Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

Well that's certainly understandable.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Rio Bravo is one of my favourite films, maybe what I'd consider #1 at the moment, so I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.

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#617 - The Counselor
Ridley Scott, 2013



A legal counselor becomes wrapped up in a complicated plot involving the Mexican drug cartel.

After having a few of his novels adapted into films (the most notable one naturally being the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men), Cormac McCarthy decided to take a stab at writing an original screenplay. The result is The Counselor, so named after its protagonist (Michael Fassbender) who is only ever referred to as "counselor". As the movie begins, he's in a good place - he's about to propose to his girlfriend (Penélope Cruz) and making good money as a lawyer. Even so, he decides to team up with an associate (Javier Bardem) on not only building and running a club together but also on joining Bardem in his drug-dealing activities. From there, Fassbender and the various other characters are caught up in a ruthless game as they play off against one another and try to avoid unwanted attention from the cartel, especially in the case of Bardem's girlfriend (Cameron Diaz) who soon launches some criminal schemes of her own. It's a convoluted excuse for a thriller that naturally indulges McCarthy's tendencies towards verbose cynicism and violent nihilism, but one wonders if that's enough to save the film.

In short, it's really not. Despite the talent on display, it's mostly wasted. In my experience McCarthy protagonists are typically supposed to be passive and reactive to their increasingly dangerous crises and they are never the most important part of the story, but that's taken a bit too far with Fassbender turning out a pretty unremarkable performance, as does Cruz as his love interest. At the other end of the spectrum there are Bardem and Diaz, who take their characters in vastly different directions to equally unimpressive effect. At least Bardem has enough talent to sell his character, a fashion-victim criminal who is a cocky yet paranoid playboy that is far removed from his iconic No Country contract killer. He is paired with Diaz, who is the weak link in the main cast as she delivers a rather underwhelming performance even when it extends to the infamous scene where she gets extremely physical with a car windshield. Rounding out the top billing is Brad Pitt as an associate of Bardem's who actually makes for a fairly decent vessel for McCarthy's portentous ruminations between his sleazy drawling and all-white cowboy outfit. Other recognisable actors are peppered throughout but they don't get much of note to do beyond serve as glorified cameos.

One does wonder if McCarthy was deliberately trying to exaggerate the most distinctive qualities of his writing for the sake of cinema, but the results are extremely inconsistent in terms of actually being entertaining. When the film's not indulging some absurd moments of sex and violence (aside from Diaz's car "ride", there's an instance of a hitman setting up a lethal trap straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon), it's featuring characters interacting with one another through such quasi-philosophical exchanges that fluctuate between gripping and boring. Despite some more darkly comical moments, it's a fundamentally grim affair in such a way that doesn't translate to consistently compelling entertainment. The film tries to make its strength out of the fatalistic examination of the criminal underworld and the people that either live in it or are simply passing through, but that's often shown up by the more graphically straightforward scenes (such as one scene involving a hitman's horrific contraption that is distinctive in a way that suggests it's aiming to stand out for its unorthodox nature like the cattle-gun from No Country). Respectable journeyman Scott goes about filming the proceedings in an extremely straightforward way with no real distinctions in terms of style, though he does lend the requisite energy to what I suppose could be considered action sequences. The Counselor is a very difficult film to like and I do have to wonder if it was by design (even though it probably wasn't). It's always a little disappointing to see an artist create a work that seems like self-parody or a fan's misguided homage, but the talent on display is just good enough to stop it from being a total disaster.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#618 - Enemy
Denis Villeneuve, 2013



A college professor discovers that he has an identical double who works as a small-time actor.

It's interesting to see a director follow up their fairly accessible mainstream breakthrough with a film that seems deliberately engineer to alienate any newfound fans. Just as Nicolas Winding Refn followed up his slick crime thriller Drive with the incredibly difficult Only God Forgives, so too does Denis Villeneuve follow up the respectable ensemble drama of Prisoners with a weird little film called Enemy. The premise seems slightly familiar; college professor Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is leading a fairly boring life where the only issue is his emotionally distant relationship with his girlfriend (Mélanie Laurent). While watching a film recommended to him by a stranger, Adam notices that one of the background extras looks exactly like him. He soon discovers that the extra (Gyllenhaal again) is a small-time actor named Anthony, who lives in the same city with his pregnant wife (Sarah Gadon). Adam becomes a bit obsessed with the implications of Anthony's existence, struggling to think about how to handle the situation - meanwhile, when Anthony learns of the same thing he also starts to change...

I give Enemy credit for trying to offer an unorthodox mystery film that's built on an extremely minimal cast and script. There's also a lot to be said for the sickly colour scheme that only ever seems to consist of different shades of yellow (occasionally veering into light orange or light green), plus some significant use of light-dark contrast that evokes Roger Deakins' style even without his presence. Gyllenhaal pulls some strong double-duty as the vastly different doppelgangers, though he arguably works better as the neurotic Adam more so than the confident Anthony. Both performances are decent enough to compensate for a lack of other characters, though Laurent and Gadon do well enough in comparatively small roles as Adam and Anthony's respective partners. There's even a bit part for Isabella Rosselini as Adam's mother, which she naturally does well despite having a couple of minutes on-screen. Of course, thanks to the inherent vagueness of the central identity-crisis plot it struggles to be consistently compelling or intriguing across its extremely brief running time. Enemy does throw in the odd surprise here and there but it is ultimately a pretty standard excuse for an experimental thriller.

I just watched Apache last week; it was ok, but boy was that distracting with Lancaster in the lead.

Agree with you on The Counselor too, not terrible but still a waste of talent.

#619 - Universal Soldier: Regeneration
John Hyams, 2009



When a Russian terrorist kidnaps an official's children and plans to set off a nuclear weapon inside the ruins of Chernobyl, an elite unit of commandos is brought in to handle the situation.

Every once in a while there's a cinematic proposition that sounds so weird that you're intrigued enough to check it out. The original Universal Soldier was a rather tiresome exercise in sci-fi action starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as a pair of soldiers who die during the Vietnam War only to be brought back to life decades later as part of an experimental super-soldier program. The resulting film obvious drew unfavourable comparisons to similar thrillers such as The Terminator and RoboCop, but the core concept had enough untapped potential that various attempts were made to continue the story in one way or another. After a couple of disastrous made-for-TV movies and one notoriously awful theatrical release, the franchise found a surprising foothold in the direct-to-video market. Up-and-coming director John Hyams (son of prolific journeyman director Peter) got the chance to offer his own contributions to the franchise, which somehow gained some interesting word-of-mouth over how he was apparently able to take an infamously terrible B-movie franchise and spin out not one but two solid action films as a result. That's the proposition that sounded too intriguing to ignore, so of course I rented out Regeneration and its follow-up, 2012's Day of Reckoning.

Regeneration takes place in Russia, where a terrorist seeking the release of political prisoners theatrens to set off an explosive device inside the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that'll not only create a radioactive cloud but also kill the Russian president's children, who have been kidnapped and brought to the heart of the ruins. To make matters worse, they have joined forces with a former scientist from the Universal Soldier project, who has brought with him a high-powered prototype that can and will make mincemeat of any regular soldiers. To this end, the military soon feels like they need to send a superman to do a superman's job, so they look up Luc Devereaux (Van Damme), the hero of the franchise who is currently being rehabilitated in a secure facility. It's not exactly the most complex of narratives, but it gets the job done and is at least preferable to the insultingly straightforward Terminator-like chase of the original film. Of course, the film does seem to relegate Van Damme to a supporting role for much of the film, instead spending much of its first half/two-thirds developing the central conflict around a first response team of commandos. The slow-burn nature is ultimately more of a hindrance to the film's plotting than a help, though of course the second half definitely pays off enough to redeem the whole film a bit.

In very much the same manner as the plot, the characterisation is pretty utilitarian for the most part as it sets up some stock players in its narrative about terrorism, with the key difference being that the terrorist leader and the rogue scientist do naturally end up having conflicting goals. This much extends to the performances, which are all serviceable and little more besides that. Van Damme's admittedly stiff and thickly accented demeanour has helped to sell him as a man who's been broken by the knowledge of what he's become and has struggled to both process and cope with it; even in his relatively small amount of screen-time, he's still able to communicate enough inner turmoil as he tries to recover only to be thrust back into the battle anyway (which might just be the only place he truly feels at home). Lundgren, whose turn as Devereaux's homicidally deranged arch-nemesis Andrew Scott was one of the original film's greatest strengths, manages to bring an even greater intensity when he eventually shows up and gives a stand-out performance greater than his limited screen-time would suggest (though he arguably follows a significantly condensed version of his arc from the original film as he quickly breaks free of his handlers and launches his own agenda). The two still have capable physical prowess, whether they're facing off against each other or the next-generation soldier (Andrei "Pitbull" Arlovski, whose turn as a mute hulk of a man doesn't require much in the way of acting chops but is still fairly intimidating anyway).

Still, the acting and writing doesn't need to be brilliant to make this film work and, whatever the film's other flaws may be, Hyams can definitely craft some decent-looking action on a minimal straight-to-video budget. The cinematography is grainy yet lurid and the editing is remarkable is that it is full of quick cuts between many different angles without being disorienting (a rare feat in an era where action directors are all too willing to use such techniques as a hollow short-cut to fast-paced excitement). Another strength of the original film was that the best action moments involved the superpowered characters duking it out with one another or with surprisingly capable normal humans, and the same strength is evident through the film's well-choreographed sequences that either feature the two leads or actual MMA fighters. The structuring of the action is also handled reasonably well, with the decision to confine it to a single location and present new threats and resolutions at a steadily escalating pace only getting stronger as the film progresses. While I definitely think that Regeneration makes fairly strong use of its source's potential to craft a half-decent action flick that has some good moments, it's still not quite enough to overcome its direct-to-video limitations and it is also perhaps a bit too dependent on its connection to the original film to be good in its own right. I mainly watched this as a warm-up to the more promising Day of Reckoning, and while there's no harm in doing that, it's not exactly essential.

#620 - Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
John Hyams, 2012



After his family is murdered during a home invasion, a man goes in search of the person responsible and finds himself in the midst of a conspiracy involved genetically engineered super-soldiers.

I imagine that "direct-to-video" does not generally conjure up favourable associations in the mind of the average film buff. The label carries an inherent implication of weakness where any movie it applies to is supposedly not good enough to deserve any recognition that would potentially come as the result of a widespread theatrical release. The stigma gets worse when you go into specifics, especially when it comes to sequels and action movies. Direct-to-video sequels get a bad reputation because they blatantly indicate that producers will churn out cut-rate entertainment in order to make an even greater profit off a successful original movie. Direct-to-video action movies are similarly cut-rate in that they are dedicated to providing the usual thrilling scenes of fighting or driving but without any of the other qualities that would otherwise make a classic film. Here, we have Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, which is both a sequel and an action movie, and it's not like the original Universal Soldier was a particularly good movie in the first place. However, since there were people saying some surprisingly nice things about this movie, I figured it had to be worth a look.

Even if you weren't already familiar with the franchise's premise about an experimental super-soldier program involving dead commandos, Day of Reckoning is definitely sure to bring you up to speed, but not before delivering a serious shock to a viewer. The opening sequence, a homage to the first-person opening act of Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void (complete with the viewpoint character blinking constantly and washing his face in front of a bathroom mirror), follows a family man named John (Scott Adkins) as he investigates a noise in his house only for a group of masked men to attack him and his family. One of them removes his mask to reveal that he is...Luc Devereaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), the hero of the Universal Soldier franchise. He then proceeds to shoot and kill John's wife and daughter. After John recovers from the physical and emotional trauma (although he still has some severe amnesia), he tries to go back to his life but is instead transfixed by his desire to exact bloody vengeance on Devereaux and soon enough ends up going on a search for the mysterious man. Meanwhile, there's...something going on that not only involves Devereaux, but also his arch-nemesis Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) and the Universal Soldier project, but all of that becomes sort of clear. Let's be honest, the plot isn't really what you're caring about when you're settling down to watch a direct-to-video action sequel, but here it's worth mentioning because the ways in which it doesn't seem to matter actually come across as some relatively innovative weirdness.

What made Day of Reckoning gain my attention over all the other direct-to-video action sequels is because of how daring it manages to be despite its apparent trappings. Hyams, who had delivered a fairly straightforward sequel to the franchise with 2009's Regeneration, had turned the success of that movie into the excuse to create one seriously bizarre excuse for an action movie. The Enter the Void parallels are pretty obvious ones (especially when the film starts using similar tactics of sensory abuse through industrial humming and strobe lights), but the most obvious influence I get from this is David Lynch of all people. In very much the same way that a film like Mulholland Drive would pepper its core narrative with all sorts of scenes that are tangentially connected at best and still barely make sense by themselves, Day of Reckoning does the same thing, especially when it follows a sleeper agent (Andrei "Pitbull" Arlovski) as he grabs a rifle and storms a neon-soaked brothel run by Scott. The Lynchian overtones are evident in many other ways, whether it's through technical aspects such as unsettling sound design and carefully-constructed camerawork or in the plotting and characterisation as John suffers vivid hallucinations of Devereaux while also encountering various strange small-town characters. The plot may be about as far from making sense as it's possible to get without being frustrating, but it's still anchored by John's quest for revenge and the various troubles he encounters; as a result, any and all narrative difficulties that the movie runs into are shrugged off pretty easily.

Being able to accurately simulate arty influences like Noé or Lynch within the context of a low-rent action movie would be one thing, but it'd all be for naught if Hyams couldn't construct any decent action to go along with it. Fortunately, the same bloody intensity that came to define Regeneration has been escalated considerably for this installment. Though the movie's not exactly going to win any acting awards, it doesn't need them as it creates several extremely brutal and visceral fight sequences between its high-powered characters. Van Damme, Lundgren, Adkins, and Arlovski all make for extremely capable warriors as they fight it out in some incredibly tough scenarios; the scene in which Adkins and Arlovski duel with one another inside a sporting goods store is a good example of such a scene. The tightness of the fight choreography and the way in which it is captured has also improved from the scenes featured in Regeneration, with the film not only indulging the right balance of speed and coherence but also opting to trying doing more ambitious sequences (such as one memorable lengthy tracking shot that involves John fighting his way through a squad of enemies).

Though it is definitely better than its direct-to-video classification might suggest, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning still has enough flaws that I can only think of it as good more so than great. It's a bit too long, the narrative twists tend to be slightly predictable thanks to the film's psychological elements, and the various cinematic homages can wear a little thin after a while (especially in the case of the film's third act, which is a pretty blatant recreation of a certain classic war film), but these honestly feel more like minor flaws rather than massive deal-breakers. The sheer amount of weirdness and ambition that's being used on such an unlikely movie are definitely enough to make it worth checking out. Most importantly, it more than delivers on the action front thanks to its collection of powerhouse fighters who can throw down for maximum cinematic effect thanks to Hyams' talent behind the camera. This isn't an example of a so-bad-it's-good movie or a campy free-for-all; despite its aggressively outlandish nature, Day of Reckoning is a solid action movie that accomplishes what it sets out to do in mixing arthouse influences with blood-soaked brawling.

#621 - The Long Riders
Walter Hill, 1980



Based on the true story of the famous gang of bank-robbing outlaws led by Frank and Jesse James.

I'm not sure how it happened, but for most of The Long Riders I was not aware that it was based on the James Gang. Instead, I somehow thought that I was watching a film based on a completely fictitious gang of outlaws. Given the presence of director Walter Hill, I thought that he had just attempted to craft another ensemble-driven action film on the heels of gangland hit The Warriors, only with the streets of New York swapped out for the lawless frontier of post-Civil War Missouri. It also has a nice touch in that the gang, being comprised of three different sets of brothers, also managed to collect a bunch of actors who were related in real-life such as the Carradines (Robert, David, and Keith), the Quaids (Dennis and Randy), the Keaches (Stacy and James), plus the Guests (Christopher and Nicholas). Together or apart, they embody a number of constantly conflicting personalities who threaten to alternately keep the gang together or tear it apart - all while the authorities are planning on taking them down by any means necessary.

Unfortunately, The Long Riders ends up being merely alright. Despite its fairly brief length, it still has a tendency to drag when it dares to shift focus away from anything remotely resembling action. The downtime is often spent on developing the various siblings' rivalries not just within their bloodlines but also with other members of the gang (such as Keith and Dennis getting into a love triangle over the same woman or David's complex relationship with a saloon worker), which is passable but doesn't feel essential to the film's strength. It's more than compensated for by the ways in which Hill translates his action sensibilities to a Western setting as he is capable of staging shoot-outs or horseback chases (as well as one memorable scene in which David gets into a knife-fight with James Remar). If nothing else, the film is worth watching for the climatic sequence alone. Said sequence alone comes along a bit too early and so the film more or less putters to an end after that. As such, The Long Riders is pretty decent for the most part but it doesn't exactly offer a whole lot of depth to go along with its admittedly well-executed thrills or its clever casting of multiple groups of brothers to accurately capture the unfolding drama.

The main reason I remember The Long Riders is because my mum liked it. I was about 8 or 9 when I saw this and I thought it was ok. I think I saw it again in my late teens/early twenties, and it barely held my attention. I've not seen it since.

I'll take any JCVD movie any day of the week.

Also, in regards to Enemy. The car accident sequence...I drive down that road every damn day.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

#622 - Good Morning, Vietnam
Barry Levinson, 1987



During the U.S. military's police action in Saigon prior to the outbreak of the Vietnam War, a quick-witted airman is assigned to work at the military's official radio station.

Looking back, Good Morning, Vietnam seems to be the point at which Robin Williams managed to establish a serious side to his famous goofball persona that would go on to define him up until his passing last year, which only served to bring the dark side of his comical performances into extremely sharp relief. It does this in the context of a dramedy that takes place in 1965 Saigon before the United States' police action against the North Vietnamese Army threatens to escalate into the full-blown conflict that would come to be known as the Vietnam War. It is into this veritable powderkeg that enlisted Air Force man Adrian Cronauer (Williams) is assigned with the intention of working as a disc jockey in the military's official radio station. Being played by Robin Williams, Cronauer is a constantly irreverent individual who wins the approval of his fellow enlisted men and at least one commissioned officer (who is responsible for him getting the job in the first place), though he naturally clashes with a couple of humourless superiors (Bruno Kirby and J.T. Walsh). Despite his bosses' misgivings, Cronauer proves a hit with listeners as his fast-paced collection of one-liners and skits featuring multiple character voices mixes with his unorthodox selection of rock-'n'-roll tunes. In addition to his conflict with the military, Cronauer's time in Saigon is complicated a bit by his attraction to a local woman (Chintara Sukapatana) and his growing friendship with her brother (Tung Thanh Tran).

The film is still pretty reliant on Williams deploying his iconic schtick that includes a varied and constant supply of verbal jokes rooted in his talents as a stand-up comedian and, to be fair, he does deliver in that regard (though one's own tolerance of his scenes will naturally depend on one's tolerance of Williams in general). There's many a sequence dedicated to him commandeering the screen in such a manner (especially when he's in the midst of doing his show), though he gradually gets eased into displaying dramatic chops as he is made to confront harsher and harsher realities about the situation he's in. He's surrounded by some decent performers whether they're on his character's side or not. The film even indulges some relatively complex examinations of topics like censorship and wartime morality as seen through the eyes of , though that's pretty much weighed out by some of the more predictable developments of the narrative, which becomes a problem when the film flirts with the two-hour mark. Credit also has to go to the fact that there are some fairly choice '60s tracks. Though it's arguably been surpassed in terms of both comedic and dramatic weight by various other Williams films, Good Morning, Vietnam still holds up alright even now. Though a lot of its strength comes from Williams' star turn as a motor-mouthed source of comedy who still undergoes some considerable trials that test his happy-go-lucky attitude, it's still decidedly average in terms of its anti-authoritarian narrative. If you can handle Williams' preferred mode of comedy and its fairly appropriate place within a somewhat satirical framework, then by all means give this a look.

#623 - The Man From Nowhere
Lee Jeong-beom, 2010



An enigmatic pawnbroker springs into action when the young daughter of his drug-addict neighbour is kidnapped by a vengeful criminal organisation.

The cover art on the DVD of The Man From Nowhere that I rented sported a presumably favourable critic's quote that attempted to sum it up as "Taken meets Oldboy". Now, seeing as I didn't particularly like Taken yet liked Oldboy, this did some admittedly complicated things to my confidence in the film itself. The Man From Nowhere certainly doesn't hold any pretense to the complicated mystery narrative of Park's film, but I suppose that its version of vengeful action is at least a bit more palatable than that of Morel's film. The plot is relatively easy to follow; after a prologue that sees a team of police officers attempt a drug bust in a nightclub that falls apart when one dancer unexpectedly steals the drugs, the action switches to a Léon-like narrative where a mysterious pawnbroker (Won Bin) forges an unlikely connection with a schoolgirl neighbour (who just so happens to be the daughter of the dancer who stole the drugs at the beginning of the film). When mother and daughter are abducted by the gang looking to recover its merchandise, Won slowly but surely gets wrapped up in the proceedings and his ability to respond against his criminal captors makes him the nominal hero who can do what the police can't.

The Man From Nowhere doesn't do anything overly original in terms of its revenge-driven action narrative. It skimps a fair bit on the action front for a good chunk of its considerable running time, though it at least allows for a strong enough bond to form between Won and his young charge so that you can understand him willing to shift out of his quiet life in order to rescue her. The rest of the cast fill some fairly unremarkable stock characters such as determined law enforcers and vicious underworld figures, though one at least gets some distinction by his dialogue being entirely in English (and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he is set up as one of the main threats to Won). The action is captured rather decently but it is not exactly mind-blowing so much as managing to be not horrible. What action there is gets used sparingly and tends to involve Won being able to fight off aggressors using a mix of martial arts, knives, and guns. It may be directed and captured rather decently, but it's still infrequent enough that referring to The Man From Nowhere as an action movie seems a little disingenuous. The same arguably goes for calling it a thriller as it does run through some scenarios that are only just discomforting enough to keep one from boredom without going overboard into exploitative disgust. To this end, I don't really see that much to truly love about The Man From Nowhere. There's certainly enough depth to the characterisation that I'm invested enough in how things turn out for the cast, but in doing so I have to put up with a fairly patchy plot that is only occasionally elevated by some decently-choreographed action.

I'd certainly take him over Seagal or even Statham (though I bet not every film he makes is on the level of Day of Reckoning or Double Team).

#624 - Macbeth
Justin Kurzel, 2015



Based on the classic Shakespearean play about a Scottish lord who plots to murder his king in accordance with a prophecy told by a coven of witches.

Much like fellow Australian director Andrew Dominik, Justin Kurzel made the jump from local crime flick to international period-piece epic almost instantaneously. Having already reviewed his previous feature, the incredibly visceral serial-killer dramatisation Snowtown, I was alternately interested in and disdainful of what he would do when granted the power to make a film, especially when it ended up being a Shakespearean adaption. Snowtown was ultimately undone by its extremely repetitive nature as it followed its villainous leads spending the better part of two hours shifting around the titular town torturing and murdering individuals out of both vigilantism and profit. At least the relatively complex power struggle at the heart of Macbeth would presumably provide for a solid narrative structure with which Kurzel could work, especially when the cast included individuals as famed as Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as the eponymous warrior-king and his meddling spouse respectively. Of course, when it comes to adaptations of Shakespeare (especially those as well-worn in that respect as Macbeth would be) one does expect a certain degree of innovation in order to keep the centuries-old tale at least moderately fresh, and in that regard Kurzel sort of succeeds.

Right from the opening moments, I couldn't help but be reminded of Nicolas Winding Refn's immensely slow yet captivating Viking drama Valhalla Rising. As if the same frequently grimy reproduction of the Europe of centuries past wasn't enough to seal the deal, there is also the incredibly drawn-out depiction of the bloody battle that sets the plot in motion. To Kurzel's credit, the film does look fairly good at times. It does have some dull-looking moments (mostly those taking place in the dark where the lighting is understandably poor) but there are some moments that stand out for the right reasons (such as the climatic confrontation taking place in the middle of a burning battlefield). The background score, which is composed by Kurzel's brother Jed, improves on the atonal drones and heavy drums featured in Snowtown by adding in a string-driven score that combines with the other elements to give the film a post-rock soundtrack that is actually fairly suitable despite the inherent anachronism. These are distinctive factors that help to provide the film with memorable distinctions, but that just makes the question of whether or not the film they surround deserves them.

In trying to provide a truly cinematic version of the Scottish play, Macbeth assembles some notable actors to deliver the Bard's tale of bloody power struggles and maddening prophecies, though it takes a bit too much advantage of the cinematic medium for its own good. It avoids the pronounced theatricality of the stage in favour of whispers in tight close-up, but in striving for a more realistic take on how characters would deliver this dialogue it seems to compromise said dialogue. It's a shame because the actors manage to have considerable stage presence anyway. Fassbender makes for a decent Macbeth even though his attempt at a Scottish accent threatens to slip and/or obscure his words, while Cotillard's frequently timid-sounding delivery is a theoretically sound choice so as to mask the character's more manipulative tendencies but doesn't always make her words resonate. There are a few other recognisable faces in the cast, such as David Thewlis doing a brief turn as the benevolent King Duncan and Paddy Considine providing an appropriately gruff and stony performance as Banquo (with his best moment arguably being his silent appearance at Macbeth's feast). The last time I saw Sean Harris he was providing an extremely charisma-free villain in a Mission: Impossible movie so it's good to see him sink his teeth into the emotionally demanding role of Macduff, though there was one instance of him doing some heavy emoting actually prompted one very spontaneous laugh out of me for some reason.

Out of the handful of cinematic Macbeth adaptations I've seen, Kurzel's is probably the weakest, but it's not for lack of trying. It avoids the dated fantasy-horror sensationalism of Roman Polanski's 1971 adaptation, though it does borrow a couple of that film's tweaks (both film's final images definitely feel similar). Its fairly close adherence to the text means that it lacks the intriguing looseness found in Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (though there was a moment after a certain scene involving fire took place where I thought that the ending featured in Kurosawa's film stood a good chance of being repeated). Technical touches such as skillfully over-saturated and over-cranked cinematography or a post-rock score work well to make the film feel evocative, though one might wonder if that's to compensate for the more underwhelming aspects of the film's acting. I wonder if the frequently quiet acting is supposed to be rooted in the knowledge that the audience is more than likely familiar enough with the play that they can afford to distance themselves from saying every line loud and clear. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now, but you should be prepared for a film that will make you feel every second of its running time.

I wouldn't say I was looking forward to Macbeth, but I was interested. Decidedly less so now. In fact, three witches have just told me I'll end up watching this on Film4.

I liked Good Morning, Vietnam a lot more when it came out than I did the last time I saw it. It's fine. It's ok, but I used to like it more than that. For the most part, it is all about those radio performances and the scene with the English class. "I'm waiting to die."

Too bad you didn't like Enemy more but I can see why some will find it more experimental and such than an actual great film. I'll have to revisit it mysel if I am to decide whether I really do love it or not.

Rep for Macbeth, but I have yet to see it so I'll wait with the read... Personally I look forward to it a whole lot, one of my most anticpated releases this year for sure.

Good Morning, Vietnam was pretty straight forward for me and I enjoyed it mostly. But I was a little surprised how serious and relevant it got as it moves along , which worked really well. Unfortunately, it doesn't go all the way with it and I went out wishing for a bit more. Still, it's a great film for Robin Williams to show all of his talents, dramatic and comedic, as well as an almost direct copy of his own persona (the personality as well as his support of the troops of which he used to perform for each year).

The Man from Nowhere I once started to watch but my copy f*cked up and I never got back to it. Seems like a movie I'd enjoy though for what it is. It was only just starting to get good when I was interrupted. Don't know when I'll return to it...

#625 - World War Z
Marc Forster, 2013



When a worldwide pandemic starts turning people into zombies, a specialist is brought in to trace the origins of the virus and find a cure.

I really liked Max Brooks' World War Z, which offered an interesting variation on the premise of a worldwide zombie apocalypse by depicting the whole crisis through the eyes of dozens of survivors located all over the world. By examining how zombies were dealt with on an international scale, Brooks' novel offered a complex and fascinating tale that went above and beyond the usual narrative conventions of the zombie sub-genre. As a result, enough acclaim and popularity followed that there was interest in making a live-action adaptation. Though the variety of stories taking place in many different countries could theoretically have worked as a television series, the adaptation instead took the form of a stand-alone feature film (albeit one that might promise sequels). Other factors such as a troubled production, a PG-13 rating, and the fact that the film was directed by the same man who did Quantum of Solace only served to make the prospect of World War Z being brought on-screen less and less promising. As such, I put off watching it for ages, only just getting around to watching it all the way through after recording it off free-to-air television the other day. It was basically a film that I felt obligated to check out no matter what.

While I can understand that a two-hour film wouldn't be able to contain even a small fraction of the events depicted in the source novel, World War Z drops everything except the core premise. Rather than depict multiple narratives, the film instead sticks to one: that of a former United Nations specialist (Brad Pitt), whose quiet life as a stay-at-home dad is threatened when he and his family are caught in the middle of a zombie outbreak in downtown New York. Before too long, Pitt is called upon by his former colleagues because he possesses a particular set of skills that make him important to the U.N.'s attempts to deal with the zombies. As a result, he is made to go on a mission where he travels around the world in order to trace the virus's origins in the hopes of finding either a cure or a vaccine. Deviating this far from the plot of the source material does not automatically guarantee that the resulting film will be terrible, but the sheer number of writers credited with writing and re-writing the film definitely does not bode well and serves to make the film's episodic nature come across as patchy. This becomes especially noticeable when the film indulges some all-too-familiar disaster movie clichés in terms of its plot and characterisation, with Pitt playing the everyman expert doing his best to not just save the world but also his family.

In addition to throwing out the plot of the book, World War Z changes up the nature of the zombies from the classic shuffling undead to the 28 Days Later... type of quickly-infected runners. While that's not the biggest deal-breaker, it does drag one out of the film at times when the bloodless carnage becomes especially distracting (such as one instance of Pitt being made to amputate a sidekick's infected hand, which compromises far too much between on-screen depiction and off-screen implication). It's not helped by the film's grating use of current trends in thrill-seeking filmmaking such as rapid editing and shaky camerawork (which also plagued Quantum of Solace). The globe-trotting narrative that shows how various nations have chosen to deal with the pandemic also leads to some questionable lapses in logic, such as Israel's decision to repel the menace using large walls (and, well, just look at that header image). Both these factors serve to undermine any possible tension and also any weight that the novel's sociopolitical commentary might have had (with the possible exception of David Morse's imprisoned spy revealing what he'd seen in North Korea, which deviates from the novel but provides a decent alternative). While abandoning pretty much everything about the source novel results in the cinematic version of World War Z promising a somewhat unpredictable experience, that also means that it tries to overcompensate for its over-budget production by being far too dependent on running every play in the disaster movie book. Pitt makes for a tolerable protagonist and the film has a few notable actors scattered throughout it (hey, it's Peter Capaldi!), but that can't wave away the air of wasted potential that hangs over its various international set-pieces.

#626 - Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone, 1968



A widow is drawn into a conflict over her recently deceased husband's extremely valuable tract of land.

Original review found here.

#627 - Upstream Color
Shane Carruth, 2013



A young woman is drugged and infected with a bizarre parasite.

Credit where credit's due, at least Shane Carruth does provide some unique cinematic experiences. His breakthrough feature Primer earned notoriety due to its promise of a complex time-travel narrative despite the film's actual budget being a mere $7,000. Of course, I checked it out, and while I didn't exactly hate it I still remember not actually liking it due to it being a bit too focused on its labyrinthine mythology to be entertaining (that and the apparent requirement for multiple viewings in order to fully understand it didn't exactly sweeten the deal). In comparison, Upstream Color is at least relatively easy to comprehend but it's still quite the perplexing film thanks to its avoidance of conventional storytelling in favour of creating a film that is less a story than an experience. It follows a young woman (Amy Seimetz) as she is abducted by a mysterious man (Thiago Martins). After being infected with a parasite and made to participate in a series of weird tests, Seimetz has some discomforting reactions to the parasite. Things happen that not only don't deserve to be spoiled but honestly defy my explanations, one of which involves her meeting and falling for a man (Carruth himself) who may have gone through the same ordeal as she did.

As with Primer, the plot of Upstream Color is perhaps a bit too complex for every single detail to be understood in the space of a single viewing, but that doesn't mean it's not a rather fascinating thing to behold. The emphasis on both Malick-like techniques and loosely-structured narratives means that it's both very easy and very hard to follow what's going on, though the independent production values can and do affect one's tolerance of proceedings. The camerawork may not be slick, but it lends a tangible warmth to the film even as it captures some uncomfortably clinical scenes. In a similar sense, the background music lacks complexity but doesn't need it. Though the film ostensibly develops a love story between Seimetz and Carruth, it proves both affecting and alienating depending on the scene. It also ties in rather well with the science-fiction elements even though the sum total is still initially confusing. While I definitely didn't dislike Upstream Color, I think that's more on the basis of it being a captivating experience rather than an interesting or immediately understandable one. Much like Primer, I'd argue that one would need more than one viewing to follow what's going on here but at the very least the first viewing is likely to provide a fairly distinctive film to watch. Definitely not recommended for the anti-pretentious crowd, though.

#628 - The Devil's Rejects
Rob Zombie, 2005



A family of serial killers are forced to go on the run after a vengeful sheriff decides to raid their homestead.

Rob Zombie's debut horror film House of 1000 Corpses definitely conjured up associations with Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre due to its plot about a family of murderous rednecks living out of a decrepit mansion. To this end, it made sense that sequel The Devil's Rejects opted to copy The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 by having its plot be about the family from the first film going on the run from said mansion while being pursued by a vindictive sheriff. Of course, where Zombie differs from Hooper is that he affords the family protagonist status as they go on the run; unfortunately, this ultimately ends up being what scuppers The Devil's Rejects for me. Fundamentally unsympathetic protagonists aren't an automatic hindrance to me appreciating a work of fiction, but in the case of the Firefly family the hindrance becomes especially pronounced. Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers is another film that tried to make mass murderers worthy of an audience's interest by not only being humanising them through their undying love for one another but also by the fact that their killing followed a perverse code of honour; this was borne out by the so-called "good" characters in that film frequently being shown as more vile than the protagonists. While I ultimately didn't think that Stone's film did the best job of pulling off that kind of sympathy for the devil, it still proved preferable to what Zombie does with this film.

The Firefly family consists of father "Captain Spaulding" (Sid Haig), son Otis (Bill Moseley), and daughter Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie). I could potentially make an exception in the case of veteran exploitation actor Haig as he plays an incredibly filthy excuse for a sideshow entertainer, but Moseley and Moon Zombie have an appalling backwater malevolence that is somehow even less charming than that of Mickey and Mallory Knox. This ends up being a problem when the film focuses on more of their actions than anything else, especially when a good chunk of the film follows the siblings as they visit a motel and terrorise the members of a traveling country band. There is some promise in the case of character actor William Forsythe as a sheriff whose desire for vengeance leads him to becoming just as much of a vicious, remorseless sadist as the killers he's after. However, he can only do so much with his character; even a scene where he tries to deduce the Firefly family's whereabouts by consulting an obnoxious film critic is still pretty irritating. Even the appearance of Dawn of the Dead alumnus Ken Foree as an associate of Captain Spaulding's isn't enough to salvage things on a characterisation front.

I do get the impression that Zombie is the kind of filmmaker whose willingness to recreate certain forms of cinema is rooted in sincere homage more so than ironic detachment, but that becomes extremely irrelevant when the genre in this case is Z-grade grindhouse horror. Grainy cinematography and haphazard editing may capture the vibe of the period just fine, but it succeeds a little too well at looking like a low-rent B-movie The more obvious examples of comedy do little to amuse, whether it's giving its "heroes" clever one-liners or by attempting to throw in some satirical elements (case in point - the scene with the film critic). Even the attempts to lend the film some degree of poignancy don't feel remotely justified. There is no better example than the notoriously elegaic ending that plays out to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird", which was probably the one thing about this movie that I knew about ahead of time. While it's arguably the best scene in the whole movie, I think that's more or less by default; besides which, it still feels awfully hollow if you're like me and have already spent the rest of the film struggling to find any reason whatsoever to care about who comes out on top.

While it's entirely possible that I may have missed just what makes The Devil's Rejects such a beloved piece of work for so many people (to the point where my dismissing it in another thread resulted in fans unleashing a barrage of angry reaction images), I have trouble thinking about what that might be. I obviously don't think that it's supposed to be a sincere endorsement of its reprehensible characters and their actions, but I can't really see how I'm supposed to buy it as dark satire or a black comedy or anything like that. Even the least horrible characters are severely lacking in charm, not even managing significant exceptions in the form of Haig or Forsythe or Foree or even Danny Trejo. This becomes a problem when the film seems intent on trying to make us like the Firefly family despite their more horrendous actions, but it constantly fails for obvious reasons and ends up undercutting its supposedly iconic ending. As a straight horror, it is extremely lacking in suspense or thrills; I concede that the whole sequence of events involving the country band has a little of that, but even that isn't handled in a way that makes me think of the sequence as anything more than filler. It's not so much that the film is violent and disgusting so much as the fact that it feels fundamentally pointless, unless of course the point is just waiting for everyone to die in a presumably violent fashion. It may not be a generic slasher film like House of 1000 Corpses, but the attempt to change things up doesn't feel like a significant improvement. This marks three Zombie movies I've seen so far, and I seriously doubt I'm going to bother with any more.