Gateway Cinephiles

Of Few Days, and Full of Trouble

A Serious Man
2009 (USA)
Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen
Viewed: October 29, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print (Landmark Tivoli Theater)

Is it even conceivably a coincidence that A Serious Man, which draws more candidly from the autobiographical outlines of Ethan and Joel Coen than any of their films to date, is also one of their most desolate and sobering meditations on human suffering?  The film brims with mordant wit and a plethora of grotesque, wretchedly amusing characters, but it doesn’t aspire to be a black comedy-of-errors in the mold of Burn After Reading.  Rather, the Coens have delivered a work of spiritual and mortal terror that manages to be both absurd and disquieting, a much closer relation to Barton Fink and No Country For Old Men than any of the brothers’ screwball pleasures.  In the hands of the Coens, the tribulations of a Jewish professor in 1967 suburbia become the stuff of hoary musings on misfortune, culpability, and the seeming uncaring cruelty of God.  Make no mistake: A Serious Man is a miserable film.  It’s also an exquisite example of the Coens’ unparalleled talent for blending the grim and the droll into a bewitching cinematic gestalt.

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Film Diary: Alien

1979 (UK / USA)
Director: Ridley Scott
Viewed: October 30, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print (Webster University Moore Auditorium)

Film Diary: Manderlay

2005 (Denmark)
Director: Lars von Trier
Viewed: October 28, 2009
Format: DVD - IFC (2006)

Things That Go Bump

Paranormal Activity
2007 (USA)
Director: Oren Peli
Viewed: October 27, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print (St. Louis Cinemas Moolah Theater)

Ever since The Blair Witch Project slithered into theaters in 1999 to become the most profitable movie of all time, audiences have been periodically subjected to horror films that attempt to replicate various aspects of its formula, evidently with the hope that this will lead to a similar windfall.  The staggering hype and backlash that attended Blair Witch’s somewhat unexpected success—not to mention a subsequent decade of dispiriting decline in horror cinema—seem to have obscured an obvious truth.  Namely, that much of the attention surrounding Blair Witch was driven by its astonishingly slick marketing campaign, one that gave viewers the impression that this fictional film was comprised of authentic found footage. The problem, of course, is that the public can theoretically be punked only once, and for this reason alone Blair Witch would seem to be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of phenomenon.  Granted, there have been some satisfyingly scary attempts to rebottle the lightning, most notably the Spanish zombie thriller [•REC], but there seems to be little likelihood of a Blair Witch successor emerging when the original so ruthlessly exploited (and demolished) the credulity of contemporary horror film-goers.

Nonetheless, this hasn’t deterred enthusiastic boosters from bestowing that dubious honorific on a little ghost story entitled Paranormal Activity.  And I do mean little.  Writer-director Oren Peli, shooting the entire film in his own house on a notoriously anemic budget of $15,000, has doubled-down on the notion that a horror movie doesn’t have to be grandiose, polished, or even artful to be frightening (and I mean that in the best possible way).  With a video camera, two actors, one location, and a few post-production flourishes, Peli delivers a post-Blair Witch take on the familiar haunted house scenario. With these limitations in mind, I’m inclined to be generous when assessing a film like Paranormal Activity, which is essentially a horror movie at its most elemental, a contraption designed to evoke terror.  Only one question truly matters: Is it scary?  The honest answer is, “Not really, but…”

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These Rules Are For Your Own Safety, People

Zombieland
USA (2009)
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Viewed: October 8, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print

In the wake of Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, a film that managed to be both achingly funny and rather vicious, it was probably a safe bet that another genuinely imaginative zombie horror-comedy would be a long time coming.   Happily, a scant five years later, Ruben Fleischer, in his assured feature film debut, delivers a zombie film that should make any aficionado of the genre stand up and whoop with delight.  There’s nothing particularly artful about Zombieland, which is exactly the creature it appears to be, no more, no less: the comical tale of a group of ragtag survivors at the end of world.  Is it unambitious?  Certainly.  It’s also damn funny and even occasionally exhilarating, if only as an example of film-makers uncovering fresh meat in a horror scenario nearly drained of its power by direct-to-DVD mediocrity.  Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wet their beaks in television, don’t go looking for a new wrinkle to add to the zombie film’s now well-establish parameters.  Instead, they change the angle of their approach, throwing their sympathy behind the misfits for whom life in undead America isn’t an especially difficult adjustment.

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Late to the Game: Julia

2008 (France / USA)
Director: Erick Zonca
Viewed: October 11, 2009
Format: DVD – Magnolia (2009)

Erick Zonca’s Julia confirms that Tilda Swinton is an actor of the finest stripe, a woman who can elevate even a sprawling mess of a thriller into something exceedingly watchable.  Swinton disappears into the skin of the Los Angeles party girl of the title, a prickly, forty-something alcoholic with bottomless reserves of cynicism.  Unemployed and desperate, Julia latches onto a kidnapping scheme so ludicrous it has no chance of success.  However, Zonca and his co-writers seem to recognize as much, in that the plan goes to shit almost instantly.  Thereafter, Julia is a marathon chase film, where things seem to go from bad to worse to completely bollixed.  This cascade of misfortune is due primarily to Julia’s relentless stupidity and cowardice, which admittedly makes it hard to give a damn about her.  The film doesn’t earn its clumsy gestures of sympathy for her or the eventual tenderness between captor and hostage.  Swinton still manages to engage with her stammering vulnerability and undercurrent of ruthless swagger, but the film falters despite her.  The final eighty (!) minutes comprise an aimless, exasperating string of scenes, lacking the necessary emotional propulsion.

Late to the Game: Observe and Report

2009 (USA)
Director: Jody Hill
Viewed: October 7, 2009
Format: DVD – Warner Brothers (2009)

Had it portrayed Seth’s Rogen’s mall security guard, Ronnie Barnhardt, as a mere ridiculed sad-sack with an inflated sense of self-importance, Observe and Report might have been a much more forgettable feature, and also less problematic.  Director Jody Hill and Rogen both deserve audacity points for constructing a pitch-black comedy around a protagonist who is a  violent, racist, megalomaniacal date rapist.  And, indeed, most of the film’s distinctly uneasy laughs work because of Rogen’s fearless embracing of an appalling character, one so repugnant that his cluelessness engenders no sympathy.  Both Hill’s dialog and Rogen’s delivery are brilliant stuff, yet I hesitate to label Observe “entertaining.”  Like Burn After Reading, this is an unpleasant story about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, and it will undoubtedly not be everyone’s cup of tea.  Alas, Hill lacks the Coens’ aesthetic mastery and their nose for cosmic absurdity.  While Observe succeeds as an exhilarating prodding of comedic boundaries, flabbiness creeps into the story as the film wears on, and Ronnie’s erratic demeanor alone can’t energize the proceedings.  Moreover, one is left wondering what Hill’s intentions were, particularly when Observe concludes with the contemptible Ronnie “winning” (in a fashion) and getting the girl.

Quick Review: The Baader-Meinhof Complex (Der Baader Meinhof Komplex)

2008 (Germany)
Director: Uli Edel
Viewed: September 29, 2009
Format: Theatrical Print

Uli Edel’s blood-spattered marathon retelling of the Red Army Faction’s rise and fall succeeds at establishing a fitting mood of social disintegration and open intra-cultural warfare.  Feverishly tearing through two decades of history while piling on endless, brutal setpieces, The Baader-Meinhof Complex foregrounds thrills and atmosphere, while neglecting character and context.  Writer Bernd Eichinger, who scribed the captivating Downfall, at least acknowledges the notion that the RAF was the ugly endpoint of the post-Nazi generation’s recoil from fascism.  The violent radicals depicted in Complex, however, are caricatures of unquenchable rage, not the best proxies for psychological delvings or an exploration of the origins of revolutionary zeal in affluent societies.  What Edel delivers is a relentless film that works primarily as grim entertainment, albeit one that non-Germans may have difficult absorbing, as the historical arcana come fast and furious.  Yet even as a depiction of revolution as process, Complex falls far short of last year’s mesmerizing Che, which was both more artistically daring and more coherent.  While Edel is adept at conjuring the madhouse spirit of the RAF’s murderous glory days, Complex is undemanding globetrotting drama at bottom, a grueling thriller with a dash of chilly Teutonic style.