The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced yesterday morning. As usual, there were some surprises. Perhaps most notably we have a strange number of Best Picture nominees : 9. Here is the alphabetical list:

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

The most unexpected entry here is the critically divisive Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The quirky drama set in the aftermath of 9/11 received two nominations in all; the second is a Best Supporting Actor nod for veteran Max Von Sydow. While I’m glad Von Sydow was nominated – he was the best thing about EL&IC – he’s up against frontrunner Christopher Plummer, another older actor with a long history and one Oscar nomination but no wins. After Plummer’s win for Beginners at the Critic’s Choice Awards and the Golden Globes, he’s the clear favorite to take home the statue in February. Von Sydow will have to be content with a nomination for his silent role.

Speaking of silent, The Artist garnered 10 nominations including Best Picture, Director and Actor. Alongside the Alexander Payne/George Clooney drama The Descendants, it seems the most likely of all the nominated films to sweep the night. In perhaps the most impressive showing of all, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo leads the way with 11 nominations, which probably tells me that I and many others have underestimated this movie. Of course, last year True Grit was nominated for 10 awards without winning any; but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see Hugo take something, at least in a technical category. Scorsese could win for Director, and I initially thought that would mean a split between Director and Picture. However, Hugo seems to be gaining ground and The Descendants perhaps losing some. Best Picture is starting to look less like a two horse race.

With any good race there are a few dark horses. Perhaps the darkest of all is Rooney Mara who made it into the Best Actress category for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was a good performance so I’m glad she’s getting that attention, despite the fact that she’s frankly outclassed by the other nominees. Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life was a success with critics so it’s not so shocking to see it show up, though in some big categories: Picture, Director, and Cinematography. It probably won’t win anything, though my guess is it has a shot at the Cinematography award. If Academy voters have seen it (and its Best Picture nod suggests they have), it would be silly to give this award to any other film. Which of course, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

In the Actor category we have Demian Bichir for his performance in A Better Life, which will make most viewers say “huh?” Since exactly no one saw this movie he has zero chance of winning, but perhaps this was the Academy’s way of giving praise to a film they liked. The best thing in this category is, in my opinion, Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The movie was a train wreck, but Oldman has been going great work for decades and deserves to win something.

Aside from the inclusion of Max von Sydow, we also have Nick Nolte showing up in Best Supporting Actor for Warrior. What we don’t have is Albert Brooks in Drive. Speaking of Drive, the fan favorite is very much under-represented with only one nomination, for Sound Editing. I was sure if Drive was nominated it would be for Supporting Actor. Nice to see Jonah Hill recognized for his work in Moneyball, though with the heavyweights in this category he’s also an outside shot.

Perhaps most interesting is what’s missing. J. Edgar received no nominations, not even Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio. No Michael Fassbender for Shame. No Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene (particularly disappointing). No Shailene Woodley for The Descendants (I would have preferred Judy Greer, but neither made the cut). No 50/50 for Original Screenplay. No Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Original Score. No Cars 2 or Adventures of Tin Tin in Animated Film, in favor of two smaller, obscure entries (I’m pleasantly surprised Kung Fu Panda was nominated over Cars, and hopefully Rango will take this category). Only two nominations for Best Song.

Of the Best Picture contenders I have seen (as of this writing), Moneyball is by far my favorite. It doesn’t stand out in any one area which is why it may go home with nothing, but it’s so solid all around. Acting, writing, cinematography – they’re all classy; and much like The Social Network, the film is involving when by rights it should be a snoozer. Two films dealt with the process of grief: The Descendants in a stark, understated, dryly funny way, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in a…different way. The Help is full of good actors but only a few of them were given actual characters to play. Those playing characters were nominated (Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain), all except Emma Stone, whose gift for comedy elevates movies like Easy A and Crazy, Stupid, Love that don’t get you nominated. The Tree of Life is a trip through time and space, a journey of both cosmic and domestic proportions unlike anything you’ll find outside of Malick’s recognizable oeuvre that you may find enriching or maddening depending on your frame of mind. Finally, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris was nominated because it’s Woody Allen. I guarantee if a less pedigreed name were attached to that movie no one would remember it.

I sort of resent that the Academy is trying to bully me into seeing movies I had absolutely no interest in. I had been boycotting The Tree of Life because after The New World wasted 2 ½ hours of my life I vowed it wouldn’t happen again. And I’ve been avoiding Spielberg’s War Horse because it’s a movie about a damn horse. I mean, honestly. It’s not like the Academy has a history of nominating boring, bloated, self-important epics that the public hates.

For a complete list of the nominations in all categories, visit: http://oscar.go.com/nominees

What are your thoughts on the nominations? Surprises and snubs? Who do you hope will win?

The results are in.

No, I’m not talking about awards. Although we’ll soon see the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Directors’ Guild, etc. honoring what they consider to be the highest achievements in film this year, the votes that really matter most – the ones that determine what kinds of movies will be filling our theaters in the next few years – have already been cast. You’ve been voting all year. Every time you walk up to a box office and say “One, please,” the studios listen.

These are hard economic times, and consumers aren’t the only ones who are being careful about what they spend. I sometimes hear people complaining that creativity is dead, that Hollywood has completely run out of ideas. It might be more accurate to say that originality is risky. Studios are in no position to place their chips on a film that isn’t a sure success. Major flops cost real jobs, and that’s a resource no one is taking lightly these days.

I think sometimes people get the wrong idea when I vehemently refuse to go see certain films. It’s not that it would kill me to sit through 2 hours of mediocrity. I’ve seen plenty of bad movies and emerged unscathed. Heck, bad reviews are almost as enjoyable to write as good ones (though I prefer to write about something I loved). It’s that I realize every ticket I buy for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the second highest grossing film in 2011 taking in over a billion dollars worldwide, is a vote telling Michael Bay I will continue to finance his pyromania. Perhaps even more important, it’s a ticket I didn’t buy for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, my favorite movie from last year which unfortunately only made back around half its budget in US theaters.

For your enlightenment, here are the 20 top-grossing 2011 films worldwide (source: BoxOfficeMojo.com), editorial comments mine.

1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – $1,328,111,219
- Sequel to hugely popular movie franchise based on books

2 Transformers: Dark of the Moon – $1,123,746,996
- Sequel to hugely popular (but largely terrible) franchise based on toys

3 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – $1,043,871,802
- Sequel to hugely popular franchise based on a theme park ride

4 Kung Fu Panda 2 – $665,692,281
- Sequel to animated kids’ movie

5 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – $657,943,638
- Sequel to hugely popular (but largely terrible) franchise based on books

6 Fast Five – $626,137,675
- Supposedly superior sequel

7 The Hangover Part II – $581,464,305
- By-the-numbers exact-copy sequel of hugely popular comedy

8 The Smurfs – $562,547,576
- 3D movie adaptation of animated TV show

9 Cars 2 – $559,852,396
- Sequel to hugely popular but disappointing animated kids’ movie

10 Rio – $484,635,760
- Original animated film

11 Rise of the Planet of the Apes – $481.3 M
- Sequel to long-running franchise

12 Thor – $449.3 M
- Comic book movie, part of Avengers series

13 Puss in Boots – $440.5 M
- Spin-off of hugely popular Shrek series

14 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – $410.2 M
- Sequel to franchise based on an adaptation of a tv show

15 Captain America: The First Avenger – $368.6 M
- Comic book movie, part of Avengers series

16 X-Men: First Class – $353.6 M
- Sequel to comic book franchise

17 The Adventures of Tintin – $315.8 M
- Animated film based on a comic book series

18 Bridesmaids – $288.4 M
- Original comedy

19 Real Steel – $282.1 M
- Science fiction actioner based on short story

20 Super 8 – $259.9 M
- Original science fiction adventure film

In case the trends aren’t immediately obvious, let’s break it down. Of 20 movies that made the most money, 12 were either sequels or spin-offs. 4 were based on comic books. Only 3 movies – Rio, Bridesmaids, and Super 8 – were original screenplays. Bridesmaids was full of big TV comedy players and poised to capitalize on the success of The Hangover. Super 8 had both Steven Spielberg AND J.J. Abrams attached to it. And Rio was something every parent could show their kids. Only 1 film, Real Steel, was based on a more classic type of literature; short stories and novels have always been the basis for films and will likely continue to yield good adaptations in the future (having not seen Real Steel, I can’t vouch for its quality).

We as movie-goers are telling the studios what movies we want them to make, and our dollars are saying we want sequels to established franchises, comic book movies, and juvenile animated movies. Please let me be clear – I’m not saying all of those movies are bad. There are plenty of sequels, animated films and (to a lesser extent) comic book movies that I enjoy. However, if these are the things we seek out to the exclusion of smaller, more thoughtful, more original films, then they are the only things we will get. Even awards attention is not enough to motivate studios to produce artistic efforts if those efforts are not financially viable. Listen to this quote from Ron Meyer, head of Universal Studios:

“[A critical hit is] great when it happens. But we did A Beautiful Mind, and I don’t know that we’d do A Beautiful Mind again. That’s the sad part. It’s great to win awards and make films that you’re proud of and make money, but your first obligation is to make money and then worry about being proud of what you do.” (source: Movieline.com)

In fact, anyone interested in this should read this very telling article from movieline.com. In it, Meyer speaks candidly about the artistic quality of the movies his studio puts out and about losing money on tent-pole projects like Cowboys and Aliens and Land of the Lost.

Friends, I’m not telling you not to go see The Dark Knight Rises when it comes out this summer. What I am saying is that thoughtful movie-goers owe it to ourselves and the art we enjoy to look for and patronize original movies, rewarding their risk with our business. Here’s to more adventurous movie-viewing in 2012!

Not my favorite horror movies, necessarily; or the best, or the most classic. No, these are the seven films that, during the course of my life, have made me gasp, gotten under my skin, creeped me out, and just plain scared my ever-loving pants off. Despite being somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to the genre, I really appreciate that rare film that can do more than simply make me jump or gross me out. Any movie can make me jump. A loud noise accompanied by almost any sudden image is enough to accomplish that. Likewise, a movie with decent effects and half-competent actors can gross me out. I’m not a gore-hound, so it doesn’t take that much. You see, I have a pretty good imagination. So when a movie partners with me to stir that imagination, it might be a terrifying ride, but it’s still a ride. That’s why we watch horror films anyway, isn’t it?

These are the movies I don’t want to watch alone, won’t image search after dark, and definitely shouldn’t ever think about after I’ve gone to bed. These are my seven scariest horror movies.

7. Event Horizon (1997)

Event Horizon is not a great movie, and that’s a shame, because it has a fantastic premise. An interdimensional spacecraft reappears after a seven year journey into who knows where, the crew has vanished but something appears to be on board, and a small team has to go investigate? Sign me up! Borrowing the isolation-of-space angle from Alien, this type of film has been done better over the years, including Danny Boyle’s more recent Sunshine (in all three films, the crew receives a cryptic SOS from another vessel). Despite some silliness and loss of dread in the final third, for about an hour Event Horizon is about the best and creepiest lost in space movie you could ask for. Sure, it’s a lot of loud noises when doors open or people suddenly appear, but for some reason it gets me. Watching it alone in the dark at night with headphones on helps a lot, too.

Why it’s scary: Isolation in space is a big factor. The crew is stranded on a ship in orbit around Neptune. It doesn’t get much more remote than that. Sam Neill plays the vessel’s designer who grows increasingly obsessed and unstable. Normally I always say that the unknown is frightening, as it is here. While it would be nice to have a few more clues as to the nature of the Event Horizon’s journey before it returned so we have some idea what to fear, once the rescue team is on board they begin finding evidence of things gone absurdly wrong. They find choppy video footage of the former crew that is almost too brief and obscured to be terrifying. Almost. You get the feeling during this movie that anything could approach from the end of the frame at any time. This is easily the goriest movie on my list, with flashes of grotesque fates popping up in time to make you cringe but not enough to linger on the details. The crew also begins having hallucinations about their own fears and failures. Since these things come from their minds and memories, there’s no limit as to what could appear.

Scariest moment: There are a ton of scares, but the one that got me the most was when Lawrence Fishburne first discovers the medical chamber and declares it a tomb, only to have a disembodied hand brush by his face and float gravity-free through the room.

6. Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott’s Alien is without a doubt one of the greatest horror movies of all time. It’s actually my single favorite horror film and thus in my opinion the best thing on this list by a good margin. So why only number 6? Because while it’s scary (and make no mistake – it is) it didn’t freak me out quite as much as some of these others for reasons I’ll discuss. 

Why it’s scary: Alien creates a true sense of isolation, claustrophobia and paranoia. Among its greatest assets are its brilliant sets, whose style has been much imitated but rarely equaled, that help to completely immerse the viewer in a visually-striking world of geometric, junky corrodors. The Nostromo would be an unnerving place even without a fast-growing, acid-dripping, mean-tempered biological weapon from another planet on board. Of course, we end up with one of those as well. The atmosphere is created immediately and covers the entire film. The sound design is perfect, and a little unsettling in how all the voices are just a little too quiet and the noises just a little too loud. While the characters are not as developed in this movie as they become in the sequel (James Cameron’s intense Aliens, a great sci-fi horror in its own right), they seem fairly realistic and of course we end up rooting for them to survive as the situation continues to get worse. If I had to pick one thing that bothers me about this movie and makes it stand out, it would probably be that there’s something aberrant about the violence in this film. Everything about the alien, from the way it looks to the parasitic way it reproduces, seems like a twisted perversion of human sexuality. Even the way one human character attacks another with a rolled up magazine has an uncomfortable, invasive feeling about it. The visual style, sound, sets, and creature design all converge to create this heightened sense of unease.

Scariest moment: While Alien may be the unfortunate originator of done-to-death gimmicks including the “it’s the cat” fake scare, it’s not all smoke and mirrors.  After figuring out how the creature is traveling throughout the ship, Dallas, the captain, goes into the ducts to hunt the alien with a flame thrower. The rest of the crew has a sensor that can track the creature, but Dallas can’t see it as they tell him it’s closing in. The ducts create a confusing space even more confined than the hallways of the Nostromo, and the tension in the scene builds to a climax that is no less shocking for its inevitability.

5. The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

I’ll readily admit this a movie most people probably forget about. It sticks with me in part because I hail from West Virginia, not too far from Point Pleasant where this film is set. The Mothman Prophecies is based on actual reports that began coming in of people who saw what they claimed was a large moth-like creature, leading up to the real-life disaster that serves as the movie’s climactic set piece. Was this mass hysteria? Some sort of hoax? Was someone trying to warn the town about the impending crisis? Or was it more sinister than that? We may never know the truth, but this movie imagines how it took place. Personally, I think that’s pretty chilling already.

Why it’s scary: It’s real! Okay, it’s not real, and reportedly it’s not that faithful to the book on which it is based, either. But something sure happened out there in Point Pleasant, and that sets the imagination going. This movie taps into something that I think scares everyone as a child – the thought of looking into the darkness and seeing a pair of glowing red eyes looking back at you. It’s so foundational and if you talk about it you sound juvenile but you can’t help but be creeped out a little. And it’s a visual motif in this movie. Traffic lights flare in the camera; you know there aren’t eyes in the background, but you also know that it’s easy to look out and imagine them there. The film creates a spooky atmosphere that’s sometimes a little overdone in terms of camera work and is not without cliche, but darned if it isn’t effective. When protagonist John Cline (Richard Gere) is told his wife “was seeing angels” and then we see her frantically scribbled black apparitions with those deep set red eyes it sends a chill through me. You know you saw something earlier but the film never quite lets you see what it is. This is perfect nightmare fuel, always glimpsing something in the dark. Like the best movies it doesn’t spoil the mood by giving too much away. Not everything makes sense, but does it have to? The mothman phenomenon certainly doesn’t.

Scariest moment: I’m a sucker for subliminal scares, and even thinking about this one sets me on edge a bit. Cline is in his hotel room, gets angry, and slams a door. As it swings back into place, we glimpse a face in the mirror. The mothman? Probably. You only saw it for a moment, not accompanied by any jarring music. Just quiet. If you weren’t looking you’d have missed it. But you didn’t miss it. You saw it. Now go hide under the covers, because you won’t be looking in your mirror for a few days.

4. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a pretty messed up movie. For some reason I always make the mistake of thinking that watching a movie from the 60′s or 70′s will somehow be tamer than watching one made in the last decade, and I’m very often wrong. The 70′s is quite possibly the best decade for horror, and this is a little gem from right in the middle of it. Like Alien, this movie is very weird and aberrant. It gets under your skin, makes you uncomfortable. Not in the way that a spooky ghost story does, flooding you with atmosphere and music and foreboding ideas. Nope, this one is just plain weird right from the start and only gets weirder. Then it gets freaking scary. Then it just gets freaky.

Why it’s scary: It’s a nightmare. We often use the term “nightmarish” to describe films that show us dream sequences, where things are obviously not what they seem and they float around and interact in strange ways or where visuals are superimposed in an abnormal fashion. That’s not the kind of nightmare Texas Chain Saw is. It’s the kind where you’re running from something you can’t escape, and it’s right on your heels but you keep falling, and everything’s dark and you don’t know where to go. It’s the kind where danger is so close it’s deafening and every moment could be your last. There’s an immediacy to it that I wish more movies of any genre were able to capture. That some of the things in this film were even imagined let alone put up on a screen is itself a sort of mind-rape. Why is there a guy with a mask made of skin? Why is his family so gleefully and disgustingly warped? How did anyone get this way? During the last part of the film the soundtrack is so saturated with the lead girl’s screams it becomes almost tedious to listen to. And yet there is no rescuer to hear her. There are only audience members who can do nothing but watch her suffer and hope it’s over soon. Every time I hear an electric generator I’m reminded of this movie, and how it sounds like the grinding of a chainsaw.

Scariest moment: Definitely the chase scene through the field at night. It’s a superbly handled bit of sheer terror.

3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

A movie that changed movies in a way that’s still being felt today, The Blair Witch Project was a phenomenon when it came out. The found-footage  movie purports to be the tape left behind by three students who went missing and is filmed entirely in the first person. That conceit no longer seems fresh today in our world of Cloverfield and [REC], but at the time it was unusual and it’s still perhaps the most effective of its kind. The Blair Witch Project is one of the more audacious horror movies I’ve seen, insomuch as they show you almost nothing and still expect you to be terrified. It works.

Why it’s scary: As I said in the opening, a great horror film partners with my imagination and gets it going. This one practically just jump starts it and hitches a ride. It makes my brain do all the work, and why not? In this film, kids get lost in the woods. This is already scary. Virtually nothing more need be done to scare me than to put me in the shoes of someone lost in the woods at night. Have you ever walked in the woods at night, and looked out into the darkness, noting how limited your vision is? Did you wonder endlessly about what sorts of terrors could be lurking just out of sight behind any tree? That’s what watching this movie is like. It gets worse when the film crew begins hearing commotion outside the tent, when you hear movement and voices and people start getting separated, and all you can see in the stark light of the camera is the foreground – the background is a playhouse for every sort of evil that could come bursting into the frame at a moment’s notice. When daylight arrives, you start breathing again.

Scariest moment: I just can’t pick one. Honestly the whole movie runs together in my memory. Any time they are out in the tent at night, it’s fright central.

2. The Ring (2002)

The Ring has the perfect premise for a horror movie: a video tape that kills you when you watch it. You watch the tape (which is all kindsa creepy), then get a phone call saying “7 days” and wait to see if you die. It’s almost lyrical in its simplicity.  It’s too bad this movie came out when VHS was past its prime. Still, the DVD menu is pretty freaky on its own.

Why it’s scary: First off, when you’re haunted by the tape (or however that works – cursed to die, I guess), you’re marked. When those who’ve watched the tape see themselves on video screens or in pictures, their faces are distorted – as if to say “you’re as good as dead.” This is right out scary. Second, oddball random occurrences seem to plague those about to die. In the opening scene, electronic devices turn on by themselves. Shadows walk past in reflective surfaces. Every stupid jumpy thing that would make you afraid to be in your own house alone happens in that scene. Then later, of course, you’re afraid to be in your own house alone. You never know when you’ll have a sudden nose bleed or have to pull a long cord out of your throat. The tape is also more frightening earlier on in the film when you don’t know anything about it, because it starts to sound like first victim is literally scared to death. That’s a classic horror thing to imply, and it makes the mind reel. What could frighten you so much that your mind couldn’t take it and you actually died from fear overload? Sleeping with the lights on yet?

Scariest moment: There are quite a few disturbing images in this movie but the one you won’t quickly forget is a jump cut early on that flashes back to the first victim’s hideously contorted face. If you’ve watched the film you’re probably seeing it in your head right now and cursing me for it. There’s just something so wrong about it.


And the scariest horror movie of all time is…

1. The Exorcist (1973)

How scary is this movie, you ask? It’s so scary, it poisoned every horror movie I watched for nearly two years. Thoughts of how scary it was made me realize I wasn’t immune to being frightened by “just a movie” so it was harder to steel myself against films I knew were going to try and ambush me. Meaning it made horror movies even scarier for a while. Then, it had the opposite effect. I started to realize that nothing I was going to see was going to bother me as much as this movie did, so then horror movies became a little less scary. I had already conquered the big one; I could handle these less formidable challenges. It’s so scary that when I stumble across pictures of Reagan or one of the demons while online I jump in my seat. I feel the visceral reaction in my chest. It’s so scary I had to wait until daylight to search for images to use in this article. And if I have my way I will never watch it again, ever.

Why it’s scary: I…I’m honestly not sure. A lot of people find this unimpressive compared to the excesses of modern horror. It’s not just the possession angle, though I will admit I do find demons scarier than other supernatural creatures because I believe they exist. I also know possession is actually possible, though I don’t think it goes down quite the way it does in the film. The strong production value and good performances somehow lend weight to the story, making it seem less schlocky. The whole thing just has this really evil feeling to it. That’s one of the best ways I know how to describe it. Seeing a young sweet girl become so corrupted and ugly violates our sense of justice and propriety. We don’t want to think that such evil can infiltrate our homes or have that kind of power. And then there is the icing on the cake which, once again, is use of subliminal images. These images appear when you aren’t expecting them, reminding you that you can never rest even if the scene is brightly lit. One in particularly really got under my skin.

Scariest moment: The flash of a demon face, without a doubt. I can distill my experience with The Exorcist almost entirely down to this single image which has haunted my dreams and hung over my enjoyment of other scary movies almost ever since my initial viewing. Of every hideous monster I’ve ever seen in a movie, why is this relatively simple image the most terrible? It has something to do with being human-but-not-quite, those huge eyes and teeth protruding from the blackness, ready to consume and wreak havoc on a person’s soul. Once they showed me that, all bets were off. I was a quivering pile of fear for the rest of the movie.

—

So those are the scariest movies as chosen by me. I’ve seen a fair number of classic horror films over the last couple of years and while many were unsettling at times few have left me thinking about them long after the credits rolled. Which movies have scared you most?

Review by Brother Reed

Just Go With It, Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, is a big, grating sitcom cliche dragged out for two seemingly endless hours. It’s replete with lowest-common-denominator gags, it contains not a single honest or believable emotion, and the deception that drives the entire plot could easily have been avoided if every last one of its characters was not a brainless schmuck. Honestly, you should know better than to go see this movie without having to read any reviews; but since you’re here, be warned. It’s worse than you think.

Updated from the Oscar-winning 1969 movie Cactus Flower, itself updated from a stage play (proving that even when plundering material that has worked in the past, Hollywood still can’t get it right), Just Go With It stars Adam Sandler as Danny, a plastic surgeon who pretends to be married to an uncaring spouse in order to gain sympathy from women and avoid commitment. When he hits it off with a beautiful woman many years his junior, he sees a future with her. The problem? She’s seen his wedding ring and now he has to come up with a way out of his years-long lie in order to keep her around. This involves getting his assistant (Jennifer Aniston) to pose as his soon-to-be ex-wife and bribing her children to act as his. It only gets more complicated from there when, predictably, his stories start to spin out of control.

Let’s begin with the setup. From the very first scene, this movie looks like a poorly done SNL or Mad TV sketch. The opening, in which a younger, uglier Danny discovers his bride-to-be has cheated on him before their wedding, is badly acted and mean-spirited; not a pleasant omen for the movie to come. Danny begins as the victim, but soon becomes the con artist when he sees how women respond to his plight. However, the trauma that results from having your wedding called off on account of infidelity is surely significant. It gives Danny exactly what he needs – sympathy and leverage. He’s been playing this card all these years, so why not simply use it again when confronted by Palmer (Brooklyn Decker)? After they spend a night on the beach, she discovers his wedding ring in his pocket. It wouldn’t even be necessary at this point to own up to his philandering. All he has to do is recount the story of how his fiancee broke his heart, and how he couldn’t bear to get rid of the ring. Instant sympathy, no need for games. The movie is over after 15 minutes. What a mercy that would have been.

Aniston and Swardson concealing horror upon realizing
they aren’t on the set of Punch Drunk Love 2: Hawaiian Punch.

Instead of that, our brillant doctor tells this 20-something airhead that he is divorced, or rather, he will be soon. A pretty flimsy excuse – especially since the fact that he is not technically divorced could have easily sent Palmer packing. She buys it, on the condition that she meet his wife and hear it from the horse’s mouth (no, Sarah Jessica Parker is not in this movie). Then somehow Danny’s cousin (Nick Swardson) is pretending to be a German sheep salesman, Aniston’s daughter is acting like a cockney, her son is blackmailing Danny for a trip to Hawaii, and shenanigans upon shenanigans.

Oh yeah, and Aniston is holding a grudge against an old sorority nemesis named Devlin (Nicole Kidman). She and her kids use “Devlin” as a synonym for “poop.” Hilarious, right? Guess what name Danny gives for his fake divorced wife? And guess who they run into at the resort? This movie practically writes itself.

Despite the extremely frustrating ways all of these characters improvise themselves into deeper and deeper Devlin, the premise is not beyond providing a platform for laughs and comic performances. You may have even laughed while reading this synopsis. It’s zany, sure, and with the right execution could have been an enjoyably wacky farce. Jennifer Aniston gets it right in an early scene where she first meets Palmer and plays the fake wife with amusing gusto. This in my mind is the film’s best scene, and if others had followed her example – or perhaps if the director had understood his source material and changed the tone of his film – Just Go With It might not have failed so completely.

As is, this movie is not only lame but pretty boring in its second hour. Multiple scenes feel like they somehow got lost on their way to advancing the plot, as if perhaps they really did “just go with it” and see what stuck. If this is the case, they kept plenty that didn’t stick. Aniston ceases to be the bombastic, hateful ex and settles into a more familiar persona. Sandler’s schtick, of course, is already the definition of familiar, and without the edge that might have helped some of his recent work. The movie is full of bottom-of-the-barrel humor including poop jokes and no less than two instances of someone being hit in the crotch. A couple of kids say and do things that kids probably wouldn’t say or do. Precious! You get the idea.

If you fake it, you don’t have it. Like happiness, or acting skills.

Decker and Aniston are shown off in their swimwear (the former is better known as a Sports Illustrated model), but for what? In fact, I can’t even begin to imagine who this movie is made for. No man would go and see it willingly, even though I assume the scatological humor and bikini shots are supposed to appeal to male sensibilities. For women there’s nothing resembling a true emotion or any kind of real romantic connection. Why would they want to root for someone who is a liar and a pig? Even the gay demographic is insensitively stereotyped on more than one occasion. This movie isn’t edgy enough to appeal to teens or fans of Grown Ups. It’s not sweet enough to pass for The Wedding Singer. It most definitely isn’t funny. I don’t know what it is, except bad.

One last thing. Nicole Kidman is in this movie. Did you know that? How did that happen? One of these things is not like the others, if you know what I mean. I felt a bit sorry for her prostituting herself in a hula competition for this laugh-less, lukewarm mess. If I had been my own transportation, I would have walked out of this movie after 45 minutes. There are a couple of honest chuckles scattered throughout, but they don’t go nearly far enough to console me for sitting through this complete waste of time. If you’re going to the movies this week, see something else. Anything else. I know it’s the winter wasteland but you can still do better. Any friend who tries to talk you into this deserves to have his or her movie privileges indefinitely revoked.

For someone who writes reviews in his spare time, I think I’ve done a pretty decent job of keeping up with film this year. This list is coming to you in January rather than December because it’s much more complete this way; it’s amazing how different the top 10 looked just 30 days ago. So far I’ve seen 36 2010 releases, including 8 of the 10 best picture nominees, and not including a few whose status as a 2010 film is debatable: usually foreign films that didn’t see a US theatrical release. Surely the most glaring omissions are Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours and David O. Russell’s The Fighter. The latter I simply didn’t find time to get out and see and the former hasn’t opened in my area yet. There aren’t a lot of other movies I was interested in that I didn’t get around to, so I feel like this list is pretty accurate in cataloging my favorite movie experiences this past year.

That’s what this list is. You’ll notice I titled it “Top films” rather than “Best” by some imaginary standard. While of course I think that many if not all of these movies are artistic and technical achievements, I am a man of simple taste. The final arbiter of whether or not a movie ended up here is how much I enjoyed it. So consider these recommendations from one movie buff to another. I’ll save the rest of my comments for the end. Here are my picks.

10. Animal Kingdom

This Australian thriller will probably be little seen in the US, which is a shame.  It’s the story of 17-year-old Josh who goes to live with his extended family, a clan of criminals wanted by the armed robbery division. Josh is like a brother to his young uncle Darrell, looks up to friendly and realistic Bax, and tolerates some doting from his grandmother who presides over the raggedy bunch; and like everyone else, he’s uneasy around Pope, the impulsive elder whose crimes threaten to destroy everyone around him. The movie deftly deals with young Josh’s commitment to his family as he tries to mute the negative effects on his life. Can he be a part of this brood without becoming one of them? Guy Pearce plays a cop who tries to enlist the boy’s help while extricating him from a dangerous situation. All the main players are excellent in their roles. Jacki Weaver even received an Academy Award nomination for her influential matriarch. Direction is matter-of-fact and low-key, and the script is not flashy but rather sparse, tense, and with some funny, human touches.  Animal Kingdom is a steady, involving film. Fans of crime dramas should check it out on DVD.

9. The King’s Speech

The King’s Speech is the kind of movie some refer to pejoratively as “Oscar bait.” It’s the type of movie the Academy loves. Drama? Check. Period piece? Check. Featuring a historical figure? Check. Someone with a disability? Check. Clearly they are not entirely wrong, as the film has garnered an impressive 12 nominations this year. That said, you should in no way be intimidated by this movie, because it is an extremely enjoyable character story with a pleasant, buoyant disposition. Colin Firth is the man who would be king, thrust reluctantly into the position through the death of his father and the abdication of his brother (Guy Pearce’s second appearance on this list). He has a terrible stammer which has plagued him since childhood and is no help to his confidence or his speeches to the public in person or by radio. Helena Bonham Carter plays his wife who seeks help for him in the form of unorthodox therapist Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush.

Firth and Rush are both phenomenal in this and every scene they share together is dynamite. It’s lightly funny (and in one scene, laugh out loud funny) and never overly dour, which is a much needed trait as these period dramas can easily be weighed down under their own pomp. I’m not terribly fond of movies about the English monarchy, or stuffy aristocratic dramas in general, but this one is engaging and visually interesting. Think of it like Rocky, only there’s no fighting – just a dude trying to talk right. A royal dude. Bring on the cheers. Of course, Rocky could probably have used a speech therapist, too.

Also I should mention it’s a crime this is rated R. It would be PG without one particular scene (the funniest part of the film), and I think PG-13 would be more appropriate.

8. True Grit

Joel and Ethan Coen are easily two of the best and most creative living filmmakers. Their movies are vibrant, varied, and bursting with life. They are often quirky and occasionally baffling (last year’s A Serious Man comes to mind) but always of impeccable craft. Their re-adaptation of the novel True Grit, then, is surprisingly conventional. As a Coen movie this doesn’t reach the heights of their greatest work, but as a simple western it’s spectacular. As with No Country for Old Men, somehow the novel’s dialog blends perfectly with the brothers’ offbeat sensibilities to create a movie that is fun to listen to. The actors capitalize on this, especially Jeff Bridges whose mumbling Marshall Cogburn has a lot of the best lines (“I do not know this man”). Hailee Steinfeld is wonderful as Mattie Ross, the little girl who hires the sheriff to avenge the death of her father. Her performance, rather than that of Bridges or Damon, is really the anchor of the movie and for a 14-year-old that’s particularly impressive. The scene where she haggles with a businessman for money and a horse is a highlight of the film, along with Cogburn’s courtroom introduction. Matt Damon is less convincing as a cowboy and is maybe a bit of a casting flub but he does well enough. The tale concludes with high adventure, but it’s not overly romanticized. The look of the picture, the odd but refreshing speech patterns, the classic story, the bursts of violence and dark humor, and the performances combine to make True Grit a movie that sits atop its genre, even if it never transcends it.

7. Buried

Buried is a special kind of thriller, the claustrophobic one. I love high-concept, tension-filled movies like Rope and Reservoir Dogs that take place in a confined location. Folks, you don’t get any more confined than this. Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is buried in a box in the Iraqi desert with a cell phone and a lighter and his wits. Some may call it gimmicky, but I call it brilliant. This movie is completely committed, never once showing any mercy on the way to its breathless conclusion. If you’re wondering how they can sustain a plot for 90 minutes without ever leaving the coffin, well, so was I. Watch and your questions will be answered. Reynolds is a one man show and does a great job, even if the role is more physically taxing than technically demanding. It’s certainly not a perfect film and probably doesn’t have much rewatch value, but it left me completely drained. It’s scary, stylish and will make you happy to be alive. A theater viewing would be ideal but since most people are going to catch it on DVD, force yourself to watch it in one sitting and not take any breaks. If you’re in the dark, all the better.

6. Black Swan

The director of such polarizing films as Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain has delivered what I would call his best film to date. Black Swan is the dark, mesmerizing story of a ballerina named Nina (Natalie Portman) who desperately wants to be cast in the lead role of Swan Lake. An aging dancer is on her way out, and Nina is determined to rise and become the next star. The manipulative, immoral director initially refuses to cast Nina in the dual role, telling her she is a perfect White Swan but can’t portray the Black Swan. The movie chronicles her metamorphosis into the character – or is it an obsessive descent into madness?  Black Swan is a discomforting, occasionally ugly but also graceful, assured, and layered movie. As far as I’m concerned Natalie Portman has never given a better performance. The film tells us in an early scene how we can expect the plot to play out – what’s interesting is not so much what happens but how it happens and in some cases, if it really happens at all. This seems like a film that will reward multiple viewings. There is so much symbolism I can’t really make out what everything means yet. Probably I’m not meant to. Why all the mirror shots? Do they represent perspective? Duality? Is the ending literal or symbolic? That the movie is so literate in the language of film makes it intriguing even when it goes a bit overboard.

5. The Social Network

The Facebook movie exceeded any and all expectations I might have had for it. What should have been a boring too-soon docu-drama instead became a sizzling, relevant character piece. The script is packed with razor wit, the substance of David Fincher’s irresistible style. The cast are all great but anyone spitting Sorkin’s lines would have a ball with it. Like Inglourious Basterds the year before, The Social Network ropes you in with a powerful first scene and keeps you hooked through its sigh of an ending. Read the full review.

4. Shutter Island

It’s Leo’s year. Though he gained more notice in the blockbuster Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio actually gives a more captivating performance in what may be the most purely entertaining movie Martin Scorsese has ever made. Shutter Island is a genre piece, a psychological thriller with neo-noir trappings. For some reason I wasn’t initially excited to watch this, and I don’t know why. Once I popped it into my DVD player I was hooked. Scorsese is a master and this film is effortlessly slick, dripping with atmosphere and tension. DiCaprio plays a U.S. Marshall investigating a disappearance at an island prison for the criminally insane. The deeper he looks into the mystery, the more evasive the staff becomes and the more dire his situation seems. The plot is all twisty-turny, and while you’ll almost certainly predict certain developments long before they’re clearly revealed, this isn’t a movie that relies on twists for its power. I can’t explain entirely why I liked this movie as much as I did, but the evocative style and powerhouse performances from Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsly, Emily Mortimer, and others certainly factor in. It’s at times violent and disturbing, but never less than gripping.

3. Toy Story 3

It’s not just good, it’s Pixar good. The original Toy Story is still one my favorite movies, as well as a hallmark of cinema. Toy Story 2 took the characters in new directions and focused more on humor. The third chapter might be both the darkest and funniest in the series. It’s a lesser movie than the first two installments only insofar as it needs them to exist. Toy Story 3 picks up years after the second when Andy has grown and is ready to go to college, recalling the warnings of the Prospector from part 2. The toys, ever searching for a place to belong, find themselves in a daycare where there will be unending waves of children to play with them. But, as you can imagine, there’s trouble in paradise. The movie continues to develop and play off of the established characters while adding new ones both amusing and devious. It’s a coming-of-age drama, a screwball comedy and a prison break movie. Parallels to things that happened before and familiar lines of dialog make up a few too many of the jokes; other than that, it’s supremely pleasing, tender, funny, and satisfying experience.

2. Inception

If there’s anyone in the movie industry giving Pixar Studios a run for their money in terms of producing consistently high-quality, entertaining blockbusters, it’s Christopher Nolan. The man hasn’t made a movie that’s less than outstanding for almost ten years – since Insomnia in 2002. Taking a break from his ludicrously successful Batman franchise, Nolan’s latest original mind-trip is a fascinating, sprawling sci-fi adventure. Like The Prestige, you’ll leave the theater dazzled, or at least with something on your mind. Inception proves big summer entertainment can be cerebral as well. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, an outlaw “extractor” who breaks into people’s dreams to steal their secrets. When he is hired to plant an idea in a subject’s mind – the titular process of inception – he assembles a team of professional thieves a la Ocean’s 11 and we see how they create and manipulate dream worlds for their purposes. To even begin to explain would take too long, but we witness impossible feats such as city folding over on itself and a brawl in a rotating hallway. There’s so much plot it doesn’t leave a lot of room for contemplation, and I found myself wishing there were more quiet and surreal moments. Inception is heady and immersive but is at its best when it scales down to focus on Cobb’s personal demons, the tragedy that forces him to do what he does and the toll it takes on his accomplices. This is the emotional center of the story, something Nolan hasn’t stressed enough in prior films. Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard stand out in their supporting roles, and the film sustains its suspenseful climax far longer than I thought possible. In a project this ambitious there are always going to be problems, but it’s such a wild ride you won’t notice until you’re watching it again for the third or fourth time.

1. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim vs The World may not be objectively the best movie of the year, but it’s the one I love the most.

It’s simply fantastic. Hilarious concept, high energy, inventive visuals… and what would you expect from Edgar Wright, the director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead? Even the editing in this movie is funny. If I knew The Social Network was going to be great after watching the first 5 minutes, I knew Scott Pilgrim was special after seeing only the Universal Studios logo in 8-bit graphics and sound. This movie is a love letter to nerds or anyone who grew up knowing what The Legend of Zelda is. Based on a series of comics, it tells the story of Scott Pilgrim, a jobless 22-year-old in a terrible band who meets the girl of his dreams. He tries to woo her, only to find out that if their relationship is to continue, he must defeat her league of evil ex’s. Literally. In battles pulled right out of Moral Kombat or Super Smash Brothers. This movie exists in its own world, a universe where people break out into bombastic fights with the vanquished turning into showers of coins, and no one looking on stops to think that maybe this isn’t normal. Sound effects appear in the air as onomatopoeia, while split screens and other editing effects recreate the look of comic book panels. Scott grabs an extra life and does an entire section of the movie over. The whole thing is raucous, delirious, jaw-droppingly original fun. And it’s funny. Snappy. Almost exhausting in how much action and quips are packed into two hours. Perfectly-cast supporting characters steal their scenes (Kieran Culkan, Anna Kendrick), and there’s a side-splitting cameo from the vegan police.

Scott Pilgrim is the movie I have been waiting for my whole life. I just didn’t know it, because I never dared to imagine it. It has everything I could ask for – video games, music, action, love, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Oh, I’m sorry, did I say love twice? The only thing it’s missing is dinosaurs, but there’s a giant dragon made of sound waves. Close enough? I freely confess this is a movie that caters to a niche demographic, and that I am in that demographic. Some people simply won’t see what all the fuss is about. That’s okay, but I do think the visuals, pace and general humor of the thing would be appealing to a wider audience. I see the movie as a metaphor for baggage in relationships, and an exploration of young people searching for love in a world where social contact is easy but genuine connection is difficult. It’s too early to tell, but this is the kind of film that becomes a perennial favorite – and it’s my choice for the top movie of 2010.

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A few honorable mentions: One movie that was hanging on to the top 10 for a while was the Dreamworks film How to Train Your Dragon. It’s a fun little movie though utterly formulaic. Some were saying they liked it more than Toy Story 3. That’s crazy talk.

The American with George Clooney turned out to be much better than I expected. Affleck’s The Town failed to get a Best Picture nomination, and also failed to make my top 10, though it came pretty close.

The best straight comedy I saw this year was The Other Guys with Ferrell and Wahlberg. Much less disappointing than Due Date or Dinner for Schmucks.

A great documentary if you’re in the mood for one is Exit Through the Gift Shop, a look at street art and the art of celebrity that may or may not be authentic. It’s interesting either way.

The meandering drama Winter’s Bone wasn’t the most arresting movie of the year, but Jennifer Lawrence gave a great performance with the most accurate Appalachian accent I’ve seen in a movie yet. Everything about this film’s portrayal of poor rural America was class – all the sights, sounds, and textures are just right.

Most disappointing: I was pretty psyched for Due Date with the great Robert Downey Jr. Turned out the best parts were in the trailers and the humor was overly mean-spirited. Still laughed a bit, but I was hoping to love it and came nowhere near that.

Worst movie: The Wolfman. Although no movies with wolves were any good (see: Twilight: Eclipse). See my Wolfman review here.

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Well, that was my year in film. How was yours?

Review by Brother Reed

Mark Zuckerberg is an a**hole. At least that’s what his girlfriend tells him when she breaks up with him in The Social Network, a compelling new drama from director David Fincher. Though I suppose girlfriends are likely to say such things following a break-up.

He’s not, really.

Now, at this point you may be asking what I mean. He’s not really an a**hole? Or he’s not really Mark Zuckerberg? If so, you’ve tapped into one of the major devices screenwriter Aaron Sorkin uses for the dialog in this film. Characters are constantly responding to statements in a conversation where the other character has already moved on. I guess it’d be ex-girlfriends, actually; and, both.

He’s not really Mark Zuckerberg because he’s a character played by Jesse Eisenberg. The real Zuckerberg apparently describes the film as being mostly fictional; the film creators say otherwise. While it’s hard to know who to believe (if this movie were about me I’d decry it, too) suffice to say when I reference Zuckerberg in this review it refers to the character and not the person unless otherwise stated. That little bit of politics aside, the movie in no way plays like open season on the CEO of Facebook. He’s portrayed as flawed, yes – at times immature and irritating – but also as intelligent and even well-meaning, if a bit single-minded. As an anti-hero, Godfather-style, some will see him as a villain. I think that depends on the mindset you bring to the film. In a way it’s a classic tale of the American dream. Everyone wants to come up with the next big thing. We’re just jealous Zuckerberg beat us to the punch. As he tells his opponents at law rather pointedly, “If you were the creators of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.” I personally found him rather likable at points. Maybe this is my inner nerd.

Eisenberg, known to me as the Cera-like star of themepark-based comedies, seems perfectly cast and gives a sharp performance buoyed by an even sharper script. Writers don’t get name-dropped much unless they’re Charlie Kaufman or Joss Whedon, but Aaron Sorkin’s name is all over the press for The Social Network. Better known for TV’s The West Wing, he delivers a standout screenplay filled with wit and verve. It’s important, too, because this sort-of-biographical movie is all about the words. If verbal jousts are as entertaining to you as physical ones, you’re in for non-stop action as smart people take on other smart people. If anything the script is too perfect. Surely a survey of the early days of Facebook would expose someone who didn’t have a ready-made comeback for every situation.

“I am not a computer nerd. I prefer to be called a ‘hacker’.”

The opening scene of The Social Network is a thing of beauty. Like the best opening scene last year from Tarantino’s masterful Inglourious Basterds, it centers on a conversation between two people. All the conflict is right there between their minds as a simple date becomes a mental and verbal confrontation. Immediately you know that this is no ordinary biopic, and thank heavens for that. The last thing I need to see this holiday season is another droning, self-serious biography. Not that The Social Network doesn’t take itself seriously, but it never feels bogged down even when we’re being assaulted with techno-babble that we know nothing about. The camera work and music, the latter being an intriguing score by Trent Reznor, don’t feel heavy or manipulative. Every frame of The Social Network crackles with life and energy, from the cinematography to the smallest supporting role.

Andrew Garfield does a great job as Eduardo, Zuckerberg’s friend and CFO. You’ll probably empathize with him as a likable guy who wants to help, wants what’s coming to him, but just can’t seem to stay on top of the situation. He’s the guy who isn’t quite up on the latest technology. Unlike Zuckerberg, he’s a businessman rather than an idealist and is frustrated at the “rock star” of dot com, Sean Parker. Justin Timberlake plays Parker, the creator of Napster who shows up to give Zuckerberg advice, woo attractive co-eds and just generally get a piece of the action. I never liked Timberlake and I don’t like him here, but he’s appropriate for the role. Armie Hammer (is this a joke name?) and Josh Pence share a pair of twins who sue Zuckerberg after they claim he stole the idea for Facebook from them. It’s a particularly great special effect of the best kind – the kind you don’t notice. David Fincher has a reputation as a director who loves technology and while I never thought of this as his type of movie, I now realize that a) it’s about technology, and b) his efforts are put to much better use than in something like Benjamin Button where even he couldn’t quite straddle the uncanny valley.

The story follows young Mark Zuckerberg, a sophomore at Harvard reeling from his recent breakup, as he spontaneously hacks his school’s online security to download all the students’ pictures and create a website that allows students to rate their classmates by appearance. As soon as this movie said “Let the hacking begin” I could feel my eyes starting to roll from all the movies I’ve seen where “hacking” involves people typing ridiculously fast and doing completely impossible things. In The Social Network no one Googles experimental medical procedures. The hacking sequence is fun but also grounded in reality. This leads to Zuckerberg’s notoriety and eventually his launch of thefacebook, aided by his friends and blockaded at every turn by his opponents, some of them former friends or business partners. A Nolan-like timeline skips back and forth between “current” deposition hearings and the main back story. The first time it happens, it’s jarring – after that you know what to expect.

Haters gonna hate

Does it tell a true story? I don’t know, and I’m not sure that I care. It’s generally advisable to get entertainment from Hollywood and not facts. This is not a documentary; and you might be surprised to know that with all the to-do about Facebook privacy, the lawsuit(s) that appear in the movie don’t concern the public. The Social Network is less concerned with how Facebook impacts us than it is with how the people involved with its inception impacted each other. The story is relevant and carries ideas about the current generation (mostly given by Timberlake) but it is drama and not propaganda, as it should be.

It is, however, most certainly a movie for my generation. I was in college when Facebook (originally called “thefacebook”) appeared and I remember when it finally spread to our school. I wonder how future generations will view this movie and if they will understand the delicious little ironies sprinkled into the dialog: things like how Facebook’s initial appeal was exclusivity, when now anyone with an e-mail address can join. Even if you don’t take the film at face value (no pun intended) it will likely make you think a little differently the next time you log on to that familiar blue and white screen.

Last year Up in the Air time-stamped how people lived in 2009. In 2010, The Social Network is much the same. This movie is right now. I’m not convinced that it warrants comparison to the greatest films of all time, as some are heaping praise upon it. What I can confidently say is that this is a shrewd, fresh, sometimes funny and always engaging drama about the world’s youngest billionaire. It’s one of the year’s best films.

Review by Brother Reed

Remember a few years back in Live Free or Die Hard when Bruce Willis was old? Well in Red he’s still old, and this time so are all his friends. If you think that sounds depressing, you could hardly be more wrong. It’s like if the gang of retirees who occasionally meet for breakfast at Hardee’s had at one point been highly-trained government operatives and are just biding their time until something exciting comes along. The over-the-hill cast of this over-the-top thrill ride are quite obviously having a blast, and their contagious energy is what makes the movie so much fun. Red is a movie that you can’t take seriously because you were never meant to. You were meant to laugh at one-liners and cheer when the good guys win.

I’m completely unfamiliar with the graphic novel on which Red is based, so I can’t comment on how faithfully it reproduces the source material; however there are scenes that I can easily imagine as a series of dynamic panels. One such set piece arrives early in the film when Moses, a bored retired man who has struck up an unlikely romance with the girl who answers the phone at his pension company, is attacked at his home by a squad of assassins. He creates a diversion by heating a handful of bullets on stovetop until they go off. The camera eagerly zooms in for the imminent explosion and then the screen pulsates with bright white flashes when Moses ambushes and overtakes his assailants. This early scene has the kind of flare that might have made Red a captivating visual experience from start to finish, but I didn’t notice as many creative embellishments throughout the rest of the movie. It’s certainly not ultra-stylized in the vein of Sin City or 300. Honestly there’s not a lot that really stands about the film, except for its excellent cast.

Did I mention the cast? For a barely-there story hung on action movie tropes, Red boasts an impressive roster of screen veterans: Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, Richard Dreyfuss, and even Ernest Borgnine. I’m not sure what’s more impressive – that Helen Mirren is still looking sexy at 63, or that Ernest Borgnine is still acting at all at 93! I’m honestly not sure how such a lightweight script attracted thespians of this caliber, but they’re here and having a good time with their laconic one-liners and blase approach to danger. The action here is mostly fun and breezy in the way that you’d expect from more family-oriented fare like The Italian Job or National Treasure. You never really fear for any of the characters (really you don’t get to know them deeply enough for that) and so there’s not much tension at any point. While all plainly human our heroes have the kind of improbable skills that a Brian Mills would, and so the question is not will they make it, but how will they do it in a way that makes their enemies look foolish. It’s the little details that tell the story, like when someone points a gun at Helen Mirren in the woods. We see her reaction, pan to the shooter, and then back to where she was standing. Of course she’s gone, just like Batman. The good guys all have remarkable stealth, despite being old and (in some cases) out of practice. This is essentially a band of cool guys who don’t look at explosions (or collapsing houses).

Mary Louise-Parker is a face that wasn’t on my radar before now, but she’s very sweet and likeable in the film and one of only two characters who reveals any growth or change, however unlikely, throughout. The other is Karl Urban’s ambitious CIA operative who starts out as a faceless Agent-Smith type but ends up being a more human character who is less evil and more simply driven. He’s not exactly Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but he’ll do.

Sometimes Red is at its best when it acknowledges just how loony it all is, which is usually when John Malkovich is on the screen. The guy is hilarious as a paranoid hermit living off the grid, and he got probably the biggest laugh from my theater audience (“I mostly get shot”). In a particularly amusing face-off, he shoots a rocket – mid-flight- with a handgun bullet, causing it to explode prematurely and kill his would-be assassin. As far as I’m aware this is not just unlikely but totally disregards the physics of momentum, etc. but again here you can mentally glimpse the comic book panels in your head and kind of admit that it’s the kind of impossible stunt that you might have penned yourself after watching too many Saturday morning cartoons as a child.

On the other hand, the movie tries to pretend that Bruce Willis’ initial kidnapping of his love interest is not extremely creepy. Because we know that Willis is the good guy and the music tells us we shouldn’t be worried, the scene plays humorous. But imagine that there’s no quirky music and we either haven’t seen the Moses character as the victim or the actor is someone less trustworthy to our collective consciousness than Bruce Willis. Then the scene of him duct taping a younger lady to a bed and driving her – sometimes drugged – across the United States  suddenly becomes sort of horrifying. Red is not interested in moral ambiguity or the consequences of anyone’s actions.

The story is totally forgettable. There’s nothing to ponder, nothing to talk about leaving the theater except how cool your favorite stunt or quip was. Morgan Freeman has second billing but doesn’t actually have much do to. Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine have parts that amount to meaty cameos. Yet the most troublesome aspect of the whole movie is something that’s difficult to pin down. It’s the same ailment that made Iron Man 2 a much messier film than its predecessor. While Red progresses from A to B in a way that you can probably explain the plot after seeing it, at times it feels a little disorienting, as if we’ve skipped over important things or spent too much time on others. The plot isn’t really confusing but there are a lot of players and loose ends that can become distracting. I just never felt a purposeful pull from the start through the end, nor any character who was more than an archetype. At least Iron Man 2 had the benefit of established characters and an extremely charismatic lead. Once this movie gets going it stays at mostly the same relatively high excitement pitch throughout – but without careful dynamics, you’ll find that if everything is exciting then nothing really is. In this way Red never distinguishes itself among a sea of similar action comedies.

As far as old Bruce Willis starring in action movies, this isn’t as viscerally exciting as Die Hard 4 or as thought provoking as Surrogates, but it’s still a passably entertaining romp and probably the best movie film this year to feature Helen Mirren with a machine gun.

Frankenstein | Bride of Frankenstein | The Wicker Man | Children of the Corn | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre | Deep Red | Orphan | The Vanishing | An American Werewolf in London | The Return of the Living Dead | The Innocents | Dead Alive | In the Mouth of Madness | The Blair Witch Project | Audition | Session 9 | Let the Right One In | The Verdict

“Last week I sawr a film. As I recall it was a horror film.”

It may surprise some of you to know that, despite my fondness for monsters, horror has never been my genre. It’s not because I’m a pansy (although I am that, too), it’s just that horror films often seem to contradict what I think a movie should do. I come out of it saying “That was horrible!… oh… that’s what it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” So for a while I kind of just conceded that horror and I don’t get along. Agree to disagree.

Nevertheless, last October I made a few trips to my local video store and loaded up my Netflix que with horror films: some classics, some new, some foreign, some that just looked interesting to me. I wanted to catch up on some things I had been missing and Halloween seemed as good an excuse as any. Maybe it’s just that built-in curiosity. When you hear that something will scare your pants off or make you gag your first thought might be,”Why would I subject myself to that?” But mine isn’t. My first thought is, “I’ll bet it’s not really that bad.” My next thought is “I wonder if I could make it through.” It’s a subconscious desire to test my mettle, perhaps, against the worst a filmmaker’s twisted imagination can put on screen. Now that I’ve seen a few shockers, I can honestly say my own imagination usually one-ups the movie. I’m far better at scaring myself than anyone else, except maybe in the case of The Exorcist. If I have my way I’m never watching that mess again. The endgame is that I prefer conceptual or psychological horror to overt goriness or jump scares. If the movie can get under my skin and make me think about it after the credits have rolled, it’s certainly more effective. Maybe I’ll make a list of my favorite horror movies later on. For now though…

This year I decided to take up the challenge again. I selected around 18 movies – exactly how many I get through just depends on my schedule – and I’m watching them through the month of October. Initially, I wanted to begin with the oldest and move to the most recent; but between disc turnaround times varying, trips to the brick-and-mortar store, and last minute additions, I’ll simply post reviews in the order I watch them. I’m going back farther than ever to catch a few Universal classics before jumping forward to the 70′s and beyond. Because I’m trying to make time, I won’t be doing full reviews of most of these films. I’ll put down my thoughts here in whatever form they take, blog-like. You can use the navigation at the top to jump to the film write-up that interests you.

Frankenstein (1931)

I have a few kind of unrelated notes on this movie.

1. This is, at this point in time, the oldest movie I have ever watched in its entirety. I know, I know. I’m getting to those. But not this month.

2. The guy at the beginning who introduces the story is cool. I smiled as he tried to caution me against the gripping fear I would no doubt experience while viewing Frankenstein. Naturally I was not at all afraid during the film but it does have its harrowing moments. There are points in the movie that would be downright chilling if they weren’t so dated. There’s something about the black and white, unnatural acting and film quality that makes it not unlike watching through a fog (there may be some actual fog as well).

3. That little girl and her kitten are about the most adorable pair. So you knew she was doomed (the kitty is okay).

I’ll park here for a second because this scene with Frankenstein’s monster and the little girl was one of the best in the movie, or at least had the chance to be. It was here, almost alone in a movie that seems to march through paces, that I felt the complexity which I think Mary Shelley’s story deserved. That the monster’s  natural lack of intelligence and bumbling physicality caused such a terrible accident to me shows the tragedy of the story. Karloff is the iconic incarnation of the creature but gives few hints of being anything other than a brute in this first chapter.

I didn’t like Frankenstein’s father; all his scenes seemed pointless and the actor was overbearing. I credit the movie for its quick pace and good design, and you know a thing is successful when it’s been imitated as much as this has. There are a handful of good scenes so this stands out as being above average for the genre but I honestly found it a little dull. Could have used some music or something. And what’s with the monster being a ninja? No one ever notices his creeping up on them until he’s right on top of them, or he does that little growl. His boots alone have to weigh like 20 pounds, so there’s no way he doesn’t clomp up a storm when he walks. Anyway…maybe I’m just so familiar with the Frankenstein mythos that even though this is my first time with the movie it has a little been-there-done-that to it. Not bad, but didn’t really hold my interest despite being only an hour long.

Iconic: ****
Scary: *
Bloody: *
Overall: **1/2

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Definitely the “better half!” Both of these movies are so short they could easily be shown back to back in one sitting and I almost think that’d be the ideal double feature. They can’t really be one film just because they each have a distinct beginning and climax and are a bit different tonally but aside from a different cast member as Frankenstein’s wife the transition was pretty seamless. Bride to me was a much more enjoyable experience. It felt more satisfying, more complete, with some of the subtlety that I thought the first movie needed. This film feels more inspired by Shelley’s novel, honestly. There were still some annoying parts (the one servant lady who won’t shut her trap for instance) but we also get Dr. Pretorious who is a most amusing villain. I really liked his scenes as well as the ones where the monster develops some sympathetic traits and shows his intelligence. These again were present in the book and Karloff gets to show his chops a bit too. The themes feel better developed. There’s more discussion about the ramifications of Frankenstein’s work and the ambition behind it. I think when people remember Frankenstein they’re really remembering both of these films. Bride is very much about the creation of Frankenstein’s counterpart, however the bride herself has very little screen time and really only shows up at the end.

Some of the “science” is pretty funny looking back, like the heart being the most complex part of the body (I liked how they had some sort of metronome keeping track of its clicks) and the little people in the jars. Bonzai people? Because it would totally be easier to grow tiny people than big ones. Again in the book one of the reasons the monster was so large was because it was easier to work on that scale. Yet I digress. There was more at stake here, and the film felt like it was about something. It didn’t blow me away but I could see myself watching it again sometime.

Also… in both films the opening credits have a “?” for the actor’s name who plays the monster and the bride respectively. Why don’t they reveal the actress at the end of Bride like they did with Boris Karloff at the end of Frankenstein?

Iconic: ****
Scary:*
Bloody:*
Overall:***

The Wicker Man (1973)

For horror there was no time like the 70′s, and there’s nothing else like this movie anywhere. Almost the entire first part of this movie is one big “WTF” moment after another. About the third time someone breaks into song with obvious lip syncing, you’ll begin to wonder what you’ve walked into. Indeed, you’re put into the shoes of an outsider, a righteous cop investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a secluded island. I was just as baffled as he was.

I knew this would be a conflicting movie for me since I was already aware of how it would end. I found myself very much sympathetic to officer Howie. Sure, he’s a bit of a stick in the mud and a little insensitive but he’s absolutely doing the right thing at every juncture, spurred on by his sense of justice. He’s kind of like Sergent Angel on Hot Fuzz but totally serious. Actually I often root for the most by-the-book character, like Exley in L.A. Confidential – and as a Christian myself I could understand his bewilderment and outrage at the pagan society in which children are being brought up with no knowledge of God. Of course, as it’s revealed, it’s not a battle of Christianity vs. Paganism. Even the heathen traditions of the island are a sham, instituted for the work force to secure lucrative exports and happy laborers. Knowing this makes Christopher Lee’s Lord Summerisle a most crazed and deluded villain, since despite his outward conviction it’s very possible he knows the extreme measures at the end of the film have no mystical power and are merely a political move to keep his subjects loyal. The ending is indeed horrifying. The clash of tones wreaks havoc on the emotions. It’s probably one of the most messed-up endings in movie history.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the lines I recognized from the Nic Cage remake (of which I’ve seen only parts) like “Take those masks off.” Also the fool hitting a young man with a torch is not nearly as hilarious as the bear costume punch, but that’s maybe just as well.

So.. how do I feel about this? It’s hard to say. I feel like I can’t possibly give a higher score to a film that is so evil in the end. It kept my interest all the way through, though, and it was a good bizarre detective story with a likable protagonist and doesn’t rely on cheap scares or tricks.

Iconic: **
Scary: **
Bloody: *
Overall: ***

Children of the Corn (1984)

I took a small detour from my chronology here to watch Children of the Corn since I won’t be getting another Netflix this weekend and they happened to have it at my local video store. I went in expecting nothing at all and came away fairly happy with the experience. I’m not totally sure why. Maybe it was my mood. I was full, alert, and content. There are a lot of problems with this movie that I could nitpick until the proverbial cows come home but I rather enjoyed it anyway.

Children of the Corn took two things that are rarely frightening – children and plants – and made them… well, they still aren’t very frightening. Even between The Evil Dead and The Happening, I can’t bring myself to shiver at the sight of corn stalks, unless like the unfortunate couple at the movie’s center I’m driving through Kansas or Nebraska. Or Ohio, since I think Kansas and Nebraska have primarily wheat fields which I guess are less dangerous than corn? Honestly, the interminable flat empty roads through those states are so irritating it’s a wonder someone didn’t make a horror film from it before.

So despite not being a real nail-biter this movie does have kind of a fun creepiness to it. I compare the experience to watching something like 1408 (another King-penned tale) where you jump a few times over the course of 90 minutes and then go on with your life. Strange little things happen, like the couple being drawn into Gatlin by confusing road signs and wandering through a deserted town that looks like it was attacked by the very fields themselves. The movie kind of seemed like a long, decent X-Files episode. It would have been creepier if the movie didn’t let us in on the town’s secret right off the bat, then perhaps we wouldn’t have had the disturbing opening scene. It’s not focused enough to be truly gripping and the performances are average but for a movie that relies on so many child actors I thought they were pretty good. And where’d they dig up that kid that played Isaac? He was very odd and perfect for his part.

For a horror film I thought this was pretty genial, even though not a lot happens plot-wise and the effects near the end are dated enough to be funny. How are there so many sequels to this? It’s the kind of thing I’d watch on TV reruns if I caught it playing.

Iconic: **
Scary: **
Bloody: **
Overall: **1/2

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

It’s obvious from the get go that this movie has influenced more than its fair share of genre films classic and modern, from Halloween and Friday the 13th to Se7en, to the likes of The Devil’s Rejects. Heck I could go on naming a string of horror films that I think borrowed elements big or small from this movie. Saw, Silence of the Lambs, The Hitcher, The Collector, etc. The quick flashes of corpses at the start; the empty, sometimes a-tonal score; the allegedly true-to-life hook; meat hooks, dudes wearing human skin, an isolated dysfunctional family doing who knows what in the plains…

Initially I was very critical of the movie. I thought it moved oddly slow – the scene with the hitchhiker felt a little stilted despite being so bizarre – and that the performances were iffy. It started to look like “Dumb kids are total jerks to their handicapped friend and then trespass on private property, eventually getting their comeuppance.” It was so by-the-numbers I was ready to just yawn and go with it for the brief running time, then dismiss it as a shocker that no longer shocks, tame by today’s standards. I mean the “slasher” didn’t even go looking for his victims; they came right up and walked through his door!

Then something remarkable happened. The film got scary and disturbing and it got that way fast. Once it gets down to just the one girl things kick into high gear and I don’t remember being left so breathless at a movie in a long time. The segment where Leatherface chases the girl through the woods to the house and she jumps out the window and runs back through the dark labyrinth of thistles and dead trees is masterfully tense, mostly because it seems very immediate and very realistic. From the opening crawl I thought the girl was going to die – there was no expectation that she was the plucky heroine who would somehow survive – and having seen her friends dispatched I expected her death at any moment, never knowing quite how it would happen. Her fleeing feels like the way we would flee – panicked, fragile and desperate. It strikes just the right balance so that she’s never completely helpless but never really seems like she has the upper hand, either. Honestly the chase sequences were more like a real nightmare than almost anything else I’ve seen in movies. And then from there it just becomes unbearable, the lead’s screaming filling the soundtrack until you think it can’t go on.

There’s some clever touches, like the generator that sounds like it could be chainsaw. And they got that quite right – those things are loud as hell. The grainy film only added to the experience and the ending while maybe a little unlikely never stretched past my disbelief. There were no “oh we’re in a movie, remember?” moments. Just terror.

This, along with Psycho, is the definitive slasher movie and one of the scariest I’ve seen.

Iconic: ***
Scary: ***
Bloody: **
Overall: ***

Deep Red (1975)

Deep Red is my first Dario Argento movie and so I didn’t really have any idea what to expect. The film is more noir-thriller than horror but with a few gory kills. I loved the camera work all the way through although in its current version the dubbing is terrible and its odd how even when reading English subtitles the Italian words we’re hearing on the soundtrack don’t seem to match the actors’ mouths.

There’s some creepy imagery in the form of various paintings and a few fun “aha!” moments, including the final reveal which, in hindsight, is even more cool because the movie gives you everything you need to figure it out but is pretty sure you won’t. It’s kind of fun watching the protagonist explore and look for clues, and when he discovers a disparity it gives detective movie fans their thrills. Though it’s strange, I actually really like most of the music but I think at times it’s ill-used. It tends to show up right when things should be deadly quiet and so instead of sweating you kind of bob your head. The version I watched is 2 hours long and the movie as it is doesn’t have enough to fill that. It lingers on a couple of basic clues and then at the end fails to resolve tons of lingering motifs and plot points. At least it offers some explanation. This is a decent movie and I’m glad I watched it but I’m not in a hurry to go back and see it again.

Iconic: *
Scary: **
Bloody: ***
Overall: **1/2

Orphan (2009)

This movie pissed me off.

I’m pretty sure I was waving my hands at the screen saying “What the hell, movie?” for a solid 90 of this film’s 123 minutes. Which, by the way, is about how much story Orphan has in it. 2 hours is frankly too long for this sort of thing. Maybe the creators think they’ve stumbled upon some transcendent drama, a story deep enough to need the full run time, but I doubt it. There’s no indication they care to do anything other than shock. The needlessly disgusting opening sequence is a poor omen (no evil-child-related pun intended) and while the movie has its moments, it’s ultimately unsatisfying.

The good: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, and Isabelle Fuhrman as little Esther are all terrific in their parts. Fuhrman is especially impressive as she’s so young and the movie requires quite a bit from her.

The bad: Orphan seems endless at times as it takes far too long for the main characters to start putting the pieces together. We learn much more quickly than they do and from the time we realize Esther is evil (i.e., right away) the movie goes through the motions as she does one diabolical thing after another until finally we approach the third act breaking point which takes a reasonably original and twisted (if completely irrational in hindsight) development and does nothing out of the ordinary with it. Orphan has a nasty disposition, menacing children and relishing the breakdown of a family. Also it’s hard for me to feel bad for parents who have a deranged child when they don’t do much in the way of good parenting. It’s revealed not to be their fault, but it still annoyed me.

Further, why does this movie seem to think I’ll be scared by little kids running past the camera or coming down a slide? All the musical cues in the world can’t make me jump by looking at a jungle gym. If you can’t predict exactly the point at which Vera Farmiga will slide her bathroom mirror back into place and see someone behind her, you have watched exactly zero (0) scary movies in your lifetime.

I’ll grant you it’s audacious, there’s no doubt about that. What it’s not is clever or sensible, and either of those things would reduce the amount of eye-rolling and screen-shouting you’re likely to do while watching Orphan. Was anyone else insulted by the portrayal of adoption? Or by the fact that the child is supposedly from Russia and so she knows how to play Russian Roulette? Sitcom misunderstandings where family members turn against each other because they’re too stupid to listen to anyone is not the same thing as tension and suspense. If you want to watch a great movie with a creepy kid, I recommend the Spanish The Orphanage.

Iconic: *
Scary: **
Bloody: **
Overall: **

The Vanishing (1988)

This cerebral Dutch-language thriller started out very slowly. You think you know exactly where it’s going, and you’re right – for about 20 minutes. The synopsis is that a man’s girlfriend disappears during a road trip and he searches for her for three years, but that’s just the setup. This remarkably reserved film takes us, through a series of flashbacks, into the mind of a kidnapper as he reins in the obsessed friend of a girl he abducted 3 years earlier. Actually, is she Mr. Hofman’s wife, or merely his friend? The subtitles say both at different points in the movie and it’s never resolved. Maybe this is a translation error.

It’s very intriguing to peer into the life of the kidnapper as he plans his crime, seeing his family and hearing his thought processes. How interesting that this a sociopath much more simply human than someone like Hannibal Lecter. He’s much closer to Norman Bates, but the terror is in how normal he is. How can someone have such a nice family life, be so considerate and inconspicuous, and yet so meticulously plan a horrible and arbitrary crime against another human being, never seeing the disconnect between the two halves of his personality? And then there’s the ending, which is probably what gives this movie its notoriety. I won’t dare even hint at it, except to say it’s worth waiting through the slow passages to get there and that it’s likely to stick with you after you finish watching. On the whole The Vanishing is little too low-key to be overly exciting, but all the same I’m glad it was done the way it is without a lot of frills. It’s a thriller that attacks your mind more than your stomach.

Iconic: *
Scary: *
Bloody: *
Overall: ***

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

I was not excited to see this movie despite having it recommended to me. I’ve never thought werewolves were very interesting and I had a poor experience with the latest Wolfman movie. Dutifully, I slid in the disc and almost at once my trepidation was relieved. This is a very entertaining horror movie that never takes itself seriously – the polar opposite of this year’s The Wolfman which was solemn to a fault. If I love the 70′s for truly gritty horror, I love the 80′s for over-the-top funny horror and this one of the better ones. It’s always entertaining: from the kids’ banter, to David’s attempt to get arrested (“Winston Churchill was full of s**t!”), to the random appearances of his nonchalant undead friend Jack.

As a result of the light tone it’s rarely really frightening, though there are a few shocks and some pretty nasty gore done with wonderful practical effects. The big transformation scene is far and away the best I’ve ever seen. Interestingly enough, the practical effects of the 2010 Wolfman are actually better than they were in this film, which sort of surprised me until I realized they were both done by the same man, the talented Rick Baker. Benicio Del Toro walking around as the wolfman looks much better than the limited, hunched creature here who is rightfully seen mostly in quick close-up cuts. But the new transformation scenes done in CGI never looked as convincing as the work here which to this day is pretty impressive. The acting isn’t great but it’s passable for the story and the characters are all likable. What’s with that ending, though?

I’m tempted to think the soundtrack is overused or maybe just put in the wrong places, but I’m not really sure a standard “scary music” score would have been any better. This movie single-handedly saved the werewolf genre for me. It makes me want to go to London and fall in love with a nurse. A girl with a British accent is automatically more attractive than the exact same girl if she were from Ohio.

Iconic: **
Scary: *
Bloody: ***
Overall: ***

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

1985 was a great time to be undead in America. Of the three prominent zombie-ish movies released that year, ReAnimator is my favorite, followed by Romero’s Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead was a somber, violent continuation of the “of the Dead” saga and succeeded as a serious genre entry. ReAnimator was an over-the-top  scream-fest that became a cult favorite. That film shares its dark, demented sense of humor with Return of the Living Dead, though it’s somewhat more committed and shocking.

As an intentionally campy movie, RotLD suffers less from bad acting (Ernie is morbidly interesting but the sweet girl is seriously undercooked) and more from not being quite outrageous enough at times. There’s a good amount of blood and general nastiness but not maybe what you’d expect from a splatter parody. One character’s death, for instance, despite being deliciously forecast, occurs offscreen. Why? The movie’s clearly not afraid of seeping brains, constant swearing or gratuitous nudity. Go all the way with us! It isn’t long but a good deal of the film is talky build-up by characters who aren’t so interesting in themselves while confined to a few drab sets. I could describe quite a few different scenes in a way that might make them sound scary, disturbing, or hilarious. The way it plays out it’s rarely any of those, but surprisingly enough it’s probably disturbing more often than funny, especially considering the two characters who slowly die from the inside out, becoming undead without ever losing consciousness.

It’s interesting that the “Brains” thing which is so inexorably tied to the zombie myth in popular culture started here and I’m sure a lot of people don’t realize it. Also, zombies randomly talk despite their rotting mouths hanging open and are intelligent, working together and setting ambushes. It’s definitely funny in a dark sort of way, and the subtle moments are the ones that made me laugh out loud, like the zombie who disguises himself and directs traffic. Much of the time, though, the constant shouting and overacting becomes kind of a dull roar.

At the end of the day, we wouldn’t have the likes of Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland if it weren’t for this. It’s got a fun soundtrack and enough deliberately bizarre moments to make it worth a watch. And Linnea Quigley as Trash is worth the price of a rental all on her own.

Iconic: ***
Scary: *
Bloody: ***
Overall: **1/2

The Innocents (1961)

I can’t remember exactly what made me add this unassuming early-60′s movie to my que, but boy am I glad I did! I loved this movie. Straight loved it. I almost hesitate to tell you that because I think it was beneficial that I went in with virtually no expectations whatsoever. I didn’t know the director or anyone in the cast, or even the basic plot of the film. My thought was that this was made only a year after Hitchcock’s Psycho kick-started the psychological horror and slasher genres as we know them, and so I reasoned that this was probably a developing movie that would be an interesting historical curiosity but possibly a tame time-passer in comparison with today’s films. I was dead wrong, and I’m happy to be corrected.

The Innocents is a startlingly subversive movie, thematically subtle but visually bold. The black & white widescreen cinematography is stunning and very effective. The way the camera moves is unsettling in itself. Whenever someone walks across a room, the turning of the camera suggests unease as if someone or something is waiting just outside the frame. The disc I watched contains both a full-screen pan & scan version of the film as well as the original widescreen and while this is less of a problem now that more people have widescreen televisions and monitors, let me just stress that you are missing out on the experience if you watch the full-frame chop job. The shots are often framed so that two characters are on opposing ends of the screen. If you’re trying to take the long rectangle of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and show only a square of it, which character do you choose to focus on? Panning the shot from one to the other means emulating camera movement in what is intended to be a static shot. I know I’m on a soap box but since the cinematography is such an integral part of what makes this movie work, it’s worth mentioning.

There’s no blood in The Innocents but that doesn’t keep it from being creepy as hell. Chilling isn’t the word for it. I’ve been watching horror movies all month and this is the first one to set me on edge. The movie moves from one unsettling development to another, rarely giving you time to compose yourself. There are one or two jump scares or traditional spooky moments, though I was surprised at the intensity of other shots that didn’t try to surprise me with music or quick cuts. This is one of those atmospheric mysteries that makes you question everything. If by the end you can’t necessarily explain every anomaly you’ve witnessed, you still don’t feel cheated. I’m sure some viewers will be irritated at the lack of explanation and closure in a movie that doesn’t spell everything out for them. For me, I was too happy to have just seen a great movie to complain.

This isn’t a perfect film. It’s the least bit dated in terms of acting (though thankfully not the effects) and one scene near the end seemed overplayed. On the whole though it’s lost very little of its punch. With a big creaky mansion, two fresh-faced impish children who seem at once angelic and conniving, and a riveting central performance by Deborah Kerr that holds everything together, this film reminded me of classy ghost stories like The Others, only 40 years older. I won’t spoil anything by giving the plot away, but I’m convinced this movie is a masterpiece of the genre. If you like gothic horror, classic psychological thrillers, or great movies in general I’d recommend this highly. I actually think it could become one of my all-time favorite scary movies along with the likes of Alien or The Thing.

Iconic: **
Scary: ***
Bloody: *
Overall: ****

Dead Alive (1992)

I expected gore. I got gore. Lots of it. Dead Alive has gained the reputation of being the goriest movie ever made and it would not surprise me a bit if that were the truth. It’s not the most sadistic or disturbing, but it may well be the most purely sickening. There’s so much flying blood, pus, and other bodily mixtures in this film (with some custard for good measure) it’s astounding. It’s so surreal I can hardly believe what I saw, but I’m pretty sure at some point a disembodied set of bowels stopped to admire themselves in a mirror. The mix is heavy on comedy, reminding me more of Evil Dead II than anything else I’ve seen, though Dead Alive is in a class mostly its own. The light tone and fake-ish violence are a must. Without them the film would reach nigh-unwatchable levels of stomach turning.

The story is stilted and awkward in places, with characters just staring at each other when normal people would speak. Plot is only necessary as a way to get us to the final 30 minutes of carnage, wherein everyone starts becoming undead and the resulting struggle bathes every last edge of the frame in blood. Some character stuff is present, mostly the relationship between the main character and his mother, but script and acting are just not the focus. I don’t really know what else to say about this movie. There’s one great line (“I kick ass for the Lord”), one truly iconic moment (the lawnmower), and more than one wtf moment out of nowhere (zombie baby). Is it as gross as they say? Pretty much. Did it make much of an impression on me beyond that? Not really. The movie is harder to watch near the beginning when one character starts falling apart but gets easier to watch as the violence ramps up and becomes “fun.” I cringed a bit at the custard scene and just to be safe quit snacking once the show began but other than I just watched in awe as all boundaries of anything resembling taste were hacked to bits, eaten, vomited up and then eaten again.

If you’re looking for the most extreme the genre has to offer and/or you have an utterly demented sense of humor, look no further than Dead Alive. For any other reason, skip it.

Iconic: **
Scary: *
Bloody: ****
Overall: **1/2

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

The problem with In the Mouth of Madness is the same that afflicts many horror offerings. It’s best when it’s creepy and mysterious, but if it doesn’t build to some kind of confrontation or climax, we feel let down and the film has no sense of direction. However, if it does, it inevitably loses the evasive, nightmarish quality that attracted us in the first place. I appreciated the Lovecraftian, Eternal Darkness-esque nature of this movie and felt it tried valiantly to put on screen the kind of psychological terror that, unfortunately, seems to work best through the written word.

To see that, one need look no further than the film itself. When John Trent (Sam Neill) finds himself staring through some kind of inter-dimensional hole in space-time, we hear Julie Carmen’s Stiles reading an excerpt from the latest horror novel by fictional writer Sutter Cain (Cain is a sort of Stephen King figure who goes missing before his new book can be published). The morose language coaxes the mind into dredging up unspeakable atrocities against the very fabric of reality as we know it. The visual representations we see in the next scene simply can’t measure up to their abstract descriptions. Carpenter has some good special effects in this movie but also many that feel more dated than they should. On more than one occasion I laughed when I knew I was supposed to be creeped out. Take the moment when Stiles crawls out of the car hunched and contorted with her head upside down. This had potential to be deeply unsettling like the crab walk from The Exorcist but instead seems fudged together and silly. There’s no mystique to it, just an awkward effect that doesn’t sell. The “my favorite color is blue” scene is unintentionally hilarious as well.

To be fair, some scares absolutely work and on the whole I didn’t mind that the movie was disconnected since I felt disorientation was part of its intent. Sam Neill is great at this type of role. Julie Carmen is not great at all. It’s an interesting idea but it just doesn’t quite work, except for some of the sequences in the middle, particularly the hotel scenes. The creepy, ever-changing painting is the type of maddening thing that hints at threats though it’s never certain what they are. I loved that and wished there could be more like it. The ending is wacky and I want to love it but have to admit I don’t really get it. If you go into this trying to nail down a plot you’re going to be frustrated. As a series of dreamlike images it works about as well as it can, but ultimately feels a little too pulpy and never achieves the heights of something like Jacob’s Ladder.

For all my criticisms it probably sounds like I didn’t like this movie, which isn’t true. Neill, as I’ve said, is a riot. It goes to places other movies wouldn’t dare, as with the kindly old lady at the hotel desk. It has some funny/scary startling moments. I honestly think, though, that the film would have benefitted from a longer running time to either flesh out the story more or bring it to a more satisfactory conclusion; and maybe even, God help us, some CGI to give a few of the creatures a more other-worldly look. I mean I love great practical effects and Carpenter has used them in amazing ways before (see: The Thing). It’s just that his otherworldly beasties here could have done with a little more fog and shadow and more impressive scale or at least some uncanny motion.

Still a decent-enough flick. There’s not much out there like it.

Iconic: *
Scary: **
Bloody: **
Overall: ***

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The ocean has Jaws. The shower has Psycho. Outer space has Alien. And the woods have The Blair Witch Project. Not that they needed the help. There is already nothing scarier than being lost in the woods at night.

This movie basically bluffs its way through with a handful of nothing and I highly doubt it would be as effective on a second viewing, but on a first watch it’s terrifying. Seeing the forest at night through a camera lens, the nearest trees too starkly white in the limited-range light and the areas beyond falling into darkness, anything could show up out of the black. Anything at all. This movie wisely knows that our imaginations will take this scenario and run with it, once again proving that what is not seen is scarier than what is shown. The most intense parts of movies like [REC] and 28 Weeks Later have followed the example set here. Is it a good movie? I’m not sure. Characters are broadly drawn, do stupid things and argue like idiots. But does it scare? Absolutely. I’m actually surprised I don’t see more love for this film. I can’t remember how well it was received at the time of its release, but it seems in the days since movie-goers have gone cold to it. Maybe that just means it’s a film that exists in the moment and has no staying power; as I said, I doubt very much that it will stand up to repeat viewings in the way that something like The Sixth Sense (made the same year) does.

I have to admit, I sort of fidgeted in my chair throughout the movie, my mind filling the dark edges of the screen with every sort of terror. When the ending came, my reaction was, and I quote: “That’s it?” So… I suppose I can see why people might be upset. I’m not though. I honestly feel more horror movies should subscribe to the “less is more” school of film-making. How many times have you reached the end of a film only to have your built-up anticipation shattered by a stupid-looking monster or cheesy reveal that robs the preceding film of its luster? I don’t think The Blair Witch is lazy for leaving some questions unanswered. There may be nothing to fear but fear itself, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll always be afraid of the unknown.

Iconic: ***
Scary: ****
Bloody: *
Overall: ***

Audition (1999)

Audition is not completely without value. The early scenes, while slow, build up a subtle, mostly believable character. The sound and visuals are good and keep us watching – and if you know anything at all about the movie going in including having seen the cover, seemingly innocent things take on a sinister sheen. Of course that’s the way the movie wants it, and it casts doubt on the object of the hero’s affection almost immediately. It’s the story of someone so blinded by loneliness and his own preconceptions that he can’t see the mess he’s walking into. In that way the movie kind of works. It’s not completely captivating but the drama is interesting enough. It’s not long before the fairly straightforward story gets punctuated with bouts of weirdness though and from then on it just tumbles into a rabbit hole.

So like I said the movie has some merits but it is very much punishing to the audience. I wouldn’t wish this viewing experience on anyone. I’d tell my friend to rent The New World before I’d suggest this. Well, maybe not. But it’s close. Also this may have no bearing but from the DVD extras Director Takashi Miike seems very pretentious and his movie swings between dull, hateful, and just plain incomprehensible. It’s possible that in translation I’m misinterpreting his attitude. And perhaps by ending his story a little differently Miike could have opened up doors to broader interpretations, but even that wouldn’t excuse the reason for this movie’s existence, which seems to be its sadistic third-act torture sequence. By the time I was finished watching I was asking myself why I bothered.

I feel like I’m being too hard on Audition. It’s a good looking film with some powerful scenes. The titular scene was hilarious and I think it was supposed to be. Still, I feel the translation probably hurt the effect in some scenes. For instance, the boy comes in and sees his dad lying on the ground with needles in his face, one foot cut off and the other one bleeding like a mother and he says “Dad? Are you alright?” “No, son,” comes my imagined reply, “I’m in a good deal of agony; also, look out behind you ’cause I didn’t do this to myself.”

Iconic: *
Scary: **
Bloody: ***
Overall: *

Session 9 (2001)

The abandoned asylum in which most of Session 9 takes place is a wonderfully creepy, foreboding location. Basically it is the movie, and really deserved a better film to take place there. Unfortunately, I hear it’s since been destroyed so there will never be another chance.

This movie is moody and tense in spots, but it’s not nearly consistent enough. Just when the suspense is about to ratchet up for one character, they switch to another shot or three of other characters running around somewhere else, breaking the spell. Eventually you can see this is done to cover up the movie’s secrets until its messy and unsatisfying reveal. Session 9, despite apparently having a talented crew and all the atmosphere they could ask for, resorts to gimmick sound effects during transitions and random footage including a spider attacking a bug (people think spiders are scary!) when what the actors are doing should be enough to hold our attention.

The cast is actually pretty good overall, even Mr. Sunglasses himself, David Caruso. He has one hilarious line reading exacerbated by the cheesy camera angle but otherwise not bad. It would be nice to see some characters in a horror movie who work together for once, although depending on how you interpret the story there could be a good reason why these guys don’t.

I couldn’t help but think there was a world of untapped potential here. Only one scene I felt truly stood out as utilizing the setting for maximum effect – when Hank goes back at night for his treasure. But what about the signature chair? The dark subterranean tunnels? The wings reserved for extreme cases? The place where Hank finds his stash? There was just so much that could have been done with this the result feels tepid compared to what I would have imagined. This is a movie with a lot of ideas that just doesn’t know how to make use of them. Needs to be a little longer with a more focused mystery that goes someplace. Still modestly spooky.

Iconic: *
Scary: **
Bloody: **
Overall: **1/2

Let the Right One In (2008)

Add this to the pantheon of most disgusting screen kisses.

By far the best vampire movie I have ever seen. Coming from someone who has neither seen many such films nor even likes the idea of vampires very much, that may not be saying a lot; but perhaps it’s saying something that in spite of that I really liked Let the Right One In. At the heart of this film is a sweet and conflicting romance that buds between two preteens, one of whom is, as she puts it, “not a girl.” She he or it is a vampire, struggling to survive in a world where she (feminine pronoun used for convenience) clearly doesn’t belong. I don’t know of another film that has really dealt in such a lucid way with what it would be like to be a creature of the night trying to get along in a society of regular people. Unfortunately this movie will always be compared with Twilight, but Eli in this film is less brooding rock star and more lonely outcast. It’s the only way, really. She wants to make friends but knows it’s impossible for a normal relationship to exist when she needs to kill in order to stay alive.

Young Oskar’s association with Eli is at once tender and disquieting. It becomes more unsettling the more we learn about her and as the relatively good-hearted boy becomes wrapped up in something he can’t understand. I was almost shocked at the bursts of violence and the way the film subtly hints at even more terrible things it dares not show. I have to admit I failed to pick up on some of those hints on my initial viewing and now that they’ve been brought to my attention the film is even creepier in hindsight. I enjoyed the way standard vampire cliches are worked into the movie in surprising ways. This is a very slow and quiet movie, though the finale is awesome and very satisfying. Also: CGI cats? That’s one laughable “wtf” scene in the movie that feels rather out of place.

This is a beautiful if dark movie, emotionally complex and stirring.

Iconic: *
Scary: *
Bloody: ***
Overall: ***1/2

The Verdict

Well, Halloween has come and gone, and thus our 2010 marathon is coming to a close. Here’s a brief reflection on the month. Below, I rank the 17 movies I watched from favorite to least favorite:

The Innocents
Let the Right One In
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
An American Werewolf in London
The Blair Witch Project
The Wicker Man
The Vanishing
Bride of Frankenstein
In the Mouth of Madness
Return of the Living Dead
Dead Alive
Children of the Corn
Deep Red
Session 9
Frankenstein
Orphan
Audition

Review by Brother Reed

If you laughed at the trailer for Dinner for Schmucks, you’re probably a fan of Steve Carell. And who isn’t? The man is one of the most gifted comedians working in film or television today. The American version of The Office, a fixture of TV these days, got off the ground almost entirely due to his involvement. He’s given a boost to other comedy bigwigs like Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, and Judd Apatow. You know you can expect a completely committed (not to mention totally bonkers) performance from him every time. The good news about his new starring vehicle, Dinner for Schmucks, is that Carell delivers on those expectations once again. The bad news is that the movie is much less consistent. In fact, it’s downright bipolar. I can’t remember the last time I sat in a theater going from chuckles to sighs and frowns so quickly or so often.

This disparity is disappointing because I would have loved to just laugh along with the likes of Rudd, Carell and Galifianakis, but the movie continually frustrated my attempts to do so. With a greatly talented comic cast in full wacky mode, there are plenty of laughs to be had; but they don’t come without a catch. The premise of Dinner for Schmucks is that bored rich executives entertain each other (and in a highly questionable business practice, apparently promote employees) by holding a dinner, to which each employee brings a guest. Supposedly, the guest is to be someone of unique talent who stands to win a prize for best-in-show. The dinner of course is a farce, and their guests are people they think are morons. The fun is in seeing them unknowingly humiliate themselves. While this is something that could certainly make a good comedy, the problems are two-fold. For one, anyone with a conscience knows that such a thing is horribly distasteful; and secondly, it makes for a pretty short movie.

As a result, the movie is largely padding, the dinner in question being the final act. The rest of the movie sets things in motion. We meet Tim (Paul Rudd), a businessman with a beautiful, successful girlfriend he wants to impress and an unscrupulous boss he also wants to impress, so he can get a promotion and then impress his beautiful successful girlfriend some more. Tim gets himself noticed when he helps his company land a possible deal with a Swiss high-roller, but he needs to find a real bozo to show off at his boss’s dinner. He accidentally hits Barry (Steve Carell) with his car, and discovers that the man is an astoundingly dense taxidermist who photographs his dead rodents in pristine artistic settings (this sounds weird but the whimsical opening credits actually show it to be a skillful and creative pastime). Seeing his opportunity, he invites Barry to the dinner. Of course things are never so simple – Tim runs into Barry again and his life begins to unravel What About Bob? style. Maybe I’m just getting older, but I think that Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss forever cured me of being entertained by watching someone’s world collapse around his ears.

It looks like these mice have already had their last supper.

What follows is a colossal jumble of “outrageous” sitcom misunderstandings and improbable coincidences, throughout which every character (not just the patently dumb ones) make horrible, stupid decisions. Barry we accept as stupid, and so his errors in judgment are often funny, even when they land Tim and everyone he knows in awkward social predicaments. The problem is that every time this movie does something fresh and funny, it does something else lame, cliched and annoying. The plot runs on contrivances (certain characters showing up just in time to overhear crucial dialog or catch someone else in the worst possible position) and is full of over-played scenarios. In a pivotal scene, Tim is at dinner with his star clients when Barry shows up, a stalker ex-flame in haul to cover for his girlfriend’s absence. Any sane person would simply explain to his clients that there was a miscommunication, excuse himself and dismiss his unruly guests. Of course, if he did that, we wouldn’t be treated to an excruciating scene in which he is forced to propose to a girl he loathes, losing his expensive engagement ring and his girlfriend’s trust in the process. A similar setup worked much better in the screwball gem What’s Up, Doc? where the main character was simply overrun by Barbara Streisand’s lovable tramp and the script for the scene was full of witty banter rather than forced awkwardness. In Schmucks, the entire scene is a severe misstep and illustrates partially why the movie doesn’t work.

A bigger problem stems from a mishandling of the premise, as well as the character of Barry. The film decides to give its main character a moral dilemma about mocking an idiot for sport, but it wants us to laugh at said idiot all through the movie without giving it a second thought? Sure, we know he’s being played by the very aware Steve Carell who’s made his name in roles like this, but that isn’t the point. Barry is made out to be, as Tim describes him, a sweet guy who just happens to leave destruction in his wake. Can we laugh at his antics? Should we? At times we hate him for what he’s doing to Tim’s life, but we also know Tim is a jerk for using Barry. Our sympathy is split. Despite being on the slow side, Barry’s art is actually rather impressive. He is shown not only to be legitimately talented and good-hearted, but also very much a victim of the others in his life.

In a climactic scene Barry admits that he lost his wife to his employer, Therman (Zach Galifianakis, also playing a huge dupe), due to sexual incompetence. He uses his intimate knowledge of their affair to embarrass Therman and so win a short-sighted victory, as he reveals that he was hiding under the bed while his wife cheated on him in their own house. That is a terrible, tragic event made all the more unsavory by the fact that Barry doesn’t even seem to recognize how much he’s been wronged. And yet, doesn’t he know? His mouse-terpieces look eerily similar to him and his wife; it seems he’s expressing his longing to restore their innocent happiness. The whole scenario is profoundly depressing but is played for laughs and never addressed with any tenderness. When the audience is asked to laugh at this, it places us in the company of the bad guys, making us complicit in the actions of morally bankrupt men. If the audience feels guilty, it keeps them from enjoying the scene. This is effective if it’s intended, but here it doesn’t lead to any kind of catharsis, resolution, or Aesop. It’s just an extremely insensitive joke. I expect low blows in a movie with this premise, and I’m not above laughing at the unfortunate – in fact there’s a blind fencer at dinner who has some very amusing moments – but I wonder if this movie is fully aware of its inherent contradictions. You can’t have it both ways: either make a comedy with a heart that treats its characters with humanity (Judd Apatow’s movies do this very well despite their raunchiness) or go for the throat with black satire. Trying to tie both of those up in a screwball package just results in mayhem.

“Are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

Furthermore, some gags that are initially funny become tedious. Jemaine Clement has a hilarious bit as a self-obsessed artist. The first scene at his exhibit is an uproarious skewering of the kind of absurdity often seen in that community. Eventually he starts to wear out his welcome (he’s essentially a one-note gag) but does become amusing again near the end. Almost every seemingly innocuous or random gag (for example, one about eating pudding) turns sexual, as if the writers have no idea what else might be funny, other than wanton destruction (hint: it isn’t). Sex has been the stuff of humor for as long as anyone can remember, but does everything have go that way?

Most of the funniest moments in Dinner for Schmucks are more subtle. When Barry opens Tim’s car door into a sign post, the audience laughed because it was the kind of bumbling thing people do all the time, and it fit Barry’s haphazard character. It was also a bit of insult-to-injury since Tim is already put out and the ding in the car door is just the icing on the cake. Neither character acknowledges the door incident – it just happens, we laugh, and then the story moves on. Later, because the dent in the door wasn’t obvious enough, Tim’s slighted stalker takes a metal post to his expensive cruiser and batters it six ways from Sunday. That scene isn’t funny, it’s just cringe-worthy. We’re sad to see the car destroyed, but where’s the comedy? Other great scenes include Barry’s simple misphrasings, e.g. “You may think I’m a dreamer, but I’m not.” Classic stuff! It’s too bad there weren’t more of those moments, but writing clever dialog is harder than smashing things.

I know I’m being very critical. The truth is I liked close to half of the jokes in the movie, but came out of the theater feeling unenthused. I laughed quite a few times, but not enough to make up for the times I sat scowling at what was being trotted across the screen as humor. Maybe if the movie got off its moral high horse and stopped reminding us that we’re terrible people laughing at terrible things, the experience would go more smoothly. As it is, it’s just too uneven to recommend.

Review by Brother Reed

Here’s a blast from the past: King Kong is 77 years old this year. For the current generation, that’s older than a lot of grandparents. My own grandfather, who passed away just a few years ago, would have been only a boy when it was released. And what a spectacle it must have been! Seeing Kong on the big screen with an excited crowd for the first time in 1933 should have been captivating (and much safer than for the eerily similar audience sitting in front of Carl Denham’s hubris exhibit in the final act of the movie). Unfortunately, it’s an experience that cannot be recreated in the modern world. With decades of movies and billions of dollars worth of special effects under our belts, today’s audience is more difficult to impress. In a very real way, King Kong is itself the grandfather of the modern monster movie, and while we may respect our grandparents, our ideas of fun are generally a little different. I freely admit, as a self-professed monster aficionado, Kong has suffered some generation decay for me as well. While that means I wasn’t blown away by Kong in the same way as its contemporaries, I still view the movie as an entertaining mile marker in film history.

When impulsive film director and consummate showman Carl Denham arrives on the fog-shrouded shores of an uncharted island about 40 minutes into King Kong, what he finds is a culture that lives by different rules. A ritual is taking place at the foot of an enormous wall that blocks off a small peninsula from the rest of the island. Something primal hides under the tropical canopy; something which has been undisturbed by the outside world for countless years, and which that world is not prepared to encounter. Like the stunned film crew, viewers may experience a bit of culture shock watching King Kong for the first time. The standards of acting and effects are removed from what we are used to, and so it takes a bit of understanding on our part. Denham makes a giant miscalculation when he transports the beast back to the mainland expecting it to play its part as an exhibit and instead unleashes the king of the jungle into a metropolis that has no place for him. The ending of King Kong is an inevitability. Giant gorillas are obsolete in New York City. They’re cramping our style. To really appreciate Kong, we as viewers must do some mental time-traveling and try our best to see the big fella in his natural habitat.

“What’ve they got in there, King Kong?”

Admittedly, this is not always easy to do. I did not have the same reaction to King Kong as I did to, say, Citizen Kane. An unflattering comparison, I realize, but the similarity is this: Kane’s reputation as a great film leads enthusiasts to go back and experience it, hoping that it lives up to the hype. Often it doesn’t, as younger viewers frequently don’t know why the film is respected or what it has done for the medium. They simply see it as a boring, outdated picture whose conceits have been copied so many times they don’t even realize what’s being copied. For my part, I found Kane to be an effective, enjoyable character drama in its own right. I watched it three times the weekend I rented it. Not so with Kong. Nay, time has been less forgiving to the big ape, but what I couldn’t help but notice as I watched was just how much modern movies like Jurassic Park owe their existence to King Kong.

Swamp dinosaur from King Kong (left) vs. Velociraptor from Jurassic Park (right). Note the lip curl and creature orientation.

I also couldn’t help comparing it to Peter Jackson’s recent remake, a less insightful venture but nevertheless intriguing. Speaking of the remake, note that the original King Kong runs 104 minutes. That’s just a little over half the length of the 2005 version, and yet nothing significant feels left out. The two movies march through the same three-part structure (introductions and boat ride to the island, middle adventure portion on the island, finale in the city) but the older film satisfactorily fulfills its goals in a fraction of the time.

One thing that should be obvious as soon as King Kong comes on screen is the care put into the visual effects. Again, new viewers may see it as hokey or even funny, but stop to look. I do not want to downplay the achievement that was Jackson’s King Kong – that movie was gorgeous and its motion-capture effects seamless. Yet the stop-motion in this movie is pretty amazing on its own. As Kong moves, he doesn’t look like an action figure or a plastic doll being manipulated frame by frame. As he roars, fights, and emotes, the fur of his coat ripples. Ripples! This is stop-motion. Every minute change must be done by hand. It’s actually remarkable. The dinosaurs look as though they were somewhat easier to do, but even so it’s a painstaking process.

Another frequently used technique was having action occur both in the foreground and background, as in the T-Rex fight. Anne is in the foreground cowering while the titans battle just behind. This use of two separate depths is bridged dynamically when Kong throws an object from his space in the back of the shot to the actors’ space in the front. The framing allows his shot to arc off the top of the screen and then we see the object drop into the foreground, perfectly synced. These are clever ways to bypass obvious limitations. Close-ups seem to be done with a huge mechanical model that holds grown men behind its teeth. Also note the character design, which isn’t so much a gorilla that it becomes simply an animal. Kong is something else entirely, a mythical creature who is probably a primate but is unlike anything else we’ve ever seen. The result is a fairly complete character, and the most developed one in the movie.

As a monster movie, I cut Kong some slack for the fact that it fleshes out the monkey but severely underperforms in terms of the human cast. This is by far the weakest aspect of the movie and while some parts of the performances can be accounted for in terms of changing styles and tastes, there’s no getting around straight-up bad writing. The love story between Darrow and Driscoll is at best unconvincing and at worst unintentionally hilarious. If you don’t laugh when Driscoll (who has known Anne maybe a week and done nothing but berate her simply for being a woman) says “I guess I love you,” I have another gripping romance to suggest to you.

“I don’t like sand…”

Let’s just be honest with ourselves – there is plenty about this movie that could use a good update. So why, with 75 additional minutes, did the remake not fix the most glaring flaws? Sure, the lines aren’t as tacky and the whole thing’s a bit more believable, but the love story still doesn’t feel like it occurs naturally or drives the story forward. Not all the writing in Kong is bad, either. The 1933 film earns its famous closing line – “’twas beauty killed the beast” – by repeated use of the beauty-and-the-beast motif. The suggestion that Kong’s obsession with Anne ultimately leads to his undoing is almost as foregone as the outcome of his ill-fated brush with humanity. In this version Kong and Anne have a more straightforward relationship (he carries her around and she screams) but it doesn’t stop Kong from being both deadly and sympathetic.

I might add that you shouldn’t expect the movie to pull punches just because of its age. The body count in Kong surprised me. It’s less gruesome of course than the over-the-top Jackson film, but people are still eaten, crushed, thrown about, and stomped into the dirt. Again, the way a water-dwelling carnivore attacked his meal reminded me of Jurassic Park‘s tyrannosaurus eating a lawyer off the john.

Earlier I said that nothing significant was missing from King Kong and while I meant that in terms of plot, much has been made of the fact that a sequence known as the Spider Pit was cut from the film and has since been lost. Peter Jackson re-imagined it in all its disgusting glory in his version, and while it would probably seem tame today one wonders if it would have been another iconic scene. As it is, the shot of Kong swatting at biplanes from the top of the Empire State Building is one of the most recognizable scenes from any movie past or present. For pure entertainment value I prefer the 2005 King Kong, but nothing can take this movie’s place in history. Without it, it seems likely that Godzilla, the giant creature movies from the 50′s, Jurassic Park and certainly any remakes, would never be; and I don’t think I want to live in that world. Thankfully, in this world, the original King Kong is safely preserved for us on DVD.