Angel-A (2005)

Angel - A (2005)  

             

Director/Writer: Luc Besson

Cast: Jamel Debouzze, Rie Rasmussen

Luc Bessson’s films have always had this strong visual sense to them, he likes to load them with amazing shots, an abundance of color and detail. But one of the things that I’ve also noticed about his films is that he cares a lot about emotion, he likes to make us feel, to appreciate each other, to enjoy life. He likes to make us remember that love overpowers anything. Remember how in The Fifth Element (1997) the final element in the equation was true love? Besson likes to show through his films that love is what makes life worthwhile, which is something I enjoy about his films. Angel-A is no exception, it’s yet another film emphasizing love for others and for oneself. The thing about Angel-A is that the first few minutes lead you to believe that this is going to be just another by the numbers film about a guy who owes money to some gangsters, but if you keep watching, you’ll soon realize that that’s just the kick off point for something far more profound and touching.

Angel-A is all about a hustler named Andre. He owes around 50 thousand dollars to various unsavory dudes out on the streets and they have all decided to come collecting at the same time. So Andre has a couple of henchmen after him looking to punch his lights out. When he sees no exit to it all, he decides to jump of a bridge. Before he does that, he looks up at the sky and asks God why he’s never answered any of his cries for help. Andre doesn’t know it, but God has listened this time. And he’s sent one of his angels to help, her name is Angela.

The premise for Angel-A (2005) is not a new one; that of an Angel being sent down from heaven to help a human who is in a particularly nasty situation. One example that comes to mind is The Heavenly Kid (1985), a film about a guy who’s got to earn his place in heaven by helping somebody on earth. The idea of an Angel falling in love for the person they are supposed to be helping has also been done before in films like Date with an Angel (1987), Always (1989), City of Angels (1998), and one of my all time favorite movies about angels: Wings of Desire (1987). But Angel-A is a different kind of angel movie. Angela is far from perfect, she’s no goodie little two shoes. She smokes cigarettes, kicks whoever’s ass she has to kick and fucks like there’s no tomorrow. Some movies play with the idea of a god sent Angel with more respect then others, this one is a loosey goosey version of an Angel. But besides that, she’s here to help Andre find his path and learn to love others and himself. Will she achieve her mission? Will Andre ever set his life on the right track?

A couple of things made this one a keeper for me. Number one is that it’s actually an unpredictable film; you think it’s going to play out one way and it goes another. I also enjoyed the fact that the film was in black and white. As an illustrator of black and white comic books, I enjoy the black and white aesthetic very much, I think it offers its own visual flare, it’s own uniqueness. Luc Besson exploits this black and white look of the film very much, the sets, the illumination, everything is done to exploit the black and white nature of the film. I loved that Paris is one of the main characters in the film. There are a few films in which the city becomes a character. Films like Taxi Driver (1976), Hirsohima Mon Amour (1959) and Lost in Translation (2003) are examples of films in which the city becomes an integral part to the films look and feel and Angel-A is one of these films. Besson chose some beautiful, iconic locations to set his film in and it just makes the movie that much more splendorous. I mean, Paris at night, there’s no way you’re not going to love that.

Then we have the final element that truly got me and it was this films heart. Besson’s films tend to be all about people truly feeling for each other, making connections in the middle of dire straits. Besson’s films are all about humans helping each other, especially when they are hitting rock bottom.  Besson’s Leon: The Professional (1994) was all about Mathilda, an orphaned 12 year old girl finding an unlikely savior in the form of Leon, a hitman. Leon accepts her into his life, even though Mathilda obviously disrupts it. On Angel-A, it is Andre who begs God for a savior and gets it in the form of Angela, the sexy as hell, six foot, chain smoking Angel. The dynamics between Andre and Angela are fantastic. The contrast between a little guy and a six foot, sexy Angel makes for an interesting visual. Jamel Debouzze (Andre) and Rie Rasmussen (Angela) have great chemistry together, I bought their unlikely romance, they manage to stir some real emotions into their performances. There’s this amazing scene that really got to me in which Angela is showing Andre all about learning to love oneself, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It’s not every day a movie can do that to me. And it’s a testament to Debouzze and Rasmussen as actors and a testament to Besson’s talents as a filmmaker who knows how to nail emotions and a beautiful looking movie home.

Rating: 4 out of 5     

                                                    

The BFG (2016)

The BFG (2016)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall, Bill Hader

The BFG is Steven Spielberg’s first official box office flop, which is a rare thing because ever since he kicked off Summer Blockbusters back in 1975 with the creation of Jaws (1975), he’s been on the good side of box office success for most of his career. Even his bad ones make money, just look at the disastrous Indiana Jones sequel, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) or Spielberg’s failed attempt at a war comedy, 1941 (1979) both made their money back even though they stunk. So The BFG (2016) is a landmark movie for Spielberg, but only because its his biggest failure. Yet, did it deserve to fail? Is it a stinker? We’ve seen Spielberg half-ass a movie haven’t we? Just the other day I was watching The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and realized how truly lame it actually is. Sure it’s got gee whiz special effects, double the dinosaurs (oh wow, two T-REX’s!) and lot’s of action, but at its core, the tepid script doesn’t even compare to Jurassic Park (1993) in terms of overall quality, there was no meat with those potatoes, dare I say no heart! But we forgive Spielberg because then he turns around and makes another great film and well, we forget all about his last bad one. But is The BFG one of his bad ones? Was Spielberg half-assing it with The BFG? Why did it tank so spectacularly at the box office?

The BFG is all about this little girl called Sophie who resides at an orphanage in London. She likes to stay up late at night reading, organizing the mail and doing all sorts of things while everybody is sound asleep. She’s a night owl. On one of these late nights, she sees a giant walking through the fog filled streets of her sleepy London town. Realizing he’s been seen, the giant snatches Sophie and takes her with him to the “Land of the Giants”. While at first Sophie is scared, she soon befriends the big friendly giant. Together they go on dream catching adventures. Sadly, there are other giants who are bullies and want to eat Sophies and all the little boys and girls in London. Sophie and The BFG must devise a way to stop their cannibal ways. Can Sophie and her Giant find a way to stop them?

The BFG is based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name. Dahl was also the author behind such children’s classics as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Witches and Matilda, all of which have also been adapted to films. So just to make thinks clear here, this film is based on the book of a beloved author, directed by one of the greatest directors of all time and produced by Disney the most successful movie studio at the moment. So why did it flop? I was curious about this myself, the trailers made the film look magical, and truth be told it is. It’s a fairy tale that involves giants, the origin of dreams and true friendship. It felt like a mix between Peter Pan and  Jack and the Beanstalk. So, with all these good things going for it, why the failure? I guess the only true reason I can think of is that it’s not all that exciting. Sure not every movie has to be action packed. In my book, there’s also space for films that are quieter in nature, films that slow things down, that feel like someone is whispering a story under the covers of your bed in the middle of the night. The problem is that today’s audiences are so jaded, so used to superheroes smashing buildings in half, that when a film comes along about a gentle, friendly giant, an old man who weaves our dreams together, then it’s considered too slow. Then the films target audience tunes out. And it’s true, this is a slow paced film, but it’s my opinion that this is exactly what Spielberg was aiming for, a sleepy sort of fairy tale. So be ready for that kind of film.

What took me by surprise where the themes of the film. I had no idea that this movie was going to be all about belief, faith and God. Oh wait could the letters B.F.G. stand for the words belief, faith and God? Could I be stretching it? I don’t think so, the films themes are fairly obvious. This movie is quite similar to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe books, they address issues of faith, they push the idea of believing in a magical, eternal being that’s watching over all of us, taking care of us, wishing goodness upon our lives. That this magical being is there even though we can’t see him, that all we have to do is “feel him” in our hearts. That all we have to do is take that magical leap of faith, blindly believing the notion and that if we do, then he will be there when we need him the most, when we are in pain, lonely or sad. Thankfully, Sophie is inquisitive. After all her name is Sophie, an allusion to philosophy which in itself means the search for knowledge which explains why Sophie likes to ask lots of questions to the giant, like how old he is. The giant tells her he’s an eternal, that he’s always existed, the biggest allusion to God in the entire film, which is why there’s no doubt in my  mind the giant in The BFG represents ‘God’.

I’ve always found the idea of God a fascinating one. Every society, every culture has their idea of God and to me that’s fascinating on its own. How no matter what country we are from or what society we grow up in, we all end up thinking that there’s something bigger than us, something more powerful. The idea that there’s an eternal, magical being watching over all of us is a comforting one and I understand why a lot of people choose to believe in it. I personally can’t blindly believe in something I’ve never seen. I can be open to the idea of it, or the possibility, but I can’t say ‘God’ exists because there’s no way of proving it. Which is why it rubs me the wrong way when this type of idea is reinforced, especially in children’s films, as if they’re trying to incept these notions early in childhood.  At one point Sophie jumps of a balcony because she “feels” the giant and “knows” he will be there to rescue her. Of course the giant appears and saves her, but in real life, it would be another story. No magical giant is going to come out of nowhere and save you, in real life you have to save yourself. In real life you jump of a balcony, you’ll end up as a big grease spot on the pavement. The point the movie is trying to make is you have to take that leap of faith and believe in God. You have to believe he’ll be there to save you.  “I do believe in fairies, I do, I do” comes to mind for some reason, yet fairies are a fantasy, same as this movie. The reason I dissect these themes is not because I’m nitpicking, it’s because movies are about us. Same as books or songs, they always have something to say about human nature.

But anyway, theological themes aside, I still managed to enjoy the film because it can be interpreted in other ways as well. Maybe that magical being watching over Sophie represents an adult, your father, your mother, or whoever chooses to take care you and guide you through life. I chose to see the film this way. Sophie is an orphan, and The BFG chooses to bring some goodness into her life, he felt her loneliness and her need and chose to be a friend to her, the father that she never had, a step father of sorts and though step fathers and mothers are often times vilified in films and books, a lot of times they can be more of a father and a mother then the biological one. So that’s another way to see the film. Ultimately, I think this movie was actually rather sweet. Basically, an old man and a little girl find a way to connect, to become friends in spite of generational barriers. They learn to appreciate each other past  generational gaps. The old have a lot to learn from the old, and vice versa, so that’s another level on which the film works.

Technically speaking, the film is amazing, the special effects flawless. The giants look truly gigantic. Spielberg here once again demonstrates his uncanny ability to work with children. Ruby Barnhill does an amazing job here playing Sophie, she comes off as an intelligent child, who likes to read and use her head to come up with solutions for any given situation. The problem with the film is that though Spielberg works great with children and has made some wonderful children’s movies like Hook (1991) and E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982), I think The BFG is a tough pill for kids to swallow in terms of pacing; many children will undoubtedly find it “boring”. I was watching it in a theater filled with about 10 people and this woman kept telling her boyfriend she wanted to leave because she couldn’t understand what was happening on screen. That she was bored and this was a grown woman! She was pleading to her boyfriend to leave the theater! They did about half way through. I guess your enjoyment of this film will depend on your attention span. If it has a short fuse, you’ll probably walk. If on the other hand you have patience and can take a shorter paced film, you’ll probably stay and enjoy it. 

Rating: 4 out of  5

Gods of Egypt (2016)

Gods of Egypt (2016)

Director: Alex Proyas

Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Courtney Eaton, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Young, Gerard Butler, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush

Every once in a while a movie tanks at the box office, when it shouldn’t have. I mean surely, most of the films that get the shaft by audiences usually deserve it, but in the case of Alex Proyas big budget fantasy extravaganza Gods of Egypt, it didn’t. I kick myself in the ass for listening to that first batch of negative reviews that accused the film among many things of “white washing” the cast, which means that a group of people got angry because characters that were Egyptian (and therefore should look Egyptian) where being played by white actors. I don’t really care about that sort of thing; I’m just enjoying a movie here. Weren’t we past the whole skin color thing? Guess not. Anyways, reviewers decided to spew their hatred at this one and well, no one went to see it. This is the kind of film that was badmouthed even before it was released. And so, it only made back 31 million dollars on a 140 million dollar budget, which means it was a gargantuan flop. It’s sad because a box office flop of this magnitude cold  spell the end of Alex Proyas career, which means no more big budget films for him. The worst part is that this movie, in my opinion, is an excellent action adventure fantasy extravaganza that deserved to be embraced by audiences.

The story is multi faceted, on the one hand it’s about Horus, the God of Wind, trying to recover his god hood and his kingdom. On the other hand, it’s a story about a young man named Bek, trying to recover the love of his life from the icy grips of death. You see Set, the God of Chaos has taken over the land and rules it with an iron fist. Since this is a full on fantasy film, Set can do things like changing the rules of what happens after you die. Where in the past all you had to do was be a good citizen and work to go to heaven, now in order to earn your way into the afterlife you have to pay! If you don’t have something of value you are sent to hell, but if you got the goods you go to heaven with the Gods. This of course spells certain doom for poor people who have nothing to give to the Gods. Will order be set again? Can Horus learn to fight for the rights of the people? Will the Gods learn to care about humans? Or will they remain self centered and egotistical?

This film was awesome for many reasons, number one, it has a good story. It grabs you from the get go because it pits the despotic ruler vs. the unpredictable rebel trying to fight for his rightful place in the world. Unfortunately, Set the despotic ruler cares nothing for “the little people”; he only cares about power and riches. So it’s that classic class struggle story, the powerful vs. the working class. They had this awesome visual idea for this movie where ‘The Gods’ look slightly bigger than the humans, so it’s like they aren’t gigantic, but they are a few inches bigger than the regular humans, which made for a cool visual. I’m sure it must’ve been hell to film though, this visual effect makes practically every scene in the movie a special effect! And speaking of effects, they are top notch on this show! It's a visual feast, more so for lovers of fantasy and escapism.

Gods of Egypt is one of those movies in which most of the surroundings are computer generated. In this sense Gods of Egypt is like the Star Wars movies, which is normally something that I frown upon. I’ve always resisted “all CGI” movies, where only the actors are real. Sadly, this is the face of the new Fantasy/Science Fiction film. They’ve evolved into this; we might as well accept it. Stop motion, matte paintings and the use of miniatures have all been replaced by computer generated images, which is fine. It’s just another form of art, thought if I had to choose, I’d choose practical old school effects. Call me old fashion but they had more artistry to them if you ask me. I have to admit that this “all CGI” element of this film was the main reason why I didn’t go see it in theaters. Yet I have to admit that like all types of special effects, when done right, they can (and should) blow you away.  I have to say that on Gods of Egypt the effects worked extremely well. There’s this show stopping scene with these two giant monster Cobra snakes attacking Horus that was just awesome.  Actually, what Gods of Egypt feels the most like is those old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies, with all the monsters and creatures.

Alex Proyas brought Egypt to life in grand fashion. Gods of Egypt feels like one of those big budget bible movies like Ben Hur (1925) or The Ten Commandments (1956), you know, films with thousands of extras and huge sets, only this time the sets and the extras are mostly digital. Alex Proyas is famous for directing dark moody films like The Crow (1994) and Dark City (1998), so Gods of Egypt is a change of pace for Proyas. This is a huge fantasy, action adventure, which in my opinon Proyas directed with gusto, with an affection for this type of film. If only it hadn’t tanked so spectacularly at the box office…it’s one of those films that didn’t deserve to fail at all, I’m sure it will connect with audiences down the road. I place it among the cream of the crop of new fantasy films like Immortals (2011), 300 (2006), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) or Brett Ratner’s extremely underrated Hercules (2014).  One of the things that Gods of Egypt is being accused of is of being “dumb”, and while I won’t be the first to admit it’s not Shakespeare, I have to say that it does play with its fair share of important themes. I mean, here’s a movie in which the Gods learn to care for the people, they learn the value of humans, of the ones they consider less than them. Here’s a movie where Gods die and tyranny rules the land as the people suffer. Here’s a film where true love conquers even the cold arms of death itself. All these themes, embellished by awesome effects, a quick pace and likable characters, I ask: what’s not like? I say give this one a chance, you probably overlooked it, same as I did.

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Seventh Son (2014)

Seventh Son (2014)

Director: Sergey Bodrov

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore, Djimon Hounsou, Olivia Williams, Jason Scott Lee

Sometimes movies get the shaft at the box office because of a lot of crap that goes on behind the scenes, stuff sometimes we as an audience are completely unaware of. For example, Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) was a huge box office bomb, not because it was a bad film, but because of a shift in administration at Columbia Pictures, and so the new head honchos treated the previous administrations films like crap, so Adventures of Baron Munchausen wasn’t promoted well, the result was an excellent film that died a quick death at the box office. Of course, now the film is considered one of Terry Gilliam’s best, but when it was first released a shift in administration at Columbia turned it into a 60 million dollar fiasco. A similar thing happened to Seventh Son, not that Seventh Son is anywhere near as awesome as Adventures of Baron Munchausen, but it is a film that deserved a better chance at the box office. For me, it’s a fun film that’s far from being terrible. The problem with Seventh Son was that it was produced by Legendary Pictures, who at one point were going to partner up with Warner Brothers to distribute the film (if you check the poster I've posted it actually has the WB logo!) but that partnership fell through and Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures parted ways. Then Legendary partnered up with Universal Pictures, but by then, the film’s release had lost momentum. The thing is that when movie buffs see constant delays and changes in release dates they get the feeling that the film isn’t going to be that good, because the studio is stalling its release. Film buffs can sniff a stinker from miles away! I myself felt the delay was because the film wasn’t going to be that good. What did I know about a shift in partnerships between studios? So the film was a box office bomb in the United States which at least made its budget back with its worldwide intake. Still, I feel American audiences could have given this one a better chance.

Seventh Son is all about a Master Gregory, a sorcerer who dedicates his life to killing monsters, demons and witches. He has an apprentice, but loses him in a battle with an evil witch called Mother Malkin; so since a sorcerer cannot be without an apprentice, now Master Gregory has to find a new apprentice, The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. You see, supposedly, the seventh son of a seventh son makes perfect sorcerers’ apprentice. So Gregory is searching for that special young man. Once he finds him, they have to team up to go up against Mother Malkin, before she becomes all powerful and rules the land with her coven of witches.

The thing about Seventh Son is that it was actually entertaining. I was ready to rip it a new one, because honestly, I was expecting a terrible film. The fact that the studio held this one back for so long made me raise a red flag. Usually when a studio gets cold feet with the release of a movie, it’s because the movie is bad and they are looking for just the right moment in which to release it so it won’t have much competition at the box office.  Also, who the hell was this director? I knew nothing of Sergey Bodrov’s body of work, I didn’t know what to expect. I had no basis of comparison. Thankfully the film turned my expectations around. Almost immediately Jeff Bridges portrayal of Master Gregory got me to like the film, I mean, here’s Jeff Bridges breathing life into this character, he gave it a real unique persona, I liked that about it. Bridges infused the character with just the right amount of comedy and charisma. So much so that some reviews say that it’s Bridges Master Gregory that saves the film. I have to say that it certainly is one of the films high points, but the film has other good things going for it as well.

You see, this is a fantasy film along the lines of let’s say, Willow (1988), Legend (1985) or Krull (1983); films in which our heroes exist in a magical land filled with monsters, magic and witches. On these types of films, the main character goes from zero to hero, sometimes in a matter of seconds and obviously, always going through a quick training montage with their ‘master’. In this sense, Seventh Son is not original at all, which is one of the reasons it doesn’t get a perfect score from me. You see, this film goes through all the cliché’s of a heroes journey, finding his magical sword in a magical cave…being trained by his master and finally, seeing  the main character put what his learned to good use in his first adventure. But it’s all cool, because it surprised me that Seventh Son actually took some of those clichés and turned them around. For example, there’s a moment in which the apprentice, Tom Ward, finds a magical sword and grabs it from the hands of a corpse, a scene that reminded me of identical scenes in Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Legend (1985), then the film surprises me and has the spirit of the former owner of the sword actually fight with Tom for his sword! So while Seventh Son isn’t completely original, it still has the ability to surprise you at certain points. It's well aware of fantasy movie cliche's so it tries its best to turn them around. The dialog is quick and witty because the filmmakers know that we're savvy, so the dialog gets to the point rather quickly, it doesn't stall.

Films like Seventh Son are essentially monster films; they exist to wow us with their monsters. Remember the two headed dragon in Willow (1988)? Or Meg Mucklebones, the water witch from Legend (1985)? How about the army of Skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963)? All show stopping monsters! Well, Seventh Son is this kind of film, filled to the brim with monsters at every turn. I enjoyed the creatures on this one, in fact this film felt like a homage to all those old Ray Harryhausen fantasy films like Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) or Clash of the Titans (1981). Actually, one of the creatures that they fight in Seventh Son feels like a total update of the Kali Statue that Sinbad fights in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973). So at least the filmmakers behind Seventh Son knew exactly the kind of film they were making. They made sure the monsters were awesome to behold. Modern “monster films” sometimes offer us generic monsters that we can’t really take a good look at, in Seventh Son the monsters are a showcase and I have to admit I loved that about it. Not only that, I found them to be well animated. The only time I like computer generated images is when they are done right, and on this show they got the monsters right. The only negative thing I can say about the effects is that they decided to use morphing effects, which I think are out dated. Sadly they use them on Seventh Son all the time, which was a huge let down. So the computer effects go from freaking awesome, to not so freaking awesome and in that sense the film is a bit uneven. But I will say that in terms of effects, the good out weights the bad.

Above, a creature from Seventh Son (2014), below The Kali Statue from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)

So what we got here ladies and gentlemen is not a classic or a masterpiece, but a damn fun fantasy film with cool monsters and a cool character thanks to Jeff Bridges Master Gregory, who infuses enough comedy and charisma into the proceedings to keep us entertained. The monsters are cool, and the film harkens back to the old Harryhausen fantasy classics, where monsters mattered! And speaking of the monsters and the effects on this movie, the visual effects were produced by John Dykstra, the visual effects genius who's worked in films like Star Wars (1977), Lifoforce (1985) and Spiderman (2002) among many other effects heavy films, so this is probably the reason why the monsters on this film are so cool. Plus it has an excellent cast. We even get a The Big Lebowski (1998) reunion with Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore working together again. The only thing that brings it down is that it isn’t all that original, and the CGI is sometimes off. But otherwise, we have a fun film you should give a chance to if you like fantasy and monster films.

Rating: 4 out of 5  

  

Nightbreed: The Directors Cut (1990)

Nightbreed (1990)

Director: Clive Barker

Cast: Craig Schaffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Doug Bradley

First time I saw Nightbreed was in theaters, way back in 1990. Back then I must’ve been thirteen or fourteen years old and while the film made a definitive impact on me, I also got the feeling that it was missing something. I mean, even the title sequence lets us know there were creatures that were filmed that never made it to the finished film, you got the feeling that more was filmed than what we ended up watching. Nightbreed had an epic feel to it, for a horror film anyways. Years later I would learn that Nightbreed was in fact a troubled production. Not from the creative side, because creatively it had energy and ideas to spare, but from the producing side. You see, the producers behind this film thought the film was ‘too weird’ and that it didn't play by the rules. Which of course was entirely true, Clive Barker meant to make a film that would turn the conventions of the traditional monster movie upside down! Sadly when a filmmaker wants to try something new, studios usually look down upon it, especially if it’s within the realm of horror and fantasy, two genres that are generally treated with disdain by producers and studios. In spite of its troubled post-production, plagued with creative differences, the studio still released the film.  How did it fare at the box office?

You might be asking yourself how can a producer read the script, greenlight the film and then not like the film that ends up getting made? My take on it is that producers probably said yes to Nightbreed because of the box office success of Barker’s previous film: Hellraiser (1987). They wanted Barker to produce another hit, they didn’t care what it was. But still, why greenlight a film only to give the filmmaker hell when they shoot the script that was approved? I mean, it was right there in black and white. Monsters, Midian, gore…why after its being filmed do they suddenly get cold feet? Did they even bother reading the script? Maybe once the shooting commenced they realized just what a strange and unorthodox film this was. Maybe then they realized that there’s no target audience to sell this movie to, it’s a blending of genres, its horror, it’s a love story, it’s a film in which the monsters are the heroes! And that last point is the one that irked producers the most; they didn’t know how to market a film in which the monsters are the “good guys”.

Another possible reason why this film was treated with such disdain by the studio had something to do with the films subversive message, the clear hatred towards authority and religious figures. I mean, this is a film in which a faithless priest ends up killing a cop! As you can see, many things lined up against Nightbreed which resulted in a shitty trailer that gave audiences the impression that this was a slasher film, even going as far as re-shooting some sequences to give it a slasher feel. And Nightbreed wasn't a slasher, it was a dark fantasy. And if there’s one thing audiences hate its being lied to. And so, the film tanked at the box office, this even though it was made with a mere 11 million dollar budget! In my opinion, a decent trailer and some faith in the filmmakers original vision would have increased Nightbreed’s chances of making a bit more money upon its release. I mean, sure it’s not a mainstream film, but it could have made more than 8 million, which is what it ended up making at the box office. 

  

But as if often happens, audiences discovered Nightbreed on home video and turned it into a cult classic. People love this movie so much that someone did their own cut of the film called “The Cabal Cut”  which included deleted scenes never seen on the theatrical cut! They even made special screenings to show this cut of the film. Fans have always wanted a director’s cut of this film, and well, their screams were heard because the fine gals and ghouls at Shout Factory made it possible. They gathered all the deleted scenes which were in a vault somewhere, they got the original cast to dub some new dialog and they re-edited the film which is now twenty whole minutes longer! And they got Clive Barker to oversee the whole process! How cool is all that!? Freaking sweet is what it is. But the question remained: which cut of the film is better? What are the differences between theatrical and directors cut?

The main thing with this new cut is: we get more monsters! I can’t believe they cut some of this stuff out, I guess they cut out the weirder looking monsters for whatever the reason, but there’s a ton of new monsters you never got to see before, even if just for a second, but they are finally here, which is of course cool because that’s what this whole film was always about, the monsters! This cut of the film is a bit gorier, but not by a whole lot. We get to see that Boone was a mechanic, and that Lori was a lounge singer, which is completely unnecessary for the film if you ask me. I mean, with regards to these two scenes where we see Lori and Boone during their day jobs, well, I can see why the studio thought that they could be cut out. We really didn't need to see Lori singing a whole song. But anyways, getting back to the good stuff, the biggest changes come during the ending of the film, which is all different. Scenes are switched around, and happen at an entirely different pace and order than in the original theatrical cut. We get to see extended scenes involving Baphomet, which I always wanted more of. I mean, Baphomet is the weirdest thing about the movie. What the hell is he exactly? I still don’t fully understand, but I wanted more and I got it. On this new cut certain characters have a different demise, and so we get to see them die in entirely different and violent ways. Priests turn evil (as they often do in Clive Barker films) and evil cops get their due, which is probably why these scenes were cut out, cops are depicted as evil, racist, violent bigots. There’s a lot of hatred on this film for intolerant bigots in general.  

The director's cut is a bit more violent!

And finally, the very ending of the film was changed drastically; Lori and Boone have more moments together and their relationship takes a very interesting twist that I loved. Basically, the film ends on an entirely different note, with the doors left open for a whole series of films to continue. I would have loved to see this series take off the way Barker had intended. After all, Barker wanted to make the “Star Wars of Monster Movies” and if that isn’t an enticing enough remark about Nightbreed, I don’t know what is. My only gripe with this cut is that they deleted the ending we saw in the theatrical release, the one in which Ashberry (the evil priest) puts his hands inside Decker’s chest and brings him back to life as Decker screams! When I originally saw the film, that ending had such an impact on me! I still love it, I wish it hadn’t been taken out, so you might want to hang on to your theatrical cut, because it still has that original ending which is pretty cool. But whatever, watching this directors cut is a real treat. And it’s a reason of celebration for Clive Barker fans and fans of the horror genre in general. While the film still retains its flaws, like for example it’s often times cheesy situations and dialog, Nightbreed still has a lot of heart, for underneath its monstrous exterior, this is a film about learning to accept each other for who we are. There is space in this world for all of us, isn’t there?

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbach

This is the big conclusion to The Hobbit trilogy and they obviously wanted to end the trilogy with a big bang, so of course, The Battle of the Five Armies ended up being like the ‘Return of the Jedi’ of the Hobbit movies, which is to say, the biggest and baddest of them all. It’s as if all the action that was missing from the previous entries was taken out of those and put into this one, one film to rule them all. The good news is you probably won’t doze off during this one! The action is never ending, right from the get go the film starts off with Smaug the Dragon destroying Lake town, and that’s a real spectacle to watch. Now, I’m a huge fan of Dragons in films, and I have to say that this is one of the best depictions of a dragon, ever. I say one of the best because my favorite dragon is still and apparently will always be ‘Vermithrax Pejorative’, the dragon from Mathew Robbins’ Dragonslayer (1981). Still to this day, I haven’t seen a better movie about dragons than that one, but the dragon in The Battle of Five Armies? Pretty freaking impressive.

In this the final chapter of The Hobbit saga we find the people of Lake Town picking up their remains after in a fit of anger, Smaug the dragon destroys their town. Good news is that after Smaug is slayed, the Lonely Mountain is up for grabs, and if you remember correctly, there’s a huge treasure of gold inside of that mountain! Since this legendary treasure is common knowledge to everyone around, and  there isn’t a fire breathing dragon to protect it anymore, now everybody wants it! The elves, the dwarves, the humans and the orcs! Everybody wants a piece of that treasure! But the dwarves are not willing to give it up! This all leads up to an amazing battle that takes up practically half of the film, which is why I say, this film is none stop action so strap yourselves on tight for this one. It’s not a bore fest! 

The only thing I criticize about these Hobbit movies is that I feel they stretched them out for too long. Yes, I have read the book, and I feel that the whole story could have been told in one, maybe two movies tops. But of course, we can blame Hollywood for wanting to stretch franchises for a few movies more, it’s the new trend in Hollywood. They’ll stretch “the final chapter” into various films. They did it with the Twilight films; they divided the last film into two, Breaking Dawn Part I and II…which creates a small confusion because how can it be part I if this is the fourth film? Oh cause its part one of the “finale” which they’ve now stretched into two films, simply to make a few extra millions. You see Hollywood knows the fans can’t miss a single chapter, because they know audiences are hooked on a feeling, like a junkie looking for the next fix. They also did this with The Hunger Games, “Mocking Jay Part I and II”. The thing is that you feel it, you feel that some of it is just filler, padding to fill running time. They did it with this Hobbit trilogy as well, which if you ask me went on for one movie too long, but whatever, this final film is like all kinds of awesome because it’s monsters and wizards and dragons fighting for almost the entire duration of the film! It’s a fantasy film fans wet dream!

Imagine how much action this film has that it feels like it doesn't have much substance to it. Good thing is that it still manages to pack a wallop emotionally; it has one or two moments which “got to me” because you've known these characters for three movies know, so you kind of grow fond of some of them. I like that in spite of being a huge onslaught of action and special effects, The Battle of Five Armies still manages to tweak your emotion chip, which is something that Peter Jackson has always infused these Lord of the Rings movies with: emotion; sometimes a little too much, but on this one? Just the right amount of schmaltz.

Final words: if you are a fan of fantasy films and love to see Wizards and Witches engaging in magic battles, fire breathing dragons destroying entire towns, and monsters going to war, then The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies won’t disappoint. I still wonder what these movies would have been like had Guillermo del Toro directed them, at least he still gets some credit in the writing department. I’m willing to bet that it was the studios who gave Guillermo del Toro de shaft because they wanted that weight of saying that these three films were directed by the same Peter Jackson who made the previous Lord of the Rings films. That’s a huge selling point right there and I’m sure they didn’t want to let that go, so they axed del Toro, even after he’d given various years of his life in pre-production for these three Hobbit films. Del Toro’s take on it was that he left because he couldn’t commit to these films for six years of his life, especially when he has so many projects going on with many different studios, which is of course entirely true. Still, Peter Jackson pulled it off nicely and who better to these then the director who made the previous three Lord of the Rings films right? I can’t help but wonder what he’ll do next now that he’s leaving Middle Earth behind, I hope it’s something every bit as spectacular. And to think Jackson’s career started with the low budget indie flick Bad Taste (1987), a movie about aliens looking for human flesh to sell in their own fast food chain! It’s funny, but even in his earlier films; Jackson  always displayed a tendency to go over the top with his ideas, a tendency to shock as much as he possibly could. If he was going to do a puppet movie then it would be the grossest puppet movie you’ll ever see (Meet the Feebles (1989)) If he was going to make a zombie, the it was going to be the bloodiest zombie movie ever (Dead Alive (1989)) and if he does a fantasy film, then he’ll make you jizz your pants with an overdose of monsters and wizardry. Can’t wait to see what he’ll go over the top with next.

Rating: 5 out of 5      

Noah (2014)

Title: Noah (2014)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman

Just so you guys know where I’m coming from with this review, I’m not a Christian, but I’ll watch movies like Noah because I love movies and I love how they attempt to wow us, how they comment on humanity and how they try to entertain us. Biblical movies are an interesting bunch because if done wrong, they will always end up pissing somebody off, probably a Christian. But to me, biblical movies are as entertaining as any other fantasy film, what matters to me when I watch any film is if it’s entertaining or moving somehow, if it has something to say. I went to see The Passion of the Christ (2005) to see what the big deal was all about and to my surprise I ended up being genuinely moved by some moments in the film. Any habitual film goer and book worm finds it interesting to see a book they’ve read come to life in some way, so that's the mentality I go with when I go see movies like this one.  So my status as ‘unbeliever’ does not stop me from enjoying films that deal with Christian themes. In fact, since I am a former Christian; I can enjoy them on a whole other level because I know the source material. I read the bible a couple of times back in my church going days, so I know the text and I know when a film is stretching the limits of their ‘artistic liberties’, case in point Aronofsky’s Noah and its myriad ways of telling a different story then the one depicted in the bible. On this review I pinpoint the specific elements that aren’t related to Noah’s tale, so if you don’t want certain elements spoiled for you, you’ve been warned!

For those of you who haven’t read the tale of Noah, this is the story of a man who is contacted by God himself. God tells him that he is going to be destroying every human on the planet because man had become evil, corrupt and violent. In other words, God wants to reboot humanity. Yet Noah and his family are lucky; In Gods eyes they are the only good people left in the whole entire planet. The bible says that Noah was “righteous” and “blameless” amongst the people of his time, so when god’s wrath comes down on the earth through a massive planet wide flood, Noah and his family will get a free ticket to survival. But before the rain starts to fall, God tells Noah to build an ark and put two of all the animals in the world in it so they will survive the flood. That’s the gist of it. And that's essentially what you'll get in this film, the problem is that along with it, you'll get a bunch of other elements that have nothing to do with the bible, in fact, they are so alien to the story of Noah that they just might completely take you out of the film. 

When it comes to biblical movies, as a filmmaker, you have to be very careful. You don’t won’t to deviate too far away from the source material because then you’ll have Christian’s boycotting your film and you don’t want that because it could mean the death of your film. You don’t want to anger your target audience, which is basically what this movie undoubtedly does. It has so many elements that are not in the bible! What elements am I talking about? Well, for example, in the film Anthony Hopkins plays Methuselah, who according to the bible was one of the oldest humans to ever exist, so okay, we’re good till there…but then Aronofsky gives Methuselah magical powers? Now I don’t find that all that weird because the bible actually acknowledges magic as being something real. The problem is that in Noah’s story, Methuselah is not a practitioner of magic! Now the bible talks about magicians and sorcerers, but it doesn’t say that Methuselah was one of them. The artistic liberties don’t stop there.

Then we have the most controversial element of the film, the giant rock creatures. I know right? Now strange creatures aren’t all that controversial to me when it comes to the bible because the bible talks about dragons, unicorns, creatures with ten heads, four faces and a whole cornucopia of strange beings, but the thing with the rock creatures that aid Noah in constructing the ark is that they are not in the bible, at all, and so right here is where Christians will put a screeching halt on this movie and say its heresy. I’ve yet to understand why Aronofsky chose to use these creatures as part of the story. I mean, did he do it on purpose to piss of Christians and get them to go to the movies? Was it to get everyone talking about it? Some sort of publicity stunt to get people talking furiously about the film? In either case, it’s a risky move because this could go either way. It could get  Christians to boycott the film and call Aronofksy the Antichrist, or it could make people want to see the film more. Now knowing how Christians react to films like this, I think it will make them see the movie in droves; just to see what the big deal was all about. But there’s no way of denying that Aronofsky took a huge risk here. 

To top things off, Aronofsky depicts Noah all wrong. You see, in this film Noah thinks that God is bringing the flood because he wants to completely eradicate humans from the face of the earth, when in reality, it’s the complete opposite. Allow me to explain. True; God does feel disappointed with humanity and wants to wipe them out, but in the bible, God clearly states to Noah that he wants for humanity and animals to continue living; I mean that’s the whole point behind saving the animals, so that after the flood is through they can roam the land once again and propagate, it goes without saying that God wants to save Noah and his family for the exact same reason. For all intents and purposes, God wants humanity to continue. But for some reason, Aronofsky’s Noah thinks he and his family are meant to be the last humans on the planet and that they are not to have babies? So when one of Noah’s family members becomes pregnant he thinks he has to kill the babies? That whole thing? So not in the bible! This course of action makes Noah look evil and crazy somehow. Now killing your children in the name of God is not something unheard of in the bible (just ask Abraham!) but again, this does not happen to Noah in the bible.

Now if you’re keen on reading between the lines and enjoy extrapolating on ideas and possible interpretations of what we see in films, then you might infer, as I have, that Aronofsky is actually trying to point at some particularly hard to swallow elements in the bible. Through Methuselah and his use of magic, Aronofsky points at the fact that in the bible, magic is real, and condemned, which is a preposterous idea in my book, hell even sorcerers are real in the bible. Through the now infamous rock creatures, Aronofsky seems to be saying we shouldn’t find them so strange, after all, the bible talks about talking snakes, giants roaming the earth and even dragons! By depicting Noah as a man who thinks he has to kill babies in the name of God, well, Abraham was going to do that at some point, which if you ask me is the craziest part of the bible, and one that I am completely against. Honestly, if God told me to kill my child I’d scream from the top of my lungs “HELL NO!”; yet I’ve personally met Christians who say they would kill their child if God asked them to. And to me that’s just crazy. So through his depiction of Noah, Aronofsky addresses issues of blind fanatism in religion.   

Aronofsky is one of my favorite filmmakers, he’s made some truly amazing films and the question remains, is Noah one of them? I’m not gonna say it’s a terrible film or badly acted or written, because it’s quite the opposite. The cast is amazing, the visual effects work astounding, the only real problem is that it’s not the story you might expect. Arnofsky takes incredible liberties with the text in order to say what he wants to say. There’s no doubt in my mind that these elements will irk some people out there. I’m just saying, if you’re going to see Noah, don’t expect to see the biblical story represented faithfully, Noah was just Aronofksy playing around with biblical themes and ultimately, if you ask me, pointing a finger at the more difficult to accept elements from the bible. Discuss!

Rating: 4 out of 5