Silent House in 250 Words or Less

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(spoilers ahoy) Elisabeth Olsen has a wonderful face that staring at for extended periods of time is just a pleasure to do - all that space around her giant eyes is just a playground for light and shadow. And in a movie as reliant upon staring at Elizabeth Olsen's face in light and in shadow, Silent House has its pleasures. The leisurely set-up, the music-less soundtrack, I found it effective. I liked the way the single camera gimmick forced scares to elongate - instead of jump cuts that I am so tired of, we get moments where Elizabeth screams about something and then we have to wait for the camera to find what it is she's screaming at, so it becomes this double-punch; it gives everything an odd arrhythmic beat that kept me off-balance. 

But then it starts unravelling its story and it all falls to crap. Why couldn't this just be a simple "There's a squatter in the basement who wants us gone!" horror movie? That is a terrifying thing, and as long as the movie pretends that's what it is the movie's got heat. But no, it decides it has to go up its own ass with hallucinations and incest and ghosts and rape-rooms and none of the last half an hour works, except to undo anything we might have appreciated about the start. It's one of those twists (like the otherwise brilliant High Tension) that puts a pox on the whole shebang. Watch Them instead.

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Silent House in 250 Words or Less

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(spoilers ahoy) Elisabeth Olsen has a wonderful face that staring at for extended periods of time is just a pleasure to do - all that space around her giant eyes is just a playground for light and shadow. And in a movie as reliant upon staring at Elizabeth Olsen's face in light and in shadow, Silent House has its pleasures. The leisurely set-up, the music-less soundtrack, I found it effective. I liked the way the single camera gimmick forced scares to elongate - instead of jump cuts that I am so tired of, we get moments where Elizabeth screams about something and then we have to wait for the camera to find what it is she's screaming at, so it becomes this double-punch; it gives everything an odd arrhythmic beat that kept me off-balance. 

But then it starts unravelling its story and it all falls to crap. Why couldn't this just be a simple "There's a squatter in the basement who wants us gone!" horror movie? That is a terrifying thing, and as long as the movie pretends that's what it is the movie's got heat. But no, it decides it has to go up its own ass with hallucinations and incest and ghosts and rape-rooms and none of the last half an hour works, except to undo anything we might have appreciated about the start. It's one of those twists (like the otherwise brilliant High Tension) that puts a pox on the whole shebang. Watch Them instead.

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Possession in 20 Words

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I have no idea what I just watched,

but I'm totally going to watch it fifty times and find out.

Possession in 20 Words

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I have no idea what I just watched,

but I'm totally going to watch it fifty times and find out.

Return in 240 Words or Less

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For a movie as low-key as Return is, it seems strange I was holding my breath so much. I was just so nervous it might topple into the standard melodrama of the situation as we've seen it played out so many times before (vet comes home from service, freaks out) that I couldn't help myself. But the film doesn't topple - it pushes aside the cliches gently, but confidently.

Similarly Linda Cardellini gives an unshowy performance, presenting a capable woman adrift in a sea of semi-recognizable faces that seem as if they're coming at her from a distant sorta hazy past, and not quite standing in front of her here and now. It's as if she's found herself in an alternate universe, and only she can see how it's not quite right anymore. We watch as Cardellini shuffles and reshuffles, trying to shake out the right shape - she stares at her friends, her husband (Michael Shannon ceding the PTSD to somebody else for a change, playing a light dude who even smiles some), and even her children with unease.

Instinctively you can't help but like Cardellini, who never comes across as anything less than genuine, but she never lets this woman off the hook - she's difficult, frustrating, and even weak. But with so little said and even more deflected, we come to see exactly who she is anyway.

Return in 240 Words or Less

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For a movie as low-key as Return is, it seems strange I was holding my breath so much. I was just so nervous it might topple into the standard melodrama of the situation as we've seen it played out so many times before (vet comes home from service, freaks out) that I couldn't help myself. But the film doesn't topple - it pushes aside the cliches gently, but confidently.

Similarly Linda Cardellini gives an unshowy performance, presenting a capable woman adrift in a sea of semi-recognizable faces that seem as if they're coming at her from a distant sorta hazy past, and not quite standing in front of her here and now. It's as if she's found herself in an alternate universe, and only she can see how it's not quite right anymore. We watch as Cardellini shuffles and reshuffles, trying to shake out the right shape - she stares at her friends, her husband (Michael Shannon ceding the PTSD to somebody else for a change, playing a light dude who even smiles some), and even her children with unease.

Instinctively you can't help but like Cardellini, who never comes across as anything less than genuine, but she never lets this woman off the hook - she's difficult, frustrating, and even weak. But with so little said and even more deflected, we come to see exactly who she is anyway.

Chronicle and The Grey in 150 Words or Less

I gifted myself an out-of-boredom double-feature over the weekend. I got my guerrilla on and paid for the first movie and then snuck into the second. Criminal! Call the fuzz! Listen, I was not paying twenty-six dollars for this crap, alright? Let's take a look at what I seen:

Chronicle - There's some fun to be had watching three hormonal teenage boys (this sentence is not going where that sentence might go in another context, unfortunately) gain superpowers and spin wildly out of control with them, mostly in the set-up. It's the little things that work best - floating legos and that first taste of flight. And I liked the clever cultural touch of narcissism by way of that hovering self-employed steadi-cam. But it starts getting really loud really fast and goes a little bit up its own ass in the final act, losing itself in a whole lot lopsided spectacle.

The Grey - It works in fits, there's definite tension wrung out from some of its set-pieces, but its belligerent machismo is its own worst enemy. It's trying too hard, ya know? You start to suspect all that chest-puffing's hiding its manly inadequacies. It's deeply silly when it tries to be profound, and exceedingly lazy when sketching in the blurry human beings getting tore up bit by bit by the big bads. There's something so pedestrian about the "pick 'em off one by one" way the whole thing structured that I've seen a thousand times, and a couple of notes hit me so sour I just couldn't stay with it. By the time that IV drip made its appearance I was howling louder than any wolves.

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Chronicle and The Grey in 150 Words or Less

I gifted myself an out-of-boredom double-feature over the weekend. I got my guerrilla on and paid for the first movie and then snuck into the second. Criminal! Call the fuzz! Listen, I was not paying twenty-six dollars for this crap, alright? Let's take a look at what I seen:

Chronicle - There's some fun to be had watching three hormonal teenage boys (this sentence is not going where that sentence might go in another context, unfortunately) gain superpowers and spin wildly out of control with them, mostly in the set-up. It's the little things that work best - floating legos and that first taste of flight. And I liked the clever cultural touch of narcissism by way of that hovering self-employed steadi-cam. But it starts getting really loud really fast and goes a little bit up its own ass in the final act, losing itself in a whole lot lopsided spectacle.

The Grey - It works in fits, there's definite tension wrung out from some of its set-pieces, but its belligerent machismo is its own worst enemy. It's trying too hard, ya know? You start to suspect all that chest-puffing's hiding its manly inadequacies. It's deeply silly when it tries to be profound, and exceedingly lazy when sketching in the blurry human beings getting tore up bit by bit by the big bads. There's something so pedestrian about the "pick 'em off one by one" way the whole thing structured that I've seen a thousand times, and a couple of notes hit me so sour I just couldn't stay with it. By the time that IV drip made its appearance I was howling louder than any wolves.

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50/50 in 150 Words

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A movie in search of a movie. Everybody's good - it took a fraction of a second for Angelica Huston to make me cry - but even with CANCER breathing down everybody's neck there's no momentum, it just kind of sits there. In theory I admire the film's approach to addressing what it's like for a young person to go through this, but it felt more like a series of moments than an enveloping narrative, and it made it hard to get involved on an emotional level. I wish we'd gotten to know JGL's character better before the doomsday diagnosis so it meant more once it came. As is the impact is dulled, since we don't really know his world without the cancer in it, and since he becomes shell-shocked at that point it's hard to find a way in other than to just watch what happens from a distance.

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50/50 in 150 Words

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A movie in search of a movie. Everybody's good - it took a fraction of a second for Angelica Huston to make me cry - but even with CANCER breathing down everybody's neck there's no momentum, it just kind of sits there. In theory I admire the film's approach to addressing what it's like for a young person to go through this, but it felt more like a series of moments than an enveloping narrative, and it made it hard to get involved on an emotional level. I wish we'd gotten to know JGL's character better before the doomsday diagnosis so it meant more once it came. As is the impact is dulled, since we don't really know his world without the cancer in it, and since he becomes shell-shocked at that point it's hard to find a way in other than to just watch what happens from a distance.

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The Tunnel in 150 Words or Less

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It owes more to its "found footage" forebears than it probably should - there are moments that, if they're not intended as homages to The Blair Witch Project and [REC] (and The Descent for that matter), are too distractingly similar - but like those movies it got a rise out of me all the same. I know these flicks aren't everybody's cuppa, but I'm a pretty easy mark for them. They get you in there, right in the moment, and then they turn the lights out and you're in a room with a monster and it just works on me every damn time, what can I say. And besides the sometimes cinematic déjà vu, The Tunnel has a trio of very important points in its corner: the characters are likable, the setting is scary, and the monsters are freaky. Toss all that together and if you're up for it you're gonna have a good, scary time.

The Tunnel in 150 Words or Less

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It owes more to its "found footage" forebears than it probably should - there are moments that, if they're not intended as homages to The Blair Witch Project and [REC] (and The Descent for that matter), are too distractingly similar - but like those movies it got a rise out of me all the same. I know these flicks aren't everybody's cuppa, but I'm a pretty easy mark for them. They get you in there, right in the moment, and then they turn the lights out and you're in a room with a monster and it just works on me every damn time, what can I say. And besides the sometimes cinematic déjà vu, The Tunnel has a trio of very important points in its corner: the characters are likable, the setting is scary, and the monsters are freaky. Toss all that together and if you're up for it you're gonna have a good, scary time.

Three Quick Reviews

If I don't type up a couple thoughts on these movies I've seen in the past week right now, I probably never will. This is wholly off the cuff, and therefore probably going to be nonsense, but whatcha gonna do? Actually take the time to craft something thoughtful? Bah! Seriously though, if I had much to say on these I would, like I did with Haywire yesterday. But I don't. So I won't.

The Ides of March - Really exceptionally boring. Clooney seemed asleep in front of and behind the camera - I don't know why he made this movie except maybe he wanted to jerk off on the memory of Sidney Lumet. I guess he got to pretend he was running for office without any of the actual tough parts. There's more insight in a five minute Rachel Maddow monologue. The writing was occasionally plunge-out-my-eardrums-with-a-fork awful. Ryan Gosling's accent is all over the place, but he wears his suits well. (Shocker.) He didn't really seem to know who this character was he was playing, either. Nobody much felt like a person. Marisa Tomei maybe, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was pretty good. 

Moneyball - Speaking of PSH being best in show, I loved every shot of his scowling baseball coach here, but I didn't like this movie either. I have no special love for stereotypically told "Sports Movies" with their routine telling of the old-as-time underdog tale but this movie seemed disingenuous to me in its attempts at being different just for different's sake. Something just rang really false about it all to me, like everybody involved was so actively engaged in carving off expectations that they forgot to make any of it involving, or interesting. Like with Ides of March, Moneyball never got me anywhere near giving a shit about any of these people and their ridiculous problems. Oh Brad Pitt was fine (I generally very much like watching him onscreen, even when he's clothed) and as a vehicle for him coasting along amiably it was fine but we live in a skewed universe where this can be considered the best anything. It's just slightly less obnoxious than Clooney's golden praise for his dull scattered work in The Descendants. Jonah Hill wore glasses, so I guess that was respectable of him? I don't even know.

Carnage - Of the three this is definitely my favorite, and I'm sure I'll find myself watching Carnage again someday, but it's by no means a homerun. As I said earlier this week I'm perfectly on board with Joe Reid's rankings of the performances - Kate Winslet walks away handily with best in show (Barf of the century!), while Jodie seems a little lost. I kept feeling like she was panic-stricken looking for a closet to lock herself in so she'd feel comfortable enough with her surroundings to get her bearings. Although you figure this is, generally speaking, another "trapped in an enclosed space" sort of movie for her - too bad Jared Leto and his cornrows never swung through the window! I'd never seem the play, and I have to admit I was a little bit put off by the occasional facile misstep, but it is a tricky beast and I could see some of the off-notes working if the whole cast were a little bit tighter in step. Polanski does a good job working the space for all its worth - there must be five thousand camera set-ups in this thing, looking at these four people from every single angle there could ever be, keeping the single set feeling more dynamic than it could have.
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Three Quick Reviews

If I don't type up a couple thoughts on these movies I've seen in the past week right now, I probably never will. This is wholly off the cuff, and therefore probably going to be nonsense, but whatcha gonna do? Actually take the time to craft something thoughtful? Bah! Seriously though, if I had much to say on these I would, like I did with Haywire yesterday. But I don't. So I won't.

The Ides of March - Really exceptionally boring. Clooney seemed asleep in front of and behind the camera - I don't know why he made this movie except maybe he wanted to jerk off on the memory of Sidney Lumet. I guess he got to pretend he was running for office without any of the actual tough parts. There's more insight in a five minute Rachel Maddow monologue. The writing was occasionally plunge-out-my-eardrums-with-a-fork awful. Ryan Gosling's accent is all over the place, but he wears his suits well. (Shocker.) He didn't really seem to know who this character was he was playing, either. Nobody much felt like a person. Marisa Tomei maybe, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was pretty good. 

Moneyball - Speaking of PSH being best in show, I loved every shot of his scowling baseball coach here, but I didn't like this movie either. I have no special love for stereotypically told "Sports Movies" with their routine telling of the old-as-time underdog tale but this movie seemed disingenuous to me in its attempts at being different just for different's sake. Something just rang really false about it all to me, like everybody involved was so actively engaged in carving off expectations that they forgot to make any of it involving, or interesting. Like with Ides of March, Moneyball never got me anywhere near giving a shit about any of these people and their ridiculous problems. Oh Brad Pitt was fine (I generally very much like watching him onscreen, even when he's clothed) and as a vehicle for him coasting along amiably it was fine but we live in a skewed universe where this can be considered the best anything. It's just slightly less obnoxious than Clooney's golden praise for his dull scattered work in The Descendants. Jonah Hill wore glasses, so I guess that was respectable of him? I don't even know.

Carnage - Of the three this is definitely my favorite, and I'm sure I'll find myself watching Carnage again someday, but it's by no means a homerun. As I said earlier this week I'm perfectly on board with Joe Reid's rankings of the performances - Kate Winslet walks away handily with best in show (Barf of the century!), while Jodie seems a little lost. I kept feeling like she was panic-stricken looking for a closet to lock herself in so she'd feel comfortable enough with her surroundings to get her bearings. Although you figure this is, generally speaking, another "trapped in an enclosed space" sort of movie for her - too bad Jared Leto and his cornrows never swung through the window! I'd never seem the play, and I have to admit I was a little bit put off by the occasional facile misstep, but it is a tricky beast and I could see some of the off-notes working if the whole cast were a little bit tighter in step. Polanski does a good job working the space for all its worth - there must be five thousand camera set-ups in this thing, looking at these four people from every single angle there could ever be, keeping the single set feeling more dynamic than it could have.
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