The Cabin in the Woods - 2012 - 4 Stars

Director: Drew Goddard
Cast: Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Amy Acker, Kristen Conolly, Anna Hutchinson, Chris Hemsworth


BIGGEST SPOILER WARNING IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND GO SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT AWAY. YOUR EYES WILL FALL OUT OF YOUR SOCKET IF YOU DISCOVER EVEN ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE FROM THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU SEE IT


So much of the dialogue surrounding The Cabin in the Woods has been about not revealing spoilers that I feel it has both over-hyped and underrated the movie. The conceit of CitW is hinted at in the opening scene and becomes clear during the first act, from there more layers begin to peel off and we are kept engaged and surprised until the final frame. Since those layers continually peel off throughout the movie, I felt the attitude of spoiler alarmists were too extreme: it's as if they believed that any discussion of the movie revolved around a binary proposition of summarizing the whole plot or dead silence. In my Cyrus review I argued that it is best to see all movies with no prior knowledge and I still agree with that, however I do not think that CitW was so sacred that even daring to mention its premise was blasphemous.

The dissemination of information in modern society has made it easier to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it has also made it harder to be legitimately surprised by anything. I appreciate the effort by critics to encourage people to see this film tabula rasa, but the chatter was so overwhelming that I sort of wish I knew the premise going in, instead of being inundated with vague comments about the necessity of a blank slate. The film works best if one is expecting to see a generic horror movie and is surprised by the deconstruction that follows, but a movie written by Joss Whedon that is being coyly discussed throughout the media is ipso facto not a generic horror movie.

I am going to preemptively apologize for ascribing motivations to other critics, but I can't help but think a lot of people protecting CitW were doing so because they are acolytes of Joss Whedon.* I have seen very little of Joss Whedon's work and am generally indifferent towards him, but I doubt other premise-heavy genre deconstructions warranted extreme warnings, partially because they are worse films; I doubt reviews of movies like Phone Booth had similar  disclaimers, but I wouldn't have given Phone Booth 4 stars. The chatter is surrounding CitW is not completely unearned, but it's worth noting that the cult of Whedon casts a large shadow.

The initial premise of The Cabin in the Woods is a clever one, there is a giant multi-national corporation that elaborately stages horror movies scenarios using unknowing participants for an unknown reason. It's a good hook for a horror movie and sets the stage for strong genre-deconstruction and film-criticism. There is currently an abundance of self-aware horror movies (there was even a Piranha 3DD trailer before CitW) what makes CitW better than other meta-movies is its execution. The plot is impeccably constructed, the performances are top notch, especially Richard Jenkins, who is a welcome addition in any movie and there is a strong balance between horror and comedy throughout the film. All these elements combined to create one of the funnest experiences I have ever had in a movie theatre and I doubt a little bit of a priori knowledge would change that.

*Sidebar: Can we please stop applying this bullshit underdog narrative to Joss Whedon. He has produced 4 network television series that ran for a combined 300+ episodes, he has a writing credit on Toy Story, Serenity is one of the few TV shortly-lived TV series to ever get a spin-off movie and finally he just directed The Avengers, which will make 800 million worldwide by the time The Cabin in the Woods is available on DVD. He is incredibly successful by any metric and has had several platforms to showcase his wares.

Gerhard Richter Painting - N/A Stars - 2011

Director: Corinna Belz
Subject: Gerhard Richter

I don't think I have ever seen a movie who's title better describes the film than Gerhard Richter Painting; a fly on the wall documentary that has access Richter's studio throughout 2009 as he prepares for exhibitions all over the world. It's a tough film to grade because the films biggest strength is its access. Even in a world where almost everything is documented it was a coup for Belz to convince Richter to participate and allow her to intimately document a master performing his craft. Belz's access is the hook, but she deserves a lot of credit for injecting the film with her own assured visual style that makes the piece engaging. I have to assume she collected hundreds of hours of footage and did an excellent job paring all of it done into a compelling film.

Belz uses limited archival footage ofRichter, the highlight is an interview where a young Richter says he doesn't like talking about his paintings because painting if a form of communicating without language. In the present Richter is uncomfortable being filmed while painting because he feels the camera is capturing him it his rawest. In the movie's best sequences we watch Richter paint and we are thrown into a meditative state, that is similar to the feeling one gets as they are painting. It is after these sequences we understand Richter's claims that could otherwise be dismissed as abstract claptrap.

Art is often viewed as inspiration-driven, but the film, which uses footage from a whole year, makes a compelling case that craftmanship and hard work are just as valuable. Richter is in his late 70s, but he clocks in everyday and works hard, we see him diligently working on an abstraction for the whole day, only to back away and conclude that it doesn't work: his assistant agrees with him. As someone with no formal or amateur training in art history, I don't understand why his painting doesn't work, but after seeing him carefully create this painting and confidently dismiss it, I trust Richter's instincts, even if I can't see what's wrong with it. As a photographer, Richter understands how randomness plays a huge role in creating art, there could be an amazing photograph at any moment, but that's meaningless if he doesn't capture it. Richter has been working in art for decades, his technique is top notch and he still works tirelessly because he knows eventually he will be there for a moment that allows him to create a masterpiece.

Cyrus - 2010 - 3 Stars

Director: Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass
Cast: John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, Matt Walsh


THE SPOILERS BELOW ARE EQUIVALENT TO HAVING WATCHED A TRAILER FOR CYRUS


There is an art to making a great movie trailer. My favorite trailers are montages that are basically music videos and give away very little plot, two recent examples of these are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Where the Wild Things Are. I also like trailers for comedy or action movies that are so plot light, that I know nothing really can be spoiled for me, but I can preview the aesethic/comic sensibility of the film: recent examples of those are trailers for The Raid or Ted. I have always loved movie trailers, but eventhough I didn't see the trailer for Cyrus, it is making me reconsider my trailer policy, because Cyrus made me realize how many potential surprises I am sacrificing by watching trailers.

Cyrus is the first film I have seen by the Patron Saints of Mumblecore, Mark and Jay Duplass. Its seven million dollar budget makes it a veritable mumblecore blockbuster and though the acting has a naturalistic and improvisational feel to it, the movie doesn't feel amateurish. Being unfamiliar with the Duplass filmography, I went into the movie expecting anything could happen, which is why I ended up being surprised by a plot that in retrospect revolves around a lot of hoary tropes. John C. Reilly plays a man-child, who has been in an existential rut since he broke up with his ex-wife (Catherine Keener) who is about to get remarried. He meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party and they instantly connect, the only problem is ... Molly has a live in 21 year old son named Cyrus (Jonah Hill) who is socially awkward and extremely protective of his mother. If I had seen a trailer for Cyrus I would have spent the whole first act, waiting to meet the eponymous character, but fortunately I hadn't and the movies loose feel made me believe that anything could happen, which allowed me to be surprised by some pretty big cliches.

The acting in Cyrus is all top notch and while there are no big comic set-pieces it is consistently funny and it manages to remain tense without delving into cringe comedy. Jonah Hill has gotten a lot of credit for his role in Moneyball, but I found his performance here to be similarly low-key and much stronger. I initially wrote off his performance in Moneyball as a fluke, but after Cyrus I have become a Jonah Hill convert. My major problem with the film is Molly's inconsistent characterization. She is presented as a Manic-Pixie Dream Woman, who unfortunately is burdened with being too loving a mother and having a weird child. Except that child's weirdness is largely her own fault, if your son is 21 years old living at home, unemployed, not in school, friendless and has a gigantic Oedipus complex, it makes me doubt your basic competencies as a mother and a person. Marisa Tomei manages give depth to this character and I believed John C. Reilly would fall for her, but I didn't believe that the Cyrus's mother and John's girlfriend were the same person and I didn't believe the Duplasses were trying to make a point about fractured identities. I liked the mumblecore aesthetic and the realistic performances and will be watching future Duplass films, but I next time the plots and characters don't feel as loose as the performances.

Tabloid - 2010 - 4 Stars

Director: Errol Morris
Subject: "The Case of the Manacled Mormon"

Tabloid is the story of Joyce McKinney and "The Case of the Manacled Mormon", it is a story best discovered as one watches the film and I would suggest people watch this movie with as little prior knowledge as possible. Morris manages to get interviews with most of the principles involved in the story, including two exceedingly British tabloid journalists, who touch not only on the specific case, but the nature of being a young tabloid journalist in the gossip-hungry UK.  

As an effete intellectual, I am supposed to be dismissive about tabloid stories, but every now and then get sucked into the vortex of a tabloid story. I spent an embarrassingly large amount of 2011 watching the Charlie Sheen meltdown, but eventually I stopped because I was bored. High profile tabloid stories are monotonous, they take years to play out and are constantly reported on. This is why family-members, high school teachers, secretaries and other peripheral players will inevitably get hounded by reporters: tabloids need to find something, anything, to report on. In Charlie Sheen's case the first 15 minutes of his daily free-associative rambling was top-notch lunacy, but following several hours of daily interviews, UStream live chats, twitter rants and assorted ephemera became overwhelming and repetitive. E! True Hollywood Story and other copycats, made me skeptical of a documentary about a tabloid story, but in retrospect these types of stories are perfect fodder for documentaries because a skilled filmmaker can excise all the fat and create a captivating highlight reel.

Errol Morris is one of the few documentarians who can make their movies fun, without interjecting themselves in the middle of them. Morris' career is based around documenting the actions of eccentrics, he is so successful because he respects the humanity of his subjects, which allows them to open up. Morris smartly refrains from explicitly judging the principals and allows the audience to make up their mind via first-hand interviews with McKinney and secondary characters in "The Case of the Manacled Mormon". From the opening credit sequences Morris embraces the pulpy fun of Tabloid through a series of visual flourishes, whether he is panning to a campy cartoon that explains Mormonism or superimposing tabloid headlines over talking heads as if they were onomatopoeia in Adam West's Batman.

Every time I finish a Morris film I am amazed at how his subjects answer almost every direct question honestly: he taps into a natural human inclination to tell the truth when directly confronted with it. Throughout the film there are moments we think McKinney is lying, but we also believe she is so deluded that she thinks she is telling the truth. This film is a must watch for film fans, because Morris as per usual found a captivating subject for a documentary, but it is also an excellent takedown of tabloid journalism. In just under 90 minutes he manages to succinctly and thoroughly condense a story that ran off and on for 30 years that is so captivating because the historical distance eliminates the ephemera that is a byproduct of round the clock coverage.

Yojimbo - 1961 - 4 Stars

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono and Tatsuya Nakadai

SPOILERS IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH

"The time is 1860 ...

the emergence of a middle class

has brought about the end to power

of the Tokugawa Dynasty ...

A samurai, once a dedicated warrior

in the employ of Royalty,

now finds himself with master to serve

other than his own will to survive ...

... and no devices 

outside of his wit and his sword"

So sayeth the opening titles of Kurosawa's Yojimbo. In those titles, Kurosawa introduces one of the major themes of the movie, the obsolescence of a once noble profession. So it is fitting that as I watched the movie 50 years after its release I was both struck by its mastery and its antiquity. Kurosawa is one of the great filmmakers and it shows throughout the film, but the samurai film, like the samurai belongs to a bygone era.

The plot follows our no-named hero, played by Toshiro Mifune as he tries to pit two rival sides against each other so he can profit from the aftermath. It's a well constructed plot with lots of betrayals, double agents and ambitious gambits. It can be hard to follow all the machinations, but that is the point. The only person in the film who knows what is going on is our hero and even as we see every move he makes, we still don't know what he is thinking. Mifune is an incredible screen presence, he towers over everyone and has the range to play a stoic enforcer and a roguish trickster. Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo as A Fistfull of Dollars and as iconic as Clint Eastwood's performance is as The Man with No Name, Mifune, a shorter man, feels like a more intimidating screen presence. Some of the acting in Yojimbo is hokey to a modern audience accustomed to neo-realistic acting, but Mifune dominates the movie and overshadows some of the broader performances in the film.

As someone who grew up watching both the macho action films of the 80s and 90s and the CGI-fests of the current era, things like poor stage fighting and bad foley work give the movie an amateurish quality. This is an unfair criticism, akin to saying that a Kia Sorento is more impressive than the original Model T, it's especially unfair given how well staged and shot everything else in this movie is. Kazuo Miyagawa's work in this film is brilliant, the shots of rain and windswept streets is some of the best black and white photography I have ever seen. I assume he used a trick like how he famously dyed rain in Rashomon, but it doesn't make the shots any less impressive. The movie contrasts tight shots from people trapped in their houses watching action through shutters with shots of the open area in the town's main street. The shots of the main street are impeccably constructed; we can follow all the action in the background and the foreground with ease and they are still beautifully shot.

In the second act of the film a gun is brought into the town and as one would expect it quickly shifts the power in favour of the party with the gun. Guns are more efficient weapons than samurai swords and unlike swords guns can inflict great damage in the hands of an amateur. In the third act the movie asks, would you rather trust an archaic master or an efficient amateur? I am accustomed to ruthless technical efficiency and use it to my benefit everyday, however in Yojimbo Kurosawa makes an unimpeachable case that the archaic master is the right choice.