"The Raid: Redemption" (2012)

Tens Items or Less


A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

Cinema is a vehicle for spectacle and pleasure in a way few other mediums are, and when its executed as well as The Raid, it leaves you with your tongue down to the floor drooling with brain-addled delight. The film is essentially an hour and a half of really great, relentless, visceral action, but that ignores how well choreographed and planned out that action is. This a intelligently filmed movie that makes great use of space and camera placement. In its best shot moments, the movement of the camera follows along with the characters to make us feel as if we are there. In more than one virtuoso piece of kung fu meets 80's action movie sequence, there is a fantastic sense of showmanship. The film corners itself into tricky and difficult moments of intense action and finds clever and exciting ways to extricate itself from its SWAT team takes on drug kingpin story (That is action-wise but not necessarily story-wise whose minimalism would make minimalist films laugh). There is no shaky cams or rapid-cut editing as there is too frequently in American action films these days; the film lingers on moments to really show the physicality and brutality of the action taking place as well as to allow us to appreciate how exceptionally difficult many of the stunts are. The Raid is a thrilling movie but it also has an appreciation for the expertise behind the fighting it's displaying, like a Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee martial arts film.

Grade: ★★★

"I Walked with a Zombie" (1943)

Tens Items or Less

A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

Producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror movies thrive on suggestion and what's not shown as much as, if not more so than, what we do, and I Walked With a Zombie is no exception. The film's tension derives from making us sit on the question of whether Paul Holland's (Tom Conway) wife Jessica (Christine Gordon) is or isn't a zombie; well, technically she's zombie either way, but just a sleepwalking vegetable in the less exciting of the possibilities. The film is Jane Eyre thrown into the West Indies and given a heavy dose of voodoo and a moody atmosphere provided by director Jacques Tourneur to match the Victorian Gothic story. So it's no George A. Romero or 28 Days Later, but Tourneur gives the story a strong bite by telling the melodrama about the Holland brothers, their never-ending, bitter sibling rivalry, the lingering damage of the past that won't go away, and how they're doomed to repeat the past. New plantation nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee), tasked with caring for Jessica, becomes torn between Paul and Wesley (James Ellison), who also previously pined for Jessica and still stews about it, descending further and further into alcoholism. The film never settles its central tension over whether Jessica is a supernatural undead being, and that's all for the better, leaving it to our imagination and making it far more creepy and strange.

Grade: ★★★

"Poltergeist (1982)

Tens Items or Less

A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

"They're here," Carole Anne Freeling (a perfectly cast Heather O'Rourke) informs us in Poltergeist's most famous line. The moment rightfully deserves all the parody and recognition it has since garnered; it's a truly chilling moment, perhaps the film's most terrifying one, and it plays bluntly but primaly on our fears of not being able to protect our children. Poltergeist taps into real Reagan Era fears over the breakdown of the nuclear family and the home, putting a loving family to the test against outside forces that would tear them apart. Though this is essentially a horror movie, producer Steven Spielberg marks it with his signature brand of sentimental melodrama and cinematic wonder. The eventual explanations of the paranormal activity feel schmaltzy, but it does little to damper the film's final act which turns the film's slow burn into an explosion. Poltergeist is leavened with humor and good character moments, but it's also still properly freaky and unsettling: the face peeling, the static television sets, and all the wonderful craziness in its final moments that I wouldn't dare to spoil.

Grade: ★★★

My "Gravity" Film Review

Once again the Arts section of my school's newspaper, The Lafayette, let me write a film review for them. I'm really pleased with how my review for Gravity turned out with me giving a lot of, rightfully deserved, glowing praise. As always I'd like to profusely thank the editors for letting me publish my review, and to edit it so it's a little less laconic and rambly yet still stays true to my original intentions.

"Gangster Squad" (2013)

Tens Items or Less

A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

Gangster Squad was a movie designed to make a pretty great movie trailer, but everything in between those trailer-worthy moments is some carelessly thought out padding. The film feels under-written. The characters are all uninteresting and have spelled-out-in-bold-letters clear, but far too often contradictory, motivations, and the story seems as though it's missing a few key scenes. I could go on about the missing story beats or how those story beats it does have are woefully bland -- seriously, for a movie attempting to appropriate the supposed sexiness of the Roaring Twenties, Gangster Squad is a surprisingly dull and tedious film -- or how its characters are handled by its actors pretty terribly -- Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn have some atrocious, overstated affected accents that are laughably unnecessary -- but lets get to the more, um, subtle problems to the film. The film is top-to-bottom filled with gender politics that at best overly simplified and at worst slightly offensive. Gangster Squad has a terrible representation of women, and that's when it's representing them at all; Emma Stone, in a miserably one note role, is one of two female characters. Though it has a diverser cast than most films, it still has racial stereotypes and biases -- the film has some embarrassing moments in its treatment of its sole Hispanic character. If you can make it through its plodding plot, Gangster Squad has a handful of somewhat entertaining action scenes, but you can watch the trailer and get that experience in a fraction of the time and pain.

Grade: 1.5/4 ★

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986)

Tens Items or Less

A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of the best teen comedies and one of writer-director John Hughes' strongest movies. It's firstly a very funny movie and it benefits from a number of spot-on casting decisions, starting with Matthew Broderick as Ferris, as well as Hughes' lighthearted but sharply focused script. Hughes' script and direction keep things moving, wasting little time with fat; Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) and Jeanie's (Jennifer Grey) screentime is brief but it gives us all we need to know about them. Beyond it's humorous moments, something not commented upon enough, is a story of three teens having one last hurrah before the end of an era. There's a dark heart at the center of Ferris Bueller hidden by its playful, occasionally silly tone and episodic gags. Ferris notes himself that he's uncertain of where he stands with Cameron (Alan Ruck) and Sloane (Mia Sara) and where they go from here once the school year is over. Ferris plays it cool because, yes, that's who he is, but also because as he tells us "life moves pretty fast" and he wants to look around for awhile while there's still a chance to. Ferris and Cameron's relationship is the heart of the story, and Cameron's journey is equally as important as Ferris'. Cameron's catharsis -- in part, a story arc about him overcoming depression -- allows Ferris to be more prepared to move on from this stage in his life. Or you can just take the film as smooth operator Ferris having an impossibly great day of hooky, either way, the film is very funny and very fun.

Grade: 3.5/4 ★★★

10 Items or Less: "The Long Goodbye" (1973)

A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.  

Director Robert Altman's shaggy update to the noir genre The Long Goodbye dives headlong into the byzantine narratives, hardboiled personalities -- well, one of them anyway, in its protagonist -- and sharp dialogue that made the genre a classic staple of cinema. But he also gives it an unmistakable modern sensibility, more fitting for the 1970's. Elliott Gould as Phillip Marlowe is certainly a continuation of a long tradition of cynical detectives investigating an increasingly intricate and seedy case, but he's also a little less classically cut and a little more rough around the edges. Really this is another way to describe the film in general, which features a lot of Altman's roving camera -- including some zooms that occasionally get distracting -- and a narrative that's interested in weird quirks and digression. The Long Goodbye above all though is a really fun film with a great sense of character and dialogue and an engaging and surprising genre-bending story. There's a terrible and shocking scene that ends with the line: “Now that’s someone I love. Think what could happen to you.” And there's another unexpected moment at film's end that's a great, surprising capper. Altman wants to take what we know about this genre and shake it up.

Grade: 3.5/4★★★