Movie Review: Inception

Inception ****
Directed by: Christopher Nolan.
Written By: Christopher Nolan.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Arthur), Ellen Page (Ariadne), Marion Cotillard (Mal), Tom Hardy (Eames), Ken Watanabe (Saito), Cillian Murphy (Robert Fischer, Jr.), Dileep Rao (Yusuf), Tom Berenger (Browning), Pete Postlethwaite (Maurice Fischer), Michael Caine (Miles), Lukas Haas (Nash).

Inception is almost a throwback film, which is odd for a film that is so full of cutting edge visuals. It is a big budget mind screw of a movie that keeps going further and further down the rabbit hole which each new plot development. It reminded me of a time – the late 1960s through the mid 1970s to be exact – when talented directors were given a lot of money by the studios and told to make whatever the hell they wanted to. In an era where we mainly get mindless blockbusters, here is a movie that is all about the mind and a film that constantly twists and turns itself inside out. This is the type of film you get to make when you’re last film was The Dark Knight – a huge commercial and critical success – and the studio wants to keep you happy. And I for one am happy that director Christopher Nolan decided to push himself hard with this movie. It is his best film to date.

Inception takes place in the near future where corporate espionage has taken a new twist – instead of breaking into your office to steal your secrets, thieves break into your mind and find them. They do through what is called “shared dreaming” where they are hooked up to a machine with you, and enter the world. There are a lot of rules to this world that requires architects to build the dream world, but I won’t go into them. Essentially though, you only have so much time in the dream world before the dreamer’s subconscious turns on the outsiders and try to kill them. Luckily, if you die in a dream, you simply wake up. The further down into the dream world you go however, the more unstable things get, and the risk of falling into limbo becomes all too real. The dream world moves faster than real life – 5 minutes of actual sleeping is like an hour in the dream world, and when you get into dreams inside of dreams, the time limit speeds up even more.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, who is the most talented “extractor” in the business. He is able to get pretty much anything he wants from whoever he wants, but for reasons that are not explained, he can never go home again and see his kids – which is really all he wants to do. When a mission to get secrets out of Saito (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, Saito isn’t angry, but instead offers Cobb and his team a new job. But this time, it isn’t extraction he wants, but inception – planting an idea into the head of one of his competitors – in this case Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) who is about to inherit his dying fathers massive company. Inception is thought to be impossible, but Cobb takes the deal anyway, because Saito says that he can get him home again.

So DiCaprio assembles his team. In some regards, Inception feels like one of those 1960s heist movies, where a crackerjack team of professionals are assembled to pull off a seemingly impossible job. Cobb’s partner is Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who knows the risks, but follows Cobb anyway. Cobb adds a new architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page) to build the dream worlds, the skilled Eames (Tom Hardy) who is gifted at both theft and impersonation and Yusef (Dileep Rao) who can supply the team with the type of drugs they need to put them all under for long enough to get the job done. Since they are going three levels down – that is a dream inside a dream inside a dream – they need them. The biggest threat to them is Mal (Marion Cottilard), Cobb’s wife who shows up and screws up their plans.

That is all I am going to say about the plot. One of the joys of watching the movie is to see this intricately layered plot take twist after twist, and draw us further and further into this dream world. The smartest thing that Nolan did perhaps was not making the dream world too unreal – this isn’t like The Lovely Bones or What Dreams May Come – but rather a dream world that looks and feels much like our own, but is just slightly off kilter. The normal rules don’t really apply, and there is a mesmerizing sequence in zero gravity, but the film feels real. Like the best special effects, the ones in Inception are pretty much invisible.

Besides the plot is not really what the movie is about, it’s just what happens in the story. Like the recent Shutter Island, this film is really all about the DiCaprio characters mind, haunted by the past in ways that he only gradually comes to understand. Although they are not entering his subconscious, he brings it along with them anyway, and it becomes a danger to everyone else. The movie is about dreams and memory, the effects of the past on the present and finally life and death. A whole hell of a lot is going on beneath the surface of this film – it’s like a Charlie Kaufman film, if Kaufman made action thrillers instead of cerebral comedies.

The performances in the movie have got to be just right, or the whole effect of the film is blown. Luckily Nolan has assembled perhaps the best ensemble cast of the year. DiCaprio leads the cast, and he continues to show why he just may be the best actor of his generation – and the one most willing to take risks. He inhabits Cobb, which is a complicated role, wonderfully, and brings us into his mind literally. His supporting cast is excellent – particularly Ellen Page, miles away from Juno here, as the architect, and the only one who truly understands what Cobb is going through, and Cotillard, who is given a near impossible role as Cobb’s wife, but really only his projection of her. Joseph Gordon Levitt continues to prove that he is one of the best actors out there right now, and Tom Hardy builds on his excellent work in the under seen Bronson last years as Eames. The rest of the cast fills out their roles nicely.

It would have been easy for Nolan to make a much simpler, more audience friendly hit. After The Dark Knight, he could have probably done anything he wanted to do – as long as he agreed to make another Batman sequel afterwards. But Nolan is a director who is constantly challenging my perception of him. He continues his string of excellent films that deal with the mind and morality, to go alongside the action – which he directs better than just about anyone else out there right now anyway. He has proven to be one of the best, most ambitious filmmakers out there right now – and Inception is another step forward for him.

Movie Review: Repo Men

Repo Men ** ½
Directed by: Miguel Sapochnik.
Written By: Eric Garcia & Garrett Lerner based on the novel by Eric Garcia.
Starring: Jude Law (Remy), Forest Whitaker (Jake), Alice Braga (Beth), Liev Schreiber (Frank), Carice van Houten (Carol), Chandler Canterbury (Peter), RZA (T-Bone).

Repo Men is a great idea in search of a movie that truly wants to explore it. There is so much potential in this story that it was with a sad dawning of realization that I watched it as it continued to focus on action and violence instead of the ideas it contained. The movie establishes its ideas and its strange futuristic setting (obviously inspired, like seemingly every sci-fi movie these days, by Blade Runner) early in the progress, and then abandons them for violence and a plot that twists and turns too often for its own good. Sure, the movie is entertaining in fits and starts, but considering what it had to work with, it should have been great – not merely mediocre.

The movie is set sometime in the future. A company known as The Union has made a major medical breakthrough by creating fake organs that can do the job of real ones. The catch is that the organs are hugely expensive, but the company knows that people have a decision to make about whether to pay for something they cannot afford or dying, that they will sign their lives away every time. Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) make their livings as Repos – men who track down people who cannot pay for their organs and take them back – which of course, leads to them dying. They don’t care however – in their mind, if the people couldn’t afford the organs, they shouldn’t have purchased them, it’s not their fault they cannot pay for them.

But then at a job something goes horribly wrong when Remy’s deliberator malfunctions and he wakes up in the hospital, the proud owner of The Union’s new heart module. That he got hurt on the job doesn’t seem to matter. He still needs to pay for the heart. But the accident has changed him – he can no longer do his job. And with no money coming in, he falls behind in his payments. When his wife throws him out, he meets and falls for Beth (Alice Braga) a beautiful woman who has more fake body parts then real ones, and is well behind on all of her payments. They team up to try and bring The Union down, of course, with Jake on their trail.

This may sound like an entertaining movie, and in a way it is. Directed by Miguel Sapochnik, the film is a violent action movie with some great action set pieces (the best is an obvious homage to Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy, with Law fighting his way through a huge number of people in hall way with knives, and in one instance, a hammer). But, when the movie starts to focus on action, it loses sight on its themes and their meanings, and the movie becomes increasingly illogical. The film contains a few shots on a wondrous futuristic world, with huge sky scrapers, and trains running hundreds of feet in the air, but then pretty much abandons them, for a more ground eye view of humanity. I also didn’t quite understand why seemingly EVERYONE in this new world required these artificial organs, and how The Union seemed to be able to control everything, including airport security. The concept of health insurance never comes up at all during the course of the movie, nor the fact that since Remy gets hurt on the job, his employer may be responsible for his injuries (is there no such think as Worker's Comp in the future?). Repo Men misses a real opportunity to mine some fertile ground in these areas, because it is too focused on blood and guts to care about them.

Watching the movie, I couldn’t help but wonder what a director like David Cronenberg would have done with the material. Throughout his career, Cronenberg has been obsessed with so-called “body horror”, and what comes from within the human body, and what he put into it, and how it affects our identity. There was one sequence in particular – when Remy and Beth try and get out of the system by scanning in their organs, which means cutting themselves, and putting a bar code scanner inside them – that plays like the sort of perverse sex scene that Cronenberg loves to film (it reminded me of his excellent eXistenZ also starring Law). But while Cronenberg could have done the bloody action, and the perverse “sex” in the movie, he also would have brought out the movies themes in a more realistic way – they never would have been jettisoned as they are here.

Repo Men is certainly not a bad movie. There are many entertaining moments, and for the most part the performances all hit the right note. But the film never quite comes together the way it should. It is a missed opportunity of a movie – and those are the ones that disappoint me the most.

Movie Review: The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli ***
Directed By: Albert & Allan Hughes.
Written By: Gary Whitta.
Starring: Denzel Washington (Eli), Gary Oldman (Carnegie), Mila Kunis (Solara), Ray Stevenson (Redridge), Jennifer Beals (Claudia), Evan Jones (Martz), Joe Pingue (Hoyt), Frances de la Tour (Martha), Michael Gambon (George), Tom Waits (Engineer).

It has been nine years since the Hughes Brothers made a movie. There first film, Menace II Society, was one of the best debuts of the decade. The followed that up with the underrated Vietnam era crime drama Dead Presidents, made the interesting documentary American Pimp and then the visually stunning, but dramatically uneven From Hell in 2001. Since then, it has mainly been silence from the brothers. The Book of Eli marks their return, and like their last film, it is visually great. Denzel Washington anchors the story in a kind of realism that is needed for this type of movie as well. Dramatically, the film is uneven, and the end of the movie struck a false note for me. Overall though, The Book of Eli is better than most action films that get released in January.

The story takes places 30 years after a war has decimated most of the world, and “tore a hole in the sky”, making it impossible for people to go out into the world with eye protection. Eli (Washington) walks a lonely road west. When he is confronted by a gang of would be muggers and robbers, he dispatches them quickly, with his huge knife, and walks on. Eventually, he comes across a town, and stops for the night to get some supplies. Again, he is beset on by muggers, and again, he dispatches them with lightning speed and a lot of blood. This brings him to the attention of Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the corrupt leader of the town. He could use someone like Eli. Eli, however is not interested, even when Carnegie sends the beautiful Solara (Mila Kunis) to try and seduce him. But Solara still comes back with valuable information for Carnegie. Eli has a book – the same book that Carnegie has been searching for. No points if you guess what book it is.

As an action movie, The Book of Eli works wonderfully well. The scenes are shot and cut with style to spare, but never devolve into the rapid fire editing that makes many modern action movies incomprehensible. The whole movie has a wonderful visual look and feel – not a million miles off of what John Hillcoat did with his recent adaptation of The Road – a similarly themed movie. The absence the Hughes brothers took from filmmaking certainly did not dull their visual senses.

For much of its running time, The Book of Eli functions well as a guilty pleasure. Washington is an actor we instinctively trust and like, and he carries the movie with his dead pan delivery. I think he may have watched some Clint Eastwood westerns to get the “man with no name” character just right. Oldman is wonderfully over the top as the villain, cackling villainously, and chewing scenery. Kunis is sweet, vulnerable and sexy as Solara. And in small roles, Tom Waits leaves an impression as a jittery engineer, and Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour contribute memorable cameos as a married couple, who are also cannibals.

The ending of the movie struck me as false and phony. The final scenes in the movie don’t really work. You know what the book is well before anyone actually tells you what it is, but I had a hard believing accepting the fact that it was the only one left, and the other stuff that happens in the end (which, also, unfortunately draws a direct parallel between itself and Children of Men, a vastly superior movie in the same vein).

But overall, The Book of Eli is an entertaining movie. It is well made, well acted, and until the last act, well written. Welcome back Hughes brothers. No go make another masterpiece.

Movie Review: Avatar

Avatar ****
Directed By: James Cameron.
Written By: James Cameron.
Starring: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace Augustine), Stephen Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacon), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Joel Moore (Norm Spellman), CCH Pounder (Moat), Wes Studi (Eytukan), Laz Alonso (Tsu'tey), Dileep Rao (Dr. Max Patel).

James Cameron’s Avatar is the type of big, bold, beautiful mainstream filmmaking that we hardly ever see. It is a film that pushes visual effects and 3-D into a new generation, and is quite simply one of the most wondrous visual experiences you are likely to ever have at the movies. If you thought that Peter Jackson did a wonderful job at making Gollum feel real, or that George Lucas pushed the boundaries of what visual effects could do in Revenge of the Sith, then to put it quite simply, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Cameron’s Avatar is hugely ambitious in terms of its visual approach. He has created an entirely new world, one of bold, original creatures and locations. The deep forest that surrounds the characters in every scene is the most detailed digital environment I have ever seen in a movie. The creatures that populate it are scary and fully integrated into their surroundings. The native population, known as the Na’vi, are the most expressive digital “people” in movie history. In short, Cameron has taken huge leaps in pushing the technology used to make movies to an entirely new level. The commercials are not exaggerating much when they say that “movies will never be the same”. Filmmakers who can afford to use special effects in this way will be fighting to see who can top Cameron.

Cameron’s movie takes place in the future, where humans have travelled to a planet known as Pandora, where they have conflicted with the Na’vi, the primitive culture that lives on the planet. Pandora is full of a rock that humans now use as their energy source back at earth, which has become desolate and cold in the intervening years. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) was a Marine who is now paralyzed from the waist down. He is sent to Pandora because his twin brother was supposed to go, but got killed. They have spent a lot of money and years building his twin an “avatar”, which allows him to control a body of the Na’vi that has been tailored to him, so he can fit in on Pandora. Since they have identical DNA, Jake is the only other person who can use the body. Waste not, want not.

So Jake goes to Pandora, and quickly gets into his Avatar body, and he loves it. He is finally able to run and jump again, and for the first time in years, he feels free. Although he is supposed to report to Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), he is quickly tapped by Colonel Miles Quarritch (Stephen Lang), the head of the military operation there, to give him intelligence reports. If the Na’vi will not move willingly, than Quarritch wants to destroy them and force them to move. At first, Jake thinks this is fine. But as he starts to spend more time with the Na’vi, particularly the beautiful Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), he starts to love and respect them too much. This sets up an inevitable conflict, which is basically the third act of the film, where Jake has to choose sides.

For most of Avatar, I was too amazed by the visuals to pay all that much attention to the story. Nearly every shot in the film is awe-inspiring in its own way. The look, sound and feel of the film is utterly brilliant.

I do wish that Cameron had put as much effort into the writing as he did into the visuals. There is nothing really wrong with the story – it is a futuristic version of Dances with Wolves, with a healthy dose of guilt for mistreatment of the Natives, as well as an Iraq war allegory should you choose to read that much into the plot. It’s fine, and most of the dialogue, while perfunctory, works fine as well. There are a few lines that are a little too on the nose, but that’s to be expected. The acting is for the most part good. Sam Worthington is never going to win an Oscar, but in this kind of manly man role, he’s good. Zoe Saldana is much better, ironically much more human, covered in CGI magic as his love interest. Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi are in fine form as two executives butting heads. The best performance is undoubtedly by Stephen Lang as the head of the military, barking out orders, and trying his best to channel R. Lee Ermey. He is a truly memorable villain.

No matter what you think of the story however, the visuals are the star of the show. Cameron has set a new standard in terms of digital effects, and he has proven that 3-D can be more than just a gimmick. He doesn’t hurl things at the audience like most 3-D movies; instead, he simply uses 3-D to create interesting, special environments. Avatar is a landmark movie.

Movie Review: The Fourth Kind

The Fourth Kind *
Directed By: Olatunde Osunsanmi.
Written By: Olatunde Osunsanmi and Terry Robbins.
Starring: Milla Jovovich (Abbey Tyler), Will Patton (Sheriff August), Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Awolowa Odusami), Corey Johnson (Tommy Fisher), Elias Koteas (Abel Campos).

The Fourth Kind claims to be based on real events. And yet a quick search of the internet shows absolutely no reference to the events related in the movie except for references to the movie itself. It appears to be little more that an advertising hook to try and sell the movie. This by itself is not really a problem. After all, the Coen brothers admitted that the events in Fargo, that they claimed to be based on a true story, was fiction. And many movies that claim to be based on a true story are as fictional as any other movie. But the insistence that the movie is based on a true story hurts the film itself. The method of storytelling used in the movie is confused and garbled. Even if everything they say in the movie is true, it would be a poorly made movie.

The movie mixes “actual audio and video tapes” of the events with the reenactments that the writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi has staged. It tells the story of Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich in the reenactments) who in early October 2000 witnessed many strange things in the town of Nome, Alaska. He husband was murdered two months before, and she is continuing her work. Many people in Nome seem to having trouble sleeping, and are telling Tyler the same story of waking up between 2 and 3 am and seeing an owl outside their window that no matter what they do will not go away. Tyler puts them under hypnosis, and more memories come out. They get violent under hypnosis, and if they survive it unscathed, they snap later in the day and become violent.

The movie goes into split screen, and at times even into quadrants, so that it can show both the “real footage” as well as the reenactments at the same time. The reenactments are necessary because whenever there would be evidence of any sort of alien contact, the tape becomes obscured. All we can hear are some strange noises, that the movie claims is the ancient language known as Samarian that can not fully be translated. What we do hear is supposed to be scary.

The movie doesn’t make sense dramatically. We are treated to a lot of sound and fury about alien adductions, but nothing is ever really identified. This is because the filmmakers want us to believe what they are trying to tell us. But even before I went online and found out that the true story aspect of the movie was false, I suspected as much. You do not get the type of footage that they claim to be real without it being plastered everywhere. Much of the events of the movie do not really stand up to any real scrutiny.

I think that a good movie could have been made out of this material. If the filmmakers had made a decision, perhaps the story would have worked. If they had jettisoned the true story aspect, and simply made a high gloss alien thriller, it could have been entertaining. Had they went the other way, and made a film in the vein of The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, they could have had a low budget stunner on their hands. But the filmmakers seem to want it both ways, and the result is a completely unsatisfying, poorly made, poorly acted, ridiculous motion picture.

Movie Review: The Box

The Box ** ½
Directed By: Richard Kelly.
Written By: Richard Kelly based on the short story by Richard Matheson.
Starring: Cameron Diaz (Norma Lewis), James Marsden (Arthur Lewis), Frank Langella (Arlington Steward), James Rebhorn (Norm Cahill), Holmes Osborne (Dick Burns), Sam Oz Stone (Walter Lewis), Gillian Jacobs (Dana), Celia Weston (Lana Burns), Deborah Rush (Clymene Steward).

With his third feature, director Richard Kelly has proven that he can make a mainstream film without compromising his vision. Like his first two films, Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, The Box is an interesting film, that takes twists and turns that take the audience to places we didn’t expect when the movie started. But like his last film, Southland Tales, The Box’s reach exceeds its grasp. It is an ambitious film by a director who is trying to do something different. But he tries perhaps too hard, and forces the movie to go places that it probably shouldn’t. And because this is a mainstream film, it is also means he has to wrap itself in a way that will be satisfying to a mass audience. With Southland Tales he went way over the top, and did it brilliantly in places and not so brilliantly in others, but I admired the film’s audaciousness. I admire The Box to a lesser extent.

Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) are a couple living paycheck to paycheck in the 1970s. She is a part time teacher and he works at NASA whose dreams of being an astronaut have just been dashed. The bills are piling up, and they do not know what to do. Then one day, a strange package is delivered to their door. The box contains a wooden podium with a giant red button on top. It also contains a note that tells them that Mr. Steward will visit them at 5:00 that night. True to his word, Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) shows up that night. He is a hideous facial deformity that is impossible not to stare at. Norma feels sympathy for him - she has a deformed foot, and is self conscious enough about that. If she had to go through life with it on her face, she does not know what she would do. Mr. Steward makes them Norma an offer. If she presses the button in the next 24 hours, he will give them $1 million tax free. The catch is that if they press the button, someone in the world they do not know will die.

Based on a short story by Richard Matheson, the film poses an interesting moral question. Can you press the button knowing that if you do someone will die? Does it matter that it is someone who you do not know? It could be a murderer, child molester or an old person who has already lived a full life. Then again, it could be an innocent child or someone else who doesn’t deserve to die. But then again, the money could certainly help anyone out. $1 million is a lot money now, but imagine just how much that would be in 1976 dollars. Can you resist the temptation?

The Matheson story is brilliant in its simplicity. It is short, makes its point, and ends all within about 20 pages. Out of necessity, the movie needs to expand on the story. The film essentially takes the short story and uses it as its first act (minus the brutally effective ending), and then goes from there. Unlike the story, the movie feels the need to explain the secrets of the movie, the origin of the box and the everything else in the movie. Audiences expect this from movies, and I’m sure The Box will be more satisfying to many audiences than Donnie Darko or Southland Tales did, but for me, explaining away the secrets make the movie far less interesting. Not only does it take the mystery out of the film, but the explanation that Kelly comes up with, makes it less interesting. The film’s final act is a mess of special effects and heady explanations, and its when I started to tune out.

It must be said the cast is uniformly solid. Diaz has certainly grown from the time where she was cast as simple eye candy, and turned herself into a real actress. She is the one with the biggest moral question thrust upon her, and she handles that, and the rest of the movie with intelligence. Even as the movie spirals out of control, she remains a constant. James Marsden has also improved drastically since he was the most boring X-Men. He has become one of the most dependable actors around. And Frank Langella is wonderful as Steward. He is mysterious and frightening, and as the movie goes along, he becomes more complex. It is a great role that starts off villainously, and moves on from there.

The film is also well made by Kelly. He effortlessly recreates the 1970s, and gives the film a wonderful dark look. Even if the last act is full of special effects, he integrates them well into the fabric of the rest of the visual look.
But The Box is not quite as good as it should have been. Had Kelly perhaps stuck by his guns a little more, and kept the film a little more mysterious, then the film could have been one of the best thrillers of the year. As it stands, it is still a decent thriller, with some wonderful elements. But unlike Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, The Box is a film that only needs to be seen once. The mystery just isn’t there.

Movie Review: Surrogates

Surrogates **
Directed by: Jonathan Mostow.
Written By: Michael Ferris & John D. Brancato based on the graphic novel by Robert Venditti and
Brett Weldele.
Starring: Bruce Willis (Greer), Radha Mitchell (Peters), Rosamund Pike (Maggie), Boris Kodjoe (Stone), James Francis Ginty (Canter), James Cromwell (Older Canter), Ving Rhames (The Prophet), Jack Noseworthy (Strickland), Devin Ratray (Bobby), Michael Cudlitz (Colonel Brendon).

It is a central tenant of science fiction that sooner or later humans will eventually lose their humanity. That technology will get to a point where we can get rid of all the bad stuff in the human experience, and that people will jump on the bandwagon to live the “perfect life”, and not realize that they are losing something essential in being human.

The new film Surrogates takes the familiar premise, and does nothing new or original with it. Sure, the film is not bad, it is not boring, but it is not very involving either. It just sits there on the screen, and I waited for something to reach out and grab me, but nothing ever did.

14 years ago, Surrogates were invented by Dr. Canter (James Cromwell). The concept was that people with physical disabilities could control a robotic version of themselves and live a somewhat normal existence. But in the years since, the concept has taken off in ways Canter never imagined, forcing him out of the company he founded. Now, almost everyone in the world has a surrogate and they use them to avoid real life. No one leaves their homes anymore, they send their surrogates out instead. If a surrogate gets destroyed, it doesn’t matter. The person who controls the surrogate are fine. Regular humans have become pale, overweight and anti-social. But with surrogates, you can be whoever you want to be.

But then, something strange happens. Canter’s son has his surrogate killed while out on the town, and strangely, he dies as well. His brain seems to have been boiled from the inside out. There seems to be a new weapon that not only kills surrogates, but the people attached as well. Not only that, but the weapon seems to have fallen into the hands of the Dreads - the group led by the Prophet (Ving Rhames) - who disapprove of the very concept of surrogates.

FBI Agent Grier (Bruce Willis) is in charge of the investigation. He and his wife (Rosamund Pike) have been hiding from life ever since the death of their son. But in the course of the investigation, Grier’s surrogate is destroyed, and he cannot get a new one right away - so he is stuck going out into the real world in his human form. And he starts to hate what he sees.

Surrogates has a clever premise, but then does nothing with it. There is not a plot development in the film that you do not see coming a mile in advance. I have always preferred the everyman Willis to the superhuman action heroes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, or to the pretty boys like Damon. And he is still able to play this type of role convincingly. He keeps the film watchable. The rest of the cast is pretty much interchangeable - even great actors like Cromwell and Rhames.

I did like some of the special effects in the movies. The surrogates have a slightly waxy, plastic look to them, and I liked the way they movie somewhat unnaturally. Yet after a while, looking at cool special effects cannot replace an actual interesting plot or character development. Surrogates is fine if you do not expect very much out of it. It is certainly not a bad movie. Yet, I wish that someone involved in the movie had at least some ambition.

Movie Review: Gamer

Gamer * ½
Directed By: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor.

Written By: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor.

Starring: Gerard Butler (Kable), Amber Valletta (Angie), Michael C. Hall (Ken Castle), Kyra Sedgwick (Gina Parker Smith), Logan Lerman (Simon), Alison Lohman (Trace), Terry Crews (Hackman), Ramsey Moore (Gorge), Ludacris (Humanz Brother), Aaron Yoo (Humanz Dude), John Leguizamo (Prisoner).

With Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage, directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor established themselves as two of the loudest, stupidest filmmakers in the world. Those two movies were shot and edited at lightning speed, the camera never resting, never focusing on anything for longer than a split second, as the “hero” moved from one violent encounter to the next. Both films looked like they were shot by a team of meth addicted monkeys, and made the films of Michael Bay look tame by comparison. Inexplicably, both films were rather well received critically - I seemed to be the only one bothered by the rampant misogyny, racism and homophobia on display in the film.

So to say that Gamer is far and away their best film yet is to damn the film with faint praise. The films visual look is the same as the previous films - the film is non stop action pretty much from the opening credits to the closing credits. The editing and cinematography still move way too quickly, still make it impossible for the audience to ever orient itself to the action, and never gives us a chance to focus on any one character for any period of time. But perhaps because the film moves so quickly from one scene to another, this time around, they never really have time to be overtly misogynistic or racist - that would require a conversation of some sort, and this movie doesn’t do conversations.

Gerald Butler stars as Kable, a death row inmate who has been given a chance for freedom. By signing up for a Pay Per View Show Slayers, which has death row inmates compete in a real life video game environment, and being controlled by players who tells them what to do and when, he has given himself a chance to get released. All he has to do is survive 30 battles, and he’s out. He is only three battles remaining. The game is the brainchild of eccentric genius Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall), who started with a “game” called Society, which allowed regular people to control others in a real life environment - making them have sex or really do just about anything else imaginable. Kable’s wife, Angie (Amber Valletta) has had her daughter taken away from her since her husband was sent to death row, and is now stuck making a living being one of the mindless drones in Society, being controlled during her shifts by a huge overweight shut-in, who spends his entire life watching his bank of TV screens and sweating.

Of course there is a group of concerned citizens who object to Castle and his games. They call themselves Humanz, and they are led by Ludacris, and they hack into the sites and TV shows to make their points known to the world. No one seems to care.

If there is a reason to see the film, it is Michael C. Hall’s seriously demented performance as Castle. Hall, the best actor on TV right now (please give the man an Emmy this year for his brilliant work on Dexter) seems to know he is in an absolutely ridiculous movie, and has decided to fully embrace the madness. Speaking in a strange, unidentifiable Southern accent, and speaking mainly in weird stream of consciousness sentences, we never know what the hell he’s going to do next. There is a scene of absolute genius late in the film where Hall does a strange song and dance number to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” that is absolutely brilliant.

But that really is the only reason why Gamer is of any value at all. The rest of the movie is one violent scene after another, as Butler has to fight his way through a seemingly endless army of nameless, faceless “bad guys”. Controlled by a 17 year old kid named Simon (Logan Lerman), who looks oddly like Zac Efron, he wants to be set loose, because he knows that Castle does not want him to actually win - he knows too much to be allowed to talk.

Butler has never really impressed me as an actor, but it must be said that here he does just about as good of a job as is humanly possible. What is required of him here is not his acting ability, but his willingness to get the crap kicked out of him in every scene, and keep on ticking. There is a scene in this film where he wants to get gas into a car, so he can take off, so he gets drunk, and vomits and pisses in the gas tank to give the car enough ethanol to run. It’s that kind of logic that runs through the movie.

Gamer is a movie that just never stops. It just keeps sprinting from one scene to the next, regardless of whether or not any of it actually makes sense. I must admit that the film is never boring, but it is never really involving either. The experience of watching the film is like watching someone else play a video game. Sure, all the flashes and bangs are entertaining for while, but sooner or later you want to get involved.

Weekly Top Tens: The Best Dystopian Movies

If I have learned one thing from the movies, it is that the future is going to suck. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie when in the future, things are better. Governments keep falling, the world descends into chaos, and we lose our simple humanity. These 10 films are the best of what is called the dystopian genre. I suspect there to be some controversy here. Is Videodrome really a dystopian movie? Yes, it certainly is about how our society is losing its humanity, it just happens to be at the beginning of the process, instead of somewhere in the middle like most of the movies. Where is A Clockwork Orange you may ask (which, I will say is better than any film on this list)? Well, it’s not really a dystopian movie is it? It is not about how we have all lost our humanity, but how one person lost his. Call it nitpicking if you want, but I’ll stick with my opinion thank you.

10. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
While certainly not the first anime film, Akira was a landmark in the genre – one of the main reasons why anime exploded in popularity outside of Japan in the 1990s. Katsuhiro Otomo’s film is a brilliant action movie and intelligent science fiction film, featuring great animation and complex themes. The movie is about Japan in the wake of another nuclear like blast that destroys Tokyo. Now, decades later, Neo-Tokyo is an island off of Japan that is full of political strife, terrorism and gang violence – most notably between warring motorcycle gangs. Akira presents Japan after the nuclear explosion as a lawless wasteland, full of generational conflict, as the younger generation sees nothing for them in the new Japan. It is impossible to watch the film and not see the parallels between the Japan in the movie, and the one right after WWII. Akira shows that not all cartoons are for kids – and in fact, some of them are downright brilliant.

9. Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997)
Gattaca takes place in the not too distant future, where pretty much all babies are made in a lab to be genetically perfect individuals – completely free of any defects. The story centers on Vincent (Ethan Hawke), who was conceived the old fashioned way, and as such is not genetically perfect. He dreams of being an astronaut, but knows full well that he cannot ever reach his dream, because his genetics will hold him back. But then, he strikes on an idea – he “buys” the identity of a genetically perfect man (Jude Law), who was once a world class swimmer, but was so disappointed in “only” winning silver despite his perfect genes, that he attempted suicide, leaving him paralyzed from the waste down. He agrees to sell Vincent the genetic samples he needs to impersonate him, and Vincent appears to be unstoppable – getting into the Gattaca space program, and being a star navigator. But as his mission launch approaches, a murder throws the whole scheme into doubt, as they start to close in on an “invalid” because one of Vincent’s eyelashes found at the scene. The film is brilliant at showing how the new eugenics program, dehumanizes everyone, not just the invalids like Vincent. Vincent is discriminated against not because he is not good enough or smart enough, but because he does not have the right DNA. Meanwhile, while Jude Law is the perfect man, he too is dehumanized because his superior DNA puts so much pressure on him to succeed, that anything less than perfect in unacceptable. Gattaca was underrated when it came out in 1997, and is still underrated today. A truly great film.

8. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
David Cronenberg’s Videodrome is a film that sees the future of world being television. In the movie, television will take over every aspect of our lives, and we become powerless to stop it. James Woods plays a TV executive who runs a sleazy TV station in Toronto, which essentially broadcasts soft core porn. He wants to take his station to the next level though, so when he stumbles across Videodrome – a TV show apparently being broadcast out of Malaysia, which is essentially Snuff TV, he pirates it and starts airing it on his own station. But Videodrome is much more sinister than simply a snuff show – it starts to control your mind, causing disturbing hallucinations (the most memorable of which is when Woods’ torso becomes a bloody VCR, and he inserts a tape into it), and causes brain tumors. Videodrome is really an attempt to control the minds of people in North America – to cut out the undesirables, and replace everything with television. Cronenberg’s films was way ahead of its time in 1983, and is perhaps still way ahead of it. The film that truly let people know that this crazy Canadian was actually a genius.

7. The Road Warrior (George Miller, 1981)
The Road Warrior is far and away the best of the Mad Max trilogy, and one of the best action films ever made. It takes place in the sun burnt future – the entire country seems to be a giant desert. Energy shortages have wrecked havoc on the country, and two warring factions have gone to war over oil. What little remains of the government is completely powerless. Max is a drifter, still reeling from the death of his family at the end of the first film, and he likes it that way. He comes across an functional oil refinery inhabited by a group of mostly peaceful settlers. The problem is that the war factions are outside, and want all the gas inside – and are willing to do anything to get. The Road Warrior is a masterwork of action filmmaking – car chases that are actually thrilling and original, a great central character, and interesting supporting characters – the villain in the hockey mask, the Gyro Captain, and the Feral Kid, are the most memorable. The Road Warrior sees an all too possible future in stark and unforgiving light. Will things get better? The movie holds out hope at the end, but for Max, his world is already destroyed.

6. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
The kids in Japan are not alright. Unemployment has skyrocketed to unbelievable levels, and the students are starting to revolt in schools. The adults are scared of this new generation, and so they pass the Millennium Education Reform Act – better known as the Battle Royale act. Each year, one class of students are forced to play a game. They are taken to an island, outfitted with explosive collars, even a survival pack and a weapon (some better than others, as some get guns and knives, and others get frying pans, etc) and given three days to kill each other. If at the end of the three days there is more than one student still alive, then their collars will explode and kill them all. In some ways, the film echoes William Goulding’s Lord of the Flies. Some characters are more than willing to kill their fellow students, and former friends, and even relish the opportunity to do it. Some rebel against it by refusing to kill, or to try and take down the government operators on the island, along with their teacher (Takahasi Kitano) who is running the game. Others simply give up and kill themselves. Battle Royale is a very Japanese movie (which means the rumored American remake would have to do something to Americanize the story, something they failed to do when they remade the very British Lord of the Flies in America). Battle Royale is one of the more violent films you will ever see – it got lots of controversy and was decried by the Japanese parliament, and despite its huge cult status in North America, there was never an actual theatrical release as studios were too scared of the violence. Still however, Battle Royale is a masterwork. A film that looks at a society that has allowed fear to overtake them, and that completely undervalues human life. A masterpiece.

5. The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
Before I saw Orson Welles’ The Trial, I would not have thought it possible to adapt Franz Kafka’s work to the screen in any meaningful way. But Welles’ film is one of his masterpieces. A surreal, comic nightmare of a film where the protagonist Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) is told he is being charged with a crime, but it never told what it is. Josef spends the film seeking the advice from one person after another, none of which is helpful at all. He tries in vain to defend himself when he is finally brought to his strange trial, but no one is interested in what he has to say. Welles himself gives a remarkable performance as the Advocate, a man of weird circular logic, who Josef hires to represent him, but despises. The Trial is a truly strange, truly surreal movie and presents us with a nightmare scenario. Josef cannot possibly prove his innocence, because he has no idea what he is being charged with. He is not alone at being charged with crimes like this – lots of people have been, and no one is ever acquitted. The movie looks at bureaucracy run amok. It is a visually stunning film by Welles, but because it is so strange, it has divided critics and audiences since its release. If you are a fan of Welles like I am though, it is a must see.

4. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Scientists have created such lifelike robots, known as replicants, that it is almost impossible to tell the difference between them and real humans. Following a replicant revolt, they are declared illegal on earth. The most recent models, known as the Nexus 6, are the most advanced yet, and have a built in failsafe of a 4 year life span – so that they cannot develop real emotions, attachments or ideas of revolt. But four of these Nexus 6 replicants have escaped in Los Angeles, and falls on Deckard (Harrison Ford) to track them down and “retire” them. There is a combat model (Rutger Hauer), a nuclear fuel loader, an assassin, and a “basic pleasure model”. He then discovers that there is an even newer version of the replicant – one that is built to believe it is human. The main replicant is Roy, the combat model, who knows that his life is coming to end, and wants to go to his maker, Tyrell, and ask for an extension on life, and forgiveness for his sins. The film is about what happens when humans play God. They have the technology to make robots who can think and feel like humans, but does that mean they really should? Is it okay morally to kill the replicants, even if they are not human, because they still feel like they are? And is Deckard really a replicant himself, and like Rachel (Sean Young), the replicant he falls in love with, just not be aware of it? No matter how you answer these questions, it is undoubtable that Blade Runner is one of the best science fiction films ever made. Note: About the whole Deckard as a replicant theory, I have always believed that Deckard is in fact a replicant, and just does not know it. It is the unicorn that Gaff (Edward James Olmos) leaves Deckard at the end of the film that convinces me. Deckard dreams of unicorns all the time, but never shares this with anyone. Why then, would Gaff leave him the origami unicorn, unless he knows what Deckard dreams of, because Deckard’s memories have been implanted – and are false? One of the things I love about the film though is that this is never implicitly stated. You can make of it all what you will.

3. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
One day, women just suddenly stop getting pregnant. No one can figure out why they cannot get pregnant anymore – whether it’s something wrong with the women or the men or what, but it has now been 18 years since the last child was born. The world is slowly dying. Most of the governments around the world have collapsed as they have descended into chaos, leaving only England standing. Millions of refugees have flooded the country, but are mainly kept in compounds, and the country has essentially become a military police state. Theo (Clive Owen) was once an activist, but now is nothing more than an apathetic bureaucrat. His wife has left him, and he has only one friend, an aging hippie (Michael Caine) who spends his time caring for his catatonic wife. But Theo has connections, as his brother is a high ranking government official. So when his wife (Julianne Moore), who is still an activist shows back up in his life and offers him a lot of money for travelling papers for a friend of hers, he agrees. What he does not realize is that the woman she got the papers for is pregnant. When Moore is killed, Theo takes the woman, Kee, and tries to get her to the Human Project, a group of scientists who want to cure human infertility. But the activist group wants Kee to stay where she is, so they can use her as a political tool. So Theo takes Kee into one of the refugee camps, just as a full scale uprising is starting, so that he can get her to the boat with the human project. Children of Men is a brilliant movie – Cuaron’s camera never rests, and the entire movie has a kinetic, restless energy to it. It is a disturbing view of the future, but also a Christian parable. Through the course of the movie, Theo rediscover his humanity, and fights to save it in everyone else. Since no scientific explanation is ever given to why kids stopped being born, or how Kee got pregnant, we are left to assume that it was God’s work – first punishing humanity for its sins, and then starting anew with Kee and her baby. Children of Men is one of the best films of the decade, and a truly horrifying vision of the future, although unlike many films on this list, it does hold out hope for tomorrow.

2. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis is the film that without which, I doubt any of the other films on this list would exist. It is one of the most influential films in history, and set the standard for science fiction films in general – a standard that has rarely been beat in all the decades since. Metropolis is set in the future – a harsh, Art deco city state, with a rigid class system. The upper class lives high above the world, in the vast skyscrapers, while the workers live underground, endlessly toiling to sustain the lives of the rich and powerful. The son of the city’s leader becomes infatuated with a beautiful young worker woman, and when he follows her below ground, he is amazed and disgusted by the treatment of the workers. An explosion kills many workers, but before the dead are taken away, and the wounded tended to, more workers are brought into replace them. As the son starts to see more and more of the mistreatment, he becomes determined to bring the two classes together. But his plan is put in danger, when an old rival of his father’s (who was in love with his mother, and devastated when she choose the other man, then died giving birth to the son), has created a humanoid robot, that he plans on using to get the workers to destroy themselves – and the city. Metropolis is a masterpiece – many of the images have been used countless times since (all the rows upon rows of discouraged, mindless workers drudging into work for example), and is also a supreme example of silent movie making. For my money, Lang was the greatest of silent movie directors (and when he moved into sound filmmaking in the decades following the 1920s, he created several other masterpieces as well). If you have any interest in cinema history at all, then Metropolis is a must see.

1. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)
Again, I am sure that my choice for number 1 on this list will be somewhat controversial, because with the exception of Roger Ebert, few critics have ever truly realized the genius of Alex Proyas’ 1998 film (of which, Metropolis is a huge influence on). But I considered Dark City to be a truly great film – one that deserves as much praise as it can get. Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes up one morning with no memory of who or where he is. He eventually pieces together some of these things, discovers he is wanted for murder, and that he is has a beautiful wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly). He is trapped in a city in perpetual nighttime, and every day at midnight, the city, and the people in it, just stop what they are doing, and things are changed by The Strangers, a group with telekinetic powers. Murdoch is an anomaly, as he woke up one day with the same ability of The Strangers, and now represents a threat to them. Dark City strips away everything we value about humanity – it makes the humans into little more than shells and The Strangers manipulate their memories, making them into new people almost every day, in their misguided attempt to understand humanity (they are particularly interested in the nature vs. nurture theory). Dark City creates one of the most distinctive movie landscapes in cinema history, a cityscape that seems both futuristic, and straight out of the past. It is a dark, foreboding film through, visually stunning, complex and alive. The film ends on a happy note – or at least what qualifies as a happy note in films like this. The characters, for all their flaws, at least have their humanity back. A true masterpiece.

Weekly Top Ten: Best Time Travel Movies

I love time travel movies. The mystery of travelling into the past or future, the consequences it can have the paradoxes it creates. Time Travel movies come in all shapes, sizes and really genres (although sci-fi does dominate this list, it is not exclusively of that genre). The movie that inspired this list was the thoroughly mediocre The Time Traveler’s Wife, which was great as a book, but not great as a movie. But these 10 movies are. I expect most people will call me a pretentious twat for my number 1 choice, but so be it. It is a masterpiece.

10. The Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
Terry Gilliam is one very strange man, and The Time Bandits is one very strange movie. It opens with Kevin, a young boy, being pulled into the void of space by six dwarves, who work for the Supreme Being building trees and bushes, but are in a labor dispute and are currently on strike. They have found a map that allows them to open up holes in space and time, and travel freely among them, stealing valuable treasures for different eras. Throughout their travels, Kevin and the Dwarves meet Napoleon, Robin Hood, Agamemnon and board the Titanic, among other things, all ending up in a showdown with the villain – appropriately named Evil. The sense of humor on display in The Time Bandits shares much with the work on Monty Python (after all, Gilliam was involved with them and co-stars Michael Palin and John Cleese were among their most famous stars), and while the film is hilarious, it is also extremely dark. After all, the movie ends with Kevin’s parents being exploded when they touch a piece of evil, and the kid being left all alone. The Time Bandits is one of Gilliam’s best films, one from the period before he went off the deep end.

9. Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola, 1986)
There have been a lot of movies about adults either becoming their teenage selves again, or teenagers become their adults selves, but none of them come close to being as good as Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married. In the film, Kathleen Turner gives a great performance as Peggy Sue, who in 1985 is getting a divorce from her husband (Nicolas Cage) who cheated on, but decides to attend her 25th High School Reunion anyway. At the reunion, she passes out, and wakes up back in 1960, her senior year of high school, before Charlie knocked her up, and forever changed her life. She is determined to change things in her life however, and is not nearly as timid as she was in 1960. She works on improving her relationship with her estranged sister, sleeps with the guy she always had a crush on in high school and delights in telling her algebra teacher that she now knows for a fact she will never need to know algebra in her everyday life. But she also finds, she cannot really change the past. Her relationship with Charlie is fate, and even if in 1985 she hates him, in 1960, she cannot help falling for him all over again. The film ends on a note of hope – maybe Peggy Sue and Charlie can reconcile after all. Coppola does an amazing job with the visuals, capturing 1960 wonderfully well, and is aided greatly by one of Kathleen Turner’s very best performances (her debut in Body Heat is still the best, but this is a close second). One of the best films Coppola made after the 1970s, and a fine film all around.

8. Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)
By now, almost everyone has either seen or at the very least knows about the twist ending of the Planet of the Apes, so I am not really spoiling anything by listing it in this list. The movie is about four astronauts who are in a cryogenic sleep when they crash land on a planet they do not know. One is killed on impact, but the other set off onto the beach, gradually moving further inland. There, they are attacked by a group of monkey’s on horseback. One astronaut is killed, another captured, but our hero (Charlton Heston) merely gets shot in the throat, rendering him mute for a while. Heston discovers that the whole planet is run by apes, and that they have a strict class system, and the mute, stupid humans are at the bottom. When it becomes clear that Heston has intelligence, he is a threat to the way things are done, and his is threatened first with castration, then with a lobotomy, but is finally able to go free to find his destiny. It is only then, on the beach, that he discovers the Statute of Liberty, and he figures out that he has been on earth all along – he is just now in some distant future where everything has gone wrong.

7. Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi, 1993)
At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash (Bruce Campbell) is transported through space and time, and ends up in Arthurian England. Army of Darkness, explains what happens next. He wants to get sent back to his own time, and in order to do so, he needs to find the Necronomicon, the book that sent him back in the first place. He does indeed find the book, but forgets the words he is supposed to use, and ends up unleashing an army of the undead instead. Oops. Lead by his evil clone, the Army of Darkness attacks, and it is up to Ash to save the day. Raimi’s Evil Dead series got more absurd as they went along, but they also got more entertaining. Evil Dead II remains the masterpiece of the series, but Army of Darkness is easily the funniest and most entertaining. Bruce Campbell may not be a great actor, but in the role of Ash he is perfect – no one else could get away with saying lines like “This is my boomstick” (referring to his shotgun, not his penis, but come to think of it, perhaps he means both) or “Hail to the king, baby”, his closing line right as he grabs a female employee at S-Mart (“Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart”) and kisses her. Army of Darkness is dark, demented and just pure cinematic fun.

6. Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)
Primer is low budget science fiction at its very best. It is a film with almost no special effects, because it does not need them. It takes the concept of time travel seriously, and considers the consequences of what a real life time machine would mean. Aaron and Abe are two engineers working for a company they hate, and trying to come up with inventions in their spare time to make them money. They inadvertently invent a time machine. The science in the movie to explain the time machine is obviously phony (since, as far as I know, no one has come up with a real one yet), but is sounds very convincing – much more so than I think any other film on this list. At first, the pair simply use the time machine to make money on the stock market, but gradually, they start to differ about what they should be using the machine for – what is right, and what is moral. I would be here all day describing the ins and outs of the plot, but needless to say that Primer is intelligent science fiction in the extreme. One of the best this decade has to offer.

5. 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995)
Gilliam’s second time travel movie on this list is far and away the better one. While Time Bandits was a warped, dark, children’s fantasy, 12 Monkeys is a nightmare come to life on screen. In the future, James Cole (Bruce Willis) is a convicted criminal, who agrees to let scientists perform tests on him. In 1996, a deadly virus was released, killing most of the human population, and driving the rest underground. Cole’s mission is to return to the past, and figure out what happened, and if possible get a pure copy of the virus, so a cure can be found. Cole bounces back and forth through time, meeting Dr. Railly (Madeline Stowe), each time and eventually falling in love. The prime suspect in the virus outbreak is Goines (Brad Pitt, in an amazing performance), a mental patient and animal rights activist. Cole is haunted by a dream from his childhood where he watches a man gunned down in the airport. The movie spins its web of deceit, gradually tightening its plot threads until we are forced into the final showdown. This is perhaps Gilliam’s best film – his most complete, most visually stunning, most layered. It is a masterpiece of paranoid science fiction. (Note: 12 Monkeys is actually a remake of my number 1 film on this list. Although the two differ wildly, their underlying message is the same, and 12 Monkeys deserves comparison to that masterwork).

4. The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)
So a couple of weeks ago, I caught some flak for putting Terminator 2: Judgment Day on my list of computer movies, and not the original Terminator. While I stand by my opinion that T2 is the better movie – and far and away the better computer movie – I will admit that as a time travel movie, the original film is better – with fewer loose ends in its time travel plot. In the future, John Connor will lead the resistance against the machines of Skynet. Nervous they will lose, Skynet sends a killing machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to kill Connor’s mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) before John can be born. In turn, John sends back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn, who I am sorry, I still think cannot act) to protect her. Is the movie tighter than the sequel? Yes. Is the concept of time travel better handled and explained in the original? Yes. Is the original a masterpiece of sci-fi/action filmmaking? Yes. Is it better than the sequel? Finally, no, but its close enough that I have no problems putting it on this list.

3. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
This is probably the film most people thought would be number 1 – with good reason, it is undoubtedly the most popular time travel movie of all time (and its two sequels are pretty damn good too, especially the third movie). Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a high school kid living in 1980s LA. He is friends with a weird older scientist named Doc (Christopher Lloyd), and one night Doc, tells Marty to come to the parking lot so he can show off his latest invention – a DeLoren that he has supped up into a time machine. Because of complications with Libyan terrorists, Doc is murdered, and McFly ends up in the time machine and travels back to 1955, where McFly ends up causing changes in the past, which jeopardize the future – most notably he prevents his father (Crispin Glover) from meeting his mother (Lea Thompson), this putting his own existence into jeopardy (and creepier still, is when he mother falls for him, and tries to seduce him). Back to the Future is an expertly crafted movie – both in terms of its screenplay which never steps wrong, and the direction by Robert Zemeckis. The performances in the movie are also pitch perfect. Back to the Future is one of the most enduring classics from the 1980s for a reason – it’s brilliant. So why is it not number 1? Simply put, I like the other two films more.

2. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
Donnie Darko is a strange, maddening, brilliant mixture of science fiction, religion, philosophy, incestuous drama and teenage melodrama, coming together to make one of the most original films of the decade. Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a brilliant teenager, who is also a paranoid schizophrenic who has just stopped taking his medication. On October 2, Donnie sleepwalks out of the house, and meets Frank, who tells him that the world will end in just over 28 days. While he is out, a jet engine crashes through Donnie’s bedroom ceiling and crushes his bed. Over the next 28 days, Donnie starts to see stranger and stranger things – a rabbit who tells him to flood the school, or burn down a local celebrity’s house revealing a child porn dungeon. But what it all leads back to is this – the universe has splintered off from itself, creating an tangent universe, which will end in 28 days and take the real universe with it, unless Donnie sets things right. I will not attempt to explain much more of the plot than that – it is even more complicated than Primer was – but I will say that Donnie Darko is a brilliant, dark time travel movie, one that continues to get better the more times you see it. Note: I prefer the original cut of the film as compared to the director’s cut, in which I think writer/director Kelly explains too much, removing much of the mystery, which is one of the primary reasons why the film worked as well as it did in the first place. Kelly’s follow-up film, Southland Tales, is also a wonderfully twisted time travel movie of a sort, but it is nowhere near as good as Donnie Darko is. But if you liked this one, than do yourself a favor and track down that one. It is still quite good.

1. La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962)
Okay, so this is where 99% of the people reading this start to think that I have ever lost my mind by putting a film they have never heard of at number, or think that I am a pretentious price for putting a 28 minute art film in the number one spot. I can deal with both reactions. Film, to me anyway, is an art form, but so few films can actually qualify as a genuine work of art. Chris Marker’s brilliant La Jetee is one of those films. The film told almost entirely through still photos, narration and music. There is only one shot in the film – and it is a haunting one – shot with a movie camera. They rest are just images, which flash by the audience at varying speeds, as the narrator explains what happens. After World War III, the survivors of Paris all live underground. Scientists are experimenting with time travel – sending people into the past and the future to try and rescue the present. But the effects of time travel usually either kills or drives insane the people who go through it. But one man is able to go. Haunted by a dream for his past, he is somehow able to go back and forth throughout time and try to save the present. He meets the woman who is a part of his dream for childhood, and falls in love with her. When he is next sent to the future, he gets what he needs to save the present, and when he returns, his mission complete, his discovers that the scientists plan to kill him. The people from the future offer to bring them to their time, but instead he asks to be sent back into the past so he can reconnect with the woman. They agree, but it turns out that the violent memory that has morphed into a dream from his childhood obsessed him for a reason – he was witnessing his own death. La Jetee is a haunting film – the images both beautiful and disturbing, the score melancholy and probing, the narration perfect – the whispered German dialogue heard in some scenes, but not understand, creepy beyond belief. So call me a pretentious ass if you want to. But for me, La Jetee is the only choice for the top spot on this list.

Weekly Top Tens: Top Ten Alien Movies

So last weekend I watched one movie about aliens, and another about time travel, which gave me the idea to do top ten lists about each subject. While I was scrolling through my own lists, and website after website, to come up with titles to include, I also kept stumbling upon dystopian movies, so I decided to do another top ten list for those – bring the total to three this week. But I start with the aliens movies. There have been countless over the years, so when I made up this top ten list, I tried to get a wide swath representative of the different types of stories that have been told using aliens – I also decided against putting two films from the same series on the same list (hence why Aliens is not included – Alien is much better). Finally I also decided that if a film could conceivably fit onto two different lists, I would only put it on one. So, with all that being said, let’s get to the alien list.

10. Signs (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)
Yes, in the past few years it has become increasingly easy (and rather fun too!) to pick on Shyamalan for his increasingly absurd films. But Signs remains a classic in the genre of alien invasion movies. This is not a movie full of action sequences, and military interventions and everything else that normally mark a movie of this sort. Instead, it is a simple film of one family in spiritual and emotional crisis, who are brought together when aliens invade the earth. The film hardly ever leaves the family farm – the aliens themselves are glimpsed only in fuzzy TV images, or in the quick shot of hands coming to get them. Shyamalan masterfully builds the suspense to an almost unbearable level. Yes, we can mock Shyamalan for his over seriousness, and who hasn’t used “Swing away Billy” as a punch line every now and then. But the bottom line is that Signs is still a wonderful movie.

9. District 9 (Neil Bloomkamp, 2009)
Did I put this film on the list because it is so new? I’m not sure, but I do think that District 9 is one of the few films in this genre this decade that is a true original. The movie takes place in South Africa, two decades after a huge spaceship came to a stop above the country. The aliens inside have spent the past 20 years being treated like crap, shoved into ghettos, where crime runs rampant, and taken advantage of by everyone around them. Bloomkamp’s film is a brilliant allegory for Apartheid, that he plays perfectly in the films first two acts, centered on a wonderful performance by newcomer Sharlto Copley. The final act is a giant shootout between Copley, who has started to turn into an alien, his alien partner Thomas Johnson (who is brilliantly conceived by the way) and the army trying to continue the repression. District 9 is a new classic in the genre.

8. Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)
I’ll admit that it took me an almost embarrassingly long time to see the genius in Verhoeven’s war of the worlds classic. In 1997, when I saw it, I assumed that coming on the heels of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, it was yet another of Verhoeven’s films obsessed with sex and violence, that was all style and short of substance. Sure, I enjoyed watching the troopers shoot down one huge alien insect after another, and the co-ed shower scene was fun, but I assumed that this was just another mindless exercise in style over substance. Watching the film again a few years ago, I started to pick up on what Verhoeven was really going for. He draws parallels between the bugs and the humans – both mindlessly destroy everything in their path without thinking of the consequences. The brilliant satire on propaganda films, also seemed hollow at the time, now seems pretty much dead on. I still think that Starship Troopers would have been better had Verhoeven cast better actors (with the exception of Neil Patrick Harris, who is brilliant as the minister of propaganda) instead of mindless, pretty people – but then again, maybe that was Verhoeven’s point. Starship Troopers is one of the few films that I have no trouble admitting I was wrong about at the time. This really is a brilliant film.

7. War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
I know that Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is not one of his most popular films, but it should be. Other than the cheesy ending (which really is indefensible), War of the Worlds is a great film throughout. Like Signs, instead of concentrating on the massive fight back by the army against the invading aliens, Spielberg focuses his film on one trouble family, which really has already broken apart at the seems following the divorce of the parents. As Tom Cruise (in a great performance that was overshadowed by his nutty performance on Oprah’s couch) tries to get his two kids to their mother in Boston, Spielberg uses the opportunity to show America in crisis. Echoes of 9/11 run throughout the film – the constant swirling paper, massive panic in the streets, and uncharacteristically of Spielberg, he shows the dark side. This is not a people who pull together when times get tough, but rather seem to be ready to rip out each other’s throats. The film is a technical marvel, with one wonderful sequence coming after another (none better than the brilliantly choreographed sequence in Tim Robbins’ basement). Yes Spielberg chickened out in the ending – not giving the film the dark conclusion it needed – but everything up until is masterful.

6. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)
Forget last year’s terrible remake. The 1951 original film is infinitely superior in almost every way. Klaatu arrives on earth, and says he has a message for everyone, and is informed that the world leaders would never be able to agree on a meeting place, or anything else. When he is attacked by nervous soldiers, his robot protector Gort steps in and disintegrates all the weapons in the area, without hurting the people. Klaatu spends a few days among normal people after escaping, seeing both the good and bad that humanity has to offer. When he is brought to Arlington National Cemetery, he is dismayed by how many dead soldiers there are that have all been killed in wars. His message for humanity is simple – if they want to destroy each others, than he and others like him (not to mention Gort) will not stop them. But if they pose a threat to other planets, then they will be destroyed. “The Decision rests with you” is his final words before boarding his spaceship bound for home. Coming at the height of the cold war, and the arms race, The Day the Earth Stood Still was a film that used its science fiction premise to address a serious issue. One that over 50 years later, still really needs to be addressed.

5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegal, 1956)
I could have put the 1978 version, or even the 1994 version, of this same story on the list, but the original remains, in my mind anyway, the best of the lot. A classic cold war science fiction film, where the residents of a small town slowly start to change. At first, people think things are just a little strange, but then it seems like everyone in town is not quite right. Kevin McCarthy gives a brilliant, paranoid performance as the last man in town that can see what is going on, but is powerless to stop it. Pods keep showing up in town, and once you fall asleep, you are replaced by a pod person. This is B-level filmmaking at its best, and director Don Siegal does it brilliantly. Much like many of the lower budget films of the 1950s, this is a film that addressed issues – paranoia, the cold war, McCarthyism – in a time when mainstream Hollywood films rarely did. Absolutely great.

4. The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a completely different, completely original type of alien story. In one of the best, most appropriate casting of a rock star of all time, David Bowie plays Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who looks like a human who comes to earth to try and find a way to save his dying planet, who is in desperate need to water. He uses his wealth of experience and technical knowledge to become a wealthy man with his patented inventions, and through his relationship with Mary-Lou discovers the joys of being human – mainly sex. But he also becomes an alcoholic and TV junkie, ruining his relationship with Mary-Lou. When the government finds out his in an alien, he is locked in a luxury apartment for years, and forced to undergo test after test. When he finally does get out, he has to deal with the fact that his few friends have aged, and he has failed miserably at saving his home planet. Like the best films in this genre, director Nicolas Roeg (who never did anything like anyone else), uses the genre not just to show off special effects, but to expose a weakness or truth about humanity. Are we really all that different from Thomas Jerome Newton?

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a movie unlike most of the others on this list, in that the aliens in this movie are not looking to enslave, destroy or exploit mankind or earth, but simply to interact with it. The aliens show up, and after a close encounter, Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with them, seeing strange things, propelled to build giant mountains out of his mashed potatoes. Others have similar experiences, and eventually everyone converges by a mountaintop in Wyoming, where the mother ship is going to land. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is about that awe that wonder, that fascination we have with UFOs and aliens, and their inexplicable draw they have on us. That the aliens do not want to kill or harm us is somewhat different for a science fiction film. I have always been somewhat dismayed, yet moved, by the ending of the film. Yes, it is magical, when the alien uses sign language to communicate back to the earthlings, before flying off into space. But would Dreyfuss really leave his wife and three kids behind to go on some sort of journey? I’m not sure, but I do think that Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of Spielberg’s best films. (Note: About the poster I have included in the movie. Yes, it is for this movie – the credits indicate that. No, I have no idea who came up with the poster or what it really has to do with the movie – I have a suspicion that it is the Polish poster, since they always come up with some pretty fucked up posters. I included it, because, well, it does look kind of cool, right? And when else am I ever going to have a chance to include that poster on my blog?)

2. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Alien is one of the best horror films of all time, and also the best hostile alien movie ever made. It is Ridley Scott’s masterpiece of low budget moviemaking at its finest. I know some people prefer James Cameron’s more action oriented sequels Aliens (and, it is another great film), but it cannot come close to matching this one. A crew on their return journey to earth is alerted to a beacon on a nearby planet, and stop to investigate. There they find a bunch of alien eggs, one of which burst opens and attached itself to the face of a crew member. But back on the ship, everything appears to be fine, until the alien bursts from the crew man’s chest, and takes off. The alien grows at remarkable speed, and slowly picks off the crew members one by one, until only Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, the best female action character in cinema history) is left. Scott keeps the alien in the shadows for much of the film, so we never quite get a good look at it. It also seems to keep evolving. Call me a pervert if you want, but when the alien bursts out of John Hurt’s chest, it has always struck me a very phallic looking alien, and it’s dripping mouth has a definite vaginal appearance to it (I am not sure what Scott is saying about sexuality in this film, but it cannot possibly be good). But Alien is all the scarier for leaving things in the dark. Ridley Scott described this movie as being The Texas Chainsaw Massacre of horror – his film is even scarier that that classic.

1. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
Call me a sap, or a crybaby if you want to, but I cannot help crying every time I see Spielberg’s masterpiece E.T (I’m misting up right now just thinking about it). Spielberg’s movie is one of the magical, most innocent kids movies of all time. Poor Elliot, feels all alone in the world after his parent’s divorce, but his encounter with E.T. gives him something to believe in and hold onto. As he becomes closer to ET, he grows to love him, and the frantic chase at the end the film, E.T.’s apparent death, and then his revival and final goodbye are among the best scenes that Spielberg ever filmed. Yes, E.T. tugs shamelessly at your heartstrings throughout the film. But when a film is this good it hardly matters. All of the films on this list are great, but even the best of them cannot compare to this one. Pure cinema magic.