Lessons of Darkness

Worst Movie of the Year?

It's only January, and yet competition for Worst Movie of the Year may be over. Yes, that's how bad Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark is. I provide the gory details over at Slant magazine.

Alone in the Dark (Slant magazine)

I've also got a review of Robert Aldrich's1965 The Flight of the Phoenix below.

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965): B+

Robert Aldrich’s The Flight of the Phoenix concerns a plane populated by oil company employees and military men that, due to a monstrous sand storm, crash lands in the Saharan desert. Forced to cope with the dawning realization that no rescue party is forthcoming and their water supply is depleting, the men – led by Capt. Frank Towns (Jimmy Stewart) and his right-hand man Lew Moran (Richard Attenborough) – are convinced by German airplane engineer Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger) to build a new plane from the old plane’s damaged parts. As in The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Yard, Aldrich’s characters are, in one way or another, outcasts – Stewart’s pilot is an over-the-hill relic, Ernest Borgnine’s Cobb is leaving work because of “mental exhaustion,” Attenborough’s sidekick is a drunk, and Kruger’s mysterious Dorfmann is not the man he purports to be – and the director once again gets exciting mileage out of examining male codes of honor and behavior. The stranded men’s arrogance, selfishness and cowardice all come to the fore during the ordeal, and the central conflict of egos between Towns and Dorfmann resonates as a philosophical battle between not only old-world, hands-on ingenuity (Towns) and modern, analytical discipline (Dorfmann), but also between cocky, can-do American resourcefulness and cold, clinical German efficiency. Aldrich composes shots of these two adversaries for maximum tension – the characters always seemingly in conflict within the frame – and their eventual reconciliation winds up being a subtle, hopeful nod toward gradually thawing post-1945 relations between their respective homelands.

Snowbound

The blizzard of 2005 has hit the Northeast, so it's likely that many people will be staying home rather than going to the movies this weekend. Nonetheless, I've got reviews of three new releases, none of which are worth braving the nasty weather outside.

Assault on Precinct 13 (filmcritic.com)
She's One of Us (filmcritic.com)
Are We There Yet? (Slant magazine)

The Great Train Robbery (1979): B-

A Victorian-era caper in which Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland attempt to rob a moving train of gold headed for British soldiers fighting in the Crimea, The Great Train Robbery is drenched in convincing period details even as its story remains imbued with the spirit of the ‘60s and ‘70s counterculture. Connery’s Edward Pierce is a dapper master thief who, along with his constantly disguised lover Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down) and his sidekick Robert Agar – played by the quirky Sutherland with an enormous moustache and muttonchops, and a habit of stretching his long, nimble fingers with a popping wiggle – plans to pull of the first train heist in history. As portrayed by Michael Crichton (who not only adapted his novel for the screen, but directs as well), the three crooks are roguish anti-establishment heroes, ultimately cheered for their daring feat by the common people while England’s fussy-duddy powers-that-be frown with dismay. Crichton’s direction is straightforward and solid, while Connery and Sutherland lend the material some dry humor. One wishes The Great Train Robbery weren’t so lackadaisical – the climactic act of larceny is preceded by mini-larcenies that drag on for far too long – but as a quaint diversion, it’s a pleasant-enough theft of one’s two hours.

Hell’s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2003): C

If watching car crashes is your idea of fun – and as the innumerable traffic jams on I-95 confirm, it’s a favorite hobby of many drivers – then Hell’s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films will be right up your carnage-loving alley. A comprehensive history of the highway safety films forced upon high school teenagers from 1959-1979, Bret Wood’s documentary spends an inordinate amount of time replaying grisly clips from classic educational films such as Signal 30 and Mechanized Death. As this frequently fascinating film elucidates, the highway safety movement phenomenon was sparked by Dick Wayman, a Mansfield, Ohio volunteer who believed the most effective way to teach impressionable kids about the rules of the road was to scare the living bejesus out of them. The result was scores of brutally graphic short films in which the camera longingly gazed at corpses or recorded injured people being rescued from their destroyed vehicles while screaming in agony. Wood attempts to evenhandedly examine this strange social movement, enlisting both Wayman’s former colleagues to opine about their works’ effectiveness and cult film experts to weigh in on the films’ origins and impact. The filmmaker astutely identifies how these auto-instructive movies projected Middle American adults’ fears and anxiety – about the unstable post-WWII social order, drinking and driving, and sexual promiscuity – onto kids. Yet any criticism levied against Wayman’s death-obsessed creations (which likely traumatized young drivers but did little to dissuade them from behaving recklessly behind the wheel) is drowned out by the director’s incessant, pornographic use of death-and-dismemberment clips from these ghastly films. By reveling in horrifying images of unspeakable bloodshed as a means of titillating its audience, Hell’s Highway winds up functioning no differently than the disgraceful, despicable films it scrutinizes.

Dull Duo

One is about a sexy assasin, the other is about a boarding school music teacher, and both aren't worth your time. My reviews of Elektra and The Chorus are now up at Slant magazine and filmcritic.com, respectively.

Elektra (Slant magazine)
The Chorus (filmcritic.com)

And brand new reviews of Tarnation and Scarface are posted below.

Scarface (1983): B+

Hip-hop’s favorite gangster fantasy, Brian DePalma’s Scarface is a thrillingly opulent, lurid and vulgar – not to mention morally questionable – saga about the criminal corruption of the American dream. Charting brash Cuban émigré Tony Montana’s (Al Pacino) homicidal ascension to white china-fueled power, DePalma’s epic (written by Oliver Stone) revels in its extravagant orgy of drugs, betrayal and four-letter words. An absorbing portrait of the seamier side of the immigrant experience, as well as a slyly ironic vision of America’s still-thriving meritocracy, Scarface nonetheless glorifies its whacked-out protagonist to such absurd degrees that the film – even discounting rappers’ affinity for Montana’s catch phrases and brutal, selfish code of honor – seems like the bible for wannabe crime kingpins. Still, despite its ever-present admiration for the ruthless Montana, there’s so much to savor in DePalma’s extravagantly gonzo classic – Tony’s early chainsaw troubles in a motel bathroom, Michelle Pfeiffer’s wicked ice queen, a Shakespearean finale in which the air becomes thick with blood and bullets – that griping about its debatable depravity interferes with the pleasure of watching this iconic bastard’s savage rise and fall.

Tarnation (2004): B+

A twisted pastiche of pain, suffering, and narcissistic indulgence, Tarnation utilizes an MTV-frantic collage of sound and images image (culled from 19 years worth of home movies, amateur short films, phone conversations and confessional first-person interviews) to tell the twisted life story of director Jonathan Caouette. Intensely personal and stylistically striking, this avant-garde documentary functions as Caouette’s uniquely expressionistic autobiography/diary. Born in rural Texas to a mother permanently scarred by teenage electro-shock therapy, the homosexual Caouette grew up in his grandparents’ horrifyingly dysfunctional household, suffering abuse at his grandmother’s hands and – during a trip to Chicago – watching his once-lovely mother get raped. Caouette’s cinematic memoir has no narrative arc to speak of, instead tracing a fairly linear path from his screwed-up childhood to the present day via narration, on-screen text (which proves a handy way to recount his mother’s early years), and juxtaposition – more than almost every film from last year, Tarnation recognizes and exploits our modern capacity for processing, and intuitively forming connections between, rapid-fire images. Given its subject matter, the film is unavoidably indulgent and egotistical, and the director’s heartbreaking (if somewhat emotionally pornographic) story regularly emits a “woe is me” vibe. Yet as a wrenching self-portrait of misery, helplessness, and eventual triumph, it’s also a startlingly original achievement.

Published Film Reviews - 2005

12/31/05 - Café Lumière - DVD (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Why We Fight (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - When the Sea Rises (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Munich (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Rumor Has It (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Fun with Dick and Jane (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Kiss of Death (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Kiss of Death - DVD (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Where the Sidewalk Ends (Slant magazine)
12/26/05 - Where the Sidewalk Ends - DVD (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - The Producers (2005) (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - The World's Fastest Indian (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - The Family Stone (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - Aeon Flux (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - The Boys of Baraka (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - 39 Pounds of Love (Slant magazine)
12/6/05 - I Love Your Work (Slant magazine)
11/18/05 - The Ice Harvest (Slant magazine)
11/18/05 - Walk the Line (Slant magazine)
11/18/05 - Derailed (Slant magazine)
11/18/05 - Zathura (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - little man (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - The Syrian Bride (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - The Kid & I (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - The Devil's Plaything (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - The Devil's Plaything - DVD (Slant magazine)
11/9/05 - Pulse (filmcritic.com)
11/9/05 - Get Rich or Die Tryin' (Slant magazine)
10/31/05 - Masters of Horror - TV (Assorted) (Slant magazine)
10/31/05 - Saw II (Slant magazine)
10/31/05 - The Weather Man (Slant magazine)
10/31/05 - Three...Extremes (filmcritic.com)
10/31/05 - Le Samouraï (Slant magazine)
10/31/05 - Le Samouraï - DVD (Slant magazine)
10/24/05 - Transamerica (Slant magazine)
10/24/05 - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Slant magazine)
10/24/05 - Doom (Slant magazine)
10/16/05 - The Fog (2005) (Slant magazine)
10/16/05 - Shopgirl (Slant magazine)
10/16/05 - Innocence (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - After Innocence (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Two for the Money (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Waiting... (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Into the Blue (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - The Passenger (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Three Times (Slant magazine)
10/10/05 - Through the Forest (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - The Matador (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - The War Within (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - Never Been Thawed (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - The Squid and the Whale (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - Paradise Now (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - Avenge But One of My Two Eyes (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - The Hidden Blade (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - The Puppetmaster (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - Roll Bounce (Slant magazine)
9/26/05 - Separate Lies (filmcritic.com)
9/13/05 - Good Night, and Good Luck (Slant magazine)
9/13/05 - Protocols of Zion (Slant magazine)
9/13/05 - Just Like Heaven (Slant magazine)
9/13/05 - Everything is Illuminated (Slant magazine)
9/13/05 - The Thing About My Folks (Slant magazine)
9/13/05 - Cote D'Azur (Slant magazine)
9/3/05 - Lord of War (Slant magazine)
9/3/05 - Touch the Sound (Slant magazine)
9/3/05 - Daltry Calhoun (Slant magazine)
9/3/05 - The Constant Gardener (filmcritic.com)
9/3/05 - The Transporter 2 (Slant magazine)
9/3/05 - A Sound of Thunder (Slant magazine)
8/26/05 - An Unfinished Life (Slant magazine)
8/26/05 - Thumbsucker (Slant magazine)
8/26/05 - Before the Fall (Slant magazine)
8/26/05 - The Cave (Slant magazine)
8/26/05 - The Memory of a Killer (Slant magazine)
8/20/05 - The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Slant magazine)
8/20/05 - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (filmcritic.com)
8/20/05 - Valiant (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - New York Doll (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - The Great Raid (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - Underclassman (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - Wall (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - Stealth (Slant magazine)
7/29/05 - Sky High (filmcritic.com)
7/22/05 - Unknown White Male (Slant magazine)
7/22/05 - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Slant magazine)
7/22/05 - Last Days (filmcritic.com)
7/22/05 - The Devil's Rejects (filmcritic.com)
7/22/05 - Bad News Bears (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - Wedding Crashers (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - Grizzly Man (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - The Baxter (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - The Brothers Grimm (Slant magazine)
7/15/05 - Pretty Persuasion (Slant magazine)
7/8/05 - Dark Water (2005) (Slant magazine)
7/8/05 - Fantastic Four (Slant magazine)
7/8/05 - Rebound (Slant magazine)
7/8/05 - Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (Slant magazine)
7/8/05 - November (Slant magazine)
6/27/05 - The Beautiful Country (Slant magazine)
6/27/05 - Herbie: Fully Loaded (Slant magazine)
6/27/05 - March of the Penguins (filmcritic.com)
6/12/05 - Batman Begins (Slant magazine)
6/12/05 - Mirrormask (Slant magazine)
6/12/05 - Elevator to the Gallows (Slant magazine)
6/12/05 - 5x2 (filmcritic.com)
6/12/05 - High Tension (filmcritic.com)
6/12/05 - Howl's Moving Castle (filmcritic.com)
6/12/05 - Howl's Moving Castle (Wired.com)
6/12/05 - The Honeymooners (Slant magazine)
6/3/05 - The Aristocrats (Slant magazine)
6/3/05 - Heights (Slant magazine)
6/3/05 - Lords of Dogtown (filmcritic.com)
6/3/05 - Rock School (filmcritic.com)
6/3/05 - Après Vous (Slant magazine)
6/3/05 - Milwaukee, Minnesota (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - Cinderella Man (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - The Longest Yard (2005) (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - Madagascar (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - The Americanization of Emily (Slant magazine)
5/28/05 - The Americanization of Emily - DVD (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - A League of Ordinary Gentlemen (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - Bomb the System (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - Caterina in the City (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - Bad Day at Black Rock (Slant magazine)
5/22/05 - Bad Day at Black Rock - DVD (Slant magazine)
5/13/05 - Kicking and Screaming (Slant magazine)
5/13/05 - Stolen Childhoods (Slant magazine)
5/6/05 - Mindhunters (Slant magazine)
5/6/05 - Crash (Slant magazine)
5/6/05 - Kingdom of Heaven (Slant magazine)
5/6/05 - Double Dare (Slant magazine)
5/6/05 - A Hole In One (filmcritic.com)
5/1/05 - Night Watch (Slant magazine)
5/1/05 - The Big Red One: The Reconstruction - DVD (Slant magazine)
5/1/05 - XXX: State of the Union (Slant magazine)
5/1/05 - Home (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - Happy Endings (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - King's Ransom (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - Captain Blood (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - Captain Blood - DVD (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - They Died With Their Boots On (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - They Died With Their Boots On - DVD (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - Layer Cake (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Slant magazine)
4/25/05 - The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Slant magazine)
4/17/05 - The Amityville Horror (2005) (Slant magazine)
4/10/05 - Tell Them Who You Are (Slant magazine)
4/10/05 - One Missed Call (Slant magazine)
4/10/05 - Happily Ever After (Slant magazine)
4/10/05 - Sahara (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - Kung Fu Hustle (filmcritic.com)
4/5/05 - Winter Solstice (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - Eros (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - The Amityville Horror (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - Amityville II: The Possession (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - Amityville 3-D (Slant magazine)
4/5/05 - The Amityville Horror Collection - DVD (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - The Year of the Yao (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - Sin City (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - Kontroll (filmcritic.com)
3/25/05 - Beauty Shop (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - Guess Who (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - The Sword of Doom (Slant magazine)
3/25/05 - The Sword of Doom - DVD (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - The Ballad of Jack and Rose (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Lipstick and Dynamite (filmcritic.com)
3/18/05 - Nina's Tragedies (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - The Ring Two (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Ice Princess (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Steamboy (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Melinda and Melinda (filmcritic.com)
3/18/05 - Face (filmcritic.com)
3/18/05 - Laura (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Laura - DVD (Slant magazine)
3/18/05 - Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - DVD (Slant magazine)
3/10/05 - Hostage (Slant magazine)
3/10/05 - Don't Move (filmcritic.com)
3/10/05 - In My Country (filmcritic.com)
3/10/05 - After the Apocalypse (Slant magazine)
3/4/05 - Be Cool (Slant magazine)
3/4/05 - The Jacket (Slant magazine)
3/4/05 - The Pacifier (Slant magazine)
3/4/05 - Intimate Stories (filmcritic.com)
2/28/05 - Millions (Slant magazine)
2/28/05 - Schizo (Slant magazine)
2/28/05 - Cursed (Slant magazine)
2/19/05 - Constantine (Slant magazine)
2/19/05 - Downfall (filmcritic.com)
2/19/05 - Mail Order Wife (Slant magazine)
2/16/05 - Night and the City (Slant magazine)
2/16/05 - Night and the City - DVD (Slant magazine)
2/16/05 -Thieves' Highway (Slant magazine)
2/16/05 -Thieves' Highway - DVD (Slant magazine)
2/13/05 - Hitch (Slant magazine)
2/13/05 - Bad Guy (Slant magazine)
2/13/05 - The Other Side of the Street (Slant magazine)
2/7/05 - Turtles Can Fly (Slant magazine)
2/7/05 - Inside Deep Throat (Slant magazine)
2/7/05 - Boogeyman (Slant magazine)
1/28/05 - Alone in the Dark (Slant magazine)
1/22/05 - Assault on Precinct 13 (filmcritic.com)
1/22/05 - She's One of Us (filmcritic.com)
1/22/05 - Are We There Yet? (Slant magazine)
1/13/05 - Elektra (Slant magazine)
1/13/05 - The Chorus (filmcritic.com)
1/7/05 - White Noise (Slant magazine)

Static Schlock

January is the month in which studios dump their garbage into theaters, and the first new piece of rubbish to wind up on multiplex screens is White Noise, a lame Poltergeist-ish horror story starring Michael Keaton. My take can be found at the newly redesigned Slant magazine.

White Noise (Slant magazine)

And to kick off the new year, I've also got three new reviews below - for Being Julia, Absolute Power and Bride of Chucky.