The Source Moon...I mean Code

I saw The Source Code today, in an empty theatre… for $4. It’s weird, if there were a $4 theatre showing current movies in LA, you couldn’t get a ticket. In Cleveland, well, the theatre may start sending a car to my door.

I was chatting with my sister at home after the film describing it for her and I said something to the affect of, “Well, did you see Moon with Sam Rockwell? It was kinda like Moon, but on a train”. She quickly responded, “Didn’t the guy who directed Moon make The Source Code?

(I guess I’m not much of a film buff).

She was indeed correct…but so was I. Duncan Jones (who also happens to be David Bowies son) directed both The Source Code (2011) and Moon (2009). To say that The Source Code is “Moon on a train” is in no way a detriment to either film. While its unfortunate that Moon fell under the radar it doesn’t seem The Source Code has had the same fate, and for good reason. Where Moon may have lacked in appeal to a wide audience, not because it wasn’t an excellent film, but because it was small, ($5 million) it was British, it was a first time director, and it was a film that was meant to be watched as opposed to experienced, The Source Code makes up for it in tenacity, relevance, and, dare I say, sexiness?

The plot puts Jake Gyllenhaal on the Chicago Commuter Rail on an early spring morning. The train explodes, thanks to a terrorists bomb, but instead of being thrust into the afterlife, Sean, as he’s known on the train, and Captain Colter Stevens as he’s know elsewhere, is thrust back into a spaceship? A helicopter? Another dimension?  One thing is clear, his mission: find the bomber and prevent the next terrorist attack. The catch, he only has 8 minute periods of time, to go back into time, before the backlogged time catches up with real time, cause well, you know, that’s how the source code works.

Some of the logic behind The Source Code is a little tricky, but what movie doesn’t have tricky logic? Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but you shouldn’t let that bother you too much here. The Source Code was enjoyable, moved along at a swift pace, possesses an undeniable likeability between the two stars, and as any good film will do, leaves you wondering…”what if”?

And you should rent "Moon".

Eggshelland: The Movie

Eggshelland. A lyndhurst, Oh staple. Showing at Chagrin Cinemas from April 22th-28th, 2011.

The Whole Bloody Affair

Tyler Stout

I had to steal this poster from www.slashfilm.com and Tyler Stout. Goes on sale tomorrow...for fifty smackers.

Enjoy the Skidmarks

The 35th Annual Cleveland International Film Festival Presents:

“In California, an audience watches a tire through binoculars. The tire is named Robert and has come to life. The tire eventually starts going on a killing spree”.

This simple plot synopsis given to the “French” film titled Rubber, sums it all up. (I put French in quotations cause I’m really not sure why the fact that this film is French needed to be mentioned, considering Rubber was set and filmed in California and contains no French speaking characters, although the leading lady seemed to be French so that must be it. But that really doesn’t make any sense either...)

I’ll be the first to say that Rubber ran out of tread quickly resulting in a nap and a drool at about the 45 minute mark. 

To be fair I was pretty tired. 

Despite my timeout, or maybe because of it, I quite enjoyed this work of art. While 85 minutes is a stretch for any movie where the trailer is just about as satisfying as the film itself, I’m sure that Quentin Dupieux was only leaving room for the crowd to simmer down between witty retorts and the possible hurling of old rubber tire treads at the screen. I’d have to bet that actually viewing the movie through binoculars would be hard on the eyes for the entire show, so he wanted to break it up.

When you set out to make a "cult film", and I’m not saying those were his intentions, although it’s a hard point to argue against, you run the risk of being utterly boring and alienating your audience, which he indeed succeeded at gracefully. Rubber, however boring I found it for 5-10 minutes was actually very fun, clever, and dare I say, refreshing. I had to smile, however slightly, at the way it thumbed its nose at Hollywood and fanboys/critics alike. 

This movie isn’t for everyone. In fact, it’s not for most. But if you get a kick out of the thought of a pitch meeting starting “ It’s about a tire who uses his telekinetic powers to explode things, like human heads”... well, now I’m just preaching to the choir.  

*Any movie can really be a "Cult Film" but 7 times out of 10 they are pretty bad movies that have a very specific audience base for one reason or another. Usually, the films depicts some kind of sub-culture or contain some kind of seemingly taboo element. It also needs to have some pretty memorable lines or characters and needs to fall under the radar of mainstream movies...although several big name/budget directors could be looked at as having a cult following, like The Coen Brothers.
Cult Film Examples.
Troll 2
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Reefer Madness
This is Spinal Tap
Re-Animator
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Toxic Avenger (My favorite)
UHF
Donnie Darko
Kung Fu movies
Any horror movie
Anything Directed by: David Lynch, John Waters, or Ed Wood

Adjust This

It’s been close to a year since I flexed my over critical writing muscles. As I embark on a huge project I felt it was time to re examine a past time I hate so much; movie reviews. At least it’s a little more productive form of procrastination than sleeping.

Let us get to it...

Studios are going to do whatever they can to get you into the theatre. Tests show* movie goers want to be able to predict what the movie they are considering seeing is going to be about with the ending often being the most satisfying prediction. I want to know as little as possible going in to a movie. What fun is seeing a movie for the first time if you know the beginning, middle, and end in advance**? I’d seen the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau and even though this looked like an Inception rip off, I genuinely like Matt Damon so decided to give it a go. 

My knowledge of the existence of movies other than The Adjustment Bureau may have affected my perception of The Adjustment Bureau.

Great, so now I'm the bad guy.

 I guess there might be two fields of thought.
1) Screw what you THINK the movie is about, check that at the door and watch the movie that was made.
2) If the trailer shows me an Inception-esque Sci-Fi/Psycological Thriller, that’s what I better get.

While I tend to agree with the first "field of thought" on most projects, I have to say the second one crept its way into my brain about halfway through this film, coincidently, just about the time I started to realize that this wasn't the movie I thought it would be. The Adjustment Bureau would fit nicely into the category of “Romantic Sci-Fi/Thriller”, however, I can’t say I was actually thrilled at any point in time and the "Sci-Fi" was a little more "Fantasy" than anything. So what gives?

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have good chemistry, they both made me smile and think, “oh, how cute”, in the same way a Romantic comedy might have done, and thats really what this movie wanted to be. The story barley scratches the surface of any of the questions that it purposes that would thrust it into a Sci-Fi/Thriller genre, choosing the easy way out of most of its predicaments, and relies solely on the fact that you think the lead characters are cute and you'd like to see them end up together. Which sounds a little like a.... say it with me....Romantic Comedy.

I know what you must be asking yourself and no, in the end I didn’t care what kind of movie I saw, I just wanted to see a good movie, and this movie was...good enough. Did it meet my expectations? No, but I’m not so self centered to say that I didn’t like a movie because it didn’t meet my expectations.

Wait, yes I am. We all are. That's how most people are going to judge movies. The fun part is when a movie zigs where you think it will zag. This movie just kind of spun its wheels.

In the end I don't really think the movie met the filmmakers expectations either. They made a movie for "everyone" which fell short of reaching anyone. I feel duped again. I guess I get a tid-bit frustrated when a movie studio gets its audience into the theatre based on their understanding of how we will view the trailer, then doesn't have faith in its audiences movie I.Q. to dig deeper into the characters or the plot and delivers a film that isn't quite what it promised.

You say it's not the studios fault that I expected something that wasn't there? I guess I'll just blame myself for watching the trailer and seeing too many movies.

I see a film like this I can only imagine what a parent must feel like when their child, totally capable of contributing something new and interesting or great and meaningful to the world opts to contribute something arbitrary and meaningless to the world…like movie reviews.

And I've just gone cross-eyed.

*I may be making this up.

** Okay, so most of us know all those things regardless.