Chappie (Neill Blomkamp,
2015, South Africa, 120 min.)
Viewed Theatrically First
Viewing
Neill Blomkamp’s tale
of an artificially intelligent and emotive robot harkens back to the style of
his acclaimed debut District 9
(2009). The director’s skill at combining utterly convincing CGI with
documentary-style location shooting remains impressive, but feels less
distinctive the second time around. While District
9’s political message was muddled, it at least felt like Blompkamp was
attempting to make a statement with that film, whereas Chappie is constantly raising political and existential dilemmas
that it has no interest in exploring (and that countless other sci-fi films
have already had more interesting takes on). The titular robotic character has
some charm thanks to the combination of incredible robotic effects and the
voice acting of Blompkamp regular Sharlto Copley, but the human characters are
universally one-note and unlikeable. C
The Guest (Adam Wingard, 2014,
USA, 99 min.)
Viewed on DVD First
Viewing
A former soldier (Dan
Stevens) is welcomed into the home of the beleaguered Peterson family, under
the pretense that he was a friend of their son who died in action. Revealing
much more about the plot would be spoiling the fun, since much of this tautly crafted
thriller’s suspense (and dark humor) lies in the mystery of the titular
character’s motivations, but suffice to say that his confident good old boy
demeanor seems less charming and more unnerving as the story develops. Director
Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett (following up on their entertaining
2011 horror film You’re Next) are a
bit too reverent to their ‘80s exploitation film inspirations (down to the
presence of a very John Carpenter-esque synth score), but their slow-burn
plotting and mastery of tone assure that the film is gripping even when it
feels like a pastiche. B
India Matri Bhumi (Roberto Rossellini,
1959, Italy/France, 90 min.)
Viewed on Hulu Plus First
Viewing
In the late ’50
Italian Neorealist leader Roberto Rossellini was hired by the Prime Minister of
India to make a film promoting India’s culture to the global intelligentsia.
For its first five minutes the resulting film feels like the generic travelogue
that Indian officials were no doubt expecting, but it quickly turns into
something more sublime and unusual: a freewheeling anthology film that mixes
documentary and fiction in innovative and often fascinating ways. The content
ranges from footage of elephants being used as bulldozers for the logging
industry to a somber story about a dam worker’s domestic issues after his job
necessitates relocating his family (perhaps in oblique reference to the marital
problems that Rossellini was having with Ingrid Bergman around this time) to a
fable about a performing monkey that joins the circus after its master dies. Some
of the material is more interesting than others, but it is all gorgeously
filmed and imbued with Rossellini’s customary curiosity and humanism. B+
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014, USA, 100 min.)
Viewed Theatrically First
Viewing
David Robert
Mitchell’s riveting thriller is the rare horror film that simultaneously boasts
a unique concept, a depth of feeling for its characters, and genuine scares. A
deadly curse is sexually transmitted, with each victim being pursued by a
slow-moving, shape-shifting demon that can be easily outrun but never entirely
shaken off. The plot sounds like a silly gimmick in its broad outlines, but
Mitchell makes it work by preserving the mystery of the curse’s origins and by
slowly building an atmosphere of nearly unbearable dread. Many horror films
exploit teenage sexuality, but Mitchell’s film is refreshingly respectful and
sympathetic towards its characters’ excitement and frustration. The investment
in the characters makes the big scare sequences that much more intense. The
uncommon level of pathos and the beautiful shot compositions can’t entirely
overcome some of the goofier aspects of the premise – the handful of scenes
showing inanimate objects being thrown around by an unseen force are inevitably
cheesy – but overall this is the freshest horror film in recent memory. A-
Kingsman: The Secret
Service (Matthew Vaughn,
2015, UK, 129 min.)
Viewed Theatrically First
Viewing
This
awkwardly titled homage to the British superspy genre is surprisingly
irreverent and fun by major studio blockbuster standards. Proudly crude and
often brazenly eccentric, Kingsman
feels refreshingly free of attempts at cross-demographical commercial appeal.
The story, concerning a street kid (charismatic newcomer Taron Eggerton) who is
inducted into a powerful group of secret agents, is ultimately nothing more
than goofy wish-fulfillment, but it delivers that fantasy with energizing punk
rock energy. Co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn (adapting a Mark Millar graphic
novel) is thankfully less interested in providing hyperactive CGI spectacle
than in filling out the bizarre details of the film’s setting. How many other
mainstream action pictures feature a dramatic close-up of a pug’s face as it’s
threatened at gunpoint, a lisping supervillain (Samuel L. Jackson) who has
McDonald’s served to him on a silver platter, or a lengthy sequence where a
bunch of people’s heads explode into fireworks? B-
Marketa Lazarova (Frantisek Vlacil, 1967,
Czechoslovakia, 162 min.)
Viewed on Hulu Plus First Viewing
This
mysterious and moody medieval mind-fuck is often considered the greatest of all
Czech films, though it often seems less ambiguous than unintelligible. The
plot, which the credits note is “adapted freely” from a 1931 novel by Vladislav
Vancura, has something to do with a tribal war between a group of Christians
and a group of pagans, but director Frantisek Vlacil’s hallucinogenic approach
to storytelling and relentless digressions make it hard (and sometimes tedious)
to follow what’s going on. What is abundantly clear, even inarguable, is that Marketa Lazarova is formally astounding,
with unbelievably rich black and white shot compositions that rival those in Andrei Rublev (1966) and The Turin Horse (2011) for hypnotic
visual splendor. B
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter Hunt, 1969, UK, 142 min.)
Viewed on DVD Second Viewing
The
first James Bond picture without Sean Connery is often considered a high-water
mark for the series, but while it’s undeniably an oddity within the series’
canon it’s also filled with flaws that prevent it from being among 007’s best.
Tonally the film can’t decide whether it wants to be a gritty, less
gadget-heavy action film in the mold of the recent Daniel Craig entries or a
campy, self-referential caper in the style of the Roger Moore era. Structurally
the film is very oddly paced, with an interminable period of exposition before
any significant action scenes appear. The plot makes very little sense, and
revolves partially around a thinly-disguised Bond and his arch-nemesis Blofeld
not recognizing each other despite the fact that they were antagonists in the
previous Bond adventure You Only Live
Twice (1967). Perhaps they don’t recognize each other because they are
portrayed this time by George Lazenby and Telly Savalas, both of whom are
significant downgrades from Connery and Donald Pleasance. Viewers may wish that
Diana Rigg, quite possibly the most capable Bond girl in the history of the
series, was the focus. Thankfully the film does build up to a long and
satisfying series of Winter Olympics-style action set pieces that make
tremendous use of the Swiss Alps setting, but the wait to get there is long,
convoluted, and often boring. C
Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957, Japan,
109 min.)
Viewed on Blu-Ray Fourth Viewing
The
greatest cinematic version of Macbeth
is Akira Kurosawa’s horror and Noh-tinged Samurai drama. Rather than focus on
the language of the play, Kurosawa emphasizes the story’s escalating dread and
claustrophobia. The world seems to shrink around Toshiro Mifune’s power-hungry
soldier as he simultaneously gains status and goes mad, building to a brilliant
and brutal conclusion in which nature itself seems to be conspiring to thwart
him. A
While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach, 2014, USA, 94
min.)
Viewed Theatrically First Viewing
Noah
Baumbach’s comedy of generational warfare is sharp and funny when focusing on
small details of Generation X and Millennial culture, but loses its way when it
goes for big laughs. Scenes of the film’s older couple (Ben Stiller and Naomi
Watts) attending a hip hop dance class or attending a New Age retreat feel
almost embarrassingly broad in this otherwise low-key film. Stiller and Watts
form an uneasy tenuous friendship with a young hipster couple (Adam Driver and
Amanda Seyfried) who both rejuvenate and confound them. Baumbach takes great
pains to make his Gen X representatives (and ostensible stand-ins) look at
least as petty and silly as the younger couple, but Driver and Seyfried’s
characters aren’t sufficiently developed enough for some of the latter scenes
to come off as anything other than bitter condemnations of an entire generation.
C+
Viewed Theatrically First Viewing
Damian
Szifron wrote and directed all six segments of this revenge-obsessed anthology
film, but the quality is still as uneven as we’ve come to expect from any
collection of shorts. Fortunately the stories are arranged in an order that
alternates the most entertaining sections with the ones that never quite hit
the next gear. The highlights are a tale of road rage gone awry and a wedding
reception where the groom inadvertently reveals his adultery to a very angry
bride. B-
