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Reviews
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Snakes on a Mother F-in Plane
Snakes on a Plane (2006) is a movie of firsts. It marks the first movie driven to commercial success by the internet, so in respects, Snakes is a landmark film, paving the way for upcoming features fueled by the likes of YouTube.com and online trailer sites (note: the success of 300, for example). It is the fist movie I have been intrigued by solely because of the title. I have to admit that I approached this movie with a rare excitement, understanding that S.o.a.P. admits its tawdry style, so it can be viewed almost as homage to stylish thrillers by mimicking and paying tribute to them, rather than actually becoming one. I was mistaken. The result, another first: Snakes may wind up to be the first cult film with no following.
The movie is problematic from the start as the long "Lovely Day" title sequence creates a misleading mood for the film, especially when the following scene involves a human piñata. From here, the "plot" (in quotes because it is simply used as a device to get us to the plane faster) unfolds as Sean (Nathan Phillips), the sole witness to a murder, reluctantly joins FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson), who convinces him to testify against the brutal murderer Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). No prosecuting witness has ever survived long enough to testify against Kim, so we can imagine how high the stakes are. To get to trail, Sean and Flynn must travel from Honolulu to Kim's hometown of L.A. on Pacific Air's Flight 121; a plane Kim has filled with the world most deadly vicious snakes in order to kill Sean.
The plane itself is filled with an array of personalities, each stereotypical and more of a caricature than a character. The black men are either rappers or tough guys, the white men are nerdy and uptight, the young women are sexual with no inhibitions, and the old women are helpless victims. There is a flamboyant steward, a few small children, a woman drinking whiskey from her metal flask (post 9-11 security?) and of course Samuel L. Jackson, whose presence alone allows the movie to be, I don't want to say worth watching, but most definitely entertaining. Nearly everyone on the plane is overtly rude and self-centered, able only to say exactly what is on their mind at the exact moment they are speaking (take the woman who was coarsely treated, as she says to her dog in response to her assailant, "Don't worry Mary-Kate, his hair plugs won't hurt you.") Because we don't care about the characters, we don't mind seeing them die at the jaws of fierce snakes. We are introduced to snake vision, akin to the sight of Predator (1987), as the snakes make their way from the cargo area to the bathrooms (and I thought Jackass 2 would be the only movie of 2006 where a man gets his penis bitten by a snake), and steadily make their way down aisles, through overhead compartments, into circuit breakers (a scene which was reminiscent of Jurassic Park (1993), still the go-to movie on reptiles gone wrong), and into the cockpit. The snakes are unprejudiced in their assault, gnashing at peoples eyes, necks, arms, backs, legs and tongues and although it appears as though the movie sounds chilling or gory, the obviously computer animated snakes do not lend themselves well to atmosphere created in the film, thus alleviating any terror or suspense.
The real excitement comes when Samuel L. Jackson's tyranny of evil is released on the snakes, killing them by whatever means possible. Some of the weapons include a taser gun, a hand gun, an ax, a fire extinguisher, a microwave, a blowtorch and yes, a harpoon (why am I not so worried about the whiskey flask anymore). And then, the infamous line: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these mother f_cking snakes on this mother f_cking plane!" Oh, Samuel L.
Snakes on a Plane is not a bad movie, per say. It is entertaining but offers no insight or groundbreaking cinema, aside from its title. But that defines the problem: the intrigue is found simply in the title. Take the name away and the movie would be exposed for what it is: a cheesy action thriller powered by unworthy internet hype. S.o.a.P aside, I am still looking forward to Jackson's other snake themed film, Black Snake Moan (2007).
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Refreshing Slapstick
"The Christians who "save" Borat...treat him pretty nicely...You may disagree with their views, but what else is there to laugh at? The views expressed by the people at that church, to my memory, aren't offensive or racist, they are sincere." - Jason Eaken
To the people who feel this way about Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), you missed the joke. This film is an American satire, or better worded, a satire about America that has been a long time coming. We deserve it. We need a good look at ourselves every once in a while. I am happy the majority of Americans understand this movie; in its opening weekend, it held the number one spot despite 20th Century allowing the movie to play in only half of the scheduled theaters, claiming that middle-America will not "get" Borat.
This film follows Borat's (Sacha Baron Cohen) journey from his mud-for-floors third-world village in Kazakhstan, where his most prized possession is a 15 year old cassette player, to the technologically, culturally, religiously, ethically advanced Unites States, where the phrase, "We don't do that here in America" becomes all too common. Borat's goal is to become Americanized so that he can bring the sophisticated culture back to Kazakhstan in hope that they too will become more civilized.
So for the middle-America that "got" the movie, you can stop reading here. If you think traveling across America to kidnap Pamela Anderson in a burlap sack is funny or if you were amused by Kazakhstan's annual "Running of the Jew", I would advise you to read something else. As for the people who continue: I hope I can clear up why this movie is funny, although I don't expect you to laugh, because I know jokes needing explanation just aren't funny.
This movie works because as an audience, we know nothing about Kazakhstan. Everything we know, we learned from Borat. The technology is dated, there is no indoor plumbing (plastic bags: yes; toilets: no), medicine has seen no advancement, and even if it had, the residents are more than likely too poor to afford a prosthetic limb, they are anti-Semitic and homophobic. Their culture is much worse off than the almighty American way of life, or is it?
There is a reason that you feel uneasy when you see Borat approaching a group of black teenagers in the middle of the night in an unknown location. We know the history of blacks and whites in America. This is surely a recipe for disaster. Why is it funny though? Maybe because we know that Borat has not exactly mastered the English language, and he is most likely going to say something that will be taken the wrong way. Or maybe it's funny because in the next scene, after the teenagers have Americanized Borat, he is calling a white man "vanilla-face" as if making his pants baggy has allowed him to supersede his own ethnicity to look down on someone with the same skin color as himself. Or maybe it's funny because Borat's ignorance of the prejudices in our society mirror the prejudices in his own society, say towards Jews and gays
And yes, Jason Eaken, the audience is indeed laughing at the views of the members in that church, but that is not the joke. We are not laughing because we think they are insensitive, offensive or racist, but because they are sincere: that is the joke. It is hard to imagine that those people actually believe what they are doing. You don't need to be anti-religious to understand that church members running up and down aisles with their hands in the air being moved by Holy Spirit is ridiculous. And you don't need to be an atheist to understand that allowing the Holy Spirit to then enter your body, which enables you to speak in tongues and heal foreigners of depression, is extremely ridiculous. These are the types of stories told after a group of preteens play with an Ouija board while watching The Sixth Sense. The funniest part of the church incident is Borat, who by the way in real life is a Jewish-actor, never misses a beat and goes along with the whole experience.
As one who finds slapstick comedy childish, stupid, crude, degrading and filled with cheap laughs, I would highly recommend this movie. It is extremely clever, it is offensive in a way that makes us embarrassed of how people view America, and it is funny. This is definitely the best comedy of 2006.
The Legend of Lucy Keyes (2006)
Why Was This Film Made?
John Stimpson's, The Legend of Lucy Keyes (2006), is a below average script gone wrong. As I sat in the theater, two things kept crossing my mind: Is this really the same Julie Deply I know from Blue (1993); followed by: has it been 93 minutes yet? Legend is about a middle-class family of city dwellers that have just moved to a New England country-side home in support of a windmill project being constructed by husband and father, Guy Cooley (Justin Theroux). Strange vibes exist from day one when not-so-friendly-neighbor/pig farmer Jonas Dodd (Mark Boone Junior) refuses to say hello to Guy, creating an uneasy tension?, later resulting in many weird unexplained scenes, including a bloody pigs head on a stick during a casual walk through the woods.
Meanwhile, Wife Jeanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) is constantly waking up in the middle of the night, hearing voices disguised as wind coming from the woods. Intertwined with her night terrors are flashbacks of her youngest daughter, who is now deceased, being struck by a car (we learn this information through dropped ice cream cones and screeching tires). The only point to establishing a dead daughter as a character is to reinforce the mothers need to keep her surviving children alive, as if we sympathize with the mom: "Jeanne has already lost one daughter, it would be a shame for her to lose another." No kidding.
It gets worse.
Through a town meeting filled with some of the most awkward dialog ever filmed, the superstitious ramblings of Gretchen Caswell (Jamie Donnelly) who is described as a "funny looking lady with white hair", inform us that "Martha's Land", where the windmills are being built, is haunted by a 250 year old ghost Martha (Rachel Harker), who is still involved in a never ending search for her abducted/murdered daughter Lucy Keyes.
Parallels between Jeanne Cooley and the Martha ghost begin to unfold (...basically their daughters have the same name...) which is shown in a flashback, yes another one, using the combined knowledge of the we-know-you're-in-danger-but-why-would-we-inform-you townspeople. The flashback depicts a 250 years old scene of "alive" Martha ringing a dinner bell to attract Lucy's attention, followed by Jeanne repeating the scene in present time. (Note the exquisite dialogue: "I got you a gift. You've always wanted a dinner bell") The inevitable disappearance of Lucy is delayed for what seems like hours. Finally, the Martha ghost (this is a ghost story, right?) appears and flies through a little crack in Lucy's window, but instead of grabbing Lucy as any childless mother ghost would, just stands still and allows the scary music to play. Eventually, Lucy goes missing and a search party is formed, just like it was 250 years ago and the cycle repeats itself (although no murders of Native Americans take place this time). The difference is, almost by some sort of psychic premonition (which would have made more sense than the way the scene actually played out), Jeanne and Guy find their daughter and finally the madness is over.
If my review seems all over the place, that simply means I succeeded in conveying the story.
But maybe I am being too harsh. There were a couple redeeming qualities of the film, and I must give credit where it is due. First off, I walked out of the theater much more appreciative of what a good movie actually looks like, and maybe the best part of all: it happened to be a free screening.
300 (2006)
Frank Miller Time
Frank Miller is two for two in successfully adapting his graphic novels to the big screen. Although Sin City still sets the standard, 300 exceeded my personal expectations and undoubtedly works; it pumps adrenaline through spectacular visuals, a plot that gets the job done and breathtaking battle scenes. Based on visuals alone, 300 is and will be the best movie of the year (watch for the scene with the Oracle (Kelly Craig), which I found to be particularly stimulating.) Unfortunately, how good a films looks does not necessarily correlate to how good it actually is. 300 is not without its shortcomings, but I found myself trying hard to forgive the few missteps combined with middle-of-the-road acting and a lot of dumb-downed dialogue simply because I was constantly entertained by the beauty of the picture itself.
300 asks us to sympathize with a barbaric society, the Spartans, where babies born with deficiencies are "discarded". Children lucky enough to make it past inspection are raised with one objective: to become killing machines (oh, also something about honor, heart and pride). The result is a magnificently strong, bare-chested Spartan army that we have no problems routing for. When self proclaimed king-god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a wigless drag-queen on a power trip, decides to extend the boarders of his land into Spartan territory, he leaves protagonist King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) with the option of surrendering and becoming a slave alongside his wife and child or fighting for their land and glory against a Persian army of 200,000+ men. Fundamentally, Spartans do not surrender and thus, the Battle of Thermopylae ensues. The battle is of epic proportions, as legendary as it is gory, though not as gruesome as Apocolypto (2006), and strays away from crafting a historical account, but rather successfully attempts to recreate the graphic novel.
The Persians attack in three waves, each sublimely entertaining. I found myself worried that the countless number of fatalities by spear would become tiresome, but director Zack Snyder finds fresh ways of illustrating what become routine deaths. 300 is a bloodbath, but at no point does it become exploitive or tasteless (barring the machete-armed jabba the hut creature). The dialogue, like the acting, is straightforward and simple but is by no means poor and the music effectively works to motivate and inspire. 300 come across as though its appeal is limited to testosterone-filled young men, and I cannot disagree. While this won't hurt it box office numbers, it will affect its longevity. For my money, Sin City is Frank Miller's film to beat, but 300 is definitely worth watching.
Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie (2004)
"Touch the Sound" Hits the Right Note
"Touch the Sound" is beautiful in the same way the wind-drifting plastic bag of "American Beauty" is beautiful. It is simple and profound, and even though it is right in front of us, we somehow cannot manage to see it. This movie is an experience, not in the sense of a journey, but rather, something you must feel in order to connect with. Movies like this keep us in touch.
Everything has sound, and thus for Evelyn, everything is an instrument. No exceptions. Cans, bottles, rope, sections of aluminum, a snare drum, the sidewalk
everything. Maybe the only thing more impressive than her actual musical abilities is the open-mindedness of the people who watch her play these obscure instruments. The film takes us from Japan to New York to England to Santa Cruz, where we find a diverse group of cultures united by music. Or maybe it is something deeper than that.
"We need to eat, we need to sleep, and we need music." This is Evelyn's philosophy, one which she most certainly lives by. Evelyn is a woman who plays her percussion instruments barefooted in order to feel the vibrations they cast, so it is no stretch to say she quiet literally has a feel for what she is doing. She is a wonderful musician, who makes such a connection with her music that it is as if the music is not being heard through her ear, but rather resounding throughout her body.
The most engaging moments in the film are found through the improvisations performed by Evelyn and fellow musician Fred Firth, who she has never met before. They create the soundtrack of the film through their willingness to experiment and explore with any and every combination of variances on traditional guitars and percussion instruments.
Although I very much enjoyed the film, I did find that there were a few too many visual "sounds" where as a viewer I found the underlying message to be too apparent. Nevertheless, "Touch the Sound" is worth a watch, even if you are not a musician; its is simple, enjoyable and leaves us with a sense of inner harmony.