All is right with the world, for The Skeleton Key has renewed my faith that Hollywood is still churning out stinkers.
The Skeleton Key (2005) is a “thriller/horror” film starring Kate Hudson and Peter Sarsgaard, who sports a terrible southern accent here. I first saw Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, and her mix of naivete and young maturity there made her irresistible. Since then, she has done nothing but crap. How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days was moderately entertaining as far as romantic movies go, but the rest of the Hudson oeuvre has been terrible. The Skeleton Key is no different, and I wonder why the producers decided that she was the best one for the role.
The problem with The Skeleton Key is not the acting, though, which is generally fine. It’s the mix of thriller and horror that just doesn’t work here. The back of the DVD compares the film to The Sixth Sense, and I knew it was going to be bad right then. When a film has to compare itself to some other great movie, it doesn’t have its own thing going for it. What made The Sixth Sense great was not just its originality but its truly horrifying sequences. Sure, there was drama and tenderness, but it was also really freaking scary. The Skeleton Key tries to do the same thing. It builds up the scares throughout the entire movie, making us anticipate that something really terrible is going to happen. Even these anticipatory scenes aren’t scary, though; they’re merely anticipating a scare that, well, never actually comes. The ending, which tries to present itself as a “switch” or “play” in The Sixth Sense vein, doesn’t even work. Here, we do know what’s coming, and it fails to be scary.
That I just can’t handle. The “thriller/horror” dichotomy doesn’t work anymore, and when a horror film isn’t scary, I’m distraught. I love horror films, and I am more scared of them as I get older, with scenes stuck in my head for weeks and years. If a horror film can’t even do that, trash it. The Skeleton Key has absolutely nothing going for it, except a moderately interesting plot. If it can’t scare me, it isn’t worth watching, though. The very title is a metaphor for the entire movie: a weak attempt to make it seem scary without really being scary. The title has something to do with the movie, yes, but it is not the key to it by any means. The producers simply thought it sounded good. Weak, boys, weak.
What I did like about this film is its racial plot. Blacks and whites intermingle here in a way that is different from any other film I have ever seen. The entire idea is only specifically mentioned once, at the end of the movie, but it’s there underneath the entire time, at least if we read the movie backwards, knowing what will happen at the end. Some of the plot takes on strange overtones if we see the characters as their “true” racial selves. Notice I didn’t say “racist,” although there’s some of that. I’m talking about a mixing of races that is truly original. I can’t really say more on this subject without giving away the twist at the end, but this one facet of the film brings it above a zero and makes it, well, not exactly worthwhile, but not a complete waste of time, either.
Grade for The Skeleton Key: 3
Monday, May 08, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
A Dearth of Badness?
What has happened to all of the bad movies? Since I haven’t had a chance to actually watch another movie, I have been reviewing my own reviews to review how I re-viewed several films, and I was astonished by the number of high ratings I have been giving. Heck, it’s been since November 10, 2005 that I gave a rating below a 5, and that five was given to Femme Fatale mainly because of my disappointment with Brian de Palma. What has happened to all of the bad movies? Why are my reviews consistently high?
There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon, so let me go through them:
1. I rate things too highly. There’s something to this one, I admit. If I bother to watch an entire movie or read an entire book, I generally like it, and it’s not until I have time to ponder it that I realize that it’s actually a stinker. I recall one situation when I couldn’t quite condemn Blair Witch Project 2, even after a friend’s goading. I still haven’t gotten over that one. However, I do think I’m willing to call a movie on its own stupidity, at least after some thought. I’m a teacher, after all, and even if I like a student, I know when a thesis is a piece of garbage, and I have to rate it as such. The same goes for movies, and I have given some low grades in the past.
2. Movies are getting better. Hah! I can barely write that without chuckling through my keyboard. Let’s see: R.V., Stick It, Silent Hill, Scary Movie 4, The Sentinel, The Wild, and The Benchwarmers all tell me that #2 just isn’t the case. There are still a lot of bad bad movies being made. And those are just the bad ones in the top 10 grossing movies of the week…
3. I’m more choosy. If numbers 1 and 2 aren’t the case, then this one must be true. With so little time to watch movies these days, I must be more picky in the films I choose to actually watch. My wife requested the Jennifer Garner film 13 Going on 30, and we watched fifteen minutes of it before turning it off and returning it to the library. Life (and time, these days) is just too short. I would much rather watch some great old film or an established modern classic with my precious movie time.
Don’t worry, though. I will go back to reviewing crap soon enough. My work project is about over, so I should be able to settle down into a life of active sloth by working the remote every night. And let’s see what’s on the queue: Garden State, The Legend of Drunken Master, Dr. T and the Women, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Mask of Zorro, Ride the High Country, Flightplan, Goldfinger, Layer Cake, Stalag 17, Corpse Bride, Enron, A History of Violence, Collateral, and Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Life will be good.
There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon, so let me go through them:
1. I rate things too highly. There’s something to this one, I admit. If I bother to watch an entire movie or read an entire book, I generally like it, and it’s not until I have time to ponder it that I realize that it’s actually a stinker. I recall one situation when I couldn’t quite condemn Blair Witch Project 2, even after a friend’s goading. I still haven’t gotten over that one. However, I do think I’m willing to call a movie on its own stupidity, at least after some thought. I’m a teacher, after all, and even if I like a student, I know when a thesis is a piece of garbage, and I have to rate it as such. The same goes for movies, and I have given some low grades in the past.
2. Movies are getting better. Hah! I can barely write that without chuckling through my keyboard. Let’s see: R.V., Stick It, Silent Hill, Scary Movie 4, The Sentinel, The Wild, and The Benchwarmers all tell me that #2 just isn’t the case. There are still a lot of bad bad movies being made. And those are just the bad ones in the top 10 grossing movies of the week…
3. I’m more choosy. If numbers 1 and 2 aren’t the case, then this one must be true. With so little time to watch movies these days, I must be more picky in the films I choose to actually watch. My wife requested the Jennifer Garner film 13 Going on 30, and we watched fifteen minutes of it before turning it off and returning it to the library. Life (and time, these days) is just too short. I would much rather watch some great old film or an established modern classic with my precious movie time.
Don’t worry, though. I will go back to reviewing crap soon enough. My work project is about over, so I should be able to settle down into a life of active sloth by working the remote every night. And let’s see what’s on the queue: Garden State, The Legend of Drunken Master, Dr. T and the Women, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Mask of Zorro, Ride the High Country, Flightplan, Goldfinger, Layer Cake, Stalag 17, Corpse Bride, Enron, A History of Violence, Collateral, and Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Life will be good.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A Bunch of Good Ones
Yet another week without much movie watching. Life is sad.
On to The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah’s classic starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine.
Let me be honest: I don’t like westerns. I have never enjoyed them because they are generally so much like morality tales. After watching The Wild Bunch, however, I now see that Westerns should be divided into two camps: the John Wayne camp on the one side, with its heroes and the white man’s triumph, and the Clint Eastwood camp on the other side, with its anti-heroes and struggles with honor.
I’m sure you know which side I like.
I’ll be honest again: I didn’t mean to get The Wild Bunch. I thought I was requesting The Wild One (1954) with Marlon Brando. I was upset when I got the movie but not after I began watching it. The Wild Bunch is far and away the best western I have ever seen. It’s high praise, yes, but keep in mind that I don’t really like westerns and haven’t seen very many of them. I plan on changing the now by requesting all of the Clint Eastwood westerns, the version of the western I like.
The Wild Bunch is far more than a Western. It takes place right after World War I, so there are a few cars, machine guns, even political maneuverings of the Mexican kind. Its setting sets it apart, first of all: the movie is set at the end of the West itself. There are no more Apaches to kill. Instead, there is a Mexican general name Mapache. The people who terrorize towns can no longer do so because the capitalists have the capital to fight them through any means necessary, which means hiring bounty hunters and getting people out of jail to hunt their old comrades.
Along with the end of the West comes the end of the characters’ way of life. They’re smart and they’re honorable, but they’re also endangered. One cannot be a smart, honorable anti-hero and get away with it anymore. The people in power—whether they be railroad capitalists or Mexican generals—will destroy whatever gets in their way, and that thing in their way seems to be the smart, honorable anti-hero. Forget trying to make their way in the world today, for that way of life has simply ended. What we see here is that the West is now a place of stark contrast, where the poor live in complete poverty and the rich live in absolute splendor. The two only meet when the poor serve the rich.
Besides the setting is the plot itself: aging gunmen flee their way of life in America while being pursued by an old comrade who now works for the railroad. They end up in Mexico, working for a general who is terrorizing the Mexican populations while fighting for power in his region. There is a poor resistance movement that enters the picture, as well, but we can’t expect that these aging gunmen will join them. All they want is to make money and stay alive. One doesn’t do that by joining the resistance.
So everything about this movie, including its scenery, brutish violence, and stark sexuality, set it apart from anything else I have seen before 1970. It’s an amazing story, and I can’t think of any way to make it better. Therefore, it receives my first 10 rating.
Grade for The Wild Bunch: 10
On to The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah’s classic starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine.
Let me be honest: I don’t like westerns. I have never enjoyed them because they are generally so much like morality tales. After watching The Wild Bunch, however, I now see that Westerns should be divided into two camps: the John Wayne camp on the one side, with its heroes and the white man’s triumph, and the Clint Eastwood camp on the other side, with its anti-heroes and struggles with honor.
I’m sure you know which side I like.
I’ll be honest again: I didn’t mean to get The Wild Bunch. I thought I was requesting The Wild One (1954) with Marlon Brando. I was upset when I got the movie but not after I began watching it. The Wild Bunch is far and away the best western I have ever seen. It’s high praise, yes, but keep in mind that I don’t really like westerns and haven’t seen very many of them. I plan on changing the now by requesting all of the Clint Eastwood westerns, the version of the western I like.
The Wild Bunch is far more than a Western. It takes place right after World War I, so there are a few cars, machine guns, even political maneuverings of the Mexican kind. Its setting sets it apart, first of all: the movie is set at the end of the West itself. There are no more Apaches to kill. Instead, there is a Mexican general name Mapache. The people who terrorize towns can no longer do so because the capitalists have the capital to fight them through any means necessary, which means hiring bounty hunters and getting people out of jail to hunt their old comrades.
Along with the end of the West comes the end of the characters’ way of life. They’re smart and they’re honorable, but they’re also endangered. One cannot be a smart, honorable anti-hero and get away with it anymore. The people in power—whether they be railroad capitalists or Mexican generals—will destroy whatever gets in their way, and that thing in their way seems to be the smart, honorable anti-hero. Forget trying to make their way in the world today, for that way of life has simply ended. What we see here is that the West is now a place of stark contrast, where the poor live in complete poverty and the rich live in absolute splendor. The two only meet when the poor serve the rich.
Besides the setting is the plot itself: aging gunmen flee their way of life in America while being pursued by an old comrade who now works for the railroad. They end up in Mexico, working for a general who is terrorizing the Mexican populations while fighting for power in his region. There is a poor resistance movement that enters the picture, as well, but we can’t expect that these aging gunmen will join them. All they want is to make money and stay alive. One doesn’t do that by joining the resistance.
So everything about this movie, including its scenery, brutish violence, and stark sexuality, set it apart from anything else I have seen before 1970. It’s an amazing story, and I can’t think of any way to make it better. Therefore, it receives my first 10 rating.
Grade for The Wild Bunch: 10
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Is Kong Really King?
Don’t worry, everyone! I’m not going away for another few months like I did in November. Nope, I have just been a bit too busy to watch many movies. This entire past week, I have only watched one movie, and that isn’t nearly enough for my taste. If I had my way, I would watch one a night, at least. My wife would go crazy, but it would be worth it…
I haven’t watched Peter Jackson’s King Kong yet, but I decided to do some preparation by watching the original 1933 version with Fay Wray.
On the one hand, I completely understand why every director probably wants to remake this movie. It has everything! Special effects, large beasts, beautiful women, carnage, heroes, and even metacommentary on filmmaking. I want to remake this movie! It is probably the perfect movie in a way that James Cameron’s Titanic is a perfect movie. These perfect movies incorporate every possible plot into an end-product that is interesting, satisfying and appeals to everyone (as King Kong even points out through its own meta-narrative).
On the other hand, I see no reason why this film should be remade or why any self-respecting director would think that he or she could do it better. As a perfect movie, King Kong even incorporates great acting and amazing special effects. Sure, they pale in comparison to what can be done today, but man, those effects still look cool. You actually get to watch Kong crush people with his teeth and destroy overhead trains. And it looks pretty good, too. Okay, the special effects could be redone, but what does this really do for the movie?
Basically, I really wanted to see Jackson’s version, but that was before I watched the original again. Now I want to see it even more to understand why Jackson felt as if this was the movie he had to make. If it’s just an homage, there’s really no point. Just watch the original and get the same thing. If Jackson thinks the old one is flawed and needs updating, then the man needs to read Shakespeare on hubris. Lady Macbeth might have something to say about his big head, after all.
My question is this: What does Jackson do that makes a remake worth it? I haven’t seen the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange version since I was a kid, but I don’t remember it being that spectacular. The only thing I can think is that Jackson felt that younger audiences needed to be exposed to King Kong. What young person is going to watch and enjoy a film from 1933? Probably none. I know I didn’t like it when I saw it many years ago. I thought it was hokey and slapsticky. Now I know it’s all a part of Merian C. Cooper’s genius.
After all, Kong is King, at least the original one…
Grade for King Kong (1933): 9
I haven’t watched Peter Jackson’s King Kong yet, but I decided to do some preparation by watching the original 1933 version with Fay Wray.
On the one hand, I completely understand why every director probably wants to remake this movie. It has everything! Special effects, large beasts, beautiful women, carnage, heroes, and even metacommentary on filmmaking. I want to remake this movie! It is probably the perfect movie in a way that James Cameron’s Titanic is a perfect movie. These perfect movies incorporate every possible plot into an end-product that is interesting, satisfying and appeals to everyone (as King Kong even points out through its own meta-narrative).
On the other hand, I see no reason why this film should be remade or why any self-respecting director would think that he or she could do it better. As a perfect movie, King Kong even incorporates great acting and amazing special effects. Sure, they pale in comparison to what can be done today, but man, those effects still look cool. You actually get to watch Kong crush people with his teeth and destroy overhead trains. And it looks pretty good, too. Okay, the special effects could be redone, but what does this really do for the movie?
Basically, I really wanted to see Jackson’s version, but that was before I watched the original again. Now I want to see it even more to understand why Jackson felt as if this was the movie he had to make. If it’s just an homage, there’s really no point. Just watch the original and get the same thing. If Jackson thinks the old one is flawed and needs updating, then the man needs to read Shakespeare on hubris. Lady Macbeth might have something to say about his big head, after all.
My question is this: What does Jackson do that makes a remake worth it? I haven’t seen the 1976 Jeff Bridges/Jessica Lange version since I was a kid, but I don’t remember it being that spectacular. The only thing I can think is that Jackson felt that younger audiences needed to be exposed to King Kong. What young person is going to watch and enjoy a film from 1933? Probably none. I know I didn’t like it when I saw it many years ago. I thought it was hokey and slapsticky. Now I know it’s all a part of Merian C. Cooper’s genius.
After all, Kong is King, at least the original one…
Grade for King Kong (1933): 9
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Coens Fail!
I love the Coen brothers. They are perhaps the best team of producers/writers/directors out there. Not everything they do is gold, but it’s always quality fun. Raising Arizona, for example, is my favorite comedy of all time. I laugh just thinking about that movie.
The Coens have always seemed to defy genre. Or perhaps they blend genres together. What is Fargo, for instance? Do we call it a comedic thriller? Or a thrilling comedy? And don’t ask me about O Brother, Where Art Thou? I have no idea what to do with that gorgeous monstrosity.
On viewing Ladykillers (2004) this weekend, I have now seen every Coen brothers film, and I can now confidently claim that they’re all, well, good. Not much more to say than that. Sadly, Ladykillers is the weakest of them all.
Ladykillers is a comedy wrapped in a heist film, but of course it’s not really a heist film at all, so I don’t consider it a part of that—my favorite—subgenre. It features Tom Hanks leading a group of robbers to the vault of a casino. They pose of Renaissance-era musicians to practice in an old woman’s basement in a small Mississippi town. Sounds like Coen gold, right?
No, not really. I don’t think I laughed at all during the whole movie. We get to watch Tom Hanks stumble over very stilted dialogue (purposeful, of course), but his character is interesting in theory and boring in execution. Not that Hanks doesn’t do a good job, for he is obviously a talented actor. It just isn’t really funny; when a character has a method of speaking that is odd, and he must keep that method up throughout the whole film, it must be continually funny and also completely necessary for that character. When Nicolas Cage does it in Raising Arizona, it works because it’s actually a funny way to go through life and H.I.’s way of speaking incorporates everything about the character. Here, it’s not funny, just odd. And he has to do it throughout the whole film. Sigh.
Ladykillers, is, though, a morality tale in true Coen brothers fashion. Who wins in the end? Well, Bob Jones University for one. You know, the one thirty miles from my home town. The school that didn’t allow black people to attend until the late 1970s, that maintained its “Biblically-based” policy against interracial dating until 2000 when the scandal broke over visits by prospective Republican presidential candidates, that doesn’t allow any kissing or hand-holding or anything else on campus or off, that doesn’t allow dates off or on campus without a chaperone, that doesn’t allow women to wear pants or anyone to wear shorts on campus.
I won’t tell you how this school wins, but the irony is strewn all over the place like Linda Blair’s vomit. I snicker when I think about it, but the movie’s execution of the scenario isn’t funny. Sure, the events are interesting and ironic, but they aren’t funny like I think they’re supposed to be. In fact, I think this film would make a much better hour-long TV episode of The Twilight Zone. As a movie, I’m disappointed.
So come on, Coens, go back to giving us something really good…
Grade for The Ladykillers: 6
The Coens have always seemed to defy genre. Or perhaps they blend genres together. What is Fargo, for instance? Do we call it a comedic thriller? Or a thrilling comedy? And don’t ask me about O Brother, Where Art Thou? I have no idea what to do with that gorgeous monstrosity.
On viewing Ladykillers (2004) this weekend, I have now seen every Coen brothers film, and I can now confidently claim that they’re all, well, good. Not much more to say than that. Sadly, Ladykillers is the weakest of them all.
Ladykillers is a comedy wrapped in a heist film, but of course it’s not really a heist film at all, so I don’t consider it a part of that—my favorite—subgenre. It features Tom Hanks leading a group of robbers to the vault of a casino. They pose of Renaissance-era musicians to practice in an old woman’s basement in a small Mississippi town. Sounds like Coen gold, right?
No, not really. I don’t think I laughed at all during the whole movie. We get to watch Tom Hanks stumble over very stilted dialogue (purposeful, of course), but his character is interesting in theory and boring in execution. Not that Hanks doesn’t do a good job, for he is obviously a talented actor. It just isn’t really funny; when a character has a method of speaking that is odd, and he must keep that method up throughout the whole film, it must be continually funny and also completely necessary for that character. When Nicolas Cage does it in Raising Arizona, it works because it’s actually a funny way to go through life and H.I.’s way of speaking incorporates everything about the character. Here, it’s not funny, just odd. And he has to do it throughout the whole film. Sigh.
Ladykillers, is, though, a morality tale in true Coen brothers fashion. Who wins in the end? Well, Bob Jones University for one. You know, the one thirty miles from my home town. The school that didn’t allow black people to attend until the late 1970s, that maintained its “Biblically-based” policy against interracial dating until 2000 when the scandal broke over visits by prospective Republican presidential candidates, that doesn’t allow any kissing or hand-holding or anything else on campus or off, that doesn’t allow dates off or on campus without a chaperone, that doesn’t allow women to wear pants or anyone to wear shorts on campus.
I won’t tell you how this school wins, but the irony is strewn all over the place like Linda Blair’s vomit. I snicker when I think about it, but the movie’s execution of the scenario isn’t funny. Sure, the events are interesting and ironic, but they aren’t funny like I think they’re supposed to be. In fact, I think this film would make a much better hour-long TV episode of The Twilight Zone. As a movie, I’m disappointed.
So come on, Coens, go back to giving us something really good…
Grade for The Ladykillers: 6
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