Grabbers

GRABBERS                C                    

Ireland  Great Britain  (94 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Jon Wright           Official site

A riff on the cheap 50’s B-movie sci-fi flicks like THE BLOB (1958), or the tongue-in-cheek 70’s revisionist ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES! (1978), though compared to that, a $6.5 million dollar budget for a movie like this must seem like a blockbuster budget, as this is a movie, first and foremost, about having low expectations.  If this had been made by a high school student, they would be commended for succeeding in referencing the era of the 50’s, while also making something ridiculously absurd, where the exaggerated Irish stereotypes might be forgiven due to youth and inexperience.  But for two fully grown Irishmen, written by Kevin Lehane from Cork and directed by Belfast born Jon Wright, you’d think they’d have had their fill of Irish stereotypes.  Apparently not, as they’re instead using their familiarity to portray an array of local drunkards, a quirky small town community, a church filled with ardent non-believers, dysfunctional police, and a venerable old drunken fisherman with a tall tale that nobody believes, like spinning a drunken fable into a mythical yarn, and while it’s supposed to be goofy fun, it ends up being tedious and overly repetitive, little more than mindless entertainment for the evening, a far cry from the beauty and depth of say John Sayles’ THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), which really has the fairy tale feel of local Irish legend.  This movie, on the other hand, is all about using stereotypes and cliché’s, reinforcing throughout that the Irish really love their whisky, getting everyone in town stinking drunk, thinking it’s all jolly good fun, continually paying homage to movies from the past, but the sheer thoughtlessness of much of this film is overwhelming.  Even the opening scene where three fishermen at sea witness a flash of light coming from outer space, their response plays out as dumb, dumber, and dumbest, attacked by blood sucking aliens, setting the tone for what follows. 

Set in Erin Island, a sleepy fishing village near the coast of Ireland, the town is so small there are only two policemen, and while the chief is away on a two-week trip, they bring in a temporary cop from Dublin, Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) a by-the-numbers rookie who feels that without any real crime to speak of this should be an easy two-week holiday.  Her local partner is Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle), a wildly alcoholic and buffoonish cop who can barely think or speak straight, falling over himself at every turn, appearing to be little more than an obnoxious lout.  When a local fisherman named Paddy (Lalor Roddy) claims he’s caught a mysterious sea creature in one of his lobster cages, no one bats an eye, as he’s perhaps the most drunken man in town, a guy who brings his own home brew “into” the bars to swig along with the usual fare, but always has a ready smile plastered across his face.  But after a group of dead whales wash onto the beach, and the fishermen are reported missing, the police think maybe they’ll take a look, bringing along a crack scientist, Adam Smith (Russell Tovey).  When the female blood sucker suddenly attaches itself to Paddy’s face, an homage to Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979), it quickly spits it out in disgust, leaving a trail of slime, where the booze-guzzling cop figures out it must be the alcohol in his blood.  As there’s a male lurking out there searching for the female, they figure the only way to save the town from impending disaster is to get the entire town drunk, making them each toxic to the creatures from outer space.  While it may sound brilliant, the technical expertise is lacking in creating a feel of impending doom, where it’s nothing like John Carpenter’s THE FOG (1980).  Adding to the mix, the town is attacked by a barrage of baby aliens, a tribute to Joe Dante’s GREMLINS (1984), where brooms and sticks and stomping feet seem to do the trick with the little critters, while the giant creature is right out of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), where in no time the town is under siege.   

While the entire spectacle has a cheesy mid 80’s feel to it, an era before the arrival of the quality CGI special effects that really took hold in the mid 90’s with Pixar’s TOY STORY (1995), the story actually unfolds through the initially chilly relationship between the two cops, where O’Shea, threatened by her arrival, is so astonishingly drunk that Nolan sticks him in the slammer to sleep it off.  But when they realize what they’re up against, a surreal invasion from outer space, nothing makes more senses to this team of amateurs than to stomp the damn thing to death, giving it a thorough beating, something of a defensive reaction to getting slimed by the creature, where science hasn’t even a clue afterwards if the critter is still dead or alive.  Despite the danger level, humans absurdly continue to put themselves at risk while herding the local church parishioners into the tavern for an open bar, oblivious to the danger lurking outside, where the director sends out baby monsters to contend with while withholding a glimpse of the nasty creature while the entire population proceeds to drink and party  themselves into a state of oblivion.  Meanwhile, the master plan is to get the rookie cop filthy drunk along with everyone else while the actual drunkard cop remains sober, like a designated driver, becoming the eyes and ears for the town, like their gallant night watchman who’s expected to save the town against the monster.  This little twist allows the thoroughly straight-laced Nolan, who’s never been drunk before, a chance to let her hair down, where after plying her with alcohol, in no time she’s confessing all her personal secrets.  This allows the two of them to actually develop some chemistry together, where’s she’s the one now making a goddamned fool of herself while he has to exercise personal restraint not to take advantage of her sudden sexual promiscuity.  Of course the sexually charged moments are a cue for the appearance of the badass monster, where the rest of the film is a showdown between a suddenly responsible and often clueless O’Shea, with a ragingly drunk partner as his back up, while townsfolk are mere foils against the evils deeds manifested by this mammoth blood-sucking creature from outer space.  The drunken carousing gets pretty stale after awhile, yet it’s the predominate image onscreen, where rather than a cleverly crafted horror film, this plays out more like a neverending Irish wake, which the creative team behind the film obviously thought would be hilarious.  While this creature feature is silly fun, it’s also stupid fun, never really rising to anything beyond that.  Unfortunately, audiences are so deadened by what Hollywood throws at them these days, and so starved for ideas, that this is what passes as creative filmmaking.

Strange Days

STRANGE DAYS                   B+                  

USA  (145 mi)  1995  ‘Scope  d:  Kathryn Bigelow 

Look, I want you to know what we're talking about here. This isn't like TV only better. This is life.  It's a piece of somebody's life. Pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex. You're there. You're doing it, seeing it, hearing it... feeling it.                

—Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes)

It’s about the stuff you can’t have, right, the forbidden fruit, hmm?  Like running into a liquor store with a .357 magnum in your hand, feeling the adrenaline pumping through your veins, huh? Or, um, you see that guy over there with the drop dead Philippino girlfriend, wouldn’t you like to be that guy for about twenty minutes, the right twenty minutes?  Yeah, and I can make it happen and you won’t even tarnish your wedding ring. See I can get you what you want, I can, I can get you anything, you just have to talk to me, you have to trust me, you can trust me. Cos I’m your priest, I’m your shrink, I am the main conection to the switchboard to the soul.  I’m the Magic Man, the Santa Claus of the subconscious. You say it, you even think it, you can have it.     

 —Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes)

You love that red, white, and blue, but you hate that black, black, black... But a new day is coming. 2K is coming.  The day of reckoning is upon us.  History is, and begins again, right here, right now.                —Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer)

Look, everybody needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometimes, it’s what we are. Now, the risks are out of line. The streets are a war zone, and sex can kill ya. So, you slip on the trodes, get what you need, almost as good as the real thing, and a lot safer.   —Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes)

Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale.         —Philo Gant (Michael Wincott)

You know one of the ways that movies are still better than playback? Cos the music comes up, there’s credits, and you always know when it’s over. IT’S OVER!!                      

— Faith (Juliette Lewis)

You’re some piece of work, Lenny Nero. You’re just calmly backstrokin’along through the big toilet bowl and somehow you never let it touch you. I mean between working vice and your current so-called occupation you must have seen every kind of perversion. But you’re just like some Teflon man, still come out this goofball romantic.                

—Lornette “Mace” Mason (Angela Bassett)

Like Billy Wilder’s always popular The Apartment (1960), this is a terrific New Year’s eve movie.  Set in the year 1999, STRANGE DAYS is a wild look into the near future, a cyberpunk science fiction film, a picture of the world going out of control as we approach the New Year’s Millennium of 2000, told with a kind of apocalyptic over-kill, where already the streets of Los Angeles have been reduced to rubble, a veritable police state where citizens are openly beaten on the street by police in riot gear.  Written by former husband James Cameron and Jay Cocks, Bigelow’s approach is an over-the-top variation on the futuristic Blade Runner (1982), a picture of extravagance and largesse, oversaturated with kinetic energy, throbbing with a street life of filth, chaos and decay, showing a paranoid society on the verge of ruin, where law and order is all but absent, and the rules of society have been replaced by a rampant corruption.  Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, sort of a Harrison Ford gone to seed, as he’s a picture of sweat and grime most of the time, as if in need of detox, but his drug of choice is called playback, a video electronic device that records directly from the cerebral cortex, maximizing the potency of the experience when played back for the viewer, creating a virtual reality which, by its extreme intensity, overshadows reality.  Initially designed as a police surveillance tool, it has instead surged out of control in the rapidly developing underground black market, mostly targeting porno videos.  Lenny is a former vice cop who now makes his living selling these bootleg discs, where his expertise as a fast talking salesman are uncanny, but the world he thrives in is one of sleaze and smut, “I’m the magic man, the Santa Claus of the subconscious.”  His best friend is Max (Tom Sizemore), a private eye who roams in the subterranean realm, something of a moral cesspool, a guy with police connections everywhere but also seems to represent the scum of the earth.  Nonetheless, he’s the kind of guy that has Lenny’s back. 

While talking in a bar, a call girl friend of theirs named Iris (Brigitte Bako) arrives in a hysterical panic, afraid she is being pursued, but disappears in fright just as quickly, warning Lenny that his ex-girlfriend and still secret crush Faith (Juliette Lewis) is also in mortal danger.  Iris makes a panicked getaway on the subway, pursued by two equally manic cops, Vincent D’Onofrio and William Fichtner, who show no regard for shooting directly into the line of fire of the public.  When they attempt to grab her, all they get is her wig, which includes a playback headset, suggesting it was all being recorded.  Lenny, meanwhile, feels compelled to visit Faith, who has flat-out dropped him, refusing to return any of his phone calls, leaving him more eager to see her.  They are visited in the bar by his other friend, Lornette “Mace” Mason (Angela Bassett), a straight-laced bodyguard that sides as a bulletproof limo driver, protecting high-priced clientele.  She has a long history with Lenny and disapproves of his latest habit, as if he’s making a living distributing drugs and porno, but she’s a loyal friend.  In the bar, they view a socially relevant black rapper on the television, Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer), who uses the Millennium metaphor as the arrival of a coming judgment day, which is added to the mix of others who feel the world is coming to an end.  What’s perhaps most strange in this atmosphere of doom is the way the entire film is one long party sequence, all celebrating the coming New Year, where confetti, house music, and party revelers are seen and heard throughout.  What’s also obvious is Bigelow has a tremendous talent for building suspense, as the tension throughout is off the charts, creating a surreal and intoxicating mood and atmosphere. 

When Lenny hits the upscale nightclub where Faith hangs out, she’s unreachable, surrounded by security and her new boyfriend, Philo Gant (Michael Wincott), a sleazy music industry manager whose clients included Jeriko One, mysteriously murdered overnight, meaning his monetary value has only skyrocketed.  Faith ignores all his pleas to talk before going onstage and rocking the PJ Harvey song “Hardly Wait” Strange Days - Juliette Lewis "Hardly Wait" - YouTube (2:13).  Lenny gets his ass kicked by bodyguards for his efforts, but sneaks back in and meets her backstage, concerned for her safety, only to be told in no uncertain terms that it’s over between them.  What’s most disconcerting is receiving an anonymous disc that shows via playback a snuff recording of Iris’s death, which only sends Lenny into more of a panic, as some deranged person is obviously on the loose who enjoys the idea of sharing his demented thrills with Lenny.  STRANGE DAYS is a mixture of a societal panic spreading like a contagious disease, filled with incidents of racial turmoil and police brutality, a secret police death squad, a serial killer on the loose, and Lenny’s attempts, mostly through the aid of Mace, to figure it all out and bring some sense of rational order to the surrounding chaos spinning out of control.  Bassett was never in better shape in a movie, wearing a variety of form-fitting outfits while also kicking plenty of butt while aiding Lenny’s dangerous investigatory pursuits, as they meet plenty of bad guys along the way.  Lenny is more than a little scuffed up, where Los Angeles is simply covered in a seedy film noir depiction of endless brutality, where life is cheap and the end of the world is near.  Bassett makes a terrific femme fatale, while the usually affluent and upper crust Fiennes seems wearily overmatched through most of the film, yet the fact he’s such an odd choice only adds interest and intrigue to his dilemma.  Trying to survive in this shadowy world when forces are trying to destroy you is a thrill ride adventure, leading to a bizarre finale that fuses playback with reality, where all of the forces come together in a mish mosh of pandemonium and mayhem, all of which leads to the final New Year’s countdown, brought in with a bang.    

Water for Elephants

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS                           C+                  

USA  (122 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Francis Lawrence

An interesting box office combination, pairing the ever appealing Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon with teen idol sensation, Twilight boy Robert Pattinson, both extremely attractive and gorgeous to look at with People magazine important Hollywood faces, where, expectedly, the producers should make a killing.  And placed in between these two, keeping them apart, why not implement another Academy Award winner, that sadistic Nazi from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009), Christoph Waltz playing another sadistically evil man audiences love to hate?  Let’s see, add up the Witherspoon crowd, the Twilight crowd, and the Tarantino crowd - - surely this is a match made in box office heaven.  It very well may be, and it’s pleasantly enjoyable enough, but typical genre material, safe and playing by the book, with little razzle dazzle or excitement except the look of the film which appears terrific in the trailer, but uses the tried and true TITANIC (1997) formula of an old geezer (Hal Holbrook) recalling the entire film in a flashback sequence.  Based on a best selling novel by Sara Gruen, the present recalls the Depression days, where Holbrook, an escapee on the loose from a nearby nursing home misses his connection of meeting his son at the circus, as he’s there in the evening while the performance took place in the afternoon.  That leaves him plenty of time to have a drink with the young circus owner (Paul Schneider) and pour out his memories of the world’s worst circus disaster way back in 1931.  Beautifully photographed by Rodrigo Prieto, especially the sensuous lighting scheme, which makes the intimate scenes in the cramped, lamp lit train cars seem even more delicate while also capturing the spectacular colors under the big top of the circus. 

Pattinson, who will forever be associated with the Twilight series, doesn’t really stake out new territory.  He’d have to be a deliciously evil guy for that to happen, or disfigured or handicapped in some kind of way, where he has an altogether different perception than being just another pretty face, as he is again here.  Overly naïve and always idealistically good, he is the same character simply transplanted into a different story, an aspiring young veterinarian whose final exams are interrupted by the death of his Polish immigrant parents, leaving him to fend for himself, broke, alone, and homeless, as the bank took the house.  Hitching the rails, as so many did during the Depression, he just happens to hop the train of the Great Benzini Brothers traveling circus, where he quickly makes a name for himself as the animal vet.  But what really attracts his eyes is the star of the show, the scantily clad bareback rider, Witherspoon, blond and in curls, wearing backless, form fitting silk dresses, looking sensational.  She’s married, however, to the boss of the show, the ringmaster Christoph Waltz who tyrannically rules with an iron fist, surrounded by guys with muscle who protect his every move.  Immediately seen as a penny pincher and a guy who will do anything for a buck, like kick guys off a moving train if he can’t or is unwilling to pay them, his questionable ethics and ruthless tactics are betrayed by his perfectly charming and civilized manner, where his mood see saws back and forth, becoming uncontrollably jealous and wildly paranoid when he’s had too much to drink.  In other words, he’s the fun character to watch, while the other two are running around behind the scenes trying to ignite sparks that never come. 

But since this is a circus story, the real star of the show is Rosie the elephant, an animal with a soft spot for alcohol, but instantly becomes their sensational new act, the one designed to fill seats and make them rich, even though the initial performance goes haywire and nearly gets the star rider killed.  But not to worry, elephants are smart and notice the difference in mood and temperament in terms of how they’re treated.  Pattinson prefers not poking the poor animal with the hook, while Waltz gores the thing repeatedly until it bleeds.  Pattinson’s good guy routine catches the twinkle in Reese’s eye, as both are animal lovers, and of course, Rosie is delighted by a friendlier handler.  Perhaps the most absurd moment in the movie occurs when Pattinson discovers the animal speaks Polish, as it responds to commands in Polish and suddenly does circus tricks.  Well this certainly saves the audience from having to endure the painfully repetitious acts of learning how to train an animal.  Like magic, the animal saves the show.  Waltz, on the other hand, continues to mistreat the animals, but none more than Reese, his own personal pet, that he likes to train his own way.  If Pattinson objects, there are the muscle guys who will beat him bloody, forcing him to witness her mistreatment in silence.  As he’s about to leave the circus for good, admitting he’s been whipped, there’s a commotion under the big top, where someone has released all the wild cats, where the lions and tigers are charging the audience and causing mayhem, screams everywhere as some people are trampled.  In the middle of it all, of course, true love finds a way, sending the audience home with a Hallmark picture postcard finale, using a system of painting by numbers, supposedly pressing all the right buttons, but ultimately lacking in every respect except how to shoot the animals and the star performers and make them appear superficially glorious.  The movie is easy on the eyes, but by the end, one is reminded of the infamous P.T. Barnum expression:  “There’s a sucker born every minute.”