4/12/15 (Part Two): Framed to Fit Your Screen

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auteur theory, Bernat Vilaplana, cinema, cyber-terrorism, Elijah Wood, fame, fans, Film auteurs, films, films reviews, hackers, Jon D. Dominguez, Jorge Magaz, modern technology, Movies, Nacho Vigalondo, Neil Maskell, Open Windows, Sasha Grey, stalkers, stylish films, suspense, techno-thrillers, thrillers, Timecrimes, writer-director

As technology advances, so, too, has the way that we consume films. Gone are the days when “going to the movies” meant, literally, going out to see a movie: these days, audiences are just as likely to head into the living room and fire up the Roku as they are to drive to the multiplex when it comes to seeing new, first-run films. With video-on-demand offerings now equaling (and sometimes exceeding) what’s available in the theaters, to paraphrase the Bard, all the world’s on our computer screens and our Playstations are no longer merely players.

Few films have embraced this new era quite as ably, enthusiastically and downright entertainingly as Spanish auteur Nacho Vigalondo’s Open Windows (2014). Combining a complex, Hitchcockian plot with an appropriately glossy, techno-babble sheen, Vigalondo’s film takes place entirely within a series of on-screen computer windows. The result? One of the few films tailor-made for the way that many people will probably wind up watching it: an open window on their computer screen.

Wasting no time, we meet our erstwhile protagonist, Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood). He’s the earnest, clean-cut and rather nerdy webmaster of a fan site devoted to hot, young Hollywood “it-girl” Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey). Jill’s in the middle of a press junket for her newest soon-to-be-blockbuster, Dark Sky, a glowing-eyed-mutant epic that probably wouldn’t be out-of-place on a real-life multiplex marquee. Nick is pleased as punch because he’s just won a dinner date with Jill, a bit of happenstance that pretty much validates the entirety of his life.

Sweet turns to shit, however, when Nick gets a phone call from Chord (Neil Maskell), an employee with the company sponsoring Nick’s contest. Turns out that Jill has unceremoniously cancelled the event at the last minute, giving no reason and leaving Nick stranded without so much as a “how do ya do.” Nick is crushed but Chord offers him a bit of a band-aid: he hacks Nick into Jill’s personal electronic devices, giving the super-fan unprecedented access to entire life.

Declining to give in to Chord’s baser urging, Nick soon finds himself embroiled in a complex plan that seems to be spiraling ever faster and faster out of control. As Chord reveals himself to be less of a helpful perv and more of an evil genius, Nick must do everything he can to clear his own name, protect his beloved Jill and get to the bottom of the intricate game. He’ll have to be smart, however: Chord is brutal, ruthless and five steps ahead of him…one wrong move and it’s game over.

Despite coming off the rails in the final half hour, Open Windows is one of the most exhilarating, ingenious and flat-out fun films to come down the pike in quite some time. When the film is really firing on all cylinders, which is quite often, there’s a relentless sense of forward momentum that makes it all but impossible to blink, lest you miss some sort of background detail or bit of action. At times, the action is split between as many as 16 separate windows, making for the kind of dizzying “split-screen” action that ’60s cop shows could only dream about. It all works spectacularly well, maintaining a sense of cohesion that tiptoes the line between chaos and order but never slips into the abyss.

As someone who absolutely loved Vigalondo’s brilliant feature debut, Timecrimes (2007), I’ve eagerly awaited each new film with the kind of zeal normally reserved for children and cake. For my money, the writer-director is one of the smartest, freshest talents currently operating, a filmmaker who’s just one, big break away from becoming the next del Toro. While Open Windows isn’t quite that film, it is the kind of break-neck thriller that should move Nacho closer to that ever-present world domination.

Open Windows is a tricky film: similar to the way in which one might be rushed through a haunted house attraction, the audience is rushed through Vigalondo’s film, jerking to a halt only long enough to give the carriage a change to climb the rise and plummet down the next heart-stopping fall. It’s a setpiece-based film in that we are, essentially, watching bite-sized chunks of narrative played out before us in a multitude of various formats, each segment the equivalent of a video vignette we might peruse on Youtube. That the whole thing manages to come together into a complete whole (final thirty notwithstanding) is nothing short of a minor miracle. By its very nature, Open Windows is a film that should have been way too chaotic, disjointed, contrived and gimmicky to ever work: Vigalondo spins the various elements into pure gold.

While the film’s technical prowess and editing is duly impressive (cinematographer Jon D. Dominguez and editor Bernat Vilaplana deserve special mention for keeping everything as clear as they do), none of it would work without a sympathetic lead and Elijah Wood is more than up for the task. In the same way that Hitchcock had Stewart, Vigalondo uses Wood’s natural charisma and boyish Everymanism to keep our interest and sympathy fully on his side, even as the film twists and turns into some suitably dark places. Over the last few years, Wood has quietly become one of my very favorite actors, the kind of chameleonic performer who’s equally at home with the monstrosity of Maniac (2012) and the traditional heroism of Grand Piano. He’s the kind of performer who can draw me to a production on name alone and his work, here, is easily on par with his best. Between his work in genre films (I eagerly await his upcoming killer-kids film Cooties (2015)) and his production company, Elijah Wood is a bit of a modern genre hero and I, for one, salute him.

While Neil Maskell (incredibly fun as Banksy in Doghouse (2009)) makes a suitably sleazy villain, the real surprise is porn star-turned actress Grey. After making her “legitimate” film debut in Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience (2009), Grey would pop up in other film, from time to time, although Open Windows marks her biggest role since her debut. She’s quite good here: her fiery interview segment is an easy highlight and she manages to imbue Jill with the perfect mixture of aloof and vulnerable, an impossibly famous person who just wants to be invisible. While the majority of the film’s heavy lifting falls on Wood’s shoulders, Grey proves that she deserves more chances to show her dramatic chops.

For all of its numerous charms and positives, Open Windows is certainly not a perfect film: to be honest, it’s not even a better film than Vigalondo’s debut. Due to the necessary complexity of the storyline, credibility is eventually strained to the point where plot-holes became to rip through the surface with alarming frequency. There’s one point where Chord guides Nick from a hotel room into a car and onto the open road: it’s decidedly kickass but think about any one bit of it too long and the whole thing falls like bad souffle. The film also picks up speed to the point where plot elements blow by in the rearview mirror faster than one can register them.

When all is said and done, however, Open Windows is an undeniably good film. With astute observations on everything from the nature of modern fandom to the vagaries of internet fame to the difficulties of going “off the grid” in a world that’s perpetually connected, Vigalondo has plenty to say and this ends up being the perfect platform for him to say it. While I doubt that I’ll see another take quite as good as Vigalondo’s anytime soon (done poorly, I can only imagine that Open Windows would have been a kitschy, glitchy, head-inducing nightmare), this has definitely made me more receptive to this kind of thing in the future. While I’ll always be a fan of huge, sweeping cinema, Open Windows is proof that, sometimes, it’s just fine to watch something sized to fit your screen.

12/26/14 (Part One): C’mon, Baby…Let Those Colors Burst

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Abbott and Costello, assassination attempts, Brandon Trost, celebrity gossip, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, comedies, controversy, cyber-terrorism, Diana Bang, dictators, Eminem, Evan Goldberg, film reviews, films, hacking, James Franco, Katy Perry, Kim Jong-un, Lizzy Caplan, Movies, North Korea, Pineapple Express, Randall Park, Reese Alexander, scandals, Seth Rogen, Sony Corporation, tabloids, tanks, The Interview, TV host, writer-director

How’s this for a crazy idea for a movie: a bunch of filmmaking buddies who are primarily known for silly and/or stoner-related comedies make a big-budget, goofy comedy about a rather ludicrous plot to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, which actually leads to a real international incident involving cyber terrorism against a major corporation, threats of terrorist violence against movie theaters and calls for all-out declarations of war. The whole thing is, admittedly, far-fetched but we’ve been asked to take larger leaps of faith in the world of cinema, right? Sounds like the kind of thing that would be perfect for someone like, say, Seth Rogen or James Franco to tackle, doesn’t it?

Unless you spent the last few months in a complete and total media blackout, it would be pretty impossible not to know that this is, of course, exactly what ended up taking place, despite how outlandish and bizarre the whole thing seems. The film in question, of course, is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s The Interview (2014). The very notion of the film’s existence would end up vexing North Korea so much, apparently, that they hacked into Sony Corporation’s computer systems, disseminated oodles of private, corporate information online and even went so far as to threaten physical violence against any theaters that deigned to screen the film. After theater chains folded to the threats, Sony pulled the film from release, only to reverse position and allow a few theaters to screen it, as originally planned, on Christmas Day, along with releasing the film online via streaming agencies.  Almost instantly, The Interview would enter the history books, if only because the situation surrounding the film was unheard of in the past: we’ve truly entered a “brave new world,” as it were, and The Interview appears to be leading the charge.

For all of the controversy surrounding its release, however, controversy which all but assures the film a certain “must-see” factor, there are still some pretty basic questions to ask, not the least of which is, “Is The Interview actually any good?” While any film would be hard-pressed to live up to this kind of hype (after all, how many films have “almost” started World War 2.5?), I actually found The Interview to be quite good: in fact, I actually liked it more than any of the group’s previous work, including Pineapple Express (2008) and This is the End (2013). When the film is good, it’s actually pretty hilarious and strangely heartfelt, in equal doses: when it’s just okay, it’s still entertaining, albeit in a rather dumb, goofy way.

Dave Skylark (James Franco), the vapid host of one of those anonymous celebrity gossip shows that seem to choke the airwaves, ends up scoring the ultimate interview when an off-the-cuff request to North Korean President Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) is answered in the affirmative:  turns out that the dictator is a huge fan of Skylark’s show and jumps at the chance for his hero to fly out and interview him for the whole world to see. After Skylark’s put-upon producer/best friend Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) gets everything set-up, the duo are approached by CIA agents Lacey (Lizzy Caplan) and Botwin (Reese Alexander): turns out that the U.S. government sees Skylark’s exclusive interview as the perfect cover for an assassination attempt against Jong-un and they want the dopey egotist to do his “civic duty” and kill the dictator.

As can be expected, much hilarity ensues as Skylark and Rapaport are put through secretive CIA training before being dispatched to North Korea. Once there, however, Skylark and Kim Jong-un strike up an unexpectedly potent bromance (they really bond over their shared affinity for Katy Perry’s “Firework”) which threatens to derail the assassination attempt. Will poor Aaron be able to get everything back on track or has his buddy thrown a King Kong-sized monkey-wrench into the works? Will Dave realize the error of his ways in time to save the mission? And how, exactly, did they teach that tiger to use night-vision goggles?

Full disclosure: I’ve never been the biggest fan of Rogen and Franco’s brand of comedy. I really enjoyed This is the End, possibly because their take on a horror scenario was genuinely interesting, but I have a real “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude to most of their films. That being said, I found myself enjoying The Interview much more than I thought I would: at times, I actually kind of loved the film, to be honest, albeit not unconditionally.

For one thing, the film is genuinely funny: from the dialogue to certain rather elaborate set-pieces, The Interview made me laugh out loud more often than I think I ever had at a Rogen/Franco film, including This is the End. The scene involving Rogen and the tiger is a minor classic, as is pretty much any moment where Franco is allowed to run roughshod over the material: when he’s “all-in” here, he’s pretty much unstoppable, which goes a long way towards selling the humor. I was actually quite taken with Rogen and Franco’s chemistry in the film, finding them to be a nearly perfect comic duo, ala Abbott and Costello or Hope and Crosby. We’re asked to believe that Aaron would keep putting up with Dave’s bullshit due to their lifelong friendship and it actually works: Rogen and Franco sell the friendship so perfectly (and sweetly, might I add) that it really adds heft to the rest of the film.

Far from existing in a vacuum, however, the leads are given more than capable assistance by a pretty stellar supporting cast: Caplan is great as the CIA agent who’s in constant awe of the duo’s ability to screw things up and Randall Park is absolutely fantastic as Kim Jong-un. Park, in particular, is able to find a rare amount of genuine warmth and empathy in a character that could have just been a cardboard-cutout villain: for a time, Park’s Jong-un is a genuinely likable character and it’s not hard to see how the gullible Skylark could get taken in. Park handles the transition from “reasonable” to “batshit-crazy” with aplomb, handily turning the President into the kind of Bond villain that The Interview’s over-the-top finale demands.

One thing that actually surprised me about The Interview was how exceptionally well-made it is: from the very first shot (a gorgeous scene involving a young North Korean girl singing an anti-American song before a huge audience) to the truly epic finale (the single best use of “Firework” that anyone could imagine, ever), there’s nothing about the film that feels slap-dash or “small.” The cinematography, by frequent collaborator Brandon Trost, is always colorful and expertly staged and the film has one of the best, most effective soundtracks I’ve heard in some time. In every way, The Interview has been fashioned as a “big” film, which makes its debut on VOD even more disheartening: subject-matter and controversy notwithstanding, The Interview definitely deserved to be seen on a big screen.

Another thing that surprised me about The Interview was how intelligent the film actually is: despite a preponderance of low-brow humor (dick jokes abound), The Interview actually makes lots of savvy points, not all of which are aimed directly at North Korea. In fact, U.S. foreign policy and the world’s addiction to celebrity are just as often skewered and some of the observations are spot-on (particularly smart is the bit where Diana Bang’s Sook discusses how the U.S. doesn’t have the best track-record when it comes to assassinating foreign leaders). It would have been the easiest thing in the world for co-writer-directors Rogen and Goldberg to take endless potshots at North Korea and its leader but they manage to spread the joy around, as it were, which gives the proceedings a bit more of an open-mind than they might otherwise have had.

Ultimately, I ending up being quite impressed with The Interview: topical, rather fearless and genuinely funny, the film is also surprisingly dark and violent (the scene where one character gets his fingers bitten off is played for laughs, despite the rather nightmarish details and there’s an on-screen suicide that actually made me jump), finding a nice balance between the disparate elements. When The Interview worked, I found it quite delightful, certainly more-so than any Franco/Rogen vehicle before it. Suffice to say, I’m actually looking forward to the pair’s next outing, although I doubt that it’ll have the “world-changing” potential of this one.

Will The Interview change the world? Probably not, although that would be the ultimate case of art influencing life, wouldn’t it? Is The Interview a sturdy, funny and appropriately cutting action-comedy full of goofy humor and some truly outrageous setpieces? You better believe it. In the end, isn’t that the only thing that we can (realistically) hope for?

8/16/14: …And Good Riddance

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Adrian Grenier, bad films, bad soldiers, Ben McKenzie, Caroline Dhavernas, co-writers, college friends, cyber-terrorism, Denis Hennelly, end of the world, Gaby Hoffmann, Goodbye World, Kerry Bishe, Laura Kachergus, Linc Hand, Mark Webber, McKenna Grace, nostalgia, post-Apocalyptic, power grid, Remy Nozik, Scott Mescudi, terrible films, The Big Chill, The Walking Dead, writer-director

If you think about it, small-scale, low-budget post-apocalyptic films should be one of the easiest types of movies to pull off. After all, the various elements are practically codified, at this point: get a small batch of varied survivors together, preferably in a small, claustrophobic space and give them something to worry about outside the “safety” of their enclosure (nuclear fallout, zombies, biological terrorism, other humans, mutant animals, yadda yadda). Let the various survivors form groups and factions, then have them fight with each other for survival and/or supremacy. Throw in a few “surprise” romances, some “shocking” betrayals and a few morsels about how humanity tends to devolve into animalistic chaos at the first sign of societal upheaval et voila: you have yourself a decent little post-apocalyptic thriller/chiller/downer.

When done competently, these type of films can be dependable, if unspectacular, exercises, similar to competently made found-footage films: nothing amazing but decent enough to watch and, at the very least, marginally entertaining. When done exceptionally well, however, post-apocalyptic “survival” films can be quite special little affairs: recent efforts like It’s a Disaster (2012), This is the End (2013) and Rapture-Palooza (2013) have tackled the apocalypse from a humorous angle, while dead-serious efforts like Time of the Wolf (2003), The Road (2009), The Divide (2012) and The Colony (2013) tend to dwell on the more miserable side of surviving the end times. Let’s not forget zombies (Dawn of the Dead (1978), Night of the Comet (1984)), environmental issues (12 Monkeys (1995), Take Shelter (2011), Hell (2011)) and relationship travails (Melancholia (2011), Seeking a Friend For the End of the World (2012)), all of which make for great apocalyptic fodder. As I’ve pointed out, you can make a good (or great) post-apocalyptic survival flick out of just about anything: the sky, literally, is the limit.

With all of that being said, however, writer-director Denis Hennelly’s Goodbye World (2013) is that other kind of post-apocalyptic survival film: the shitty kind. Without putting too fine a point on it, Hennelly’s film is almost complete and total garbage, a perfect trifecta of bad acting, obnoxious characters, a terrible script, tonal inconsistencies out the wazoo and a laughable resolution that’s so trite that it’s actually kind of insulting. If anything, Goodbye World comes across as a brain-dead, post-apocalyptic The Big Chill (1983), a bizarro-world version of The Walking Dead that replaces the zombies with annoying former college roommates and power-tripping wannabe-military tough guys. This, friends and neighbors, is the living definition of a film that I saw so that you don’t have to…you can thank me later.

In short order, we’re introduced to our rather large and unwieldy cast of clichés: James (Adrian Grenier), Lily (Kerry Bishe) and daughter, Hannah (McKenna Grace) are the “eco-friendly” family that lives off the grid; Benji (Mark Webber) and girlfriend, Ariel (Remy Nozik) are the “revolutionaries” who want to bring down the system; Lev (Scott Mescudi) is the (apparently) mildly autistic computer genius whose botched suicide attempt kicks off the destruction of the world’s power grid; Nick (Ben McKenzie) is James and Lily’s former business partner (and Lily’s former lover) who’s brought his new girlfriend, Becky (Caroline Dhavernas) and Laura (Gabby Hoffmann) is the form college friend who hates Becky with a passion.

These idiots all descend on James and Lily’s farm after an apparent cyber-attack has destroyed the world’s power grid: lights, phones, gas pumps and ATMs no longer work, which would be bad enough, but the loss of modern accouterments has an even more dire effect: it forces these ninnies to reexamine their old relationships, friendships and arguments, all while trapped together on an out-of-the-way farm. Since this is a modern post-apocalyptic survival film, we know that we can’t trust any kind of authority, especially from the armed forces. When a couple of sinister supposed National Guardsmen show up and want to bunker down at the group’s homestead, James and his gang show them the door, post-haste. If you can guess that we haven’t seen the last of the military guys…well, maybe you should have written the script, then, smarty-pants.

Look, here’s the thing: I can couch this in as many (or as few) niceties as possible but the bottom-line is pretty black-and-white: Goodbye World is an awful film. If one could somehow look past the thoroughly unlikable characters (in particular, Lily is one of the shittiest, most obnoxious, horrible characters I’ve managed to get stuck with in some 30 years of watching movies…and she only gets WORSE when combined with her old flame, Nick) and more miss-than-hit acting, you’re still stuck with a real donkey of a script. This is the kind of film that pulls one of those hoary old “talent show” scenes out of a moldy top hat and pretends that it’s some kind of narrative revelation: rarely have I wanted to claw my eyes out more than when Gabby Hoffmann waxes philosophic about playing George Washington in historical re-enactments.

Not only is there nothing original to be found here but the filmmakers manage to mess up even the most basic post-apocalyptic survival film beats: it’s like trying to make an omelet with Cheese Whiz, straw and roofing shingles. It’s pretty much a given that the film displays a distressingly low-level of tension (think a slightly “edgier” Afterschool Special) but it also manages to do away with anything that might offer the slightest bit of pleasure or entertainment factor for the audience. I’ve watched plenty of films where I thought, “Hmm…this is pretty awful, except for ________.” Goodbye World is the rare film where I was at a complete loss to fill in the blank: what actually worked here? As a point of comparison, Kevin Costner’s The Postman (1997) has seemed to occupy the pole position as far as universally derided post-apocalyptic movies go for almost two decades now: in this instance, The Postman comes off like The Godfather (1972) compared to Hennelly’s “opus.”

By the time the film works its way to a “resolution” that manages to not only pair up most of the characters but give them weepy “emotional” scenes to boot, I was way beyond through with this bit of foolishness. My favorite low point? The ridiculously hokey “Daily Bubble” routine between James, Lily and Hannah that’s somehow inflated to become a societal metaphor by the film’s final scene. Here’s the thing, though: if we get to the end of the world and we need to rely on this cast of characters for salvation…well…just take my word for it and stick a fork in the Earth. When given the choice between perishing or starting a new world with these idiots, I’ll take the dirt-nap any day of the week.