If You Like Movies, You Will Like ‘Drag Me to Hell’

Ever since I heard about the Sam Raimi movie Drag Me to Hell, I have been reluctant about the idea of watching it. I was so incredibly upset with Raimi over the disaster known as Spider-Man 3 that I lost all faith in him. How can a great director go so bad & commercial? I asked myself. There was so much crying in Spider-Man 3 that it could be considered a superhero Lifetime TV movie. It wasn’t not just me who hated it; everyone who loves Spider-Man hated it. I’m sure he is well aware of this fact, and I believe this led him to return to his roots to make a simple horror movie.

I had been reading so much good press for Drag Me to Hell that I reluctantly agreed to see it. After watching it, all I can say is Sam Raimi is back. He has redeemed himself and made the best, most fun horror movie I’ve seen in probably a decade. Simple, straightforward and full of insane action sequences not seen in theaters since The Evil Dead trilogy. It’s better & more entertaining than all the Saw, The Hills Have Eyes, Hostel & Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot movies.  I invite anyone to debate me on this. There are a lot better ways of torturing your victims than to rip their skin off. I don’t go to the movies to see snuff films, so this was right up my alley. The acting is great, the script is very tight and there is no overuse of special effects. Just good old-fashioned quality filmmaking. Whether the main character is unwillingly swallowing a pint of embalming fluid or an innocent cat is getting sacrificed for the greater good, you will be smiling like a kid on a candy spree throughout. Instead of wasting your money on Night at the Museum 2, take a gander at Drag Me to Hell. I guarantee you won’t be dissapointed.

‘The Brothers Bloom’ Bombs

Has there ever been a movie more self-aware or self-amused than The Brothers Bloom? This is a movie that practically winks at itself. Characters pause in mid-sentence to discuss the implausibility of a situation, so we know they know they’re being conned. The movie itself is a con. The filmmakers have deluded themselves into thinking they’ve made a good movie.

What a letdown. This is writer-director Rian Johnson’s follow-up  to Brick, a completely original film about a high school murder mystery. In that film, the characters spoke like they were in a film noir (the sexiest one EVER), and the plot was a twisty thing of beauty.

The Brothers Bloom withers in comparison. It concerns two brothers (awkwardly played by the usually great Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo), who grow up to be the greatest con artists in the world. The first 10 minutes are like a bad Wes Anderson movie, as we see the brothers shuffling between foster homes and developing their interest in girls and con games. The last 90 minutes are also like a bad Wes Anderson movie, as the brothers attempt to rip off an eccentric millionaire (Rachel Weitz). This involves boat trips to Europe and South America and, for no reason, Maximilian Schell in a ridiculous pirate costume.

I was really excited about this movie around this time last year, but then the release date got pushed back six months, usually a sign that a movie is a disaster. It pretty much is. Not a single joke works. I don’t care how clever it is. If the audience sits there in stoned silence for two hours, then the filmmakers have failed. The characters are merely constructions and impossible to care about. Some will say Rinko Kikuchi steals the film, but I thought she was playing a stereotype. Why are Western screenwriters so afraid to write dialogue for Asian women? Do they not know how Asians talk? If so, they should go outside and talk to some.

I hope Johnson has gotten this twee bullshit out of his system so he can go back to making good movies. The Brothers Bloom is the ultimate sophomore slump and, along with Gregor Jordan’s The Informers, one of the worst movies of 2009.

‘Degrassi’ Tells It Like It Is

Confession: I love Degrassi. Now, I realize I’m not part of the 13-17 year old Canadian demographic – I’m no longer a teen and, as far as I know, I’ve never been Canadian. But 40% of viewers are people outside the target audience, so bear with me.

I only recently started watching the show, but apparently it’s been around for as long as I have. It was created in 1980, and has gone through several incarnations. It’s now called Degrassi: The Next Generation, and that’s the one I’m a fan of. There’s simply nothing else like it on American television.

And it’s not even an American TV show! It plays in the States thanks to the generous folks at The N. It features realistic teens attending the fictional Degrassi High, and deals with social issues like peer pressure, drug use, sex and even abortion – all in a very non-preachy, non-judgmental way. If you look at the shows produced in the States over the last decade that were targeted at the same audience, the only thing that comes remotely close to Degrassi is Malcolm in the Middle. True, it was much more comedic and stylized (though don’t get me wrong, Degrassi is often very funny), but at least it dealt with a working-class family in a compassionate and three-dimensional way. Before Malcolm, you’d have to go all the way back to Roseanne, My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks (i.e., the 1990s) to find shows where the creators were unconditionally on the same side as their teen protagonists.

Today, it’s all about condescending, basically imitating teens and talking down to them at the same time. The teens of American TV are shallow creatures indeed, obsessed with sex and money, byproducts of the amoral corporate culture of the Bush years. The tube is littered with trash like One Tree Hill, Popular and 90210 II. These shows aren’t meant to be illuminating or realistic; they’re made to sell shit to teens that they don’t need to be buying in the first place.

Across the norther border, Degrassi is refreshingly free of condescension. The characters are flawed but likable, and the plotlines address the issues facing young people head-on. In the very first episode of Degrassi: TNG, Emma, a smart and idealistic girl, develops an online crush on a boy named Jordan. They agree to meet, and “Jordan” turns out to be a sexual predator. This episode aired years before To Catch a Predator with Chris Hanson, and I’m convinced it saved lives by addressing this issue at a time when it was not widely covered by the media. The opener of the second season is equally strong, dealing with a father’s physical abuse and featuring a powerhouse performance by Jake Epstein.

But Degrassi isn’t an after-school special. It’s fresh and entertaining, and the writing is exquisite. Each episode has the same structure: One storyline deals with a single character and is usually serious in tone, while the second storyline is more comedic and often deals with issues brought up in earlier episodes. It works every time, and personally I’m studying the show to see how this structure might be applied to a short script I’ve been working on. Sneer if you must, but Degrassi is a vital piece of popular culture that’s a lot rarer than it should be.

Episodes of Degrassi: TNG are currently streamed here: http://www.ctv.ca/mini/degrassi2006/index.html

I Want My Avatar Now

From the moment I began understanding what makes a good movie good, I began appreciating James Cameron films. His films are full of scenes that consistently stay lodged in my subconscious. Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, Alien, Aliens, True Lies & Titanic are all masterpieces in their own right. His films about exploring the depths of the sea are always amazing to watch. His commercial success has allowed him the privilege of not having to bow to any studio. He makes what he wants when he wants, and that is a rarity in today’s commercial-driven film world.

As most of the world knows, Cameron has been working on a super secret 3D film called Avatar for more then 10 years. Cameron promises the film will be groundbreaking and unlike anything any of us have ever experienced in a movie theater. Sounds like a tall order but he has delivered on similar promises before and I believe he has what it takes to do it again. For Avatar, Cameron developed a new camera system called Fusion Digital 3-D, used for shooting the live action elements. He also developed a new system for motion capture in which the CGI elements and the human elements can interact with each other in real time, thus enabling him to direct and modify the action and actors better than anyone has in a motion capture movie before. There is a reason that the acting in the new Star Wars trilogy seems so stiff and lifeless; Cameron does not want to make that mistake. It’s good to know that an action director thinks acting is important – so many don’t.

Every time I walk into a movie theater, I am secretly hoping that someone has attached an Avatar teaser to whatever I’m watching. The film is officially coming out on December 18 of this year, so a trailer is bound to come out this summer at some point. In Avatar, will we witness the future of filmmaking? No one can say for sure. All I know is it’s time to start getting excited about a new James Cameron film.

Hosting ‘Man vs Food’ is the Best Job in America

Adam Richman, a Brooklyn native, is the current host of the Travel Channel show Man vs Food, and if they ever need a replacement host I will be the first person in line to audition. The show consists of Adam visiting cities across America and finding the best & most extreme pig-out food places. At the end of each show, he usually ends up in a restaurant with some demented food challenge that he takes on. In one episode, he attempted to eat a 7 1/2 pound ha’mburger. Hes also taken shots at a 2 1/2 pound Dagwood Sandwich, five 24-ounce malt milkshakes, and a 7-pound monster breakfast burrito – just to name a few challenges. It doesn’t matter if Adam wins or loses; just watching him attempt to win is incredibly entertaining and ridiculously appetizing. In another episode, the show featured a burger that instead of a bun used two grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s enough to make anybody’s heart melt (or explode). Plus, learning about all these insane places to eat at is a great companion to any travel guide. I know it’s wrong and a major health concern to be promoting such irresponsible eating habits, but it’s just so much fun to watch and I could not be more jealous of what this man gets paid to do. All locations are listed by city at the following link: http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Man_v_Food/Food_Location

Fans, Dreams and Art: Woody Allen’s ‘Stardust Memories’

Of all the Woody Allen movies there are to see – he releases about a film a year – the one with the coolest rep is probably 1980′s Stardust Memories. Actress Christina Ricci and baroque pop artist Annie Clark are both fans. If you want to understand why Allen is so highly regarded not just as a comedian but as an artist, see this one.

Allen plays a movie director named Sandy Bates, who’s attending a retrospective of his work at the Stardust Hotel. The film weaves dreams and reality, and it’s often unclear whether we’re watching a scene from Sandy’s life or a scene from one of his movies. The most distinctive image in the film, repeated throughout, is a subjective shot showing Sandy’s fans crowding the camera, each wanting a piece of him, some under the impression he has the power to cure cancer or something. They are grotesque displays of humanity, and, unfairly or not, they were interpreted as revealing Allen’s true feelings for his fans.

This is probably Allen’s darkest work, combining satire, self-deprecating humor and misanthropy into a hilarious Molotov cocktail. It followed the release of Annie Hall, Interiors and Manhattan, films that represented an unapologetic break from the screwball comedies of his early days. The filmmaker addresses this shift directly, when one of Sandy’s fans says how much she enjoys his films, “especially the early funny ones.”

The movie contains some of Allen’s most quotable dialogue. (“To you, I’m an atheist. To God, I’m the loyal opposition.”) It makes you laugh and squirm at the same time. When Sandy visits his sister, we’re introduced to a battered woman named Irene, who recounts how she was robbed and then raped over and over. Irene: “I didn’t resist.” Sandy: “Oh, I’m sure. Knowing you, Irene!”

The opening is one of Allen’s greatest set pieces. He’s trapped on a train where all the passengers are sick-looking, depressed and ugly. When he looks out the window, he can see another train where all the passengers are happy, rambunctious and beautiful (one of them is a very young Sharon Stone, no less). It’s an existential nightmare worthy of Kafka, and I’m well aware that, in this context, Allen would sneer at such a comparison. In another great scene, “Sydney Finkelstein’s hostility has escaped.” A search party finds bodies strewn on the ground, and then we see it: Sydney’s hostility, looking like a man in a bear suit. Later, in an unforgettable shot, the hostility bear reappears suddenly and mauls one of Sandy’s fans.

Stardust Memories is a disturbing, even despairing reverie, beautifully shot in black-and-white by master cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather). Allen finds just the right tone for his subject matter, as we see the weight of the world pressing in on Sandy. Before Martin Scorsese’s landmark dark comedy The King of Comedy made the definitive statement on the subject, Allen recognized the danger of fans living vicariously through their idols. In a shocking scene, Sandy has a hallucination in which a fan comes up to him, says “You know you’re my hero,” and shoots him dead. Just two short months after Stardust Memories was released (and unfairly dismissed by critics), John Lennon was murdered by a deranged fan in New York City.

The P.A. Chronicles

The definition of a good PA can be very different depending on who your asking. To me, the most simple definition of a good PA is someone who is willing and able to do what no one else on a set wants to do. This can include anything from going to the pharmacy and mysteriously purchasing 6 different types of anti itch cream for Ja-Rule to escorting Tia Carrera to a nice sushi restaurant before driving her back to the hotel. (Both of which I have done.) I remember my first PA gig vividly. I was paid $50 dollars for an 18-hour, 1-day shoot for some random Canadian lifestyle show filming in Miami Beach. For most of the day I did nothing but guard, aka fire-watch, an empty truck with no shade from the blistering sun. When the night came, things got a bit more interesting. The club that we were filming at had for some reason placed astro turf over the floors of the entire club. The producer had made a deal with the club owner that in exchange for letting us film there, we would remove the astro turf  from the entire club at the end of the night. So there I was at 11pm in the middle of South Beach on a Friday night, loading pound after pound of astro turf and dirt into the bed of someones pickup truck. After the overflowing pick uptruck is loaded, the producer reveals that he has no idea what to do with the astro turf. So me and a few other badly paid PA’s decide to do something illegal, find a random dumpster on a back street, unload the astro turf and drive away like a bat out of hell. After we finally wrapped, I remember thinking to myself on the ride home: “Is this really what I spent the last 3 years of my life preparing for?” And the answer, of course, is yes.

For the better part of the last 8 years I have worked as a PA. Film &  television sets, reality shows, photo shoots & infomercials – I pretty much have seen it all. Being a PA can be very different depending on what type of set you are on. On a film shoot it’s a lot easier to focus on one task. Usually everyone is working towards one goal, so once you have your orders you’re probably not going to do much else. On reality shows, there are usually a bunch of things being made at the same time, and there is always a sense that anything can happen, so it’s necessary to be on your toes and ready at all times. Photo shoots are great because you’re dealing with minimal elements and people, they pay well and you get to meet a lot of lovely models. Infomercials are cheap, boring and a pain in the ass to work on. Unless you desperately need the money, I would stay away from those.

Day to day I strive to be a filmmaker but my favorite type of set to work on is a Reality TV set.  Depending on the type of show you can learn so much day to day. I worked for 2 years on TLC’s In A Fix & I learned invaluable lessons about home improvement and all of the small things that make a home work. On a couple of seasons of Top Chef I learned everything I could about great food, restaurants, appliances & industrial size kitchens. Three seasons of Miami Ink showed me the world of tattoos and tattoo artist from a unique perspective. Sure, there are a lot annoying people and things to deal with such as appearance releases, janitorial amounts of cleaning & ecstasy addicted directors who seem to have a death wish, but having some extra knowledge at the end of the day makes it all worthwhile. Of course, there are the reality shows where you learn useless things too. On a season of Making the Band I learned all of the reasons everyone in America should despise P Diddy, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Since I’ve moved up in the food chain, I am pretty much out of the PA game. I will always be grateful for the lessons I’ve learned, the great people I’ve worked for and all the knowledge I’ve acquired.

‘Mist’ best monster movie in a long time

Stephen King’s filmography is littered with more trashy fright flicks than Horrorfest, but every once in a while Hollywood successfully captures the writer’s dark and distinctly American vision. The Mist is that kind of adaptation – the best, most richly imagined Stephen King movie since 1995′s Dolores Claiborne.

As written and directed by Frank Darabont, The Mist hews closely to King’s original novella, which first appeared in 1980 as part of a collection of short stories entitled Dark Forces. If anything, the story’s resonance and power have grown in the 27 years since it was published.

On the morning after a freak lightening storm, the residents of a small town in Maine converge on a supermarket to collect supplies. Soon the town is enshrouded in an unexplained mist, all the better to hide the strange creatures stirring out there beyond the parking lot. (All of this is featured in the film’s relatively discreet theatrical trailer.) Trapped inside the market, the locals break off into warring factions as the possibility that the world is ending rends open society’s fissures.

Darabont received three Oscar nominations in the 1990s for turning King’s Rita Haworth and Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile into prestige pictures, but he got his start in B-grade horror flicks like The Fly II and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. The Mist marks something of a throwback for the filmmaker. The movie has its share of corny dialogue, and the first attack on the market by a tentacled beast isn’t entirely convincing in the effects department. But Darabont takes the genre more seriously than his peers, and the result is a science-fiction horror movie that feels as relevant to the America of today as Invasion of the Body Snatchers must have back in 1956. If Body Snatchers satirized suburban conformity, The Mist is about the new culture of fear.

The actor who aids Darabont most spectacularly in his vision is Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Mrs. Carmody, a devout Christian who sees God’s vengeance in the bloodthirsty monsters that come flying out of the mist. Marshalling the townspeople with fire-and-brimstone sermons, shivering at the signs of the divine, Mrs. Carmody is the movie’s prim face of religious extremism – Mrs. Brady meets Osama Bin Laden. The character actors Andre Braugher and Toby Jones also contribute memorable performances, and Thomas Jane shines in his best leading-man role to date.

You may have heard that The Mist is a downer. That’s not the half of it: Darabont stages the most devastating denouement in recent cinematic history. But that shouldn’t deter you from seeing this movie. It turns out that the experience of watching man destroy himself provides its own kind of electric thrill.

The Mist is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. The black-and-white version is wicked-cool.

‘Revolutionary Road’ packs a powerful punch

“What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

I saw Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road more than 5 months ago, and it still burns in the memory. It was not universally acclaimed – some thought Mendes’ directing style was too antiseptic – but for those who were on the film’s wavelength, this was an unforgettable viewing experience made powerful by the fearlessness of its performances and the devastating implications of its plot.

Based on the first book by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road is set in the 1950s and concerns a young couple named Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet). Remember that shot in the trailer where DiCaprio and Winslet are arguing outside his car? That’s one of the FIRST SCENES in the movie! Mendes wastes no time pulling the wool over our eyes – he lays out, in the most graphic terms possible, the myriad ways in which marriage can be a desperate, embittered experience.

Frank works at an advertising agency (there are echoes of AMC’s Mad Men throughout), while April is a stay-at-home mom who hasn’t entirely given up on her dreams of becoming an actor. They live in the suburbs. By being self-aware and staying interested in things like art and culture, they think they can live above it all and avoid turning into homogenized zombies. April hatches an escape plan – they’ll move to France, where she’ll get a job and he’ll stay at home with the kids, leaving him free to pursue his creative interests. Frank agrees at first but soon starts to question the practicality of it all, and April turns on him, becoming cold and vindictive.

This story provides the basis for two of the most amazing performances of 2008. Three, actually. I think it’s a joke that Winslet won Best Actress for The Reader and wasn’t even nominated for this. The Reader is not a film I consider to be Oscar material, and she’s never been better than she is here. Same goes for DiCaprio. He’s given great performances before (especially as the mentally handicapped Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), but he’s never left himself so open and vulnerable. Reunited for the first time since Titanic, these two are so alive onscreen. And they’re upstaged, in a few key scenes, by Michael Shannon, the only performer in the film to get a hugely deserved Oscar nod. Shannon plays John Givings, a mathematical genius who’s spent some time in the loony bin, and who sees so deeply into Frank and April’s lives he’s able to willfully sow the seeds of their destruction. Shannon’s scenes are the acting equivalent of a Sam Raimi horror-comedy.

With this film, Sam Mendes has returned to the movies with the force of a Category 5 hurricane. American Beauty gets a lot of love, and rightly so (it’s on a number of my Facebook friends’ lists of their favorite movies), but the director didn’t quite live up to its promise with Road to Perdition and Jarhead (while continuing to do stellar work in the theater, of course). But he’s definitely back; his upcoming film, an offbeat comedy called Away We Go, is supposed to be terrific. He’s a master at wringing out stinging performances and precise images, and in Revolutionary Road he’s made a film of extraordinary feeling and impact. Only until the third act do we realize we’ve been watching one of the greatest domestic horror movies since The Shining.

Revolutionary Road will be released on DVD on June 2.

Bad Credit is a Beyotch

Having bad credit sucks but having bad credit in the middle of a recession can be considered a form of torture. In this society most people live off credit, the big corporations make sure of that. And if you’re not living off credit the big companies are going to make sure you suffer because of it. Back when I was a recent college graduate, I defaulted on a credit card and have been paying for it ever since. I have been working steadily for about 8 years and have money to pay for the simple things that I want, but when I attempt to get a little ambitious and purchase something out of my monthly range, I get rejected on every try. Even if I can prove I have the monthly income available to pay, those bastards still won’t let up. Even when I’m paying back what I owe on that old credit card, those bastards won’t let up. And whenever I try to get credit for anything, my credit score is automatically taken down a notch, just for checking it. Makes me want to take a road trip to Crawford, Texas and throw a pie in the face of disgraced ex-president George W. Bush. I’m sure he had something to do with this. Just kidding – there is no one to blame but myself.

Recently, I have been attempting to purchase a car. I used to have a very nice vehicle but a couple of years ago I moved to NYC and decided to sell it. Now I’m back in Florida, and unlike NYC, it is necessary to have a car here. It’s kind of a status symbol; people just won’t take you seriously unless you have one. Buying a car when you have bad credit is always an uphill battle. Usually you have to pay a ridiculous amount on a down payment, and an equally ridiculous monthly payment. If they think a new client is a potential risk, you would think they would try to get the client a nice manageable monthly payment, thus eliminating the risk of defaulting. I know car companies don’t care about people, but do they have to make it so painfully obvious? Am I doomed to rely on the unbrealiable grade F public transportation of South Florida? Unless I win the lottery, get a second job or seduce a hot old mistress into paying my bills, unfortunately the answer is yes.