300: Rise of an Empire
300: Rise of an Empire, the probably belated sequel/prequel/sidequel to Zack Snyder’s 300 (not his worst film, but the one that turned him from “that guy who directed the surprisingly awesome Dawn of the Dead remake to the hack who pretends slo-mo is an aesthetic) is just about the easiest thing to review in the world. Putting aside the rather curious fact that someone thought Frank Miller’s fictional fantasyland where bros cavort and scamper about like Gods and the abs flex with determination and zeal was a fiction that could support something as ungainly as a “sequel/prequel/sidequel”, the film is essentially a done deal from the concept alone. “If you liked blank, you’ll probably like this” is not something a reviewer should trot out too often, for it it behooves us to write about films on their own terms. But gee does this film play like a copy-paste of its predecessor in every possible way, so much so that it can’t but invite the comparison. Trade in browns, golds, and reds for browns, golds, and blues and you’ve pretty much nailed the appeal of Rise of an Empire. Continue reading
The story goes that acclaimed filmmaker Sarah Polley grew up under firm belief that she was, if somewhat different looking than her loving siblings, as much a biological member of the family as any of them. Her family’s nagging jokes about her appearance did little to denounce their commitment to little Sarah as the child of Michael and Diane Polley. Little did they know that her real father was Harry Gulkin, a theater producer whom her mother had had an affair with before passing of cancer while Sarah was still young herself, forever sealing the secret of her birth. The story goes this way, but it also branches outward to tackle the heart of cinema, the construct of a documentary, the messy lies and half-truths of a family less sure of itself than we are, and even the nature of subjectivity as the only sure truth in the plural choruses that are the stories we tell.
One doesn’t have to do any research to guess that it is customary to slant The Hunger for being, essentially, a feature-length Goth rock music video. Or to imagine that it is not generally construed as a masterpiece of storytelling or characterization. Or to assume that the script falters indefinitely and never much goes anywhere. Or to reduce the film to “style over substance”. These are also all true statements for the most part, excepting the last one. For “style over substance” is and shall always be a misguided attempt to reduce film to a false dichotomy, the visual and the script-based, and to imply if not openly state that the visual is secondary to the script, and that it is less nuanced too. Even in instances where the argument is rightfully used to imply a film lacks substance, say for instance Transformers or any other corporate blockbuster of your choice, the argument folds in on itself, for such films generally do not in fact have any sense of style at all. They are films without style and without substance, and cinephiles ought to be more quick to object to claims that what Michael Bay accomplishes every couple of years genuinely qualifies as “style” in any meaningful sense.
Upon releasing his sophomore feature, the generally indifferent Elysium, not two years ago, writer/director Neill Blomkamp was keen on ensuring that nonplussed audiences knew he was entirely willing to tacitly disown the film. He didn’t quite say that, but the implication was clear. Fitting, for Elysium seemed exactly like the sub-Ridley Scott piece of blockbuster arch-competence a promising young director would sputter out upon their introduction to the corporate world, a classic example of filmmaking-by-committee and a work whose primary sin was a complete and utter lack of passion or investment from its principles. It seemed like Blomkamp producing his idea of what audiences, and producers, would want more than the film he actually wanted to make. “For his next film”, one could almost hear him hush under his breath every time he spoke, “Blomkamp the passionate South African science fiction juggernaut would return”. 
This new Will Smith star-vehicle that’s much less the rage than it would have been a decade ago really is a mess ain’t it? The bifurcated narrative is a lame, unnecessary gesture, and it curdles away any good-cheer built up by the first half, and the darker, more serious ambitions of the piece fall apart under even minor scrutiny. In particular, the way this con-film has to follow in the long tradition of con-films by making the whole film itself something of a con, and then sort of fails to do anything clever or notable with the film-as-object-of-audience-confusion meta-text, is a drag. It makes a great portion of the second half of Focus fall apart rather instantly, as charismatic as Smith and relative newcomer Margot Robbie can be even in these darker regions of the screenplay. It just feels too clinical, as though it had to have a twist because of course these films have twists rather than because this film in particular needed one, or because it found a particularly worthwhile one. The fact is that the screenplay is a fair mess on paper, and it’s no better on screen in the broad strokes.
Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is in a curious bind, right form its get-go. The appeal of the film is clear: in an age of revisionist blockbusters halfheartedly attempting to find some new slant on a classic story, even a desperately bad one, Branagh’s vision is remarkably old-school and pure. Fair enough; I like a classical story as much as the next person. But classical is not an excuse for lazy, and Cinderella veers so close to being wholly and entirely indifferent that it’s almost a travesty of cinemagic, although nice little touches shine through until the end, keeping the film afloat. As it stands though, Branagh’s vision is cannibalized by the very fact that ought to save it: its insistence on its origins in fable, its classical myth-like quality free of airs that ought to make it devoutly timeless. As it is, the classical quality just barely turns it into a milquetoast Oscar production, and nothing is more boring than a film using old Hollywood styles without any idea how to translate their magic to the screen. 
Oh Ridley Scott. Gladiator it shall be, huh? I suppose, in all honesty, who am I to neglect a director from returning to the well of his most critically and commercially viable film in some time, even if it is something of an insipid, soporific film totally divested in any form of storytelling that didn’t advance the general theme of “look how important I am”. Still, he’s returned to the well quite a bit over the past decade and a half, indiscriminately tossing out a supposed sci-fi “return to form” or a political thriller from time to time in order to paint the facade of variety.
Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is at once the least Baz Luhrmann film to be released in some time and the quintessential Baz Luhrmann film. The latter of these is true for two reasons. Firstly, it is a mess, shot to all hell with a recklessness befitting its title character and pursuing multiple goals simultaneously with no understanding that these goals are somewhat incompatible. Secondly, it doesn’t, not for one second, care that it is a mess. It is a vibrant, passionate film filled with life. So engorged with buoyant energy in fact that it is hard to dislike, for there is a sense that Baz Luhrmann likes his film very much, and his joy seeps through every frame. But directorial passion is not always enough to account for a semi-failure when that passion, however pulsing, is pulling its director in directions that are polar opposites.
Now I get to go off the deep-end! To some extent, if only some, reviewing Rob Zombie’s greatest film thus far, The Devil’s Rejects, is an excuse to discuss Rob Zombie’s work on the whole. Yes he’s schlocky and his films are often messy and chaotic and have no idea what the hell is going on, but boy if they don’t have the damnedest time of their lives doing it. For all his faults, Zombie knows what he wants and isn’t about to see that vision sullied by a production company. He’s impassioned, cock-sure, self-centered, angry, obsessive, and perverse – which happens to sound like a laundry list of features that have composed many (most) of the great directors of the past hundred years. And the most important bit, lest I forget: he absolutely loves movies, and he wants us to know it too.
Ahem…A scientist (Dylan Walsh) with a monkey he has taught to speak via a machine needs to return his money back to Africa and teams u inadvertently with a corporate electronics executive (Laura Linney) who also has to go to Africa in hopes of finding her ex-fiance who may have been killed there by a pack of genetically mutated or hyper-learned gorillas. And Tim Curry wants to go to Africa to from some vaguely mysterious reason, and he helps you fund your trip.
The Long Take 