secretagent_007 Reviews

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Yuma Has Unexpected Depth

[9/10 · 1 February 2008]

Life has not been easy for Dan Evans. He fought in the Civil War and lost his foot. He settled down on a ranch, then got hit with a drought. He has a family, but one of his sons has tuberculosis, the other seems to hate his guts, and his wife no longer has faith in his ability to provide for them all. And then someone burns his barn down. Evans is a man who is beat down by the world every day. He is a failure in his son's eyes because he is not a war hero and he is not a dashing rogue like he reads about in his dime store novels. This character, played solidly by Christian Bale, has one of the best setups I've seen recently - a guy who is ripe for change in his life.

Change comes in the form of Ben Wade (Russel Crowe), a dashing rogue just like the kind Dan's son reads about. Ben and Dan cross paths as the rancher is collecting his cows that were scattered by the barn burners. Ben proves to be a brutal man, but fair. He allows Dan to get his cattle, but relocates his horse so he can't fetch the law. Back in town, after Ben has been cornered in a saloon and placed under arrest, Dan offers to get Ben on the train to prison in exchange for enough money to save his family from all kinds of trouble.

This is a thrilling ride, full of shootouts and horse chases through the desert, but it thankfully stays focused on the characters in the story. Ben Wade is a conflicted character from the outset. We first see him drawing a sketch of a hawk - a small hint that maybe he was never meant to be the leader of a gang. (I gather that not many thieves back then had much artistic ability.) After he's caught, he even shows sympathy for Dan's plight, though that doesn't stop him from trying to get away when he can.

Like High Noon, this western is a story about a desperate man trying to do the right thing, even if it's also the foolish thing. You can't call Dan a coward and you can't call him stupid, either. Every step he takes to accomplish his mission is thought out and nothing depends on luck. One of the best new westerns in years, up there with Unforgiven, Open Range, and The Quick and the Dead.

(Just kidding about that last one...) http://www.movieswithmark.com

Paris, I Love You (2006)

Movie, I Really Like You

[8/10 · 31 January 2008]

20 shorts by 20 directors (give or take), all set in Paris. Some wild, some sweet, some sad, some absolutely bizarre. This collection of films by directors like the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Gérard Depardieu, and Gurinder Chadha is often a wonder to watch, but you know what? I still don't want to go to France. The movie is constructed as a weird love letter to Paris (title translates as Paris, I Love You), with an emphasis on beautiful locales and kooky characters. I think every section is about love in some way - lost love, love slipping away, new love, old love, the death of love - it makes sense for Paris. Alexander Payne's "14th arrondissement," which finishes up the movie, proves that Paris still has that old romantic feeling at its core by causing even me to pine for the land of wine and cheese. This is high praise. Judging by this film, living in Paris would be an adventure. This is where people really live. But I've got another six months to go on my year of movies… Adventure will have to wait for me.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Irreversible (2002)

So Irreversible, You Don't Ever Watch It Again

[7/10 · 30 January 2008]

Gore in movies doesn't bother me. As a fan of horror movies, one knows it's all fake and starts to enjoy the ingenuity behind some of the effects. There is an effect early on in this movie (or near the end, depending on your perspective) that I would have gone back to inspect more closely if only I wasn't so shocked and grossed out by it. It involves a fire extinguisher, a guy's head, and the floor. And I couldn't see where reality ended and film-making began. Starting a movie with that casts a shadow over the rest of it, so you can never tell if you're watching some type of twisted snuff film or not. (IMDB now tells me that the movie includes many digital effects - including Mr. Cave-in-Head. I don't know whether to congratulate the digital artists for their seamless work or scold the director for making it look TOO real.) Irreversible starts at the end of its story and each scene unfolds in reverse order. We start with an act of vengeance, go back to see what inspired that vengeance, and then continue even further back into the characters' lives together. At the beginning, the camera sweeps around wildly, like a garden hose run amok. We're seeing the end of a spiral and the movie moves backwards to show us the point where that spiral began - the camera behaves less frantically with each scene. The fascinating thing is that the point where it all begins is not notable. The catastrophe that occurs at the movie's midpoint, a rape, was not born out of anything except the random meanderings of people on this earth.

Before we see the rape happen (in a single, unmoving camera shot that lasts probably 15 minutes) we can piece together what has led the two main characters, Marcus and Pierre, to seek revenge. We see the violence and are shocked. We hear why the violence was committed and we decide that is was just. Then we see the rape. And we realize Marcus and Pierre didn't assault the right man. The director, Gaspar Noe, seems to be saying with this movie that the world is a crazy place where the most outrageous things can happen to a person literally depending on which way they turn at the street corner. One's life can change based on things people have no control over in the first place. I guess it's true, which is depressing. I just really wish Monica Bellucci had been packing pepper spray that night. This movie, infamous for driving people out of the theater, is an experience not meant for the faint-hearted. You've been warned.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except (1985)

Thou Shalt Not Watch... Unless

[3/10 · 30 January 2008]

Story by Bruce Campbell, produced by Scott Spiegel, starring Sam Raimi, and directed by Josh Becker - the crew that made The Evil Dead. This is like a movie a couple of drunken friends would make over a weekend. Not a single thing is believable about it, from the main character's limp to the 30-year old they got to play a high school student. This is NOT a good movie, yet I can't call it totally un-enjoyable.

The story starts with some day-for-night, Midwest-for-Vietnam battle scenes in which Stryker gets his leg shot in a disastrous attack on an enemy village. This information could have been relayed quickly in any number of ways, but the first 20 minutes of the picture is devoted to this. It's all padding and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, except for Stryker's fake limp and his Marine buddies showing up later on. Cut to Michigan years later. Stryker is coming back to his hometown at the same time a maniacal cult is cutting up the locals. But nobody notices until the Cult Leader (played by Spider-Man director Sam Raimi) kidnaps Stryker's potential girlfriend. Then he and his military pals bring on the violence.

The violence in this movie is so poorly executed, it's laughable. The squibs are visible underneath the actors' clothes, the blood is obviously red syrup, and the fight scenes are the least exciting I think I've ever seen. It's a rare movie that's so bad it's good (and funny). Most movies that people recommend for the same reason are usually so bad they're just bad. I don't expect anyone to rush out and see this based on it being a terrible movie. Most of the dialogue attempts to be taken seriously, but the occasional brilliantly stupid line comes up. "Don't touch the sacrificial fluids! Okey-dokey?" Or when the Cult Leader claims to be Jesus Christ reincarnated, Stryker simply replies, "No, you're not." It was all I could do to muffle my laughter and not wake up my roommates.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Apocalypto (2006)

A Welcome Apocalypse

[8/10 · 25 January 2008]

I must say that this movie looks AMAZING in HD. I rented the Blu-Ray disc from Netflix and my TV became a window into the past (even though three pixels are dead and Sharp refuses to exchange it for a screen w/o flaws). The details of the jungle are incredible and the colors, from blue skies and bloody reds, are so vivid you might as well be there. If you haven't yet picked up an HDTV, I recommend you do so. Moving on… Apocalypto is Mel Gibson's follow-up to The Passion of the Christ and a return to form for him. I've really liked his direction in the past, but his work on Passion came off like the world's most expensive experimental film. I've seen other movies with Biblical origins and liked them, but that one truly rubbed me the wrong way. (And let's not get into the alleged anti-Semitism that later seemed to be confirmed by his infamous drunken rant against Jews.) Much like Passion, this movie is filmed entirely in a foreign language which gives the film great authenticity. A movie like Troy may be an epic adventure movie, but a cast speaking English reveals it to be a silly costume drama. Through the dialogue, the costumes, the set design, the real jungle, and a surprising amount of hand-held camera work, the drama has a documentary feel to it, like we're seeing things through a time machine.

It's an action movie at its core, a genre in which Mel has some expertise - from Mad Max to The Patriot. The fight scenes are well-constructed and intense (meaning gory as what all), the chase sequences are swift and breathtaking (if a bit long), and the characters are well drawn and memorable. Gibson has not ignored subtext in his film though, like many action epics are wont to do. The film begins with the massacre of a village by royal warriors who have come to take slaves (or sacrifices). Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) manages to save his pregnant wife and son by hiding them in a well before he is captured and marched away to have his heart cut out and head lopped off. As he is led away he must figure out how to get back to his family and save them from the well which could (meaning it definitely will) fill up with rainwater. But that's not all, folks! Gibson also intends this portrait of Mayan life to represent the end of that great civilization. There's a scene where Jaguar Paw, fleeing his enemies, reaches the ocean and can go no further. The ones hunting him catch up and also stop - several European ships are just offshore and Spaniards are headed for land. From earlier scenes, we've learned that this was a culture plagues by failing crops, rampant disease, a violent and corrupt government, and a populace that craved public sacrifices to satisfy the Mayan gods that caused all this mayhem. According to this film, it was all falling apart already, the Conquistadors were just a final blow to put the Mayans out of their misery. The message calls for us to return to a simpler, more peaceful state. Kind of a funny thing to find in a movie with so many seriously gruesome deaths. Whatever Mel Gibson has done to earn my ire in the past, he's redeemed himself with this movie. Not only is it very entertaining on a basic level, there's enough going on beneath that to make one consider its implications. We want you back, Mel!

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Confidence (2003)

Confidence Does Not Imply Quality

[6/10 · 24 January 2008]

If this film had been released 20 years ago, it might be seen as a startling, revealing look at the world of con artists. But it didn't come out 20 years ago, before David Mamet's House of Games and Stephen Frears' The Grifters were released; it came out in 2003, after con artists have become almost passé. It has been made with a lot of competent talent, but that cannot make up for a lazy script.

Role call: Dustin Hoffman, Ed Burns, Andy Garcia, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Luis Guzman, and even Tommy "Tiny" Lister, who played the President in The Fifth Element. Burns leads a team of con artists who inadvertently rip off one of Hoffman's friends. Since Hoffman plays a crime lord here (with ADHD!), he has one of the team members killed. Burns doesn't give the money back - instead, he offers to work another con for Hoffman to pay back what he took. Nice enough setup… Performances all around are satisfactory. There's one scene where Hoffman has forgotten to take his ADHD pills that is, I'm certain, the reason he took the role. Lots of groping of women and slapping of faces. The movie is directed with energy and style by James Foley (director of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross) and has an interesting green and purple lighting scheme.

Unfortunately, it all comes down to the storytelling, and flashy as the camera moves may be, the script doesn't cut the mustard. It's full of interesting characters, but fails to be full of interesting scenes. The story of the con is about as predictable as they get. Many twists and several turns lie within the plot, fulfilling the need of the genre, but those twists and turns never create any real drama. Some movies are about more than their stories. This movie is about ONLY its story. Every word spoken is spoken to advance the plot, not to see the characters in any sort of three dimensional way or to create something out of their situation that we average schmoes can relate to. An annoying flashback/flash forward structure exists only to capture an audience's attention in those first precious moments of a film. It has no real purpose in the grand scheme - the movie is not more entertaining because of it, so it should have been abandoned. This is a sufficient con/caper movie, by which I mean it wraps up its story in a mostly sensible way with the proper amount of (false) tension. But that to me hardly seems sufficient.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Undead or Alive: A Zombedy (2007)

Can't Die Soon Enough

[3/10 · 22 January 2008]

This movie starts with the worst zombie attack ever filmed, then proceeds to give us the worst bar fight ever filmed, then keeps it up for another 80 minutes with the worst genre mish-mash ever conceived. Chris Kattan is funny, but sadly, that's the only good thing to be said about this movie. What kind of a hell do we live in where Chris Kattan is the high point of a film?

This movie takes a bad western, injects it with zombies, and attempts to make it all funny. Kattan is a wannabe cowboy who finds himself jailed with an Army deserter when a zombie outbreak hits town. They hightail it, but are followed by the now zombified sheriff and his idiotic deputy. Then the movie makes a really stupid mistake by ignoring the rules that define every genre being parodied. The zombies are not mindless brain-eaters like in every other decent zombie movie, they hang onto pieces of their former personalities. For instance, the zombie sheriff still wants to get the money our heroes stole at the beginning. An even simpler rule is thrown out the window when it is explained that gunshots to the head don't kill zombies. Now it requires complete decapitation. It could work in a different movie, but not in a comedy co-starring Chris Kattan. I'll say it again: he's funny, but not funny enough to justify sitting through this mess.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Texas: The State of Solitude

[7/10 · 21 January 2008]

Must be something about Texas that causes normal society, at least as I understand it, to break down. Every movie I see about Texas that isn't a western (but even some of those too) is populated with lonely and alienated characters. The barren landscape is almost a prison - there's nothing out there. Even down to individual scenes, there aren't a lot of two shots. Mostly medium close ups, creating a separation between people even if they're in the same room.

Some live in Texas because of that loneliness, some live there in spite of it, and some just didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Border Patrol officer Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) seems to get by okay without any connection to other people. He sees the Mexicans trying to cross the border as hardened criminals and treats them accordingly. He has sex with his wife and she practically doesn't even notice. He pleasures himself one day in the quiet desert when he's interrupted by gunshots. His silence shattered, his solitude intruded upon, he panics and fires back. He kills Melquiades Estrada and tries to hide the body in the desert.

Melquiades was an illegal immigrant hired by Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones, also directing) and a good man who didn't deserve to be shot down by some rookie cop. Pete wants revenge, but he won't just kill him - because what's the point of that? He forces Norton to dig up "Mel" (for the second time) and help him move the body back to his village in Mexico. They go on a sort of odyssey to get there, meeting a blind man who lives (surprise) all alone and a band of Mexicans headed for the U.S. border. It's funny how all the Americans in this movie lead lonely, desperate lives, but all the Mexicans seem to be relatively happy in or outside of their communities. All the white people are on their own; all the immigrants are in a group together.

Jones is sort of famous for encouraging filmmakers to shoot in Texas (this movie and No Country for Old Men at least). He must know that the isolation of Texas can't be reproduced in another state. I'd have to agree with him there, even having never been. But I can't say it makes me want to move to Texas. Even if everyone there was as loyal to their friends as Pete is to Mel, I do believe I'd go a little bit crazy looking at all that nothing out there in between the hills.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

The Station Agent (2003)

Being Lonely Together

[7/10 · 21 January 2008]

Could also be titled The Loneliest Dwarf, I suppose, since that is what Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage) appears to be in this movie. After his only friend dies, diminutive Fin inherits an abandoned train depot in New Jersey and makes it his home. He appears to have gone through life avoiding as many people as possible. It's a wonder he had even the one friend before all this. He has let his dwarfism define his attitude about life - everyone laughs at him and pushes him around so he has retreated way back into his shell.

Outside his depot, there's a hot dog and coffee vendor who can't seem to hold still long enough to pour the coffee. On the road into town, a woman nearly runs him over, sending him into a ditch. She apologizes profusely, then amazingly does the same thing later driving from the other direction. These two neurotic loons are Finbar's new friends. Coincidence brings them together, but it's loneliness that keeps them together. All three have some sort of social awkwardness. Fin is quiet and terse (and a dwarf), the hot dog guy is desperate for attention and talkative, which drives people away, and the woman, who has recently lost her young son, is afraid of starting any new relationships so she holes herself away and paints to avoid the issue.

The movie is pretty funny, particularly Dinklage with his general annoyance at everything happening around him, but the plot and characters are mostly paint-by-numbers. It's an enjoyable, bittersweet little comedy with great performances, nothing more. But it's enough. Check it out!

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Cloverfield (2008)

Monstrous Shakycam

[9/10 · 20 January 2008]

As far as pushing the boundaries of convention goes, I've still got to give it to Blair Witch Project for a simple reason: its hand-held camera-work does not inspire me to scream "Hold the heck still!" at the screen. Hud, the cameraman in Cloverfield, has got to be addicted to caffeine for all the shakiness and inability to keep the camera on something for more than 1.6 seconds. Or else it's ADD. I'm not one of those weaklings who got dizzy from The Bourne Ultimatum, but I appreciate being able to see what I'm looking at if the whole point of shooting a movie on video is to make it feel like you're actually there. But then the producer, J.J. Abrams, is famous for never making anything too clear (as evidenced by his TV shows "Lost" and "Alias").

This is a monster movie, along the lines of Godzilla or The Host, but with a twist. Everything we see is purported to be a videotape found after the monster eats Manhattan. The video starts as a collection of farewell messages to Rob, a 20-something who has a million 20-something friends and who is moving to Japan for work. His best friend Hud is running the camera, interviewing Rob's pals, and hitting on Marlena, who ain't hitting back. Then the entire city shakes and the lights go out, rudely awakening all the characters out of an awkward situation involving Rob and his friend (and more) Beth. Everybody's probably seen what happens next - explosions in the distance, panic in the streets, and the head of the Statue of Liberty crashes in front of Rob's building. Aside from this very sentence, I'll not make any comparisons to 9/11 - scared people in a city running away from something bad does not inherently carry political or social meaning. This is a monster movie and like any monster movie, people have to run away from the monster en masse.

What makes this one different, though, is not just that it's shot with a camcorder. This is a special monster movie because we rarely see the monster and therefore are stuck with the characters and we learn only what they learn. This story is about the human tragedy that is glossed over in all the old Godzilla flicks where someone screams, "GOJIRA!" and takes off. What about that man's family? Is his home destroyed by the creature? Those other movies are usually about scientists and military people scheming to kill whatever beast is plaguing Tokyo now. From Mothra to Independence Day, that's the formula. Formula is turned on its head when we stop caring if the General will drop an A-bomb on the thing and we start seeing the battle in the streets between average people and the boar-sized insects that live on the huge thing's back. One scene in a dark subway tunnel is one of the best of its kind, where the stalking creatures aren't there and then, suddenly, they are. See The Descent for more night vision camcorder scariness...

Special credit must go to the special effects artists on this movie. With maybe a couple exceptions, everything that would be fantastical and impossible in another movie looks perfectly real here. The bugs in the subway don't look like a special effect that we are meant to admire, they look like vicious, man-eating creatures from another dimension or something and they really are terrifying, the same way a rabid dog staring you down is terrifying. The effects tricked my brain into thinking everything was real and I can't remember the last time that happened. Cloverfield has a really simple story at its core, about a small group of survivors looking for an injured friend, and it has some rather annoying camera-work (which is absolutely worse than just motion sickness-inducing camera-work), but it is effective as an intense adventure movie and the totally natural-looking effects prop up the characters who are basically operating without a plot most of the time. This isn't a perfect movie, but it is a ride; that cannot be denied. I only hope Paramount doesn't sequel-ize it and make themselves a franchise not unlike the Godzilla movies that inspired it.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Rocky IV (1985)

'Roid Ragin' Rocky

[5/10 · 15 January 2008]

Sylvester Stallone was quoted once saying that screen writing isn't too hard, that he was amazed at how many people work on a script for years and never get anywhere with it. Apparently he knows something we don't about simply telling a story. Sometimes it works for him, and he writes Rocky. Sometimes it doesn't, and he "writes" Rocky IV. I emphasize that word because the movie is little more than a couple of sweet 80's montages thrown together. There may be some skill in the editing of Rocky IV, but the writing was probably done in a weekend.

Russian 'roid junkie (Dolph Lundgren) comes to America and fights Rocky's friend Apollo Creed. Creed hasn't been training hard enough though, and the Russkie kills him in the ring. So what can Rocky do but challenge him in his fatherland and show him the shining light of the American way? This movie is awful in everything it does, from the flat characterization of … well, everyone, to the ludicrous fight scenes. In the first couple of Rockys, I could believe that those men at least received some boxing training to look good in the ring. That was abandoned for the fourth chapter, in which the actors prance around the ring like professional wrestlers, shoving and head-butting all over the place. So I'm led to the conclusion that this is not a boxing movie at all, but a wrestling picture like the kind we saw in Barton Fink.

Wrestler from Barton Fink: "I will destroy him!"

Drago in Rocky IV: "I will break you!"

http://www.movieswithmark.com

American Buffalo (1996)

Uninspired direction

[6/10 · 15 January 2008]

I've never seen this play performed except for that time in college when I directed a scene from it. I deliberately avoided this movie at the time so as not to color my direction any particular way. The way I see the play is a couple of old guys sitting around a resale shop talking about stealing a guy's coin collection, sort of fooling themselves into thinking they're even capable of such a thing. My ideal cast would be (undead) Lemmon and Matthau, but it could also work with some very young people who don't know better. The point is, the crime is that distant idea which is captivating, but an impossibility. It's like folks who dream about winning the lottery and imagine what they'd do with those vast riches, but know inside that it'll never happen.

This movie's mistake, in my eyes as a one-time director, is that it almost makes the crime plausible. Don, owner of the shop, and Teach, his talkative buddy, go through the plan of what to do when they get to the guy's house. How do they get inside? Go through a window the guy left open. What if there's no window? There's always something - kick in the door if you have to. Okay, where does the guy keep his coins? In his desk drawer. How do you know? C'mon, they have to be in there. If he's got a safe? Find the combination written down somewhere in the house. What if he didn't write it down? Everybody writes it down! How do we even know he's not home right now? They call the number and are shocked when someone actually answers. But they dialed the wrong number anyway. The long discussions these two have about the plan is a lot like some little kids having a play war in the backyard. No detail of the fantasy is too small and if things don't work out, you can always whip out an imaginary sword and gut your enemy, just like Teach plans to somehow find a safe combination hidden somewhere in a whole house.

This play always worked better as a sad little comedy to me. The movie's director, one Mr. Michael Corrente, has turned it into a real caper movie! That's too easy a choice to make, too on the nose, and it doesn't allow the audience to see the irony of these washed up crooks trying desperately to convince themselves that they've still got what it takes. I never saw these guys as taking the whole thing too seriously as an actual thing that they were going to do. I just see Lemmon and Matthau trying to entertain themselves with the notion that they're going to commit a crime together, like the old days. Maybe Teach thinks it's a real thing, but not Don. Don is just the one who plays along with Teach's wild fantasies. Not in this movie. Here Don is every bit as committed to the theft as Teach, and just as devastated when it looks impossible. I didn't laugh as much at this movie as I did at the play in my mind. This thing is just depressing.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

An American Haunting (2005)

Still Beats an American Idol

[4/10 · 14 January 2008]

I admit it, I fell prey to the powers of marketing over this movie. The trailer seemed to have the proper feel for a 19th century ghost story and still managed to have lots of action movie-type things in it, like exploding horse carriages and crucifixes flying off the walls like cannonballs. I mean, it looked COOL, like an Exorcist for modern times. But I forgot that the original Exorcist is still the Exorcist of modern times.

There is a twist or two near the end of this movie, so I'll avoid spoiling them. Even if silencing your curiosity might allow you to not see this movie. I'll only say that of these twists, one of them is heavily foreshadowed and easily predicted and the other one, appearing in the scenes that bookend the main story, adds nothing to the story or the experience.

We got here a story of a household that is haunted by what came to be known as the Bell Witch, named for the family who lived there, not the person or thing which haunted them. After Mr. Bell has a legal dispute with a neighboring (witchy) landowner, he sees wolves in the forest where there should be none and voices are heard in his house where there should be none, etc etc. But then his daughter starts getting assaulted while she sleeps. Whatever spirit is causing these things seems to be attached to the girl. Wherever she goes, the ghost could attack. It goes on for months. She is unable to sleep or behave normally in public. The attacks are physically brutal and sometimes sexual. And then the force begins attacking Mr. Bell in a similar fashion. There seems to be something in this situation linking father and daughter, yes… While the "haunting" scenes are technically impressive, the movie runs out of story about halfway through. All it does after a certain point is show more attacks on the daughter and more friends of their family scratching their heads wondering what rational explanation there could be for all of this. And so we sit with this family for the duration, watching a girl get beat up by invisible hands, and everybody stands by helpless. Some family dynamics are explored briefly, but even that fails to stir up any emotion. This movie is about a group of people who are simply out of their league, who are unable to do anything to remedy their situation. It's about a bunch of people not doing anything but more head scratching. I am convinced that an entertaining movie could be made about such a group of people, but this one ain't it.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Supernova (I) (2000)

Supergeneric

[3/10 · 14 January 2008]

When one sits down in front of what was (famously) almost an Alan Smithee movie, one expects certain things. One expects that if a movie is bad enough that the director wants no connection to it in its release, it's got to be nearly unwatchable. There's a certain amount of fun to be had with Alan Smithee movies in a group of friends, possibly more if they're all intoxicated. So when Supernova turned out to be a pretty standard sci-fi adventure movie (though appropriately ridiculous at times), I was disappointed.

It's not a good movie, let me make that clear. There is enough meaningless sci-fi babble to fill an entire season of Star Trek: Voyager. James Spader looks absurd in a spacesuit - and I mean more than most people do. The jock from Can't Hardly Wait is the bad guy, and also naked about half the time he's on screen for no reason at all. For that matter, just about everybody gets naked in this movie. Why? Because it's allegedly titillating.

The entire plot feels recycled, from Spader's bad boy space cadet to the universe-destroying alien artifact his crew picks up along with the mysterious stranger played by the jock. Their ship is a rescue vessel responding to an SOS beacon on some distant moon. Spader is a new crew member of the ship, but the captain is killed en route to the emergency, putting him in charge. Where there was once an entire mining colony, they find only The Jock and his magic rock, which will have a peculiar effect on people who handle it throughout the movie. Lo and behold, The Jock is not all he seems to be and he spends the whole movie trying to seduce the others with promises of money, power, and/or sex, or killing them because he's just not that persuasive. The events in the movie do not carry any weight because we're not given even a chance to like these characters before they get put through the wringer. The characters are here to advance the plot instead of the other way around. It's too bad the plot is made up of several poorly directed action sequences. Here's a funny thing… You put Sigourney Weaver in a giant robot suit to fight the alien Queen, that rocks. You give Bruce Campbell a chainsaw hand, that's marvelous! You put James Spader in a spacesuit left over from Leviathan and give him a space chainsaw and a big hook to fight his supernatural foe, you end up with a movie by Alan Smithee.

And I LIKE James Spader.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

An Ideal Husband (I) (1999)

Wit's the Word

[7/10 · 10 January 2008]

Ain't no wit like Oscar Wilde's wit 'cause Oscar Wilde's wit don't stop! I wish I could carry on a conversation like the characters in An Ideal Husband or any of Wilde's other stories. The world he creates with his words is like a giant stage only built to give his characters an opportunity to have crackling dialogue and witty asides. This humor rarely got anything larger than a chuckle out of me, but it was so constant that my gut hurt at the end of the movie. Better to have a movie filled to the brim with quiet, downplayed jokes than a movie built around two or three "big laughs" like an Adam Sandler vehicle.

But this isn't one of those - it's a vehicle for Oscar Wilde's witty writing. I hate to keep using the word "witty," but that does seem the most appropriate term. The thesaurus tells me that good replacement words might be "intelligent" or "whimsical," but those don't feel right, no no. Because the character of Lord Goring, whom you will find on the DVD cover played by Rupert Everett, is not "bright" or "smart" or even "epigrammatic." He is witty, and that is that. He is spoiled and self-indulgent, but one cannot deny his gift of wit - his ability to go through life spinning any seriousness into a joke has given him an inherent superiority over the rest of his community. Life is never a drag, it's always a party. Until it isn't.

One of his old flames comes into town to do some business with a close friend, Sir Robert Chiltern, who has much political power. This woman, Mrs. Chevely (a devilish Julianne Moore), happens to know some damaging information about Robert's past and blackmails him into publicly supporting a particular scheme she has invested in. It's really an unexpected turn for a story that starts so light and comical (unless you're already familiar with Wilde's work). The drama between Goring, Cheveley, Chiltern, and his wife is sometimes tense, sometimes funny, and sometimes bittersweet. The story operates not only as a romantic comedy, but also as a political drama and blackmail thriller. One scene that serendipitously brings all of the principals together at Goring's house manages every emotional low and high within the span of a single 10 or 15-minute scene.

I must say, however, that much of this tale depends too heavily on coincidence and silence to create its drama. Every story contains some amount of coincidence, and this was originally a play - a cast of dozens wasn't possible, so all manner of problems had to exist between these certain people and those people alone. I can forgive that much even in an adaptation. But so much conflict could have been avoided if these characters simply talked to each other about the obstacles they faced. Too often a character will be about to say something, then stop, as if it would be rude to continue. These silences are not played well. It looks not like a character is so distraught he or she is unable to speak, but merely like they decided to say nothing further, and no one could change their minds. It feels arbitrary, not natural.

That's all direction though, not only the actors. For the most part, the entire cast is wonderful. This movie makes me long for more like it, not in setting and subject matter necessarily, but in its wit. Hollywood makes movies based around a catchy concept instead of a cast of characters (unless the character IS the concept, like in Bubble Boy). This isn't anything new, but An Ideal Husband made me see it with new eyes. Maybe I should start up Stage Plays With Mark...

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Batman Returns (1992)

Return to Batman Returns

[7/10 · 9 January 2008]

I always disliked this movie when I was younger. After watching it tonight, though, I learned to enjoy it again. I guess I just missed the comic relief of Nicholson's Joker - the obvious gags. So I was surprised to find myself laughing a lot during this sequel. Lots of bat, cat, and bird puns - real groaners, but hey, it's still funny. Another thing that bothered me was how quickly Selina Kyle was able to become Catwoman - a bad ass in skintight pleather who knows enough kung fu to challenge Batman in fisticuffs. Didn't bother me so much this time for some reason. And Batman was just letting her win… The thing I realized was that it was written totally as a comic book. The first one, I feel, has its own sort of reality where people can still see their surroundings as ridiculous. It was a city of straight men surrounded by comic book clowns. In Batman Returns, everyone is in on the joke that is Gotham City. It feels less real, but more cohesive.

In case you don't remember, this is the movie that made it hip to inject twice as many villains into an action sequel, allegedly to achieve twice the action. Both The Penguin and Catwoman are getting' up in Batman's grill this time around, and everyone's stories intertwine. What I still find unique about this movie is how much it feels like an episode in a series of stories. Basically no re-introduction is given to Batman - everyone watching this movie knows who he is and why, so the only reason we know Bruce Wayne is Batman is from a quick scene of him looking mopey in a dark room, getting interrupted by a giant Bat Signal - so the beginning of the picture is more about the origins of The Penguin and Catwoman. The Penguin is the son of a high society couple (first shot of the movie belongs to Paul Reubens as his dad!) who is born in a sort of egg shape with flippers instead of fingers. So his parents toss him into the frigid waters of an abandoned zoo. And Catwoman starts out as a shy secretary, is nearly killed by her boss (a great Chris Walken), then something snaps in her mind and she becomes the person she always wanted to be. Or maybe she's just a little nuts.

Tim Burton directs with his usual (for the time) cartoony zeal, not hesitating to use special effects to paint his picture. Danny DeVito is very good as The Penguin and everyone else manages to not look like a jerk in a goofy costume, which is sometimes the highest possible praise for a movie like this. And Michael Keaton is always a pleasure to behold - one scene in a boardroom with Walken has him casually chuck some documents across the room for Walken's perusal. He does it totally off-the-cuff, proving that Bruce Wayne is not a typical stuck up "rich guy." Great moment, fleeting as it is. And in his corner, Walken catches those same documents perfectly, seemingly without blinking, proving he's totally capable of chewing up a guy like Bruce Wayne if he so desires. It's a good little scene. The whole movie was written with enough poppy dialogue and satire to transcend just a simple superhero action movie. There's all kinds of political and social overtones to the characters and situations. Under the huge Art Deco-Atlas-Shrugged-esquire statues throughout Gotham City, the flick plays like a morality tale of the common man vs. their corporate enslavers. Hell of a thing to do with the superhero genre. Good work, gang!

Sin City (2005)

Sinful, But in an Awesome Way

[10/10 · 9 January 2008]

Okay, let's just get it out of the way: Sin City is not a movie of substance, it is a movie of style. There is an obvious difference, and both are usually required on some level, but every once in a while one can replace the other. There is no point to this movie other than to be as bad ass as possible. It has a chauvinistic attitude towards women, the violence is reprehensible, and the language ain't too far behind. So basically, I love it. There is a certain poetry to the stories presented, a sort of cadence to the characters' words and actions. Take this dialogue, for instance, uttered at an even tone, not shouted or even indicating any real emotion:

"I'm Shellie's new boyfriend and I'm out of my mind. If you so much as talk to her or even think her name, I'll cut you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman."

It's gritty and tough, like what the disfigured son of sandpaper and bronze would say if it had but lips to part. It is an extreme version of what anyone imagines themselves saying in an action picture scenario. There's loads more, look:

"This is blood for blood and by the gallon. These are the old days, the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. They're back! There's no choice left. And I'm ready for war."

"It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying, sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people."

"I'm on my feet for about ten minutes before the cops kick them out from under me. They don't ask me any questions. They just keep knocking the crap out of me and waving a confession in my face. And I keep spitting blood all over it and laughing at how many fresh copies they come up with. Then along comes this worm assistant district attorney who turns the recorder off and says if I don't sign their confession, they'll kill my mom. I break his arm in three places and I sign it."

Poetry! I don't know if there's anyone who can get a thug's inner thoughts down on paper as well as Frank Miller can. If you don't know, this was based on a series of comic books by Miller, and when I say "based on" I mean modeled directly after. What Gus Van Sant did with Psycho, Robert Rodriguez has done with Sin City. Nearly shot for shot and word for word, this IS the comic book on-screen. Shot in black, white, red, and the occasional splotch of yellow, it perfectly captures the feel of the comic in motion. This was one of the pioneering "green screen movies" like 300 and Sky Captain, so the post-production crew had almost unlimited ability to play with the footage and create the living graphic novel. What for, you ask? I say, why not?!?

So, fine, people can say it doesn't mean anything. That's okay. Not all movies have to have some sort of agenda it is trying to steer its audience towards. Sin City is good for that other reason movies exist - to entertain. It's an amusing, cartoonishly violent, hardcore film noir that only exists to be an example of pure genre. I do not believe it was meant to be taken seriously and at face value, nor do I think it's possible to do so anyway. To anyone who complains of its violence, sexism, and lack of pure, gentile characters, I say go take your pill and come back when you want to have a little fun. Buncha nambie-pambies...

http://www.movieswithmark.com

UHF (1989)

I still watch cable access...

[8/10 · 9 January 2008]

Sure, it's a dumb farce that looks like it was made on a shoestring budget, but heck if this isn't a fun movie to watch. The more people in the audience the better. Dozens of film and TV parodies are sprinkled throughout the movie - stand outs are the Conan the Librarian bit and the "Wheel of Fish."

"You can trade your red snapper for what's in the box. Let's see what's in the box! NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! STUPID! YOU SO STUPID!"

It's just scene after scene of ridiculousness, and it comes so fast you don't care if some jokes fall flat because there's something right after it to pick up the slack. This was Weird Al Yankovic's big shining moment in Hollywood and while a part of me wants to see him back in the movies, there's also a part of me that wants UHF to stand on its own. The writing is only as good as it has to be to create opportunities for more movie parodies. THere is a plot, but it's largely unimportant. Come to see Weird Al as a mustachioed Rambo, stay for Michael Richards' insane, mop-toting children's show host.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Fantastic Performances

[10/10 · 9 January 2008]

I finally saw it! After weeks or months of prodding from friends, I caught this at a 4th-run theater for three bucks. And while I don't think it's the best movie of the year like some others do, I was very impressed with this movie. It's about two brothers who are in dire need of money who plot to rob a jewelry store, but don't expect a heist movie. We aren't here to see the crime, we're here to see why the crime is being committed, how horribly it is executed, and how its aftermath affects all those involved. This is what any character-based crime story tries to do, but mostly fails at. Sidney Lumet's expertise as a director helps this one out a lot, as do fearless performances from the entire cast and an incredible script by newcomer Kelly Masterson.

The story is told in a back-and-forth style, so that we can see the jewelry store being robbed before we know who is robbing it. Many scenes overlap as we see key moments from different characters' perspectives again and again. This isn't gimmicky like it is in Memento or Pulp Fiction (both great movies, don't get me wrong, but they are gimmicky). Every time we see another point of view of an event or a conversation, it's like wiping fog off the windshield and everything becomes clearer. Without this peculiar structure, the movie would feel too generic. A good story still, but not as well told. If told in a linear fashion, it would be too easy to take sides against certain characters. What Masterson has done by giving each character large chunks of the movie is allow us to live in their shoes for a few moments. Who needs the money more, for instance - the one in an unhappy marriage and a drug problem (Philip Seymour Hoffman) or the divorced one who needs to pay child support (Hawke)? Presented like that, you could easily say the child support guy can justify his actions, and I could easily agree with you. But after seeing the other one's predicament, I can't say his actions are unjustifiable. There are three main characters in this movie - the other is the owner of the jewelry store - and all three of them are heroes in their own minds. And all three do evil things.

I don't want to tell you too much about the details because any spoilers could lessen the impact of the drama, and therefore the entertainment. So don't look up a plot synopsis or even a two line description. All you need to know is this:

Robbery Gone Bad Jewelry Store Sidney Lumet Family Drama Very Naked Marisa Tomei Awesome Performances Killer Writing Great Movie

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Labyrinthian!

[7/10 · 9 January 2008]

I don't get it. I mean I understand the movie as it plays out before me, I know who everyone is and what they're doing and why, but what I don't get is the huge critical response to this movie. Some people really thought this was the best movie of last year? It's a fine movie, with great amounts of imagination and perfectly acceptable production values. It is not a bad movie by any stretch, but it is not perfect.

I've liked most of the Guillermo Del Toro movies I've seen, but they may be because most I've seen were action/adventure extravaganzas (Blade 2, Hellboy, even Mimic). The Devil's Backbone, which I didn't like much, is not and neither is Pan's Labyrinth. (A bad title since the faun's name who inhabits the labyrinth is not the Greek god Pan.) The story takes place in fascist Spain and concerns a little girl named Ofelia. Her single, pregnant mother has started a relationship with a sadistic military captain and the movie starts with mother and daughter headed towards a secluded base in the woods. Her natural curiosity leads her to find a huge stone labyrinth near the base one day and she quickly finds herself living inside a fairy tale. This one ain't of the Disney variety though… The Faun inside the labyrinth claims she is in fact the princess of an underground kingdom, but to regain her crown she needs to complete a series of tasks. Pretty standard storybook setup. But these tasks she is charged with begin to reflect the real world she is otherwise surrounded with - a world of soldiers, freedom fighters, life, and death. Some of the overlaps are intriguing, like the importance of a key in both stories, but a lot of it seems quite arbitrary. There are themes of acceptance and resistance throughout. The captain, for instance, follows orders blindly, not hesitating to brutally kill someone if they're in a place they aren't supposed to be. Ofelia, on the other hand, prefers to ignore directions given to her. Sometimes it serves her well, sometimes not, as when she dares to eat some grapes off the Pale Man's table.

The design of the creatures Ofelia meets (all done by Del Toro himself) are astonishing all by themselves. You could bury yourself in the details of those creations as well as in all the great set design. The Pale Man scene is notable for truly feeling like a nightmare. The spindly, almost sightless monster is one of the most terrifying things in a movie since John Carpenter's The Thing.

The fantasy and reality portions, while sharing some themes, never quite mesh together well. I think they would have each made fascinating movies on their own - sharing screen time detracts from both. Perhaps the fault lies within me regarding this movie. From all the talk, I was expecting nothing less than brilliance. But I can get by with simple goodness.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006)

Needs More Nightmares

[6/10 · 8 January 2008]

I do like a good horror anthology series (Tales From the Crypt is coming soon…), but this series is only half horror. The other half is not that good (thriller, action, crime, etc). All the episodes are based off of Stephen King's short stories, and the guy is not strictly a horror writer, I admit. I just wanted a show with the word "nightmares" in its title to scare me, not make me chuckle at a goofy William H. Macy performance. Only a couple episodes really stand out, one of which is the Lovecraft-inspired "Crouch End." I know… Me? Like Lovecraft? Don't act so surprised! The episode starring William Hurt as an assassin besieged by green army soldiers come to life is different because of the lack of dialogue. It's an interesting choice, and cool at first, but after a while I just wanted Hurt to at least scream an obscenity at the toys instead of grunting like a cave man. Other episodes have their own methods of storytelling that work better, like in "The End of the Whole Mess," which has the main character telling much of the story into a video camera.

Since I'm not an avid reader of King's, I don't know if there are better shorts of his that remain untapped. All I know is that half of these stories probably shouldn't have been made into a TV show. Interviews on the discs indicate that some of the original short stories were less than 10 pages long. Turning that into a 50-minute show means an awful lot of pointless filler. Most of the draw lies in the fact that each episode has some recognizable star power. That doesn't mean Jeremy Sisto, Claire Forlani, Ron Livingston, and Steven Weber never act in crap. Still, I feel safe recommending this series to King fans. They can watch "Umney's Last Case"in flesh and blood at last instead of a "Dark Tower" movie.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Aguirre: The Quest for More

[8/10 · 8 January 2008]

I have the strong suspicion that making this movie about a doomed expedition of Spanish conquistadors nearly doomed the filmmakers themselves. It's one of those cases, like Apocalypse Now, where the film is probably less interesting than the making of it. Werner Herzog directs and Klaus Kinski stars - the duo is famous for their volatility (Herzog threatened to kill Kinski at one point during shooting). Consider that along with the fact that they were shooting in the middle of the Peruvian jungle with more actors than crew members and you begin to realize that the film's depiction of descent into madness could easily have been a chronicle of the filmmakers' journey.

The movie starts with some long shots of a convoy moving precariously along mountain ledges, equipment and food often falling over the edge. It is an image of civilization intruding on the natural world and nature is winning. But that doesn't deter the conquistadors leading the expedition to find El Dorado. Even when the party is divided, supplies dwindle, and people are being killed by invisible natives, they do not turn back. Instead they decide to abandon the other group that waited behind and form their own country once they get to the mystical city. Kinski plays second-in-command Aguirre (really first-in-command since the royalty present is a pushover under Aguirre's insane thumb) who just knows they get closer to the treasure and unlimited power every minute. It is he who pushes the party forward. What he and everyone else fails to realize is that they are the ones who have been abandoned to the mercies of nature. They glide down a murky river seemingly unable to stop even if they wanted to.

Herzog delivers the movie with spare dialogue and an emphasis on surreal visuals. Two things that stick in my brain are the images of a boat trapped high on a tree, indicating some sort of Biblical disaster there, and Aguirre's raft covered with dozens of screeching monkeys. After most of his crew has been killed, he paces around the raft surrounded by the monkeys, his new crew, soothing himself with the promise of eternal life and limitless power and wealth. So it's a story about mankind's unquenchable thirst for more control, more power, more money, and more more more. And the further we get from that point, the more convinced we are it is right around the corner. This is a chilling film that won't soon leave my mind.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

I Am Legend (2007)

Could have been legendary!

[7/10 · 18 December 2007]

Lots of folks been complaining about the CG monsters in this movie and how poorly they've been created. Well, don't let that crap keep you away from the movie. Yes, it is clear that the vampiric ghouls created by a worldwide spread of a man-made virus are computer generated, but that doesn't make them less scary and here's why: when we see the hero of the movie, a trained soldier and scientist, venture inside a dark building where the ghouls reside, he gets scared. So scared he almost abandons his only friend, his dog Sam, to the infected monsters within. Heroes don't typically act this way. They're normally a little too calm and collected in situations like this. So when Will Smith shows genuine fear of going inside that building, we fear for him. The CG is used only to make the creatures something inhuman, which is what the virus made them. Dudes running around with plastic teeth and shaved heads wouldn't have the same effect.

Smith plays Neville, an Army scientist who was in charge of the virology team on Manhattan when the virus, which was originally made to cure diseases, went bad and started turning people into super vampires. The movie opens several years after the outbreak and Neville is still on Manhattan, still researching a way to reverse the virus's effects. I Am Legend uses the "Lost" method of employing flashbacks. We jump back and forth between past and present, the scenes giving each other more depth the more we learn about Neville's predicament. He has become an urban survivalist, living off of canned food and whatever animals he can hunt with his 2010 model Mustang. At night, when the extremely UV-sensitive creatures come out to feed, Neville's house becomes a steel-encased fortress and he sometimes sleeps in the tub with a rifle in hand - I guess when hundreds of growling beasts lurk outside your house, the bed just feels a little too open. The first hour is all about how he survives from day to day, how he is trying to cure the disease in a high tech lab in the basement, and how he's beginning to totally crack up from the isolation. This first hour is great.

Every day he exercises to keep himself in top physical form, pampers and scolds his dog like a child, goes down to the video store to "rent" a movie from the mannequin he's placed behind the counter, and at midday he goes to a certain pier and waits for someone to answer his constantly broadcasting radio message. The routine is probably what has kept him from going insane up to this point, but he's still slowly slipping away. He tiptoes around a particular female mannequin at the video store, afraid to speak to her like I am to a real live girl. He invents whole conversations with the silent figures out on the street. And when one of his "friends" turns up in a place he's not supposed to be, we can't be sure if he's finally going nuts or if someone is playing a trick on him. But he's supposed to be all alone… Eventually, the screenwriters do the lame thing and bring a plot into the mix. But not just a plot - a message as well. In the last 10 minutes of the picture, Neville appears to have a crisis of faith which undermines his ability to save the human race. That's all well and good, but up to this point, spirituality has practically no role in the movie at all aside from a short prayer in one of the flashback scenes. I didn't have a problem with that plot point itself, I just wish that point had been inevitably reached like it should be in a well told story. Instead it just pops up suddenly for no other reason than the end of the movie was approaching. Still, that first hour… Hot diggity. Now I have to give up my own dreams of making a post-apocalyptic adventure movie because the first two-thirds of this one do it so well.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

The Grifters (1990)

Renting This Is No Con

[8/10 · 17 December 2007]

The inherent problem with movies about con artists is that you're always looking for the con and you know you can't trust anybody. This doesn't exactly make it a pleasurable viewing experience, and even when the big twistaroo at the end is revealed, it isn't surprising because you were expecting something like that to happen for the past two hours. That being said, the twists and turns throughout The Grifters are fairly predictable. Thankfully, a convoluted storyline is not this movie's reason for being. It isn't about the score, it's about the people who can't live without the score.

Three characters, each with a different type of "grift." There's Lily (Angelica Huston) who works racetrack odds for the mob like most people have a regular job, her son Roy (John Huston) who sticks to smaller fish like switching a $20 bill with a ten a few times a day, then there's Myra (Annette Bening), Roy's girl, who likes long cons with big payoffs in the Mametian sense. They're all addicted to stealing money. Maybe it's the lifestyle it can afford (though Myra has trouble paying her rent), maybe it's the thrill. Either way, none of them know when to stop and it costs them more than most would care to risk. Like a roulette player with a "system," these people fail to remember that the house always wins in the end.

The film is shot as a sort of slick, neo-noir in the seedy underbelly of modern Los Angeles. Lots of references to film noirs of the 40's, plenty of shadows cast from venetian blinds, you know the drill. It excels most when it is showing the audience how some of the scams work. Some depend on slight of hand and others demand theatrical acting abilities to make the score. It's a window into a forbidden world, like Mamet's House of Games. Performances all around are quite good, showing subtleties of character that take on more meaning as the story progresses. Everybody wants something from someone else in this movie, and even if they're all holding those cards the closest, we can see if they've got a full house or a pair of nothing. It's money that makes the world go round in The Grifters and here we get to see what lengths some folks will go to in order to get it. It's depressing to watch people with such singular, sad lives, but ultimately informative. Not just about how to avoid some scams, but also as a reminder that nothing good ever comes from something as easy as stealing a sucker's money.

http://www.movieswithmark.com

Helvetica (2007)

The Hype Over Helvetica

[8/10 · 16 December 2007]

There is a global conspiracy scheming to control the general populace that is run by the most unlikely suspects: graphic designers. Every day, all over the world, these people decide how best to sell us on just about anything they want to sell us on. Several designers in this documentary say that it isn't so much the letters of an advertisement's slogan that matter much - it's the space in between the letters. What's so important about the empty space? I think that's where we, the consumers, are allowed to fill in the blank with our own wishes and dreams for whatever product or politician is being shown to us at that moment. But that's not really what this movie is about.

Helvetica is the most commonly used typeface in the modern world. Crate & Barrel, Target, American Airlines, and Energizer are some of the more notable companies that use Helvetica and its derivatives in their corporate logos. Countless other businesses have used it in their advertising. The reason for this is that it was designed for the specific purpose of being as universally acceptable as possible. It is not exactly stylish in and of itself, though many designers have used it stylishly because the typeface is merely a tool of the designer. They can make it stick out or blend in to their liking, and these seem to be the two main schools of thought over the use of Helvetica. The old school designers like it for its simplicity and boldness where newer, younger designers mostly see it as a generic relic from the 60's. One man who calls Helvetica a symbol of conformity and socialism apparently doesn't understand the irony of his using a MacBook at the same time he states this.

This film is focused on the Helvetica typeface - its creation, its purpose, and its uses - but it speaks volumes about the design/advertising industry as a whole. There are thousands of people who are striving everyday to make the average Citizen Schmoe feel a certain way and think a certain thing, to control and exploit our buying and behavioral patterns. They may not all be shilling Tide, but it is alarming to see inside that culture. Like any trend in the art world, Helvetica has gone through ups and downs. It was designed in the 50's as an answer to the kitschy, colorful designs of the era. It was meant to be powerful and grounding, not light and airy. It was used heavily throughout the 60's, but the designers got tired of it and abandoned Helvetica's straight lines for "grungy" design in the 80's and 90's. Since Helvetica was built to have almost no personality, designers started giving their work more of that with handwritten text and goofy designs which would have been considered printing accidents in decades past. In fact, one man actually received praise for a mistake that was made in publishing. So the new designers of the 90's were going wild, the older men shook their heads, and our current generation of designers were learning how to use Helvetica in wild ways. The lifespan of the font has come, gone, and come again, much like leg warmers are bound to someday soon.

The reason Helvetica is still being used today is because it works. People see those solid, strong letters and they instantly feel secure in the idea it's portraying and comforted by its mere presence, which makes it "ideal" to some people for use as public signs labeling streets, restrooms, subways, etc. It's mind control in a font. It's pretty fascinating stuff, to be sure. But be careful out there, readers. Next time you have to choose between Mobil and Arco gas stations, just remember they're both using the safety of Helvetica to lure you in. And then make the decision to go electric.

http://www.movieswithmark.com