A 'Fantastic' Display of Wes Anderson's Themes

by Brett Parker

For as visionary as most contemporary auteurs can be, it seems the one form of cinema they tend to avoid is animation, which can periodically prove to be the most visually arresting aspect of the medium. Perhaps this is because most serious filmmakers feel that a strong sense of humanity and drama can be skewered in translating a heartfelt story into cartoon form. That’s what makes Wes Anderson’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, so significant. While the film’s use of traditional stop-motion animation may give the film the look of cutesy children’s fare, Anderson has used this genre to deliver the very essence of his trademark themes with very little compromise. He’s not churning out a sanitized children’s tale as a fun, cinematic exercise but is using animation to unearth his usual ideals of family, melancholy, and sneaky exuberance in a newly expressive light.

In a stop-motion universe in which animals talk and exist like human suburbanites, we meet the Fantastic Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a sly and cheerful thrill-seeker who specializes in stealing chickens from dangerous human farmers. Mr. Fox lives for the thrill of the hunt and finds he’s most alive when he’s acting out elaborate chicken heists like the wild animal he is. He proudly fancies his live of cunning thievery until the fateful day when his loving wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) announces she’s pregnant and wants to start a family with him. This causes Mr. Fox to give up on his dangerous adventures and embark on a simpler life.

Years pass and Mr. Fox has uneasily settled into the role of a family man. He writes a column for a local newspaper and has moved his family into a beautiful tree that resembles a typical suburban home. Both he and Mrs. Fox are raising a strange son named Ash (Jason Schwartzman) who Mr. Fox sort of wishes were a little more like Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), his athletic nephew. While most would find this quiet, family life more than satisfying, Mr. Fox is gnawed at by his animal instincts and yearns for the excitement he once found in stealing chickens. As his eyes wander towards the chicken farms of his sinister neighbors, Bean (Michael Gambon), Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), and Bunce (Hugo Guiness), Fox can’t resist staging secret heists to steal from these evil farmers and satisfy his thieving impulses.

Behind Mrs. Fox’s back, Mr. Fox begins penetrating the carefully guarded farms of his neighboring targets, all with the assistance of the dim-witted Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky). Pretty soon, the evil farmers grow wise to Mr. Fox’s swindling and wage war on the entire Fox family. They begin an attack of terror which starts with gunfire and progresses towards scary bulldozers that threaten the Fox’s underground lifestyle. Realizing the weight of his actions, Mr. Fox must face his flaws and come up with a scheme to save himself and the rest of his furry friends from these scary humans out for animal blood.

Wes Anderson is a filmmaker known for painting his frames with landscapes of cartoon colors and offbeat mannerisms. What we remember most strongly about his films is the peculiar details he pours into creating his characters’ personal styles and colorful surroundings, usually reflecting the predominantly quirky nature of their mindset. In this sense, the relationship between stop-motion animation and Wes Anderson makes for a perfect marriage, for the attention-to-detail that undoubtedly goes into creating a stop-motion world deeply satisfies Anderson’s need to pour his own personality into every frame. Through the animation direction of Mark Gustafson, Anderson is able to employ the oldest form of stop-motion art, the kind used in the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV movie. This not only displays Anderson’s love for vintage cinematic techniques but allows him to put his offbeat touch into every minute detail within the frame. Every time we see a character or see a location, we feel like we can almost reach out and touch them. There’s a vivid texture and tangible feel to everything in the foreground, made more effective by Anderson’s whimsical touch.

Even though we’re in territory surrounded by talking animals, the characters of The Fantastic Mr. Fox share just about everything in common with Anderson’s human characters. Through Mr. Fox, we can see Anderson’s trademark archetype of the relentless yet optimistic schemer. Like Dignan plotting a heist or Steve Zissou out to kill a Jaguar Shark, Mr. Fox is driven by a tunnel-vision goal that he feels will bring personal fulfillment at long last. Mr. Fox is also an obvious soul brother of Royal Tenenbaum, a wily rogue who tries cheerfully to turn his family unit onto his hedonistic and compulsive idealism. An important Anderson theme that pulsates throughout this adaptation is that of dysfunctional family stress. Like the Tenenbaum children or the Whitman Brothers, the foundation of the Fox family is threatened by each member’s personal flaws and the reservations each member holds towards each other. Ash feels isolated by his father’s favoritism of Kristofferson over him and Mrs. Fox deeply despairs of her husbands self-absorbed impulses. Yet in the end, Anderson employs his usual ideal that faith in the family unit may provide the perfect solace from personal inadequacy and existential dread.

Perhaps the strongest Anderson trademark felt within this outing is a sense of loss and acceptance. Anderson’s characters tend to find themselves crippled by a significant personal loss and try to curb the internal damage in the best way they know how. Whether you follow Max Fischer as he struggles to regain his Rushmore lifestyle or Steve Zissou as he seeks revenge on an exotic shark, Anderson consistently paints a picture of bruised characters seeking ways to heal their wounds. What eats away at the characters in The Fantastic Mr. Fox are repressed feelings of animal instincts. Ash feels he can’t live up to them while Mr. Fox feels he needs to surrender to them. There’s a fascinating scene in which Mr. Fox tries to rally his critter pals against the evil farmers by highlighting each of their basic animal characteristics. Yet Anderson usually shows his characters finding acceptance in their flawed states. They may not reach their original goals, but they grow a deeper appreciation for what they do have. There’s a beautiful scene towards the end where Mr. Fox regards a Wolf in the wild. The Wolf is an obvious symbol for the Wild Animal ideal Mr. Fox once celebrated but must now abandon in order to preserve the family unit he cherishes. After failing to make verbal communication, the Wolf just simply waves to him and runs away. Mr. Fox waves back, finally saying goodbye to his wild animal lifestyle.

What’s most interesting about the film’s ending is the way it may offer a bit of hope to struggling families out there in these tough economic times. The ending finds Mr. Fox and his family forced out of their dream home and forced to rebuild their life in a smaller, more urban-like setting. In order to survive, the Foxes look to a local supermarket and realize they must ride the waves of consumer culture if they want to stay afloat in their current world. While an ending like this could seem rather bittersweet, Anderson injects a cheerful optimism into it by enforcing his ideals of strong family bonding. The Foxes realize as long as they have each other and continue to love to the fullest, they can overcome any hardship. Perhaps this is Anderson slyly trying to ease contemporary anxieties over societal issues by enforcing important humanist values. For if Anderson’s dysfunctional characters can find true happiness in their world and in each other, then there’s hope for the rest of us!

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is an offbeat family film that can be satisfied on many different levels. Parents wanting to take their kids to a satisfying family film will be delighted by the whimsical energy and creative flourishes this one dispenses while also being surprised by its hidden wisdom. More thoughtful moviegoers will be satisfied by the film’s subtle sense of character depth and humanist musings usually unconventional to most family outings. And of course, devoted Wes Anderson fans will be deeply satisfied to discover that he powerfully serves up each of his auteurist ideals in an animated gem that can stand with his most thoughtful of works.

A Wonderful 'Education'

by Brett Parker

On its surface, An Education has the DNA of a crowd-pleasing coming-of-age tale regarding a young woman, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more intelligent, lively, and entertaining play on such a tale. Here’s a movie that deals with complicated matters of femininity and the human heart, yet it pops with sunniness and has a cheerful affection for all its characters. This film is so many things at once: a romantic celebration of life, a portrait of London on the brink of the swingin’ sixties, a meditation on post-modern thoughts regarding a woman’s appropriate place in the world, and, in Carrey Mulligan’s performance, the birth of a shining star.

It’s the early 1960s, and Jenny Mellor (Mulligan) is a bright-eyed suburban girl from London who is studying with all her efforts to gain acceptance at Oxford. This is a goal put into her head by her strict yet sincere father, Jack (Alfred Molina), who only wants the best for his daughter and wants to see her succeed in ways he never did. Jenny dives head-first into her studies and seems poised for academic greatness, yet lingering within her heart is passions that yearn for a more freeing life. Her love of French culture and classical music certainly hints at dreams of a lifestyle that stretches far beyond Oxford.

One day, Jenny stands on a street corner waiting to get a ride home from her cello practice when she suddenly gets caught in a heavy rainstorm. This grabs the attention of an English gentleman named David (Peter Sarsgaard) who spots her from his sports car and offers her a lift home. David seems like such a stylish and charming lad that Jenny goes along with his offer and is even a tad fascinated by him. Despite the obvious age difference (she’s 16, he’s 35), the two become hopelessly attracted to each other and thus begins a careful courtship in which Jenny is whisked away towards the more fabulous sights of London, seeing things she never thought existed in her section of the world. David is a hip and swingin’ smooth operator who takes Jenny to concerts, jazz clubs, art auctions, and even a breathtaking roam through Paris. Joining them on their adventures is David’s posh friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike).

Jenny is smitten with her exciting new lifestyle with David, yet obvious complications with this relationship begin to surface before long. Can Jenny’s parents really be accepting of a man like David (the result may surprise you)? Is it wise for Jenny to take her eyes off of her Oxford goals and towards a more uninhibited lifestyle? Can a 17-year-old girl and a 35-year-old man really have a genuine relationship? And what is there to make of David? What’s his backstory? Where does he get all his money? Is he too good to be true?

An older man courting a teenage girl may sound like a creepy and cynical concept, yet An Education refreshingly scans the material for wild romanticism and biting wit without ever smoothing over the complexities of the central relationship. Director Lone Scherfig uses a great technical elegance in basking the film’s gaze with Jenny’s wide-eyed exuberance, so we see the beauty in everything the way Jenny sees it. This makes the film’s central relationship seem more sincere and accepting than it probably really is. It also makes the film’s compositions pop with dazzling juice. The wardrobes are stylish, the set pieces sparkle, and the actor’s charms infatuates. From the Stanley Donen-like opening titles to the vintage hipness of the film’s soundtrack, this film bounces with a stylish joyfulness.

Nick Hornby is one of my all-time favorite authors for the way he sees basic human types in the most sharply funny and startlingly sympathetic light. His most famous novels, High Fidelity and About A Boy are such brilliant portraits of the contemporary male mind that he has been branded a master writer of masculine tales. Yet when his works focus on female characters (How to Be Good, A Long Way Down, Juliet, Naked), he can be just as vivid and alluring in his characterizations. So while An Education seems like an unlikely place for Hornby to take on his second screenplay (after his unsuccessful U.K. adaptation of his very own Fever Pitch), it must be said that it provides a perfect outlet for his uncompromisingly humorous view of human depths. In adapting Lyn Barber’s memoir for the big screen, Hornby uses his trademark hipness and hilarity to show us the beating heart of a teenage girl, and the result is sublime. He masterfully constructs a penetrating and engaging tale of a woman with the same wonderful illumination he brings to his masculine tales.

Carrey Mulligan’s performance as Jenny has garnered her comparisons with Audrey Hepburn, a type of film criticism I’m often weary of. There was a time when countless actors were compared with Marlon Brando, until most critics made the realization that they’ll never really be another Brando, much like there won’t be another Hepburn. Still, it’s not hard to see why such a flattering title is bestowed upon Mulligan; she glows with the same radiant loveliness and British elegance Hepburn used to display so effortlessly. Mulligan pours such a dewy-eyed sincerity and glowing independence into the role that’s its enormously difficult not to fall in love with her. And when it comes to swingin’ hipsters basked in Britannia coolness, the American Peter Sarsgaard is probably the last actor I’d think of to take on such a roll. Yet he so shrewdly and surprisingly nails David’s nuances that the role is rather astonishing. Playing on Michael Caine’s limey slyness, Sarsgaard creates a stunningly convincing English lad in an absolutely dynamite performance. Major awards are due for both performers here.

One would be rather obtuse in labeling Jenny’s main conflict as choosing between a man and her career. In weathering the storms of her young heart, Jenny allows us to reflect on feminine complexities most young women face as they ponder their futures. Jenny could have a promising career at Oxford, but couldn’t such a devotion to academics and societal conformity lead to a stuffy life devoid of soulful nourishment and coloring? Should a woman be true to the wild passions of her heart, or should she challenge her intellect and obtain the strongest social role possible? Jenny also presents questions about what is the best kind of social stability for a woman. She is shocked to discover that her parents are content with her abandoning Oxford to settle down with a husband, as long as it’s with an established and accomplished individual such as David. This raises ancient ideals about a woman settling down with a successful husband versus using her own gifts to make her own way in the world. I think most women will be enormously satisfied with, and maybe even enlightened by, the path Jenny ultimately decides for herself. It’s greatly liberating to see a female character on film being free enough to have such perplexing thoughts and being able to take their own independent stance on matters.

With all the things An Education does exceptionally right, it does have its missteps along the way. I found Jenny’s classroom world too extremely immersed in her romantic affairs (would her entire class and Headmistress really be that involved in her personal business at this time in history?) and the film’s conclusion wraps things up a little too cleanly. But these are only minor complaints. It seems like nothing could hold back An Education from being considered a superior coming-of-age tale with more color and heart than most films of this sort could only dream about. For growing up can be a painful thing to endure, but rarely has it looked this enlivening.

'2012': Beautifully Destructive

by Brett Parker

If I absolutely had to choose my least favorite genre of cinema, then I would probably select the disaster film. I know I’m supposed to be dazzled by grandly destructive special effects, but mostly I just see cardboard characters laboring endlessly to escape preposterously hazardous scenarios. While these films are meant to shock us with their displays of destruction and warm us over with a hidden sense of humanity, very rarely do these films shake things up in a shocking way or free their characters into perplexing depths. Of course there has been some exceptional disaster flicks over the years, but nowadays they feel few and far in between.

2012 would more or less be just another disaster flick if it didn’t set out to be the mother of all disaster flicks. In annihilating Planet Earth as we know it, director Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day) pulls out no stops in throwing every catastrophic force of nature he can think of at our beloved planet. Over the course of this film, we get thumped with lava, earthquakes, tsunamis, meteor-like boulders, the whole works! In watching these elaborate effects sequences, it becomes extremely difficult not to notice the earlier films this one borrows so heavily from. We can easily spot shades of Earthquake, Poseidon, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Speed 2, and Waterworld (yes, even Speed 2 and Waterworld!). This makes 2012 feel like a greatest hits album that rounds up all the big gems you want into one satisfying package.

The film opens sometime around 2009 and shows members of Earth in a state of apocalyptic suspicion. A geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) notices that the Earth’s core is showing dangerous signs of disruption. The U.S. President (Danny Glover) learns of a recovery plan to protect mankind from some kind of worldwide disaster. The President’s Daughter (Thandie Newton) is part of a plot to store away the world’s most valued artifacts and discovers certain colleagues are being mysteriously killed. Just what is going on here? A crackpot DJ (Woody Harrelson) may just hold the answer: the Mayan prophecy foretelling that the world shall end in the year 2012 is materializing to be true and within a couple of years, the planets will align and Earth as we know it shall crumble into oblivion.

Sure enough, 2012 rolls around and the Earth begins to tear apart violently at the seams. The plates of the Earth begin to break apart and cause devastating Earthquakes across the globe. The lava from the Earth’s core begins to shoot out from underneath and transforms all sorts of landmarks into deadly Volcanoes. The disruption of these land masses cause devastating tsunamis to drown out much of the world. Basically, all hell breaks loose. We see these nightmarish events through the eyes of an author named Jackson Curtis (John Cusack, playing a character that bears 50 Cent’s real name in reverse-ha!), who tries to save his ex-wife, Kate (Amanda Peet), and two children (Liam James & Morgan Lilly) from as many threats as possible. His plan consists of traveling to China, where it is rumored that an enormous shelter of some kind has been destructed to save a fraction of mankind. They achieve this through the help of Kate’s plastic surgeon boyfriend (Tom McCarthy) who is able to fly them around in a stolen plane (a plastic surgeon who knows how to fly a plane…of course!)

Roland Emmerich has apparently spent his Hollywood career fashioning himself as some kind of “master of disaster.” He fancies blockbuster tales of simplistic and virtuous people who become threatened or attacked by ominous, dreadful, and hostile forces. His movies try to convey the message that humanist values will always persevere in the face of an overwhelmingly damaging threat. While this can be an effective lesson, his efforts to make it feel heartfelt come across as too plastic. We just don’t feel like there’s any real heart or inspiration in his “human” characters. Emmerich always employs talented actors who labor hard to make catastrophic bystanders convincing, but there’s too little juice present in the characters to make us actually care about them. It’s always more special to see a disaster film favor characters over action sequences (Peter Weir’s Fearless is a wonderful demonstration of this).

In a world that has seen 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, and the collapse of the American economy, do people really need to be reminded of a prophecy that states the world will collapse within a few more years? Does Emmerich truly believe that in these bleak times, people want to see images of life as we know it blown to complete smithereens? Perhaps Emmerich suspected his film could work as some sort of release therapy for paranoid and fearful people. After all, moviegoers attend these films to vicariously work out their anxieties and fears over deadly catastrophes striking their very own world. Maybe this was the perfect time to release a 2012 film that can truly strike a chord with audiences.

I suppose, then, that it’s good news that Emmerich allows a heightened yet hopeful optimism to infect the film’s third act. The closing scenes show the leaders of the world trying to preserve humans, animals, plants, and cultural artifacts into gigantic, spaceship-like Arcs that have been built to withhold the force of outsized forces of nature. These gigantic Arcs make for some nifty special effects work and as implausible as this development this may seem, Emmerich brings it conviction and harnesses it towards an exciting final act. This even leads to a Spielbergian ending of mind-blowing sunniness. While a more thoughtful director may have admirably forced us to endure a more complex and uncompromising conclusion, it Emmerich may have slyly put some of our more paranoid anxieties about 2012 at ease and I’m actually rather grateful for that.

2012 is entered next to Stargate, The Patriot, and Independence Day on my list of Roland Emmerich films that are entertaining and effective, as opposed to his hopelessly boring efforts, The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 B.C. The running time can be taxing and the character developments are rather shameless, but the effects scenes are so epic and mind-blowing that they truly deserve a look on the big screen. For let’s face it, people will be lining up for big time action and not for intelligent dialogue and thoughtful characters. Now if a filmmaker were to come along and put all three of those ingredients into this genre, then we could very well have a masterpiece on our hands!

A 'Carol' Worth Cherishing

by Brett Parker

Of all the various incarnations of A Christmas Carol I’ve seen over the years, no specific one stands out as being visually supreme or aesthetically definitive. Sure, most of them do a considerable justice to Charles Dickens’ classic tale, but that’s usually the sole efficient thing it does right. Most of these adaptations present camera work at a very elemental level and produce competent Ebenezer Scrooges that seem fearful from breaking away from tradition. Most people usually discuss which actor gave the best portrayal of Hamlet, but how many discussions have you ever heard regarding the best portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge? Even the moderate revisionist takes failed to make long-lasting impressions.

The triumph of Robert Zemeckis’ current take on A Christmas Carol is how he honors the images of Dickens’ classic in a film that’s so dazzling, energetic, emotional, and spunky, it’s damn near impossible to think of a past film or future telling that can top it. By employing the same 3-D Motion Capture Animation he employed with The Polar Express and Beowulf, Zemeckis is able to give the story a sublime and mystic look that plays up the magic of the story while still pulling top-notch drama from the characters. And when you bring an A-list level of magic and drama to one of the most imaginative and inspiring literary tales of all time, you can expect a film of unyielding power.

If you happen to be one of those rare creatures who are grossly unfamiliar with this endlessly beloved tale, allow me to detail it for you: Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a hopelessly cynical and frighteningly bitter businessman in Victorian-era England. With his frail body and pointy nose, Scrooge has a blackened heart and a miserable outlook to match the unpleasantness of his physical appearance. He constantly scolds and berates his office worker, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), he coldly alienates himself from his only living nephew, Fred (Colin Firth), and he harshly denies any charity to two Portly Gentlemen (Cary Elwes & Julian Holloway) who seek funds to help the poor. What irritates Scrooge the most is the Christmas Holiday, the day in which people act so merry and cheerful that it threatens his bleak and horrid outlook on life. There appears to be no lightness or hope within his troubled spirit.

One Christmas Eve night, Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Marley (Gary Oldman), Scrooge’s deceased business partner. Marley was just as cold and greedy as Scrooge was in real life and is now condemned to an afterlife of torture and despair for his wicked ways. He warns Scrooge that he is destined for such a horrible fate unless he can turn his life around. He tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (all played by Carrey, thanks to the animation) who will help him understand the folly of his ways and how he can redeem himself. Throughout the course of the night, Scrooge is haunted by these magical and wise spirits who whisk him away to show him the effects he has on Christmases across time. Through this supernatural intervention, Scrooge is able to better understand how heartbreak and loss has affected him, how Cratchit is coping with a sick son named Tiny Tim (also Oldman, gotta love this stuff!), and what dark and terrifying things await the future is Scrooge does not change his cold ways.

By employing Motion Capture Animation to this tale, Zemeckis is able to make the surface of his film sparkle with remarkable gloss while retaining the plights and depths of the actors’ performances. The technology captures the human performances and transplants the mannerisms into computer effects, allowing their emotions to be transferred to computer-animated avatars. This technology allows an actor’s performance to be manipulated towards any physical look and stature the story demands. That’s how Jim Carrey is able to play both Scrooge and the Three Ghosts interacting with each other while the 51-year-old Gary Oldman is allowed to embody young Tiny Tim. This technology isn’t merely a cinematic stunt, but is used to honor both the mythic look and dramatic undercurrents of the characters themselves. For example, the animation fills in both the bizarre and outsized physiques Dickens envisioned for, say, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present while being able to retain the human emotions underneath. This easily makes Zemeckis’ Carol the best looking incarnation to ever grace the screen.

Zemeckis has spent his filmmaking career carving out grand adventure tales, yet basking his characters in heartfelt emotions that spare these stories from being disposable exercises. Think about the way Marty McFly despaired of his best friend, Doc Brown, being put in harm’s way. Or how Eddie Valiant was deeply wounded by the death of his brother. Or when Chuck Noland cried helplessly after loosing his imaginary friend, Wilson. Zemeckis has a knack for unearthing startling dramatic depths within seemingly lightweight characters and it’s this very talent that rescues A Christmas Carol from being just another elaborate animation stunt. What’s amazing is how this grand tale clocks in at way under two hours, yet every dramatic base the original story presented is covered and fully realized in this timeframe. As the plot moves from cynicism to heartbreak to despair to redemption and finally to cheerfulness, Zemeckis never shortchanges us on the drama and we feel the full weight of Dickens’ original intentions. Even though some of the adventure sequences drag on for too long and the pace might be a tad too zippy, Zemeckis still dishes out a masterful take on this famous story.

When I first heard that Jim Carrey was cast in the role of Scrooge, I assumed his comic talents would be greatly summoned to make Scrooge a caricature of high comic energy. What’s ultimately surprising and rewarding is how Carrey never plays Scrooge for laughs. This role can seriously be considered as one of his dramatic endeavors. When he’s not doing manic comic vehicles, Carrey has crafted a compelling career out of sincere outsiders who wrestle with their troubled depths. When we think of his more memorable characters, such as Truman Burbank or Andy Kaufman, we are usually looking at troubled outcasts who are perplexed by their isolation and ponder what it would take to fit in with other people. Carrey brings this sense of melancholy weight to this legendary role and crafts what has to be one of the most empathetic Scrooges we’ve ever seen. Of course, his great vocal and facial abilities are put to great use to construct Scrooge’s almost bizarre mannerisms, yet it’s the hurtful sadness in his eyes that make his Scrooge most memorable. Notice the bitterness in his voice when he regards his nephew’s love for his wife, or the way a glimpse into the future makes him startlingly identify with Bob Cratchit’s sense of loss. I truly wasn’t prepared for Carrey to fully discard cheap laughs and revel in the tragic depths of Scrooge’s tortured soul. The performance is rather astonishing.

The Internet Movie Database reports that there are at least 50 cinematic incarnations of the classic Dickens’ tale throughout film history. Since I haven’t seen each and every one, I cannot officially declare Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol the best version I’ve ever seen. Yet I can’t imagine any version possibly outdoing this one. No past Carol could possibly be as visually detailed and exhilarating as this one. No past actor could possibly embody Scrooge with such detail and poignancy as Jim Carrey. And it seems extremely difficult to picture any past adaptation entirely honoring the iconic stature of Dickens’ themes in such a wildly entertaining package.

A Great Source of 'Paranormal' Scares

by Brett Parker

You’ve probably heard all the hype by now. That Paranormal Activity is a $11,000 horror indie being cited as one of the scariest movie in ages. That the film’s release started off very small until overwhelmingly positive word of mouth caused moviegoers to hit the net and “demand it” in their cities toward a wider release. That Steven Spielberg himself was reportedly so scared viewing this film that he stopped watching it halfway through. Bloody-Disgusting.com cheerfully boasts that with this film, “nightmares are guaranteed.” So what’s the deal with this little scary-movie-that-could? Is it really worth all the hype?

The film has finally arrived at my local multiplex and I’ve thrown my very own eyes upon it. My answer to that question: absolutely! Paranormal Activity is the real deal: that rare fright fest that holds you in its grasp, plays around with you, then jabs you with big-time scares you won’t soon be able to shake. What makes the film so remarkable is how bare-bones simple the production values are and how powerhouse effective the terror turns out to be. Like The Blair Witch Project before it, the film is a low-budget account of supernatural horrors made to feel realistic. While the new film may borrow some pages from the Blair Witch playbook, it smokes the former in concept and fascination. Behold a new horror classic that truly will make you lose a few nights’ sleep.

The film opens with a man named Micah (Micah Sloat) playing around with a new video camera. The framing device is the fact that every scene from the film will be generated by Micah’s camera; we never see footage outside of his own personal lens. Micah has bought the camera to figure out just what the hell is going on with his girlfriend, Katie (Katie Featherstone). Ever since she was a little girl, Katie has suspected that she has been plagued by a supernatural presence, one that may have now followed her into her new suburban home she shares with Micah. A psychic expert (Mark Fredrichs) consults the couple in their home and informs them that a demon may be drawn to Katie with the intention of wreaking havoc. His prognosis: do nothing that will agitate the demon and consult a demonic expert as soon as possible.

Micah discards this advice and comes up with his own plan, thanks to his trusty camera. He sets up the camera at a wide-angle, voyeuristic view in their bedroom and plans on recording themselves while they sleep. With the help of night vision and an on-screen clock, the couple will be able to see if any strange occurrences happen within the darkness of their slumber. Most of the film consists of us watching this footage and it proves to be quite a terrifying sight. For a demonic presence really does make itself known throughout the house. At first, it starts off by playing with doors and making ambiguous noises. But this evil being is just getting warmed up! It has wickedly devilish tricks up its sleeves meant to pull the couples’ nerves inside out!

We go to horror movies for good scares, but there are too many times where Hollywood vehicles rely on distracting computer effects and quick jolts in place of something that can truly shake us. It was said that DreamWorks wanted to pump this story up with big stars and a costly budget, but if any gloss was added to this concept, it would probably be no different than the usual spooky trash. The modest budget allows writer-director Oren Peli to move away from showy special effects and towards primitive fears of things that go bump in the night. Most of the film’s scares are made up of shadows, thuds, noises, acting, and simple objects arranged in a way that creates great unease and intensity. Towards the end, a key character enters the house and has one small piece of dialogue that generates more creepiness than any CGI creature in recent horror memory. I can picture this film being a true inspiration for amateur filmmakers. On its surface, Paranormal Activity looks like the kind of film that anyone with a camera, editor, and a sly sense of cheap special effects can pull off.

The masterstroke of the film is the way Peli exploits the vulnerability of sleep and the menacing nature of darkness as terrors that can grip any audience member. These primal fears are generated by the terror of not being able to see or grasp an unseen entity that is out to harm you in your most vulnerable and fatigued state. The cleverness of the demon is in the way it keeps its dreadful deeds hidden within the shadows and in subtle undercurrents, making the anticipation of its acts just as terrifying as the acts themselves. Peli is aware of this principle and uses it to push our sense of pulse-pounding dread to its absolute breaking point.

With his two leads, Peli has found actors that not only give off a vivid vibe, but make us reflect on how our own frantic anxieties would play out in the face of supernatural horrors. Featherstone generates a genuine arc from level-headed female to frightened victim quite convincingly. Sloat, on the other hand, is curious in the way he cares more about putting everything on film than the devastating condition of his girlfriend. There’s a certain pigheaded ignorance to his actions than can simultaneously agitate his girlfriend, the demon, and certain audience members. Yet if it weren’t for his aesthetic drive and his misguided efforts, there certainly wouldn’t be the movie as we know it. Perhaps within this suburban nightmare, Peli is using his characters to comment on the domestic frustrations of men trying to help with their girlfriend’s issues. Micah tries with considerable effort to save his girlfriend from her plights, but he doesn’t have the grace or the wisdom to fine-tune himself to her feminine needs. I can imagine what ultimately happens to Micah in the end being a wicked metaphor for what usually happens to boyfriends who try to intervene with their loved ones’ problems.

Comparison of this film to The Blair Witch Project almost seemed inevitable, for both films employ grainy, bargain-basement values in capturing the essence of obscure terrors hidden within darkness. Both films try for a device of real-life footage of real people discovered in the aftermath of a supernatural attack. Both films kept the source of the frights hidden in obscurity with the anticipation of the nightmarish threats being the true source of fear. While Blair Witch was an effective and scary film, I feel Paranormal Activity outdoes it considerably. Its concept is more focused and its ideas are more compelling and fearful. Blair Witch suffered from the fact that it allowed its characters to meander with their wild anxieties where Paranormal Activity appears to have a tighter plot with very few missteps. I guess the supernatural is scarier when it lands on your doorstep as opposed to some far off woods area.

I usually find it very difficult to be scared by a horror movie, for my film intellect allows me to consider the genre’s technical aspects over the intention of the projected fears. There’s a short list I have of movies that have genuinely scared me. These titles include The Shining, Halloween, 28 Days Later, and now it appears I’ll have to add Paranormal Activity to that list. This could very well be one of the best scary movies I’ve ever seen. Perfect execution. Effective backstory. Fascinating threat. Not a wasted frame. Its biggest flaw is perhaps the realization that it lacks penetrating themes akin to most great horror classics. This enterprise is all a stunt, but it’s a ghoulishly delightful one; one that will probably stay parked in your nightmares for a very long time.

A Vengeful 'Citizen'

by Brett Parker

Law Abiding Citizen is the kind of the thriller that you know is on shaky ground in terms of plausibility, but you find yourself entertained by it anyways. It’s kind of frustrating that it isn’t the most intelligent realization of its clever premise, but the plot generates just enough suspense to keep you sustained and it has just the right action-thriller tone to keeps things interesting. But considering the acting talent on board here, you wish the film could’ve been so much more.

The film opens with a scientist named Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) working on a project while his wife (Brooke Stacy Mills) and daughter (Ksenia Hulayev) prepare for dinner in their ordinary suburban home. There’s a knock on the door, and two hostile sociopaths named Darby (Christian Stolte) and Ames (Josh Stewart) come pummeling through for a home invasion. Clyde miraculously survives but helplessly witnesses the savage assault and murder of his wife and daughter before passing out. Due to his testimony, the two criminals are eventually captured and sent to trial. Clyde’s attorney, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) fears that if the two are taken to trial, there won’t be enough evidence to put them away. Therefore, he accepts a plea bargain in which Darby will testify against Ames, putting Ames on death row while Darby gets a minimal sentence. Clyde is outraged at this development and feels they should both be punished to the fullest extent with no mercy. Rice goes through with the deal, feeling that “some justice is better than no justice” while Clyde’s anger brews more intensely.

Ten years pass and Rice’s attorney career has skyrocketed to successful heights. Yet his world becomes violently shaken up the day it is discovered that Darby has been brutally murdered by disturbing methods. All evidence points to Clyde, who has spent the past decade plotting an elaborate act of revenge. The cops find him and place him in a maximum security prison, but that doesn’t stop his plan at all. As Clyde is locked up behind bars, everyone he seeks revenge against is still being murdered one by one on the outside. The judge, the attorneys, and everyone who had a hand in Darby’s original plea bargain meet macabre ends through sly and precise murder methods. It’s clear that Clyde is behind these murders, but how can he possibly commit them from behind bars? Does he have an accomplice of some sort? What is the method behind his madness?

When you reflect on Clyde’s plan, you realize it has vengeful implications but a rather sloppy execution. Clyde hopes that his diabolical murders will expose the flaws and ambiguities of the legal system as we know it, but all he is really doing is murdering people in the legal system one-by-one. He is striking against those who’ve obviously offended him, but he’s hardly exposing shady methods of the law in any recognizable way. Perhaps it would’ve been more devious if he had set up carefully planned traps in which the shady dealings of the legal system would be exposed out in the open. What if he blackmailed the Judge (Annie Corley) threatening to expose manipulated legal secrets? What if he somehow placed his targets in compromising positions that expose contradictions within the law? Like The Joker in The Dark Knight, maybe each trap could’ve proposed complicated moral situations in which his enemies would have to think like humans instead of self-serving lawyers. Ideas like this could’ve brought a more thoughtful significance to the film.

F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, The Negotiator) has proven to be a competent director of generic action thrillers and he brings that same sense of formal competence to Law Abiding Citizen. He seems to specialize in hostile hyper-realities in which characters have a single-minded need to obtain their goals in rather dangerous situations. He doesn’t really bring much dramatic depth or philosophical musings to his work, but plays everything for its formulaic face value. Even a well-crafted thriller like The Negotiator owes more to careful-plotting than human nature. Still, he always tries to make sure that audiences get their moneys’ worth and that the standards of Hollywood action are met with adequacy, something he achieves this time out.

Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler can be the most likeable and intense of dramatic actors and their talents are truly relished in this generic outing. Butler especially brings conviction and feeling to a wildly contradictive character. Clyde is a man revealed to be a loving family man, a deeply-wounded victim, an intelligent scientist, a criminal mastermind, and a blood-thirsty sociopath pretty much all at the same time. The wrong actor in this role could’ve exposed the whole preposterousness of the character and imploded the whole enterprise. It’s rather impressive that Butler can make this character work. Foxx has very little to work with in the role of Rice, he’s written mainly as a bystander and a one-note investigator, but he tries to bring to the character as much focus and interest as he possibly can. These are two talented actors playing way below their potential, but they make the film more entertaining and convincing than it probably deserves to be.

When it comes to revenge plots and calculating suspense, I’ve seen way better thrillers than Law Abiding Citizen. Yet the film works; there’s enough juice in the performances and there’s a genuine interest in how Clyde’s plan ultimately plays out. The result may seem underwhelming and implausible, but at least we enjoy the ride along the way. I only wished it played with the idea of legal system exploitation a little more intelligently. I think in a future retrospect, this film will be remembered as an example of Gerard Butler’s considerable range and talents.

The 'Wild' World of A Child

by Brett Parker

Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are has been described as “a children’s movie for adults.” I prefer to think of it as a grown-up art house film for children; a movie in which they’re trusted to identify with deep emotional revelations and musings regarding their inner beings and feelings. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time a movie nailed what it’s like to be a 9-year-old so accurately and beautifully. In adapting the wildly popular and award winning children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Jonze has highlighted the very essence of being a child in a dramatic way that wildly avoids being sugar-coated family friendly pop. While the film’s surface plot isn’t as fascinating as its underlying implications, it’s still a unique cinematic experience to relish.

As the film opens, we meet Max (Max Records), an imaginative yet lonely 9-year-old. We follow Max as he plays around in his suburban home: building forts, throwing snowballs, and running around while pretending to be a wild beast. He constantly wears what appears to be a wild animal costume equipped with paws and lion whiskers. Max feels overwhelmingly isolated in his home due to the fact that his older sister (Pepita Emmerichs) would rather hang out with her school friends than play with him while his divorced mother (Catherine Keener) is distracted with work and a new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo, in a minute yet effective cameo). Everything comes to a head one night when Max’s mother invites her boyfriend over for dinner. Max runs wild and causes chaos to express his inadequacy and rage. He stands on top of the dinner table, shouts that he hates his mother, and even tries to bite her. Furious, his mother tries to send him to his room without dinner, but Max runs off into the night to try and escape his hurt feelings.

Max finds himself occupying a small sail boat and sailing off into the waters of the night. He eventually collides with an island in his imagination occupied by the Wild Things, 9-foot-tall beastly creatures with oversized heads and animal-like features. Max discovers that these creatures have wildly unpredictable behavior and also seem consumed by childlike emotions. There’s Carol (James Gandolfini), a melancholy dreamer, Douglass (Chris Cooper), a rational-minded bird, KW (Lauren Ambrose), a thoughtful feminine mind, Judith (Catherine O’Hara), a petty criticizer, Ira (Forest Whitaker), a meek lunk, and Alexander (Paul Dano), who is constantly neglected. When the Wild Things first meet Max, they try to eat him, but thanks to some quick thinking and imaginative lines, Max convinces them to make him their king and in charge of their daily activities. Given a golden crown and a ruling scepter, Max cheers to “let the wild rumpus start!”

As king, Max spends his days holding silly games and playful activities with the Wild Things, such as having dirt fights, knocking over trees, and building an elaborate fort in which they can all live. What stuns Max is the fact that the Wild Things behavior mirrors the confusing emotions and events of his own life. His strongest identification is with Carol, who also despairs of the growing distance between his family members and is plagued by an almost crippling loneliness. The Wild Things mirror Max’s pain and confusion, yet do so in a more outsized manor. Therefore, Max becomes increasingly scared that the Wild Things will become so consumed by their hurtful feelings that they’ll put him in harm’s way.

What is first and foremost impressive about this film is the puppetry work used to bring the Wild Things to life. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop produces exquisite work once again by creating life-size creature Muppets to make the Wild Things feel like they’re actually there. It makes things look more visually arresting, for every time wind blows against their hair or leaves stick to their body, there really is something tangible there to bounce off of and the effect is priceless. Taking this puppetry one step further, animators and a digital effects crew had the actors act out their characters’ emotions and captured them digitally to impose over the creatures’ faces. The effect is spellbinding, digitally imposing undeniable human faces over realistic creature puppets. To me, the film’s most dazzling image comes towards the end, where Carol breaks down into hysterical sobbing. This oversized creature looks so remarkably human and so convincingly melancholy that the effect will haunt you long after the movie is over. These effects have to be seen to be believed. If nothing else, this film really is something of a visual effects landmark.

Maurice Sendak’s book appeared to use the images of the Wild Things as a metaphor for the angry emotions of a child. For the film, Jonze hunts for bigger game by appearing to incorporate the entire canvas of childhood emotions within the landscape of the Wild Things. In this mystical land, Max is able to recognize his own feelings of isolation, depression, rage, silliness, confusion, playfulness, and exuberance. Spike Jonze, a director with a sublime gift for highlighting deep, peculiar emotions, uses his in-depth camera skills to bring an intense focus on all of the film’s emotional bases. He completely disregards a family film’s need to stick to an appealing plot and penetrates relentlessly towards the material’s inner-depths. As with his last film, Adaptation, Jonze centers on characters who clash grandly with their inner feelings and inadequacies only to discover an enlightened understanding of them. To bring such a need for dramatic realism to a childhood fantasy tale is a rather bold stroke and brings an overwhelming maturity to the family film genre.

All of this has made Where the Wild Things Are sound like a powerhouse classic. While it’s certainly unique and deserves to be singled out from all the rest, I didn’t find it as entertaining on the surface as it should have been. Even though the film is more about emotions than plot, it can’t be ignored that the plot itself plays out rather thinly. Watching the film, you feel like a little has been stretched out a long way and there are certain passages that don’t connect very strongly with the power of its underlying themes. Part of the problem is that most of the Wild Things aren’t as vividly carved out as Carol is. We can see how Ira, Judith, and Alexander are meant to signify sections of Max’s heart, but we don’t feel they’re fleshed out as dramatically as they should be, diminishing the film’s effect. Sendak’s book consisted of only ten sentences and perhaps Jonze and his co-scripter David Eggers found some difficulty in stretching this small tale out into feature length. The film isn’t as interesting to watch as it is to contemplate.

Yet perhaps I need to look at the film again. So complex and uncompromising is this work that it most certainly merits repeat viewings to soak everything in. On the surface though, it is highly admirable and satisfying that Jonze has made a film that respects the minds of its young audience and challenges them to employ their artistic intellects. Children, of course, can be the most curious and thoughtful of creatures, so why shouldn’t they have their own art house film that challenges their feelings? While most grown ups fear this film will fly right over their heads, I believe children just might appreciate this imaginative nourishment as a solace from the usual pop junk food they’re served.

A Comedy to 'Retreat' From

by Brett Parker

Couples Retreat is a comedy starring one of the funniest comedic actors working today with a script written by the creative forces behind Swingers and Iron Man. That everything goes so spectacularly wrong is rather jarring. I didn’t think it was possible for Vince Vaughn and his posse to make a comedy worse than Four Christmases, but they’ve really outdone themselves this time. This could be the worst work of everyone involved.

As the film opens, we meet a set of four couples who each have their own set of problems. Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) have let the daily concerns of suburban family life get in the way of one-on-one time. Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) have lost whatever physical spark they used to contain and barely acknowledge each other. Shane (Faizon Love) tries to rebound from a hurtful divorce by dating a 20-year-old bimbo named Trudy (Kali Hawk). Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) have trouble conceiving a child and feel their picture-perfect marriage crumbling. Being the perfectionists that they are, Jason and Cynthia wish to visit a tropical resort named Eden that helps troubled couples repair their relationships through the nurturing of an exotic location. They convince the other couples to join them on this vacation, for if they all go they get a great group discount.

The couples are soon whisked away to this island paradise and the place truly has a breathtaking appearance, with gorgeous beaches and island delights. The couples feel like they’re in paradise, that is until the couples’ skill-building activities begin and all smiles turn to deep frowns. Under the supervision of the French guru Marcel (Jean Reno), the couples participate in a relationship workshop that consists of group therapy, deep sea fishing, stripping, and risqué yoga. Instead of helping with their problems, these activities produce results that veer somewhere between embarrassment and frustration. It seems that these activities are causing the couples to crack beyond repair. Can the passions that were once there possibly be rekindled on this island?

To call Couples Retreat a lowbrow sitcom would be an insult to lowbrow sitcoms everywhere. The jokes are so flat and dead-on-arrival that it’s excruciating to sit through. The sight gags are extremely weak and go on much longer than absolutely necessary. Vaughn and Favreau, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas), usually have a strong gift for golden one-liners, but this time they give us nothing that stands out or is worth remembering. The dialogue curiously has a repetitive habit, over-establishing points that we’ve long since understood. Even Vaughn’s star presence, which is usually a haven of hilarious monologues and priceless comic energy, is mundane and ineffective this time. The only two moments I honestly enjoyed were a conversation about Applebee’s and a Guitar Hero competition between Dave and an island tour guide (Peter Serafinowicz).

Thirteen years ago, Vaughn and Favreau teamed up to brings us Swingers, one of the great comedies about the masculine mind. Under the slick indie eye of director Doug Liman, Favreau’s script and Vaughn’s comic antics gave us honest and hilarious insights into contemporary dating and male comradery in a way that no assembly-line Hollywood comedy could dream of doing. Swingers is a cult classic that is cherished not just for its invaluable humor but for illuminating masculine experiences in a way any guy can relate to. Couples Retreat is proof that Vaughn and Favreau have sold out to the big mean commercial machine, and it’s not a pretty sight. To start off with an indie film of fun-loving honesty and end up with a Hollywood comedy of shameless phoniness is truly heartbreaking. This duo should return to their gloves-off indie style of filmmaking, then maybe they could make a comedy that’s truly worth relishing.

As a producer, Vaughn has the right goals in mind but displays clunky and misguided executions of them. It appears that Vaughn wants to produce comedies that focus on the peculiarities of contemporary relationships in everyday situations. The only problem is that these comedies favor a formulaic, sitcom style as opposed to displays of bruising honesty. It’s not hard to see how The Break-Up, Four Christmases, or Couples Retreat wants to focus on the plights of normal people in the present and their relationships, but these films feel too silly and unrealistic to be relatable. If these films’ jokes were more observant and down-to-earth, it would truly be more involving. A comedy like (500) Days of Summer, for example, works so wonderfully because each and every one of its jokes are firmly rooted in honest observations of dating and breaking-up. If Couples Retreat treated its characters like real people and steered the humor away from sitcom territory towards true human behavior, it would’ve been spared from looking like commercial trash.

I can’t remember the last time I was so bored during a movie. I don’t mean having to sit through a bad movie, but being truly bored. Yawning. Constantly checking my watch. Waiting eagerly to go home. Almost frustrated for having blown ten bucks on such a waste of a movie. I’m usually such a big fan of Vince Vaughn’s works and I root for him all the time, but this is such an all-time low for him and his comrades. Watching Swingers and Made reminds me of the old days I yearn for and what I wish would happen again these days.

A Fun Ride Through 'Zombieland'

by Brett Parker

Even though Zombieland is supposed to be something of a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the Zombie genre, it’s probably one of the most entertaining Zombie films I’ve ever seen in general. While the laughs are undoubtedly big, the jolts are effective, the visuals are compelling, and the characters are surprisingly likeable. While most movies that take place across a Zombie landscape can be rather morbid and intense, this one is refreshingly likeable and witty. Here’s a movie that sidesteps the disgusting goofiness of the zombies and focuses on the humorous quirks of the humans combating them. This proves to be something of a masterstroke.

The film imagines a world overrun by zombies, the result from an outbreak of a mysterious virus. Nearly every square inch of America is in shambles as rabid Zombies roam the landscape, hunting for remaining humans they can snack on. A scarce amount of humans band together where they can to find some kind of refuge from the hordes of the undead. To avoid fatal emotional connections, a specific group of survivors nickname each other with their destination cities to keep relationships ambiguous. There’s Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a shy teenage loner, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a bad-ass warrior Zombie hunter, Wichita (Emma Stone) a sexy con woman, and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), her tough-minded sister.

In spite of their conflicting personalities, the four decide to band together and roam the landscape for safety and resources. They raid random supermarkets and tourist traps, treating the country as their own personal playground. Wichita decides that an amusement park in California might be an adequate place to hold up against the Zombies. As they trek West, Columbus develops a huge crush on Wichita, Tallahassee begins to open-up amidst a mad quest for Twinkies, and the group has an uproariously hilarious encounter with a famous movie star.

Instead of pointing and laughing at the absurdities of the zombies themselves (like countless other spoofs have done), Zombieland seems more interested in pulling laughs from the survivalists and their post-apocalyptic daily life. The result is an inspired well of sharp humor. The film doesn’t really take self-reflexive jabs at the genre so much as settle into a peculiar character study of these quirky humans. Most of the film consists not of Zombie action, but the conversations and wacky episodes these survivors experience on their road journey. The funniest episode occurs when the group crashes the mansion of a real-life Hollywood star in a surprise cameo. I won’t reveal who it is, but his appearance, his survival techniques, and what ultimately happens to him is one of the funniest things I’ve seen this year and in any Zombie comedy ever made.

The likeability of this film is generated mostly by the appealing nature of the initial cast. Harrelson plays a wild riff on his breezy comic charms while making for a durable action figure in the process. Stone proves here, as she did in Superbad, that she holds more spunk than most cookie-cutter sex symbols and is truly to die for. Breslin greatly exemplifies here that she can rise above cute child roles and show depths of toughness. Eisenberg does a more resourceful play on his usual shy-guy neurotics and does what the role demands, but you kind of hope directors will give him more to do in his future. I hope he doesn’t get forced down the Jason Biggs’ path. And wait till you see the surprise cameo, his scenes are worth the price of admission alone!

The Zombie action, when it does occur, is skillfully handled and can honestly stand with most serious Zombie flicks. The Makeup Department really did their job in making the Zombies look effective and scary while first-time helmer Ruben Fleisher knows how to keep the action energetic and exciting. One creative touch he displays is playfully using title cards to illustrate Columbus’ personal rules for surviving a Zombie holocaust (Rule #1: Have Good Cardio, Rule #2: Double Tap Your Zombie Kills, etc.) These illustrated rules have a sneaky way of finding their way into a frame, and it makes the movie all the more fun to watch.

The most devoted horror enthusiasts can always find the deepest contemporary metaphors in even the cheesiest of Zombie flicks. I think in a sly, subtle way, Zombieland might be a delicate portrait of our stressful times. Perhaps the mess of the Zombie landscape is meant to reflect the mess of current times, in which economical problems, health care concerns, and unemployment anxieties are running as frantically as bloodthirsty Zombies. In this context, the human characters make us realize that even in the face of a collapsing society; we still face minute plights in our daily routines of survival. I find it interesting that even in the face of a crumbling world, these characters are still concerned with their own personal crisis, which consist of such matters as romantic crushes and intense food cravings. It’s not hard picturing ourselves behaving the same way in such a situation; perhaps we’re doing it right now.

When it comes to the Zombie genre, 28 Days Later is still the scariest and Shaun of the Dead is still the funniest, but I’m surprised by how effective and entertaining Zombieland turns out to be. It holds more laughs and intelligence than I initially expected. Don’t expect just another cheesy horror romp. If this film does one thing greatly, it makes you ponder this thought: in the face of a Zombie apocalypse, would Twinkies still be easy to obtain?

'Surrogates': Unsettling Social Interaction

by Brett Parker

If good science fiction can be considered a reflection of the anxieties of contemporary society, then it was only a matter of time before a movie like Surrogates would surface. In an age where human interaction is considerably skewered by the heavy popularity of social networking online, Surrogates is a glimpse into how far technology can take us into socially isolating ourselves from each other, and its rather chilling. By presenting a premise that uses robot avatars as a metaphor for our increasing technological detachment, this film has all the material to fashion itself a sci-fi masterwork. It doesn’t quite get there, but we’re very surprised with the amount of details and ideas this piece of pop actually gets right.

Surrogates suggests a future in which humans can use their brain waves to control and feel the body of human-like androids. By sitting in a computerized chair with a head monitor, a person can process their thoughts, feelings, and responses into a robot avatar that can go out into the real world and experience everything for you while you just sit at home. So instead of walking outside and experiencing life with your own body, you can send out a stronger, better-looking robotic self to do everything for you. Originally, this technology was perfected to help the physically handicapped function again in a healthy avatar, but the company that invented surrogates couldn’t resist opening it up to the consumer market. Pretty soon, surrogates sell more wildly than iPods and nearly every man and woman is experiencing life through their remote-controlled robots. Since a consumer can make their avatar any physical preference they desire (male consumers can have female surrogates, white consumers can have black surrogates, etc.), we learn that racism and sexism has rapidly decreased, making surrogate technology widely-accepted in everyday society. Only a select minority of humans, nicknamed Dreads, resist this technology and choose to live in “surrogate-free” environments controlled by a human resistance leader called The Prophet (Ving Rhames).

Surrogates are also designed to resist pain and any physical harm to its cognitive owners. This makes murder and physical violence very scarce in this future world. So it becomes very jarring when it’s discovered that a young man is killed in his home one night after his surrogate is destroyed at a night club. Somehow, the surrogate became zapped with a laser that also managed to fry the brain of its owner, something that is said to be impossible to achieve. Even stranger is the fact that the murder victim is Jarid Canter (Shane Dzicek), the son of surrogate technology’s founding father, Dr. Canter (James Cromwell). Detective Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and his blonde-headed surrogate are on the case, even though he’s conflicted in his personal feelings about all of this technology. Yet a violent confrontation with the Dreads leaves Greer’s surrogate destroyed and incapacitated, forcing him to place his own human body back out into the real world. Can Detective Greer still keep his human composure in a landscape of advanced robots? Can he overcome those physical obstacles to solve this complex case?

I feel Surrogates is a thoughtful meditation on today’s era of vague social interactions. Through websites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, people have found a technological output to express themselves more fully than they probably could in real life. A person can be very quiet and reserved in real life, but through the anonymity of the web, they can find themselves opening up about everything from what they had for breakfast to people they’ve hooked up with. This online craze has become such a popular obsession that normal social interaction has been diminished considerably. Much has been said about how people are incompetent and pathetic nowadays when it comes to face-to-face interaction and how social awkwardness is rapidly increasing. There have barely been signs of these online outlets letting up anytime soon, making the future world of Surrogates seem not as inevitable as you’d imagine. The film shows us a glimpse of where this intense social networking can lead us, and it isn’t pretty.

The film also comments on the societal obsession with achieving the perfect body. In an age where plastic surgery is glorified on television and the married mother next door is getting breast implants, it’s no big secret that people have grown shallow yearnings to eliminate their physical imperfections at any cost. Surrogates imagines people being able to design and upgrade their robot counterparts to whatever physical specifications they desire. Therefore, almost every surrogate we see is a mega hottie (especially the female lawyers of a technology corporation). In one disturbing scene, we see Greer’s wife, Maggie (Rosamund Pike) at her day job, which can only be described as a robot salon in which instant facelifts and body tweakings can be done before lunchtime. One nice visual touch is to show the human characters contrasting exceedingly different from the look of their robot counterparts. We’re surprised, for example, to find that Greer’s partner, Peters (Rhada Mitchell) is much more elderly-looking than her beautiful avatar.

As Greer becomes something of a lone human figure in an artificially-dominating world, we realize that the character represents a contemporary yearning for truth and realism in a world that seems to disturbingly favor shallow and phony values. Willis is the right actor for such a human ideal; he has fashioned a career out of playing cynical everymen, ones who despair of lies and relentlessly dishes out reality checks. It says something that his appearance here resembles his unkempt appearance in What Just Happened. My only complaint is that Willis’ dry wit is on a scarce supply in this performance. His knack for one-liners would’ve bounced wonderfully off the creepy phonies surrounding him in this film. If Greer had the same snappy dialogue as Willis did in The Last Boy Scout, it would’ve truly elevated this film to something exceptionally effective.

Surrogates is Jonathan Mostow’s first feature film since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and it’s nice to see him bounce back from such a clunky enterprise with a thoughtful and confident sci-fi work. Terminator 3 had big problems, from uneasy tone shifts, redundant and watered-down action, to the fact that the film could barely stand up against the first two films at all. Mostow’s direction was so embarrassing compared to James Cameron’s masterful work. I expected him to take this complex universe for granted in the same way he did the Terminator sequel, but I’m happy to report that he brings an entertaining grace and curiosity to the material. A lot of questions we have about Surrogate technology do in fact get answered and Mostow doesn’t shy away from going after some of the film’s deeper ideals. Of course, this universe isn’t as sublimely crafted as the future worlds of Minority Report or Children of Men, but Mostow brings a knowingness and competence to the material that spares Surrogates from being another piece of cookie-cutter sci-fi trash.

Even though it’s lacking in humor and the mystery plot turns out to be a dud, Surrogates is a film made up of good ideas and knows how to present them in an entertaining enough package. It’s more rewarding to have a sci-fi film generate discussions of philosophical reflections instead of action scene dissections, and that’s probably the highest compliment I could pay to this movie. So the next time you look at your facebook page, think about the next couple of steps up from that technology and you’ll realize the unsettling place Surrogates is coming from.