Savages (2012)

Title: Savages (2012)

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch

I enjoyed Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday (1999), it had a lot of his kinetic energy, a lot of his love for Americana, and I loved how he filmed football like it was a war, but I'm not a huge fan of football, so that film wasn't really big on my Oliver Stone-o-meter; yes I have one of those. In reality, the last Oliver Stone movie that I really enjoyed was U-Turn (1997), I believe that was Stone's last truly edgy film. It wasn't based on any real life events, it wasn't making any political statements or trying to uncover some age old conspiracy like a lot of Oliver Stone's films do, no, U-Turn was Oliver Stone simply having some fun telling a story about this shitty day Sean Penn has when he falls, like a fly into a fly trap, into this hell hole of a town, straight out of a Twilight Zone episode. It was kinetic, it was weird, it was offbeat, it was dark and funny...and it had that great Billy Bob Thornton performance. Sadly, every other film Stone has made after that one has missed that Oliver Stone kineticness we all came to love. Actually, the title U-Turn was so symbolic because from there on in, Stone's films just haven't been the same. 

Oliver Stone, working out a scene with Travolta and Kitsch

Take World Trade Center (2006) for example. What a boring film! Had that been a true Oliver Stone film it would have focused on the terrorists on the plane or on the conspiracy theory that maybe it was the Americans who blew themselves up to have an excuse to invade Iraq or something like that. But no, since World Trade Center was made by the "neutured by Hollywood" Oliver Stone, well, it was about these heroic firemen; a noble and sentimental approach to the whole World Trade Center tragedy, but not in my opinion the kind of story that the old Oliver Stone would have told. Same goes for W (2008), a film that was "soft" when compared to similar Stone films like the mindblowingly good JFK (1991) or NIXON (1995). So now, here comes Savages, and judging by the looks of the previews, it seemed like this is Stone's attempt to grow some balls back and have some fun while doing it. Not a bad combination in my book. It seemed to me like Savages was going to show us Stone's still got it in him to make a film with an edge to it. It looked like he was ready to give us another jolt of shock to the system. Did Stone deliver the goods?

On Savages we meet two California weed dealers, Ben and Chon; two friends who have decided to use their capabilities to produced and sell some of the finest weed ever smoked by man. One graduated from college and has extensive knowledge on botany and chemistry, the other is an ex military who offers his military know-how and is the muscles of the operation. The two of them are in love with the same woman, Opehelia, and they all live in beach side mansion in California. Their lives are like a dream, selling and smoking weed, making tons of dough, they are  living the life so to speak. But Ben wants a normal life and wants out of the weed selling business, he convinces Chon and Ophelia to do  the same. In their minds they can effectively run off to Indonesia and live a luxurious life over there, far away from all the drug dealing. But what happens when the bigger drug dealers don't want them to go? 

First the good news: this isn't a completely unwatchable Oliver Stone film; it has many of the things we've come to expect from the legendary filmmaker, albeit with less intensity. It's got violence, drugs, sex and controversial ideas, but it just doesn't  get too intense, not like old Stone films would. One of the most controversial ideas the film puts across is that marijuana should be legalized; that it's only a matter of time before this happens. And herein lies the surprise for me with this movie: I wasn't expecting for the film to be a Stoner Flick. This movie is really, really about weed; actually it borders on glorifying or even glamorizing it. There are these scenes where the main characters are just smoking away, 'chillaxing'; that's chilling and relaxing all roled up into one in case you're wondering. It really captures what it means to smoke weed, to be in that totally chilled, spaced out moment, we even get one of these scenes that we saw before in Stones own The Doors (1991), where characters are high, looking out at the stars, loosing themselves in the vastness of space. The names of the main characters in the film: 'Ben and Chon' are enough of an indication to tell us that this film will be all about weed, the names of course remind us of those perennial pot heads from the 70's Cheech and Chong. So a big theme here is marijuana, and how if it was legalized, a lot of unnecesary crap could be avoided. 

The glamorizing aspect of the film comes when we see the kind of life that these two guys and their girlfriend  live. They make the finest pot ever, they are drug dealers yet they live in these beautiful homes, have these cool cars, and share the hottest girlfriend, which by the way is another controversial aspect of the film, the depiction of a threesome. It doesn't really go too deeply into the whole threesome thing like the way Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) did, but it does make a point to tell us that this kind of thing just doesn't work out. Bottom line though is that these guys are drug dealers, but they are depicted as the nicest drug dealers ever. They dress like surfers, and drive these expensive sports cars and what have you, but come on, these guys are supposed to be drug dealers! To me they just didn't look the part, they didn't convince me they were dealers. They came off as too nice for drug dealers. They looked more like surfer dudes who would be smoking the pot rather then making it and sell it. And here for me is where the film has a few faults. 

Stone's cinematic characters were never beatuftiful people, they were always caricatures of what humans are like. With  emotions augmented and personafied. I'm thinking of James Wood's in Salvador (1986), Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers (1994), not the best looking peole, but boy could they act the hell out of their characters. They had such intensity to them.  His characters were always rough looking, ugly in a way, disturbed, and sometimes even cartoonish somehow.  Take Tom Cruise for example -the sex symbol of his day- he starred in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), but even then, Stone turned Cruise into a demented freak in a wheel chair, with long hair and a mustachio, trying to screw Mexican whores with a limp dick. Point is, only recently did he start this thing about putting beautiful people in his films, this probably is at the request of Hollywood producers. Stone seems to be aware of this himself, because even though he's got young, good looking protagonists on his film, he places them in juxtaposition to,Benicio del Toro as the villain called 'Lado'. Now Benicio is the kind of character you'd expect to see in an Oliver Stone film, he fits the bill perfectly. Benicio is a fantastic actor, and in this film he even comes off as frightening and scary in his violent ways. The character of Lado gives us a small glimmer of what Stone's characters used to be like. Scary, ugly, dangerous, edgy kind of characters. I loved  how Stone addresses the issue of beautiful protagonists by having 'Lado' make fun of  Ben by telling him that he's "cute"; in this scene, Stone is making fun of the fact that he has these two Calvin Klein models as protagonists on his film.

Other than that, this is pretty much an Oliver Stone film, but light. He still uses the change in film stock, sometimes the film goes to black and white, sometimes we see over saturated images...but at the same times the camera stays still a lot. It's missing that frenetic pacing we used to have in Stone's films, where we felt as if a coked up dude was telling us the story. I guess Stone is getting old, and it doesn't surprise me that his films keep getting softer the older he gets; this happens to many filmmakers as they start getting older, they kind of loose what made them cool when they were young. Kind of like aging rock stars, some don't loose it, but most do. I don't think Stone has totally lost his cool yet, he might have an awesomely dark film up his sleeve yet, but this one just ain't it. I'm not saying it's a bad film, because it has a lot of cool stuff going for it. It's fun, it's fast paced. But for an Oliver Stone film, it's just too bright, too colorful, too beautiful..too perfect in a way. I liked the chaotic nature of previous Stone films. But then again, the way this film was made was  probably done intentionally. It looks to me like Stone was going for a film with beautiful people, lots of colors  and a happy kind of vibe going for it, this is a film about smoking weed after all. Savages is a film where even the villains where kind of likable, as is the case with Salma Hayek's 'Elena'; a villain who comes off as a mother figure of sorts. Even though the film does have decaptations and bloodshed, it felt like a milder kind of film from and old marketer of 'Gloom and Doom'; which of course is why it feels so strange. Not bad, just different, definetly not what you'd expect from Stone. Savages is the kind of film where everything goes smoothly for the pot heads; but in the end, it left me longing for the old war horse that Stone was. 

Rating 3 1/2 out of 5

John Carter (2012)

Title: John Carter (2012)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Colins, Willem Defoe, Thomas Haden Church, Samantha Morton

Review:

John Carter is one of those films that spent a hell of a time making it to the big screen; yes my friends, this was one of those projects that was lost in development hell for years and years. Different directors took a stab at trying to get a John Carter of Mars film made without any success. The very first attempt at making a feature film out of the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories was way back in 1931 when an animated film actually went into pre-production. Unfortunately, that project never came to be. Had it come to fruition that John Carter animated feature would have been the first full length American animated film ever made, but alas, that glory would go to Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). Interesting thing is that some 60 years later, it’s Disney who finally got this film made! How did it turn out after all these years of preparation?

It’s obvious that a film of this magnitude was going to need a director skilled in the use of special effects. This film was to be a huge science fiction spectacle with alien beings, and spaceships and monsters. The whole film takes place in an alien world! This wasn’t going to be an easy film to make and whoever was going to helm it had to be someone who knew a thing or two about digital effects. Before John Carter finally arrived at the hands of director Andrew Stanton, the film passed through various directors’ hands, amongst them: Robert Rodriguez, John Favreau, Kerry Conran, and even John McTiernan. I’m sure all of these directors would have made an entirely different and possibly equally entertaining film, but the honor finally fell upon Andrew Stanton, the director behind films like Wall-E (2008), Finding Nemo (2003) and A Bugs Life (1998); which by the way, are all completely computer generated animated films.

It seems that studios are now handing visual effects heavy projects to directors who specialize in computer animation films. For example, last years Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) was directed by Brad Baird the director behind such animated hits as Ratatouille (2007) and The Incredibles (2004). This idea of giving fx heavy films to directors who’ve specialized in computer animation makes sense when we take in consideration that most modern science fiction or fantasy films are now mostly made up of 75% computer animation. Just look at any modern sci-fi film and you’ll see most of the images on screen are entirely made up in a computer, I guess the Star Wars films are the best example of this. But such is the nature of the beast, and so this is a good idea in my book. The big worry is, will they pay as much attention to the storytelling and making a good/entertaining  film as they will to the visual effects?  How was John Carter?

The film starts out with John Carter, a soldier of the civil war who is magically transported to Mars where he finds himself in the middle of a war between two factions. The planet is being overrun by a despotic race who feeds off of the planet without thinking about the repercussions, this race only thinks about what it can take from the planet, but never about what it can do to protect it. So in comes John Carter who shows his worth to the people of Mars and suddenly finds himself leading the people into a revolution!

The film is visually dazzling; it’s epic in scope. The thing about films like John Carter (which by the way reportedly cost about 250 million dollars to make) is that they don’t come around that often and when they do, we hope to hell that all that money they spent making it was worth it. Ultimately, a film might have cost all those millions, but what we as an audience care about is if it’s a good film or not, if it speaks to us, if we can connect with it, if it entertains. John Carter to me succeeds in all these grounds. We can connect with its themes because yes, we live in a society that feeds off the planet without a care in the world for tomorrow or how our actions will affect future generations. Currently, I personally see humans as a cancer that’s spreading through this planet. All we do is take, take, take. Our society, our system is currently being run on pure greed and selfishness. The question is where will this course of action take us? What I like about films like John Carter is that they address these themes and issues, which means that we as a collective are aware of our behavior; the next step would be to actually do something about it which is what John Carter is all about, making that change happen. The idea being to stop a way of life, so that we can replace it with another that is more effective and positive for everyone; for the humans that live on the planet, and the planet itself. But of course, the powers that be don’t like that. They are making too much money the way things are now , and ultimately that’s all they care about.

The film is actually quite subversive in nature, similar to Disney’s own TRON: Legacy (2010), this is the story of a people who are being governed by selfish, greedy way of government. And same as TRON, this is the story of the beginnings of a revolution, and the birth of a revolutionary leader to lead the people. It’s interesting; this is a theme that’s been popping up in so many films recently. Hell even The Lorax (2012), a children’s film, comments on consumerism and governments that lie and abuse of its people. Obviously this is a subject matter that worries the modern artist, the modern filmmaker who often times fuctions as a siphon for societies worries. Art is a reflection of our collective worries, so it makes sense that these themes keep popping on films, it means these are the things that worry us the most right now and filmmakers are using their clout to speak up about it. I personally love the fact that Disney, such a powerful company is making films that are addressing these themes. Of course, films of this nature are immediately lambasted by conservative groups and lovers of capitalism. The media will immediately say that the film is anti-capitalist and anti-American and communist in nature. Hell, it happened with The Muppets (2011) which by the way, also happens to be a Disney film! So I think it’s safe to say that Disney is all gung-ho about sending out an anti-capitalist message to the masses, Disney after all has always been of a liberal mentality. I know, it’s kind of ironic that such a huge company, which embodies capitalism so perfectly, is putting out films that address these themes, but hey, at least they are using all that money to spread the idea of change. Things need to change, that’s really what John Carter is about.

Despite what some might lead you to believe, John Carter is an excellent film. It is an excellent production. Technically speaking, everything in John Carter screams perfection, it screams cutting edge, state of the art. The only real problem with the film is that it feels like way too many other films that came before it. The basic plot feels like a mix between Dune (1984), Various Star Wars films, Avatar (2009) and Dance with Wolves (1990). It’s that story about a guy who suddenly finds himself in the midst of a place he doesn’t belong, but eventually finds his way into the hearts of those whom he was once was an enemy to, and then he leads them to a revolution! I know, been there done that right? But I will say that John Carter does present us with enough new elements and moments to entertain anyways; even though we are treading on familiar territory. But damn, some scenes where so obviously completely swiped from previous films. One moment has John Carter riding on this bike/plane sort of thing which feels like the pod race from Star Wars: Episode I (1999). Honestly I was expecting John Carter to say “now this is pod racing!” Another scene that takes  place in a coliseum, in which Carter fights these giant white gorillas feels like a similar sequence from Star Wars: Episode II (2002). One scene has a princess talking straight at the camera, a scene straight out of David Lynch’s Dune (1984).

So yeah, John Carters only flaw is that it isn’t very original at times; but at other times it completely is. I loved that whole idea that he could jump such lengths! That was a really cool concept. Mars and the society of beings we meet there, that was interesting. I also liked the fact that same as Dune, this was the kind of film that touches upon many aspects of society. John Carter is about religion, politics, society and the way we live. So the positives in my book, out weight the negatives. This is a huge spectacle of a film and it shows. You see all that money up there on the screen, ultimately, I thought it was a very satisfying film and a very well made one, just don’t expect something entirely original. But otherwise? John Carter was a damn good time at the movies, lovers of sci-fi should be happy with this one.

Rating: 4 out of 5