Tag: film

Aeon Flux

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Before Ghost In The Shell, Dragonball (fucking shudder) and a host of other attempts at making anime content work as a live action film, there was Aeon Flux, a supremely weird dystopian Sci-Fi palooza that should have just been the first and last of it’s kind, ground zero for moving forward, lesson learned in terms of knowing that such specifically artistic material just *doesn’t* translate at all beyond the original animation versions. You’d think they would have learned with this one, but nope. Charlize Theron can practically carry any material on her own, she’s just that dynamic, and when supported by an impressive vessel of visual effects and a clinical, sleek stylistic palette she’s even better, but this beast has no heart beating at the centre of all that, and it shows. Theron is Aeon, a powerful assassin working for the Handler (Frances Mcdormand), assigned to bring down a dangerous regime in a utopian city where humanity’s last vestige of populace exists following some viral plague decades before. Of course nothing is as it seems and when she gets to the man behind the group (Marton Csokas) she discovers all kinds of secrets. There’s plenty of inventive future-world action, including a neat sequence where Aeon sends in wicked fast micro-bot marbles to blast through a door, and interesting aerobics courtesy of a character played by Sophie Okenodo, who has hands instead of feet, an anomaly the film finds little time to coherently explain. Even less explained is the sudden appearance of Pete Postlethwaite as someone who resides in a giant floating thingy far above the city, kind of like the man in the moon in the midst of chemotherapy. It all makes not a great amount of sense, through no fault of it’s own. That goes back to my thoughts at the beginning of the review though: Sometimes, a specifically drawn or written anime saga is just too much in it’s own abstract, perfectly balanced embryonic harmony, and trying to shunt it along into the very different realm of live action storytelling just isn’t possible. That’s certainly what has happened here, and with pretty much every other attempt I’ve seen to adapt the medium. 

-Nate Hill

Miami Blues 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Miami Blues is a crime film full of loose ends, incompetence, wanton violence and meandering characters who seem lost within their own story, and I mean all that in the best way possible. Some pulp affairs are sharp, succinctly plotted creatures, every cog in the machine placed to serve the momentum of plot and character, while other efforts have messily dropped the cogs all over the floor for an untethered, ‘wing it’ type approach in which story and character are like aimless leaves blowing about in a restless pond. Isn’t life like that though? There’s no narrative structure to a lot of what we do, and as such there’s little to be found in the tale of highly self destructive, psychotic criminal Alec Baldwin, who has barely left the airport upon arriving in Miami before he’s already got a serious warrant out for his arrest. He’s a violent sociopath who takes what he wants when he wants and, most aggressively, how he wants. He’s also very smart, which is a dangerous mix in anyone whose moral compass has flatlined. His anarchic crime spree gains the attention of an aloof older detective (Fred Ward) whose badge he steals for some good old law enforcement impersonation, leading the poor weary cop on a darkly comical mad goose chase all over town. He also picks up an endearing dumb blonde (Jennifer Jason Leigh, excellent) who’s infatuated with him and blatantly tunes out any and all red flags, of which there are…many. That’s pretty much all there is to it, but with these three actors it’s pure gold. The knowingly audacious arch criminal, the Betty Boop wannabe wifey sidekick and the exasperated, constantly outsmarted copper, a trio of archetypes augmented slightly in favour of each performer’s stellar work. Never takes itself too seriously, knows full well how heinous the turn of events within it’s frames are, yet firmly refuses to not have fun, a cheeky, sexy, sweaty and altogether terrific little venture. 

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: The Alphabet Killer

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


The Alphabet Killer is a silly one, a stone-serious account of some serial killer out there that tries to go the route of straightforward, down to earth fact tracking, and then deliberately messes up it’s own tone by tossing in cheap, ineffective ghostly gimmicks that seem so out of place one wonders if the editor accidentally spliced in frames from an episode of Supernatural or something. The film would have been something pretty decent without those jarring schoolyard level scare tactics tossed in, but I guess shit happens. This is very, very loosely based on an actual set of murders over in Rochester, NY, but what actual similarities to that case we see here is beyond my knowledge and, I suspect, pretty scant. What we get is Dollhouse veteran and cutie pie Eliza Dushku as a determined cop, hunting a killer of children all over upstate New York, while an impressive load of a character actors make slightly unnecessary yet well acted cameos, if only to pad the pre credit billing on the DVD cover and boost rentals. Tom Noonan, who has a running theme in his career of playing exactly the type of beast she’s tracking here, switches it up to play her stern Police Captain boss. Michael Ironside briefly plays a belligerent small town sheriff who withholds information gleefully, Bill Moseley as a reformed sex offender who’s tagged as a suspect, Timothy Hutton her wheelchair bound scholar and consultant buddy, as well as Cary Elwes and Melissa Leo. None of these actors do much but show up for a minute or two to make their presence known, and recede into the frays of supporting plot, until it’s time for one of them to resurface as the killer in the third act, the end of a whodunit guessing game we’ve seen countless times over. It wouldn’t be such a tiresome thing if they left out the spooky-dooky stuff, but there you have it. The film’s otherwise fascinating, earnest docudrama style is somewhat ruined by the occasional presence of moaning, white eyed spectres of murdered children that leer out at Eliza like minimum wage kids doing weekend shifts in the haunted house at the local county fair. Shame. 

-Nate Hill

Ron Howard’s Willow

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Who doesn’t love Ron Howard’s Willow? Hopefully nobody, because it’s a brilliant fantasy classic that’s aged like the finest wine. From a story by George Lucas (vague Ewok vibes abound), it’s just a rollicking picture, oriented towards the little ones whose sense of wonder hasn’t dimmed, yet eager to include a very real sense of danger and darkness, the perfect recipe to make a film like this noteworthy and nostalgic. In a village inhabited solely by dwarf-like creatures, a secret has been unearthed by the family of young would-be sorcerer Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis). In their little Hobbitsville of a town on the edge of a vast fantastical realm, a human infant has floated down river like Moses, a special child with the power to defeat a nefariously evil witch (Jean Smart) who has terrorized the land for ages. After the baby attracts danger to their village, the council gives Willow the task of bringing the child out into the world so it can fulfill it’s potential and bring goodness back to the realm. So begins a dazzling big budget journey into the heart of sword and sorcery darkness, a well woven blend of humour, heart and magic that is never short of thrills or visual splendour. Val Kilmer steals the show as rambunctious Madmartigan, a fiercely funny rogue of a warrior who protects and guides Willow through a harsh, threatening world, while Kevin Pollak and Rick Overton score comic relief points as two pint size little pixie things with vaguely European accents, which they use to hurl many a colourful insult in Kilmer’s general direction. Val’s real life wife Joanne Whalley plays sultry Sorshia, daughter to the villainous queen and badass beautiful warrior princess with dark sex appeal for days. There’s just so much to love about this film, from the wildly boisterous score by James Horner that gets our pulses up, the gorgeous production design and attention to detail, the story itself full of wondrous magic and peril, to the reliance on practical effects as per the times. It’s adorable that the filmmakers went out of their way to cast hordes of actual little people as opposed to relying on camera trickery, right down to Willow’s tiny, impossibly cute dwarf children. Highlights I will always remember from this one are the impressively staged sled race down a snowy peak using shields as careening vehicles and the surprisingly gory attack from giant worm/gorilla hybrid creatures that seriously disturbed seven year old Nate for years after. You simply can’t go wrong with this one. 

-Nate Hill

Dunkirk: Christopher Nolan’s latest is an unforgettable masterpiece – A review by Josh Hains

by Josh Hains, posted in Film Review

“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” – Winston Churchill

Most, of the war films I’ve seen post Saving Private Ryan have been about American soldiers and the battles they’ve fought during World War II, Vietnam, and more recent wars, save for the war sequences of Atonement. It was refreshing to see a World War II film yesterday afternoon that was shown from the perspective of British soldiers, and with the German enemy only shown for just barely a few seconds. It’s a perspective we used to encounter often decades ago that for one reason or another fell to the wayside. Hopefully this masterfully crafted piece of cinema will encourage other directors to widen their landscapes and tell more stories from the British perspective, or perhaps even the French or another allied nation.

By now you have no doubt seen many talking up a storm about this year’s undeniable “masterpiece”, and that it should be a major Oscar contender for Christopher Nolan when the season hits its stride in a few months. I dislike using the word masterpiece to encapsulate all of my positive thoughts about any given movie, and I feel it is quite often improperly attributed toward movies that aren’t actually considered masterpieces some years after they’re released. Film culture has this odd habit of using a wide assortment of colourful, hyperbolic wordage to emphasize how good a movie is during its first couple of weeks in theatres, yet the majority of movies dubbed a masterpiece during Oscar bait season seem to fade into obscurity. But the film being heralded as a masterpiece over the last week, I believe wholeheartedly, will be regarded as such decades from now and for a worthy variety of reasons, but most of all because of the way the imagery lingers within your mind like dirt under your fingernails.

There’s an image I can’t shake no matter how hard I try, of a man looking upon a fire that’s been, for lack of a better word, burned into my mind since the moment my eyes bore witness to it. If I close my eyes, or think of it in my minds eye, I can see it as clearly as if it were happening right in front of me in this very moment. To be honest, I can see nearly the entire movie that clearly, I remember much of it so well having seen it just under a day ago, but it’s images of smaller moments that seem to have been etched into my mind with a hot knife better than others. One would think the more traditionally spectacular moments, of boats exploding and planes being shot down, would stick out in one’s mind the way they always seem to with other war movies, but surprisingly, and refreshingly, that just isn’t the case here. No, I remember the man watching the fire grow as the sun sets, a trio of young men watching a fellow soldier wade suicidally into treacherous waters, a pilot running on fumes while gliding past thousands of men on the beach as they cheer.

Dunkirk is a war film comprised of small moments such as those that, when put together in the form of a complete picture, creates the sensation of a much larger war epic without ever having to actually become one. Yes, it’s a war movie that shows us Christopher Nolan’s perspective on Dunkirk, but it’s not about the war itself, but rather these small moments within the war and the collective struggle of soldiers and common folk affected by the event, and the personal toll the war takes on every soul who had the misfortune of experiencing it.

Much has been made about a lack of a single protagonist for audiences to latch onto and invest themselves in, as if the lack of such a character is a major deprivation for audiences that’ll leave you feeling cold and emotionally detached from the movie. That’s just not true. Dunkirk is about the collective experience of the soldiers and civilians who were a part of this event, and by not choosing a single person to use as our guide through this hellish experience, Nolan allows the audience to feel like they’re right there amongst the soldiers and sailors as planes swoop overhead and bombs periodically detonate with horrific results. No one character is glorified or given the special treatment by Nolan, and thanks to his wise decision to interweave three different perspectives non-linearly together, each and every act of courage or bravery that he focuses on regardless of the immense stakes surrounding them, are treated with equal importance.

I am thankful I am not one of those people who had difficulty following the non-linear presentation of the film. While watching Dunkirk I felt that the non-linear style only amplified the suspense I was feeling, making me clench my fists tighter and my knuckles turn whiter. I enjoyed the sensation of being tossed around from one situation to the next, trying to guess what direction I’d be travelling in until the three interweaving perspectives collide toward films end, and  the pieces come together perfectly like a puzzle.

The opening scene of soldiers including young Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) running down a street trying desperately to escape enemy gunfire before finding the mole of Dunkirk harbour where Commander Bolton observes the chaotic situation while soldiers like Tommy repeatedly try to escape the clutches of the beach over the course of a week, sets the tone of the movie immediately: frantic, intense, terrifying, sudden. We spend a day upon the Sea where Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter ( Tom Glynn-Carney) and their young deckhand George (Barry Keoghan) pluck soldiers like the Shivering Soldier (Cillian Murphy, and yes, that’s what he’s called in the credits) and the RAF pilot Collins (Jack Lowden) from the depths of the icy waters. Then there’s an hour in the Air where Farrier (Tom Hardy) chases down German Messerschmitt planes in his Spitfire, halting most of their attempts to bomb boats.

I’m also thankful I heard every line of dialogue crystal clear, well enough to accurately identify Michael Caine as a radio communicator for the Royale Air Force. Admittedly, I heard the explosions and gunfire so loudly I jumped a few times when the overwhelming sound caught me off guard. Many continue to emphasize the need to see this film in 70mm IMAX, but I believe that regardless of what format you choose, it’s the experience of seeing Dunkirk theatrically that is necessary, and perhaps not so much the format, though it helps if the screen you’re looking at is bigger than most. As great as our surround sound has gotten for use in our homes, nothing will ever compare to seeing this film on the biggest screen you can find. When the sound of a Messerschmitt comes roaring from behind you, then almost sounds like it’s passed overhead before screaming way out in front of you, it genuinely feels like the closest thing to actually being there that any of us will ever encounter, and it’s absolutely terrifying. When soldiers are forced into the water, typically in fleeing from a sinking vessel, you can almost feel, smell, and taste the frigid waters. And when bombs are dropped and gunfire erupts, both at near deafening decibels, you can’t help but tense up as if one of the bombs or bullets might collide with you. It’s an immersive experience you really need to experience for yourself to believe and understand the full extent of.

The actual images of the film are less terrifying than the sounds of explosions and machine gun fire, in part because Nolan leaves the film devoid of blood beyond a few cuts and scrapes, a decision that had even myself second guessing how he might make this work. Once you understand that Dunkirk is a psychological war film that asks you to ponder what you’re watching rather than simply bombard you with heaps of exposition and gory carnage aplenty, you realize there really is no need for an R rating for this picture. Dunkirk is just an hour and 46 minutes long, lean and devoid of unnecessary fats comprised of character beats, long and frequent exposition dumps, and bloody war horrors, and all the better for it. This film didn’t need to be longer or shorter than it is.

I don’t have any qualms with Dunkirk at this juncture (the qualms others have encountered I don’t have), and while I love everything I saw in the film and greatly admire the ensemble cast’s performances, from Fionn Whitehead to Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, and others and the scenes they all inhabit, it was the perspective titled The Air I felt the deepest investment in. That’s not a knock against the other scenes, I just found The Air more hypnotic than anything else in the film, mostly due to the truly stunning cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema (seriously, every frame of this film is gorgeous and should be framed and hung in a museum), and Tom Hardy’s near silent performance (he has maybe 10 lines of dialogue in total). It didn’t occur to me until today that after a certain point in the film, Tom Hardy’s Farrier never speaks again. That Hardy conveys outwardly and through his eyes (because he wears yet another mask in Dunkirk) everything Farrier is thinking in the moment is in itself is quite the accomplishment, and only goes to show just how great an actor Hardy has become. That his scenes are the most riveting and awe inducing sweetens the deal.

The first thing my mind floats to when I think about Dunkirk is still the image of a man watching the fire grow on the beach, as clear as if it happened just a moment ago. The sky turning charcoal, the flames glowing against the sands and his face, his stern expression showing accomplishment and sacrifice in the same breath, the wind snapping against his skin and tossing his hair, his story coming to an end moments before the film does. I know I’ll see Dunkirk many more times, but if I only saw it just once, I’m willing to bet I’d remember that image for the rest of my life.

P.S I Love You

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


P.S. I Love You is pretty grounded, affecting stuff as far as romantic dramadies go, a sorrowful story that’s light on sap and earns your tears. It’s sad, to be sure, but that’s a necessary element to balance out any otherwise happy-go-lucky narrative, which is something many forget when making these types of films. Jarringly soon after we meet adorable and slightly dysfunctional couple Gerry and Holly (Gerard Butler & Hilary Swank), Gerry passes away, leaving her bereft and broken, but not necessarily alone. Knowing of his illness beforehand, he’s left a series of love notes that lead her on a scavenger hunt, each new note and following action geared towards easing her pain, saying goodbye and trying to help her start a new life. Although consoled by her two caring friends (Gina Gershon & Lisa Kudrow) as well as her mother (Kathy Bates) this is Holly’s solo journey at heart, a meditation sent from the afterlife by the world’s most thoughtful husband, unconventional in his methods yet intuitive to his last breath. Losing a loved one, especially your other half, is a kind of pain one could never fathom unless, heavens forbid, we find ourselves in that situation one day. Holly and Gerry didn’t always work well, as we see in a few of the haughty flashbacks, but their love for each other was real, and the subsequent pain on her part is palpable in Swank’s performance, which must be no easy task. A trip to Ireland, an encounter with a handsome stranger there (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), flirting with a kindly potential suitor (Harry Connick Jr.), she circles many endeavours in her time after his passing, all part of a grieving process and a desire on deceased Jerry’s part that she live her life, remember him yet not fall into an abyss of chronic grief and let it stall her, which happens to some. It’s a sweet and good-natured way to tell a very grave, emotionally corrosive story, but like I said before, it’s never manipulative or deliberately mushy, it lets the story push your buttons naturally, until the floodgates on your tear ducts are opened by observing the story and characters, not connived by soap opera histrionics or tacky melodrama. A beautiful little film that makes you deeply sad, but also puts in an effort to cheer you up along the way, just like Gerry does for his Holly. 

-Nate Hill

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: still truly scrumptious all these years later 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the greatest musical ever made. Fight me. In all seriousness though it stands as a nostalgic beacon of my childhood in a genre that I just never took to, save for a few others in the same boat (The Sound Of Music is class, but that’s a another story). I grew up with Chitty, watched it from a very young age when I was still impressionable, and since then I’ve probably seen the thing over a hundred times as the years passed, with new eyes each time I revisited it at a later age. It’s a miraculous marvel of visual storytelling, a film that truly employs the sentiment “they don’t make em’ like they used to.” They really don’t though, films with this much hands-on imagination, passion for storytelling and ear for music just aren’t a common thing in our newfound age of computer dominated franchise giants. This is a film that is fuelled by wonder and whimsy, a monumental undertaking when you consider it’s length and scope, a pure oasis of childlike escapism, and a thoroughbred bona fide classic. Based on a short, slight storybook by Ian “James Bond 007” Fleming, this is one of the extremely rare occurrences in which a film adaptation surpasses it’s literary source material in every way. How does it achieve this you ask? Two words: Roald Dahl. Dahl, a beloved novelist himself, concocted a scrumdiddlyumptious screenplay that let what was conserved and clipped in the book run positively wild for the film, not to mention dreamed up some achingly beautiful, endlessly catchy songs that have since become timeless. The titular machine is a souped up jalopy that has a few gizmos under it’s hood including the ability to fly and float on water, lovingly built up by master inventor and father of the year for the next ten centuries, Characticus Potts, played by Dick Van Dyke in the performance I’ll always remember him for. After a sincerely charming opening act set in rural England, it’s off to fairytale land as he, his two darling children Jeremy and Jemima (Heather Ridley and Adrian Hall) and lovely Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes) embark on a dazzling adventure to Germanic country ‘Vulgaria’ to rescue eccentric Grandpa Potts (Lionel Jeffries) and get into all sorts of mischief. Vulgaria is ruled by buffoonish tyrant Baron Bomburst (Gert ‘Goldfinger’ Frobe) and his leggy wife (Anna Quayle), but the real threat is the single scariest villain in cinematic history (don’t even dare argue with me on this one), Robert Helpmann’s Childcatcher, a demonic willy wonka who is pure unbridled nightmare fuel whenever he shows up. The mind boggles at the sheer ambition on display in terms of set pieces here, from the Pott’s gorgeously rickety, unfathomably cozy windmill castle of a home to the Baron’s ornate palace and everything in between, it’s a visual triumph in every way. Better still are the songs, which, excluding one dud from Howes, are all instant classics. Me ol’ bamboo, Toot Sweet, The Roses Of Success, the titular tune that heralds Chitty herself, and particularly a demented little number called Posh sung by Grandpa as his peculiar outhouse of a man-cave dangles on a tow rope below Bomburst’s mini Hindenburg, they’re all fuckin beauties that I’ve been singing along to since I was a wee lad. Added is the giddy presence of people like James Robertson Justice, Desmond ‘Q’ Llewelyn and Benny Hill (as a German, no less) to gild the lining of an already nutty good cast. This film is immortal for me, a jewel in my DVD collection, a nostalgic gift wrapped delicacy to come back to time and time. No matter where I am in my life, the Potts will always be hurtling through the English countryside and soaring over those white cliffs of Dover singing to high heavens about their phantasmagorical machine, and I can sit down and rejoin them any time I like, which I will do over and again as long as time permits. 

-Nate Hill

Tony Scott’s Days Of Thunder 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


The first ten minutes or so of Tony Scott’s Days Of Thunder should be used to demonstrate the power of any new home theatre/speaker/sound system freshly harvested from Best Buy. As it opens on a piping hot stock car race-track in the midst of noonday sun festivities and preparations for the day’s events, Hans Zimmer’s explosive, patriotic thunderbolt of a score kicks in and you feel that mad rush of adrenaline reserved for only the most combustible, rabidly entertaining movie magic. It’s just too bad that the rest of the film can’t keep up with the level of energy on display in that whopper of a prologue, despite doing it’s very best. An obvious sister film and coattail hugger of Scott’s other ‘loud noises’ film Top Gun, there ain’t much to it other than screaming race cars and a daredevil Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) trying to prove his sporting worth to various folks including the romantic interest, a doctor played by sexy Nicole Kidman and the sagely Yoda of stock car lore (Robert Duvall). He also has quite a few homoerotic run-ins with rival/partner Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker is certainly someone I’d tag with the adjective rowdy), and of course races a whole bunch of race cars as well as crashes a few. You gotta hand it to cinematographer Ward Russell, as it can’t be an easy task to do crisply capture those vehicular torpedoes as they careen by at a zillion miles per hour, let alone immortalize the afternoon sun glancing off the Wonderbread sponsor logos so beautifully. Like I said, after that initial banger of an opening credits sequence, its run of the mill in terms of story, albeit dynamite in terms of stunts. Watch for work from Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, Fred Dalton Thompson, John C. Reilly and mega-producer Don Simpson in a neat extended cameo. The real magic happens with Zimmer’s score though, go check it out on YouTube, as iTunes only has some weak retread by some philharmonic orchestra schmucks. Quite possibly one of the maestro’s best works. 

-Nate Hill

Once Upon A Time In Nostalgia Occupied France: Revisiting Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


Having rewatched Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds the other night for the first time in years, I’d since forgotten what a fuckin rip snorting good time at the movies it is. It used to rank fairly low on my Quentin-metre, but not only has it aged quite nicely since 09′, it’s even better than I remember it being in theatres. I think that one of the reasons I didn’t hold it in such high esteem right off the bat is that I wasn’t prepared for the blunt revisionist history approach, which at the time I think felt very silly and fake. I get now what he was going for and appreciate it tenfold more than I did then. From the opening chords of a Morricone piece that signals the portentous arrival of Christoph Waltz’s terrifyingly affable Jew hunting SS nutbar Hans Landa, this film is a near perfect ballet of extended dialogue, shocking musical cues and sporadic bursts of satisfying and graphic violence. It’s an episodic roundtable outing that spins around to focus intently on specific scenarios for quite a bit of time before jarringly shunting off to the next. Young Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) runs a quaint cinema in rural France that garners the attention of a pesky German war hero (Daniel Brühl). Evil Landa and his corps doggedly hunt enemies of the state whilst preparing to act as a security force for a bigwig film premiere attended by the Fuhrur himself, et al. Elsewhere in Germany, a plucky band of double agents led by Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger await instructions on a small tavern, commissioned by Winston Churchill and Austin Powers to carry out their mission. This sequence is a textbook example on how to whip up vice grip suspense until one can barely breathe, then cut the cord loose all of a sudden, brilliantly structured, written and acted scene all round. Brad Pitt also leads his merry band of Nazi killers all over Europe creating havoc and delivering some of the best dialogue that the Q-Man has ever penned. The sequence where Aldo Raine (Pitt) and his crew must be ‘fake Italian’ to blend in at the film premiere is the single funniest thing in a Tarantino film to date. The cast is layered with all kinds of wonderful work, standouts from August Diehl, Richard Sammel, Eli Roth, a priceless Til Schweiger, as well as quick snippets from Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel. Waltz made a name for himself with the Landa character, and is a simultaneously freaky and funny villain who steals the film each time he shows up to smarm and charm the pants off of everyone else. Funny beyond words, brutally exploitive in the best possible ways, whip smart in writing and characterization and just a hell of a good time, Basterds has held up and even improved excellently since it’s release, and will likely stand as one of Tarantino’s key films in years to come. Gorlami. 

-Nate Hill

Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


I will sing the praises for Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers til the day I either die, am too dementia ridden to compile a coherent review or too arthritic to type anymore (you folks will get some peace and quiet on your social media once any or all of the above happens). This film is less a film than it is a writhing elemental force, a cinematic being brought to life by tools seldom used in Hollywood, namely the sheer audacity of Stone’s frenetic filmmaking style. The MPAA kept an R rating just out of his reach for a while before finally conceding, harping to him that though he cut violent bits here and there to make it semantically tamer, it was the general aura of chaotic madness that irked them so. Stone considers this a compliment, and well he should, for its not everyday that an artist so fluidly taps into the artery of violence and the many catalysts of it in such a primal, intangible way that brilliantly splices what compels us with what appalls is, and the scarily thin line that wavers between them. This film is many things: a psychedelic road flick, a blistering indictment of sensationalist American media and the decaying degeneracy it breeds, a hallucinatory mood piece, a severely expressionistic action film, a thriller, a chiller and the list goes on, but more important than all of those is the love story that ties it all together. Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson are sticks of poisoned dynamite as Mickey and Mallory Knox, two twisted up kids on the run from everyone and everything, products of the darkest bowers of bizarro world Americana, deeply scarred by their pasts, fully committed to the wanton murder spree they’ve engaged in and unapologetic about the wave of carnage they’ve left in their wake. Demonized at every turn by the powers that be and everyone else in between, it’s easy to see why a system feeds two sick souls like this with infamy and notoriety instead of helping them. Anything for that big ol’ dollar sign, or simply whatever fills the void. We see the sickness creep after them, ever present in creatures like Tommy Lee Jones’s fire and brimstone prison warden, Robert Downey Jr.’s manic, sickening enabler of a talk show host and Tom Sizemore’s psychotic, gung-ho detective Jack Scagnetti. There’s a saying out there that goes “animals are beasts, but men are monsters, a sentiment that Stone has taken and run right off the cliff with, blasting us in the face with humanity’s very worst for a solid two hours, until he’s damn sure we catch his drift. The film is a stylistic tornado, every kind of colour, lens, filter, soundscape, visual trick and style of editing used until we realize we’re watching something truly unlike anything before, and likely after as well. Mallory’s backstory is staged in a stinging sitcom format as she’s terrorized by her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield, cast grotesquely against type). Mickey breaks out of prison in black and white Lone Ranger style. A drug store Mexican standoff is painted with swaths of neon vomit green. Shadowy title cards and striking lighting are used in a sequence where the pair visit the lonely desert hut of a prophetic Indian (Russell Means). Visions dance on walls like spectral tv screens, faces leer and loom out of shadows for no apparent reason other than to add to the beautiful commotion, characters skitter through frames looking for a moment like demons. There is no other film like this, no other experience rather, an animalistic treatise on primal human urges, societal constraints that bind them, loosely and laughably out of place when you consider the dark urges within everyone. Amidst all this chaos though, like two corrupted beacons, are Mickey and Mallory. This is their story, and despite being a chief cause of the chaos I just mentioned (the universe has a sense of irony), it’s a love story, they being the centrepiece and everyone else rushing past like dark passengers in a swirling sideshow to their main-tent event. They’re brutal serial killers, no question, but they’re tender and caring with each other, and we see hints at a collective sweet disposition hiding below all those years of built up scar tissue. It’s a gorgeous film, full of scream-at-the-heavens ugliness, imagery that burns a patchwork quilt of impressions straight into your soul, an angry satirical edge that cuts like a knife and so much overflowing style you could watch the thing a thousand times and still pick up on things you never saw before. From the first cacophonous diner slaughterhouse set piece, to the second half of the film that descends into a regular Dante’s Inferno of a prison riot, this film is truly something else, in my top ten of all time and a uniquely affecting experience that has shaped the way I’ve watched films ever since. Plus that soundtrack man.. the story is set to every kind of music out there including Trent Reznor, Lou Reed, Patsy Kline, Peter Gabriel, Dre, Mozart, Marilyn Manson and so many more, with a pair of perfectly nailed opening and closing numbers warbled by Leonard Cohen. Everyone and anyone has quick bits and cameos to support the titanic work of the main cast too, including Denis Leary, Ashley Judd, Arliss Howard, O Lan Jones, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jared Harris, Mark Harmon, Balthazar Getty, Marshall Bell, Louis Lombardi, Steven Wright, Rachel Ticotin, James Gammon and more. What more can be said about this film? It’s a natural born classic.

-Nate Hill