Screenhead

It’s extraordinarily difficult to write a review of a movie like The Fourth Kind because it’s not really a movie so much as it is an agenda.

Clearly, someone desperately wants us to believe that what we’re seeing is actually really really REALLY REAL, and won’t be satisfied until, my guess is, we start pestering our Congress critters for answers.  I’m not sure.  Because I’ve never left a movie so utterly confused, and I’ve seen David Croenenburg movies.

This one follows Dr. Abigail Emily Tyler, who is played by Milla Jovovich, who actually TELLS us that’s what she’ll be doing in the beginning of the movie.  And we’ll be following her around as she conducts a sleep disorder study on the people of Nome, Alaska.  Now, Nome is downright infamous for being hard to reach, but apparently it’s also got a serious missing persons problem, and it’s somehow become the FBI travel destination of choice, garnering over two thousand official visits when neighbor Anchorage, who has something like seventy times the population, rates only about three hundred visits in that same time frame.

Now, it’s hard to tell at first glance just how much of this is real and how much of it so utterly fake as to be a complete pantload, because the movie is trying so very desperately hard to convince us that EVERYTHING WE SEE IS HAPPENING FOR REALS, YO, by virtue of running split screen so often I thought I was watching 24.  They’ll do two splits and three splits and four splits and four splits with rotating frames.  It got to the point where I wondered, is this a movie or a Final Cut Pro demo?  And they’ll run, almost ad nauseum, “real footage” alongside footage of the actors, to try and cement that belief.

I’ll freely admit that this is some creepy stuff–when that guy started levitating I got a little freaked out, and Abigail Tyler “herself” under hypnosis was a cold chill up my spine but do I believe this actually went down?  No.

See, one great line from the movie that manages to describe the movie in its entirety is where one of the “patients” is muttering that he’s okay, and “Dr. Tyler” swings in with “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”  And that’s exactly what I thought of this movie.  Yes, okay, you’re going to RELENTLESSLY show me this “real footage” and insist, as loudly and vociferously as possible that it’s real, and frankly, I kind of doubt it.

Folks, this has allegedly been going on since the year 2000.  But somehow it took almost TEN YEARS for someone to exploit it?  Come ON.  We’re talking about a Hollywood scene so desperate that TWO GARFIELD MOVIES looked like a good idea but we’ve got allegedly actual footage of a woman shrieking that she’s god in SUMERIAN and NO ONE’S ran with that ball yet?

The Screenhead Ten Scale joins me in a dismissive back of hand “bah” to this creepy but horrendously disjointed fright fest and acknowledges that the idea is pretty scary but forces my suspension of disbelief engines to glow white hot and give off an ominous whining noise.  Thus, it hands this incredulous horror romp a five out of ten for being creepy yet not even vaguely credible.

Dana Goodyear wrote an astounding 12-page article for the October 26, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, in which she goes on the set of James Cameron’s Avatar for an early look at the 3-D world that Cameron has created for the upcoming movie.

Goodyear’s article is more than about Avatar. It’s about Cameron and his moviemaking boldness and assertiveness that brings light to an artist’s desire to be the best he can be in film. 

The director of Aliens, Terminator and Terminator 2 and Titanic, he’s also a writer and producer.  “Maverick” best describes the filmmaker — place him next to Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick or Charlie Chaplin — all visionaries of the future.

Click on Cameron and you’ll be at the article. Enjoy — it’s quite a read!

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Well, folks, I really, truly hadn’t thought it possible, but today, I actually saw something new and original come out of Hollywood.  In an era of remakes, reboots, reimaginings, and a whole bunch of other terms that start with the prefix meaning “again” that are all basically code for “we desperately want to keep our jobs so we’re only going to do what we know damn well will work”, anything truly new and different is at a premium.

District 9 is definitely at a premium.

The story is amazingly complex, yet still accessible–for reasons largely unknown, a race of aliens essentially washes up on Earth with no way to get home.  They’re an advanced race, with weapons of staggering power that they’re not really interested in using, and by all reports, they’re not here to hurt us or kill us or eat or enslave us…they just want to go home.  Seems most of these aliens are worker-caste aliens, so they don’t do so hot on things like “initiative” and “thinking for yourself”.

And that’s when the UN gets involved, or rather the general equivalent.  They in turn subcontract to MNU, a Blackwater-esque organization hired to secure the gulag in which the aliens have been placed.  And now, one MNU agent will become a whole lot closer to the alien problem than he ever imagined.

The best part about this movie, and here I will take issue with the New York Press’ critic Armond White, is that it manages to be just about everything to just about everybody.  It’s got the first-person behind-the-camera threat of Blair Witch, it’s got the action-smash of Independence Day, and it’s got all the vaguely Spielbergian benevolence of “higher beings”.

There’s really nothing out there like District 9, unless you count Alive In Joburg, the original short film from which District 9 was adapted.  And you can tell there’ll almost certainly be a sequel, and if it’s not called District 10 I believe I will eat my own hat.  District 9 is a really spectacular movie that’s going to have just about anything and just about everything you could want in a movie.  It will leave you satisfied, almost certainly.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives District 9 its namesake, a nine out of ten for being UNIQUE (Hollywood, take a lesson here–us critics just LOVE the new stuff!), and at the same time managing to pack in virtually everything anyone else could want.  Some things are worth taking a chance on.  This is one of them.

You may not be aware of this–I wasn’t, until about three hours ago–but District 9 actually started life as a short film called Alive In Joburg.

Needless to say, about the same time I found about that…okay, so first I swallowed my own tongue.  Then there was a really embarrassing five minutes where I pulled it out of my throat, and then I got over to YouTube to watch.  And thus, here I am, reviewing the short film that would become District 9.  Follow this link to catch it–it’s been up for just over three years but hasn’t cleared three hundred thousand views yet.  To call it the best-kept secret on YouTube might be hyperbole, but not by much.

Anyway, the plot on this one is about what District 9’s will be–aliens land, but they’re not out to help us or eat us or slaughter or enslave us–nothing usual aliens do–but these aliens are really just a nuisance.  Why are they here?  What do they want?  The answers will amaze you.

This really is an interesting predecessor to District 9.  Though the short by itself will prove to offer a whole lot more questions than answers, it will also serve to whet appetites very well for the upcoming film.  Watching Alive In Joburg has made me VERY excited for District 9, and I look very much forward as a result.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale safely issues a seven out of ten to a good film, not a great film, that does what it sets out to do, but only because it gave itself really, REALLY, low goals.

Science fiction movies are very popular now. Twentieth Century Fox obviously knows that because the studio is bringing back to  life the Alien franchise.  The story starts with Jon Spaihts  who is set to write a prequel with Ridley Scott attached to return as director.

The film focuses on what happened before the groundbreaking film that Scott directed in 1979. Scott’s film  begins with a crew of a commercial towing ship returning to Earth. They are awakened and sent to respond to a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. The crew discovers too late that the signal generated by an empty ship was meant to warn them.

It’s exciting that Fox gets a chance to keep the Alien franchise alive after three sequels.  I’d like to see what Scott can do with this franchise. He’s such a smart and strong director. Blade Runner (1982) and Thelma and Louise (1991) are fine examples of his work.

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A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre this morning–and before you stop me, no, this will NOT turn into a Zero Mostel reference.  I guarantee it.  Anyway, I was on my way to catch the very first showing of a movie so I could bring it back here to you.

I wanted The Collector.

I got Aliens in the Attic.

I know, I know–it’s all about managed disappointment, folks, and ironically, that’s also what Aliens in the Attic is about: managed disappointment.

Anyway, the plot.  It’s your class-X standard family movie fare–youngest daughter is here for no other reason than to be cute, supersmart middle boy child feels alone and neglected and starts tanking his grades so he can fit in better because “no one likes a mathlete”, Dad’s trying his bumbling best to keep up, oldest daughter’s dating a guy roughly four years older than she is but no one actually knows until he actually starts telling people.  Anyway, this Seventh Heaven episode gone ever so slightly off the rails packs up for a family vacation to Middle of Nowhere, Michigan.  It’s actually something involving the word “creek” but I just didn’t care enough to pay that close attention and you won’t need to either.  When they get to the rental home where the obnoxious other half of the family is also heading, they find a little surprise waiting for them.

Zirconian commandos.

Yep, seems the Zirconian Empire wants to annex Earth, and has thus sent a self-important halfwit, a psychotic weapons expert, a female martial artist who’s clearly overcompensating and a sensitive engineer who, in earth years, acts like he’s TWELVE to pave the way for the incoming invasion force by activating a device that’s been buried underground for decades.  Oh, and did I mention that the Zirconians are only about one tenth the size of an average human?

Let me just say, up front, that unless you have kids this movie will be an utter waste of your time.  Some children’s fare–especially the good stuff–is made accessible to adults by virtue of so-called “dual layer” writing, in which jokes that work for kids also work on adults on a totally different level, using things like clever double entendres and careful wordplay.

Aliens in the Attic, meanwhile, has all the wordplay of a brick.

This is a kiddie movie, plain and simple.  Anyone under, oh, fourteen or so is going to absolutely fall in love with it.  They’re going to love the thought of using mind control on Nana and having her execute Street Fighter moves (even I was impressed by watching Doris Roberts pulling off a Shoryuken), and the thought of hijacking their sister’s jerk of a boyfriend and making him slam into his own car and confess to his girlriend’s parents that he desperately needs a new set of adult diapers.  But most grownups, meanwhile, are going to find the jokes lame and tedious, with not a whole lot of laughs available for them.  The comedy here is weak if you’ve graduated high school any time recently.

Like I said, folks, it’s all about “managed disappointment”, which is just what Aliens in the Attic is.  There’s some fun here, and some interesting moments, but there’s also a whole lot of kids-only stuff in between the interesting moments, a whole lot more than you’d want to personally hazard unless you’re taking the kids out to the movies.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale issues it a five out of ten for doing its job and doing it well, but not doing much more than the minimum.  Some great moments for grownups here can’t distract from the fact that this is, first, foremost, and mostly, a kid’s movie.

With the world going crazy for the Pride & Prejudice meets Aliens project, it isn’t surprising that a Ghosts/Aliens combo is coming up soon, courtesy of Paramount Vantage and Comedy Central.

They have acquired rights to Trey Hamburger’s supernatural comedy novel which centers on two pothead friends who set out on a quest to discover both ghosts and aliens.

Both a television series and feature film will be developed concurrently for the project. Phil Johnston will write the script; Scott Aversano and Carrie Beck will produce.

It’s a monumental thing to do, reviving a long gone and successful franchise. And while if anyone could do it, it was Spielberg, the initial opinion of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was wary. What do you expect when the producer announces that people should have low expectations for the film? Indeed, when the first “amateur” review came out blasting the film, things weren’t looking good. And yet, the film received a standing ovation at Cannes. There is without doubt a split over the film, but is it nostalgia that is making people love it more than they should, or hate it as if it’s blasphemy.

Well, Indiana Jones 4 is by no means an awful film. There are some exciting action sequences (especially the car chase through Indy’s campus), and a few visual gags. Harrison Ford starts off a little uncomfortable but settles back into the role nicely. But, to those of you who regard the other films as some of the best ever made (and they are), there’s going to be some level of disappointment. Disregarding the plot, which may put some people off, there’s some scripting issues that really stand out, plus an excessive use of CGI, that will certainly spoil the experience for die-hard fans. If you’re interested in a more in-depth analysis (involving a plot spoiler or two), read on. Read the rest of this entry »