Friday the 13th

mrs. voorhees
Originally uploaded by hypostylin

If you don’t want to know the end of Friday the 13th don’t read this. I cannot discuss this film without discussing the end in detail. It wouldn’t do the film justice any other way.

I didn’t have the typical lack of knowledge most people do going into Friday the 13th; I knew the ending. How? I’ve seen Scream. Anyone that has seen the first 15 minutes of Scream knows the real ending of the film – the killer asks Drew Barrymore who the killer in Friday the 13th is and she gets is wrong. Thus she dies. From that moment on I knew that Jason was not the killer in the first Friday the 13th, but I didn’t understand. Everyone knows Jason is the killer in the hockey mask that haunts those films.

However, this knowledge did not turn me off of the film. It is the ending of Friday the 13th that makes the film worth watching – the ending is one of the most unique in the genre.

On the whole Friday the 13th is your average slasher film, I would argue that it is the start of the contemporary slasher film. A bunch of kids (including a young Kevin Bacon) go to be counselors at a quaint camp with a bloody history and in one night are picked off one by one. There are some really good scares and jump moments, but for the most part the body of the movie is really standard. The kids flirt, do drugs, have intercourse, and get slowly picked off one by one.

To tell the truth, with the exception of Kevin Bacon’s death I pretty much found the movie kind of boring – but then came the ending.

In the end Alice is the only counselor left alive and she sees a jeep drive up and Mrs. Voorhees gets out and offers to help Alice…but as it turns out Mrs. Voorhees used to work at the camp, and her son Jason drowned there. She blames the counselors for not watching him so in 1958 (the year after Jason drowned) she killed two of the counselors and the camp closed. She was never caught and when Mrs. Voorhees found out Camp Crystal Lake was reopening she decided to go after the counselors again.

The ending makes the movie. If it weren’t for the twist that the killer is not some typical psycho in a costume the first Friday the 13th would be a mere blip on the radar; however, Mrs. Voorhees, the vengeful mother makes the film unique and more than memorable.

There is a remake in the works for Friday the 13th and rumor has it that Mrs. Voorhees is out and Jason is in. I haven’t seen the second film yet to know how Jason works into the plot (because he drowned in 1958), but I heavily protest Mrs. Voorhees being totally taken out of the remake – she makes the film and makes it something worth seeing.

Director: Sean S. Cunningham
Writer: Victor Miller
Mrs. Voorhees: Betsy Palmer
Alice: Adrienne King
Marcie: Jeannine Taylor
Annie: Robbi Morgan
Jack: Kevin Bacon
Bill: Harry Crosby
Brenda: Laurie Bartram
Ned: Mark Nelson
Steve Christy: Peter Brouwer
Crazy Ralph: Walt Gorney
Barry: Willie Adams
Claudette: Debra S. Hayes
Trudy: Dorothy Kobs
Sandy: Sally Anne Golden
Jason: Ari Lehman

Pamela Voorhees: Did you know a young boy drowned the year before those two others were killed? The counselors weren't paying any attention... They were making love while that young boy drowned. His name was Jason. I was working the day that it happened. Preparing meals... here. I was the cook. Jason should've been watched. Every minute. He was... He wasn't a very good swimmer. We can go now... dear.

Coming Soon: a little behind

Life is catching up with me right now and I am a little behind on my posts. Here's what you have to look forward being reviewed when I catch up.

The Machinist

Many people came into awareness of Christian Bale with Batman, but those of us in the know have been watching his films since before even American Psycho brought him into cult status. The man was in Empire of the Sun - Spielberg knows what he’s doing. Anyway, one of the astonishing things about Bale being in Batman Begins was what he did before. He lost about 60+ pounds to play the lead in The Machinist.

The Machinist is the story of Trevor Reznik; he’s a man that is so thin he resembles a human skeleton and he has been suffering from insomnia for at least a year. Day to day he goes to work in some sort of factory as a machine operator, visits Claire the prostitute with a heart of gold, and Marie the waitress every night for a cup of coffee. Though his weight is continually decreasing Trevor professes to be fine until he begins to see Ivan, a new arch welder at the plant. Once Ivan appears things begin to get bad for Trevor, accidents follow him and he soon believes his is part of a grand conspiracy but he cannot figure out the reason why all of this is happening.

I have a very large film vocabulary, as such I figured out part of the twist in The Machinist very early into the film; however, I was so interested in what the director was doing and the characters I did not turn off the film and by doing so I discovered that the film more than exceeded my expectations. While to me part of the twist was predictable, there was a larger part of the story that was part of the twist as well and I could not have predicted that. The ending of The Machinist takes the film from being well done but typical fare to a beautiful film that deviates from the standard. I know this is vague as I refuse to reveal the twist to you, but you will just have to trust me and see it for yourself.

I don’t feel the need to point out how much I adore Christian Bale as an actor again (because you do all already know that), but I do need to point out that he has been cited as the basic reason this movie got made. Scott Kosar has been quoted as saying he didn’t think the film would ever be made because he didn’t think they would ever find an actor that was willing to lose enough weight to be Trevor and there was no way the film would work without the weight element. Bale is known for throwing himself at a role, and he more than proved it by deciding to tackle the character of Trevor Reznik.

As a director one of the things I love the most about The Machinist were the visuals of the film. Not only was the film shot beautifully but the color palette was just spectacularly cool and beautiful. The entire film feels like it was died blue and this ads to the few punches of color that director Brad Anderson chooses to throw in there, and to the detachment of Trevor’s world from the rest of humanity.

This movie is gorgeous in all senses of the word but it is not for the faint of heart; on some level this film is also disturbing. However, all of this is rectified by the fact that this is a film that has a meaning to it and a deeper point than to just “entertain” the audience for an hour and a half.

Director: Brad Anderson
Writer: Steve Kosar
Trevor Reznik: Christian Bale
Stevie: Jennifer Jason Leigh
Marie: Aitana Sanchex-Gijon
Ivan: John Sharian
Miller: Michael Ironside
Nicholas: Matthew Romero Moore

Marie: Trevor, is someone chasing you?
Trevor Reznik: Not yet. But they will when they find out who I am.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I know, I know. If a movie has Christian Bale or Robert Downey Jr. I’ll see it, so it’s no surprise that I am reviewing yet another Christian Bale movie. The shocking part is that I didn’t know A Midsummer Night’s Dream even had Christian Bale in it until I was playing around IMDB about a week ago. When I figured that out of course I had to Netflix it. I am sure most people know at least vaguely what the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is. However, Shakespeare is Greek to a lot of people to I might as well sum it up for you.

The play takes place in Athens and revolves around one of the noblemen who is finally getting married, the whole town is rejoicing. A small play company prepares a play for the event starring their best actor Nick Bottom – who is more than a little conceited about himself and his talents. At the same time there is a love triangle between Lysander, Hermia, and Demetrius. Lysander and Hermia are in love but Hermia’s father does not want the couple to be, and since Demetrius is in love with Hermia her father has consented to the marriage of Hermia to Demetrius. The problem of course is that Hermia does not love Demetrius but her friend Helena does love Demetrius and he won’t give her the time of day. Meanwhile, in the forrest surrounding the city the fairies play but Oberon king of the fairies and Titiana his wife fight.

When night falls Lysander & Hermia flee into the woods to escape her forced marriage and are pursued by Demetrius and Helena. Oberon decides to betwitch Titiana to fall in love with a beast (Bottom who is turned into a donkey), but as he doe this he spies Demetrius spurning Helena and decides that she should have the love she deserves; as such he charges Puck with the mission to track down Demetrius and bewitch him to fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia.

In typical Shakespeare fashion this is where the problem occurs. Puck does bewitch the young Athenian man he finds in the forrest but it’s Lysander not Demetrius. Long story short Demetrius and Lysander both end up fighting over Helena and hating Hermia and both women are confused and angry – Helena thinking she is being teased and Hermia thinking Helena has done something to bring this about. All the while Oberon watches as Titania throws herself at a beast.

What I liked about this version was the fanciful world that was created for the night time in the woods. It did feel like it was an enchanted wood, something that a child would believe was infested with fairies and other magical creatures. What I did not like so much was that this world felt such like a sound stage that when we went to the daytime version of the woods (when the magic was broken) it looked so real it didn’t even seem like part of the same planet. I understand why this was done from a directorial standpoint, you would want two totally and completely different worlds, but there should have been something done in film stock, color palette, etc. to make the two worlds seem like they were part of the same film. I also did not understand the added little nugget having to do with bicycles…but I partially chalk that off to someone wanting to put Puck on a bike and wanting to do the gag with Lysander & Demetrius lifting Helena’s bike.

When I was watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream I was actually shocked by the number of stars that are in the film. Back in 1999 (and judging from the DVD packaging) a lot of these actors weren’t nearly as well known. This totally explains why I didn't know Bale was in the movie. This was prior to Batman & American Psycho, as such Calista Flockhart got billing over Bale. He is not even mentioned on the packaging or shown in the art. Neither is Sam Rockwell.

I did also appreciate that none of these actors made me feel like they couldn’t do Shakespeare. There is always at least one actor in an adaptation that seems like they can’t handle the language or something similar that puts them out of the film for me. I really didn’t have that here. I did have a brief moment where I kept looking at Calista Flockhart and seeing Ally McBeal but that is my thing and has nothing to do with her performance.

On the whole I did find this film really enjoyable and think that it was a worthy effort as far as Shakespeare adaptations go.

Director: Michael Hoffman
Writers: William Shakespeare & Michael Hoffman
Nick Bottom: Kevin Kline
Titania: Michelle Pfeiffer
Puck: Stanley Tucci
Oberon: Rupert Everett
Helena: Calista Flockhart
Lysander: Dominic West
Demeterius: Christian Bale
Hermia: Anna Friel
Theseus: David Strathairn
Hippolyta: Sophie Marceau
Francis Flute: Sam Rockwell

Theseus: No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse, for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed.

RocknRolla

RocknRolla
Originally uploaded by divxplanet

I am a fan of Guy Ritchie. Snatch is one of my personal favorite movies and I think Mickey is just one of the best characters committed to celluloid in the past few decades. I have been in a Guy Ritchie funk since Snatch came out; sure he did Swept Away and Revolver but neither one of those films got much love…and Swept Away was just ripped apart by everyone. In short, Madonna killed Guy’s career. Those of us that have had that opinion about the Madonna/Guy marriage of course find it funny that Rocknrolla has come out at roughly the same time as the announcement of Guy and Madonna’s split. We’ve all been hoping that this split signals the return of Guy Ritchie to the cinema he does so well.

Rocknrolla is vaguely similar in concept to some of Guy Ritchie’s other films. It takes an odd assortment of characters all somehow involved in the criminal underground in Britain and their paths interconnect and try to pull them all down a ugly and dangerous spiral that will end in their deaths. In this outing One Two, Mumbles and Handsome Bob are the Wild Bunch a trio of moderately successful thugs. Stella is creative accountant to Uri who gives work to One Two under the nose of Uri who is trying to use Stella’s skills to get money to Lenny. Lenny is a blue-collar thug if you will who makes his dime off real estate scams and doesn’t see his way of doing things as old. Archie is Lenny’s enforcer who is trying to track down Lenny’s step son Johnny, a supposedly dead junkie/rocker managed by Mickey and Roman. There is really no way to truly sum up this film’s plot. But if you’ve seen a Ritchie film you can put the pieces together and figure out at least the style that the story will be told in.

While I enjoyed Rocknrolla it is by no means a typical Guy Ritchie film. All the elements are there, and you enjoy watching all the pieces get put in place and whacked back out of order. However, the prevailing feeling that I got out of this film is that Guy is stretching; it’s been eight years since Snatch came out and it feels like Guy is a little unsure of himself. This is not a bad thing however, the film is enjoyable, well done and something that no one except Guy Ritchie could do. It put me in a mood where I enjoyed the film and I know going out of it that Guy is coming back and his next movie is going to be even more like the Guy Ritchie I know and love.

One of the things I do love about Guy Ritchie’s films is that he takes at least one actor in every film that I love and makes them play a character that I couldn’t picture them in. In Snatch that is Brad Pitt and Mickey. In Rocknrolla that is Gerard Butler. I adore Butler and while One Two isn’t as out there of a character as Mickey I just didn’t quite see Butler as a fit in Ritchie’s world – I was wrong. Butler is fabulous.

Go support Guy Ritchie. He doesn’t really need the money, but I want him to keep making gangster movies because that is his genre.

Director & Writer: Guy Ritchie
One Two: Gerard Butler
Mumbles: Idris Elba
Handsome Bob: Tom Hardy
Johnny Quid: Toby Kebbell
Roman: Ludacris/Chris Bridges
Uri: Karel Roden
Councilor: Jimi Mistry
Stella: Thandie Newton
Mickey: Jeremy Piven
Archie: Mark Stong
Lenny: Tom Wilkinson

Archie: People ask the question... what's a RocknRolla? And I tell 'em - it's not about drugs, drums, and hospital drips, oh no. There's more there than that, my friend. We all like a bit of the good life - some the money, some the drugs, other the sex game, the glamour, or the fame. But a RocknRolla, oh, he's different. Why? Because a real RocknRolla wants the f---ing lot.