7/15/15 (Part Three): Lost Swans and Hot Lead

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'90s homage, action films, action-comedies, Adam Buxton, Bad Boys, Bill Bailey, Bill Nighy, Billie Whitelaw, Blazing Saddles, British comedies, British films, Cate Blanchett, cinema, co-writers, cops behaving badly, David Arnold, David Threlfall, Edgar Wright, Edward Woodward, ensemble cast, Eric Mason, fast-paced, film reviews, films, goofy films, Hot Fuzz, ineffectual cops, Jess Hall, Jim Broadbent, Joe Cornish, Julia Deakin, Kevin Eldon, Lucy Punch, Martin Freeman, Movies, Nick Frost, Olivia Colman, Paddy Considine, Paul Freeman, Peter Wight, Point Blank, public decency, Rafe Spall, Ron Cook, Rory McCann, Shaun of the Dead, SImon Pegg, small town life, small-town British life, Stephen Merchant, Steve Coogan, Stuart Wilson, the Cornetto trilogy, The World's End, Timothy Dalton, UK films, urban vs rural, violent films, wisecracking cops, writer-actor, writer-director, Young Frankenstein

There’s something a little off in the sleepy, picturesque hamlet of Sandford, UK and it’s up to gung-ho London super-cop, Nick Angel, to figure out what it is. Sure, the inhabitants of the tranquil little village may seem impossibly friendly, the kind of small-town folks who know everyone’s names and just how many sugar cubes they take in their tea, thank you very much. Sandford may seem impossibly clean, neat and crime-free (no one in town, for example, has even heard of the “M-word” (Murder, doncha know?), let alone done the dirty deed), a peek into a peaceful township where the biggest problems are the “living statue” street performer and a “hoodie epidemic” that vexes the preternaturally polite populace something fierce.

Ask any genre fan worth their salt, however, and they’ll probably all say the same thing: small, quiet little towns like Sandford may seem like oases from the rat-race of the world at large but, dig a little deeper, and they’ll always produce more than their fair share of skeletons in the various closets. Behind every kind, small-town smile lurks a bottomless capacity for evil and down every immaculately cobblestoned pathway? Why, the very heart of Hell, itself! After all…can you really trust someone who seems so…nice?

If you’re Edgar Wright and the rest of his merry band of hooligans, the answer is an absolutely resounding “Hell no!” and the result is the second film in writer-director Wright’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” Hot Fuzz (2007). While the first film in the series, the modern classic Shaun of the Dead (2004), tipped the musty, old zombie film ass-over-tea-kettle, Hot Fuzz seeks to do the same for action-packed ’90s cop films (the final point of the trilogy, The World’s End (2013), takes on alien invasion epics). By using most of the same terrific ensemble from Shaun of the Dead and that patented zany brand of deadpan humor, Wright capitalizes on everything that made his previous film so much fun, while throwing plenty of bones to anyone weaned on actioners like Point Break (1991) or Bad Boys (1995). While the film is always a little goofy, it’s also a smart film, full of blink-and-miss-em visual references, plenty of silly action, some surprisingly bracing violence and enough witty dialogue and outrageous scenarios to keep the punters in stitches. In other words: prime Wright, through and through.

After Nick Angel is promoted to Sergeant and sent to the sticks (his always-on antics are making not only his police peers but his big-city superiors look like ineffectual morons), it looks like his eternal crime-fighting pilot light will be snuffed, never to blaze again. After he ends up in the middle of a pair of suspicious deaths that are unceremoniously labeled an “accident” by the local police force, Angel decides to do his own investigation, with the dunderheaded assistance of one PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the fairly useless son of Angel’s new superior, Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent).

As more and more “accidents” keep popping up, however, Angel begins to suspect that the sleepy town might harbor more below the surface than just an unhealthy interest in winning “Village of the Year.” As Nick and Danny butt heads with the local chamber of commerce, headed by Tom Weaver (a completely unrecognizable Edward Woodward) and slimy grocery-store impresario Simon Skinner (former 007 Timothy Dalton), they begin to get wind of a conspiracy that might, potentially, involve every resident of the lovely little town. When it begins to seem as if the pair have gotten in over their heads, however, there’s only one sure-fire fix: binge-watch ’90s action flicks and then take the fight right to the streets.

Is there really something going on, however, or is poor Nick just going completely stir-crazy in the snoozy little community? As he gets closer and closer to the truth, Nick will learn that there’s only a few things he can put his faith in: his unwavering belief in the absolute power of good over evil, his steadfast determination to rid the streets of any and all crime (shoplifters, beware!) and the universal truth that absolutely anything will explode into a towering fireball once shot. Bad boys? You better believe it, buddy!

Reprising their winning chemistry from Shaun of the Dead, if not their actual characters, Pegg and Frost are exceptionally bright points of light in the altogether brilliant constellation that comprises Hot Fuzz’s ensemble. Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan pop up, briefly, as Nick’s self-serving London superiors…writer-directors Joe Cornish, Peter Jackson and Wright, himself, all have cameos…Cate Blanchett stops by for an unannounced turn as Nick’s unfaithful former girlfriend…Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall show up as a couple of idiotic cops nicknamed “the Andes” (since they’re both named Andy, dig?)…the always amazing Olivia Colman (Peep Show, as well as endless other British endeavors) has a blast as snarky PC Doris Thatcher…the aforementioned Dalton (one twirled mustache removed from silent-era villainy) and Woodward (best known on this side of the pond for his titular role as TV’s Equalizer, on the other side for his landmark performance in The Wicker Man (1973)) chew miles of scenery…writer-actor Stephen Merchant gets a great bit as Peter Ian Staker (or P.I. Staker, for the punny win)…virtually every second of screentime is occupied by a phenomenal actor given free rein to be patently awesome.

The result, of course, is an incredibly immersive experience, the equivalent of Mel Brooks’ ridiculously star-studded classics like Young Frankenstein (1974) or Blazing Saddles (1974). When combined with the picturesque locations, the over-the-top action sequences and the often absurd comedy, Hot Fuzz (like the other two films in the Cornetto Trilogy) is its own self-contained universe. It’s this quality that allows moments like Adam Buxton’s outrageously gory death (his head is reduced into a fine mist via the timely application of a fallen stone block) or the unrelentingly action-packed finale to sit comfortably beside more “high-brow” comedy fare like the scene where Angel engages in a crossword duel with a cagey old lady or the one where he rides through town to the tune of the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society.”

There are great throwaway jokes about the amount of damage caused by “good guys” in action movies, the tendency of small-town busybodies to focus on pointless “outrages” like hoodie sweatshirts and street performers over more important issues like corruption and justice and how small town folks in films often slot effortlessly into the “sinister locals” category (one of the townsfolk was an extra in Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971), we’re told on more than one occasion). There’s great comic material here both high and low, literally something for any fan of the funny stuff.

One of the smartest tricks Wright and company utilize is the restaging of famous action movie setpieces from the likes of pop-culture phenomena like Point Break and Bad Boys. While these scenes would function just fine in a vacuum, previous knowledge of Danny Butterman’s much-loved action films makes the experience that much richer: there may be no more sublime scene in the entire film than the one where Nick and Skinner battle it out over the ruins of a scale-model version of the town. As the two punch it out, like warring Gargantua or Godzilla with a particularly stiff upper-lip, a broken fire hydrant supplies a continuous shower of water over the two: in other words, Wright goes ahead and gives us one of those clichéd old bits where the hero and villain fight it out in the rain, pounding abuse on each other as the very skies join in. And it works gloriously: somewhere in “movie heaven,” Riggs and Murtagh are looking down, fondly, I’m willing to wager.

In feel (and tone), Hot Fuzz probably hews a little closer to its follow-up, The World’s End, than its predecessor, Shaun of the Dead. Hot Fuzz, however, like the films it references, is an altogether bigger, noisier and more boisterous affair than either of the other films: while Shaun of the Dead was full of great setpieces and The World’s End managed to take a leap into much “bigger” themes, the action beats of the middle film are their own little world. Hot Fuzz is a little “dumber” and “slighter” than the other two but that’s also to be expected: you don’t wade into the fray of silly, adrenalized action movies without getting a little of it on your shirtsleeves, after all.

Despite being less than enamored with Hot Fuzz upon its initial release, the film has grown on me, over the years, in a way that I’m not sure Shaun or World’s End has (although World’s End still has plenty of time to go): once I allowed myself to get swept away by the film’s loud, Technicolor action and ferocious sense of energy, however, it became easier to absorb the more subtle, truly ingenious elements to Wright’s style.

If you grew up on ’90s actioners, harbor suspicions against the status quo or fancy yourself a bit of a lone wolf, Wright and Pegg’s Hot Fuzz practically demands another viewing. Come for the gleeful chaos and copious explosions but stay for the kind of insightful, in-depth and subtle commentary that we’ve come to expect from one of genre cinema’s most unusual visionaries. As Michael might say: “Yarp.” Yarp, indeed.

12/27/14 (Part One): Tongue Through Cheek

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Bruce Campbell, Chad Herschberger, cinema, co-writers, Doc of the Dead, documentaries, documentary, film reviews, films, George Romero, goofy, Greg Nicotero, horror films, interviews, Max Brooks, Movies, Night of the Living Dead, pop culture, Robert Kirkman, SImon Pegg, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, voodoo, writer-director, zombie invasion, zombies

Sometimes, it’s not what you say but how you say it. Take, for example, documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe’s Doc of the Dead (2014). Chock full of fun interviews, interesting tidbits and plenty of in-depth history about the genesis and evolution of the zombie in both film and pop culture, there’s a lot to like here. Despite all of the good information, however, Philippe’s film still nearly sinks under the weight of its frequently flippant, mocking tone, especially when the film drops any “serious” pretensions and devolves into a series of silly zombie invasion spoofs and tedious musical skits.

When Doc of the Dead isn’t taking cheap potshots at the sillier aspects of its subject matter (zombie survivalists, zombie porn and the like), it’s quite an interesting, fast-paced film, if decidedly lightweight. Philippe and co-writer/editor Chad Herschberger utilize the standard formula of plenty of “talking head” interviews (George Romero, Simon Pegg, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Mel Brooks’ son/World War Z scribe Max Brooks, et al) alongside lots of film clips and the odd historical/epistemologial segment to give a pretty thorough overview of zombies in Western film, TV and pop culture.

I stress “Western,” since the filmmakers manage to completely bypass such admittedly rich zombie treasure troves as the Italian gore films of the ’70s and ’80s and any of the over-the-top Asian zombie films that have cropped up in the past decade or so.  While this would have, undoubtedly, broadened the focus of the film, I can’t help but feel that at least some mention of these other films would have been appropriate, if for no other reason than to point out how universal this particular horror trend has become in the past 40 years.

Foreign omissions notwithstanding, my biggest and most critical complaint regarding Doc of the Dead has to be all of the silly digressions, goofy skits and tongue-in-cheek stupidity that sits uncomfortably next to the more serious scholarship. I’m not claiming that all documentaries need to be serious or even that a zombie-themed documentary could ever be completely serious…we are talking about re-animated corpses, after all, so some measure of suspension of disbelief is required, no matter how you tackle the subject. I will firmly state, however, that the split-tone in Philippe’s film made it impossible for me to ever be completely on-board. For every cool story related by Romero or interesting observation (zombie cinema is one of the only horror genres to develop from folklore rather than literature, for example, which is pretty interesting, when you think about it), there’s a dumb segment involving amateur re-imaginings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), a zombie music video or silly interview with survivalists about the best weapons to use in case of a zombie attack.

The biggest problem with this tactic, quality of the goofy segments notwithstanding (and the quality really can be extraordinarily shabby, especially when compared to the relative polish of the rest of the film), is that it makes it seem as if the filmmakers don’t really care about their subject matter. This was the same team that put together The People vs George Lucas (2010), so they definitely have a reputation for irreverence, but the goofy tone just seems out-of-place most of the time. I found myself enjoying the “serious” parts of the film enough that I wanted more consistency but the inherently inconsistent nature of the film just made me tired and frustrated, by the end: I wanted more scholarship but the filmmakers wanted more “funny” scenes of badly made-up zombies stumbling around in domestic scenarios.

Ultimately, I didn’t hate Doc of the Dead: there’s too much good stuff here to completely write off the film. I just wish that Philippe and crew had been able to maintain a more consistent tone or, barring that, were able to craft something as humorous and entertaining as Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010), which managed to be both scholarly and flat-out funny. Fans of zombies in film, TV and pop culture will find plenty to enjoy about Doc of the Dead (although most fanatics will have heard most of this stuff before) but the film is too lightweight to make much of an impact beyond the true believers…and the truly patient.

10/6/14 (Part Two): Middle Age, Pints and Blue Goop

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31 Days of Halloween, alien invasion, auteur theory, Best of 2013, British comedies, British films, cinema, co-writers, David Bradley, Eddie Marsan, Edgar Wright, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friends, Gary King, horror-comedies, Hot Fuzz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, male friendships, Martin Freeman, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nick Frost, obnoxious friends, Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan, pubs, Rosamund Pike, sci-fi, Shaun of the Dead, siege, SImon Pegg, the Cornetto trilogy, the Golden Mile, the Network, The World's End, writer-director, youth vs old age

Like most vacation destinations, nostalgia is a great place to visit but a pretty awful place to live. While all of us may spend at least some part of our lives pining for “the good old days” and hoping to relive past glories, there comes a time when we must plant our eyes firmly ahead and charge straight into the unknown, lest we find that our lives have become the equivalent of a hamster ball: furious motion with no chance of forward movement. In a real reason sense, nostalgia can kill…but it sure is a pretty poison.

Writer-director Edgar Wright’s The World’s End (2013), the third entry in his unofficial “Cornetto Trilogy” that also features Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), is a movie that’s not only about the curse of nostalgia but also informed by this very phenomena: it’s a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too, if you will and it’s doubtful that many directors could pull it off as capably as Wright does here. The end result is wildly successful and, as far as I’m concerned, ranks as Wright’s greatest film, thus far, a towering achievement that manages to be equal parts gut-busting and thought-provoking. It’s a film that should be enjoyed by just about anyone but will have particular relevance to that portion of society who find themselves aging into versions of themselves that seem distinctly watered-down from their youthful ideals. For anyone approaching middle-age who’ve ever taken a long look in the mirror and asked, “What the hell happened to me?,” Wright’s got the cheeky answer: “You got fucking old, mate…it happens to the best of us.”

The man-child at the center of Wright’s latest opus is Gary King, expertly portrayed by Wright regular Simon Pegg, who’s managed to turn these type of roles into something of a cottage industry. From his start on the BBC with cult-hit Spaced to more recent films like How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) and A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012), Pegg has become something of the go-to guy for schlubs trying to relive their youth, characters who would rather get ripped at the pub, play video games all day long and avoid honest work than buckle down and admit that the care-free days are far in the rearview mirror.

In this case, Gary King is firmly stuck in the past: 1991, to be exact, which happens to be the year that he and his pack of friends attempted, but failed, to complete the Golden Mile. The Golden Mile entails drinking a pint at twelve different pubs, culminating in the titular World’s End pub. As far as he’s concerned, Gary’s life never got any better than that one debauched night and he’s spent the two decades since chasing that same dragon. He wears the same clothes as he used to, drives the same junker car, listens to the exact same mixtape and obsessively dwells on every minute detail of that era. When it all gets to be too much, Gary decides to do the only “sensible” thing: get the band back together, as it were, and give the Golden Mile another go.

There’s only one problem: Gary’s crew haven’t seen him in 20-odd years and many of them detest him with a passion normally reserved for baby-stealing dingoes. Never one to let common sense spoil a good plan, Gary goes about insinuating himself back into the lives of his former comrades, all the while trying to wheedle them into giving their old drinking challenge another try. Times, of course, have moved on and so have Gary’s “friends”: Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman) and Steve (Paddy Considine) all have their own lives, jobs and responsibilities to see to and none of them, particularly former best friend Andy, want anything to do with their former “leader.”

Gary’s nothing if not insistent, however, and in no time, he’s got the group back on the Golden Mile. As they pub-hop, however, issues old and new continue to rear their ugly heads: Andy is now a teetotaling “party-pooper” while no one is willing to forgive Gary’s past (and present) churlish behavior. When Oliver’s sister, Sam (Rosamund Pike) enters the picture, new conflicts abound: Gary had sex with Sam in the bathroom on that fateful night so long ago, but it’s poor Steve who’s always pined for her. Just when Gary’s insensitive, assholish behavior threatens to tear the group apart for the second time, they become united in something that seems a bit more important: the group stumbles upon a sinister plot to usurp humanity and invade our planet, a plot which they seem to be in the unique position to foil…even they can quit taking pot-shots at each other, that is. As Gary and his friends fight for the very survival of our species, they’re also fighting for the survival of their long-gone friendships and relationships, seeking to move from the immature past into the responsible present. If they succeed, mankind will live to fight another day. If they don’t, however, we may just see a future that makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) seem more like public service announcement than flight of fancy.

The most important thing to note about The World’s End is how absolutely, completely and totally enthralling the film is: from the very first to the very last one, Wright’s film grabs the audience by the lapels and doesn’t let go. From rapid-fire dialogue to an endless array of inventive and (frequently) astounding sight gags to one thrilling setpiece after another, The World’s End is absolutely relentless. The film rarely comes up for breath and hardly ever slows down. This could, of course, be a recipe for one very tiresome film: nonstop chaos is almost impossible to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that even mostly successful films like Airplane (1980) feature as many leaden duds as high-soaring hits. Thanks to the exceptional script, sure-handed direction and fantastic ensemble cast, however, The World’s End is one high-point after the other.

Truth be told, I’d already fallen in love with the film by the time the opening credits rolled: the next 100 minutes simply served to reaffirm this feeling. While I enjoyed both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, there was something about The World’s End that really struck a chord with me. Perhaps it’s the theme of aging gracefully into a more mature version of yourself…perhaps it was the wildly inventive invasion plot…perhaps it was just the fact that the film manages to hit all of its marks and then some…whatever the reason, The World’s End hooked me hard and refused to let go.

Since part of the film’s endless charm comes from the myriad surprises that it manages to throw at the audience, I’d be remiss to shed too much light on any of them. Suffice to say that the film features fist-raising moments galore: a spot-on reference to the under-rated Dead and Buried (1981); clever riffs on Invasion of the Body Snatchers; a throw-away visual reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) that’s made my jaw drop, a little; the fact that the climax manages to revolve around not just one but two classic clichés of sci-fi cinema; Nick Frost playing a neebish…Martin Freeman taking his prim and proper caracatures to their logical extreme…the film is like an endless replenishing box of goodies, coughing up untold comic treasures at a moment’s notice.

The comedy’s not the only thing that hits the mark, however: The World’s End succeeds just as capably as a sci-fi/horror film, featuring some truly intense and frightening scenes. The moments where the Blanks’ eyes and mouths become the equivalent of high beams is a truly chilling moment, whereas the numerous fight scenes are brilliantly choreographed and staged. One fight in particular, which features Simon Pegg moving in and around a brawl while attempting to avoid spilling his treasured pint of lager, is pure gold, perhaps the single best fight scene I’ve seen in years. Make no bones about it: The World’s End is a very, very funny film. It’s also a very thrilling film, however: the two polar opposites are absolutely not mutually exclusive, in this case.

In truth, there’s very little real criticism I can give the film, aside from the fact that I felt the final coda was a bit silly and unnecessary. Aside from that, however, I found myself in a pretty constant state of awe for nearly two hours. The World’s End is a smashing success, a film that sets a pretty high bar for itself, right out of the gate, and then manages to effortlessly hurdle that bar. It’s a film that can be enjoyed by anyone but should be treasured by those folks with even a passing interest in sci-fi (classic and otherwise).

There’s one point in the film where Gary posits that something must be going on with the people in the town because they’ve “changed”: 20 years later and no one seems to be acting the way he remembered. He never once, of course, allows for the distressing notion that he might be the one who’s changed, not them. We’d like to believe that we’re the truest people out there, the equivalent of a bunch of Holden Caulfields stomping through the masses, pointing out “phonies” left and right. In reality, however, we’re all just as compromised as the next person: time and the need to survive make hypocrites of us all.

Gary thinks that if he can just retrace his steps, he’ll be able to unlock some sort of Fountain of Youth, some way to prevent any more of himself from slipping away. He’s wrong, of course: the most that any of us can do is face the future, keep our backs to the past and keep trudging forward. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to make the journey with some good friends and companions. If not, we’ll keep circling the drain spout of irrelevance, ending up as no more than the dreams that our youthful selves never dared to hope might one day come true. When an ultra-goofy alien invasion comedy can make you think about stuff like this, you have what I like to call a classic on your hands.

4/23/14: When Fear is Good

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A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Alex de la Iglesia, Amara Karan, based on a short story, British comedies, British films, Bruce Robinson, Bunny and the Bull, Burke & Hare, childhood fears, Chris Hopewell, cinema, Clare Higgins, comedies, crime novelists, Crispian Mills, Decades of Death, Dr. Friedkin, eyeballs, fear, film reviews, films, Guy Ritchie, Hanoi Handshake Killer, Harold the Hedgehog, Hayley Mills, horror-comedies, I Sell the Dead, Kerry Shale, Kula Shaker, laundromats, Movies, paranoia, Paul Freeman, Quentin Tarantino, serial killers, SImon Pegg, Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Final Countdown, The Hendon Ogre, Time Bandits, voice-over narration, Wes Anderson, Withnail and I

There’s something about an “everything including the kitchen sink” approach to filmmaking that’s always appealed to me. Perhaps it was because Time Bandits (1981) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) were two of my favorite films growing up and neither of those films understood the words “restraint” or “over-indulgence.” Perhaps it’s because I developed an early love for Tarantino and Ritchie’s hyperkinetic, restless bullet-ballets: the former contorted his traditional narratives into fantastic new balloon animals while the latter never met a camera-angle, editing trick or musical cue that he didn’t love. When a filmmaker throws everything at the screen, and it sticks, the results can be some of the most thrilling, eye-popping cinema I’ve ever seen. I never tire of Wes Anderson’s immaculate miniatures-writ-large and if Alex de la Iglesia can sometimes be the model of restraint, he’s more often the device for delivering machine-gun-armed circus clowns and silver-bodypaint-adorned Jesus bankrobbers. I love small, quiet, subtle films, especially horror films, but it’s no coincidence that three of my favorite films of the past decade have been I Sell the Dead (2008), Bunny and the Bull (2009) and Burke and Hare (2010), all three of which throw so much material/effects/multi-media/razzle-dazzle at the audience that they’re almost endurance matches. While Crispian Mills debut film A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012) may not be quite as perfect as the aforementioned classics, it’s just close enough to deserve a place with the pack.

After a truly dynamic animated opening sequence, we’re introduced to our hero, Jack (Simon Pegg), a children’s author who has decided to expand his horizons with a book about serial killers. Unfortunately for poor Jack, he has a tendency to be…well…afraid of everything and he quickly begins to obsesses about the various Victorian slashers, such as The Hendon Ogre and Crippen, that he researches. Even worse, he begins to think that insidious killers are actually after him, leading him to superglue a large kitchen knife to his hand. After his long-suffering agent gets Jack a meeting with the mysterious Harvey Humphries (Kerry Shale), a film producer interested in turning his research on serial killers into a movie, Jack must get over his intense agoraphobia and prepare to actually leave his house. After his usual laundry method (washing in the sink, drying in the oven) goes horribly awry, Jack must venture out to that most dreaded of public places: the laundromat. Not only have laundromats always been at the secret center of Jack’s endless phobias but there’s also a new killer nicknamed The Hanoi Handshake Killer running around. As Jack leaves his home, knife glued to hand, he must come to grips with the source of his childhood trauma, solve a local mystery and figure out whether he wants to stick with the hedgehog that made him famous or follow his dreams into the true-crime stories that haunt his dreams. Along the way, he might just find love. He also might get into an argument with a serial killer about the validity of The Final Countdown and hair metal vs gangsta rap, of course, but he definitely might find love.

Although it may seem overly reductive, perhaps the best “easy” descriptor of A Fantastic Fear of Everything would be Wes Anderson directing a Terry Gilliam film as envisioned by Guy Ritchie.   From the opening credit sequence to the closing one, AFFOE never sits still, spinning endlessly like a perpetual motion machine. Director/writer Mills (the son of actress Hayley Mills and member of Brit-rock band Kula Shaker), along with cinematographer Simon Chaudoir, have managed to craft a film that both visually and aurally inventive, hyperkinetic and fast-paced, yet inherently human and character-driven. This is no mean feat when there’s this much stuff flying around. At various points, we get super-stylized camera shots (the opening close-up of Pegg’s eye, which rotates out to make it seem as if he’s on the floor, yet is finally revealed to him by the wall, is nothing short of genius), nifty animated sequences (the paper-doll murder explanation is super cool and the claymation Harold the Hedgehog sequence is good enough to be its own short) and inventive use of sound (there’s a great moment where the sound begins loud and non-diagetic before becoming cracked and tinny as Jack walks into the launderette). The colors are all gorgeous and vibrant, looking like nothing so much as one of the aforementioned Anderson’s candy-colored epics.

In the pivotal role of Jack, Pegg is as reliably solid as ever. He manages to bring just the right amount of nice-guy restraint to balance out the bottomless ocean of neuroses that is Jack: too much in either direction and the character would be either insufferable or as bland as milquetoast. As such, however, we get some truly great Pegg moments, including the scene where he gives change to begging children, via used sock, through his mail slot or the aforementioned bit where he argues with his potential killer about whether hair metal or gangster rap was the more valid cultural entertainment. The rest of the cast, particularly Alan Drake as the daffy “community support police officer” Tony, are all excellent but this is truly Pegg’s show: he gets the most screen-time, by a yard, and relishes it.

There are a laundry-list of reasons this film shouldn’t have worked. For one thing, this kind of hyper-kinetic storytelling can easily dissolve into mush when done wrong: just look at Ritchie’s post-Snatch filmography (including Sherlock Holmes, please and thank you) or the brain-dead Shoot ‘Em Up (2007) for proof. Mills is a new, untested director coming from not only a famous family but a famous rock band: there’s no reason this shouldn’t have smelled and tasted like a vanity project. The actual plot (guy is afraid of everything, must get to meeting) is pretty thin and the final twist wraps things up in such a stereotypically happy, upbeat ending that it threatens to make everything before it seem like subtle parody, like a Jack Handey aphorism taken too far.

Against all odds, however, A Fantastic Fear of Everything works. And it works spectacularly well, if I might add. The script is sharp and clever, full of laugh-out-loud scenes, dialogue and ingeniously clever plot details. The animated sequences are all fresh and fit in perfectly with the rest of the film, as well as contributing to the overall themes of the film (how one’s imagination can imprison one, if not careful). The acting is uniformly top-notch and the cinematography and sound design are exemplary. Truth be told, short of a truly embarrassing scene where Pegg mugs along to a rap song (this is almost as nerve-gratingly mortifying as the worst moments of The Office) and some minor issues with structure, there really isn’t much wrong with the film. If you can handle a little silliness and some self-referential moments, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is actually a pretty smart peek into the issues that make us all the stupid little humans that we are. For my money, I’m more than willing to give Jack a place on Simon Pegg’s Character Wall of Fame and I’m more than eager to find out what Crispian Mills comes up with next.

3/20/14: When Jackasses Attack

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arrogance, based on a book, based on a true story, celebrities, celebrity, celebrity journalist, cinema, comedies, Danny Huston, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, fish-out-of-water, Gillian Anderson, gossip rags, Hollywood, Hollywood satire, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Jeff Bridges, journalism, Kirsten Dunst, magazines, Megan Fox, Mother Teresa biopic, Movies, New York City, obnoxious people, Robert B. Weide, Sidney Young, SImon Pegg, Sophie Maes, Toby Young, unlikable protagonist, workplace comedies

As a modern society, we’ve become pretty obsessed with celebrities and the private lives of these glitterati. In a classic case of “the grass always looks greener,” it’s very inviting to look over the elegantly wrought-iron fences, past the armed security and straight into the beating heart of the American dream. This, of course, is a steaming load of horse pucky: the grass is greener because it’s Astroturf and the beautiful people look a lot like everyone else do first thing in the morning. This, of course, hasn’t stopped an entire cottage industry of gossip shows, tabloids and paparazzi from springing up to document every celebrity faux pas, grocery store visit, nose job and million-dollar deal under the sun. While it often seems that these purveyors of celebrity “news” are jaded outsiders looking to blow holes in the rhinestone-bedazzled Hindenburg that Hollywood often resembles, the Simon Pegg-starring How to Lose Friends and Alienate People posits a slightly different theory: these paparazzi are just as obsessed, envious and in love with these folks as everyone else is supposed to be.

Based on Toby Young book about his real-life experiences, HTLFAAP introduces us to the character of Sidney Young (Simon Pegg). As a boy, Sidney was obsessed with the idea that all celebrities lived together in some sort of Shangri-La…a 24/7 Copacabana where the drinks were always comped, the makeup was always immaculate and the people were all cool as ice. If he could just get there, he reasoned, he would be one truly happy young boy. As the opening voice-over lets us know, however, “celebrity journalist” is as close as he’s gotten to this imagined paradise. As he sits with starlet-of-the-moment Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) at an award show, one Best Actress award away from some promised pity sex, Sidney reflects back on the events that led him to this particular moment in time. The flashback takes us into our movie proper: one part workplace comedy, one part Hollywood satire, one part old-fashioned romance.

We see Sidney as a scrappy, ultra-combative tabloid journalist, prone to celebrity attack pieces and raging against the machine of the big corporate fluff rags. He ends up on the radar of Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), a gossip-rag magnate, after he crashes one of his exclusive A-list Hollywood parties. Sidney reminds Clayton of himself, at that age and economic level, so he does the only thing that a respectable gossip-mag baron would do in a situation like this: he puts Sidney on the payroll. This puts Sidney into direct contact with your usual rogues’ gallery of assorted oddball characters: Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston), Sidney’s slimy boss; Alison (Kirsten Dunst), the prickly co-worker that would never, in a million years, fall for a jerk like Sidney; fame-hungry starlet Sophie Maes, her little dog Cuba and reptilian agent Eleanor (Gillian Anderson); and colossal jackass/director Vincent Lepak (Max Minghella).

As Sidney navigates these treacherous, shark-filled waters, he finds himself falling for Alison (natch), although she has a mysterious absentee boyfriend that makes getting together seem a little impossible. There also seems to be some interest from Sophie, although she seems more than willing to do absolutely anything that would push her career one step closer to the big time. Sidney’s old rebel spirit begins to fight back as he’s asked to do a puff piece on Lepak, a black-hole of vapidity so dense that nothing can escape his crushing stupidity. When Sidney rebels, it seems like the only thing holding him back is himself: as Harding told him earlier, he’s standing in the first room and is fully capable of getting to the last room…if he wants it bad enough. Sidney must reconcile his own core values with his lifelong desire to fit in with the “cool kids,” all while trying to figure out just what, exactly, he really wants to do with his life.

My biggest beef with HTLFAAP is that the film ends up being so schizophrenic. On the one hand, it wants to be a snarky, razor-sharp satire on the inherent ridiculousness of Hollywood, complete with an epic Mother Teresa biopic starring Megan Fox. On the other hand, the film wants to be one of those ubiquitous workplace dramadies where co-workers conspire against each other, ideas are stolen, comeuppances are had by all and a quirky parade of characters engage in utterly quirky behavior. On the third hand, the movie wants to be an old-fashioned romance, one of those Cary Grant-starrers where the guy and gal don’t see eye to eye, you see, until they do, at which point they fall madly in love with each other and live happily ever after. As you can see, there’s about one hand too many here. This is a big reason why the film ends up being a bit of a tonal mess: one moment, it’s a frantic, ultra-high-strung slapstick comedy, the next moment, it’s a stereotypical “indie comedy,” with Juno-esque dialogue and sardonic voice-over. The film also gets serious, from time to time, mostly to remind us that Sidney is constantly in danger of losing his core values.

For my money, the most tired aspect of the film (and the one that I would have cut first) would have to be the hackneyed romantic angle. The romance steals the focus of the film almost entirely, especially by the final third, where Sidney is madly rushing about trying to win the hand of Alison. In fact, the final denouement has virtually nothing to do with any of the celebrity-chasing that came before, breaking everything down to that time-honored (and ultra-trite) notion that all you really do need is love. How nice. Were there some actual chemistry between Pegg and Dunst, the romance might carry a little bit more weight. As it stands, however, it felt very much like “Character A must like Character B”-level plotting and never felt authentic.

What worked? The film seemed to wring the most success from the celeb-mocking stuff (the Mother Teresa gag is, quite simply, one of the funniest jokes I’ve seen in quite some time) and the performances were pretty sturdy. It’s always nice to see The Dude in something but I kinda wish Bridges had been given more to do than bluster and offer the occasional bit of sage advise. Pegg did a decent job playing a shithead character but this kind of smug, self-absorbed nitwit is starting to seem like old hat for ol’ Simon: it would be nice to see him branch out a little. Ditto for Dunst, who’s been on this kind of autopilot for his last few roles. She’s a great actress but, too often, she’s just required to be withering. Huston and Anderson are great in some meaty supporting roles: Anderson, in particular, is a blast to watch and neatly wrestles the film away whenever she’s on-screen.

At the end of the day, is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People worth a watch? It really depends on your expectations. If you’re a Simon Pegg fan, you could probably do worse (like Mission Impossible III) but you could certainly do better (see a Fantastic Fear of Everything, instead). I’m not familiar with the original book, or the person it was based on, so I can’t really vouch as to the authenticity of either, at least as represented here. My personal take is that Sidney comes across as a self-absorbed douchebag but, then again, what do I know? I do know that the romantic aspect drags the film down, however, and that it would have been a lot better had it been a lot shorter and tighter. I also know that, despite my intense dislike of Megan Fox, I would pay very good money to see her play Mother Teresa in that promised biopic: I kinda wish the filmmakers had given us an hour of that instead of two hours of this.

1/11/14: Chills, Thrills and Groans

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adventures, animated films, B-movies, bad movies, computer-animated, Daniel Craig, dark comedies, Edgar Wright, experimental film, Film, Film auteurs, Funny Games, German cinema, home invasion, hullaballoo, Indiana Jones, Michael Haneke, misanthropic, Nick Frost, Party of Five, SImon Pegg, Steven Spielberg, strange families, suspense, The Adventures of TinTin, The Butcher Brothers, The Hamiltons

Our quest to catch up now takes us to this past Saturday for another triple header. On this particular day, my viewing selections were tempered by the fact that I needed something to wash the taste of Funny Games out of my mouth: hence, the segue from that to Spielberg’s Adventures of TinTin. Now THAT’s the kind of counter-programming more festivals need to do!

Oy vey…talk about suffering for art…We’re all familiar with feel-good cinema: those gauzy, sweet, brightly colored bits of film fluff that usually posit nothing more challenging than a stubbed toe or a willfully spunky ingenue to shake things up. In a world that’s become increasingly cold and hostile, feel-good cinema can be the equivalent of a warm fire on a cold day, returning the essential humanity to an inhumane species.

Michael Haneke pisses all over feel-good cinema before burying it out in the desert. If the word “misanthropy” is defined as meaning, “the general hatred, distrust or disdain of the human species or human nature,” then Mr. Haneke may be one of the premiere misanthropes working in film today. Whether dealing with severely damaged, violent individuals (Benny’s Video, The Seventh Continent, The White Ribbon), the horrors of a violent society invading the sanctity of the home (Funny Games, The Time of the Wolf) or the erosion of life and love (The Piano Teacher, Amour), Haneke has never met a subject to dark or depressing to tear into. Despite his seeming disdain for people, Haneke has had a surprisingly successful career, achieving enough acclaim with his original 1997 version of Funny Games to warrant his American remake ten years later and culminating in Best Foreign Film and Best Actress nods for his most recent film, Amour.

I admit that I got to the Haneke party a little late, not jumping in until the remake of Funny Games. As a big Tim Roth fan, I took a chance, based on his presence, and was rewarded with something rather nasty and unpleasant. Nonetheless, I was intrigued and spent some time touring his back catalog, eventually arriving at his original version of Funny Games. Needless to say, I remember being thoroughly disturbed by the film and promptly sought to put it behind me. Flash forward many years and a lazy Saturday morning seemed like a perfect time to revisit the film and see if it still held any power. Short answer? Yes.

For those not familiar with the story, Funny Games is, ostensibly, a home invasion film. Three members of a family (parents and young son) are vacationing at their lakeside cottage, next to several other cabins and friends. The family is well-to-do, educated (while driving, they play a game of “Name that classical music concerto” and seem like nice enough people. Upon arriving at their cottage, they notice that their next-door-neighbors appear to be entertaining guests, a pair of young men dressed in tennis outfits. When one of the men appears at their doorstep to borrow some eggs, the family become trapped in a seemingly never-ending nightmare of violence, humiliation, torture and…well…funny games.

Part of the terrible, feral power of the film comes from how well-made it is. Rather than feeling (or looking) like a quickly dashed together bit of exploitation nastiness, Funny Games is an art film through and through. The opening, featuring an aerial view of their car driving through winding mountain roads, instantly reminds of Kubrick’s similar opening to The Shining. The film has a cold, clinical look that recalls Cronenberg’s early bio-medical chillers. The acting, particularly from the evil young men is impeccable and, at times, downright heartbreaking. The film has a terrific grasp of tension, feeding out just enough line to keep you hooked, then snapping it back ferociously when needed. Scenes play out for much longer than seem necessary, the camera rarely cutting once things start to get crazy. Unfortunately, watching the film is still about as much fun as getting buried alive.

If its possible for a film to be considered “mental torture porn,” than Funny Games would be the undisputed king of that ring. Although there is violence in the film, most of it occurs off-camera, leaving us to merely view the results. The horrible humiliation and psychological torture that the pair put the family through, however, is almost impossible to watch. During an excruciatingly long scene where the pair force the mother to strip down to her underwear in front of her family, I found myself asking the all-important question, “Why?” Not “Why are the bad guys doing that,” since the world is full of truly sick individuals but “Why are we being forced to watch this in such detail?” Like Pasolini’s Salo, Funny Games is a film that not only shows you the shit on the floor but proceeds to rub your face into it. Haneke doesn’t just want to make you aware of the evil in the world: he wants to make you suffer it, too.

Were Funny Games just a streamlined, brutal, unflinching home-invasion thriller, it would be a memorable film. Haneke, however, has something else up his sleeve. At one point, the lead psycho, Paul, is standing in front of his partner, Peter. He turns and winks directly at the camera, although our understanding is that Peter is there, off-camera. This makes sense, of course, all the way up to the point where Paul turns and directly addresses the audience, asking us if we think the family has been through enough. At once, we’re not just spectators but accomplices: if we didn’t want to see the family suffer so much, we’d quit watching and let them off the hook. No film, especially fringe and extreme films, can exist without an audience. In one fell swoop, Haneke indicts horror and exploitation fans, asking the all-important question: how normal is it to want to witness suffering? As a lifelong horror fan, I didn’t much care to answer it. Thanks, Michael: see you again when I’m feeling slightly too upbeat.

As a remedy for the massive feel-bad vibes presented by Funny Games, I turned to an old master of the feel-good film: the inimitable Steven Spielberg and his recent computer-animated feature, The Adventures of Tintin. I originally avoided the film due to the computer animation (I’m much more of an old-school animation fan) but I figured that only Spielberg could give me the 10ccs of food-times needed to wash away Haneke. Turns out, I was right.

Right off the bat, imagine my immense excitement when, during the fabulous credit sequence, I notice that Peter Jackson is producing the film. Alright…that’s interesting. Not half as interesting, however, as the fact that Joe “Attack the Block” Cornish and Edgar “Cornetto Trilogy” Wright wrote the film. That’s right, boys and girls: two of the best comedic horror/sci-fi writers in the biz collaborated on the script for a Spielberg film produced by Peter Jackson. Essentially, there was no way this would be anything but one big love letter to classical film and it did not disappoint.

Once I actually got into the film, any concerns about the animation style melted away: the animation was actually so realistic that it was easy to imagine this as a life-action film, versus a cartoon. In fact, there are so many visual and narrative nods to the Indiana Jones films that this almost felt like it inhabited the same world. The scene where Snowy pursues TinTin’s kidnappers through a busy street reminds me immediately of the Cairo chase in the first Indiana Jones film, right down to the way in which the pursued item is constantly kept in the same frame as the pursuer, despite their distance from each other: simply genius.

In all honesty, there were too many highlights in the film to count. The battle between Haddock’s ship and the pirate ship is absolutely stunning, perhaps one of the coolest nautical battles I’ve seen. The final duel with construction cranes is amazing and made me wonder why no one ever tried that in the past (hint: probably because it’s impossible). The voice acting, whether from Daniel Craig as the bad guy or Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the bumbling Scotland Yard duo of Thomson and Thompson, is top-notch and TinTin, Captain Haddock and Snowy make one hell of a team. Massively fun and technologically impressive, I can easily compare The Adventures of TinTin to Wes Anderson’s animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Both films showcase outstanding filmmakers boldly going where they (technically) haven’t gone before.

I’m not sure that mere words can do justice to the sheer awfulness that is The Hamiltons but I’ll try. Imagine, if you will, a torture porn version of Party of Five featuring hammier actors than Troll 2 and The Room combined. Intrigued? Let me finish. The family that we’re stuck with for almost 90 minutes features a stereotypical moody, whiny teen boy, complete with always-filming video camera; a straight-laced older brother that holds down a job, is polite, smart and kind, so is obviously a closeted homosexual; a twin brother and sister that chew through scenery like ravenous warthogs when they’re not busy sucking face and disgusting the audience with the most assinine, ridiculous display of incestuous union since whatever Troma film took on the subject; and a supernaturally strong, feral, beast of a kid brother that looks like…a normal kid.

On top of these obnoxious characters we get a story that blatantly rips off We Are What We Are before becoming something else (read: equally shitty) entirely, a primal-scream breakdown that must be seen to be believed and the actual line “I’m getting awful tired of your hullaballoo,” delivered with as much earnestness and integrity as the actor could manage when being asked to deliver something so obviously Shakespearian in origin.

But am I being a little too mean? Isn’t all of this a bit harsh for a film that probably just wants to be considered a decent little horror film? Absolutely not. The pair of idiot filmmakers behind this call themselves The Butcher Brothers and have already created a sequel. They must be stopped by any and all means necessary, before The Hamiltons becomes the truly shitty franchise that it threatens to become. If we do nothing, we may soon wake up in a world where the Butcher Brothers may continue to create unchecked, turning the world into the goofy nightmare land of Branded.

In short: I’m getting awful tired of their hullaballoo.