The Black Dahlia

I’ve been to Disneyworld on a handful of occasions in my life. When I was there I always loved the Haunted Mansion. I think I liked it as a kid because it was “scary lite.” I liked how it was scary was like without actually being scary. It was safe scary. Surface scary. Beneath the dark veneer it was all safe and bright. It’s a schtick that Disney has down pat. Managing to take something and give you the general idea behind it while making it completely removed from everything that makes “it”, well, it.

The Black Dahlia was like a Disney version of noir. It looked nice and shiny on the surface but lacked any of the depth and danger that makes noir, well, noir.

I’ll get this out of the way. I consider James Ellroy’s “The Black Dahlia” to be one of the ten best books ever written. It was an incredible characterization of obsession and paranoia. And I can’t begin to tell you how it pains me to see such incredible source material squandered on such a miscast, poorly written, badly directed piece of crap as this movie.

The movie is very badly miscast. Josh Hartnett as Bucky Bleichart simply does not work. Bucky is supposed to be a man obsessed with finding the Dahlia’s killer so that he can save his partner from going off the deep end and avoid being tempted by his partners girlfriend. Hartnett chooses to play this incredibly comples character with all the subtlety and panache of a block of wood. It pains me to hate on something like this, but it really truly deserves it.

I won’t go on about how the script manages to be bereft of everything that made the book so moving and emotional or how a movie about “the black Dahlia” barely makes any mention of her for the first 40 minutes. It’ll just have to suffice to say that it was all I could to not pick up my Gameboy and play Zelda until the movie was over.

3/10

Little Miss Sunshine

I have this aunt named Betty. Betty is kind of an odd duck. She likes to talk a lot and, more often than not, it’s about something you don’t really care about. She’s not crazy or anything by any stretch of the word. She’s just kind of odd. She likes to put on lots and lots of make-up but she doesn’t really put it on properly. Her eyelashes are always caked with mascara. Her lipstick is generally also on her teeth in addition to her lips. Most of my family avoids her. I do to. But I also feel kind of sad for her. She’s kind of old and lonely see, and I get the feeling that she just wants a friend. But she’s so socially awkward that being friends with her would be like teaching a bear to wipe his ass. Difficult, to say the least. So consequently we all try to avoid prolonged conversations with her. I’m sure you know at least one person or family member like this. You probably take the same tact with them that we take with Aunt Betty. Avoid a drawn out conversation with them at all costs.

Little Miss Sunshine is about what happens when you take a family of Aunt Bettys and force them to communicate.

You’ve got a foul-mouthed heroin snorting grandfather. A dad that’s trying to pitch a self-help program to publishers. A son who’s taken a vow of silence until he accomplishes his goal of getting into the Air Force. A gay uncle who’s just attempted suicide. A homely young daughter who wants to win beauty pageants. And a distracted mom trying to keep them all together. Each one of them has their own worldview that is a source of irritation with everyone else in the family. They don’t talk much anymore. Then an opportunity for the daughter to compete in the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant, 800 miles away, forces them all into an old VW bus to drive her there. It’s here in the unairconditioned confines of the bus that the family finally starts to really communicate, even if it’s only out of sheer boredom. Along the trip each member has either a breakdown or an epiphany which snaps them out of their malaise and makes them realize how much they truly love their family.

The danger with putting this much quirkiness into a movie is that it can feel forced. And it’s only thanks to an incredible cast that the movie never crosses into cheap sentimentality. Alan Arkin and Steve Carrell are especially good in the two roles that could have ended up being annoying but thanks to their great interpretation of the characters make the grandfather and the uncle especially endearing. The movie as a whole, in fact, is very charming despite the fact that it is itself, an Aunt Betty. It has all the typical “independent film” tricks. Quirky music. Well known actors proving their depth. And last but certainly not least, titles all done in a minimalist font. Oh yeah, dig it man. Dig it.

Still, Little Miss Sunshine is a rare gem in that it manages to get its somewhat heavy handed message across in a lighthearted and charming way. Even if it sometimes gets its lipstick on its teeth, you’ll forgive it and make friends pretty quick.

8/10

The Descent

Great horror works on one simple level. it takes death and puts it in the front of your consciousness. The hows and whys and wheres and whens can all vary, but for horror to truly hit it’s emotional peak of possibilities, it needs to peel back your blocked worries and thoughts regarding your own demise. And, if the horror film you’re watching is a true classic, it will confront you with the idea of imminent death. death without the possibility of parole so to speak. It will flood you with despair and depression as you feel what it’s like to KNOW that you ARE going to die and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.

The descent is a great horror film.

It tells the story of a group of 6 women who come together to explore a cave in the appalachian mountains. One of these women, is there to confront her grief over the death of her husband and daughter in a horrific car crash. two are there to support her. The rest are there for thrill. After a brief beginning where we see the car crash that killed the one woman’s family, and the 6 of them meeting up the night before the expedition begins, the film heads underground and the claustrophobia begins. Now, I’ve never really been one to freak out about small spaces. But then again i’ve never been in the cave passages that these type of women are forced to go through in this movie. There are sections where they crawl on their stomachs through passages so tight that their lungs aren’t able to expand enough to take in decent size breaths. And the film does such an amazing job of putting you right in there with them when they go through this. There is one section where the women are going through just such a passage and the tunnel starts to creak and dust starts falling indicating an imminent collapse.

And while the movie could have simply been a series of these scenes, showing the horror of possibly being crushed or buried alive, It actually goes one step further. After enduring all manner of physically exhausting passages the women are almost on the verge of finding a way out. But then something happens, something shows up which completely changes the film and makes it even darker and bleaker. I won’t say what because when the film took this turn it was a complete surprise and ratcheted up the despair and terror to almost unberable levels. Suffice to say that these women, if they had only been able to set aside their own interests, might have had a happy ending.

The descent drags death to the front of your consciousness. It floods you with despair. It sucks any and all hope from your life for 2 hours and dares you to try and feel anything good about yourself or the world. The descent is a truly great horror film. and in my humble opinion, like all truly great horror, it transcends it’s genre to become great film in general.

10/10

Lady In the Water

They have woefully misadvertised this

If you want comparisons think more along the lines of movies like ‘E.T.” “Batteries Not Included” and “Cocoon”. Movies that dealt with the supernatural but not a menacing, threatening supernatural. No, this movie deals with the supernatural that is good and protective. The supernatural of guardian angels and benign aliens that wish to enlighten and enrich. So those of you expecting any attempts to care or horrify are going to be let down hard. God only knows why they chose to advertise the movie like they did.

So if the movie isn’t a “horror thriller’ then what is it? Well, early on they were kind of using the phrase “bedtime story” which isn’t innaccurate. But a more accurate way of putting it would be “a bedtime story for kids for adults that want to act like kids” The narrative of the movie is a mish-mash of plot points that seemingly pop-up at random and the logic of the universe of “lady in the water” seems to be very fluid and not really aware of it’s own purpose. But then again, what children’s story isn’t like that? Try to think of any children’s fantasy story that didn’t seem to arbitrarily change it’s direction according to what the author felt would get the kids most excited. got your hero in a tight spot? just make some shit up about him having powers he didn’t know! Gave him powers that were too powerful? just make the enemies suddenly immune to the powers you gave them!

most would call this sloppy storytelling. and indeed if you want to judge this story by more literary means, then, yes, it is a meandering mess that appears to have just been improvised as they were shooting. perhaps it was. but that assesment misses the point I think. This is a movie that tries to get to storytelling in it’s most basic form. where all the rules are off and you can just do what seems right at the moment. A movie that asks you to bring your inner-child to the forefront of your conciousness for an hour or so and just imagine all this crazy shit for the sake of trying to actually imagine something again.

the other thing night has done in this movie is take every major complaint critics and fans have had of his movies since “unbreakable” and amplify them tenfold. people thought it was egomaniacal that he gave himself small parts in his films, in this one he gives himself a MAJOR part. they said that his twists were stupid and seemed to be arbitrary. in this movie, every single scene is an arbitrary plot point that is not set-up. Perhaps the thing he did the most to piss-off movie critics is to make the villain of the film a MOVIE CRITIC! in fact this movie critic is sitting there facing one of the “scrunts” and having an inner dialog about how in horror movies he should be safe because typically the villain will turn and run and the monster will leap and just miss while the villain runs out the door. as soon as he finishes his little soliloquy the thing eats him alive.

All that said i still don’t know how i felt about the movie. parts of it had me smiling and laughing because i could just imagine a group of 4-5 year olds sitting around a campfire while grampa tells them this story and they gasp and oooh at each development. at other times i wanted the movie to get over it’s own self-awareness and just get on with it.

long story short (yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck off)
7/10

Miami Vice

I feel compelled to break this movie down into percentages. Miami Vice is thusly:

15% bad sound
15% boring setup
70% incredible action

you see, at it’s heart, Miami Vice is a Michael Mann action film. And as such, any and all previous grievances you have with the film are forgotten once the shit hits the fan and the bullets start flying. Mann is able to put you in the moment with his gunfights in ways that other action directors could only dream of. He has an ability to elicit such raw adrenaline that at moments when characters are scrambling for cover, you hold your breath in anticipation. He has the talent to take ages old action cliches and give them a raw visceral power that forces you to care about the outcome beyond a passing interest in see explosions and gore. He can take all the heart and humanity that many complain is missing from action movies, and put it in his films in such copious amounts that he leaves no doubt that head shots, blood, and death, can be and in fact, are, art of a high nature.

And then there’s the way the film looks. Fucking gorgeous. I’m a sucker for great night photography. and Mann delivers night shots of freeways, palm trees, dance clubs, runways and skylines. each frame of this film is filled with light struggling to escape the blackness around it. and Mann’s choice to shoot the film in HD and transfer to film (a technique he first used in “Collateral”) gives the movie a griminess, a grit, that belies the hell that Crockett and Tubbs have gotten themselves into.

Oh yeah, Crockett and Tubbs. Foxx and Farrell. I remember when the trailer for this film first appeared there was alot of grumbling that these guys looked like they just phoned in their performances. People complained that they looked and acted like they didn’t even wanna be there. What’s actually happening here is that Foxx and Farell are playing their roles right to fucking hilt. If they look and act like they don’t want to be there, it’s because Crockett and Tubbs don’t want to be there. These are guys who have been doing an incredibly stressful job for a long time. and they don’t like it anymore. They’ve been going to work for years and getting the hell beat out of them emotionally and physically. and when they have the plot of the movie forced upon them, they feel the full weight of their jobs on their shoulders at all times. they walk with slouched shoulders, they talk in hushed tones. they’ve had enough and they just want the shit to stop. and indeed their comes a point in the film where they are given the choice to stop the undercover operation, but they’ve realized what’s at stake and continue on even though everyone (including themselves) don’t want to.

Ok so all of the above was the 70%.

I said this movie was 15% bad sound. I don’t if i should blame the movie or the theater but for the first 40 minutes of the film everything is way to quiet. You really cannot hear anything without straining and you have to really perk your ears up to catch what’s being said. Which is a shame given how Mann’s films are usually shining examples of technical perfection.

the other 15% of the movie was boring setup. And boring it is. The problem with the first 40 minutes is that we all know where it’s going. We know exactly what’s gonna happen before it does that you just kind of sit there tapping your watch, going ” ok. ok. ok. get on with it”. and indeed until Crockett meets his love interest the film appears to be following, lockstep, with every other undercover cop movie ever made. But, like i said, the good guys and the bad guys start slapping cartridges into assault rifles, the snipers take up position and all is forgiven.

9/10

go see it.