Monsters

Monsters is the kind of movie tailor made for a cult audience, the sort of film you'll kick yourself for not seeing sooner. While it will never attain the same level of awareness of District 9, its audience will only continue to grow as years go by. It's one of those deep cut sci-fi films you pull out to impress your less movie-literate friends. Endlessly inventive and visually arresting, it is all the more impressive for what it is able to accomplish with its minuscule budget and limited production crew. With scenes of pure suspense and unexpected beauty, Monsters is Spielberg on a micro budget.

Monsters follows a photographer named Andrew (Scoot McNairy) as he tries to transport his boss's daughter Sam (Whitney Able) out of Mexico and back home to America. Easy enough, if it weren't for all those 100 foot aliens that crash landed in Northern Mexico six years ago. Together, Andrew and Sam make their way North through the "Infected Zone," hoping they'll make it back to America in one piece. Director Gareth Edwards has an extensive background in visual effects, and he puts it to great use here. The titular monsters, like giant land locked octopuses, are a sight to behold. Edwards, knowing his budgetary limits, keeps the creatures hidden for much of the film. For some audience members, this might be frustrating, but for those with patience, it makes the film all the more rewarding in the end. People never complain that the aliens in Close Encounters don't show up until the end, and to show the aliens here would severely undermine what Edwards ultimately reveals about the aliens in the film. There's something to be said about a subtle monster movie.

While the monsters are seen sparingly through the film, their presence still looms over everything else. There is constant tension that something lethal could happen at any moment, and the visual style of the film reflects a world in which giant aliens have taken over. Shot entirely on location in Mexico, the film takes advantage of hurricane devastated locations to impress upon the audience what kind of world the characters now exist in. And the performances are all informed by their shared history of six years of alien infestation. Some characters use the aliens as a way to make money from desperate travelers, others see the aliens as something almost religious. Just because the monsters are elusive doesn't mean they aren't the dominant force in this movie.

The two central performances work well in an understated way. Scoot McNairy plays Andrew as a man worn down by the world. He recognizes the inherent absurdity of his job, noting that he will make more money if he photographs a child killed by a monster than if he photographs a child smiling. Whitney Able takes what could have been a spoiled heiress character and infuses her with a basic humanity that makes Sam a fun character to be around. And the two (who are a real life couple) have a strong chemistry that helps carry the movie during scenes where the two are simply trekking across Mexican wilderness. It is a true testament to these performances that as the end approached I was sincerely bothered by the idea that there was a very good chance that neither character would survive the film. I simply enjoyed being in the presence of these two people for an hour and a half, which isn't something a lot of films can pull off.

A film like Monsters isn't going to work for people looking for the next Cloverfield. It's about characters, it's about a very detailed setting, and it's ultimately about the idea that what we think we know about something isn't always true. The film ends on an ambiguous and strangely stunning moment that ranks as one of my favorite scenes in a movie this year. What that scene, and indeed the whole film, says about the way people look at the world around them is interesting and moving. At its heart, Monsters is a movie about the beauty of relationships, in more ways than you might expect.

Catching Up: Mini-Reviews

When 2010 is over and done, I feel like it will be the B-pictures that will frame much of the narrative, at least for me. With delightful oddities like Predators, Kick-Ass, The Other Guys, Splice, and the schlock masterpiece Piranha 3D, the year has had plenty of gulty pleasures to fill in for the lack of great prestige films and blockbusters. October continued that trend with another surprisingly engrossing B-picture to add to that list, in addition to a few other odds and ends worth looking at. Here's a look at some of the things I saw in October.



Paranormal Activity 2

For those keeping score, Paranormal Activity was in my top 10 last year. A perfect blend of cinema verite and genuine chills, I adored it in a way I haven't adored a horror film in years. A sequel so soon screams "cash grab," so I was a bit dismayed to see them churn this sequel out. Thankfully, they seemed to have kept much of what made the original work. While I do have some major qualms (too much back story to explain how it connects to the first movie, no interesting characters, a feeling of been there, done that), it is still a frightening movie in its own right. I was on edge for most of the film, and the style still works wonders in creating fear. As you'd expect with a sequel, it never rises to the same level of horror as the first one, but there is at least one moment where it rivals the original for unexpected terror. Not great, but better than you'd expect considering the circumstances.






Jackass 3D

What an unexpectedly fun movie. I'm not really a fan of the Jackass crew, so I had no real hopes for this film, so color me surprised to find it as engaging as it is. These guys have so finely tuned their "craft" that they know precisely what to do and how to interact with each other in order to elicit the most extreme reactions from their audience. While there were some bits that simply don't work, the hit to miss ratio for this film was definitely much more on the hit side. Johnny Knoxville in particular has so much charisma that he can make even the most feces laden skit a winner. The use of 3D is also quite innovative, with the opening and closing credits real standout examples of how much fun you can have with 3D technology.






The Social Network

I struggled with how to put my thoughts on this film into writing, simply because it is so good. To say that literally every aspect of The Social Network is top notch doesn't do justice to this film. Everyone from David Fincher, to Aaron Sorkin, to the entire cast, to the editor and sound mixers, to Trent Reznor's score, to the seamless digital effects - I really do mean everyone is on top of their game here. I wouldn't have expected a film about the creation of Facebook to be very interesting, but it rises above a simple biopic to become a sort of document of the times we live in and how much our world has changed in the digital age. You've probably already read about how great Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Jesse Eisenberg are in this film, so I want to shine a light on the performance I found to be by far the best: Armie Hammer. Playing the role of twins perfectly, he was a revelation. He takes what would have been two villainous characters in the wrong hands and made them likable, honorable guys with endless charisma. He may not be the best part of this masterful film, but he is the part that has stuck with me the longest.

Catfish

What is Catfish?

That is how they're selling this documentary: a big mystery that you can't have spoiled for you. The film starts with photographer Nev receiving a painted recreation of one of his photos in the mail, sent by a young girl named Abbey. Nev contacts the girl and her family on Facebook, and they become online buddies. Nev befriends many of Abbey's family and friends online, including her older sister Megan, and the two eventually become romantically involved. But after 8 months, something happens that makes Nev question how honest Megan, Abbey, and their family have been with him. What's astonishing is that this has all been documented by Nev's brother and his friend. Where the film goes from there, I can't say. Suffice to say, it is emotional, surprising, frightening, uncomfortable, funny, and utterly engrossing.

Few - if any - films have been as much of the moment as this one is. Much of the film is made up of clips of Facebook, Youtube, Google Earth, GPS maps, and other Internet tools we take advantage of every day. The film is just as often shot on camera phones and flip cams as it is on actual cameras. It's an investigation into the way we meet and interact with people, and how it has completely changed in the last decade. Even without the secret final 40 minutes, it is a great piece of film making. But when the ending comes, it really brings to light just how much of a brave new world we live in, how the Internet can bring together people that never otherwise would have connected with each other. That often, we simply want to believe what we're told, because the truth would probably hurt too much.

Our guide through it all, Nev, is a great figure. Funny, charming, quick to let his guard down. Perhaps it is because he didn't think the footage being filmed would become a movie, but Nev is always open and exposed to the audience. The film probably wouldn't have worked with a different person at its center, and the ending might not have been handled with the care it was had he been even a little more cynical or angry. There is a humanity to Nev that you don't normally see in documentarians (be it Michael Moore pushing an agenda, or Werner Herzog going on about the contrast between man and nature), and it makes for a refreshing and vibrant experience.

If I've convinced you to see this movie (and you absolutely should, it is one of the year's best), stop reading here. I need to get something off my chest that, while not a spoiler, would almost certainly change how you experience it.

I am not entirely sure this documentary is real, or at least wasn't staged to a large degree. I never once thought this during the film itself (maybe I am as naive as Nev was), but reading about the film afterward, there are simply too many things to ignore about it. My first reaction to that idea was anger and disgust. If this film was fake, there are certainly some ethical questions to be raised about the treatment of the subject at hand. But the more I though t about it, the more interesting the film became. There seem to be two camps when it comes to the reality of this film. One camp thinks the entire film is not real. What they find when they go in search for Megan isn't a person, but more actors in on the joke. If this is true, there is a central performance in the film that is among the best I have ever seen. Ultimately, I find this angle too hard to believe, and what we learn about Megan's brothers would shed a despicable light on the whole film if this was true.

The other camp is one I find more and more likely. Nev and his friends knew right away that Megan and her family weren't who they seemed to be (the clues were a bit too obvious to ignore, honestly). They decided to frame a documentary around this discovery, stringing along Megan and her family for months in order to get good material before going to find them. Nev and co had no idea what they would find at the end, only that it would be interesting. What they found certainly was interesting, and I think they quickly realized upon this discovery that a careful, tactful approach would be needed. If this is the case, it doesn't necessarily diminish the movie, but does bring into question just how much we can trust the film as a whole. But in a way, isn't that the point of the film anyway? How do we know what someone is telling us is the truth? How do we know they aren't just telling us what we want to hear? In this 21st century digital age, where anything seems possible, is there anything we won't believe? Which brings me back to my original question:

What is Catfish?

Never Let Me Go

Through all of cinema, one cliche has stood the test of time to aid the lazy storyteller. If you have a bad movie, you simply start the movie at least halfway through the story with some shocking or intriguing snippet, then jump back and show us how the film got to that point. It shows that the filmmaker either knows they have a dud, or simply do not trust the audience to appreciate their film without a carrot at the end of a stick. You could probably count on your two hands the number of films that have pulled this gimmick off with any shred of dignity. Never Let Me Go is not one of those films. We start with Kathy (Carey Mulligan) standing wistfully in a meadow, as her voice over recounts the mysterious and tragic events that just maybe could have been avoided. If only they'd known back then what they know now. Etc, etc. Why does the film do this? Because the film then spends the next chunk of the film with a bunch of child actors no one knows and doesn't come out and say what is going on right away. We're simply too dumb to appreciate the film unless we know Carey Mulligan will show up and lend us her star power as she faces tragic circumstances. But Never Let Me Go would not be a bad movie if this cliche was the only thing wrong with it. No, there is plenty more wrong with this film than that.

Never Let Me Go revolves around a central concept that is conveyed to the audience fairly quickly if you pay attention, and it is given away in the trailers, so I will delve into it here as well. It's almost impossible to dissect what went wrong with this film without doing so, so you are warned. Kathy, as well as Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) are attending a school for clones. These children are raised to know nothing of the outside world, so that they can easily be harvested for parts later in life. It's actually a really interesting concept, and the film invites questions about a society that would allow this to happen. Unfortunately, it also makes for some of the least interesting characters in recent memory. See, because they've been raised to not understand basic concepts or emotions, these characters are all hollow, empty vessels. There is simply nothing engaging about any of them, only their situation. Often they do things only because they are aware it's what people do. For example, Kathy finds and reads a porno magazine at one point, but she simply stares at it and flips through it. She is neither excited by it or repulsed. There is no emotion at all. These moments (and they come often) are creepy and not engaging.

It's frustrating because we should care deeply that these human beings are going to be killed for their body parts, but I started to feel like they really will be more useful as parts than as human beings. It also makes for three boring central performances (and in Andrew Garfield's case, notably awful acting). All three turn in impenetrable performances that make it hard to care or be engaged. Ruth and Kathy have a bit of a feud over who will get to be with Tommy throughout the film, but with only a few exceptions it feels like neither character really cares about Tommy. Nor do we really understand why anyone would care about him. He hardly talks, and seems to be mildly retarded. And yet both women love him simply because he is there. That isn't enough. There is a moment near the end of the film where Tommy finally gets a moment to emote, but instead of having any sort of gravitas, it elicited laughter from my theater. Garfield's low monotone line readings and inability to engage with his costars makes Tommy into a pitiful fool of a character, and it sinks the core character relationships throughout.

In spite of all this, visually the film stands out. The writing and acting may not have gotten to the heart of what emotions this story should convey, but the alternately sparse and dreamy cinematography certainly did. The film looks like it takes place long ago, only to slowly reveal itself to be more futuristic than we expected. One shot in particular actually stands out as one of the more memorable of the year: a lone boat stranded on an empty beach, mirroring the isolation and displacement these characters must be feeling in the world outside of their school walls. But smart visuals don't make a movie good, they just draw attention to how much everything else seems to be lacking.

I've not read the book upon which this is based, but it seems like the kind of story that works so much better on the page. It's certainly a great concept, but those very basic emotional flaws make it nearly impossible to do with any justice. The core idea of the film is we're supposed to care about these people, to be outraged by the things our society would do to improve life for the wealthy at the expense of others. But at no point did the film engage me with its characters, ideas, or story. And that opening is just the insulting cherry on top of it all.

The Town

Is Ben Affleck the most underrated man in Hollywood? With every passing film he makes, it seems more and more true. The man won an Oscar for writing, has reinvented his acting career the last half decade, and has now become a serious director. Affleck made a string of bad decisions in the early years of the last decade, and it has haunted his career ever since. While his latest directing/acting job won't wash away that ill will for most, it is still another solid step in the right direction. The Town may not be the most original movie (or title), but it is such a solid example of the genre that it's worth watching.

Affleck stars as career criminal Doug MacRay. Doug, along with a collection of lowlife childhood friends, robs banks. After their latest job they kidnap the manager of the bank (Rebecca Hall) in order to make a getaway. They let her go soon after, but she is very shaken by the experience. When they realize that she lives a few blocks away from their usual haunts, Doug decides to approach her to see if she can ID any of them. While she doesn't recognize him, he sees how affected she is by what they put her through. He begins to regret his actions, and she starts to fall in love with the man he pretends to be. The film follows Doug as he tries to balance his old life as a criminal, and the new life he wishes he could live.

Like I said, this is a film you've probably seen before. What makes it pop in spite of that familiarity is the acting and the visual storytelling on display. Affleck is very good as a man split between loyalty to his lifelong friends and his desire for a greater life. He allows a bitter anger to boil under the surface for so long, that whenever it bursts out, it is both shocking yet not really unexpected. The real standout, though, is Jeremy Renner as Affleck's increasingly disturbed best friend. Locked away for nine years for murder, he feels the world owes him something in return for the life he lost. With his grip on reality fading as the film progresses, you both hate him and sympathize with him. And then there is Jon Hamm as the man trying to take these boys down. It is a thankless role, but he makes it his own. He delivers exposition and banters with his partner like a champ, but we never really care about him. When will Jon Hamm get the vehicle he deserves? The man has the charisma and charm of George Clooney, and seems destined to be the next big movie star. The Town doesn't solidify that fact for him, but it seems to be only a matter of time.

Visually, Affleck seems to have grown since Gone Baby Gone. Where as that film had an often flat visual style, he takes some risks in The Town that pay off. One great little touch is the way in which he matches an early shot of a flashback of Renner murdering his best friend with another shot later of him arguing with Affleck. It creates a sudden sense of dread that hits you unexpectedly, making the stakes seem higher than they otherwise would. And the heist scenes, especially the climactic one, are electric. While they often seem to take a page from Point Break (the masks, most notably), they are still thrilling. You get the sense that anything could go wrong at a moment's notice, and the film could take a sudden turn into dark, unexpected territory.

I really just wish that all the pieces had been in support of a stronger story. After Gone Baby Gone, which had an air of importance and originality, this just doesn't feel like a step forward for Affleck as a director. And yet Affleck's visual sense is arguably stronger here than it was there. Ultimately it's a good deal of fun, which can never be argued with, and all the performances are as strong as one could hope for. The Town may feel like a place you've been before, but you won't mind going there again.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I think it's safe to say that there is no other movie like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It's one of the most madcap, high energy, relentless films I have ever seen. And it may also be brilliant. Films simply aren't told the way Scott Pilgrim is, so to see a film completely ignore the rules of film making so brazenly is liberating, if not a bit difficult to come to terms with. I've read the books upon which this is based, but even I was unsure of what to make of the movie for the first fifteen minutes or so. It was as if director Edgar Wright was incapable of letting a scene finish before he had already started the next one. Hell, sometimes it seemed as though one scene was simply happening on top of another. And yet, once I embraced the way the film was being told, it was exhilarating.

Michael Cera is Scott Pilgrim, a twenty-something layabout who meets the girl of his dreams (literally), Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The catch is, she comes with a lot of baggage in the form of seven evil exes that Scott must defeat. What follows is a cacophony of fights, songs, split screens, Vegan Police, giant sound wave monsters, explosions of coins, a studio audience, 8-bit studio logos, and more. And yet, it all serves a point. Unlike a film like Speed Racer, which assaults you for the sake of being abrasive, Scott Pilgrim uses its visual style to give us a better understanding of how Scott sees the world. His life is shaped (and stunted) by the video games, music, and comic books he enjoys. When he enters his apartment after a night with Ramona, it makes sense that in his mind he would enter to applause and cheers.

The film is fast paced, to say the least, but it gets across a lot of information and emotional depth as well. I was surprised how long it took the film to even get to the first fight scene, allowing us to meet our hero and his friends. The world in which Scott exists is fully realized and explored even before the first evil ex shows up to ruin the party. I will say that if there is one problem with the film, it's that Ramona remains so unknowable up until the end of the picture that you will find it hard to care for her. Now, that could be because we are seeing everything through Scott's eyes, as he himself isn't quite sure what to make of her. But that doesn't make it less difficult when you're trying to understand why Scott would put up with all the evil exes for her. The film ultimately comes to a point where he is fighting them more for himself than for her, but it still would have been nice to understand what it is that these two characters see in each other.

If the visual imagination on display is the high point of the film, the acting is a close second. Considering the genre, that's actually pretty amazing. While I was left cold by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the point, I understand that), I was actually quite charmed by Michael Cera. While he isn't the Scott Pilgrim I envisioned when reading the books, he also isn't the Michael Cera I've seen in everything else Cera has made. He is rude, selfish, and aloof, and yet that makes him all the more endearing when he tries to come to terms with what is being foisted upon him. The various exes steal their limited screen time, with Brandon Routh and Chris Evans bringing a level of narcissism to their characters that make their downfall all the more hilarious. But the best performances in the film come from Kieran Culkin as Scott's gay roommate Wallace, and newcomer Ellen Wong as Scott's underage girlfriend Knives. The two throw themselves at their characters with such abandon that they rise above the goofiness to feel like the most fully realized people in the movie.

Edgar Wright is a man still early in his career, and yet it feels like he is a master of cinema in a way few people his age could ever hope to be. His vision for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is so fully realized that you never doubt the choices he makes with the film. And that is absolutely vital with material like this. If for even a second you don't buy what he is doing visually, the whole film collapses (again, Speed Racer). This is the kind of material that simply shouldn't translate to screen well, and the fact that Wright figured out how to translate it perfectly makes the film feel mildly revolutionary.

Catching Up: Mini-Reviews

The summer is flying by, and the movies keep on coming. I wanted to make sure these films got some ink before they get overshadowed by Inception, so it's time for another round of mini-reviews (and at this point, if Inception doesn't overshadow the rest of this summer's fare, this truly will be the worst summer for film ever...)


Predators

I should not have found this film to be as charming as I did. The original Predator is a film whose enjoyment level for me rarely rises above "loathe," so take this review with a grain of salt. I found that most of the performances worked very well, especially Topher Grace (perpetually underrated) and Walton Goggins (perhaps the best character actor working today). The film smartly takes the Jaws approach, hinting at what's out there without showing it for probably half the run time. It's ultimately little more than a violent, crass, silly action film, but it's one of the better films of its kind we've gotten in a while. The film does take itself a bit too seriously, and the running joke of not telling us Adrien Brody's character's name is misguided, as I couldn't name any of the other characters either. Still, this film is exactly what it sells itself as, and you can't really go wrong with it if you're looking for an above average creature feature.





Life During Wartime

What exactly constitutes a sequel? That's one of the many questions Todd Solondz grapples with in Life During Wartime. A sequel of sorts to his masterpiece Happiness, it recasts every character, often turning them into someone completely different from who they were originally. And yet, the film so explicitly continues all their stories from the first film, you'll be lost if you've never seen it. It's a fascinating, if ultimately hollow experiment. Few actors are able to achieve anything approaching what the original actors did, with only a few trying to make the characters completely their own (Paul Rubens and Ciaran Hinds making the biggest impacts). If you've never seen a Solondz movie, you really shouldn't start here. The things I love about his style are still on display here, though a bit more subdued. It's ironic that this might be his most mainstream film yet, but it's also the least accessible due to its constant callbacks to a film most people never saw from 12 years ago. I'd recommend you see Happiness instead, but it is probably too shocking for 99% of audiences out there.





The Kids Are All Right

Here's a film that tells a familiar story, with familiar themes, yet it works so well because of the actors on display. All five lead actors give career best performances, and while the adults might be getting all the awards talk (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo), I found the two children to be far more interesting and nuanced. Mia Wasikowska, fresh off of Tim Burton's recent disaster, is infinitely charming here as the daughter. She gave such a wooden performance in Alice, so it comes as a bit of a shock to see her flourish in a real role. And Josh Hutcherson is an actor I've had my eye on since Bridge to Terabithia. Here he realizes his potential as the confused and lost son of two lesbians. His story is the one I wish had been explored more. His need to find out who his father is should have played a much bigger role in the film, but it often gets glossed over in favor of bickering between Bening and Moore. Had this movie put the kids front and center, it might have been a much more original and interesting film.





Cyrus

Jonah Hill makes it 3 for 3 this year with great films. Here he absolutely nails the role of Cyrus, a strange man-child who still lives with his mother. What really could have been a one note performance is given a lot more depth by Hill, who had to improvise most of his dialog, along with the rest of the cast. John C Reilly is just as good as the man wooing Cyrus' mother. I found the loose style of this film very refreshing. While it hits some familiar beats, it hits them with wit an charm. You can almost certainly guess where this film will end up, but how it gets there is pretty fun. The women in the film haven't got as much to do, but Marissa Tomei and Catherine Keener (two of my favorite women in film right now) both give it their best. Cyrus very well might be the best comedy of the summer, one one you should check out when it comes to your neck of the woods.