Romeo + Juliet (1996)

This week, to celebrate a review that's been years in the making, my friend Tony and I did a podcast talking about our history with this movie and what we thought about it. Check it out:



William Shakespeare is always a tough one to tackle when making a movie, because there are so many things that can go wrong. You really just need the best actors and the best understanding of drama possible, because otherwise you could end up churning out something rather misguided or silly.

And when you don't feel like even trying, you can always just make something like Romeo + Juliet.

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes

IMDb

Co-written with Tony and Michelle.

Yes, this is the 1996 Baz Luhrmann film that some people like and other people wonder why those people won't share their illegal drugs. Seriously, guys, it's bad. I respect any opinions to the contrary, and I know it won a lot of awards, but there's no mincing words or dancing around the point here. This is a bad movie.

We start off with a TV news report talking about the Capulets and the Montagues in their ongoing strife in a big city. I guess the idea is kind of clever, but it's just done in such a goofy, cartoonish way. Hearing Shakespearean dialogue coming out of a bunch of news anchors in suits on a TV screen just doesn't fit. It's like wearing sandals with socks.

And the directing is just so god-awful. Everything is done in sped-up cartoony pace, with lots of exaggerated movements and over the top flamboyance. It's annoying as shit. Everything happens super fast and there's just no room for the film to breathe. Like, really, even before the characters actually come in – you get tons of quick shots of the city, and things burning, aerial shots that are supposed to represent the chaos between the two families.

Maybe they'll report on that King Lear fellow next town over, too, and his familial drama.

You'd think the National Guard would step in, seeing as this IS supposed to be modern times and in the United States, and these families are seemingly wreaking havoc on a whole entire big city. But I guess that wasn't important – fuck actually doing work with the stupid ideas and themes you came up with, right? "It's an artistic decision" isn't a catch-all for bullshit, guys.

And, apparently, this is now a Full House style sitcom. Because the movie can't make up its mind on fucking anything.

The very first actual scene is perpetual bad movie machine John Leguizamo as Tybalt and a bunch of other idiots as the Montagues, fighting at a gas station. I bet Shakespeare envisioned his classic work this way when writing it – idiots with Hawaiian shirts and dyed pink hair and cowboy boots fighting with guns and blowing up cars in the middle of a crowded traffic hour. THAT'S the Shakespeare I know and love!

Shakespeare!

This isn't a fucking ballet class. In real life you'd have been shot by now.

I think I finally know the real problem with these sorts of scenes. In the original story, yeah, it was two packs of young, testosterone-filled morons fighting in the streets. Fine. But you're updating this to the modern day. It really doesn't make sense to have them fighting and shooting guns at each other in the middle of a crowded city. In any modern society, they would be stopped and arrested for this. Why not just have them meet on a sidewalk somewhere in some shitty neighborhood and fight there? There's just no need for this much theatrics.

You're making Skittles look like they're all black and grey. Jesus Christ.

The more and more I watch, the more I'm convinced Luhrmann put all this over the top wackiness in there because he thought the audience would be bored by the dialogue, and so he wanted to make it so grotesquely goofy that the Looney Tunes' conflicts look like Casablanca in comparison.

Leguizamo's acting in this is so bad you can see it from outer space. The aliens are laughing at us, and this performance is why they haven't made contact yet. Every scene he's in, he's screaming, doing weird motions with his eyebrows, baring his teeth like a rabid dog, and dancing around everywhere. His wardrobe seems to be a collection of clown clothes picked out by a blind person.

The only love of Leguizamo's life...

So then we get Romeo, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Give him credit, he tries – but him exchanging Shakespeare's beautifully written dialogue about longing for young love while hanging with a bunch of dude-bros with surfer haircuts and Hawaiian shirts in a pool hall is fucking eye-gouging, ear-raping terrible.

Meanwhile, Juliet, played by Claire Danes, is in her house while they're getting ready for a party. She's probably one of the better actresses in this, but her mother played by Diane Venora is probably the worst performance in the movie (well, next to Leguizamo). It probably wasn't even her fault – I blame whoever directed her to emote every line like a woman who was just in a car crash and is screaming for the medics to help her.

Is this shot pandering to the dentists in the audience? Eugh.

Every fucking line, she's screaming her head off. Was it supposed to be funny? Because it's not, unless you just think really loud things blaring in your face are funny. In that case, I have another recommendation for you which I am sure you will also find hysterical:

So they go to a party, where Mercutio (Harold Perrineau) is dressed in drag as a disco ball, apparently, and goes into a whole song and dance about...well, I don't really know, as frankly I'm too distracted by the annoying, garish visuals to pay attention to what they're saying.

This is a carefully crafted assault on our collective minds...

I get it, they're trying to go for spectacle here, fast and entertaining and colorful – but this is way, waaaay over the top. Shakespearean theater is no stranger to silly comedy, but what you did here was like someone bringing a mechanic a car and telling him to polish up the exterior and change the tires, and he instead adds big wheels with flashing strobe lights, paints flames on the sides and puts a rocket launcher to the top.

Also, why is there a guy in an astronaut costume at this party? I guess it's a costume party, so anything goes, but seriously, doesn't that just seem slightly out of place? Or maybe that one was just between the lines in the original play.

Juliet always dreamed of being with a man who wears adult diapers.

Romeo meets Juliet, and they go through the whole routine, falling in love faster than a celebrity can backpedal after the media catches them saying racist things. It's a decent scene, as whenever the camera is just on these two, the movie is at least kind of tolerable. And by that I mean it isn't a hyperactive blast of rainbow-colored annoyance, so that's good at least.

Ew, cooties. Gross.

But alas, they find out they're from warring families, so they can't be together. In the original play this made sense, as it was hundreds of years ago and kids their age had little control over their lives. But in a big modern city like this movie is set in? Shit, man – these kids would be running away, smoking blunts in a hotel room and probably be pregnant in as much time as the movie takes place, if this were real life.

The movie kind of blathers on for a while, and we get a scene where the two of them horsing around in a pool. I love the scene where there's actually a security guard for the Capulets' mansion dressed up in regular clothes and watching a security cam, and he comes out and checks on Juliet after hearing them fall into the pool.

"I should probably retire, but being a security guard is fun because I don't have to do any work!"

The point where she learns she can get away with anything with just a smile...

He sees her for a split second and she gives him a thumbs up, so I guess that's OK – I mean, maybe she's just the type of person who falls into pools all the time. No point in checking to make sure she isn't being held hostage at gunpoint and being forced to pretend she's OK, right?

Romeo then goes to a priest and asks him how he can marry Juliet. The priest doesn't think to tell him it's a stupid idea – he just escalates the situation, presumably because he is a sick man who likes to play with peoples' lives.

"Father, shouldn't we talk him out of this crazy idea and be rational?"
"Ssshhhh... I want to see where this trainwreck goes."

But luckily, before that can come to fruition, Mercutio is brutally murdered by Tybalt. Oh, did I say luckily? I, uh, misspoke. I meant it's very tragic. Ahem. Yes. He was an annoying man who didn't deserve to die...you know what, I'm no good at eulogies. I just can't put my whole self into it.

Romeo then chases down Tybalt in the rain and kills him, too – it's another awful, wretched scene full of bad directing, with lots of super fast cuts that make you more nauseous than that rickety old carnival ride that made you puke on your date last year after you ate a chili dog. Incidentally, this movie is also the number one cause of people puking on their dates when watching it.

"THIS IS MY BEST IMPRESSION OF A TURKEY CATCHING RAINWATER IN ITS MOUTH! DO YOU LIKE IT?"

Because of this, the judge of the court banishes Romeo from the city, which is something a lot of judges do. I remember when Casey Anthony was on trial and then they banished her from Florida afterward. That was an intense day.

Juliet's family then forces her to get married to some doofus who didn't have any important lines in the movie. Still hopeful that Leonardo DiCaprio will win an Oscar back in 1996, she rebels and runs away from her family. There's also an awful, repugnant scene of her father (Paul Sorvino) screaming at her for disobeying him. Wow, an angry father taking out his insecurities on a daughter who won't obey him? Please, movie, dazzle us with more of your brilliantly original scenes!

Juliet then goes to that priest from before, and threatens to commit suicide if she has to marry that other guy. She also points a gun at the priest, which was the best scene in the movie for me.

DO IT!!!

The priest sits down with her and talks her through it, calming her down and helping her realize suicide isn't the answer.

…

Nah! Just kidding. He gives her a potion to fake her death until Romeo can come back and save her. He really had this whole fake death thing planned well, huh? He didn't even skip a beat – just brought it up like it was the most normal thing in the world.

He tells her his plan with the aid of images horribly green-screened behind him, which makes this whole sequence look like a bad anti-drug video they would make you watch in fourth grade.

"Here, take my faking-death potion that I mysteriously, worryingly have for suspicious reasons!"
"But Father, wasn't that your real bottle of shark poison?!"
"Oh, well... shit."

Meanwhile, Romeo is hanging out somewhere in the desert doing nothing. Really, Juliet – are you sure this is the guy you want to marry? He doesn't seem particularly motivated. Oh, except when he learns that Juliet killed herself. Then he does an excellent overly dramatic scream at the heavens with his fist pumped. Yeah! There's the old Romeo spirit. Bravado underlined by utter pointlessness.

Also it seems like he's been exiled to North Dakota. Which makes sense - if you're going to exile people from a city, might as well send them to places with wide open space, a lot of room and no reason to want to continue living.

He had to wander around in the field and find the best spot to drop to his knees and dramatically scream at the sky. It's a talent of his, and he's becoming an expert.

It's really just too bad he couldn't put as much effort into checking whether she was really dead, as he did in that dramatic scream. Because when he finds her fake-dead body, he kills himself for real. And right before he dies, she opens her eyes and reveals that she wasn't dead!

So then she shoots herself in the head and dies along with him. I really have to admire the neat and clean way she shot herself in the head, with no blood and her head fully intact!

Guys, I know middle school theater productions of this play don't have blood, but the least you could have done after making us sit through the movie, was show us the characters' mangled and bloody corpses. Thanks for fucking nothing.

I hated this movie for years growing up, and in fact for years in high school I proclaimed this to be the worst movie ever made. Watching it again now, I don't find myself mad, but rather just very, very fascinated with all of this. It's loud, it's stupidly colorful, it's goofy, the acting was bad, the costumes were bad and I'm pretty sure it would smell bad if you could smell it. It's an assault on every sense you have, and it's amazingly, relentlessly annoying almost every minute of screentime. Tony said later that the movie deserves the same treatment as the ET game cartridges, with every copy buried in a landfill, and I'm inclined to say he's right.

The way they tried to modernize the story was half-assed and not clever at all. The story's silliest moments seem extra dumb now when you couple them with the goofy acting and the awful directing. The entire thing is just a cacophonous mess and it's actually kind of amazing how weirdly awful everything is. It's seriously a marvel how little of anything was done well here.

But really I just had to come back to one thing – in the original play, you got a sense of the young, fleeting, passionate love the characters had. You got into the drama. It was a story about two kids who fall in the kind of stupid, blind, insane and passionate love that kids fall into, and reading it or watching a faithful adaptation makes it clear how little teenagers and the young love they share have changed in the hundreds of years since Shakespeare's time. It's a timeless story and can resonate with anyone who was ever a teenager and had a boyfriend or girlfriend. That's what made it so fucking brilliant.

This movie doesn't have that timeless feel. It's tired and extremely dated now, and it just can't make you connect with any of the drama in it. Between the folds of fat of the ridiculous garish colors and over the top acting, it loses the humanity and drama of the story. I guess I can see why people like this, for the over the top artsiness, but it really fell flat for us here, and failed at everything it tried to do.

Luhrmann said in interviews that he wanted this to reflect the kind of bawdy, theatrical goofiness that would have kept crowds watching in Shakespeare's own time, when he was alive. But really, we don't need that now, because audiences are intelligent and can understand more things without gimmicky flashiness and over the top cues every second. I mean, it's just hard to take any of this seriously when the hero dies wearing a shirt that looks like it's from Spencer's.

Images copyright of their original owners, we own none of them.

In Your Eyes (2014)

Today I learned that Joss Whedon apparently has no grasp on reality. Why would I say that about a guy who has made some TV shows and movies I really enjoy? Well, because I just saw In Your Eyes.

Director: Brin Hill

Starring: Zoe Kazan, Michael Stahl-David

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This is seriously insipid, candy-fluffed nonsense that I would use harsher language for, but really it's too innocuous to deserve that; being more akin to a really goofy, dumb looking small animal stumbling around with no real special purpose or means of survival. Apparently the script was written way back in the early 90s, so I guess that gives Whedon a pass – I mean we're not talking about the later-era Whedon who wrote the excellently done romances in Angel. It was an earlier time and maybe he just hadn't fully grown into his own as a writer yet.

Buuuuuuut I still wouldn't want professional directors, actors and studios putting money into the crap I was writing 20 years ago if I was in his position!

This movie starts off with a boy and girl in different parts of the country, who have a mysterious telepathic connection. It's pretty unexplored at this point though, and we see the girl go sledding and crash into a tree. The boy feels it too, and falls out of his desk at school like he's having a seizure. Of course the teacher doesn't seem to care at first, thinking he's just horsing around. Because in a bad movie, kids horse around in class by falling out of their desks.

Then we skip ahead like 20 years, and apparently nothing interesting happened in either of their lives in between then and now? No more weird psychic, telepathic events that alerted you to things going on with your bodies that you might want to get checked out? This is really the first hole of the movie, not even five minutes in. I mean, there are TV psychics who build careers out of less evidence than you guys have!

I mean, there were just so many other possibilities you could've gone with, and you chose the worst one! It would have been more interesting to see them developing as teens and discovering their psychic connection together. But the way the movie plays it, they apparently just lived pretty normal lives until they were working in their late 20s or so and then randomly, out of nowhere, discovered their powers. Zoe Kazan's character even mentions a few times that she was in a mental hospital as a teen, so I figured maybe that had something to do with her powers, and the movie would get some real tension and conflict. But nope; it's just a non-sequitur. What a tease.

They just picked the worst, least dramatic time period for these characters' lives to set the movie up in, and as a result, I find myself just wishing one of these characters would get cancer or have a volcanic mental meltdown in the middle of a crowded subway station.

But that doesn't happen. What we get instead is basically the most over the top, exaggerated cliché of their respective lifestyles – the guy, Dylan, is an ex-con fresh out of prison who lives in a trailer and hangs out at the stereotypical small town redneck bar where of course fights break out every night. And of course, Dylan is the best looking redneck in New Mexico – because yes, real ex-cons in shitty little small towns do look like this.

He's the hottest GQ cover model to ever spend time in prison and then get out and live in a trailer park.

The girl, Rebecca, is a wealthy trophy wife socialite who hangs out at parties where they gabber on about just the most meaningless, trite, played-out crap you'd expect background characters in some kind of awful 90s sitcom caricature of a big fancy party. The women all talk about men and who's sleeping with who, because what else do women ever have to talk about? The men just talk about business, because why not? It's kind of like if Pride and Prejudice was adapted into a screenplay by Tommy Wiseau.

"Oh, you're here for our monthly pointless-exposition-spewing party!"

Another ridiculous plot point is that Dylan apparently went to prison for committing crimes with his two childhood school buddies, who he has kept in touch with and still hangs out with now. Who the fuck hangs out with kids they knew in middle school when they're in their 30s? Are you seeing what I mean here? It's all just so cartoony, corny and cliché. If it was just little things and the actual story was meatier and more interesting, fine – but no, this is literally the entire movie up to now. Just a painful trudge through cliches slapping you around like a wet ferret in a hurricane.

I thought maybe it'd get better when we got to the real meat of the story – you know, maybe show off more of that old Whedon charm and wit – but no, it really doesn't. They first “connect” while she's at a shoe store, and start to see glimpses through each others' eyes. You'd think they would be shocked, alarmed and have huge questions – but nope, they start chatting like old acquaintances and ask about what cars they have.

Either she's just discovered she has telekinetic powers and can talk to a guy on the other side of the country, or she just found a good deal on shoes at this store. Either one.

It's really just strange more than anything – so they suddenly have this intrusive voice in their heads and they just go with it happily, like some strange pen pal program? I mean, the biggest chance any of us would have in this situation would be getting someone in our heads who's really annoying and we don't like talking to. But apparently these two just got super lucky.

Not to mention the powers are extremely inconsistent and don't seem to have rules. Sometimes, they activate randomly when Rebecca is least expecting it. Other times they seem to be able to turn it on and off. I'm also amazed they manage to figure out how to work their powers so quickly! They must be psychic geniuses.

And I get it; I fucking do – not everything has to be super 100% realistic. It's supposed to be a stars-crossed-lovers story. But you have to have some kind of human connection, some kind of depth. You can write the most fantastical, unbelievable things. But you have to have the human element, the relatable writing where characters act in ways you can understand. Whedon himself would master this later on, but this script just has zero emotional connection in it. So I guess this movie is kind of his sketchy demo tape in comparison – it's easier to digest when you look at it that way.

The film just drags on with scenes of the two characters attempting to emote but really just acting like robots interacting on a deserted wasteland with no human contact for three decades prior. Oh, and we get a slew of horrible, horrible songs played over "artsy" shots of the main characters just wandering around looking at nothing. Yes, please give us more music rejected from your cousin's Beatles imitation wedding band in the movie, guys! We just need more!

These scenes are as deep as a James Bond villain's pool filled with man-eating sharks!

I mean, okay, the acting is fine for what meager scraps the script gives them, and even the dialogue could be way worse – I've certainly seen more soulless verbal vomit on screen. But really it just comes down to the fact that their characters' struggles are about as substantial as Necco wafers – fluffy, insubstantial, pastel-colored pap.

Pictured: the movie. Or, Necco wafers. I forget which one.

Yes, please, endear me to the plight of the bored house-wife who could do anything she wants with her free time and copious amounts of money, but just doesn't have the imagination, so instead she hangs out with an imaginary friend in her head. I'm sure the legions of Instagram followers will be sympathetic.

And what about Dylan? Yeah he's an ex-con and struggling to find work, but he only loses the job he has because he's talking to Rebecca in his head constantly while doing work which makes him look crazy. Otherwise he seems to be OK; he has his own place to live and isn't struggling to eat. Hell, he's got beer money. I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he looks out at a changing sunset for hours on end with nothing else to do.

This is as deep as a cavernous black chasm opening up to the center of the Earth that you would die screaming in if you tripped and fell into!

Oh, but there is a scene where Rebecca helps Dylan ask out some idiotic woman at that same dumb bar. He invites her over to his trailer, and tries to cook steak, which goes about as well as it ever does in movies. I remember always thinking as a kid, man, it must be hard as shit to cook anything, being that all these dumb-ass movies depicted cooking as this arcane alchemy that only a Zen master could perfect. Seriously, it really isn't as hard as movies like to pretend. You follow the fucking directions, and most of the time you'll get it right after a few times practicing, no matter what it is. But because this is a doofy romantic comedy, we get this instead:

I was really, really hoping he would just serve her steak literally on fire on a plate and go "here you go, sorry it's a little burnt!"

The ending is just more of the same crap – he has to go save her because her second rate Ralph Fiennes husband's evil switch flipped on and he locked her up in a mental asylum because he suspected she was cheating on him. Because apparently we've gone back in time to the plots of 1950s romantic telenovelas for inspiration!

It's not really an issue, though, as they help each other telepathically to get to one another, with him teaching her to pick locks so she can open the door and escape, and her giving him directions to drive to the asylum, like she's the world's prettiest-looking GPS. So this is really about as tense as a Barney cartoon's plot would get.

They have a pretty boring romp through the snow and then kiss after jumping implausibly, hilariously, into a moving train box car.

I guess they must also have super speed running powers, because I have no fucking idea how this ends without them both crushed underneath the train.

Apparently these characters have never kissed anyone before somehow, because they both look like they're trying to eat one another.

So what next? My guess is they just use their powers to see into each others' eyes while looking at one another, thus causing a rip in the time stream and sending both of their souls spiraling out of their bodies and into the abyss forever. I mean, they don't know each other that well, neither of them has any financial income and they'll probably grow to resent each other quickly due to this incredibly hasty, poorly planned elopement together. So my ending is happier, really.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.

REVIEW: The Host (2013)

Stephanie Meyer has become something of a talking point in society in general these days, mostly for those infamous Twilight films, which so many people love to hate. I have never seen those movies or read the books, and people can say what they will about them – personally, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like them very much, and as such, I don’t see a reason to watch them; it’s too far out of my interest for me to give a solid opinion on it. But here we have the adaptation of her newest novel The Host, and while it’s not really very good, I did at least have fun watching it.

Director: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Saoirse Roman, Jake Abel, Max Irons

IMDb

This is a science fiction film about a sort of distant dystopian world where humans have mostly been taken over by little alien plasma bug things that have turned the Earth into a peaceful land, except one where people no longer have free will and their bodies are just hollow shells for these aliens. A small group of human rebels, as they always appear in movies – dirty clothes, living in caves, etc – are barely surviving out in the desert.

And it’s goofy. It’s so goofy. It’s tough to pinpoint exactly why, but I’m going with the acting as the main thing. I mean, the storytelling is fine and moves along at a pace that didn’t bore me, so that’s not it…must be the acting, which really is pretty hammy. I guess I’ll throw in the dialogue, too; I mean really a lot of the stuff these people have to say is awfully choppy and forced, even when the action is good. The main character Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) has been taken over by one of the ‘souls’ that invaded the planet, and the real Melanie talks in an inner-monologue inside her own mind. The effect is that it sounds like a very bored automated narrator in a PowerPoint project.

The corny back-and-forth romance triangle that pops up is about as ridiculous as it sounds in a movie like this…this really isn’t the type of thing that needs a love triangle, but I guess it appeals to the tweens coming to see the movie. Mostly it’s just groan-worthy and comes off as a time-waster rather than anything actually poignant. The acting just isn’t good enough to sustain the romance, and comes off more tacky and stilted than actually anything like what real kids this age would act like.

And, really, this kind of phoned-in character development is the biggest Achilles’ heel this movie has – the biggest thing preventing it from being more than a fluffy teen popcorn movie. The story is fine, the acting, while silly, wouldn’t be too bad otherwise, but really it’s the romance that drags everything down in the end. I never believed a second of it; was never convinced for a second that these people had any real connection going on. Romance can be so much more than simple ‘he likes me, he doesn’t’ crap, and with this movie’s plot and set-up, there was potential for a really investing romantic subplot. But the film just treats it as background noise, and none of the characters are ever really affected by it in any meaningful way. It’s just sort of there because it has to be, because the film is for tweens, and as such, the film’s integrity takes a big nosedive.

The real reason to watch this is just because the concept is pretty cool – it’s not your usual blow-em-up-enslave-humanity alien plot, and the cool neo-Western atmosphere is nice, even if they don’t use it quite to its full potential. The plot moves along quick and while it’s not anything too original, it keeps you fairly invested the whole way through and mostly does OK at keeping the tension up, even if it does sort of resolve itself way too easily and gets a bit sappy here and there.

So I guess what I’m saying is, it was certainly a movie. That much cannot be denied.

Did I like it?

Ehh. I didn’t hate it. I had fun riffing on its sillier moments and there were some cool parts here and there. Mostly what dragged it down was the rather cliché and trite romance plots, and with a little more thought and investment put into the romance, it could have been a much better movie. For sci fi movies, it ranks a bit below movies like In Time or Surrogates, which themselves are enjoyably B-level flicks. And it’s not as bad as Aeon Flux or Ecks VS Sever, so there is that!

But then again, that isn’t saying a whole lot. If you liked the book, well…ehh, from what I’ve heard you may be disappointed. On the other hand, critics who are seriously panning this are kind of off the mark, as there are far, far worse movies out there than this rather inoffensive and sometimes humorous one. See it at your own peril.

All images in this review are copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.

REVIEW: Sidewalls (2011)

People are really just like pinballs bouncing off one another in an aimless digital age, and what is there really to serve as a point to it all besides what we make for ourselves? Everything is digitized, everyone is trapped between walls and nobody has a clue what they are doing with their lives day to day, let alone in the bigger picture. What is there to it all? What are we but bags of flesh drifting through silicon and rust-carved cities doing jobs robotically and losing our souls day by day? Where is the light?

Well, I don’t know. But I do know that this is a great piece of cinema, which tackles a few of those questions.

Director: Gustavo Taretto

Starring: Javier Drolas, Pilar López de Ayala

IMDb

Sidewalls is a Spanish film about a guy, Martin (Javier Drolas) and a girl, Mariana (Pilar López de Ayala) who live next to one another and lead strikingly similar, dissonant and disappointing lives. And they’re basically perfect for one another! But they’ve never met, and in the big city what chance is there of that, anyway?

This is just a magnetizing film, and I was hooked from the start. Everything in this movie is whitewashed and grey, and the cityscape is vast and mechanical. The two main characters are often pictured from far away in big crowds, or among other people. Everyone in this movie seems terribly alone. We see them both try to connect with people and go on dates and we see them fail, simply because people so rarely ever do anything else in the grand scheme of things. Sadness is normal, happiness fleeting – as it should be, lest we forget the worth of happiness. Sidewalls portrays these themes by showing us a series of vignettes about Martin and Mariana just trying to get by in every day life, to find connections.

There’s a lighthearted grace to this movie, mostly in the wry narrations, that makes it a real pleasure to watch – these are some of the best narrations I’ve seen for a movie in a long time. I love the little things in this movie like Mariana’s obsession with Where’s Waldo books – you will believe that she can make Where’s Waldo into something poetic and profound. There are tons of these moments in Sidewalls; these little moments, visually and writing-wise, that stun and warm the heart, and it would be a disservice of me to list them here when you can go discover them for yourself.

Sidewalls is just a great romance film, as well as a great commentary on our digital age and the ramifications it’s had on socialization and romance. It’s a masterwork of directing, with a ton going on visually in addition to the great script. Despite its disparate setting and drab colors, there is never a dull moment on screen and everything seems vital and life-affirming. This is very much a movie of progress and change, as it starts out pretty bleak, but by the end it shines with newfound life. The two actors are both excellent and portray their characters so well they might as well be second skins, and the script is so good it’s chilling – a masterpiece of connecting human being to fellow human being. I felt in tune with the human spirit after watching this, and that’s as high a compliment as I can give.

This movie is on Netflix, so you really have no excuse to go watch it right away. Fans of Lost in Translation and similarly down-to-Earth love stories will eat this up, but really this is just an essential film for anyone who wants to see something beautiful and affecting about people who’ve lost their ways finding them again. People are lost all the time, and maybe life doesn’t have any meaning at all, but anyone who can make a film like this is close to tunneling a light through the darkness. Magisterial and powerful, yet also sensitive and entertaining.

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REVIEW: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Despite a cumbersome title, this dramedy starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley is a pretty subtle, quiet and sometimes beautiful little movie. I didn’t even know about this thing until I saw the trailer for it before Prometheus, just two weeks before it came out. But I actually ended up liking this one better than the aforementioned sci-fi blockbuster…go figure.

Director: Lorene Scafaria

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/

This movie is an end of the world flick that doesn’t focus too much on the scientific reasons for the world’s end or even the bigger picture – it just focuses on the life of one guy (Carell) and those around him. And surprisingly, it works really well. I always like movies that do this, because it just gives a much more humanistic, natural spin on the usual kinds of stories these topics generate. The human element is the most interesting part of any movie, especially something as monumental and alien as the end of the world. I want to see the individual, common man’s dilemma in the face of Armageddon. And this movie delivers.

Seeking a Friend works because of its blend of comedy and drama. The first twenty minutes or so has some pretty standard Steve Carell styled comedy, where he’s all awkward and whatnot, but that doesn’t last long and isn’t played up to any kind of exaggerated levels. And even during those parts, there is a subtly somber sadness that enhances the comedy, playing off the fact that it’s the end of the world. The movie never quite shoves that fact in your face, but it is always there beneath the surface, the catalyst for the more personal relationship forged in the movie’s runtime. Carell actually does a good job here and conveys the sober, serious tone very well while also allowing the funny parts to shine through. The balance is well done.

Knightley gives a good performance too, as the very British and quirky female neighbor who Carell befriends in the midst of the chaotic happenings all around him. They grow close and share some very tender and also some very funny moments on screen, as is typical of these kinds of movies, but it’s all handled with delicacy and delivered with sincerity, so I like it. The seedy, desolate country atmosphere of a lot of the latter half of the film really serves to drive home how alone people really are with the impending end of the world – everyone, at the end of his or her days, is alone, and with the collective end approaching, who is left?

As such, it becomes a very poignant picture, and the effect of the movie will linger on you long after you walk out of the theater. And I think that makes it a good movie, so go see it if it has piqued your interest at all.

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REVIEW: The Roommate (2011)

Hey, guys, I’m here today to talk about the great new PG-13 lighthearted comedy, The Roommate! I don’t know why it has 4% on Rotten Tomatoes! It’s such a fun-filled romp! It’s got charmingly pretty characters, a nice college setting that will show your pre-teens what college is going to be like and lots and lots of hi-larious jokes and slapstick/body humor, as well as a nice romance on the side to keep you hopeless romantics suckered in. What could possibly go wrong?

Director: Christian E. Christiansen

Starring: Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1265990/

The Roommate starts out with some happenin’ modern rock music as our main character Sara gets to college in her shiny yellow car on a bright, sunny day with lots of other smiling, hair-gel-infested Dawson’s Creek rejects. She’s so cool that she goes to a party the first night and turns some guy down at first, yet kisses him anyway when he helps her drag her drunk friend to the elevator:

He goes so far as to spill beer on Sara just to talk to her, then has to help her carry her drunk friend away and he STILL doesn't get laid!

I’d call her a slut, but The Roommate takes a twist and has these two become boyfriend and girlfriend for the rest of the movie! Because every romantic comedy needs a couple to focus on and nothing says romance for a college frat boy like drunken debauchery and the girl turning him down and yet teasing him in a really bitchy way anyway...well, actually I shouldn't be sarcastic about that, because it's probably really true.

Then we meet Rebecca, Sara’s roommate. Rebecca doesn’t want to have a nickname, so that must mean she's insane:

"We oppose anyone who doesn't like nicknames!"

Sara starts going out with the other girls to clubs and parties and stuff, and hijinks ensue when one of the girls leaves her there on her own even though she doesn’t know the area! Rebecca comes to meet her later, and she and Sara go walking around town, taking pictures for their Facebook profiles (which will never actually be shown, considering the makers of the movie could not pony up enough money to use Facebook’s likeness in the film). Then Sara reveals that she tattooed her sister’s name onto her chest in remembrance of her tragic death several years earlier! Ha ha ha! Oh, how silly…wait, I think that was supposed to be a serious part…maybe…?

Rebecca then takes things into her own hands and attacks the one preppy partier girl in the shower, threatening her if she ever comes near Sara again. Gee. This scene could have almost been in a horror movie if she had actually done anything harmful to the girl, but all she does is pull out her belly ring and say “You’re a bad influence on her!” Ha ha! Oh, man, that is over the top.

Then Sara finds a cat outside and takes it back to her dorm, naming it Cuddles, because every romantic comedy needs a good cute animal. After that, Rebecca starts to do all sorts of nice things for Sara to show her affection, like putting up posters of her favorite movies and buying tickets to see art shows she likes. However, Sara already has plans – romantic plans!

Don't worry, it's a PG-13, so you won't actually see anything during this scene...

This leaves Rebecca alone in the room to call Sara's ex boyfriend, pretending to be Sara and telling him to stop calling her all the time, which he has been doing all movie up until now. Oh the hijinks that could possibly ensue from this...got to admit, though, it is pretty stupid how the ex boyfriend can't seem to tell that it isn't really Sara on the phone. That's stretching things a little too far.

And then because Sara wants to move in with some other friend of hers, Rebecca kills the cat by putting it in a dryer:

The Roommate: it advocates the killing of kittens!

You know, I would cite this part as one of the movie’s flaws, except frankly I’ve seen worse in Will Ferrel movies anyway.

Then it’s statutory rape fun time as their teacher Billy Zane puts the moves on Sara and kisses her, and as she tells Rebecca very calmly, Rebecca forms a plan. She then immediately goes and seduces him, records the whole thing on a random tape recorder she happens to have on her at the time and twists things around to make it look like he came onto her instead of what actually happened. This is clearly one of the cleverest scenes in the film, showing Rebecca's almost Bugs Bunny levels of trickery as she gets the teacher to quit his job the very next day! Odd. This could almost be a serious plotline, if handled in a more dramatic film, but The Roommate just uses it as a comedic device to make us laugh.

The Roommate: it advocates statutory rape!

Afterwards, Rebecca cons Sara into going back home with her by pretending to get stabbed and beat up – hilarious! – and they go to meet her parents. There we see that in another wacky twist, even though they’re her parents, they’re scared shitless of her. She also takes Sara out around the town and we see that every other kid in town is scared of her, too, even this one girl who she drew a ton of pictures of and stalked, or something, I guess...maybe. I don’t exactly know what this scene is going for, it's incredibly confused and poorly explained, but since it’s got almost no drama or weight to it, I’ll assume it’s a funny scene again just so I don't have to think too much about anything. Hallelujah for that!

Also note that Rebecca’s mom asks Sara if Rebecca has been taking her medication, which Sara and her new boyfriend find later hidden in a drawer! Apparently she hasn’t been taking it at all! So yeah, this crazy girl who goes around killing kittens in dryers and manipulating everyone around her while obsessing over various girls who give her attention, SHOULD HAVE been on medication this whole time! Is the movie suggesting that anyone who is on medication, if taken off, would become a psychotic serial killer? And for that matter, how did she even get into college if she was this ready to fly off the hook for no reason, without being provoked or anything? Shouldn’t she have been in a mental ward somewhere? This movie had better handle these delicate matters tastefully. Hmph. I expect nothing less from a teen comedy film.

Back at school, Sara’s ex boyfriend who has been harassing her over the phone the whole movie comes to visit her. How suspenseful; a love triangle! Finally the more romantic side of The Roommate comes to light. I was beginning to think this was one of those movies where the romance was just phoned in and contrived…can’t imagine that with The Roommate though.

So long story short, Rebecca kills him with a knife while pretending to be Sara, imitating a scene from Single White Female as much of the movie has done so far…ew, what are these horror elements doing in my teen comedy? That's just grotesque and not funny at all.

Reminds me of a scene in Black Christmas. Odd for a teen film...Black Christmas was pretty brutal at times.

But what is funny is lesbian sex!

What, you really think it’s cheap to use this as a throwaway gimmick this late into the film? Pfft. You PC wimp. Don’t be such a prude.

Sara gets a text from her friend who she’s living with, who is also the same woman Rebecca was hitting on at the nightclub, telling her to come to the apartment. There, she and Rebecca end up in a hilariously over the top shouting match in which Rebecca shouts at Sara for not appreciating her wonderful attempts at friendship like killing Sara's cat and ex-boyfriend…see what I mean? This movie is the cutting edge of ludicrous, bizarre comedy. It's almost like some kind of weird black indie comedy or something. It's nice to see the movie playing around with genre conventions a bit and giving us at least something new.

The fight that ensues is almost as funny, with a lot of it centering on having Sara dangling from an open window ledge…somehow, I guess. Sara tells Rebecca they aren’t friends, stabbing her in the back metaphorically, followed by stabbing her in the back physically with a knife! Oh The Roommate…always playing with my expectations. Then the movie ends with happy music and Sara deciding that she “doesn’t want to have a roommate for a while”…get it? She's underplaying the seriousness of the situation by giving a lighthearted ending quip! That's a considerate way to end the film, as now we won't be depressed due to the deaths of several people as well as an innocent kitten.

So yeah, all in all, The Roommate wasn’t bad and actually took a few risks for a teen comedy, like having dark almost horror-movie-esque lighting (in fact it's...almost hard to see anything at times) and introducing some deviously placed scenes that could have possibly been tense or dramatic, but playing with our expectations and making them lighthearted and comedic instead. The film also sneaks in some more risque jokes, like trying to make us think it's believable for Rebecca to think the terrible things she did to Sara are signs of a good friendship. That's pretty daring for a teen movie intended for kids who aren't even old enough to drive yet.

But most of the movie is still pretty conventional, and tells the classic story of a crazy girl falling over her feet and going to ridiculous lengths to please her dense and un-knowing new roommate. It's got some light laughs and a few pretty clever moments. Sure, the acting isn't great and there are a few plot holes, but mostly it's passable enough. I mean, it's not like this movie was trying to be serious or anything! Imagine if The Roommate was intended to be a horror movie, for example. Then it would have just been a horribly cliched, emotionally stunted, poorly written and hacked up pile of steaming wretched manure with no taste or class.

Luckily it isn’t intended to be serious at all. Luckily.

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REVIEW: TiMER (2009)

Director: Jac Shaeffer

Starring: Emma Caulfield, John Patrick Amedori, Michelle Borth

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179794/

As far as romantic comedies go, TiMER is a creative one. The premise, about a not-too-distant future where the latest trend is tiny “timers” that tell people when they’re about to meet their soul-mate, is played so naturally that you’ll believe this is reality already. It stars Emma Caulfield as a slightly prude 30-year old whose timer still hasn’t gone off at all, much to her dismay, as everyone around her is finding love left and right. She falls in with a younger guy (John Patrick Amedori) who plays drums in a band even though he’s already got a timer counting down.

Pretty much the core of the story is the way the characters interact with each other and, in turn, with the timer devices – the film uses the science fiction concept to bring out the aspects of its characters. Emma Caulfield is pretty good, and succeeds in making us care about her, and her sister played by Michelle Borth is rambunctious and loud but also caring – an addictive personality on screen. John Patrick Amedori is Mikey, and while his character is a little generic as the whole ‘poor young college student who messes around but has a heart of gold,’ he pulls it off well.

This is a film about relationships, and while it won’t appeal to some people, it really is a very smart and well-balanced film. TiMER talks clearly about the choices people make in relationships and how we can’t always know who’s right for us. The concept is used in a very Vonnegut-esque manner, taking a concept and exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree, to illustrate the eerie possibility of where we’re going. The world right now is obsessed with doing things more efficiently, doing them faster. How long is it before we allow our relationships with other people to be computerized and made super-efficient? Trial-and-error dating is costly and ineffective – or that’s what the movie says, anyway.

TiMER begs the question, what if the person scientifically and biologically calculated to be your soulmate isn’t really the one you want to spend time with? All the science in the world can’t destroy the strange and illogical fallacies and labyrinthine eccentricities of the heart.

The Month of Terror: Near Dark (1987)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093605/

"You see those stars up there? They'll burn out in about a billion years. And you know what the sad thing is? I'll still be here when they do. In a billion years."

-Mae

Artful and atmospheric, this is a great flick that I am sad I hadn't seen already. Near Dark is one of those old 80s classics that just gets everything right, with a hearty blend of horror, romance and vampire mysticism coming together for something sorrowful and bleak, but also quite beautiful.

Most vampire movies just go for gore and cheap smut, but this one actually takes the time to have some awesome directing that unfolds into an incredibly captivating story. I love how it just jumps right into the action from the start, without really any build up at all, and just keeps you hooked with every turn. Finally we have a movie that doesn’t feel the need to oversaturate us with pointless drawn-out crap introducing everything. Sometimes just jumping in is the best way to go – same as swimming. He’s on the road, he picks up the girl, and the movie gets going. Nothing else is necessary here.

At first it's a rather sad romance that turns twisted when the girl impulsive Caleb picks up bites him, but as the film goes on it cycles through several other emotions and movements from scary to action packed, all while flowing so well that it feels like half its actual runtime. The trials Caleb has to take to prove himself to the vampire cult can be taken as some kind of coming-of-age message, but it's not forced and is actually relatively in the background, so you can enjoy this just as a great vampire story or as a meaningful, implicating tale.

Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton kick up a storm as the two main antagonists, and by contrast, Jenny Wright is captivatingly beautiful and heartachingly tragic. The characters are all really well done in general. You don’t ever learn about any of their backstories, but you really get a sense of them through their expressions, actions, etc., and it’s all very powerful. You can see a ton of pain and longing in Jenny Wright’s eyes – you get the sense she’s a character who’s had a lot of terrible things happen to her, lost a lot of people, doesn’t want it to happen again, despite her natural urges. Very human, very intricate.

I don't know how this will hold up on future viewings, but as it stands, Near Dark is a great film, running the gamut of emotions and crafting a unique and thought provoking movie out of a subject that was already rather trite even back then. The characters are interesting even though you know almost nothing about them, the directing is incredible, the setting is awesome with the whole dirty, run-down Western feel (wish more movies would do this in modern settings), the action is cool…it’s just an all around winner of a movie. This is up there with Let the Right One In as one of the best vampire movies ever. Go see it if you haven't. This is probably the most poignant and meaningful movie I’m going to review this month. A horror movie for the ages.