"Apollo 18" (2011)

Apollo 18 is as conceptually ill-thought out as it is poorly executed. The film is a found footage film about a conspiratorial cover up of a botched, secret NASA lunar space launch. Not only is the found footage genre ill-equipped for advancing such a story, but the found footage concept is awfully handled and utilized at nearly every turn. The film is filled with distortions and impossible filmed moments that only pile onto the questionable nature of a story that is already highly implausible to begin with. When the film isn't being utterly ridiculous, it's being surprisingly boring. For a film with a lurid, crazy premise, Apollo 18 is all sorts of not fun. Unevenly paced, and even more problematically plotted, with characters that have no other discernible character traits besides macho and ruggedly heroic, the screenplay is full of gems on not what to do to tell a story. The simplicity of the characters isn't even effectively used for baiting them as victims of the strange extraterrestrial phenomenon occurring on the moon and that provides the film its horror elements. The horror elements are the film's most interesting moments but they're few and far between, ill-timed and haphazardly executed. Apollo 18 is more of a science fiction premise with an underlying horrific suggestion, but the true horror comes from how the astronauts' superior officers back on Earth respond to these inquiries and troubles, signing their death sentences with bureaucratic and covert self-preservation. It's truly the film's most unsettling moment but the film has already long since given up on any semblance of depth so it hardly matters.

Grade: .5/4 

"Martin" (1977)

Martin is writer-director George A. Romero's modern re-imagination of the vampire story. Romero's first decision to move away from the romanticism and myth is to strip the vampirism down to its most basic components: blood lust and agelessness. What remains is a self-loathing, awkward loner -- potentially literally as Romero leaves it ambiguous as to whether Martin is actually a vampire or if it's all in his head. Troubled teen Martin (John Amplas) says he's 84 years old but his urges are familiar for anyone just on the cusp of adulthood -- his sexual confusion is both pubescent and psychotic. Romero takes the underlying sexuality always inherent to vampires and emphasizes it to its extreme. Martin's desire for blood is highly sexualized, even eroticized. The first scene of the film gives us a good sense of both Martin's tactics and his lust. Martin hasn't entirely accepted drawing blood from people or the cost of human life it entails. He injects his victims with a drug that knocks them unconscious so they don't feel any pain. It's a humane act but everything else about the scene uncomfortably reads as an act of sexual violence. There's a date rape connotation underneath giving the drug -- an idea that gains greater plausibility when you factor in the fact that Martin only pursues female victims. As if the sexual undercurrents weren't already strong enough, Martin outright acknowledges his weird associations of his vampiric acts with his sexual uncertainty and impotence. He has trouble having actual sex and so drawing blood stands in for actual sexual gratification. Romero goes further to establish Martin as a film indebted to vampire lore while also reinterpreting it. Black and white flashbacks to Martin's first vampiric attack re-call older vampire cinema, especially Dracula (a disc-jockey mockingly calls Martin "Count" on a late night horror-fest program), and the juxtaposition with the present shows how distant from those types of narratives Martin is. Romero wants to complicate what the realities of being an immortal being with such desires would be like, as well as to update them to a modern setting, in this case the decaying city of Pittsburgh (As to be expected from Romero, there's some minor social commentary about the 1970's going on here). In a painful scene, Martin botches a job, failing to account for the appearance of other people, and the scene turns into a drawn-out, protracted home invasion where Martin has to violate his own skewed moral code to survive. Romero pulls us back and forth on our sympathies; Martin is well-meaning and naive even as he's violent and sociopathic. But what else would you expect from a guy who's been living as a teen for nearly a century?

Grade: 3.5/4 ★★★

"Meatballs" (1979)

There's an argument to be made that Meatballs is the quintessential camp movie. When you watch it now, it feels like you've seen all this before. Kids stuck at a woodsy, summer sleepaway camp with minimal supervision; it's a familiar premise that flourished in the 1980's and Meatballs was one of the first to do it, and competently under the steadied guidance of writer Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman -- in the first of what would prove to be a series of comedic team ups with star Bill Murray. Much of the plot is lumpy and loose, but Reitman keeps the story humming along so you never have a chance to really pull it apart. It's simple and contrived but it's also fun and charming if not a little too lightweight. These characters feel like archetypes, and, true enough, they never get fleshed out, but they serve their necessary purpose; the nerd; the chubby kid; the hot chick; the jock; the misunderstood kid. There are multiple stories that get played out but most of them are forgettable, entertaining in the moment but not especially memorable. There's a number of romances and courtships that we keep popping in on. A number of pranks are played, largely on the camp director Morty. There's an underdog competition with the pompous upscale Camp Mohawk just on the opposite side of the lake which, of course, ends with a win being rallied for. The best part of the film is Murray, in his first starring role, as goofball counselor Tripper. It's a great meeting of material and performance; Murray's personality and mannerisms are so well-suited for the role that it's hard to imagine anyone else in it. He's clearly improvising dialogue here and it makes for the right dose of anarchy added into the mix of the routine story. Tripper has a really sweet relationship with a camper (Chris Makepeace) who he takes under his wing and helps comes out of his shell. Meatballs has an odd sincerity though. There's a nostalgia for this environment and this time in people's lives, and it gets the summer camp vibe down just about perfectly.

Grade: 2.5/4 ★★

How I Met Your Mother: "The Poker Game"

Well, that was more like it. This wasn't a perfect episode but the B-plot of "The Poker Game" about Ted forgetting a wedding gift for Marshall and Lily was classic How I Met Your Mother. The show has always been good at one particular joke: time jumping, telling a story once before re-telling that story from a different perspective to see the story in a different context. When Ted recounts his side of the story and we revisit events, it felt like the kind of jokes the series was managing at its peak capacity.

The main plot about Barney, his family and Robin was more problematic. If you're still invested in Barney and Robin perhaps this story would be meaningful to you, but otherwise this felt like more of the same we've already seen from them without actually learning anything new or worthwhile. It's not an entirely dead story. In fact, the episode's funniest moment comes due to it when the many poker players pop out from various corners of the hotel room after Barney leaves. That was the goofy side of HIMYM at its finest, turning farcical theatricality into its advantage. Even the reappearance of Frances Conroy as Barney's mother Loretta was a welcome sight and she got in some wicked jokes.

HIMYM has so much history to draw upon at this point and I want it to use what we know about its characters and their lives, and by the same token what we don't know, to make both meaningful commentary, poignant juxtapositions and humorous callbacks and jokes (Note the little wonderful details in the flashbacks such as Lily's changing hairstyles or the appearance of the Slutty Pumpkin in the background. Continuity nerds should be very pleased). HIMYM has that power at its disposal. It has always done the previously stated things since its very beginning and it should be able to do it with even stronger emotional meaning and acuity. That it hasn't recently is one of the show's biggest shortcomings. Here was the an example of that opportunity. It's not even necessarily a matter of time jumping. Having Ranjit, William Zabka and Loretta be present and signifiers of the little world the show has built up over its eight plus seasons is a nice way to really make the weight of the show's history be felt. And HIMYM as a show about history, storytelling and growing up should be making those acknowledgements of its history; and it doesn't all have to be serious as the hilarity of "The Poker Game" demonstrated.

Grade: B+

The Walking Dead: "30 Days Without Accident"

Critic A.A. Dowd recently said, "I get that it's not exactly the best show on TV, but I'm happy THE WALKING DEAD is back." And that pretty much sums up my feelings about the series; I have a strong love-hate relationship that fluctuates constantly, much as the series fluctuates from promising and addicting to muddled and unsatisfying. Still there's something oddly comforting about The Walking Dead that makes me keep returning to it. Part of it is certainly a desire to see new and innovative ways that zombie scares and kills can be doled out but there's also something about this world and this atmosphere that sucks you in time and again.

Initially I found the decision to stay at the prison a poor decision that went against what the third season had been about (much in the same way that keeping the Governor alive felt contradictory to the season's aims), but now it feels like a more appropriate decision. The Walking Dead is a television show and television shows need some level of stasis both more budgetary and narrative reasons. Eventually the show needed to settle into a comfortable rhythm and this appears to be it -- for now at least, as the cliffhanger at episode end suggests. On the other hand, the last time the show went into deadlock focus on one location was season two at the farm and that produced a dreadfully uneven, and far too often boring, stretch of episodes. The prison is a more interesting central location and the show is further along so that hopefully we see less of that.

And yet still not much of anything happens in this premiere. Things are far too cheery for their own good, which of course means things are going to go south quickly soon. But not much is done to advance the story. Little amusing details are thrown at us about what's happened in the interim -- including an adorable kid's story time/knife lesson (Good on you Carole!) -- but really: what's actually happened? Rick meets a woman in the woods who turns out be crazy and kills herself. A run for supplies ends up going, not all that unexpectedly, really badly (which, admittedly, was pretty entertaining). If the show weren't serialized may be it could get away with little weird side stories but think about it: what's the story for this season? The third season had some major problems but it was obvious that the central story was the Governor and Woodbury versus Rick and the prison. And before it was that it was: oh, here's a prison that needs to be made habitable.

Or put it another way. It's sort of nice just to hang out and kick back with this group of people who we've come to know and, in some instances, like. But it's also the essential antithesis of what makes The Walking Dead work and dramatically satisfying. The best stretch of episodes the show had was the first half of season three in which there was a relentlessly paced series of action sequences that were intense and exciting. The Walking Dead is at its best when something, anything happens. The moment it slows down it gets stuck. It gets stuck because this is miserable fucking world. There is nothing to look forward to or be happy for. Even bringing life into this world -- as Glen and Maggie discuss -- is kind of pointless and heartbreaking because you're sentencing new human life to a shitty existence. Any time the show takes a breather is a time where it forces us the viewer to consider we're just watching shitty things happen to people for our own enjoyment. And when it's not something thrilling such as zombie killing, it's just people mourning the loss of civilization, and most, if not all of, their friends and family, and coming to terms with living in a post-apocalyptic world. When you actually stop to consider that's what you're watching, it's kind of depressing and empty.

But, hey, look on the brightside, some nonentity character just turned into a zombie inside the prison. That should make for a fun time, right?

Grade: B+ 

"House of 1000 Corpses" (2003)

House of a 1000 Corpses is almost a challenge of bad taste. There's nothing especially entertaining about it. Even its perverse sense of humor wears its welcome rather early on; the film's black humor is never entirely reconciled with its violent excesses. The plot becomes increasingly convoluted and the story eventually becomes less scary than numbing. And yet I found myself fascinated by the film even as I was sickened by it. Director Rob Zombie has an uncanny ability to create images that are striking even as they're deeply disturbing.

But perhaps no one has stated Rob Zombie's film visions more succinctly than critic Keith Phipps, "Let’s float a notion: Rob Zombie is the greatest horror-movie director never to make a great movie. Zombie has a gift for horrifically beautiful compositions and a feel for atmosphere and character, letting quirks and background details suggest history and depth. He speaks the language of classic horror films, but his taste for the extreme puts him at home in an era in which Saw sequels have become institutions."

And yet Zombie's work is more startling, unsettling and interesting than any Saw sequel or knockoff. Phipps is right. The atmosphere in 1000 Corpses is beautiful in a get-under-your-skin gruesome and fuck-with-your-mind sort of way. The characters -- a disgusting, sadistic backwoods family murdering off personality-less teens -- are well-realized even as they're insane and intolerable.

Still 1000 Corpses is not really all that good. Even as I can recognize its merits -- where many still would dismiss it as pure, undignified torture porn -- I still don't think it's a good movie; interesting and unique but ultimately a little hollow.

Grade: 2/4 ★★

"Ain't Them Bodies Saints" (2013)

If Bonnie and Clyde weren't a romanticized vision of outlaws, it might look something like Ain't Them Bodies Saints. The writers and director (Both David Lowery) aren't the ones doing the romanticizing here, it's the characters themselves who keep telling themselves stories about the greatness of their crimes and their status. Bob (Casey Affleck) is constantly telling Ruth (Rooney Mara) about their future; he's mythologizing before there's anything to be mythologized about and he's draws her into a life of reckless criminality. Ruth hasn't completely bought into Bob's way with words or his swagger. We first see her stubborn and strong-willed, trying to walk away from the whole relationship. She's pregnant though and so she gets drawn into the outlaw lifestyle. The film moves past this quickly. Their outlaw career goes south fast and Bob convinces Ruth to feign taking part in the robbery under duress. Bob gets a five year to life sentence and though he writes letters to Ruth touting how wonderful their life will be once he's freed, we can tell things have changed. The beauty of Ain't Them Bodies Saints is its sly reinterpretation of so many crime movies. "This happened in Texas," the film dryly informs us at the start of the film. The film is mocking the taglines of so many movies claiming they're based on a true story. This isn't a trumped up tale; matter of factly things happen -- told in a clipped, elliptical style -- and they happen realistically, tragically and painfully. Bradford Young's cinematography acknowledges the disconnect between Bob's perception of events and reality. Gorgeous, naturalistic imagery -- reminiscent of Terrence Malick -- with an understated pastel design is used throughout the film. The film looks romantic even as its story is romantic only to the couple yearning for things to be as easy and simple as they imagined when they made a pact to start a new life with each other.

Grade: 3.5/4★★★