This generation now has the equivalent of an “Empire Strikes Back” moment. The second film in a series, matches and in many ways exceeds the original and it ends in a cliffhanger that will leave the audience breathless in waiting for the next episode. Jennifer Lawrence is a rising star with an Academy Award in her back pocket and a hugely successful movie franchise to back it up. The movie is as creatively successful as it will be financially.

I’m still trying to catch up with the tsunami of movies that we saw last Sunday. The third film we saw was the biggest hit of the weekend and may turn out to be the biggest film of the year. It helps immensely that the movie is actually very good. It is far superior to the “Iron Man” sequels that it will be competing with for top box office honors. This is a young adult series that has not been afraid to tackle some serious issues. From my point of view there is a dangerous parallel between the fascist government in the story and the times we live in. People inside “the Capitol” (read “the Beltway”) see the hinterlands as a source of resources for their own power and status. This is so much like the relationship of the current government to the rest of the country it should come with a political disclaimer. “The Hunger Games” are designed to remind the rebellious that there is a cost to challenging government authority. All the pomp and circumstance is made to be a distraction from the lack of jobs, freedom and hope that everyone is saddled with.

The second film in the series has clearly had an upgrade in budget and scale. The vision of the Capitol city and of the surrounding Districts is much clearer in this film. There is a strong sense of the technology and how it is integrated into the power structures. When the storm troopers arrive in District 12, the whole country gets a brief look at the clash that Katniss has provoked among the proles that have had their necks stood on for 75 years.This is a world ripe for revolt and the snakelike President Snow, recognizes it. His open animosity toward the winners of the games, makes it easier for the rebels to maneuver the star of the games into a position as a figurehead. The politics of the film are as important as the pyrotechnics of the games. Then, you add the games on top of this and the movie becomes entertaining as well as thoughtful. The ability to visualize the challenges of the new games, with their new rules and manner of selecting the tributes, is very praiseworthy. We get a little more insight into the motives of all the districts and we meet the contestants in more detail this time. The fact that many of them are old, middle aged, and still able to find a reason or a way to fight is pretty encouraging. It is another thing that moves this from being a one note love story for tweens into a full fledged science fiction epic.

Katniss is more conflicted in this story. She knows that the games are a death sentence meant for her and the only thing she wants to assure is that her counterpart Peeta survives. One big difference in these games is that the arena is much more focused on eliminating the competitors than they are interested in eliminating each other.  The alliances feel different this time and it turns out there is a reason why. It is not clear how all of the twists are managed but they seem to be leading to a very serious story conclusion that is not light hearted at all. There are a few moments of humor and some moments that provoke sadness but when the end comes, it will arrive with a sharp intake of air from viewers who have not read the books. This is another comparable element to the second “Star Wars” film, things take a turn and they don’t always turn out well.

In reading the books, they declined in my opinion, starting with the strongest and devolving to a climax that felt unsatisfying. I get the feeling that the films are reversing that trend. There is hope that the weak finale of the story can be turned into a more admirable outcome in the films. I don’t expect the story will change but it feels like the story telling is much more controlled and thoughtful. I expect, based on what I have seen in this film, that the plot will be more meaningful and the characters more interesting than they were in the book. I guess I will have to save that pronouncement until we get those last films, but “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”, has me hoping that the film makers can pull it off. 

A second great performance by Matthew McConaughey this year and one that is likely to bring him substantial attention. It is a dramatic story about tolerance, AIDS, and FDA bureaucracy. It certainly does not sound like a laugh a minute but there is a great deal of humor in telling the tale and although much of it is of the gallows type, there are a lot of targets that needed to be skewered and this movie goes after them.

 McConaughey plays a drug using, homophobic, redneck rodeo cowboy who gets an unexpected H.I.V. diagnosis. He suddenly has to confront the fact that he has what he would describe as a “gay” mans disease. The social context is now on the other foot and in addition to figuring out how to fight against what at the time was a death sentence, he has to confront his friends who suddenly are not so friendly.The medical procedures at the start of any new crisis are uncertain and they may require sacrifices. The controversy over F.D.A. policies at the time reflects a bureaucratic mentality rather than a political one. While A.I.D.S. patients were understandably frustrated with the slow rate of reform and expediting the treatments for the disease, no one, including the doctors doing the research or the pharmaceutical companies, wanted anything more than to find a cure. Ron Woodroof was not the kind of guy who would wait around for others to figure it out.

The physical transformation that the star goes through is frighteningly dangerous. Like DeNiro gaining a hundred pound to play Jake LaMotta, Matthew McConaughey loses weight like you can’t believe. He looks sick before the story has even started. The fluctuations in his physical health are reflected not merely through make up and acting but by real physical change. This is the kind of stuff the critics groups and Academy will eat up. This is a much more flamboyant performance than his turn in “Mud”, and it will probably be the one that gets the accolades. I prefer the more subtle work in the other film but that is just my preference. This is the story that will connect with the Hollywood community. Jared Leto gives a similar performance in the film as a drag queen facing the same kinds of issues that Ron has. Both roles take advantage of strong emotional elements in the story and they mirror each other in effective ways.

The battle with the FDA and with an apparently unfeeling medical community is cleverly given a populist resolution by  McConaughey’s character taking advantage of loopholes in the law to be able to supply patients with medicine that might help them. Every opportunity he has to stick it to the man is cheered by the sympathetic audience. We all admire the perseverance of a man who is unwilling to go silently into the night. He demands the kind of help that everyone facing a terminal disease would hope to get. The fact that the disease is new, that the treatments are untested and that the rules require sacrifice is not something he will take laying down. This movie succeeds not only because the two leads are terrific actors in very cinematic roles, it is that they are empowering people to take control of their lives.

There are great character actors in a variety of parts in the film. Michael O’Neil, who I will always think of as Ron Butterfield from “The West Wing”, is the F.D.A. bureaucrat who needs to be taken down. Griffin Dunne was not recognizable at first as a defrocked physician, making a clinic in Mexico work for patients in need.  The great Steve Zahn is a cop and friend to Ron, who knows exactly how far the law should be enforced. Jennifer Garner is not quite a love interest but is definitely a stand in for the audience in building sympathy for the two leads. Everybody does good work and the story plays out as expected but with very effective emotional touchstones despite the straight forward story arc. If you like good acting and a story of the little guy punching back at the powers that be, than “Dallas Buyers Club” is right up your alley.

This has been the most talked about film of the year. It is certainly deserving of acclaim and it will be awarded many accolades before the Awards season is done. I have nothing but praise for the film but I do think the hype needs to be tempered a bit.  While it’s depiction of slavery is accurately cruel and devastating, I’m not sure that it is as new or distinctive as many have said. Much of what transpires reminded me of other films that displayed the shame that this type of bondage represented.

This is the first film from director Steve McQueen that I have seen. I can’t say for certain what his style is yet, but based on this film it appears to be direct and subdued. He lets the actors fill the screen with their performances and is not playing with the camera or lighting the scene in ways that seem to be self conscious. There was only one shot in the movie that I thought drew attention to itself rather than the story. That was a lingering close up on the star’s face, while there was no dialogue. It was noticeable but the nice thing about it is that the shot focuses on the actor rather than the direction and that makes it less problematic. 

It is not necessary to recap the story for the most part, after all the title tells you what is coming and that there is a resolution.  While there is clearly a plot/history that is being followed, the real strength of the film is in showing the everyday hopelessness faced by human beings treated as property. There are incidents that are heart-wrenching and moments of  cruelty that are unfathomable to our modern senses. The film does a nice job showing how the just and self respecting tried to live with the institution, even as the miserable and the cruel were exploiting and surviving respectively. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the star and he gives a solid performance as Solomon Northup, a free man, kidnapped into the peculiar institution. Michael Fassbender may have trouble getting work in the future if people associate him too much with the part of the cruel slave owner Epps. His character is unpredictably unbalanced. He carries the air of a privileged aristocrat and the self loathing of a man debased by the slave holders power over others. Ejiofor has to play his part subtley because his character must be subdued in order to survive, but Fassbender gets to let it rip as he fights his own depravity, gives in to it and then punishes others for his weaknesses. 

The other great performance in the film is from newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, as a young woman tortured for being the thing that the master most desires and hates himself for wanting. She has the heaviest physical burden as a performer, she is beaten, raped, insulted and deprived of her family. All of that allows for a wide range of acting techniques to be displayed by the actress in her role as Patsey. She is not the focus of the story and the failure to have any resolution to her plight, while it may be honest, is also unsatisfying in the long run. In fact, the wrap up to the story seems to happen very quickly and it leaves several points dangling. On the other hand, the resolution for Solomon is quite satisfactory and well earned by the film makers, even if they are just following the history of the actual man’s life.

The film is excellent and there is good reason for it to be praised, but some of the on-line hype may have influenced my perception a bit. I was not floored in the same way that others have been. It is an emotional story and I did respond to it, but it exists within a well worn path of similar stories. I suspect the passage of time has diminished some peoples memories of “Roots” which was equally devastating and almost as visually brutal as this film. Last year’s “Django Unchained”, while a revisionist western action flick, also addressed some of the loathsome qualities of slavery. The themes are not fresh but the story is compelling and I would be glad to recommend this film to anyone, just don’t expect the second coming, it is not miraculous.

Regular readers of my posts know that I am a marshmallow and a sentimentalist. If a film moves me and leaves me feeling better and happy after seeing it, it will certainly get my approval. This is a film that did both big time. It comes from writer/director Richard Curtis who created one of my favorite Christmas films of all time “Love Actually”. There is a definite style and pace to both films that mark them as unmistakably from the same creative team. Cynics need not spend their time with the movie, although if there is aheart in there somewhere, this story should be able to reach at least part of it.

The romantic fantasy here involves an interesting conceit. The men in this particular family can travel back in time to any point in their life. The rules are as they say in Great Britain, a little dodgy, so you just have to accept the premise as it unfolds. Much like “Groundhog Day” this film expores what it means to strive for perfection in a relationship. Unlike the sour character Phil played by Bill Murray, the hero of this tale is not really pursuing redemption. Tim, played by Domhnall Gleeson, is a likable character who just seems to be missing on opportunities for a romantic relationship. He uses his power much like Murray did, to try and manage a successful relationship with the woman of his dreams. The point of the story is that ultimately, our dreams really are what our lives are all about.

His gift is not ever explained in any scientific way, and the conundrums of time travel come up in convenient spots for the story and are ignored in inconvenient spots. Tim’s Dad is played by the continually delightful Bill Nighy. He gets some great moments in the film, like when he first reveals the secret to his son on the boys 21st birthday, but especially wonderful are the commentaries he engages in while playing table tennis with his son. The most sentimental moment is the toast he offers at Tim’s wedding. If you can keep a dry eye through that, then there is a black hole where your heart ought to be.

Tim has an interesting arc, since he moves forward and backwards in time. He has to make some tough choices at times and the story tries to emphasize that the heart will guide you correctly more oftenn than the head. He manages to meet a woman who is perfect for him, and he does so without the use of his secret at first. When he changes the outcome of a friends destiny, it also changes his and he has to then use his gift to try and restore the magic that he almost lost. Rachel McAdams plays his love interest and she manages to look plainly beautiful instead of stunningly beautiful. The difference between those two types of beauty matters as Tim discovers in the course of the film. All the little things in his life matter and that is the theme the movie develops very effectively.

The final moments of the movie were very reminiscent of “Love Actually”. There is a charming song in the background, some sweet narrative from our main character and images that will evoke both sadness and happiness simultaneously.  This is a movie that will certainly rank high on my end of the year list. It did everything I want a movie to do, I laughed, I cried, and I nervously held my breath that the right outcome would arrive for the characters created in the script. A thoroughly satisfying movie experience for romantics everywhere.

The drought is over the deluge is about to begin.  I’ve been out of theaters for almost a month and there is a ton of stuff to catch up with. Tonight I started back with a vengeance by seeing a really fine film with a couple of solid performances. Everybody already knows that this is a great film, so my comments will not be designed to convince anyone, they will merely be an attempt to explain what I admired about the film.

[ It is nearly midnight at the moment, so I will pause here and finish the post in the morning. If you come by and this abbreviated version is still here, please come back later tomorrow and I will have it complete]

There has been some controversy about this movie because several of the crew members have complained that Captain Phillips was largely responsible for the ship being in the wrong place. Plus, from their point of view he was a bit of an ass. The one thing I have not heard being disputed is that he was in fact taken aboard the lifeboat and he was threatened and beaten, and he was rescued in dramatic fashion by Navy Seals. I don’t want anyone to think that I am confusing this with an historical document, it is a movie, but it sounds like the story largely got this right.Maybe Phillips sees things differently than the crew, but he wrote the book and the screenwriter has dramatized the events in a very effective manner.

Tom Hanks is excellent in the part. He plays Phillips as a hardworking professional who sometimes is not as relaxed as those around him. The captain of a ship probably can’t be too casual, despite all we know about that job from watching “Love Boat”. The sequence of events is not in dispute and it appears that the crew did all they could to keep the pirates from getting on board. The Mareck Alabama was not the first ship taken and it won’t be the last unfortunately. I found the details in the way the crew tried to disable the ship and frustrate the pirates to be very interesting. Phillips is a part of that story because he is a central figure but the crew carried out the actions and they are the ones who turn the tables on the invaders when they were being hunted in the bowels of the ship. Dramatization keeps a lot of the story focused on the bridge and the dialogue may not always be authentic but the tone of danger almost certainly is accurate.

I don’t think anyone seeing this will sympathize with the pirates too much. That is another criticism I have read. It is true that they are depicted as nearly being victims themselves, by the way their community is dominated by thugs who control through threats and violence. The situation in Somalia sounds and looks horrible, but they are all willing to take another persons life to gain wealth and tribal glory, so my sympathy is very limited. It is a brutal world out there, and choices have to be made, sometimes they are rotten choices but that does not mean you have to choose the path of self destruction. Everyone had opportunities to pick a different outcome, and they turned those opportunities down. The four actor who portray the pirates are apparently novices and were chosen for their heritage. Barkhad Abdi plays the leader Muse, a skinny man sometime ridiculed by his compatriots but a clever guy who makes the piracy even more dangerous. I thought his performance was exceptional coming as it does from a non-professional.

Hanks is the titular character but he is not always the hero of the story. When you witness the descent of the SEAL team from their planes to the ocean below, your confidence in the outcome goes way up. These guys don’t mess around. They are serious and they do their jobs with such discipline that it is awe inspiring. For my money, the U.S.Navy is one of the best investments our country has made in trying to keep the world civilized and safe.  It’s not just the warriors that are admirable, the corpsman attending to Phillips after the raid was so professional that it was eery. She spoke exactly as I would want to be spoken to in that situation, with professional sympathy and reassurance. Another example of someone doing their job. In fact this whole film is about doing a job; ships captain, pirate, second in command, sharpshooter, negotiator. We know next to nothing about Phillips background and even less about everyone else. We know what they do, and how well they perform their job. That is maybe the real heart of the film. 

Doing the job he does best is Mr. Hanks. He adopts a New England accent and it sounded authentic to my ears. He looks frightened at the appropriate times and his manner with the crew came across as realistic. The biggest praise for his performance will probably be based on the scenes immediately following the SEAL assault. He does indulge in a bit of his crutch facial yawning and soundless utterances, you will see that in a lot of his roles, but he played the most realistic depiction of shock I have seen. It is understandable how the trauma of the two days as captive and the bloody rescue could put someone in that condition. My understanding is that Hanks improvised a lot of that scene and if he gets nominated or even wins for this role, he should be sure to thank himself.

.

AMC is currently playing a series of films from the past in showcase times on Sundays and Tuesdays. I did not get to “Bonnie and Clyde” and I will miss “Dirty Harry” next week, but I got a chance this afternoon to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s version of “The Shining”. It is a great film even though it is not as scary as you might have been lead to believe. It is creepy as all get out, and there are some good shocks, but the most disturbing and frightening image is a series of words typed out on a page. The gore level is low, the tension is slow building, and the style is all Kubrick, who has always been a “cool” film maker as opposed to a passionate hot.

This is not a full review but just a few comments about some of the things I noticed in the film that either escaped my attention before or that I’d simple forgotten. For instance, the guy who hires Jack Torrance to be the winter caretaker is Barry Nelson, a well known TV and character actor from the 50s and 60s who had the distinction of being the first actor to portray James Bond on screen. That was something I got a kick out of. The movie that Wendy and Danny are watching when Danny goes up to their apartment and finds his Dad sitting on the edge of the bed was “The Summer of 42”. I don’t know for sure why it struck me as interesting except that I’m a big fan of that movie.

Actor Tony Burton appears briefly in the film as the guy who gets Scatman Crothers a SnowKat to take up to the Overlook Hotel. He was Apollo Creed’s corner man in the first couple of Rocky movies and he was a customer of the insurance agency my wife worked for thirty years ago. She said he was a very nice man, and I think he lives in our area because there is one of those autographed shots of him at the local Phillie’s Best Sandwich shop. I also enjoyed the fact that Dr. Tyrell was serving the bourbon in the bar to Jack Torrance. Apparently Joe Turkel was a favorite of Kubricks.

Jack is at his Jack best in this movie. His performance is all eyebrows and smiles. Up until the end of the picture he manages to be a sympathetic character. You’d have to sympathize with a guy married to Shelly Duvall’s Wendy. She is a nervous breakdown in a dress. I think I heard that Kubrick did not care much for her as an actress and tormented her to get the performance she turns in. It was an odd choice and it works for the movie but she doesn’t get the kind of emotional support from the audience that would make her a more fulfilling heroine.

I have a lot of other things to do so as I said this is not a full review, just a bit of fun to remind people it is Halloween week and they should go out and find a scary movie to enjoy. That’s what I did, even though it is 33 years old.

This will be short and to the point. There is almost no way this whole scenerio could ever come close to happening. It is over the top dramatic and the prisoners in the “Tomb” would not have the same access to each other that they would have in a normal prison. The job that Sly has is one of those movie created specialties that exist in a screenwriters fantasy and that’s about the only place. The speed of events and the brutality of the fights would leave normal human beings dead after a couple of minutes. All of that means nothing because this is an action film starring the two biggest action stars of the last thirty years and it goes down like candy. Sweeet.

As the world’s foremost prison security expert (based on breaking out of high security penitentiary’s). Stallone is his usual tough guy with a brain character. His brain is not big enough to keep him from being betrayed and locked in a prison that was built largely based on weaknesses he himself discovered.So the stakes are pretty high. Guess who he runs into on the inside, the Governator himself. Looking fit and with a stylish moustache and goatee. He is another prisoner who has been deep sixed into this high tech prison. Together they must break out. That’s it. You don’t really need more plot set up than that.

Arthur Conan Doyle gave Sherlock Holmes the detailed information he would need to crack a case. Holmes has made a study of tobacco so he knows where in London a certain blend can be bought. It was occasionally a stretch but it was not overused in the Holmes canon. Sly’s character kno2ws the heat rate at which rusted steel bolts will snap, he knows that milk cartons have a cellophane like liner that can hold a mark and he can not only build a sextant, he can use one and teach someone else how to do so also. Yet this is the kind of hokum, fans of action films love. We love it when the hero outsmarts the bad guys and surprises us with a unexpected use for everyday items. MacGyver made a whole TV series out of that audience demand. So shrug your shoulders and go along for the ride.

Schwarzenegger is actually pretty good in his role as a guy who knows secrets that the bad guys want. He gets tortured and locked into isolation and gets to feign a breakdown as part of the plot to escape. His German sound very convincing, I wonder why because his English never was. Both he and Stallone beat up fellow prisoners and each other from time to time. The movie takes a while to get us to the prison but once it does there are plenty of the usual tough guy tropes. The biggest gas comes when, during the actual breakout, Arnold picks up a big ass machine gun off a helicopter. Anyone who has seen a Terminator movie knows what comes next and that’s what we are waiting for.

The movie is efficient at making the characters just interesting enough for us to care, before tossing us into prison mayhem. The bad guy warden played by Jim Caviezel is just a big enough prick that we are anticipating the final outcome. There are plot holes and inconsistencies galore but who cares? Arnold and Sly get together to kick a little ass. I heard on “The Title Pending Movie Podcast” that they did not think it was quite “Cobrawesome”. I guess I agree but I did find it “Terminazing”.
 

It is hard for me to accept that I went three weeks with this in theaters and I’d not seen it yet. Holy crap, is this a great movie! I know nothing about Formula 1 racing, I knew next to nothing about this story and I’ve been hit ot miss on Ron Howard films for years. So you can take my word to the bank, this is one of the best films of the year. If it gets lost among all the other great films coming out now because Americans are not well versed in Formula 1, it would be a crying shame. The screenplay and performances in this movie are sure contenders for awards consideration and the film is directed with great confidence and patience by Mr. Howard. This is a thinking person’s movie. It asks big questions and it probes deeply into the psyche of competition.

James Hunt and Niki Lauda are legends in their field. While they might be embraced by fans of racing, as portrayed here they would not be embraced by most of humanity. Each one has damning flaws and personalities that would drive the average person to the brink. Hunt is a reckless glory seeking thrill addict, who can’t make an emotional connection and leaves a series of romantic conquests in his wake. Lauda is a brilliant machine, focused on the odds and playing a strictly regulated percentage as a competitor. That he manages to form a fully functioning romantic relationship is miraculous in itself since his arrogant self assurance is so off putting. As each one circles around the other, it is clear that their rivalry is uniquely reponsible for their individual success. Americans know how Larry Bird and Magic Johnson drove each other further along the path of greatness, this relationship works the same way. Each one needs the other as a standard by which to be compared.

Both actors are terrific in the parts they are cast in. Chris Helmsworth  was made to be an object of romantic fantasy. Women will want him and men will want to be him. He has swagger and weakness at the same time. he knows he can count on his good looks and his driving skills, but he can’t always count on his head to tell him the right thing to do. The scene where Hunt antagonizes his wife into the arms of Richard Burton happens quickly and Helmsworth plays it fast and dismissive. Later he is all manufactured confidence when he announces to the world that he and his model wife are calling it quits. His crack to the media sounds light and cynical but we get a peek behind the curtain and see how it really effects him. Daniel Brühl as Lauda has the showier role despite being a character that is more contained. The physical transformation after his accident and the internalized struggle he goes through in trying to find enough reason to marry is played very well on screen.

The car racing sequences are aggressively edited and the sound design was impressive. I felt frequently caught up in the recreation of races from nearly forty years ago. The dramatic crash that briefly sidelines Lauda but changes him almost not at all was frightening and a little stomach churning as well. The harrowing hospital scenes are another place where Brühl gets to be the center of the story and show us what he has got. Hans Zimmer may have some cliches in his bag of tricks, but they work really well in this movie and the musical score keeps us involved and on the edge of the seat during the races. Howard and his team of editors don’t linger over scenes and they don’t cut them so quickly that you can’t tell what is happening. This film was put together by people who know how to tell a story.

We had a conversation last night about how few movies these days feature actors in dramatic roles that are really about grown ups acting out a drama. This movie has come along and shut that conversation down. There are still good stories to tell and good actors who can play the story out for us. in the hands of another director, this could have just been an inspirational sports film. Howard and company have made a movie about courage, rivalry and the sacrifices it takes to be a champion. The fact that the story is true should not detract from their accomplishment. This film is almost out of theaters now, do yourself the favor of finding it in your local cinema and see what a great movie can be in the current film environment.

For the Cinematic Katzenjammer Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Blogathon

Here is my take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I tried to find a theme that would be a bit different but I know that some of the choices were going to be obvious, at least they were to me. The four films I’ve chosen to represent the four horsemen have a common actor to unite them. His powerful voice and steel jawed expression make him the ideal stand in for God in the end of days. All of the films have their own following so there is not much need to introduce each of them. So I will give my simple justification and provide a few links to make a short visit worth your time.

Pestilence

To represent the ravages of disease that pestilence consists of, I could have chosen the plagues visited upon the Egyptians by God through Moses.  Floods, fire, locusts, frogs and of course the death of the first born that Passover reminds us of would fit perfectly and it would launch my theme with an epic film featuring the actor that I chose to stand in for us. The only problem is that pestilence makes a cameo appearance in “The Ten Commandments” and I want it to be a bigger feature. So instead, Charlton Heston will cope with plague in the much more recent (by several thousand years) “The Omega Man”. This story by the late Richard Matheson has been made into a movie three times. Will Smith is the hero of the most recent version but it was Chuck Heston who had to deal with the biological warfare disaster that turns most of the population into light sensitive zombie types with a grudge. 

Heston spends the first part of the movie hunting down and killing the infected and then the second half trying to find a cure so the resistant colony he comes across can repopulate the planet. His messianic exit shot reminds us all that this was a plague brought down on us by us and that redemption can only come from sacrifice of the pure (His Neville is after all the last real man on Earth). If you click on the picture above or the poster below, you will get my post from the original Movie A Day Project, or my daughter’s post when I was gone for a week and she sat in for me. Enjoy but think on your sins.

War

Heston was featured in too many historical war movies to count.(El Cid, The Buccaneer, and Midway to start and that does not include any westerns). In sticking to the general theme of the Apocalypse however, there is another obvious war based film that stars our man with the iron grin. We are first introduced to war in this film as Heston and his fellow astronauts are attacked by a hunting party of a very surprising nature.

Who would have thought that the mild human pranksters who stole his clothes like monkeys, would turn out to be the monkeys of this planet and be hunted by a species that was on the other end of the gun on Heston’s home world? Mindblowing right? That’s nothing. At the end of the film in what is probably the greatest story twist since “Psycho”, it turns out that “Taylor” was right all along in being skeptical of the human race. They basically annihilated themselves, deeding the planet to the next highest species in the family tree. The legacy we left them however is not just limited to the planet, it carries the same tendency toward hatred, fear and moral superiority that brought us down. The apes themselves have prejudices and myths that bind them to a parallel path of humans.

The castes of intellectuals, separated from scientists and competing for power with the military sound mighty familiar to anyone who has studied human history. War is the way those problems get solved. As Heston’s character confronts the best visual sucker punch of all times, he tells us the results of the greatest of all war.     George Taylor: “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Famine

Back to Back in my list are the two greatest closing lines that reveal how we are all going to hell in a handbasket. With “Planet of the Apes” we blew it up. With “Soylent Green” we ate it up. The opening of the film provides the road to ruin with what basically amounts to a powerpoint slide show. In all deference to  Al Gore and the hyperbole surrounding Global Warming, this is how you show people the end is coming.

The set up takes two and a half minutes and then we know the future is not a happy place because of want. Charlton Heston investigates a murder and discovers a bigger horror story than anyone could contemplate. If you haven’t seen the movie, this is a must  for the top of your list. Great story telling with minimal effects. I’ve actually written about this twice, once on my Movie a Day Project, which you can read by clicking on the face of our guide thru the Apocalypse here:

I also covered it extensively on another blog site that I am guest writing for and you can find that link by clicking on the poster here:

If you have already seen the film, or know the gut check secret of “Soylent Green”, feel free to indulge a minute or so and catch Chuck telling it like it is below.

Death

This may be a cheat but you don’t really need Mr. Heston on screen to be completely fantastic. The voice he wielded could do serious damage in a fight with the voice of Morgan Freeman.

The end of all life on the planet is pretty much what we are talking about here.

So there you have it, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse all ridden by the the same ghost.
 Charlton Heston

Everyone has an opinion about remakes. Most cinephiles hate them with a passion. “The new version will never live up to the original and Hollywood is creatively bankrupt”. Of course people who have never seen the original don’t care and they may first fall in love with the new work sometimes without even knowing that it was made before, “Oh my god, it’s a remake? The original can’t be as good.” My opinion is that a remake is only likely to succeed if there was something about the original that is evergreen. The subject, the role the concept has to be something that people can relate to. This film is not an English language remake of a foreign film, so stupid Americans can watch without reading. It is a traditional remake, a chance to tell the same story in a different way for a new audience. Having seen the original however, it is impossible to approach the new film with impartial eyes. There will always be comparisons. So this review will focus on the comparisons.

The story is largely unchanged. The plot moves in the same direction with the same basic characters so there are no surprises as far as that goes. If you saw Brian DePalma’s 1976 original, you have seen the story.  There are differences in style though that are interesting and help the movie feel fresh despite the previous version. For instance, the start of this film is very different, it has a flashback story technique that takes a little advantage of our expectations and makes what follows a bit more meaningful. Julianne Moore is playing the Piper Laurie role of Carrie’s mom. She is pathetic and frightening and loving and hateful, and usually all at the same time. The religious fanaticism here is contained to her world and unlike the original, this woman is not surviving on the charity of guilty Christians. She is even more clearly disturbed than Laurie was in the part. That being said, I think she feels less of a presence than in the 1976 version. Carrie’s powers dominate after she gets asked to the prom, and the terror that we felt for Sissy Spacek when she returns from the prom is less ominous as a result.

The DePalma version starts with a lurid trip through the girls locker room and the movie is on the brink of being an exploitation film, but it is held back from that by a sympathetic central character. This version never feels dangerous in the same way. It is going to be a serious film from the time it starts and the directors restraint at the beginning creates a more subdued feeling. The bullying that Carrie endures is exaggerated by the modern technology but the bullies are mostly the same. Chris, the main antagonist, acts out her rage at being called on the carpet for being a bitch. When she can’t get away with it, even with her father confronting the principal she goes off the deep end. Nancy Allen’s version of Chris is mean girl standard, Portia Doubleday is a monster in the making that crawls out of the larvae stage to become a full fledged antagonist. The one flaw from the original film was that Chris’ comeuppance was over so quickly, that is a mistake that is remedied here.  

In the original, it always seemed to me to be very ambiguous as to Sue and Tommy’s motivation for getting Carrie to the prom. William Katt came off as a good natured doofus, and Amy Irving did not quite break with the Chris character. Their involvement in the end becomes a bit of a puzzle. In this version, Sue is clearly conflicted about being one of Chris’s drone bees. She is motivated by guilt and a desire to reach out to Carrie. Tommy in this version is also very sweet and he seems to understand his role much more clearly. His exclamation of “What the F@#*” as the crimson shower comes down on them signals to the audience and to Carrie that he was a victim of Chris as well. This is another point that makes the emotions work better although the mind is not taxed as much. I’m not sure which version I prefer but I do know that Tommy is sympathetic in both and Sue is a lot more sympathetic in the new version. The mean girls that follow Chris are not as distinct in the new version so although there is some furious vengence rained down on them, it does not feel as significant.
 
Carrie is played by one of my favorite young actresses,  Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit Girl) for the uninitiated. She is very good in the part. Whereas Sissy Spacek was all big eyes and small voice, Chloë grows more confidence with her power and the decimation of the prom feels like a more deliberate act as a result. The harshness of the original is tempered here in that not everyone dies at the end. That may feel like a sell out but it will make a more sympathetic Carrie at the end of the movie. The remorse and compassion that Carrie feels at the end makes us more likely to resent the “Burns in Hell” graffiti that is the exit of the film. There was no way that the stinger from the original would be matched or that it would work, so they don’t try for that. Instead they try for a more supportive outcome that makes us more likely to feel for our protagonist. 

The one thing that did clearly fail in the film was the CGI effects. They take us out of the movie and were overdone. If you have seen the viral video of the coffee shop, you will see a more convincing and frightening version of the power that Carrie wields. I don’t know that we can but the genii back in the bottle but the old school effects are more effective at creating real shock than the modern computer. I was very satisfied with the film. The story still gives us a slow burn and the actors do a good job making their characters feel fresh even though this is a remake. Since I’m not a hater I am willing to give this movie my approval. It was not necessary but it was not a waste of time either.