6/29/14 (Part Two): Utopia For Dummies

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After the Dark, alternate title, cinema, doomsday scenarios, fantasy sequences, film reviews, films, high school angst, international school, Jakarta, James D'Arcy, John Huddles, Movies, nuclear apocalypse, Philosophy 101, Rhys Wakefield, Sophie Lowe, survival of the fittest, teacher-student relationships, The Philosophers, writer-director

Imagine, for a moment, how completely ineffectual Halloween (1978) would be if the whole film ended up as Laurie Strode’s dream. It would certainly explain some of the film’s more fantastic bits (that Michael is a surprisingly resilient fella) but it would also serve as one massive disappointment at the end, similar to that whole “snow-globe” finale for St. Elsewhere. A revelation like this would deflate any tension the movie managed to build up, while also giving the easy-out of allowing any of the formerly disposed of characters to just pop back up, smiling, like nothing ever happened. It would feel like a cop-out, in some ways, as if the stakes that were previously so high had instantly been reduced to mush. Sure, there may still be tension during the initial viewing but how many people would return to the film time and again if they knew the whole thing was completely illusory? Fool us once and all that jazz. Now…suppose that we’re told the whole film is merely a dream within the first few minutes? Where, then, do our stakes go?

I’m guessing it would end up pretty similar to writer-director John Huddles’ fairly pedestrian After the Dark (2013), also known as The Philosophers (a much more on-the-nose title). Within fairly short order, we’re introduced to an international high school philosophy class, in Jakarta, led by the rather odious Mr. Zimit (James D’Arcy). It’s the final day of class for these seniors and Zimit wants to work up a little experiment to really get their teenage brains thinking: he proposes an end-of-the-world scenario where the 21 people in the room (including himself) must decide which ten of them would be allowed to stay in the fall-out shelter. This, of course, will give everyone a chance to debate the needs of the many vs the few, the necessity of certain professions in a doomsday scenario, etc etc. It will also give the filmmakers a chance to portray this end-of-the-world scenario in as safe a way as possible: after all, we’ve already been told up-front that this is all just a thought-experiment. Anyone who “dies” in the experiment will just have to suffer the trauma of sitting everything out, without all of that messy stuff like, you know…really dying. It’s a “duck-duck-goose” approach to drama and ends up carrying just as much emotional heft, in the long run.

We’re run through several different scenarios, each one guided by Zimit as he attempts to make whatever point he (ultimately) wants to make. For all intents and purposes, his various machinations seem aimed squarely at James (Rhys Wakefield), the working class boyfriend of Zimit’s star pupil, Petra (Sophie Lowe). Time and time again, Zimit seems to do everything he can to marginalize and piss off James, from ensuring that he “randomly” selects the profession/character trait that Zimit has picked out for him to constantly calling into question James’ place in the class. This, of course, has the tendency to tick off Petra and the others (once it’s revealed) but there appears to be a method to Zimit’s madness. Is he really just trying to broaden their horizons and get them to think outside the box or does he have a more sinister, ulterior motive? At the end of the day, it really won’t matter because, like Vegas, what happens in the scenarios stays in the scenarios.

Here’s the thing: once we’re told, up front, that all of the meat of the film will consist of fantasy sequences, with no actual bearing on the “real world,” it’s impossible to stay invested in what’s happening. Zimit “shoots” students, “banishes” people into a nuclear holocaust,” attempts to “engineer” relationships, “attacks” students, acts like an ass…but it’s all just a pretense, a tissue paper-thin gimmick and certainly not the load-bearing support that can prop up a film. This is not to say that the fantasy sequences, themselves, don’t present some small measure of interest: on their own, they ask some reasonable questions about the lengths folks will go to in order to survive, as well as all the things they won’t do. There’s plenty of mildly thought-provoking discussions about the importance of “practical skill vs artistic ones” as far as rebuilding a destroyed civilization goes but the whole thing is strictly surface-level and academic: this isn’t a tense drama so much as a filmed Philosophy 101 lecture. In fact, one of the most engaging segments in the film is actually the bit where we see depictions of various philosophical concepts: it’s still surface-level stuff but at least we’re learning a little something.

Aside from the unfortunate “fantasy” angle, After the Dark ends up being a thoroughly middle-of-the-road film. D’Arcy’s Zimit is ridiculous character, the kind of high school teacher that could only exist in a film like this. He has a “big” secret, of course, but it ends up being a pretty silly one (which leads to one of the film’s most ludicrously melodramatic scenes, which is saying a lot). Wakefield, as demonstrated in Sanctum (2011), is a serviceable but thoroughly uninteresting actor, although his tendency to emote does allow him to offer up one of the film’s biggest headslappers: “Just because I don’t want to sleep with you anymore doesn’t mean I don’t still love you!” You tell ’em, big guy! Lowe does fine with her role as the “voice of reason” who tackles Zimit head-on but her character pretty much devolves into a mouthpiece for “artists over plumbers” by the film’s final third, hammering home her talking points so often that it feels like we’re the mirror she’s practicing to before the big debate. Everyone else in the cast falls somewhere between these extremes, although no one approaches the sheer obnoxiousness of D’Arcy’s performance.

For the most part, the film looks pretty good, although Huddles has a tendency to film all of the romantic scenes between James and Petra in as clichéd a way as possible, all languid camera movements, indie rock and amber lighting: when compared to the rest of the film, these bits stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Equally awkward are various moments in the film that seemed destined to jolt the audience, such as the decidedly ooky scene where everyone pairs off and gets to the business of baby-making. We never get anything more than some vague suggestions but the pairing of Petra with Mr. Zimit certainly has some queasy undertones. There are also some odd tonal disparities, like the bit where one character jovially explains his desire to be exiled with the other group as wanting to have the exiled women all to himself. Fuck altruism: this guy has the right idea, eh?

By turns overly self-serious and ridiculously over-the-top, After the Dark ends up being a bit of a non-entity. Minus the gimmick of the fantasy scenarios, the film would still be rough but it would, at least, have some genuine stakes to sweat over. As it stands, however, nothing that happens is real, so why should we really care who lives or dies? By the time we get to the point where Petra gets to choose all of the “survivors” and picks all of the people who Zimit repeatedly tossed out, such as the poet, musician and “Ebola-infected doctor” (yes, really), the film’s aims are pretty clear. Zimit warns Petra that she hasn’t chosen people with actual survival skills: her group won’t last long in his decimated vision of the future. We won’t live long, she counters, but we’ll live well. That’s the apex of the film’s philosophy and to that, I merely shrug: good for you, Petra, but I’ll be over here, hanging out with the kids who can start a fire and find food.

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6/27/14: Looks Great, Less Filling

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Alice Parkinson, Alister Grierson, Allsion Cratchley, Australian films, cave diving, Cave of the Swallows, cave system, cinema, Dan Wyllie, drama, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Ioan Gruffudd, James Cameron, Movies, Rhys Wakefield, Richard Roxburgh, Sanctum, thriller, underwater caves, unexplored cave system

As of late, James Cameron is more known for his mega-budget event pictures, like Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), than he was for the more intimate sci-fi that originally put him on the map: The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1988). By this point, especially with three more Avatar sequels in the works, we pretty much know what to expect from Cameron: cutting-edge technology, huge budgets and stereotypical characters lurching through melodramatic storylines. In many ways, Cameron is one of the best examples of “style over substance”: while Avatar signaled a bold, new era in Hollywood special effects, the film, itself, was as middle-of-the-road as possible. Cameron’s films have a tendency to look like a million bucks but are usually plotted like something from the $0.99 bin at the video store (when they still had video stores, of course).

With this in mind, I went into Sanctum (2011), which Cameron executive produced, with no small amount of trepidation. Truth be told, I haven’t actually enjoyed one of Cameron’s films since Terminator 2, all the way back in 1991. Despite this hesitation, a few things compelled me to press forward. First of all, Cameron was only the executive producer, not the writer or director, which meant that his creative input might be minimal. Second, Sanctum is about underwater cave exploration, which has been a particular interest of mine (and Cameron’s, apparently) since I was a kid: I very rarely miss an opportunity to watch any underwater thrillers, regardless of who’s involved. Thirdly, with Cameron executive producing, I expected the film to be technically impressive, which would certainly satisfy the fan-boy in me. What I ended up with, ultimately, was a film that managed to meet all of my expectations, for better or worse: the film looks gorgeous, featuring truly stunning underwater cinematography and great locations, but is also melodramatic, with workmanlike acting and trite characterizations. In other words: Sanctum is a real triumph of style over substance…how positively Cameronian!

Josh McGuire (Rhys Wakefield), son of world-famous underwater cave explorer, Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh), is late in meeting his father for a dive into the largely unexplored Esa-ala cave system, in the South Pacific. Since father and son already have an extremely contentious relationship, this is just one more issue to add to their already full-plate: the biggest issue, however, appears to be that young Josh just doesn’t care for underwater exploration. Once he gets to the site, we meet the other main players: Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) and his girlfriend, Victoria (Alice Parkinson) and Frank’s team: George (Dan Wyllie), Judes (Allison Cratchley) and Luko (Cramer Cain). Carl is the money-man who’s funding Frank’s expedition, which puts him in constant conflict with the gruff caver. The stage is set for confrontations, conflicts and lots of familial drama…plus some pretty spectacular sight-seeing, of course.

Frank and his crew have a particular goal: they want to traverse the unexplored cave system and find the outlet to the ocean that Frank knows must exist. During the dive, however, disaster strikes and Judes ends up drowning, a tragedy that Josh blames his father for since Frank was the one who had her dive for so long. To add more drama, a killer storm is blowing in and the crew needs to get out of the area before they’re trapped there. Frank is stubborn, however, and the storm rolls in, pinning them down in the cave system. At this point, the path is clear: the only way out is through. With time running out and additional conflicts popping up left and right, Josh and Frank must find their way out of the cave system or die trying. For the first time in a long time, father and son must overcome this issues and work together or the Esa-ala will become their watery tomb.

As mentioned above, Sanctum looks absolutely gorgeous: the film was originally released to theatres in “Real 3D” and I’m sure the experience was suitably eye-popping. The Esa-ala cave system is truly amazing (much of the movie was filmed at the iconic Cave of Swallows) and the underwater cinematography is always crystal-clear. There are also plenty of well-staged action set-pieces, including a genuinely thrilling bit where the crew rappels down a hazardous drop-off. While the film is not always a non-stop rollercoaster, there’s plenty of decent action here. The main problem, as also stated above, is that everything else about the film is strictly bargain-basement. In many ways, the film resembles a really expensive TV movie, full of melodrama, iffy acting and irrational character motivations. Rhys Wakefield is particularly bad, as Frank’s standoffish son: the character vacillates between sounding like an obnoxious, whiny teenager and trying to fill action hero boots that are way too big for him. While Richard Roxburgh is decent, as Frank, Ioan Gruffudd is completely over the top, as the thrill-seeking Carl. Sanctum is full of “low moments” but many of the worst belong to Gruffudd: the moment where he melodramatically leaps into the water is such an eye-roller that I could see the bottom of my brain and his devolution into “stock bad guy” is handled with as much grace and subtlety as a sledgehammer smacking a house fly.

Ultimately, Sanctum is about one-third of a good film and two-thirds of purely middle-of-the-road dreck. For anyone who’s interested in cave or underwater exploration, Sanctum features plenty of great locations and some really exceptional photography. For anyone who’s interested in all of the other things that make a film watchable, however – things like storyline and acting – Sanctum comes up severely deficient. Seems like my original impression was dead on the money: Sanctum looks great but has as much substance as a Twinkie. In other words, classic modern-day Cameron.

5/12/14: Everybody Has a Twin

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+1, Adam David Thompson, Ashley Hinshaw, Ashley Winshaw, Bill Gullo, cinema, college parties, Dennis Iliadis, doppelgängers, dopplegangers, doubles, film reviews, films, Francis Ford Coppola, horror, horror films, keggers, Logan Miller, Mihai Malaimare Jr., Movies, Natalie Hall, parallel universe, Peter Zimmerman, Plus One, Primer, Project X, Rhys Wakefield, Rohan Kymal, sci-fi, Suzanne McCloskey, The Last House on the Left, Timecrimes, wild parties, youth in trouble

There’s something quite magical about a previously unknown film exceeding expectations. Not meeting them, mind you: that happens quite frequently. No, I’m talking about that special thrill that can only happen when you expect a movie to go through the motions only to discover that it’s actually a smarter, scrappier little bastard than you thought. The best example I can think of in this regard is Hobo with a Shotgun (2011): while I wasn’t expecting anything more than a stupid, gory attempt to set up shop in Troma-land, I fell completely in love with the film after one viewing, finding it to be the freshest, funniest, funkiest pile of gold-plated junk I’d seen in a blue moon. While Dennis Iliadis’ +1 (Plus One) doesn’t fire me up in the same way that Hobo did, it’s a massively impressive effort: I went in expecting one of those moronic “megaparty” films “with a twist,” but I was actually greeted with something that aspires a little closer to Timecrimes (2007) than Project X (2012). It’s not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. but it is interesting, quick-paced, intelligent and just tricky enough to inspire a repeat viewing. Looks like I better keep my eye on this Iliadis dude: us Greeks can be a tricky lot!

In many ways, +1 is two separate films, joined at the hip: a megaparty, youth-getting-crazy-and-finding-love movie and a batshit crazy horror story about a strange meteor and murderous doppelgängers. If it sounds like those halves make ill-fitting companions, you’re right: there’s absolutely no way this should work (it even looks sketchy on paper). For whatever reason, however, it ends up working perfectly: my biggest issues with the film tend to be the ultra-cliched party scenes but I have issues with those kinds of films/scenes whenever I see them (without a doubt, The Kitchen (2012) had one of the worst “parties” I’ve ever seen in a film). The doppelgänger aspect, however, is handled with some real wit and nerve, albeit in a slightly confusing manner. Since Timecrimes and Primer (2004) were both complete head-scratchers, however, I’m willing to grant that the subjects of time travel and alternate versions of ourselves may be just a little more complex than the average multiplex feature can handle, at least beyond the Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) level.

The film begins with a nice little bit of foreshadowing, as our hero, David (Rhys Wakefield, kind of a poor-man’s James Van der Beek), makes a bit of a mistake after his girlfriend’s fencing match. You see, he goes to kiss who he thinks is Jill (Ashley Hinshaw) but ends up kissing a girl who’s her spitting image…but definitely not her. Jill sees this and before David knows it, he’s been unfriended on Facebook: shit just got serious, folks! Looking to drown his sorrows, David lets his shithead friend, Teddy (Logan Miller), drag him to one of those epic college keggers that seem to involve 5000 people and always get shut-down by the cops. Who should be at the party, of course, but Jill, who’s attending with her new gentleman friend, Steve (Peter Zimmerman)? As expected, this bums David way the hell out: how’s a guy supposed to kick back when his ex is sucking face with some jerk? Hoping to succeed where generations of movie heroes have failed, David moves through and around the party, hoping to get Jill alone so that he can win her back. Teddy, in the meantime, has his eyes set on Melanie (Natalie Hall): she’s out of his luck, of course, but how’s a guy gonna know if doesn’t try? Meanwhile, the party’s host, Angad (Rohan Kymal, mugging as if the bus will explode if he doesn’t go big at every opportunity), has his own problems, since the party (complete with outdoor stage, strippers and live music) keeps getting bigger and bigger. Stay cool and have a great summer, guys!

And then, just when it seems that all hope is lost (for us, not our heroes: they always do okay), the film decides to drop the other show: a meteor plummets from the heavens to earth, exploding into brilliant, blue electrical energy when it hits. The energy jolts into a nearby powerline, which causes a temporary power outage. David is looking in a mirror when the power cuts: when it comes back on, he’s looking one way but his reflection is looking the other way. The game, as they say, is on.

From this point on, +1 manages to graft both halves of the film together and, a few ugly stitches notwithstanding, it’s a pretty seamless job. As David, Teddy and their friend, Allison (Suzanne McCloskey), quickly figure out, there now appears to be two of everyone. As a further twist, however, the doubles don’t seem to be aware of each other (yet), as they’re on slightly different timelines than the “real people”: the doppelgängers replay incidents that happened shortly beforehand, so they’re (technically) always a little behind the real partygoers. When the real party moves outside, however, and the doppelgängers take over the house, it becomes pretty clear that these parallel lines are moving rapidly towards a collision point. Ever the opportunist, David sees a “surefire” way to get back Jill: if he can only get to her doppelgänger, David can use information from his last conversation with the “real” Jill to re-romance the double. Will he be able to get back his “normal” life by doing something decidedly strange? How different is “real” Jill from “fake” Jill? For that matter, how different is “real” David from “fake” David? As the “time-difference” between the real people and their doppelgängers gets smaller and smaller, a new wrinkle is revealed: rough-neck drug-dealer Kyle (Adam David Thompson) gets shot in the head by his own double. With this incident comes a terrifying new question: what, exactly, will happen when the doppelgängers “catch up” to the real people?

While +1 is a little rough out of the gate (despite the clever opening situation), it quickly settles into quite the tense, action-packed little marvel. As mentioned earlier, the megaparty stuff is all pretty stupid and shallow, although I’m definitely not the audience for that kind of film. “Woo-girls” run around in Native American headdresses, chugging red cups. A bunch of broish dudes eat sushi off a naked Japanese woman before offending her and receiving some righteous jump kicks as punishment (really). A bunch of the idiots decide to play tennis, indoors, with a flaming tennis ball. Yes, a flaming fucking tennis ball. When the flames set a curtain on fire, do they panic? Naw, brah: they just wait for the sprinklers to kick on and dance in the water! Yeah…it’s unrepentantly dumb and, combined with some idiocy over which band gets to play and the bizarre strip show outside, the whole thing feels sort of like a dinner-theater version of Coachella.

Stick with it, however, and that most magical of things happens: it actually bears fruit. While much of the banality from the party scenes is just that, many other elements get reworked and filtered back through a new lens once the doppelgängers enter the picture. Certain scenes that formerly made no sense, on their own, are now seen in the bigger mosaic of the film and it’s a pretty smart move. There’s also no shortage of genuine tension in the film, including an absolutely brilliant scene where Allison’s doppelganger is being followed by a bitchy rival, who is being pursued by the real Allison. The three form a pretty great conga line and it’s edge-of-the-seat time as we realize that any look over a shoulder blows the whole thing to hell. Very smart. There are also some fantastically edgy moments as the real people wait, terrified, as the timelines get closer and closer together: since the audience has no idea how this technically works, we’re in the exact same boat as the party-goers, sort of a flip on that whole “we become the victim” idea in slashers.

There’s so much that genuinely works in +1 that I almost feel bad for the stuff that doesn’t, although none of it irreparably harms the film. The special effects (the “alien fire” and flaming tennis ball) are astoundingly awful: worse than direct-to-video awful, if I can be so bold. The acting tends to range from decent to kinda awful, although I also got the feeling that many of these actors were of the “I need a bunch of folks for a crowd-scene” variety. The principals do pretty good, for the most part, with Logan Miller being particularly impressive: I started the movie absolutely hating the loathsome, douchebag character of Teddy but he managed to (eventually) win me over. Similarly, I felt that Rohan Kymal’s Angad was always too over-the-top, although even he had several nicely nuanced scenes, particularly once the shit really hits the fan.

Director Iliadis’ previous claim to fame was the remake of The Last House on the Left (2009), which I haven’t seen, but I enjoyed +1 enough to be curious about that one, as well. I don’t like everything he does here but there’s enough wild invention to glide me over the rougher aspects. Cinematographer Mihai Malaimaire Jr. was the guy responsible for shooting Francis Ford Coppola’s last three films — Youth Without Youth (2007), Tetro (2009) and Twixt (2011) — as well as P.T. Anderson’s The Master (2012). While there’s nothing overly showy about the cinematography, the shots are always nicely composed and he has a way with depth of field that leads to some very interesting reveals. At the very least, the film has a much richer, deeper look than one would expect from this type of “party hardy” environment.

While +1 isn’t perfect, it’s a damn sight more interesting than many more “prestigious” films that I’ve seen over the past six months or so. At one point, the “real” characters get into a discussion about what makes the doppelgängers different from their “originals.” As one person points out, the doppelgängers can’t be the same, technically, since they’ve had different experiences than the originals have (especially towards the end, when things get bad). If you think really, really hard, it’s a pretty mind-blowing concept, especially within the framework of the story: does your mirror image have a life of its own on the other side of the glass? Where does it go when you walk away? What makes a being intelligent…and what makes it unique? These are the kinds of questions I might expect from a highfalutin sci-fi slow-burner or something by Aronofsky. When I can get things like this in a movie that also features flaming indoor tennis, I consider myself a mighty lucky man, indeed.