I still can’t get over Danny Glover’s mumble-mouthed performance in THE SHOOTER.
I mean, really, didn’t anyone feel like the Miracle Ear lady when they leaned over to their significant other in asking, “What the hell did he just say?” It really did seem like Danny poured a whole Val-U pack of rainbow Skittles into his mouth just prior to shooting any scene he was in.
And no one is saying, or reporting, on what has to be the worst case of annunciation ever captured on screen; for all I know, SHOOTER was actually some kind of training film for those afflicted with fricative or glottal issues in their throat. From the near spittle that was just yearning to be let loose on the faces Danny was aimed at to the saliva you were just hoping he would swallow, like he was keeping it in his mouth for as long as he could as a bet, there is no denying that this linguistic problem came and went without so much as a peep from anyone else.
It’s also not like I have an issue with those who have to try a little harder with getting their words out properly and clearly. I still am a big fan of Ed Begley Jr’s work as Stan Sitwell on Arrested Development and who would argue with the tonal delight in listening to Wallace Shawn in THE PRINCESS BRIDE as he debates a debate, or as his turn as a goofy dinosaur in TOY STORY, but, really, when you have to compare Sergeant Murtaugh to that chick wearing braces in 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN right before she goes down on Steve Carell there’s a problem.
Someone should have waited until Glover was finished with his Invisalign treatment. I really appreciated Marky Mark’s turn as G.I. Joe action hero like everyone else but, really, if I can have one wish for the DVD it would be for Danny’s lines to be accompanied with subtitles.
SUNSHINE (2007)
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh
Release: September 14, 2007
Synopsis: Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.
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Prognosis: Positive. You just cannot go awry when you use that signature Clint Mansell ditty.
I wasn’t so sure of what to expect out of Cillian Murphy when I saw his deflated member, the junk just exposed to the elements like an abandoned outhouse, in 28 DAYS LATER but the kid displayed the kind of range you need in a zombie movie, a skill that did not go unnoticed to Christopher Nolan who thought he would be perfect as the Scarecrow in BATMAN BEGINS. The guy is a silent killer on the screen. Even Chris Evans, who could have easily vaporized in the ether of teenage fare, a la Freddie Prinze Jr., but who is battling against his type; it’s impressive. Even I wasn’t that impressed with his early work but if there was one thing you could take away from THE FANTASTIC FOUR was how well he played off what he was given. That’s what’s so bold about the choice in minimizing everyone’s presence in this trailer.
It’s not so much odd as it is a pleasant change from what should have been the obvious way to market this movie right out of the gate. I assume as we get closer we will see a return to form, we’ll get more exposition and a more focused demographic pitch, but this is a curious example of what can be possible when you lean on the soundtrack to help out what’s on the screen.
We get a static shot of the sun, this orb of burning yellow gas the only thing we have to focus on, and, behind this, Cillian’s voiceover that just lays out everything about this movie. Everything. He states his name, how many people are going to help reignite the sun (with no regard to explaining to you how this all came to be), what his mission is and all the while we watch ourselves get closer and closer to the sun. There’s something innately intimate in all of this.
The spaceship they’re riding in is spectacularly rendered against the sun’s majestic presence on the screen. I can’t speak for anyone else but it seems imposing, claustrophobic almost, when you’re given some silence to soak in the premise of what these people are about to do.
And that’s when the music kicks in.
Boyle’s credit for helming TRAINSPOTTING and 28 DAYS LATER is well warranted here and it’s diminutive font and script isn’t imposing or pushy.
Flash to the crew who are plotting their course along with some strange stop-motion, bullet time, clips that tease just enough without being too confusing. Again, the sun’s largess is visually communicated very well to the point that when shit goes south, it’s ability to the one of the most heinous villains without so much as having a personality is what stays with you. Boyle had to create absolute destruction but also had to make the experience relevant to those of us watching it. When paint is bubbling, people are drowning, when fireballs are shooting off, and Clint’s score is reaching its zenith, you can’t help but be completely stoked in at least being curious to know what the hell is happening to these people. Yeah, and the person slamming their body against what looks like an airlock, Evans crying like a puss and the people sliding down a vertical cube?
Absolutely Riveting. And not one word spoken in between Cillian’s voice over.
Director: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Release: June 29, 2007
Synopsis: In the new animated-adventure, RATATOUILLE, a rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely – and certainly unwanted – visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy’s passion for cooking soon sets into motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.
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Prognosis: Negative. Anyone who puts CARS in their top three Pixar films of all time is either a liar or works as the Attorney General for President Bush. Take your pick.
The movie suffered from not only some pacing problems but the content itself was a little divergent, I would posit, from what kids could grasp onto and infuse with their own experiences. TOY STORY, MONSTERS INC., THE INCREDIBLES, all of these kid-relatable, garnered so much market share because it really embraced a wide spectrum. CARS not only boosted their look from an old cartoon that ran decades ago but the story wasn’t as kid friendly as Pixar’s other forays into animation. And that’s why HAPPY FEET sadly thrashed its ass at the Academy Awards.
With RATATOUILLE, though, I am a little torn because there are some of the same kind of non-kid elements that may have some resonance with adults but, as the trailer opens, when you have Parisian accordions playing, the Eiffel Tower clearly on display, and some wag wheeling out the cheese cart, and explaining various varieties of fromage, I’m not sure you’re hooking the kids who need to show up in order to make this a mega hit.
It’s damn near a third of the way into this thing before you get some of the slapstickiness kids gravitate toward like teen boys do to boobs. A third of the way is simply unacceptable if anyone at Pixar with half a working knowledge of children’s attention spans is behind this trailer.
But, for argument’s sake, let’s assume that this was someone’s grand design. That the first third is for adults and that the other two are really the ones that are going to hook the kids; everyone loves Tom and Jerry, right? And who the hell wouldn’t mind seeing Mickey get his in a restaurant?
Well, it really doesn’t get better.
You get the rat trying to steal away with the cheese and then we transition to a freeze-frame. Patton Oswalt announces his position as the titular rodent and when we come out of the moment we’re in the sewer getting a feel for what seems to be the pitch that greenlit this production.
Apart from the stark realization that we’re not being whisked to a different place in our collective mind’s eyes, it feels like an extended sidekick edition of King of Queens, I can’t say where the brilliance is or what’s the big fucking deal. First of all, Patton doesn’t fit. I like his work as a comedian but it’s jarring to witness. Secondly, you’ve got a rat talking about eating food. There’s no hook to be seen, no obvious angle that has been taken. Thirdly, when you look at this trailer you can’t help but feel an impending sense that if you are of the belief that there are no more original ideas in the world this just cements the idea.
There is one good thing, though, that comes out of the trailer that I feel deserves a mention:
Patton’s brother, friend, acquaintance, whoever, and gets a moment to talk. The bit about being able to suppress one’s gag reflex if you’re eating garbage and that a whole new world of food possibilities opens up as a result? Funny. About the only thing that was in this preview.
Director: Lee Tamahori
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann, Tory Kittles, Peter Falk
Release: April 27, 2007
Synopsis: Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which is a gift and a curse which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling “winnings.†But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.
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Prognosis: Negative. This is just bad; there isn’t any other way to describe it, I do apologize.
If I could put it another way it’s like seeing someone try their hardest in the Special Olympics knowing full well that no matter how much effort they’re putting into running the 50 meter dash in less than five minutes there just isn’t anything in their biological potential that could take on a true athlete…or a 3rd grader.
Nic Cage is that Special Olympian.
He so much wants to be an action star but that bean pole frame of his and that hairline, which is threatening to recede like an Ethiopian lake to the back of his skull, is going to prevent him from being perceived as an action hero. I could be slightly remiss in dismissing the man’s competency, and the opening sequences, cribbing from CLOCKWORK ORANGE and the nuclear ‘asplosion sequence from T-2, kind of give me the inflated hope that will quickly be popped like a pinpricked, swollen testicle sack.
Julianne Moore slides in to ask what evil portent Nic is able to see, I guess he has some ability to foresee the future, whoa, but Nic musters his best Action Hero ® voice in saying some bullshit about, “Blah, blah, blah, you can’t stop my hotness, blah, blah, blah.†I don’t know, you don’t know, no one does, about what’s happening in these first few moments. It’s disjointed.
In what has to be the most unoriginal plot in the history of fast-paced thrillers we’re treated to a long, lame, lackluster and limp sequence in which we’re explained to, again, like we’re 2nd graders on a field trip to the Hostess factory to see how bread is made, that Nic is able to see into the future but, gasp!, he can manipulate the present.
Fast forward to a rather uninspired directorial moment between Nic and his newest hotness, Jessica Biel, wherein we hear, again, about the man’s powers to portend what’s on the horizon around him only, shed a tear, he can’t see the future with his lady friend. I guess this is where we’re supposed to feel sorry for him but, oddly, I don’t. In fact, my attention is drawn to the dude in the wheelchair, in one flashback, or flash-forward, who suddenly explodes into a million pieces with the bomb squad on hand to witness it.
From here we get some transition to tell us that this movie is being written by the same guy who penned MINORITY REPORT; from the look of things I would say that he wrote this while his skull was attached to a paint shaker because I can’t see anything that would tell me this was the same person.
We also get Nic playing the part of Multiple Man from X-3 and this is just an excuse, really, to say that you all need to look at that hairpiece he’s rockin’ because it is a few strands away from being a full-on mullet.
Ooo! You need to pay attention to when a sniper takes a shot at Nic and he ends up dodging the bullet and when he artfully gets on a knee to prevent himself from getting crushed by a car. You would have thought he went to the Keanu Reeves MATRIX School for Proper Bullet and Shrapnel Avoidance. It’s close to being the funniest thing I’ve seen yet this year.
This movie looks bad from any angle. And even I don’t need to pull a Ms. Cleo to look into the future to see what’s on the horizon for this film.
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba, Mackintosh Muggleton
Release: May 11, 2007
Synopsis: Six months after the rage virus has annihilated the British Isles, the US Army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. In the first wave of returning refugees, a family is reunited — but one of them unwittingly carries a terrible secret. The virus is not yet dead, and this time, it is more dangerous than ever.
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Prognosis: Positive. One of my very first writing gigs was for William Rainey Harper College.
It was a school newspaper and there wasn’t much I could do in the way of major features but I did have the chance to interview horror extraordinaire and lecturer David J. Skal about some of the ways horror films have evolved. One insight he had about the 50’s and 60’s is that the advent of the big headed alien in many genre pictures were really a function and a response to the ever increasing amount of information that people were experiencing; the physical reflected the zeitgeist. You can see these tropes playing themselves out especially well in George Romero’s work DAWN OF THE DEAD, the physicality of the indoor mall representing a larger theme of Americana and where consumerism was heading or it’s updated simulacrum DAWN OF THE DEAD where the zombies have a quickened pace. The latter really had people’s panties in a twist and I would argue that the notion of the fast moving zombie is really a reflection of how quick and instantaneous things have gotten over the past couple decades.
This is why 28 WEEKS LATER looks to rock your face off until it drips off the bone.
Now that we’ve got this argument out of the way the rest should be easy to swallow and why this trailer builds up so smoothly and satisfyingly.
The music’s perfect, no question; it’s tense, you can’t help but to feel uneasy as it plays out. The wide scenes evoke an uneasy peace even as you see trainloads of people pouring back into the city that was the basis for Cillian Murphy’s dong-bearing hell hole. The sniper’s view doesn’t help much but it’s wonderfully played for what it’s worth. The absence of Voiceover Guy is what keeps this from heading into awfulness.
A factoid that one of the re-populators, Andy, is the youngest settler seems odd if wasn’t revealed on purpose. The shot of burning bodies, the wholesale sterilization of people in HAZMAT outfits and the jiggling camera works real well here for reasons that other trailers that do this fail to evoke anything: you know something wicked this way comes.
The chunky guitar playing in the background, evoking something on the scale of a Nine Inch Nails instrumental, as Robert Carlyle, the toughest midget this side of Tom Cruise, is an excellent choice as a father who is dealing with taking care of his son in a wasteland of death, just sets up what’s coming like a coach putting a leather orb on a tee-ball stand for a 300lb home run hitter.
“Execute Code Redâ€
Now, I’m a fan of 1985’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, huge fan, and I appreciate the idea of its ending where modernity met zombie eradication: nuke ‘em. Here, though, it looks like things are going to get wicked violent with para-military folks going up against fast moving targets with zero prejudice.
The air horn going off, the music working its way into a crescendo, the pandemonium of a group of people who know exactly what’s coming, their immanent demise, and a nameless guy who puts out the order to “kill everyone.†Pandemonium reigns supreme and there is hardly any dependence on showing the zombies in any kind of glory; it’s all about the victims and it’s damn effective.
The napalm-like strike through the city, Carlyle running as fast as he can in what appears to be a greener than green meadow, and would be quite peaceful if he wasn’t being chased by violent corpses bent on chewing his flesh,
I’m already there and ready.
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