Reviews

Score one for "shaky" cam

Picture this: You are in a darkened movie theatre, surrounded by the usual suspects. There behind you, in his usual place, is the idiot kicking your chair. The giggling teens are down in front, just where they should be. And the couple next to you is noisily plundering their giant barrel of popcorn with metronomic efficiency. But it doesn't matter. Because soon, safe in the hands of a reasonably competent filmmaker, you expect to be magically transported to a beautiful, surreal world in which an interesting story unfolds. But suddenly, instead, something pops on the screen, which has the look and feel of your uncle Bob's vacation video. I mean, it's all there: the shaky image, the lens's flares, the jagged transitions.

Well, welcome to the new age of cinema. Because now, thanks to the Blair Witch Project, the bar has been sufficiently lowered so that virtually ANYONE can make a movie. In fact, as long as one is willing to disregard certain cinematic standards - or, standards in general - all one needs is a camcorder and, well, not much else. Because here's the deal: that crappy video is supposed to make us think this is real. Get it?

So class, what do we learn from this latest attempt at cinema verite?

Well, the first thing is you obviously don't need special effects to fill the seats The second thing TBWP proves is that you don't need actors either. Just three typical twenty-somethings will suffice, who look, act and talk - by and large - pretty stupid.

In fairness though, that's also one of the good points of this goofy tribute to bad video (a fair amount of the time, the screen is actually blank.): the dialogue and behavior of these three young people is authentic and believable. And so is the group's gradual descent into a kind of Lord Of The Flies morale-crisis - especially when the trio of 2 young men and their ballsy female leader begins to realize they are lost.

Despite being occasionally effective however, you'll find the story itself to be barebones. Basically, here's the setup: these three aforementioned yokels go into the woods to do a documentary on the Blair Witch, a subject of some fairly scary local folklore. By the middle of the film, it appears as if they really do find something dangerous. In fact, aided by intentionally inferior production values, the film generates a creepy frisson throughout so that finally every tree in the forest looks suspicious.

But trust me, the scariest thing about this rip off is how boring it is. Indeed, as we are drawn toward the inevitable cop-out ending, all I eventually wanted was to see these 3 lamebrains get killed - hopefully in the most horrible and disgusting manner possible. That's how annoying they - and this movie - become.

Actually, I lied about the scariest thing in TBWP. The ultimately frightening horror of this movie is the way major reviewers are fawning over it, comparing it to Psycho and other classics.

But I digress. You really should still see this baby - hopefully in a theatre That way if anyone asks you if the Blair Witch actually 'gets' anyone, you can show them your ticket stub and say, "Yup. She got me - for $5.00."

As for the producers of the inevitable rip-offs which will follow, 3 words of advice: DIGITAL IMAGE STABILIZATION.

Movies given to excesses of almost any kind can be forgiven, provided they adopt an ideological position - even an unpopular one. Unfortunately, movies can also simply be given to excess. That is more or less the case with American History X, a bloated, gratuitously violent film about home-grown racial bigotry.

Derrick Vineyard (Edward Norton) starts out as a shy, bookish boy whose father peppers his dinner-time conversation with mild racial epithets. Dad's ignorant extemporizations, along with the circumstances of his death, are supposed to help explain Vineyard's transformation from a Wally Cleaver-like character to Ward and June's worst nightmare - the leader and eloquent spokesman of a group of Venice Beach skinheads. But what about the Beaver?

Derrick's younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) plays the innocent foil, a vulnerable, ideologically labile teenager whose idolatrous admiration for his older sibling is painful to watch. After Derrick commits an especially heinous crime and is sent to the gray-bar hotel for 3 years, Danny is left on his own. Predictably, he becomes a skinhead himself and falls under noxious influences - Cameron (Stacy Keach at his unctuous best) - while older brother Derrick becomes the bride of at least 1 inmate (watch for a particularly harrowing "bridal shower scene."). Danny's champion during this sojourn is the school principal (Avery Brooks), who still believes the kid is salvageable.

This is non-linear, trendy filmmaking at its best, rendered with flashbacks, black and white sequences and slow-motion cinematography. Interestingly, the real-time action takes place over roughly a 24-hour period, during which time a born-again Derrick (released from prison and transformed back into a good guy) must deprogram younger brother Danny before its too late. Meanwhile, Danny has to complete an essay assignment given to him by the principle, which the latter hopes will provide an epiphany for the boy and make him see that racism is a bad thing. Duh.

Interspersed with all of this are many admittedly powerful, gut-wrenching scenes, highlighted by Norton's inspired performance, Furlong's believable naiveté and Keach's subliminally homoerotic portrayal of an aging neo-Nazi messiah. Elliot Gould also appears in flashback and does a nice turn as a prissy ideologue who further fuels Derrick's hatred (though hardly accounts for it).

You'll also arrive at the ending before the film does -- because it is essentially given away at the beginning -- but you won't be bored. Nor, for that matter, will you be very inspired. You will simply remember some of the scenes. Perhaps we all should.

This much we all know about Stephen King: first is the fact that he turns out 900-page books every 2 or 3 days. The second is that some are made into movies - which, by and large, haven't all been that well received. Apt Pupil, on the other hand, falls into a different category. Based on one of King's novellas, this little story translates quite well onto the big screen - helped out by fine acting and inspired direction.

Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) is a bright youth with a kinky mind who begins to suspect that a particularly heinous kind of evil resides in his white-bread suburban neighborhood. It turns out that one of the community's senior citizens, Kurt Dussander, is actually a Nazi war criminal. Instead of telling the authorities however, the boy decides to blackmail the old guy and, with Nuremberg-like zeal, he collects enough historic and forensic data to convince Dussander he knows his true identity. Then, perhaps motivated by an evil that lurks in his own heart, the kid proceeds to pump the ancient monster for detailed accounts of his atrocities.

The disturbing relationship between old man and boy is compelling enough by itself to sustain our interest. But as the two begin to engage in a psychological dance of wills, we start to grasp that the stakes in this mind game may be higher than we first supposed. When the balance of power between the two begins to shift, Todd realizes that the price of the knowledge he seeks may be his very soul.

Part of the film's chill is generated by director Bryan Singer's knack for showcasing a King trademark - the frightening juxtaposition of true evil with the seemingly prosaic quality of everyday life. With the additional support of a well-crafted screenplay, Singer maintains a surprising amount of tension throughout, with adept manipulation of scenes revealing the story's twists and turns. Credit for this also goes to the actors - McKellan's goose-stepping scene develops an especially goose-bumpy frisson, showing us the unspeakable evil lying behind his character's watery old eyes. And Renfro is both photogenic and effective as a disturbed adolescent with more brains then conscience.

If there is a problem with Apt Pupil, it is that the film is mildly in love with itself - becoming especially drawn out near the end. Some might also find the ending a bit anticlimactic.

Overall though, you won't be disappointed - and might even develop a tendency to gaze a bit longer than usual at the next old man you see on a bus.

OK class, let's review: successful screenplays usually have at least three things in common – a beginning, middle and end. Within this basic framework, we are supposed to be introduced to the main character, observe his or her conflict and, hopefully, learn how he or she resolves it. Unfortunately, Hurricane Streets starts out at the end, has too many characters and fails to resolve much of anything.

Written and directed by newcomer Morgan J. Freeman (not the famous actor), this film traces the descent of an inner-city youth gang into increasingly serious crime. We first meet this group of 5 disenfranchised adolescent boys in their headquarters -- a glorified sewer hole -- where they regularly reconnoiter to inventory their stolen merchandise and plan their next heist. Up till now, the group's leader, a boy named Marcus (Brendan Sexton III), has been wisely steering them away from high profile crime. Then one of the boys suggests they go after some real money. This perfectly acceptable plot could have been the basis for a decent, if not cliché story.

The problem is, there is no real story. Instead, the film loiters too much around its central character, Marcus. We eavesdrop on Marcus' relationship with his parentally-abused girl friend, monitor his visits with his incarcerated mother and wonder why this angry, fatherless kid hasn't completely gone off on someone. Meanwhile, the gang keeps on swearing and posturing its way through a number of theft and sewer-hole sequences until an unexpected tragedy occurs. This "stagy" event is strictly deus ex machina (theater talk for introducing an obvious, last-minute plot device), but it does have a devastating effect on the gang. Unfortunately, by this point we are basically too numb to care.

Director Freeman does know kids however, and has a good ear for dialogue. And, despite a somewhat unstructured, unresolved story, manages to elicit some poignant moments from his young actors whose performances, overall, are quite good. If nothing else, we see how painfully vulnerable these kids are -- despite their bluff facades. Given a more disciplined screenplay, we might even have cared.

One of the requirements for making a realistic movie is that it take both its story and audience seriously. Thicker Than Blood does at least that much, as it explores the relationship between an at-risk boy and the teacher who tries to rescue him from his hellish family.

In this ninety-minute 1998 TNT Originals movie, we meet an idealistic young man named Griffin Byrne (Dan Futterman) who puts off law school to teach at a New York City Catholic Boy's School. There is a problem, though: his Ivy League education is useless here so, for inspiration, he quotes lines from movies like Stand And Deliver. As expected, his unorthodox teaching methods are frowned upon by the school's Headmaster, Father Larkin (Mickey Rourke). But Griffin gets in more trouble when he begins taking a personal interest in one of his students, an artistic young truant named Lee Cortez (Carlo Alban). Boasting to the headmaster that he can get the youth to school every day, Griffin soon makes startling discoveries about his newly-found cause.

For starters, Lee lives in a violent, inner-city tenement with a family that is perilously close to self destruction. Worse, to survive his chaotic home life, the boy has withdrawn into a kind of fantasy world -- a world he creates with magnificent drawings. Griffin knows Lee's sketches are portfolio-quality and could no doubt gain the youth admission to art school. The problem is, he also sees them as a cry for help. Not knowing exactly what to do, he reaches out to his student, only to become entangled in a nightmarish family abuse cycle which undermines his efforts at every turn.

From this point forward, the movie portrays the tenuous bond that grows between student and teacher despite ever-mounting obstacles. For the most part, this is done well and provides some of the film's best moments. It also helps compensate for the occasionally far-fetched story line and for the film's overall tendency to build suspense at the expense of subtlety (halfway through, we're fairly certain of its outcome).

But Thicker Than Blood is still worth watching. For one thing, the film does not patronize us with feel-good answers to the serious questions it poses. Another plus is that the performances are better than average, with Carlo Alban, in particular, emerging as a gifted young actor. He is flawless in the pivotal role of Lee Cortez, a youth who makes us believe that kids really do have noble impulses – and can't always be rescued from them.