Movies: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Indie Game: The Movie & Safety Not Guaranteed

I often read how there are no good films being made, which to me is simply a lazy observation, in addition to being untrue. I use the term "lazy" because to find films that are worthwhile you have to put in effort (this is actually true of anything worthwhile in life).

Here are three films released thus far in 2012 that I think are among the best of the year.

I'm not going to say too much about any of them. I've come to a point where if a film interests me prior to me seeing it, I tend to shut out any information about it (trailers, articles, reviews, etc.), so that when I do see it I see it fresh, like I used to in the pre-internet days. I find it makes for a better experience at the movies. I'm providing you the same courtesy.

Presented here in no particular order...

- Safety Not Guaranteed -

"There's no sense in nonsense. Especially when the heat gets hot."

A magazine writer and two interns head out on an assignment to find and interview someone who placed a classified ad which reads: "Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed". There's your high-concept, but the film isn't a one-joke exercise. Instead it's a terrific comic character study and bittersweet romance.

Aubrey Plaza does a nice turn in the lead as the intern Darius, imbuing her usual onscreen sardonic persona with a layer of sadness that fits quite nicely.

- Beasts of the Southern Wild -

Likely the best child performance I've ever seen, by Quvenzhané Wallis -- at the time 6-years old and a non-actor, playing Hushpuppy. Completely real. I like that the film didn't condescend to the emotions expressed by Hushpuppy, in particular when she's angry (and she has much to be angry about). The film never presents her anger in an "awww, cute" fashion. Her high pitched scream might seem contradictory, but her facial expressions and posture when she delivers it show it to be entirely appropriate as the vocal weapon her tiny body can muster.

- Indie Game: The Movie -

Are video games art? Is it healthy to define yourself through your work? Can a couple of unknowns make an entertaining, heartfelt documentary film via a Kickstarter campaign that ends up being one of the best films of the year?

For the lazy, this film provides almost no barrier to viewing it. You must be on an internet-connected computer if you're reading this, so I'm providing you with the link to buy and download the film. Click this link, lazybones! You'll be glad you did.

Watch all three of these movies, and then tell me again how there are no good films being made, hypothetical naysayer. I dare you.

Movies: Prometheus

The "pilot room" sequence in Prometheus.

- Spoiler Territory -

Things I liked:

• Visually and technically, it's stunning. This is the best use of stereoscopic 3D that I've seen since Avatar (I should note that I have not yet seen Hugo, however).
• Noomi Rapace's, Charlize Theron's, and Michael Fassbender's performances (Theron and Fassbender have a scene together that had a dark, twisted undercurrent that I think the film could have used more of, actually). Idris Elba and Guy Pearce were fine too.
• The whole "auto-surgery" sequence.
• The whole "Engineer's pilot room" sequence. I thought it was a neat choice to have the soaring orchestral soundtrack abruptly cut to complete silence when the holographic replay unexpectedly stopped.
• The whole prologue/opening-title sequence. It did a pretty good job of saying to the audience: "this isn't Alien, exactly, just so you know".
• The holographic "ghosts" (though as a practical bit of alien technology in the film, I'm not sure they make a lick of sense).
• The geological survey devices, "POPS" I think they were called, which are little flying spheres that shoot out red lasers in all directions as they fly to map out the surfaces of structures. Their ideation and use in the film allows for some nifty visuals as they zip around and we're shown the resulting three-dimensional map they create of the structure they're surveying. These scenes tie in nicely with the use of stereoscopic 3D.

Things I didn't like:

• The Geologist and The Biologist characters, which I describe here by job title, as they don't leave any impression as actual characters, besides perhaps 'the angry one' and 'the incredibly stupid one', respectively. The Biologist in particular does something so incredibly stupid that it was beyond belief, beyond any semblence of human behaviour. I'll ask you: if you are frightened and trapped on an alien world in an alien structure littered with alien corpses, and you are confronted by a weird penis-eel animal that's being outwardly aggressive, is your first thought to reach out and touch it, while talking to it as though it's a cat you're trying to coax out of hiding? The Biologist's behaviour in that sequence felt like pure plot-device manipulation. All the more frustrating because it could've easily been handled so much better, with the same plot result (dead Biologist).
• "Daddy issues". Vickers' "...Father." line felt like it was there for the really dense people in the audience who hadn't figured that plot point out on their own, earlier in the scene, based on the terrific, subtle acting and filmmaking cues on display. It's a pet peeve of mine: never elbow the audience in the ribs and say "Get it?!" during a scene, they'll hate you for it, rightly so.
• The old age makeup for Guy Pearce. It wasn't terribly done, but it did look weird. Though I like Pearce as an actor, I think there was a missed opportunity to cast an actor of a beliveable age for the part (though not the part's "actual" age, as I think the idea was that Weyland had, using his vast financial resources, medically extended his life long past any natural point).
• Logan Marshall-Green is not great as Holloway. Competent to be sure, but Holloway as a character has the potential for all kinds of layers that Marshall-Green doesn't access in his performance at all. As acted, Holloway's vaguely excited, and then vaguely depressed, and his ultimate self-sacrifice had only a vague resonance. Relative to my previous point, they should've cast Guy Pearce in this role, instead.
• I thought the faith-versus-science, creationism-versus-evolution themes were clumsily handled (this is a criticism of the script more than anything).
• Total waste of Vickers character in the end (assuming from all the evidence supplied that she's dead). Charlize is a huge asset, you don't want her along for the sequel? Seriously?

Things I'm still unclear about:

• What was the ultimate point of David contaminating Holloway? I'm not sure how it plays into David's motivations: is it simply a matter of coldly wanting to play out "let's see what this does"? Otherwise I don't see how it fits into Weyland's plan at all.

The Verdict?

My feelings on this one are complicated. I've mentioned in an earlier post that Alien is a particular favourite of mine that I saw when I was much younger, but I don't feel that Prometheus has, as the crass internet meme goes, "raped my childhood". Strangely, I find it easy to disconnect it from Alien, in that it seems more like a remix or jazz-improvisation of that film and the visual motifs in it, rather than a continuation of it, if that makes any sense. Additionally, the fact that Prometheus deliberately does not dovetail neatly into Alien helps.

As I left the theatre, my main thought was "it's too bad that everyone involved didn't put forth all that talent and effort toward an original film, rather than an Alien prequel".

That said, I do think it should be seen, and should be seen in a theatre in 3D. Despite any critcisms I have, there is still a lot to be valued in Prometheus. Though it didn't meet my admittedly high expectations, it's certainly not from lack of trying on the part of the filmmakers.

TV: Luther (Series 1)

Click THIS to see the kickass title sequence.

I finally got around to watching the first series of the BBC crime-drama Luther. Just for clarification, a British TV "series" is the equivalent of a North American "season" -- so basically I'm talking about "season 1", which is six hour-long episodes. I like the show but it is pretty gruesome, as Luther investigates fairly heinous crimes that the show doesn't shy away from displaying in graphic detail, and I must admit as I get older I get more squeamish about onscreen violence (I think it's called "maturing"). It's all very pulpy. Often it sacrifices believability for entertainment (which pretty much all narrative fiction does to one extent or another), and sometimes it gets histrionic and overripe ("why are these two characters screaming at each other for this entire scene?"), but as a whole it's compelling. In the title role, Idris Elba is a charismatic actor, and as Alice, Ruth Wilson plays the brilliant-psychotic-Hannibal-Lecter-surrogate quite nicely (and she's much prettier than Anthony Hopkins or Brian Cox anyway).

If there's one thing that I truly dig about the show, though, it's how the DPs are framing the shots. It really doesn't look like any other TV show. They like to cram characters down into the lower part of the frame, and further to really hang them out in the corners. Here are two angles from an interview sequence in the third episode:

I've taken those two shots and modified them to show how I think a "typical" show would frame them, where the light blue area would be cropped away:

I much prefer the tension that the original framing adds, as it is in keeping with the threatening, off-kilter ambience of the show. When the horrible things horrible people are doing are slowly revealed, it should be as much of a tension-filled experience for the audience as possible.

Here's another couple of shots from the same episode where Luther is confronting a serial killer who exsanguinates his victims (ick.) in said killer's shop:

...and here's the initial crime scene (note that one character is in the lower third of the frame!):

Finally, just another day at the office:

This is obviously not a framing aesthetic that should be used for every show, and even in this show they don't use it for every shot, but when they do use it, it definitely works for me. Anything that gets away from the soap-opera look of full-screen facial close-ups that much of TV succumbs to is a good thing.

I recommend Luther, if you can stomach it. Now I have to get Series 2, though I've heard it's even more gruesome than Series 1, so we'll see if I can stomach that. Also, get off my lawn!

P.S. Here's the link to the Luther Title Sequence again in case you missed it in the caption of the image at the top. It's nifty.