Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Torturro, Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Paul

Every time Ridley Scott makes a movie I consider it a gift from a cinematic god, so of course I was pumped when I heard that Scott would be directing this biblical ‘Magnus opus’, it seems right up his alley for various reasons. Number one is the fact that he is a master at making the fantastic believable, no matter how complex or how out there, he can make it real. This is something a lot of directors’ continually try to attempt yet fail horribly at; just take one look at Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. (2008) and you’ll see what I mean. Secondly, Egyptian civilization, pyramids and huge columns have always formed a huge part of Ridley Scott’s film aesthetic. Actually, while watching certain scenes in Exodus, I got a few Blade Runner (1982) flashbacks. Take a look at Blade Runner again and you’ll see just how influenced by the Egyptian civilization Blade Runners art design was, you’ll see pyramids all over the place. So anyhow, with Exodus, Ridley Scott went from the futuristic pyramids seen in Blade Runner, to depicting the actual first pyramids ever made, which in a way brings Ridley Scott's cinematic career full circle.

From the pyramids in Blade Runner (1982) (above) to the pyramids in Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) (below)

Currently we’re going through a religious revival in Hollywood, I guess this is an attempt to infuse society with ‘belief’ as a way to reinforce religious ideals in society, something I’m completely against because I imagine, like John Lennon, a world without religion, where we can be the rulers of our own destiny. But  alas, we live in a world where the grand majority of people are under mind control, and religion plays a huge part of that. Yet, oddly enough I find these biblical movies fascinating anyways because I seem them for what they are, stories, fantasies meant to enlighten us entertain us and maybe show us a thing or two along the way; nothing more. So, this review comes from a non believer who still finds movies like this entertaining. I mean, I loved the heck out of Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments (1956)! That film is so entertaining, so theatrical and so freaking epic! Of course, Ridley Scott had a lot on his plate, he not only had the responsibility of pleasing all those millions of Christians out there by keeping things somewhat faithful to biblical cannon, he also had to turn in an entertaining film that surpasses anything we’d seen before in terms of spectacle. Question is, did he achieve it?

A lot of things went right with this movie, for example, its scope brought to mind those old biblical movies like Ben-Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), these are films filled with thousands of extras and incredible sets, wardrobe an art direction. I’m happy to say that that’s the kind of film you get with Exodus: Gods and Kings. You certainly won’t feel like you are being short changed with this movie, you’ll see the millions up on the screen. The detail paid to minutiae, is amazing. The carvings on the swords, the thrones, the walls, is just stunning, you’ll believe this is the Egypt of the bible, the film is very convincing in my book.  

One of the things that matters the most for a film of this kind to be successful is that it has to be faithful to the bible, or else the core audience will boycott the movie. In this sense I predict that theaters will be packed with religious folks, as opposed to say a film like Noah (2014), which got everything wrong by changing the story around so much that it alienated its target audience. Religious people didn't get the Noah that they wanted, so they didn't exactly back the movie up, if anything some Christians went to see Noah simply to see how wrong Aronofsky got their beloved biblical tales. This does not happen with Exodus: Gods and Kings which sticks pretty closely to the bible. Sure Ridley Scott takes a few artistic liberties here and there, but overall the story you get is the story that’s in the bible. Moses becomes the leader of the Hebrews, becomes their savior and with gods help, he frees them from the oppressive choke of the Egyptians.

My only problem with the film is that the story is way too epic for one film. This story could have easily been divided into two or three films and it could have been told better. As it is, at times I felt like the story was going in fast forward, skipping important moments that you'd expect to see. We go through the ten plagues, suddenly boom, we’re traveling through the desert, suddenly boom, we’re at the red sea, and boom it’s Ten Commandments time. Biblical events feel rushed, and a lot of important moments where left out. For example, the moment in which Moses turns his staff into a snake, or the moment when the Israelites get tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai so they build their own god and start worshiping a golden calf, then god opens the ground and swallows them up for being unfaithful to him. Why leave stuff like that out? I guess the movie would have been  four hours long if they did, which is why I say this film could have easily been turned into two films.  This is the reason why DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) was divided into two segments, with an interlude for you to go tinkle. In his version, DeMille didn’t cut corners, he told the full thing and took his sweet time to do it. He’s cut of the film is ten minutes short of four hours! The problem is that Scott decided to tell the tale in one film, and my opinion, the story suffered because of this. Ridley Scott either chose to tell an incomplete tale, or a lot of footage was left in the cutting room floor and we might get to see it eventually in a directors’ cut. Still, the film remains amazing, remains epic, it’s just missing certain key moments that only true Christian fanatics will notice were left out.

This film has gotten some heat because supposedly it’s emotionless, but I disagree; I actually think it had a lot of emotion. There are some truly tender moments between Moses and his wife where we see a kinder, gentler side to the great leader. I guess what people are referring to is that Ridley Scott decided to go with a more believable way of telling this story, he avoided augmenting the supernatural elements whenever he could. I mean, sure we see lots of miracles happen (the ten plagues are simply amazing) but Scott found a way to explain most of them scientifically, they aren't just magical events. Even the parting of the Red Sea seems like the tide simply goes down in intensity till the people can simply walk through, Moses doesn't use his staff like it was a magic wand on this one. I guess we could say the film isn’t overly dramatic or theatrical and whenever it can it simply avoids the supernatural. This might take some as a surprise, especially for those who are expecting a huge special effects driven film or operatic performances. Here the effects are used with subtlety, yet when they appear they are a true wonder. Performances are also toned down when compared to Charlton Heston’s old time theatrics.

I enjoyed the amazing cast here, the only downside is that we have a lot of good actors in minor roles. John Torturro plays the pharaoh which took me by surprise. Ben Kingsley plays a Hebrew elder, but again, so underused. I mean, here we got Sigourney Weaver doing next to nothing on this film, same goes for Aaron Paul, but whatever, I hear the original cut of this film was reportedly four hours long, so we might be seeing more of these actors on a directors’ cut of the film, who knows. Final words is, Ridley Scott had a huge tale to tell here and even with these compromises I've mentioned, we still got an amazing film that can be appreciated by both the Christians who want to see their fantasies brought to life on the silver screen and by those film lovers who just want to see a good film. This is without a doubt a strong film and if you ask me, one of the best of the year.

Rating:  5 out of 5

  

American Hustle (2013)

Title: American Hustle (2013)

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Robert DeNiro

It seems that greed is America’s new favorite theme; in the tail end of 2013 three films have been released dealing with this theme. I guess Hollywood has it in their minds that bad economy will make people desperate enough to plan scams and get rich quick schemes, so Hollywood has taken it upon themselves to play the role of our collective conscience, reminding those desperate individuals out there the results of letting greed control our lives. The three movies I’m talking about are The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Counselor (2013) and now American Hustle (2013). All three of these movies depict desperate people making sneaky deals, conning people, stealing, doing all sorts of illegal things in order to get the proverbial cash. What makes American Hustle different from the other two films is that it takes place in the flashy 70’s.

Like The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle is also based on real life events; hence the movie starting out with a title card that reads “some of these things actually happened”; which at the same time lets us know that the story is not entirely true and that artistic liberties were taken with the story. But basically, this is the story of a con artist who ends up working with the feds in order to capture a bunch of corrupt politicians. That’s the jist of it, the plot isn’t all that complex; what moves the story are the complications that arise, and the crazy characters that inhabit the film, this is one of those films in which the over the top performances take center stage.  

First off we have Christian Bale playing Irving Rosenfeld, the master con artist. Now, you’ve probably heard the stories about how in previous films, Christian Bale has transformed his physique in order to play characters that (for whatever the reason) look extremely skinny or sick, malnourished if you will. For example, for The Machinist (2004) Bale became a walking skeleton in order to play a sleep deprived factory worker, how he looks in that film is truly shocking. For Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn (2006) he lost weight yet again for a scene which required him to look like a food deprived prisoner of war; and in David O Russell’s The Fighter (2010) again he lost a lot of weight in order to play a junkie. The thing with his character in American Hustle is that it’s a complete turnaround of what he’d done in those films, on American Hustle he actually gained 40 pounds in order to look like this dude who simply doesn’t care about appearances. You should see the beer belly on this guy! It’s kind of hard to believe he is the same guy who played Batman a couple of years ago. DeNiro himself didn’t recognize Bale when they met on set! They had to be re-introduced! So anyways, Bale plays a character that’s so sure of himself that he doesn’t care what you think of him, you simply have to accept him that way. So anyhow, Bale’s transformation for this film is astounding yet again. Gotta give it to Bale, he is committed to his roles. 

Then we have Jennifer Lawrence whose career is literally on fire. Here she comes hot off her Oscar win for Silver Lining Playbook (2012) and her commercial success with The Hunger Games movies and delivers the most entertaining of all the characters in American Hustle, on this film she is quite literally a show stealer! She plays Rosalyn Rosenfeld, wife to Christian Bale’s con artist; basically she’s this trashy New Jersey housewife who chain smokes and dances to The Beatles “Live and Let Die” as she does her house cleaning. Her New Jersey accent is thick, and she’s loud and in your face, loved her performance. She’s already won a Golden Globe for it, who knows; maybe she’ll get another Oscar? Then there’s Bradley Cooper playing this crazed cop hot on the tail of the dirty politicians, his sole purpose is to make a name for himself, he looks hilarious with those curls. Actually, everybody here looks hilarious; in fact, it feels as if every actor’s sole job was to make themselves look as imperfect and eccentric as possible. Bale looks like a slob, Cooper looks funny with the curls, Lawrence looks trashy and Amy Adams…well, she’s just over the top sexy on this movie, showing so much cleavage it’s not even funny, but of course that’s not all there is to her character. I have to admit, Amy Adams is growing on me as an actress, here she plays a focused, icy cold lady. So expect all actors to have these crazy over the top looks, they feel almost like parodies of 70’s style and fashion. But I guess that was the idea with this movie, to go as over the top as possible.

This film reunites director David O Russell with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, all of whom worked together on Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook (2012); it really is a joy to watch all these talented actors together on the screen, at least on the acting department you know you’re not gonna get short changed. Speaking of DeNiro playing a gangster, I couldn’t help and think of Martin Scorsese while watching this movie; it feels like a homage to Scorsese movies. It has Deniro, gangsters and desperate hustlers, I couldn’t help myself. Still, when compared with The Wolf of Wall Street and The Counselor, I’d say that The Wolf of Wall Street comes out on top, simply because it’s the fastest paced and bat shit insane of the three. American Hustle, in comparison seems tame; this is not to say it isn’t a good film or a funny one, it’s just slower than Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street which to me felt like a movie high on all the cocaine it portrays. Still, American Hustle has an amazing cast, entertaining characters and the whole 70’s vibe going for it, which still makes it a worthwhile ride. David O. Russell, the director of this film has said that the emphasis on his films is not plot, but characters and there’s no better example than American Hustle. I have to admit it wasn’t as memorable as I was expecting, but the cast and performances elevate the film and makes it entertaining enough to make it one of the best of the year.

Rating:  4 out of 5  

     

Equilibrium (2002)

Title: Equilibrium (2002)

Writer/Director: Kurt Wimmer

Cast: Christian Bale, Emily Watson, Sean Bean, Taye Diggs, William Fichtner

Review:

Director/Writer Kurt Wimmer has had an interesting career, though you might not think so at first because he’s only directed three films, he continues working as a screenwriter in big budget Hollywood action/sci-fi films like the recent Total Recall (2012) which in spite of being a “softer” film than Verhoeven’s blood drenched original film starting Arnold Schwarzenegger, still managed to be an entertaining film in my book. He also wrote Salt (2010) which by the way I absolutely loved; it got me to respect Angelina Jolie as an action star. Wimmer’s first directing gig was a Brian Bosworth action film called One Man’s Justice (1996) a.k.a. One Tough Bastard; but he got fired half way through the shoot of that film, so most of the time, he speaks of Equilibrium as his first directorial effort.  

Wimmer directs Bale

Equilibrium tells the tale of ‘Libria’; a world ruled under the tight regime of a dictator who is simply referred to as “Father”. What kind of a world is Libria? Well, because of the horrors brought on by war, this new society has decided that they want to stop feeling. In order to inhibit feelings everyone takes a drug called ‘Prozium’ at certain points during the day. To further hold a grip on society’s feelings, all forms of artistic expression have been prohibited. This means that poetry, novels, paintings, films and music have all been outlawed. Of course, not everyone agrees with this way of life and groups of rebels are spread out through out the land, hiding their music records, their books and paintings in little cache’s of cultural awesomeness. In order to find these cultural treasures and destroy them, the government has the ‘Grammaton Clerics’, police men who go around burning all forms of artistic expression. One of these Clerics is John Preston. Problem is that Preston has stopped taking Prozium and is starting to feel. Will he succumb to the wonders of sensation? Or will he remain a cold, robotic tool of the government?

Through his film, Wimmer comments on many things, one of them being emotional repression. Films make us feel, and Wimmer whose worked in the film industry for many, many years knows how repressed the filmmaking industry is. There’s no better example than Total Recall (2012); a film that Wimmer himself wrote. In my comparison between the old and new Total Recall, I felt this new one had been neutered, stripped of all that edgy violent coolness that the 1990 version had. On Equilibrium, we meet characters who are rebels and have stopped feeling. One of these characters is Mary. a character that has stopped taking the emotion repressing drug. When she is questioned as to why she wants to feel she says: “Feeling is as vital as breath, and without it. Without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock…ticking” Equilibrium speaks about how repressed society has become, and more specifically how repressed the American film industry is.

Certain cultural artifacts in Equilibrium are rated ‘EC-10’ by the government, a not so subtle way of commenting on the nefarious ‘NC-17’, a rating that can kill a films chances at the box office. During a point in the film we even see a foot soldier of the government burning a roll of film, so yes, Wimmer was commenting on the repressive nature of the rating systems in the film industry. I read an interview in which Wimmer accurately compares films to a drug. We see a sad film when we want to feel sad, an uplifting one when we want to feel uplifted and a funny one when we want to laugh. And it is true; films are like a drug that can manipulate our emotions. How many times have you found yourself deeply moved by a film; to the point where you even drop a tear or two? Ever found yourself screaming for Rocky to win? We have a rating system to control what the younger population is be exposed to, but is it also used to control the ideas we are presented with? Through the drug that the people of Libria take in Wimmer’s film, he was commenting on the Motion Picture Association of America and how they try to hold back what ideas we are exposed to and what we can feel through films. 

  

Of course, I am not against controlling the kind of images that our children are exposed to with a film. It would be stupid to allow a child to see a film like Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) for example. But why limit this films chances at appearing on the silver screen by rating it NC-17 and therefore limiting the amount of screens it can be seen in? Yes it is a violent and disturbing film, but it also comments about real life, in fact, the film is partially based on the exploits of real life murderer Henry Lee Lucas. It comments on real life horrors, and this, as seen by an educated adult shouldn’t be a problem. We all know that life is ugly, life is deadly, bloody, nasty, but it is also beautiful and uplifting and emotional. In life, things don’t always end with a happy ending; in fact the truth is that we rarely get a happy ending to anything! So why make believe that everything is pretty and clean and perfectly solved, when in real life this isn’t so? Aren’t films and art a mirror image of the world we live in? Doesn’t art imitate life? If this is so, then part of our world is in denial of who we really are. There’s a moment in Equilibrium when Cleric John Preston begins to feel, he looks at himself in the mirror and screams “look at yourself!” Maybe this is something that we as a society should start doing. Instead of trying to hide things as if they didn’t exist. There should be no problem in analyzing who we are through films; or maybe this is something that the powers that be don’t want the people to do? Think? Analyze? Learn? Again, as has happened before, film is seen as a threat, as a powerful tool that can change the way we see things as therefore, it is considered dangerous. This is also a theme I talked a bit about in my review for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003).

It cannot be denied that Equilibrium is obviously highly influenced by Orwelle’s 1984, Huxley’s A Brave New World and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 all books about societies living under fascist dictatorships. The burning of books, a totalitarian government ruled by a huge television screen, children who rat on their parents, art and sex being prohibited, rebels who want nothing more then to be themselves and be free, these are all elements that we’ve seen before on these books and films. What Equilibrium adds to the mix is the action and the style. It’s 1984 mixed with The Matrix. It’s no secret that Wimmer loves his kung fu style action; he always finds a way to work it into his films. This element was felt even stronger in Wimmer’s Ultraviolet (2006) a film that was taken by the studio and re-edited beyond recognition. Here’s the deal with Ultraviolet: you can see it has a lot of cool elements to it, the visuals are eye candy; the film is so colorful, always changing, visually, it’s never boring. It has a lot of that comic book style action Wimmer loves so much! Motorcycles that ride up buildings! Sadly, the film was re-edited by the studio who thought Wimmer’s cut of the film was “too emotional”. Again with the repression of emotions! The studio wanted to augment the more superficial elements of the film. As a result, we got a film that feels like a big old mess. But that wasn’t Wimmer’s fault; he wanted a film that would have as much action as emotion, yet it was the studio that wanted things the other way around. So if you find Ultraviolet to be a film that’s style over substance, now you know who to blame. I’d love to see Wimmer’s cut of the film!

Equilibrium benefits from having Christian Bale in the role of John Preston, a member of the government who suddenly finds he doubts what he does. He kills, nay, exterminates, the poor, the artistic and rebellious side of society. Their only crime is wanting to live in a world where they could be themselves; where they can be individuals. Not a world where we all think, dress, and look alike. Don’t know about you guys, but I fight for this everyday. For trying to be an individual, to say what I think and not be afraid to do so, to not wear a mask, to be the exception, not the norm, to be myself. This is what Equilibrium is all about. There’s this moment in which John Preston stops taking the drug and starts realizing that he is spilling the blood of innocents, he is no longer a cold robotic tool of the government, he feels and realizes he has someone’s blood on his hands. Wow, what a moment! Bale plays Preston in such a cold matter, with an emotionless face for a huge part of the film, but little by little emotion creeps its way into his life, then he is a tortured soul. That scene where he hears Beethoven’s 9^th for the first time, amazing stuff.

Of course the film is not perfect. Its budgetary limitations sometimes show their ugly face. For example, this is supposed to be a distant future, completely unrelated to the world we live in, yet the Clerics drive Cadillac Seville’s painted entirely in white? That takes me right out of this future world and takes me right back to the 90’s. Performance wise Taye Diggs is the only weak link in the film. While Emily Watson, Christian Bale and Sean Bean all turn in great performances, Digg’s fails to portray an emotionless being because he is always smiling or screaming in anger. What happened to the supposedly emotionless cleric? Worst part is that he says that he can detect someone who is feeling even before they know it themselves. Shouldn’t he know he himself is showing emotion all the time? He’s constant smirking gets a bit annoying. Also, the films comic book style action clashes with its heavy themes, but if you find comic book styled action entertaining (the way I do) then you just might find enjoyment in it. Especially the martial arts called 'Gun Kata' that Wimmer created specifically for this film. It's kind of like mixing Kung-Fu mixed with Guns, pretty cool stuff. Bottom line is this is a film with lots to say, heavy on themes, the way good sci-fi should be. It has a couple of weak moments that don’t allow it to be a perfect sci-fi, but it can certainly be qualified as  beyond average. This is a film that speaks about the importance of not loosing our humanity, and that matters a lot in my book.

Rating: 4 out of 5   

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Title: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Cillian Murphy

Review:

The Dark Knight Rises is an event movie, the kind that comes along rarely, not only because of the excitement behind seeing this final installment of the film, but also because of the tragic events that surrounded the premiere of the film. As most of the world already knows, On July 20, 2012 in a Century 16 Cinema in Aurora Colorado, a psycho by the name of James Eagan Holmes entered a theater during the premiere of the film and while wearing a gas mask, threw a smoke bomb into the theater and started shooting randomly at people who where there simply to enjoy the latest installment of the Batman franchise. He managed to kill 12, and injure 58 others. What was he trying to say by doing this? What was his purpose? Did he hate movies or people going to see them in droves? Whatever was running around that guys head, he was seriously disturbed. Did he feel he was one of the villains in the Batman films? Did he not learn to differentiate between reality and fiction? Between entertainment and real life? Whatever the case, this disturbed individual probably had a half-baked idea of what he wanted to say swimming around his brains; all villains do.

James Eagan Holmes; getting what's coming to him

You see in films, the villain is commonly used as a way of pointing towards something that is seriously wrong in the world we live in, and the results that this ailment can bring upon society. Take for example ‘The Joker’ in Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). In that film the character was angry at the importance that the world gives to money, and how the society we live in revolves around it. One scene has the joker burning a mountain of money simply to show how little he cares for it; and he burns it with gasoline, just to be poetic and comment on how oil and money are entwined in the world we live in. The Joker pitted people of Gotham against each other just to show that humanity is selfish, that in the end, all we really care about is ourselves. Villanous? Sure, but you have to admit the character is making a point. This guy who killed 12 people in the theater, what point was he trying to make? By telling the police he was The Joker, he’s saying that he saw himself as a villain trying to make a point. Was he commenting on societies obsession with movies and entertainment? Was he saying films blind us from reality? That we are not living our lives and instead we are wasting it in a movie theater? 

If that was his point, then he was wrong. Sure Hollywood can be shallow and is often times filled with empty spectacles, but The Dark Knight Rises was not one of those films. This film had a lot to say, it is in my humble opinion a very important film. Same as The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises says a lot about the way the world is NOW. Thematically speaking, The Dark Knight Rises is all about the class war, a very heated topic these days, considering how middle class in the world is quickly fading away. Currently, you are either ridiculously rich or obscenely poor and that’s the way the powerful like it. Through the dynamics between Batman and Bane the film speaks about the struggles of the working class, the oppressed and the ever going hatred for the dudes running Wall Street. The status quo of the world today shows us that it’s true, a part of humanity is selfish instead of giving. It thinks only of itself and not of the needy, the less fortunate. Sadly, the rich and powerful are not currently thinking about making this world a better place for everyone, they think about making it a better place for them, and how those who have less then them can serve them. These are the themes that The Dark Knight Rises tackles with great precision and assuredness. This film knows what it wants to talk about, and it says it very clearly, through its villain, Bane. So this isn’t just any stupid little comic book film, nope, this film is bombastic, epic; a mesmerizing film that  has important issues to adress.

Christopher Nolan in my opinion has made his best film to date with The Dark Knight Rises. Technically speaking, his films have always been top notch and this one is no exception, but what I loved the most about The Dark Knight Rises is how fleshed out the characters are. I was missing the time when great villains dominated a film, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger are good examples of the kind of performance I like to see from a villain in a film; and I have to thank Nolan for making that special effort to build these memorable villains. Case in point: Tom Hardy’s Bane can now proudly stand next all those great villains of cinematic history. We hardly see Tom Hardy’s face in this film, save for a small flashback scene, his face remains hidden behind a mask for 99% of the films running time, yet Hardy’s performance shines through none the less. The character itself is extremely fleshed out, his back story is a very satisfying one. As a comic book fan, I was particularly thrilled to see moments from the storylines Knightfall, Knights End and No Mans Land on the screen.

DC Comics Batman # 497, one of the comics that inspired the storyline for The Dark Knight Rises. 

This is the third time Christian Bale has played Batman, I enjoyed how this time around he is a beaten, reclusive character, hiding away from the world in his mansion, like Mr. Kane in Orson Welle’s Citizen Kane (1941), the rich old guy who doesn’t want to answer to the world outside. It was great of the filmmakers to use the Bruce Wayne character to criticize the rich and powerful. If you have so much power, so much money, why not do something worthwhile with it, something that will improve humanity and the world we live in? Loved it how the movie tackled those themes through Bruce Wayne. It was a very intelligent move on the filmmaker’s side to comment on classist issues with the character, considering how the rich are viewed by the working class that’s struggling to get by on a day to day basis in this greedy world we live in. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman was somewhere between sexy and deadly, but nothing as overtly sexualized as Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on the character in Batman Returns (1992). The rest of the amazing cast does an amazing job, Michael Caine turns in an emotional performance on this one.

On the fun side of things the film delivers in spades. It was great to see a film that balanced action set pieces with story development so well; this really is a well though out picture, Mr. Nolan went up a couple of notches in my book with this one. Where the first two Nolan Bat films seemed a little on the talky side, this one balances fleshing out its characters and wowing us with amazing action and visual effects to perfection; kudos to Nolan for achieving that so well. So that’s it ladies and gents, I say don’t let the whole shooting thing scare you from seeing this one. It truly is a great film that touches up on important themes. This is an event picture, the kind you want to go to the theater to celebrate the fun of watching movies; don’t let the isolated incident with the crazy kook scare you out of that my friends! There was a special kind of electricity in the theater before and after the film started, people were genuinely excited to see this one. From what I can gather and from the resounding round of applause that I heard after the film was over, this one has won audience approval. The momentum these films have captured since the first film premiered has exploded on the screen with The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in Christopher Nolan’s Bat Saga; don’t let what that psycho did in Colorado scare you away from enjoying this awesome film.

Rating: 5 out of 5 

Reign of Fire (2002)

Title: Reign of Fire (2002)

Director: David Bowman

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, Izabella Scorupco

Review:

Dragon films are a rare bunch, and most of the time they are not taken very seriously. The big problem with dragon films is that same as werewolf movies, for some reason they are not very popular with the masses. It’s only when these films are prepackaged as family friendly fare that the make any bank, for example Rob Cohen’s Dragonheart (1996), a family friendly dragon film if there ever was any that went on to make a hefty intake at the box office. Taking in consideration how few good dragon movies get made, when a big budget dragon movie comes along, I always raise my hopes up, excited at the prospect of seeing these mythical creatures come to life on the silver screen.

The last time that a dragon film truly impressed me was with Matthew Robin’s Dragonslayer (1981). To date, and in my humble opinion, that is the best dragon film ever made. That film presented us with not only an awesome looking dragon, but also a very believable depiction of the Dark Ages. And again, it was a flop at the box office, which does not make it a bad film, it only affirms the fact that dragons aren’t all that popular with audiences. Other films have come close to being as good, but they’ve never surpassed the awesomeness that is ‘Vermithrax Pejorative’. When Reign of Fire came along, I was expecting something awesome. Why? Well, the creative team behind it was a good one, the cast was top notch…the posters promised chaos in the London skies. Plus, advancements in special effects technology had come to so far. I was expecting to feel the heat from the dragons breath, alas, this didn’t happen. Why did Reign of Fire disappoint?

In Reign of Fire, the world has been ravaged by fire breathing dragons. They’ve burned the earth to a crisp; you see in this film, these monsters live off of ashes! The governments of the world retaliated by trying to wipe these creatures out with nuclear weapons, but that plan failed. These creatures are impervious to even that! Unfortunately, the battle against the dragons has transformed the entire world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Human survivors are scarce. The film focuses on a group of survivors who live in an old castle in England. They strive for normalcy in the midst of the ashes. The leader of this group of people is Quinn, a man who tries desperately to give them peace and hope. One day, from out of the blue, a group of American dragon slayers led by a man called ‘Van Zan’, show up at the castle door steps. They claim to know the way to kill dragons; but are they to be trusted?   

The film does present us with an interesting premise, that of dragons taking over the world. Dragons have burned the earth to a crisp! Some time has elapsed since the dragons first appeared and humanity has now all but faded. This has made the creatures extremely hungry, which makes them all the more dangerous; in spite of this the film fails to make the dragons feel like a real threat, in fact, save for the finale, the dragons aren’t really seen all that much. What Dragonslayer did so right was transmit the idea that this evil creature was alive, the dragon never talked (they sometimes do in these movies) but you could almost hear the thoughts stirring in its head. Put plainly, the dragon in Dragonslayer had a freaking personality. In contrast, the dragons in Reign of Fire are lifeless, almost non existent. They aren’t characters. To be honest, these dragons felt like CGI background to me; as if the director was afraid or embarassed to be making a monster movie. In his own words Bowman says on the dvd that he couldnt believe he was here, making a monster movie. A B-movie. So he set out to make a b-movie with a-list production values.  Unfortunately, he decided not to focus on the creatures we are so eager to see; which in part is what brings the film down for me and one of the reasons why this film is a notch below Dragonslayer. The dragons simply didn’t feel tangible or organic, this my friends is a problem I have with many of today’s effects heavy films and it’s something I try and get adjusted to, but hell, its kind of hard to connect with something that is so obviously not there.

I don’t want to turn this review into another rant about the pitfalls of CGI, but I miss those days when I felt like the monsters where there. Still, I’m not saying that Reign of Fire is a complete throw away of a film because it isn’t. The cast is solid, we get to see Gerard Butler back in the days when his career was just getting started; McConaughey when his career still mattered and a pre Dark Knight Christian Bale. Oddly enough; it’s not Christian Bale who shines on this one but Matthew McConaughey with his ‘Van Zan’ character. Aside from having a cool ass name, his character’s just a kick ass mother. He’s intimidating, he chomps on cigars, he’s bald and he’s oh so American.  Van Zan and his group of dragon slayers suddenly invade the film. They present us with an interesting contrast to the colony Christian Bale is the leader of. You see, Quinn’s followers hide from the dragons and are waiting for them to die off on their own while Van Zan and his team take dragons head on. Van Zan has found a way to kill dragons! And I’m watching the film and thinking how this film would have been so much more exciting had it been told from Van Zan’s point of view. The story of Van Zan and his team of dragon slayers seemed more interesting to me then the one about Quinn running an orphanage. Van Zan’s team has this technique where they try and catch dragons with nets, by flying extreme hights on helicopter and then jumping off the choppers with parachutes and these giant nets. These scenes actually make up the most thrilling scenes on the film. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t focus so much on this new technique for killing dragons and you’re kind of left with the desire to see more of Van Zan and his ”angels”.

The dragons themselves leave a lot to be desired, you kind of want to see more of them. The film does this really lazy thing where it kind of shows us how the apocalypse began via a series of news paper articles and news footage. This is not what we want to see. What we want to see are dragons destroying London with the fire! We want to see dragons melting everything away and turning the world into ashes, but no, I guess the films budget wasn’t enough to show us this. A wasted opportunity if you ask me, it’s either they had no budget for it, or lazy filmmaking, you be the judge. Ultimately, for me, the film is very uneven. It had a lot of potential but failed to live up to it. It got somethings right and others completely wrong. This kind of film I judge on a different level then say 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983) because on those cheap Italian films it’s the other way around. They have no money, but the crazy ideas come out of the woodwork! But when a film like Reign of Fire comes along, with a decent budget, good actors and a competent director, yet still manages to disappoint, well, I just can’t forgive it. Still, Reign of Fire is watchable; it’s well shot, and looks appropriately bleak. Unfortunately, it might not live up to your expectations of what a good dragon film should be.  

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5  

  

American Psycho Film and Book Analysis

The character of Patrick Bateman is a character who sulks in a deeply rooted hatred of himself. He hates himself because he knows exactly the kind of shallow, empty person that he’s become and he recognizes the kind of shallow empty society he is a part of. Bateman is depicted as the epitome of the soulless Yuppie from the 80’s, the kind that had money to burn, and things to buy, buy, buy! The kind that only cares about being in tune with the height of fashion, wearing the latest trends, the most expensive brands, the best of the best.

Yuppie in deed!

This fantastic character was first presented in Bret Easton Ellis’ novel ‘American Psycho’ a novel that was equal times hated and equal times revered. The book presents us with a savage portrayal of a 27 year old man who makes his living working on Wall Street in a company called Pierce and Pierce. He’s into “merger’s and acquisitions”, though when he’s hitting on girls in clubs he tells them he’s into ‘murders and mutilations’, a comment that falls on deaf ears because nobody really listens to themselves in this shallow society, they’re just going through the motions. The book is a wild satire, and when read with the right mindset can be seen as a hilarious commentary on consumerist society.

Bret Easton Ellis

Still, there’s no denying that this is essentially a book about a guy who goes around killing innocent people because he doesn’t agree with who they are. It’s a book about a guy who hates himself and the world he lives in so much, that he simply has to murder all those whom he considers a detriment to society. And when he kills people, the descriptions in the book are truly awful. I mean this guy really goes down on his chosen victims. Perhaps you’ve seen the film and know a bit of what I’m talking about, but the book is so much more graphic then the film ever was. There are certain differences from book to film; for example, in the film Bateman’s apartment is squeaky clean, in the book his apartment is filled with human parts all over the place, bodies decaying, blood splattered on the walls…on the film they minimized this in favor of augmenting the characters obsessive cleanliness. We do see a severed head inside of his refrigerator, and he does have a couple of bodies decaying at Paul Allen’s apartment, but it’s not like in the book where it’s Bateman’s apartment that is the center of all the mayhem. In fact, in the book he has an extra apartment in Hell’s Kitchen where he decomposes bodies in acid. I did like how in the film Bateman mentions the Hell’s Kitchen apartment, though it is never shown on the film, it kind of let us know that the filmmakers knew the book very well, they just couldn’t film everything.

Director Mary Harron and Christian Bale talk out a scene

In fact, fans of the book might get a kick at how even though the film doesn’t show ever single situation and murder committed in the book, at the very least they are referenced and alluded to all through out the film. For example in one scene Bateman mentions that he killed “some old fagot with a dog” which is one of the more graphic and controversial deaths in the book. When Jean, Bateman’s receptionist finds a notebook that Bateman scribbles and doodles on, if you freeze frame those scenes, you can see that the doodles Bateman’s made on his little notebook are doodles of the murders that actually happen in the book, but we don’t see on film. Obviously they were too horrible to appear in the film, and I get that. It’s true, some of the murders described in the book are way too graphic and over the top. After all, we are talking about a novel that’s been banned in many countries, never sold to anyone under 18 in others, and sold only in shrink wrap in others!  I don’t blame the people of Germany for considering this book to be “harmful to minors”; this my friends is a truly violent book!

But were not talking about a simple slasher film here that makes heroes out of the bad guys, this is a film that means to comment on real issues dealing with the world were living in. The book and the film never show Bateman’s behavior as being good or positive or as something to emulate or admire; in fact, it is made quite clear that he is loosing it, that he is psychotic and dangerous to society and to himself, bottom line is, this is not a happy man. On more than one occasion the character actually recognizes his psychotic behavior. During a pivotal scene of the film he admits to his lawyer that he is a “pretty sick guy”, and during another scene he tells someone “I like to dissect girls. Did you know I’m utterly insane?”  Bateman actually recognizes the fact that he is going insane, but it’s as if he could do nothing to stop it from happening. So it’s not like the film is making Bateman into some sort of a hero. What he is in my opinion, is a victim of the world he lives in. Society has created a monster, it’s driven him insane with its blatant consumerism, the racism that he’s been brought up in and the superficiality of society; the importance given to physical beauty as opposed to internal beauty and countless other things that make up the world we live in. Patrick Bateman -the monster- is loose on the streets of Manhattan and it wants payback for what he’s been turned into! Another way to look at this character is that he is judging society for what it has become. This is the kind of film where we don’t side with the protagonist; what we’re meant to do is watch him degenerate and descend into madness and then learn from the reasons that sent him there.

Going utterly insane!

Various things drive Bateman insane, among them his intense hatred for homosexuals. Though this was ignored in the film, he murders an old gay guy who starts hitting on him while walking through Central Park. By the way, Bateman also kills the old mans dog by strangling it to death. Maybe Bateman would be happier if he’d been taught to co-exist with different kinds of people? He is also portrayed as a hippy hater, always considering them to be less than him, the less fortunate are that way because they want to be, he has no sympathy at all for others. He makes fun of other ethnicity's when he considers them lower than him. One moment in the book has Bateman going into a club and making fun of a group of black people by trying to talk the way he thinks they talk; it’s safe to say that part of Batemans unhappiness comes from his blatant racism. Bateman hates the homeless for not doing something about their lives; again, no sympathy. He hates how fake his co-workers are. They never call him by his real name, a common theme through out both the book and the movie. This is the kind of world in which people don’t really know people, so they never really know each others names! They keep confusing each other with other people, which gels perfectly well with the fact that Bateman feels he has no actual distinguishable personality. He knows Huey Lewis and the News entire discography, he knows everything about Genesis and Whitney Houston (whole chapters of the book are dedicated to this knowledge) but he doesn’t know himself, he doesn’t know who he is. He is physically fit, but not emotionally or psychologically mature.

Bateman tries finding love in his life, but all he can achieve is sex, and he manages to turn even that into a sick and twisted affair of the most aberrant kind. In the film Batemans sexual encounters are not as graphic because again: what’s described in the book is way to visceral to film. Same as the violence, the sexual situations described in the book are totally out there and described in detail. Bateman actually ends up having sex with a dismembered head if you can believe it! The sexual elements are so strong in the book, that the filmmakers had to edit 18 seconds out of a scene involving a threesome just so it could get an ‘R’ rating instead of an ‘NC-17’; if they had actually filmed the sexual situations seen in the book, the film would have never seen the light of day. Reading those sequences was like watching a sick twisted porn flick where all those involved get dismembered in the end.  Hell, in the novel Bateman actually eats some of his victims! This is yet another big difference between the film and the book. In the film they only allude to Batemans cannibalism, while on the book it is described in splendid detail.

What would this film be without Christian Bale? I mean, I don’t think a better actor could have been chosen. Do you think Di Caprio could have pulled this film off with as much vulnerability and rage and insanity as Bale did? I seriously doubt it, but Di Caprio was considered for the role. What's great about Bales performance is that he really goes nuts in some scenes, my personal favorite is the one where he does his phone confession, he really talks and acts as if he was crazy. He also plays it with this sense of comedy, you kind of get the feeling that Bateman is actually making fun of people through out his life, mocking them, which in my opinion he is. Aside from Batemans stone cold performance, we have Willem Defoe playing a New York detective who has a hunch that Bateman might be the one behind all the killings. Dafoe's character was expanded for the film, he isn’t in the book as much. Chloe Sevigny plays Batemans innocent and naïve receptionist, she is so in love with Bateman that she doesn’t even see his dark side or she chooses to ignore it. The whole cast of young actors that make up Batemans body of co-workers is fantastic as well: Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, all great in my book. They really captured that fake superficial lifestyle and attitude. Reese Witherspoon plays the gloriously ditzy air head of a girlfriend that Bateman has. She ignores that their relationship is non existent and instead chooses to plan their wedding.

All in all, I’d say the film captures very well the essence of the book. Though it does leave a lot of things out, it is completely understandable considering just how graphic the book can be. I mean, one moment in the book has Bateman actually capturing a kid in a zoo and killing him in the shadows! He later accepts that there is no joy in killing a child because the child has no history or life experiences to extinguish, which is the pleasure he gets from killing adults. But damn, even I say that moment was a bit too much! So the film is basically a more “controlled” version of the book that manages to say what the book has to say as well, it comments on the same issues, but it does so in a slightly more constrained manner. Still, the movie does have its extremely bloody, violent and sexual moments, just not as graphic as in Ellis’ novel. Director Mary Harron delivered a stylish and slick looking film, appropriately cold looking. She squeezed out a magnificent performance from Bale! And kudos to Harron, this is a woman directing a film about a guy who treats woman with complete disdain; it took guts for a woman to make this film. I also applaud Easton Ellis for writing such a great yet misunderstood book, the themes and issues commented on the book needed to be addressed and Ellis was not afraid to do it; here’s a writer with some true guts to say what has to be said about the kind of society we’ve turned into. Can we look at our collective fractured psyches and fix things up a bit?  

Rating for the Book: 5 out of 5

Rating for the Film: 5 out of 5  

The Fighter (2010)

Title: The Fighter (2010)

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams

Review:

Movies about boxing always work because they serve as a metaphor for life. You know how sometimes you feel like putting on some boxing gloves and punching life right in the face and knocking it the hell out? That’s what boxing movie do for ya. They make you feel like a winner. Its why films like the Rocky franchise have survived for as long as they have, the struggle of life translates well to these films and you feel like that boxer up there, giving it your best to beat life. Ever been in a theater during one of these films? There’s a reason why people holler at the screen during these boxing movies: they feel they are right up there with the main character, trying to beat life and come out victorious.

The thing about boxing movies is that in order to make a good one, you can’t really focus so much on the fights themselves, because if you do, you risk falling into repetition because so many movies that have come before have already explored that formula ad nauseum. Films like Gladiator (1992), all the six Rocky movies, The Boxer (1997) The Hurricane (1999), Cinderella Man (2005), Girlfight (2000), Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Raging Bull (1980), have all been there and done that. Boxing movies can sometimes go the same way most sports movies go: the boxer starts out not boxing very well, he looses a fight, then he gets better, and finally in the end he wins. If you do that with your boxing movie, you’re walking on tired ground. We’ve seen that already. And this is the very same reason why I hate sports movies in general, they are all the same. The team isn’t too good in the beginning, they confront whatever personal situation is not letting them move forward with the game, then they practice, then they get good and finally they win.

The trick to a good boxing movie is to focus more on the story behind the boxer. Who he is as a person, and go deep into his personal struggles. And I’m happy to say that this is exactly what The Fighter did. The film itself doesn’t really focus on the fights; it focuses more on the fighter, and his life. In this case, it’s the life of two real life boxers: Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky Eklund (played by Christian Bale). Micky is trying to make it as a boxer, unfortunately he is considered a “stepping stone”; a fighter that is used to help other fighters rise to the top. But he is trying to get past that. He really wants to make it big. Unfortunately he is managed by his mother who only cares about taking small fights and making little bits of money with each one. What Micky wants is to make it big. Another thing that brings Micky down is that he is trained by his brother, who is a crack addict. Micky needs to cut ties with his family is he is ever going to make it. Will he ever muster the strength to leave them all behind?

The Fighter is predictable yes, you’ve seen one boxing movie, you’ve seen them all. And yeah, at first he sucks, then he gets better, then he wins. But what’s great about this movie is that it didn’t make a big deal about the fights themselves. The first few fights are quick moments in the film, they aren’t these long drawn out affairs filmed in slow motion or anything. They save the biggest fight for the end, but the rest of the film isn’t about the fights themselves, which a lot of boxing movies do a lot. Instead the film focuses on the two brothers and their struggles with trying to make it out of poverty. They are part of a huge family, they have something like 5 sisters, plus the two brothers. And the sisters always got something to say, though they don’t do much themselves. Micky’s family is the best example of trailer thrash there is. None of them have any education. It seems as if all they do is hang around the house all day gossiping, smoking cigarettes and watching television. But when it comes down to an opinion about something, they are all hive minded and think the same, especially when it comes to Micky’s new girlfriend whom they don’t like at all. They think she’s an “MTV girl” whatever that means. So Micky is trying to make it, but you get the feeling that his family is holding him back. They live under that hive mentality where the family thinks that no one can ever leave them to go and search for something better. Still, theres always that struggle. And yeah, its true, blood is thicker then water. And that’s really what the film focuses on, that struggle between pleasing yourself and following your dreams, and disconnecting, yet not forgetting about family.

The best thing the film has going for it is Christian Bale’s performance. If you’ve been keeping track with Christian Bale’s career, then you know the man is a freaking chameleon. He can transform from one role to the next like no other actor can, and personally, I think it’s about time the guy won an Oscar. Ever seen how thin he got for his role in Brad Anderson’s The Machinist (2004)? The guy was playing a sleep deprived individual, and to best portray this character he lost 63 pounds! Then he buffed up for Batman Beings (2005) and looked better then ever. He did the weight loss thing again when he played a U.S. fighter pilot who gets shot down and tries to survive in the jungles of Lao during the Vietnam war in Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn (2006). On The Fighter he went through the weight loss thing yet again to portray a crack addict. Gotta hand it to Bale, the weight loss thing really gets the trick done. But its not just about how thin he looks, his performance is really what sells the character to us. He really talks and acts like a crack addict! His character is responsible for some of the more funny moments in the film as well. As I write this, Oscar Night 2011 hasn’t happened yet, but Bale is nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category, and if you ask me, I believe he deserves that Oscar.

He isn’t the only one winning awards for his performance on this film. Melissa Leo who plays Micky and Dicky’s mother, won a Golden Globe, A Screen Actors Guild Award and a Broadcast Film Critics award. And Bale won all those awards right there with her. Both are nominated again for The Oscars. Mark Wahlberg hasn’t won any awards, and he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, even though he is the central character of the film. I agree with that though. The real stars of the show are Bale and Leo, they offer up the strongest performances. Its not that Wahlberg did a terrible job, it’s just that Bale and Leo outshine him performance wise that’s all. So we got a film filled with great performances, backed up by the fact that it’s all based on real life events. Director David O. Russell (I Heart Hucakbees and Three Kings) choreographed all the fights according to the footage that was caught by the cameras of HBO sports when they really happened. He even filmed the fighting sequences with the same cameras the HBO crew used back in those days; it gives the fighting sequences that look that television used to have before the High Definition days. Makes it all the more genuine.

Rating: 4 out of 5