Hey folks, Harry here with a brief intro on Quint's latest host of reviews, ETERNAL and JERSEY GIRL are great -- haven't seen DAWN OF THE DEAD remake yet, I see that Sunday with some friends. Here ya go...
Ahoy, squirts. Quint here with about an hour and a half to write this, check it, code it and send it... before I have to zip off to SXSW again. So, no opening glitz and glammer... Let's get into these two romantic comedies, shall we?
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Brilliant screenplay, as usual, by Charlie Kaufman. I read it a while back and was immediately taken with this off the wall love story, but had some serious doubts about Michel Gondry's direction. He had struck out with another great Kaufman screenplay a couple years ago (HUMAN NATURE). That took me off guard because though I knew Kaufman's words were perfect, would Gondry mistranslate them again?
I'm glad he was given a second chance. The movie was as deep, thoughtful, real and funny as the screenplay was. Gondry did good. The film has this great blend of unreality and reality. It's shot in a very dreamlike fashion, even when we're not in Joel Barish's mind, yet all the situations and characters, while slightly exaggerated in that brilliant Kaufman type, feel very flawed and real.
Some people I talked to after the screening compared the film to LOST IN TRANSLATION... I can't really see that, myself... To me the film that ETERNAL SUNSHINE reminded me of the most was PTA's great PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. The two aren't really similar in plot or pacing, but the unique characters and tone are very similar. Also, both films perfectly present the awkwardness of true love.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE is a great success on all fronts. Gondry proved his worth with feature films (forgive my ignorance of his music video achievements), Jim Carrey finally gets that role he's been craving so desperately... that of a real man with hardly any hint of wacky Hollywood Jim Carrey... and runs with it, Kate Winslet is drop dead gorgeous, if not a tad bit nutso, Elijah Wood successfully shrugs off Frodo and creates a rather great supporting character and Kirsten Dunst is beautiful and dances around in half a shirt and terribly cute pink panties.
There is also some genuinely scary imagery as Carrey is running through his memories... Blank faces, upside-down eyes, mouths, noses... It was creepy in a totally non-horror context. It made me smile, so I thought I'd share.
Ultimately, this is a unique film with characters that you grow fond of and relate to almost instantly. I can't speak for anyone else, but when Carrey is halfway through his erasure of all memories with Winslet in them... that moment of realization that he made the wrong choice, that he wants to remember the good times... that broke my heart. That desperate last stand fight to hold onto the love that he shares with her... It's beautiful.
Go see this film. I have a terrible feeling that this is going to be bowled over at the Box Office. Please go give it a view and prove my feeling wrong.
JERSEY GIRL
Ah, the much anticipated first non-ViewAskewniverse Kevin Smith flick. This one has been shit on a lot by folks I know that saw it before the SXSW screening last weekend. After seeing the movie, I have to wonder what movie they were watching... They knew that this wasn't a snoochie-boochies Smith flick, right? They weren't surprised when Jay and Silent Bob didn't show up, were they? It seems like they were.
JERSEY GIRL is a sweet movie with some smart as hell writing. It is a PG-13 romantic comedy, so I don't know where all this surprised hatred is coming from. Affleck does a good job... I didn't have any trouble believing his love of Jennifer Lopez at the beginning of the film or his affection for his daughter later on. George Carlin is given a juicy role as Affleck's father and grandfather to Gertie. I've always loved Carlin and he steps up to the plate in this film. Liv Tyler is drool-worthy here. She glows and makes it easy to fall for her free spirit and kind heart.
The movie is sticky sweet in spots, so if you're the kind of super-macho geek that can't be troubled with such gooey things as the love between a man and a woman or father and son or father and daughter, then I guess Smith didn't make this one for you. For the rest of us, he made a great mainstream romantic comedy.
The film is well written, well performed and has that trademark Smith freshness to it. The characters jump, the situations are at times hilarious (the SWEENY TODD sequence in particular) and he found an adorable child actor, Raquel Castro. In the scheme of things, I think JERSEY GIRL will be a modest success, but will be lost in the shuffle of time. Smith will always be known for his Jay and Silent Bob stuff and this film is a little too mainstream to be remembered by the masses for very long, even if it is well done.
I'm glad to see Smith stretch outside of the ViewAskewniverse, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. But it's always good to change things up a bit. I can't wait to see him test himself on GREEN HORNET. I expect nothing but greatness!
At the screening Smith confirmed that after GREEN HORNET and FLETCH, he may be returning to Jay and Silent Bob's world. He originally stopped those films for two reasons: One, he was enabling Jason Mewes' out of control drug abuse and Two, he wanted to try something else. Mewes has been on the wagon for a full year now and if he stays that way, then Smith will certainly bring about the triumphant return of Jay and Silent Bob!
Now I'm, fresh off of tonight's preview screening of the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and I can say this one will be a divider. I don't see too much middle of the road on this film. Based on the audience we had last night, you're either going to flat out love this film or really dislike it. I didn't see anybody that was "Oh... it was pretty OK..."
I read the script to this thing almost a year ago. I thought it was fun, epic and could be an entertaining ride. But it was not DAWN OF THE DEAD. There were some terrible characters (the most broad stereotypes like the gun-toting gangsta and the Rebel Flag waving redneck racist, etc), terrible dialogue, but really smart situations and fun set pieces. So, I was torn on the script.
The movie is better than the screenplay. Gone are the most broad stereotypical characters, the worst of them at any rate. But also gone are some of my favorite set pieces... The idea that human zombies are only interested in living humans, not animals... animal zombies likewise are only interested in other like animal zombies... is only touched upon. There was a great sequence in the script where the people in the mall have to get food over to a friend in a gun shop a quarter of a mile or so away. They figure out they can use a dog to run over with food and run back with ammo. In the film that just barely happens, but they didn't go to that next step... The zombie dogs didn't come to ruin the fun.
But, I do think it's a fair trade... take out the rappin' gangsta stereotype persona... make that character more real and not a cartoon... take out the hillbilly fuck-heads and give them more of a real base as well. That's more important to the story than having an extra 5 minutes of badass zombie dog action.
The main problem with this film is lack of any sort of real character development. The biggest scene showing characters getting to know each other takes place in a 60 second montage overridden by horrendous happy-time music. There are two young characters that we never see talking, but right before the climax of the movie she is put in a dangerous situation and he exclaims, "My girlfriend!"
I was like, "What? When did that happen?" If director Zack Snyder or screenwriter James Gunn had decided to spend even two minutes with these characters as they console each other or get to know each other, then maybe I would have cared when she's in danger.
Sarah Polley is good and shares an uncanny resemblance to Gaylen Ross (star of the original DAWN OF THE DEAD) in many scenes, but she's not really given anything to do. Matter of fact, her character suffers probably the most in terms of the logic argument. She sees her husband get bitten, die then jump right back up as a zombie. She watches TV and hears Tom Savini tell them how he had to put down people he knew... But then when a fat lady is wheeled into the mall with a huge chunk taken out of her arm and already made up with the zombie coloring... she seems surprised that the lady becomes a zombie! What! How could that be!?!?
Ving Rhames was Snyder's masterstroke of casting. I guarantee you that Rhames in 90% of the reason why people are really ignoring all the faults of the movie because he is just so amazingly in control and tough as nails... He's the reason for this movie to exist. He's just cool as all hell. And the only really interesting relationship in this film (not surprisingly, it's also the only one that seems to be given any time at all) is his long distance friendship with Andy, the owner of the gun store a quarter of a mile away via binoculars and dry erase boards.
There's also supposed to be some sort of friendship (maybe more) between Sarah Polley and Jake Weber, but once again we never really see them connect. There is no investment in the characters, so when they're in trouble I find I don't give a shit. I just want to see zombies get nailed and maybe more throat-tearings, etc.
In short, the film is all about the flash, all about the spectacle. Which is fine. I'm all for a mindless, inconsistent popcorn flick. I just have a problem when that mindless popcorn flick is a remake of one of the smartest genre films of all time. The baggage they bring with the title could not be overcome by me.
The audience, however, ate this film up like they haven't seen anything like this before. I have to wonder if a studio OKed an original gore flick (mindless or not) and backed it like they did DAWN OF THE DEAD (including the endless marketing), would they not have gotten a similar result? It's obvious that almost none of the people in the audience had seen the original film and the remake has only three things in common: zombies, a mall and the title... so why did this have to be DAWN OF THE DEAD? When you see the film, you'll see how little they use the mall. It could have been anywhere.
The kills are really good in the first quarter of the film, then it all becomes about flash editing and headshots. Too bad they couldn't have gotten a director that didn't throw in shitty heavy metal music at inopportune times and that actually lit the mall in any sort of menacing way. It's so bright all the time. Where was the atmosphere?
The zombies themselves are kinda cool, but they lack any sort of character. One after another after another after another... it could have been the same guy 98% of the time and I wouldn't have been able to tell. There are one or two that they make stand out (the little girl at the beginning... one towards the end of the movie that's clinging onto a bus), but the rest are just there to run real fast.
That's another thing... The logic behind the fast moving zombies is one I can accept. They die and are immediately resurrected as flesh-eaters, so the muscles don't have time to deteriorate, rigor mortis doesn't set in... That's an interesting take... But how come at the end of the movie, a month or more after the epidemic started, do all the zombies run like they did at the beginning? You could make the argument that not all of them have been dead for that month, but a damn lot of them would have been. Yet they all run and jump and are more flexible than I am. I don't mind changing things up, but at least live by the rules you set up for yourself.
The whole movie, to me, is just a series of half-assed situations, characters and ideas. The original cast member cameos (especially the one by Ken Foree, who could have been used to great effect if they hadn't just thrown him in there for 30 seconds) are so half-assed they might as well have left them out. Matter of fact, the best cameo in the film belongs to the GON traffic chopper. The great majority of the characters are half-assed. The only two that have any sort of real personality or arch are Ving Rhames and Michael Kelly (who plays CJ, an asshole at the beginning, but not the asshole at the end). Everyone else is just zombie fodder.
In the end, I could have forgiven damn near everything in this film if I could have separated the original in my mind and was able to accept this as the mindless rollercoaster it was trying to be. It's not wholly successful in that regard either (dropping the rules it sets up for that universe whenever they become inconvenient, making smart character do stupid things for a jump, etc), but I would have enjoyed the film a helluva lot more if a small amount of effort was put into the story to remove it from the original.
I realize that this is only my opinion and it is my fault that I can not separate the original from the remake, but it's not fair for the filmmakers to ask the audience to forget the film they're remaking. If they want an audience to start a film off with a clean slate, then make it something original. THE BLOB remake is a goofy, cheesy movie... But the original was also cheesy. THE THING took the original in a different direction and become something greater (in my eye) than the source material. It was also handled with care by a director who knows how to work atmosphere (at least he did back then) and character. CHAINSAW was at least shot well, though it falls into the same terrible cliché bullshit that DAWN does.
So, take what I've said for whatever it's worth. I'm expecting a lot of you folks to disagree with me on this, but these are my true conflicted feelings on the film. I'll always have my original (can't wait for that upcoming super-duper Anchor Bay set). That's something, at least!
Anyway, my time is about up! I'll be back soon with my final SXSW reports and a cool interview or two. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
