They Call Me Jack

I have to believe that every so often, right before falling off into dreamland, Robert Zemeckis, Roger Avary, and Neil Gaiman laugh their asses off. Why? Because I picture classrooms around the country with teacher’s desks piled high with book reports on Beowulf. In that stack of reports are the poorly worded musings of several students that thought they could pull a fast one. “Why read the poem when I can just watch the whiz-bang movie, and poof… I’m done?!” Then I see the teacher grading papers with a red pen held loosely in their tired hand. They slouch, send a hand to their brow and mumble, “Nooooo… the dragon baby of Beowulf and Angelina Jolie didn’t come looking for him after Hannibal Lecter dove out a window.”

So why did they change the story? Well according to the supplemental material on the DVD, they felt that since the story has an oral tradition of being passed on, it would naturally have changed over the years, and the movie was there chance to tell their take on the hero legend. In doing so they’ve tried to connect the unconnected dots of the poem, which in turn twists Beowulf, himself, towards the role of a flawed anti-hero. In reality, I think they were just trying to find something cool to animate that had swords, dragons, and a bit of legitimacy (I’m looking at you Eragon.)

The animation itself is impressive, but still a little unsettling (read about the Uncanny Valley.) The direction by Zemeckis, while quick to thrill, often made me feel like I was on a 3D ride first, and watching a movie second. I realize that when the movie was released, it was offered in 3D format for theaters that supported it, but repeated scenes with swords/spears poking out at the audience made me feel like I had time-warped back to the 1980’s.

The other major gripe that I have with the film is the fine line it tries to walk to maintain its PG-13 rating. I saw the director’s cut of the film on DVD, and while it was quite bloody, it went out of its way to intentionally block the genitalia of nude characters in a very distracting and juvenile way. During a major fight sequence it is established that Beowulf will do battle in the nude. When Grendel storms onto the scene, looking appropriately grotesque, Beowulf springs into action and in something right out of Austin Powers, has his groin repeatedly blocked out of frame by various, perfectly placed objects. Why would I be focused on Beowulf’s animated junk? Because just like the Austin Powers scene points out, when you go out of your way to cover it, like they did with a symbolic sword stuck in a table, you force the viewer to notice it. I get why they had to dance around the issue for the PG-13 rating, but if you’re that worried why not slap a loincloth on him or just toss the PG-13 rating out the window? If you can show the graphic dismemberment of a monster as well as some of its human victims, what harm are animated nipples and balls?

Overall the movie lands squarely in the average category for me. The creepy doll-eye faces often kept me from feeling any sort of attachment to the characters. Thankfully they gathered a pretty good collection of voices together, led by Ray Winstone as Beowulf, to overcome the staleness of the expressions. When not tightly focused on the faces of the characters, I found myself quite impressed by the action sequences, and liked the fact that they were willing to let the “camera” move around in 3D space. The reworked story is a little thin, but considering the source material, I suppose they did the best they could in trying to come up with a cohesive plot. Despite its 3D ride feel, I can’t deny that this is a bit of a step forward towards the goal of delivering realistic looking human characters in an animated world. Albeit a ball-less step, but a step nonetheless.

Beowulf @ IMDB

Let me get this out of the way first:

Bottle Rocket > Rushmore > The Life Aquatic > The Royal Tenenbaums

I know that most Wes Anderson fans tend to rank the the Tenenbaums above Life Aquatic, and some list it as their favorite Wes Anderson movie ever. As for me, I just couldn’t get into the movie. Rather than get washed over by the quixotic feeling of offbeat sadness mixed with shimmering glints of hope and humor that his films tend to exude, Tenenbaums left me just feeling low. The people in the movie are supremely miserable, and the craziness that takes place in the movie just felt off. I haven’t seen the movie in quite some time, so who knows how I’d feel about it now.

So what about The Darjeeling Limited? It seems like Wes Anderson is a director that really enjoys playing with his cinematic toys. The boat set he used in Aquatic is proof of that. In Darjeeling he takes that boat set and amps it up even further with his musty, claustrophobic train set. He pops his usual cast of oddly confident, yet emotionally flawed characters on the train while it chugs through India. While they’re physically on the train, mentally and spiritually they’re collectively retracing the experience of losing their father. Their lives are filled with trinkets of their deceased dad, they reference him in conversation with each other, and they even go so far as carrying his full set of luggage. OK, Wes… I think we get the symbolism.

Even though he may hound us with his symbolism, a Wes Anderson film lives and dies with its characters and their interactions. The three brothers the movies focuses on manage to have a nice chemistry together. Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody do a good job of playing off each other, and each one of them manages to express a different trait they inherited from their parents. The rest of the cast is the usual colorful blend of background characters that you’d expect from Anderson. Maybe more so than an any of his other films, the setting is also a big character. The countryside of India, often used as a symbol itself for finding spiritual peace, rolls by and guides the characters through their journey. I did like that when the characters finally hit their moment of clarity, it is not via a scenic view, a tourist trap temple, or some deep trance, but rather as an unexpected accident that finds its way into their path.

So where does it stand for me in the list of Wes Anderson films? I would place it right behind Life Aquatic. While the movie does drag and wander a bit more than it should, which is especially rough since we can make a good guess at where the characters are going long before they get there, it still has the sly quirkiness present throughout Anderson’s work. Ultimately, I’ll gladly take any of his films over 90% or more of the cinematic dung that is thrown out for us to feed on.

For those of you that just like to skip to the end:

Bottle Rocket > Rushmore > The Life Aquatic > The Darjeeling Limited > The Royal Tenenbaums

The Darjeeling Limited @ IMDB

There is no need to make this a long review, so lets get right to it. I am a horror movie fan. I wouldn’t say I was a super crazy fan, but growing up in the age of the endless horror sequels left me with a lot of choices when it was time to rent a video. American made horror films in recent years have been on a steady decline. It has reached such a low point that the industry is now a remake factory, taking the films of Asia and Europe and redoing them in English so that teenagers won’t be inconvenienced at the theater and have to read subtitles. Now thanks to companies like Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, we can watch churned out remakes out of older horror films for the discriminating moviegoer that can’t get enough of quick edits and shaky cam.

All the rehashing made me take notice when I heard about a small film named Hatchet. After a little research I found out that it was a new take on the backwoods slasher films, ala Friday the 13th. However, rather than played with a straight face, it goes about its hacking and slashing with a tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Yes, think of it like Scream, except without the snappy dialogue and tense phone call sequences. If you’re wondering why I spent a paragraph telling you about the state of American horror, it was really just to eat up some space before I told you that the movie Hatchet sucks. It never really works out to be funny or scary. What you get from the movie is mix of flat jokes, overly juicy gore effects, and the look of a slickly produced Troma film. If you wanted to see what one of the lesser known Murray brothers is up to, or you were a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and/or Angel and wanted to see the tits of the girl that played Harmony, then maybe this is for you. If you’re a fan of Saw or any film made by Eli Roth or Rob Zombie, then you’ll probably find this movie just peachy since you have awful taste in horror films anyway… there, I said it.

I’ll spend the rest of this review pushing a movie that covers much of the same ground as Hatchet, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Shot in a part mockumentary/part movie style, the story is about a group of college students making a documentary about a man that wants to show them the behinds the scenes life of a killer that comes straight out of a slasher movie. Where Hatchet falls on its face, Behind the Mask succeeds in its mixing of horror and comedy. We see the story from the eyes of a man who shows us the ins and outs of planning his legend, and his blunt openness about what he does gives off both genuine humor, and an unsettling anxiousness. I should note that the more familiar you are with the conventions of the slasher movie genre, the more you will take away from the film.

Hatchet @ IMDB

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon @ IMDB