Tag: movie review

Freeway Review: Red Riding Hood Isn’t for Kids Anymore

On By R. PettyIn MoviesLeave a comment

What do you get when you cross an angry foul-mouthed teenager, a classic children’s tale, and a psychopath? Freeway.

In short, Freeway is a deliciously dark spin on Little Red Riding Hood. Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) runs away from her dysfunctional home life to get to her grandmother’s house. Along the way, Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland) picks her up, and little does Vanessa know he is a serial killer. Sounds interesting, right?

I caught this movie on T.V. one day, and I realized after rewatching it this week, it’s my second-favorite movie of all time, following Pulp Fiction. It’s violent, controversial, and funny. So, if you think this is your kind of flick, here are my top five reasons why it’s a must-see and own.

1. Reese Witherspoon: You may know the star from films such as Legally Blonde and sequel, Walk the Line, and Sweet Home Alabama, but I guarantee you’ve never truly seen her talent until you see Freeway. She is ruthless. She will eff you up and never feel a shred of remorse. And that’s what makes her character so memorable.

2. Kiefer Sutherland: He is a great co-star and perfect complement to Witherspoon. He defines creepy. I still shiver at any close-up shots, and his character makes you uncomfortable. He is a perfect big bad wolf.

3. The stereotypes: This movie insults a lot of people. It takes stereotypes and amps them up to an ear shattering volume. You’ll see drug-addict parents, good/bad cops, rebellious teenagers, thugs, trophy wives, psychological professionals, inmates, and it slaps the court system in the face.

4. It’s controversial: This movie premiered in 1996, when several of these topics were making headlines, and some still do. This movie was not afraid to go there. Beware of offensive language, prostitution, murder, racist remarks/slang, child molestation, interracial relationships, and drug use. If you are easily offended, this movie is not for you.

5. Originality: I give five gold stars for a good premise. At a time when Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Jack and the Beanstalk have been CGId and “made dark”, Freeway is a refreshing reminder that Hollywood can make a good movie from a classic story without computer enhancements and popular stars (who were in other movies that made a profit). Major kudos to writer and director Matthew Bright.

These reasons mixed with a number of notable actors/actresses including the late Brittany Murphy, Brooke Shields, Bokeem Woodbine, Dan Hedaya, and Amanda Plummer, create a star-studded thriller you won’t forget.

Here’s a scene from the movie that contains spoilers and language. If you’ve seen the movie, I’d love to know what you think!

What I Learned from Independence Day

On By R. PettyIn MoviesLeave a comment

Inspiration hit again this weekend as I came across a movie I cannot resist watching: Independence Day. I have seen this movie dozens of times, and it gets better, and worse in some cases, every time.

I realized during this viewing that Independence Day was my first alien invasion film. It was my first “aliens are not our our friends and will kick our ass” Sci-Fi movie.

A lot of people may scoff because I had not yet seen classics like Alien, War of the Worlds, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but I loved slasher films and Pulp Fiction more than anything at that age. Independence Day actually inspired me to watch the other alien movies.

I remember seeing Independence Day and being mesmerized by the shots, the White House being destroyed, and it was during this movie I came to love Will Smith.

So, for a fun Sunday read, here’s what I learned and loved about Independence Day.

1. Special effects could look real. This movie sucked me in from the first strike to the final escape from the mothership. After the first assault, there was something so disturbing and admittedly cool the Statue of Liberty laying face down in the ocean. The effects were not over-the-top or goofy; they were almost too believable. I guess that’s what earned Independence Day an Oscar in 1997 for Best Effects, Visual Effects.

The Statue of Liberty lies face down in the ocean after the alien attack.
Photo courtesy of Pop Culture Ninja

2. Will Smith was awesome. I watched Fresh Prince with everyone else, but it wasn’t until this movie that I appreciated his smart/bad ass side. He punched an alien after taking it down and talked trash to it. You don’t get much cooler than that.

3. Bill Pullman is not a very good actor. No offense, I love him in this movie and While You Were Sleeping, but he forces emotion. The script was well written, but Pullman did not bring me to tears or make me pull for human survival. I love watching him, but I am convinced it’s his eyes and smile.

4. The world needs heroes. In this movie, there were regular people doing amazing things for survival. Who could forget Russell (Randy Quaid) telling his kids he loved them as he helped save the planet? Or Jasmine (Vivica Fox) trying to get her crew, including the First Lady, to safety? In an alien invasion, there are no super heroes, only real people.

5. Jeff Goldblum made being a computer geek cool. I wanted to block cell calls, decode weird signals, and help save the world. The Smith-Goldblum team was movie magic as they raced off to to the mothership.

6. Not all aliens are like E.T. These aliens were intelligent, huge, well defended, and not playing around. They were not cute, would use your body to take the planet, and they did not care. This movie showed with enough fire power, a city could be destroyed in a matter of minutes.

So, what do you think? Where does Independence Day rank on your list of Sci-Fi alien movies? It may not be a Sci-Fi/horror movie, but it’s a good action flick that makes you realize we’re not as tough as we think.

Remakes and Reboots: Part 4

On By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Failed Remake

Of course not all remakes can achieve the heights of some of the previously mentioned films.  We have recently been inundated with remakes that have either fallen short or failed spectacularly.  Famously, there is the disastrous remake of Psycho, which was copied short-for-shot with a new cast in color.  As if a new director could possibly have made the film better than Alfred Hitchcock?  The argument could be made that it is the same method used for the Night of the Living Dead update, but there are subtle differences… most importantly Savini participated in Romero movies and made his film to honor Romero and help audiences remember the original.  Psycho… I’m not entirely certain what the purpose of it was.  Everyone, even people who have never seen it, KNOW the original.  It was shot by a cinematic virtuoso whose work could not be replicated or improved upon.  The same could be said for Kurosawa (if Hitchcock has an equal, his name is Akira Kurosawa), but remakes of Kurosawa often honor the original and try to place the basics of his story in a new place (as we have seen, with mixed results).  There has been word that Kurosawa’s magnum opus, The Seven Samurai, is getting yet another American remake, this one starring George Clooney.  Not only would it be the second western remake of this terrific film, this is overall a TERRIBLE idea, however still will not insult the original as much as reshooting the source film in color, shot-for-shot, with new actors as though he didn’t get it right the first time a la Psycho.  Please people… just bite the bullet, enjoy the black and white and watch the originals… there’s a reason these films are considered some of, if not THE, greatest movies in film history…

Cult Classic Case Study: Clash of the Titans (1981)

Leaving classics aside (as the general reception of the Psycho reaction proved) cult classics have become the focus of the remake machine.  While they are more understandable fodder for a remake, the reason behind the popularity of the original is still lost on most remakers.  One easy example is Planet of the Apes, which also achieved the same level of negative response as Psycho despite Tim Burton at the helm.  I saw the remake only once, and I remember enough to know I wouldn’t want to see it again.  We’ll jump to a more recent remake disaster: Clash of the Titans.

First, the nature of the cult classic.  The cult classic remains a cult because it succeeds in spite of its flaws.  It is greater than the sum of its parts.  Clash of the Titans (1981) was a delightfully cheesy feast.  Harry Hamlin’s Perseus is a feathered-haired relic of the late 70s and early 80s.  Monsters and creations by stop-motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen show the art form at its precision best, from scorpions and vultures, to tiny clockwork owls, and Medusa with her dozens of snakes.  Acting legends like Laurence Olivier, and soon-to-be legends like Maggie Smith graced the screen with B-movie actors like Hamlin and Ursula Andress.  The story is right out of the basics of mythology, a hero is set upon by a vengeful god… he now has to set out on a journey, far too big for him, aided only by his guile (and some well-placed allies on Olympus) he goes to save his love, Andromeda, from the wrath of a sea goddess and her vicious creatures.  He gets an adorable clockwork owl, Bubo from Athena, a special sword and shield (of course), and rides the unridable Pegasus, one of Zeus’ winged horses.  Along the way, he fights with the twisted Calibos, fends off attacks from Calibos’ vulture and scorpions, duels Medusa, and finally saves the day by turning Poseidon’s mighty Kraken to stone with Medusa’s severed head.  The film is fun because it is so silly.  Stop motion isn’t as slick as CGI, but that’s what makes it special, something that took craft, patience, and years if not decades of training to get a physical something in front of the camera with actual lights reflecting off of it and casting actual shadows.  You wonder at how the little R2D2-esque owl flew, or how the menacing vulture, or the elegant Pegasus did the same.  You know it’s all just “the movies,” but you still leave it wondering how someone could take the time and effort to do all these things.  Perseus himself is a demi-god who acts like an everyman.  He doesn’t have the strength of Hercules, by far the most famous demi-god, but his cleverness makes up for it.  He succeeds by out-thinking enemies not out-muscling them.  He gets help when he needs it, and accepts it because he knows he needs it.  He travels the world to save his love while the gods literally play at dice high above him.

The film is not the masterpiece of Yojimbo, or Psycho, it’s not even a reflection of the times like The Karate Kid, instead it’s just a fun movie designed to entertain audiences and take them away to a fantasy world like movies are meant to do.  Then the remake…

Cult Classic Remake: Clash of the Titans (2010)

It’s hard to tell whether the 2010 version was supposed to be a remake or a reboot of a series.  In the end, it doesn’t matter.  It is one of the worst remakes, and one of the worst recent movies, in a number of years.

There has been a trend in movies, especially action movies and historical period movies, for revenge as a motivation for the protagonist.  Braveheart and Gladiator are two critically acclaimed movies that display this trend.  It’s strange to consider as revenge is, at its root, a very ugly thing; something not to be desired in a person, and certainly not a hero.  In the 1980s Clash (hereafter known as Clash) Perseus’ motivation was rescue.  He has offended the sea goddess, Thetis, and now she seeks her revenge by forcing Perseus’ betrothed Andromeda to be sacrificed.  Note that it is the villain of the piece after revenge… as traditionally a villain would be after something that petty.  In the 2010 remake, Crap of the Titans (hereafter known as Crap… for obvious reasons) Perseus’ family is killed by Hades at sea (Why Hades at SEA and not Poseidon?  I’d guess because the filmmakers thought, “Hey Hades is like the Devil he’s so much COOLER than Poseidon!”), and Perseus tries to defy the gods by tracking down Hades and defeating him.  That’s right, Perseus is seeking revenge for his family, which we’ve seen in every movie that features a guy with a sword since 1997… yawn.  Perseus in Clash looked every bit the classic Greek hero (save for the feathered hair).  Greeks always favored cunning over brute force.  Perseus uses his cunning constantly, he’s quick, clever, and fast thinking.  Things aren’t always spelled out for him (or the audience), and he has to decipher mysterious puzzles to defeat overpowering enemies.  And Perseus in Crap?  He’s a generic thug.  His shaved head, square jaw, and tiny-tight mouth make him look more like a second string UFC challenger than a Greek hero.  He’s capable of two emotions, rage and despair.  He shifts his feet, looks sad, shouts, and acts as though he has no common sense whatsoever.  He uses NO guile instead relying on just being mighty.  He is very mighty.  He cuts his way out of a big scorpion after all.  He refuses favors of gods trying to help him; instead he endangers his travelling companions because of his own pride and selfishness.  He is easily the most unlikable movie hero of the last 5 years.  His quest doesn’t even make sense.  Andromeda is no longer his love interest.  She’s just a princess who gave him water and will be sacrificed because the town her father rules has defied the gods.  It seems Perseus (especially the selfish brute they made him) could go on his quest to “kill” a deathless god without worrying about saving her since he has no plot-developed attachment to her.  Instead his love interest is Io, who is as unnecessary a character as has never existed in a movie.  She’s basically there to prod this mess of a plot along and explain things to Perseus (and the audience who are treated like imbeciles by the filmmakers).  They could’ve named her Expositiana and been more honest with everyone.  Then there is Perseus’ quest.  He wants to kill Hades?  What kind of sense does that make?  The gods can’t even kill each other…  Even Homeric hero Diomedes was only able send Ares back to Olympus after gutting him with a spear imbued with power by Athena herself.  Today’s Perseus’ quest can be described in real life as this: your family is killed in a drive by; so you collect the finest police officers in the city and your closest friends to go punch a Gambino in the face.  Well done, you’ve killed everyone with you and eventually yourself, even if you knock him out, break his nose, and put him in the hospital for a month.  Eventually, they will be coming for you, and they have the ability to take you out far better than you can take them out…  Even if you are friends with the Governor…

Breaking the Remake Rules: Insulting the Original

So that’s the plot.  It’s bad enough.  How can a remake be worse than just a bad movie?  Easily, it can insult, demean, and forever try to one-up the original.  As I said from the beginning, remakes owe the original their existence.  They should recognize this, accept it, and honor the source material as much as possible.  Crap breaks this rule and never misses an opportunity to declare itself bigger, better, and badder than Clash.  They achieved the last one at least… in all the wrong ways.

Early in the film Perseus finds the clockwork owl.  He is told to leave it behind, as it’s apparently nothing useful.   The filmmakers to the audience: take THAT beloved classic character!  When scorpions appear in the desert in Crap they start out about the same size as the ones Perseus fights in Clash, then they get bigger and bigger until the final scorpion is the size of Delta’s Pacific airline fleet welded together into some metallic art-school drop-out garbage collage.  The filmmakers to the audience: You see?!  Look how much bigger and menacing our monsters are!  In Crap, Perseus comes upon a herd of elegant white Pegasus (which were all killed but one in Clash), suddenly they scatter and run as a bigger, BLACK Pegasus stomps into scene.  Filmmakers to audience: Yeah, we scared off those piddly white ones you saw in the original.  Look at how much COOLER the menacing BLACK Pegasus is!  Aren’t we awesome?  In Crap, the Kraken finally shows up released from, I guess Hades.  And why a SEA beast, the Kraken, is controlled by the lord of the underworld I have NO idea… just another display of how absolutely poorly the film was written using the original ideas.  The Kraken is the size of Tokyo bay.  Filmmakers to audience: See what we said about the scorpions? Yeah, he’s bigger, slimier and looks like a video game end boss, phase II.

In the end of Clash, Perseus uses his guile to turn the Kraken to stone, save the day, and win his girl.  The end of Crap is the same thing, but Perseus of course doesn’t get Andromeda. Instead, a coda is added where Io, who has DIED, is brought back from the dead by a LITERAL deus ex machina, and they leave the opening for a sequel, which is now impending for next year.  Pat yourselves on the back everyone for appealing to the lowest common denominator…

Remakes & Reboots: Part 3

On By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Effective Updated Remake

Recently Hollywood has been taken to task for the deluge of remakes of old films, modern films, TV series, and foreign films.  Some of them are mystifying; why American Studios need to remake a British film less than 5 years old is beyond me.  Why American studios need to remake foreign language films in English even newer than that is even stranger…  But remaking old ideas is the nature of film and can, in some ways, advance both modern film and shed new light on the original.  Case in point, The Karate Kid.  The 1984 film is a martial arts film as much as Rocky is a boxing film.  In fact, both Kid and Rocky had the same director, John A. Avildson.  Avildson’s Kid is about the outsider, forced to move from his only home to a strange land where social classes and rules of behavior are different from the world he knows.  Karate is the outlet he uses to fit in, and then excel, to win the respect of the society he has been thrust into.  It stresses the most important lesson of martial arts, that it be learned so it never has to be used, and is bolstered by fantastic performances by both a young Ralph Macchio (an under-appreciated performance on his part) and an aging Pat Morita who was nominated for an Academy Award for his Mr. Miyagi and finally allowed him to shed the role of Arnold from Happy Days.  Interestingly, the part was envisioned for Toshiro Mifune, who was believed to be too intense for the role.  It’s a buddy story, as the brash youth befriends the lonely aging master; an action flick, as Macchio’s Daniel fights his way to respect; and a coming-of-age story, as Daniel matures as his Karate lessons continue.  It spawned a few sequels.  The sequels were less successful but did no harm to the message of the original story.

The 2010 remake initially came as terrible news to many of us who grew up with the original.  First, we were given the news that Jackie Chan, an excellent actor who has martial arts ability not possessed by Morita, but also has proven himself to be a fine dramatic actor, would be cast in the “Miyagi” role.  Many of us who are fans of Asian films at first felt fear that the creators might pull a Memoirs of a Geisha on us and try to pass Chan off as Japanese, as Hollywood apparently believes all Asian ethnicities are interchangeable.  Instead, we were hit with another piece of news that the film would take place in China… and that it was essentially being used as a vehicle for Will Smith’s son, Jayden, and produced by Smith’s production company.  It all smelled like a setup; a big budget film designed to promote a star’s kid’s career and make money off of a younger generation without having to create an all-new story.  Even more unusual was the film’s title, which remained The Karate Kid, despite the fact that it took place in China and the titular Kid was clearly going to be learning China’s Kung Fu not Japan’s Karate.  Forums went ablaze with comments of how Hollywood was “raping” the childhoods of countless American 20-30 somethings (though if your childhood was fragile enough to be based around a 1984 movie perhaps it’s time to find something new to hang your hat on anyway…) and it was destroying the legacy of the original (as though the ever diminishing sequels hadn’t already taken some of the shine off that apple).

Then the film came out.  It was clear that the makers of this film not only admired and honored the original, but also its message.  Chan’s Mr. Han was every bit as nuanced as the original Miyagi, and the story of the outsider was just as poignant in the new story as in the 1984 version.  In many ways it is a superior film, the class struggle has a more meaningful ending (even if it is a bit more Hollywood) as Jayden’s character, the young Dre, receives acceptance from Meiying’s family unlike Daniel who did not receive the same from Ali’s.  The martial arts message is just as clear, and the ending in which the Kid receives acceptance is a bit more in-your-face.  It displayed some terrific film making and a very interesting partnership between U.S. and Chinese film industries.  In one scene Han appears to chase flies with chopsticks, playing off of the notion in the original of Miyagi trying to catch a fly with chopsticks.  Han then smacks the fly with a fly swatter, showing that this is the same film, but a different film at the same time.  It doesn’t mock the original scene or claim to be better, it simply announces that this different film.

It fails to achieve the near-perfection of Fistful of Dollars however in some aspects and due to its compromises.  Through no fault of his own, 12-year-old Jayden Smith is not quite the emotionally powerful actor 16-year-old Ralph Macchio was in the original.  Macchio’s character was goofy, fun, playful, helpless, brash, and despairing and Macchio was able to portray all of these remarkably well.  Jayden’s character, Dre, didn’t have nearly the range given to Daniel in the 1984 version, partially due to the writing, and while Jayden was excellent in some areas, he was only serviceable in others, largely due to inexperience.  Still it is easy to see he will probably achieve every bit of the ability his father has at portraying both drama and comedy effectively as he ages.  The most disappointing aspect of the film is Mr. Han’s tragedy is nowhere near as meaningful as Mr. Miyagi’s, and that point, one of the most powerful points in the first film, is misused in the remake.

In the 1984 version Miyagi served honorably in World War II as a soldier in Europe.  While he bravely served his nation, winning a medal of honor (a fact not thrust in the audience’s face through dialogue but found by Daniel during the scene), his pregnant wife was in a Japanese internment camp in the United States where she died during child birth due to the poor medical treatment available in the camp.  Miyagi bravely served his adoptive nation, while the nation’s racist policies essentially killed his wife and child.  On the anniversary of his wife’s (and unborn child’s) death, Miyagi dresses in his army jacket and drinks his pains away.  The scene breaks the stone-wall-like Miyagi down, the man who seems so unbeatable shows he has been beaten by life; it shows why he is lonely, why he at first refuses to allow Daniel into his life, and eventually why he comes to accept him as a surrogate son.  Daniel for his part can only listen to what has happened.  When Miyagi finally passes out, Daniel can only make him comfortable in his bed and cover him with blankets.  He then goes through Miyagi’s World War II materials, which Miyagi has stashed away, medals and commendations, and the photograph of his wife.  The scene remains powerful because of its multilayered messages: Miyagi was a hero then, he stays a hero now; he can save Daniel in a way he couldn’t save his own son; and for Daniel’s part he sees there are some problems that cannot be fixed, talked out, or ever gotten over; all he can do is be there for his friend.

Mr. Han suffered his own tragedy, losing his wife and son in a car accident after an argument.  During the film we see Han working on a beaten up Volkswagen Scirocco in his home.  On the day Dre doesn’t train he comes to see Han who is destroying the car he just restored.  He relates the story of his wife and son, (who was a couple years younger than Dre), when he and his wife argued, and he accidentally wrecked the car in a rainstorm, killing both his wife and son.  While Han is old enough to have experienced some of the more relevant and important moments in recent Chinese history (such as the Great Leap Forward) that would have more poignantly paralleled the original story, I get the impression the Chinese film industry possibly did not want to criticize recent Chinese history as thoroughly as Avildson was willing to criticize recent American history.  We’re left instead with a car wreck, which admittedly is tragic.  The more problematic element is that Dre helps Han by doing one of their training sessions immediately after the story.  I can understand the impetus for this, some audiences may have desired a more active resolution to the subplot, but it is far more effective in the 1984 version.  Not everything can be easily fixed.  Not every problem can be resolved.  Anyone who has had a friend cry on their shoulder knows sometimes the only thing you can do is be there until they recover, and be there the next time.  The newer version took the easy way out on this subplot, which is a major disappointment, but not fatal to the film, which remains, overall, an excellent remake just shy of achieving a Fistful of Dollars level remake.

Remakes and Reboots: Part 2

On By James CastroIn MoviesLeave a comment

The Homage Remake

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, though it’s not as widely respected in the mass-public as the films of Leone and Kurosawa, is a historic film in its own right.  Not only is it the film that launched the modern zombie genre of the walking dead who crave human flesh and can be dispatched with a shot to the head, but it blazed social trails by including a non-stereotypical African-American man as not only the lead, but a self-less hero.  It is in many ways as successful a story as Yojimbo and in its own way is as well made.  It too was made in black and white well into the color-film era, and it too launched a series of copy cats, parodies, and sequels.  The 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, made by special effects guru and Romero alum Tom Savini was a different kind of remake than Fistful; it was the exact same film with a new cast on updated film.  Savini had no desire to one-up the great Romero.  It was a gorier, little-more-rowdy version of the original and introduced the genre to an entire generation of kids who refused to watch black and white films strictly because they were black and white.  In many ways this 1990 remake renewed a waning interest in zombie horror.

The Premise Remake

When interest in new zombie horror films peaked again after 28 Days Later, a film that broke from Romero’s rules and created its own mythology became another remake of a Romero film that brought the genre back to its roots.  Dawn of the Dead (2004) is a new generation of remakes.  This film, unlike the previous two examples, took merely the premise of the original (people fleeing zombies barricade themselves into a mall) and wrapped an entirely new narrative around it.  In the original Dawn of the Dead (1974), Romero used the zombie genre to comment on social issues once again, this time mass-consumerism, as the people stuck in the mall are initially more concerned with stealing money, goods and enjoying living the good life in their castle-of-inexhaustible-delights.  The 2004 remake by Zack Snyder takes the premise of people fleeing the zombie apocalypse to a mall but says very little about consumerism (there is one line, “I don’t want you sneaking around and stealing shit.”).  Instead, it is more about how personalities respond when sequestered together, moral decisions, and survival.  While Snyder’s remake is not as culturally poignant, it is still a fun movie that maintains Romero’s mood of straight horror with some comedic undertones.  It too, is a successful remake as it takes the premise, builds a new story, and does it well.  It’s flashier, brighter, faster, and slicker than Romero’s film, but its rock video veneer matches its style and lends itself to the story.  It never insults the original or claims to be superior; it more or less ignores it and simply uses its premise to make a new, entertaining movie.