Never Let Me Go - Mark Romanek (2010)

When life hands you a delightful surprise, sometimes you just say, "Thank you," and move on.



Like Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Katsuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" might be an un-filmable novel, but hell if Romanek's adaptation isn't ambitious.

I'll just say it flat out. I adored this movie.

And my hopes were not high.

I worship this novel and I have to say, "One Hour Photo" was just an awful film.

I mean just terrible. It was a caricature of a psychological thriller.

I really thought Romanek was just a moron. Seriously.And "Never Let Me Go" is easily one of the greatest novels of the past decade.

So I braced myself for disappointment.

But oh my God, what a wonderful film.

It is so elegant.

I know that sounds pretentious, but I can't think of a better word.

Now if we could just get David Cronenberg to go ahead make his version of "The Metamorphosis," the universe will be whole.

Here's my video review.

Machete – Robert Rodriguez (2010)

First, to be polite, there are spoilers.

Second, also to be polite, this is the ultimate exploitation movie, so if you're going to keep reading this review, you're going to hear about violence. Lots of great, fun violence.

Unrealistic and cartoonish violence and fun are the point here. But it’s a point of etiquette, so fair warning. Spoilers.

I don’t think I was even two minutes into this movie before I had a blood-lusting, impossibly wide grin across my face.

Danny Trejo’s bad ass was out of that car, hacking away at bad guys, bodyguards, bystanders, doesn’t matter, with his gigantic knife in no time flat.

Then he picks up a severed hand with a gun still in it and starts blasting.

I know I’m going to enjoy myself.

And sure enough, in the next ninety seconds, we’re treated to four beheadings in one swoop and some unbelievably unnecessary nudity.

Of course, he finds an unbelievably hot girl in a room laying naked on a bed.

I guess he just figures he’ll rescue her, so he takes her along.

Then, she gets all seductive and before you know it, she has his knife.

She stabs him and he falls to the ground and she stands over him, unnecessarily naked.

Then, she pulls a cell phone out of her twat.

Yep, you heard me right. A cell phone out of her twat.

It's not that seeing a girl pull a cell phone out of her twat is such a treat as it's the principle that the movie is just that wonderfully and giddily ridiculous.

Hell, I loved “Planet Terror,” as much as anyone else, but this is exploitation done good and proper.

The hero and the villain are set up before the credits roll.

Steven Seagal is a relentless drug lord who kills poor Machete’s wife and daughter, torches a building and leaves our wounded, helpless hero to die in the flames.

But, like all dumb movie villains, he doesn’t stick around to make sure his nemesis is dead, so…roll the opening credits and yippee! We’re off!

We take a trip to the U.S. Mexico border where Robert De Niro in a cowboy hat is riding in the back of a pickup truck, shooting Mexicans crossing the border. And he’s a Texas Senator!

Holy Christ, now we’re going into unnecessary lefty overblown, not believable, political preachy-land! I’m in heaven!

The plot is more or less incidental. Machete finds himself the fall guy of a plot to frame a nameless illegal for the attempted assassination of the good Senator to garner sympathy votes.

But when you double-cross Machete, you pay the price. And the mayhem continues.

Rodriguez knows how to use foreshadowing, too. He’ll set you up and let you know a treat is coming.

At one point, Machete’s in the hospital and the bad guys are coming for him.

He picks something up and the doctor just looks at him and says, “Be careful with that. It’s a skull scraper. We use it to scoop the bones clean. Uh, and those cut through flesh just like butter.”
Then Machete tears the ribbon off a nurse’s gown and gets ready.

Are you kidding me? Machete is just grabbing things to do as much damage as possible to people and ripping girls' clothes off for no apparent reason.

Robert, you're not even trying to find an excuse to give us blood and tits, are you?

I love you, man!

Rodriguez just knows how to set up his audience for a good time.

He set us up for something big and he delivered.

And do you think Rodriguez would have the doctor casually talking about how long a person’s intestines were if he didn’t intend to have Machete gut a bad guy and swing out the window from his innards?

No, but he did it because it's just good, clean fun.

The rest of the movie introduces us to side characters, mostly hot Latino chicks.

We know how the rest of the movie is gonna go and we don’t care what the plot is

formulaic. It’s all about the blood, man.

And “Machete” has it in buckets.

And just because I’m lazy, here’s just a random list of things that we are treated to in no particular order.

Tom Savini nailing Cheech to a cross.

Cheesy political statements from Jessica Alba like, “We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us!”

Machete banging the bad guy’s wife and daughter, (played by Lindsay shut-up-judge-I’ll- snort-whatever-I-want Lohan herself.)

Steven Seagal committing seppuku. (Well, kind of. I don’t want to spoil it. Like I said, story, outcome all that, does not matter.)

Danny Trejo has been relegated to the world of colorful Mexican supporting character for so long that I kind of wondered if he could carry a leading role.

HE CAN. Trejo is rock and roll personified in this movie.

Forget every action hero ever.

From Lee Marvin, all the way up through Clive Owen.

I have never wanted to be anybody like I want to be this fifty-something Mexican.

I hereby declare Danny Trejo to be the baddest mofo on this, or either side, of the border.

Go see this movie.

Wild Target – Jonathan Lynn (2010)

When “Wild Target” opens up, we get an immediate feel for the film’s tone. The first scene is quick, well timed and very funny. Bill Nighy’s stuffy hit man walks into a hotel, we hear a man yell and fall to his death and the professional killer walks right back out, ready to get on with his day.

Okay, that is one unrealistically fast elevator, but mission accomplished. The comic timing of the scene is perfect and the first act of the film follows suit.

As a director, Jonathan Lynn is kind of hit or miss. His films seem to sink or swim depending on the strength of his material and his actors. That’s how he can turn out a film like “My Cousin Vinny” and then turn right around and crank out terrible movies like 1997’s wildly unfunny “Trial and Error” & the abysmal update of “Sgt. Bilko.”

Hell, even “Vinny,” which I think we can all agree is his best effort, is pretty uneven when you go back and watch it. It’s a solid comedy that could have easily been a classic farce in the hands of someone like Frank Oz, who would’ve been wise enough at least to have lightened up bits of it and trimmed off a good 15 minutes or so.

But I digress. (Hey, look, there’s a little mini-review of “My Cousin Vinny.” Okay, I’ll check that movie off my list of films to review.)

Let’s get back to “Wild Target.” I re-watched “Death at a Funeral” a couple of weeks ago, (the original, I still haven’t seen the American version) and I was in awe of Frank Oz’ timing. (Maybe that’s why I’ve mentioned him twice already.) I really think “Wild Target” had the potential to be something really special with a focused rewrite and a good director.

Thankfully, Lynn has the good sense to keep the film down around the 90-minute range and the script is paced reasonably well. And don’t get me wrong, Lynn is a good director. Just don’t expect anything he heads up to be great.

Bill Nighy is perfectly cast as a 54-year-old hit man, a lonely killing machine, who has no personal life except a bloodthirsty mother in a nursing home. As the film set up its premise and its characters, it filled me with hope.

The first couple hits have a dark hilarity, including a bit with a parrot who cleverly talks Nighy out of killing him.

And the introduction of Nighy’s mother, the lady who raised the straight-laced murderer and matriarch of the small killing-for-hire business is just a wonderful scene. The chemistry Nighy has with Eileen Atkins (best remembered from John Schlesinger’s overlooked 1995 charmer, “Cold Comfort Farm”) is wonderful.

Their casual, easy exchange is funny and chilling at the same time. Her gift of a scrapbook filled with the headlines of all of his hits, starting with his very first on page one with the gleaming headline, “Girl Garroted in Local Cinema.” And, as she tells him, as if he needed reminding, “Plenty of blank pages at the end, too.”

Of course, he has a gift for her, too. The parrot he let live. He needn’t have bothered let show the bird mercy. The woman’s locked up in a retirement home and she has to kill something. Or maybe that was his gift to her.

Some of the best scenes are when the old woman pops up, maniacally intent on killing someone, anyone.

The introduction to Emily Blunt and Rupert Grint’s characters are fantastic as well. Blunt rides through London on her bicycle like she hasn’t a care in the world, completely disregarding the convenience and safety of anyone else on the road. Of course this attitude toward the world in general predictably gets her into trouble.

Sadly, after her introduction, once the plot kicks in, her character settles into a vehicle to push the plot forward.

As for Grint’s Tony, we first meet him when he’s toking up in a parking garage when this whole world of hit men and thieves and unwitting victims explodes in front of him. He springs to action and Nighy finds the boy has the natural instincts and reflexes to be of some use.

And Grint is hilarious as Tony, who is amazed every single time he manages to perform some sort of unbelievable feat without even meaning to. There’s a scene, well into the second act when one of the thugs who’s after our trio is drowning a vulnerable and naked Rupert Grint in the bathtub and, before we can blink, Grint’s Tony has snatched the bad guy’s gun, jumped out of the tub and shoved the no-good-nick into his bath.

It happens so fast even Grint doesn’t even realize at first he’s suddenly got the upper hand.

The problem with Nighy’s idea of making Tony his apprentice is that while Tony has the reflexes and eerie natural skills, he has a conscience. Grint’s Tony is never going to be the kind of man who can kill strangers without remorse.

Even when he accidentally shoots off the ear of a bad guy in self defense, he’s hysterically apologetic. As he’s trying to get away with Nighy and Blunt, he keeps slowing down to explain to the guy chasing him that if he gets his ear on ice soon enough, he’ll be able to get it put back on at the hospital.

He stops to make this point three or four times.

Grint is hilarious.

As much as I’m sad to see one of the great franchises, Harry Potter (with the exception of the first two films, which sucked, rot in hell, Chris Columbus) come to a close, it’s really nice to see Rupert Grint free to work on other projects.

I watched “Cherrybomb” recently and Grint was surprisingly funny, intelligent and deep as the British answer to Michael Cera or Jason Biggs, but with just a bit more going on upstairs.

By the way, expect a review of “Cherrybomb” soon.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with farces that start with promise, once we’ve settled into the plot, the darkly funny moments become fewer and the film becomes a means to get to the end of the story.

There are sparks of brilliance, but they get rarer as the film drags on. And at a 90 minute run time, drag is not a flattering term.

It’s such a shame because the film showed so much potential. I’ve raved on about how much I loved the first half hour of the film for about three times as long I normally go for an entire review.

But once “Wild Target” settles into its formulaic plot, we’re just kind of sitting there waiting for the movie to end.

Nighy switches roles and acts as the girls bodyguard, going on the run with her and Grint while being tracked down by a different hit man hired to finish the job Nighy failed to carry out.

Don’t get me wrong.

There are brilliant moments scattered throughout, including a visit to the safe house from Nighy’s psychotic mother who somehow managed to escape from the retirement community long enough to come on out to the hideout and make a valiant effort at a good old-fashioned, fun-loving murder spree.
Nighy remarks that Dixon, the hit man hired to replace him and take the lot of them out is a “disgrace to the profession.” Unfortunately, Dixon-the-hit-man’s entrance is a disgrace to the film. Where Nighy’s killings and even unfortunate mistakes are darkly comic, Dixon’s are just dark, without a laugh or a jolt.

Even at Nighy’s hit/romantic leading man’s most nihilistic moments, he makes us chuckle. At one point, he follows his target through a crowd to a changing room and fires through the door. We hear a yelp and a thump as a body falls to the ground and, wouldn’t you know it, he looks over and sees his intended target walking off somewhere else. And that’s a hard day for whoever had the bad luck of changing clothes there that day.

But Nighy doesn’t give that a second thought and we really don’t either because it’s played out as a darkly light moment. Hell, it’s funny.

Dixon’s character is sadistic, uncharismatic, boring and sticks out of the film like a sore thumb. He’s both written and acted poorly and this movie deserved a better villain.

Like Nighy’s mother.

But for all its faults, it’s worth the 90 minutes, if not the 10 bucks and the extra drive you’ll most likely have to take to your town’s art house since “Wild Target” probably won’t be getting a wide release here in the U.S.

If nothing else, you’ll see the wonderful comedic potential Rupert Grint has when at last Ron Weasley is behind him.

Ne te retourne pas (Don’t Look Back) – Marina de Van (2009)

When I started watching this film, I had no idea what it was going to be about.

To tell the truth, I have a soft spot for French films, for some reason.

I have no idea what it is about that country, but their movies make sense to me.

Truffaut, Leconte, Alain Resnais, Gela Babluani, Alexandre Bustillo, Gaspar Noe, I love 'em all.

French films are beautiful and horrific. They move, inspire and scare the Christ out of me all at the same time.

"Ne te retourne pas" is no exception. It does all of those things at once and it does them very slowly and subtly.

Aside from that, I had seen de Van’s 2002 freak-fest “Dans ma Peau” (In My Skin) and to this day, I’m the only person I have met in real life who liked it.

And who doesn’t want to spend 100 minutes or so watching Sophie Marceau? (Well, as it turns out, the better part of half that time, anyway.)

I vaguely had the idea that it was going to be some kind of thriller.

So imagine my delight and surprise when I found myself completely lost and confused as hell about 12 or 13 minutes into the movie.

The film centers around Jeanne, a French trade writer who finally wants to write fiction, specifically autobiographical fiction.

The problem is, she can’t remember anything before she was 8-years-old.

The other problem is that while her work as a professional writer is exceptional, her first attempt at fiction is terrible.

It’s tepid, self-aware, disassociated, overly-descriptive and trite.

Of course this is because memories of childhood are more than just facts told to Jeanne by her mother. The novel is cold because Jeanne never felt, touched or tasted a childhood. Poor Jeanne.

Before long, Jeanne’s mind starts playing tricks on her. Or is her family just messing with her?

Little things start to seem out of place, like the kitchen table, and s

he catches her husband and children ges

turing ominously to each other, exchanging conspiratorial hand signals.

Of course, at this point, we, the audience have no idea what's going on, but that’s okay

because neither do any of the characte

rs. Is Jeanne going crazy? Is it a brain tumor or a legion?

Is it Satan?

Actually, there’s nothing that suggests anything supernatural, but whenever there are endless, baseless theories as to what’s happening in a movie, I always like to throw Satan into the mix.

Before long, Jeanne’s loving husband is actually changing into another man and then Jeanne finds herself morphing.

The scene where we first see her with half of her own face and half of a new face surprised me by how effectively creepy it was.

It’s impressive how we’re about half an hour into the film and we have no reason to be frightened, but for some reason, I’m finding myself with a severe case of the willies.

Again, we still have absolutely no idea what is going on. And that's a very good thing because none of the characters do, either.

The rest of the film plays out with Jeanne’s mind swapping out her perception of realities to the point where her husband, mother, children and herself are different people.

Jeanne goes on a journey to find who her ‘true’ mother, self, husband, and her whole reality actually is.

By the time we get to the 'twist ending' which I won't give away just on the principle of not spoiling films, the plot is no longer the point. This isn't a film where the story matters.

The chain of events is incidental. What’s important is Jeanne’s broken mind.

Toward the beginning of the film, there’s a scene that shows her mother playing poker in an apartment with a handful of friends around a small table.

Later, when Jeanne visits her mother, she’s playing poker in an enormous, elegant penthouse, filled with affluent gamers, security guards and high stakes.

When Jeanne’s reality is altered, it’s disturbing, especially when the change is subtle.

For me, the most jolting moments were toward the building when she would catch her husband and children exchanging those subtle hand signals out of the corner of her eye or in a reflection or on a home video.

Of course, they had no idea what she was talking about and watching the film, I believed them.

They were truly her loving family and meant her no harm.

I was just as lost as Jeanne was and that was what made the film so psychologically gruesome.

Because Christ, do any of us really have any kind of grasp on anything?

Watch this movie. Buy this movie. It’s a masterpiece.

Along with John Hillcoat’s adaptation of “The Road,” this is the second film to make me realize I put out my top 10 of 2009 too soon.

I need to wait like a year before doing those.

And, in case any of you care, right now, I'm listening to:

Inside – Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (2007)

I have to be honest.

Fair warning must be given.

"Inside" is truly offensive and exploitative. The plot centers around one of the most horrifying and shocking true-life crimes I can remember.

Having said that, if you don’t mind being offended and you can look past the truly bad taste this film shows, you are in for one hell of a treat.

I loved every frame of this blood-soaked movie.

Every distasteful and odious moment in the film just made me giddy.

The story starts with a POV shot from a fetus. That’s right, a fetus. This movie is that unconscionably abusive of both its characters and its audience. Wow, hats off, Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury.

They leap right over into that territory where they've crossed the line and shown too much. And oh, don't I admire these ladies for that.

And this frantic, obscene violence keeps up through the entire film.

As I keep writing this, I can’t emphasize this enough: when I use words like ‘unconscionable’ and ‘offensive,’ I’m just giving fair warning weak-stomached viewers, not passing judgment myself.

Again, I loved, loved, loved this film.

LOVED.

Let’s get back to the opening scene.

It’s not just any old fetus POV shot. It starts with a soothing ‘another-nice-warm-day-in-the-womb’ vibe complete with a mother’s muffled voice as the fetus must hear it talking about how she’ll take care of her baby.

Then, BAM! There’s a car crash, a gush of blood clouding around the fetus and a miscarriage all within a matter of seconds. Do you see what I mean when I say this movie is horribly offensive?

It opens up with a miscarriage from the fetus’ point of view for Christ’s sake. I asked myself, “Could anything be more offensive?” Bustillo and Maury spent the next 80 minutes doing their god-damndest to answer that question with a definite “Yes.”

So let’s flash-forward four months, give or take and the woman whose husband was killed in the crash is so far along in her pregnancy, well doesn’t she just look like she’s about to burst?

The transition from benign caller to menacing killer happens in a matter of seconds.

First, who doesn't love it when a girl accidentally kills her mother by stabbing her in the neck? Whoops? And then screams, "Mommy!" as her mother falls down and bleeds to death.

But I'm getting WAY ahead of myself. And I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

But then, the point of movies like this isn't really plot twists, is it?

"MOMMY!" Ladies and germs, that's comedy.

When the very bad, scary lady gets into the house, the slashing starts immediately and doesn’t stop until the end of the movie.

And since everyone else is thinking it, I'm just going to say it.

The killer is hot.

This isn't any surprise for those of you who've seen Jean-Jacques Bieniex' infamous "Betty Blue," in which Béatrice Dalle played a big pile of sex.

I found her pretty enough in that film, but in "Inside," I don't know if it was just because she was sadistic and evil, but I was irresistibly attracted to her.

And I’m not ashamed to say that one of the things I loved about this movie is that so much of the bloodshed was not necessary. Was it really necessary for the crazy lady to snap that cat’s neck?

Of course not. That was just a little extra gift for the audience to enjoy.

The initial attack is absolutely brutal as our sleeping heroine lies, unaware of the intruder.

She realizes she is not alone only when crazy-bitch starts to slide the knife into her gut.

The scene ends with survival for our good girl, but for the rest of the movie, our protagonist looks like she walked right out of one of the Joker’s “Do you want to know how I got these scars?” anecdotes from “The Dark Knight."

Any fan of horror films knows what the rest of the film will be like.

Would-be rescuers come to our damsel-in-distress’ door only to meet horrific and hilarious deaths.

I won’t give a play-by-play because there really isn’t a need for one, but I will say that one of the sequences involves one of the most startling and cackling-out-loud cop-getting-his-head-blown-off shots ever.


I rewound it like ten times. Cackled. Like a green-faced, warty witch. Seriously.

There is a very good reason I usually watch horror movies alone. I laugh myself into fits and that sometimes disturbs people.

I've had people move a few seats over from me in the theater. Seriously.

And throughout "Inside," I felt like a kid, opening birthday present after birthday present every time a would-be rescuer approached the house. You know they're going to die and it's going to be messy.

They are not going to go quietly into this dark night and after the first couple scenes of "Inside," I knew that the SFX guy was going to put wit into every kill.

I won’t ruin the ending for you, not because there's some kind of shocking twist or anything like that because this ain't that kind of movie. I'm just not going to tell how it ends on principle.

But if you’re the kind of person who makes people move away from you at horror movies because you’re laughing at the worst possible moments, or if you wanted to touch yourself just a little bit during Hostel 2 when Heather Matarazzo met her bloodletting demise (and I’m not saying I’m that kind of person) then “Inside” is a movie you will absolutely and unabashedly adore.

And in case any of you are wondering, I'm listening to: