got his fingers cut off for "talking too much", but beyond that there's absolutely nothing on these people (the Japanese guy doesn't even speak for 98% of the film). I really can't blame the actors for being so stiff and wooden, they literally had absolutely nothing to work with.
     Now, I'm all for not overexplaining your characters and letting their backstory and personality come through the subtext of the story, but there's a difference between "subtle, meaningful character development" and "I just couldn't think of what to do with these people". We have absolutely no reason to care about anybody in this movie, because they literally do absolutely NOTHING, they give us NO reason at all to give two shits about whether they live or die, and this extreme underdevelopment nearly cripples the entire film. There's also a really weak twist that I saw coming within 15 minutes into the movie, but it doesn't affect the film that much so I can let it slide.
     Overall, while an extremely interesting concept, the plot and characters themselves are paper thin, and the only thing that saves the film is it's impeccable execution. Honestly, despite the severe story problems, I could go see the film again. It's tense, incredibly well-made and full of atmosphere, and in this summer slog of shitty blockbuster action films, that's a plus. While I'm not going to yell at you to go out and see it, it's certainly not a waste of an evening if you're in the mood for something like it.

"Braindead" (1992)

• Director: Peter Jackson
• Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Stephen Sinclair
• Starring: Timothy Balme, Diana Penlaver and Elizabeth Moody

     Peter Jackson is an inimitable filmmaker. Once a lowly, B-grade director making films in his backyard, he has now risen up to become a multi-award winning highly respected artistic genius ever since the making of his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. He's gained not only Hollywood's respect, but the general public's respect as well, and has proven to be a versatile, artistic filmmaker.
     But FUCK all of that shit, let's go back to 1992, when Jackson was still a struggling horror movie geek with only 2 other films under his belt. That's right motherfuckers, we're going all the way back to "Braindead"! Or "Dead Alive", if you live in America and hate original movie titles. The plot concerns a young New Zealander named Lionel (Timothy Balme) who has a serious Oedipal complex. His mother (Elizabeth Moody) exerts a dominating control over his life. Despite this, Lionel finds love with a local Mexican woman, Paquita (Diana Peñalver) and one day, while at the zoo with Paquita and his mother, mom gets bitten by a new arrival at the zoo: a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. Mother is taken home, but begins to exhibit some very strange behavior and starts feasting on human flesh, creating another zombie every time she kills someone! So it's up to Lionel to attempt to hide (or kill) the resulting zombie horde. Hilarity ensues.
     Seriously, hilarity ensues. This is one of the funniest-ass movies I've ever seen. The film fits into a small subgenre of horror films known as "splatstick", a mix of gory, disgusting violence and humorous slapstick. If that sounds weird and gross to you, well, you probably aren't the target audience. Disgustingly gory and yet gut-bustingly funny things happen in this film. A man gets half of his head cut off with shears, which is then kicked around like a soccer ball and put into a blender. A fat uncle goes ballistic and cuts a bunch of zombies into pieces with two meat cleavers. Lionel destroys a whole room of zombies with a lawn mower.
     There are also longer, comedic set pieces that aren't just gore, like when Lionel attempts to hide the zombies, keeping them docile with horse tranquilizers. His bumbling, horrible excuses to keep people away from the zombies are awkward and extremely funny. Then... there is the moment that had me literally laughing out loud: Father MacGruder, a priest, is hearing some commotion happening outside in the cemetery. He sees the zombies, leaps outside, kicks a zombie in the chest, kung-fu style, and proudly proclaims, "I kick arse for the Lord!" He then sets to destroying a group of zombies with high flying kung-fu, sweeping the legs of one of the zombies, literally kicking its legs off. If this doesn't sound funny to you, stop reading this blog and leave now.
     I've mentioned that this film is gory, and I mean that. You think Hostel is gnarly? You haven't seen shit until you've feasted your eyes upon this film. Statistically, if you measure it in amounts of blood used, this is the goriest movie ever made. I had heard of this film's pedigree before, but I went into it smugly thinking that there was no way it could live up to it's title. Well, it does. Almost every minute there seems to be something horribly violent happening. Someone is getting their limbs torn off, or their head ripped off, or being run over by a car. It's insane, and the final act of the film has so much blood and gore that even I, a horror movie buff that has seen dozens of violent horror films, felt slightly queasy. The reason that the film works so well and grosses us out so much is that it is incredibly well done and VERY realistic looking. If there ever was a testament to real live practical gore effects, this film would be it.
     One of the other things I love about the film is it's colorful characters. Their personalities are all so exaggerated that they seem like cartoon characters. Father MacGruder is a good example, as well as Lionel's uncle, who is a fat, sweaty pervert of a man, only interested in Lionel's mother's fortune. Even the characters that we only see for a brief moment are memorable, such as the embalmer at Mother's funeral (played by Peter Jackson!), who, while Mother's corpse is surging from every orifice with embalming liquid, still takes time to go grab his sandwich and take a bite, despite the fact that it's soaked in the aforementioned liquid.
     The film can also be seen as a tribute to the cheesy B-movies that Jackson loves so much. For one thing, the film is set in the 50s and has a kitschy feel throughout. There are also several shoutouts to some of Jackson's favorite films. The island that the zookeeper's retrieve the Rat-Monkey from at the beginning is... hey! Skull Island! Speaking of the Rat-Monkey, it's realized with some intentionally cheesy stop-motion, which can also be seen as a shoutout to the monster films that Jackson loves. It's like a 50s B-movie with modern violence and depravity! Fantastic!
     But surprisingly, there is much more to the film than simple gore and silliness. As if you couldn't already tell, black humor runs prevalent through the film. It makes light of these horribly gory deaths and frequently pokes fun at death, and the rituals that we associate with death. Yet somehow, despite the fact that we should be horribly offended by this, it moves at such a lightning speed and has so much fun with itself that we can't help but join in. The mix of black humor and slapstick-y gore, along with the witty dialogue, makes the film feel very Pythonesque. The film is also shot incredibly well, using twisted, bent camera angles and cartoon-like vivid colors. These elements help the film rise above a simple B-movie to a genuinely well-made, hilarious comedy.
     I'm happy that Jackson has found a mainstream audience and that he is now accepted among the film elite, but I'm also sad that he doesn't seem to be going back to what got him started anymore. Perhaps he feels that these types of films are juvenile now, but I still wish he would go back to his roots. I've always liked Jackson, but after seeing this film, I have real respect and admiration for him. He was just a sci-fi/horror/B-movie nerd who wanted to make films, and he got his wish. Fuck "Lord of the Rings", "Braindead" is Jackson's masterpiece, all who disagree can consort with Father MacGruder!

(Note: Even the fucking trailer is funny!)

"Tremors" (1990)

• Director: Ron Underwood
• Written by: Brent Maddock & S. S. Wilson
• Starring: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire

(Note: Hey guys! I'm posting this from Seattle! I'll be back on Sunday, and I'll try to have another review by then. I hope you guys enjoy.)

     A lot of monster movies are fairly light, innocuous fare, with very little to set them apart from one another. Despite all that, I find monster movies an absolute joy to watch. Films like "The Blob" are always entertaining, with hilariously wooden characterization and (usually shoddy) effects. So, I went into "Tremors" expecting just another B-grade monster movie. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised by it's excellent cast, suspenseful plotting, and downright hilarious black humor.
     "Tremors" takes place in the town of Perfection, Nevada with a population of only 14 people. Handymen Earl (Kevin Bacon) and Valentine (Burt Ward) finally decide to get out of the podunk town and escape to the city. However, on the day they decide to leave, they run into a corpse hanging from the top of an oil tower, and are then accosted by a strange snakelike creature. They soon learn that the entire valley is surrounded by giant worm creatures that they name "Graboids", which have the ability to tremor through the ground and the ability to detect their prey by listening to the vibrations of sound. They have no way out, because the vibrations of the Graboids has collapsed a rock wall, covering the only road out of Perfection. So, with the help of the fellow townsfolk, Earl and Val try to figure out a way to defeat the Graboids and escape to the city.
     "Tremors" is an unabashedly fun movie. It has a remarkably colorful cast of characters, all played well and with their tongues firmly in cheeks. My favorite character was Burt (Michael Gross) and his wife Heather (Reba McEntire), two militaristic gun nuts with an inconceivably large collection of firearms. In one hilarious scene, Burt and Heather fire bullet after bullet into a Graboid that has just broken through their basement wall. They cycle through bigger and bigger guns, until finally Burt takes the worm down with an elephant gun to it's fleshy parts.
     The film is full of great, funny, creative sequences like this, all supplemented by other great characters. Some of my other favorites include Walter Chang (Victor Wong), the owner of a general store who is constantly trying to scam people out of their money, and Melvin Plug (Bobby Jacoby), a snot-nosed teenager who won't stop playing pranks on everybody.
     But one of the great things about this film, and what makes all of the characters feel so fleshed out and real, despite their exaggerated personalities, is the setting of the film itself. Since it takes place in such a small, isolated town with an equally small populace, the characters all share a kind of "togetherness", and it's easy to believe that they're all close and know each other very well. They play off of each others strengths as well as weaknesses, and they frequently quibble like relatives. It brings them all together and helps the town, and the people in it, feel more realistic and closely knit.
     Every character feels alive in this film, even if there isn't a whole lot in the way of character development, which is astonishingly hard to pull off. It's fun watching them try to escape the Graboids, but since they've been given this "roundness", this believability, we also end up caring about them and wanting them to escape. So we alternately laugh at their hilarious clashing while simultaneously caring for them. This clashing is especially evident in the two main characters, Earl and Val, and Kevin Bacon and Burt Ward do a fantastic job of making us believe that these people are two friends who have known each other a long time. The rest of the acting is solid as well.
     The setting of the film also enhances it's mood. The constant shots of the dry, dull and orange Nevada deserts make the audience feel isolated, just like the townsfolk in the film. It also makes the film feel somewhat like a Western, with all of the hick cowboys and horseriding, with the occasional intrusion of the modern world (such as a sign on Walter Chang's window that mentions "VHS Rentals"). It's a really great setting, and lends itself well to the film's characters and atmosphere.
     But the heart of the film lies in it's monster-filled action sequences, which are taut and excellently directed. Look elsewhere if you're looking for violence and gore. The thing that makes these sequences suspenseful is that we never know what the Graboids are going to do, or if the characters will be able to escape. The Graboids have the ability to learn, so as soon as the characters in the film try to execute a plan, it goes belly-up before they can even think twice. It keeps us guessing, and we're never sure how the characters are going to work out how to escape, or even if they will at all. There are also some really fun chase scenes between the humans and the Graboids, since the characters can't move around on the ground due to their vibrations attracting the monsters.
     However, the film never takes itself too seriously, and is always willing to play up what would normally be a serious, dark situation for laughs. For example, there's a scene where the entire town has hidden inside of the store and are staying quiet to keep from attracting the Graboids. They do a quick head count, until they realize that one other person is still making sound: a daughter of one of the townsfolk, with headphones in her ears, is outside of the store, jumping up and down on a pogo stick. Even the set pieces themselves can be funny, such as when a Graboid burrows underneath the wooden porch of the general store, and pushes up the boards as it moves along, like a murderous Bugs Bunny, or when a Graboid pulls an entire station wagon under the sand.
     The special effects are pulled off well too, gradually showing us more and more of the Graboids as the film goes on, only letting us see one full and up close at the very end. The puppetry is, of course, low budget (the film was made for only 11 million dollars), but they're pulled off well, and are charming and fun.
     That's what I like most about this film. Rather than taking itself seriously and ending up simply being an unintentionally hilarious bad film, it actually revels in it's ridiculousness and comes out with some  great characters and some surprisingly taut and suspenseful plotting. If you love monster movies but find yourself a little bit tired of endless formulaic crap, pick up "Tremors". But be sure not to make too much noise on the way over to the video store... you never know what might be under the ground!