The summer begins

Four weeks. Three blockbusters. Why only three? Because The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which was released last week in the US, won't debut here in the UK until the end of June.

Some brief, scattershot thoughts on the three movies released thus far, then.

Iron Man (2008), directed by Jon Favreau.

The summer's first blockbuster, Iron Man set off some intelligent discussion about the movie's ideological postures over at Dr. Mabuse's Kaleido-Scope (here and here -- and be sure to read the comments). My only remark in this vein would be how it was rather refreshing to see a big Hollywood movie feature Arab terrorists as villains (rather than neo-Nazis, ex-KGB agents or Eastern European crime syndicates) -- even if corporate America is ultimately complicit in the actions of said terrorists.

Robert Downey, Jr. -- an unorthodox choice for a superhero if there ever was one -- is pleasantly effective as the billionaire playboy industrialist-turned-crimefighter. The movie also earns points for crafting an origin story that moves along at a brisk pace and doesn't get bogged down in the hero's pathos.

Speed Racer (2008), directed by The Wachowski Brothers.

Released the week after Iron Man, the Wachowski's take on the classic animated series was dead on arrival. Savaged by critics and ignored by audiences still hungry for Marvel Comics' iron-clad hero, Speed Racer died a quick box office death.

So naturally it's my favorite of the three.

One of my biggest pet peeves about contemporary Hollywood cinema -- and movies made in the blockbuster mode, in particular -- are the blatant concessions pictures frequently make in an attempt to appeal to every possible demographic. Certainly, the measure of a successful film is often a "something for everyone" quality, yet this all too often manifests in a disjointed way, where each "something" can be compartmentalized into various demographic boxes that undermine the coherence of the picture. The movies I tend to enjoy most -- and find most interesting -- are those that don't make these sorts of compromises. Movies that stick to their guns, as it were.

Speed Racer is this kind of movie, but in the unusual sense of eschewing all pretensions of demography-spanning in favor of catering to a very specific audience: namely, adolescent males. How thoroughgoing the picture was in this respect surprised me -- and at the same time makes its failure at the box office not surprising in the least.

Whether this can be chalked up to the degree of creative control given to the Wachowskis is a question I can't answer, but it would seem a reasonable hypothesis.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), directed by Steven Spielberg.

After some initial, disquieting Internet scuttlebutt that the fourth outing for Spielberg/Lucas/Ford would suck the big one, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull received a standing ovation at Cannes and opened to positive reviews and big box office. Thank goodness.

This movie is a good example of why I'd have trouble being a film critic: I need at least a few days to mull a picture over. Leaving the cinema, I was definitely satisfied with Indy 4. Yet the more I think about the movie, the worse it gets. I'm by no means an aficionado of the series, and did not screen the previous three movies in advance of watching Dr. Jones' latest adventure, so my evolving reaction to the picture has less to do with whether or not it was true to the spirit of the other movies than, well, how silly it was to see a Tarzan-inspired scene where Jones' son swings through the jungle with some monkeys.

While many of the action scenes were exciting, what the movie lacked was mystery and adventure -- which would seem to be prerequisites for a movie about finding lost treasure. A viewer would have to be awfully thick not to piece together the Crystal Skull's central conceit -- the origin of the crystal skull -- and the dots that need to be connected by the good doctor already lie along a straight line. What's more, there isn't much of a sense of the characters ever being in any peril. Yes, the action set-pieces are expectedly overblown, but too often to the point of parody.

Vegetables, mastodons and a tendency in movie criticism

10,000 BC (2008), directed by Roland Emmerich.

I'm on something of a roll of late when it comes to enjoying critically-panned movies. First, I mounted (what seems in retrospect, and appropriately so) a half-hearted defense on the poorly acted yet exciting Jumper, which offered a divergently self-conscious take on superheroism. Then came Rambo (aka John Rambo aka Rambo IV), which inspired me to prattle on for a testosterone-fueled 2500-some-odd words.

And now comes 10,000 BC, the latest offering from Hollywood blockbuster-meister Roland "I blew up the White House" Emmerich.

Any time what is clearly a blockbuster-type offering arrives in March, you know you're in for a treat -- of the vegetable/raisin variety. In terms of critical response, 10,000 BC has certainly delivered the goods: as I write, the movie has an average of 34/100 on MetaCritic and a paltry 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the case of the latter, only 11 out of 113 reviews counted were "positive" (however construed).

What can I say? Count me firmly in the vegetable-loving minority. I enjoyed the heck out of this picture, in all its stupid, overblown, melodramatic, giant man-eating dodo glory.

In many respects, 10,000 BC harks back to Saturday morning matinees and serials. We're given a conventional narrative that not only draws on other, recent movies (like Apocalypto and 300) but also plays fast and loose with notions of history, emphasizes action over plot, and features uneven and often overdone performances. Unlike Emmerich's previous two pictures, The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and The Patriot (2000), 10,000 BC makes claims to neither historical or scientific accuracy nor political relevance (although I admit that the film's title is problematic in the historical accuracy department). The movie instead offers a pastiche of pre-modern cultures and environments, streamlined not for edification but enjoyment.

More than a few reviews I glossed over singled out this facet of the movie for critique, which leads me to describe a tendency in film criticism I find rather annoying.

Some examples, if you will, from the oeuvre of Emmerich:

Pointing out the low likelihood of a simple computer virus disabling an entire fleet of technologically-advanced alien spacecraft is left to computer programmers. Pointing out that the fanciful idea of a global-warming produced "superstorm" ravaging the planet isn't supported by any science is left to climatologists and geologists. But should a movie set in the distant past take broad liberties with recorded facts -- and especially if said liberties seem to violate the edicts of political correctness -- movie critics are on it like white on rice.

While I do believe there is some merit to criticizing a film or filmmaker for claiming to accurately represent recorded historical events when such depictions are clearly inaccurate, or at least highly subjective, very few movies advance such claims without qualifications. Hence the upfront phrases "based on a true story" and "inspired by true events." More often than not the responsibility needs to fall to gullible moviegoers rather than pretentious (or stupid) movies.

So what if the ancient Egyptians didn't use mastodons to help construct the pyramids? It's a cool idea. And while it doesn't make sense in the context of history, it does in the context of the movie's fictional narrative.

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As an aside, I find the development of aggregate review sites like RT and MetaCritic fascinating, not only as compilations of film criticism, but as compendiums that not only select choice, representative sentences from longer reviews but then use mathematical formulas to present critical consensus. The latter aspect raises the question of whether average critical scores approach something like objectivity -- as interpreted by the sites' readers, perhaps -- if the original data is still largely subjective in nature. But this is a subject for another day.

Aerobics as palate cleanser

Syndromes and a Century (2006), directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The only other of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films that I've seen is Tropical Malady, which I caught at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004. I don't remember particularly liking it, but the fact that I remember it at all (out of the thirty plus films I saw) is noteworthy. Like that film, Syndromes and a Century is divided into two more-or-less distinct parts, but the relationship between the two is more diffuse than in Tropical Malady.

The first half of Syndromes and a Century is very disciplined, both in terms of narrative and form. The action -- dialogues, mostly -- is predominantly filmed in static, long takes that emphasize character placement within the frame. Scenes outdoors tend to have the characters more distantly framed, against lush, natural backgrounds (with accompanying ambient diegetic sound), while interiors are more closely framed, corresponding -- maybe -- to the constrictions of the physical spaces.

The second half is much more varied, but in what struck me as a rather knowing way. Again, the film effectively starts over, or "reinvents itself," halfway through. Many of the actors reappear, playing ostensibly the same characters often in comparable situations, but the settings have changed entirely, and the narrative (if you can call it that) takes us in completely different directions.

I don't think this is a commentary on the effect of locale on people -- in general, the second half is urban while the first is rural -- but rather a kind of artistic exploration. For example, the second half of the picture -- which begins without any formal denotation, like a fade to black (as in Tropical Malady) -- restages the opening of the first half, but initially from a different character's perspective. This can't help but establish in the viewer an expectation of a kind of narrative "mirroring." Yet this expectation is played with in a self-conscious way. Whereas the first time 'round the camera remained fixed on one character while the other spoke offscreen, shortly into the second half we get a -- gasp! -- reverse shot to the second character.

As the story meanders through the movie's second half, the formal variations multiply. Most strikingly (and perplexingly), the story is punctuated by long scenes that dwell on and move about inanimate objects -- rooms, equipment, and some things that were entirely abstract (to me, at least!) -- using slow-moving, fluid camera movement, accompanied by a soundtrack of low-register noise. Such scenes brought to mind some of Matthew Barney's film work.

This all leads up to a rousing finale of...outdoor aerobics, set to the beat of the infectious pop tune "Fez (Men Working)" by Neil & Iraiza. An odd explosion of kinetic energy to end an otherwise languid picture, to say the least -- it's less a dessert than a palate-cleansing sorbet.

According to a number of synopses and reviews I've read, Syndromes and a Century is "about" Weerasethakul's memories of his youth and his two doctor parents. Which is fine, and certainly goes a ways to qualify some of what the film is doing. There are moments in the picture that do achieve a serene, dreamlike quality. My overall impression, however, is that the movie is more about its form than content -- as much as it may be grappling with themes of memory, the "how" of the grappling is more important than the "what" of the theme.

"Movies with heart"

Be Kind Rewind (2008), directed by Michel Gondry.

This film was far, far less pretentious than I anticipated -- a backhanded compliment, if there ever was one.

While not without some minor problems, Be Kind Rewind is nonetheless a throughly enjoyable, modestly mounted paean to the joy of movies. Anyone who saw the very funny trailer released this past summer knows the gist of the film: Jerry (Jack Black) becomes "magnetized," and unintentionally erases all of the videocassettes in his friend Mike's store. In order to appease the store's few loyal customers, they set out to record their own versions of the erased films -- which quickly and improbably become a sensation in their New Jersey neighborhood, as the residents begin clamoring to not only rent but star in Mike and Jerry's movies. What the trailer didn't communicate was that this device is tacked on to a rather pedestrian plot about saving the local video rental store, which is owned by the kindly Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), from the threat of the city invoking eminent domain in order to redevelop the neighborhood. Fortunately, the picture's novelties manage to invigorate the clichés with a certain degree of freshness.

That Be Kind Rewind is ostensibly set in the present day -- in that we are never told otherwise -- makes the presence of VHS tapes something of an anachronism. Mr. Fletcher has something of a rivalry going with a local DVD-only rental establishment, but even this is out-of-date at a time where the DVD is being encroached upon by a next generation format. Yet the VHS tape isn't treated self-consciously or self-reflexively; it's presented as a given, and the narrative just runs with it. Certainly, if the film was set in, say, 2001 this would make more sense, but sense isn't really at issue when a film's main action hinges on a man's brain becoming magnetized after trying to sabotage the local power plant for supposedly causing him headaches.

As I wrote above, Be Kind Rewind is a movie about the pleasure of movies. But it is not necessarily about the pleasure of moviegoing.

Alma (Melonie Diaz), who is drafted from the local dry cleaners by Mike and Jerry to help shoot their films, says that allowing renters to star in the movies makes them "stakeholders in their own happiness." Another character, Ms. Falwicz (Mia Farrow), describes the trio's tapes as "movies with heart." Conversely, when official representatives of "Hollywood" appear they are corporate lawyers charging the store with copyright infringement.

While the movie never explicitly ties these sentiments together into a more coherent message, it is easy, and perhaps unavoidable, to read one: about contemporary cinema being passive and soulless.

Yet I find myself reluctant to reach such a conclusion. As much as the movie makes gestures in these directions, it makes a greater number in opposing directions. There is a very moving scene towards the end of the picture where the camera slowly tracks over an audience watching Mike and Jerry's "final" movie. Young and old, black and white, they all smile and laugh and point at the makeshift screen, enraptured by the images flickering thereupon. It's a scene we've seen countless times before in other movies, but it's one we should expect in a movie about other movies.

In its disparate elements -- which are as disparate as the movies Mike and Jerry re-make -- the only "broad" point the picture strikes me as trying to convey is "hey, aren't movies cool?"

Yes. Yes, they are.

The force of freedom returns!

Rambo (2008), directed by Sylvester Stallone.

When we last saw John Rambo, he and Col. Trautman were riding off into the sunset after leading a group of Afghan freedom fighters to victory over their Soviet oppressors.

The year? 1988.

Yes, believe it or not, it's been nearly twenty years since John Rambo last graced the silver screen in Rambo III (directed by Peter MacDonald).

Recent years have actually been quite good to those faithful to the icons of 80s action. In the mid-1990s, the possibility of seeing the Terminator franchise extend beyond 1992's Judgment Day seemed almost nil (1). Yet 2003 saw Schwarzenegger slim down (and pony up millions of his own money) to give us the entertaining (if silly at times) T3: Rise of the Machines (dir. Johnathan Mostow). Last summer, John McClane returned in Live Free or Die Hard (dir. Len Wiseman) -- now blessed with near-superhuman indestructibility, but still possessing the endearing, everyman charm that distinguished the character from those played by Bruce Willis' more muscled Planet Hollywood business partners. Finally, December 2006 saw the triumphant return of Sylvester Stallone's first signature character in Rocky Balboa. It was also the first film Stallone had directed since 1985's Rocky IV -- a hiatus Lucas-like in its duration. Fortunately, the results were on the whole much better for Stallone!

For many years, both of the Italian Stallion's franchises were stuck in what the old Corona Coming Attractions site called "Development Hell." Stallone spoke fairly often over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s about his desire to make both a sixth Rocky and fourth Rambo, and this talk seemed to intensify as Stallone's career declined.

Speculation on both films also tended to track with current events. When George Foreman regained the heavy weight title in 1994 at the age of 45, I can distinctly remember some movie show on TV asking Stallone if this meant Rocky could mount a similar comeback. Likewise, the idea of sending Rambo to hunt down Osama bin Laden was circulating in the ether of the Internet after September 11th. Cartman beat Rambo to the punch, though.

On the Rocky front, things suddenly, magically, came together at some point in 2005. Although I always had faith in Stallone's ability -- as star, director and writer -- to deliver a successful final chapter of the Rocky saga, suffice it to say that most seemed surprised at the highly competent, let alone personal and moving, affair Rocky Balboa turned out to be. I doubt that many who attended the opening night showing with me and my girlfriend expected to be fighting back tears!

After the critical and commercial success of Rocky Balboa, the return of John Rambo was inevitable.

Rambo -- which, up until this past fall, I thought was to be called John Rambo -- finds our hero living a quiet, reclusive life in Thailand. The movie's main action follows Rambo as he and a rag-tag group of mercenaries head into war-torn Burma to rescue a group of Christian missionaries being held by the Burmese army.

While Rambo's presence in Thailand, where he was living at the beginning of Rambo III, makes sense, at first blush the decision to center the action in Burma may seem an odd choice -- for a couple of reasons.

On the other hand, given that most of the world's conflict (still) lies in the Middle East (or North Korea), the viewer may ask "why Burma?"

The movie clearly anticipates this question, and opens appropriately: with a montage of newsreel footage depicting the vicious oppression of the poor, pro-democracy, Christian minority by the Burmese government. Over the footage, reporter's voices are heard describing the atrocities as genocidal. Following this compilation, the first scene of the movie has a company of army officers forcing a group of rebels to run through a mine-laden rice paddy. Some are blown literally to pieces; the survivors are then gunned down.

The choice of locale also displays a certain a amount of prescience given the events that transpired in Burma in the summer and fall of 2007: the initial protests by Buddhist monks and others against Myanmar's military dictatorship, and the subsequent crackdown by the junta.

On the other hand, the viewer may question why the film is trying to be topical and political. Aren't the Rambo movies just about mindless action?

It would be easy to forget, twenty years later, that the Rambo movies have always been political. First Blood dealt with the treatment of veterans following the Vietnam War; Rambo: First Blood Part II saw Rambo following Chuck Norris' lead in Missing in Action (1984) by returning to Vietnam to rescue POWs, his chance to "win this time"; Rambo III, as I noted above, had our hero fighting alongside the Mujahedeen against the Soviets.

Furthermore, it's likely many in Rambo's "target demographic" were introduced to the character not in R-rated movies in the 1980s but in the Saturday morning cartoon (and accompanying action figure line) which was naturally scrubbed of any topical political overtones (2).

In terms of the demographic, a key question would have to be whether 40- and 50-year-old men still watch the kinds of movies they enjoyed in their 20s and 30s. Rambo's somewhat lackluster performance at the U.S. box office would indicate a "no," but I'd be hesitant to attribute the movie's tepid box office returns to, say, middle-aged men who really, really wanted to see the film but had to abide their domineering wives by going to see 27 Dresses instead.

I'm not in a position to explain the box office results of Rambo, or any film for that matter, because it requires taking the minutiae of multiple factors into account. And I'm not really that interested. I do, however, find the demographic argument I've sketeched above more convincing than the alternative one would glean from a quick scan through the more negative reviews of Rambo complied at Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic. Namely, that the film is "too" violent.

To which I can only reply with an incredulous "huh?"

Hell, yes, the movie is violent. It's Rambo! What were you expecting?

To be fair, I can't answer that last question. As I've detailed above, Rambo is definitely in keeping with the previous three entries in the series. Yet, much like Rocky Balboa, it doesn't outright rely on our knowledge of earlier films in order to make sense of the narrative.

Rambo is, of course, an altogether different animal than Rocky, and the brutally violent, Internet-only "red band" trailer released during the summer was clearly intended to remind us of this fact -- and, perhaps, to assuage any concerns that Rambo's fourth adventure would be a PG-13 affair like John McClane's fourth outing.

How violent is Rambo, then? A better question might be how, exactly, we measure violence in movies, so as to discern when a movie crosses the line from violent to "too" violent (3).

Interestingly, some enterprising fan was good enough to actually count the number of killings in the film and share the result on the IMDb: 236 kills, giving Rambo a "kills per minute" of 2.59. This supposedly makes Rambo's fourth adventure his most violent -- if violence is measured by deaths -- as this "KPM" exceeds those of the previous three films.

Interesting, as I said, but perhaps a little too abstract (4). In truth, asking how we might go about "measuring" violence is something of a straw man, because we know that the appraisal of violence in film criticism is made on qualitative grounds -- namely, "explicitness" -- which unavoidably smacks of personal sensibilities (or sensitivities). What I find odd about this is how the objection, then, is less about violent acts themselves than their depiction. That is, movies aren't criticized for presenting scenarios where violence is a certainty -- like, say, a scene of genocidal war in Burma -- but they are criticized for their failure to present an effectively sanitized image of violent conflict.

If anything, the violence in Rambo is realistic. People die horrible deaths because that's what happens in war. Indeed, in something of a break from the previous two films -- and even many contemporary action films -- the violence is decidedly unstylish. It's blunt, sloppy, disorienting. I'm not saying that the film is on the whole "realistic." It ain't. The grey-templed John Rambo is clearly tired and run-down, but he's still able to go into "one-man army" mode for the film's climax. What I am saying is that the film's aesthetic is unaesthetic.

The movie's attitude towards its violence is hard to discern. In a scene used in the trailer, Rambo initially refuses to help the Christian missionaries. "Are you bringing in any weapons?" he asks the group's leader Michael. "Of course not," Michael replies. "Then you're not helping anyone," says Rambo.

Another missionary, Sarah, is ultimately able to convince Rambo to take the group upriver into Burma. Her argument is one of human action: good people can't sit by while others suffer. Unlike Michael, however, she couches this argument in personal terms about helping just one person and having something to fight for.

During the voyage upriver, Rambo's boat is held up by a group of Burmese "pirates" who demand that he turn over Sarah to them. Rambo responds by pulling a handgun, and in a split second the pirates are dead. Michael castigates Rambo over the killings, even after Rambo yells back that the pirates would have raped Sarah repeatedly.

Rambo's life of seclusion in Thailand is unambiguously understood as him running away from his inner demons. As such, his decision to help rescue the missionaries after they are captured is predicated on his accepting who he is: essentially, a killing machine. This transition is made obvious in a transitional scene that has Rambo forging a new machete as he growls in voice over "You know who you are...what you're made of...war is in your blood...killing's as easy as breathing." It's pretty melodramatic stuff, but it's presented unselfconsciously.

There is, then, a validation of a Christian, humanitarian ethic. Prior to their capture, the missionaries are shown bringing genuine help to the embattled Burmese villagers. Moreover, in a refreshing change from what me might expect, Michael isn't portrayed as a hypocrite. During the final battle he is pushed to kill in order to save his own life, but is immediately overcome with disgust at his actions and cries out.

At the same time, the alternative -- Rambo's mantra that "guns matter" -- is also forcefully validated.

What the picture attempts to do is stake out a middle ground between these two poles, in the sense that everyone has their part to play. What matters is that people take action -- action that is true to who they are.

Fair enough. The only problem is that, given the nature of the story, the scales are decidedly tipped in Rambo's direction. There are instances when the movie does achieve this balance, though.

In a genuinely powerful moment, at the conclusion of the movie's climactic battle, Rambo stands on a hill high above the battle ground, surveying the death and destruction. From this vantage, we see Sarah running across the field, looking for Michael. She finds him, and they immediately begin administering help to the wounded. As the music begins to swell, the movie cuts back to Rambo, watching. Cut back to Sarah and Michael. They look up from their patient, and Michael slows raises his hand in a wave of acknowledgment. Back to Rambo. The camera lingers on him, and as he walks away the focus becomes blurred, before fading to black.

Again, melodramatic. Yet honest, and effective. This is one of the reasons I've been careful to stress that while the film's style (or "look") is what we might consider to be realistic -- gritty, you might say -- the movie itself shouldn't be described as "realistic." In many respects, the storytelling -- that is, Stallone's direction and screenwriting -- is textbook. I mean this in the very best sense of the word. It's a book fewer and fewer filmmakers seem to be familiar with these days, which is too bad. As they say, it's an oldy but a goody.

The same could be said about John Rambo.

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1. James Cameron was never able to get the project off the ground, and somehow the rights to the franchise passed to Carolco, who in turn were also unable to get the project going. I don't know the details of the transaction, but T:3's Wikipedia entry states that Linda Hamilton received the series rights as part of her divorce settlement from Cameron, and she subsequently sold them to Carolco. This claim is unsourced, however.

2. There is surely an essay to be written about the 1980s phenomenon of creating cartoons and toys based on R-rated (or even PG-13) pictures; that is, creating children's media based on movies they, if we believe the ratings, shouldn't see. Today I feel slightly guilty for relentlessly badgering my parents to let me watch movies like RoboCop (1987) and Beetle Juice (1988), both of which I was introduced to through their respective animated series.

3. Or even falls into the category of "not violent enough." Not that I can imagine a review actually criticizing a movie on those grounds.

4. I would also argue that this statistic actually distorts the nature of the violence in the movie; the bloodshed tends to come in sudden, savage bursts, where dozens are killed at a time by automatic weapon fire.

Jumper (2008), directed by Doug Liman.

Every once in a while I find myself in the situation of liking a supposedly bad movie, in spite of my accumulating years of film studies book learnin'.

By nearly all accounts, Jumper is a crummy picture. With aggregate scores of 16% and 36/100 on Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic, respectively, the use of the term "critical reviled" when describing the movie would certainly be justified.

So what does it mean if you liked it?

Sure, you can take some consolation in the fact that it was the number one film at the box office, but lapsing into a kind of populist, what-do-those-critics-know-anyway rhetoric -- as much as there may be some truth to it -- isn't terribly original. Heck, if you argue it with enough vim you end up sounding downright reactionary.

So where do you go?

For starters, assert that you're right and they're wrong.

From there the obvious recourse is to use every ounce of critical acumen you can muster to prove, through close analysis, theoretical argument and perhaps sleight of hand, that what seemed like a crummy picture is, in fact, a masterpiece.

Fortunately (for me and you), I'm not passionate enough about the neglected and overlooked merits of Jumper to mount such an endeavor (I'm saving myself for a defense of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie). I'm even willing to concede that it's not a great movie. Hayden Christensen is rather lacking in the qualities needed to make his character work -- like charisma or, well, emotion -- and the narration is a little inconsistent, beginning with a first-person voiceover by David (Christensen) in the opening, expository scenes, but abandoning it shortly thereafter in favor of a more omniscient narration. There are also a couple of plot holes. For instance, David's first "jump" has him teleport to his school's library. Why this location is particular is never explained. (With that said, this and other "holes" strike me as the kind that are explained by deleted scenes and directors cuts -- a phenomenon I seem to be encountering quite frequently!).

All that aside, what is there to recommend about Jumper? A few things. The narrative is tightly constructed; it features a number of exciting actions sequences; and I found it to be an interesting, deliberately self-conscious take on superheroism.

On the one hand, having superpowers doesn't make one a superhero. In an early scene, David sees scenes of a devastating flood on the TV, and the anchor says that only a "miracle" could save the victims. This seems an open invitation for someone with David's powers to come to the rescue, yet he only shrugs and goes about his morning routine. At the same time, using superpowers selfishly -- robbing banks, in this case -- doesn't outright make one a "supervillain."

In this and other respects, Jumper is unapologetically designed to set up sequels -- one review I read called Jumper a "prequel" -- but I don't see how this, in and of itself, is a bad thing. The notion that attempts to establish franchises or series are somehow "suspect" perplexes me, because serialization (in its many forms) has always been a part of the cinema.

A little tedious

That's how I would describe the much-anticipated Cloverfield (2008, directed by Matt Reeves).

David Bordwell has written a great blog post detailing (among other things) how, despite its formal inventiveness, Cloverfield nonetheless adheres to many of the established principles of classical Hollywood filmmaking. Despite it being shot entirely from a "handheld" video camera, we are still shown enough to know what is going on, follow the action and its characters, and make inferences about what will happen next. This makes me wonder if the style really is all that innovative. Not in the sense that we have seen movies like this before (viz. The Blair Witch Project [1999]), but in terms of what the form is ultimately in service of: in this case, a fairly conventional monster movie narrative. I suppose the larger, Bordwellian point to be made is that technical and stylistic inventiveness is still contained (or accommodated) within the confines of an established system.

As Bordwell notes, the use of highly-restricted narration has many precedents in the science-fiction and horror genres. I was pleased, however, that Cloverfield was able to keep up this up throughout the entire picture -- resisting the temptation, as it were, to inject some form of exposition. Consider, for example, the explanatory voice-over narration in the conclusion of Spielberg's War of the Worlds [2005].

Although the movie's restricted narration is attendant to the handheld camera conceit, there certainly would have been acceptable ways around it (just as acceptable as a camcorder being able to produce bone-shattering hi-fi sound...).

As much as the film should be applauded for sticking to its guns in this respect, I have to say I would have liked to know just a little bit more about the monster. The movie devotes a surprising amount of time to establishing its main characters -- not only to ensure we empathize with them, but also, I suspsect, to acclimate the audience to the movie's handheld style -- but really none on the monster. It appears, along with some apparently parasitic crustacean-like creatures, and they start destroying Manhattan.

No doubt Cloverfield is a film that will reward repeat viewings, because you'll be able to pick up details and "clues" in the mise-en-scene you might have missed the first go 'round. Unfortunately, my curiosity hasn't been piqued to the degree that I'm going to see it again in cinemas (nor am I keen enough in this case to troll through the countless websites and MySpace pages that make up the film's "viral marketing" campaign).

A tantalizing, fleeting glimpse at what might have been

Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2008), directed by The Brothers Strause.

Contrary to what you may have heard, this is actually a darn good picture. It manages to create and sustain an intense mood of fear and suspense that recalls the original Alien, punctuated by exciting, well-staged action set-pieces. Add to that some surprisingly good acting and you've got a thrill ride that meets or even exceeds the brilliance of the original Predator and the first two Alien movies.

Just kidding. AvP:R stinks.

Or, to put it another way: if you've always dreamed of seeing an Alien and a Predator go mano a mano in a sporting goods store, then this is the movie for you.

Now, all of that said, there is one single thing to recommend about AvP:R: we get a brief, tantalizing look at the Predator homeworld. In keeping with the Chariots of the Gods-influenced mythology established in the first AvP, where Predators helped ancient races of humans construct pyramids and other monuments on Earth, the yellow-hued homeworld appears to be a densely jungled planet covered with Aztec-type structures.

Many years ago, probably on Ain't It Cool News, I read a story about a planned, third Predator movie scripted by (I believe) Robert Rodriguez. That story would have Dutch and Harrigan (the respective human protagonists from the first two movies) abducted to the Predator homeworld, where they would participate in a kind of gladiatorial games alongside other creatures from across the galaxy who had managed to best Predators in combat.

This is an undeniably cool idea that obviously never came to fruition, leaving us instead with Alien: Resurrection (1997) and, eventually, the first Alien vs. Predator (2004) (which, like James Cameron, I didn't find entirely disagreeable).

What we have in AvP:R, then, is a fleeting glimpse into not only the Predator homeworld, but into a better movie that should'a, could'a been.

Photo-realism and long-take style(s)(or, Thoughts on Beowulf)

Beowulf (2007), directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Back in 2004, I caught a matinee show of Zemeckis' first exercise in performance-capture animation, The Polar Express. Despite being a Christmas enthusiast and a fan of the source material, my response to the movie was tepid. My main objection had nothing to do with the animation; the story simply wasn't fleshed out enough to sustain a 90-minute feature. With that said, one could certainly draw a connection between the lack of narrative meat, so to speak, and the cosmetic quality of the multiple digitized versions of Tom Hanks inhabiting the movie's virtual world. One aspect that I found particularly unnerving was the characters' eyes; if the eyes are the window to the soul, it was pretty clear that the characters of The Polar Express had none.

Three years later, Zemeckis is back with another animated effort -- one that, again, draws on a well-known story and boasts a big-name cast. This time around, however, the actors limit themselves to one role each, and the story is decidedly not for children. Story-wise, the source material for Beowulf presents a rather different challenge than The Polar Express, requiring condensation and simplification rather than expansion and elaboration. Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery succeed in crafting a well-paced narrative with enough nuance to add a certain intrigue to the proceedings without detracting from the more general focus on man v. monster mayhem.

Visually, the film is stunning, and a vast improvement over The Polar Express. The virtual environs are as convincing as you'll find in any big budget effects blockbuster, but the real advance comes in the transcription of the actors to the digital realm. With few exceptions, I found the characters extremely convicing, lacking the uncanny quality of Hanks' umpteen personages. Many close-ups, in particular, are remarkable photorealistic. At the same time, I found some of the more distant framings of characters lacked the same degree of versimilitude. I'm not particularly familiar with the technological challenges present when using performance-capture, so can only guess that more closely-framed shots of characters afford animators a greater opportunity to add detail to the images, in contrast to medium- and long-shots.

Also on the technology front, one thing I find particularly interesting about digital filmmaking technology is the potential it creates for a new long-take style -- or styles -- of moviemaking. In the "material world," not having to re-load a camera with film every fifteen minutes means being able to shoot for extended periods of time -- jerkily (e.g. Timecode), fluidly (e.g. Russian Ark) or staticly (e.g. Bubble). In the "digital world," however, extended takes are usually in the service of transcending physical barriers or following action to a degree not possible with earth-bound machinery. This is an interesting dichotomy. In the first case, the use of the long-take as a stylistic choice is foregrounded, which calls attention not only to formal technique but also the technology behind it. Meanwhile, the latter depictions of lengthy, uninterrupted action using digital technology -- whether in an animated movie like Beowful or a film that makes extensive use of digital effects (e.g. The Matrix) -- aren't even considered to be long takes. Why not?

The "construction" of lengthy single takes is nothing new, of course (e.g. Rope [1948]), so my first thought is that this is a question of process v. product -- namely, that in the latter case the long take is arrived at by "artificial" means, and is therefor not a true/authentic/real long take. This is to say that the act of letting the camera run for a long time is granted a kind of intrinsic, artistic value that extended takes arrived at by other means are not. But isn't this putting the cart before the horse? If not, does it not at least point to the problematic tendency of equating specific techniques with specific effects, rather than seeing effects as the product of a combination of techniques? It would certainly be easy to conceive of the "material" digital long-take as a continuation of an "art" cinema tradition that values the integrity of performance and artistry, and the "virtual" as the latest example of the absorption of the new into the Hollywood system of commercial cinema.

While I do think there is a case to be made that the advent of digital technology does not represent the "break" that some propose, I don't believe those continuities necessarily further a "break" between modes of filmmaking. Film studies is filled with dichotomies and binary oppositions that tend to be conceptually useful but historically-inspecific (e.g. realistic/formalistic; faith in the image/faith in reality; time-image/movement-image; et cetera/and so on). This leads me to question the degree to which terminology, not unlike explanatory models, can cross the line from descriptive to prescriptive.

Manipulative plot(or, Thoughts on Saw II)

Saw II (2005), directed by Darren Lynn Bousman.

October means Halloween, and in recent years that has come to mean another installment in the Saw franchise of horror films. I'm not a huge fan of the series, but I've found all three films enjoyable.

My favorite of the bunch is probably Saw II. The performances are strong, the characters are interesting, two lines of narrative action are effectively juxtaposed (until the end, which I'll get to), and I found the "house of horrors" conceit entertaining (even if not exploited to its full potential).

What thing that annoys me about Saw II, however, is the "twist" ending: without giving away too much, we learn that the two lines of action are not, in fact, occurring simultaneously as we've been led to believe. As we reach the climax, the "this is the twist!" music begins, and the narration "pieces the clues" together for us: shots and dialog from earlier in the film are re-presented to us -- in a sense, put in their "proper" context -- in order to reveal what was really happening all along. This is presented as a representation of the main character's subjectivity.

This kind of ending is characteristic of a recent trend in Hollywood movie making. All three Saw films end in this way. Both formally and thematically, this recent form of surprise ending owes to films like The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense (and every M. Night Shyamalan film since...). An interesting kind of storytelling is at work in these cases. We have what seemed to be a rather restricted narration that, in the end, makes an ostentatious claim that it was actually being totally communicative the whole time -- only you were too slow to pick up on it.

How "fair" these endings are is debatable -- and depends on the specific film. The problem with Saw II is that the big unveiling just doesn't work: we couldn't have figured out the surprise, even if we had wanted to. In fact, the actual revelation is that the plot is incredibly manipulative. So how are we "fooled" into believing that the two lines of action are occurring simultaneously when, in fact, one preceded the other?

The most obvious answer is that the movie crosscuts between the two lines of narrative. Crosscutting, without any markers to indicate otherwise, implies temporal simultaneity. The movie actually goes further than that, though:

Det. Matthews looks at a computer monitor.

Cut to a shot of the monitor from the reverse angle.

The camera begins to track in...

...until Matthews is no longer in frame...

...the color begins to change...

...and we're inside the room with the characters is the second line of action. What we see on the monitors is later revealed to be a recording, but a seamless transition like this one, transporting us from one location to another (in a novel way), would seem to reinforce the notion that both lines of action are occurring at the same time. Based on the conventions of mainstream cinema, it seems the most reasonable hypothesis. We're proven wrong, of course.

One might counter that the novelty of this transition should impel us to be more critical about our assumptions about the spatial-temporal relationship. This would be a fair point, but only if a)the film didn't feature other, comparable instances where camera "movement" is used in place of cutting to transport us between spaces, and b) those transitions didn't reinforce a straightforward linearity of space and time.

Two examples. First, we see how the camera is elsewhere able to transcend physical boundaries -- in this case, a wall.

The character looks through the peep-hole.

Cut to a reverse-angle shot.

Cut to a shot of the character turning the key in the door.

Cut back to the character's head. The camera tracks right, revealing a gun on the other side...

...which fires...

...and the camera tracks back...

...to the other side of the door...

...and he's dead. Poor fella.

As a second -- and more interesting -- example, a character traverses both physical and temporal boundaries, creating a kind of fluid transition between scenes.

Matthews has just been called into work.

Cut to a slightly different framing of Matthews. He begins to put on his jacket...

...steps forward, and the the camera tracks right following him.

At this point in the shot, we see the division between two spaces (between two sets, really).

As Matthews crosses over from his bedroom to the warehouse, a police officer enters frame right...

...and passes between him and the camera.

Matthews is now in the warehouse. But as the camera begins to track backward to accommodate his movement...

...his bedroom lamp is again visible, as another officer passes before the camera.

After the second officer passes, Matthews begins talking to Det. Kerry.

Although this second example is certainly more formally innovative, the point to be made is that the linearity of the narrative is maintained despite the camera's transcendent ability. Matthews doesn't walk into yesterday; he walks into later that day, just as if the movie had cut from one scene to another. As such, there is little reason a viewer would cast a skeptical eye towards the transition used to transport us from Matthews to Jigsaw's captives.

All of which make the final conceit a little underhanded, because it relies on a contradiction of how narration has been operating up until that point. The ending is less clever than deceptive. We've been tricked, yes, but we didn't have a chance.

Remakes, evil, Todorov et cetera(or, Thoughts on Rob Zombie's Halloween)

Halloween (2007), directed by Rob Zombie.

As came about probably too clearly in my post about the new 3:10 to Yuma, it can be difficult to judge a remake on its "own merits." The job becomes even more difficult when the original film is a certified classic (which the original Yuma really isn't).

The critical approach to these films is to begin one's review with some pretense of objectivity -- "...as much as I love the original, I went in with an open mind..." -- but then proceed, usually unintentionally, to judge the new film in relation to the original. This is a natural inclination. We appraise all movies based on our experiences, be they from our everyday lives ("It just wasn't realistic") or from other movies we've seen. A remake simply provides us with a more concrete background against which to measure a film.

Personally, I find it extremely difficult not to think of originals when I'm watching remakes, unless they provide a story that so diverges from the original so as to be a remake really in title only (Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead comes to mind). As I wrote in my post on Stardust, I actually try to avoid reading the books upon which films are based. I've seen all of the Harry Potter movies, for example, but haven't read any of the books -- to the shock and horror of most I tell this to.

I'm sure that most folks who saw the new Yuma hadn't seen the original, and I'll go out on a limb and say that's true for the new Halloween. Most of the film's target demographic weren't alive when the original came out. Despite increasing availability of older films, I know from teaching film studies that the 95% of freshmen film students only have a five-year memory when it comes to movies. And these are the kids who want to study film.

It's clear from his effort at re-imagining the origin of serial killer Michael Myers that director Rob Zombie understands the task at hand, even if his effort to craft a film that tries to balance reverence for the original with his own personal vision isn't successful.

The film's main problem is that it just ain't scary. There isn't much suspense, and the shocks don't work...mainly because the film fails to create the necessary atmosphere of suspense. This actually relates to Zombie's larger approach to the story, which could charitably be described as explicit. Instead of mystery and suspense, we see and know.

Zombie gives Myers his own line of action. In the original, after the famous, subjective-view opening murder, the narrative focuses on 1) Laurie and her friends, who are stalked by Michael, and on 2) Loomis as he desperately tries to find Michael before it is too late. In the new version, we get an expanded back story, depicting not only Michael's troubled home life but also his initial psychological treatments by Dr. Loomis. When Myers escapes from the sanitarium, he proceeds to a truck wash where he murders a trucker. Rather than Michael following/stalking his prey, the narration follows Michael.

Rather than being an entity -- a "shape" -- he becomes a character.

It is on this premise that Zombie stakes his film. While I understand what Zombie is trying to do, his approach is problematic.

The extended prologue attempts to offer something in the way of an explanation for Michael's evil: abusive stepfather, bullied at school, tortures animals, etc. But none of this is ultimately able to account for Michael's behavior. If it was, Loomis would likely be able to treat him. But he isn't, so Michael's evil is, ultimately, unexplainable. So why the lengthy, gruesome prologue, if the film is going to retain that premise? Again, the focus is not on the unknown but the known.

Loomis is more shaken by what Michael has done -- three vicious murders -- than what he is. In the original, Loomis looks into Michael's eyes and sees nothing but blackness. This time 'round, Loomis sees the blackness, but characterizes them as "the eyes of a psychopath."

The original didn't explicitly imbue Michael with any supernaturality (we would have to wait for Halloween 6 for that!), yet there was clearly something otherwordly about him. The new version grounds Micheal, in a sense, in the physical world. Although he was writing about literature, Tzvetan Todorov's work on the "the fantastic" from The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre is perhaps relevant here.

The fantastic is understood in relation to two neighboring generic categories, "the marvellous" and "the uncanny." In the former, occurrences are explained and understood as supernatural (ghosts, monsters, and so on). In the latter, the events in question are instead explained in terms of the laws of the natural world (revealing a "mastermind" behind the proceedings being a common plot device, as at the end of the original House on Haunted Hill [1959]).

In the fantastic, there is a "hesitation" between ascribing events to either of the two poles -- both on the part of the protagonist, but also on the part of the reader. An initial hesitation is common to many science fiction and horror films, but few films sustain it as the original Halloween does (and a sustained examination in this vein would be interesting). The remake, however, would be an example of the "uncanny."

Whether the lengthy prologue is actually an attempt to explain Myers' evil or really a commentary on the unexplainable nature of evil is debatable (although I'm leaning towards the former), but it nonetheless erases all hesitation that Myers may (or may not) be a supernatural phenomenon. Whereas the new Loomis believes he "failed" Michael by not being able to help him, the original Loomis knew he couldn't help Michael and dedicated himself to keeping Myers locked up.

Zombie's decision to go in this direction is not in and of itself a bad thing. There is nothing to say that Myers the psychopathic child cum vengeful adult mass-murderer couldn't be as shocking or scary as The Shape was back in 1978. But making Myers rather than Laurie the center of the story erases nearly all of the mystery -- and hence horror -- about the character. The other characters in the film, in particular Laurie, are underdeveloped. Instead of being aligned principally with a protagonist whom we care about (and don't want to see die), more time is spent with Myers. We don't sympathize with Myers, of course, but we also don't really sympathize with any of his victims.

Not helping matters here is that much of the acting is quite weak -- in particular Daeg Faerch as young Michael, who looks a little creepy but is unable to evince much emotion. Malcolm McDowell seems on paper to be a great choice for Dr. Loomis, but his performance in the film lacks gravitas; he doesn't come across as a man who has looked the devil in the eye. Scout Taylor-Compton doesn't do much the role of Laurie, but then she isn't given much to work with. Few of the characters are, in fact. Yes, it's amusing to see a string of cameos by b-horror stars (Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Bill Mosley and many more), but every moment of characterization given to inconsequential characters takes away from the main roles.

The one exception is Danielle Harris (who played Myers' niece in Halloween 4 and 5), who acquits herself well as Laurie's friend Annie (especially for a 30-year-old playing a high school senior).

Zombie's cinematic style -- or lack thereof -- is also problematic. As in his previous two films, there are definitely some interesting moments in Halloween. But there is a strong sense that, as a director, he is still trying to figure things out -- aggressively using sometimes incongruous formal approaches, often to the same scene. One rather annoying thing I noted in the film were the frequent cuts back to shaky, hand-held shots that observe events from an obscured point of view (like from behind branches). The composition of such shots gives the initial impression that we've adopted the point-of-view of a third party who is observing the scene, but this is never the case. The aim is also not to veil the depiction of blood or gore, because the scenes then cut back to closer views of the carnage. What we often have is a mish-mash of angles and framing edited together with little sense of purpose other than blunt impact.

Part of the original Halloween's beauty was its subtly - an understated form that the made the punctures of blood and murder all the more emphatic. Zombie's approach to the subject matter is so aggressive and, again, explicit that the potential for effective horror is never realized.

What, no Frankie Lane?

3:10 to Yuma (2007), directed by James Mangold.

The lack of a reprise of Lane's signature song from the 1957 Delmer Daves version of Elmore Leonard's story is the most disappointing part of Mangold's remounting of the story of a desperate rancher who agrees to escort a apprehended gunman to the train that will take him to prison.

More annoying than disappointing is how certain tendencies of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking come into focus in this picture, in particular the use of close framing.

I'm not a huge fan of the '57 version of 3:10 to Yuma, but it's an undeniably handsome film, featuring black-and-white cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr. While I think the film on the whole drags, there are moments where the black-and-white imagery combines with careful staging and framing to imbue scenes with a genuine sense of psychology. Of course, you mention the word "psychology" in relation to the Western and most folks think of the "psychological Western" -- a somewhat subjective grouping of oaters from the 40s and 50s that grappled thematically with more intimate, emotional subject matter (and tended to afford actors more showcase-type roles). This is not what I'm talking about here.

What I mean instead is that there are moments -- two come to mind, in particular -- where the film's formal features effectively heighten the emotional drama being played out, almost to the point where they threaten to break free of their subservience to the narrative.

When Ben Wade (played by Glenn Ford) and his gang ride into Bisbee after robbing the stagecoach, Wade's visit to the town's saloon is rendered in a striking play of light and shadows and staging in depth. As Wade and Evans (played by Van Heflin) wait for the train, the shifting power dynamic between the characters is conveyed less through dialogue than staging. (Some screen captures would really come in handy here, but, alas, I don't own the DVD).

Both of these scenes are present in the '07 version, serving the same functions as they did in the '57 movie. Yet they don't stand out as much because they're filmed in a more-or-less conventional way that relies on, yes, many close-ups.

I find that Hollywood pictures in general are framed closer today than ever before. This subject deserves a longer consideration in a future post, but for the time being it should be said that Yuma '07's framings are not deviant by any means. Just as the character scenes, like the two I'm discussing, are framed closer, so are the action scenes, like the holdup of the stagecoach. (Comparing the formal treatment of this genre convention in Yuma with its precedents, going back to Stagecoach, would be a revealing exercise). Yet the close-ups largely work to keep attention focus squarely on the characters.

This has an unfortunate, limiting effect, because there is little sense in the movie of geography.

This is not to say that a Western has to provide sweeping views of prairie vistas in order to give the film mythic resonance; although it may seem counterintuitive, many acclaimed directors of Westerns did not have the same reverie for nature as John Ford. As the original Yuma proves, even man-made structures -- especially in the Western -- can be suggestively rendered. But this doesn't happen in the new Yuma.

One could argue that the closer framings lead to a greater focus on character, and thus help the film achieve a psychology comparable to the Daves version. Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are good actors who do much with subtleties of expression. They're also award-winning actors, of course, and the film does seem to have this in mind. The roles are certainly showcases for their respective acting talents. In this way, there is tension between the somewhat pulpy source material and the film's showcase mode.

What I seem to be grappling with is how a classic genre is receiving a contemporary treatment by an accomplished mainstream filmmaker. As such, what I'm observing are less problems than unrealized potential. This hasn't blinded me to the more general fact that 3:10 to Yuma '07 is a good picture that effectively draws on and, in some cases, updates many of the conventions of the Western genre. Part of that effectiveness relies, of course, on not having to be too familiar with the Western's increasingly unfamiliar (as least to contemporary audiences) conventions. But if anything, the film proves that there's still lots to work with in the genre.

Take it away, Frankie...

Lactating prostitute! (or, Thoughts on Shoot 'Em Up)

Shoot 'Em Up (2007), directed by Michael Davis.

One review I read of this film stated it was a parody of a genre that is itself a parody -- the "shoot 'em up" action genre -- and used that premise to question, among other things, whether we actually need a film like this.

As tempting as it is to try to grapple with the postmodernist paradox that unintentionally underlies that line of thinking, I'll stick to the surface -- if only because the existence of any film featuring a lactating prostitute is justified on that element alone.

We should probably be critical of the notion that a typical action feature is a parody or spoof. I understand why the action genre gets picked on in this regard -- "why don't the bad guys shoot in front of him?" -- but simply because a film purports to take place in the "real world" but also relies on a suspension of disbelief doesn't make it a parody. I leave you to follow the logic on that one.

Anyway...Shoot 'Em Up isn't a great picture. Or even a good picture, really. But, as I'm fond of saying, it does have its moments.

In many respects, the movie is an ambitious and knowledgeable attempt to parody many of the established conventions of the action genre: from character types (the mysterious hero, the benevolent whore, the hitman with a family) to plot (an abnormal but seemingly local event is rather improbably tied to a connect-the-dots political conspiracy of national proportions).

Unfortunately, these aspects don't work nearly as well as the action-sequences, which are hilariously over-the-top send-ups of the kind of confrontations we've come to expect in the genre. My personal favorite is a sky-diving shoot-out. As if the lactating hooker wasn't enough!

In the end, the action sequences are the most entertaining and, in terms of parody, most effective parts of the movie. The film moves along at such a brisk pace that the potential of the more expository sequences is not realized; the viewer is relied upon to "get" what's funny about the caricatures and mockeries less on what is presented than what is suggested.

The film also started out doing some formally interesting things in the non-action scenes, but these moments largely vanished by the half-way mark.

The opening alternates between close-ups and long-shots to hilarious effect, introducing the hero in an ironic fashion and effectively parodying the in media res beginning typical of Hollywood films generally but the action film specifically. If I ever happen to rent to the DVD -- unlikely, but who knows -- some explanatory screen captures will be in order.

There is also a great long take of Paul Giamatti's hitman character Hertz after his gang's initial encounter with Smith (the hero, played by Clive Owen). The camera follows Hertz as he circles his car while chastising his men, culminating in a conversation with one of his henchmen, who he in the end shoots in the butt. The scene is a great example of how Giamatti is the kind of actor who does not need his performances to be "built" for him through editing.

The one aspect I've not quite got my head around is the film's sense of humor, which is quite sadistic (and perversely sexual -- again, lactating hooker). I'm not sure whether this is an attempt to comment on the latent sexuality in the action genre or just a stab at crude, R-rated humor -- though I'm inclined to think the latter.