Aaron_Peck Blog

Under discussion:

Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society  (2008)

Well, we’ve come a long way from the cult Sundance hit Poison Ivy starring Drew Barrymore. What, you didn’t know that Poison Ivy actually premiered at Sundance in 1992 and was nominated for the dramatic Grand Jury Prize along side movies like Reservoir Dogs? Well, you learn something new every day, don’t you?

The first Poison Ivy movie spurred a cult following, and with most movies that garner “cult” status, film studios think that is their license to churn out hack sequel after hack sequel until the audience is bled dry both of money and any feeling of good will they had toward the original film.

So on down the sequel road we’ve gone, from Drew Barrymore, to Alyssa Milano in Poison Ivy II: Lily, Jamie Pressly in Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, and finally to today’s featured presentation Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society starring Miriam McDonald (Degrassi: The Next Generation) and various other girls who like to take their shirts off.

The cover of Poison Ivy 4 features a sultry brunette sexily buttoning up her shirt and the same vixen soaking wet in a pool with her clothes on. Flames lap at the title giving the  would-be watcher an ominous feeling of thrills and sex. At least this is what I thought while inspecting the case. So you can imagine my surprise when what I got was a comedy.

Poison Ivy 4 had me laughing my head off five minutes into the film as poor country girl Daisy is planning on leaving her hick boyfriend and his newly purchased piece of land for a chance at an education from a big prestigious school. To say the dialogue is clunky is to insult clunks everywhere. It’s best described as the vocal equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard — one step away from reading off of cue cards.

But it’s not fair of us to hold Poison Ivy 4 to such a high standard, right? We knew what we were getting into when we picked this title up. We wanted some nakedness and some sex. That’s it! Expecting a coherent, engaging story from the fourth installment in this series is like expecting Oscar-winning acting in a late-night Cinemax movie.

So let’s talk about those sex scenes since that’s the only reason anybody would be remotely interested in this film. Again, referring to late-night Cinemax shows, that’s the kind of sex you can expect, complete with campy saxophone “porn groove” music playing in the background. There’s no hint of eroticism involved here, just plain old rip-off-those-clothes-and-do-it-already sex.

The film is painful to watch, yes, if you were expecting some sort of sexy, erotic adventure involving college girls. But, on the other hand if you were expecting a cheesy romp with boobies to show to your frat buddies while drunk, then this is the movie for you.

Under discussion:

The Winning Season  (2009)

The Winning Season is a way to tell a conventional story in a fairly unconventional way. A local high school girls basketball team needs a coach. They are terrible team who never win. See what I mean about conventional? A team that needs a new coach because they are terrible? What do you think happens with the new coach? That’s right, they end up winning. But, that’s not the point of the film. The reason why this film is different from the other feel-good sports films that involve a new coach taking over a team is because here it's more about the personal lives of the players and the coach involved, rather than the winning, and the "big game."

The new coach, Bill (Sam Rockwell), is a drunk who is currently busy busing tables at the local restaurant. He’s divorced and barely gets to see his teenage girl once a week. He takes the coaching job mostly because he doesn’t have anything else going on in his life.

The new team only has five healthy players and one with a broken foot. However, over the next few montages, Bill shapes them into some sort of a team that can compete with the other local high schools. But The Winning Season really isn’t about winning or basketball.

I recently saw Big Fan up here at Sundance and explained how Paul was the most sad and pathetic character ever created. Well, Bill is right up there with Paul in the pathetic department, but the difference is Bill has some redeemable value. His character undergoes change, not only with helping the basketball team, but helping to better his life in the process.He becomes a better human being. He treats his family and people around him better, and maybe even more importantly he treats himself better.

The acting by the young girls is another bright spot in the film. Emma Roberts is brilliant as Abby, the leader of the team. She holds her own with her one-on-one scenes with Rockwell. Their banter with each other is humorous and real.

I liked that Winning Season found a new way to tell a very old story. It works. It’s delightful to watch.

Under discussion:

Five Minutes of Heaven  (2009)

It’s pretty hard to start watching movies at 8:30 in the morning. It’s a good thing that Five Minutes of Heaven was 90 minutes of genius filmmaking. It did get screwed with its timeslot in the press screenings though -- early in the morning and on Inauguration Day. Needless to say the theater was nearly empty.

Five Minutes of Heaven tells the story of two men caught up in the conflict in Ireland in the 1960s. As a youth, Alistair (Liam Neeson) killed a man. That man was the brother of Joe (James Nesbitt), who witnessed the shooting as a young boy. Years later Alistair and Joe are grown men. Alistair served twelve years in prison for shooting Joe’s brother. They are about for the first time on an Irish television show that wants to film the meeting between the two.

For the past 33 years Joe has had to live with the guilt thrust upon him by his mother. She blamed Joe for his brother being killed. Even though Joe wasn’t older than 10, she still continued to blame him. The effects of this mental abuse can be seen in Joe as an adult. He’s constantly nervous and fidgety. He plays things over and over in his head. His undeserved guilt still deeply affects him.

The second act of the film — when Joe and Alistair are about to meet — is filmmaking at its best. Suspense builds and builds with an obviously agitated Joe and a shaken Alistair.

The acting here is superb. Nesbitt plays a man on the edge better than anyone I’ve ever seen. You can tell that deep down he really is a good guy, but he wants revenge. He wants revenge for his brother and for what happened to him in the aftermath.

Neeson, likewise, is great as Alistair. Unlike Joe, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, Alistair tries to conceal them, but you can tell he has deep remorse for what he’s done.

This is a revenge movie without all of the fighting and killing. Nesbitt and Neeson rarely have any screen time together, but the tension is still unbearable. What’s going to happen when they meet? That’s the big question, and the conclusion is perfect.

Under discussion:

Big Fan  (2009)

The first film I saw today was a screening of Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt and written/directed by Robert D. Siegel of The Wrestler fame.

You know that saying “There’s always someone worse off than you?” Well, Paul Aufiero (Oswalt) is that guy. Paul works in a parking garage booth, lives with his nagging mother, and his only happiness in life depends solely on the success of the New York Giants football team.

Paul is the saddest and most pathetic character ever created for the big screen. He spends his nights writing personal scripts to use when he calls into the local sports talk show. Like two immature geeks on an online video game message board, Paul and a man named “Philadelphia Phil” exchange heated football discussions back and forth. His Sundays are spent, not actually in the stadium, but with his buddy in the parking lot of the Giants’ stadium watching the game on a tiny TV hooked up to the car battery.

Paul tells everyone he’s happy, but he presents himself like a person who just saw a group of innocent puppies get slaughtered. Oswalt is normally a very funny man, but here he is pathetic. That’s not a slight against the film, because he is supposed to be pathetic, the warning is don’t expect a comedy.

The film drags on at the pace at which Paul approaches his life. Virtually nothing happens in the first half of the film, except we learn Paul’s brother is a sleaze bag attorney, his brother’s wife has enormous fake boobs, and his family doesn’t respect him.

The conflict comes when Paul and his buddy follow the star quarter back of the Giants team to a club, where Paul gets the living crap beat out of him after he discloses they’d been following the player. Now what does Paul do? Does he turn his favorite player in and risk the Giants losing? Does he sue the thug for all he’s worth? Do we really care?

It’s so hard to care for a character that doesn’t care for himself. There’s no redeeming value in Paul. When he finally confronts his nemesis “Philadelphia Phil” the scene is confusing, and doesn’t accomplish much other than showing us how immature these people really are.

I understand there are people out there that actually take something as trivial as sports this seriously, but a movie about it isn’t interesting. If I wanted to see this type of obsessive immaturity I’d go down to the local sports bar where it’s free.

Under discussion:

(500) Days of Summer  (2009)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel star in this quirky story about boy meets girl, boy becomes infatuated, but girl wants to be “just friends.” Being friends with the girl of your dreams is possibly the most dreaded thing that could happen to a single man.

Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, a sappy young guy who believes in fate and “the one.” He writes and designs greeting cards for a living, but secretly wants to be an architect.

Deschanel plays Summer. She’s perfect for this role; she seems cute and quirky enough to be one of those girls that could make a guy fall madly in love with her without really realizing it.

The movie jumps around in the chronology with a little counter that pops up every so often to tell us what day within the 500 days it is. At first we see them sitting on a park bench and she’s got a ring on, they’re holding hands, and everything looks like it worked out perfectly. Cut to another scene where Tom is in the kitchen breaking plates distraught that him and Summer have broken up.

So the movie plays out like this. Skipping back and forth in time showing us the good, the bad, and the terrible in Tom and Summer’s relationship. It’s an interesting way to tell a story. Little intricacies are revealed about scenes we’ve already seen part of, but they are given a different context.

There’s even a part where director Marc Webb shows us a split screen of Tom’s expectations and his harsh reality. After not seeing Summer for a while they accidentally meet on a train and Summer invites Tom to a party she’s having. As Tom is walking up to the door the screen splits. On the expectations side we see Tom and Summer having a great conversation. They’re laughing and touching, and then they start kissing. On the reality side, something much different is happening. Summer is ignoring Tom and is flirting with other guys.

500 Days of Summer is as real as a movie can get to the actual truth of dating. The ups, the downs, and the games that people play without making their true feelings known. It’s a cute, sweet film and it should do well in theatrical release.

Under discussion:

Moon  (2009)

The future is an energy efficient place. Rocks on the moon are being harvested for “Helium 3” a clean burning fuel that is trapped inside of the rocks when the sun hits them. There is one station on the moon that we know of, with the population of one. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell. He’s the lone engineer manning the station. Most everything is automated, and he’s helped with his tasks by a personal computer named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey).

Sam spends most of his time working on a wooden model of a small town. He carves buildings out of wood. He has a contract to work on the moon for three years, and then he can go home. When we join him, he’s got two weeks left on his contract, but the isolation and loneliness has taken its toll.

Soon Sam starts to hallucinate. He sees a women sitting in his chair. Then while driving out to fix one of the rock harvesters he sees something in the distance coming toward him. He can’t make it out. Straining to see the object, he ends up wrecking his rover.

The next scene Sam wakes up in the infirmary. How did he get there? Who brought him there? GERTY the friendly computer is there, but no one else.

After that anything I say may give away the overall secret of the film. But, here is where the film excels. It reveals this secret at the beginning of the second act. For the most part of the film you know the secret, and so does Sam. So, now we’re left wondering how the story is going to go forward, but it does, beautifully. Because the real secret hasn’t been revealed yet. It isn’t until the end that we know the full gravity of the situation Sam is in. He has to make choices. Choices that will affect his life, and the life of others that he may or may not love.

Sam Rockwell is the only on screen actor in this film. It’s an interesting gimmick, which could only work with the energetic Rockwell.

This is a film that will most likely be seen in theaters after the festival. Keep an eye out, you won’t be disappointed.