THE INVENTION OF LYING (2009) - A Review

 

This recent comedy, co-written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, and starring Gervais, continues to fascinate me. It's a simple concept, and an imperfect film, and yet...

 

Let's start with the concept. Invention presents a world exactly like our own, except for one thing: The human race has never developed the ability to lie. Everyone tells the truth about everything at all times. This goes for both the spoken dialogue (a waiter, assessing Gervais and his date says "She's way out of your league.") and for the world we see in the background (Gervais visits his elderly mother in building labeled "A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People").

 

Needless to say, this one change in human behavior has created other interpersonal and societal changes - most of them seemingly bad. Many of the characters seem a little emotionally flat; others are relentlessly cruel. Though played for laughs - which it gets - this film paints a pretty grim picture of a world without lies.

 

Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a sad sack writer for "Lecture Films," a company that produces feature films of people lecturing about historical events. (It's a clever idea; since no one can lie, films produced for entertainment have to be based on real people and events, and can't include any dialogue that isn't 100% historically accurate. Thus, we get Christopher Guest appearing periodically as Nathan Goldfrappe, doing stuffy readings that are sure fire snoozers.) The plot, such as it is, kicks into gear when Bellison is fired and faces a personal and financial crisis.

 

With no job, and his landlord threatening to evict him Bellison has a sort of biological epiphany when he goes to the bank, and, as he later tells his friend Greg (Louis C.K.), "I said something that wasn't," and gets $800 for his rent, rather than the $300 that his account actually contains. Given that no one lies, the teller assumes the discrepancy in numbers must be due to a computer error on the part of the bank. Have a nice day!

 



Leaving the bank with his rent money in his pocket, Mark realizes what this new development can mean. Then, in a very general sense, the film sets about making the case for lying as a good thing in human interactions. This leads to some memorable and remarkable scenes, all of which somewhat fizzles out in a less than satisfying conclusion.

 

But the good parts are very good. When Mark gets the word that his mother is dying, and he rushes to see her one last time, he finds her agitated and afraid, fearing the impending "eternity of nothingness." Though crying and upset himself, Mark spins a tale for her of what happens after you die - an afterlife of eternal happiness surrounded by all the people you love, and in a place where "everyone gets a mansion," and there's no pain, only love. These are the last words his mother hears, and she is clearly comforted by them. Of course, Mark's speech is also heard by some of the hospital staff, who are in awe, and want to know how he knows all this. It's a remarkable scene, one that simultaneously makes it clear that religions are based on lies, while at the same time making the case that those lies can be good things when they bring people comfort in times of trouble.

 

Afterwards, Mark is beset by the press and his fellow citizens, all wanting to know where he got this information. With the pressure on, Mark concocts a story about "the man in the sky" who controls everything, and tries his best to lay out a coherent proto-theology to get people off his back. But every answer he gives only leads to more questions, trapping Mark in the role of the Chosen One whether he likes it or not.

 

In an attempt to get on with his life, Mark uses his new power to get his job back, and to try and win Anna (Jennifer Garner), the woman of his dreams. But satisfaction with his new life remains elusive.

 

It's the subplot with Anna where the film is at its weakest. Mark is clearly smitten with her and then some, and near the end of the film he makes an impassioned speech about how she's the loveliest, nicest, kindest woman he's ever met. The only trouble is, as presented in the film up to that point, she has come across as incredibly shallow and vain, rejecting Mark despite his money, fame and intelligence because he doesn't measure up to her standards for looks. (She repeatedly proclaims she doesn't want to have short, fat kids with snub noses - her thumbnail sketch of Mark physically.) So it's hard to see why Mark would be so head over heels in love with such a self-centered and not-very-nice-at-all person.

 

Also of note on the negative side: This film contains at least half a dozen montages set to peppy (and lousy) pop songs. I can't recall ever seeing a film with so many montages, especially since they're all so similar. I can't say whether it's lazy filmmaking, or the result of pressures to have more songs on the soundtrack, or what. But whatever it is, it just doesn't work.

 

Still, this film continues to fascinate me. It's a film, it's a philosophy, it's a question. What would life be like without lies? I think few of us would miss the Big Lies, the kind associated with politicians and other questionable characters. But what about the little lies, the white lies, the lies of omission? Are those bad things, or are they a kind of social and emotional lubricant? Yes, this is a silly comedy with a poop joke or two, but it also offers a lot of things to think about. Taken as it is, with its weaknesses and all, I would say it's probably two-thirds of a great film. And since most films would struggle to get to even one-third greatness, I mean that as a compliment.

 



Clearly the script spoke to a great many creative people, since the supporting cast is filled with familiar faces doing small bits. Rob Lowe is great as a vain romantic rival of Mark's, who has a huge ego and a flat affect. Jeffrey Tambor is very good as Mark's insecure boss. Edward Norton has a nice scene as a tightly-wound motorcycle cop. The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Jim the Bartender. Other people taking small parts include Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Jonah Hill (inexplicably third-billed) and John Hodgman. 

VIOLENT FIRE (2002) - A Review

 

AKA: DEADLY OUTLAW: REKKA

AKA: JITSUROKU ANDO NOBURU KYODO-DEN: REKKA

 

 

 

 

Where to start? This film was directed by Takashi Miike. This fact alone was enough to excite me when I found this DVD at an AIDS charity thrift shop in Berkeley. (The fact that it was only a buck was also pleasing.) If you've ever seen one of Miike's films, you know he's a wild, eclectic and talented director. Whatever genre he works in, he manages to put his own distinctive spin on it.

 

This film, from 2002, is his take on a Yakuza crime film - though you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some sort of insane martial arts-crime-horror-comedy combo if all you saw was the opening five minutes. (See video embedded above. WARNING: It is violent, and crazy.) Sadly, the rest of the movie is not as over the top gonzo great as this opening sequence, but it does manage to maintain an atmosphere of artful confusion throughout the entire film.

Story somewhat takes a backseat to style here, but, in a nutshell, Violent Fire is about Kunisada (Riki Takeuchi), a young man with an extremely short fuse who gleefully takes part in a gang war in order to get revenge against the men who killed his Yakuza mentor. In the end, crime does not pay for Kunisada either, but in the meantime, he's a crazy cyclone of vengeance tearing through the Japanese underworld.

But because this is a Miike film, said vengeance is interspersed with scenes of gangsters having noodles, Kunisada bleaching his hair, a half-spoken, half-sung exposition scene, and other incongruous things. Hey, is that Sonny Chiba I see? Yes it is. Like the opening sequence, this film is jammed full with characters, ideas and images, all colliding and, most of the time, cohering into something resembling a plotline.

Apparently Miike edited the movie to the album Satori (1971) by the Japanese prog-rock band Flower Traveling Band. (They can be heard on the clip above.) Why not, right? And hey, it works. A couple of the guys from the band are also in the movie. Miike's editing here is unusual; sometimes the music drops out from shot to shot, or overlaps the next scene a great deal. Once or twice, the screen went black and silent long enough that we wondered if the film was just abruptly over. Again, style is the thing here. Revenge plots are a dime a dozen, but few are laid out in the cockeyed way this one is. And Takeuchi is just about perfect as the hellbent headcase out for blood.



Other than saying that I've found things to admire, enjoy and be astonished at in all his films I've seen, there's no real blueprint for a Takashi Miike movie. His international hit Audition (1999) is half lonely guy romance, half full-on horror. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) is a comedy about a family that owns a rural inn - and comes complete with singing and dancing zombies and an animated volcano. It's usually a cliché, but with Miike it's true: Expect the unexpected.

So if you're in the mood for something different, or want to see how the creativity of Japanese filmmakers easily eclipses 99% of American film product, you might want to check this out - or check out Miike's work in general. In the meantime, I'm gonna be looking for a copy of the Flower Traveling Band's album.


NON-STOP (2014) - A Review

 

I suppose people go to the movies for all sorts of reasons. This weekend, my wife and I wanted to go to see a movie to celebrate living in a town with three different multi-screen theaters. The town we previously lived in will be closing their only theater this weekend, and we are so grateful to be in a place where we have cinema options.

 



And that is how we wound up on a plane with Liam Neeson today. Non-Stop was the only new movie in town that was of much interest to either of us, and so we were off to fly the not-so-friendly skies.

 

The set-up is pretty straightforward here: Neeson is flight marshal Bill Marks, onboard a transatlantic flight. Soon after the plane lifts off, he starts getting threatening text messages on the airline's closed network. The mystery texter promises that a passenger on the plane will die every 20 minutes until $150 million is wired to a bank account - an account that is in Marks' name. Complications - and a death every 20 minutes - ensue.

This is a popcorn movie in the best sense. Given that Marks doesn't know who is sending the texts, the film starts right in with introducing his fellow passengers in the most suspicious of ways. From the get-go, everyone seems at least potentially a little questionable, both to the audience and to Marks, and the filmmakers manage to keep both the plane and the mystery up in the air until the end. Neeson, a hulking man and a capable actor, is very good as the man-with-a-past Marks who is in even more of a jam than Keanu Reeves was in Speed (1994) - at least he wasn't 20,000 feet in the air.

 

Of the reviews I've read of this film, almost all have said that when the identity and motives of the texter is revealed it's unbelievable and somehow not up to snuff. I disagree. Without going into who it is, or why they're doing it, my wife and I found it to be all too plausible. In any case, the reveal comes very near the end, so even if you found it a buzz killer, well, the movie is almost over anyway. (The closest thing to this film is 2005's Red Eye, which in my opinion very much does fall apart in its last quarter. Thus, Non-Stop emerges the better movie-you'll-never-ever-ever-see-on-a-plane.)

 

I also appreciated that, from my perspective, most of this film was pretty plausible, and that there were no painful or embarrassing "make my day" lines in the script. (There are, however, a few maudlin moments to give us the emotional backstory for Bill Marks.) Another thing of note, especially for an American action film, is the real lack of gunplay here. Yes, Neeson's character has a gun, but being that most of the movie is spent in a pressurized airplane at 20,000 feet, there would be real consequences for being fast and loose with his handgun. By the time there is some gunfire, near the very end of the film, there are already other, bigger problems for everyone onboard to deal with.

 

Some might say that Neeson, Julianne Moore, and current Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong'o are slumming, but I see nothing wrong with a well done, satisfying and not insultingly stupid thriller. Good action films are a rare breed these days, and this is a good one. That's nothing to be ashamed of in my book.



"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Dean Vernon Wormer, Animal House

  

Dying is easy; comedy is hard. Harold Ramis did the hard part first.

 

R.I.P. Harold Ramis

1944 - 2014

 

 

HUO SHAO SHAO LIN SI (1976) - A Review

 

AKA: THE BLAZING TEMPLE

 

One of the DVDs we picked up in San Francisco recently was this mid-70s Hong Kong martial arts period piece, The Blazing Temple. I'd never heard of it, but it was brand new, the cover art looked promising, and it was only a couple of bucks. So why not?

 



I'm glad we took a chance, because this movie is a lot of fun, has plenty of action, and features high production values throughout. Both my wife and I enjoyed it very much.

 

The plot is fairly standard: An Evil Emperor is out to destroy the Shaolin school of martial arts, because they're the only ones who might possibly be able to oppose his evil (of course) plans. He sends a huge battalion of soldiers with cannons to destroy the Shaolin Temple and the monks who live there. The temple burns, hence the title, and most of the monks are killed. The handful who survive want to rebuild their school - but first, they'll have to get some getback on the Emperor. Their efforts are made more difficult by a traitor in their midst, but, in the end, which is wonderfully abrupt, the (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) Evil Emperor finally gets his head lopped off. END!

 

This was one of four films that director Joseph Kuo turned out in 1976, and it seems to possibly have a tie-in to his The 18 Bronzemen (parts one and two), since the bronze men make an appearance here too. Given the somewhat fractured nature of the subtitles, I'm still not quite sure what exactly the bronzemen are - men in gold paint? Spirits? In any case, they are one of many nice visual touches here.

 

Though the actual blazing temple is clearly a model - a very good model, to be sure - all the other sets, locations and effects are top-notch. Several scenes feature hundreds of costumed extras, so it looks like some money was spent on this production. The acting is generally good, there are touches of humor at times, and good use is made of a number of outdoor locations. Several shots show meditating monks in the lotus position being calmly engulfed by flames as the temple burns, an image that's clearly meant to evoke the monks who had recently emolliated themselves to protest the Vietnam war. I don't know if the filmmakers were trying to draw any parallels between recent events and their story, but whatever the meaning, the images are pretty eerie.

 

But, of course, the action is what movies like this are really all about, and The Blazing Temple does not skimp on that commodity. It wouldn't be accurate to say this film has non-stop action, but it is spread liberally throughout the entire story. Things start with a young woman challenging and fighting the Emperor's personal guards, and ends (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) with the same woman suddenly reappearing and decapitating the Emperor. END!

 

In between, there are numerous well-staged martial arts scenes - both between individuals and with larger groups. There is kicking, there is sword fighting, there is all manner of jumping, spinning and acrobatics. There's a sword-proof vest, and a bracelet that shoots poison darts. The fight scenes are varied in style and content, and all uniformly well done. I can't imagine action fans wouldn't be pleased with this movie.

 

There are also some wonderfully garbled subtitles at times. After one battle, the character Fung is badly, badly beaten, obviously nearly dead. One of his comrades tells him, "Fung, cheer up." Needless to say, Fung is way past simply cheering up.

 



I'm not going to pretend to know how much of this story is based on any sort of historical facts, or to know a lot about the cast or crew of this film. I don't. All I do know is that I'm glad we gambled a couple of bucks on this DVD, because it turned out to be pretty great entertainment. Now I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more films directed by Kuo, and/or featuring Ling Chia (AKA Jia Ling) or Barry Chan (AKA too many names to list here).



THE BROOD (1979) - A Review

 



We've been on a little bit of a David Cronenberg kick lately, with the most recent entry being The Brood (1979), which we watched last night. It's one of my favorite Cronenberg films, for a variety of reasons.

 

The story of The Brood is as follows: Frank (Art Hindle) and Nola Carveth (Samantha Egger) are a married couple who have been having major problems as a couple. Just short of splitting up, Nola has gone away to be under the personal care of controversial psychologist Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed). Raglan has created his own approach to therapy: Psychoplasmics, which involves his patients literally manifesting their mental ills as physical realities (stigmata, tumors) in order to ultimately purge them from their lives. As Frank and Nola fight for control of their daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), it turns out that Raglan has given Nola a decisive weapon in this struggle. (SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!) Taking psychoplasmics to a new level, Nola gives birth to partially formed children, all of whom resemble Candice, who are under her control and respond to her emotional state. When she is calm, the brood is too. But if Nola is angry with someone, they will track them down and express that anger in violent, murderous ways. The situation comes to a climax when the brood kidnap Candice and take her back to Nola at Raglan's institute.
 

I have to say that, in general, I find David Cronenberg to be a fascinating, brilliant writer and director. The recurrent theme that runs through so many of his films - the body turning against itself in one way or another - is unique among filmmakers. It's the cinema of cancer, and it made perfect sense to me when I found out that Cronenberg originally majored in biochemistry at the University of Toronto, before making the switch to English. His work shows a perfect union of those two worlds. Even when he has worked with material that isn't his own, such as in The Dead Zone (1983) or his version of The Fly (1986), this theme still holds true.

 

I also appreciate that Cronenberg applied his brilliance, at least initially, to genre films - horror and science fiction - that all too often suffered very much from a seeming lack of any intelligence. Yes, films like The Brood, They Came from Within (1975) and Videodrome (1983) are, in the simplest sense, bloody, gory horror shows. But they are much more than that as well. Cronenberg's films function on more than one level, and his body of work is filled with social and political commentary, as well as numerous instances of nearly psychic prognostication. Cronenberg is the Jules Verne or H.G. Wells of filmmakers. His films often feature medical, technological or other devices or ideas that seem fantastic at the time, but quickly turn up in the real world.

 

But, broader strokes aside, The Brood was, apparently, a very personal film for Cronenberg - who had just gone through a divorce and custody battle of his own. Though this film absolutely strikes that patented Cronenberg cinema as cancer tone, in other ways The Brood plays against expectations. For one thing, Nola Carveth is a mother, the archetype of life and regeneration - yet she produces murderous monsters. She is aided in this by her doctor, who, rather than healing, facilitates the horror that Nola produces. And this doctor is played by Oliver Reed, an actor and personality not necessarily known for his gentility - yet he plays Raglan as a soft-spoken, restrained man.

 



Further, a grade school classroom becomes the scene of one of the brood's deadly assaults. And, of course, those assaults are carried out by children. Nothing is quite as it should be in The Brood, either in the world Cronenberg has created or in the audience's expectations, and this disconnect, this otherness, serves the film well. Art Hindle does a good job as Frank, our guide at navigating this somewhat familiar but very dangerous territory.

With all this intentional dissonance and the effectively creepy use of the children of the brood, The Brood more than makes the grade as a superior horror thriller. As usual, Cronenberg has attracted some talented and interesting performers, and the acting here is very strong across the board. Some have carped about Egger being over the top, but I disagree. Her character is supposed to be, at best, on the bleeding edge of madness, and I don't think that Egger overplays her.

 

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, Cronenberg was one of the key genre directors working and turning out classic films. This group included John Carpenter, George Romero and Wes Craven. (Of this group, Carpenter has commented that "Cronenberg is better than the rest of us combined.") In this era of cookie-cutter nostalgia and remake mania, all of these filmmakers have had some of their films remade - except for Cronenberg. Though he has made just as many iconic, name brand films - They Came from Within, Rabid (1977), The Brood, Scanners (1981), Videodrome - no one has actually come through with a Cronenberg remake. (A Scanners remake has been talked about for years, but...) I think this is because, when the rubber hits the road, it runs out that David Cronenberg has laid out a very weird, very involved road indeed - one that resists an easy or glossy redo. You can almost hear a modern producer saying something like, "Can't we make it a little, you know, less dark?"

 

In a word, no. David Cronenberg makes films that may light up the dark, but that light does not eliminate the dark. It just draws us in deeper. But as his films show us time and time again, getting in deeper usually means getting in over your head.

 

Or put another way, as pertains to The Brood...Soft-spoken or not, if you're in a movie and Oliver Reed is playing your doctor, you're in trouble.

 



TOM YUM GOONG 2 (2013) - A Review
 

AKA: THE PROTECTOR 2
 



I'm a fan of the Thai action star Tony Jaa, and I was pretty blown away by Chocolate (2008), the debut film of up-and-coming Thai action actress Jija Yanin (AKA Jeeja Yanin). If you've seen Chocolate, or Jaa's work in the first Tom Yum Goong (2005) or Ong-Bak (2003), then you've seen some very high-level, crowd pleasing martial arts action cinema. (When we were in Bhutan last year, there was a TV channel out of India that seemed to show nothing but a constant rotation of the three Ong-Bak films.)

 

So I was very excited when I heard that these two would be appearing together in TYG2. On our recent trip to San Francisco, my wife spotted the DVD of TYG2 in Chinatown, and, as I'm sure she would attest, I was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. (The film will open in theaters in the U.S. in May of this year.)

 

Now that we're home, and I've had a chance to watch the film, I am sorry to report that it is somewhat less than the sum of its parts. Don't get me wrong: It's a pleasing enough, proficient enough action film. But it doesn't come close to the best work that either Jaa or Yanin have done in the past.

 

As in the original Tom Yum Goong, the plot here swings into action when villager Kham (Tony Jaa) has his beloved elephant stolen. His search takes him into the big, bad city, where he crosses paths with various thugs, assassins and an arms dealer named Mr. LC (played by American rapper RZA). He also runs into his old friend Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao), a police detective, who had been in the first film as well. The plot is little more than an excuse to send Jaa into situation after situation that he'll have to fight his way out of - which is fine for an action film. Who really comes for the story, right? The problem here is that there's nothing that quite compares to some of the work Jaa did in the first film.

 



TYG2 was shot in 3D, and makes quite a lot of use of CGI in some of its big action scenes, especially a Jaa vs. motorcycles battle that takes place across various rooftops. Given Jaa's talents as a martial artist/performer, it's a little disappointing to see such "tricks" used.

 

Even more disappointing is the profound underuse of Yanin. In Chocolate, she made a big impression on me with both her acting and her martial arts and stunt work. She's clearly a very talented young woman. But she has little to do here, and almost no dialogue at all. Her presence in several scenes feels very much like something that was thrown together at the last minute, and it is not vitally important to either the plot or the film.

 

The casting of RZA was also a problem, being that I didn't find him believable for a second, either as an arms dealer or as a martial artist. Less of him, and more of Yanin, would make this a better film, in my opinion.

 

But I understand why RZA is there. And why this was shot in 3D. It looks like this will be Tony Jaa's big chance in American movie theaters, so Jaa and director Prachya Pinkaew (who also directed the first TYG) have pulled out all the stops to try and make a film that will have numerous marketable angles to audiences in the U.S. With that in mind, I think they've crafted a serviceable enough film. There are several impressive action sequences, Jaa can still bend, kick, jump and fight like a demon, and, if you're not familiar with the earlier work of the players, then you're likely to be impressed and satisfied.

 

On the other hand, I am familiar with the earlier work of both stars, so I found it underwhelming overall. But I wish Jaa (and Yanin) lots of luck with American audiences. Unlike more recent action transplants like Jackie Chan or Jet Li, Tony Jaa is (in my opinion) extremely handsome, almost pretty, and thus may have a sex appeal that goes beyond his multiple martial arts skills. If this film doesn't put him over in the U.S., then his role in the upcoming franchise sequel Fast & Furious 7 (due out in 2015) should. Jaa also has not one but two films in the pipeline in which he co-stars with Dolph Lundgren. (Not so sure about the wisdom of that Tony - no offense to Dolph.)

 



The question I have now is...If there's another Tom Yum Goong film, how are they going to explain Kham having his elephant stolen for a third time?