The Understated

Friday, October 16, 2009

Whitney Moore interview

When I watched the soon to be released film Birdemic on a screener DVD with a group of industry pals, we had a lot of questions, most of them starting with the word "why." Normally with a bad film, our confusion and self-loathing would be the end of it, but Birdemic is a very special bad film, and afterward both Bloody Disgusting's own editor-in-chief Mr. Disgusting and I vowed to track down the persons responsible for this film and interview them for his site, if only for our own personal edification.

Mr. Disgusting, being the more professional of us two, elected to interview the film's writer/director/producer, James Nguyen, in an amazing piece that will shortly be posted on the Bloody-Disgusting.com site. I, on the other hand, have never interviewed anyone before and don't plan to ever interview anyone again in the future. I therefore thought I would attempt to contact Birdemic's lovely lead actress Whitney Moore. My main reasoning was that I wanted the true story behind Birdemic, and Moore, whose incongruous professionalism elevates most of Birdemic but who can occasionally be seen onscreen breaking character and outright giggling at the foolishness around her (yes, these takes made the final cut of the film, delightfully) seemed like the best possible source for information. Indeed, I found the 20 year old Moore, who is currently enrolled in college, to be witty, charming, and, as I'd hoped, very good-humored about the nature of the film she'd starred in and the fact that a random writer would find her through the internet and want to record an interview with her about it.

The following interview, conducted over the telephone, has already appeared on Bloody-Disgusting with a different introduction. If you want to read it there, you can do so here.

UPDATE: Since the publication of this interview, director James Nguyen has asked to do an interview with me on-camera for the Birdemic DVD in order to refute the information provided in this interview with his lead actress. I have graciously accepted. I will also be writing a "Birdemic Primer" for Bloody-Disgusting to give context to this whole mess and will post that article here as well upon completion.

(Whitney Moore)

SIMON: How did you become involved in Birdemic?

WHITNEY MOORE: Well, like I said, it was my first movie. I was just starting my first year of college, and [writer/director/producer James Nguyen] emailed me because my resume was up on a casting site, so that’s how he found me. And I did a really quick, fast audition – there was no callback or anything – but, you know, I was excited, because I’d never been offered a role in a feature film before. So I just sort of signed up for it. The process was a lot quicker than I’d imagined it would be.

SIMON: What was your first thought when you read the script?

WHITNEY MOORE: Um, well, he actually… I wasn’t able to get the whole script at once. He only gave the cast the script in thirds, so I, yeah, the script was obviously broken English. And I, uh, I didn’t think much of it, you know, it wasn’t a great script, But he wrote it himself, and his first language is Vietnamese. So I didn’t think it was that great, but I’d signed up to be in the movie, so I wasn’t gonna quit. And, you know, I thought it would be fun.

SIMON: Did he allow for any kind of improvisation on set?

WHITNEY MOORE: No. No, he was very by the book. He really was very strict about sticking to the script.

SIMON: So your audition process was fairly conventional, as opposed to, you know, allegations of bathroom auditions, et cetera, that have haunted James Nguyen since then?

WHITNEY MOORE: Oh yeah. There was was nothing like that, ever. It was unconventional in the sense that there was no callback; it was pretty much just, I slated my name, and then read a few lines and I got the part. There was no callback or anything. So it was unconventional in that sense. There was absolutely nothing like the… what happened on… what was it, on YouTube, there’s something like that?

SIMON: Yeah, on YouTube a user posted an allegation that she auditioned for the director of Birdemic in a public restroom, at which time he began groping her. And she’s threatening, I guess, litigation.

WHITNEY MOORE: Right. Yeah. I have no idea what happened with that.

SIMON: Okay. What about your fellow actors? Were you a friendly group? Did you know any of them beforehand?

WHITNEY MOORE: Oh, yeah, we were all friendly with each other. I never knew any of them before the film. We still speak; I actually just saw [Alan Bagh, co-star] yesterday. I’ll tell you about that after this, because it’s a funny story. But he and I were so funny together, because we’re sort of opposites, but we were able to be very friendly on the set because of all the crazy stuff that happened. We had some funny experiences together.

Birdemic - Trailer
Uploaded by dreadcentral. - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

SIMON: All the bird effects in Birdemic appear to be computer graphics added during the post-production process. When you were shooting, was there anything there for you to react to?

WHITNEY MOORE: No. And you know, he made it seem like the effects were going to be a little better. He said that there were going to be people working on the models. And they were going to be like, a little better, but maybe the budget ran out or something? So it kind of just looks like- Oh, I don’t know, it looks like somebody just cut out a picture and posted it back in, you know?

SIMON: Yes.

WHITNEY MOORE: We definitely had no idea what to expect, and there was nothing to react to. Especially in the scene where we’re fighting with the coathangers. That was too funny. And it was sort of impromptu, too. We definitely didn’t have anything pointing to that.

SIMON: That’s my favorite scene in the film. What was your first reaction when you saw the completed effects?

WHITNEY MOORE: The whole movie, well, we laughed pretty hard. I was with all my friends and yeah, we had a ball, just laughing. It was a really good time. I mean, we knew it was going to be a bad movie, but we had no idea it was going to be so awesomely bad, you know?

SIMON: This is sort of plot-based stuff, but after your characters in the film go to see An Inconvenient Truth, and then you all go to a hotel, do you know why suddenly everyone has assault rifles?

WHITNEY MOORE: Oh, I have no idea. You know, all the major decisions that were made in the movie, I’ll say- we didn’t have any control over anything. If we asked a question about any of the major plot twists - for example, why are the eagles exploding, or why do we have M16s, or why are these people getting acid dumped on them? The answer to all these questions would be, because it’s a movie. And it would be left at that. And we would sort of not ask any more questions, because you wouldn’t get any more answers.

SIMON: Is it true that there was a very small crew on Birdemic?

WHITNEY MOORE: Yeah, meaning that there was no crew, really? It was Alan and myself. I remember one scene where it was a dialogue between Alan and myself, and we sort of had to hold the boom between our knees. [laughs] It was difficult. It makes for a funny memory. So yeah, we carried most of the stuff. And actually, in James’ defense, it made it harder for him to direct, because he was also working on the sound and holding the camera and everything. So a lot of the time, we had to get each other’s backs.

SIMON: So are you going to be involved at all in his announced sequel to Birdemic, which is supposed to be in 3-D?

WHITNEY MOORE: Well, uh, his announced budget for that is twenty million dollars. So, if he can get the budget… you never know.

SIMON: Are there any other projects that we can see you in coming out soon?

WHITNEY MOORE: Since I’m in school now, I really only do student productions. I do a lot of student films. But if I do anything more with James, you’ll be the first to know.

SIMON: I definitely would. Are you at all worried that you’ll grow to regret the online cult of Birdemic, or is it something that you’re willing to embrace?

WHITNEY MOORE: Um, at first I was worried that it was going to be a little incriminating. But, you know, I think it’s so awesome that people are willing to take an interest in it at all. I think it’s great.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Twitter Archives: Twitches Vol. 2

It's time for another round of Twitches(r) ("Twitter pitches," kids). As Hollywood now says, following my first post: "If it won't fit in a tweet, the script ain't sweet!"

Action: "Unlucky Phil" - A depressed hitman hires all of his colleagues to kill him, then regrets it when he wins the lottery the next day.

Indie drama: "Edgy" - A crack-addicted abortionist decides to start a family with one of his patients. But he's gay! And Muslim.

Comedy: "Fat Stephen Gets Phat" - An overweight teen becomes an unlikely rap star when he creates a new style of obesity-based breakdancing.

Drama: "Phat Stephen Gets Fat" - A hip hop star must come to terms with his past as an overweight teen as he battles anoxeria nervosa.

Drama: "Bad Evening" - A woman who thinks that she is being thrown a surprise party is disappointed when it turns out to be an intervention.

Science fiction: "Emoticon" - In 2031, 99% of the population is autistic, and the remaining 1% are pointlessly forced to work as clowns.

Drama: "Massive Fail"- A doctor believes he has found the cure for cancer, but it turns out he has just found yet another cure for syphilis.

Comedy: "Those Hateful Fuckers" - Two hilarious bros get in trouble in England when they accidentally beat the Queen to death with a mallet.

Fantasy: "My Not-So-Superpower" - A man awakens from a coma with the ability to detect very subtle sarcasm.

Drama: "This Will Get Nominated for Awards But Not Win"- A group of wealthy Manhattanites mourn the death of their elderly butler.

Action: "Slinky"- Based on the children's toy. An evil spirit is trapped in a slinky, but no one notices as it can only crawl down steps.

Horror: "Blue Terror" - A mad plastic surgeon abducts and performs surgery on people in a deranged plan to recreate the cast of The Smurfs.

"Haunted Mailbox" - A mouse dies inside a mailbox, creating a portal to hell that is fortunately too small for demons to squeeze through.

Sci-fi: "Suck" - A robotic vacuum cleaner is plugged into the internet, becomes aware of its meaningless existence and destroys the world.

Drama: "Silent Smith" - When a man suffers a throat injury, his only recourse is to become a professional mime.

Sports: "Meet the Buzzards" - The lowest rated team in baseball try to boost their ratings by murdering their opponents during games.

Comedy: "Brighten Up"- When a head mafioso dies, his affable son tries to reinvent the crime family as a floral delivery service.

Sci-fi: "Hideous Island"- In 2012, an earthquake sends L.A. drifting into the ocean. In 2212, FEMA workers go to see if there are survivors.

Adventure: "Plastic Paradise" - An impoverished, elderly man who always dreamed of owning an island moves to the subcontinent of plastic.

'Til next time!

Film Festival Follies: Toronto International Film Festival - Day 6

Micmacs tells the story of Bazil (French comedian Dany Boon), a man whose father was killed by a land mine. Later, while fiddling with a gun, Bazil accidentally shoots himself in the head, causing him to act like an idiot. Or maybe those two things are unrelated; I don't know. At any rate, Bazil is taken in by a fanciful group of street performers. When he discovers that the manufacturer of the land mine that killed his father and the manufacturer of the bullet that wounded him are rival companies located across the street from each other, Bazil develops a plan with his new friends to utilize the companies' rivalry to destroy them both.

Mainly I disliked Micmacs because it's annoying, stupid and not funny, but there was also something that I found deeply souring in its uneasy fusion of consequence-free slapstick and real world political commentary. The very premise of the film puts forward the notion that weapons manufacturers are implicitly responsible for the violent acts perpetrated by their products; hence, the companies are accountable for the death of Bazil's father and Bazil's wounding himself. Okay. I can accept that, even if incompetence was surely a factor in the latter instance. But in their plot against these weapons manufacturers, our heroes engage in all sorts of violent tomfoolery, such as launching a jar of bees at dockworkers in order to steal a missile. We even see that their actions lead to a building being destroyed with people inside of it; through a wacky contrivance, the people are unharmed, but still. And I guess we're supposed to just laugh at those scenes, but when the movie provides us with information regarding the actual use of land mines in Afghanistan, we're supposed to shake our fists at the evil weapons companies that profit off of death and destruction.

I'm all for turning off my brain and enjoying a silly comedy, but Micmacs wouldn't let me. When, at the end of the film, the owners of the weapons companies are presented with photos of limbless North African children wounded by their products, I finally had to wonder, who the fuck is this movie for? It's not funny. It's not serious. It's simultaneously preachy and daftly naive.

All the more frustratingly, I essentially share Micmacs's ideological viewpoint that defense manufacturers are, you know, not good. I was ready to agree with what the movie had to say and enjoy it. It's a testament to how bad Micmacs is that it made me actually root for the weapons manufacturers; in a theater full of snickering liberals, I felt like a Republican for the first time in my life. Micmacs isn't a total waste; it is a Jeunet film, so there's a couple of neat visuals and a nice look to the film. But I can't imagine it will find an audience in North America, where its fusion of mindless humor and political proselytizing will likely fail to amuse many viewers.

I had some time after Micmacs, so I grabbed a rare full meal, then headed to see Soul Kitchen, the new comedy from Turkish-German director Faith Akin, which I had heard a festival volunteer label the best movie at TIFF. I greatly enjoyed Akin's last film, the international drama The Edge of Heaven, so I was up for Soul Kitchen, although I knew little about it. But once again, I found myself thoroughly unamused by a comedy.

Soul Kitchen is exactly the type of breezy, crowd-pleasing foreign film that tends to be a hit in America. I strongly anticipate that, when this movie opens here, it's going to be a film that elderly people see and recommend to their friends. If I could buy stock in its U.S. release, I would. But I did not personally enjoy it.

Part of the reason I disliked Soul Kitchen is that I vaguely resent movies where I am called upon to be emotionally invested in characters who repeatedly do stupid things for the sole purpose of creating narrative conflict. This is an easy thing to do as a screenwriter, and it's both condescending and manipulative. The protagonist of Soul Kitchen, Zinos, runs a barely successful restaurant based around soul food. Then a bunch of silly, completely unnecessary stuff happens, mostly because he makes some obviously poor decisions, and his restaurant begins to fail, and then he has to fight to turn it around. I didn't like Zinos, a passive protagonist if there ever was one, and I didn't like his stupid brother, and I didn't like his wacky restaurant staff. I wanted them to all go away.

Overall, Soul Kitchen is not a bad film; it's not as ambitious as Micmacs, for example, so it doesn't fail as badly. It's just a mediocre, forgettable comedy that didn't make me laugh. I'm frankly a little confused as to why Faith Akin would follow up an ambitious project like The Edge of Heaven with an innocuous bit of fluff like Soul Kitchen, but heck, maybe the guy just needed a break. Okay, dude, break's over. Can you make a good movie again now, please?

It was with a lump in my throat that I approached my next screening, as I realized it would be my last film of TIFF. I had to catch a train out of town early the next morning, and there were no other films before then that I wanted to see. However, I was also sort of glad, as I was exhausted, malnourished, and had developed the unfortunate habit of scratching at my face like a meth addict sometime during the past week. I was also glad that I'd saved for last a film that I truly wanted to see, Nicolas Winding Refn's Viking saga Valhalla Rising. Refn, the Danish director of the excellent Pusher trilogy and the underrated, unfortunately titled English language thriller Fear X, is a filmmaker whose work consistently interests me, and the news that his latest film was a movie set in the year 1000 AD and starring Pusher's Mads Mikkelsen as a mute, one-eyed Viking named One Eye sounded to me like it could be the best movie ever made by anyone, ever.

And for the first 30 minutes of Valhalla Rising, I really thought I might be watching the best movie ever. I hadn't been able to get anyone to join me for the screening, and as I watched Mads Mikkelsen, playing the warrior slave of a Norse chieftain, crush skulls and eviscerate his opponents in gory detail, I thought of how Mr. Disgusting would kick himself when I told him that he'd missed the goriest film of the fest.

Then nothing at all happened for the next 60 minutes. And then the movie ended.

After about minute 35 of Valhalla Rising, a steady stream of walk-outs began that continued, unabated, until the theater, once packed, was nearly empty. Even Enter the Void and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done hadn't prompted such an exodus. I could kind of understand it, although I thought it was basically a good film. The first 30 minutes of Valhalla Rising are nonstop violent action, and then the following hour, in which One Eye and his boy companion join a group of Vikings intent upon bringing Christianity to North America, plays like a slow, experimental feature. More than anything else, Valhalla Rising reminded me of early Herzog films such as Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo in its portrayal of delusional travelers growing increasingly deranged in an unfamiliar land.

Seriously weird and often dull, Valhalla Rising definitely isn't for everyone. But even if you can't get into its more aimless second half, in which a group of hungry Vikings get strange with each other, it's worth seeing for the first half, in which Mads Mikkelsen angrily smashes a bunch of people's heads. And for fans of Viking cinema, I'll personally take Valhalla Rising over the other 2009 experimental Viking feature, Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America, any day. Although admittedly, it is kind of annoying that the characters in Valhalla Rising speak English. Severed Ways at least got that right.

Ratings:
Micmacs à Tire-Larigot - 2/10
Soul Kitchen - 4/10
Valhalla Rising - 7/10

Final thoughts:

I have never been to Cannes or Sitges, but I find it difficult to believe that there is a better festival than TIFF anywhere in the world. Impeccably organized and staffed by well-informed, polite volunteers, TIFF is a sheer pleasure for movie fans, especially when compared to all other festivals I've been to (ahem, Sundance) in which just finding the right line to wait in to see a movie can be a baffling ordeal. At TIFF, the focus is on the films rather than industry machinations. Furthermore, TIFF always has a better selection than any of the major fests. Fans of weird cinema worldwide should look to Colin Geddes' Midnight Madness series each year just to see what his picks are; the dude really does see it all, and basing my festival experience around his series was the best choice I could have made.

Beyond that, Toronto is a great, clean, friendly city filled with huge, beautiful movie theaters. This year, the festival gave a free transit pass to badge holders, and I made good use of it, taking the subway, buses or trolleys everywhere I wanted to go. I never once had to wait longer than three minutes for a train, and even the buses and trolleys were pretty awesome. Even Toronto's crazy homeless people are cheerful and polite. At one point, as I was drunkenly leaving a bar before the screening of The Loved Ones, I got really good directions to the Ryerson from a passing transsexual prostitute.

In short: Toronto women, I will totally marry you just to move to your city. I don't even care about the universal health care thing, that's secondary. Your city is awesome. Let me know.

During my time at TIFF, I saw 26 movies in six days. That might not seem like such a huge amount, but you try it. My back is still kind of screwed up from slouching in theater seats for over ten hours a day. I blame Solomon Kane for starting that habit. Also, Mr. Disgusting might be a great guy, but he's not the world's best Posture Pal.

The best: Symbol, Mother, [Rec]2, Harry Brown
The worst: Solomon Kane, Vengeance, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Horde

Surprisingly, my favorite film to play at TIFF was a film I saw before the festival began, Werner Herzog's delightful The Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call: New Orleans. But even the bad and mediocre films I saw were awesome in their own way, and I loved seeing them. The great thing about a festival like TIFF is that every film there has something distinctive about it to even be selected. With, of course, the exception of Solomon Kane.

Film Festival Follies: Toronto International Film Festival - Day 5

Life During Wartime, I am sorry to report, is just okay. It is a vast improvement over Palindromes, but shrinks in comparison with the bracing, original Happiness. Furthermore, the main conceit of Life During Wartime, which features all of the characters from Happiness being played by different actors, forces constant, unflattering comparisons with the original. This casting technique probably developed from necessity, as getting the entire ensemble cast of Happiness to return to these repellant characters presumably wasn't an option. Still, the new casting of these parts is distracting at best.

Life During Wartime picks up in real time from the ending of Happiness, ten years later. Bill Maplewood (previously played by Dylan Baker, now by Ciarán Hinds) has been paroled after his conviction for child molestation. His son, Timmy, has gone off to college, and his ex-wife, Trish (now played by Allison Janney), has moved on and is dating again. Her sisters are still doing the same miserable things they were basically doing in the first film. And that's the main problem with Life During Wartime: It's just more of the same, without taking any of the themes introduced by Happiness further. I mean, it's pretty good, and Solondz's brutal insights into his neurotic characters can be fascinating. But it feels like a completely unnecessary sequel. I can't shake the feeling that Solondz only made a follow-up to Happiness because it was the only project he could get financed.

We then all wandered over to see a British kidnapping thriller that had been recommended to me, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, an object lesson in how to make a small scale thriller. The movie takes place almost entirely within two adjoining rooms and features only three actors during its whole running time, but the characters, performances, and narrative twists and turns, while not wholly original, keep things moving at a good clip. It could have been a bit shorter, but The Disappearance of Alice Creed held my interest even if I mostly remember it as the screening at which I witnessed Mr. Disgusting almost get in a fight with a boorish executive in our row who wouldn't stop using his Blackberry during the film. That was awesome.

After The Disappearance of Alice Creed, it was time for another film I had high hopes for, Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. Herzog's surprisingly breezy Bad Lieutenant non-remake is one of my favorite films of the year, and Michael Shannon, the star of My Son, is an actor that I would watch in anything.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is based on the true story of a San Diego graduate student who, obsessed with playing the character of Orestes in a theatre production of Sophocles' Electra, emulated the character by stabbing his mother to death with a sword. The film basically operates as a loose collection of scenes in this character's recent life intercut with his stand-off with the police immediately following the murder. Its story basically seems to exist as an excuse for Herzog to throw together odd, seemingly improvised scenes that mostly go nowhere.

Herzog is a savvy enough filmmaker that when he makes an audience-unfriendly film like this one, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. And there are some amazing moments in My Son, mostly featuring Michael Shannon or a scene-stealing Brad Dourif giving random, stream of consciousness monologues. Overall, however, whatever the intended effect of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done was, I wasn't feeling it. I was along for the ride (unlike about two-thirds of the audience at the industry screening, who walked out), but when it ended, I was just like, "Huh. Well. Whatever." My filmmaker pal Josh has labeled this the best film of the year thus far, so I'll acknowledge that there must be something accessible within its oddness, but it didn't affect me one way or the other. As such, I'd have to label it an interesting failure.

I had some time after My Son, so I wandered around, waiting to join Mark at a screening of Hong Kong thriller Accident, only to arrive at the screening to find that the theater was full and they were no longer letting people in. Toronto is such a well-organized festival that I had frankly become spoiled and stopped showing up fifteen minutes in advance for screenings, as is advised. Cursing myself (and I heard Accident was a blast; fortunately, it has a U.S. distributor, so I'll see it eventually), I headed over to another film that had been generating festival buzz, the animated feature My Dog Tulip.

Like falling asleep during films, I don't walk out of movies no matter how much I'm hating them. I have walked out of three films in my life. The first was Small Soldiers, and that was mostly because my younger sister was falling asleep and I felt bad. The second was Woody Allen's Celebrity; again, I was with my family, but my impression was that this film utterly merited a walk out. The third was My Dog Tulip.

Admittedly, a walk-out almost shouldn't count at a film festival, when you're seeing so many movies that you begin to prioritize things differently; id est, I could watch the rest of My Dog Tulip, or I could go get dinner and maybe take a nap before [Rec]2. That said, I hated My Dog Tulip. I understand that it was a surprise festival hit, but I despised everything about it. It wasn't an incompetent film, just one I personally found deeply irritating. After I walked out of the movie after about an hour of suffering, I posted on Twitter, "I haven't read the book My Dog Tulip, but if the film is to be believed its author is a repulsive dotard and his dog should be put to sleep." Multiple people proceeded to chastise me for this post, which I'd thought to be one of my least offensive of the week. So I get that people like My Dog Tulip. But that just makes me dislike it more.

My Dog Tulip is based on the memoirs of an antisocial old man who adopted a badly behaved dog, an Alsatian named Tulip, that gave him a new lease on life. Or something. The film has no overarching plot but is structured as a series of supposedly humorous, charming anecdotes about this unpleasant old man and his dog having adventures, such as the dog shitting in front of a store and the old man feeling angry at a shopkeeper who asks him to clean it up. Oh, my sides.

My father had an Alsatian when I was growing up, a lovable, good-natured dog who passed away several years ago and is still dearly missed. In theory, this makes me the exact target audience for My Dog Tulip's brand of saccharine whimsy. Except I hated it. I hated the animation style, I hated the cloying score, and I especially loathed the fact that the film presented the antics of a rude, dull old man and his stupid dog as if they were inherently delightful.

But, like I said, I walked out, so I'm not qualified to write a real review of My Dog Tulip. Maybe something really awesome happened in the last twenty minutes. Like, maybe the old man fell down in the shower and broke his neck and had to lie awake as Tulip, driven mad with hunger after several days, turned feral and ate him. That would have been an interesting twist. Maybe it happened. I wouldn't know, because I didn't see it.

I had a little time before the Midnight Madness premiere of [Rec]2, so, using my film critic Sam Derrick disguise, I crashed another industry party. However, after my sixth or so free drink, I started to let my nasal accent slip. A group of industry professionals seated at the bar immediately reacted with suspicion, gathering around me so that I could not escape.

"You know, you don't look so much like Sam Derrick," one of them growled.

"Look at him!" said another. "His left eye's not even lazy!"

"He doesn't have any missing teeth!"

"Look! He's not even trying to grope that child!"

My ruse had clearly come to an end. Before they could attack me, I whipped my eyeglasses off and cried out, "No, I am not Sam Derrick! It is I, writer and cinema connoisseur Simon Barrett, who you have been drinking with all evening!"

In the hysterical vomiting and cries of "Unclean!" that followed, I was able to quickly make my escape.

On my list of films I'd hoped to see at TIFF, [Rec]2 was at the absolute top. I found Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's original [Rec] to be perfect horror entertainment and regretted not having had the chance, as a resident of the U.S., to see the film in a movie theater. Furthermore, I consider the rote remake Quarantine to be a curious example of how a remake can precisely imitate its source material without managing to capture anything that was good about it. Anyone who has only seen Quarantine and not [Rec] has done themselves a disservice. So I was glad that Balagueró and Plaza had returned to continue the story of their original film, one of the few recent horror films that invited a sequel.

[Rec]2 did not disappoint. I'd say the film overall isn't as good as [Rec], if only because it no longer has the element of surprise on its side and has to do some expository heavy lifting in its first reel to justify its existence. From that point on, though, the film doesn't stop for breath. By far the most entertaining film I saw at TIFF, [Rec]2 had the jaded horror fans I was seated with screaming, jumping out of their seats and covering their eyes. Not me, of course. But I still enjoyed it.

Much will probably be made of the filmmaker's decision to convert the more scientific, disease-based horror premise of [Rec] to a potentially silly supernatural element in [Rec]2. To me, it seems like the only way they could really up the ante on the original and do something cool and new. And make no mistake, the focus in [Rec]2 is on doing cool shit rather than making any sort of sense. But that's not the point. The point is, the [Rec] movies are scary fun, and at this, [Rec]2 is wildly successful. Seeing it at the giant, beautiful Ryerson theater is probably among the best moviegoing experiences of my life.

Afterward, Balagueró and Plaza were present for an affable Q&A with Colin, during which the possibility of [Rec]3 was discussed. Usually, I wish horror filmmakers would quit while they're ahead, as few horror franchises are known for their continued quality. Coming out of the theater, however, I realized that I hope they do make a [Rec]3, and a [Rec]4 and [Rec]5. I hope [Rec] becomes the next endless sequel franchise. With [Rec]2, Balagueró and Plaza have shown themselves to be committed to delivering inventive entertainment over all other considerations, and as a fan, I just hope they continue to work in the same spirit.

Ratings:
Life During Wartime - 6/10
The Disappearance of Alice Creed - 7/10
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done - 5/10
My Dog Tulip - W/O
[Rec]2 - 9/10

Film Festival Follies: Toronto International Film Festival - Day 4

My Film Festival Follies series hit the big time when Bloody Disgusting elected to publish my Toronto diary. As such, the following is simply a reprint of what I wrote for Bloody Disgusting, sometimes in an altered or edited form. The Bloody Disgusting version of this entry can be viewed here.

Vengeance, Mother, The Horde, The Hole and Bitch Slap

Before I attempt to clarify why I hated Vengeance more than any other film I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival, it's important to say that I consider myself a serious fan of director Johnnie To and writer Wai Ka Fai. In my opinion, Johnnie To's gory cop thriller The Big Heat, released in 1988, is a masterpiece that stands alongside the best of John Woo and Ringo Lam as a stellar example of the Hong Kong crime genre. Even better, as Woo and Lam moved to Hollywood and began making more conventional action films, Johnnie To stayed in Hong Kong and got weirder. His films started to play as postmodern parodies of the "Cops vs. Triads" thrillers they were marketed as. Stoic, cynical works like The Mission, Breaking News and Election suddenly made To an international star, as cinephiles all over the world became aware of the unassuming auteur who'd been producing violent morality tales in Hong Kong for over two decades. International financing rapidly followed, and To found himself aligned with French producers who gave him free reign over his films, which were finally recognized as art films rather than generic action movie product.

Then, of course, Johnnie To stopped making good movies.

His first film financed by the French, the 2006 spaghetti western homage Exiled, was really fucking bad, but it's a goddamn masterpiece compared to the infuriatingly inane Vengeance, which made me want to rip my eyes out and fling them at the screen. At some point between Election 2 (aka Triad Election) and Exiled, Johnnie To went from making postmodern commentaries on action cinema to postmodern commentaries on his own postmodern commentaries. In other words, nobody in Vengeance ever behaves in a manner approximating that of an actual human being. They all speak in hard-boiled sentence fragments and are constantly waving guns around that they rarely use to do anything interesting. There are more Mexican standoffs in Vengeance than scenes without Mexican standoffs.

It's all deeply dull. If you've seen any other Johnnie To movie, then you will know exactly where Vengeance is headed from the opening scene, but To draws every stagnant sequence out interminably. In fact, I can't imagine Wai Ka Fai's script was longer than twenty pages. I picture a bunch of stapled together cocktail napkins with "Characters stare significantly at each other for three minutes" and "Protagonist looks sadly at gun for two minutes" written on them in Chinese characters.

Basically, the plot is that elderly French actor Johnny Hallyday's family is killed. He goes to Macau looking for their murderers, and fortuitously runs into a group of honorable hitmen led by Anthony Wong, who is always good but has little to do here. Wong and his cohorts agree to help Hallyday for basically no reason. Oh, and they happen to work for sleazy gangster Simon Yam, who is the only other recognizable actor in the film. One guess as to who the bad guy behind the deaths of Hallyday's family turns out to be. My friend Mark put it best later, when he explained his decision to walk out of the film at about the halfway mark: "I got what it was doing, and I had to check my email." (I actually walked out with him, but then walked back in because I felt like I had to see if it got better. It didn't. It got worse.)

Johnnie To has pulled this shit before, not just with Exiled, but with Fulltime Killer (2001), another idiotic film where characters do ridiculous shit just to illustrate some clichéd notion of gangster movie honor that has no basis in reality. The critics loved that movie and they're loving this one, but I think the only reason critics are rallying around Vengeance - and this happens often - is because they slept on To's earlier, more interesting work, and now they have to pretend to understand what the hell he's doing. But maybe I'm wrong. In the line to the men's restroom after the film, the guy in front of me said to his friend, "I've seen three Johnnie To films, and that was definitely the best."

I had to interrupt. "Have you seen The Mission?"

"Yes," he replied.

"And you liked Vengeance better than The Mission?"

"Yes," he said. "Did you?"

"No."

And with that, the conversation was over, although it left me pondering. The guy I'd spoken with was clearly intelligent enough to walk upright and operate a bathroom sink, and yet his opinions differed from mine.

It was very odd.

Fortunately, right after Vengeance, I saw one of the best films of the fest, the Korean murder mystery Mother, which cleansed Vengeance from my memory. Mother is the latest film by Bong Joon-ho, whose last feature, The Host, was a worldwide hit that kicked off a new fad of monster movies. The somber, engrossing Mother more resembles Bong Joon-ho's earlier work, especially his innovative procedural Memories of Murder, but in my opinion it surpasses all of his previous efforts in terms of quality.

The extraordinary Kim Hye-ja, who I guess is some kind of soap opera star in Korea, plays an impoverished woman whose mentally disabled adult son is arrested for the murder of a sexually promiscuous high school girl. Refusing to give up on the case long after the police have lost interest, Kim Hye-ja delves into the life of the victim, seeking the true identity of the killer.

Suspenseful and brilliant, Mother is reportedly going to be Korea's submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, which it stands a good chance of winning. Magnolia has acquired the film for an early release next year. When that happens, don't miss it. Even Mr. Disgusting loved it, and for a 129 minute Korean movie, that's saying something.

After Mother, I thought I had a break, but Mr. Disgusting discovered that the French horror film The Horde was having a buyer screening away from the festival that we were pretty sure we could crash. Excited to see the latest hyped French gore flick, we promptly hopped on the subway, then a trolley, racing to catch the film's 4 p.m. screening time at the great old Royal Theatre on the west side. Once we got there, we found that the screening of The Horde was indeed open only to accredited buyers. Fortunately, my Toronto schedule had prohibited me from showering for the past few days and I had just spilled a chocolate milkshake on my lap, so I was mistaken for film critic Sam Derrick without actually having to say anything. Mr. Disgusting and I were accordingly ushered right inside the theater.

I don't know what's going on with French horror cinema. After a run of stunning genre entries that put Hollywood and the rest of the world to shame (High Tension, Them, Inside, Martyrs), French filmmakers suddenly seem content to lazily rip off the worst of American B-movies. Possibly this is because all the brilliant French directors are promptly getting Hollywood deals, but The Horde is the second French film I've seen this year (the other being Mutants) that feels like the French dialogue is the only thing keeping it from being a generic Sci-Fi (SyFy?) Original.

The Horde has an okay premise, in which an unexplained zombie outbreak occurs while a group of cops are attempting to avenge the murder of a colleague by attacking a gang's headquarters at the top of a high rise building. Suddenly surrounded by howling zombies, the cops and criminals are forced to work together to escape the building.

The problem I had with The Horde is the same problem I have with all these bad French thrillers, which is to say, 2% of the film is awesomely gory zombie mayhem, and the other 98% is intolerable, idiotic characters screaming hysterically at each other at the top of their lungs and occasionally bursting into tears. Within the first ten minutes, The Horde has introduced enough interpersonal character conflicts to last an entire season of 90210, none of which is even remotely compelling. Imagine the first twenty minutes of Frontier(s) drawn out to an entire film, except with no political relevance, and you've basically got the idea. In most horror movies, I don't care if any of the characters live or die; in The Horde, I actively hoped for all the protagonists to die as quickly as possible, if only to silence their incessant whining.

When The Horde is concerned with zombie mayhem, it's actually pretty fun. It's the first zombie film I've seen in years where the characters actively go hand to hand with crazed zombies, and the resulting fight sequences are pretty entertaining. In fact, based on the quality of these scenes versus the rest of the film, I'm going to have to assume that the cast of The Horde was hired based solely on their martial arts abilities. Still, though, I find it difficult to believe there are no actors left in France who can both fight and act, so that's no excuse.

Overall, The Horde offers absolutely nothing new to an already exhausted genre.

We then raced to catch a public screening of the new Joe Dante film, The Hole. The inimitable Colin Geddes hosted the screening and pointed out that The Hole was the first TIFF film ever to screen in 3-D, which was cool. I didn't know quite what to expect from The Hole, but I was so enthused to see a new feature by Joe Dante that I deliberately went into the screening knowing as little as possible.

First of all, I discovered that The Hole is a family film. And it's not a subversive family film like Gremlins, it's a straight up movie for parents and kids. Like, it could get a PG rating. And I still loved it.

Plots don't get much simpler than The Hole, which almost seems to be based on the Handsome Family song "The Bottomless Hole." Two brothers (Chris Massoglia and Nathan Gamble, both far funnier here than most adolescent actors) move into a new house, only to discover a boarded up hole in their basement that seemingly has no end; objects thrown into it silently disappear. But at night, when the hole is left open, things start to get a little creepy, and the two brothers, with the assistance of a love interest neighbor girl (Haley Bennett, also delivering a more witty performance than I'd expected), begin to investigate the history of the house.

The Hole is a fun film that proves both that family entertainment can be scary and that child actors don't have to be horribly annoying. The 3-D effects are stellar (the guy next to me in the theater kept freaking out when objects would fly at the screen) and the film is simply a class act from start to finish. With the right studio behind it, it could be quite profitable.

Weirdly, I wasn't even tired after seeing four movies. I hit a couple of festival parties, then rushed to catch the Midnight Madness premiere of Bitch Slap.

I really wanted to like Bitch Slap. I had run into the filmmakers and cast at an earlier party, and they all seemed like cool, friendly people. However, in discussing my anticipation of their film, I had warned them that deliberately campy, pastiche cinema usually isn't my thing. And indeed, Bitch Slap wasn't.

Riffing on '60s exploitation cinema (particularly Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which is repeatedly referenced) but employing a green screen digital style for about half of its footage, Bitch Slap is about three tough, busty, scantily clad women who converge in the desert with a kidnapped man in their car trunk in search of a buried treasure. Through flashbacks, we see the events leading up to this scenario.

Bitch Slap has a few things going for it. The catty dialogue is often clever and the actresses are easy on the eyes (particularly America Olivo, coming off of another eye candy turn in the Friday the 13th remake, which is basically the only thing I remember about that movie). Best of all, the fight choreography by Zoe Bell is phenomenal. Catfight fetishists have a new favorite movie, as Bitch Slap is filled with terrific sequences of hot women very convincingly beating the crap out of each other. I know firsthand how difficult it can be to choreograph such sequences on a budget, and was impressed at how well these scenes held together; I didn't see a single pulled punch or unconvincingly staged strike, which is more than I can say for even Kill Bill.

Unfortunately, my praise ends there, because even with those factors in place, Bitch Slap is nothing new. Mind you, I'm pretty sure I've seen every film directed by Russ Meyer (which has a lot less to do with my appreciation of a true American auteur than it does my appreciation of big naked boobies) but even moviegoers with no knowledge of Bitch Slap's influences will likely find a good deal of it tedious.

And here's another thing: Russ Meyer's movies actually had nudity in them. Despite its marketing promises of boundless sleaze, during the entire running time of Bitch Slap, exactly two big naked boobies are shown, on a background player in a scene at a strip club. This character has no dialogue and is onscreen for perhaps ten seconds. Every other character is ogled by the camera relentlessly, but is never shown in anything more revealing than undergarments. As such, I found these leering sequences frankly somewhat soporific, especially at one in the morning. Basically, retro cheesecake fans who prefer their sleaze without, like, actual nudity will get a kick out of Bitch Slap, but I can't imagine anyone else will be thrilled. The audience around me was actively groaning during the final act of the film, especially as it continued to return to its flashback structure.

Colin's Q&A for Bitch Slap was better than the film itself, with all of the actresses on stage dazzling the audience. During this session, they announced Bitch Slap as the first part of a planned trilogy, information that left me baffled, as the ending of the film leaves absolutely no questions unanswered. In fact, the ending of Bitch Slap provided narrative resolution to subplots I'd forgotten existed. So, um... maybe the sequels will be better?

Vengeance - 0/10
Mother - 9/10
The Horde - 1/10
The Hole - 8/10
Bitch Slap - 3/10

Film Festival Follies: Toronto International Film Festival - Day 3

Essentially, Symbol tells two intertwined stories. The first involves an unnamed man (Hitoshi Matsumoto) who wakes up in a white room with no doors or windows, and begins to interact with the mysterious room. The second is that of a wrestler, Escargot Man, about to face two intimidating opponents in a small Mexican town.

It's pointless to write any more about Symbol. Even if I had the words to describe it, I wouldn't want to spoil anything. Just see it as soon as you get the chance.

After Symbol, I headed for another P&I screening for a film I had no expectations of, the vigilante thriller Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer. When I got to the theater, however, I found that word of my posting short reviews on Twitter during the fest had preceded me. "Nope, not you," said the publicist, barring my path to the theater's entrance. "I saw your Twitter on Solomon Kane. You're not watching this film, Mr. Know-It-All Thinks-He-Can-Do-Better Screenwriter."

"Well, perhaps I was a bit harsh on that film," I started lamely.

"Didn't you call the premiere of Jennifer's Body the worst thing ever to happen on September 11th?"

"Sure, but I was being ironic! I liked that movie-"

"Nope," she snapped. "You get out of here before I call a festival volunteer to come tase you."

Dejected, I walked around the corner, but then I had an idea. Quickly I knocked the tinted lenses out of my sunglasses so that only the thick frames remained. I put them on, then strapped my sneakers onto my knees. Walking on my knees, I waddled back over to the publicist's table and announced in a nasal tone, "It is I, famed film critic Sam Derrick! I believe you have a dozen tickets for me?"

"Mr. Derrick!" The publicist was instantly frozen with anxiety. "But- But I don't see your name anywhere on the list!"

"Nonsense!" I bellowed. "Deliver my tickets to me promptly so that I may enjoy this vile cinematic excrement, Harry Brown!"

The publicist began examining a seating chart. "Well, there are a couple of seats still available..."

"No!" I shrilled. "I cannot tolerate anyone sitting on either side of me during a screening, nor in front of or behind my seat! Additionally, I will not allow anyone to sit in seats diagonal to those! Hence, a dozen tickets! Now, where are they?"

The publicist frantically ran her finger down the guest list. "Well I guess we can ask Amanda Seyfried to stand in the aisle... Would you mind sitting within two seats of Emily Mortimer?"

Needless to say, I, Simon Barrett, would like nothing more than to be seated within sweating proximity of the lovely and talented actress Emily Mortimer. But I knew how Sam would react. "Rape!" I shrieked. "Help me! Rape!"

Hurriedly I was ushered into the theater and given an empty section all to myself. As I sat down and the opening credits of Harry Brown began to roll, I thought to myself, Hey, this Sam Derrick gig really pays off in dividends.

I'd heard Harry Brown described as a "British Gran Torino" and that's basically accurate, except Michael Caine's Harry Brown isn't an awesomely racist jerk like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, he's a basically nice guy. And also, Harry Brown doesn't have a pacifistic epiphany, he just goes around killing the shit out of people.

Opening with jolting, handheld footage of a gang initiation ritual, Harry Brown is a vicious little sucker punch of a film, and that's a sincere compliment. Michael Caine, who has always been a great actor but somehow seems to get better every year, plays a retired ex-Marine living in a council slum who has little human contact following the death of his wife. When a friend is victimized, however, Caine takes to the streets to exact vengeance.

The problem I have with most recent revenge films is that the filmmakers seem to feel the need to apologize for any entertainment the film might provide. Thus, you get films like The Brave One and the vastly superior Death Sentence, which feature one-dimensional, evil villains, yet still try to be nuanced meditations on the futility of violence. Meanwhile, Park Chan-Wook nearly rendered the entire genre irrelevant with two perfect films, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, each of which deconstructed the concept of a revenge film in an entirely innovative manner.

What I appreciated about Harry Brown is that it doesn't try to be self-righteous or even original like those films. It's just a satisfying, old school vigilante movie. The bad guys are bad, the good guy wants to kill them, and you, the viewer, want him to succeed. Simple. Meanwhile, the writing, direction, acting and cinematography are all top-notch. I didn't hear much praise for Harry Brown at the fest, but I dug it.

I'd been planning to catch the much-discussed French film A Prophet that evening, but movie started at 6 p.m., and Midnight Madness curator Colin Geddes was having a festival party at a west side bar from 5 to 8. The choice was obvious. "Screw you, A Prophet!" I cried, and once again went party-hopping with Mr. Disgusting, eating our dinners off of serving trays.

After that was the midnight show of The Loved Ones, a film I had already seen but was interested in catching again with the midnight crowd on 35mm, as I had originally viewed a DVD screener of the film under less than ideal circumstances. The Loved Ones is a terrific Australian thriller about two friends, one of whom has the best prom night possible, and his friend who, kidnapped and tortured by a girl he rejected, has the worst. It is funny, violent, original, and, unlike most films in the torture thriller vein, continually finds a way to escalate the proceedings until the film's climax. It is also beautifully shot, with great performances, and has a cool garage score featuring artists like Andre Williams. The midnight audience loved it (it ended up winning the audience award for the midnight series, deservedly, in my opinion) and it was a great time. I'm sure it will be acquired for a U.S. release soon, and I recommend it to horror fans without reservation.

In retrospect, this was my favorite day at the festival. I saw three great movies and didn't even exhaust or embarrass myself in the process.

It never got that good again.

Ratings:
Symbol - 9/10
Harry Brown - 9/10
The Loved Ones - 8/10

This also might a good time to point out that, along with The Loved Ones, I saw some other films that played at TIFF prior to the festival that I haven't mentioned. For example, people kept asking me what I thought of Antichrist (meh), which I actually had the opportunity to see a few weeks before Toronto. So, since I'm getting into this whole "judging my betters" thing, here's a ratings breakdown for the other four TIFF movies I skipped at the fest because I'd seen them already:

Antichrist - 6/10
The Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call: New Orleans - 10/10 (you heard me)
Ong Bak 2 - 8/10
The Road (work print) - 6/10 (could be higher now since I've heard they've made it shorter and the version I saw was long as fuck)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Film Festival Follies: Toronto International Film Festival - Day 2

Unfortunately, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, much like The Brothers Grimm and Tideland, is a deeply frustrating film, so firmly rooted in its own nonsense universe that any real efforts to describe it would be futile. In essence, Christopher Plummer plays Doctor Parnassus, a mumbling, drunken former mystic who made a gamble with the devil over how many souls they could acquire (or liberate - I'm not too clear on that one). You see, Doctor Parnassus, who now travels with a theater troupe comprised of his daughter, Mini-Me, and the kid from Boy A, has a magic fake mirror that leads people into worlds of their own imagination, which then accomplishes... well, something, I guess. If they make the wrong choice at a crossroads in their imagination, the devil gets them, and if they don't, well, then, they're happy. I think. However, because he's a drunk and his troupe are all idiots, Doctor Parnassus never actually achieves anything, and he's about to lose his bet when the troupe runs into an amnesiac Heath Ledger, whose mysterious gift for marketing begins to bring in their first ever customers.

It's no fun to pick on a film with a lead actor who died less than halfway through production. Obviously, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not what it could have been under better circumstances. However, given the finished product, it's difficult to imagine that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus could have ever been an entertaining or coherent film. The basic premise is so pointlessly contrived and convoluted that the film seems handicapped by its very inception.

Highlights, however, include depressingly great work by Heath Ledger, as well as nice turns by Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Ferrell, who all play "Imaginarium" versions of the Heath Ledger character. Ferrell in particular seems to be having a blast. And Lily Cole, the model who plays Doctor Parnassus' daughter, is super hot. That kept me awake for a good portion of the movie.

Next up, I made a terrible choice and went to see Dorian Gray instead of Accident, reasoning that I would be able to catch Accident, a hyped Hong Kong thriller, later in the week. That plan eventually failed, and I was left cursing the 107 minutes I spent watching Dorian Gray, a movie that is neither good nor bad enough to really comment on. A horror movie made by a director, Oliver Parker, who appears to have never seen a horror movie before, Dorian Gray is a big budget, quality production that adds absolutely nothing new to its take on the classic source material. Everything about it is more or less okay, but you know exactly where it's going and it takes forever to get there. Furthermore, the film's efforts to be shocking or scary fall woefully flat; it would have been best adapted as a cynical costume drama, but Parker seems determined to add overtly horrific elements that are frankly kind of funny, such as the covered portrait groaning occasionally like a ghost with indigestion. Horror movie fans looking for a take on the novel are advised to instead seek out Dan Curtis' 1973 television movie The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is both classier and funnier than this latest version.

After lunch, it was then time for a film I was eager to see, Ole Bornedal's home invasion thriller Deliver Us from Evil (aka Fri Os fra det Onde), which opened in Denmark back in April. I have a complicated respect for director Ole Bornedal. To put it simply, his films are so well made that I always want them to be better than they actually are. Even his best film, the witty neo-noir Just Another Love Story, feels like it could have been improved by a quick script polish, in my humble opinion. His latest is no exception, a superbly crafted film with terrific performances that ultimately builds to very little.

The plot of Deliver Us from Evil is basically a Danish remake of Straw Dogs, in which a mild-mannered man is forced to defend his home and family against a group of local thugs after he gives shelter to a mentally disabled accused killer, who in this update happens to be a Muslim immigrant. Unlike Straw Dogs, however, Deliver Us from Evil has no consistent tone, with its themes of racial prejudice and sexual violence balanced uneasily with sequences of slapstick comedy and an overall breezy approach to its narrative. Ultimately, despite its ambitions, the film feels very slight.

Straw Dogs itself is apparently receiving an American remake shortly, but whereas Peckinpah's original is a unique classic that would be difficult to improve upon, Deliver Us from Evil is a less-inspired take on very similar material that could benefit from a glossy Hollywood remake process along the lines of The Last House on the Left. As the remake rights to Bornedal's films are generally snatched up by studios (the director remade his own Nightwatch in 1997 with Ewan McGregor, and a remake of his goofy 2007 sci-fi film The Substitute is reportedly underway), we probably won't have to wait long to see this happen.

A friend hooked me up with a ticket to the premiere of Up in the Air, the new Jason Reitman film. I arrived sleep-deprived and in that special mental state that can only come from watching three disappointing films in a row, and was nearly trampled outside the theater when George Clooney suddenly appeared behind me to sign autographs. I think it's terrific that Clooney, one of the few true stars of modern cinema, is the kind of nice guy who will hang around outside a premiere until everyone who wants an autograph or handshake has got one. That said, celebrities, like wolf spiders, make me nervous, so I got the hell out of there with my pal Josh, in a perfectly timed move that led us to be the first people seated in the giant Ryerson theater.

Critics are already labeling Up in the Air as an Academy Awards "Best Picture" contender, and I will not rock the boat in that regard. I'd be shocked if the film wasn't nominated in several fields (I'll add actor, supporting actress, production design, and adapted screenplay to my list of predictions). With Up in the Air, Jason Reitman has created a curiously depressing romantic comedy for the current American economy that will resonate with most viewers. George Clooney plays a "corporate downsizing expert" who is brought in by business clients to fire their employees, but finds himself potentially facing irrelevance at his own company when a young female executive (Rocket Science's Anna Kendrick, an absolute revelation here) introduces the notion of firing employees via webcam. In the meantime, Clooney has met and fallen for a woman (Vera Farmiga, good as always) who shares his transient lifestyle and aversion to commitment.

Up in the Air isn't a masterpiece, but it also isn't trying to be. It's just a nicely paced, funny, quietly sad story of a basically good person facing an existential crisis during the current economic depression. It's probably going to be an enormous hit, in which case everyone will start hating it (see also: Juno), so I'm glad I got to see it before the inevitable surge of critical acclaim and accompanying backlash.

After Up in the Air, I crashed the Survival of the Dead party by identifying myself as Brad "Mr. Disgusting" Miska despite prominently wearing a festival badge showing a picture of my face above the name Simon Barrett. Mr. Disgusting, you see, had arrived at the party so early that he wasn't even asked if he was on the list, and was busy drinking by himself in a dark corner of the club. In a sad portent of things to come, as I had failed to eat that day, I drank three glasses of wine and then began ravenously consuming the free sandwiches the club provided for the party until an exasperated waitress eventually gave up and just left the entire tray of sandwiches at our table. We then decided to attempt a dignified exit so that Brad could order a real dinner at a nearby bar, a bacon cheeseburger that he hastily devoured in a manner that helped to clarify the origins of his "Mr. Disgusting" moniker.

By the time I got to the theater where Survival of the Dead was to have its North American premiere, I was more than a little bit drunk and feeling the cumulative effects of the last three days' travel and sleep loss. Still, I was tremendously excited for the film. I'd put the original Night of the Living Dead on any respectable short list of the best films of all time, and George Romero proceeded to give us an extraordinary, nearly four decade run in which he did not make a bad film. His work was sporadic, to be sure, but it was also ambitious and consistently successful. Up to, well, a point.

The evening started off great with Colin Geddes bringing Romero out on stage to a spontaneous standing ovation. Over a thousand people on their feet and cheering one of cinema's true legends was a pretty powerful moment for me. Then I looked to my right and saw that the guys sitting next to me, three long-haired Canadians, weren't standing or clapping.

I sat down and, as a result of my gift for subtlety, they somehow noticed me glaring venomously at them. "You can't show these guys love up front," the one nearest to me hastily explained. "You have to wait until after the movie to applaud."

"It's George Romero!" I replied.

"Yeah," he said, "but I stood up for Diary of the Dead."

That was a very good point, and I acknowledged it. Then the movie began.

About two minutes in, I realized we were in trouble. All the wretched characterization, histrionic acting and abysmal cinematography that had plagued Diary was here in force, and this time there was no awkward mockumentary conceit to justify it. Then, about an hour in, I realized I was in trouble. I literally could not stay awake during this film. There was absolutely nothing in it that was holding my interest, except a couple of unintentionally silly bits that caused me chortle before my eyelids would again begin to lower.

In my life, I have only fallen asleep during two movies. No matter how bad a film is, or how dull, I am usually engaged enough by it on some level that I can't fall asleep even if I want to. The first time I fell asleep during a film was a screening of the silent Nosferatu, which I had already seen, in my high school film studies class. The second was Survival of the Dead.

Were alcohol and exhaustion both factors? Undoubtedly. Was the quality of the film also a factor?

Oh my yes.

I'm told that I didn't miss much of it, only about ten minutes or so, and I was elbowed and woken up for the ending, but trying so hard to stay awake made the entire movie feel like a strange dream. After we stumbled out of the theater, I had a few questions:

"Was there really a scene in that movie where a female zombie rides by on a horse, and one character says, 'She's beautiful,' or did I dream that?"

"That really happened," my friends muttered.

"Did one of the main characters in the movie, who we'd thought to be dead, suddenly reveal that she was alive and that the dead version of herself is actually a previously unmentioned twin sister?"

"Yes."

"Well, I pretty sure I dreamed the plot of that movie. Was it really about an American island mysteriously populated by two feuding Irish families, one of whom posts a YouTube video to bring strangers to the island during the zombie outbreak so that he can rob them? Which in turn attracts a team of rogue soldiers, leading to a weirdly unmotivated civil war on the island, during which a handful of zombies stand around and basically do nothing?"

"Yes!"

"So..." I paused to gather my thoughts. "Was Survival of the Dead an awesome movie?"

"No!" everyone screamed.

Then we all went back to our respective hotels and passed out.

Ratings:
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - 1/10
Dorian Gray - 4/10
Deliver Us from Evil - 6/10
Up in the Air - 8/10
Survival of the Dead - 1/10 (fell asleep)

(Full disclosure: I am friends with multiple people who worked on Up in the Air in various capacities.)