10/4/14 (Part One): They Sin So You Don’t Have To

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31 Days of Halloween, Andre Royo, bad priests, based on a graphic novel, Catholic church, cinema, Clancy Brown, Clifton Collins Jr., Dan Fogler, dutiful heroes, elder gods, exorcists, Fallen, film reviews, films, Ghostbusters, Hellbenders, horror-comedies, J.T. Petty, Larry Fessenden, Last Supper, Macon Blair, Movies, religious-themed horror, Robyn Rikoon, S&man, sins, Soft For Digging, Stephen Gevedon, supernatural, Surtr, The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints, The Burrowers, writer-director

In an era where ideas (and films) seem to get recycled with as much ease as hand-me-down clothes, it’s more than refreshing to come across an original concept: it’s downright life-affirming. Writer/director J.T. Petty’s Hellbenders (2012) has one hell of an original concept, pun intended: six priests, all of various denominations, exist in a state of constant sin so that they may serve as the “nuclear option” for exorcisms. When there are demons that are too powerful for “regular” exorcists to handle, the team swoops in, invites the demons to possess them and then commit suicide, thereby dragging the demons straight back to hell with them. What this really is, of course, is a perfect excuse to witness priests swear, booze it up and engage in some very bad behavior, ranging from the slightly assholish to the downright blasphemous. It’s a great concept and almost guarantees an interesting film: even though the final product ends up a religious-themed Ghostbusters (1984) with a touch of Fallen (1998), there’s enough wicked good times here to make genre fans pay attention.

The film actually has a rather inauspicious beginning as we witness Angus (Clancy Brown), Larry (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Det. Elrod (genre auteur Larry Fessenden) tromping around in some nondescript attic-area, lit only by flashlight. The scene recalls [REC] (2007), which seems like a strange point of reference, before jumping into some sloppy pseudo-mockumentary, talking-head-type footage. Just when things seemed to be taking a turn for the generic, however, the glorious opening credit sequence swooped in and saved the day: set to a swaggering, stomping tune, we see our six heroes arrayed around a table, Last Supper style, engaging in everything from excessive drinking to make grilled cheese sandwiches with a Jesus sandwich-press. It’s a silly, visually impressive and, most importantly, utterly badass intro and ends up setting an impossibly high bar for the rest of the film. For a time, however, the movie almost lives up to its potential.

Our resident exorcists are Angus, the de facto leader and oldest of the group; Larry, the second-in-command (fulfilling the Peter Venkman role); Elizabeth (Robyn Rikoon), the resident spitfire who casually sleeps around with Larry; Stephen (Andre Royo), the “accountant” of the group, who keep track of their ledger of sins; Eric (Dan Fogler), who not-so-secretly pines for Elizabeth and Macon (Macon Blair), the free-lovin’ Southern Baptist minister who’s obsessed with his pretty-boy looks. The group lives together, cracking wise and engaging in their various sins with gusto, living just like a parochial version of the Ghostbusters. Their antics may be necessary as far as keeping the world safe goes but they certainly don’t go over well with certain bureaucratic elements at the Vatican, as evidenced when holy pencil-pusher Clint (Stephen Gevedon) comes around to keep an eye on the wayward priests. He definitely approve of the drinking, drug use, fornicating and blasphemy but he seems to be even more irate over the inherent waste of funds: sinning be damned, the Hellbound Saints just don’t make good fiscal sense!

As with any film like this how, however, we know that our dutiful heroes will be needed even if their superiors don’t. They’re forced to spring into action when they get involved with one seriously badass demon, an elder god by the name of Surtr. It seems that Surtr is known as a “god-killer” and has roamed around eternity putting the snuff on other deities that it considers to be weaker. Surtr has now set his sets on the Judeo-Christian God and it’s up to Angus and his crew to stop it before all of Heaven is destroyed in the process. Things get complicated, however, when Elizabeth becomes possessed by Surtr but neglects to kill herself, giving the elder god an earthly vessel, as well as a convenient way to gain more followers (achieved via a noxious cloud of flies). Angus wants to kill Elizabeth in order to send Surtr to Hell. Larry, on the other hand, is in love with Elizabeth and would rather not see her suffer eternal damnation, despite it being pretty much her only job duty. With all of humanity on the line (or, at least, the Judeo-Christian portion), will love or duty win out?

For the first ten minutes or so of Hellbenders, I laughed so hard that I cried: no lie. The script is impossibly witty, choked with so much rapid-fire obscenity, bad behavior and juvenile attitude that it feels like one’s being pummeled by a prize-fighter armed with one-liners rather than fists. It’s a heady experience and, for a time, I was pretty sure this was going to be the funniest film I’d ever seen, hands down. And then, of course, the honeymoon was over and tedium began to set in: what was uproariously funny in a compressed ten minutes became wearing and tiresome over the sustained course of the film. This might sound like harsh criticism of the film and, in a way, I suppose that it is. It’s also, conversely, a big compliment: if you can stay on the film’s wavelength, it’s pretty much the apex of this type of movie. I ended up really liking the film but was disappointed, ultimately, because I didn’t love it: there was potential for so much more than was fully realized here and that kind of let me down.

Make no mistake, however: when Hellbenders is good, it’s pretty damn great. The acting is top-notch, from top to bottom, with Robyn Rikoon being particularly stellar as Elizabeth. It’s a great ensemble cast and they work together like a charm: in fact, the film really starts to come off the rails when it moves from the opening “bad priests hanging out” material into the more familiar “battling supernatural evil” territory. I’ve seen plenty of films that look exactly like the latter but precious few like the former: I really wish that we could have had a little more to get to know our priests before they were off butting heads with ancient evil in some rather clichéd fight scenes.

J.T. Petty directs the film based on his own graphic novel and there are plenty of points where the film actually feels like a big-screen comic book adaptation, not least of which is the odd moment where the film actually becomes a comic, complete with panels. That odd misstep aside, the film looks consistently great and features some pretty exemplary effects work. The film also ends up being pretty violent, which might seem like a given but is only odd when the majority of gore is loaded into the film’s conclusion: suffice to say that I was rather surprised to witness someone bite out another character’s eyes, although I was certainly forewarned when a nose was later chewed off in similar manner.

While I will freely admit that I disliked Petty’s debut feature, Soft For Digging (2001), with a zeal that I normally reserve for much shittier films, I’ve actually enjoyed the rest of his filmography quite a bit. In particular, I think that his 2008 horror-Western The Burrowers is an amazing, nearly perfect film that’s equal parts eulogy and nail-biting terror, although his found-footage experiment, S&man (2006), is an equally interesting, if substantially more flawed, production. Even though he’s never mentioned alongside the likes of current genre faves Ti West or Adam Wingard, I personally feel that Petty has the potential to be the best of the bunch, some day: The Burrowers is such a monumental achievement that I keep hoping it wasn’t his magnum opus.

Even though Hellbenders ends up in a much more familiar place than it begins, it’s still a ton of fun and seems perfect as a party/crowd film. There are plenty of glorious setpieces here, the overall storyline is pretty genius and the ensemble cast is superb, riffing off each other in near perfect synthesis. I wish that the film was able to sustain its gonzo tone longer than it does but I’m also reminded of the saying that the flame that burns twice as hot only burns half as long. Fair enough: Hellbenders is hot enough for most of its running time that I can forgive if it seems to fizzle out a bit before the conclusion. There appears to be hints at a sequel, however, which could easily take the film’s universe into some pretty awesome Hellboy-like territory. Sign me up! I may not have loved Petty’s Hellbenders but I liked it enough to anticipate the next installment. In the meantime, it’s good to know that we have people like Angus and his crew watching over us, keeping humanity safe one upraised middle finger at a time.

5/23/14: Let’s Talk Turkey

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A Bug's Life, Amy Poehler, animated films, Chico and Rita, cinema, Colm Meaney, colonial America, computer-animated, Dan Fogler, film reviews, films, Finding Nemo, Free Birds, George Takei, Horton Hears a Who, Inc., Jimmy Hayward, Jonah Hex, Keith David, life of leisure, Monsters, Movies, Myles Standish, Owen Wilson, Pilgrims and Indians, pizza, Scott Mosier, Shrek, Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving, time travel, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, turkey, turkeys, Woody Harrelson, writer-director-actor

I’ve always enjoyed animated films but there came a point when I kind of gave up on the modern crop of “kids’ movies,” probably around the time that Shrek (2001) became such a huge hit. While I’ve never been a big fan of the movie’s animation style, I was even less impressed with the nearly nonstop pop-culture references that seemed to function as jokes. Similar to things like the Scary Movie series, Shrek and its sequels seemed to go down a kind of rabbit-hole of irrelevance: when every joke is about something “hot and current,” the whole film will be hopelessly dated within a week. Since Shrek was so successful, this “pop-culture-scattergun” approach seemed to become the norm and I resigned myself to cherry-picking the individual films that seemed to appeal more to my sensibilities.

Lately, however, there seems to be a bit of a renaissance in more “traditional” animated films, movies that still appeal to kids with their positive themes, goofy sense of humor and bright color palettes, yet are composed of more than just mindless references to current films or cultural trends. In particular, the last five years have shown a real explosion in these types of animated films: Coraline (2009), The Secret of Kells (2009), 9 (2009), A Town Called Panic (2009), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), A Cat in Paris (2010), Chico and Rita (2010), A Monster in Paris (2011), Rango (2011), ParaNorman (2012), and The Croods (2013) were not only great, “old-fashioned” animated films but some of my favorite films of their respective years. To this list I can now add Jimmy Hayward’s Free Birds (2013), a rambunctious, intelligent and big-hearted treatise on thinking for yourself, working hard and being your own bird.

“Turkeys are so dumb, they think the farmer is their friend.” So begins Free Birds and so we get our first introduction to our hero, Reggie the Turkey (Owen Wilson). Reggie is a smart, introspective turkey who’s continually dismayed by his fellow turkeys’ lazy, lunk-headed behavior. He’s pretty sure that the farmer is fattening them up for dinner and he’s right: as the bearer of bad news, the group tosses him outside to serve as “representative”/sacrificial goat. As often happens in these kinds of films, however, this is not Reggie’s time to go into that good goodnight: turns out his farm has been chosen by the President of the United States as the site of the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning. When the POTUS’s daughter falls in love with Reggie, he gets whisked from the barnyard into the life of Riley: comfy bathrobes, all the free pizza he can eat and all the telenovellas he can wrap his peepers around.

Nothing good lasts forever, of course, and Reggie’s luck runs out when he’s suddenly abducted by a strange turkey named Jake (Woody Harrelson). Jake has a plan: he wants to travel back in time, to the first Thanksgiving, and find a way to take turkey off the menu. Turns out he has a time-machine, by the name of S.T.E.V.E. (voiced by the legendary George Takei), and just needs a partner: whether he wants it or not, Reggie is tagged in and the way-back machine is set to Plymouth Rock.

Once there, Reggie and Jake run smack-dab into a big ‘ol conflict: turns out that the turkeys, led by Jenny (Amy Poehler) and Ranger (writer/director Jimmy Hayward), are currently in pitched battle with the Pilgrim settlers, led by the dastardly Myles Standish (Colm Meaney). Jumping into the fray, Reggie and Jake do what they can to help their turkey ancestors but complications keep arising, namely that Reggie has gotten googly eyes for Jenny. To add to their problems, Chief Broadbeak (Keith David), the turkeys’ wise and venerable leader, is a pacifist and won’t let his group take up arms against the murderous settlers. What’s a turkey to do? If you’re Reggie, Jake and Jenny: plenty, that’s what. Will the turkeys emerge victorious, standing as peers beside the humans rather than food on their plates? Will Reggie ever find the peace and solitude that he (thinks) he’s looking for? Will Jake ever take two minutes to think before he does something? Will there be any unnecessary pop culture references? (Spoiler: just one, as the ever-patient Native Americans remark that the turkeys seem like…”angry birds”…ugh)

From start to finish, Free Birds is a ton of fun. It’s a fast-paced, intelligent and, quite frankly, extremely funny film that relies on characterization and actually humorous situations to make its point. One of the best examples of this has to be the TV shows/commercials that Reggie watches early on. While the pizza commercial is deliriously good (for some reason, it almost reminded me of a Troma take on a pizza commercial), the telenovella is pure gold. For much of the film, Reggie considers himself to be an outsider, a “lone wolf,” as it were. As such, he identifies wholeheartedly with the telenovella’s cool, tough-guy lead, even though he bears not one white of resemblance to Reggie. It’s how he sees himself, however, which is all that matters. More importantly, it’s a great, smart bit of character development that also manages to be goofy good fun: talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Not only is the film genuinely funny, but it’s also got equal measures of big heart and wide-eyed wonder. While Takei is absolutely fantastic as S.T.E.V.E., the time-travel sequences, themselves, are a sight to behold, reminding me (no lie) of the interstellar travel scene in 2001 (1968). There was a genuine sense of wonder, something that I felt not only through the characters but through myself, as well. I may be an avowed outer space fanatic, granted, but I find it hard to believe that “normal” viewers wouldn’t be just as impressed.

Voice-wise, Free Birds is locked-down tighter than Fort Knox. Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson are dependably good, as expected (although I wish that Woody was a bit more over-the-top, which is kind of what I expected, going in), but Amy Poehler is the real heart and soul of the production. Her Jenny is such a delightful, wonderful, cheerful, smart and strong character that I wonder why we don’t see her type in actual live-action films. Regardless, Poehler is marvelous: I dare any (sane) viewer to not fall in love with Jenny by the credit roll.

Even though Free Birds is very much a big, glossy, computer-animated production, I really enjoyed the look, finding it to be both surprisingly warm and delightfully detailed: there’s always something going on in the margins of the frame, giving the film a bustling, “alive” quality. While I’ve yet to see writer/director Hayward’s version of Horton Hears a Who (2008), I have seen his version of Jonah Hex (2010): while I wasn’t blown away, finding it to be fairly close to the forgettable Van Helsing (2004), it was still a bit better than other films of its ilk. Not much, mind you, but a bit. After being so impressed by Free Birds, I’ll definitely need to give Horton a shot, although I’ll probably stop short of re-examining Jonah Hex: some things are probably best left buried.

If you’ve got kids, or are just young at heart, you could do a whole lot worse than Free Birds. While the film is occasionally silly (the coda is particularly eye-rolling), it also packs moments of actual emotional heft, such as the dramatic scene where Standish’s men set the turkey tree on fire. The performances are energetic and fun, the themes are smart and timely and the whole thing ends with Social Distortion’s cover of CCR’s “Up Around the Bend” playing over the end credits: it’s almost like they looked right into my head.