Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This festival’s in full swing right now, and I’ve enjoyed the events I’ve attended, like the outdoor screening of Berlinger and Sinofsky’s METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER on Sunday night. I’m disappointed they cancelled the THX-1138 screening, though. This reader’s been hitting his fair share of stuff, and his report’s well worth wading through:
Hey Harry and/or Moriarty,
I was fortunate enough to attend several screenings at the LA film fest this past weekend, although I'm pissed as ever that I missed the "Garden State" opening night premiere... Anyhow, here are several reviews of events and screenings that took place from Friday to Sunday. Do with them what you will.
Michael Mann's LA: Realizing "Collateral"
I'll keep this brief since a few people have already covered this, but needless to say it was extremely enjoyable. The clips from Collateral were very promising, and the cinematography was gorgeous, despite the use of digital at night. Mann seems at his most technically superb, especially with the much talked-about "Fever" sequence that was obviously incredibly difficult to shoot. Mann said it took nine days of shooting just for this little four minute scene inside an LA club, and the results are astounding. Anyway, Cruise was at his most likable (at the event, not in the film) and Barry Shabakah Henry was a nice bonus to the discussion (although he was a bit long-winded at times). The event was definitely worth the $10, and Collateral will most definitely be worth the price of admission... just another month and a half.
"Haute Tension"
Holy Jesus, I've NEVER been this frightened by a movie. At times I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack... the suspense combined with the excessive gore is excruciating, and the editing, cinematography, and superb sound design all serve to further push the weak of heart towards a massive coronary. It will seriously test the limits of even the most desensitized gorehound, and will probably give me night terrors for years to come...
Basically, the story goes like this (beware of spoilers, because there are BIG ones): Alex and Marie go to the country to visit Alex's family. You sense some sexual tension between the girls early on, but don't think much of it... until Marie watches Alex shower from the window and then goes into her room to masturbate. While she pleasures herself, a stranger approaches the house in a giant demented sort of truck/bulldozer. Marie realizes someone is at the house, quickly hides, and watches in horror as the Stranger enters the house, brutally decapitates Alex's dad, Slits her mom's throat, and fires a shotgun into the back of her little brother. The stranger then kidnaps Alex, and drags her off into the night. Marie follows, trying desperately to find a way to save her friend. The killer eventually realizes Marie's presence and it turns into a "stalker becomes the stalked" and vice versa cat-and-mouse game as Marie tries to save Alex while staving off and ultimately killing the Stranger. The big twist comes when a security tape from a convenience store is viewed by the police and you realize that the Stranger is actually a menacing half of Marie's personality, a la Fight Club. Turns out Marie has been so overtaken with lust for Alex, that a perverse murdering sex-offender has emerged from her psyche as a way to... deal with it? Anyway, Marie conquers the "Stranger" half of herself and triumphantly unties Alex, saying "I've killed him, you're free." Of course Alex is pissed because Marie has just massacred her entire family, so things get ugly and the Stranger comes to the forefront of Marie again for one last show down.
Like I said the gore is horrific, with NOTHING left to the imagination. There's more blood and guts in this movie than any other film I've ever seen, with the exception of Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive." While this will grow tiresome for many people (including my friend, a huge horror buff who thought the gore was a cheap and unremarkable way to make up for a half-assed story), I personally enjoyed getting the shit scared out of me and almost losing my lunch at the same time. The twist ending is extremely tiresome and predictable, but that hardly matters for a movie like this. A definite recommendation, although I don't know how this will get U.S. distribution without severe editing...
"Overnight"
I don't know how you feel about "The Boondock Saints", but if you're like me, you wanted to crucify Troy Duffy for unleasing that faux-hip sack of bullshit on the world long before this documentary revealed him to be quite possibly, for lack of a better word, the biggest Cunt to ever walk the planet. The movie opens right after Duffy has sold his script for "Saints" to Miramax, and literally right after the deal was finalized, Duffy's head starts to baloon, his perceptions start warp, and he turns into an egomaniacal monster who proceeds to threaten, taunt, antagonize, and otherwise mistreat every single person he meets (including his long-suffering brother, Taylor) for the next three years. As Duffy's behavior becomes more erratic, his deal with Miramax begins to implode. He's drinking every night, he's screaming on the phone at producers, he's refusing courtesy meetings with people like Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves ("a stupid cocksucker who can't act worth a fucking shit", or something like that... I guess it's true, but still...), all before the movie is even in preproduction. Miramax exec Meryl Poster is disgusted by Duffy, and rightly so; the general mayhem he causes, his disrespect towards women, his barely contained racism, it all sets off alarm bells at Miramax, and eventually Harvey Weinstein puts the script in turnaround. Effectively blacklisted, Duffy can't get a backer and is temporarily humbled until a small unknown indie producer gives him less than half the budget he originally had with Miramax to make "Saints". He makes his movie, according to him "the greatest independent film of all time", records an album with his band, and waits for his celebrity to take off. Fortunately for me, it never does. The movie debuts at Cannes, where every single studio refuses to buy it. His album is released, and sells something like 600 copies in six months. Blockbuster releases "Saints" straight to video where it becomes an undeserving cult hit with the knuckleheads and morons who populate the TalkBack area, and his band's CD is pulled off the shelf. The karmic retribution is so great; I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching someone fail so much. Harsh words, I know, but if you had to sit next to a kid at the lunch table for your last two years of high school going on about how "The boondock saints is the greatest movie ever made" every single day, you'd enjoy this movie too. The packed audience I saw it with ate it up, but that's hardly surprising in a town where people love to watch someone fail... Personally, failure makes me sad, but watching an asshole like Troy Duffy fail in hollywood and lose all his friends is something akin to watching Hitler get gassed by a bunch of jews. It'll be in theatres this fall; go see it.
"We Don't Live Here Anymore"
This is a movie harkening back to the pre-Jaws seventies, when movies about middle-class adults writhing around in the misery they'd created for themselves were popular and Dustin Hoffman was bankable. Much like the early films of Mike Nichols, "WDLHA" posits two suburban couples in a complex web of love, lust and deceit that plays out like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" redux. Mark Ruffalo and Laura Dern are married, as is Naomi Watts and Peter Krause. Ruffalo and Watts are engaged in an intense love affair; Ruffalo doesn't love Dern, who's a sloppy, temperamental alcoholic, while Watts is convinced she still loves Krause, but turns to Ruffalo for the love Krause isn't giving her. Krause is a womanizing amoral bastard, and oddly enough the most likable of everyone in this film. Krause makes a pass at Dern, who wants Ruffalo to be jealous (he isn't). The two couples are best friends, and eventually they all end up compromising in some way, experimenting with pairings, all the while attempting to keep the normal family life (they all have kids) facade in tact. The acting is superb, as is to be expected from a cast of this calibre, and although the story is dark and the characters are unlikable, director John Curran ("Praise") and writer Larry Gross somehow manage to inject humor and pathos into the subject matter, never alienating the audience with its darkness or devolving into straight melodrama. I would imagine Ruffalo has an Oscar nom. coming to him for this one... he's easily the standout of the four actors. Watts is angelic as ever, playing a woman who basically just wants to be loved and will turn to whoever she has to to receive that. Dern has the most thankless role as the shrill bitch of a disgruntled housewife (she most reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's afraid?", who was all but unwatchable in that movie...) Peter Krause (who's so great in "Six Feet Under") eats up the role of the free spirited writer/asshole, and hopefully this will be the start of a long and prolific film career for him. After the screening, Gross and Ruffalo took the stage and answered questions, revealing that the film has been gestating since the early seventies, when Dustin Hoffman was actually attached to play Ruffalo's part. Gross said they weren't able to revive this project until "In the Bedroom" (based on another Dubus story) succeeded, and suddenly "We Don't Live Here Anymore" was on the fast track again. And rightfully so; Dubus deserves much more attention than he's gotten in the past. Hopefully his writing will continue to draw the attention of great filmmakers like Todd Field and John Curran, and eventually his first short story "The Intruder" will be filmed...
Overall, a decent weekend's worth of movies. I plan on attending the closing night party with "The Clearing" premiere, but I'm a little pensive about that one... Redford's hit or miss these days, as is Dafoe... I'll get back to ya with that review. Anyway, there ya go.
If you use this, call me JoshSleeps.
That reminds me... I really need to write my OVERNIGHT review. That film is fucking mesmerizing as a display of ego. You really can’t understand the magnitude of it until you see the film. Thanks, Josh, for all the fine reviews.
"Moriarty" out.
