Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Review

IMDB Review: Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek is one of the only television successes to contain some actual science fiction concepts, especially from 3rd season forward in Next Generation, but this movie, like it's crappy reboot predecessor is an action movie with spaceships. Into Darkness has about as much science fiction and boldly going as the recent James Bond, Skyfall, which is to say ... sadly ... none.

This terrible writing team (the guy who couldn't figure out what to do with the show Lost or the movie Prometheus and the idiots behind Transformers) has contrived a tapestry of action with artificial amped-up crisis after crisis--- the entire movie is essentially action scenes with a couple of pauses for clichéd dramatic beats--- "You're a loose cannon!" "This time ... it's personal!" "Vulcans should be more emotional."

Most of the cast is terrible cartoon caricature (Scotty & Bones are abysmal Saturday Night Live sketch performances), except Greenwood as Pike (this actor is directorproof, great in Exotica) and Kirk and Spock are good enough to keep me interested at a level of almost a 4. 

The things lifted from Wrath of Khan are numerous and embarrassing and exemplify everything that is wrong with Hollywood and the remake/reboot machine: No CREATIVITY anywhere. Too much attempt to please the crowd, without any thought, challenge or boldly going anywhere.

Looks like JJ Abrams is well set up to continue making Star Wars movies exactly as cluttered and contrived and silly as The Phantom Menace. 

Cluttered Action Sequences + Thievery (aka "homages") + Caricatures = Into Darkness

It's sad that an innovative franchise is now a dumb, loud and thoughtless lowest common denominator junk. Sci-fi should make you think, but this pile of noise shuts down the thinking process.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) Review

IMDB Review: Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Zero Dark Thirty is dull and plays out like a very long TV cop procedural. In an attempt to remain sort of removed from the incendiary topic, we get a bland, emotionally detached movie.

Chastain is bad. This is pure soap opera acting and sometimes way worse--- like TV anchorwoman kind of stuff. Her deliveries of some lines of dialog ("don't go outside") are incredibly stiff and just seem like (bad) audition material. The scenes of confrontation with her and her bosses are incredibly uncontrolled (read: sitcom overacting) and forced. She's just terrible. The fact that people think she's good in this shows that people have no idea what good acting is at all. It is clear that she is being awarded because the role is a "strong" role about a determined woman, though what we see on the screen is an unconvincing and teary-eyed eighties sitcom performance.

Jason Clarke is pretty good and has some charisma, as does Chris Pratt. The scenes with them don't seem like they are scenes starring actors who are trying way too hard to be something they are not.

The script is mediocre at best. Instead of any scenes that show us anything about these people or their world it's all procedure. Instead of witnessing Chastain's lack of a social life, we get one scene of her drinking a soda, and have several characters tell us about her lack of a social life. Instead of witnessing her fatigue (which isn't in her performance), her friends tell us she's tired. Instead of seeing Jason Clarke grow weary of his job as a torturer, we are told that he has grown weary of his job as a torturer.

Bigelow should get a new writer, cause this one isn't good, and in the end, we land with the exact same exact point of The Hurt Locker--- that "the people of war" aren't comfortable outside of their missions. And even the mission is cluttered in terms of her direction--- too many cuts and too many point of views.

A really dull and dramatically uninteresting telling of a powerful story.

Ooru naito rongu: Sanji (1995) Review

IMDB Review: Ooru naito rongu: Sanji (1995)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

So this is not nearly as disturbing as the reviews on this site and others imply.

There's a reason that movies like Deliverence, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Audition and Funny Games are far more unsettling than this one-- quality acting. The cackling bad guy is the least interesting choice a writer can make, and although certainly some real life bad guys have tittered, the villains in All Night Long 2: Atrocity often seem like people who should be fighting Speakman or Seagal in a direct to video martial arts movie. (Though plenty of those are better than this-- eg. Flesh & Bone, Last Man Standing and Martial Outlaw.)

When All Night Long 2 is dry and cool--- much of its first half--- the piece is a somewhat effective and uncomfortable viewing experience. But once the nerd starts smiling at the sadism, it's obvious where this is going-- and that happens very early on. His performance is stiff at best, and terrible and silly by the end. The sort of stuff that ruined Hong Kong movies likes Untold Story and Dr. Lamb (and I saw both of those projected in 35mm on the big screen). The gore is mostly spraying blood, oftentimes with too much magenta and overall this movie is not remotely convincing--- and since it's so contained and bare bones, it really needed to feel authentic. And the sound effects are very loud-- again, making the proceedings feel false.

Atrocity does not compare to other small shot on video sadism like (the serious) Guinea Pigs, nor the first August Underground, much less the wildly creative Brian Paulin movies (Fetus, Bone Sickness) and the early Ittenbach pieces.

Blackaria (2010) Review

IMDB Review: Blackaria (2010)

The content of French indie gem Blackaria is the style--- its lush and oblique presentation of its giallo content.

Giallo can mean a lot of things, but here I use the term to mean stylishly-photographed horror-mystery with lingering shots of gore and unclothed females and a puzzling sensibility throughout akin to dreaming. No more or less logical than things like House by the Cemetery or Inferno, and similarly entertaining, Blackaria is a collection of dreamy and lush visual sequences. Lighted with the strong reds and blues of vintage Argento and misty like Fulci, Blackaria is an atmospheric and convoluted concoction of blades, blood and breasts.

I saw an Argento interview where he said that Sergio Leone told him that the center of Once Upon a Time in the West was not the plot or actors, but the camera and Blackaria follows in that tradition, offering an experience that is violent, erotic, puzzling and atmospheric.

American Horror Story (2011) Review

IMDB Review: American Horror Story (2011)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

American Horror works acceptably (until the end) because it keeps so many things in motion--- plots and timelines and things that go bump in the night. Sort of like Heroes (also a 5)-- and no scarier-- the show relentlessly churns and twists to surprising reveal after surprising reveal all delivered with maximum pathos, though a fair share of the performances are good. There is never once a scary moment--- quick cuts and lots of goofy canted shots pretty much guarantee there is never any atmosphere, unless you think music videos are atmospheric. The heavy handed music choices don't help, excepting the cool whistling bit and the piece that sounds stolen from Wojciech Kilar's superb score for (the otherwise crappy) Coppola-directed Dracula (I don't like to put Bram Stoker's name at the front of that one.) 

So AHS functions as a fast moving and surprising soap opera with a big budget, some good make up fx and some decent acting, which is why it gets a 5. Actually had the last double length episode not been the series nadir--- really bad dialogue and spacious melodrama that fails utterly--- the show would be slightly north of mediocre, but 'afterbirth' is pretty stinky, and the penultimate episode 'birth' not much better.

Like most Stephen King stuff that I don't like*, it is essentially modern day fantasy with too much explanation of everything so it barely even functions as suspense, much less horror. Ghosts as lead characters who can appear and disappear at will puts this in a camp with things like Ghost (yes, the Swayze one) and Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. If you think Ghost and Blithe Spirit are horror, then American Horror Story is horror, but I don't (and you shouldn't) even if AHS has occasional gore and burn make up.

Overall, American Horror Story is a mildly engaging soap with better than average acting for a soap and a lot more blood than the average soap, but actually less creepy than the original Dark Shadows show, which actually had atmosphere and let the scenes breathe (and had better music as well).

*Horror guys I dig are the old school of Lovecraft, Blackwood and Machen, and also the visceral and immediate books of high tension storyteller Richard Laymon.