short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Midnight Meat Train (2008, USA)

I love movies that deal with the art world. You know what happens all the time in the art world? You get introduced to a big-time gallery owner one day, take the photo she asked for later that night, then the day after you get invited to be a part of a group show. What’s with all these myths about starving artists?

Oh yeah. The gore. There’s lots of it! Faces exploding everywhere! Tons of digital blood! What exactly was I thinking when I decided that The Midnight Meat Train would be an appropriate hangover movie? I watch horror flicks from time to time, but I’m not really into splatter. I blame the Bradley Cooper factor. Why else would I, feeling somewhat nauseous, decide to rent a movie about a guy who takes people apart with instruments typically reserved for livestock?

Then again, I did love Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus, the best damn zombie samurai yakuza film ever. Kitamura’s touch makes Meat Train more stylish than most slasher films, but there’s one major flaw as far as atmosphere is concerned – never, ever try to pass off Los Angeles as New York City. The subway, in particular, looks all wrong. It’s too shiny! And too spacious! Since a big chunk of the film takes place in the subway, and because Cooper’s photographer character is obsessed with capturing “the heart of the city” (I have never once heard someone say something like this about L.A.) I ended up getting a little stuck on the issue. These are apparently the things that I notice when I watch horror movies.

Role Models (2008, USA)

I don’t have much of interest to say about Role Models except that it’s fucking hilarious. While much more conventional in story and structure than David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models still brings epic levels of profanity, child-associated wrongness, and awesome Paul Rudd. Rudd and Seann William Scott are actually a terrific duo – Scott looks like he understands only half of what’s coming out of Rudd’s mouth at any particular point in time, but he brings a goofy sense of boyishness that Rudd is too self-aware to generate. Throw in Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, and a terrific supporting cast that includes the always-amazing Jane Lynch and Ken Leung (I really like what Judd Apatow has done for Leung’s career), as well as an amazing role-playing fantasy-world subplot, and Role Models is guaranteed to become a repeat watch, even if it never quite reaches WHAM levels.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969, USA)

People talk about how bankrupt our culture has become, that these days entertainment panders to the lowest common denominator. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? gives the lie to this idea – it’s always been this way. It’s one of the most brutal films I’ve seen, up there with Day of the Locust for the most nihilistic vision of Depression-era Los Angeles, though Horses casts a wider net, condemning not just the movie industry and the fame machine, but our lust for spectacle.

Horses takes place almost entirely in one location – a Santa Monica dancehall where over one hundred couples take part in a dance marathon for the grand prize of $1,500. The rules are basic – don’t stop moving, ten minute breaks every few hours, and meals on your feet. And when things get boring for the audience, the contest runners (including Gig Young in an Academy Award-winning performance as the marathon’s MC) have a few tricks up their sleeves. One of these tricks, coming about forty-five minutes into the run time, was the point when I realized that Horses was going to be darker than I’d expected. A lot darker. Exposing how disgusting people can be in search of entertainment and money, the film reaches a fever pitch of hysteria as the contestants become increasingly desperate. Like the dance marathon itself, Horses isn’t necessarily pleasant to watch (though the acting is generally top-notch, and the cinematography and editing are terrific), but it’s hard to turn away from.

Brüno (2009, USA)

I was a little surprised, but Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat is actually just as funny. Whether American audiences will embrace it quite as much is another question – I’m pretty sure that most people in the U.S. are more comfortable with their xenophobia than with their homophobia, and Brüno certainly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to outrageous shows of sexuality. (Is there full-frontal male nudity? Yes. A lot of it. And it’s hilarious.) The audience I saw it with was definitely more nervous than hysterical during many sequences.

While I applaud Baron Cohen for making the riskier movie, one of the things I missed in Brüno were the interview sequences. Always a highlight as part of Da Ali G Show, Brüno’s one-on-ones with fashion/celebrity/lifestyle glitterati were expert at exposing their shallowness and the shallowness of our culture in general. More sequences like Bruno’s conference with the idiot charity PR twins would have been awesome, but I don’t think I would have traded them for the amazing Alabama camping sequence, or the accidental attack on God Hates Fags protestors. After a pretty steady fame-oriented opening, Brüno becomes more and more about the character’s sexuality, and the horror and disbelief he elicits from the people he meets in small-town and southern America, culminating in a truly amazing finale. Audiences would likely find Brüno more palatable had he concentrated on Hollywood and Milan, and the box office returns would likely have followed suit, but Baron Cohen’s risks pay off in a film that’s just as audacious and hilarious as its predecessor. (The less said about Ali G Indahouse, the better.)