Monster's Ball (2001) 1.5 of 4

EDIT 21 June, 2015: I wrote this review before knowing much about the recent madness in Charleston, S.C.  I apologize for the poor timing, especially to anyone who's read before this edit.  (I'm 50, and the realities of digital media don't come easily to me; I tend to forget how easy it is to edit the blog, for example.) 
These remain my views on the film, but right now they are trivial at best. 

The sitcom 30 Rock once did an episode in which Tracy Morgan's character made a "serious" movie, a piece of  autobiographical Oscar-bait about his troubled childhood.  This way-over-the-top film-within-a-film seemed to be a parody of the then-current movie Precious, the biopic about a young black woman who's been horribly abused for years.  Though I was a fan of 30 Rock at the time, I remember thinking the parody unkind. 
Precious was directed by Lee Daniels, who'd already co-produced Monster's Ball, and would go on to the current TV hit Empire.   Now that I've seen both those films, I can see exactly where 30 Rock was coming from.  At least Precious was apparently based on a true story, whereas Monster's Ball is just shameless manipulation, piling on misfortunes as if terrified we'll stop taking it seriously. 

Lee Daniels also put his name in front of The Butler.  All of these movies and more (The Help, 42) seem best suited for suburban white people, for guilt mitigation.  These movies do everything but take my hand and say, "Now you hush, chile.  Ain't nothin' to be afeared of , 'cause black folk is jus' folk, jus' like you."

** major spoilers ahead **

Monster's Ball was showered with awards, but to me this just proves again that certain topics paralyze the critical faculties: the Holocaust, race in America.  It's the story of a prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) who falls in love with Halle Berry, after helping to execute Halle's ex-husband (Sean Combs), who'd abused her.  The guard had a racist upbringing, but fortunately both of their sons die violent deaths (within days of each other), which is quite an ice-breaker, and before you know it we get some admittedly steamy, interracial sex scenes. 

So yes, this is an interracial love story.  Barely.  It seems to me that a racist redneck finding redemption in the arms of Halle Berry is like the person who claims they can't be anti-Semitic because they love Jesus.
Then again, this movie was made in 2001, when we were all more innocent.   


 

Blue Ruin (2013) 3 of 4

In my review of A Horrible Way to Die, I suggested that movie may actually be about the death of a culture.  The same is true of Blue Ruin, another violent film about dysfunction, grief, and death.  Blue Ruin is a crime drama, not a horror film, but the films are cousins.

Speaking of cousins, Blue Ruin is another film about hillbillies.  I suspect that such films are part of our attempt to come to grips that white people have their cultures, too, and we tend to cling to them with the same morbid pride as anyone else.  The title presumably refers to the main character's car, but it also describes the man, and maybe the Blue Ridge Mountains, at or near where the movie was filmed.

 

I haven't seen The World Made Straight, which is set in an Appalachian town still haunted by a Civil War massacre, nor Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a horror-comedy that reverses stereotypes.  For a history lesson, there's the modest but sincere Chris Cooper film Pharaoh's Army, set in Civil War-era Kentucky.  Blue Ruin is probably a notch down from the high-water Winter's Bone, but it's still a good film. 

 

** moderate spoilers ahead **

 

The protagonist is Dwight, whose parents were killed when he was a kid.  He's never recovered.  At one point, his sister says that she could forgive him if he were sick, "but you're not sick, you're weak."  If you discuss the film after, you'll be discussing whether you agree with her or not. 

 

Like The Brave One, Blue Ruin attempts to show us what Batman would be like if he were a real person: he'd be a mess, even more of a mess than Nolan's Dark Knight.   

EDIT, 21 March 2016: I eventually realized, the film can also be compared to Hamlet.  Further, the word "hamlet" can refer to a small settlement of under 100 people, and is sometimes used of the Appalachians.  The common factor: modernity is leagues away. 

Quarantine (2008) 3.5 of 4

** this review contains only minor spoilers **

I liked this better than the original, but I deserve cinephile credit: I saw [REC] first.  That film came out in 2007, Spain's entry in the viral-horror pandemic.  It's a good film, but some of the dark humor seemed to get lost in translation.  Also, [REC] involves Satanism, whereas the remake is more secular, if far from divine.

I believe that most horror films include a behavior that draws punishment on a moral level, even if it seems to be peripheral.  For example: in Night of the Living Dead, Johnny clowns in the cemetery, a sacred place (I believe it's a Sunday, which makes it worse).  In the world of the film and in the viewer's subconscious, the zombie mayhem is punishment for a world that has forgotten respect.  Johnny is the first to die.

In Quarantine, the trigger is a little tougher to spot, because the protagonists are an impressive group of people: a perky TV-show host (Jennifer Morrison), her loyal cameraman, and a group of firemen, the subject of the show.  In the U.S., any city's firemen are known as that town's bravest; for example, Boston's firefighters are "Boston's bravest."

Of course, this is essentially true anywhere: we admire firefighters and other first responders.  In both [REC] and Quarantine, the heroic characters discover and interact with a group of variously reclusive, self-involved people.  Instead of a wealth gap, these movies portray an enormous socialization gap, an abyss. 

  

Dark Water (2005) 3 0f 4

After various iterations of The Ring, The Grudge, and One Missed Call, we may assume filmmakers have exhausted the fright potential of running water and long-haired females.  Still, I’d also recommend Dark Water, a literary horror flick that sets the freaky water effects against domestic tragedy.  (Note: Ring-master Hideo Nakata had a hand in Dark Water’s screenplay.)

Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly plays the mom to a little girl, both trying to survive an acrimonious divorce from husband/dad Dougray Scott.  Connelly’s character falls through cracks and into a creepy (but affordable) high rise on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.  The Brutalist monstrosity is haunted (shocker), although Connelly worries as much about retaining custody.   

(Connelly has quietly assembled a formidable sci-fi/horror resume, including The Rocketeer and Dark City, and collaborations with Dario Argento, The Hulk, and the neo-Klaatu.)

** moderate spoiler ahead **

             Despite moments of dread, Dark Water is relatively muffled compared to, say, The Ring or Session 9.  It seems to actually care about its characters, as opposed to something like The Grudge.  Child abuse is a theme, but the worst acts occur before the movie begins: the movie is about the grip of the past, and it's profoundly sad.  Both mother and daughter are achingly vulnerable, met mostly with greed and indifference, despite a sympathetic lawyer played by Tim Roth (other familiar faces: John C. Reilly, Camryn Manheim, and Pete Postlewaite).

** end spoiler ** 

            The cliché is that most of us are “one paycheck away” from disaster.  Dark Water is social horror, dramatizing the companion truth that for many women a messy break-up has the same result.  Credit for this mix of fright and empathy is shared by Brazilian director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and the makers of the original Japanese film, which was based on the novel by Koji Suzuki.

 

Zodiac (2007) 4 of 4

** this review contains mild-to-moderate spoilers **

Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac killer of the 1960s and 1970s looms large in the history of serial killers partly because he was never brought to justice.  I almost wrote that they never caught Zodiac, but that's misleading.  As David Fincher's superb fictionalization explains, investigators concluded multiple times that Arthur Leigh Allen was the killer.  They just couldn't make it stick. 

It's odd how recent films set in the 1970s seem as evocative of the era as films made in the 1970s: The Virgin Suicides, Boogie Nights, Frost/Nixon, The Runaways, The Lovely Bones, The Ice Storm.  The 1970s fascinate us with their mix of decadence and innocence (these people must have a kind of innocence, to wear those styles).

Zodiac is both matter-of-fact and frightening.  Impeccably mounted and detailed, it's enthralling, even at almost three hours.  In addition to other pitch-black serial killer films, it reminded of both Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men and Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City. 

The film is based on the book by Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the newspaper cartoonist who became obsessed with the case, starting with his friendship with a cavalier crime reporter (Robert Downey Jr.).  The third investigator profoundly affected by the case was detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo).  Some of the principals are listed as consultants in the end credits. 

As much as violence, the criminal known as Zodiac craves attention: he claims murders he didn't commit and sends coded messages to the media and the cops.  Graysmith explains that the code is very basic, not hard to crack.  A nerdy, soft-spoken man, Graysmith haltingly tells interviewers about his love of books and puzzles.  This is a major theme of the film, what all concerned have in common: killer, pursuers, filmmakers and intended audience, we all love puzzles.

The way these characters are brought together by puzzles and mysteries dovetails with Fincher's usual theme of male loneliness.  Fincher's films follow conflict and behavior stemming from two facts: men get lonely and alienated, men are not supposed to admit to these feelings.

As with Silence of the Lambs or Se7en, we can't entirely separate ourselves from the sadistic killer because after all, we sought out the movie.  I may not kill someone, but I thrill to a good serial killer movie, even one with lines of dialogue like the following, directed to a winsome young mom (Ione Skye): "Before I kill you I'm going to throw your baby out the window."  (If that sounds comical written down, it's not funny at all in the movie.)

Zodiac portrays the killer as a loser: a lonely, hulking man; a repressed, self-hating homosexual who keeps squirrels for pets.  Still, we are left with the chilling probability that he won the game he started: Allen spent time in prison for child molestation, and was questioned by Toschi, but was never arrested or charged with the Zodiac killings.  He helped inspire the string of holiday-based slasher movies of ensuing years, and today, we still debate the media's proper role in reporting violent crime. 

Again like Jack the Ripper, Zodiac craved attention, which is why a film can be fact-based: he gave us the information.  We can only speculate about the more discreet predators that operate on our rural byways or down our pleasant side streets.   



 

going broke: the war on terrorism in U.S. films

I also wrote this piece, on other aspects of war-on-terrorism films:
http://brightlightsfilm.com/the-american-hubris-cycle-a-survey-of-recent-survival-narratives-and-friends-as-collateral-damage/#.Vt83b6T2Zjo


** this post contains spoilers on multiple films **

If you believe commercial films are a reliable cultural index, it didn't take long before we knew we were lied to regarding 9/11 and/or the "war on terror."  The evidence: a matched-zeitgeist-pair from 2005, both of them about airplanes in trouble (but both also careful to avoid a too-soon plane crash). 

In Flightplan, what seems a supernatural mystery comes down to a greedy air marshal, who explains things to star Jodie Foster: "That's what authority means, people believe what I tell them to believe."  (Ouch.)  In Red Eye, the title flight really is menaced by swarthy terrorists, however the main villain is a white mercenary, and the terrorists have been baited by a recklessly macho Homeland Security honcho. 

Both of these made money, but of course they weren't realistic depictions of the war on terrorism.  That would wait for the likes of Green Zone, with Matt Damon as a WMD expert who goes rogue to find out the truth: that we'd been badly misled about supposed WMD's, out of a lust for war in Iraq and the expected spoils.  Watching the extras for Green Zone, it's clear that the principles were coached to lead with the word "thriller."  That's an accurate word, but the political agenda sent audiences elsewhere.  Despite a high profile, Green Zone struggled to crack $30 million in the U.S. 

Most of the above paragraph can also be applied to The Hurt Locker, the winner of a Best Picture Oscar.  Jeremy Renner's character also slips his leash in Baghdad, although in his case it's as much adrenaline addiction as a quest for truth.  Again, high profile did not become high grosses. 

Traitor is even more political than Green Zone, giving us Don Cheadle as an apparent terrorist who is actually a deep-cover agent for the U.S.  As with many undercover operatives, Cheadle's character starts to sympathize with his purported comrades; at one point he charges that the main difference between the insurgents and U.S. forces is the darkness of the skin of their victims. 

I found Traitor to be a deeply thoughtful and satisfying political thriller, which was a surprise given that it sank like a pebble at the box office (I'm pretty sure I learned about the film at least a year after its release).  Apparently, Traitor made $22 million in the U.S., presumably doing better in urban markets thanks to Cheadle's presence.  In any case, the obscurity of this worthy film underlines our deep discomfort with analysis of our current wars. 

This brings me to American Sniper, the one war film that seems to have brought (most of) us together.  Clint Eastwood's enthralling, moving film is experiential, carefully avoiding politics: it's a soldier's story.  Some liberals complain the film ties the war in Iraq to 9/11, but they're wrong, the film makes no such connection: it portrays our soldiers as being motivated by 9/11, which is accurate.  Not everyone is a deep thinker or a student of history, and some people possess both patriotism and the courage to defend their country.  American Sniper invites Americans to feel some gratitude and pride for our soldiers, regardless of politics. 

A Horrible Way to Die (2010) 3 of 4

** this review has no major spoilers **

Like the previously-reviewed A Teacher, this makes good use of hi-def video as a (vaguely creepy) window into the troubled, naval-gazing lives of middle-class Americans.  In these clinical films, it's as if the characters are being observed by alien anthropologists.
A Horrible Way to Die is a horror film involving a serial killer, but much of it plays out as a downbeat drama.  I'm tempted to call the film misandrist, but I won't, because its view of women isn't exactly rosy, in fact it portrays a U.S. where malaise and personal dysfunction have reached apocalyptic levels. (I suspect the title applies not just to particular characters, but to a society or culture.)
I like the bit when an AA member talks about murders that happened to take place outside a bar, saying "nothing good ever comes from drinking," as if the victims had it coming.  A lack of community can be as deadly as any addiction.   
The film is made by two up-and-comers in horror, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, who've also collaborated on V/H/S and You're Next.  The film is boldly scored with deep, mournful strings.  The filmmakers also deserve credit for knowing to end the film once they've played their cards.