I don't like to admit to lapses in judgment, but I was unjustly biased against Nicolas Cage for a good long while. And, sure, he's been in some pretty awful movies and he's been known to overact a teensy bit on occasion, but I actively avoided The Cage for almost a decade.
I would have been first in line to break his legs here. Which means I own a horse costume, I guess
I don't know what changed my mind --- probably either the awesomeness of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans or the awfulness ofSeason of the Witch --- but I now look forward to raging with The Cage. He might not make good movies regularly, but he can be pretty damn entertaining, nevertheless. Last October, Danny O'D suggested I check out The Wicker Man (2006), based on the fact that I enjoyed the original movie and because this compilation of scenes is hilarious:
Okay, that's pretty funny stuff, but it's obviously taken out of context. The issue is whether this American remake can possibly live up to the weird (and fairly UK-centric) wonder that was The Wicker Man (1973)and still have all that goofy shit in it. Show me what you've got, Cage!
The Wicker Man is the story of Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage), a California policeman, as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a young girl, Rowan, on the island of Summersisle in Washington state. The disappearance is mysterious for several reasons. First of all, the entire island is an enigma; its only contact with the world at large comes from a seaplane that runs supplies to and from the island --- visitors are not welcome. Second, the person requesting Malus' help is his ex-fiance, Willow (Kate Beahan), who Malus hasn't spoken to in years, and the girl is her daughter. Thirdly, there is a huge issue of jurisdiction; why would you call a California cop to police things in Washington? And why would he agree to this? What's wrong with Washington's police force? Seattle seems nice enough. Finally, the island is mysterious because it is a place where weird things happen.
Is that BZZ Top? ...Because her beard is made of bees.
Whatever reason he had, Officer Malus did, indeed, come to Summersisle. Once he arrives, he is surprised to find a matriarchy where there is a lot of talk about "the gods" and little girls recite their lessons on phallic symbols. That would just be unsettling if it was not for the fact that Malus can't get anywhere with his case. He can't even get the locals to acknowledge that little Rowan even existed at some point.
"Tell me what happened to Rowan, or I will punch you in the face. Yes, I'd punch a woman"
Eventually, Malus meets the matriarch of Summersisle, the aptly named Sister Summsesisle (Ellen Burstyn), and she does little to lower his suspicions. Not only is Rowan (probably) missing, but this is a culture that practices pagan rituals, like the "celebration of DEATH...pause...keep pausing...longer pause...and rebirth." What the hell is going on in this town? What really happened to Rowan? And is there a police officer role that Nicolas Cage won't take?
"I can't believe they still let me keep this!"
Have you ever had your mind blown? The acting in The Wicker Man (2006) absolutely blew mine. Aside from the last half-hour or so of The Cage being The Cage, the movie is surprisingly well-acted. Ellen Burstyn was slumming it a bit, but she played a strong, confident and ruthless a female character as well as it could have been played. Kate Beahan was not as good, but she played her character well. Her character was kind of annoying because she apparently had an allergy to clear exposition, but it serves a purpose in the overall plot, so I won't complain about it. Much. Even the smaller parts were handled capably; I don't think Frances Conroy, Molly Parker, or Diane Delano did anything spectacular, but their actions seemed natural enough. Leelee Sobieski was a little weird, but I'll give her credit for taking a movie karate kick believably. As for Nicolas Cage...well, he's Nicolas Goddamn Cage, people! For the first 75 minutes of the movie, he was just a slightly condescending and strange policeman with odd line delivery. For the last thirty minutes or so, though, he turned it up to eleven and went completely batshit ridiculous. I thought he was hilarious, but I doubt that was the original intent of the filmmakers.
Then again...
Director Neil LaBute also wrote the updated screenplay for The Wicker Man (2006), so that means he's doubly responsible for what made the final cut. From a directorial standpoint, I think LaBute has a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to make a horror movie. He uses the soundtrack to clue the audience in that something scary/important is about to happen, which would normally be fine, but he does this often and with no good reason. Why would we need the minor chords of horror soundtracks within seconds of getting on the island? Implying scares and not delivering them is not the same thing as building suspense. Given how silly the movie can look when taken out of context, I was surprised at how serious the tone in this film is.
"Does that mean...? Oh my God. You're not in on the joke...!"
From a writing standpoint, I would feel better if the Writer's Guild of America burned his membership card. This has nothing to do with the fact that he had the main character dress as a bear and start punching women. I don't even want to know how the stupid doll got burned.
Best guess: falling asleep while smoking after doll-sex
What bothers me about the writing is that there are large chunks of this movie that could have been better spent elsewhere. The entire prologue with the car crash was completely unnecessary. The only reason it needed to exist was to provide motivation for Malus to go to the island; too bad the plot provides him with two better reasons for going. Having Malus repeatedly flash back to that scene was also stupid and worthless. The script is also jam-packed with red herrings that provide nothing to the overall story, like those fetuses that appeared to be embalmed in honey. Things like that make me wish the tagline to this movie was "The Wicker Man: Wait...What?!?"
...and this would be the movie poster
Even basic plot points, like the disappearance of Rowan's picture, were handled poorly. The missing picture was an important piece of the puzzle in this story, but the way it was noticed --- a broken picture frame with broken glass all around it --- was clumsy. If someone wanted to hide the picture, wouldn't they have just taken the whole frame? Or at least swept up the glass?
Subtlety takes a back seat when you're wearing Braveheart makeup
The most frightening thing about this remake is that it's not all bad. There are some interesting ideas in place here, even if they weren't executed very well. For instance, naming all the women on the island after some sort of plant was a pretty cool idea, although it would have been cooler if The Cage didn't call it out relatively early in the film. Not very many movies make use of bees, which made this isolationist society unique in appearance and language. And then there is the whole matriarchy in place here; while it didn't quite fit in this plot, an aggressive female-centric group could make for a great horror story. There's a lot that can be done with that idea through cinematography, too. Speaking of which, there were some fairly striking visuals in The Wicker Man (2006).
AAA!!! Post-coital elephant man!!!
They weren't all of pretty things, but the set design and makeup teams did some good work.
The Wicker Man (2006) is simply a collection of parts that was never going to be good, but then had the opportunity to be so much more. Even with the solid acting, the script and direction guaranteed that this film would be a miss. This is essentially a mystery, but is treated with the same "gotcha" moments that you would find in a crappy slasher pic. If you want to compare this to The Wicker Man (1973), go right ahead. Everything that makes the original unique --- the disturbingly cheery tone, the subtlety, the randomness, and the religious aspects --- is missing in the remake.
The original is missing bee-related hilarity, though
The first hour and fifteen minutes are boring to watch --- they're obviously bad, but not enough to amuse anyone --- but the viewing experience for The Wicker Man (2006) is saved by that last act. The movie goes from being something worth occasionally snickering at to having layer upon layer of Lefty Gold. Remember those scenes that were funny when taken out of context? It turns out that there is no proper context for them. Those scenes are always that funny, and they come out of absolutely nowhere.
With that knowledge, I will watch this movie again, although I certainly won't be sober. And I will be secure in my viewing choice, because I know how ridiculous the ending is. Without that knowledge, I can see someone being worried that they're wasting their time with The Wicker Man (2006). And that's a fair concern, because this is a truly awful movie, more than deserving the scorn heaped upon it. As a reasonable bit of legitimate cinema, this movie truly fails.
But this is one of those rare movies that is so consistently ridiculous that you can find brand new things to laugh at every time you watch it. I might actually buy a copy of this movie, as long as it's the unrated one, because the theatrical version is missing the "not the bees" scene. This is easily the best so-bad-it's-good movie I have seen in a long time. It earns a Lefty Gold rating of
If I could live forever, I would avoid ever seeing Requiem for a Dream again.
Darren Aronofsky has a reputation for making movies that mess with your head. I will admit that I haven't been keeping up with his career (I'm seeing Black Swan this weekend, but I still haven't see The Wrestler), but this fits with my first-hand knowledge of his works. I enjoyed his first film, Pi, because it was weird; I hate Requiem For a Dream because I found it pretentious and ridiculously depressing. But the man is up for another Oscar nomination and is going to direct the X-Men spin-off, The Wolverine, so I thought I should check out the man's work.
Those with elephantine memories might recall The Fountain as one of those Hollywood projects that was destined to fail. It had a big budget and some big name actors attached, but it never got made, even after Brad Pitt grew this fantastic beard for the lead role:
Beard tentacles!
Sadly, Pitt left the picture to star in Troy, which wasn't good, and Aronofsky was left back at square one. But, being a determined man, he retooled the script, cut the budget in half, and convinced two fairly big name actors (Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz) to star in the film. Even this didn't keep the movie from flopping in the box office, but with an auteur like Aronofsky, that doesn't necessarily indicate a bad movie.
The plot is difficult to summarize. It is not told in a linear fashion, but that is not because the plot is trying to postpone a relevant twist until the end of the movie. No, this movie is nonlinear for symbolic purposes. There are actually three storylines. The first involves a Spanish Conquistador searching for the fountain of youth for his queen, the second is about a modern-day scientist that is desperately trying to cure his wife's brain tumor, and the third is about a futuristic astronaut that is trying to reach a distant nebula. Making things extra difficult, Hugh Jackman plays Tomas, Thomas, and Tom in the three storylines, respectively, and Rachel Weisz plays Isabel and Izzie, respectively. Man, this is getting complicated even before I attempt to summarize it.
Here's the gist of the stories. Tomas the Conquistador wants to save his queen from the Spanish Inquisition; she convinces him that the only way to do that is to find the fountain of life. If he succeeds, she will become his wife. The movie shows him being convinced by the queen and in the jungles of America on his search. There are no Spanish accents to be found in this film, though. Thomas is a talented neuroscientist whose wife, Izzy, is terminally ill. Instead of accepting her death (as she has), he throws himself into his research, desperate for the breakthrough that she doesn't demand, but he so desperately needs. Tom is inside a large bubble (who needs a spaceship in the future?) with only a few personal items and a dying tree (that might be Isabel? Maybe?); his goal is to reach a nebula and be consumed by it, which will somehow give renewed life to the tree.
The three stories are mixed together so that they all climax at about the same time. The obvious implication of the characters names is that they are the same people/souls, and all three stories are trying to find a way to come to terms with death. Now, that is a pretty big issue --- does this movie have what it takes to handle it?
Not especially. It's overly ambitious (do you really think they're going to come to a satisfying conclusion about eternal life here?), but that doesn't mean that the actors or director did a bad job assembling this movie. Yes, I'm a little suspicious as to why Pitt had to grow such a massive beard but Jackman just grew a goatee, but that doesn't negate what was done on screen. Since the movie is, essentially, divided into three distinct parts (regardless of how interconnected they may be), each part deserves a satisfying conclusion. Do they get it? Well...not so much. What viewers do get is a few half-baked ideas about eternal life. Does eternal life mean living as normal folks know it, or does it mean joining some other consciousness? Is eternal life a good thing, or a curse? Is it better to fight or accept death?
I don't know what to tell you. You would think a movie that tackles such deep issues would take a definite stance on this, but I'm not seeing it. Of course, Aronofsky could be making a singular point and is just obscuring it in metaphors. Maybe. But I think it is more likely that the confusion I felt while watching the movie is representative of the film's message. Life and death are The Big Issues, and this movie is not nearly equipped to deal with them.
My problem with The Fountain could have been with its pretentiousness. It certainly is full of itself, but I'm okay with that when a movie is trying to make a big statement about important things. No, my problem is with its execution. There are three storylines in this movie; there only needs to be one. I actually liked the modern day story; the acting was good, it had the most believable characters, and it had the most depth. The other two story lines are just weird. Do we need a Conquistador that literally turns into flowers? That seems doubtful. How about a tai chi practitioner that eats tree/woman bark to sustain his life? Unlikely. Both of those storylines were beyond odd to watch and, in the end, they left me speechless. That's not a good thing. I was only rendered speechless because I don't like to curse out loud when I'm home alone.
Why is this tree hairy? ***sound of head exploding***
The film's biggest crime is not even its WTF moments. It wants to be an important talking piece about death, but it falls so short of its goals; this movie isn't bad because it aimed for the stars, but because it fell so short. By cut-and-pasting the three narratives together, The Fountain succeeds in drawing parallels between its three Toms and their situations. That same process cheapens the emotional impact of modern-day Thomas' story; his Izzie has warmth and depth and is genuinely interesting, but the subtlety of Rachel Weisz's performance is lost when it is edited to parallel a bizarre space bubble riding, tree-eating cosmonaut.
The Fountain is what many critics might call an "interesting failure." That sounds a little pompous to me, but there is some truth to it. There is no denying that Darren Aronofsky is a talented director. His movies are always visually imaginative. He gets some very good performances from his actors, even in unusual roles. I didn't like the story lines of Christmases past or future here, but the primary storyline had some very good acting. Rachel Weisz was excellent as Izzie, Hugh Jackman was good as Thomas (less good as Tom and Tomas, though), and the supporting cast was solid. Ellen Burstyn, Ethan Suplee, Sean Patrick Thomas, Mark Margolis, and Stephen McHattie all make appearances in this movie, although only Burstyn has the opportunity to act much. Now, if Aronofsky could just make a movie that isn't miserable to watch, he'd be great.
Despite the impressive visuals and the occasionally impressive acting, The Fountain is still a narrative mess. There's a small voice in the back of my head that keeps suggesting that maybe I don't get it, but I think I do --- and I'm not impressed. What is the lesson here? Maybe the bigger the central idea, the less convoluted it needs to be.
"Nothing much has changed." Well, that's a tag line that sounds promising. Normally, I would pass on a movie that sounds like the audio-visual version of a sedative, but this film earned eight Academy Award nominations in 1971, winning two, and they are primarily in the acting and directing categories. I like me some Oscar bait, so let's check this out.
The Last Picture Show is the story of Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), a high school senior in a two-bit Texas town. The only things to do in town are go to the movie house, play pool, and go to the diner, all of which are owned by Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), the only man in town that seems satisfied with his life. Everyone else does dumb stuff, like having petty affairs that are common knowledge in such a small town. Sonny and his best friend, Duane (Jeff Bridges), are still too young to be disillusioned, but even they know that the biggest adventures of their life will come outside of this town. Still, they try to find what fun they can in this town, and it usually boils down to sex. In particular, it often comes down to Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), the prettiest and richest girl their age. Jacy starts the film dating the handsome and popular Duane, but she is interested in expanding her experiences, and tries her best to manipulate any man who looks twice at her, including Sonny. But this isn't the story of a love triangle. It's more like "A Year in the Life of..." their small town. Things change in that year, both big and small, but the big picture stays the same: teenagers will come of age, once again, in this two-bit Texas town.
That is kind of a bland synopsis of the film, isn't it? I can't help it, this movie does not really have much of a plot. It's all about the ensemble cast and a subtle sense of sadness that pervades the film. The cast in this film is pretty impressive. I wasn't terribly impressed with Timothy Bottoms in the lead role, but there were many strong supporting performances, including four (!) that were nominated for Oscars, and two that won. Jeff Bridges (who was nominated) is pretty good as the not terribly bright high school alpha male that struggles to maintain his importance out of school. Ben Johnson won the Best Supporting Actor award playing Sam the Lion based, from what I can tell, largely on a monologue where he reminisces on loves and risks taken and lost, but always worth the effort. Sure, it was a great speech, and that speech alone separated his character from everyone else in the movie, but I have to admit that I was surprised that his famous role gets so little screen time. I was impressed with Cybill Shepherd, in her first film role, playing what amounts to a femme fatale in training. She might be developing into a manipulative bitch here, but her mother (Ellen Burstyn, in an Oscar-nominated role) is the reigning queen of bitchy despair and skepticism. Cloris Leachman received the Best Supporting Actress award for her portrayal as the love-starved married woman who winds up having an affair with Sonny. The rest of the cast is recognizable, but their contributions are relatively minor, although, compared to four Oscar-nominated roles, what do you expect? Randy Quaid made his film debut in this movie; it's hard to picture now, with his near-permanent casting as a drunken uncle, but his character is a rival with Duane for Jacy's affections at one point. Sam Bottoms, Clu Gulager, and Eileen Brennan all played functional roles to the plot (such as it is), but they get relatively little time to develop on screen.
Since there isn't much of a plot, the strength of this film lies in the small moments of small town life, circa 1951. Some of those moments ring true today, like when Sonny freezes when confronted with Ruth's (Leachman's) tears; there is little more frightening to a young man than a woman's tears, because his idiotic first instinct is "How'd I break it?" The same goes for any scene with Sam the Lion; it doesn't matter if he is talking about dreams, love, or how much you disappointed him, he is that rare adult that commands respect from the kids. Other moments feel appropriate, but seem alien to me. Maybe I didn't hang out with the right crowd growing up, but the cool, detached and uninterested attitude toward sex from these teens struck me as strange; however, if you're in a small enough town or clique, I suppose eventually everybody who's anybody gets with everybody else who's anybody. Still, it makes for some unusually unerotic sexual scenes.
Peter Bogdanovich did a very good job directing the actors in this film (in case the four Oscar nominations didn't clue you in), but he was largely responsible for the film's other impressive nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Even if you are unfamiliar with the influence a director can have on a film, The Last Picture Show looks and feels different from 99% of the movies you will see. It's a black-and-white movie made in 1971, set in 1951 --- that's an interesting choice, given the tendency for films in the early 50s to brag about their Technicolor picture. The soundtrack is composed only of ambient sound, so when you hear music, it is because there is a radio nearby; that gives the movie more of a documentary feel to it. But it doesn't go too far in that direction, since there are some very occasional moments shot from the point-of-view of particular characters. The dialogue is good, the acting is very natural, but...the lack of a distinct dramatic arc bugs me. Some of the less typical camera shots lead me to believe that I'm missing the message in this movie, but I couldn't tell you why or what it is.
My big problem with this film is that it is clearly aimed at a target audience that I don't belong to, and the subtle filmmaking makes it difficult for me, as an outsider, to decipher what message is being delivered here. Why is the closing of the town's only movie theater the basis for the film's title? I'm not sure, but it seems to connect to the general sense of loss that is pervasive throughout the film. Maybe it's mourning the loss of larger-than-life men, like Sam the Lion (what an awesome name!) and John Wayne, both in daily life and in the escapism of film. Maybe this is a love letter to an innocent way of life that died out as the post-Depression generation came of age. Whatever it is, it is frustrating for me to try and fail to understand the point of the film. The performances are good, but without that subtext, I was only truly impressed with Johnson and Shepherd's work. I liked the direction in general, but it didn't give me a payoff I could appreciate. Despite that, there were several inconsequential moments that I was disproportionately amused by:
Every time Sonny or Duane drove their truck, Hank Williams was on their radio. Of course he was. It's Texas.
How easily a beer bottle was broken over Sonny's head. Either they make better bottles now, or that boy has a metal plate in his head.
When Jacy offers to shake hands with a handsome rich boy, he reaches his hand for her and, instead of shaking her hand, gropes her crotch and then kisses her on the mouth. The stones on that guy...! Even better, that's is about all he does in the whole movie.
I just can't get over Randy Quaid, looking like this, having even a fictional chance with Cybill Shepherd, when she looked like this.
Randy Quaid, Tiger Beat "Dream Hunk" of 1971
So, despite the good acting and the interesting direction, I'm going to knock this movie down a few notches for being too subtle with the point of the movie for me to fully grasp it. And if there isn't a deeper meaning behind this film, then I guess I think the plot just stinks.
I didn't watch scary movies as a kid. I think the first horror movie I ever watched was Scream; I was seventeen or so at the time, watching it at a friend's house, and I remember being very self-conscious about my reactions to the movie. I didn't want to give myself away by shrieking like a little girl or wetting myself. For some reason, I imagined horror movies as being genuinely disturbing, the very stuff of nightmares. Obviously, I got over that presumption. After a solid month of watching (and reviewing) nothing but (often awful) horror movies this month, I have finally come to the film that was, at one point, the highest grossing --- and some still say, the scariest --- film of all time, The Exorcist. Will it live up to my childhood expectations for horror? Let's find out.
Successful actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) has a tween daughter named Regan (Linda Blair). Shortly after announcing that she has a new (invisible) friend in Mr. Howdy, Regan falls ill. Not cough cough ill, but things flying around the room ill. Despite exhibiting surprising strength, an ability to rock her entire bed while she's on it, and speaking in a croaking male voice during these incidents, doctors suspect some sort of brain cancer. Because cancer makes girls talk like life-long smokers. When modern medicine turns up nothing, Regan is taken to a psychiatrist. No help there, but if Regan has thrice weekly visits for the next year, they suspect that perhaps they can improve "no help" to "next to no help." However, around this time, Chris' director (Jack MacGowran) is found murdered outside the MacNeil home; when Chris checked on Regan, she was asleep, but her window was open to the bitter cold evening air. Hmm...I wonder...? When medicine for the body and brain both fail, Chris turns to the church. Her Catholic priest, like the girl at your party that keeps doing the Mary Katherine Gallagher impression, is obviously flattered at being a third choice and is eager to help. Unfortunately, this priest, Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), is one of them new-fangled ones that has a psychology degree and might even be losing his own faith. Father Damien doesn't believe that the Catholic church will allow him to perform an exorcism, and he is even less certain that it will do any good (except from a psychological perspective). But he asks his bosses anyway, and is surprised that they agree to proceed, but a rookie like Damien cannot do it alone. The church decides to team him up with one of their heavy hitters, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow). The two approach Regan's exorcism just as (pea green) spit is about to hit the fan. What does this film have in store for these do-gooders? Projectile vomit of pea soup? Of course. Impossible physical feats? Fo' sho'. Creative vulgar insults? Absolutely. And smoking, every character smoking!
Director William Friedkin has built his career on the back-to-back successes that were The French Connection and The Exorcist, and deservedly so. Friedkin's direction is apparent throughout the film. He does a very good job composing visually attractive frames, particularly with the shot of Max von Sydow preparing to enter the MacNeil home, which would eventually become the movie poster. The special effects are handled well (even better than in Poltergeist, released nine years later) and Linda Blair's make-up is fantastic.The acting is all very good, with Max von Sydow (who has looked 70 years old for the last 40 years) and Jason Miller managing to portray depth and poise from two characters that could easily have been ciphers. Ellen Burstyn looks positively haggard as the film goes on, which is appropriate, but I felt that her character was a little too over-dramatic in the beginning of the film; yes, she's playing an actress, but even drama queens aren't as moody as she was portrayed. Linda Blair does a pretty decent job, for a child actor, but I personally believe her character was too immature to be a twelve-year old. Seriously, a twelve year-old with imaginary friends would get sent to the psychiatrist even without the supernatural powers. Most of the other actors --- aside from the always reliable Lee J. Cobb --- were okay, but not particularly impressive. Still, Bursyn, Blair, and Miller were all nominated for acting Oscars, and Friedkin was nominated for direction; all in all, the film was nominated for ten Oscars and took home Best Sound and Adapted Screenplay. Not too shabby for a genre film.
Obviously, the film was well-made. Did I like it? Well...it was okay. I appreciated the way it was made more than I actually enjoyed the movie, though. Does that indicate that the film has lost its edge over the years, or am I just jaded after seeing so many gory horror movies? While it's true that a lot of time has passed since this film came out, and it is a film that suggests more than it shows, I think it still packs as much of a punch as ever. There are some seriously disturbing scenes, particularly the violent masturbation scene and the first possession scene. However, I was unimpressed with the classic pea soup vomit and Blair's head turning like it was on a lazy susan; they looked technically fine, but I thought they were the least frightening aspects of the possession. So, I would argue that the film has aged pretty well and that the more explicit scenes were my least favorites.
The key to a film like this is that, since it is not aiming for brainless gore, it has to build the suspense. Maybe I have just absorbed the basic plot elements through popular culture, but I was never curious as to what would happen next. Despite the quality of the film-making, I was never frightened or uneasy (well, the needles and blood spurting at the hospital made me uncomfortable). The story spends a lot of time getting to the exorcism because it's not a normal Catholic practice; because I knew basically how the story went, the build up to legitimize the act of exorcism felt unnecessary to me. Would this movie had been more effective if I was completely unaware of the storyline? Probably. Would it be more frightening if I were a Catholic, like the characters in the movie? Again, probably; this movie didn't attack my beliefs as much as it did any chance of me eating pea soup. Is any of this the film's fault? Well, that's debatable. I think I will give the movie another try next Fall and see if it grows on me. As it is, I can't argue quality work, even if I didn't particularly care for it.
