505 - This Is It review

“This Is It” is a concert documentary about Michael Jackson without the concert. Assembled from rehearsal footage from his London comeback concert that never was, it doubles as both an examination of Jackson at work and a look at what could have been, at least if you were European or had the bread to make it out to the UK.

Those looking for any insight into Jackson’s personal life need not apply. Perhaps this is for the best. People vigorously debate whether or not he molested children, but whatever the truth was, it doesn’t change that the man (d)evolved into a ghastly mutant, a moon-walking freak show whose bizarre and off-putting habits are far too numerous for me to list in the paper’s allocated space.

Here we see a side of Jackson different from the one that made for such macabre viewing these past 20 years. This Michael Jackson is strictly the artist, a good singer and amazing performer, the King of Pop who inspired feverish admiration from countless fans. Reports shortly after his death were insistent that Jackson was a train wreck as he rehearsed, weak and exhausted, broken down.

If so, director Kenny Ortega (who was also directing the show) hides it well. This rehearsal footage shows Jackson as energetic and alert, a canny voice and self-critic when crafting his concert. Onstage with dancers half his age, Jackson looks unscathed by time and drug addiction, able to keep pace and enthusiastically offer instruction on exactly how he wants the show to go.

But the rehearsals aren’t the finals, and much is in progress. Jackson usually wears casual clothing (for him, anyway), and often the songs are peppered with his adjustments. The show is rife with elaborate effects, such as when Jackson is put into an old movie to have a gun battle with Humphrey Bogart. While I’m not an expert on concerts (I’ve been to five), this looks to have been an especially elaborate and dazzling affair, at least when completed. Many of the songs are lavishly decorated with effects and cool visual concepts, but as the show goes on, an increasing number are essentially just Jackson singing on a dimly lit stage.

“This Is It” is ultimately destined to become an indispensable piece to serious Jackson fans. He looks good in his last work, and that image is bolstered by the idolatry of countless reverent crew interviews, where we’re assured that Jackson is pretty much the greatest man to ever live. That the interviewees seem so sincere speaks volumes about the man’s impact and meaning to others, and this film is something that the fans can fondly remember him by, even as many more difficult questions remain unadressed.


3 out of 5

504 - Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant review

The oft repeated moral of “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” is that it’s not what you are, but who you are. It’s a fine message, one certain to assuage the identity-related anxieties of all the vampires and goblins and demons and other fictional creatures in the audience.

The titular Cirque is a coalition of ghastly freaks who host a show designed to impress those for whom cleaning a toilet with the tongue isn’t disgusting enough. There’s the Snake Guitarist, the Man With No Skin, the Woman Who Regrows Arms, and the Gorgeous Woman With Incredible Breasts (Salma Hayek plays this one). That last freak can also predict the future and grow a full beard in seconds, but those features seem insignificant compared to the one I identified.

Leading the show is Crepsley (John C. Reilly), a affable vampire who rejects the notion that he has to kill humans to enjoy their delicious blood. I reject the notion that vampires are even remotely interesting without that aforementioned notion, but whatever. His assistant is Darren (Chris Massoglia), a belligerent, whiny douche bag who must become a vampire in order to rescue Steve (Josh Hutcherson), his psychotic best friend. Darren’s not an ideal protagonist, as he has the charm and personality of a well-used laundry hamper.

Darren gets roped into an eternal struggle of good vampire vs. bad vampire, which means that they run around in computer-generated blurs and hit each other, very, very hard. Basically, they’re superheroes and villains with fangs. I always preferred vampires one of two ways: as aristocratic demons or hideous monsters. Here, they’re just carnie trash dueling over ideological differences. Behold what happens when a subject has all of the blood sucked out of it.

John C. Reilly, a wonderful character actor whose recent fame has been the result of appearances in Will Ferrell comedies, lends the film the majority of its charm. But he's not a miracle worker, just a well-cast foot soldier in an expensive Disney TV movie that gets a wide theatrical release. Willem Dafoe drops in for exactly two scenes, which my longtime readers won't be surprised to know I'm guessing is a role designed to remodel his kitchen.

Adapted from a series of novels that I don’t care about, “Cirque du Freak” is plainly another product of Hollywood’s insistence of milking every hot thing of the moment (vampires right now, thanks “Twilight”) until audiences spit blood in protest. Unlike “Twilight,” it’s not primarily a romance, though Darren does develop a thing for a “monkey girl,” which is the film’s term for a woman with a tail. “Hey, how about a nice tailjob?” I desperately wanted Darren to request at the climax. Would a little sex humor be too much for me to ask for after over 100 minutes of this nonsense? Apparently, yes.

503 - Zombieland review

Ah, here we go. “Zombieland” is a serious injection of fun to the local theater, an apocalyptic horror comedy that provides laughs in equal measure with the chills and thrills. I’m hard pressed to think of any other film this year that functions more effectively as raw entertainment, assuming a road movie featuring the undead and a wicked sense of humor is something that would tingle your palate.

Over the past seven years or so, zombies have been the focus of much fuss from the geek and nerd crowd. “What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?” is a question that’s considered with childish enthusiasm by some, as if the majority of the world’s population transforming into bloodthirsty monsters would be enormously amusing for some dork whose only real experience with firearms is shooting a plastic arcade gun at a digital bank robber.

But remove the silly fantasies aside, the premise actually provides fertile soil for cool cinema, with an enormous range for action, horror, drama, social commentary, and even scathing satire. “Zombieland” leaves out the commentary and satire but keeps the others in, but is shrewd enough to present an appeal broader than end of the world fetishists and teenage boys. Its gags really are funny, the few characters (perhaps only seven or so speaking roles, four major) are memorable and sympathetic.

The protagonists are a foursome of survivors who have adapted to life in an undead world in different ways. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a college student whose rigid adherence to rules (Rule #1: Cardio) has allowed him to avoid having his flesh eaten. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, awesome) is a Twinkie-crazed yokel who delights in killing zombies on sight, and seemingly impervious to even close calls. And there’s sisters Wichita (Emma Stone, star rising) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), whose lifestyle as con artists means that perhaps their lives haven’t changed much compared to their compatriots. These characters are actually written, acting roughly as I believe they would, not merely how their archetype says they should.

The most impressive trick of “Zombieland” is that even as it sees the end of the world as a game, it only does so through the lens of characters provided with no alternative view. At the beginning I thought I was watching what essentially amounted to a one-note (albeit extremely funny) joke. But “Zombieland” gradually and unexpectedly gives us glimpses of the characters’ inner turmoil, the grief and loss that drive them as they struggle to survive in a world that suddenly makes even less sense than it did before. Columbus’ rules are as much coping mechanism as they are survival tool.

“Zombieland” doesn’t match the creeping dread of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie classic “Dawn of the Dead,” nor does it hit the blisteringly violent apex of Zach Snyder’s 2004 “Dawn of the Dead” remake. I’ll confess to being less than impressed with the resolution to the film’s most unexpected joke, and there’s an indifference to the area outside the characters’ line of sight that could have easily been remedied. But it’s easily superior to the preposterously overrated zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead” and the enjoyable but slightly vapid “28 Days Later” series. This is bloody, exhilarating, funny, fun, fun, and fun. Sometimes, that’s even better than being great.

4 out of 5

502 - The Informant! review

Mark Whitacre, a president of significant stature at Archer Daniel Midland, blew the whistle. He became the highest-level executive in this nation’s history to do so, recording hundreds of his colleagues’ conversations and meetings over a period of several years. This might have been heroic had he not been embezzling millions for himself on the side.

Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” appears to be about Whitacre, and it is, but not in the way it begins. For most of the runtime, it feels like a slightly quirky boardroom drama; the story takes place in hotels, conference rooms, executive offices, and expensive cars. But about 80 minutes in the perspective shifts from Whitacre to others, and we see that what we were watching all along wasn’t concerned with industrial espionage and corporate crime, but with the malfunctioning personality of its protagonist. Suddenly, the constant and seemingly unrelated voiceovers make perfect sense, and our vantage is so that it’s all different.

Whitacre is played by Matt Damon in one of his rare performances that I actually like. His Whitacre is a sort of grinning, shifty creep; he announces his intentions as benevolent, but it’s hard to believe. Why, like he claims, would he risk his extremely lucrative career to help the FBI? Moral outrage at his company’s price fixing, he says. Perhaps the fact that he’s a family man with a cheerful demeanor makes us and those FBI agents want to believe that Whitacre’s a good fellow, but an early lie he tells holds a clue (I’ll confess now that I’ve no clue how accurately the film represents the real man).

His FBI handlers (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale, who plays it totally straight) admire his tenacity at getting the job done, but have difficulty working with such a compulsive liar. His wife (Melanie Lynskey) tries to provide moral support, but it later becomes clear that he’s not the sort of fellow. Here, I think Soderbergh hedges his bets a bit; when the film should take a concrete position on Whitacre, it waffles. Split between sympathy for Whitacre and contempt for his misdeeds, the film wants us to like him even as we’re supplied with virtually no reason to. It’s really an odd choice for a wide release; no action, only moderately light laughs, nothing worth an Oscar nomination or an enthusiastic endorsement (aside from critics who think Soderbergh’s name demands a glowing review by default, and there are plenty of those). The only thing I can think of is that the subject matter, which discusses corporations ripping people off, might seem topical to some in the studio’s marketing department, except they forget that no matter how much animosity most people feel towards big business, when pressed for a reason, they often find themselves unable to make a coherent case for their antipathy.

Steven Soderbergh is a sort of filmmaker’s filmmaker. Making waves with his 1989 independent drama “sex, lies, and videotape,” he has worked steadily ever since, making films ranging from tiny experimental pieces (“Bubble”) to big studio jobs designed to maximize profit (the “Ocean’s Eleven” series). My guess: the big pictures are for the scratch, but the human dramas are where his heart is. He’d much rather make a movie about two people talking about their feelings than one where things blow up quite nicely. A treat, if you like that sort of thing.

3 out of 5

501 - Surrogates review

“Surrogates” presents us with a future where the warmth of human interaction is replaced by the detached thrills provided by technology. The vast majority of the human race lives via surrogate, a robotic replica of a person that allows the operator to go about their entire life without ever leaving home.

Alas, “Surrogates” has the idea, but lacks the direction and heart. The whole film feels switched to autopilot, coasting through the standard motions without much concern for style or emotion. As the film began, my mind raced with thoughts of its enormous potential: what would life be like were we able to live it without concern for our physical selves? It’s a question clearly inspired by one of the philosophical topics of the Internet Age, where individuals have been known to disappear almost entirely into online personas. But ‘Surrogates” seems made by people with no serious interest in big questions, just collecting a paycheck.

Bruce Willis stars as Tom Greer, an FBI agent who, like most, lives his life through a surrogate. His surrogate looks like (what else?) Bruce Willis minus fifteen years and plus a lot of hair. When Willis tries, he can be one of mainstream film’s best heroes, stalwart and unwavering in the face of a challenge. Here we see the other (all too common) Willis, the one who has shown up to collect a paycheck and really doesn’t care if the audience notices.

Surrogacy has resulted in a 99% drop in crime nationwide within ten years, one of many facts within the film’s universe that makes no sense whatsoever, but never mind. When the son of the billionaire creator of the surrogates (James Cromwell in a bit of dreadfully unoriginal casting following an identical role in “I, Robot”) is murdered, Greer is placed on the case. After Greer’s surrogate is destroyed by a group of anti-robot humans, he ventures into the world with his actual body, a dangerous scenario when your opponents lack a fear of harm.

Great science-fiction (indeed, cinema in general) doesn’t just raise an issue and then dismiss it, but links it to human truths and emotional consciousness. “Star Wars” wasn’t such a smash because of its effects alone, but because the storytelling enabled audiences to empathize with its heroes and villains. “Blade Runner” isn’t considered a classic because of its breathtaking design, but because its characters provoke a deeply poignant and enthralling sensation. We don’t remember films so much for what happens as we do how they made us feel.

“Surrogates” can make no such incredible claims with its emotional story arc, which sees Greer struggle with his wife (Rosamund Pike), who despite physically inhabiting the same apartment, is essentially estranged via their reliance on surrogacy. The potential for inventive and meaningful drama in this scenario would be obvious to even a hapless screenwriter, but director Jonathan Mostow and writers Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato present us with a half-hearted police procedural dotted with special effects and robot chase sequences. The plot presents us with stakes that involve the fate of the human race, but if the film had bothered to endear us to one man first, perhaps then we could care about everyone else. “Surrogates” is ultimately as disconnected from us as its characters are from each other.

2 out of 5

500

500 posts! If you asked me three years ago whether or not I'd get here, I probably would have replied in the affirmative. Hooray for my prescience, and a sincere thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog, be it from day one or a recent visitor. There have been a few hundred reviews, a little commentary, and some enthralling discussions. I'm perhaps most proud of Play It Again, where an array of fine writers were so kind as to contribute their thoughts on a film they've consistently returned to. Here's hoping for another 500 entries and the continued life of Whispers of a Cinematic Echo (or James' Blog or James' Mad Grasp for Relevancy, if you're the nostalgic type).

499

I laughed rapturously at this review of election spoiler Ralph Nader's "novel" about an America that is transformed via a firm shove into a socialist paradise. Nader's premise is that a cabal of left-wing billionaires and celebrities team up to fix this country's problems once and for all. The laughter comes in when you see his cast of characters, including (but not limited to): Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, Ross Perot, Bill Cosby, Phil Donahue, and Yoko Ono (who apparently is a bit of a femme fatale here).

The stupidity is so enormous that my lexicon fails to conjure words proper to describe it. Ridiculous is when I get told by the sheriff's office that they only hand out permits to acquire on MWF, not TTh. This is utterly insane, and proof positive that Nader is not the shrewd, benevolent figure that captivated so many wannabe hippies and conspiracy theorists, but a self-aggrandizing buffoon who indulges in bizarre fantasies about himself (running for president) and the famous people he admires (the fate of America rests in the capable hands of Yoko Ono).

Beyond the laughter, though, I'll point out that the premise seems quite insidious. A group of wealthy people teaming up to tell America how to behave sounds awfully autocratic to me. If someone were to write the same novel but from the right instead of the left, how long before they were compared to Hitler?