MOVIE TRAILER: Holy Shit This Is Awesome

Okay, that's not actually the name of the movie. It's actually called The Raid. Here is the official description:

Deep in the heart of Jakarta’s slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world’s most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it. But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building’s lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city’s worst to survive their mission. Starring Indonesian martial arts sensation Iko Uwais.

MOVIE REVIEW: Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is based on the 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It tells the story of three young people -- Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy -- who grow up together at a boarding school called Hailsham House in the English countryside. They have no families, nor do they have any exposure to the outside world. They are clones, bred for a single purpose: to provide organs to extend the lives of the natural-born population. As a result, they themselves live haplessly short lives, few of them living past their mid-twenties.

While it has a decidedly sci-fi slant to its premise, Never Let Me Go functions as a character study as much as a dystopian cautionary tale. As adults, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are beautifully embodied by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield respectively. Each character is unique in the way in which they deal with their lot in life. And it is a great credit to the actors that each one is relatable.

Kathy, our protagonist, reminds us of ourselves in many ways: she makes the best of her life, even as she can't always make sense of it. We follow her through all stages of her life as she tries to learn herself and unfurl the mysteries of those around her, Ruth and Tommy in particular. Her problems, while they are undeniably fantastic compared to our own, and magnified due to the abbreviated nature of her life, resonate with us because we have felt all of the same feelings.

Ruth makes for a very interesting foil to Kathy. They have many of the same questions, and many of the same hopes and dreams, but they carry out their lives in very different ways. Ruth gives into that urge which we all have that pushes us to forsake others and only look after our own happiness. Much like the society in the story, which cares not for the organ "donors," Ruth decides early on that she must wrap herself in herself if she is to achieve happiness and avoid suffering, which in her case is the suffering that comes with being alone. That all-too-familiar fear of being alone is something that we all live with and must resist, as it tempts us to be ungrateful for the many good things in our lives and leads us down a path to disaster, as the film shows.

In my opinion, Keira Knightley gives the strongest performance in the film. Ruth is a far cry from her usual roles: we are used to rooting for Ms. Knightley, but Ruth is a far more polarizing character. Ms. Knightley brings to Ruth a convincing air of superiority that helps us understand why Kathy is envious of her, and she is equally effective in the scenes where Ruth's facade is dropped. In these moments, Ruth's desperation is truly unnerving. Additionally, Ruth's third "donation" is one of the most haunting scenes of the entire film. The way the doctors handle her and the other donors like livestock makes for some disturbing imagery, and makes us consider how cold we can be if permitted.

Tommy is an awkward but relentlessly cheerful young man who prides himself on being a good donor. But it is through his story that we most clearly perceive the movie's message about the importance of living life to the fullest. The movie deals openly with our ability to ignore injustice, and Tommy's character arc deals with the other side of that coin: our propensity to create hopes and believe hearsay if it will distract us from the meanness of our fate. However, when we distract ourselves from reality we blunt our ability to live the type of life that will truly make us happy. As he sees the end of his life rapidly approaching, Tommy is filled with emotion and screams out in agony. He finally unleashes his rage about his fate, and we can venture a guess that he is also railing against his own role in limiting the amount and quality of his time with those whom he loves.

The message of the movie is neatly embodied in its title. The film implores its audience to hold on to the things and the people they love in the limited time they have. The message is passed on through the performances, and subtly helped along by a sharp score from Academy Award winner Rachel Portman. Additionally, some of the cinematography (especially later in the film) is breathtaking, a fact which -- given that director Mark Romanek cut his teeth in the world of music videos -- is unsurprising but no less pleasant as a result.

All of our lives are precious, and all of our lives must end. To deny the beauty of another's life imperils one's own -- not in the literal sense, but in the more important sense that it removes from our lives so much richness and introduces indelible impurities that render them less worthy of being lived. We all have cowardly urges to try and enhance our lives at the expense of others. But to do so misses the point of life completely, and such attempts are ultimately doomed to fail. As Hailsham's headmistress tells Kathy and Tommy, "There are no deferrals. There never have been." Never Let Me Go is a film that poses the deepest of questions: How are we to spend the limited amount of time that is given to us? It is a film that attempts to show the preciousness, beauty, and ultimately the fragility of this human experience that we all share. And it succeeds. This is what makes it an exceptional film.

I give it a 9 out of 10.

MOVIE REVIEW: Hamlet (1990)

I have been enmeshed in Shakespeare's Hamlet for the better part of a month now, as my teacher and I are working through a unit on the play in our 12th grade English class. This makes about four times I have read the play, and one time I've seen it performed (that one time being when I watched a filmed stage production starring Kevin Kline). When one watches or reads a play that many times, faults that weren't initially apparent inevitably reveal themselves. All one can hope for is that in those multiple experiences with the play, the beauty of the its triumphs will grow exponentially and thereby overshadow its shortcomings. Hamlet is a play that accomplishes this, and so I don't hesitate to call it a magnificent work.

However, my experience with Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film was much more limited until recently. I had seen clips of it, and I knew that it starred Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, and Helena Bonham Carter. But it wasn't until my teacher told me she was going to show it to our class that I decided to sit down and watch the entire film. In brief, I was disappointed.

Mel Gibson as the title character in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet

The main source of my disappointment is the casting of Mel Gibson as Hamlet. I feel Mel Gibson is a world-class actor. He is very competent in both comedy and drama: an achievement not many actors can claim. But in my humble opinion he is not the right actor to play Hamlet. His masculinity and Australian gruffness do not work in his favor. Those qualities make it very hard for me to accept him as a pensive, introspective royal with a tragic tendency to delay action. And while I think it's wonderful for actors to try new types of roles, the reality is if they do so, they must really disappear into the role. Mel Gibson does not disappear into Hamlet. In fact, it is one of his lesser performances. Until I saw him in this role, I didn't notice his trademark "heavy breathing occasionally interrupted by exasperated dry swallows" acting technique (but by the end of the movie, it was all I could think about every time he was on screen). Aside from a slight British accent, this is Mel Gibson, doing the movie star thing and playing himself.

Truthfully, he is very good in some scenes, most notably the climatic scene with Gertrude (set in her bedroom). But on the whole, I prefer a somewhat more effeminate actor for my Hamlet. And I prefer a more masculine actor for my Laertes. Nathaniel Parker plays the part in this version of the story, and he comes across as pretty unintimidating. One of the main purposes of the character of Laertes is to serve as a foil for Hamlet, and to demonstrate through his decisive action how pathetic Hamlet really is. When you take a pasty Brit with long hair and a high voice and you put him up against a bearded Mel Gibson, that dynamic is pretty much destroyed.

I was also annoyed by the way some of Hamlet's lines were moved around. Most notably, the "Get thee to a nunnery" lines have been divided into two distinct parts. In the film, Hamlet says part of it to Ophelia when they meet in the castle, and the remainder later on after the play. I can't really see why Zeffirelli does this; it serves only to irritate those who know the play well enough to detect the change. The "To be or not to be" soliloquy was also moved so that Hamlet gives it after the aforementioned meeting with Ophelia, as opposed to before. This change bothered me less than the others because I saw a certain logic to it: in the play the soliloquy comes before he realizes Ophelia has agreed to spy on him, whereas in the film it comes after. Having Hamlet contemplate suicide after he has been betrayed by everyone, including Ophelia, makes a certain amount of sense.

One thing Zeffirelli gets absolutely right is the casting of the supporting roles. It should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen any of her other performances that Helena Bonham Carter is great as Ophelia, particularly in the scenes after she has gone mad. Her performance in those scenes evokes a perfect mixture of creepiness and pity. Glenn Close is also very good in the part of Gertrude. I was especially delighted with the moment when she realizes she's been poisoned. You can see her face change as she goes through a series of shocking realizations: that she's been poisoned, that she wasn't poisoned by just anybody but by her husband, that he was also trying to poison her son, and that he was the one who had poisoned her first husband. It sound silly in writing, but it looks great on film. Alan Bates turns in a very capable performance as Claudius, particularly in the later scenes where Claudius and Laertes plot against Hamlet. He is super slimy and just evil -- the serpentine side of his character is on full display. I also have to single out Paul Scofield, who plays the ghost of King Hamlet, for special praise. He brings so many things to his few scenes: a palpable suffering, a deeply-felt sense of longing, a quiet rage, and a truly otherworldly aura. And thorough it all, he manages to be both frightening and sympathetic.

Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia

Additionally, the sets and the costumes are extraordinarily beautiful. The movie just looks fantastic, and for a fan of the play it's a thrill to see the story brought to life like this. I honestly could not tell if they were on set or on location sometimes (Scotland and England stand in for Denmark, and I hope for the sake of the Danish people that their countryside is half as breathtaking).

But on the whole, the movie suffers from the abridgement and reduced running time. Characters don't have enough time to develop, and key subplots are dropped. When one reads the play, Hamlet's inaction is positively agonizing. But when the play is reduced by half its length, it doesn't have quite the same effect. His inaction is less pronounced, and his rashness is more apparent. His killing of Polonius and his appearance at Ophelia's funeral are much more upsetting here than the reading of the play because we don't know Hamlet's mind half as well. Some might welcome the chance to judge Hamlet purely by his actions, but I've always felt that the great strength of the play was the way in which the audience was able to explore the mind of the protagonist -- a mind more fully developed than those of most real persons we meet -- and then struggle with the task of passing judgment on him.

I would still recommend this movie to fans of the play, if only because of the costume and set design (both Oscar-nominated). But it is not a great adaptation of the play. I give it a 7 out of 10.

MOVIE REVIEW: Hobo with a Shotgun

So yesterday, I watched Hobo with a Shotgun.

If you're not familiar with this movie, I don't know if I can impress upon you how absurd it is. But if you can imagine the hyper-violence and grindhouse nostalgia of Tarantino, combined with the disorientation and paranoia of Terry Gilliam, topped off with just a dash of the wanton silliness and cult appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, you are on your way to getting a sense of what Hobo with a Shotgun has in store.

The clearest comparison is to Machete, another "intentional b-movie" that evolved from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse project. However, I found Hobo to be much more enjoyable than Machete.

But the point is that this is a particular type of movie, and it's going to get drastically different reactions from different people. This is the type of movie where people are murdered with ice skates, and a pedophile dressed as Santa Claus roams the streets looking for victims. The world of Hobo with a Shotgun is a twisted version of our own -- a dystopia where there are no concepts of decency or right and wrong. This world is ruled over by a gangster named The Drake. Now it's never explained who The Drake is, or exactly how he came to power. All we know is that he's a big bully who rules through fear, and that's all we need to know to make it clear that the city is in need of a hero to stand up to him and his two sons, Slick and Ivan.

All of the performances in the film are actually quite good, but I have to say that Gregory Smith and Nick Bateman are especially good in the roles of Slick and Ivan. When your role is essentially to play a sociopathic version of Biff from Back to the Future (complete with Harrington jacket), you basically just have to bring a lot of enthusiasm and have fun with the part, which both Smith and Bateman do. Without giving away any of their crazy antics, I will say that they are unbelievably sadistic and completely irredeemable, and I enjoyed every minute that they were on screen.

But the movie is built in large part around its tone, which means it's really a director's movie, with the actors merely pitching in a bit to support the vision. Jason Eisener is a first-time director, and he acquits himself admirably. While the movie drags at parts and is ultimately overlong, I found myself unexpectedly refreshed by the way in which it rarely, if ever, winks at the audience or otherwise breaks the fourth wall. While Hobo is intentionally "bad," it never lets on that it's in on the joke. It plays as a glimpse into a bizarre parallel universe, and whatever laughs it earns derive from absurd characters being themselves.

And that's really the main question you need to ask yourself if you are considering seeing this film: Does this sound like a world you want a peek into? If you think it might be, I would recommend Hobo with a Shotgun. It lives up to the absurdity of its title and then some. I give it a 7.5 (out of 10).

MOVIE REVIEW: Ridicule

The second French film I watched this weekend was Ridicule, which won the 1996 Best Film award at the Cesars (French Oscars). I don't mind saying right up front that I thought it was great.

The protagonist of the film is the Marquis de Malavoy, a nobleman from a rural area of France who comes to Versailles and lives at the court of Louis XVI. His purpose at court is to get funding for his plan to drain the swamps on his family's lands, which he learns will require the King's approval. See, de Malavoy is a good noble, and swamps have a tendency to breed disease, which is killing his peasants.

But the real meat of the film is its depiction of court life, which I found to be quite unique. While we get the standard dose of conspiracy and political maneuvering, Ridicule makes a point of emphasizing the shallowness, hypocrisy, and asininity that pervaded Versailles in the years leading up to the French Revolution.

In the film, these qualities are embodied by L'Abbe (Abbott) de Vilecourt and his lover, Madame de Blayac (a wealthy widow), expertly played by Bernard Giraudeau and Fanny Ardant, respectively. They have risen to the top of the heap at Versailles due primarily to their eloquence and wit, which, as de Malavoy learns, are essential if one seeks to curry favor with influential nobles and, ultimately, King Louis himself.

Upon his arrival at court, de Malavoy is taken in by de Bellegarde, an older nobleman who teaches him the ways of Versailles. Never laugh at your own jokes, he explains, and when you laugh at others' jokes, you must keep your mouth closed (after all, laughing with your mouth open is so vulgar). Failing to come up with a retort after a witty remark at your expense is the fast-track to court purgatory. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to demonstrate your wit ("l'esprit") with a few well-chosen jabs at the expense of your fellow nobles, and you can quickly become the talk of Versailles and ultimately gain the King's ear.

The performances in Ridicule are excellent, and the very best comes from Mr. Giraudeau as the Abbott. He manages to create something very unique with the character, something I can only describe as a well-rounded caricature. And, despite being the embodiment of all that was wrong with the French nobility in late 18th-century France, he manages to pull off being strangely likeable and even sympathetic at times. His best scene in the movie is without a doubt his sermon to the nobles (including King Louis) in which he puts forth his proof for the existence of God. He gives his sermon with an unusual amount of gusto and dripping with adoration for himself and -- as much as you will want to be disgusted by him -- you will have a big, goofy smile on your face as you watch.

The actors are helped along by the amazing costumes and sets in the film, which looks like it was actually filmed at Versailles (I haven't been able to confirm this). As the film progresses, and de Malavoy works his way into the most exclusive circles, his wardrobe becomes increasingly intricate and ostentatious.

If I were so inclined, I could use this as a jumping-off point to seriously criticize the film. For, even as it excoriates the excess and myopia of the court of Louis XVI, the film is so damn pretty and fun to watch that its underlying message of conscience and sobriety can sometimes get lost. This is most apparent at the ending of the film, which I won't spoil except to say that it is quite abrupt, and you can almost sense the filmmakers rushing to get back to that core message.

But even taking that into consideration, I give Ridicule an 8.5 (out of 10).

MOVIE REVIEW: Tell No One

I've been interested in French cinema since I studied French in grade school. At every level of my schooling, but particularly in high school, my teachers made a point of showing us French films. We watched classics such as Le Ballon Rouge, as well as more recent films such as La Reine Margot, Colonel Chabert, and Chocolat (not the Juliette Binoche/Johnny Depp movie, although I love that film).

French movies have an interesting sensibility. They don't always have the obvious "set 'em up and knock 'em down" feel of American films. They seem overall less concerned with what you think of them, sometimes to the point that American audiences might find them strange or argue that they are badly-made. In contrast, American films have a tendency to feel very polished (even the mediocre ones). You can tell you are watching something that a lot of people (i.e., producers, actors, director, studio) have a stake in.

The tendency of French films to be a bit more naturalistic allows me to lose myself in the story a bit more. This is complemented by the fact that I generally don't know any of the actors. Of course as I watch more French movies this will be the case less and less often, but even if I recognize certain actors (e.g. Gerard Depardieu, Vincent Perez) chances are they haven't been overexposed to the point that I know how many children they have, what religion they practice, etc. In this way, it's almost like seeing a play.

This weekend I watched two French films. The first one I'd like to discuss is Tell No One.

Tell No One is a thriller in the vein of State of Play or The Fugitive. It tells the story of a pediatrician named Alexandre Beck whose life is thrown into chaos eight years after the murder of his wife. When the police discover new evidence that implicates him in the murder, he launches his own investigation in order to clear his name and sort out what really happened on the night of his wife's death.

Full disclosure: I'm not a big fan of thrillers generally speaking. They usually feature characters fighting back against the system in some way and taking the law into their own hands, and those things don't really fit in with my worldview, which dictates that if the police want to frame you, you're fucked. That being said, I would say Tell No One is an above-average thriller. (I liked it about as much as the aforementioned State of Play.)

Some positives: Francois Cluzet, the actor who plays the main character, is actually quite good. He can seem a bit inexpressive at times, but that comes with the genre (the protagonist in a thriller is typically stuck in "determined" mode for 90% of the film). He makes the important moments work, though. There is a scene in the film when he is being questioned by the police about his relationship with his wife, and they keep insinuating that he beat her. I expect most people would agree that when you see someone wrongfully accused of something in a movie - especially something as heinous as spousal abuse - it creates a very intense and very specific type of tension. The tension builds until the police finally out-and-out ask Alexandre if he beat his wife. Reserved to this point, Cluzet snaps at them defiantly, unleashing all the tension of the scene. It was quite well-done, and one example of how Cluzet makes Alexandre a very sympathetic character.

Another actor that does an admirable job is Andre Dussolier as Alexandre's father-in-law. I single him out mainly because he has a scene where he has to give a lot of exposition and he does a good job with it. (This is another reason I generally dislike thrillers: you can always count on a few scenes of some guy explaining the important stuff that actually happened over here while the audience was busy watching the movie over there. It's like a magician explaining a trick to you immediately after he does it, except there typically isn't any skill involved in the execution of the trick.)

One of the big problems with the film is that we don't see enough of the relationship between Alexandre and his wife. While what happens to her is undeniably horrible, we never feel the impact of Alexandre's loss because we really only get one scene with them. As a result, early on, when the film dangles the prospect that Alexandre's wife may have survived the attempt on her life, it's hard to get emotionally invested in the possibility of a reunion.

Finally, I have to say that the requisite explanation ultimately didn't feel very satisfying. We get a lot about a place at which Alexandre's wife worked that we never see, and a whole lot more of a very minor character fucking everyone's lives up by being a pervert. While shady, manipulative characters are a given in the thriller genre, having everyone in the movie be so deeply affected by a minor character's inability to keep it in his pants eight years prior to the action of the film is kind of lame. It might be different if the film had something to say about this type of depraved person, but it really doesn't.

I read that they are producing an American remake of Tell No One. I will be very interested to see how much they change it, and if it's a success. Based on the original I'd have to say the most important thing is casting; if they get some star power behind it, it will be successful.

For now, I give this version of Tell No One a 7 (out of 10).