erico_77375 Blog

Korea Hosts An Amazing Monster Movie

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The Host (2006)

American horror movies have been in a sorry state in the last decade. They've either been sado-masochistic such as the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, or they've been expensive rehashes of Asian horror films such as The Grudge and The Ring.

Now comes the second great film from Korea (the first was the incredibly poetic and violent Oldboy), The Host (Gwoemul). The host brings back a bygone age of horror movies that has been missing for a long time, the monster movie. Not only is the best monster movie in about twenty years, but it has one of the coolest monsters to hit celluloid since The Predator.

The opening five minutes are by far the silliest in the movie. On an American military base, an American doctor orders his Korean subordinate to dump tons of "dirty formaldihyde" down the drain and into the Han River. Now I don't think for one second that this would create the monster that is to come, nor do I think the filmmakers do either. This scene really sets up what The Host's real subject is about, interruption of daily life by an outside influence.

Skip around about six years where we meet the Park family. They have a food stand on the side of the Han River. The Parks are made up of a grandfather, his two sons and one daughter, and one grandchild to the laziest of the sons. It is that same son that sees something strange hanging from a bridge over the river. Along with other spectators who gather to watch, they observe the thing dive into to the water with grace. Some even call it an "Amazonian River Dolphin", and start throwing junk into the river to get it's attention. Needless to say it does and soon everybody's running for cover as the monster starts tearing through it's victims. During the chaos, the monster grabs the youngest park and takes her out to the river and puts her in a little cove for safe keeping (late night snack).

The rest of the family is herded off to a gymnasium with the other survivors where they're told that the monster contains a virus that infects all that it touches. The Park family pull off a daring escape in a van that almost reminded me of Little Miss Sunshine (being that both families are incredibly dysfunctional, where would I get such an idea?). They go after the monster in the sewers of Seoul while the police and the hazmat teams, not to mention the US military and Korean revolutionaries are hunting for them.

The film, like all monster movies, isn't interested in realism, but is wanting to talk more about family dynamics, the lobsided affairs between the US and Korea, and weapons that are waged on average people, both by propaganda and by chemical substance. There are great scenes of splendid drama where characters are revealed with such tenderness and understanding that we like them, warts and all. The film shows a Korea split at the seams with paranoia and fear, fueled by US involvement, perhaps with a little more gasoline concerning North Korea's tinkering with nuclear weapons. By the time we get to the final act, there can be said that the last victims of the monster, are by far the most representative of what South Korea faces soon.

But strictly as a monster movie, this is by far one of my favorites. And the reason primarily is because this is one of the coolest monsters ever made. Using the digital work of San Francisco's The Orphanage effects team, this monster moves like a squid in the water, but is more dangerous when dangling from above or on the ground. The way it eats it's victims is not exploitive, like our slasher killers. It's innards work like a snake that swallows it's victims whole.

It bothers me that this movie, which does not have any graphic violence or extreme use of blood, gets an R rating when Ghost Rider allows us to see a man's head disintigrate in much detail down to the skull and gets a PG-13. If this isn't perverse, then please tell me what is. This just goes to show the truly corrupt system put into place by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Director Joon-ho Bong has made a film that was widely recieved in South Korea, and I am truly thankful he was able to export it to American audiances. While this is not a flawless movie (there are scenes that just do not work, and a little too much forshadowing in all the usual spots), it has a vibrancy and a fun about it that makes this a joy to watch. Let's just hope he keeps the Americans from remaking this into a travesty.

All in all, if you like a good-old-fashioned horror movie that gives you the right amount of chills and spills, but also dark comedy with a bit of slapstick, you're not going to find a better movie this season. But there's one thing I need make note, and perhaps you'll have your own interpretation. Does the title refer to the monster that's devouring the country, or the country that's being devoured by the monster. And if it's the latter, what might be the REAL monster?

Posted Friday, July 27, 2007 9:05 AM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Moore's Diagnosed The Disease, But Misses The Cure

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Sicko (2007)

Watching a Michael Moore documentary is unlike watching any other movie. He’s a master at pulling your emotions one way or another, blending cold hard facts with a human element. His last two features, the beyond-brilliant Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 both made strong cases and made me laugh along the way. His newest film, Sicko, opens with the human face of people swept into the United States health care bureaucracy, then give a solution that’s flimsy at best, horribly nieve at worst.

His first image is disturbing, a man who has to suture his own leg because he doesn’t have health insurance. “But this movie is not about him” Moore comments from off-camera. He knows that this won’t bother his audience as much as what comes next, people who HAVE insurance, but can’t USE it due to bureaucratic red tape that delays or refuses aid to people who desperately need it. We meet a couple who have to move into their children’s basement when a series of health problems leaves them bankrupt. There’s the woman who finds out that her ambulance ride wasn’t covered when she was in a car accident because she didn’t pre-approve it (which reminds me to have that pre-approval in my glove-box next to my insurance info and pray I can tell the ambulance driver about it before falling unconscious). He tells us that he’s received thousands upon thousands of these stories and we have no doubt that most of them are legitimate. Then he brings out the whistleblowers, people who words for the HMOs. One call center rep breaks down when she talks about how her company would decline couples on the drop of hat for the slightest thing. We meet the guy that goes through your medical history to find anything to nullify your coverage. “This isn’t a matter of falling through the cracks. Someone’s made that crack and is people into it”, he confesses. And then we find out that America is 36 in health care, just below Slovenia and just above Cuba.

What’s his solution? Universal Free health care to all Americans, of course. But isn’t that a socialist program? Yes, but so is the Public Library if you think about it. Moore takes the bigger arguments about his plan and systematically address falsehoods. And then he shows us how countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, and France are capable of giving adequate care under these same conditions. He shows that doctors are capable of living comfortably, that patients don’t get caught in circumstances where coverage is denied, even foreign nationals stupid enough to try to walk across Abbey Road on their hands.

And yet I didn’t buy his pitch for Universal health care. Why? Because I am a hardcore conservative? Not hardly. Because we’re talking about a government who couldn’t get water to the Superdome without an act of God’s intervention. Moore talks to a lot of middle-class couples, but we never hear from the bottom of the barrel poor that he used to showcase in his earlier films. And he completely ignores the standard rule about government spending; to get something free, something else must be taxed. If this were an objective report, this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. But this is Moore’s video essay, and he’s trying to provide an answer. But in doing so, he risks unraveling his case. I would be the first one to say that the system needs to be fixed. My generation’s going to be paying for a social security and Medicare that will NOT be around for us. But sometimes the best answer is the one not said. If he would have left the answer up to the audience as he did in Bowling for Columbine, that would have been more satisfying. The film is more effective when reflecting how poorly we are treating our sick, our dying, and even our heroes who sacrifice their health to help during the 9/11 attacks. Taking a handful of workers for treatment in Cuba is showboating needlessly. Of course they’re going to be treated like royalty.

But that’s the delicate balance that Michael Moore plays with on his documentaries. He’s part Upton Sinclair, part P.T. Barnum. He’s again forcing Americans to think about what is going on in this country, but he’s also trying to make you laugh at the obscurity of it. But with Sicko, his agenda has gotten a little loose, his control of the subject has loosened and his hand is starting to show. The last thing that an audience wants to feel coming away from a show is the feeling that he’s been watching an infomercial the entire time. I will chalk it up as frustration on Mr. Moore’s behalf. But he needs to remember the cardinal rule of filmmaking; do not underestimate your audience.

All in all, Sicko is most powerful when looking at the America that lets it’s sick be dragged to skid row when they don’t have insurance and not when showing us just how good the French have it. Granted, something has to be done, and Moore certainly shows us how bad things are. But we need to find answers that will work for us as a nation. And most likely it will require people to stop eating trash food and start doing some moving around.

Posted Friday, July 27, 2007 8:46 AM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Bay Gives Us Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Action

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Transformers (2007)

There’s a lot to say about a movie with little expectations that can’t be said about any other; when it succeeds, you remember it much better. Transformers, directed by Michael Bay based on the Hasbro toys and 80s television show, didn’t have much going for it. But then it made me do something I didn’t expect, it made me have a good time.

The movie starts off with a plethora of problems, the first being an attack on a military base in Qatar. A massive robot monster disguised as an attack chopper rips apart the base’s defense, having survivors running for their lives in open desert. A tiny robot whose cover is a stereo breaks into American defense databases sending the NSA and the Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight) to bring in the world’s most experienced hackers. Then there’s young Sam Witwicki (Shia LeBeouf), whose father takes him to pick up his first car from a smooth-talking dealer (a cameo by Bernie Mac). He’s told that the car picks the driver, and in this case it’s a literal interpretation when a rusty old Chevy Camero peculiarly makes the dealer an offer he CAN’T refuse. Sam uses his new car to win over a sexy classmate (Megan Fox). But later that night, Sam’s car decides to take a drive on it’s own, having Sam chasing after it. That’s when he finds out that his car is in fact the Transformer Bumblebee.

Not too soon after, Bumblebee alerts others to the scene; Jazz, Ratchet, and obviously the main bot himself, Optimus Prime. They are the Autobots, the good guys trying to beat the bad guys, the Decepticons, to an all powerful All-Spark, which we’re told is a power to create new life on the Autobot home world. And the key to the location of the all-spark lies in the damaged specks of Sam’s grandfather, who was the guy who ventured to the North Pole and found something that drove him crazy (needless to say, it wasn’t Santa). If this sounds so far-fetched, you’re not alone. But then logic in a movie that has massive robots that disguise themselves as cars is a moot point. The story eventually wraps all these threads together to an all-out battle between the Autobots and Decepticons that goes from The Road Warrior before shifting into King Kong mode.

If there’s one thing that Michael Bay is great at, it’s building tension and adrenaline into action-fused plots. True, there’s rarely any real intelligence in his movies, but in a way, his expensive exercises into blowing up stuff is merely wish fulfillment for those boys who grew up staging massive battles with action figures. Listening to the Transformers talking just reminds me how close this metaphor really is. I can almost hear the little boy roaring in his most evil voice “I’ll get you Optimus Prime, if IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!” Unlike 300, which characters also talked like Saturday morning cartoons, this movie actually takes me back to those days in my own childhood.

But the biggest problem with Transformers is that, well, how do I say it? The way that they’re photographed, the Transformers come off as too big for the big screen. Let me try to explain. When Peter Jackson gave us King Kong, he skillfully kept the scale of the action within the right frames, allowing more of a Kong’s eye-view for the times we’re around him. Here, we’re seeing the massive robots from human perspective, usually only allowing us to see only half of any given bot in a single shot. And when we do see the massive death match at the end, the designated color schemes of ALL the Transformers gets blurred. At one point, Megatron rips apart an Autobot that I assumed was Optimus (it wasn’t, of course). Especially in your final battle, you shouldn’t have this kind of confusion.

Shia LeBeouf has been in some pretty diverse movies in the last few months, between the more angst-ridden Disturbia to a voice stint in Surf’s Up, it’s nice to see that he’s capable of channeling his inner-nerd here. He’s got a great screen presence that makes him very noticeable, even when acting isn’t a big thing in a movie like this. Is he going to be a wide-ranged leading man? Maybe, but he’s got a long way to go before that will be determined. And here’s to hoping he won’t fall into the same potholes as a certain Lindsey Lohan.

But like any other movie he’d made, the real star is Michael Bay. Some love him, most hate him (I’m on the border myself. I Loved The Rock and The Island, but that doesn’t excuse Pearl Harbor ALONE). Bay’s sheer thrill-ride mentality is exciting with such a movie that requires little brain but a good deal of imagination. This is the pure definition of a popcorn movie and that’s Mr. Bay’s comfort zone. But I need to ask that he stop working with Steven Jablonski on his scores. Let’s be honest, it’s the same tune remixed over and over again. I say go back to Mark Mancina or Hans Zimmer, even Trevor Rabin if need be. At least they knew how to devise an eclectic array of tunes. But that’s just me.

All in all, I had a good time. It wasn’t the best time I had at the movies, but worthy enough to recommend this to those of you who wish to revisit your childhood through someone else’s eyes. But I can’t recommend this to those of you who have strict sensibilities about fun. Or sensitive ears.

Posted Friday, July 27, 2007 7:17 AM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

82 Minutes and a Thousand Laughs

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The Simpsons Movie (2007)

Coming out of the theater after seeing The Simpsons Movie, I realized three things: 1) I haven’t laughed for so hard for so long in years. 2) That the movie was only 82 minutes long and yet felt the perfect length. And 3) I had been sitting in gum the entire time. For some strange reason, the third realization brought the movie into focus: The Simpsons Movie is a deeply satisfying piece of comedy. It understands what other movie send-ups to other television shows lack to comprehend. The movie doesn’t re-invent the wheel, nor does it even make it any shinier. The movie understands that the comedy speaks for itself, and the show, like the movie, has everything it needs to bring the funny.

This movie is as accessible to the first-time viewer (although one must ask what rock you’ve come out from under) as it is to the seasoned veteran. The story isn’t very important since it’s merely a line that strings jokes together into a tapestry. This time we find Homer Simpson creating an environmental catastrophe that brings down the EPA hard within minutes (that really should put FEMA to shame). The government decides to take matters into their own hands, the seal the town of Springfield in a glass dome, never to leave. They take the town of the maps and GPS systems. This drives a wedge between Homer and his wife Marge, and kids Bart, Lisa, and even baby Maggie. And when the citizens come for Homer’s head, let’s just say that leaving town was under their feet the entire time. They flee to Alaska to start anew, but like the show realized by the third season, the fate of the Simpsons is also the fate of Springfield; their relationship is symbiotic. And Homer must realize that his family and his community do matter to him.

The reason I’m even mentioning this is because this is irrelevant. It’s the comedy, stupid, plain and simple. The Simpsons’ comedy has always steeped deep in irony and absurdity. With the movie, though, they can also put in some naughtier humor than they would be capable of on television. But unlike South Park’s movie, it doesn’t try to push the limits as much as hit the teacher when she isn’t looking. The most extreme bit involves Bart’s (you’ll understand). I must admit that I didn’t expect it coming, which meant I should have seen it from a mile away. But what I admire the most about the movies comedy is how it’s capable of taking one gag and getting ten GREAT jokes out of it. I wouldn’t think it possible in any other movie.

And that should be to the credit of the ten screenwriters to this movie’s credit, including creator Matt Groening and executive producer James L. Brooks (who I can see bringing in the more high-brow elements to the story). All of these writers are seasoned Simpsons vets who have been credited to the most successful years of the show’s run. They have put together some of the best comedy that the show has ever come up with in just these 82 minutes, sparing not one second to come up for air before dunking us back into hysterical fits of laughter. And they never cheat a joke, also phenomenal in my opinion. There are a few that you can see the punch line coming, but that’s very rare and few between.

The voice talent of The Simpsons has gotten recognition before, but it never seems to amaze me just how they pull off the magnificent feat of voices that each member has to concoct (or how none of them have permanently lost their voices in the process). Take Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer, between the two of them, voices nearly 70% of the show. In the credits, we see the names of the cast and the faces of the characters and it puts into perspective all the work each actor has to put into the show (although Yeardley Smith only voices Lisa Simpson, she’s too perfect in one role to give her a problem for not having others).

And let’s not forget to talk about the multi-national team who animates The Simpsons. Though the movie is proud to be in 2-D and doesn’t have many moments of using more expensive animation than it’s television counterparts, it’s beautifully rendered from Groening’s cartoonish design.

All in all, going into The Simpsons Movie, all I asked for was that it be good. Coming out, I knew I got what I wished for and then some. It’s not the best comedy ever, nor even this year. But it’s worthy of The Simpson’s label and that means a lot to me, and I’m not even a big fan of the show. And do I smell a sequel? I certainly-doodily.

Posted Friday, July 27, 2007 3:17 AM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments