The Monitor (2011)

You know, I've almost unwittingly made another little trilogy for myself here. I've already done an IFC Midnight trilogy and a Shark Attack Week trilogy since there happened to be a surplus of both IFC Midnight and shark movies on the wall at Blockbuster at the time. But between this entry today and yesterday's "The Tall Man" I'm most of the way to a Weird Dramas That Are Misleading Based On First Impressions That Involve Children In Danger trilogy.

Only that would be way too long of a title. And I'm seeing "Skyfall" tonight, and something tells me that would not be a very accurate description of a James Bond movie.

"The Monitor" is a Norwegian film staring an actress I used to dislike but am becoming quite a fan of, Noomi Rapace. I'm finding it difficult to remember why in the world I wasn't a fan of her before, because ever since "Prometheus" I've enjoyed her greatly in everything I've seen her in. To me she's very naturalistic and as capable of appearing both badass and vulnerable, sometimes at the same time. And she's very convincing when she does either.

Actually, that's a lie. I remember exactly why I didn't like her earlier. I freaking hated the Swedish "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" series. But hey, she helped bring awesomeness back to the "Alien" franchise, so she is officially forgiven in my eyes.

Like "The Tall Man," this is a movie that doesn't deliver exactly what one would expect from it based on the box art or the description. In fact, the description that is written on the case is laughably inaccurate, leading me to believe that the blurb was written by someone who had maybe only seen the trailer, and not the film itself. I say that because it gets rather specific about a plot point that doesn't actually happen, but I can imagine that had you only watched the trailer, you might believe that's where it's going.

I love finding stupid stuff like that. It's almost as fun as reading the descriptions under the ratings, especially when it's a PG-13 movies so they can get really specific about stuff like "TEEN PARTYING AND SMOKING" or "HORROR VIOLENCE" or "GORE AND SLIME." Yes, that last one exists. "Alien Vs. Predator" was rated PG-13 partly due to slime. That's awesome. But I digress.

What's going on in "The Monitor" is that Anna (Noomi Rapace) and her 8 year old son Anders (Vetle Ovenild Werring, who looks like a Norwegian mini-James McAvoy) move into an apartment after being relocated by social services after she divorces her abusive husband. Despite being placed somewhere he could never find her, Anna is still a bit high-strung and doesn't take any chances with her son, who she keeps on a very tight leash.

 Actually, she's one of those moms who would probably use an actual leash on her son.

When it becomes clear that the kid should probably sleep in his own bed at some point, Anna decides that even down the hallway is too far away for her, and buys a baby monitor to put in Anders' room so she can hear if anything happens. Then, one night, a child's horrible screaming comes from the monitor, but it isn't from Anders' room. She realizes that it's picking up another monitor's signal, coming from somewhere else in their apartment complex.

That alone could have made for an interesting movie, but "The Monitor" does something which is either ambitious or kind of stupid. I can't really decide. In any case it did tend to make the whole film feel a little bloated and unfocused. What they did is essentially try to railroad a whole other movie into "The Monitor," because while the child's screams of horror are what drives the film for the first act or so, and it keeps showing up every once in a while to remind us of it, not too far in it starts fading further and further into the background as another plot starts to rear its head.

Plot #2 is essentially asking the question that I always dread a movie asking: "Is the main character crazy?" I really hate when movies go there, because the answer is almost always "Yes." I am having difficulty remembering a movie that started dropping hints about the main character's sanity which turned out to be a red herring, now that I think about it. And it's not that every movie that does that is bad, I'm just tired of the twist because it's expected at that point, and not a twist at all.

Here we have Noomi doing her best "Conspiracy Keenau" face...

"The Monitor" makes it pretty clear, however, that Anna is nuts. They don't keep it ambiguous till the end, so there's a point for them in that regard. At least they didn't attempt to lamely string us along. There's a scene about a half hour in which directly shows us that she is seeing all kinds of crap, and she goes ahead and admits it. Although the true depths of her insanity aren't revealed until the end, which is actually decently effective because you're probably not going to be expecting further reveals if a reveal like that has been made earlier.

There were two things from "The Monitor" that I think worked best for me, and are probably what I would recommend it based on. The first was that I really liked the relationship between Anna and Helge, an electronics store employee played by Kristoffer Joner. They made a cute couple, if a bit awkward and shy, but I really did want to see things work out between the two of them. Especially since Helge is a big, nerdy, almost-loser trapped in a customer service job, which describes me perfectly, and it was nice to imagine me landing a chick who looked like Noomi Rapace.

The second thing was the very ending of the film. Now, due to Plot #2 going on, the film as a whole really doesn't make a lick of sense. However, also due to Plot #2 going on, that complaint is rendered pretty moot, and pretty much anything that didn't make sense can be referred back to that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. And as annoying as that is, I must admit the argument is pretty watertight.

Nitpicks that don't matter aside, the very end of the film is actually quite poetic. And sad. And slightly revelatory. It doesn't give all the closure that we necessarily want, but it gives us just enough of what we need to make a little sense of everything. A little sense, anyways.

Just a bit.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Monitor," or "Babycall" as the dumb original title calls it, wasn't exactly a great movie, but it did its job well, kept my attention, and was unique enough to make it interesting and unpredictable. If you like Noomi Rapace you might want to check it out. Watch it in the original Norwegian with subtitles, though. The English dub sounds like it was performed by an amateur theater company based in Orange County. Totally fit the feel of Norway, you know?

The Tall Man (2012)

One of my favorite things about watching movies is that occasion when you find yourself watching something that completely throws you for a loop and leaves you saying to yourself "What in the crap is happening here?" At least, when it's done well, that is.

I was not expecting much from "The Tall Man." In fact the only reason I rented it was for Stephen McHattie and Jodelle Ferland. On first glance it appeared no more than a standard slasher flick, what with the frankly lame title and the cover, featuring Jessica Biel staring blankly ahead as a generic hooded figure towers behind her ominously.

Seriously, is that the best cover they could come up with? There's an art to making movies look unappealing and bland, and movies like "The Tall Man" are an easy target for it. Look at the cover. It tells us absolutely nothing about the movie. In fact, it's misleading once you watch the damn thing, because not only is it not a slasher film, it's not even horror.

The second thing is the title. "The Tall Man" is just a boring, generic sounding name. The Italian title translates to "The Children of Cold Rock." That's actually far more accurate and interesting, despite not flowing off the tongue quite so easily. Not that any of this really matters to the movie itself, I just bring it all up because "The Tall Man" as a film is better than one might expect upon first impressions.

Although it is a bit ridiculous how often Jessica Biel gets tied to a chair in this movie.

"The Tall Man" is about a run down former mining community in Oregon that has been plagued with the disappearance of children at the rate of about one every 2 months. As a result, a local legend has emerged which tells of a tall, hooded man seen at the scenes of the disappearances, and he's become something of a boogy-man. At the start of the film, Stephen McHattie, playing an FBI agent, is leading the search for Jessica Biel's missing child. We then flash back to 36 hours earlier to see the events that led up to his disappearance.

That's really all the setup I want to give away. Not too far into the movie, "The Tall Man" starts going places I had no idea it was going to go. Suffice to say that at about half an hour in, I was saying to myself "Well, this is going to be a short movie." It almost seemed like the climax of the film, with the confrontation between the villain and the protagonist, had been rushed to the end of the first act. From that point on, it's really hard to tell exactly where things are headed in this film.

In fact, "The Tall Man" made me feel like an idiot for attempting to call it before it was done unfolding completely. I'll admit that I thought I had this movie's number down pat, and there was not a little amount of scoffing on my part going on, I have to tell you. The condescending snob in me started firing up the eye rolls and the "Well, obviously, that's what's going on now" remarks, but it was all for naught, because at about the hour mark the movie had me completely baffled as to what I was watching.

Even Stephen McHattie, in all his craggy faced glory, is trying to figure out what the hey is going on.

The effect was so strong that I honestly began to doubt my own observations. What I first considered to be an impossible place for "The Tall Man" to go ended up being not only the destination, but one that actually made a lot of sense. It wasn't a plot twist for the sake of having a plot twist. It's nice to see something like that handled well, because that is an easy thing to screw up. And I see it screwed up all the time.

If there was one thing I had a legitimate gripe with, it was that once again, Jodelle Ferland got totally shafted in the role she was playing. She is such a freaking amazing actress, but it seems that nobody wants to cast her in a role that really shows her off to the amount she should be. For example, in this movie she narrates the beginning and the end, and she is a reasonably significant character despite not getting a huge amount of screen time. In fact there were several occasions when it surprised me when she popped up after being gone so long, because I had actually forgotten she was in it.

But here's the thing: They made her a mute. A mute! Can you even believe that? That's such a waste of talent. Now, don't get me wrong, she tore that role up like she destroys every role. But come on. Let the poor girl speak, will ya? I'm sure it was a challenging and interesting role for her to take, since she had to convey all those emotions without dialogue, and I respect that, but when I see one of my favorite actresses in a legitimately good movie that I'm enjoying, dammit I want the whole package!

Look at that face. Yeah. Now just imagine how good she is when she's speaking.

Actually, besides Jodelle, the whole cast was good. I'm not a huge Jessica Biel fan, but she was fine. William B. Davis, immortalized as "The Cigarette Smoking Man" on "The X-Files" played the sheriff, which is a weird exercise in suspension of disbelief since it was impossible to not look at him and assume he wasn't a bad guy. Stephen McHattie was awesome as always but like Jodelle, he didn't get enough screen time for my liking. Oh well. At least he was allowed to talk.

So I guess the whole point of this is that "The Tall Man" is a movie that exceeded expectations by a pretty wide margin. I know this entry was kind of vague, but to be honest I feel a bit like I've spoiled the effect by simply acknowledging the fact that it isn't what you'd expect it to be. So I guess I'll shut up now.

You can keep talking, though. Seriously. Like in every movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I liked "The Tall Man" much more than I was expecting to. It's a very well made, completely engrossing drama that doesn't telegraph anything, making it a very effective mystery. And if this is your first exposure to Jodelle Ferland, hey there's bonus points for you. Now go watch "Tideland," where she actually speaks.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

You know, I'm tired of this. I really am.

I'm so sick and tired of watching all these mediocre, unmemorable movies that are so insanely hard to talk about. Why are they hard to talk about? Well, what are you supposed to say about something that is completely and unashamedly bland? Well, besides the fact that it is completely and unashamedly bland, I mean.

The "Mona Lisa" I could talk about. "Guernica" I could talk about. Even Andy Warhol's freaking soup can could warrant discussion. What the hell am I supposed to say about a 2x4 someone dunked in beige paint? That's not even artsy in the most snooty, elitist fashion, although get enough moscato in a Fine Arts major and I'm sure they'll do their damnedest to try.

But that's what "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is. It's a 2x4 dunked in beige paint. There wasn't even a brush involved to import some form of base artistry. There was only dunking. In and out, let dry, print a couple thousand copies, send to the theaters, next on the list.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is for me, a perfect example of a movie with no soul. There is no passion behind any of it. It's just an overly flashy checklist of action movie beats which plays out more like watching a collection of videogame cutscenes. Cutscenes with really bad CGI. The kind of cutscenes you would skip upon playing the game a second time. And the worst thing about it is that even though it goes down the list of action movie beats like clockwork, at the same time it's absurdly boring.

THRILL AS HE TWIRLS HIS AXE!!! (Seriously, thrill at it. "Axe-twirling" makes up 58% of this film.)

I think the reason it's boring is because it never gets beyond the gimmick of "Wouldn't it be silly to see Abraham Lincoln fighting the undead?" I can appreciate the concept to a point, I suppose. It's taking something that normally isn't badass and making it badass because something that isn't badass becoming badass equals a form of "awesome," as decreed by Teh Intarnets. And while there may be something to that, it's really not enough to fuel an entire movie. At least if it's actually suicidal enough to take itself seriously, which this film unfortunately does.

This movie actually takes itself WAY too seriously, in fact. As opposed to embracing the ridiculous nature, which might have made it interesting or even amusing, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is about as somber and brow-furled as "300" or "Priest," two movies of similar tone and style, which fully believe that what they're talking about is no laughing matter - even though all of them are stupid. At least "300" had the decency to be filled with so much blood and gore it would take quantum mathematics to calculate. "Priest" was PG-13 and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" has vampires with black blood.

Make sure that blood is sufficiently not-scary! We can't have red blood in our R. RATED. MOVIE.

What is the point of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?" It attempts to weave Lincoln's life around the idea that he was actually a stalker of the undead, hunting for vengeance after his mother was killed by a vampire when he was a child. After meeting a vampire hunter, played by Dominic Cooper, he becomes a skilled and inexplicably super-powered warrior thanks to the power of the training montage.

There were a couple puzzling things to me concerning the whole process of the training to become a vampire hunter. The first was that (spoiler alert) Dominic Cooper is actually a vampire. You see, in this movie, vampires literally are physically unable to kill another vampire. So Dominic Cooper trains Lincoln to do it for him. This is actually presented as a plot twist near the back half of the film, but it seems an odd oversight that Lincoln could train for evidently 10 years to spot and destroy vampires and never suspected one single time that his teacher was one of them. You know, since he's trained to detect them. Lincoln must suck at being a vampire hunter.

Like that one time Lincoln spotted a vampire due to them not showing up in a mirror, which should have also given Dominic Cooper away since he clearly could have been spotted in the mirror as well since he was standing right next to Lincoln, and shouldn't have made a reflection, but he either did, or Lincoln never noticed it or...yeah, oops.

"My god, he's bad at this. I've been dropping hints for a decade. Oh well. It's either him or Ulysses S. Grant, and that guy's a prick."

The second thing that puzzled me was the revelation that normal, everyday people are capable of acts of super human speed and strength, as long as they are sufficiently angry/enlightened. When first told to chop a tree in half with a single blow, Lincoln is understandably unable to. That is until Dominic Cooper drops some simple Dr. Phil psychoanalysis on him. Then Lincoln is officially a superhero. Seriously, he is. One tree. One swing. Just because Lincoln realized that his mother's murder made him upset. What a revelation.

You know, this kind of reminds me of another soul-reapingly stupid plot element involving normal, everyday people suddenly being able to do physically impossible things due to having some arbitrary mental block removed akin to asking them "Well, how do you know you can't do superhuman things if you've never tried?" What was it, again?

GAH! Damn it, that WAS you wasn't it, Timur?!

That's right. Director Timur Bekmambetov also did the insufferable "Wanted," another movie that insults us with sprinkling some magical mental pixie dust on the hero and saying that *boom* now they're a badass capable of things that are impossible. I nearly put a fist through my TV when I was subjected to the concept of "bullet curving," and it still makes me mad to this day just thinking about it. Some people rage over Ewoks. I have Morgan Freeman telling me that if no one had told me that bullets fly straight, I could curve them by stupidly flailing my arms like that robot from "Lost In Space."

It's just such a lazy way to make a hero awesome. It's boring. It's stupid. It's insulting. I don't like when a movie just says "Here, accept this" for no reason other than it "looks cool." At least give me a reason that is something better than "Consider the following: Do it."

I can't tell you how mad I was when "Mythbusters" wasted half an episode on "Bullet Curving."

By the way, that whole "not physically possible" thing isn't just relegated to chopping down trees with a single swing. There's also that whole thing with "collecting all the silver in Washington D.C., melting it all down, casting bayonets and cannonballs from it, transporting it all by foot 80 miles, and distribute it to an army of 90,000 men...all in around 12 hours" thing. That's fun.

I can't really think of much more to say about it than nitpicking the things that struck me as dumb or weird. Like I said earlier, it was so bland and standard vanilla that I can really just sum it up by saying that I'm guessing there will probably only be one or two scenes or moments from the movie that you remember. And it will probably involving running across horses.

LOADING VAMPIRE.ACTION.MOVE.374b.EXE...PLEASE WAIT...

I'm going to end this entry by saying what I figured I'd be saying before I even watched "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" - which is that I got far more enjoyment from "Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies." I'm dead serious. The Asylum's mockbuster was a far more heartfelt, fun, and enjoyable movie than "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." By far.

It was funnier, it was honestly more clever with history despite being somehow more ridiculous, it was absurdly more grounded in reality, but at the same time didn't take itself seriously which paradoxically made it far more believable. And there is also the issue of actor Benjamin Walker not being able to hold a candle to Bill Oberst Jr. in terms of playing Abraham Lincoln.

Bill Oberst Jr. didn't need vaguely defined superpowers to rock hardcore.

I'm serious when I say this, guys. The Asylum one upped Hollywood on this one. Given the director involved, I can't say I'm surprised.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is stupid. It's stupid because it's not trying. It has no soul, no purpose, and no sense of fun nor humor. Honestly, the best thing being said about it that I can possibly imagine is "It was what I was expecting." But that's the problem: It's exactly what you expected because it came from a cookie cutter.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

I'm going to come out and say something that is contrary to popular opinion. Shocking, I know. But here it is: I don't think that Pixar is the best animation studio. Put down your pitchforks and torches, let me explain.

I think Pixar is good. It would be foolish of me to say that they weren't. But here's the part of the game where I refuse to play ball - not everything they touch is the best thing I've ever seen. That, more than anything else, is one of the biggest problems I have with them. Every time they come out with a movie it gets nominated for every possible Oscar it can be nominated for, it pulls down nothing less than a 107% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and every person tells me it's the best film of the year, and that I should put my eyeballs into cyrogenic stasis after seeing it so that the majesty radiating from the screen can be forever stuck in my corneas.

Why this bothers me is that other animation studios don't really get the credit they deserve, because they are overshadowed by The Mighty Flawless Pixar. In fact, much like the lowly chicken nugget will forever be referred to as a "Chicken McNugget" due to a clown serving the world a pile of deep-fried, vaguely edible protein paste in mind-bending popularity, most people who see an animated film nowadays just assume that Pixar did it. And yes, maybe some confusion arises because they do kind of all have obnoxiously similar animation styles, but still, there is more than one animation studio out there.

And where this comes back around to my main point, being that I don't consider Pixar the best, is that of all my favorite animated films I've seen of the past who-knows-how-long, none of them have been Pixar. Not a single one.

Pixar also never had a scene like this.

"How To Train Your Dragon" was an incredible film. As was "Kung-Fu Panda." As was "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of The Were-Rabbit." "Megamind" also deserves mentioning. Those were all DreamWorks Animation. Then there was 2011's "Winnie the Pooh," and what is probably my favorite animated movie of the last decade, "Bolt." Those were Walt Disney Animation Studios films.

It's also worth mentioning Laika Entertainment, who is keeping the IV running into the arm of a sadly dying form of animation - stop motion. They're responsible for one of my favorite movies ever, "Coraline," not to mention this year's phenomenal "ParaNorman." All of these movies I've mentioned are superb.

And the only Pixar film I'd lump anywhere near them is "Finding Nemo." Maybe the "The Incredibles" as well, but I'd still rather watch any of the others I've mentioned before those. I don't know exactly the reason why, but I always feel manipulated watching a Pixar film, like they're setting up a tug-of-war game with my heartstrings to make up for the simply average story. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon.

So where does that bring us with "Wreck-It Ralph?" Well, simply put, this is one more instance where an animation studio, in this case Walt Disney Animation Studios and director Rich Moore, who is a "Simpsons" and "Futurama" LEGEND, has released a movie that is better than what I've seen from Pixar. While in it's first 20 minutes or so, it's kind of shaky and falls into "Toy Story"-ripoff territory, not too far into the film "Wreck-It Ralph" takes on a life of it's own to become something that, while perhaps not the most original idea ever, is executed with such charm, style, and humor that it's impossible to not have a smile on your face.

CHARM...CAPACITY...MAXED...ERROR.

I say that it gets close to "Toy Story"-ripoff territory because, well quite frankly it does. The familiar setup of inanimate objects actually being alive (in this case video game characters) isn't a new thing. The theme of old being put out by the new is also an aspect, as video games are probably far more susceptible to that than anything like an action figure is. It's similar, but "Wreck-It Ralph" seemed like more of a personal journey to me, due to it being more focused on being content with your lot in life, and finding something to give yourself both respect and purpose.

The titular character, Ralph, is the bad guy in a "Donkey Kong"-style arcade game. He's been doing it for 30 years, and he's tired of it. Being the bad guy, nobody else really likes him, even though he's not actually a bad GUY, he's just a BAD guy. True, he's not exactly the most social person, and like his name implies, he is kind of a walking implement of destruction. But that's not really his fault, it's just the way he is. He is a bad guy after all.

After a crashed party turns awkward and a challenge is flippantly dished out, Ralph decides to go out and earn himself a medal in another video game to prove that he's worth something. After all, bad guys don't get medals, but if he can go out and do just that, maybe everyone will recognize him for being more than just a villain. And then he'll be able to get some cake, which is actually something of a theme in "Wreck-It Ralph."

NOT THAT CAKE!

Everything up to that point was pretty standard fare, and I wasn't too invested in it, but when Ralph enters the other arcade games was when the movie really started taking off for me. Upon first going into the rail-shooter "Hero's Duty," the scope that "Wreck-It Ralph" was capable of really started to become clear, as the look and feel of everything changed to reflect the newer, more graphically intense modern video games. Going from something like "Donkey Kong" to a dark, intense action game a la "Star Craft" was a surprisingly pleasant jolt.

We're also introduced to possibly the best character in the movie, the intense, brooding Calhoun. She's the commander of the troops in "Hero's Duty," and is kind of a cross between Kerrigan from "Star Craft" and a Renegade fem-Sheppard from "Mass Effect." She's a dead serious, ass kicking powerhouse programed with the most tragic (and hilarious) backstory to make her suitably dour and intense.

She's voiced by Jane Lynch, which helps because Jane Lynch makes an awesome badass. They even make her character look a lot like Jane as well, which makes sense because she's the most realistic looking one of the cast, but the animation on her face is worth mentioning because it's very well done and expressive. And I'm serious when I say that I'd totally play "Hero's Duty." That game looked sweet!

Oh my god I loved Calhoun. So much.

Most of the movie takes place in a racing game called "Sugar Rush," which is like "Mario Kart" meets "Candyland." There we meet who is probably going to be the most divisive member of the cast, Vanellope, played by the comedian everyone but me seems to love to hate, Sarah Silverman. So many people are going to hate her simply because of who the voice is, and also because Vanellope is pretty much exactly Sarah Silverman, only in the form of a little girl and unable to swear because the movie is PG. I'll leave it at this - if you like Sarah Silverman, you'll like Vanellope. A lot. If you don't like Sarah Silverman, it's not a given you won't like Vanellope, but good luck with that.

Personally, I thought she was adorable and hilarious.

So much of "Wreck-It Ralph" is sold based on the chemistry between Ralph and Vanellope that if it didn't work, the movie would have collapsed on itself. Fortunately John C. Reilly, voicing Ralph, and Sarah Silverman play off each other fantastically and make for one of the better character pairings I've seen in a long time. These two characters are so different in nearly every conceivable way, but at the same time are very alike, which makes for some very touching scenes and revelations, which are heart-breakingly well acted at times. This was a particularly nice surprise for me since I'm not a fan of John C. Reilly. But I have to give credit - both of them knocked it completely out of the park here.

Rounding out the cast is Jack McBrayer as Fix-It Felix, Ralph's good guy "nemesis," and Alan Tudyk as King Candy, who functions as the villain of the film. Felix is a predictably dull goody two shoes, but King Candy is a fun character who has most of the best lines in the movie, including several "so bad they're awesome" puns which had me rolling in the aisles. Also helping is that Tudyk gives him the same crazy voice that the Mad Hatter from the old "Alice In Wonderland" had, which was a lot of fun. There's also a great "should have seen that coming but didn't" twist with King Candy.

  I'd also play "Sugar Rush." It had an AWESOME soundtrack. J-Pop madness for the win.

"Wreck-It Ralph" also goes places I wasn't completely expecting it to go. There are moments when I thought I had the next plot point sighted, only to have them deliver something I wasn't expecting. That's not to say it completely went places I wasn't expecting it to go, but a little bit of unpredictability does wonders for a genre that is pretty paint-by-numbers. And that only made the ending that much more satisfying as Ralph finally finds what it is in his life that he really cares about - and makes it so that he's finally happy with himself. It's really quite moving.

Two additional things that struck me about "Wreck-It Ralph," in closing, was that this had to have been an expensive movie. Not for the animation itself, but for the licensing rights. There are so many video game characters from across platforms here that it's amazing they're all in it together. Just watching the characters roll in is pretty impressive by itself, and they're not facsimiles - it's the real deal. There's no Speedy The Porcupine. It's actually Sonic The Hedgehog dishing out advice on staying safe while traveling to other games. That blew my mind.

The second thing was that this was actually a neat little "Obscure Arrested Development Character" reunion! Jack McBrayer was the waiter at the Country Club who has never been spoken to nicely by Lucille, Alan Tudyk was Ann's (her?) father Pastor Veal, and Jane Lynch was Cindi Lightballoon, the one who didn't know what a blooper real was! I gotta say, that's pretty cool.

God, I want the "Arrested Development" movie so bad.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Wreck-It Ralph" is a fantastic film. That's all there is to it. While I wasn't expecting much out of it, it totally surpassed my expectations and knocked a grand slam out of the park. Is it Top 10 of 2012 material? That has yet to be seen, but it's a contender, make no mistake.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

This is going to be one those entries, I can just feel it. It's going to take me forever to write this because the entire process is going to be bogged down by wanting to be fair and objective about "Moonrise Kingdom." I don't have to do that, mind you. This is my blog. I can write whatever the crap I want to. But I do want to be fair, because with a movie like this, I can tell that there will be an audience for it.

I'm just not it.

I've only seen two of Wes Anderson's movies, this and "The Royal Tenenbaums," and just by seeing those I can pretty much guarantee that I'm probably not going to like anything he makes very much. I didn't necessarily hate "The Royal Tenenbaums," but it wasn't exactly turning my dials. I think that's obvious considering I remember absolutely nothing about it besides that tombstone of Gene Hackman's.

But that's not surprising, because it illustrates perfectly what my main issue with Wes Anderson's films are: They are about nothing. Wes Anderson's films are what you would get if the Coen Brothers took their usual drama/comedies about quirky slackers getting their hands on a lot of dirty money, ditched the dirty money angle, made it a slice-of-life drama/comedy and kept everything else. And put Bill Murray in it. I swear, Wes Anderson is like Tim Burton with the amount of recycling he does with his casts.

Some may say that it's unfair to claim "Moonrise Kingdom" is about nothing. Well, they're right, it is about something. It wouldn't be much of a movie without something happening. And for this film, that something happens to be that a boy and a girl run away together on an island, and the adults and the rest of the boy's scout troop go out to find them. The whole film is presented in a very picturesque, storybook style fashion that gives the impression that you're looking at a pop-up book or something. And unsurprisingly, the charm is cranked to 11. This is a film with a death-grip on the throat of whatever cute little animal they're milking the charm out of, and they're squeezing it dry to the very last drop.

I actually noticed in the camera movements themselves that great pains were taken to be sure that the actors on screen appeared as literally two-dimensional as possible. For instance, there were never any panning shots around anybody, many shots were static as the characters walked in and out of frame, and there were a lot of very wide shots with actors on the extreme opposite sides of the screen. What this did, in addition to the bright, cheerful color palate, was to give the impression that you were looking at a picture book. In fact, it's to the point were the house of the main girl looks more like a dollhouse, and I'm not sure they didn't actually use a miniature with some camera tricks to put the actors inside.

If you saw the movie you'd understand what I'm talking about. They look 6 inches tall inside there.

There was also a lot of scrapbook style cutaways and inserts of maps or whatnot that would have looked out of place had this rest of the film not been just as stylistic. One thing I must admit was that "Moonrise Kingdom" was very effective in conveying its style and tone, and it never wavered from that.

However, and maybe I was just in a bad mood, it didn't work on me. It smacked of effort. It beat me over the head with a crowbar covered with Beatrix Potter artwork while yelling "HERE! ARE YOU CHARMED YET!?! HAH?!? HOW ABOUT NOW?!?!?" And frankly, I didn't appreciate it. Now on the other hand, if you enjoy that kind of thing, specifically crowbars with Beatrix Potter artwork on them smashing into your cranium, than by all means, watch "Moonrise Kingdom."

In all honesty, I would have been fine with the tone, and much of the movie as a whole, had it been for some changes to the cast. Not big changes, mind you. Just the two main characters. That's all. Nothing huge.

Now, in this case, one was not as bad as the other, although I felt they suffered from much of the same problem. Kara Hayward as Suzy, the girl who runs away from her home, was actually somewhat entertaining and even occasionally convincing. That is, when she was given an opportunity to emote. This only happens very rarely, I assure you.

Just go ahead and guess what emotion she's conveying. It's the same expression for all of them...

You remember Wednesday from "The Addams Family?" Yeah. That's about the level of passion and intensity she displays about 97% of the time. All of her line readings - ALL of them - are said with the same monotone, lifeless, nobody-on-the-planet-talks-like-that way that apparently is the only way to portray a "quirky" character. I don't really blame her, though. I think Kara is probably a fine actress, and will probably have a good career ahead of her. I blame Wes Anderson, because this kind of dullness is, from what I've seen, one of his calling cards.

Now, I gave Kara some slack, but it's hard to do the same for Jared Gilman, playing Sam, our hero. He's the boy scout that abandons his troop, and I have to come out and say that I found him to be downright unwatchable. He is terrible, and again, I'm not sure if I should blame the actor or the director. I'm more inclined to say it's Anderson's fault for making him read his lines in such a way, but at the same time, at least Kara was able to slightly convince me that she was a real-life person. There's no chance with this Jared kid.

It appears that this kid has no concept of the use of punctuation or normal cadences when speaking. Everything he says is delivered in this rapid-fire, disinterested manner that comes off like a night of really really bad amateur community theater, and it just baffles me that anyone could not find him distracting. He comes off a total creep - or someone who is going to grow up to have a nice collection of human femurs under his mattress. He's supposed to be charming?
 

He also looks like Steven Page from BNL. Which is also weird.

I can't believe I'm throwing up a defense for him here, but even a bad kid actor could do better than the wretched performance I saw here. It's got to be Wes Anderson telling him to do it like that. Apparently when you're a Indie film darling, you can get away with terrible performances all in the name of being "quirky." What a crock.

Oddly enough I did like the rest of the cast, but then again when you've got great actors like Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray it's easy to like them. And although both Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand were kind of roped into the same Wes Anderson patented goofiness that plagued much of the rest of the cast, they still managed to be likable. It wasn't like "Burn After Reading," where I wanted to take a hatchet to the face of every single last cast member.

Look out, the camera is telling me we're about to get zany! Woah-ho-ho!

Actually, I found myself liking Edward Norton's character a lot. Despite starting off as one of the goofiest, he became one of the most believable and likeable, since he's pretty much the only one with an actual character-arc. Imagine that. He was also able to elicit most of the laughs I got from "Moonrise Kingdom." In fact, I'm trying to think of a laugh I got that didn't involve him, and I'm drawing a blank.

Okay, it's time to wrap this up. Did I like "Moonrise Kingdom?" No. Was it pretty much predetermined that I wasn't going to? Yeah. It's just not for me. But if you like Wes Anderson, all of what I said above can be disregarded, because the reasons that I disliked "Moonrise Kingdom" is probably the reasons you'll love it.

But there's one thing that is not defensible. The dog. They killed the dog. There is a body count of exactly 1 in this film, and it's the damn dog. And there was NO reason for it at all. In fact, I'm still not sure what the crap happened, but the dog is dead. It's name was Snoopy. And "Moonrise Kingdom" had him in the movie for one reason: To die for no reason.

Moonrise Kingdom...you're a jerk.

 
THE BOTTOM LINE - I don't like Wes Anderson, so I didn't like "Moonrise Kingdom." I found it boring and not a little bit pretentious, and it tried way too hard to be charming. But fans of Wes Anderson will probably consider it the masterpiece they consider anything he touches.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

On this best day of the year, Halloween, it seems prudent to talk about a movie that is considered one of the best horror films ever made, 1974's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." It's not all the time that I agree with general consensus in terms of "best ever." I'm enough of a curmudgeon to point out oversights or stuff that I thought wasn't as good as everyone says it was. I can be something of a downer that way. But in this case, the general consensus is right. "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a masterpiece. And that's no bull.

Everything about this movie is just plain eerie and disturbing. The mood just drips off of the screen with every frame, drawing you into a hot, sweaty, nasty, foul smelling, sticky nightmare that lasts for 84 minutes - from the now-classic foreboding opening narration to the frantic and abrupt slap-in-the-face ending which is just as iconic.

"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is from an era where horror films were generally more about lead-in and atmosphere than shock and gore, although to be sure those thing existed. But it was more about the unseen, which for my money is far more effective than showing. And although when it was released, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was extremely controversial, and was one of the infamous "Video Nasties," compared to today's standard stock it's pretty tame in terms of what you actually see.

In fact, something I always found interesting was that when you talked to people about "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," they always remember it as being far gorier than it actually was. To me, that's the mark of a fantastically effective horror film. Oh for sure, there are people getting stuck on meathooks and getting dissected with the titular wood-cutting implement, but it's always kept obscured, which makes it more effective since your brain is capable of coming up with far more disgusting things than what the screen can show you.

Oh, this can't end pleasantly...

The story may be somewhat cliche nowadays, mostly because of the slew of imitators it spawned. The tale of a group of college-aged students running afoul of a bunch of inbred hillbillies is not something that is uncommon in the annals of horror movies. But rarely does a story like that give rise to such a legendary villain, in this case Leatherface - the Ed Gein inspired giant who wears a mask made from the skin of his victim's faces.

The interesting thing about Leatherface is that mentally, he's a child. It's not a stretch to imagine that under other circumstances he probably wouldn't hurt a fly, and would be a quiet, dim-witted, lumbering, friendly giant. But because of the savage upbringing he received, murder and slaughter is second nature to him, like a child being taught the ritual of making their breakfast cereal. And when these people walk into Leatherface's house, it scares him. He does what he's been told and butchers them like cattle, but there's no malice or rage. It's all fear of these strangers, the same as a toddler crying when they meet someone new they're not sure of. Only this time, the toddler is a 6' 7", 275 lb. beast with a chainsaw. And he's coming at you with it.

That's freaking scary, man.

Gunnar Hansen plays Leatherface with a supreme grasp of the physicality required to pull off being scary while having no dialogue besides pig-like squeals and muffled yelps. In preparing for the role, Hansen said he spent a lot of time with specials needs children in order to convincingly portray someone like that, and it really paid off. One of the eeriest scenes of the movie is ironically the only quiet moment Leatherface gets, where he just sits there spacing out, and Hansen has this amazing "thousand yard stare" going on. It's also the only part when you get a good look at his eyes under the mask, and the eyes are where he sells that moment, as you can see what little wheels are up there are turning as best they can.

I'm also a fan of Marilyn Burns, who plays Sally, the "Final Girl" as the trope has it. I can't even imagine the kind of strain and torture and general horribleness that must have gone into the crafting of her performance, but it is extraordinary to watch. The entire last half hour of the film is essentially made up of Sally alternating between running for her life and screaming her head off, and much of the time doing both at once. I can't imagine someone keeping up the level of intensity she has for that long, but she did it.

I know the screaming woman has been done countless times before, but in "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" it's different. When you see it in this movie, it seems legit. It feels absolutely real. And I'm seriously of the opinion that her demented, hysterical laughter right before the credits roll of someone taken right to the edge of their sanity and given a nudge off the cliff before being yanked back wasn't at least partly genuine.

Seriously. I think you're looking at someone who is, at that very moment, legally insane.

I also liked Teri McMinn, who played Pam, and would forever be known afterwards as "The Meathook Girl." Her terror isn't as drawn out as Sally's, but for as long as it lasts, it's just as intense. And while Sally got far more screen time, the image of Pam hanging on a meathook while watching her boyfriend get carved up with a chainsaw on the table in front of her may be the most memorable single image from a movie composed of memorable images. At least it was for me. And man, does she sell that scene. It's horrifying.

Edwin Neal is also a standout as The Hitchhiker, bringing one of the most bizarre, awkward and disturbing introductions to a horror movie that I've seen. Before he appears, the movie had been all about mood and foreboding. The first image we see is a corpse dug up and displayed in a shamanistic fashion on a tombstone. There's a dead armadillo on the road. Pam starts taking about bad juju because Saturn is in retrograde and other hippie stuff. An old man says creepy stuff like "Things happen here they don't tell you about. I see things." They drive by a slaughterhouse. This is all in like five minutes.

We do nothing but hear about all this bad stuff getting ready to happen. Then the Hitchhiker appears and puts a face on this dread and ominous madness. The clearly insane ramblings of this guy give the impression that he could just as well not even be a person. He could just as likely be an avatar of the land itself, made flesh and bone from the sun-baked evil that has permeated the very dirt of this stretch of lonesome, backwoods country. After he enters their van and marks them, there is no escape. The Earth itself may have just as well opened up and swallowed them whole, and Neal makes you believe it all. It's another fantastic performance.

If this guy gets in your van and tells you, "My family's always been in meat," find a way to invent a time machine quickly as possible, and go back and stop yourself from EVER setting foot in Texas. Seriously. Just do it.

On the other hand, I did not care much for Paul Partain, who played Sally's wheelchair bound brother, Franklyn. Obnoxious is too mild a word for this guy, and by the end you're actually looking forward to Leatherface putting him and the audience out of their misery. Evidently this feeling was also shared among the cast, as apparently Partain wasn't much liked on set either, since he was just as obnoxious as his character was. Hansen reportedly was looking forward to the scene when he took him out, since that meant he would be going home. Then again, it did make for some very believable tension between the actors. Can't argue with that, I suppose.

Once Sally is the last one left, the final act of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" begins. And it is, bar none, one of the most intense and punishing stretches of terror I've ever seen. The dinner scene in particular is filmed in such a unique, uncomfortable way so as to make us feel that it's us strapped to the chair, being served what is undoubtedly our last meal before being butchered by this family of freaks. The extreme, frankly beautiful close ups of Marilyn Burns' eyes just do something to me that puts me on such an edge. I never thought I'd see an eyeball so close up that I could actually see the tears not forming on the lid, but coming out of the duct itself.

And you thought Malcom McDowell's eyes got a lot of screen time...

I'm not a big fan of slasher movies, as most who know my tastes in horror can tell you, but I make exception for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." It's just so masterfully crafted in its pacing, so effective with its tone, and so smart with its scares that I think it transcends the genre that it helped create. This isn't just a compilation of kills, gore, and T&A, like most slasher films are. It's a grueling endurance test. The last act in particular is so ungodly uncomfortable to watch, and assaults you so completely with the pure cacophony of screams and yelling and chainsaw revving that it is mentally - and borders on physically - exhausting. That's art.

It ain't pleasant, but it's art none the less.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a fantastic movie. Any person who considers the horror genre something that they even passably enjoy owes it to themselves to see it. Gore-hounds will find it lacking, but people who enjoy their horror more atmospheric and scary rather than simply gross and startling will find plenty to enjoy. If "enjoy" is a word that can be used in conjunction with "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

Dark Shadows (2012)

Allow me to begin by saying: "Nerts."

Nerts is all I have to say about Tim Burton. I am so done with him. It's gotten to the point that the thought of another Tim Burton movie coming out causes me to become so irritated that whenever a trailer for a new project of his comes out, I want to punch the person sitting next to me in the theater. Repeatedly. One punch for every time I call who is going to be involved in the movie.

Of course it's got Helena Bonham Carter. Of course it's got Danny Elfman doing the same freaking  musical score that he always does. Of course Christopher Lee is going to have a 30 second cameo. And of freaking course we can't have a Tim Burton movie without Johnny Depp, who will once again be playing Hunter S. Thompson, because that's all his brain can process at this point since he's been playing Hunter S. Thompson for about 10 years.

I'm just so tired of every movie Tim Burton makes having a copy/pasted credit list. And it's not that he hasn't collected a bunch of really great talent, because he has. His casts are always really, really good. But he needs moderation with dipping into this same pool of actors, because at this point it's honestly distracting. I have such a difficult time losing myself in a Tim Burton movie because the mere presence of Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp in really heavy makeup is distracting at this point.

Oh look, it's Johnny Depp in...any one of the 214 movies he's done with Tim Burton...

I challenge Tim Burton to make one film without those people. And have it not be a dark fantasy. Direct a Bond movie or something. And while he's at it, hire Hans Zimmer or James Newton Howard.

Just to show that he can.

Obviously it was not without a great deal of apprehension that I watched "Dark Shadows." Seeing Johnny Depp on the cover, once again doing his best to look weird for no reason other than to look weird for weird's sake didn't help. And of course, the fact that it's a movie about vampires was the salt in the wound, because a good vampire movie is rare nowadays. Plus the reception it got had been pretty bad.

But, and maybe this is merely the result of coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen the TV show it was based on, I have to say that "Dark Shadows" was not nearly as bad as I had heard it being. In fact I dare say I enjoyed it for a good portion of the film. Now, were there stupid things in it? Oh you bet there were. But it wasn't enough to ruin anything for me. And that's including Johnny Depp, which is quite the achievement because the charm of Depp is running on fumes for me at this point.

The idea of "Dark Shadows" is that Johnny Depp is playing Barnabas Collins, a rich nobleman who is cursed by a witch to be a vampire, since that's how vampires work in this movie. Kind of. More on that later. The witch is played by Eva Green, who looks lovely as she does her best blonde Anne Hathaway impression. She and Barnabas have a fairly complicated relationship. Long story short, they had a fling, he was honest and said he liked her but wasn't in love with her, so she kills his girlfriend, turns him into a vampire and locks him in a coffin till the end of time.

Fast forward to 200 years later, it's the 1970's, and Barnabas is freed from his prison by unwitting and ill fated construction workers. Making his way back home, he finds that what remains of the Collins family is now rather pathetic and pretty much ruined, with the only thing of value they have being the ancient mansion they live in, which is as dilapidated as their bank accounts. Seeing this, Barnabas decides to return the Collins family to their former glory.

He also has to deal with that little problem of that witch who locked him in a box for 200 years. She's still around.

"Oh don't be so dramatic. It was 198 years."

A lot of fuss was made about "Dark Shadows" being a comedy. Honestly, it really wasn't that overt. Yes, there were silly parts in it, and some admittedly funny lines, but the tone never solidified on "comedy" for me. The whole movie was dark enough to stay a drama, in my opinion. I mean, yes, the scene where Johnny Depp and Eva Green are banging on the ceiling was a bit ridiculous, but to be perfectly honest, it kind of made sense to me. And who am I to say that supernatural beings can't have more unique sex than normal people?

Honestly, the funniest character for me was Carolyn, played by my girl Chloë Grace Moretz. Her job is to be the rebellious teen who listens to rock and hangs out with hippies, and her deadpan, disinterested delivery was oddly 90's in a lot of ways, almost like a proto-hipster. Her lines aren't fall-down funny, in fact none of the jokes in "Dark Shadows" are, but it's the tone of her voice when she says stuff to Barnabas like "You're weird" that gave me a chuckle.

Okay, her line "I'm pretty sure he called me a hooker" was actually pretty damn funny.

Of course, there's a really really stupid part involving her at the end, which I won't spoil, but suffice to say it's pretty much the definition of "right the crap out of nowhere." And it has to be from the show. There's no way it couldn't be. The twist they give her character is so out there and without any lead in whatsoever nor resolution or explanation, that it has got to be referencing the TV show. Otherwise they're literally just screwing with stuff.

Something else that bugged me was that the vampire lore in "Dark Shadows" seems a bit...inconsistent. I'm talking about whether or not Barnabas can make other vampires, because it really goes all over the place. At first it would appear that people he bites just die, then later people he bites eventually, much later, come back to life as vampires, but then later a person can *instantly* become immortal the second he bites them. It was all thoroughly confusing, but I suppose in a movie where vampirism is due to a witch's curse, any kind of established lore is out the window.

Little known fact: Vampires love waffles.

That last thing came into play at the end of the film, which was really the only part of the movie that I legitimately thought wasn't very good. I did not like the ending, not so much because it was bad, but it seemed really rushed and somewhat at odds with the rest of the story, all in an effort to end it on an upbeat. Maybe not every story needs a happy ending.

Honestly though, it's not really that much to get mad about. I still found "Dark Shadows" to be decently entertaining, despite some annoying stuff like that. A lot of that has to do with the cast, which I found to be quite good. And that's including Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, who I was not expecting to like. There was also Michelle Pfeiffer, and it's nice to see her again. And of course having Chloë Grace Moretz in it was awesome, but I was also jazzed to see Jackie Earl Haley is in it too, and having just those two is frankly enough to make me watch it alone. Oh and Alice Cooper makes an appearance. He plays himself. And yes it is silly.

And no, I don't know why it's the 70's and he looks to be a senior citizen. Don't mind that.

So I guess "Dark Shadows" gets a pass from me. In much the same way as "The Raven" got a pass, I think. It's not that it was necessarily good, but it was so much better than the reception had lead one to believe it to be. Hooray for lowered standards, I guess?

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Dark Shadows" surprised me by being a recent Tim Burton movie I liked, mostly because it really doesn't feel like a Tim Burton movie. While not an outstanding achievement in film making by any stretch, in terms of a drama/comedy it's actually reasonably entertaining. As long as you're not a huge fan of the TV show, I'd expect, considering its reception.