Tag Archives: Alex Russell

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Bait (dir by Kimble Rendall)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What happens when you take The Mist and combine it with Jaws?

Well, you’d probably end up with a movie that’s a lot more interesting than 2012’s Bait.

Bait opens in an Australian supermarket and it’s nice to see that supermarkets in other countries are just as bad as supermarkets in America.  Two teenagers make out in the underground parking garage.  A former lifeguard stocks the shelves.  (The lifeguard, incidentally, was previously traumatized when he saw a friend of his eaten by a shark.)  The sister of that friend who got eaten by a shark shops with her new boyfriend.  The store manager gives people orders.  Two masked men try to rob the place, which leads to shoot out with the police.  It’s just a typical day!

Until, of course, the tsunami hits!

Now, on the one hand, the tsunami hit at the perfect time because it kept the masked men from shooting anyone else.  On the other hand, the tsunami hit at absolutely the worst time because apparently, sharks can survive anything.  Not only is the supermarket flooded but now, there is now a giant shark swimming through the aisles!

Our survivors all scramble to the top of the aisles, where they find themselves stranded.  Not only is the water shark-infested but there is also the risk of being electrocuted by broken wires!  The survivors are going to have to set aside their differences and work together if they’re going to escape the deluge of sharks and bad feelings!

Of course, if you know anything about these type of movies, you know that a group of people can never set aside their differences and work together until at least a handful of them have been eaten.  At one point, our survivors attempt to escape by building a makeshift shark cage out of grocery carts.  That actually might not a bad idea but it just looks so silly!

Anyway, the main problem with Bait is that the film, much like the characters, has no place to go.  The idea of a shark invading a supermarket has potential but once everyone’s stranded on top of their aisles, the action slows down to a crawl and we spend way too much time listening to thinly drawn characters shout insults at each other.  The characters are trapped but, unfortunately, so is the audience.

I was actually far more interested in the couple that was stuck in the flooded parking garage.  Those scenes, of the two of them trying to figure out how to escape from their car, had a claustrophobic intensity that the scenes in the supermarket lacked.  Lincoln Lewis and Cariba Heine were fun to watch as they bickered with each other and debated who was more to blame for their predicament.  Perhaps because they were separated from all of the noisy drama in supermarket, Lewis and Heine actually seemed to be having fun with their roles.

Anyway, Bait is one of those films that tends to show up fairly regularly on the SyFy network.  It’s not a particularly good movie but it is a reminder that the cinematic legacy of Jaws will outlast us all.  To be honest, if the sharks ever get together and form some sort of anti-defamation league, the film industry is screwed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSUUBiHea68

Film Review: Unbroken (dir by Angelina Jolie)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ultimately, Unbroken is a victim of expectations.

From the start of last year, Oscar watchers and other film critics were united in fully expecting Unbroken to be a great film.  No sooner had 12 Years A Slave won best picture then we were all predicting that Unbroken would be named the best film of 2014 and that Angelina Jolie would be the 2nd woman to win an Oscar for best director.

And can you blame us?

Unbroken seemed to have everything that you would expect to add up to Oscar glory.  Not only was it directed by a celebrity (and, ever since Argo, everyone has been under the impression that all performers can also direct) but it starred an exciting and up-and-coming actor.  It was not only a war film but it was a war film that took place during the only war that everyone agrees was a good one, World War II.  It was based on a true story and what a story!  Louis Zamperini was an Olympic medalist whose athletic career was put on hold when he joined the U.S. Air Force.  After a plane crash, he and two other survivors spent 47 days floating in a lifeboat.  They were finally captured by the Japanese and Louis spent the rest of the war as POW.  During that time, he survived terrible torture.  When the war finally ended, Louis set aside his anger and publicly forgave those who had nearly killed him.  When he was 80 years old, he returned to Japan and carried the Olympic torch.  It’s an incredibly touching story and it should have made for a great movie.

And, ultimately, that’s Unbroken‘s downfall.  It has all the ingredients for being a great movie but instead, it’s only a good one.

That’s certainly not the fault of Jack O’Connell, who plays Louis and gives a strong and sympathetic performance.  Actually, the entire film is well-acted, with everyone fully inhabiting his role.  Perhaps the film’s best performance comes from Miyavi, who plays “The Bird,” the sadistic head of both of the POW camps where Louis is held prisoner.  The dynamic between The Bird and Louis is an interesting one, with the film emphasizing that The Bird is in many ways jealous of Louis’s previous fame and Miyavi plays the character as if he were a high school bully who has suddenly been left in charge of the classroom.

That the cast does well should not be a surprise.  Actors-turned-directors can usually get good performances but often times, they seem to struggle with shaping a narrative and this is where Unbroken struggles.  It’s not that Unbroken doesn’t tell a worthy story.  It’s just that it tells it in such a conventional and predictable way.  The entire film is full of scenes that seem like they were lifted out of other, more memorable movies.  The scenes with Louis growing up and competing in the Olympics feel like they could have come from any “inspiring” sports biopic.  (It doesn’t help that Louis’s brother and coach has been given dialogue that sounds like it should be surrounded by air quotes.)  When Louis is joking around with the guys in the plane, it feels like a hundred other war films.  When Louis is floating in the ocean, it’s hard not to compare the film’s static and draggy approach to what Ang Lee was able to do with Life of Pi or J.C. Chandor with All Is Lost.  Miyavi brings a feeling of real menace and danger to the POW scenes but it’s not enough.  Jolie’s direction is competent but there’s not a single moment that feels spontaneous or truly cinematic.

In fact, I sat through Unbroken totally dry-eyed, which is somewhat amazing considering how easily I cry at the movies.  However, towards the end of the film, there was a clip of the real-life, 80 year-old Louis running down the streets of Tokyo with the Olympic Torch and, at that moment, his story became real for me.  And that’s when the tears came.

I really wish Unbroken had been better because Louis Zamperini seems like someone who deserved to have a great film made about him.  Angelina Jolie’s heart was in the right place but, ultimately, it’s just not enough to make Unbroken the film that it deserves to be.

Quick Review: Carrie (dir. by Kimberly Peirce)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

carrie2013bannerHigh School can be a rough time. Growing up, we always had Freshman Day, where bullies spent the first Friday of the new semester terrorizing the newbies. I spent at least one of those years either writing in the Library for lunch or on the run between classes until a poem/love letter I wrote on behalf of a member of the Varsity Football team left me in their good graces and under their protection. Needed to tell your girl she was the best thing since Ham & Pineapple pizza, but in an eloquent way? Go ask that geek in the back row of English reading Christine with the big round glasses. Oh, the joys of High School. I can’t even imagine how intense bullying can get today with all of the social media we have. It’s easy to imagine what you could do to protect yourself if you could be as cool as Nightcrawler and make yourself teleport, fight off your foes like Batman or best of all, Force Choke the crap out of someone like Darth Vader.

In that sense, the story of Carrie is still kind of cool, and mildly disturbing.

There was a point in Stephen King’s life where Carrie almost never happened. It was because of his wife, Tabitha that the story was ever finished and that the parts focused on women and their “monthlies” (as members of my family would say) were written the way they were. Carrie got King his foot in the door and set him for other releases like The Shining, Christine and Salem’s Lot. I think next to The Shining, it might be his most remade film.

I’m not sure if there’s anyone who never saw Brian De Palma’s Carrie from 1978 with Sissy Spacek. If not, Kimberly Peirce’s version is not bad at all as an introduction to the story. It actually has at least one element from the book that was never featured in the original film (though part of me does wish that it contained the newspaper format – something like John Larroquette’s narration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Carrie is simply the tale of a young girl in high school who discovers she has telekinetic powers. Eventually, she gets pushed and loses it, unleashing her abilities against anyone in her way. No version of the story has ever gone into detail on how she got them outside of the puberty angle – they’re just there.

Peirce’s version moves just as well as De Palma’s, which is interesting because supposedly they happen to be friends. The main differences lie in DePalma’s choice of nudity versus Peirce’s lack of it, and DePalma’s lack of blood (a sign of the times) compared to Peirce’s extended usage of it. Other than that, it’s roughly the same film, any closer and you’d end up with Gus Van Sant’s shot for shot version of Psycho. Half of me wonders why it needed to be remade (again), the other half says, “You know what, it wasn’t half bad.” There’s nothing essentially wrong with Carrie, but it’s really hard to talk about the Peirce Carrie Film without going back to the DePalma one.

First, Carrie’s biggest strength by far comes in it’s casting. As the leads, both Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore are great in their roles – almost better than the film deserves. Granted, it’s kind of difficult to imagine anyone messing up something as simple as this. When it comes to young horror starlets, the first two names that come to my mind are Silent Hill’s Jodele Ferland and The Hunger Games’ Isabelle Fuhrman, both of which I thought would be interesting fits here. If Katharine Isabelle was just a little younger, that would have worked too. However, I forgot that Moretz had both The Amityville Horror and Let Me In under her belt (and we won’t speak of Dark Shadows – That wasn’t horror. That wasn’t even comedy. I can’t even identify what that was). Her role as Carrie is somewhat similar to Let Me In, being more reserved here than the Kick Ass films and with good reason.

Moore’s version of Margaret White spends some time self harming herself, which was a little eerie and reminded me of Paul Bettany’s character in The DaVinci Code, punishing themselves for their sins. She’s good here, but after coming off winning an Emmy for playing Sarah Palin in “Game Change”, she looks like she’s underused here. It’s like having an actor play a superhero after becoming a great director and winning tons of accolades. A job is a job, and Moore does a great one here given what she has to work with.

The supporting cast was interesting. I didn’t expect to like Judy Greer’s gym teacher as much as I did, and Ansel Angort’s Tommy Ross was good. I hope that this film leads to bigger and better roles for him. A surprise was Chronicle’s Alex Russell as Billy Nolan, the character originally played by John Travolta. He pulls off a villain well. Portia Doubleday’s version of Kris Hargensen may actually be better than Nancy Allen was, though this could also be in part due to the way the story is written.

So, on with the plot. Carrie White (Moretz) is a reclusive loner, living with her overprotective mother (Moore). In the school shower, she has her period for the first time and not realizing what’s occurring to her (and having never been told just what to expect), naturally panics. This leads to an all out humiliation by her peers that’s even recorded. Carrie later learns about her abilities, while her nemesis, Kris is kicked from the prom and vows to take her vengeance against Carrie. Some of the main sequences are actually expanded upon, which I thought were actually good.

I think the only problem I had with Carrie was the technique used for the Telekinesis. It almost seems a little CGI heavy, but when I think about it, I’m not sure how else they could have pulled off much of what they did here without it. Additionally, Moretz’s version of Carrie uses her hands a lot, which almost makes it seems like she’s either dancing or is trying to conjure up something. It’s not a terribly bad thing and you may actually get used to it after she does it once or twice. Part of me kept expecting her to scream “Unlimited Power!” at one point but it was just a minor “Wow, that’s kind of weird.” Reaction, at least for me.

Carrie’s not really meant for little kids. Anyone who’s a fan of Moretz by way of Diary of a Wimpy Kid might not be ready to handle Carrie, but if you’ve followed any of the Kick Ass films, Carrie’s actually lighter than those. Overall, it’s one of the better remakes out there and a very short film (I’m writing this while watching the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, so I like to think I have a good basis of comparison). If you never saw the original, it might be worth a try. If you don’t wish to spend the money for the ticket, you can always watch one of the other versions and wait for this to come out on Blu-Ray.

Horror Trailer: Carrie (by Kimberly Peirce)

Posted on by Arleigh

We finally have the first trailer in the upcoming horror remake Carrie starring Chloe Grace Moretz and directed by Boys Don’t Cry filmmaker Kimberly Peirce.

When news came out that the classic Brian De Palma film adaptation of the Stephen King novel was being remade there wasn’t much of a positive reaction to the news. The usual grumbling about another horror remake being put into production and how Hollywood was running out of ideas was heard throughout the blog land. Then more details surface of who would play the title role which was made famous in the original film by Sissy Spacek. When it was announced that Chlie Grace Moretz would take on the Carrie role then grumbling subsided somewhat.

While there will always be detractors of the film even while it’s still in production the word coming out that the film will not be a straight out remake of the film but more of a faithful adaptation of the novel has made me cautiously optimistic. The fact that the last horror remake Moretz was involved in turned out quite well (Let Me In) is another reason to hope. Plus, Peirce as the director should help put the focus of the film’s narrative on where King originally intended it to be and that’s the social divide between the popular kids in the dangerous world of high school who end up bullying the weaker outcasts.

The teaser trailer gives a hint at how the film looks to follow the novel more than the De Palma film by showing the town in flames and not just the school. Carrie is set for a March 15, 2013 release date.

Review: Chronicle (by Josh Trank)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Found footage” films have become all the rage of late. Many attribute this to the extreme popularity of the Paranormal Activity films of the last couple years, but I like to think it goes even farther than that. Even before the aforementioned horror series we got the found footage horror of both the Spanish horror series [Rec] and it’s Americanized version with Quarantine. One thing which we haven’t gotten to see use this style of storytelling is the superhero genre which still continues to go strong. Filmmaker Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (Masters of Horror: Deer Woman) solve this lack of superhero/found footage film with their surprisingly well-made Chronicle.

The film begins with one of three high school seniors, the shy and troubled Andrew (played by Dane DeHaan), testing out his new video camera. We learn through this first ten or so minutes of the film that his only friend in school is his own cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and that his plans for the new camera is to videotape everything that goes on through his day at school and at home. We learn much about Andrew during these first minutes of the film. We see that his home life consists of him worrying about his very sick mother and trying to avoid the wrath of his drunken, abusive father. School life is not any much better as he’s bullied by other classmates and seen as a non-entity by the rest outside of his cousin Matt. It is his cousin who invites him to a rave party in one scene which will lead up to the two meeting up with a third high school senior, the very popular Steven (payed by Michael B. Jordan), and their discovery of something strange in deep in the woods.

We never get any full explanation as to the origin of the mysterious object the three teens find underground, but all we know afterwards is how it’s given Andrew, Matt and Steven the ability to move things with their minds. This new found ability is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as all three learn more about their new found powers. Matt figures out that their power is like a muscle and constant use just strengthens and enhances what they’re able to do. All three react to having superpowers as all high school teenagers would when confronted with such a situation: they become giddy boys behaving badly.

They test out their powers on the unsuspecting public at the local mall parking lot and stores. It’s all pretty much harmless, teenage fun until an accident caused by Andrew shows all three the inherent dangers in their new abilities. Matt wants ground rules in how they use their powers with Steven following suit, but Andrew doesn’t understand why the need for them even though he’s remorseful of what he had caused. It’s the beginning of small cracks in the relationship between the three teens that would widen as the film moves into it’s second half with less joy and lighthearted fun and more darkness as one of the three begins to act out on his troubles both at home and in school.

Chronicle could almost be a coming-of-age story in addition to being an origins story that superhero films seem required to do. We see Matt, the cousin, grow from being the wannabe intellectual into someone genuinely caring about what is happening to his introverted cousin Andrew. Steven, the popular football captain and student body president, learns more about Andrew and how he his new friend’s troubled upbringing concerns him enough to try and bring Andrew out from his protective shell and make him more confident about himself. With Andrew we see a teenager who many would feel much sympathy for. He’s the kid who symbolizes the turmoil a growing teen must go through both emotionally and psychologically. Whether it’s rebelling from familial authority or trying to survive the dangerous waters of high school life. We can see ourselves in Andrew’s shoes and his reaction to finally having the ability to fight back against those who have made his life a living hell feed our own fantasies as teenagers to be able to do the same.

All of this would be moot if the film ended up being uninteresting, bland and boring. Fortunately the film doesn’t end up being any of those three. What we get is a fun and thrilling film which takes both the superhero genre and the found footage gimmick and adds some new wrinkles that combines towards a fresh new take on both. Found footage films have the unenviable task of convincing the audience that we’d believe someone would be lugging around a camera all the time and find ways to videotape every moment to create a believable narrative. It’s a leap in logic that will sink or swim these types of films. With Chronicle we see how their new abilities solves this particular dilemma in found footage stories. Being able to move things with one’s mind should make it easy to film yourself without having to hold the camera and instead have it floating and following one around.

The film also does a great job in building up these characters into believable ones with their own back stories and motivations. We’re not left with basic cutouts of what we think teenagers are in films. Max Landis’ screenplay goes a long way in turning these three into real teenagers and their reactions in their new powers were quite believable. How else would teen boys react to finding out they’re now superheroes, but behave badly and use them not for the benefit of others but to have fun.

The film could easily have gone the route of making them want to start helping others (though in Steven’s case he does try to help Andrew become more outgoing through the use of his abilities), but that would’ve felt disingenuous and unrealistic. Even the film’s dialogue seemed to flow naturally without having to resort to witty teen-speak that some writers think teen conversations are full of. It helps that the performances of the three actors playing the three teens came off as well-done. Dane DeHaan as the troubled Andrew comes off looking best of all three with his reactions to his own personal troubles coming off as real and not as some young actor trying too hard to try and impress.

For a found footage film Chronicle does a great job in recreating the look and feel of the three teens superpowers. Whether it’s moving things around with their mind or flying through the sky, the film makes each and every act look like something that could happen for real. The scenes of destruction which encompasses the climactic sequence of the film look very realistic and on the small-budget (when compared to most superhero films) come off as very impressive. The technique of each scene being part of video camera footage (whether they’re handheld HD cameras or smartphone footages) allowed for whatever CGI-effect used to look seemless and not artificial looking.

January and February have always been the dumping ground for films the studios either have little faith in or think don’t deserve the much more lucrative summer blockbuster and holiday season months. Chronicle manages to make its case that this would’ve been one film that could’ve done well playing around with the mega-budgeted blockbusters this summer and hold it’s own. It’s a film that takes a simple premise and creates something not just fun and exciting, but also takes a delve into the psyche of the teenage mind and all the pitfalls and dangers one can find themselves in navigating through it. Chronicle is one of the better films in these early months of the 2012 film season and overall probably one of the better one’s by year’s end.