50/50 Review #27: Trainspotting.

I have a kinda funny background with this movie. When I was in my early teens or so, I had somehow heard of this movie--don't remember when or how, but I did. But I had somehow also mixed up what it was actually about with another movie. And I tried to find a copy of it. Back in those days we had these things called "Hollywood Video" and "Blockbuster" where you could go inside a shop and rent VHS tapes. Crazy concepts, I know. But nobody had copies of it... which was probably in my best interest, retrospectively. Now Dylan, who suggested this, told me that he figures, at best, I'll respect it--but he'll be damn surprised if I actually love it. Let's see if he's right, shall we?

The film follows Renton (Ewan McGregor), a heroin junkie who is trying to clean up. But he's finding quite a bit of difficult seeing that, you know, it's addictive and whatnot. But also his friends--including Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle)--are really holding him back. The film also marks the screen debut of Kelly Macdonald, who holds one of the most interesting characters in the film... which I'll get to shortly.

So did I love it? The first 30 minutes, yes. The rest... no, but I still really liked it. It really comes down to balancing style and substance and trying to find a good balance while not abusing either (if you didn't catch it, I just made a substance abuse joke in a review of a drug movie... you can applaude me now). This marks my fifth Danny Boyle film, and I can say it's definitely a Boyle film in all positives and negatives that you can take that.

Let's start with the negatives. Danny Boyle tends to have narratively imbalanced films. This is even true of one of my all-time favorite films, 28 Days Later..., which completely shifts gears in its third act, but still works. Sunshine also has a third act shift, which doesn't really work much at all. This isn't quite a third act shift here, but rather a continual shift throughout. The first 30 minutes is a great dark comedy. And then the scene where Allison goes around screaming happens, and we have our first shift. It goes from dark comedy to just dark. Then from this extreme drama it turns horrific with the withdrawal scene and that freakin' baby on the ceiling. Then it's a mix of dark comedy and upsetting drama again, this time focusing more on crime. And I think a lot of this might have worked a little better had there been more of an actual story. There was definitely a plot, but no real cohesive story. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the fact that the film is based on a novel made up of short stories, and that's what the film comes off exactly like: a collection of short stories vaguely connected together on film, all with different tones and intentions.

This is most clear in the character of Diane, played magnificently by Kelly Macdonald. The first time Renton gets off drugs, he goes to a club with his friends with the idea of hooking up. This is where he meets Diane. But after having sex with her and sleeping over, he discovers in the morning that she's actually a 14-year-old schoolgirl, and he just had illegal relations with a minor. He tries to leave, by Diane blackmails him into seeing her again. And... nothing ever comes from this. We see his guilt in the big withdrawal scene, but she never really comes back into the movie, nor does the blackmail ever come to be any kind of important. And that's really a shame, because that was one of the most interesting story lines to me.

On the upside, Danny Boyle does a lot of things right, particularly in the style departement. First off, this film is gorgeous to look at (despite the grime). The camera angles, the use of red, the toilet scene--oh, the toilet scene. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I don't want to spoil it for you. But it's a purposefully trippy moment filled with head-tilting wonder and some fantastic visuals. Also, every now and then, Boyle decides to make stylistic use of words and subtitles. Again, the beginning of the toilet scene, or just putting subtitles in one of the club scenes. And don't forget the music, which is quite fitting all around.

The best thing is the use of voice over. There's actually very little dialogue in the movie, at least in comparison to most films. The majority of the film is in voice-over narration by Ewan McGregor. And it's written particularly well and delivered even more solidly. It's what really holds the entire thing together, and I do admit that I'm a fan of voice-over narration if it's done well--and by done well, I usually mean it's either witty or meta (like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) or is otherwise amazingly well written in monologue-type format, such as this.

The acting is top notch all around. I barely recognized Robert Carlyle, who was just insane in this role. I think it was the mustache. But just as a random note, there are three future-Potter actors in this: Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle in HP2 and HP4), Peter Mullen (Yaxley in HP7.1), and, of course, Kelly Macdonald (Grey Lady/Helena Ravenclaw in HP7.2). That's about all I had for that. I just like pointing Harry Potter-related things out, especially since I can find nothing bad or otherwise interesting to say about the acting in this film outside of how spot on it was.

In the end, I do quite respect what this movie is and/or does. But at the same time, while I might not have absolutely loved the entire thing, I still really liked it. I mentioned earlier how Boyle tends to have uneven narratives, but I want to clarify that's not always to a detriment. It's just that this was very clearly a set of short stories attempting to be linked together into one complete story. And to me, it struggled to find cohesiveness. It was still pretty dang interesting, though, and the style of it is definitely what won me over. And I'm still glad I didn't see this when I was barely pubescent, as I can almost assure you I wouldn't have liked it--not to mention potential scarring (that damn baby...). But my taste is a bit better now... clearly.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

127 HOURS.

So... it finally came here. Now I'm reviewing it. Yup. For those of you who live under a rock (buh dum, psh), this is the true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), an amateur adventurer who falls into a crevice and gets his hand caught between a rock and a hard place (What? It's the name of the memoir...). He's stuck for 5 days before he finally decides to... well, you know.

I am a fan of Danny Boyle. 28 Days Later... is one of my favorite (not-zombie) films. Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire are both great, too. Boyle has a very stylish visual... style... and you can really see his vision at work yet again. The editing is sharp, and the angles he takes with the camera are really fascinating.

Of course, at the heart of the film is James Franco's performance. Sure, there are others in the movie, notably two other amateur adventurers played by Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn. But Franco is the one that sells it. It's all resting in his hands... (OK, OK, I'll stop). His performance starts out relatively average, but by the end, you can really see how Aron is snapping from lack of food and water (not to mention his situation)... and I can definitely tell how, for the awards season, Franco made the cut (sorry).

If I saw anything negative about it, it was the fact that there were just some truly strange moments. Certain flashbacks and/or hallucinations are thrown in, and it makes moments feel either choppy or surreal--sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. But honestly, when has a Danny Boyle film ever not had something strange and experimental? Some people have complained that the film was too slow and boring. There were some moments soon after he first gets stuck, I suppose. But the pace picks up pretty fast, and you're just left wondering what's gonna happen (regardless of knowing how it ends). And yes, I almost got a little emotional at the end.

Overall, it was a fascinating movie. I don't have a terrible lot to say about it, though. The actual scene is pretty intense and visceral, and it doesn't shy away from showing you anything. Between breaking the bone or cutting the nerves and whatnot, it's gut-wrenching. Strangely, I didn't hear anyone hit the floor cold during this scene, but a woman did gag when he had to start drinking his own urine. So yeah, it's not one to miss. I think what got me at the end was that, truly, this actually happened. The gravity of the situation just hit me full force at the very end, and no "true story" movie has ever done that before. It's really good.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

I’ve been waiting longer than you know to see this movie. And now I finally have. And my verdict? I’ll get to that. Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire is a basic love story/pseudo-fairy tale told in a very entertaining and creative way. Jamal (Ayush Khedekar, Tanay Chheda, Dev Patel) and his brother Salim (Azharuddin Ismail, Ashutosh Gajiwala, Madhur Mittal) live in the slums of Mumbai. But after an attack on the city, they become orphans to survive on their own. They then meet Latika (Rubiana Ali, Tanvi Lonkar, Freida Pinto) who he comes to fall for, even as a young child. They go through many hardships together, sometimes even becoming separated for long periods of time. All of this eventually culminates in Jamal becoming a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? But something has to be wrong, because this boy from the slums is answering all these questions correctly when even doctors and lawyers couldn’t get as far as he had. So, one question at a time, Jamal must explain himself to the authorities how he knew each and every answer, all of which is shown in a series of flashbacks.

So what did I think of the film? Well, I saw two of my old professors there and we talked briefly afterward. I asked them what they thought, and they said it all in one word: brilliant. Everything about this film was brilliant. Let’s look at it one bit at a time, though. First we have the story. It was always the story that attracted me to the film, even before it started to get all its praise. And it turned out even more than I expected. The juxtaposition of stories between Jamal and Salim and how each turned out (one rising from the slums in the quintessential rags-to-riches story, and the other sinking down into its depths, stuck in its gnawing teeth and dastardly ways) was very unexpected. And the symbolism at the end there (to try and keep this vague and non-spoilery… themes of love and unwanted money) all converged tightly in the apex of the film. And while the final question was rather obvious (but still got a nice “OH!” reaction from the audience), you still had no idea if he was going to answer it correctly (because it was never about winning in that sense).

On the more technical side of things, I loved the frenetic camera work (which was more at the beginning and the end). And it mixed in nicely with the music. And on the subject of the music, I absolutely adored the soundtrack. This was probably one of my favorite soundtracks (at least of a non-musical) of this past year. The music fit so perfectly with every scene, always adding energy or dramatics.

As for the acting, well, it was great all around. I think the move to use real slum kids from Mumbai was (again) brilliant. For just being random kids off the street, they sure did a fantastic job with their parts, especially the youngest versions of Jamal and Salim. For the adult roles, of course Dev Patel shines through as the deeply longing and sometimes snarky Jamal. And Freida Pinto is incredibly hot. And she looks so much like Dilshad Vadsaria (who plays Rebecca Logan on the TV show “Greek”), who is also hot.

It’s really hard to review films you love in almost every way, because you get to that place where you don’t want to gush too much and it’s hard to find anything negative. If I did have anything negative at all to say, it would be that at times, some of the English was hard to understand because of the thick accents. But that only happened so few times (most of it toward the beginning of the film, which worried me at first, but that quickly went away). I do disagree with those people who say the movie is too straightforward with not many deeper levels. I found plenty of deeper levels, metaphors, etc. all throughout the film; you just have to know where to look. So my love of the film just continually built more and more until by the end of the movie, I had the exactly feelings within me that I had hoped to have in watching this movie: I had just watched something great, and I felt really good about that.

Royale With Cheese

BOO-EFFIN-YA!

A couple days ago I posted this, linking to an article wherein Simon Pegg discusses zombies. Today, I read an article about none other than Danny Boyle himself, director of the amazing 28 Days Later..., who was asked about a possible third film in the series. This led to a brief mention in the article that I would like to showcase:

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What else? Not to go all Columbo on you here at the end, but Boyle, well, he does have just one more thing he wants from you: for the love of all that is holy, stop calling his infected monsters zombies.

“There was an article in the paper the other day by Simon Pegg. He wrote this article begging people to let zombies stumble again and not run. He was trying to turn the tide back because everyone has zombies running now. He’s like, ‘No, please. Can we go back to the old days when you knew you could get away from them?’ That was sort of the thrill. These idiots didn’t lock themselves in car and died,” Boyle laughed. “That’s why I keep saying, ‘It’s not a zombie movie, everyone. It’s not a zombie movie!’ Because the aficionados - it’s sacrilegious what you’re doing by changing things like that. They’re infected. They’re not zombies.”

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So to that, I say BOOYA, BITCHES.

Thoughts On The 28 _____ Later Movies.

I thought I should do a thoughts on on two of my favorite horror movies: 28 Days Later… and 28 Weeks Later. Unlike the previous thoughts on segments, however, this one will be both a discussion and a set of reviews (including scores). So why not just do a 2 In 1 you ask? Because there’s more I want to talk about than just the acting or cinematography or whatnot. Plus, it’ll be easier to focus on both movies simultaneously.

So first and foremost, I need to bring up the most discussed topic on these two movies: What, exactly, are The Infected? Well, they’re not zombies. I repeat:

They are not zombies.

I love zombies. I’m a zombie fanatic. I’ve studied them left and right, from the voodoo variety to the heights of George Romero and the lows of Uwe Boll. So I can safely say that to be a zombie, you must have the following three primary characteristics:

1) You must be dead.

This is key to being a cinematic zombie. You have to be a reanimated corpse, whether slow or fast for whatever reason.

2) You must eat human flesh.

This is second most important, and most obvious, trait of being a zombie. Zombies eat people. That’s why they’re so fearsome. They don’t just go for brains (as the awful Return of the Living Dead movies portray), but any bodily flesh.

3) You can only be killed via brain damage (such as a gunshot) or decapitation.

Shoot them in the knees, they’ll get back up and continue stumbling for you. Cut them in half, they’ll pull themselves with their guts dragging behind them. Set them on fire, they’ll keep on after you (at least until the fire damages the brain). No matter what, the only things to keep a zombie down is damaging the brain or severing it from the spinal column.

So, taking all of these three key characteristics into mind, let us look at The Infected:

1) They are not dead. They’re living people (albeit very angry living people).

2) They do not eat human flesh. In fact, they don’t eat period (they end up starving to death by the end).

3) They can be killed just like any other human being can be killed (as portrayed quite a few times in both movies).

The Infected follow none of the key traits of a zombie. Therefore, they’re not zombies. They’re highly enraged humans who have lost all other thoughts except for the primal urge to destroy. And that’s what they do. They use what they have (teeth, fingernails, etc.) to attack a person until they either die or become infected themselves.

So now that all of that is out of the way, we can get to my thoughts on the actual movies. I think both movies are extraordinary in what they do, and they both do different things. Days is the more philosophical one with strong characters and strong character growth. You really feel for the main group and their plight and journeys. And you feel awful when things happen to them. Weeks, on the other hand, focuses more on the heart-pounding, nonstop suspense and the family unit. But that’s not to say you don’t feel for the characters of the sequel. You do; just not in the same way. Days had a slow pacing with the suspense spread out, allowing you to really get some calm, character-knowing moments. Weeks, however, was almost non-stop action, so while you might have really liked a character and felt for them (such as Doyle), you really don’t get to feel you really know them, if that makes sense.

The next big thing to notice about each movie is the visual styles of each. Days has more of a grainy, hand-held, realistic approach, while Weeks is more mainstream high-def camera work. However, where Weeks loses in the grainy picture, it gains in the unique situations that the main characters get put into. When Andy gets stuck in the dark garage full of people, and they start becoming infected, you wonder how on earth he’s going to get out. Or when they go into the subway tunnels and it’s pitch black, so they have to rely on the night-scope and vocal orders to get through safely. Both movies have a unique style for what each does, and both work amazingly well. I would also like to take this moment to mention one of my favorite shots out of both movies, which just so happens to be in Days: When Jim first enters the church (and after passing the ‘the end is fucking nigh’ in blood on the wall), he looks down from the balcony to see a bunch of dead bodies sprawled out right underneath a painting/stained glass window of bodies sprawled out on the ground. It’s just beautiful imagery.

As for acting, Days is far superior. Cillian Murphy knocks it out of the park as Jim, and his character growth is astounding. He begins the movie as a nervous, naïve-to-the-situation, what-the-hell kinda guy. But by the end, he’s a badass, taking charge and wrecking havoc against the military guys. Naomie Harris as Selena probably has the biggest character change, though, going from heartless, tough-as-nails, take-no-shit, I’ll-kill-you-in-a-heartbeat kinda gal, to a caring, loving, compassionate individual (though still pretty tough). Brendan Gleeson as Frank the loving, though worried and protective father was great. You can’t help but feel for him and his dead-set mission on finding the military base so that his daughter can be in safe hands. If there were any downfalls in the acting, it would be Megan Burns as Hannah, Frank’s daughter, who talked really blandly half the time as if she were stoned (though, she is stoned for the entire climax, so that might be alright…).

The best performances for Weeks, on the other hand, were Robert Carlyle as Don (mostly because of his eyes and facial expressions)--at least early on in the movie, anyway--and, of course, Jeremy Renner as Doyle, who is the most likeable character in the movie. And I like him even more, as I saw in a behind-the-scenes that he shares the same opinion with me on the not-zombie issue. As for the kids… well, with real names like Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton, who needs anything more?

It really goes without saying that the winner on the suspense level is Weeks. I’ve said it before, but Weeks has one of the greatest and most suspenseful movie openings ever. And the openings for each movie really show the differences in the two movies. After the monkey sequence, Days has about 10-15 minutes of Jim walking around a beautifully desolate London all alone, slowly realizing that the entire city has seemingly evacuated completely. And then he reaches the church, has the run-in with the priest, and then is chased for about a minute or so before there’s a huge explosion, and that’s it.

Weeks, on the other hand, has a few first slow minutes before there’s a break for quick suspense, then another minute to catch our breath, and then about 5 minutes of non-stop, heart-pounding suspense. And not only that, but there’s so much emotion in that little time frame, especially with Don’s escape.

The two movies were compared in level of greatness with George Romero’s original films. Days was like Night of the Living Dead: classic and amazing. Weeks was like Dawn of the Dead: taking everything great in the first, and making it even better. I used to agree whole- heartedly with that statement, but I really think now that both movies really do two different things in amazing ways that it’s hard to say which is better than the other. The style of Days, uneasy and slow-moving, worked for the story it had to tell. But the style of Weeks, fast-paced and terror-filled, worked for its own story, as well. So in the end, they’re both great, and they’re both two of my favorite horror films. The third one better come soon. But for now, I have to give the two that are currently available both an equal score.

Royale With Cheese

(P.S. I totally forgot to mention this, but the main musical theme in both movies is one of my favorite horror movie themes ever. Purely amazing.)