Spaced Out

Year: 1997

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Dominique Pinon 

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

An Alien sequel penned by sardonic geek icon Joss Whedon and helmed by the director of Amélie! What could possibly go wrong? Answer: not as much as Alien 3, but Alien: Resurrection (the fourth entry in a franchise that had already long overstayed its welcome and has continued to do so for two more decades) trades idiosyncratic misery for completely generic fluff. But at least it’s remotely tolerable.

I’m not sure I have a thick enough carapace to survive this marathon.

In Alien: Resurrection, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is, well, resurrected. You can’t very well have an Alien movie without her so Hollywood an experimental medical facility paid her an assload of money cloned the DNA of her centuries-old corpse, and here she is. Once again, the movie fails to give half a crap about what the culture shock of waking up 200 years in the future must be like, only this time it also fails to give half a crap about Ripley’s DNA being merged with the Xenomorph’s, converting her from an avenging angel to a maternal figure with acid blood.

You couldn’t pay me to sit down and parse out the depths to how wrong this science is.

Anyway, Ripley is back and so is the Xenomorph, because this movie ain’t gonna be about her buying a timeshare on Pluto. The greedy General Perez (Dan Hedaya) has bred a baker’s dozen of the monsters for reasons nobody really cares to explain, and when things go predictably awry, the specimens escape from the custody of one Dr. Gediman (Brad Dourif, slumming it, and yes this counts as slumming it from the star of Child’s Play 3). Thus a ragtag band of space mercenaries (?) (pirates? I don’t know, they have guns) – including the morally superior (read: irritating) Call Winona Ryder) and the macho alpha dog Johner (Ron Perlman) – must reluctantly team up with Ripley to escape the ship and destroy the Xenomorphs before they reach Earth.

What a s*h*thole.

There are a dozen and a half sins that Alien: Resurrection is guilty of committing, but the largest are the atrocities performed on Ripley’s character. Their forced explanation of her return from the dead (spoilers I guess, but who really cares at this point?) robs her of any sort of personality, making her a clone with stunted feelings. If you’re paying Sigourney Weaver a truly grotesque amount of money, why script her into an emotional iron maiden? Just have her be struck by space lightning and get on with it. This is the third sequel, nobody cares.

Of course, this is a movie that displays Ripley’s newfound alien powers by having her make sweet dunks on a basketball court, so maybe character depth is a little too much to ask.

Unfortunately, there’s nobody to step up up and fill Ripley’s shoes, as hard as they’re trying to make Winona Ryder a thing. She fails as a Ripley surrogate and as a hard-edged warrior, and the only thing her character contributes is a delightfully inexplicable scene where she attempts to drink from a mug while wearing boxing gloves. The sad thing is, every other member of this overstuffed ensemble contributes even less.

This is no fault of the casting director. Ron Perlman and Brad Dourif are fabulous character actors filling the exact spaces they need to, but the script scrounges around to find anything for them to do, let alone the 35 faceless goons that are flanking them.

And love Joss Whedon though I do, this script just isn’t working. The way he tells it, his humorous dialogue was steamrolled by an overserious tone, but 1) did anybody really want Ripley trading Avengers-style quips with Hellboy? And 2) that still doesn’t excuse the ten-car pileup of syntax that attempts to pass itself off as wit.

It’s just not fun. The plot is a shambles and the action is poundingly repetitive (if I never see a squad of gun-toting astronauts tip-toeing down a metal passageway again I’ll be a happy man). It’s straight boring is what it is.

Something a film about a man-eating alien with acid blood should never be.

However, as much of a slog as it was to sit through, it has two strengths that buoy it at least above the dismal Alien 3. First, it’s surprisingly gory, resurrecting the grindhouse flair that made the original film so viscerally compelling. Second, the world-building of the franchise hits its peak here. The Alien movies have never particularly cared about exploring the technological developments that litter the world of the future, but Resurrection is full of fun little flourishes (like freeze-dried whiskey or a security door that identities people by their breath) that indicate subtle ways life has changed over the centuries.

Even if the characters are made of tissue paper, at least that paper is filled with blood and exists in a world I can find a foothold in. There’s still no justifiable reason for this film to exist, but I daresay I’ve seen far worse.

TL;DR: Alien: Resurrection is a mildly diverting but still dull and muddled sequel.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 874
Reviews In This Series
Alien (Scott, 1979)
Aliens (Cameron, 1986)
Alien 3 (Fincher, 1992)
Alien: Resurrection (Jeunet, 1997)
AvP: Alien vs. Predator (Anderson, 2004)
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (Strause & Strause, 2007)
Prometheus (Scott, 2012)

Popcorn Kernels: Sick Women

This set of mini reviews will cover a multitude of films I’ve seen recently about women who are under the weather, whether it’s a contagious bug, a nervous breakdown, or a psychological corkscrew.

Contagion

Year: 2011
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law
Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

A lethal viral pathogen is quickly spreading across the world and authorities scramble to find its source, discover a cure, and decide who to save first.

There’s no single more effective moment in Contagion than its opening shot: A pale Gwyneth Paltrow coughs and sniffles in an airport lounge. The title card “Day 2” appears in ominous, blood red font. This is not the beginning of our story. We don’t know how or why, but it has already begun and there is no escape until it reaches its inevitable conclusion. Now that's how you open a movie!

I’m an easy lay for viral outbreak movies. As a card-carrying germophobe, I had a knot in my stomach for nearly the entire duration of the movie. It freaked me out more than every horror movie I’ve watched this movie, combined. And while I appreciate any film that can generate a physical reaction in its audience, I am NOT an easy lay for positive reviews. And as tense as Contagion may be, it’s an astoundingly messy movie.

It’s telling that the film’s best moment is its opening shot, because once Contagion’s innumerable characters and subplots kick in, they weigh the film down like so many anchors. The broad, multi-perspective view of an epidemic is certainly an intriguing and tense approach, but the film’s overall structure suffers, narrative logistics cracking under the weight of a metric ton of stars. Contagion’s desperate attempts to weld together storylines involving Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude law, John Hawkes, Brian Cranston, and Elliott Gould lead to a waterlogged conclusion that haphazardly drops subplots to bail out a slowly sinking narrative. It’s the Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day of viral outbreak movies.

Contagion is a roller coaster; a rip-roaring thrill ride that leaves you entirely unchanged upon its completion, if a little nauseous. Its shallowness isn’t necessarily a fault, even if its relentlessly purple dialogue is (“should I call someone?” “Call everyone!”). It does have some shaky thematic throughlines about the indignities of the class system and how fear and rumor spreads just as quickly as disease, but for the most part it’s just a slick, by-the-numbers thriller. When it finally ends with a pointless explanation of the virus’s origin, it’s hard to feel like the movie has accomplished anything, but it was definitely a wild ride.

Pro-Tip: Contagion is patently NOT a date movie. Potential suitors, avoid at all costs.

Rating: 7/10

Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios

Year: 1988
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano
Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

An actress jilted by her co-star boyfriend tempts to deal with her break-up while a friend on the run from the law, her lover’s ex-wife, his son, and his son’s fiancée unexpectedly arrive at her apartment.

Sergio and I were so taken with Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver that we more or less instantly followed it up with Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a much earlier entry in his filmography that also stars the inimitable Carmen Maura (it was also the one that capsized their creative partnership, and in fact they wouldn’t work together at all until the 18-years-later Volver, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose). Although it’s another female-led comedy with dark themes that allows its protagonist license to be venal and selfish, Mujeres could hardly be more different from Volver.

Where his 2006 effort is a confident, fantastical treatise on the beauty and wonder of life, Mujeres is an out-and-out farce of gran proportions, a wacky, door-slamming effort in the vein of classic stage works like Noises Off. There’s the obvious contributing factor that it mostly takes place in a single location once the second act kicks in, but it’s also a loony jaunt jam-packed with delightfully cartoonish characters. Once again, Almodóvar delivers an effervescent comedy that transcends language barriers with a solid undercurrent of emotion and artistry.

You see, the women in this film aren’t just on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to their over-the-top situations. They are real life women trying to get by in the face of life’s incalculable unfairness. Their struggles are palpable and their exaggerated reactions blameless. Essentially every problem they face is the result of men carelessly using them like playthings, and the entire arc of the film reflects main character Pepa’s growth into independent womanhood. Not only is it a passionate and exuberant feminist tract, it’s a god damn work of art.

There is perhaps no film scene of the entire year that matches the dreamy magnum opus of this film’s opening, played out through a retro film scene followed by Ivan – the man who caused all this trouble – providing dubbed Spanish dialogue for another movie. The eclectic collection of shots in the film within the film depict him declaring his undying love for a multitude of international women (including an American stereotype I can’t say I’ve ever come across – a baton-twirling cheerleader), followed by an outpouring of dubbed emotion over a muted film track, in which the woman silently flaps her lips in response to his declarations. It’s a genius setup that clearly implies how Ivan (and, by extent, the world) views and ignores women, as well as how trapped they find themselves by his words. It’s a powerful, beautiful piece, and it’s followed by 80 minutes of vivacious, neon farce.

It’s a stylized, wacky, sexy romp that turns a comic relief cabdriver (he’s a relief from the comedy because he’s marginally less funny than the other characters) into an exquisitely precise longform punchline. This film is women against the world, and they grab it by the horns, toss it through a plate glass window, and keep it laughing so hard it passes out. I’ve only seen two of his films so far, but Pedro Almodóvar is swiftly becoming one of my favorite directors.

Rating: 10/10

Heathers

Year: 1989
Director: Michael Lemann
Cast: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty
Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

A teen girl is seduced by a new boy in town, who convinces her to murder the popular kids at her high school.

I’ve always viewed Heathers as an alternative teen classic, a late period bit of counterprogramming to the overly earnest John Hughes cycle, but I personally hadn’t seen the film since the first time I watched it, at a very young age. Given distance and a new perspective, Heathers is much better and a hell of a lot worse than I thought. Its themes have only gotten more potent and many moments are unequivocally brilliant, bleeding-edge satire, but to get to them you have to sift through a heap of late 80’s detritus.

The first act is a gauntlet to prove that you’re worthy of the film’s brilliance; a cheap, stagey spectacle of overbaked dialogue that almost certainly made a young Diablo Cody swoon. It’s a vexing half hour of hip, snappy teens spouting avant garbage about spokes in their menstrual cycle, reigned over by a truly dreadful, soul-curdling non-performance from Kim Walker as the Queen Bee Heather Chandler. But once you’ve broken through that vexing permafrost, you hit pay dirt.

Heathers is a delicious dark comedy that could only have been made in 1989 – that sweet spot in the wake of the slasher boom but pre-Columbine – and its true core of pitch-black humor activates with Heather Chandler’s death, which also conveniently rids the cast of its weakest link. After this, the film snaps like a slingshot, launching into a wry satire detailing what happens when a vapid, venal student body that is used to violently lashing out more out of a sense of stir-craziness than righting actual wrongs comes into contact with a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool psychopath. This is a society where suicide (faked or otherwise) is the great equalizer, an alternapunk wasteland of superficial nihilists who will fake true emotion if it gets them on TV, where life only gains meaning once it’s extinguished.

It’s unspeakably grim, but also uproariously funny. Watching these teen movie archetypes marching through their stages of non-grief is a hilariously biting indictment of apathetic teen culture, balanced out by the earnest Winona Ryder resisting her seduction over to the Dark Side (represented by Christian Slater, copping Urkel’s nasal whine). She is the one point of light in this world of careless parents, thin-skinned teens, and inept cops, and her dance with the Devil has surprising emotional weight. Her turning point into genuine heroine for hope comes in the film’s most brilliantly twisted moment: a guilt-stricken Ryder burns her palm with the car’s cigarette lighter and Slater grabs her hand, not to comfort her, but to use it to light his cigarette.

This detachment fuels the entire film, giving it an edgy boost that overcomes its feeble first act and shoddy production design(although I do love the blue neon light used to denote nighttime and one shot of a chase scene through the misty woods is a warped, expressionistic marvel). Eventually this delves into a patently silly climax that I recognized as goofily inferior even when I was a kid, but for the bulk of its run time, Heathers is a sharp, dynamic, demented flick that’s totally worth ritual rewatching, a proto-Fight Club for the angsty teen set.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1623

Splatter University V: A New Beginning

Here we are again at the start of yet another promising and terrifying semester for Yours Truly. To cope with the sheer amount of work I have looming in the distance (including six consecutive 12-hour weekend shoots), what else is there to do but write reviews of crap we watched in my horror class (for which I am now TAing - the student has become the master)? And so it goes.

Warlock

Year: 1989

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Julian Sands, Lori Singer, Richard E. Grant

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Dave Twohy, the director of the Riddick trilogy wrote the screenplay for this late 80's fantasy horror picture shortly after graduating from California State University, Long Beach. Evidently he was too lazy to return to his alma mater and talk about his early career. For that reason, there shall be no further mention of him in this blog.

I'd rather talk about Steve Miner, anyway. This man resolutely refuses to leave the hallowed halls of crap horror and has thus ended up on this blog more than any other director save Wes Craven. Although Miner is certainly less talented than Ol' W. C. (as House and Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D can attest), he is always a welcome presence around these here parts.

The plot goes like this - an evil Warlock (Julian Sands) is imprisoned in the 16th Century and the unpredictable magic he uses to procure his escape lands him smack dab in the middle of 20th Century Los Angeles - 1988 to be precise. Although perhaps we need not be so precise, considering that the girl who lives in the apartment he crash lands into looks like a cross between Run Lola Run and LeeLoo from The Fifth Element.

I don't normally post screencaps in mini reviews, but come on. How could I deprive the world of this?

She teams up with a 16th Century warrior (Richard E. Grant) sent to defeat the Warlock in order to lift the curse of aging he has placed on her. Also, there's a whole thing about uniting the separated thirds of an ancient tome that will reveal the true name of God, which - if uttered backwards - can undo Creation.

It's a whole thing, I won't get into it.

Original fantasy horror like this would soon be lining video store shelves in the early 90's (Leprechaun, anyone?), but Warlock is better than most. Sure, it's a hunk of cheese big enough to trap Mickey Mouse, but it's such a loveably batty and low rent thriller that it never fails to charm.

And for once in this kind of film the comic relief consistently lands, making up greatly for the tepid horror (which falls flat in spite of some frankly terrific original ideas). In fact, it can hardly be distinguished as a horror film what with the brightly lit setpieces and largely inconspicuous music. Only one scene can be counted as truly horrific, but it's a doozy - genre veteran Mary Woronov is possessed by some sort of orgasm devil and it is grand and melodramatic in the best way.

All in all, it made me excited to watch more crappy DTV horror, which is always a good(ish) time for me.

One last thing before we go: Apparently God's true name is Rakisha, which seems a little ghetto for an omnipotent deity but you won't catch me complaining.

Rating: 7/10

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Year: 1992

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves

Run Time: 2 hours 8 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Why oh why does this kind of thing keep happening? The Dracula story is over and done, simple as that. The story is centered around a real estate agent and hops back and forth between Britain and Transylvania so many times that the characters spend more time traveling that actually doing anything. All the sex in the world couldn't spice that narrative up.

Sorry, I've been sitting on that one for a while now.

At least Francis Ford Coppola's retread of the classic work has a daring visual aesthetic that challenges and creates a thoroughly moody and lovely horror backdrop. Unfortunately I am not the type of film major that can be won over with visuals alone, practical effects or not (and yes, this film displays a truly impressive amount of in-camera effects - in fact, all visual effects but a screechingly obviously fake blue flame were done the old fashioned way and it's a major credit to Coppola that he stuck through such an arduous task around the beginning of the mainstream acceptance of computer generated imaging).

So yes. Visuals. And effects. Yay. And an immense theatricality which would be welcome in a movie with literally any other cast. Gary Oldman fares well as the aged and decrepit Count Dracula, but mysteriously falls flat as the handsome young swain he becomes. Winona Ryder fumbles hopelessly at the role of Mina and Keanu Reeves just plain never was going to work, was he?

Although he is perhaps the only actor alive at the time who could convincingly portray just how unfathomably stupid the character of Jonathan Harker really is.

It really doesn't help that Van Helsing was played by Anthony Hopkins in one of the first of his many subpar post-Silence of the Lambs roles. If every Van Helsing scene in the film was cut, it would still make just as much sense. And it would still be too long.

In a just world, Coppola's vision of a bloody, sexy, colorful, melodramatic Dracula would have been a smash success, but so many of the pieces fail to fall into place that the film is stuffy by the first minute and dull by the halfway point. A swing and a miss.

Rating: 6/10

Interview with the Vampire

Year: 1994

Director: Neil Jordan

Cast: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst

Run Time: 2 hours 3 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I watched this film for the first time in class on Monday. It's really quite interesting to see how many plot and character elements were lifted wholesale from this film and the novel it's based on to piece together the literary wreckage that is the Twilight franchise. But enough of that. It's uncouth to kick a franchise when it's down, no matter how repugnant or obnoxious it may be.

The most important takeaway from this film is that Kirsten Dunst is a BABY. Here I was obliviously expecting her to be a love interest, not having noticed the year on the back of the DVD case. But no. She may as well be a fetus. It's insane.

Interview with the Vampire tells the story of one Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), a grieving American colonist who succumbs to the curse of vampirism as offered by the fiery Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). Louis struggles to accept his newfound thirst for sexy sexy blood and manages to avoid killing actual humans for a while, but finds that his Cullen-ness doesn't pay off in the long run. 

Also Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's hair colors are switched for this film and it trips me out something fierce.

The two enter a loving partnership long-term companionship that leads them across America and eventually to the creation of a vampire child, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Basically the first act is Dracula and the second act is a vampire version of The Kids Are All Right.

And the third act is Harry Potter Book Five, all angsty and brooding.

I'm really avoiding intense analysis of the film because it is a towering obelisk of pop romantic filmmaking. Interesting and pretty to look at, but lacking the depth that (possibly? I wouldn't know) might be contained in the books.

It's largely entertaining for what it is, although it does drag in it's second hour. Man, do I loathe second hours.

And I might just have to create a new custom tag for my blog posts - "homoerotic vampire movies" - because this is the most recent in a string of many, starting with The Lost Boys. Remember how the brothers in that film couldn't talk without staring into each others' eyes with the intensity of a thousand suns? Well Brad Pitt speaks directly into Antonio Banderas' mouth.

It's pretty hot.

The end.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1387