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Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.The F.B.I. spends a lot of time and resources hunting down dangerous criminals and devious terrorists. It also exerts a lot of effort in the pursuit and prosecution of kids like David McKay and Brad Crowder, the so-called "Texas Two" who took a few wrong turns and ended up the main attractions of a three-ring circus of entrapment, paranoia, and dubious motives. How it all came about is a curious and occasionally sickening sight. Documentarians Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega take the story of a how a seemingly hapless pair of activists stumbled into the harsh spotlight of the American security establishment and turn it into an oblique indictment of a society in which fear trumps all. McKay and Crowder were a couple of pleasant-seeming 22-year-olds from Midland, Texas who actually just wanted to make a world better than the one they were faced with during the presidency of George W. Bush. Like so many activists before them, they weren't exactly sure how to go about doing this and appeared to be somewhat adrift in the movement before they came across Brandon Darby. A dark and intense guy ten years their senior, Darby was everything a young activist might look up to. He helped run a social-work collective in New Orleans, and had saved people from post-Katrina flooding. Wielding a guerrilla's dash and flair, Darby bonded with McKay and Crowder but also challenged them to ratchet up their level of protest activities. A combination of cool older brother and street-lefty drill instructor, Darby egged them on to more serious actions.
Unfortunately, Darby turned out to have been a classic agent provocateur, there not just to push the budding activists into taking unlikely and extreme actions but also to ensure that they will eventually go to jail for it. He is also the encapsulation of the film's moral crux: no matter what McKay and Crowder intended to do once they arrived at the 2008 Republican Convention in St. Paul, they didn't appear to go through with it. But that point seems irrelevant in the cold and creepy world of post-9/11 security-state paranoia which Better This World summons all too vividly.
The filmmakers come out of the TV-journalistic side of documentary filmmaking and so weave strands of smartly-handled interviews with the principals throughout the film. Besides getting the story from the arrestees themselves and their (understandably baffled) family, Galloway and de la Vega also loop in several representatives of the prosecutorial team, who talk about the case with admirable dispassion. The result is mostly even-handed and non-confrontational, noting the Orwellian atmosphere of conviction without action but not playing just for sympathy. Undercoating the narrative is an unsettling sense of the modern surveillance society, seeded as the film is with ambient streams of surveillance footage from the streets of St. Paul, where the stormtrooper-attired police seemed to outnumber the protestors. Against their dark, serried ranks, a gaggle of masked protestors seem comically outmatched.
What this searching and provocative film creates is less a case of highwire drama than a punishing stumble into a looking-glass world where criminals are made so that they can be undone and the high, humane ideals of utterly decent people become nothing more than fuel for their downfall.
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![Rise of the Planet of the Apes [Blu-ray]](/41ukVV1e63LSL500.jpg)
A galaxy's worth of nihilism buried under a '70s Velveeta topping, the Planet of the Apes series stands today as a dark marvel of pop cinema, a group of wildly variable films that combine to form a giant inescapable kiss-off to the human race. (That said message was able to withstand such distractions as ever-cheapening makeup and Charlton Heston loudly pounding sand makes its achievements even more impressive, really.) Boasting a keen awareness of its predecessors' particular charms and a gem of a central CGI performance by Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes makes for a rather miraculous summer movie: a big-budget special effects extravaganza that also delivers a killer backhand. Sort of redoing 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the film follows the events set in motion when a bereaved scientist (James Franco) attempts to create a cure for Alzheimer's, resulting in a supernaturally intelligent chimp named Caesar. The old bit about science tampering in God's domain quickly applies. Director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) displays an admirable sense of pacing, deftly levying the escalating action scenes with small character moments from the likes of John Lithgow and Brian Cox. That said, the film belongs to Caesar, whose path from wide-eyed innocent to reluctant revolutionary generates the ironic pulp empathy that gave the original series such a kick. Watching the climactic confrontation on the Golden Gate Bridge, it's distressingly easy to figure out which side to root for. Chuck Heston would no doubt grit his teeth in approval. Note: Those skeptical that this revamp could wholly retain the original's doomy backbeat would do well to stick around during the end credits. --Andrew WrightPrice: $39.99
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Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.There is only one definitive shark movie: Jaws. All others (Open Water, Blood Surf, Deep Blue Sea) are just pretenders to the aquatic throne. You can cheese it up (Megalodon), confuse it up (Cyclone), or straight out copy it (insert name of foreign rip-off here) and you still can't better Steven Spielberg's original Summer blockbuster. Luckily, something like Shark Night 3D doesn't even try. Instead, it goes for a more semi-schlock oriented approach to underwater horror. Sadly, the decision to go PG-13, and the lack of a significant sense of its inherent strengths, all but destroys any potential fun. With Finals rapidly winding down, a group of students from Tulane University decide to head out to a nearby Louisiana lake and participate in a little drunken R&R. They include conveniently pre-med Nick (Dustin Milligan), bad girl Beth (Katherine McPhee), gamer geek Gordon (Joel David Moore), football star Maliki (Sinqua Walls), his soon to be fiancé Maya (Alyssa Diaz), male model type Blake (Chris Zylka) and the owner of the island pad, rich misunderstood ice queen Sara (Sara Paxton).
Arriving in the adjoining small town, they run into the local rube sheriff (Donal Logue) and rude hicks Red (Joshua Leonard) and Dennis (Chris Carmack). They also discover that the waters are somehow filled with multiple man-eating sharks. Soon, it becomes readily apparent that someone is using these underwater killers as fodder for a fiendish plot - with our undergrads as the less than enthusiastic bait.
Shark Night 3D is such a disappointment. At least the last time we saw partying teens being attacked by evil fishies, it was in service of the slyly subversive and satiric Piranha 3D. There, director Alexandre Aja understood that nothing spells mindless exploitative entertainment better than an abundance of B's - babes, breasts, blood, buffoons, and beasts. The result was a jokey genre mash-up where lewdness and laughter went hand in severed hand. In this case, however, director David R. Ellis must have been under strict orders to make the MPAA happy. There's no gore, no naked women (we do get to see Chris Zylka's butt, if that's any consolation), and definitely no excitement. It's as if someone decided to make a shark attack movie and then restricted themselves to avoid splatter almost all together. Boo!
Besides, who begins by blatantly ripping off Spielberg and thinks they can get away with it? The script, by Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg starts out with a couple getting frisky in the water. He swims away, she stays around, and the next thing you know, our victim is doing a lame Susan Backlinie imitation. As she swirls around in the surf, bits of pint foam indicating the carnage going on beneath the surface, you'd swear it was 1975 all over again. You'd also swear that had Jaws been this way, that new kid Steve...Someone would never have gotten a second job.
Indeed, all throughout Shark Night 3D is a sense that Ellis doesn't know what he's doing. Give him some Snakes on a Plane or a Final Destination or 2 and he's more than capable. But with the underwater footage (confused and muddied by the inclusion of the unnecessary 3D), the kills are crappy. We don't come to a nature gone wild movie to hear boring backstory and crudely drawn character traits. Shark Night 3D overdoses on these while keeping the body parts and bobbing torsos to a bare (if clothed) minimum.
When we finally hear the reason behind the appearance of these uncommon critters, when the motive for the wild wicked waterworks is made clear, Shark Night 3D finds a brief moment of goofy charm. The rest of the time, this is subpar SyFy Channel chum.
A Good Old Fashioned Orgy has no ambition but is a lot of fun because of it. It may not be as sweet at heart as Our Idiot Brother, but this fun little throwaway offers strong performances from an ensemble of historically underappreciated bit players. What it lacks in drive, it makes up for in barrels of heart. Granted, this movie isn't exactly ha-ha funny; very little of it will leave you rolling in the aisles because there are, quite simply, too many cooks in the soup, too many stories to juggle and conflicts to resolve, not all of them inherently humorous. But this nice little coming-of-delayed-age story wisely shies away from treacly sentiment, and for that we should be grateful. Where does the orgy come in, though? We're getting to it, relax. What happens is that a Peter-Pan complex, ostensibly employed frat boy type named Eric (Jason Sudeikis), known for throwing popular themed parties at his father's shore house in the Hamptons, is suddenly facing the end of his reign: Dad is selling the house. Facing eviction, our hero gathers his motley crew of partiers (Will Forte, Tyler Labine, Lake Bell, The League's Nick Croll, among others) for one final, private orgy amongst friends to send the house off correctly.Our protagonists have been friends since high school, and it doesn't take long for icky emotional complications to emerge. Happily, the movie doesn't dwell on them for too long to amp up the melodrama, opting for speedy resolution instead of a drawn-out sapfest to move us to the orgy of the title (yes, it happens). What hinders the movie, really, is the lead character: Sudeikis is a funny, funny guy who is definitely ready for a lead role, but Eric seems like kind of a wet noodle; if the guy's not drunk you can barely even tell he has a pulse, and how he managed to get (and keep) a semi-legit looking New York job is a mystery the film never addresses. His flirty romance with a realtor (Leslie Bibb) has a lot of meet-cute moments, but never really clicks for some reason. The movie, then, belongs solely to Tyler Labine, who broke out as the slacker friend in the show Reaper a few years back, then recently had a resurgence as one of the monkeyologists in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. With another quirky movie out on the way (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil), Labine seems poised for a major run as a comedy player, and you can see why here: he practically bounces off the walls, all impish id and raging hormones, tequila-in-hand, a facilitator of terrible decisions. The guy seems to have alcohol in his blood and a permanent carnal lust -- love doesn't cut it -- for life; the twinkle in his eyes when Sudeikis announces the orgy suggests a randiness the movie should have, but seems to shy away from.As for the orgy itself? It's funny, but a lot less about the sex than the mushy feelings that inevitably come out during the clumsy proceedings. It's far from the raunchfest you'd expect, but it is kind of sweetly naked, as much a rite of passage as the virginity pact from American Pie. Complain about the lack of naughty humor all you want, but for all its faults, there's a certain logic to taking a movie about an orgy and saddling it with the message that all you need is love.
Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Someone, please! Stop the found footage film before it kills entertainment and the horror film again... and this time, for good. From The Last Exorcism to Paranormal Activity, the recent rash of post-Blair Witch wannabes just don't get the basic cinematic needs of the increasingly sloppy subgenre. Perhaps primary among these is the concept of a reasonable threat. Having noises go bump in the night or a momentary glimpse of a ghostly figure doesn't generate suspense, just shock - and even then, the effect is succinct. It doesn't linger. You also need a logical reason for a camera to be constantly on. No one, not even the most dedicated reporter or frightened friend will keep the lens trained on a superbeast as it runs ramshackle over downtown Manhattan. In the new, nauseatingly bad Apollo 18, we get a hopelessly inept POV presentation that's part irritating urban legend, part common conspiracy theory, and all awful. The notion that NASA has been pulling our chain over the entire space program is not new. There are still people who do not believe that man ever set foot on the moon. In this case, the supposedly canceled 18th mission to our interstellar neighbor was not put off at all. Instead, the material gathered was held back and classified "Top Secret"...which doesn't stop some fictional group of hackers (or whatever) from gathering the reels and hastily editing together an "explanation" as to what really happened back in 1974.
Apparently, it had nothing to do with spoiled space food sticks. A pair of astronauts - Ben Anderson (Warren Christie) and Nate Walker (Lloyd Owen) - are sent skyward to retrieve more samples from the moon's rocky surface. In the process, they come across as Russian spaceship, a Cosmonaut corpse, and the distinct feeling that they are not alone. Sure enough, something else is on the planet with them, something intent on keeping their presence unknown by whatever means necessary (usually by killing whoever they come across).
Since it basically does nothing right (not even the various stock elements seem realistic), here are all the things Apollo 18 does wrong. First, it fails to get us caught up in the claustrophobic conceit of the setting. Instead of sticking to the capsule and the craven evil outside, we are constantly wandering the vast lunar surface, the wide open outer spaces draining all the dread from the scenario. Second, we don't care about Ben and Nate. They are interchangeable cogs in a completely uninvolving tale. Third, the supposed threat is so laughable that, within days, bootlegged images will be appearing everywhere, if simply to continue the moviegoer mockery. Finally, by trying to trade on all the "is it true" skepticism of modern audiences, the film simply fuels a lot of foolish speculation, especially where none need be or could be.
Don't be mistaken - there is a decent idea here. The notion of being trapped in space with an almost indestructible 'thing' has been done before...and better (right, Ridley Scott???). But instead of working through the material logically, Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego shows off his post-production timing and tweaking skills. In fact, the filmmaker spends so much time making his movie look like it was shot some 40 years ago that he forgets to give it any energy or excitement. We end up bored and befuddled, wondering why so much effort is being expelled for so little payoff.
The ad campaign for this movie argued that there was a reason we never returned to the moon after the 'last' Apollo mission. Apparently, 13 wasn't NASA's unluckiest number. 18 was/is - at least, for those unfortunate enough to buy a ticket to see this turkey.
Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, adapted by Mr. Sfar from his own graphic novel of the same name, drifts for much of its extended runtime like a stream of Technicolor tobacco smoke, not unlike the sensual puff escaping the titular songwriter, crooner, pianist and infamous pussy hound's lips on the film's original poster. Floating through a long string of famous lovers (and a good amount of not so famous ones), Gainsbourg's life is presented by Sfar as a phantasmagorical bachelor party, replete with fantastical doubles, endowed with lecherous humor and largely unburdened by any sort of emotional gravitas, even when confronted with the Nazi occupation. Born Lucien Ginsburg (Kacey Mottet Klein), a French Jew living with two sisters and his demanding but loving parents, Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino) was a musical prodigy bathed in cinematic myth and thusly, Sfar has a time drenching this affable pageant in sex and pop psychology, and fitting it with a leisurely voiceover. Bouncing not so quickly from his youthful days of piano lessons with his fathers and imagined dates with flirtatious art models to his first proper love affair with, and short-lived marriage to, Elisabeth Levitsky (Deborah Grall), a friend of Salvador Dali and assistant to George Hugnet, who Gainsbourg refers to as "Hippolady" upon exiting their relationship, Sfar's film offers some ravishing visual delicacies. But it's also burdened by its rigidly linear progression. Gainsbourg's love life becomes a humorous, if somewhat plodding mess about halfway in, leaving his exchanges with the imaginary Professor Flipus (the immensely talented Duncan Jones) to pick up the slack.
Professor Flipus, an exaggerated creature with a beak that would scare off a pelican, is the most outrageous of Sfar's creations, not to mention the most unpredictable vision in this tragically predictable film. Like most biopics, Sfar's picture accentuates the two major romances of Gainsbourg's life, beginning with his partnership with Brigitte Bardot, played here, somewhat convincingly, by model Laetitia Casta. One of the more enjoyable sequences in the film details a songwriting process between the two, climaxing with Casta dancing wildly with only a bed sheet to cover herself, but it's not nearly as funny as Gainsbourg and his later partner, Jane Birkin (the late Lucy Gordon), playing their orgasmic collaboration, "Je t'aime...noi non plus", for a sweaty exec. The synthesis of Bardot and Gainsbourg's brilliantly untamed "Bonnie & Clyde" is given, sadly, less attention.
Gainsbourg's relationships with equally fascinating figures, such as Juliette Greco (Anna Mouglalis), Boris Vian (Philippe Katerine), and France Gall (Sara Forestier), are inexplicably given far less time than even Gainsbourg's final love, Bambou (Mylene Jampanoi), whom he picks up at a night club. Indeed, the film is at its best when Gainsbourg's charismatic, unlikely troubadour vibe is embraced, giving the proceedings the air of an intoxicated odyssey. This comes through in the film's earlier passages but it ends not too long into his tryst with Bardot. Things go from middling to borderline unbearable when Gainsbourg inevitably suffers a series of tragedies, beginning with his father's death and ending with Birkin leaving him in his late years, not long after he records a reggae version of "La Marseillaise" and lands in the hospital due to his excessive smoking.
Still, if Sfar's film isn't nearly as heroic as the film's title, ironic or not, announces it to be, it maintains an engaging weightlessness and Elmosnino, so good in last year's The Father of My Children, holds the screen with admirable, animated charm. There are several trappings that come about when attempting to depict an icon and if Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life indulges in about half of them and only slightly contorts the other half, it's still superior to the rigid mimicry and unimaginative direction of the oft-maligned Walk the Line or even the marginally more appealing Ray. And if Sfar's film, with its bold color flourishes and demented humor, does nothing more than get a few neophytes interested in Gainsbourg's work, it's hardly the worst thing that could happen.
aka Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique)
John Scalzi is an award-winning science fiction writer.Hey! Want to know what you, the discerning science fiction and fantasy fan, can look forward to at the movies for the rest of 2011? Of course you do. And I want to tell you. It's nice when it works like that. Contagion (September 9)
Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh is on record that this is his version of the old Irwin Allen disaster films, in which a bunch of big stars wandered around while a building burned, or a ship sank, or a bunch of bees attacked Michael Caine or whatever. This time the disaster is a rapidly mutating virus, and the big stars include Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law. A cheerful way to start the fall.
The Thing (October 14)
This film is titled like a remake of John Carpenter's 1982 film but is apparently meant to be a prequel -- it takes place just before the events of that film. I suspect this will be a distinction without a difference once the alien starts mutating. I want to see whether three decades of special effects advances will be able to top Rob Bottin's makeup and effects work in the '82 version. It's got its work cut out for it.
Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis (October 14)
Here's a film with two levels of scifi nostalgia: First for the groundbreaking 1927 science fiction film, and then for the 1984 soundtrack that composer Moroder grafted onto it, featuring Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar and Adam Ant, among others. The film is getting a 20-city run prior to a Blu-ray release. It's not for purists (not just because of the soundtrack; it was trimmed to less than 90 minutes), but for those of us who saw this version first, oh, the memories.
The Three Musketeers (October 21)
Since when is The Three Musketeers science fiction and/or fantasy? Since Paul W.S. Anderson got hold of it and decided to steampunk it all up, with floating battleships and Milla Jovovich dropped in as a terminatrix (or whatever it is she's doing in the flick). And it's in 3D! I don't hold Anderson in particularly high regard as a director -- he's about what you'd get if you fed Ridley Scott a diet of lead-based paint chips since childhood -- so I expect this to be loud and stupid, with just enough visual panache to squeak by.
In Time (October 28)
The trailers make this film look like what would happen if Logan's Run and Bonnie and Clyde loved each other very much and had a baby. If you caught the film references there, you may be too old to enjoy the cast of this film, which includes Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy, and Alex Pettyfer. This was written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who has one science fiction classic to his name (Gattaca), so hey, could be fun.
Immortals (November 11)
The previews for this tale of Greek gods and titans make it look like 300 on steroids, which considering how amped-up that movie was, is fairly ridiculous. Two things recommend it to me: an overachieving cast (which includes John Hurt, Freida Pinto, future Superman Henry Cavill, and Mickey Rourke as the bad guy), and director Tarsem Singh, who has a spectacular visual sense and may also just be crazy (see: The Cell and The Fall, his previous films). This will either be very cool or spectacularly bad.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part One) (November 18)
Oh, you know. Vampire weddings and stuff. At this point, you already know if you want to see this, and if you do, then go. Enjoy yourself. I want you to be happy with your sparkly vampires.
The Muppets (November 23)
Neither science fiction nor fantasy (as long as you're willing to buy into the concept of autonomous creatures made of felt), but there's not a nerd out there who isn't filled with squee about the idea of a new Muppet movie. That said: Hey, Jason Segel (who wrote the script and stars in the film), you mess this up and the Feds will have to put you into the Witness Relocation program. I'm just saying.
The Darkest Hour (December 25)
Invisible alien invaders try to take over Moscow! As they would. And it's up to a bunch of twentysomethings on vacation to save the world! As they would. This is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who graced the world with Wanted, which I enjoy more than I really want to admit. This looks more than a little silly, but yeah. Still looking forward to it.
Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.Mutants save the world and a killer girl goes on the run; X-Men: First Class creates a 1960s back story for Xavier's future battling mutants, while in Hanna a girl is hunted down by secret agents who don't know who they're up against; these and other films coming this week to Blu-ray and DVD. 
Hanna
Atonement director Joe Wright reunites with that film's pre-adolescent star Saoirse Ronan for a fairy tale-styled thriller about a young girl (Ronan) raised by her father (Eric Bana) to be an unstoppable killing machine. When a soulless government agency comes for her, they find out just how good her training was, and the chase is on. Cate Blanchett also stars as the embodiment of villainy. "On a purely physical level," our critic wrote, "Hanna grabs you by the throat and never lets go."
Scarface 
Has Universal run out of ways to repackage and market its blood-drenched 1983 gangster "classic" Scarface? Based on this new "Limited Edition Steelbook" case with Blu-ray and digital copies, it appears the answer is no. Our critic found it "bloated" and "self-important." Many fans disagree, as the film's continual reissuing attests to.
It makes nothing but complete sense that Love Crime, the final film to be completed by Alain Corneau before the French filmmaker succumbed to cancer a year ago (nearly to the day), has caught the attention of Brian de Palma, who plans to remake the film in the coming year. A brisk, messy, and wholly laughable take on cutthroat business politics, Corneau's film is reminiscent of a great deal of de Palma's work, though it lacks his (pardon) cojones and his sense of acidic humor. There's a hesitancy to go for the jugular here, and it keeps Corneau's final film, nowhere near as interesting as his underappreciated 2003 gem, Fear and Trembling, from touching the savage truths found in the clash of corporate culture and an executive workforce made up more and more by women. This hesitancy and the film's wonky tone are evident from the film's first sequence, in which head-honcho Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) shifts a home-meeting with her doting assistant, Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier), into a spot of gal-pal time which begets the sort of shoulder and backrub that high school boys always think will get them laid. It cools off, however, as Isabelle is obviously not down with it, and Christine quickly retaliates by fondling boy-toy Philippe's (Patrick Mille) genitals with her foot. This adequately sets up the battle lines, though Isabelle is still all too happy to stay up late working on a deal with some American manufacturer and allow Christine to take the credit, in order to secure Christine's departure to New York.
Problems, as they tend to do, rear their heads when Philippe and Isabelle embark on a short-lived affair, following an in-the-moment fling during a business trip to Cairo. This seeming betrayal refreshingly doesn't seem to matter all that much to Christine and it certainly doesn't matter as much as Isabelle going rogue and getting all the credit for a project with their Washington D.C. clients, subsequently botching Christine's big move to Manhattan. Corneau, thankfully, pushes through all of this relatively quickly and leaves a far greater amount of time to soak in Christine's multi-level humiliation of Isabelle, not to mention the preposterous revenge plot that Isabelle puts into action following her mentor's torturous games.
Isabelle's vengeance takes up nearly half of the film and it is by some margin the most delirious and unbelievable facet of this sexually-tinged drama. This is a film that a Chabrol or a Breillat would have done wonders with but, strangely, it becomes something of a disposable, if oddly likable entertainment in the hands of Corneau. The filmmaker's sense of pacing, not to mention his relationship with editor Thierry Derocles, certainly plays a part in this bizarre enjoyment but the real reason is Sagnier and Thomas, whose relishing of these diabolical roles is infectious, even invigorating. Big marks go to the great Thomas but though this is a role that puts Sagnier's limitations as a performer in bold, her presence powers the film even when the script, written by Corneau and Nathalie Carter, fails her.
I would rather not give away the surprises of the second half of Corneau's film, but needless to say, there are some gaps in logic. These gaps, of course, would be fine if Corneau had fully embraced the lunacy of his film and his script but, sad to say, his nature as a filmmaker wasn't in the same range as masters like de Palma or Paul Verhoeven. So, Love Crime ultimately rides the fence between psycho-sexual delirium and soggy, Grisham-esque corporate intrigue. It's certainly not an outright debacle but it's certainly disappointing. Corneau was capable of so much more, and you know he won't be able to prove that again.
aka Crime d'Amour
What is Red State? Is it an anti-God movie? Meh, yes and no. Anti-Christian? Depends on the Christian, it turns out. Anti-sex? Well, it's a Kevin Smith move, so maybe not that, although in the great horror tradition, hanky-panky is the ultimate harbinger of death. Anti-government? You wouldn't think it till towards the end, but yeah. It kind of is.
As a writer (and in the media), Kevin Smith has never made any bones about voicing his opinion; he's one of our most outspoke (and best, although the two are not necessarily related) writers, and when he gets his panties in a bunch, it typically makes for a pretty fascinating script. Dogma and Clerks, though both comedies, each carried a kind of tongue-in-cheek anger towards concepts like organized religion and adulthood. Jay and Silent Bob are the ultimate slacker rebels, raging against a machine where they can't even be bothered to figure out what it is.
But when a movie's enemy is everything and everyone, all that's left to do is enjoy it for what it is; in that regard, Smith's horror debut, Red State, is a frustratingly fantastic movie that would be better and leave more of an impact if it bothered to take some kind of a side. The movie doesn't carry Smith's tademark wit or subtlety, but then again, when your villains are a bunch of gun-toting fundamentalists, there's only so much wiggle room to play it low-key. the film is beautifully made and wonderfully acted, with an ending that can best be described as happy-ish and an outstanding villain. It is, in other words, the exact prototype for a good, not great, horror movie.
All of which is a testament to Smith the writer; he's a comedian by trade but Red State's script is a great throwback to horror classics; The Texas Chain Saw Massacre comes immediately to mind because the movie seems to put a lot of its weight behind romanticizing, or at least rationalizing, its killer.
And what a killer he is: as Abin Cooper, patriarch and pastor to the movie's batch of crazies, Michael Parks (Kill Bill, From Dusk Till Dawn) preens to and fro like a hyena, Smith's camera lovingly framing his craggy face and shock-white hair in towering, low-angle close-ups. The preacher backs up his fire-and-brimstone sermons with a big armory, and within five minutes of meeting him, it's easy to tell why he is revered and followed, and why his word is enough to convince his family to tie up and murder kidnapped homosexuals.
Granted, you could argue that the movie sides with the three good ol' boy teenagers (Kyle Gallner, Nicholas Braun and Michael Angarano) who fall into Cooper's clutches, but things go south for them pretty fast, so it's hard to imagine any sympathy for them on the filmmakers' part. Ditto for the honest but outranked G-man (John Goodman) who enters in the second act, when the movie turns into a shoot-em-up hostage situation. He exists mainly to play the straight man in this madhouse, embody the corruption of government (he's ordered to kill innocent children when the Coopers are classified as terrorists), and to deliver what amounts to the film's message during a debriefing at the very end of the movie.
But the movie tends to find its feet more when Cooper's front and center, although there is very strong supporting work from Melissa Leo, True Blood vets Stephen Root and Kevin Alejandro, and Kerry Bishé from Scrubs. Smith's style translates well into horror, and he proves himself a skilled master of suspense with quick cuts and herky-jerky cinematography; each character is framed lovingly with blood during the climax, just enough to highlight the kind of weird natural beauty of life in jeopardy. A supernatural twist towards the end is handled extremely well, when it could have brought the move to a screeching halt.
All in all, it's a hell of a movie and a mark of Smith's talent, but Red State falls short of his pantheon because for the first time, we don't know who he's mad at. He sprays vitrol anywhere and everywhere; there re no villains and no heroes, only those who believe and those who do not. It's an interesting idea but somewhat lost in the execution; the fury is clearly there, what's missing is the focus and power of righteousness.
Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.Chaos in the family and anarchy in the northwest woods; Tyler Perry's heroine slaps some sense into her relatives in Madea's Big Happy Family, while in If a Tree Falls... environmental activists test how far their ideals will take them; these and other films that qualify as full-on failures (Prom, In a Better World) or must-see classic (Miller's Crossing, If...) come this week to Blu-ray and DVD. Madea's Big Happy Family
Shirley (Loretta Devine) is dying of cancer and wants to bring her family together to tell them. But is that collection of selfish and thoughtless relatives going to make it easy for her? Nope. So it's up to Aunt Madea (writer/director Tyler Perry) to roll up and start cracking heads. Our critic called this easily "the best film of Tyler Perry's career," serving up a "clever combination of humor and heart."
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front was founded in the Pacific Northwest by activists who thought that peaceful protests weren't doing enough to stop environmental destruction. Several extremely well-planned arsons later, the government branded the ELF domestic terrorists and started hunting them down. Our writer called this story of "how a muscular anti-logging campaign devolved into sectarian turmoil that shot off radicalized cells like burning cinders" both "fascinating" and "rewarding."
Wrecked
A man (Adrien Brody) wakes up in a smashed car at the bottom of a ravine, with his leg trapped inside the front seat, a dead body in the back, and no idea of how he got there. In this inventive Canadian indie that mixes up the man-against-the-elements theme of 127 Hours with the fractured memory of Memento, Brody's character must slowly and methodically figure out not only how to escape but how to survive in the world afterward. Our critic termed Wrecked "a decent little experiment" that succeeds due to some "smart directing choices, a tight script, and a sensational tour de force performance" by Brody.
Police, Adjective 
This Romanian curiosity from writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu is ostensibly a police procedural about a cop investigating a drug ring, but in truth it's an absurdist joke in which next to nothing happens. Our critic wasn't impressed with the result: "Congratulations, Porumboiu, you got what you wanted: You made a film so mundane, so accurate to real life, that no one would be interested in watching it."
Skateland
In this wistful, semi-autobiographical nostalgia piece set, a slacker 19-year-old is spending his summer working at the roller rink in his small Texas town, circa the early-1980s. There are numerous comparisons that could be made between this piece and other looking-backward stories about the hazy days of youth. But our critic writes that, unlike Dazed and Confused and Adventureland, Skateland "can't compare to the efforts it is mimicking," because it's "as uninvolving as paging through a sloppy, poorly kept scrapbook."
Forks Over Knives
The proposition put forth by this issue documentary is a simple one that's quite easy to believe: If we all ate nothing but fruits and vegetables, we would likely be much healthier and happier. Our writer was disgruntled, however, by the film's "messianic zeal," which he thought reduced a perfectly good argument to "grinding and insulting propaganda."
In a Better World
Susanne Bier's ambitious drama straddles two stories: one in which a Danish boy moves to London and goes too far when he exacts revenge on a bully, and a second in which a Danish doctor in Kenya has to make a moral decision when a brutal warlord comes asking for medical care. "Socially, politically, and psychologically, these are deep waters for any director to be swimming in," our critic wrote, concluding that the result was "unimaginative, dour, and just a bit dull."
The Perfect Host 
David Hyde Pierce plays a blithe and well-spoken man who happily invites in for dinner a stranger who shows up saying they have a friend in common. Then Pierce drugs the man and the macabre absurdity begins. Our critic enjoyed Pierce's performance but couldn't find much to say about this "toneless" comedy with "a long lead-up and no punch-line" that reminded him of Clue, "but stripped entirely of comic and theatrical self-recognition."
Prom
"A neutered, happy-face mess." "Patched together with very little rhyme or reason." "Peddles the standard Disney Princess model of sincere wallflower-meets-rough-hewn hero and falls in doe-eyed love." "Ode to cutesy tween pseudo-angst." These weren't even the worst things our writer said about this latest Disney pre-adolescent offering.
If...
Malcolm McDowell plays a twist on his A Clockwork Orange sociopath in this surrealistic 1968 British antihero classic about a devilish rebel at a stiff-necked boarding school who tries to see how far he can bend the rules. By the time the machine guns come out, it's apparent they're pretty flexible. Our writer said that "To call If.... audacious would be one of cinema's biggest understatements." Now available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.
Miller's Crossing 
Released in 1990, the Coen brothers' third film is a half-satiric, half-existential riff on the gangster film, evoking everything from broad farce to The Godfather to philosophical exercises on the meaning of language. Gabriel Byrne stars in his finest role as a conflicted lieutenant to a Prohibition-era Irish mob boss who goes to war with the local Italian mob for no good reason. Our writer called it "one of the soaring, inexplicable peaks of modern American filmmaking." Now available on Blu-ray. Check it out.
Much like the final trilogy of Star Wars films, director-producer Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is at its best when flaunting its artificiality. When impossibly endless landscapes are CGI'd across the scenery. When a drop-kick to the chest sends an assailant flipping backward through the air--twice. This is the kind of over-the-top Asian aesthetic that favors melodrama over drama, the very approach that sunk those Lucas films for many fans. The choice of fantasy over fable, prevalent in Chinese detective fiction, works for Tsui's 7th-century Chinese historical epic, even if the details stall along the way. Tsui, probably best known to American audiences for his collaborations with John Woo (the first two A Better Tomorrow films, The Killer) sets a CSI-type mystery smack in the middle of a milestone in Chinese lore: The only instance in which a woman ascended to the throne. The true-life empress was Wu Zetian (played by Carina Lau), and the action takes place in the time leading up to her taking the reins of the Chinese kingdom. (Sorry, queendom.)
While thousands of citizens slave away erecting a gigantic Buddha statue in the empress's honor, a pair of workers, well, spontaneously combust. One ignites by the Buddha's left eye while touring inside the statue; the other melts away while galloping on horseback. Some blame divine intervention. But the imprisoned ex-rebel known as Detective Dee (the remarkably prolific Andy Lau) has other ideas when asked to investigate.
There's an unmistakable, unintentional X-Files feel here. Remember those episodes where the idea of the inexplicable hung out there for us to believe... only for science and logic to win over the day? Myth vs. science plays a role here too, turning the film into a bit of a classically styled mystery as Detective Dee charges ahead to suss out the reality of the "phantom flame," all while trusting no one and sensing corruption and evil.
When Tsui's film winds it way through Dee's fact-finding, the proceedings tend to slow more than expected. We've already been reeled in by the lure of leaping martial arts and furious editing, so the gaps without that action can feel empty. And maybe even longer than they actually are.
The fight scenes -- frenetic, witty and occasionally overdone -- are choreographed by the legendary Sammo Hung, who, aside from acting briefly in an American TV series, has served as action director on countless films since the late 60s. For Hung, action is "acting," an emotive and flashy way to entertain. When you can get your bearings as a viewer, such fight sequences can be dynamic, even elating; with Tsui's direction, much of the whiz-bang energy feels choppy, almost overly structured. It's missing the inherent flow present in many martial arts-filled movie battles and wirework.
As a grandiose, folkloric adventure, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame sometimes evokes an Indiana Jones film. Other times, it's reminiscent of those made-for-TV "Librarian" adventures starring Noah Wyle. If you can expect the lulls with the lavish, Detective Dee is decent fun that George Lucas would certainly approve of.
Aka Di Renjie
Nick Nadel Nick Nadel is a comedy writer and blogger living in Brooklyn, NY full bio of Nick Nadel Tweet Did you see the first Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance trailer? Did you even know there's going to be a second Ghost Rider movie? You're excused if Nicolas Cage's return to Marvel's flaming undead motorcycle enthusiast slipped under your radar in a summer filled with quality comic book movies like Captain America and X-Men: First Class. While Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance won't be out until next February, the new trailer is raising hopes that the sequel will be an improvement on the 2007 original.
Swap out Johnny Blaze for Danny Ketch.
Ditch Nicolas Cage for some new blood.
Keep the story focused on street crime.
Make Ghost Rider scary.
Team up Ghost Rider with Punisher and Daredevil.
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