4/5
I try to watch a lot of films. I try to avoid the bad ones, but sometimes you just don't see them coming. The unfortunate thing is you can't get that time back. Life is short. I'll try to steer everyone in the right direction. I rate films on a 5 point scale. This will always be a Spoiler-Free blog.
Showing posts with label Evan Bird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evan Bird. Show all posts
June 13, 2015
Maps To The Stars
David Cronenberg, 2015
4/5
Cronenberg is a man not afraid to go to dark places. With Maps he also shows he's a man not afraid to go to dark places and also not afraid to ruffle some feathers. Maps is an indictment on Hollywood and the celebrity culture that surrounds it. He does this all through a cast of rather dreadful characters. Sociopathic past-her-prime actress Havana Segrand (perfectly cast Julianne Moore in her boldest role since Boogie Nights). Mentally-ill assistant with a shady past Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska). Charlatan health guru Dr. Weiss (John Cusack). Justin Bieber-esque spoiled rich actor kid Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird). Self medicating ghost in the house Christina Weiss (Olivia Williams). Nobody is really spared in the film. They are all figures that have their own ulterior motives, own selfish needs. There is nobody present that has much purity. And yet, with all of the darkness that is emanating through the story, its a completely seductive film. Maybe it's for the pure theater of it all. Maybe it's that you want to see certain people get what's coming to them. Maybe it's because you really want to see how far they will take it. What their personal limits really are. You want to see how low people really can go. How much of their own soul they are willing to sell for a piece of temporary success. Maps makes Los Angeles look like it's a city that belongs on another planet. Because the people in this story aren't really human. They are cold effigies. They are the hollow remnants of creatures that used to be human, but over time lost their souls. Can the L.A. culture really do this to you? Cronenberg would certainly have you believing so.
4/5
August 19, 2013
Chained
Jennifer Chambers Lynch, 2012
3/5
Lynch directs this torture-horror picture about a serial killer who traps his victims with his taxi cab and brings them to his house to kill them. He uses a boy, son of a past victim, as a slave in his home to help clean up his messes and work on his scrapbook which details his slayings.
Lynch's work is probably the creative equivalent of bringing Eli Roth home on a date to meet her father David. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Just different from a film that her father would make, and of course she is going to be forced to endure countless comparisons from the film community given the impact that David Lynch has had on modern cinema. She has certainly picked up some of the chops, while the film is quite disturbing at times it still maintains an artful quality to it. D'Onofrio disappears into his role as Bob, proving that he can become an even more involved killer than his character in The Cell. His victim, Rabbit (Eamon Farren), maintains a very obvious sympathetic edge throughout the film, as he sits in the run down shack malnourished eating the scraps left behind by Bob. When it comes to the attention to set design, the serial killer's house is so chilling the Fedex guy would be afraid to place a package on the front steps. The visual canvas of the film is laid out using a lot of bleak colors, and when you are in the presence of some light it's usually a circa 1970's lamp providing a disconcerting glow throughout the filthy shack. The windows are boarded up. The basement, which is home to the remains of the many victims, is lit only and ironically by Christmas lights. Night falls, and the glow of fluorescent-lit "Comfort" written on the top of the Taxi Cab provides the same tension you feel when trapped in the house with the monster. Lynch not only plays off of visual cues but also with sound as well. There is a very present bass-driven hum throughout the film, maintaining a sense of impending horror. To sum it all up... it's a film that will appeal to the horror fan, but anyone that's planning a re-watch really needs a psychological evaluation.
3/5
Lynch's work is probably the creative equivalent of bringing Eli Roth home on a date to meet her father David. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Just different from a film that her father would make, and of course she is going to be forced to endure countless comparisons from the film community given the impact that David Lynch has had on modern cinema. She has certainly picked up some of the chops, while the film is quite disturbing at times it still maintains an artful quality to it. D'Onofrio disappears into his role as Bob, proving that he can become an even more involved killer than his character in The Cell. His victim, Rabbit (Eamon Farren), maintains a very obvious sympathetic edge throughout the film, as he sits in the run down shack malnourished eating the scraps left behind by Bob. When it comes to the attention to set design, the serial killer's house is so chilling the Fedex guy would be afraid to place a package on the front steps. The visual canvas of the film is laid out using a lot of bleak colors, and when you are in the presence of some light it's usually a circa 1970's lamp providing a disconcerting glow throughout the filthy shack. The windows are boarded up. The basement, which is home to the remains of the many victims, is lit only and ironically by Christmas lights. Night falls, and the glow of fluorescent-lit "Comfort" written on the top of the Taxi Cab provides the same tension you feel when trapped in the house with the monster. Lynch not only plays off of visual cues but also with sound as well. There is a very present bass-driven hum throughout the film, maintaining a sense of impending horror. To sum it all up... it's a film that will appeal to the horror fan, but anyone that's planning a re-watch really needs a psychological evaluation.
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