Rather than try for a slavishly faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book The Fantastic Mr. Fox, director Wes Anderson has opted to reshape it to suit his own distinctive style and themes. The basic premise, that Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) steals food and beverages from three mean and nasty farmers, is the same. However, Anderson has added new characters and plot elements to the tale that give the movie a flavor unmistakably his own. The humor is dry and quirky, and where the book focused mainly on Mr. Fox, the movie puts more emphasis on the titular character’s extended family and friends. The result is far closer to The Royal Tenenbaums than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
To realize his vision, Anderson has used the stop-motion animation process, in which models are painstaking moved and photographed one frame and one fraction of an inch at a time. The same process was used in A Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, but it’s (intentionally) a little more rough around the edges here, recalling such early examples of the technique as the 1933 King Kong and the old George Pal Puppetoons. In this age of digital perfection, it’s kind of refreshing to see such an obviously human-made piece of cinematic magic. Further breathing life into these creations are the voice actors, which in addition to Clooney include Meryl Streep, Eric Chase Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray.
Although fidelity to the source material was clearly not Anderson’s main concern, there’s still more than a little of Dahl’s black humor and borderline misanthropic worldview coursing through the film’s veins. It’s not dour or depressing, but there’s definitely more of an edge to Mr. Fox than you’re likely to find in the average kid flick. Characters get wounded, even die. Humanity is not portrayed in the most favorable light, and the hero of the film is an unrepentant thief.
Of course the question is, is this really a kid’s movie? Like this year’s Where the Wild Things Are, this feels more geared towards adults nostalgic for their childhoods than actual kids. At least it’s more fun than Wild Things, but it still seems a bit subtle for the kiddie crowd. The only complaint I have is that Mr. Fox trots out the same tired “be true to yourself” message that seems to be in every kid’s movie these days in lieu of anything of actual substance. Given the nature of the characters and situations here, that message takes on a slightly more subversive slant than it might in something like Kung Fu Panda, but not by much. Still, this is a visually stunning, smartly written, and highly entertaining film, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist is a beautifully shot, incredibly well acted film that handles its subject about as well as it can be. That subject is the death of a young child, and how that child’s parents try to cope with the tragedy. The process is depicted metaphorically, and includes sex scenes that on their own would have earned the film an NC-17 rating. Eventually things come to a head in a climax of harrowing violence and insanity that the characters must get through in order to get on with their lives.
It’s an extremely powerful film, and despite the tone of the fantastic it employs to tell its story, the raw horror and unpleasantness is undiminished. Much of the credit or blame goes to writer/director Von Trier, but without such committed actors as he has here in Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsborug, it wouldn’t work nearly as well. While I would be shocked to see it happen, both of these actors deserve Oscar nominations for the incredibly difficult work they do here.
Suffice it to say, this is not a movie for those seeking a little light entertainment at the cinema, and it’s easy to see why Antichrist has polarized audiences. This is an uncompromising, unflinching art film that belongs in the halls of movie infamy alongside Passolini’s Salo: 120 Days of Sodom, Godard’s Weekend, and Greenaway’s The Baby of Macon. If I had children of my own, I don’t think I could have handled this movie. And yet, the film is so well done I can’t help but say that I think it’s one of the year’s best. Just don’t ask me to watch it again. 4 out of 4 stars.
Superchrist - Defenders of the Filth (Black Planet)
Defenders of the Filth marks the return of guitarist Hank Bitchlover to the Superchrist fold after a one album hiatus. Nonetheless, it continues the band’s progress away from pure Motorhead worship towards a sound of their own that began on 2007’s Hank-less Headbanger. The influence of Lemmy and company is still apparent, not to mention other classic NWOBHM bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Venom, and Saxon, but you can also bits of punk/garage bands like Turbonegro and The Hellacopters more prominently than in the past. But it ain’t just about the sound, it’s about the songwriting. Every song on here has a hook that will dig deep into your brain. And while speed is king on Defenders, the band isn’t afraid to slow things down, like on the almost-ballad “InfernalCity”.
Vocalist/bassist Christ Black writes some damn fine lyrics, smart and witty but never jokey, all delivered with a voice that sounds like a smoother, more melodic Lemmy. Hank Bitchlover’s leads are a lesson in tasteful lethality, and drummer Ian “The Pit Viper” Sugierski beats the skins like it’s personal. You want stand out tracks? How about all of them? If I had to play favorites, I guess I’d say “Stay Black”, “Peace of Ass”, “Still Not Drunk Enough”, and “Black Skulls”, but this is a rare modern metal/hard rock album that’s truly all killer, no filler. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up pronto from the band’s Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/godblesssuperchrist.
An early scene in A Serious Man, the latest from writers/producers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen, references the paradox of Schroedinger’s cat. It’s an illustration from the field of quantum physics in which there is a cat inside a box that may be either alive or dead, or possibly both simultaneously. According to the illustration, the cat will remain in this indeterminate state until someone actually looks inside the box. In other words, we don’t know what we have until we examine it. Until then, all possibilities remain, but none of them are “real”. That’s a major simplification of a pretty complex idea, but it should do for this review.
The man who provides this illustration is college physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), who doesn’t realize how apt a metaphor it is for his own state of unexamined existence and unrealized potential. That all changes one day when Larry wakes up to find everything he believed to be true is wrong. His wife (Sari Lennick) is leaving him, the only time his son (Aaron Wolf) has any use for him is when the TV antenna on the roof needs adjusting, his daughter (Jessica McManus) is stealing money out of his wallet, and his freeloading brother (Richard Kind) is tying up the bathroom draining his sebaceous cyst and getting into small time trouble with the law.
It’s just as bad at work as it is at home. Larry’s tenure could be in jeopardy due to a series of anonymous letters accusing him of moral turpitude, he’s having trouble with a student trying to bribe him for a better grade, and someone from Columbia House Records keeps calling to collect on the last four selections of the month, which Larry is sure he never ordered. How and why is all this is happening ? Is it bad luck or a curse from God, and what can be done about it? No one, including the rabbis at Larry's synagogue, seems to have any answers. Larry could use a hug, but the only one offering is Sy (Fred Melamed), the man his wife is leaving him for.
That’s an awful lot of misfortune for one man and one film, but this being the Coen Brothers, comedy and tragedy walk hand in hand. Some of the film’s funniest moments are its darkest, proving the old axiom that it’s tragedy when it happens to you, it’s comedy when it happens to someone else. The film gives the audience a lot to think about, including issues of faith, the nature of truth, the power (or lack thereof) of storytelling, and what it’s like to be a middle class Jew living in the suburbs. It probably requires more than one viewing to fully digest, but like most of the Coen Brothers’ works, it also functions as pure entertaining cinema. Each member of the mostly unknown cast is a perfect fit for their role, and the writing and direction are the Coens at their best. No doubt the ending will annoy some, but it’s completely in keeping with the central theme. Two characters are left hanging between life and death. What’s their fate? You’ll have to look inside.
Winchester Myster House, the new album from Austin, TX's Hex Dispensers, is 12 songs of kick ass punk rock minus the mach posturing of hardcore, the whininess of emo, and the syrupy sell-out of MTV mall punk. This bad boy sets its sharp and shiny barbs into your brain and refuses to let go right from the start with “Doomsday Romantic”. “O-B-I-T” and “It’s Your Funeral, Minion” bury you six feet under, before “Get Your Doppelganger On” digs you up just to insult your fashion sense. I’d go through and single out every song on here for praise, but I’m running short on clever metaphors. As far as what this sounds like, The Hex Dispensers combine the punk rock rawness of The Ramones with the weirdness of Devo, with just a touch of sixties garage rock and eighties alternative by way of The Pixies and Sonic Youth. Think The Spits if they were better musicians and a little more intellectual in their lyric writing. The whole thing is capped off by a killer cover of Devo’s “Gates of Steel” that gives the song that forgotten gem the hard rocking edge it always cried out for. I don’t like much of what passes for punk rock these days, but I really love this album.
Here’s a clip of The Hex Dispensers performing “Doomsday Romantic” and “O-B-I-T” live. Sound's a bit muddy, but not too bad for what is essentially a bootleg recording:
In the eighties, few things were more awesome than ninjas. In the past, the only people who owned martial arts weaponry were, you know, people who actually practiced martial arts. In the eighties, however, every redneck who had seen one too many Chuck Norris movies had his own pair of nunchakus. And I’m not gonna’ lie, I would have loved to own a couple of throwing stars or a ninja sword. But I was a kid at the time. I had to make due with toys, like the eighties version of G.I. Joe. And who was the coolest Joe? Snake Eyes, a ninja. A ninja who used an uzi, but a ninja nonetheless.
Why were ninjas so big in the eighties? The credit belongs largely to one man: Sho Kosugi. Sho actually knew ninjitsu, the martial art practiced by ninjas. Beginning with Enter the Ninja (1981), he starred in a series of popular ninja films that did big business for much of the decade. Although Enter the Ninja is not devoid of charm, it’s basically a standard-issue eighties action movie. It’s competently made, has a dumb but passable storyline, and boasts some decent action sequences. Still, this is the movie that made it cool to run around in your pajamas while carrying a sword.
Enter was a hit, and Sho followed it up with Revenge of the Ninja in 1983. In 1984, the ninja formula was expanded to include elements of horror and Flashdance (which is kind of redundant, I guess) in Ninja III: The Domination. Each film was progressively cheaper and sillier, culminating in one of the best bad films ever made: 9 Deaths of the Ninja (1985). From the opening credits sequence, where three girls in skimpy outfits aerobiscise to a terrible eighties pop song while Kosugi swings his sword around, it’s clear that this is something special. Kosugi is his usual bad-ass ninja self, but Blackie Dammett (father of Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Keidis) steals the movie as the wheelchair-bound German drug dealer “Alby the Cruel”. Alby’s gang consists of a band of lesbian mercenaries and Arab terrorist Rahji (Sonny Erang), who proves how evil he is by popping some kids’ balloons.
Sho kept appearing in films through the end of the eighties, notably Pray For Death (1985), Rage of Honor (1987), and the Rutger Hauer vehicle Blind Justice (1989), but by the nineties his star had faded. For whatever reason, ninjas just weren’t cool anymore, at least in Hollywood. Sho made a couple more movies in Japan, but for the most part he faded into the darkness as only a ninja can. Flash forward to November 2009, and we find the Wachowski Brothers and director John McTeague aiming to make ninjas cool again with their new film Ninja Assassin. I still had my doubts, but then I took a look at the cast. Sho Kosugi has returned.
The amazing opening credits sequence from 9 Deaths of the Ninja:
2012 is completely ridiculous trash that turns massive destruction and the deaths of billions of people (including, by implication, just about everyone watching it) into fodder for entertainment. Of course the disaster movies of the seventies did the same thing on a smaller scale, and who can resist The Towering Inferno or Earthquake? Like those films, this is a mix of carnage, melodrama and an all-star cast of actors familiar enough to put butts in seats, but not so big that their salaries would cut into the special effects budget.
Heading up the cast is John Cusack as a regular schmoe trying to keep his family, including ex-wife Amanda Peet, alive in the face of Armageddon. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was excellent in last year’s Redbelt, a film nobody saw, will probably do a lot more for his career here. He plays the heroic scientist who has to break the news to President Danny Glover that he’s not going to get a second term. There are also supporting roles for Thandie Newton as Glover’s daughter and Oliver Platt as the chief of staff, and Woody Harrelson gets a small but memorable role as a conspiracy nut who turns out to be right.
Of course the real stars of 2012 are the special effects team. If you’ve seen the trailer for this movie, then you know how over the top the action scenes are. And trust me, the trailer doesn’t show it all. If the movie were nothing but these action scenes, it would get tiresome pretty quickly. Thankfully, triple threat writer/director/producer Roland Emerich shows some understanding of pacing, if not subtlety. He lets the movie slow down for little character moments, which for the most part are just as silly and unbelievable as the action scenes, but appreciated nonetheless.
Of course this is nothing new for Emerich, who so memorably destroyed the White House in Independence Day and gets the chance to try and top himself here. I haven’t much cared for Emerich’s films in the past, but whether I’ve just been worn down by so many truly awful movies of late, or Emerich has actually gotten better, I have to admit I found myself enjoying 2012. No, this is not a great movie that will affect you in any meaningful way. The dialog is hokey. The direction is hamfisted and manipulative. I could find a thousand ways to pick this movie apart. But you know what? It wouldn’t matter, because it’s still a damn entertaining slice of Hollywood cheese. Call it 3 out of 4 stars.
Based on Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare at Goats and his BBC documentary The Crazy Rulers of the World, this movie tells how the United States military, demoralized by Viet Nam, set out to create a new kind of soldier. Turning to new age philosophy and the paranormal for inspiration, a special unit code-named Project Jedi was created. The unit was involved in a great deal of goofiness such as trying to walk through walls and stop the hearts of farm animals with the power of the mind. It also led to the creation of a fairly nasty hand-to-hand combat weapon called "The Predator" that looks like a harmless piece of plastic, and most infamously to the use of music like the Barney theme in the torture and interrogation of Iraqi prisoners of war.
These facts are weaved into a fictional story in which reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) inadvertently runs into “Jedi” Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) while on assignment in Iraq. Cassady allows Wilton to accompany him on what he claims is a secret mission. As the two men get in and out of one scrape after another, Lyn tells Bob how the Jedi unit was started by Viet Nam veteran turned new age space cadet Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Cassady was the most promising member of the unit, much to the chagrin of fellow “super soldier” Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). Eventually, Lyn reaches his objective and we learn the final fate of Project Jedi.
The film begins with the statement "more of this is true than you would believe". Unfortunately, more has been changed or omitted than I would have liked. Like, for starters, an actual point of view. The movie tries to have it both ways, showing Lyn and his fellow Jedi as delusional buffoons one moment, and as the real deal the next. It also tries to whitewash some of its characters by blaming the more controversial techniques that came out of the project on breakaway members who had turned to “the dark side”. This timidity dulls the film’s efforts at satire considerably, turning what should have been a biting indictment of military madness into a light-hearted romp. As far as light-hearted romps go, it's an entertaining one, and there's no doubt the cast is great. So check out the movie for a few laughs, and then check out Ronson's book or documentary for a few more laughs as well as some disturbing truths.
After the death of vocalist Layne Staley and the passing of 14 years, I never expected to hear a new Alice In Chains album. When I heard that there was one, I really never expected it to be this good. But Black Gives Way to Blue is every bit the sludge metal masterpiece that Dirt, the group’s previous high water mark, was. Like AC/DC with Back In Black, this album takes tragedy and turns it into amazing music. New co-vocalist/guitarist William DuVall may not be a dead ringer for Staley, but he has a strong voice of his own, and when it blends with guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s voice, the resulting harmonies are unmistakably Alice In Chains.
The album opens with “All Secrets Known”, a powerful declaration of rebirth that addresses the trials the band has been through while looking to the future. “Check My Brain” hits hard with an ugly but catchy riff and darkly melodic chorus, while “Your Decision” shows the band’s equally compelling acoustic side with Cantrell taking the lead vocal. In an album full of great songs, the stand-out track is the seven minute epic dirge “A Looking In View”, which effortlessly shows what inferior imitations bands like Godsmack are. It’s nice to have the real thing back. If you’re still skeptical, check out the video for “A Looking In View” on Youtube. Embedding was disabled, so you'll just have to click through to the page.
Slayer capped off their first ten years of existence, a period that saw them release one classic album after another, with the aptly titled live album Decade of Aggression. So how do you follow a decade of aggression? If you’re Slayer, apparently with nearly two decades of laziness and mediocrity. Oh, and for good measure, fire your drummer even though he’s the best drummer in metal (that would be the amazing Dave Lombardo for those not in the know).
Sorry folks, but it’s true. Between 1991 and 2006, a 15 year span, Slayer released a mere 5 studio albums, and one of those was mostly cover tunes. If it was a case of quality over quantity I wouldn’t mind, but except for a song or two per album, most of Slayer’s output in the nineties and early 21st century has been less than stellar. Even the return of Lombardo for 2006’s Christ Illusion didn’t help.
Thankfully, Slayer seems to have finally gotten their shit together again on World Painted Blood. It’s not like they made any drastic changes to the formula. What we’ve got here are 11 songs about serial killers, war, and how much religion sucks. The music sounds like classic Slayer, occasionally with a touch of modern influence. For the most part this band isn’t interested in breaking any new ground, though, and that’s fine. What matters is that this is the most consistently killer batch of songs Slayer has been able to put together in years.
World Painted Blood starts in strong fashion with its title track, a classic Slayer number with a particularly catchy guitar hook. Lead single “Psycopathy Red” sounds like it would have been right at home on Reign In Blood, while the follow up single “Hate Worldwide” actually has a guitar hook that reminds me of Slayer’s “classic metal” sounding first album Show No Mercy. “Playing With Dolls” is a creepy, atmospheric track in the vein of Seasons in the Abyss’ “Dead Skin Mask”, and almost as effective. “Americon” finds Slayer at their most modern sounding, not to mention surprisingly political, but not to the point that they lose their identity. “Unit 731” and “Human Strain” are kind of bland and typical, but those are the only songs on this album that feel like filler to me. I don’t think anyone expects Slayer to be releasing the best album of their careers almost 3 decades in, and they haven’t. But they have managed to put together a solid, respectable album that compares favorably with their classic material, and that’s all any fan can really ask for.
