Dumbo

Largely inspired by the aesthetics of Disney's Silly Symphonies, the barely-feature-length Dumbo is essentially an epic cartoon, albeit one whose sensibilities are less exaggerated than they are a witty and fanciful caricaturization of reality (an early image, in which the United States appears in illustrated map form from the viewpoint of the clouds, is indicative), evoking the playful perspective of a child.

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MST3K vs. Gamera

While the movie segments of these episodes left this junkie craving more, they're rather accomplished works when one focuses on the writing and sharp comedic timing displayed in the host segments. Tom Servo's love song to a turtle is an early high-water mark, Crow T. Robot's impersonation of Ed Sullivan has rarely been surpassed by human or puppet alike, and fans of Wagner will appreciate the production of "Gameradamerung."

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The Fox and the Hound

The stripped-down simplicity of the story (freely adapted from the 1967 novel by Daniel P. Mannix) is appropriate for its true-to-life bleakness, which isn't to say it's a film without hope, but that archetypal singularity is fitting when a story boils down to so many singular acts with permanent, often tragic consequences.

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American: The Bill Hicks Story

Those who know Hicks's work tend to know it well. His life's work was rich but limited by definition, and it speaks to what the man, cut down by pancreatic cancer at the unjust age of 32, accomplished in his brief career that he continues to be held in such high regard, his recognition and respect ceaselessly growing over the past two decades. Such as it is, American is less about his professional career than his personal life, insofar as one can separate the two when considering so personally honest and hardworking a performer.

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True Grit

Many have complained that the Coens' adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel wants for the filmmakers' usual sense of ironic detachment. Surely, the brothers play it overall much straighter than usual here, imbuing the proceedings with a formal classicism that equally honors the work of the cast as it does the quotidian prose of Portis's text. Their unwavering sincerity and love for character is such that it complicates everything else they've achieved until now.

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Solaris

Andrei Tarkovsky hated 2001: A Space Odyssey, and in a fit of insolence not unusual to his brand of genius, declared that his own science-fiction film (then in the making) would be the polar opposite of Kubrick's, which he saw as soulless and obsessed with special effects, ignorant to the human heart. It speaks to Tarkovsky's singular creative impulses, then, that Solaris proves the yin to Kubrick's yang, not out of contrarian longing, but because that was the form best suited for the content Tarkovsky wanted to explore.

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The Terminator

Is it only incidental that James Cameron's greatest film is also his only work to clock in at under two hours? His subsequent films have proven consistently entertaining and frequently excellent, but the lightning of his debut—a content-to-be-small B movie that nevertheless feels epic in scope and emotion—has yet to strike twice. The Terminator remains as intelligent and emotionally complex as any film of its kind, and the reductive lens of pop culture—to say nothing of intellectual film snobs ignorant to genre pleasures—can't extinguish its mythic humanist power.

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If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

The failure of the levees was an unprecedented blow to America's most eclectic city, but the BP disaster—from the initial rig explosion and months of leaking oil to the ensuing media cover-ups and hindsight revelations about safety regulations blatantly disregarded in the name of short-term profits—will likely go down as the example of modern capitalism-cum-cannibalism, its environmental, economic, and humanitarian ramifications likely beyond our full comprehension for years, if not decades, to come.

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Gamera vs. Zigra & Gamera: The Super Monster

Created by the Daiei Motion Picture Company to rival Toho's successful string of monster films, the fire-breathing, jet-propelled giant turtle was a stretch from the outset. Even in his original film, the big fella was hardly a titan of the threatening sort (especially when he walked on his hind legs), and it wasn't long before the series was catering to an under-10 demographic far more explicitly than even the most juvenile of Godzilla entries.

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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XX

The unique clashing of the high- and lowbrow has always been part of what made this oeuvre such a resilient, democratic creation, while the ingenious in-theater presentation befits both solo and communal viewing experiences to equal, if different, effect. It's hard to imagine a series with public-access roots being more fully formed, universal, and profound.

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Santa Sangre

On paper, Alejandro Jodorowsky's vision seems drawn equally from the works of Buñuel, Hitchcock, and perhaps incidentally, Tod Browning's Freaks, but the effect of his kaleidoscopic vision never feels culled from any cloths not of his own making. For as random and free associative as his images strike one as being at any given moment, the consistency with which Santa Sangre doles out madness suggests a most assured and carefully plotted creative process.

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25th Hour

25th Hour would seem to be a difficult film to love - it's central scenario bearing no happy endings, offered up with no punches pulled - but those who do love it seem to be of the gushing type (I should know, as I'm one of them). I'd argue the movie as being ultimately a hopeful one, but a pick me up it is not. God hovers over Lee's post-2001 NYC with rapturous disconnect; he's around, but he's stepped out for awhile, and whatever hope or strength people have is entirely up to them for the moment. If I “like” this movie, it's in the same way I like life, accepting its many trivialities, inanities and downright shitty aspects as a given along with the pleasures, deep and pure and whole and true, however fleeting they may be. 25th Hour is as beautiful a movie as I've ever seen, but its subject matter is one primarily of decay. Beauty here is nothing to sneeze at.

The story succeeds on even the conceptual level for its presentation of moral struggle. Monty (Edward Norton) is a touched (read: prosecuted) drug dealer going about his final day of freedom before having to report to prison (he’s a low flight risk on parole). Somebody sold him out, but he's maintained silence with the feds and so must serve a full seven years. Monty seems a great guy out of the gate, but he was still a drug dealer, and whether he was simply satiating or actively creating a market is a judgment call sidestepped here (says the movie: even good people have to reap the seeds they've sewn). Lee finds universal dread amidst Monty's crisis, and tastefully, necessarily probes collective anger, hope and fear with a one-two punch of World Trade Center imagery: the opening credits, a montage of the ghostlike light beam memorials projected from ground zero, and an early second-act view into the rotten festering hole itself. And, speaking as a man, you don't have to be homophobic to dread the thought of lifers beating you up at night just to soften your mouth up.

25th Hour is about big moments – the aforementioned sequences and two key speech montages scream of grandiose-reaching self-consciousness, but then, how couldn't they? – but it's also about the connective flow of an evening, and I simply adore the way Lee works his way through this ether of people and feelings like he's charting a spiderweb, finding truths and resolutions but never really concluding anything because, well, life goes on. The style emphasizes real time experience and a halfway naturalistic, halfway poetic palate aids in suggesting a presence of life continuing beyond the credits – that is, the 25th hour (the movie earns every ounce of its titular destination). Approaching an Altmanesque sensibility, David Benioff's script – based off his own novel – concocts a savory Freudian triangle of ego, id, and superego to help straddle the narrative line of life and larger-than-life. The most outright fun sequences are between Norton, Barry Pepper (as his high-fallutin' investor friend Xavier) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Jacob, an introverted English teacher; imo PSH's best performance to date), just shooting the shit. Throw Anna Paquin as a hot-for-teacher student into the mix, and, well, enough said, right?

Star casting helps to maintain a tonal balance within the films love the sinner/hate the sin worldview, with Rosario Dawson (as the angelic Naturelle, Monty's girlfriend) in particular helping to lend the story a kind of allegoric immensity. These beautiful people simultaneously embody both our best and worst tendencies, and an emphasis on perspective gives things an even richer ambivalence (a tactic declared visually via a teasing window effect used during Xavier's introduction, see video below). The easily offended may want to pass (let's get this out of the way up front: you'll be hearing the dialogue “Fuck J.C.” pretty early on), but then, so too do such chickenshits miss out on most of the real world. Emotionally cathartic and downright spiritually shattering, 25th Hour finds beauty in the silver linings and embodies the notion that we're stronger than we usually realize we can be. I love it like life.

Directed by: Spike Lee Screenplay by: David Benioff Starring: Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Anna Paquin, Tony Siragusa, Brian Cox 2002, R, 134 minutes









DVD Image/Audio/Extras

This 2002 disc amply displays the limitations of the format at the time, but it doesn't manage to bring down the buzz of Lee's joint. Colors look good (and this is a demanding array at times), dialogue and score are clear (and clearly separate), blacks and edges not so much. Who cares? Rosario Dawson still looks like a higher beings gift to mankind. A few puff pieces, deleted scenes and two listenable if unarousing commentary tracks (although Lee's is worthwhile if only for his imitation of George W. Bush) make up a respectable special features collection.

Dante's Inferno

Directed by: Victor Cook, Kim Sang-Jin, Shukou Murase, Jong-Sik Nam, Lee Seung-Gyu, Yasoumi Umetsu
Written by: Brandon Auman
Cast: Graham McTavish, Vanessa Branch, Steven Blim, Peter Jessop, Mark Hamill, Victoria Tennant
2010, Not rated, 88 minutes

A healthy variety of experience is vital to any development in life, so while the straight-to-DVD feature Dante's Inferno lacks the soul-piercing power of, say, The Duchess of Langeais, it doesn't lack for some base/basic pleasures. At any rate, it's a more fulfilling experience than Avatar (not that that says much), even if the writing is often as hackneyed and the end doesn't even try to mask the fact that the whole thing is just a lead-in to the videogame just as fresh on the same retail shelves (if that doesn't explain the ending, then lousy screenwriting surely does). Surely forgettable, this bit of unrestrained adolescence has modesty on its side. Admittedly, stuff like this is out of my usual comfort zones - it took me until about the 25 minute mark to get over certain elements (the faux-serious nudity is a riot) - but as a comparatively low-budget anime within a fairly constrained zone of creativity, this mini-epic succeeds as an expressionistic vista of spirituality in conflict, low on thought but high on seductive, stylized imagery. Freshly returned from the Crusades, Dante finds his beloved Beatrice slain, her soul - though pure - claimed by Lucifer, who takes her to the inner circles of hell from which she must be rescued. Simplistic religious meaning abounds, ditto screenwriting devices that might have been infuriating if the were presented as anything else. Honesty lends legitimacy; these sins are easily overlooked given how exuberantly the movie revels in orgiastic imagery (a favorite touch: the female souls trapped in the circle of Lust sprout phallic tentacles, invoking Cronenberg). The plentiful action sequences might be mere boss battles from the game itself, but here they're simplified into postures and poses that aren't so dynamic as they are symbolically expressive from a religious/gender perspective. Past that, there's not much going on here, but then, that's not always so terrible.


DVD Audio/Visual/Special Features: Given Dante's Inferno's rather undemanding technical side, it's no high praise to say this DVD provides an adequate transfer and sound mix. English and Spanish subtitles included. Special features include six animated storyboard sequences - boring, except for the insight they lend into how specific actions and expressions are emphasized - and a preview for the game of the same title, which, on the basis of these same visually-bound virtues, appears far more worthwhile.

Wendy and Lucy (2008): A+

A true enjoyment/appreciation of Wendy and Lucy hinges on a few simple and effective factors, one such being the recognition that sometimes there’s nothing more exciting or memorable than a walk in the woods, or a night spent round a campfire with fellows. If you can’t dig this kind of lived-in simplicity, which bears with it the fact that no exciting sound bytes could possibly be devised with serious and honest intent for the film in question, then don’t even bother. Not so much pitched minimally as it is a kind of ne plus ultra of the quotidian, Reichardt’s follow-up to Old Joy replaces a wandering sense of sublime existentialism with a rigid, stripped-down character study that, in theory, borders on formulaic (but nothing more). Putting to the test Ebert’s much stressed “how/about” designation, it is a film more concerned with the manners and purposes of things than the whats and hows. Suggesting the essential mirror to a made-for-June-release ‘splode fest, Wendy and Lucy is practically introverted. You have to want to know more about it.

It is in this unspoken manner that the film’s oft-referenced political nods are imbued into its fabric, unlike the NPR vocal choir that overshadowed everything in Old Joy. The world sings here, though, such as the chorus of freight trains that decorate the opening credits (the title, green on plain black, appears only at the beginning of the third scene during a low point in the action, as it were), or the manner in which sound is used for emotional emphasis or to indicate the passage of time. Time is all that Wendy has in abundance, and as the details of her situation (unemployed and with few resources, on the road, and, save for her dog Lucy, not a friend in the world) reveal themselves in gradual happenstance, her situation becomes exponentially more heartbreaking in impact, strung out in meticulous perfection like the wire of a spider’s web. Surely this is not cinematic escape, but no one can deny that some of life’s most nerve wracking moments are also some of its most banal and tedious. Reichardt’s focus brings the small and the specific into the light of the universal.

Much of Wendy and Lucy can be physically/visually described as static or slow-moving, a fact that makes its razor-sharp shot length control even more impressive to behold. Captured with a series of deliberately, effortlessly constructed compositions (literally about small things but assembled with epic emotions in mind), Reichardt’s masterpiece details her experiences with a stately sensitivity, first suggested via the early, instant classic field sequence, which functions both as a literal series of paintings, each framed by foliage and wild shrubbery, and - as film critic Christopher Long aptly notes - an emotional decompression chamber, tenderizing the viewer for what is to come.

That I wanted, but neglected, to further address the film’s politics in my previous paragraphs is indicative of their relative importance therein: Wendy and Lucy lives in the shadow or governmental inadequacy (or failure), but stays firmly on ground level with those suffering from the cracks in the system. We know this, rather simply, because Wendy isn’t dumb, as is made clear time and again throughout, though often indirectly or, to restate a point, silently. Case in point: Wendy stares in disbelief beneath the hood of her car (the engine won’t start), but it isn’t until she speaks to a mechanic much later that we learn she’s largely correct about what’s afflicting it). Many an IMDb commenter (those people ready to latch onto any loophole or flaw present within a single plain of thought) have brought up a single point: why didn’t Wendy simply buy a plane ticket to Alaska, rather than spend her savings on a cross-country trip? Unlike economic theory, Wendy and Lucy accommodates those with less than perfect judgment, and in the same manner, it won’t necessarily tell you straight up if someone’s afraid of flying (or how well or not they’re versed in the art of car repair).

In casting Michelle Williams as a comedown from razzle-dazzle glamour, Reichardt effectively turns Wendy and Lucy into a modern day Snow White, with the audience posing as magic mirror. Unconcerned with people beyond their behavior (jobs, labels and status come off here as part of a superficial charade), the film flattens the social paradigm to see homeless, police, employees, and dogs as equals, an open-to-all attitude carefully regulated by the selection of performers and institution of particular character traits. I’ve long hated hyperbole but these revelations of her performance demand close to it: Michelle Williams may give the finest female performance since Emily Watson’s overseen work in Breaking the Waves. She’s a falling angel, enshrined before impact by barely glimpsed fluorescent lights above her halo-like bowl cut; Williams’ barely-glimpsed reserve gives us a character about whom we can know so much, even if we know very little (to say nothing of the cast at large, particularly Will Patton and a memorable cameo by Will Oldham). Wendy and Lucy gets under your nails, which is to say, it’s the stuff of life.

DVD

That Wendy and Lucy was shot to look about as texturally laid back as Transformers was unbelievably polished (I’m still unsure if that’s really a bad thing or not) doesn’t exactly make this a title begging for Blu-ray treatment. As such, this transfer gets the job done beautifully, particularly in the shadowy depth of the film's nighttime scenes. Equally modest is the sound mix, which works wonders as an example of almost unnoticeably subtle use of background noise (but packs almost as much of a wallop as No Country for Old Men). No movie-related features save for the trailer, although this is a fact I’m personally grateful for given the contemplative nature of the film. Far more interesting than Reichardt explaining the magic of her work are four short films selected by the director, made by her colleagues at Bard college. Previews for eleven more Oscilloscope releases highlight the far-reaching, independently-spirited integrity of this laudable new studio’s offerings.

Cloverfield (2008): B-

A second viewing of Cloverfield confirms that this experimental pop feature has more to it than I initially recognized; the impact of hype on my initial impressions notwithstanding, I think it a telling fact that my gut response was far more embracing when viewing the film on a comparatively small television, as opposed to the epic cavern of the classic single-screen theater just down the road from my Alma mater. Like Brian De Palma's similarly conceived Redacted, it is a work rooted in the aesthetic of a non-cinematic visual form, a fact that doesn't make theatrical exhibition wrong, per se, but one that significantly impacts the ways its imaged are consumed under various means of presentation, the reduction in size carrying with it a reduction in its apparent "entertainment" qualities, regardless of whether or not Cloverfield wants us to be thrilled by or fearful of the events onscreen. General thematic limpness being chief among its weaknesses, the film fails to beckon its chosen medium, instead subject to the whims of the form it unsuccessfully attempts to dominate.

The aesthetic of the first time camera operator is one we all know well, unless, that is, we've never been forced to either (a) document a party or event as our cinematographer Hud (the very good sport T.J. Miller) has, or (b) watched such almost-nauseating recordings after the fact (for the record, the style, both real and feigned, has never bothered mine eyes, so get the deal about it I do not), and as such it is one more appropriately at home on the small screen, especially given the straightforward manner in which producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves has conceived their baby. The Blair Witch Project still owns, not the least because its supposed "makers" were, in fact, filmmakers, and as such utilized their talents in a way that, by the very nature of their recordings and their relationship to them, transcended mere technical artifice. (Spoilers ahead.) Cloverfield similarly bears witness to the long-gestating deaths of its incidental protagonists at the hands of some mysterious force, but the film never aspires to subvert the home video genre, merely utilizing it to tell a Godzilla-type story (or rather, a story with a Godzilla-type creature in it) in a different way than its genre has traditionally embraced.

To be clear, I still find it wanting in too many ways to champion, but - and it is possible that my initial impressions were unawaringly swayed by gorging media hype, among other things - Cloverfield emerges now not as a hollow shell, but as some kind of brilliant conception, albeit one more than a bit too caught up in its calculated form to effectively indulge in the emotional undercurrents that made The Blair Witch Project one hell of a character study in addition to a representation of the moving image as point-of-view documentarianism. More apparent now is Cloverfield's humane side, less seemingly exploitative than on the big screen and more implicitly self-critical in its representations of death if only because its maker chose to document them. Spectacle-hungry viewers who want more "monster for their money" needn't apply: Cloverfield is only incidentally about a giant creature wreaking havoc. Rather, it's about Hud's own mental processes amidst such disaster, the burgeoning love between its subjects Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Yustman), and our own relationships to recording technology.

After an effectively prolonged set-up at a surprise going-away party in Manhattan, something big rocks the city and, before we know it, the night has already seen fire and brimstone. When a dozen or so spectators almost instinctively raise their cell phones to the head of the Statue of Liberty after the iconic face crashes in the street, hurled into Manhattan by God knows what, it's not only as if they're worshipping some unspoken deity, but we realize that Hud's perspective is just one of many. Unfortunately, these are the brilliant nuggets that are scattered about what is otherwise a very straightforward melodrama, not quite as impeccably acted as it would like to think it is and carrying with it a framing devise that even Frank Capra would consider schmaltzy in its obviousness. Cloverfield respectably feigns randomosity, whereas Blair Witch was actually shot off the cuff, the actors here rendering their characters as flesh-and-blood but only in the first dimension; whether it's just another day at the convenience store or the possible end of days, their deliberately casual feel remains a hair too close to that timid land of movie extras to be truly realistic. I, for one, would be using the F-bomb far more gratuitously if faced with a possible encounter with a creature that could well swallow me whole.

Throughout the film - which, for the idiots of the world (I'm sorry, but really, can we maybe walk on our own some day?), is actually a digital home movie that has been recorded on several times, hence the inconsistency of the events being shown - scenes preceding the central night of havoc pop up, but their presence smacks time and again of calculated cutesiness, a wink from the film to remind the audience of its own nifty conception. Cloverfield suffers from this compulsion to refer back to itself, forgoing a more genuinely (i.e. challenging) inconsistent texture that would have rendered its events all that more punchy as they unfold. Such as it is, the scenes in which our protagonists stop for news updates are among the most effective, and even more so for their lack of attention mongering; the frames within frames demand a reexamination of our viewing portal, both the way we gather information and how we function in the world. Morons may wonder why no third-person perspectives are offered up but Cloverfield's relative thrills - that of the unprotected, in-your-face kind - only work as well as they do because of the film's absolutely self-contained consistency. I highly doubt the crab/alien/monster at the center of the film will ever become the American equivalent to Japan's Godzilla, but I for one prefer its nature to remain shrouded in mystery, its origins extraneous to the films very much immediate events and themes and only complained about by those who latch on to trite details lest they actually invest themselves in that subconscious manner that attunes one to currents beyond the mere physical events transpiring onscreen.

As a humanistic look at the ground-level suffering intrinsic to much genre entertainment, Cloverfield is a visual thrill, but its own cookie-cutter rigidity cuts itself off from the deeper possibilities that always remain just within arms reach. The aforementioned scene of the Liberty head remains the one truly brilliant moment of chic pop imagery therein, and though later attacks by the lead monster and its legions of man-sized fleas never fail to make one feel vulnerable to the elements, the film fails to substantially anchor its events to character in a way that effectively builds on its core gimmick; Rob and Beth's relationship, for all of its apocalyptic, one-note "I love you" tragedy, is barely enough to substantiate the plot. Hud, probably unbeknownst to the filmmakers, is the real star here, his ultimate demise seeing the film's single most mind-bending shot: his lower half having been ripped off and devoured by the monster, the camera lands next do his now-deceased upper torso, the auto-focus toggling back and forth between our fallen heroes wan face, the grass beneath him, and the smokey, smouldering ruins behind him. Whatever the nature of our obsessive kino eye, it is one lost without us.

DVD

Cloverfield comes to us half-assedly packaged like a secret government file (if they wanted to maintain the illusion, why not go all the way as did the film?), its disc fake-damaged in the same way the Borat DVD looks like an obviously fake DVD-R (in other words, expect Blockbuster customers to demand a refund, mistaking it for the real thing). The image appropriately straddles the grainy/crispy look chosen for the film while the sound is nothing short of formidable, despite the obviously illogical pitfall that no home camera yet comes equipped with its own Michael Bay sound system (had Cloverfield gone so far as to emulate muffled audio as did Blair Witch, who knows how creepy those fucking fleas might have been).

In the features department, the usual slew of making-of featurettes dominates the selection (they are, thankfully, less cutesy than the packaging), although the revelation that the monster is in fact meant to be a mere baby of its species all but demands another feature made with the creature solely in mind. A handful of appropriately deleted scenes and two minutely different endings may intrigue fans, while the commentary track sees a soft-spoken Matt Reeves detailing the aesthetic and technical nature of his film so meticulously (apparently for the benefit of the numbskulls who still don't get "why the camera shakes") that you'd think he was attempting to connect the dots on Inland Empire from the ground up. If any, skip the batch of outtakes that effectively solidify the film's party crowd as the go-to douchebags of Lower Manhattan.

28 Weeks Later (2007): A-

More so than in its predecessor, the family unit lies at the core of 28 Weeks Later, not only as a group tied by blood but by the pure, instinctive necessity to survive. That instinct drives virtually every moment of the film's hair-raising 100 minutes, but blood is of far greater thematic importance to this rampaging downward spiral. Literally, it's (one of) the means by which the Rage virus infects its hosts, but symbolically, it acts as a testament to the strengths and weaknesses that we carry on from our forefathers. How appropriate, then, that the film suggests the kind of fable as might be shared from generation to generation, albeit in its own nerve-racking, nihilistic way of directing these metaphors into our psyche. Upon its initial release, many (myself included) saw the film primarily as an allegory on the War on Terror and the U.S. government's inability to maneuver the rocky terrain it created for itself. Such a reading remains both potent and rich in parts, but more timeless and penetrating are the film's ruthless morality plays; what remains to define love when even giving your life amounts to an act of futility?

Directing his first English-language feature, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo lends the film a hyper-real quality that suggests a constant flux between imagined horrors and real nightmares, as if the whole of the proceedings were transpiring in those few seconds before Gaylen Ross startles awake at the beginning of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Evocatively framed passages mesh with a part rock, part techno, altogether subterranean score to pronounce a sense of spiritual disorder tightly channeled between salvation and damnation, while the camera itself becomes stricken with rage whenever the demon-esque monsters appear to devour the uninfected. These jittery sequences are absolutely terrifying because the simulate the barely navigatable chaos these people are confronted with (all the while retaining a sense of who, what and where), but even during these most spastic of moments the film manifests so much raw feeling in its painterly images as to suggest a series of live action daguerreotypes.

28 weeks - or roughly half a year - after the initial viral outbreak, the zombie-like, infected victims have long since died of starvation, with the U.S. military now aiding the survivors in reestablishing and repopulating their former communities. London now suggests little more than a tightly run Boy Scout camp but it's a giant step ahead of the anarchy that wiped out most of the former population. While military officials successfully provide food, water, and other basic commodities to the incoming residents, their hubris lies in their doubtless positivity that they've (1) annihilated the virus and (2) would be able to kill it again should it resurface, no further research or preparation required. I'll admit outright that juxtaposing this atop neoconservative naivety concerning the invasion of Iraq was - although not altogether incorrect - reductive and shortsighted, cutting short all that the film was trying to say by assigning it such literal meanings and contexts. This is mankind's pomposity to consider himself higher than nature defined, its occasional correlation to our current political moment serving only to reinforce the notion that our existential flaws echo time and again throughout history. Like Godzilla, the Rage virus primarily serves to point out the folly of man, as if God saw fit to put us back in our rightful place before we got totally out of control.

It takes some work, however, to ferret out the hopefulness in 28 Weeks Later, with it's ultimately dark and borderline hopeless conclusion acting as something of a cathartic release of our own self-destructive demons. At the beginning of the film (in what may be the penultimate zombie attack ever committed to celluloid), Donalrd (Robert Carlyle) is forced to abandon his wife to the infected lest he perish as well - in theory, leaving at least one person unnecessarily dead and his two children (safe far and away from the reaches of the virus) orphaned. These characters are confronted almost entirely with painful choices between two evils - die righteously and, quite possibly, go extinct, or live with the burden of the past for the slight hope of a better tomorrow? All of this builds to a vortex of terror, both literally and figuratively, as these characters struggle to survive amidst encroaching infections (of the mind, body, and soul). 28 Weeks Later paralyzes like a direct hit of nerve gas but it's dreamy ethos heeds us to better reflect on ourselves before it's too late.

DVD Specs

First thing's first: I'm absolutely freaking amazed that this film wasn't forced to go through a superfluous extension so as to allow for an Unrated DVD release (more gore! more skin! less rhythm!). Thanks heavens, because - like Michael Mann's theatrical cut of Miami Vice - no one should lay a hand on this baby. Lack of additional footage notwithstanding, however, the highlight of this release is the director/screenwriter commentary with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Enrique López Lavigne, although that may be something of a backhanded compliment. The track is wanting overall but rewarding in small stretches: the duo talk at length about the intentions behind their creative choices, alternately stating the obvious and revealing illuminating facets of their filmmaking process (one senses that the language barrier is a partial impediment). The pair also provide optional commentary on the two rightfully deleted scenes, the first of which explicates character details otherwise inferred quite plainly, while the second awkwardly reinforces Andy's relationship with his dead mother (interesting enough, it was this scene that inspired much of the completed work). A trio of standard (i.e. superficial and boring) featurettes, a bunch of previews, and two incredibly stupid animated graphic novels round out the set. Image is rich, if a bit gooey during the nighttime scenes, while the audio is prepared to rock your system out. All in all, a merely competent package for one of the finest horror films of the past few years.



Feature: 31 Days of Zombie!

Miami Vice (2006): A+

As much as DVD technology has furthered film culture by providing the average moviegoer with a wider range of selection – as well as windows into film production processes and other special feature insights – the format has quickly dug out its own dark underbelly of downfalls. Specifically, I’m speaking of “Unrated” DVD cuts, alternate versions of movies that exist primarily to sell more copies thanks to the sensational implications explicit on the cover. Many of these are as superfluous as the films they butcher, but in the case of the surprisingly genuine The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the additional scenes add nothing and rob the cumulative effect of its emotional and humorous punch. The flipside to this whorish money plundering, however, are the Director’s Cuts that allow visionary filmmakers to further their talents in ways snubbed by box office-obsessed studio executives; Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy being the beacon example, the footage shelved for the already epic theatrical cuts deepening the overall experience on both visceral, emotional and spiritual levels.

Somewhere between these poles lies Michael Mann’s alternate cut of his overlooked Miami Vice, crafted in the editing room some two months after the lukewarm reception of the theatrical cut. Why exactly this version exists is never made absolutely clear: Mann expresses frustrations in his commentary track, stating that he hoped to make a more accessible cut of the film for the Average Joe moviegoer, but never fully backs any of the changes as preferential to their predecessors. That the two versions are only available in separate DVD packages suggested studio encouragement, but nonetheless, that both now exist provides an interesting study into the mechanics of how a film works. My preference lies completely with the theatrical cut, although some of the changes in the unrated version are interesting in their own manner. I would argue, however, that a number do more in illuminating what not to do, they being unnecessary clumps of fat amidst a narrative that was a rigorously lean and efficient as anything in Mann’s catalogue. I did and still do think Miami Vice is among the best films – American or otherwise – of 2006, and four viewings have not diminished my love.

To the untrained eye, Miami Vice contains a lot of “empty space”; scenes of characters staring, silently interacting, or traveling from one place to another. Yet to criticize the film for lack of substance is almost insulting; like many great films, Miami Vice is directly in tune with its characters’ desires, motivations, and frontal psychological torments. Mann’s recurrent themes are at work here perhaps more soulfully than he has ever conveyed before: the strains of conforming to a chosen life are explicitly manifest in the main characters’ profession of undercover police work (just as society conditions its members to perform certain roles, Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs perform as a matter of life or death) and implicitly expressed in their longing gestures and rigorously developed behavior patterns. The cast as a whole deliberately internalize their characters, sporting none of those bullshit actor-y facial tic mannerisms. Every tight stare is like looking into the void where someone’s soul used to be, or is currently being sold in the name of a greater cause.

Information is doled out like a downhill freight train; constantly accelerating and completely unforgiving to those who can’t keep up. Opening in the midst of an attempted bust at a disco club (theatrical cut only), the film leaves details to be caught – not explained – and relationships to emerge through inferred details and observed interactions. Ultimately, the plot is light on complexity, but Vice treats it with authentic detail work, while the thematic essence and visual splendor is allowed to simmer through the storyline to the forefront of the screen. Mann’s digital work here is nothing short of revolutionary, its grainy edge not only a throwback to the days of Assault on Precinct 13's rough-hewn edginess, but also allowing for breathtaking clarity of focus and range of nighttime color palate (not to mention Mann’s penchant for eye-popping natural imagery). This Miami is alien and intense – like these characters’ slightly out-of-body lifestyles – turgid like an embittered dog on a leash. It is as foreboding as it is raw; during the climactic shootout, the camera hobbles around like a fearful bystander, blood spattered on the lens.

Arguably, the most incidentally damaging thing about Miami Vice is its title, the film’s commitment to preserving the original 80’s series’ qualities being minimal at best. Mann cares little about cool cars, sexy women and action spectacles (even though Vice has them all), instead observing with due patience the roles that emerge between actors on both sides of the world of drug trafficking, where notions of good and bad exist murkily amidst a shaded world of cops, criminals and confidants. When Sonny and Isabelle - one and undercover cop, the other a drug trafficker – coast towards Cuba along a seemingly endless ocean horizon, the image of the lone speedboat amidst the deep blue reserve is reflective of the whole film and possibly even Mann’s entire catalogue. Intensely driven towards a singular goal, his characters are ideologically committed even at the expense of themselves and their loved ones. That Miami Vice begins and ends (theatrical cut, again) without opening credits or a standard denouement is telling: life extends beyond the frame, and goes on beyond that which we’re able to see for ourselves.

Theatrical vs. Unrated

The most significant alterations between the original and unrated cuts of Miami Vice occur in three chunks: a completely different opening, one additional expository scene, and a soundtrack alteration during the third act shootout. Other minor bits and pieces have been reworked: lines of dialogue have been nipped, scenes tucked, etc. Some will surely prefer this version, it being more streamlined and working a bit harder to appeal to the majority. While the unrated cut is still a good film, this saddens me; it feels like poor reviews caused Mann to question his own artistic instincts, the result being a work that is noticeable below its full potential.

Whereas the theatrical cut opened startlingly inside a dance club to the beats of Linkin Park, the unrated version begins on a more subdued note, beginning with a great shot that rises out of the bubbly ocean depths only to find itself in the middle of an offshore speedboat race, opening credits superimposed over the images. A brief montage of the racing crafts follows before an undercover Sonny and Rico listen in on their fellow racer Neptune (their undercover presence unbeknownst to him) as he sets up a deal with a well-established pimp to go down at the same club later that night. The scene feels cut from the same cloth as the rest of the film, but my preference lies with the punchier theatrical opening, which doesn’t so much lead viewers into the film as it injects them.

The second occurs after an undercover Sonny and Rico have been given their first assignment; Rico learns via cell phone that fellow cop and girlfriend Trudy received a bouquet of flowers she mistook as a gift from him. Upon checking the accompanying note, it becomes clear they are a warning from the Aryan white power group their organization had attempted to infiltrate. The following scene sees the two at a diner discussing the implications, the film’s themes of self-sacrifice explicitly articulated in a manner that negates them more than it illuminates. This largely unnecessary (and damaging) foreshadowing also serves to diffuse the sexy energy the film had been accruing, a blow from which the unrated cut never truly recovers.

Finally, Mann’s second guessing sees the inclusion of Nonpoint’s cover of Genesis’ “In the Air Tonight” shifted forward from the end credits to the buildup before the gun battle at the docks, the effect of which is less foreboding than it is like that of a typical music video. The push and pull between image and sound strikes some effective chords in this version, but it can’t hold a candle to Klaus Badelt’s subtly brooding score, and it robs the end credits of the existential punch previously provided by the same song.


DVD Details

Universal has truly made a whore out of itself here. Rather than including both versions of the film on one set, fans will need to purchase essentially the same thing twice in order to get all the goods. Most infuriating is the distribution of the special features: the R-rated theatrical cut gets only two short featurettes, while the commentary and other minor indulgences are included solely on the unrated DVD (yeah, the commentary is unrated-cut specific, but with some editing it could have been formatted to the R-rated version as well, if only to be serviceable). Nonetheless, Mann's commentary is illuminating and full of details and insights, even if it feels rather instructional. Image quality is even better here than in theaters, which makes sense considering it’s digital origins, while audio is appropriately meaty and reflective of Mann’s proficient mixing. Anyone who had difficultly deciphering the dialogue in theaters will likely experience the same problems here; for the non-hearing impaired, the disc does justice to the theatrical experience. A hidden surprise comes in the form of the film's narrative guide for the hearing impaired, which proves almost as entertaining as the film itself ("The trailer explodes!"). Overall, casual viewers will want to pick up the superior Unrated package, but fans of the theatrical version will have to settle for a slimmer special features department if they don't want the viewing experience unnecessarily botched.