brandon ledet

Ballet 422 (2015)

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threehalfstar

Although I don’t remember seeing the first 421 Ballet movies, I found the 422nd entry in the franchise to be remarkably accessible. Now that I’ve gotten that horrendously unfunny joke out of the way I can at least echo a similar sentiment in the way the documentary Ballet 422 indoctrinates outsiders into its tightly controlled world of professional dance. As if the film were a triple digits sequel for a franchise that’s been running strong since 1948 (when the New York City Ballet company where it’s set was established), the world it depicts is already well-established & lived-in. Instead of explaining the art of ballet as a whole, however, the film is smart to remain pinpoint-specific. This is not a film about ballet, but about the production of a specific ballet and that specificity allows it to reveal more about the artistry as a whole than broader strokes ever could.

Ballet 422 documents a world in which all of the participants are already on the same wavelength, communicating abstract ideas to each other almost wordlessly as they work together to create a new ballet. It’s strikingly intimate. The central subject is Justin Peck, a 25 year old dancer from the New York City Ballet’s Corps de Ballet (layman’s term: background dancers). Although Peck has been a dancer with the Corps for seven years, he’s still a relative youngster as far as choreographer goes (maybe? I’m guessing there; sounds young to me) and the film follows him as he pieces together the company’s 422nd production in just a few months’ time. There’s a mostly dialogue-free fly on the wall approach to documenting these few months, which is entirely appropriate for an art form that is so physical, so visually based. It’s a rare treat to actually watch the ballet culminate slowly on film without its machinations being described by needless voiceover. After Peck’s production hits the stage, he immediately returns to his secondary role in the Corps de Ballet. It’s an oddly sad, abstractly affecting moment that the film allows to remain open to your own interpretation.

Ballet 422 sidesteps interacting with ballet’s historical or critical significance as an art form & instead reduces the dance into its most basic elements: music & movement. There’s a little insight into the physical tax, the backstage primping, and the politics in the interactions between the dancers & musicians involved in the production being documented, but those moments are mostly fleeting. The real meat & potatoes of the film is when the dancers are talking shop without talking at all. There’s a physical communication at the heart of Ballet 422 that reveals a great deal about the physical communication of ballet itself. It’s fascinating stuff without being flashy or pedantic. Like the ballet documented in the film, Ballet 422 is simple, straight-forward, and effortlessly elegant.

-Brandon Ledet

Leprechaun: Origins (2014)

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onehalfstar

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It was difficult not to go into Leprechaun: Origins without very specific expectations. Given its pedigree as a WWE Studios horror film starring little person pro wrestler Hornswoggle as the titular leprechaun, a role once played by a wisecracking Warwick Davis, it’d be fair to assume you know everything about the film before you even watch it. If you follow the WWE on a somewhat regular basis you might know Hornswoggle as a sort of a walking punchline. The performer is less recognizable for the quality of his wrestling performances (like, say, El Torito) and more for being involved in some of the promotion’s all-time worst storylines, such as ones where he was revealed to be Vince McMahon’s illegitimate son & the Anonymous Raw General Manager. Thanks to this kind of groan-inducing little person humor that Hornswoggle’s usually used for, it’s even already easy to picture him in the leprechaun costume (or to just Google image search it) and just sit back waiting for the Warwick Davis-style quips to be plugged into the script.

I’ll give credit to WWE Studios for this: they most definitely subverted my expectations here, a rare feat for the movie studio. Instead of dressing Hornswoggle up like Warwick Davis & providing him a bunch of Freddy Krueger/Chucky style one-liners about he gold, Leprechaun: Origins gave him a full-bodied prosthetic makeover. The pro wrestler/human punchline was reconstructed to look & sound like a shaved burn victim gorilla that did little more than bite, hiss, scratch, and growl. It seems that I may have spoken too soon when I said that remakes like Poltergeist weren’t doing enough to update their ancestor’s formulas in a means to justify their own existence.

Leprechaun: Origins is a far cry from its actually-fun predecessors like Leprechaun 2: Back 2 tha Hood & Leprechaun 4: In Space, so it does at least sidestep criticisms of being a shameless retread. The problem is that instead of retreading ground already covered by the Leprechaun franchise in particular, Origins instead removed everything that was unique about it & simplified the formula to the point where it felt like a retread of every monster movie ever. In a lot of ways this crime is far worse than the sins of Poltergeist’s by-the-numbers mediocrity.

Outside its Irish setting & a throwaway one-liner about Lucky Charms, there’s absolutely nothing of note in this film to distinguish it from any other cabin in the woods horror film I can name. Even the hideous get-up they use to conceal Honswoggle is oddly downplayed, so that most of the monster’s screen time is through a first-person POV cam à la Pitch Black. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I would almost rather they had just dressed Hornswoggle up in the cliché leprechaun costume and have him tell a bunch of lame ass jokes for 90 min. At least there would be the small chance of the film being fun (or at the very least memorable).

-Brandon Ledet

If You Enjoyed Dope (2015) You Should Double Back & Watch The Wood (1999)

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Although the recent coming-of-age teen comedy Dope felt like the emphatic debut of a just-out-of-film school youngster (in terms of energy, not competence) it was actually the work of a director who’s been lurking in Hollywood for more than 15 years. In that time, Rick Famuyiwa has only been able to get four feature films off the ground, which, judging by the two I’ve seen, is a total shame. Famuyima has a smart, authentic, straightforward lens through which he examines youth & nostalgia, both in his most recent effort Dope & in his actual debut, a small-scale charmer made for MTV Films 15 years ago called The Wood.

The Wood & Dope have a lot in common besides the name in the director’s credit. While Dope is set in the present it looks back to 90s music & fashion for inspiration. The Wood splits its time between (the then present) 1999 & flashbacks to the 1980s, equally conscious of reconstructing the styles & sounds of a bygone era as Dope. The flashback chapters of The Wood are introduced through spinning vinyl records, Jheri curls are hilariously abundant, and the high school age protagonists wear clothes so dated that they’ve already had their vintage cool heyday and have gone back to tacky again. Both Dope & The Wood feature protagonists speaking directly to the audience, follow young teens getting into heaps of trouble trying to shed their virginity, happen to include a disgusting puke gag, and discuss the small changes of course that can turn a young nerd into a perceived-violent criminal in the particularly hazardous social minefield of Inglewood, California, where both movies are set. As if that weren’t enough of a solid connection, both films also feature a character named Stacey played by actor De’aundre Bondsl, who are ostensibly the same person (although Dope doesn’t make that connection explicit).

Of course, Dope & The Wood aren’t exact copies of each other and if I had to choose a favorite of the two, I’m inclined to lean towards the more energetic cartoonishness of Dope. The Wood does stand up quite well on its own, though, and helps to reveal a director with a keen eye for nostalgia & growing pains instead of the out-of-nowhere youngin’ with something to prove that I assumed directed Dope when I first saw the trailers. With these two films Famuyiwa establishes a genuine, confident voice that allows him to both tackle the intricacies of gang violence & the inconvenience of public boners. If you enjoyed Dope, I highly recommend giving The Wood a look for context. If you’ve already seen & enjoyed both, maybe just keep an eye out for Famuyiwa’s other films, both past & future. That’s what I plan on doing, anyway.

-Brandon Ledet

Movie of the Month: Highway to Hell (1991)

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Every month one of us makes the other two watch a movie they’ve never seen before & we discuss it afterwards. This month Britnee made Brandon watch Highway to Hell (1991).

Britnee: “Where the toll is your soul,” and “If there’s one thing worse than dying and going to Hell, it’s not dying—and going to Hell,” are two taglines that grace the cover of my ratty old VHS copy of Ate de Jong’s Highway to Hell, and they both make it blatantly obvious that this is going to be a very “special” movie. I saw Highway to Hell for the first time over 10 years ago as a late night feature film on some cable network I can’t remember, and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. This was more than just another typically mindless “bad” movie; it was a smart “bad” movie. The way elements of comedy, horror, adventure, and romance mixed into one magnificent, unforgettable film was brilliant, and it’s a crying shame that Highway to Hell never got the spotlight it so rightly deserves. At least it has some time to shine as my selection for July’s Movie of the Month.

Charlie (Chad Lowe) and Rachel (Kristy Swanson) are young, dumb, and totally in love. As the two lovebirds are on their way to elope in Las Vegas, Rachel gets kidnapped by Hellcop (a cop from Hell). Charlie journeys to Hell to save his soon-to-be bride from the devil himself. When one thinks of Hell, usually the image of a dark, underground lair full of goblins and flames is what comes to mind, but the Hell in Highway to Hell is a hot, endless desert with a sparse population (Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller, Lita Ford, and Gilbert Gottfried all make appearances as citizens of Hell). The concept of Hell in this film is very interesting because the individuals that are in Hell each have a different experience. Some are stuck performing annoying everyday tasks for eternity, some are in a biker gang, some are chopped up in a huge wood chipper, etc.

Brandon, what are your thoughts on Hell in this film? Was de Jong attempting to send out some sort of message with the symbolism in Hell or was it all just campy fun?

Brandon: I think it’s best not to reach too deep for symbolism in this one. As I’m sure you could tell from our screening, I don’t think I was quite as jazzed about the film as you are, but there most certainly is something special about it, even as a late-night basic cable oddity. Hell, especially as a late-night basic cable oddity. I think in a lot of ways we had the perfect Highway to Hell experience. Watching a tattered VHS copy of the movie on a tiny TV, past my bedtime & with a couple of beers, feels like the ideal atmosphere for this film, tracking issues & all. I feel like if it had actually received a proper theater release, it would be a widely reviled flop that would have an unfair amount of people listing it as one of the worst films ever. As a basic cable gem that never made the leap to DVD, it sidestepped a lot of the ridicule and is mostly known only by those who herald it as a minor cult classic.

The reason I don’t think that too much stock should go into the movie’s symbolism is that the script is its most shallow element. There are occasional brilliant moments, (the sex demon scene & Jerry Stiller’s eternally suffering cop who desperately wants a cup of coffee that ain’t coming both come to mind), but for the most part the film doesn’t have a lot to say. There are so many missed opportunities in the plot & the absence of memorable one-liners that it’s difficult to put too much faith into what the movie’s visual symbolism is supposed to represent. The practical, not-fun answer to why a movie set in Hell was shot in the desert is probably that it’s super cheap to film in the desert, as opposed to building a set from scratch. However, I do believe the set design is what distinguishes the film from lesser late-night fare. Considering that Highway to Hell was obviously produced on a shoestring budget, it’s honestly incredible what the film pulled off visually. The art department really gave it their all here, building such an impressively hand-made & lived-in hellscape that it’s both totally understandable & a total shame that the script couldn’t keep up. That disparity makes it really tempting to look into the film’s imagery for some kind of symbolism or grand metaphor, but I just don’t think that anything’s actually there.

Britnee, do you also feel that the film’s impressive visual intensity & lackluster screenwriting were at war with one another? Could you picture the film’s reception & legacy having a greater impact if its script were a little tighter, or is there another missing element at play here?

Britnee: I agree that there’s a definite imbalance between the film’s script and visuals. Personally, I think it’s a good thing because it’s part of what makes the film so amazingly terrible. However, stepping away from my biased opinion, a better script would have bumped up this movie a bit and made it likeable to a broader audience. Maybe it would be good enough to be on DVD!  What’s sad is that there was enough money in the film’s budget for awesome visual effects and a decent script. According to IMDB, the film had an estimated budget of $9,000,000, which is totally shocking. I think that the film’s producers were just a little too excited about the film’s handful of special effects and spent all their time and money on them. I’m not going to hate on them because if I had a $9,000,000 budget for a film about Hell, I would do all sorts of stupid stuff with that money.

Come to think about it, I bet it was pretty expensive to get Gilbert Gottfried, Jerry Stiller, and Lita Ford to make such smallappearances. I didn’t mention Ben Stiller because he wasn’t really famous at this point; he was just tagging along with his dad. A good chunk of that budget probably went to these useless cameos.

Brandon, did you find the celebrity appearances to be rather annoying and unnecessary? Like Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler?

Brandon: It varies depending on the cameo. Gilbert Gottfried & Lita Ford got by basically on their mere presence, but honestly just the basic idea of Gottfriend playing Hitler is still funny enough to me now that an empty appearance in that costume feels worth it. And as I said earlier, Jerry Stiller desperately pleading for a cup of coffee for eternity was one of the highlights of the film. His son Ben wasn’t so bad as the befuddled grill cook either. The problem with the script wasn’t necessarily that it wasn’t playing with a full deck. There was a lot of potential in the plot scenarios & celebrity cameos. They just never were employed for a greater, cohesive whole, but instead were left to survive on their own merit as individual moments, seemingly disconnected.

For instance, consider the little kid our doofus of a hero saves from the Satanic Mechanic. What the Hell (to steal a bad joke from a bad movie) was up with that little kid? From the moment he’s introduced as an innocent moppet from Hell, everything in the script screams for him to eventually reveal himself as an evil demon, but it never comes to be. He’s exactly what he presents himself as: a hilariously trite little tyke with nothing but positive things to say about the hero. Much like with Kristy Swanson’s non-entity of a love-interest, the little kid is basically just waiting around to be saved by the bland everyman hero. This adds a lot of camp value to his performance, which had become one of my favorite elements in play by the end of the film, but it does point to a script that has no idea what to do with everything it brought to the table . . . except for to blow it up in the desert.

Britnee, speaking of saving women & children and blowing things up in the desert, you first suggested we watch this film because it reminded you of the Mad Max franchise and I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on that connection before we wrap it up. Also, do you have any thoughts on the Totally Not Evil Moppet the protagonist befriends in Hell? I think I’m warming up to that little booger.

Britnee: One of the reasons that I chose Highway to Hell for Movie of the Month was because Mad Max: Fury Road was getting ready to hit theaters, and I thought it would be interesting to discuss a film that was obviously influenced by Mad Max movies. Hellcop, the motorcycle gang, the super-secret tricked out car, and the numerous car chases on dusty desert roads are just a few things in Highway to Hell that mirror Mad Max. This brings me back to my first question about the reasoning behind Hell being an empty desert. Yes, there was probably no symbolism with Hell being a desert and it was easy on the budget, but I’m just now realizing that this could just be the result of an influence from the Mad Max films.

The Totally Not Evil Moppet (aka Adam) was an over-exaggerated version of an average innocent child, and I agree that he seems like an evil demon in disguise. Plus, he was pretty much the devil’s adopted son, so it makes sense for him to be demonic. Every time his squeaky little voice screams “Charlie!” I cringe, waiting for his teeth to get sharp. His big dopey eyes and stringy hair doesn’t make it much better. What really cracks me up about this kid is that he doesn’t seem to have that big of a problem living in Hell and having the Satanic Mechanic as a father. He was probably a demon child all along, befriending Charlie in order to get his assistance to escape Hell and wreak havoc on the living. Ate de Jong, where is Highway to Hell 2: Adam’s on the Loose?

Brandon, speaking of Ate de Jong, I recently checked out his filmography, and it’s interesting to say the least. He’s anaward-winning Dutch filmmaker, and the majority of his films are on the more serious side and completely opposite of Highway to Hell. What are your thoughts on this? Can you think of any other directors that have failed when going outside their comfort zone?

Brandon: Honestly, when I first saw Ate de Jong’s name appear in the opening credits I assumed it was a fake alias, as if Lynch or Cronenberg had taken a quick made-for-TV paycheck project to fund something more worthwhile. It definitely surprises me that de Jong has such an extensive list of credits on his IMDb page, with a lot of titles in the wartime melodrama genre. What’s even more surprising is that the same year Highway to Hell was released de Jong also helmed the cult comedy Drop Dead Fred. I’ve personally never seen Drop Dead Fred but it does have a pretty positive reputation among folks in our age range and it is somewhat of a surprise that de Jong’s only other American title (as far as I can tell) was a big budget action comedy that never made it past basic cable.

As far as directors failing outside of their usual genres go, it’s hard for me not to think of the recent record-breaking blockbuster Jurassic World as an example, if not only because the wound is so fresh. The director, Colin Trevorrow’s first feature was a small-scale, entertaining sci-fi romance called Safety Not Guaranteed. Jumping from that humble, but admirable beginning directly into an outrageously expensive action film was a mistake for Trevorrow’s growth as an artist (but not for the growth of his bank account) that left him looking a little foolish in my eye. Ate de Jong was seemingly in similar too-big-studio-for-his-britches water with Highway to Hell, as was the inspiration you cited, George Miller, when he made Beyond Thunderdome. When making large scale action movies like this it doesn’t really matter how incredible your visuals or action choreography are if a large number of people involved in the script-writing process are just going to spoil the goodwill.

Lagniappe:

Brandon: I do feel like I was a little unfair to Highway to Hell, which does have its occasional charms as a hidden gem. Now that I know what the film’s limitations are & the fact that the Adam character is most definitely not a demon child, but something much more terrifying (an actual child) I feel like I would enjoy it much more on a second viewing. If nothing else I’d love to spend more time with the mutant sex demon. There was a whole lotta weirdness packed into that all-too-brief scene. Too bad the movie’s difficult to get your hands on, since I’m fairly certain the only home video copy that exists in the world is Britnee’s ratty VHS.

Britnee:  I forgot to mention that AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” does not play at any point in the movie. I think this is super funny because when I tell people about this flick, the first they usually say is “Did someone seriously make a movie based on that song?” Sadly, Highway to Hell wasn’t cool enough for the song to be in the movie, but there’s some of the strangest songs I’ve ever heard on the soundtrack. Some unknown band called Hidden Faces did the music for the film, and the singer sounds like he’s singing through his butt. Just one of the many fun things that can be found in Highway to Hell. God I love this movie.

Upcoming Movie of the Months:
August: Brandon presents Babe 2: Pig in the City (1998)
September: Britnee presents The Boyfriend School (1990)

-The Swampflix Crew

Swampchat: The Campy Spectacle of Bryce Dallas Howard’s Laughable Awfulness in Jurassic World (2015)

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Sometimes it takes more than one of us to tackle a film. Those are the times when we need a Swampchat.

Brandon: Reading over your review of Jurassic World was a refreshing experience. When I left the theater I felt an intense love-hate combo that had me a little more lukewarm on the film than you were, but I gotta say your enthusiasm is a little infectious after-the-fact. It’s good to take a step back and remember that “The predictable plot and characters aren’t the main selling point for this movie. It’s all about the dinosaurs!” The over-the-top dino action was certainly what got my butt in the seat, and the movie did deliver on that front, but I gotta admit that butt was squirming at the dialogue once it got there. As you alluded to in your review, the character Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, was particularly groan-worthy on this front, serving as the “ball-busting” ice queen career woman stereotype no one was eager to see return to the big screen (hopefully no one, anyway).

As much as I enjoyed your enthusiasm for the movie’s dino action, I think you could’ve been even harder on Bryce Dallas Howard’s role in the film. I’m not going to mince words here. I honestly believe she might have been the most poorly conceived/written/acted/employed character I’ve ever seen in a movie this expensive. She was beyond awful. Just horrendous. But, once you accept how atrocious Claire is the whole thing becomes a fairly hilarious joke. For me that turning point came very early in the film, on an orgasmic helicopter ride (you have to see it to believe it) and lasted all the way throughout, or at least until she was making eye contact with a garden snake like she was gazing into a mirror. I’ve rarely been this simultaneously infuriated & tickled by a single performance before. It’s one for the camp record books.

Britnee, did you manage to find any humor in Bryce Dallas Howard’s performance or was the sexist implications of how she was written sour your reaction to her completely? Am I also being too hard on the actress or did was she really that inhuman in the role? I feel like I saw more human behavior from ScarJo in Under the Skin, but a lot of that could potentially be blamed on the script . . .

Britnee: I think I would have to watch the film again to see anything other than disappointment and annoyance with Claire’s character. We are usually on the same page when it comes to finding the camp value in crappy movie characters/actors, so I’ll give Campy Claire another shot. What was more disappointing than her character was the theater audience’s reaction to her sexist traits. When she was running in heels or trying to act tough and pretty for Owen, everyone belted out laughs. Someone even said “What an idiot!” There was one part in the film that sort of sums up Claire’s role in Jurassic World. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat (or passengers seat) of a truck while her nephews are in the back, and she attempts to calm them down by offering her protection. They immediately point to Owen and say something like “Um, can we go with him?”

Basically, Claire was useless and only in this film to be a joke and a pretty face. This is the only other film I’ve seen with Bryce Dallas Howard other than Lady in the Water, which is one of my favorite films. Her role in that film didn’t require great acting at all, so I’m not really sure if she’s a good actress or not. As for you’re harsh words about Dallas and Claire, they were 100% justifiable considering that the acting was crap and the role was the worst.

Brandon, do you think that all of the film’s dinosaur goodness makes up for Claire’s flaws? What was your favorite dino moment?

Brandon: I left the theater feeling very strangely conflicted on this one. Your initial review made it sound like the dino action overwhelmed a lot of the more unsavory elements for you & I’m totally there with a lot of the scenes. The trained raptors, the Pterosaurs swarm, and the climactic battle between (vague spoiler?) the old guard & the newest attraction were all fist-pump worthy elements that had me excited like the tiniest of children. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the film as a whole was just grossly off to the point where it could’ve been renamed Jurassic Park IV: A Woman’s Place Is Sidelined In The Van With The Kids or JP 4: Quiet Everyone, A White Man Is Talking. In the end I was half enthusiastic & half turned off. It was a strange sensation. To be fair to Bryce Dallas Howard, she was far from the only problem the movie had souring its more universally-enjoyable dino action, but she does serve as a convenient (and often hilarious) example of what the film gets wrong.

I think part of the reason I had fun with how awful Claire is in the film is because I had to. It was like a strange defense mechanism, as if my brain couldn’t handle something so egregiously wrong mucking up the pleasure I was getting from the trained raptor army & terrorized Jimmy Buffets of the film. Bryce Dallas Howard’s cold, implausible, entirely inhuman performance certainly helped things there, since it was easy to accept the idea of abandoning any non-camp enjoyment I could pull from her presence very early in the proceedings.

Britnee, one of the things I found most interesting in your review is the idea that Claire was especially regressive when viewed in contrast with Laura Dern’s turn as Ellie Sattler in the first Jurassic Park film, released more than two decades ago. However, there are some similarities between her character & the similarly career driven, baby hatin’ Alan Grant, played by Sam Neill in that film. Do you think that if Claire were less of a casual observer & more of an active participant like Dr. Grant, she would’ve been more of a palatable character? Or does gender-swapping those character traits pretty much guarantee the laughably bad performance that was delivered?

Britnee: Now that you mention it, there are a good bit of similarities between Claire and Dr. Grant. The idea of this most likely accidental gender swap sheds a new light on Claire’s character. Her attitude wasn’t the main thing holding her back from being a likeable character; it was her lack of participation in the nitty gritty of the film. She actually did have one big heroic moment, but unfortunately, it was overshadowed by her negative aspects. When the Indominus rex makes her way near the park entrance, Claire comes up with the brilliant idea of releasing the T-rex, and she even runs to the gate (in those damn heels) to release the dino. Why couldn’t she have had more parts like that? Now don’t get me wrong, she was very intelligent in many parts of the film, much like Dr. Grant, but she just wasn’t very physically active. I think that Owen is actually a big part of this problem. His manly man character was very oppressive and prevented Claire from doing much of anything. Claire and Owen should’ve been a team like Ellie and Dr. Grant, but the filmmakers seemed too focused on making Owen this macho breakout star instead of making Owen and Claire a dynamic duo.

Brandon, what are your thoughts on Owen? Why, especially in this day and age, do you think Jurassic World was so backwards when compared to Jurassic Park? Were the writers purposeful with this mistake or were they just a bunch of doofuses?

Brandon: I’m going to have to side with The Doofus Theory in regards to how this film got so mucked up. This is a major studio project that, although helmed by a director whose first film, Safety Not Guaranteed, had a strong cinematic voice, was most certainly made by committee. The fact that there are four credited screenwriters alone is not a good sign. If director Colin Trevorrow were paired with a single writer, maybe two, there could’ve been a much stronger vision shining through here. Instead, you can just feel the studio’s influence seeping through every frame to the point where producers & screen testers should’ve been given written by credits as well, at least for the sake of transparency. In the scramble to reboot a once mighty, now extinct franchise, Jurassic World makes constant homage to its 1993 ancestor, casually tossing out sly callbacks to all sorts of aspects from the original Jurassic Park with wild abandon. Some of these callbacks worked extremely well, especially when they culminate with the two films’ central monsters battling it out at the climax. However, the purposelessness of the exercise sometimes comes back to bite the movie on its tail, like when Dr. Grant’s child-hatin’ coldness (but not his heroic sense of adventure) get reassigned to a female character without any thought given to what that crucial change implicates.

Chris Pratt’s Owen has a very similar problem. Like the Indominous rex, he’s a creature of design, a classic movie hero seemingly grown in a lab solely to look handsome, squint purposefully, and crack wise. Like the reckless scientists in the film, the studio that created Owen were only trying to entertain the crowds looking for some dino action. They never once considered how dangerous their creation could be, how grotesque it would feel to watch a modern blockbuster in which every woman & POC character in charge would be proven weak & ineffective in contrast to the white man who swoops in to straighten everyone out. Even Chris Pratt’s bountiful charm can’t overcome an obstacle that treacherous & Owen’s flippant The-White-Man’s-In-Charge-Now attitude frequently comes off just as poorly as Claire’s Coldblooded-Damsel-In-Distress routine. Knowing that the effects these characters have on the film were likely a result of too many cooks spoiling the stew does little to help me forgive them for souring an otherwise pretty fun monster movie with a bunch of great, politically blank dinosaur action.

Lagniappe

Brandon: I honestly believe the Rosetta’s Stone of enjoying this film without caveat is personal acceptance of Claire as a campy mess. The awful performance combined with the (perhaps unintentionally) regressive dialogue was consistently humorous to me in the theater and I’m totally okay with that. I don’t need a movie that’s drawing power is mostly dinosaurs eating folks to win me over on an emotional or intellectual level. There wasn’t really enough going on with the film’s characters to provide a worthwhile face-value reading anyway. Claire is 1000% more entertaining as a joke than she is as a sympathetic character. It’s almost all for the best that that effect was unintentional; I wouldn’t want to believe that a final product that egregious was delivered on purpose.

Britnee: I think that I took Jurassic World too seriously during my first viewing because I expected it to be an extension of Jurassic Park. Of course, it is an extension of Jurassic Park, but it’s not as
similar to the first film as I initially thought. The dinosaur stuff was pretty similar, but everything else was totally different in the worst way possible. Now, I’m starting to see the overwhelming amount
of camp contained in the film. Owen the Raptor Man speeding around a dinosaur theme park on a motorcycle, a high-fashion ice queen trekking through dangerous territory in heels, and Jimmy Buffet running away from a dinosaur attack with a margarita in each hand are definitely not elements that would be found in a serious film, so I’m looking forward to watching it a second time with a much different mindset.

-The Swampflix Crew

Poltergeist (2015)

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ghost

twohalfstar

So far this year alone in sequels, reboots, and remakes I’ve seen Mad Max: Fury Road, Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Insidious: Chapter 3, and Jurassic World. Even if I didn’t enjoy most of those movies (I did) I’d still understand the fatigue folks are feeling with the oversaturation of rehashed cinematic properties. Of all the reboots, remakes & sequels I’ve seen recently, though, none have felt quite as pointless as the recent Poltergeist rehashing. When considered on its own, the new Poltergeist is passable as a decent genre exercise, I guess. It just doesn’t add enough to the original film’s formula to justify its own existence. If it were just any haunted house film Poltergeist (2015) would’ve been just okay, but it’s pedigree as a remake burdens its mediocre charms with way too much to live up to.

I’m not saying that the original Poltergeist film is a perfect work or art that shouldn’t be touched by lesser life forms. It’s just that updating its exact story with a few isolated cultural markers like flat-screen televisions, drone-operated cameras, and reality television isn’t really the kind of creative motivation that screams necessity. Both films share a goofy, childlike approach to horror & find their creep-outs in unlikely places like trees, suburban neighborhoods, precocious children, and television static. It’s just much less effective the second time around, more than three decades letter, with just a few faces & fashions swapped out as a means of making it fresh again.

I’m not usually this down on the idea of rehashing old movies, but I found very little special about the Poltergeist remake. Sam Rockwell’s always-welcome presence is the sole exciting element in play here, but he does very little to liven up the grim proceedings that surround him. I didn’t hate the new Poltergeist. I didn’t particularly like it much either. It was just kinda there, dying for a reason to exist, built on the cursed grave of a film that came long before it. You could do worse for lazy afternoon viewing if the film ever pops up on TV or streaming and you’re not sure how to kill a couple hours, but that’s hardly high praise.

-Brandon Ledet

The Disparate Ground Covered by John Lithgow’s Collaborations with Brian De Palma

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I made a lot of noise last week about the disparate halves of actor John Travolta’s choices in roles, noting that the two sides of his career can be conveniently summed up by his turns in the political thrillers Swordfish & Blow Out. Another actor from June’s Movie of the Month, 1981’s political thriller Blow Out, John Lithgow has made a similar career out of splitting his time between expertly nuanced roles like his turn in Kinsey & over-the-top villains in less respectable crowd favorites like Footloose, Cliffhanger, and Ricochet. The difference between Lithgow & Travolta is that Travolta’s acting can waver from high art to low trash depending on the film, but Lithgow is nothing if not consistent. No matter what film he’s starring in, Lithgow gives the production an incredible sense of levity, seemingly committing himself wholeheartedly in an equal, measured approach to the task at hand.

In his two collaborations with director Brian De Palma, Blow Out & Raising Cain, Lithgow was given plenty of space to display his unwavering enthusiasm for his craft. In Blow Out, Lithgow excels as a violent, sociopathic assassin that dominates the film’s central threat. In Raising Cain, De Palma asks Lithgow to run wild, playing several different characters each more eccentric than the last. A psychological thriller about a child psychologist gone completely off the rails, Raising Cain is far from the tight, controlled political thriller offered in Blow Out. Lithgow commits to both films equally, though, bringing the same cold intensity he used to elevate Blow Out to flesh out the sketchy at best Raising Cain, a ludicrous thriller that asks a whole lot of him, all of which he gives selflessly.

If you’re looking to see how a little, tastefully-applied Lithgow can go a long away, Blow Out is certainly the movie for you. If you want to see how that same element can be used for over-the-top, tawdry camp, Raising Cain is the better option. Due to Lithgow’s consistent acting style, his presence is more of a tool than a variable. In his two collaborations with Lithgow, De Palma has used the actor for very disparate effects that both exemplifies the types of roles Lithgow is typically used for & the range of quality & tone De Palma reaches for in his films. As a double feature, Raising Cain & Blow Out reveal a lot about the nature of the director & the actor both and raises questions about exactly why they haven’t worked together more often.

For more on June’s Movie of the Month, 1981’s Blow Out, visit our Swampchat , this look at Berberian Sound Studio’s sound-obsessed roots in the film, and last week’s comparison of the movie with John Travolta’s other political thriller, Swordfish.

-Brandon Ledet

Hot Girls Wanted (2015)

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twohalfstar

When I reviewed the movie Kink, a fluff piece documentary about the BDSM porn site Kink.com, I faulted the film for being stubbornly one-sided. Kink presented such a positive, non-critical view of its subject that it played a lot more like a long-form advertisement than a proper documentary. The Rashida Jones-produced amateur porn documentary Hot Girls Wanted unfortunately repeats Kink’s cinematic sins, except from the other side of the fence. The entire movie plays like an 80min version of the “Shame! Shame! Shame!” scene that recently aired on Game of Thrones, offering a wholly negative view of amateur pornography as an industry. Granted, it certainly found a lot of grotesque, incisive business practices to publicly shame here, but it also suggests that there are people who have had positive experiences in the industry without exploring those threads of thought. It’s a deliberately one-sided issue documentary meant to influence the viewer’s opinions on the subject at hand instead of objectively presenting the facts. Like with a lot of films in that vein, Hot Girls Wanted is surprisingly affecting, admirable even, but not exactly an example of exceptional film-making.

Hot Girls Wanted is at least smart about keeping its subject concise. Instead of tackling the porn industry as a whole, it follows a group of six female roommates in Miami, FL who have been recruited to shoot amateur pornography. The girls are all white, recent high school graduates who enter the industry as a way of getting away from their controlled home lives. They’re recruited into the lifestyle by a 23 year old scumbag who purposefully manipulates young women through Craigslist ads into becoming “adult models”. The reason the industry has such a strong foothold in Miami is because California recently passed a law requiring all pornography shoots to include condoms. Once in Miami, these girls are convinced to have unprotected sex on camera for sizeable (but far from long-lasting) sums of money until they’re replaced by the next crop of fresh faces (usually less than a year down the line). The films’s strongest moments is when it allows the girls to speak for themselves.

It’s when Hot Girls Wanted strays from telling these six girls’ stories to attempt to make larger points about the culture that supports their decisions to enter porn that it fumbles the ball. Blaming influences like celebrity sex tapes, the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, and music videos from the likes of Nicki Minaj & Miley Cyrus is kind of a cheap pot shot that has little to do with the task at hand. In just the first few minutes of the film, it’s slyly suggested that selfies are a gateway drug to making amateur pornography and if I had rolled my eyes any harder I would’ve gone permanently blind. The goal of Hot Girls Wanted is extremely admirable. The negative creeps the film exposes are hauntingly predatory and their unsuspecting teen prey are more or less children that don’t know exactly what they’re getting into until it’s too late. It’s only when the film wavers a little from telling specific stories to trying to make a larger point about modern culture as a whole that it loses me completely.

Hot Girls Wanted also has a tendency to present a wholly negative view of the amateur porn industry and pursues only the avenues that support its viewpoint. For example, late in the film it’s suggested that some of the subjects have had positive experiences creating & distributing pornography on their own through webcam technology. It seems to me that that’s the kind of thing you might want to follow up on if you want to tell a complete story, instead of taking time to mock the Kardashians or the art of the selfie.  It’s completely understandable why Hot Girls Wanted would want to stick to the supporting evidence, since its entire goal is to change minds about an industry it believes to be exclusively poisonous. It’s just that as a film, this one-sided approach is just about as exciting as when Kink went in the exact opposite direction: a little, but not very.

-Brandon Ledet

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

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ghost

three star

When saw Insidious: Chapter 3 at the theater, it just happened to be playing at the exact right time. I had two hours to kill & Insidious 3 was conveniently positioned to kill it for me. Having not seen the first two films in the franchise I had absolutely no idea what to expect outside its pedigree as a horror sequel. Since then, I’ve caught up with the entire trilogy & I’m surprised to admit that the third “chapter” has held up both as an appropriate entry point & my favorite film of the series so far.

A prequel to the events that take place in the first two “chapters”, Insidious: Chapter 3 is a straightforward, no frills ghost story. A haunted teenage girl starts to get dragged into the afterlife (known here as “The Further”) by a super creepy specter with a terrible attitude. Character actress Lin Shaye (who was absolutely terrifying as the overbearing mother in Detroit Rock City) is expertly employed here as a medium who tries to drag her back to the physical world before it’s too late. Straightforward genre fare has been the Insidious series’ forte since the beginning, but this is the most successful entry so far both in terms of how fun it is and how successfully creepy-scary it can be.

Although Insidious: Chapter 3 doesn’t bring all too much new to the table that wasn’t in the first two films, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s the most successful of the three. Its ghost looked cooler, the tension was built better, it was much goofier on the camp scale (without the icky crossdressing phobia of the second entry), it spent more quality time in “The Further” realm, etc. The basic components of the first two films have merely been switched around & dusted off a little here, but it still managed to be my favorite entry to date, a rare feat for a horror sequel these days.

-Brandon Ledet

Travolta’s Glorious Heights & Hopelessly Trashy Depths in Blow Out (1981) & Swordfish (2001)

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John Travolta has had a very strange career, alternating from working with acclaimed outsider directors like Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction & Brian De Palma in Blow Out to working on huge piles of hot garbage like Battlefield Earth & The Devil’s Rain. Strange as it is, this dichotomy isn’t entirely unique & can more or less be summed up as The Nic Cage Career Model. Travolta’s talents & natural charisma are immense, but often confusingly wasted on the trashiest of trash cinema. Travolta himself even solidified the Cage connection by essentially playing Cage at his hammiest in the ludicrously over-the-top action thriller Face/Off.

Perhaps the best way to experience the full range of Travolta’s full range of immense talent & laughable awfulness is in a double feature of June’s Movie of the Month, the 1981 political thriller Blow Out & Swordfish, a hopelessly trashy political thriller that arrived thirty years later & much worse for wear. Besides Travolta’s role & the political thriller genre connection, Swordfish & Blow Out both attempt meta-commentary about the nature of film itself. Blow Out accomplishes this slyly through depictions of a film of a car accident being reconstructed step by step, sound first. Swordfish, on the other hand, clumsily announces that it’s talking about movies by allowing Travolta’s central villain to deconstruct the intricacies of Dog Day Afternoon in the very first scene. Inviting viewers to conjure up memories of a much better film doesn’t do Swordfish any favors. Neither does watching Travolta’s performance in context of Blow Out.

In Blow Out, Travolta plays a befuddled everyman sound technician who’s in over his head when he gets dragged into a world of political intrigue. In Swordfish, he’s an evil Derek Zoolander-type with a terrible haircut who’s main business is political intrigue. The interesting thing about watching Blow Out  & Swordfish back to back is that they not only exemplify the heights & depths of Travolta’s talents & hamming, but they also validate & demonize those two dueling halves of his career. In Blow Out, we’re treated to Good Travolta, who just wants to tell the world the truth about a car accident because he feels like they have a right to know. In Swordfish, the much less savory Bad Travolta robs banks & forces hackers to operate at gunpoint while receiving oral sex just to see what they’re made of.

Blow Out is a perfectly constructed political thriller from the director of classics like Scarface & Carrie. Swordfish is a disgustingly crass fusion of The Matrix & Pulp Fiction sensibilities, laden with some of the worst CGI I’ve ever seen in a film, and directed by the dude who gave the world the Nic Cage Gone in Sixty Seconds remake. In tandem, both films share very little common ground, but do a competent job of capturing the totality of John Travolta’s varied career as an actor. As per usual, Good (Travolta) triumphs over Evil (Travolta) here and Blow Out is an objectively much better film, but to truly appreciate Travolta’s career as an actor in its totality you do have to roll around in the trash every now & then and he is hilariously dedicated to the cause in the grotesquely idiotic Swordfish.

For more on June’s Movie of the Month, 1981’s Blow Out, visit our Swampchat & last week’s look at Berberian Sound Studio’s sound-obsessed roots in the film.