Video Corner - GIGANTIC, Gigantic Disappointment

Ah, the quirky indie romantic comedy. There've been good ones throughout film history (ANNIE HALL, THE GRADUATE, I even enjoyed most of GARDEN STATE). And then there are the ones that seem to just be quirky for quirky's sake (500 DAYS OF SUMMER). GIGANTIC falls squarely into the latter category.

BIG-ASS SPOILERS BELOW

GIGANTIC tells the tale of Paul Dano's Brian Weathersby. We're introduced to Dano visiting his friend doing experiments on rats in a lab. Then he gets the crap beaten out of him by a crazy homeless guy. Then he goes to his job, selling high-end mattresses, where obnoxious millionaire John Goodman comes in to buy one. Later, he sends his daughter, Happy (yes, happy) to pick up the mattress. She falls asleep on the bed for hours. Happy and Brian start dating, or more specifically, start having sex in odd places. Brian's dream since he was a little child was to adopt a Chinese baby, something he's on a waiting list for. He hangs out with his elderly father and brothers, taking mushrooms and gathering wild mushrooms in a field. He's shot at, then shot, by the homeless guy. He eats a fancy French dinner. He gets approved for a baby. He stabs and kills the homeless guy, who turns out to be a figment of his imagination. Happy gets freaked out and breaks up with him. And some more stuff happens.

This movie was highly annoying, despite the fact that Zooey Deschanel gets completely nude in it. I have no idea why anyone in it, including Deschanel, Goodman, Dano, even Ed Asner, wanted to be in it. It's just plain weird. The protagonist is an oddball, the love interest is an oddball, and there's absolutely nothing driving the movie. It's not the story of a guy who had a jacked-up family, so he has to do whatever he can to provide a home for his incoming baby. It's not about how a woman comes to find the man she loves in the most unexpected of ways and how she gets the family she's not looking for. Things just happen for no reason whatsoever.

Why does Brian sell weird mattresses? Why is he taking drugs with his family? Why does he want a Chinese baby (he's wanted one since he was 7 is not a good backstory or proper motivation)? About the only thing that happens that makes any sense is that Happy freaks out and breaks up with Brian because it's too much too fast. But then she comes around again later anyway, having seemingly changed her mind for no discernible reason.

The film's filled with some truly unique scenes and characters, but none of them are grounded in any sort of coherent reality. There's no throughline to the plot, just a bunch of stuff happening. And the whole subplot with the homeless guy and Brian's imagination is odd and jarring. If he's insane, this guy shouldn't have a baby.

It's one thing to do an unconventional take on a romantic comedy. New characters provide a new perspective, and interesting settings and plot turns can tweak stale genre tropes. But you can't just make a movie where everything's weird, there's no logic behind anything, and the film's just a collection of oddness slapped together on the editing table. Well, I guess you can, but what you get is GIGANTIC.

EAGLE EYE - Half-Blind

I'm working on a techno-thriller, and I never saw EAGLE EYE. Wanting to make sure I didn't repeat anything they did (it was a pretty big movie) and wanting to see it to boot, I finally rented it.

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EE has a truly great premise -- a 20-something loser suddenly finds $750,000 in his bank account, a room full of guns, military schematics, and bomb-making material, and gets a call from a mysterious woman telling him the FBI is about to arrest him. The loser, Jerry, doesn't listen and gets arrested. But the mysterious woman -- seemingly all-seeing and all-powerful -- contrives to break him out of custody with a crane and directs him on a series of errands, all the while the FBI and Air Force agents are hot on his tail. Meanwhile, a single mother finds herself in the same boat as the mysterious woman threatens her with the death of her son (who's on a field trip).

Okay. Great start. And we've got a character who hates authority and can't follow through on anything, so he's the worst guy to finish this task.

The film pretty much falls apart once it reveals what's going on, however. Turns out that:

• There's a Department of Defense computer Artificial Intelligence tasked with analyzing data and making decisions


• It's tied into pretty much every computer system (surveillance cameras, power grid, traffic lights, cell phones, etc.) imaginable


• It went rogue and wants to wipe out the entire US government minus the Secretary of Defense


• Jerry's twin brother worked on the project and put a voice lock keyed to his DNA on the computer so it can't go apeshit and kill everyone -- the computer needs Jerry to undo it


• It's plotting to decaptiate the US government by using a crystalline explosive cut into a necklace gem


• AND a frequency detonator stuck in the son's trumpet reed and keyed to vibrate when he hits the high "F" in "The Star Spangled Banner"

Um, okay. Here's the various problems with that.

One -- doesn't make any sense. Assuming we had the technological capability for the AI to exist and be tied into the systems it's tied into, the AI is making really stupid decisions. In the film, the computer recommends not killing a terrorist because it's not sure it really is the terrorist and there could be significant collateral damage. Turns out the computer was right, we blow up the wrong guy and terrorists around the world blow up Americans in response. But the computer decides the way to end this is by killing everyone in the US leadership except the SecDef. Nevermind that: A) This is extremely faulty logic in general B) Terrorists aren't apt to stop blowing folks up because a computer killed the leadership C) Why would the computer spare the SecDef (who tried to do what the computer recommended) but kill literally dozens of other cabinet officers below the President who presumably had no part in the decision? I doubt the Secretary of Transportation or Education had much of an opinion either way on whether we should try to take out an Afghani warlord.

I suppose the film could've explained this in some way if it wanted to -- like the computer blew a chip that regulated logic, or it was programmed by a crazy arch-conservative wackjob to do this kind of thing in the first place. As is though, it's nonsensical.

Two - The computer's plan is needlessly complicated (and stupid when you think about it). The computer really needs to do two things. One, get Jerry to it so he can log in and take off the voice block preventing it from activating its mission to kill the US leadership. Two -- kill the US leadership. The film makes a big point of having the computer point out Jerry's antisocial tendencies and problems with authority; it tells him the only way to motivate him is through coercion. But why make Jerry go all over the country, fake that he's a terrorist, put him in the custody of the FBI (who eventually help stop the computer solely because they're investigating Jerry), and have him do dozens of things including stealing experimental drugs? Why not threaten Jerry by killing a couple of close people, then get him right to the Pentagon where he can remove the voice block? The computer's basically omnipotent and can get anyone it wants to comply by threatening them with death or the death of loved ones. It doesn't need all this other b.s. The b.s. helps make the movie exciting. But it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. And the computer could easily have called in an airline ticket for Jerry and a visitor's pass and had someone escort him down to its mainframe.

On the same note -- why does the computer go through this elaborate process to get hex crystal/detonator/Star Spangled Banner going to kill everyone? We've seen it kill through traffic accidents and power lines. And it can track thousands of people simultaneously. So just find where the leadership is in separate locations and have separate "accidents." Or, much like it can take over subway cars, cranes, and jets -- do that to something with missiles and just blow everyone up.

MOON - Little Zowie Bowie Grows Up

MOON is an indie Sci-Fi film directed by Duncan Jones. Jones is David Bowie's son, and was born Zowie Bowie. He smartly changed his name, which probably resulted in a lot more people taking him seriously (he had the double whammy of a famous last name and a ridiculous, rhymey first name).

Like DISTRICT 9, MOON Is a smart, small film.

SPOILERS FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON BELOW



















It tells the tale of astronaut Sam Bell, who works alone on a base on the dark side of the moon, overseeing Helium-3 harvesting. Nearing the end of a three-year contract and getting ready to return to earth to his wife and young daughter, Sam's going a little stir crazy. He has no one to talk to except a Hal-like robot, Gerty, nicely voiced by Kevin Spacey. And he starts seeing things. After crashing a moon rover, Sam wakes up with some gaps in his memory and Gerty acting strangely. Although the moonbase's antenna is supposedly broken, he catches Gerty having a live conversation with earth. And Gerty's under strict orders to keep Sam inside.

Sam finagles his way outside and to the crashed rover, where he finds himself still injured inside the vehicle. He brings himself back to the moonbase and things start getting weirder from there. Eventually, injured Sam and a younger, angrier Sam discover that the base is surrounded by jamming antennae blocking their live communications signals from getting back to earth. Sam also discovers that the "return vehicle" set to bring him back home at the end of his contract is an incinerator. That his body starts to decompose after three years. That he and the other Sam are clones. That there's a whole secret room filled with hundreds of other, non-activated clones. And that this whole process has been repeated over and over again for decades.

Sam manages to escape back to earth by sacrificing a version of himself in the crashed rover to confuse a "rescue" mission and then hiding out in a Helium-3 launch vehicle.

The whole thing is done rather subtly and creepily, playing out slowly. There are some nice moments, such as Gerty helping Sam out by giving him the password to his video log (so he can see that this process has happened again and again), and Sam and Sam getting into a violent fight.

There's really only one misstep in the entire film and that's at the very end. We're given snatches of voiceover dialogue as Sam's launch vehicle enters earth atmosphere; they explain that one of his clones is testifying against the corporation that hired/imprisoned him. Then there's a snatch of radio talk show call-in dialogue, I guess meant to be a joke, in which a caller says that the clone Sam is either a liar or an illegal alien. Not only is this unnecessary, but it's out of character with the rest of the film. And since it's the very last thing we hear, it has the effect of like dining out at a fancy, wonderful French restaurant, and finishing off your meal of endive salad, foie gras, boeuf bourginon, and tarte tatin with an undercooked McDonald's cheeseburger.

But it's not enough to ruin the movie. It just shouldn't be in there.

And Sam Rockwell proves he's an awesome actor, too. In case anyone still doubted that.

DISTRICT 9 - Nine Out of Ten Stars

DISTRICT 9 is a small(ish), smart Sci-Fi film, directed by Neill Blomkamp, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson. It's basically an Apartheid allegory, cloaked in Sci-Fi trappings. An alien ship appears above Johannesburgh, completely disabled. The South African government cuts its way in, finding all the aliens severely malnourished and dying. It relocates them to a "temporary" resettlement camp that, over the years, turns into a slum. Twenty years later, with tensions at an all-time high, the government plans to move them to a permanent camp outside the city. That's when things go wrong.

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Wikus, a bigoted alien beaurocrat, is put in charge of the eviction process because of his marriage to the daughter of a higher-up at the multinational corporation he works for. Wikus isn't particularly smart or tactful, and his obvious dislike for the aliens comes across. And leads to a lot of unnecessary alien deaths. The script does a fantastic job of making the whole situation feel real. Wikus and the company he works for seem like a real MNC, the way they treat the aliens smacks of condescension, and there's even a whole gang of Nigerians that live in the slum and profit off of exploiting the poor aliens. That's the strong suit of the script -- this feels just like any slum on earth, and the government and MNC's response feels very real.

The best part of the film comes when Wikus gets blasted with some alien goo -- collected from alien junk machinery -- and begins to turn into an alien himself. His company, including his father-in-law, want to kill him and harvest his DNA because there are thousands of alien weapons that are DNA-encoded, and he's the only human who can work them. Wikus has to leave, turn against the company he works for, and evade capture to eventually team up with one of the aliens he oppressed and lead what basically amounts to a revolt effort.

The film's at its most believable and human when we see Wikus turned into an alien and he realizes how shittily he's been treating them. And it's at its most fun when we see Wikus and his alien buddy Christopher blasting dudes with lightning into little chunks with the alien weaponry.

The film is produced very smartly. Most of the film contains VFX of some sort, whether it's shots of the spaceship, the insect-like aliens, or people getting blown up by alien robot, sonic waves, or lightning guns. Because a lot of stock footage is used with aliens/ship effects laid over it, the whole thing was made for a reported $30m. Which makes CLOVERFIELD look positively wasteful by comparison (there were only a few shots of the monster, and they were mostly hidden through smoke).

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. You genuinely feel for Wikus and the aliens and it's a fun ride.

There are, however, some pretty major logic problems with the film. They don't really ruin your enjoyment of the movie, but you do think about them, particularly after it's over.

Chief among them is that the film doesn't explain how the aliens kept hold of so many weapons. If the aliens were so weak and malnourished they could be forcibly resettled without any fight, how do they later come to have hundreds or thousands of rifles (and they're obviously rifles)? How do they have giant exoskeleton attack machines? The film shows the government, MNC, (and Nigerians) want these weapons, and the MNC even runs a top-secret genetic testing program to make alien-human hybrids who can fire the weapons; so why would they let the weapons stay in the hands of the aliens (who resort to selling them for cans of cat food)?

Similarly, when a population is oppressed and downtrodden and they have access to insane firepower, why wasn't there an armed uprising? The film mentions much of the alien leadership died off on the way to earth, but that's not much of an explanation. If you got kicked around for 20 years and hundreds or thousands of your people were killed AND you could explode people with a single shot, you'd go apeshit on them. All you have to do is look at any people in revolt now (Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghanis, etc.) to see the truth of that statement.

It also feels like instead of the big climax being Christopher activating the defunct mothership and going home for reinforcements, there simply could have been a revolt-in-progress, either utilizing the weapons systems onboard the mothership or in the aliens recognzing the activation of their formerly defunct ship and taking up arms against the human oppressors. We saw how a human and an alien with a few guns and one exoskeleton could take out the MNC headquarters and their top mercenaries. Obviously armed aliens could overpower the humans.

Though these are major plot holes, they're small flaws in the overall achievement of what is a smart story deriving from a very unusual take.

DVD Corner - GHOST TOWN

And because I don't just watch movies when they come out (although I do see a lot of them then), today we've got a film I watched at home.

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GHOST TOWN was a big studio feature, written by David Koepp and John Kamps, directed by Koepp, and starring Ricky Gervais. It tells the story of a jerky dentist who values his privacy and, after a near-death experience, sees ghosts who want his help in order to resolve their unfinished business. This bristles against his desire to protect his alone time, particularly because pushy ghost Greg Kinnear won't leave him alone until he helps break up the marriage of his widow to a human rights lawyer.

Koepp has written some truly amazing scripts, including the first Spider-Man movie. And he and Kamps have done good work together as well. At the end of the day, though, this feels oddly more like an indie film than a major studio release. There's some great character work, and the plot of the story flows naturally out of Gervais' intense desire from privacy and how that conflicts with Kinnear's plan to screw up his wife's impending marriage. And also how Gervais has to deal with the widow (Tea Leoni), particularly after being rude to her in the past. However, the very execution of the script in a way feels like the smallest possible version of the story and slightly a failure of imagination. It reminded me in many ways about BRUCE ALMIGHTY, and how the writers hit on a brilliant premise (regular guy gets to be God for a while), but instead of doing something big with it, they limited to having a newscaster try to win his job and girl back. There was a much better, bigger version of that idea instead of the one they made.

Now this is a much better written, acted, and directed film than that. It just feels...small, I guess is the right way to describe it. A guy finds out he can talk to ghosts and instead of going down several wrong paths with it (using their knowledge for some sort of personal gain, like investing in the stock market, stealing stuff by supernaturally knowing the combination to a safe or an alarm code or where the keys are kept, or wooing a woman using inside info a la GROUNDHOG DAY) and then finally using it for right, our hero just avoids dealing with it altogether. And while that's a choice and an action on his part, it's kind of a boring one. Even when he finally decides to help the ghosts, almost all of their problems are small too and easily solvable -- showing a woman where a formerly hidden letter from her dead mother was; showing a truck driver an accident wasn't his fault by pointing out some damage on his truck; finding a child's doll under a car seat; even wrapping up Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear's problem is solvable in about three minutes of screentime.

To Koeep and Kamps' credit, I liked Gervais despite his jerkiness, a credit to the writing (and Gervais' acting). And I got emotionally involved in his journey from jerk to nice guy. I just can't help feeling like the film would've worked better if the main character was more active, more involved, and the overall story was bigger. That's part of the reason GROUNDHOG DAY works so brilliantly; even though it's a contained story in a small town, it feels like the movie fully explores what someone would do if he found himself death-proof and waking up in the same day over and over again.

A PERFECT GETAWAY, NOT SO PERFECT

I'm a huge fan of thrillers. A thriller's what go me my agent. So it doesn't matter if it's a techno-thriller, a paranoid '70s thriller, or a personal, action-oriented thriller like RED EYE (the spec version of which is far superior to the produced film), I tend to be partial to the genre and its films.

PERFECT GETAWAY is a more personal, action-oriented version of the genre. I'd read the spec a few years ago and didn't fully enjoy it for the same reasons the film doesn't entirely work. It tells the story of a honeymooning couple taking a hike in Hawaii. Out on a remote trail with two other couples, they discover that there's a killer couple who made the jump from Honolulu with them. Alone and with no one to rely on, they try to figure out who the killers are and stay alive.

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The biggest problem with the film is that it cheats. There's a pretty big twist -- that the two leads turn out to be the killers and that you've been following and empathizing with the bad guys the entire time. Writer/director Twohy plays fair most of the time, setting up actions and dialogue that work both to drive the story forward and mislead you. But there's one big, dopey patch of dialogue that's completely plays false with the audience. After Tim Olyphant's ex-special forces character returns from bow-hunting bearing a dead goat, and his girlfriend, Gina, skins it, we're treated to a big dialogue scene between Tim Zahn and Milla Jovovich in which they talk about how crazy Tim/Gina are, how the two of them should make an excuse and sneak away, but how they probably can't and just need to make it down the hiking trail to the beach where they'll be safe. This is completely moronic because Tim and Milla are the murderers. They're in no danger from Tim and Gina, no matter how crazy they are. They have no reason to make it to the beach, nor are they "home free" once they get there (the beach is filled with other hikers and far more dangerous to them). In fact, since Zahn and Milla are iced-out serial killers, they're in perfectly fine shape out on a secluded chunk of the trail at night with Tim and Gina -- that offers a far easier, safer place to kill them than the beach (and in fact, when Tim and Milla get to the beach and finally try to kill them, they fuck it up).

Films that rely on twists really only work if two conditions happen. One, the twist has to be something that makes logical sense (Tyler Durden is one aspect of Ed Norton's character's personality; Dr. Malcolm Crowe is dead the entire time in SIXTH SENSE; Darth Vader is Luke's father) and not something that is either painfully obvious (THE VILLAGE is really part of modern times) or moronic (the apes in the new PLANET OF THE APES made it out of the wormhole and back to earth where somehow history played out exactly the same but with an Ape Abe Lincoln). And the twist has to be played fairly -- you can't have it work solely because you play out bullshit versions of a scene (unless you clue the audience in that your narrator is unreliable) -- this is why USUAL SUSPECTS is such a brilliant movie, because you get some clues that Verbal is full of crap, but you don't think that means he's making the whole thing up and is really Keyser Soze. Conversely, this is one of many reasons why TAKING LIVES (caveat -- I worked on the film but didn't write it) doesn't; there's a major scene where Ethan Hawke's character is relating how he killed Kiefer Sutherland's character (whom he frames as the serial killer), which is just Hawke lying; since he's never set up as a liar and not really as the possible serial killer, this is just a cheat. If you play fairly with the audience, then the script usually comes off as intricately crafted and hugely dramatically satisfying. Any of the above examples of films that work prove this, as does MEMENTO. But when you get a film/script with a twist that doesn't, you can feel why (i.e. HAUTE TENSION, a film that works brilliantly for 3/4 of the movie, and then you learn everything you saw is complete and utter bullshit and the killer is one of the girls). Cheats are almost like mini-versions of the hacky old standby "it was all a dream," basically negating what you saw since it couldn't possibly have happened that way (or at least makes no sense that it's shown that way).

A more minor flaw in the film is the cheesy, self-reflexive movie/screenwriting talk. Since Zahn's character poses as a screenwriter and Olyphant's character wants a movie made about his life, the two talk about movies, which comments directly on the action of the film. This would probably work if it was subtle, but instead, we're given really on the nose dialogue about red herrings and one glaringly noticeable bit of throwaway dialogue after the red herring couple is arrested in which a passerby on the trail remarks that "There's plenty of twists and turns ahead." Ugh. This doesn't add anything to the movie. In fact, it takes away from it by being so lame.

There's a beat at the end of the film in which Gina tries to call for help from a remote mountaintop. She can't get a cell signal and is in real trouble. And then a guy from AT&T calls to change her cell service, and she convinces him to call for help. Which arrives in the form of a police helicopter, complete with sharpshooters. Yes, that's right. Our heroine overcomes an obstacle to her survival through blind, convenient luck. That's never a good thing. And something stupid happens with the helicopter. Milla makes it there first, riding along with the cops and telling them to shoot Tim Olyphant. For some reason they believe her, even though she could possibly be the killer. And then she abruptly changes her mind after Gina saves Tim by blocking the shot, and decides to sell out her boyfriend. Which might work if he'd done something in the film (like hitting on Gina) to upset her. But he doesn't. All Twohy gives us is that Zahn can't tell Milla he loves her. Which, considering the fact that they're both meth-addicted spree killers, seems like a minor quibble on her part.

Finally, the script paints itself into a bit of a corner by revealing about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through that our protagonist(s) are really bad guys. It realizes we don't really have anyone to root for. So there's an awkward bit of structural gymnastics interrupting the film's momentum and tension where we go back and see that Olyphant was all set to propose to his girlfriend after all. While this is sweet, it comes in the wrong place. Olyphant's such a good actor that you like him despite the misleads that he's creepy. Twohy should've just made him a little more empathetic despite his possible villainy (e.g. Denzel in TRAINING DAY) and setup the proposal-to-come in advance instead of interrupting the flow of the entire movie. If we didn't like Olyphant (and Gina) by that point, throwing in backstory and setup that should've come earlier won't make us like him now.

So what are we left with? A mostly serviceable thriller that succumbs to its own cleverness and cheats when it doesn't have to. Which makes it slightly better than mediocre instead of solid all the way around.

PAPER HEART - This One's Shredded

The girlfriend and I went to go see PAPER HEART. I like Michael Cera, she's in love with him. I appreciate quirky, unconventional narratives. She's a fan of talky, meandering films that are light on plot. We should've both gotten paper arrows through our paper hearts for this film. But we didn't.

CUPID SHOOTS SOME SPOILER ARROWS BELOW




















The film's an odd blend of documentary and narrative/fiction. But this isn't used in an interesting way like REAL LIFE (where Albert Brooks plays a documentarian named Albert Brooks), instead, it's used in a confusing way. The film has "Written by" credits. And the real life director is played by an actor. So did Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi have an actual relationship? Or is that all bullshit concocted for the sake of the film? Wondering about those questions is actually the most interesting part of the movie. Which makes the film fascinating, but only in a meta sense.

Nothing really drives the story. We learn that Charlyne doesn't believe in love (through a phone call with a friend and some dialogue with her parents and actor friends), but we don't see anything about her past relationships to better set this up. She travels around the country, interviewing various people -- high school sweethearts, old married couples, bikers, scientists, a divorcee -- about love and relationships. And there are occasionally amusing puppet recreations of key moments in the interviewees lives. And then Charlyne starts to fall for Michael and vice-versa. Michael becomes uncomfortable having his entire relationship play out under the eyes of a film crew. Will she come to love him? Or is she incapable of it? Will he get fed up with always being watched?

Well, we get a tiny bit of her not being able to say she loves Michael. But in terms of an overall plot structure, it basically boils down to one line of dialogue in the film, when an interviewee (a romance novelist) says that it always comes down to love being that one person makes a sacrifice for the other, showing s/he loves them. And then in the end, Charlyne tells the crew to shut down the cameras. And then we get a puppet recreation of a fake, bigger ending. Which is just strange, because it has nothing do with the film and isn't particularly funny.

Another part of the film that's wearying is that after a while, all the alt-comic quirkiness tends to wear a bit thin. Between the two leads painting pictures of each other, the puppet show recreations, the playing goofy songs for each other, and shooting BB guns and setting off fireworks for no reason, it's too much twee crap. A little quirk goes a long way.

At the end of the day, in choosing to blend reality and fiction, the film fails on both counts. It's not a particularly great documentary about love because there's so much falseness. And it's not a particularly great romantic comedy, because that part of the film's underwritten and doesn't amount to much.