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Reviews
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)
A tale of terror
This is an unbelievably brilliant film. This is the moment film and terror meet, not gory action flick horror, but impressionistic terror, slowly built up like a piece of carefully arranged music until it leads you to an inevitable and already foreshadowed tragedy. I've said this review contains spoilers but the main protagonist is clear about her story from the opening scene.
The music, sometimes played on an old tape player, sometimes part of the atmosphere, or sometimes faintly haunting refrains from long ago (diegetic and extradiegetic, the music fades and mixes like the hallucinatory visuals).
The main character has what is the worst job in the universe. And what do you know, she doesn't even get to watch TV, let alone use up her data trying to watch YouTube videos.
Kudos to Oz Perkins and Elvis Perkins for scaring the hell out of me. Such a beautiful film. For those who have trouble relating, just spend a weekend in an old house in the countryside and listen for the ghosts. You can shine your phone into the dark maw of the doorway if you like. Who knows what shadows you'll see.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
Disturbingly monological doc
Although I would agree that the documentary recounts a sad story, I had heard about the story in the news, so I knew how the story ended. Without giving the basic plot of this documentary away, it's a very sad and sometimes frustrating narrative. The story of the way the justice system worked with regard to a local woman, Shirley Turner, in St. John's, Newfoundland sounds pretty stupid on the part of most of the lawyers and judges involved in the case. Nevertheless, as a documentary this is an awful piece of filmmaking. The story involves the murder of a young American man, Andrew Bagby, by a Canadian woman from Newfoundland, Shirley Turner.
The director was a childhood friend of the deceased and part of the narrative is the journey literally taken by car from California to Nfld. by the director/filmmaker. Along the way the director meets friends of the deceased and there is even a few moments given to mourn the death of a relative of the deceased from cancer. Why? Because he was a relative of the deceased and a hell of a nice guy. The documentary criticizes the problems with the justice system in St John's, Nfld. that affect the murder case and later events. But there is absolutely no attempt to research this topic besides some scenes purporting to be cold calls to some of the lawyers and judges. We view the story largely through the eyes of the director and the parents of the young American man.
Thus the film is basically a moral condemnation and denunciation of the woman Turner. But what struck me in the end was that the woman who murdered Bagby was seriously ill. I am not excusing this woman, but in the end it is quite obvious to me that she was just being who she was, a seriously disturbed and potentially violent person. Therefore, despite all the best of intentions of the filmmaker and the friends and family of Bagby, the anger, hostility, and moral condemnation against a person who was obviously mentally disturbed creates a strange effect on a film supposedly made to show love for the deceased Bagby and a child who was possibly his son (considering the erratic behavior of Turner, I wondered if anyone actually ever verified whether the child was Bagby's for certain).
Turner was a sick person. That goes without saying. But in the end the hostility towards her just seems to me to show that those involved, including Bagby's parents and the filmmaker himself, were "infected" by the horrible person named Turner (truly the movie's "villain") so that they too end up as spiteful and antagonistic as Turner. In other words, everyone plays along with Shirley Turner. With a disturbing atmosphere of self-righteous and un-self-conscious aggressivity, the film attempts to gloss over emotions of violence and hatred. But by hating Shirley Turner so clearly, the film asks the viewer to participate in the same emotions of manipulation and twisted emotionality it condemns in Turner herself.
I felt at times that the use of repetition of some of the clips was truly in bad taste. The closing words of a letter "Love Kurt" cannot hide the pure hatred and revenge the film perpetuates. I suppose if the purpose of the film is to vent and spew hatred against a mentally deranged person, "Dear Zachary" is a success. Personally, I found it awful that they would ask one of Turner's own children from a previous relationship to come on camera to castigate a mother who probably left him long ago.
But everything is fair game since it is after all for Andrew Bagby, then for Zachary, and finally for the Bagby parents, those loving grandparents who decided that their son lived in the child carried by Shirley Turner, a disturbed, violent, psychopathic woman who wanted to be recognized so much, even of it meant making those around her want to kill her. And they do.
The Flaw (2011)
Watch The Flaw
Only 2 reviews for this remarkable film? I leave the spoiler box unchecked, but really, the film is a "spoiler" since it refers to the most recent crash, a veritable implosion of the global economy based partially on mortgage backed securities.
The film is British, so at the very least we have a fine mix of American and British academics in economics giving slightly different, but converging approaches to what happened.
I've seen a number of films on the crash (fictional and documentary), and this one is by far the best. The film is technical at times, but this is necessary. Nowadays, many of the actors involved in the financial sector are "financial engineers." The days of simplicity are long gone. It's all algorithms and computers now.
The film strikes a perfect balance between archival footage, expert discussion, and interviews with "real people" who were caught up in the real estate binge. And not all of those who bought houses were speculators, some just wanted a decent place to live, and maybe to use that decent place to consolidate debts.
The title "The Flaw" seems to have come from testimony given by Greenspan who referred to a flaw in his own ideology. The irony of this Randian admitting a problem with his ideology should not be taken for granted.
I walked away from this film wanting to watch it again. I hope more people will watch this film. This is not some kind of anti-capitalist diatribe. Instead the film methodically and subtly point out something we all know intuitively; capitalism as it presently functions cannot be sustained.
There are no simple answers. Only some terrifying questions. And by the way, nothing was solved by the bailouts that wasn't short term. Nothing.
Continuum (2012)
What's a mother to do?
So strange to review this Canadian sci-fi with hindsight. This is a wonderful show. It's not as if Canadian TV was without hits. From what I've watched "Being Erica" is actually clever, and doing alright in the US market too. Canada, especially Vancouver, has been a port of production the past couple of decades. The US version of "The Killing" is largely filmed there to look like Seattle, and you will recognize not a few "The Killing" actors in "Continuum." I would even suggest that some of the corrupt city government theme in "Continuum" might have washed over from "The Killing."
But "Continuum" is an often original and quirky series about a group of terrorists from 2077 sentenced to death who somehow sneak in a time travel device during their execution and end up back in present day Vancouver, and bring along at least one police person named Kiera Cameron.
The tech is fun, and interesting, and the story of Liber8, a sort of future radicalized Occupy Wall Street bunch of violent terrorists, is presented with just a touch of ambiguity. Sure Travis Verta (played in my opinion with great flourish by Roger Cross) is a sociopath. But he is also literally the "product" of genetic and information engineering by a pretty messed up future corporate society. And some of the propaganda he spews makes sense. He is living proof of it. By the way, Canadian society also has a history of using a militarized police force to suppress its own citizens. Canada has been doing this for the full length of its history, from the RCMP to CSIS, the Canadian CIA personified in Agent Gardiner (played by Nicholas Lea) a character you just want to punch in the mouth.
Actually, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Continuum" shows a kind of Canadian ideological mushiness. While the terrorists are "bad," they are also fleshed out (literally) as a nemesis constructed by the society that rejects them. It's a old school take on criminality that is too often missing in popular culture. The bad guys are also us. And we're not just talking about the cute Batman-Joker thing.
But for me I admit it's all about "Mother." The Kiera Cameron character is the emotional center of the show, she is a sort of tough, rational and human protagonist that draws in the plots. Will she be found out as a "time traveler"? Corny as hell. But it works. It works because it grounds the sci-fi trope of time-travel in very "real" metaphors of memory. Corny as hell, but filled with wonder at the same time. Nice computer graphics too.
Safe (2012)
Four Stars for Silly
In the future if people still talk about this film they might understand why it is so unbelievably silly. What we have is an action movie based on the current Security Council, NYC (American) cops, bad Russian mafia types, and equally bad Chinese "triad" types all chase a 11 or 12 year old Chinese girl who apparently is (1) a mathematics genius with (2) a photographic memory and (3) a mother used as collateral throughout the film although we find out she has died half-way through.
Chase scenes ensue, with lotsa guns and elbows in the face and broken fingers as Jason Stratham's character comes to the rescue of the little girl. He saves her because, just as he was about to jump onto the subway tracks, he saw the little girl running scared from some bad Russian guys and probably said to himself "Hey, this little Asian kid needs some help, I better risk my life by climbing on the subways cars to kill the Russian guys."
Why are they going after the little girl? She memorized a number, a code for a safe actually, where there is 30 million dollars, which is meant to pay for a disc with lots of dangerous stuff on it that would incriminate the bad guys, and the mayor, and his lover I guess. I don't know.
Punch, whack, crack, bdow bdow bdow, Stratham's character kills a bunch of key characters and even more anonymous players, and the little girl and him end up deciding to go to Seattle together. Just so it doesn't get creepy, he says he can't be her father-type guy, but she asks him to be her friend. Cut to sentimental music with corny voice-overs, then bouncy techno sounding soundtrack for credits.
The old "damsel in distress" vehicle we all agree has seen its day. Personally I find it even creepier the damsel is replaced here by a little Chinese girl. I do not see a future for this particular genre. I mean, just how many math geniuses do you think China produces with their rote methods and better study habits? Anyways, Stratham's character easily sees through the page length list of numbers and is able to memorize the safe combination anyways. Not bad for a white American guy who probably took too many shots to the head in the cage. So why exploit a little kid for this mess? I say bring back the damsel. At least you could get some chemistry going between the main stars.
This film is very silly. I cannot call up enough suspension of disbelief to break into the safes.