short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Box (2009, USA)

The more I see of Richard' Kelly's post-Donnie Darko work, the more his first film seems like a fluke. Not that The Box is the hot mess that Southland Tales was (and not that Darko was great genius), but the farther out Box spins, the more it falls apart, as Kelly grasps at straws that just aren't there.

Based on Richard Matheson's "Button, Button" short story, Kelly takes a simple moralistic science fiction thriller and attempts to invest it with both an otherworldly sense of purpose and far too many twists to retain my interest, at least. Once it was clear that we were on Kelly's ground (he scripted as well), I was already bored, spurred on to finish the film partly to see if Cameron Diaz could really keep up her horrid Southern accent for a full two hours, and partly out of a self-defeating impulse to see if Kelly could top the metaphysical nonsense of Southland Tales. (Nope. That may well be an impossible feat.) But similar to Southland (and Darko), Kelly's attempts at deep themes are obvious and heavy-handed. Time for him to give up the auteur mantle and bring his visual talent to someone else's script.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009, USA)

It's hard to know what to make of Werner Herzog's The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Is it a send-up of cop films? (Apparently not, as Herzog claims he's never seen one. Though that would actually explain a lot.) Is it a farce? A flat-out comedy? Is Herzog just giving the finger to Abel Ferrara? To paraphrase Nic Cage - what the FUCK is going on here?

So loosely based on the idea of Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (possibly best known as the 1992/3 movie not starring Holly Hunter where audiences were treated to Harvey Keitel's schlong), that it doesn't even seem to exist in quite the same universe (or any universe I'm personally familiar with) as the original film, Herzog's Lieutenant follows bad cop Nicholas Cage through New Orleans as he investigates a multiple homicide, threatens his hooker girlfriend's clients, holds up kids in alleys for drugs, and smokes a lot of crack. There are multiple scenes from a reptile's point of view. An amusing bit featuring an electric shaver, a very large gun, and two 80-year-old women. And Val Kilmer.

From what I can understand of Herzog's interviews about the film - which is not a lot - he intended Lieutenant as a comedy. And it is generally very, very funny, though it's often hard to tell exactly how much of the comedy is actually intentional, not just because Lieutenant is totally dry, but also incredibly uneven. It was shot on a relative shoestring on a tight schedule, which probably accounts for many of the abrupt tonal shifts, along with the fact that Herzog, to my knowledge, has never made a film like this one. And when you look at the scope man's career, that's really saying something. Nice going, Werner. Try a little more lizard-cam next time.

The Frighteners (1996, New Zealand/USA)

For one reason or another, I feel like I've been reading a fair amount about The Frighteners and how charming it is (I think someone over at the A.V. Club is a big fan). Liking Peter Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings work, I figured I'd check it out. And . . . meh. I'm sure that nearly fifteen years ago, this particular brand of horror-comedy was pretty fresh, but I didn't find too much to recommend The Frighteners beyond a mildly entertaining movie that would have done itself a service to push the horror or the comedy (or both) a little harder. One exception, however - Re-Animator's Jeffrey Combs as a batshit insane FBI agent with the unfortunate assignment of covering any and all paranormal and cult-related cases. Combs is ridiculous, bug-eyed, muttering and screaming in equal measures. From entrance on, he steals the show, and there's no one in the cast - especially not Michael J. Fox - who can possibly stand up to him. He chews scenery like his last name is Pacino, making an otherwise pretty unremarkable movie worth watching.