Friday, May 20, 2011
The sun may not come out tomorrow
By J.D.
In some respects, Danny Boyle is Britain’s answer to Steven Soderbergh — a filmmaker who moves effortlessly from independent to studio films and works in a variety of genres: gritty drug drama (Trainspotting), kids film (Millions) and edgy horror (28 Days Later). Like Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002), Boyle has tried his hand at science fiction with Sunshine (2007). It was critically lauded in England as a thinking person’s genre film but was met with mixed critical reaction in North America and lackluster box office.
Sometime in the far future, our Sun is dying. The Earth is in the grips of a solar winter and the only chance we have for survival is to reignite the star. A spacecraft called the Icarus II, with a crew of eight and carrying a nuclear bomb roughly the size of Manhattan, will hopefully kick-start the Sun and save humanity.
On the way there, they pick up a distress beacon from Icarus I, an earlier expedition with the same mission but that had mysteriously disappeared en route. Do they alter their course and check out the ship in the hopes that they can use its bomb and thereby doubling their chances? The decision lies with the ship’s physicist, Dr. Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) and it is one that will affect the entire crew in ways they can’t yet imagine.
Through a series of intense situations brought on by unforeseen complications, there’s a real possibility that the Icarus II may not make it back alive and the characters have to realistically deal with this chilling realization.
Sunshine starts off as an intellectual science fiction film a la 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and then shifts focus to an engrossing mystery involving the Icarus I and shifts again to a slasher film reminiscent of Event Horizon (1997) for the last third. This last shift has drawn the most criticism from reviewers and does test the film’s credibility. Do the filmmakers really need to add even more danger for the protagonists to face? Isn’t the fact that they are heading straight toward the Sun with limited resources and crew challenging enough?
Sunshine does an excellent job showing the dynamic between the crew members and how it gradually breaks down when things go horribly wrong. They end up turning on each other and an oversight or miscalculation has catastrophic effects. The cast is uniformly excellent and refreshingly absent of big name movie stars. Instead, we get solid characters actors such as Cillian Murphy (The Wind That Shakes the Barley), Rose Byrne (28 Weeks Later), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Cliff Curtis (Bringing Out the Dead). Some of them are cast wonderfully against type and others, such as Chris Evans (Fantastic Four), show previously unseen depth.
It is also nice to see the characters solving problems with reason and intellect that actually makes sense. That’s not to say that Sunshine is all brainy posturing. There is plenty of intense, visceral action that is
emotionally draining much as Boyle did with 28 Days Later (2002). As he showed with that film and his debut, Shallow Grave (1994), he certainly knows how to ratchet up the tension. This also is a visually impressive film as Boyle not only shows off the usual iconography of the genre — spacecraft, spacesuits, etc. — but doesn’t fall into some of the more tired clichés, like aerodynamically-designed spacecraft and evil computers. He also doesn’t telegraph who lives and who dies which gives the film an edgy unpredictability. At times, it feels like Sunshine wants to be the 2001 for the new millennium but then the slasher film elements creep in and it resembles a more traditional thriller. It’s too bad because up to that point, Boyle’s film is a very smart, thought-provoking piece of speculative fiction.Tweet
Labels: 00s, Danny Boyle, Soderbergh
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Monday, April 18, 2011
Something tells me too many people turned a blind eye
By Edward Copeland
In 1986, I had one of the most pleasurable moviegoing experiences of my life. I don't remember the exact date but I had a free ticket to a long-gone twin cinema and they were showing a movie I hadn't heard much about called Absolute Beginners. I went to the first showing of the day, about 1 in the afternoon I think, and not only did I get in free, I was the only person in attendance, so no reason to worry about annoying talkers. To make it even more special, Julien Temple's film, which opened 25 years ago today in the U.S., enthralled me from the moment it began. Re-watching it again, it still captivates me.
The film's credits open with David Bowie (who also plays a role in the film) singing the title song which he wrote:
There's nothing much to take
I'm an absolute beginner
And I'm absolutely sane
As long as we're together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners
With eyes completely open
But nervous all the same
Could fly over mountains
Could laugh at the ocean
Just like the films
There's no reason
To feel all the hard times
To lay down the hard lines
It's absolutely true
Nothing we can't shake
Oh we're absolute beginners
With nothing much at stake
As long as you're still smiling
There's nothing more I need
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners
But if my love is your love
We're certain to succeed
Could fly over mountains
Sail over heartaches
Just like the films
There's no reason
To feel all the hard times
To lay down the hard lines
It's absolutely true
Absolute Beginners at its essence is a musical, but not in a conventional way, but there isn't much conventional about the film. As a general rule, as a movie fan who watches films with a critical eye, I'm seldom seduced by films that are more style than substance — and that certainly is what Absolute Beginners is — but when that style gets handled this well and holds my attention without boring me and losing me in all the frosting and accoutrements, that kind of film can work and that is the effect Absolute Beginners had on me. It has a plot of sorts, but it hardly matters because what makes it so compelling is its status as eye and ear candy.
Based on the novel of the same name by Colin Macinnes, the absolute beginners of the title refer to teenagers in London in 1958. As the main character/narrator, also named Colin (Eddie O'Connell) explains early, "It was that hot wonderful summer when that teenage miracle came to London."
As he says later, "Yanks invented the teenager and being anti-Yank was admitting defeat." Teens were spending money but, as Colin also observes, "Where there's loot, trouble follows." Things seem bright and fun again, for the first time since the dark days of the bombardment of World War II. Colin's mother even refers to him as a "blitz baby." It's Colin's last year as a teen and he lives on his own in a section of London they call Napoli that's a bit rundown, but it's cheap and he likes it because no one cares where you came from, what you look like or what you do. Races and sexual orientations mix freely and he likes it that way. He ekes out a living as a photographer by hitting Soho at night and snapping figures of all the various characters there, which Temple illustrates in an amazing, seemingly unbroken shot made all the more eyecatching by the impressive production design that takes Colin down various streets and alleyways, passing vehicles and pedestrians. I wish there were a YouTube clip of the opening sequence because seeing it would do it more justice than my words would.
Colin's romantic world revolves around the ambitious Crepe Suzette (Patsy Kensit), who he's usually lucky to meet each night at Chez Nobody. Suzette works for fashion designer Henley of Mayfair (James Fox), who promotes himself as dressmaker of the queen. She wishes that Colin would try to apply himself more and stop hanging out with his Soho friends who appear to be going nowhere, and try to become a successful photographer, even suggesting the record producer for would-be teen idols, Harry Charms (Lionel Blair) and that he show up at the premiere of Henley's next fashion line. "Money isn't everything," Colin tells her. "But it'll do til everything comes along," Suzette responds before bidding him farewell. Colin tells the audience that he doesn't have anything against money, just the things you have to do to get it.
Despite his better judgment, Colin does go to see Harry Charms who, like just about every character a decade or more past his teenage years, has something to sell, and, after taking Colin through a room of potential
teen idols, Harry introduces Colin to his current star, the baby-face star Baby Boom (Chris Pitt) and his skyrocketing hit "Little Cat" (written in real-life by Nick Lowe). After Colin shoots a lot of photos of the recording session of Baby Boom and his bandmates, he shows up at Henley's fashion show, but Henley refuses to let him in because, unbeknownst to Colin, Suzette has become the show's accidental hit. Suzette works backstage helping to fix the models wearing his off-the-wall line of sea-inspired wares (dresses covered with starfish, etc.) as American gossip columnist Dido Lament (Anita Morris) tells Henley that he'll be laughed off the stage in Paris — hemlines should be coming up, not going down.
The exceedingly fey Henley tells Dido, "Darling, there is nothing worse than the back of a woman's knees. Reminds me of uncooked rockcakes." Soon after, one of the models rushes out on the stage despite Suzette's pleas that she's hooked to her and Suzette gets dragged out with her and her short black number proves an unexpected smash. Sensing the opportunity, Suzette adds sparkles and dashes of paint and takes over the show, pissing off the other models, but Henley's quick enough to take advantage of a gift and calls Suzette's outfit the introduction the birth of his "Young Idea." Dancing up a storm with a cadre of dancers, Suzette is a bona fide hit, only she's disappointed that Colin wasn't there to capture her moment like he said he would be, unaware that Henley kept him out.
Now, as much as I was enjoying Absolute Beginners anyway the first time I saw it, truly the moment that won me over was when Colin spoke of his father Arthur "the sweetest bloke you'd ever want to meet,"
played by Ray Davies, lead singer of The Kinks. It's his only scene in the film and really has no relation to rest of the motion picture, but the musical number, written by Davies, is so wonderful that the movie would have me in its fanbase forever. Colin goes to visit his family home in Pimlico to use the darkroom in the bomb shelter. Dear old dad performs "Quiet Life" on a tri-level cutaway set of the house where action is occurring in every room of the residence during the song involving Colin's mother Flora (Mandy Rice-Davies), his obnoxious half-brother Vern (Peter-Hugo Daly) and various boarders that his mother dallies with, though Arthur is quite aware of the affairs. The idea most likely had its inspiration from the set in Jean-Luc Godard's Tout va Bien from 1972, but I hadn't seen that film then. Later, Wes Anderson did another variation in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Thankfully, YouTube did have the complete clip of "Quiet Life," with the clip beginning with Colin and his dad talking in the darkroom before the song begins.
As I said, "Quiet Life" really has little to do with the story of Absolute Beginners, but then again plot is not the reason it's such an enjoyable film experience. Temple, whose work prior to this consisted mostly of music videos or music documentaries, shows a great eye for visual composition, aided immensely by his team of craftspeople who lit, filmed and designed the sets and costumed the performers. I've always been curious why Temple didn't branch out more after Absolute Beginners but of the features he's made since, the only one that got much notice was, of all things, Earth Girls Are Easy. Having never read the Macinnes novel, I've always been curious as to how it read and what it really covered, but the power of youth and the idea of the birth of teenagers as a marketing demographic and new economic class makes for a great hook. Temple manages to keep the film in constant motion, but he doesn't do it in a "I'm gonna get motion sickness and throw up" way such as Danny Boyle did in 127 Hours. His moves and cuts are smooth as can be.
The movie isn't remotely a conventional musical: There isn't a single team composing the songs but lots of contributors in a variety of musical styles. Kensit does sing as part of the group Eighth Wonder for her number "Having It All," but for Colin's solo number — "Have You Ever Had It Blue?" — credit goes to The Style Council with no mention of O'Connell being involved. I don't know how that goes
for his small parts of the big David Bowie number "That's Motivation." Slim Gaillard performs "Selling Out" when Colin does just that by showing up at a ritzy party to see Suzette only to learn that she's now "engaged" to Henley, despite the obvious gap in their age and sexual tendencies. When Henley declares to Colin that he's only 37, Colin replies, "around the waist maybe." Despite the hours he keeps and his club life, that party is the first time Colin gets drunk and, needless to say it does not go well, coming as it does with the news of Suzette's engagement. It's also where he meets Bowie's character, Vendice Partners. At a different party, we actually get Sade playing the character Athene Duncannon as she performs "Killer Blow" to fit Colin's mood after the engagement news.
The entire sequence when he goes to meet with Vendice is about how the future isn't about selling things, but selling dreams and it's Colin's first step toward his playing the part of "the professional teenager." It also introduces the one part of the movie that seems somewhat out of place with the spirit of the rest and
launches a darker edge that could have been more worthwhile if developed earlier and if the rest of the film wasn't played on such a level of frivolity. It seems that Vendice and Henley are partners in a development project that uses white supremacists to try to drive the blacks and all non-white straight Christians out of the Napoli area to make way for it. It's the part that most always made me want to look up the novel, because it seemed so out of place with the spirit of the rest of the movie. Before we get to that though, there is the fun of that Bowie number, where Colin tours his office, learns about motivation and a world where he can commit all the sins he wants and get away with them. Again, fortunately YouTube has this sequence.
The riot sequence does get filmed well, even if some of the fighting does end up being choreographed much like the rumbles in West Side Story, only with a dark edge and without simultaneous singing. The most interesting moment is when Colin, who rooms with Cool (Tony Hippolyte) and always has been his good friend tries to help him and other black friends, insisting he's on their side while Cool tells him, "You're on your own" and faces the shock that a white friend of his, Wizard
(Graham Fletcher-Cook), turns out to be a racist. Colin admits that this conflict has been "building with the heat all summer" which seems sort of interesting, coming three years before Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, except Lee's film actually dealt with the subject. It just seems like a sudden switch
from the story that's come before. It does give Colin an excuse to confront an unhappily married Suzette with what Henley is up to, but their story sort of gets lost in the fascist hate as Steven Berkoff makes a cameo as a hate group leader and, for some reason, Henley and Suzette drive into the middle of the melee just so Suzette can get out of his car and start joining rioters in beating the hell out of it. The movie doesn't make clear what happens to Henley and I guess it's tacking on a happy ending by reuniting Colin and Suzette and throwing away her wedding ring, but the riots just seem an odd story turn for a film whose strengh is its style to end on.
Even with those reservations, what comes before provides such aural and visual pleasure, that it's hard to complain about the part that seems as if it belongs to another movie. Temple's spirited and inspired direction,
production design by John Beard (Brazil, The Last Temptation of Christ), Stuart Rose (Scorsese's forthcoming Hugo Cabret, Me and Orson Welles) and Ken Wheatley's art direction, cinematography by Oliver Stapleton (The Grifters), costumes by Sue Blane (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and David Perry (Alien3), the entire set dressing team, the film editing team of Richard Bedford (Shock Treatment), Michael Bradsell (Local Hero, Henry V), Gerry Hambling (Fame, Pink Floyd The Wall) and Russell Lloyd (The Man Who Would Be King), choreography by David Toguri (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and that remarkable music, including the score and its overall arrangement by Gil Evans. It also was produced by Chris Brown (Mona Lisa) and Stephen Woolley (The Crying Game and most of Neil Jordan's films, as well as last year's Made in Dagenham).What saddens me is that for some reason I never replaced my LP of the soundtrack on CD. Seeing it again 25 years later, I think I may have to, if it's available for a reasonable price. I also still wonder what happened to the careers of Eddie O'Connell and Patsy Kensit. Kensit has an extensive IMDb resume (I forgot she was in Lethal Weapon 2) and remains active, but O'Connell's credits are slim with nothing listed after 2003, though it says he appeared in Sexy Beast, but I don't remember him in it
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Labels: 80s, Danny Boyle, Godard, Movie Tributes, Musicals, Scorsese, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
While he's trapped, you'll get motion sickness
By Edward Copeland
Is there a reverse auteur theory? If there is, I fear Danny Boyle may have succumbed to it for his films get less interesting the longer he works. The new example is 127 Hours, which does feature a very good performance by James Franco, but Boyle directs it as if, at worst, he was on a cocaine binge during its filming or, at best, he thought it should be made for people who suffered from severe ADHD.
If you live in the United States (I don't know how much worldwide coverage it received) and happened to cross paths with a TV, you probably recall the amazing story of Aron Ralston, an engineer and part-time adventure seeker who found himself literally caught between a rock and a hard place. (He gave his book about the incident that title.)
While mountain climbing in Utah, he slipped in a crevice, trapping his right arm between an immovable boulder and the mountain. Isolated, with no way to get help (any screams went unanswered and, for some reason, he thought his video camera was more vital as equipment than a cell phone) and dwindling supplies of food and water, Ralston managed to free himself after the amount of time in the title by using a tiny knife to sever his arm from his body.
Truly, Ralston's tale makes for an inspiring study in survival, self-preservation and the will to live at any cost. As a film however, I'm not sure that this would really make that gripping a movie, especially as well known as the story is. What is certain is that Boyle's directorial approach makes it worse and borders on being unwatchable.
Given that this is a story about a man trapped in a relatively small space for a long period of time, you would think a director might want to build suspense, especially since he's compensating for a well-known event, by emphasizing the claustrophobia and desperation of Ralston's situation. Boyle goes in the opposite direction: His camera never sits still, constantly zooming and jumping, tilting to angles more often found on the 1960s Batman than in a grim 21st century story of against-the-odds survival.
He also employs lots of split and tri-split screens for no apparent reason, taking every opportunity he can to show Franco from every point of view he can muster. On top of that, this movie, especially in the opening sequence and again later, may be a triumph of product placement unequaled since Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.
At some point, it becomes clear that Boyle isn't doing this because it's the best way to serve the story and the film at that moment but because he's just bored silly. When there were early reports of people supposedly fainting at showings of this film, I don't think it was because of the scenes where Franco's Ralston gets around to cutting off his arm, I just think they all had sea sickness minus the ocean.
What in the world has happened to Boyle as a filmmaker? He started out so promisingly with films such as Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Sure, A Life Less Ordinary was a misfire, but I thought The Beach was underrated and he followed that with the great 28 Days Later.
Then, things definitely started their slide. Millions wasn't without its charms, but it was slight. Admittedly, I never saw Sunshine, but nothing I heard from anyone who did convinced me I was missing anything. Then came the overrated Slumdog Millionaire, with its hyperactive subtitles and mostly downbeat story that would, of course, end with a joyous Bollywoodesque dance number. It was so over-the-top at times and overpraised, naturally it was showered with Oscars.
127 Hours doesn't contain subtitles, but it does contain words at the end to tell you what happened later, but he bounces those all over the screen too. What's worse is that they are in white type and they don't take into account what images they place them on so many words can't be read because they bleed into the background.
Two things that save 127 Hours from not making you want to either turn it off, walk out or ingest large doses of Dramamine are that it lasts less than 90 minutes and, most importantly, Franco's performance. He makes up a lot of the ground lost by Boyle's directing hysteria.
In this short a film, Franco creates a charismatic, rather distinct character almost from the moment he appears, thanks mainly to early scenes with others before he gets trapped. He manages to be good once he's confined as well despite Boyle's herky-jerky direction that keeps taking you away from his face. Since once he's caught, you basically have a one-man show, they add lots of flashbacks and hallucinations with other actors for him to interact with. He also gets to do monologues to the video camera, which I suppose serves as a better companion than Tom Hanks' volleyball did in Cast Away, though that was a better movie despite going on past the point where it should have ended.
Boyle co-wrote the script with Simon Beaufoy, who won an Oscar for writing Slumdog Millionaire. Beaufoy also wrote The Full Monty. Was that a fluke? Boyle also brings back composer A.R. Rahman from Slumdog and his music doesn't add anything either, just making the already nutty direction seem more frenzied.
That James Franco manages to deliver such a fine performance in this mess is nearly as miraculous as Aron Ralston's real-life story of survival.
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Labels: 10s, Danny Boyle, Franco, Hanks, Oscars
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Friday, August 13, 2010
No Machine Against the Rage
By J.D.
When 28 Days Later came out in 2002, it was perceived as a welcome breath of fresh air in the horror and science fiction genres which had become stagnant and predictable. It proved that in the best tradition of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Halloween (1978), the most effective horror films are made independently, and that they can scare us while also making us think. 28 Days Later is generally considered to be a post-apocalyptic science fiction film — after all, the premise involves Great Britain ravaged by a highly contagious virus and follows the adventures of four survivors. However, director Danny Boyle shoots his film in a way that shifts from ominous feelings of dread to outright sweaty-palmed terror reminiscent of George Romero’s zombie films albeit on speed.
28 Days Later struck a nerve not just among horror fans but moviegoers in general and was a surprise success. The inevitable sequel followed, but instead of going for an easy, quickie film that coasts on the reputation of its predecessor, 28 Weeks Later (2007) uses the effects of the virus outbreak and the government’s reaction to it as a commentary on real-life bureaucratic reactions to Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq. Even more impressively, 28 Weeks Later is a rare sequel that is as good if not better than its predecessor.
In 28 Days Later, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital 28 days after three animal activists broke into the Cambridge Primate Research Facility to free chimpanzees being experimented on but unwittingly released a virus known as Rage into British society. Unaware of what has transpired, Jim wanders the gloomily empty streets of downtown London trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Buses and trucks are overturned and abandoned while the normally clean streets are littered with trash and, in one instance, some money (although it’s pretty much useless now). Jim picks up a newspaper and quickly gets an inkling of what went down — the country has been evacuated as the Rage virus devastated the population.
Jim walks up the steps in a church and behind him someone has painted on the wall in large letters, “The end is extremely fucking nigh,” which sets just the right creepy tone. He walks into the chapel and it is packed with dead bodies like some kind of perverse variation on Jonestown. He also encounters his first infected person as a priest rushes crazily at him and Jim barely escapes. In doing so, he encounters two other survivors who rescue him by torching a few infected people with Molotov cocktails but they keep on coming despite being transformed into human torches. Mark (Noah Huntley) and Selena (Naomie Harris) fill Jim in on what has happened while he was in the hospital and how far the infection has spread. And so begins Jim’s quest to find other survivors and a safe haven to hold up until this epidemic plays out.
Boyle times his jolts well, like when Jim reflects on his dead parents in their home when suddenly two of their neighbors, out of their heads with the virus, come bursting in. Mark and Selena intervene but he gets some of the infected blood into a wound and that’s all it takes to become infected. She unhesitatingly hacks him to death with a machete in a truly horrifying scene. It’s not just the sudden nature of the attack but the brutal way in which Selena deals with Mark. She is a refreshingly practical character who lays it all out for Jim: “Plans are pointless. Staying alive’s as good as it gets.” When you’ve had to kill loved ones or watched them die, there isn’t much room for hope or romanticism and a survival instinct takes over.
Boyle wisely cast relative unknowns (at the time) Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris who had no movie star baggage and weren’t linked to iconic roles yet. This gives 28 Days Later an unpredictable edge as we don’t know who will live or die. They are supported by veteran character actors Christopher Eccleston and Brendan Gleeson. Eccleston, who appeared in Boyle’s first film Shallow Grave (1994), brings an edgy intensity to his role of a twisted military commander, while Gleeson plays a good-natured survivor with a daughter (Megan Burns) that Jim and Selena meet in London. Eccleston and Gleeson bring the necessary gravitas to their respective roles and this helps anchor the film.
Many reviewers mistakenly referred to the infected as zombies. They aren’t the lumbering undead; they’re infected — fast and very lethal. 28 Days Later was compared to George A. Romero’s Dead films, which, to a degree is apt because they both deal with post-apocalyptic societies struggling to survive against overwhelming odds. There are the obvious nods to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) with the carefree shopping spree in a deserted supermarket and the tense attempt to get gas at a seemingly deserted station. However, the Romero film 28 Days Later most closely echoes is The Crazies (1973) about a small community whose inhabitants are driven insane by a government created biological weapon. Boyle’s film is obviously on a much larger scale but some of the same ideas are explored, such as the disintegration of society as the result of government sanctioned experiments. As with Romero’s films, the military are not to be trusted as evident with Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) and his warped cure for the infected and the way he maintains order among the uninfected. He’s drunk on power, much like Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato), the military leader in Day of the Dead (1985).
28 Days Later is a powerful statement about how easily societal order can break down bringing out the best and worst in us. It presents characters we grow to care about and become emotionally invested in. The film also delivers the requisite thrills and genuine scares that are strategically positioned for maximum effect.
28 Weeks Later starts off with a bang as a small cottage of survivors living outside of London is attacked by a horde of the infected with only one person managing to escape. Donald Harris (Robert Carlyle) abandons his wife (Catherine McCormack) to save his own skin — a split-second decision he deeply regrets and which will have serious repercussions later on. Shaky, hand-held camerawork captures his desperate escape from the infected with incredible, frenetic intensity that quickly establishes the film’s grim tone. Don makes it to safety and is reunited with his two children, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots), in London.
It is 28 weeks after the initial outbreak and all the infected have starved to death. The United States military have occupied the city and are allowing refugees back in. Sound familiar? Shades of post-Katrina New Orleans anyone? Andy and Tammy defy the safety zone laws and return to their home to pick up some stuff. In the process, they are reunited with their mother who has been infected but for some unknown reason has not gone crazy like the others. In what will prove to be a fatal error in judgment, the military decide to study Don’s wife instead of destroying her outright. Once all hell breaks loose, Andy, Tammy, Scarlett (Rose Byrne), a doctor they meet, and Sergeant Doyle (Jeremy Renner), a soldier who helps them escape during the chaos of the new outbreak, try to find a way out of London.
The film is rife with references to Katrina. Once the virus breaks out, a group of refugees are herded into an underground parking garage for their “safety” only for order to break down a la the Superdome debacle. Later, as the refugees flee through the streets with the infected in pursuit, the military give up trying to target the infected and begin shooting everyone that eerily echoes the Northern Ireland massacre in 1973.
28 Weeks Later is one of those all-bets-are-off horror films where you really don’t know who is going to live and who is going to die. There are safety zones, such as big name movie stars, that often indicate who will survive but not in this film which only enhances the unbelievable tension that the filmmakers create. It is very rare that a sequel is as good as or better than the one that came before it — The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) come immediately to mind. The filmmakers behind 28 Weeks Later are not merely content to rehash the first film. They build on it and go off in new and exciting directions, expanding the world that was created in 28 Days Later.
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Labels: 00s, Danny Boyle, Sequels
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Thursday, January 08, 2009
Where's Regis when you need him?
By Edward Copeland
It's not exactly writer's block, but sometimes there are films, films that I think are fine, even good, that I just can't think of much to say about. However, they are important in the current award universe so I feel compelled to comment upon them. So please, bear with me, as I struggle to find things to say about Slumdog Millionaire.
Now, this inability to come up with much insightful to say about Danny Boyle's film should not be a reflection upon the film itself. I liked Slumdog Millionaire. Do I think it is a great film? No. Do I think it is a good film? Yes. Part of this block may be sheer exhaustion on my part as I try to get back into the film blogging swing of things and my desire to cover all the majors may have finally overwhelmed my ability to accomplish such a task.
Frankly, looking back at my output over the past couple of weeks, even I'm impressed given the amount of pain I'm in and the fatigue from which I suffer. It was such a relief to watch Doubt knowing that Josh R had already covered that review for me. So, while this is hardly the most cohesive of reviews, I'm just going to list some thoughts about Slumdog I did have.
Is Danny Boyle the go-to director for scenes involving diving into shit-filled toilets? Did the owners of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire franchise sign off on the depiction of the Indian version of their show as being corrupt? While I admire Boyle's attempt to try something different with subtitles, some still blend into the background and, more importantly, most are on screen too fleetingly to be read.
Finally, I get so tired of trying to sell young actors into supporting categories when they are so clearly leads. Dev Patel, despite the fact that other actors play his character at younger ages in flashbacks, dominates the movie from beginning to end and is most certainly the lead in the film. I wish I had more to say. Did I mention that I liked it?
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Labels: 00s, Danny Boyle
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