Tron: Legacy’ — Electrifies the Boys and Girls : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Released in 1982, the original Tron movie has — until geek became chic and, more importantly, profitable — been the sort of quasi-obscure cult item dismissed as video game juvenilia with the same wave of the hand now reserved for comic book movies not directed by Christopher Nolan. Although championed as an overlooked gem by Roger Ebert, one of a few critics collected by Rotten Tomatoes who praised the film, and the recipient of Oscar nominations for costumes and sound, Tron remains a film whose singular achievement is rarely, if ever, explicitly stated amidst scriptural complaints. When you distill film, as a medium, to its essential method and purpose, that achievement is: Presenting audiences with a singularly unique vision of something never before seen. Given the number of films released year after year for almost a century, this surely is a feat worthy of more than a critical yawn or a footnote in the history of cinematic accomplishments.

Read the rest of...Tron: Legacy’ — Electrifies the Boys and Girls : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

The Butcher’s Thumb: Both Up and Down : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Here’s the foremost question underlying Greg Haas’ “The Butcher’s Thumb”: Does it work to excavate or exploit a wound still receptive to salt?

The answer in...

The Butcher’s Thumb: Both Up and Down : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Review: The Young Conservative's Field Guide

Greetings - After taking an unannounced break from updating this blog, I've decided to wake things up again. Over the next few days, I'll post links to all my work starting from where I left off, beginning with a book review, links to which are provided below. Then I'll launch into a new program to complement updates about my work. Thanks for reading! : f :

As a non-narrative book, The Young Conservative’s Field Guide: Facts, Charts and Figures, by Brenton Stransky and Andrew Foy, M.D., defies the usual short review and asks instead for a more comprehensive discussion. That discussion is offered to you in several parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

film review - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I apologize for the week-long silence, but a much-needed staycation meant minimal time near a computer. But with this week's review of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, everything should be back on track.

There's much not to offer by way of preamble. Although I've never been a fan of G.I. Joe, I was certainly more entertained by the movie's trailer than the incomprehensible mess of trailer that announced the arrival of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Translation: I was actually looking forwarded to a little mindless B-movie entertainment. Alas...

Entertainment: no stars
Craft: no stars

Review at The Front Page Online:

G.I. Joe: More Zero Than Hero

film review: public enemies

The moral of the story is: past successes can be a burden.

Public Enemies...and the Shiny Tommy Gun Shoots Blanks

Entertainment: * (out of two)
Craft: * (out of two)

capsule review: encounters at the end of the world

No full film review this week, I'm afraid, but next week will bring a timely review of Watchmen. In the meantime, here's a brief look at one of the best documentary Oscar nominees.

Werner Herzog is a legendary name in filmmaking, and his sub-zero documentary Encounters at the End of the World certainly possesses the veneer of effortlessness associated with masters of the art. From the diving footage from his friend and collaborator Henry Kaiser – glimpses of an watery underworld defined by beauty and oddity in varying measure – to the sparkling desolation of the Antarctic snow and ice, we share in Herzog’s wonder as sets out to discover that most remote of continents for himself.

While a documentary in the general sense of the word – Herzog begins in the mining-town circus of McMurdo Station and branches out to many on-going research endeavours like neutrino experiments, volcanic research, and biological/zoological projects, the film is also the vehicle for Herzog’s personal and rather apocalyptic musings. The film’s title could serve as a metaphor for the fragility of human life and the arguably inevitable extinction we face, especially in the face of global climate change and other self-inflicted catastrophes, just as works first and foremost as a literal description of Herzog’s encounter with the people who live in work at, literally, the end of the world. But other than suggesting that Herzog may not be much fun at parties, the juxtaposition of beauty and wonder with a resigned melancholy does have the character of a tone poem, even if the whole enterprise loses focus until it doesn’t so much end as stop.

Emblematic of the film is the mystery of the deranged penguin, the animal who, instead of going to sea to fish or returning to the colony, chooses instead to head towards the mountains. With humans forbidden from interfering, these penguins head off into 5000 miles of artic expanse – and certain death. No one knows why. Perhaps this is humanity’s epitaph. Perhaps also there is hope in the dreams of those misfits who risk their lives for science or for that intangible, all too human longing.

capsule film review: the visitor

Thomas McCarthy, actor an now screenwriter/director, is one to watch. While I’ve not seen The Station Agent, his debut feature, his sophomore effort The Visitor is the kind of indie film that quietly sneaks up on the bigger Hollywood fare to deliver a dramatic wallop. It’s good to see the film get some recognition in the form of Richard Jenkins’ Oscar nomination for Best Leading Actor, although I think a screenwriting nod would have been appreciate. McCarthy takes a familiar conceit – a lifeless, listless man finding a new spark for life – but does two things that make it authentic.

First, he avoids theatrics and sentimentality, trusting instead in the deceptively simple story. Without taking it to the full monty, The Visitor involves friendship, romance. and gentle, non-judgmental social commentary in what is best described as a richly layered character piece. Second, he knows enough not to overwrite his scenes, leaving room for the actors to perform beyond the dialogue. I’m thinking of Richard Jenkins sitting at the piano under the watchful eye of a skeptical teacher, half-heartedly tapping the keys in a ritual invocation of memory, then coming alive as he learns to drum the djembe under the tutelage of Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian immigrant whose illegal status will come to cause problems. McCarthy doesn’t have to tell us that Vale is coming back to life; he lets Jenkins show it to us. I’m also thinking of Danai Gurira as Tarek’s girlfriend Zainab, a Senegalese woman who is also in the US illegally, begins as frosty, haughty woman, but gradually warms up. The whole ensemble, really, is beautiful, and McCarthy’s unobtrusive direction yields a handsome film.

The Visitor is a writer’s movie, but also an actor’s movie, which ultimately makes it the viewer’s movie.

capsule review: suspect zero

Most critics, understandably, view Suspect Zero as an overly stylized (read: insubstantial), derivative and even pretentious genre effort. But while it doesn’t escape from the clichés that come with serial killer procedurals, Suspect Zero does have a few flashes of inspiration – call them twists of the knife – that make the film worthwhile. Begin with E. Elias Merhige stylish direction, marked by fascinating, off-kilter camera angles that, along with clever editing and scene splicing, create a visually arresting film. At times slow to take in the scenery, at times fast to convey the disturbing imagery that haunt two of the film’s characters, Merhige puts in a lot of artistry in the film’s composition, the result of which is a film drenched in atmosphere. It’s worth noting that despite the gruesome deaths, the film isn’t particularly gory and has very little on-screen violence. Suspect Zero is, above all, an exercise in creeping, skin-burrowing dread.

The story has its own flourishes, the first of which is the way in which the paranormal ability of remote viewing is woven into the film. Without the self-consciousness of an X-Files episode, where the premise of the FBI using clairvoyance to remotely find criminals would be right at home, Suspect Zero is a science fiction film that doesn’t make a fuss about being a science-fiction film. In fact, the premise is so effortless presented as plausible that we are free to focus on the other nice flourish, namely, the notion of a serial killer who preys on other serial killers, and the Suspect Zero hypothesis of a serial killer who is truly random in his method, motive, and choice of victims. Cue in a deliciously intense performance by Sir Ben Kingsley as the man who may or not be “Suspect Zero,” along robust performances by Aaron Eckhard as Agent Mackelway and Carrie Anne-Moss as his partner Fran Kulok, and Suspect Zero becomes, not so much a crime thriller, but a psychological thriller on the nature of confronting evil in the world punctuated by intensely dramatic character moments.

Where Suspect Zero stumbles is in failing to flesh out its ideas. There are worse things, however, than being left with wanting more, and the film proves surprisingly enjoyable.

capsule reviews: elizabethtown and atonement

Elizabethtown: Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst are terrific in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown and it’s good to see them both stretch beyond their blockbuster franchise roles. But their performances can’t keep the film from succumbing to an awww and shucks. Elizabethtown, with its comical situation and colourful characters – including Alec Baldwin as the CEO of a shoe company – comes across as a bit of wishful thinking that gratifies on paper but ultimately doesn’t ring authentic. The event that launches Drew Taylor’s (Bloom) downward spin stretches credibility: could a single shoe designer really be the one on which to hang the albatross of a $900 million corporate loss? And what about Dunst’s role as saving angel? It’s like a depressed person’s self-affirming daydream, in which all of life’s grittiness is polished away by a forced cheerfulness. Elizabethtown ultimately suffers from a case of contrivance, with each scene manufactured for effect instead of rooted in a genuine psychology.

Atonement: The only quality that makes Atonement a contender worthy of the august company of The Assassination of Jesse James, There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men is Joe Wright’s phenomenal direction in partnership with Seamus McGarvey’s photography. (OKk, to be fair, the performances are beautiful tuned too. James McAvoy especially shows himself better than trash like Wanted.) That long take of soldiers miserably biding their time while awaiting evacuation from the beach of Dunkirk is a masterstroke of surreal, moody, visceral film work. And that’s just the most obvious bit of artistry in a film defined by beautiful imagery. But while the film starts off with a knock-out tragedy, the film devolves into a variation of “it-was-just-dream” that undercuts the drama of later scenes. A bratty, stupid, inappropriately imaginative young girl is reintroduced as an old woman who is more aware, perhaps, but also cowardly. Atonement teases with promising scenes of characters squeezed through the ringer, only to fall back on a gimmick that undoutbtedly worked better in the novel. Great visuals, great premise, a resolution that is the very picture of anti-climax.

capsule review: a history of violence

In the film’s press conference at Cannes, David Cronenberg expressed his intention to make viewers of A History of Violence complicit in the film’s violence, to make them question the entertainment value of morally repugnant acts. Yet it’s a gambit that fails precisely because Cronenberg never succeeds in letting viewers know they’re being played. The film, a self-described commercial feature based on a graphic novel, is a fairly standard tale of a man trying to escape a history of violence only for that history to catch up with him. A more existential take would have examined the bad faith Tom Stall, played by Viggo Mortensen with his typical intensity, exhibits by attempting to erase his past, but Cronenberg ultimately indulges the very violence he hopes to condemn. It’s telling that, while the innocent are merely threatened with horrible death, it’s only the bad guys who actually die brutally. It’s the old exploitation flick stand-by; give a moral imprimatur on immorality by presenting “deserving” victims, people easily cheered to their death. Violence solves, or at least provides closure, to the characters’ problems, emptying Tom Stall’s desire to reform of meaning. At the very least, the lesson is that it’s very easy to be a pacifist after the war’s been fought.

Cronenberg certainly displays some of the directorial brilliance that makes Eastern Promises such a gem – a willingness to take his time, to let the camera linger long enough for audiences to pick out important details for themselves – although he often goes further than is necessary. The sex scenes, rather obvious in their aim to contrast Tom the peaceful man with his original (true?) identity as a frighteningly efficient killer, are potent and raw without being overdone. (But as with the film’s superficial analysis of violence, the addition of sex in the mix – the relationship between sexual arousal and killing is left unexamined. Sex and violence go together like “bacon and eggs,” Cronenberg said at that press conference. I say: Really? Why?) For all the film’s technical accomplishment, especially in the shots establishing the cast’s chemistry, interpretive complexity ultimately comes from outside the film. Sure, you can go Rober Ebert’s way and read all manner of things in the film, but it’s all meta-level stuff that stems from viewers who care to ask questions. The film just sets the pins up, without even bothering with throwing a bowling ball down the lane to knock them down. Unforgiven handled identical themes with greater depth and acumen.

capsule review: eastern promises

I was skeptical going into Eastern Promises. David Cronenberg, although a skilled director, never inspired much confidence in me based on his filmography. And the synopsis – about a dangerous Russian gangster under threat from a woman who knows too much - excited me about as much as any movie about gangsters tend to excite me, which is to say, not at all. But as the saying goes, an optimist can never be pleasantly surprised and boy was I pleasantly surprised. Eastern Promises, first and foremost, is a real looker. Cinematography, direction – I think it just clicked why Cronenberg is so well regarded. Even the violence, which is incredibly raw and graphic at times is never gratuitous. Brutal, unnerving, yes, but justified given the nature of the characters and plot.

And then, there’s Stephen Knight’s script. Here’s a literate character study in the guise of a tense thriller set within the internal operations of the Russian mob in London. This is writing that seamless molds impressive performances – Armin Mueller-Stahl and Viggo Mortensen shine, shine, shine. This is writing with depth. Relationships are hinted at, but not consummated. Shades of grey are relentlessly and authentically human. Organic plot developments come by their surprise honestly. Eastern Promises is layered, complex, and captivating to the end.

capsule reviews: inland empire, the notebook, king of california

Inland Empire: Here’s a film to add to The List. Where Mulholland Drive was a contrived grab-bag of surrealist gimmicks in an attempt to relive the glory days of Twin Peaks, Inland Empire revisits the gritty urban mindscapes first manifested in the severely underrated Lost Highway. “A woman in trouble,” says David Lynch. Yes. And, for all the metaphorical density and layers upon layers of enigmas, a coherent interpretation of the film’s psycho-drama is possible. But more than representing what Lynch can do with a holistic vision - instead of trying to slap on an ending on previously filmed material as he did with Mulholland Drive - Inland Empire is a gorgeous masterpiece of cinematic art. The digital cinematography, the colour saturation, the industrial settings, the soundtrack, the ominous banality of simple rooms, a volcanic performance by Laura Dern: all these make for an experience that burrows deep, deep inside. Inside what? Everything.

The Notebook: With a title sequence so heavily drenched in syrup, like a particularly sentimental Hallmark card or Thomas Kincade painting, it’s no great revelation that the rest of the movie manipulates audiences with shamelessly sugary clichés that give formula a bad name. I liked the performances – who can argue with James Garner and Gena Rowlands? But the way everything is resolved confuses romance with exploitation. Senility and dementia are props intended to jerk tears, but the result is a big jerk-off instead.

King of California: This blip on the radar, a solid indie charmer, packs a nice little punch. Michael Douglas puts on the smart and crazy with charm and plays off Evan Rachel Wood’s maturity and exasperation with panache. It’s a quirky tale, to be sure; a father-daughter bonding movie in the guise of a quixotic – or is it? – treasure hunt. But it’s also poignant, with good writing and direction by first-timer Mike Cahill. The best part; we’re not sure until the very end if Douglas’ character really is tilting at windmills or whether he’s on to something. But better than actually getting an answer to the question is watching two endearing characters try to bridge a gap of years and experience to forge a meaningful relationship.

capsule review: lust, caution

The only description I had in my mind about Lust, Caution involved the words "espionage thriller" and the flashing red lights of the dreaded NC-17 rating. As it turns out, the film is a quiet, sensitive, and downbeat character piece that slowly unwinds deception laced with the sinister machinations of espionage and assassination set amidst the World War II occupation of China by Japanese forces. It's the tragedy of the spider becoming entangled in its own web. If the movie fails, it is for the same reason it succeeds: the characters act in a fragile, easily disturbed emotional limbo. With the line between truth and deception almost impossible blurred, it's difficult to get past overly low-key characterizations, whose subtlety may mask an absence of dimension, to really dissect the characters. But the film is moving, with the characters' disorientation lingering long after Ang Lee's odd, but appropriate, choice of final shot.

capsule review: the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford

Cinematographer Roger Deakins, hand in hand with director Andrew Dominick (in an amazing sophomore effort) outdoes his work in No Country for Old Men with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Artistic without the artiness that comes with overreaching or the contrivance of using style as a sales pitch, the film is gorgeously rich with the quality of fine art.

And the story, perfectly paced to with the natural rhythms of dialogue - the words themselves and those telling silences filled with expressive facial and body language - is riveting. Far from indulging the romance surrounding the legend of Jesse James, the story offers a genersouly multifaceted character study where media spin collides with the morality and the politics of the personal. James, solidly portrayed by Pitt with a curious mixture of cruelty, melancholy, ruthlessness, tenderness, and a streak of instability, remains enigmatic to the end. But it is Ford who is the real subject of study. Casey Affleck certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a character who, though branded a coward, possessed considerable complexity. One might very well ask whether the dreaded yellow word was as deserved by Ford as James deserved to be spun as the Robin Hood. With Jesse's psychological terror at the center of a violent web, Ford's conflicting motivations - fame, fortune, fear, revenge - are magnetically rendered.

It's amazing to think that this Andrew Dominick's second film, after Chopper starring Eric Bana. (Never heard of it until looking up Dominick's IMDB entry.) Not only does the film show him capable of playing in the same league as the Coen Brother and P.T. Anderson, I'd go so far to say that The Assassination of etc, etc. was a worthier opponent to There Will Be Blood than No Country for Old Men. Better characters, a better story, equally great performances and direction...I regret having missed it while it played in theatres.

capsule review: severance

Severance is a 2007 British horror-comedy in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Black, often gruesome comedy coexists with slasher-style survival horror in a surprisingly effective way, all the while taking the opportunity to satirize clichéd genre tactics like getting girls naked and firing guns.

It’s a slasher film, all right, although much of the really gory violence is kept off-screen. When a female protagonist fights off a rapist, her revenge consists of knocking him out and dropping a very heavy stone on his head. Can we say watermelon? We sure can, but a wet, squishy, vaguely crunchy sound effect is all director Christopher Smith gives us. Other kills are a bit more graphic, but it’s refreshing to watch a film that doesn’t feel compelled to linger lovingly on the anatomical details…which isn’t to say that the deaths aren’t horrific. They are, proving that implication can be even more effective and insinuating when not blotted out by nausea.

The film’s pretense of pitting the employees of a weapons manufacturer out on a team-building exercise against war criminals somehow associated with the misuse of the manufacture’s weapons is, of course, one-note irony. Oh look! Minions of Evil, Inc. are harvesting the bitter fruit their own company sowed. Beyond the moral of the story, never go looking for lodges or hostels in the creepy corners of Eastern Europe, the aspiration to delivering a profound allegory is more an excuse to bring together a bunch of characters and kill them off rather than a serious essay on war corporatism. But Smith and Loman’s script, hand-in-hand with a cracking good cast, actually succeeds in creating characters with more dimension. Severance is by no means a character study, but there are some good character moments, some noble deaths, some good gags, that pump enough blood to the film’s heart. Is it Shaun of the Dead? No. It’s not Office Space either. But it is a sharp little dagger with an ending that doesn’t cop out, and that’s enough for a good time.

capsule review: possession

I just watched Possession on DVD. How did I miss it when it came out in 2002?

Based on the book by A.S. Byatt, the film was directed and co-written by Neil LaBute. Aaron Eckhart and Gwyneth Paltrow star as literary academics Roland Mitchell and Maud Bailey who come together over a link between the respective object of their studies; poets Randolph Ash and Christabel Lamotte.

The story's structure contrasts two romances, past and present The gradually unfolding mystery of Ash and Lamotte's previously unknown romance is presented as a historical mystery with a touch of treasure hunting that, even with the addition of professional rivals, doesn't get carried away. Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle, no strangers to period pieces, embody the poets whose turbulent relationship captures, in some respect, the marvels and terrors of love. By comparison, Mitchell and Bailey seem like an unlikely couple. But while their romance builds up, catalyzed and influenced in part by the revelation of the poets' hidden lives, the film never resorts to the romantic comedy's tactic of using contrived but comical obstacles to keep the lovebirds apart. That's what I really enjoyed about the film; Mitchell and Bailey fall in love, but it is messy and imperfect. They approach each other with all the fear, caution, wariness, hope, and elation that comes with trying to connect with another human being.

And the film looks gorgeous too. LaBute paints a simultaneously elegiac and paean-like portrait of two, and two, characters, with rich but not overbearing cinematography, elegant camera work, and great sets. Granted, Possession may have a few nits here and there to pick at, but on the whole the film has a magnetic and understated grace.