What I'm Watching: The Iceman

Millennium Films

Why I watched it: As you can see from the picture above, it is Michael Shannon, and he looks extremely badass. Not only does The Iceman feature Shannon as real-life contract killer Richard Kuklinski, but it also includes Ray Liotta, Winona Ryder, Chris Evans, and a couple very random cameos from James Franco and Stephen Dorff. Overall, it's a great cast and who can resist a mob-related biopic? The plot and trailers promised some cool action and stone-cold killings by Shannon, and even though I'm not a huge fan of biopics, I had no prior knowledge of Kuklinski and the subject matter seemed much more interesting and entertaining than some other biopic on a President or something. So of course I'm interested in this one!

What I thought: As expected, Shannon is good in anything he does. Granted, he's a natural when it comes to scary, cold (no pun intended) characters and keeping that signature frown frozen (another pun!) on his face. Ryder is also good as Shannon's wife, and she even pulls off her Jersey accent quite well too. The other supporting actors are all fine as well. However, as interesting as the premise for the movie and Kuklinski's life sounds, the plot is still fairly void of anything worthwhile. We understand that Kuklinski had a messed up childhood and that he has no problem being violent and cruel if necessary, but beyond that, the reasons for why he so easily takes on the role of contract killer are never fully explained. We hear him say a number of times "Everything I do is for my family" or something along those lines, but that still doesn't give a solid enough reason for why someone would kill over 100 people in their life. ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE! Of course there's the money he was paid for the killings, but still, not anyone can just do that for any amount of money. So The Iceman and it's events are entertaining and well executed enough, but there's a hole at the center that begs the question "why." The absence of an answer for this question forms the basis for my problem with many historical or biopic pieces: sure, a true story like this one is interesting and informative, but there has to be a better reason than just "based on a true story" for me to warrant making a movie out of something.

Should you watch it: Despite its lack of substance, The Iceman is still better than most other movies out on DVD right now. Shannon is always fun to watch, and it is crazy to fathom that killers like that actually existed and I'm sure still do exist. Overall, the killings and such don't provide anything really new as far as style and action, but it's still a generally entertaining time. So, for the sake of Shannon and his stoney-silence, go for it!

Review: Elysium

TriStar Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment

There's no denying writer/director Neill Blomkamp's talent for futuristic sci-fi. The South African filmmaker began his career working with visual effects which is no surprise. Like it or hate it, District 9 had some very sweet special effects, not to mention a very good performance from Sharlto Copley. Blomkamp made it clear with District 9 that he likes to focus on harsh, gritty futuristic environments and action. I went into that movie unsuspecting of the high level of graphically exploding bodies and blown off limbs that were flying everywhere. So Blomkamp definitely has an eye for vivid settings and detail, but he can also get carried away with the visual effects and lose hold of the story's ambition.

With District 9, Blomkamp attempted to set up an analogy for apartheid in South Africa with the way that the humans segregate and poorly treat the aliens who land in Johannesburg. Suffice to say, Blomkamp attempted to tackle an extremely sensitive and complicated matter via a hypothetical sci-fi scenario, something that many famous authors have done in the past. So the idea is by no means new, but Blomkamp's name and ambition overstepped its bounds even with Peter Jackson's name attached to District 9. By the end of the film, the plot descends into albeit impressive and highly entertaining action but action that is unrelated to the analogy and unnecessary for its progression. Once again, Blomkamp has decided to tackle a very complicated subject in Elysium, and the result is very similar to District 9.

Review: The Wolverine

Twentieth-Century Fox Film Corporation/Marvel Entertainment

I remember one of my friends saying before how they thought it was weird that Marvel and Fox decided to take the Wolverine story-line the furthest out of all the other X-Men/mutants available to them. I know nothing about the comics myself, but according to those who know them, other X-Men have more interesting and cooler plots and complexes than the self-healing mutant with retractable claws and infamous side-burns. Still, it cannot be denied that with the first X-Men films, Hugh Jackman created a very like-able and entertaining character. There's no doubt that Marvel and Fox went with Wolverine over the others because of Jackman's box-office appeal, and even though 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine got panned by the reviewers and generally disliked by everyone that I know, that didn't stop it from making $179 million compared to the $150 million budget. That's not a huge profit margin to speak of especially compared to other Marvel films, but still, it more than suggested that people were still into Hugh and X-Men.

So now we have The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line), and set in Japan. The initial premise set up by the trailers suggested that Wolverine would be struggling with the option of giving up his mutant ability to regenerate in order to finally be able to live as a mortal. The "curse of immortality" plot-point has been used in a number of movies in the past, but it still presents an array of possibilities for character development and substance beyond Wolverine fighting ninjas and samurais and watching cuts and gashes magically disappear from his body. The Japanese setting also promised some potentially cool, pretty settings and mis en scene for Wolverine to explore as well as other, interesting mutants to encounter. In short, with this new plot-line and creative team, The Wolverine seemed like it could deliver what Origins promised but failed to do.

Review: Only God Forgives

RADiUS-TWC

I probably should have taken at least one more day to think this one over, but I'm going to attempt to write this review anyway. For those of you who have paid any sort of attention to reviews that came out of Cannes or anywhere else, you know that Only God Forgives has received some extremely mixed reviews. Many articles have been written mainly about the criticism instead of the movie itself. One such "top critic" on rottentomatoes said "Ryan Gosling and his "Drive" director, Nicoals Winding Refn, sail into the heart of darkness and emerge with a trinket of crackpot porno kitsch." Another said "Style over substance doesn't really tell the half of it: you can bathe a corpse in groovy light and dress it in an expensive suit, but in the end that rotting smell just won't go away." Combine both of these snippets and you get Refn's latest film compared to a stinking, rotting piece of pretty looking shit. For these reviewers, there isn't enough characters, emotions, or reasons for "why" anything happens, and a beautifully lit Gosling just won't cut it.

While watching the movie myself, I experienced a lot of reactions: awe, disgust, confusion, embarrassment, frustration, and revulsion. At least, those are all of the verbs I could think of right now. The reviewers aren't wrong when they describe and react strongly to the grisliness and apparent pointless brutality and borderline sadomasochism exhibited here. But at the same time, their criticisms of Refn's lack of characters and subject matter doesn't really have a place. 

What I'm Watching: Oblivion

Universal Pictures

Why I watched it: this is one that I meant to see in theaters, but just never got around to it. Reviews had the consensus of "meh," but I was still intrigued by the pretty looking clips from the trailer and a new sci-fi movie. Director Joseph Kosinski made his debut a few years back with Tron: Legacy which for all of its silliness was fairly dazzling to watch. So, I figured Oblivion would at least deliver something cool to look at if not a fairly good story. I am also a fan of Tom Cruise, I have to admit. He may play the same character in nearly every movie, but he plays that character very well in opinion (especially in Magnolia). Unlike a lot of actors who obviously phone in their performances in many movies, Cruise seems to try and actually do his best in just about anything. I am also a fan of Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) even though she's not the greatest actress around, I still find her more like-able than most.

What I thought: it is very pretty! The mixture of digital effects and real locations (like the one above) make for images that are bright and crisp. Cruise delivers everything that he possibly could with the character and script he was given, but I will have to side with critics on this one and say that the story is "meh." It holds multiple plot points and twists that are a combination of things seen in sci-fi before, and while the film itself is over 2 hours long, it still feels as if things are hurried along too much. A lot of time is spent watching Cruise fly around to different places that look cool, but when it comes to moving the plot along, things happen too fast. In this same vein of thought, there is a fairly long prologue narrated by Cruise which is just lazy writing in this case. I don't have a problem with prologues in general; sometimes they can be quite useful and done effectively, but in this case it's a way for the writers to pack all of the back-story, major plot points, and other key character motivations into a just less than 10 minute sequence. Oblivion has also received a lot of attention for its soundtrack done by the band M83, and it is a good soundtrack! But it becomes overplayed and explodes into certain sequences that just don't feel right for that kind of music. On its own, I'm sure it'd be very cool to listen to while running or something because it's fairly epic. All of the time, which is one of its problems.

Should you see it: I'd say that Oblivion is better than most of the fair you'll find at Redbox these days, and the same goes for new releases on Netflix too if you pay for mail delivery. It has enough sparkling imagery and exciting moments (especially this spaceship chase through an ice-canyon) in it to make for an enjoyable time. Still, I'm glad I didn't spend money on it in theaters, and it would be best if you tried not to do too much guessing as to what happens in the plot. Otherwise you'll probably figure everything out pretty fast just like I did. I guessed the ultimate twist from the very beginning. 

Review: The Conjuring

Warner Bros./New Line Cinema

It's been a long time since I've actually been excited for a horror movie. In fact, I can't remember the last time I looked forward to a film of this genre so much. Although I think it would be wrong to call a movie like The Conjuring a "horror" film because when I think of horror I think of blood and guts. The Conjuring, on the other hand, has hardly any violence. Still, somehow, it garnered itself an R rating from the MPAA for reasons many people explain as the movie being just so terrifying. So, I guess it'd be more accurate to call this one a thriller because the title of "horror" suggests physical disgust. Horror is about visceral violence that is thrust in your face to evoke terror, excitement, or whatever depending on how messed up you are.

Rather than relying on the grotesqueness of what is seen, The Conjuring delivers a string of old-fashioned scares cleverly designed around what is not seen. Time and time again, I have explained to people (who all generally agree with me) that the most scary things in movies (and life for that matter) is what is we cannot see. In the case of movies, it's about what the filmmakers choose to keep from showing the audience This is what makes movies like the first Paranormal Activity (in my opinion) so effective and popular because not once in that movie do you see the actual paranormal entity/demon. There's evidence of its presence with the footprints, a shadow in the doorway, and pieces of furniture being moved, but that's it. The thing, whatever it is, remains a constant tease throughout the film and threatens to reveal itself, but at the last moment, shrinks back into the darkness. 

Review: Pacific Rim

Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures

OK, I openly admit that I was knowingly lying to myself about what this movie was going to be from the start. News about Guillermo del Toro's (Pan's Labyrinth, Hell Boy, Devil's Backbone) pet project concerning battling alien monsters with some kind of robots has been circling the web for well over 2 years now. Naturally, anyone familiar with Del Toro's knack for comic book-ish action and style had high hopes for the director trying his hand at something that sounded very close to live-action anime. Many directors have tried the same type of thing in the past with The Matrix and Kill Bill, but Del Toro seemed like an even better choice than those other guys because of his extremely nerdy tendencies and close attention to mise en scene details and tone. The closest thing Del Toro has done to the genre of Pacific Rim is the Hellboy movies, and anyone who has seen those knows they're completely ludicrous but undeniably entertaining with an obvious love and attention to the source material and world. Thus, the news that Del Toro was tackling an original sci-fi story got fans of his (like me) entirely interested and hoping for something incredibly entertaining if not actually somewhat smart. 

But then the first trailer for Pacific Rim was released and with it the flood of comparisons to Transformers and a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich level of mindless action and destruction. And even though all the evidence for what it was was right there, I (and others) refused to believe it would only be about giant robots smashing Godzilla-like creatures in the head. There must be more to it than that! Del Toro wouldn't settle for just something like that! Unfortunately, I made the mistake of forgetting that often times huge nerds like Del Toro often get so caught up in and excited about certain things that they overindulge to a point that no one else understands the point. This has been the case in many an English class I have taken where particularly nerdy people (and by that I mean people with very specific interests and concerns who take them to ridiculous levels) talk and argue about something relentlessly and it ends up making people annoyed and making no sense in the end and you forget why the whole conversation started in the first place.