Lessons of Darkness

Humpday (2009): C+

2009-07-08T23:49:34-04:00

Striving for naturalism while pivoting its action around a preposterous conceit, Humpday locates truth mostly on the margins of its too-cute-for-school story. Ben (The Puffy Chair’s Mark Duplass) is a married homeowner trying to have a baby with wife Anna (Alycia Delmore). His Seattle domesticity is rudely interrupted when college friend and free-spirit world-traveler Andrew (The Blair Witch Project’s Joshua Leonard) unexpectedly shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night and, a day later, invites him to a party at a house of hedonism (the front door reads “Dionysus”). There, after many drinks, the two decide to enter an upcoming amateur porn festival by making and starring in a film whose hook will be two straight guys having sex. It’s a premise practically begging to be dubbed boundary-pushing. However, despite Ben and Andrew’s copious man-on-man hugging, basketball-wrestling, and endearing use of the word “fuck,” Lynn Shelton’s central narrative device plays less like a ribald means of exploring the boundary between hetero and homo male camaraderie than as a gimmick that could be replaced by countless other dares and, thus, seems to have been chosen primarily for its maximum titillation potential. In a superb morning-after scene, Ben and Andrew’s decision to go through with their porn plan is revealed to be driven by a case of I-won’t-back-down macho pride and ego, with both men compelled to make smut as a means of both living up to their own (phony, idealized) notions of self as well as rebutting the other’s stereotypical conception of themselves. Boasting strong lead performances, Humpday’s occasionally acute depiction of male psychology (specifically, maturation anxieties) is matched by its pinpoint portrait of marital dynamics, highlighted by an opening scene in which Ben and Anna both opt for sleep over sex. Yet such insights are tethered to a tale that’s not only impossible to swallow and too satisfied with its own tee-hee provocation, but ultimately devoid – thanks to a climax that goes limp at the money-shot moment of truth – of anything much to say about sexuality or friendship.

Late Bloomer

2009-07-08T12:43:43-04:00

Because of the July 4th holiday, I'm a bit late in delivering a link to my latest Sandbox column. It's about thatgamecompany's Flower, a downloadable PS3 title that's taken a central position in the games-as-art debate.

The Sandbox: Flower's Video Game Poetry (IFC News)

Roll Out

2009-06-29T09:47:15-04:00

Depending on one's vantage point, this link dump is either late or early. Either way, enjoy my in-depth reviews of last weekend's giant blockbuster and the coming two weekend's biggest releases.

Coming Soon:
Brüno (Slant magazine)
Public Enemies (Slant magazine)

Out Now:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Slant magazine)
The Stoning of Soraya M. (Slant magazine)

And over at IFC, I've contributed to two near features. The first is a list of the 50 greatest movie trailers of all time (I wrote up 9 capsules), and the second is for a Bollywood package, and concerns the five biggest male movie stars working in India today.

The Fifty Greatest Trailers of All Time (IFC News)
The Ten Bollywood Stars You Should Know (IFC News)

The Hurt Locker (2008): A-

2009-06-22T12:43:24-04:00

Kathryn Bigelow makes rock ‘n roll action films – heart-racing, pulse-pounding genre flicks that, when necessary, employ outsized melodrama to enhance balls-to-the-wall mayhem. The Hurt Locker is no different, save for the fact that it does so within the context of the Iraq War, a conflict that’s largely been treated by Hollywood with ponderous moralizing. Bigelow situates her saga in Iraq but eschews cable-news pontificating, stripping her scenario – about a bomb squad’s tour of duty – down to its nail-biting essence. Politics don’t factor into the equation because, in reality (and in action films), the pressing concern isn’t the why but the how, with Bigelow’s clock-ticking scenarios exhibiting a canny understanding of both soldiers’ experiences as well as the demands of slam-bang cinema. A procession of expertly orchestrated set pieces that use hot-button topicality for base thrills, the director’s latest proves a rousing return to form after the lackluster K-19: The Widowmaker, delivering a heady dose of suspense that’s enlivened by her sharp psych portraits, in particular that of Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner), the three-man team’s hotshot newbie whose cockiness borders on adrenaline-junkie insane.

Bigelow twice employs super-slow-mo to show-offy effect, but the gestures are forgivable because the images exude a simultaneous sense of awe and horror at chaos. Despite exploiting real-life situations for fictionalized kicks, The Hurt Locker doesn’t glorify war, its status as a procession of mounting-anxiety episodes turning the proceedings into an almost experimental snapshot of the day-to-day rigors of military service. Which is to say, Bigelow doesn’t shun realism, yet she also refuses to be wholly beholden to it. It’s a tack that lends her tale – whether during her protagonists’ attempts to disarm an IED on an urban street, or survive a sniper ambush and standoff in the middle of the desert – a balance of hardscrabble realism and, in the image of soldiers wearing astronaut-ish bomb-protection suits, an eerie sci-fi quality that furthers the impression of Iraq as a hostile alien landscape. In its downtime glimpses of James blowing off steam brawling with comrades Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), or a shot of him sitting on his bed staring at a photo of the son he left at home, his enormous helmet on his head, the film penetratingly expresses its subject’s increasingly frazzled headspace, in which self-preservation is a game, death is an omnipresent specter, and the rush of the moment becomes, as prologue text too neatly spells out, “a drug.”

Bigelow cuts to the quick with her depiction of James, so sharply delineating his psychological state through high-tension sequences that it’s disappointing to find the director resorting to contrived scripting with James’ off-the-grid efforts to avenge the murder of a young Iraqi boy who sold DVDs at the army base. It’s the one time when The Hurt Locker’s make-believe seams show, though the misstep is short-lived, and Bigelow proves shrewd enough to incorporate the incident’s lingering effects on James – via a later revelation – without undue embellishment. Bigelow may not say anything revolutionary about military duty but her film confronts wartime experiences with minimal bullshit, conveying the vital camaraderie of service through the bomb squad’s natural banter, the taxing concentration required by combat in the sight of James and Sanborn spending hours patiently looking through a machine gun’s lens, and the unmatched high that comes from life-or-death predicaments. Harrowing and horrifying, The Hurt Locker delivers the visceral, heart-in-throat action goods, and in doing so, gets at more truths about Iraq than its preachy Rendition, Redacted and In the Valley of Elah brethren.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

2009-06-19T12:38:17-04:00

My latest Sandbox column examines games that function as movie sequels, timed to this past week's anticipated release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

The Sandbox: When Games Become Movie Sequels (IFC News)

And as for reviews, well, there's not much to praise about these three new releases.

In Theaters:
Year One (Slant magazine)
Whatever Works (Cinematical)
The Proposal (Slant magazine)

Coming Soon:
Surveillance (Cinematical)

Dead Snow (2009): B-

2009-06-17T00:23:01-04:00

Tommy Wirkola does the time warp with Dead Snow, self-consciously shouting out to his favorite ‘80s horror films – Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, April Fool’s Day – while unevenly replicating Sam Raimi’s whirligig blend of terror and comedy. With a set-up so archetypal it has to be overtly noted as such, a group of vacationing Norwegian med students travel to a remote mountainside cabin, where they promptly goof off, get wasted, and flirt, at least until a mysterious stranger appears at their door one night to inform them about the region’s dark WWII history. Turns out, there’s an “evil presence” lurking in these snowbound parts, and it has something to do with the Nazis who, fifty years earlier, fled a local uprising for the hills and– as an intro chase sequence suggests, and the subsequent mayhem confirms – continue to roam as cannibalistic zombies. Writer/director Wirkola’s debut seems constantly in the process of homage, though never so literally that it proves vexing. Nonetheless, his funny-scary intentions are undercut by too little engaging (and competently edited) action, as the combative second-act – in which the shadowy fiends are revealed to be former SS stormtroopers – is long in coming and short on visceral thrills. With its last gasp, however, the film catches a second wind, its home stretch generating eerie claustrophobia via a 360-degree rotation around a buried-alive face, and bleak wit from a superlative final showdown coated in torrential arterial sprays. It’s not enough to wholly redeem the preceding action, but the climax – not unlike Raimi’s own return-to-‘80s-form Drag Me to Hell – dispenses a healthy dose of rowdy, hysterical nastiness.

The Late Show

2009-06-13T18:01:20-04:00

I planned to get this post up yesterday but, um, yeah, that didn't happen. Nonetheless, here it is now, replete with new reviews (including my rave for Tetro) as well as my IFC interview with Moon director Duncan Jones.

Duncan Jones' (Inter)stellar Debut (IFC News)

In Theaters:
Tetro (Cinematical)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Slant magazine)
BLAST! (Slant magazine)

Blood: The Last Vampire (2000): C

2009-06-11T14:07:01-04:00

Blood: The Last Vampire combines hand-drawn characters and computer-generated environments to create an aesthetic that imparts a chilling sense of otherworldly unease. Were the story even half as compelling as the imagery, Hiroyuki Kitakubo might have crafted an animé classic. As is, however, his supernatural story skimps so heavily on narrative details that it can barely sustain its measly 48-minute runtime. The obliqueness of his script is initially tantalizing, hinting – during its opening stanzas, in which a young girl slaughters a subway rider and is then ordered about by an American cohort (Joe Romersa) – at enough compelling mystery to whet our appetites. Alas, nothing substantial comes of this story about named Saya (voiced by Youki Kudoh), the last remaining “original” vampire who works for the U.S. government hunting and killing blood-sucking vampire demons disguised as humans. Sent undercover in 1966 at a Japanese military base’s high school to discover and dispatch these creatures, Saya dons a schoolgirl uniform and then wields a blade to devastating effect, along the way protecting a nurse (Saemi Nakamura) who does little more than cowardly whimper. Throughout, Blood: The Last Vampire has style to burn, but mostly offering up repeated shots of Saya scowling and slashing her way through bloody battles, the film comes across as a prologue teaser for a yet-to-be-established franchise.

I Love You, Man (2009): C+

2009-06-08T10:51:05-04:00

Taking the bromance subgenre to its logical end point, I Love You, Man follows engaged, friendless Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) as he embarks on a series of platonic dates with guys to find a best man, and eventually falls into a budding hetero relationship with single Rush fanatic Sydney Fife (Jason Segel). John Hamburg’s film (co-written with Larry Levin) is basically an extended Seinfeld episode in which male friendship is recast, through traditional rom-com scenarios and goofy innuendo, as a romantic affair, replete with a by-now familiar mixture of bawdy humor and sentimental sweetness. I Love You, Man is amusing enough in its formulaic, visually blah way, thanks in large part to the chemistry shared by Rudd and Segel. Rudd inhabits Peter with his usual brand of wimpy everyman snark while adding small traces of pitiful insecurity, and Segel undercuts Sydney’s self-possession with hints of doubt and loneliness. More importantly, the leads bring unpredictable verbal wit to drearily limp incidents – really, is rocking out to Rush all that funny? – though no matter the number of amusing quips, Hamburg’s film still ends up feeling like a tossed-off Judd Apatow photocopy.

Furious, Hungover and Lost

2009-06-05T15:40:46-04:00

For this week's Sandbox column, I look into why games based on movies - titles that always arrive in large quantities during the summer - generally suck.

The Sandbox: License to Infuriate (IFC News)

As for the week's reviews, two are mixed-positive and two are negative, though one of the latter still has its merits.

Now Playing:
The Hangover (Slant magazine)
Land of the Lost (Slant magazine)
Away We Go (Slant magazine)
Tennessee (Slant magazine)

Check back next week for my thoughts on, among other things, a quite-masterful return-to-form for an American filmmaking legend.

Sunday Night Updating

2009-05-31T22:22:13-04:00

This weekend's review update - featuring my last write-up's for The Screengrab, which officially signs off today - is a bit late. But it makes up for its tardiness with some - gasp! - honest-to-goodness positivity.

Out Now:
Up (The Screengrab)
Drag Me to Hell (The Screengrab)
Pontypool (Slant magazine)
What Goes Up (Slant magazine)

War, Present and Future

2009-05-22T15:45:54-04:00

For my latest Sandbox column, I take a look at the controversy surrounding Six Days in Fallujah, a game based on the 2004 Iraq war conflict that was recently canceled by Konami.

The Sandbox: Interactive Iraq (IFC News)

As for reviews, I have some less-than-glowing things to say about this weekend's two major releases, both of which fail to improve upon their predecessors.

Terminator Salvation (The Screengrab)
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Slant magazine)
O'Horten (Slant magazine)

Be sure to check back next week, when I'll have links to reviews of Up and Drag Me to Hell.

Monday Morning Tweet Tweet

2009-05-18T08:58:07-04:00

After an insanely hectic weekend delayed its arrival, here's my latest review round-up.

And for those who can't get enough of me, I'm now also on Twitter, at nschager. Follow away!

Now Playing:
Angels & Demons (Slant magazine)
The Brothers Bloom (The Screengrab)
Jerichow (The Screengrab)
Management (Cinematical)

Worthwhile Trek

2009-05-08T15:52:34-04:00

Star Trek is sure to make a killing this weekend, and deservedly so. But my praise this week extends beyond J.J. Abrams' reboot to Braid, an XBOX Live downloadable game that's the focus of my latest Sandbox column over at IFC News.

The Sandbox: "Braid" Forges A Path for Indie Gaming (IFC News)

In Theaters:
Star Trek (The Screengrab)
Adoration (The Screengrab)
Outrage (The Screengrab)
Rudo y Cursi (The Screengrab)

Sharpening the Claws

2009-05-01T15:46:48-04:00

Summer movie season officially kicks off today with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It's an inauspicious beginning, to be sure, though in the first major surprise of the year, this superhero prequel is no more intolerable than Jim Jarmusch's latest.

Out Now:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Slant magazine)
The Limits of Control (The Screengrab)
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Slant magazine)
Battle for Terra (Slant magazine)
Eldorado (The Screengrab)

This was also my first official year covering Tribeca, and though I only saw a handful of the fest's films, two of them were borderline-great.

Tribeca:
Moon (Slant magazine)
The House of the Devil (Slant magazine)
The Girlfriend Experience (Slant magazine)
Black Dynamite (Slant magazine)
Cropsey (Slant magazine)
Vegas: Based on a True Story (Slant magazine)
Soul Power (Slant magazine)
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (Slant magazine)
Love the Beast (Slant magazine)