Blue Moon Rising » Movies

Visual Wizardry Elevates Avatar Above its Collective Clichés

Jeff — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:12:09 +0000

Heralded as the harbinger of cinema’s new age of enlightenment, James Cameron’s 3D extravaganza Avatar is a feast for the eyes and a light snack for the spirit. The script’s primary ingredients of corporate greed, military zealousness, indigenous spirituality, and flawed heroes going native are nothing new, but this thematic skeleton is given flesh and blood through the masterwork of over ten visual effect studios that have made the tall blue aliens and the fantastic flora and fauna of their world Pandora come alive.

The understated 3D effect was a subtle boost to immersion, but the meticulously detailed, flawlessly animated Na’vi and Na’vi-Human hybrids were the true saving grace of this otherwise lackluster story. The creature designs were also exceptional, but the effects studios long ago mastered the art of providing convincing critters.

Early concerns that the vivid computer-generated characters would not blend well with the “real life” cast were completely unfounded. In fact, the subtle stylistic unrealities are what saved the Na’vi from the uncanny valley, and allowed moviegoers to fully appreciate their alien beauty and intricate expressions without an overly critical eye.

Laundry list of tired tropes aside, Avatar is an engaging, entertaining experience, that may only afterwords pose a few thorny questions: Do blue half-human clones — self-aware or otherwise — have no rights in the future? Has Ripley’s great-granddaughter atoned for Sigourney Weaver’s hand in the death of Hicks and Newt?

Only time can tell, as a sequel is certainly in our future.

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The Fantastic Truth of Ninja Assassin

Jeff — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:52:22 +0000

With all of its explosive combat, deadly weaponry and grievous injuries, it’s easy to see how moviegoers could mistake Ninja Assassin for a martial arts movie. Yet the superhuman acts of acrobatics and recovery, and a liberal application of shinobi magic throughout, place this raucous action adventure firmly in the world of fantasy.

Ninja Assassin was born of Korean pop star Rain’s martial prowess in the psychotropic Speed Racer‘s big-screen venture, and sits atop a frenetically rewritten script from Babylon 5‘s J. Michael Straczynski. This goes a long way to explain not only the beautifully stylized combat, but the occasionally awkward dialogue and groan-inducing plot devices as well.

When a rogue ninja turns traitor on his clan and teacher, everyone knows that there’s trouble ahead for all involved. Rain performs admirably as the killer with a conscience Raito, and Naomie Harris does as well as can be expected as a Europol agent targeted for assassination by Raito’s clan for discovering the Global Ninja Conspiracy.

Those who leave their history books at home and seek a mindless romp into flashy fantasy violence will be richly rewarded.

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Zombieland isn’t Your Typical Comedy Horror Action Romance

Jeff — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:41:36 +0000

Some misguided moviegoers have foolishly avoided the recent theatrical release of Zombieland, perhaps for fear of a bizarre slapdash retread of the standard zombie apocalypse. Never have so few been so right and wrong all at once, for this brilliant film is both pleasingly familiar and excitingly innovative.

From the slow motion title sequence to the gopher-themed after-credits quotation of Jean Paul Sartre, the film delivers a pitch-perfect, potent blend of violent survival horror and absurdist comedy. While inspired by Shaun of the Dead, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have written a truly American zombie tale, with all of the firearms, big trucks and open — if corpse-strewn — highways unique to our great land.

As told by a reclusive college kid, Zombieland details a series of gristly encounters and accompanying rules to survive by. Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus gets his hometown moniker from another, considerably more trigger-happy survivor Tallahassee — maniacally played by Woody Harrelson. They soon run into the charming duo of Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) and almost instantly regret it. Their unstable group dynamic is a critical component of the film’s ultimate success, and helps propel the story recklessly forward.

While Zombieland is an undeniably bloody experience, the violence has a touch of style and cinematography that make even the most gruesome zombie kill a thing of beauty. The comedic elements are both dark and uplifting, and are at play in even the most dire of circumstance. Even the romantic elements of Columbus’ journey are naturally integrated into the storyline, and are charmingly innocent.

Whatever genre, or genres you choose to label the film, Zombieland is equal parts shocking and satisfying, but unlike the survival horror films that have come before, the message here is truly unique: Whatever these survivors were initially looking for, what they all find is a reason to keep fighting for life, and each other.

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9′s Precocious Puppets Persevere in Post-Apocalyptic Purgatory

Jeff — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:21:06 +0000

It certainly seems reasonable to presume that a film about spunky sackcloth puppets would be perfectly suitable for children, but Shane Acker’s first foray into feature films, while beautiful to behold, is truly the stuff of nightmares. His new epic in miniature, simply titled 9, chronicles a small band of mysteriously animated dolls, and their fight for survival against a decaying world.

Our story begins with the last of these dolls waking for the very first time in a ramshackle laboratory, with his human creator dead on the floor below. Voiced by Elijah Wood, the newly alive figurine — also marked with the number 9 — surveys his surroundings and discovers a battle blasted landscape of ruined buildings and a dust-choked sky.

When 9 encounters another figure similarly sewn from fabric and found items — Martin Landau – his joy is quickly tempered by a predatory beast. From there, 9′s day just keeps going from bad to worse. The vocal talents of Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plumber, Crispin Glover and John C. Riley breathe life into other stitchpunk figures met by 9 along his journey.

Much like the protagonists, the film itself is beautifully crafted by experts in their craft, but the relentlessly gloomy world that is so meticulously assembled may take a toll on children and adults not inured to the crueler realities of our world. However, those who can see beyond the desolate backdrop will find a classic fable of heroism and personal sacrifice, in 1:10 scale.

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District 9 Delivers Raw Action with a Conscience

Jeff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:04:19 +0000

How can it be in a summer of vapid special-effects extravaganzas that the film with the most riveting, convincing visuals can so easily overshadow them with gut-wrenching social commentary and an engaging, nuanced performance by a novice leading man? There is no easy answer to this question, nor to the painfully-relevant questions of explosive racial prejudice and rampant corporate fascism raised by District 9.

The film establishes its alternate history in documentary fashion, explaining that a large, apparently unworkable spaceship appeared over Johannesburg twenty years ago, carrying over a million non-human inhabitants. Pressured by world opinion, the South African government settled the refuges just outside the city in an area that quickly became a sprawling, third-world slum.

Our story begins with the efforts of a large multinational corporation contracted to relocate the non-human guests to a new location farther away… by force, if necessary. The awkward, nerdy bureaucrat placed in charge of the operation, one Wikus van der Merwe, is superficially polite to his charges, but anything but sympathetic to their condition. When he becomes ill after exposing himself to an unknown chemical, Wikus’ world rapidly collapses around him, allowing him a unique insight into his employers intentions and the plight of their non-human guests.

While obviously inspired by South Africa’s period of racial segregation mandated and enforced by the apartheid government, District 9 sidesteps the common clichés with Sharlto Copley’s complex, conflicted performance as a cowardly middle-manager thrust into an existential crisis. By allowing us to understand — if not condone — the casual prejudices that grow from miscommunication, stereotypes and carefully crafted language, we may perhaps be slightly less inclined to fall into the same trap.

With equal parts inspiration from Alien Nation and Full Metal Jacket, director Neill Blomkamp delivers a solid science fiction adventure with an equally impressive emotional and physical impact. Only those looking for a romantic comedy have any reason to be disappointed by this masterful work.

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Let the Right One In, If You Dare

Jeff — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:09:03 +0000

The classic vampire film relies on a few well-worn tropes: a seductive, powerful villain, a noble, principled hero, and a clear sense of right and wrong. These roles are occasionally reversed, and the undead hero struggles with brutish humans.

Neither of these situations adequately define the chance collision of violently introverted Oskar and mysteriously vulnerable Eli in the Tomas Alfredson cinematic adaption of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let the Right One In.

Set in a small Sweedish town in the 1980′s, we follow Oskar’s small, quiet life as a bullied student and single child of a failing marriage. When he meets a strange, standoffish girl named Eli outside his apartment, a halting, awkward friendship blossoms. As several grisly murders set the community on edge, the two childrens’ relationship becomes stronger, and more complex.

It would be easy for the unknowing to dismiss Let the Right One In as a somber European preteen Twilight, and while the premise is not entirely dissimilar, these cinematic still waters run far more deep than teen angst and escapism. It is an intimate, almost claustrophobic tale of the innocence and brutality of youth, and the forces that drive lost souls together in times of mutual need.

This dark, stark tale slowly builds like a midwinter snow drift, and casts a slightly disinterested eye at one young man’s coming of age, and his encounters with an oddly vulnerable, eternally innocent monster. Is it love, or something less? Only time will tell.

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Are You Missing out on Knowing?

Jeff — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:32:53 +0000

Perhaps you were avoiding the Alex Proyas film Knowing because the trailers made it appear to be a generic Hollywood disaster flick, or maybe you were afraid of another bizarre performance from it’s leading man. Whatever the source of your reluctance, I’m here to tell you that this film is anything but generic, and hardly Tinseltown’s normal action-adventure fare.

The film start out simply enough, with a time capsule containing young student’s drawings being buried at an elementary school, to be then opened and distributed to the students of the same school 50 years later. But when one widower’s son receives a long string of numbers in lieu of a drawing, it’s soon discovered to be a list of fatal disasters, nearly all of which have already occurred since the list was created. The last few, however, will occur within days.

Given the relentlessly-expanding scope of the film’s events, Nicolas Cage — as the widower uncovering a potential prophesy of doom — was given plenty of room to react to extraordinary events that unfolded around his character. The people with whom he interacts provide a ballast that never let him, or the film get too out of hand too quickly. Even the child actors are calm and reasonable — as they can only be in films — yet still retain enough of their innocence and wonder to weather the increasingly improbable events that occur.

The trend of late is for the marketing teams to underplay or hide altogether the fantastic elements of movies — The Last Mimzy‘s extraterrestrial origin being one such example — and Knowing is the latest victim of this trend. Theists and Humanists alike will be challenged by the events of this film, but its ultimate message is irrefutable: the only certainty we have is that our future rests in the hands of our children.

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Watchmen Heralds Superheroic End of Days

Jeff — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:37:15 +0000

Superman ushered in the modern age of movie super heroes in 1978 as a alien farmboy with a heart of gold and a clear sense of good and evil. A decade later, Batman burst on the screen with some serious issues, and a darker view of caped crimefighting. Bats became a bit more grim — and much less cheesy – thanks to a much-needed reboot, but was still grounded by a strong sense of justice, and a belief in the sanctity of human life, no matter how corrupt. The Watchmen are set for general release tomorrow, with several costumed heroes ultimately more frightening than any villain.

No superhero will never be as dark or unforgiving as Rorschach, as omnipotent or emotionally detached as Dr. Manhattan. Still other characters fight for their goals at nearly any cost. The viewer may find themselves challenged to redefine their concept “hero” several times throughout the film.

While there have been a few changes to critical plot points, the general consensus is that Zach Snyder’s Watchmen may very well be the most failthful translation of a comic book to the screen. The core questions of the corrupting influence of power on governments and the human soul remain, and with its unflinching gaze into the abyss, Watchmen could conceivably mark the begininng of a post-super era for a generation of moviegoers.

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Coraline is a Delightful Nightmare

Jeff — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:31:01 +0000

Dreams are fleeting, irrational experiences that distort, compress and bend reality in innumerable ways, often defying their own internal, transitory laws even as they are defined. In spite of these mercurial qualities, dreams can be both a sweet release from the physical world, and a chilling reminder of the realities we seek to avoid. Coraline too, reminds us of uncomfortable truths while offering us an escape… into the heart of a child.

As the film begins, we meet Coraline Jones, a confident yet solitary young girl and her distant parents as they settle in to an old house. Coraline encounters quite a few odd characters in and around her new home, but has a hard time settling in. When she discovers a portal to a magical world where her other mother and father meet her every need, she’s overjoyed… until they make an oddly disturbing request.

The visuals on display in Coraline have a singular style that benefits from both old school stop motion and newfangled computer animation techniques, both are used to full effect. The 3D presentation is also executed flawlessly, but seems oddly unnecessary in this otherwise engaging experience. That Neil Gaiman’s timeless book gets no mention in the marketing is more than a little odd, but one would imagine he hardly needs additional praise for his eerily boundless imagination.

Feel free to take all but your youngest to this modern fairy tale, but like the best of childrens’ films, you have to be grown up to fully appreciate its worth.

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Rise of the Lycans Provides Fine Underworld Foundation

Jeff — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:54:11 +0000

Can a film be both a powerful introduction into a particular mythology, and fitting end to a series as well? Returning to the roots of Lycan and Vampire animosity in Rise of the Lycans after portraying a critical turning point in their immortal war with the first two Underworld films seems to have accomplished just such a feat.

This prequel finds the courtly vampires caging and breeding their beastly werewolf kin. When a new, more “evolved” child is born, he becomes father to a new, more intelligent strain of slave… perhaps too intelligent. Lucian grows up a slave, and while serving his Vampire masters well, he wins the heart of his master’s daughter Sonja.

Michael Sheen reprises his role as the lycanthropic Lucian, as Bill Nighy seethes as the kingly Viktor, lord of the undead. Underworld newcomer Rhona Mitra shines as Sonja, and provides an equal measure of warrior and womanly ways.

In spite of the fact that this tale has largely already been told in the first two films, these three actors imbue their immortal characters with the strength and passion to elevate Rise of the Lycans beyond mere flashback to a compelling epic rife with tragedy, yet filled with hope.

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Investing in War, Inc.

Jeff — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:44:31 +0000

In yet another inexplicable media miss, we totally blanked on the extremely-limited premiere and subsequent DVD release of John Cusack’s darkly comic War, Inc., a near-future fable of an outsourced American war — and recovery — in the ever-so-slightly fictional country of Turaqistan. Last night we overcame our oversight and beheld this pre-apocalyptic comedic tragedy in all of it’s subversive glory.

A world-weary, overstressed hitman — a familiar role for Mr. Cusack — visits a war-torn country, and experiences an existential crisis while on the job for a multinational band of ex-governmental mercenaries. In this midst of his personal turmoil, Hauser pursues an attractive left-leaning journalist played by Marisa Tomei, while maintaining his cover by wrangling a Central Asian pop princess expertly realized by Hillary Duff.

Touches such as full-motion combat simulators for the press, banner advertising on combat vehicles, and a constantly shifting, yet ever present video image of the CEO of the corporate behemoth Tamerlane keep this film firmly planted in a familiar, but comically dangerous exaggeration of our current world. Not everyone will want to visit this corporation-dominated dystopia, but others will feel that we’re inexorably on the path to War, Inc.

Whatever your beliefs or ideals, this logical escalation of, and spiritual successor to Grosse Pointe Blank predicts a near-future hyper capitalism that none of us can deny is at least possible — if not inevitable. The ultimate question that we are never quite asked, however, is undeniable: what are we going to do about it?

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The Dark Knight Illuminates Heroism and Humanity

Jeff — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:00:58 +0000

Christopher Nolan’s latest vision of the Batman has been met with nearly universal acclaim for its gripping performances and grim depiction of Gotham under siege, yet in spite of it’s opening date and record-breaking revenue, The Dark Knight is anything but your traditional summer blockbuster.

Cristian Bale returns as the wealthy playboy with an expensive hobby, and again convincingly, projecting the heart of Bruce Wayne and the rage of Batman. This is still The Dark Knight’s film, and through his interaction with a stellar cast of characters, the film explores many lofty philosophical concepts, including the nature of Humanity and the many faces of Heroism.

The Joker — as manically animated by Heath Ledger — could very well be the Devil himself. With a peculiar mix of cowardice and reckless abandon, he strikes at the criminal and government establishments alike, hoping to ignite the fearful, selfish nature of Gotham’s citizens. His only goal seems to be revealing the darkest aspects of human nature. And through his dangerous antics, we are shown the true measure of Gotham’s citizens — for better or worse.

With the ascension of Harvey Dent as a tireless advocate of justice, Bruce Wayne sees a worthy successor to his dark alter ego, and works to support the idealistic District Attorney. Dent’s idealism and determination shine through Aaron Eckhart’s performance, evoking a “white knight” who lead by example and has no need hide behind a mask. But as the Joker intensifies his terror attacks, Harvey seems destined to “… die a hero or live long enough to [...] become the villain”.

The innate measure of good and evil in the human soul, and a comparison between the heroes we want and the heroes we need…. they may be weighty topics, but they — along with a complex cast of characters and complexly entwined storylines — are compellingly crafted in what may be the best superhero film to date.

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