Henry Saw: Three More Movies I Missed During Summer...

Splice, Twilight: Eclipse, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. You'll never guess which one I thought was the best...




Splice: Let's start with IMDB's plot description: Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody), two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren", the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.

Vincenzo Natali's Splice is clearly the grand-child of David Cronenberg's The Fly. Filled with dark humor, twisted sexuality, and reflections of modern concerns, Splice has a lot going for it. Sarah Polley, who I last saw in Dawn of the Dead but who is an accomplished Hollywood figure, is fantastic. Adrien Brody, who is forced to say much worse dialogue and do much more awkward things, does not shine. Delphine Chanéac, who plays Dren as an "adult", is also worth mentioning as she gives gives pathos to a character who says nothing.

Splice is fine...but it could have been a lot more. It makes cheap and easy choices, is filled cheesy lines, and tries to shock for shock's sake...which is always a bad decision. I appreciate the effort, and I love that Polley and Brody agreed to attach themselves to this film, but it just doesn't work. Of the three movies here I was willing to be the most forgiving to this one. Cool idea, arty actors, stylish direction...but Splice kinda sucks. Bummer.

Grade: C+




Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: Via Disney - "Set in the mystical lands of Persia, a rogue prince (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a mysterious princess (Gemma Arterton) race against dark forces (Ben Kingsley and friends) to safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the Sands of Time -- a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world."

So this was Jerry Bruckheimer's big successor to the Pirates of the Caribbean series, looking to strike gold with a video game series the same way he created a film franchise out of a 40 year old ride, and it follows a similar formula. The only problem is that where the first Pirates of the Caribbean (we'll not speak of the sequels) was a charming and innovative movie, and was anchored by a fantastic performance from Johnny Depp, Prince of Persia is just sort of...there. It's not that Jake Gullenhaal is bad, he's surprisingly decent, or that the plot is significantly worse than Pirates...it's just that it never comes together.

In fact, it's really quite bad. There were multiple scenes where I just threw my hands up in frustration at how lame it all was. Directed by Mike Newell (who made the fourth Harry Potter film and Mona Lisa Smile), the action scenes are okay, one basically understands where each participant is and what they are doing, but they lack the old-fashioned fun that Pirates of the Caribbean was filled with. They're still just a little too quickly edited, never driven by character, and a bit too repetitive.

Without strong action Prince of Perisa has little to offer. The plot is terrible, the conclusion is deflating, and the banter between the two leads, Gyllenhaal and Artenton, is forced at best. I won't go as far as to say I hated this movie, in the overall scheme of things it is okay, but I definitely did not enjoy my 105 minutes in the theater.




So this is easily the best movie of the bunch...I know...I'm just as shocked as you.

Via Summit Entertainment: Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob -- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life...

First, let me pass along what my Dad sent me after seeing Eclipse with my Mom:

One of the odd qualities of the movie going experience is that if you expect a movie to be terrible, but in fact find it tolerable, you somehow emerge with warmer feelings than you do from a movie that is hailed as a masterpiece but is really very good. S,o as not to ruin your prospects of tolerating Eclipse, I will urge you to hold on to your assumption that it is terrible. But in between the lingering moony stares of the two uneducated, fatalistic, unhuman pinup boys between whom the Kristin Stewart character is torn, there are some moments. Most of them, of course, belong to the vampires. The stories of how a couple of them became vampires, including that of a former confederate officer who serves as sort of Mr. Miyagi for Edward's family, are pretty well done, as are the training and fighting seems themselves. And Kristin Stewart's teenage angst is far more absorbing than that of the kids of the Kids Are All Right. In any event, you can't watch this without thinking what a clever concept this was...

Well, Dad kinda nailed it. Eclipse is by far the best of the series, and is perfectly entertaining if you accept it's inherent flaws. David Slade did more with the actors and the action scenes than either of the previous directors of the Twilight films. It's really not that bad...and I can't believe I'm typing that.

And it's also, easily, the best of these three movies.


Splice: C+

Prince of Persia: C

Twilight - Eclipse: B-

Henry Saw: Inception

The last great hope for the summer of 2010 is is here...



In his new movie Inception Christopher Nolan wastes one of the best casts of the decade. Despite setting the movie inside people's dreams, Nolan fails to take advantage of the fact that anything is possible inside a dream, and does not astonish the viewer with his imagery. The film's final scene, unlike the fantastic endings to both Memento and The Prestige, felt useless and irrelevant. Still, I really liked Inception, and think it's the second best film to come out of Hollywood this year.

While the summer season is still not technically over, we still have things like Dinner for Schmucks, The Other Guys, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World coming out, it does feel like Inception was the last major release of the season. For many, following the incredible success of The Dark Knight, and an effective marketing campaign, Inception was the most anticipated film of the year. I was not as excited as some, but I was hopeful, as I know Christopher Nolan can make a movie and the cast was filled with great actors. Now, after seeing the film twice, I think I'm finally ready to write my review.

Let's start with what's great about Inception. This is a expertly put together movie. For the entire 148 minute run-time I never checked my watch, something I did frequently during the last third of The Dark Knight, and was thoroughly engrossed throughout. The basic idea behind Inception, breaking into someone's dreams and stealing or implanting ideas, is so smart that it's shocking no one has done it before. Though the film tonally resembles The Matrix, Dark City, and others, it is a surprisingly original film. The first half of Inception is filled with exposition, but because all the ideas were so intelligent and innovatory, it never bothered me. Nolan fully immerses us into the world of Inception and we are hooked from scene one.



The performances are uniformly...good. DiCaprio, as Cobb, proves that he is truly a star capable of carrying a movie. While I think he was a bit stronger in this year's similarly themed Shutter Island, he's solid here, and sells all the hokey dialogue he's given. The rest of the cast is given far too little to do, but because they are all so talented, they elevate the poor roles they are given. Ellen Page finally plays an adult as the awkwardly named Ariadne, but she's given nothing to do but get things explained to her, and she's not given a chance to show off her charm. Michael Caine shows up in two scenes to just be...Michael Caine. Marion Cotillard plays a key role as DiCaprio's wife and distinguishes herself in a one-note role. She is terrifying, sexy, tragic, and compelling. It's her best performance, by far, since her Oscar-winning turn in La Vie En Rose. The real standouts, however, are a trio of under-appreciated actors.

First is Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Red Eye) who plays Robert Fischer, Jr., the man who is being "incepted". He's actually given the most emotional work to do in the film, and nails every scene, and proves he has one of the most interesting faces working in movies today. Next is Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays Arthur, Cobb's right hand man, and the star of the best action sequence of the film. His gravity defying fight scene in the hotel hallway is easily the highlight of the movie. It's just unfortunate that Nolan does not let Gordon-Levitt have any fun, outside of one moment with Ellen Page, as he's an incredibly charming performer. The biggest flaw in the acting in Inception on the whole is that everyone is forced to be so bloody serious. The one person who cracks a smile, and who therefore stole the show, is a little known English actor named Tom Hardy. Robbing every scene he's in, Hardy goes mano-a-mano with DiCaprio, relegates Gordon-Levitt to sidekick material, and rules his big action sequence. He's nearly worth the price of admission by himself.



Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention what are, perhaps, the film's strongest features: the score and the editing. Hans Zimmer's score is seriously the best I've heard in years. It combines the moodiness of The Dark Knight (also by Hans Zimmer with James Newton Howard) while doing a better job heightening the action scenes than that score did. The editing, done by Lee Smith, is even more masterful. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to cut this film into a coherent piece, much less an entertaining one, and Smith is my very early favorite to win the Oscar for Best Editing.



So what doesn't work? Well it boils down to just two things...but they're major. The first is that that the film is so cold. Nolan has yet to make a movie that can really connect on an emotional level with the audience. Inception, for all it's conceptual brilliance, never quite clicks with the viewer on anything but an intellectual level. It's interesting as a puzzle, as a spectacle, and as a "blockbuster", but I never cared about the outcome of the film. The other main issue I had with Inception was that the ending, though eternally debatable, was sort of cheap. It did not not feel like a reveal, or a "this changes everything" sort of ending...it just felt like Christopher Nolan wanted to mess with us.

I'm still surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie given I was never fully invested in the plot or the characters. I was so impressed by the craft at hand, and the riddles Nolan presents, that the things I usually demand from a movie were not as important. Inception is sort of a logical amalgamation of Memento, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight, and its highly pleasurable to see how Nolan uses similar themes and techniques throughout his career. Inception lacks Memento's fantastic plot construction, and doesn't have any performance that can come close rivaling Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and is just not as good a movie as The Prestige...but it's still a fantastic time at the cinema. I can't wait to re-watch it and try to figure it out again.

Grade: A-

Best Scene: That hall-way fight...

Henry Saw: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

The second best documentary I've seen this year...


And it's the best if you consider Exit Through the Gift Shop something...different...than a documentary. The Most Dangerous Man in America is a very straight forward, by the numbers, and linear film. It focuses on Daniel Ellsberg and his releasing of "The Pentagon Papers"

I might not have liked the movie so much if I had known all the facts before hand. If I had lived through it, if I was my parents' age, I might not have been so sucked in. After all, it's just a listing of facts and events.

But, I didn't live through the Vietnam War, so I was fascinated by the chronology of the war and the way Daniel Ellsberg did his part to try to end it. I had no idea that the Government forced The New York Times to cease publication, I had no idea that the roots of the War could be traced back to Truman, and I had no idea that Ellsberg was on the run for weeks leaking information to numerous other papers.

Not frills or whistles here, just information and interviews with the key figures involved. Essential viewing for anyone unfamiliar with L'Affaire Ellsberg and I bet it would still be entertaining for those who lived through it.

Grade: B+

Best Scene: Footage of Ellsberg telling reporters he would go to jail to end the war...


Inception coming up on Wednesday...

Henry Saw: Knight and Day and Harry Brown

Two quick reviews for movies that have nothing to do with one another...





Knight and Day: This Tom Cruise / Cameron Diaz movie kind of just came and went at the end of June without much fanfare. Most of the reviews that I read were slightly negative, and highly cynical, about the film. At this point Tom Cruise seems to has completely destroyed his ability to make a movie the critics will allow themselves to enjoy. Knight and Day is far from a great movie, heck its not exactly a good movie, but I had fun with most of it.

IMDB's plot description: June Havens finds her everyday life tangled with that of a secret agent who has realized he isn't supposed to survive his latest mission. As their campaign to stay alive stretches across the globe, they soon learn that all they can count on is each other.

The plot in Knight and Day is pretty much inconsequential. If you've seen one romantic-spy-thriller (True Lies, this year's Killers, etc.) then you know how little the story matters in these types of films. There are only two things to consider with this sub-genre of film: How are the action scenes and how is the chemistry between the two stars?

Well the action scenes in Knight and Day are surprisingly competent. There is an opening fight on a plane that is quite well done and a chase scene through Boston that is easy to follow (which is all I ask of my chase scenes at this point). As the film goes on the action gets less interesting, despite a scene involving the running of the bulls in Spain, and the way in which Diaz would be drugged by Cruise at the end of almost all of them was really silly. Still, director James Mangold (who made 3:10 to Yuma) has made a slick Hollywood action movie.



This is Cruise and Diaz's second film together, though there relationship in this film is very different than in Vanilla Sky, and they don't really work together. It is more on Diaz, there's something just false about her in everything she's in, but I will say that she is better in this than she's been in a long time. Cruise is still an entertaining presence on screen even after all his craziness. He's back in cocky and wired Tom-Cruise mode for this one and it was actually fun to see again.

The villains are boring, the whole thing is predictable, and it never rises above the the most middling movie of its kind, but whether its just because I was in the right mood for it, I had a good time watching Knight and Day. Cannot recommend it necessarily, but there have been many worse movies this year, and its worth a watch once it reaches cable.



Harry Brown

Quick word about this small English movie that was in theaters for a few weeks earlier this summer. Michael Caine plays a veteran who is sick of watching teenagers terrorize his neighborhood and his friends. It would be easy, and not wholly inaccurate, to compare this movie to Gran Torino. Except Harry Brown avoids casting horrible young actors in key supporting rolls and has Harry Brown actually do something unlike Clint Eastwood's character.

Harry Brown exists as a vehicle for Michael Caine. Emily Mortimer appears in a thankless role as a detective, and there are other recognizable faces in the cast, but this is the Michael Caine show. And he is...well...Michael Caine. He's always good, he is always believable, and he really is an international treasure. I didn't think Harry Brown worked perfectly, its a bit slow and serious, but it's interesting enough and Michael Caine can carry even the weakest material by himself.



Ben also saw Harry Brown and I asked him to share his thoughts -

Ben: "Vigilante movies usually seem to come out when there's a widespread public feeling of decline and decay in a society. The world of UK council housing seems to fit the bill. So here we have 'Deathwish' with an old British pensioner. In this case, though, the movie clearly wants the moments where Caine kicks the ass of some young thugs to frame the various messages it wants to get across: the crappiness of these neighborhoods (a spin on ghettoes, really), the ham-handed, thoughtless way the government responds to that crappiness, the decline of the UK's moral fiber. (There are other messages, but you'll catch on quickly since the movie is about as subtle as a car wreck.)

The action is actually fairly well done and stays within the bounds of what seems believable for an old man with the character's background to be able to do. The performances are uneven but Caine is fine and some of the thugs do a fair job as villains. Ultimately, the movie is very much within the vigilante canon: bleak, mean and bluntly constructed but because it has such a preachy emphasis on the social picture it can't be enjoyable B-movie pulp in the vein of a Charles Bronson flick. It's not an outright bad movie but it doesn't do much of anything well so I can't think of a ton to recommend it except as a way to see a side of the UK that many Americans are totally unfamiliar with or as a check-box for Michael Caine completists."


So there you go. Two very different movies but in the end they get the same grade...

Knight and Day Grade: C+

Best scene: The opening fight on the plane


Harry Brown Grade: A weak B-

Best Scene: "You failed to maintain your weapon, Son."

Henry Saw: The Last Airbender and Clash of the Titans

A look at two films that were released in 3D, to much derision, but that I recently caught up with in 2D...





The Last Airbender:

Oh boy. Oh goodness. Oh mercy mercy me. The Last Airbender is just as bad as you've read. Currently rocking an 08% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is a film that got Roger Ebert to write, ""The Last Airbender" is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented." This is right up there with the very worst movies of the year. It's hard to imagine what the studio executives must have been thinking when M. Night Shyamalan turned in his final cut...visions of the apocalypse perhaps...because The Last Airbender is an example of a film where there is literally not a single thing worthy of praising.

The Last Airbender is based on a Nickelodeon series called Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is an American show, but done in the style of Japanese animation, and is a favorite among critics. I was always hesitant to try it out, I thought the combination of Nickelodeon and faux-anime would combine to create a complete mess, but recently dove in after hearing just too much praise to ignore. I was totally wrong; Avatar: The Last Airbender is definitely one of the best animated series I've ever seen. Beautifully drawn, expertly plotted, and appealing to all ages...it's kind of a masterpiece. So I was able to finish the first season of the show before diving in the film, which conveniently enough, attempts to retell the entire first season (22 episodes) in 94 minutes. The results are catastrophic.

I don't even know where to begin. At least the other two truly terrible films I've seen this year, Alice in Wonderland and The Wolfman, made some degree of sense. They both had linear plots, with some actual standout features, and one could understand why the films ended up where they did. With The Last Airbender, it is inconceivable to me how someone could make a movie this bad from such rich source material.

IMDB's plot description: The story follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.

I don't know how, if you've not watched the show, this movie would make any sense at all. There are so many jump cuts, edits, assumptions, ridiculous voice-overs, and leaps of logic...I have to assume the movie would be completely incomprehensible without some background knowledge. It is scary to think just how much more I would have hated it without having watched the first season.

Shyamalan caught a lot of flak for casting three Caucasian actors in the main heroic roles when, on the show, those characters were of Asian or Inuit descent. His defense was that he cast the best actors first, and worried about race later. A noble sentiment, kind of, but it seems to have been a bald-faced lie. The three young child actors in this film are all terrible. Terrible. Noah Ringer, who plays the lead character Aang, gives the worst performance of its kind since Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace.

All the villains, of course, are dark skinned. Dev Patel (from Slumdog Millionaire) plays Prince Zuko, a complicated and conflicted villain in the show, with a flatness that is hard to describe. He has one look, ANGRY, and it's all he's given to work with which is a crime against the actor and the series. Aasif Mandv (from The Daily Show) embarrasses himself as the evil General and Cliff Curtis is wasted as the Fire Lord. All around, the acting is worse than any blockbuster I've seen recently, which is really saying something.

The action, which I've even heard praised in otherwise highly critical reviews, is nothing when compared to the show. The effects are shoddy, it's clear that short-cuts were taken, and none of the action scenes have any impact when taken as a part of the entire film. There is one sequence, perhaps around 20 seconds long, in which Aang uses his powers to take out a great deal of foes in one continuous shot. It reminded me of some scenes from 300, or Nightcrawler in the White House in X2, but still falls far short of those. Still, it is the closest the film comes to not being completely awful; so at least for 20 seconds The Last Airbender was not a complete piece of garbage. Congrats Shyamalan.

What ever you do...don't see The Last Airbender. I highly recommend the cartoon, it really is fantastically done, but the movie is a fiasco. I hate this movie. I read somewhere that Shyamalan's movies are on such a downward trend on Rotten Tomatoes that, if you do the math, his next film will be the first to ever receive a negative score on the site. In a world where The Village, The Lady In The Water, and The Happening exist...it is really sad that this is Shyamalan's worst film by far.


CLASH OF THE TITANS:

First...before we do anything...this needs to happen:


K, with that out of the way, what did I think of Clash of the Titans?

It's really not that bad. It's brainless, but so was the original. The action scenes are clear, and though not perfectly choreographed, are fairly exciting. The scene with Medusa is a standout, and it is obvious that they put the most thought into that sequence, but as a result the climax suffered in comparison. Sam Worthington is just not a compelling lead, but Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes have a lot of fun as Zeus and Hades, and Gemma Arterton is nice to look at.

Clash of the Titans is silly, it has a fractured narrative towards the end, and is not as cool as it should have been, but again, it's really not that bad. If you have a free Thursday night, and this is showing on Starz or something, it's not the worst way to kill 100 minutes.


Grades:

The Last Airbender: D - - - (F is reserved for those very special catastrophes like Southland Tales...)

Least Horrible Scene:...I guess that one cgi filled action scene that's done in one shot...

Clash of the Titans: C+/B-

Best Scene: The Medusa fight

Henry's Dad Saw: The Kids Are All Right

I had no interest in seeing this one, but my parents did, and I asked my dad to pass along his thoughts...


It's nice that there is a movie about a pair of gay women raising a normal family. If this were to be a breakthrough movie, it would be too bad they picked a couple who watches male porn to get aroused in earshot of their children, and one of whom has to sleep with a handsome, carefree man (sperm donor for their children) in order them to learn how to be good parents and to love each other. It would also be too bad that one of the two, the one played by Julianne Moore, seems at some time before the start of the movie to have suffered a serious brain injury that is never acknowledged.

But some overblown reviews notwithstanding, this film is not designed to be a breakthrough but a romantic comedy with no other goal but to entertain, so it would be unfair to harp on the screenwriting and acting choices mentioned above. The more relevant deficiency is the almost total absence of humor. At the packed screening I attended, there was a sort of forced laughter from a small subset of the audience on six or seven occasions, each of which announced itself as a laugh line without delivering any reason to comply beyond the bare announcement.

Comedy is often a matter of taste and mood, but it puzzled this reviewer that a movie that seemed to generate so little real laughter from its target audience has been so affectionately received. The characters are likable enough-- Annette Bening woks hard as a pedantic hag who learns to roll with the punches of betrayal. Julianne Moore looks nice in a sort of boy scout leader garb and is mildly pleasant even though the movie never acknowledges how painfully stupid her character is. The kids are dull as can be but realistic enough and well played. Mark Rufalo trades in his usual halting, disconnected, tortured loner for a halting, disconnected, untroubled Lothario. He is supposed to have learned something from the experience, but the only expression is that he inexplicably and rudely dumps another woman who seems to care about him.

If you liked The Squid and the Whale, Far From Heaven, or the one where Paul Giamatti blathers about Merlot than you may love this one too, since this reviewer was similarly baffled by the positive reviews of those.



That's all from my Dad...glad to hear my initials doubts about the movie are confirmed by someone I trust...

Ben Saw: Predators

In honor of the movie itself I’ll be throwing you right in to the action......



I really liked ‘Predators’. It had a clear sense of what it was trying to do (recapture the feel of the original ‘Predator’, an awesome movie) and did it pretty successfully.

Bam. Done.



Well, I guess I could say more. A lot more, really, because I think ‘Predator’ is a pretty special movie despite the myriad crap that unworthy sequels have piled upon it, but let’s be economical here.

Anyway, I had very mixed feelings when I first heard about ‘Predators’. The choice of producer (Robert Rodriguez) was intriguing, but all the prior sequels had been so terrible and a lot of the casting was just bizarre. Adrien Brody? Topher Grace? These are not the people I see as spiritual descendants of Bill Duke, Jesse (‘The Body’) Ventura and Arnold himself. Would Woody Allen be playing the part of a hard-bitten retired commando?

I’ll be damned if it didn’t work well, though.

Clearly what the creative team did was watch the original on loop and tried to break down what worked so well about the original. Then they basically remade the original in spirit, changing a lot of specifics to keep it fresh but keeping the core concept of ‘isolated team of badasses are stalked in the wilderness’ intact. This time the movie opens with Brody & co parachuting on to an alien planet after (before the movie opens) having been abducted from Earth. They don’t know one another but quickly decide to work together against what is plainly a common enemy. As with the original, the tension and menace builds until the Predators make their appearance and then the action’s on in earnest. Beyond that I’d be spoiling the movie but if you know the original then you know the drill.



The movie doesn’t make many missteps, it’s well-plotted and paced, the action is reasonably exciting and the director allows the scenes to breath instead of sticking the camera in the middle of things all the time. There are unobtrusive nods to the original all over the place which made me smile and actually helped push the plot forward. Crucially, the cast is much better than it could have been which is a secret that a lot of action movies ignore: if you don’t care about the characters and the conflict then no amount of visual trickery can draw you in.

The places where the movie succeeded were also why I didn’t like the movie more than I did. The original is so good in large part because it’s technically very well-executed (creating a similar sense of wonder without modern effects technology) and has an incredibly charming cast. ‘Predator’ is a funny movie that revels in being quirky and over the top, ‘Predators’ didn’t seem as comfortable with that. Meanwhile Brody is a pleasant surprise in the lead, but there’s simply no way that he’s going to be as likable a screen presence as vintage Arnold and that same comment applies to almost every member of the cast. Laurence Fishburne brought me closer to that vibe but he’s far enough from the rest of the movie’s feel that he had to be used sparingly. Between that and the steady recycling of ideas from the original, ‘Predators’ doesn’t feel as fresh. But ‘not as fresh’ doesn’t mean ‘not good’ especially when you're being compared to such a remarkable movie. ‘Predators’ is well-done and a lot of fun whether or not you’ve seen the original. All it was missing is a little extra spark to make it great.

But, really, how could they have missed the opportunity to make Topher Grace describe himself as a “sexual Tyrannosaurus”?

Grade: B+

Favorite Scene: I think I'd have to say the sword fight. But the appearance of the final human (don't want to spoil anything) was a lot of fun for me.

Henry Saw: Agora and OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

Some movies that were relatively recently released in independent theaters, which I skipped, but was able to catch up on via French DVDs.



I love my All Region DVD player. Since I've gotten it I have been able to purchase movies in London, Paris, and via Amazon.Co.UK. I can buy Region 2 DVDs at the best DVD store in New York, Kim's Video on 1st Avenue, and not worry when the film's US release date is. Recently I was able to acquire Agora and OSS 117, two films that screened on New York's independent theaters very briefly, during my last trip in France.



AGORA: Pure and utter boredom. Despite Rachel Weisz' best efforts as the female lead Hypatia (I bet you thought she'd be named Agora...learn your Greek), this movie fails to entertain on every level. It begs the question: how did this movie get made?

Because Agora was not have a cheap movie. Sure, after Weisz, every actor is an unknown. Still, there is a significant amount of set and CGI work here, and some of it is not that bad. According to Box Office Mojo this movie cost 70 million dollars to make and it has taken in a world-wide total of just over 37 million. So it's a true bomb. What's shocking, and actually somewhat encouraging, is that this movie was able to get any funding at all.

It is bizarre that anyone thought Agora could turn a profit. It's more concerned with philosophy than action, is highly critical of Christians (and religions of all sects), and moves at an incredibly deliberate pace. It is filled with useless moments of debate and theorizing, prolonged scenes of people standing around, and the director clearly has no interest in the few "action" scenes that are thrown in.

Said director, who is actually somewhat known, is named Alejandro Amenábar. He made Abre los ojos (the movie that Vanilla Sky was based on), The Others (A fantastic spin on The Turn of the Screw), and The Sea Inside (The movie that put Javier Bardem on the map). Amenábar completely drops the ball here. Overwhelmed by the scale of the story, he doesn't capture one interesting shot, shocking from the man who made The Others, and almost seems content to make one of the more boring films of the decade.

I think it's cool that Agora got made, and it is a strong example of how a few sets and CGI are able to fully create a cinematic world, but it's a total mess. Dull, dry, slow, and every synonym for "boring" could be applied to Agora. I barely made it through it through and I was watching it at home. I cannot imagine sitting through Agora in the theater...



And briefly, OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES - This is basically a French version of Austin Powers. IMDB's plot description: A spoof on James Bond. It's 1955 and after a fellow agent and close friend disappears, secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a.k.a. OSS 117, is ordered to take his place at the head of a poultry firm in Cairo. This is to be his cover while he is busy investigating, foiling Nazi holdouts, quelling a fundamentalist rebellion, and bedding local beauties.

This movie is actually very fun and revels in the main character (played perfectly by Jean Dujardin) and his misogyny and ethnocentrism. Offering an actually original take on the spy-spoof, impressive since we have been getting these kind of films since the 60's with Our Man Flint all the way through to Austin Powers. Not the best film, not one you have to seek out, but a fun little 90 minute diversion.

Agora: D+

OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies: B-

Henry Saw: Dogtooth

Well...that was a hell of a thing


I'm going to try to keep this review short, this is really a film that is best appreciated if you know as little about it as possible, and I don't want to influence your view of the movie too much. Dogtooth, a Greek film by director Giorgos Lanthimos, is one of the more challenging films I have ever experienced. Not only does Dogtooth contain scenes that match the most disturbing and uncomfortable I can remember watching, rivaling movies like Salò (still the harshest film I've ever watched), Irreversible, or Antichrist, but its plot and themes haunted me for days after I saw the film. This is what is amazing about Dogtooth: it is not a piece of shock cinema like The Human Centipede or Cannibal Holocaust. There is a lot going on in Dogtooth, there is a a great deal of thought behind the script, and it can be interpreted numerous different ways. It is quite simply the most provocative, in the very best sense of the word, movie I've seen in a long time. I've already compared this film to many others, but if I could just reference one more, I believe Dogtooth is the closest thing to art I've seen in film since I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

So what is Dogtooth about? Well, again, I don't want to give too much away so I'll will edit IMDB's plot description: Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission. The father is the only family member who can leave the manicured lawns of their self-inflicted exile, earning their keep by managing a nearby factory, while the only outsider allowed on the premises is his colleague Christina, who is paid to relieve the son of his male urges...



Dogtooth is captivating from the very first moment until the agonizing last shot. Your brain first struggles to understand the world these three children are living in, and once it finally catches up, it immediately starts thinking about their lives. It's can be a frustrating viewing experience, characters do things you do not want them to and the movie seems to revel in making you uncomfortable, but that's not the point of the Dogtooth. Every character beat makes sense, every scene is tightly related to the film's themes, and each plot development and revelation builds on the last. It's is a perfectly constructed film, running at a tight 94 minute run time, and does not waste a single scene.

The acting is, as it had to be, brilliant...but I don't really want to talk about the acting. I don't want to know the actors' names, how they prepared for their roles, or anything else about the production. Dogtooth is such a precise film, and in an odd way, such a precious film, that it almost feels cheap to talk about the acting or cinematography. The script, which was written by Efthymis Filippou and Giorgos Lanthimos, is worth mentioning, and praising, as it is a truly original and fascinating work.



I went to Dogtooth on my own, which I now regret, as it is a movie that demands discussion. I know one other person who has seen this movie, she's one my sister Lily's best friends, and we recently traded emails about how the movie impacted us. To end this review I will share snippets of these emails to try to get across just how massive this movie's assault on your mind is.

Me: I can watch anything. Earlier this year I watched a horror film called The Human Centipede....it's grotesque...and obviously designed to make you avert your eyes. I watched it at 10 in the morning and had a great time. This movie I struggled with. I knew what I was in for, I had read plenty of reviews, but still squirmed through the whole film. So I was both put-off, and incredibly impressed, by Dogtooth.

I'm very interested in what you thoughts are about the movie artistically and metaphorically...It's clearly about the influence our parents have on our views of the world, I walked out questioning everything my parents have ever told me, but do you think the scope is bigger than that? Is it about any organized doctrine? Can it be applied to the Church, Politics, etc.?

Her: I saw it with my parents and my mum actually walked out which has never happened before. I almost had the same reaction, but felt compelled to stay. It is the most disturbing film I think I've ever seen, but also an amazing film in what it explores. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days, or even weeks. Certain images stayed with me, and still disturb me when I think of them now.

...I think that it explores not only the influence of the family unit but can also be applied to the influence of constructs in society. Everything that we believe, or take as truth is because we have been taught that by our life experience, is largely dictated by the culture in which we live. I suppose this could mean that there is no truth, but only what we have been taught to believe. I think it calls into question everything that we believe and understand. ... But that misses the darkness of the film. I think it is also about how a powerful individual can create hideousness and destroy lives...it's really hard to put into words, but the father called to mind people like Hitler, and Josef Fritzl (did you read about him in the states?).



So there you go...I can at least prove that it left one other viewer, one much smarter and more aware of art when she sees it than I, absolutely reeling. This is what Dogtooth will do to you. You will invoke the Church, Hitler, Mr. Basement Wife (Fritzl), your own parents, your friends...it's shockingly all encompassing. It's a brilliant, brilliant film. I cannot recommend it to everyone, it is very hard to watch, but if you think you can take it than you must see it. It's not necessarily the best film of the year, there is more to making movies than creating true "art", but it is the most impressive film of the year by a wide margin.

Grade: A

Best Scene: The barking...good lord the barking...