The closer you look, the less you’ll care…

Magician J. Daniel Atlas has a slogan: “The closer you look – the less you’ll see.” Uh, no, I’m actually seeing right into your cliché-riddled screenplay, and your swooping camera moves to misdirect me means that you know that I know what you don’t want me to know…

Four smug magicians use their talents to pull heists and give the money to the less fortunate, like modern day Robin Hoods. They’re young, sexy and dangerous. And too smug for their own sleight of hand.

With slick, kinetic direction (by Louis Leterrier), wasted on conceited characters that are aching for a bitchslap, the magician heist dramedy NOW YOU SEE ME is alternately very entertaining and very irritating. As with any heist movie, much of the heist action is kept from our prying eyes until it can be told in flashback as a “cheat” rather than a smart reveal, like sucking on the teat of the OCEAN’S movies.

Jesse Eisenberg is illusionist Atlas (now exploiting that ice-cool mercenary he found with his Zuckerberg), leading a quartet of magicians brought together by a mysterious magic guru called The Eye, who is the mythic leader of the cult of the same name. Woody Harrelson is mentalist (aka “mind reader”) Merritt McKinney, Isla Fisher is escapist Henley Reeves, and Dave Franco is small-time hustler Jack Wilder. All four desire admittance into that exclusive magic club The Eye, and are willing to follow any enigmatic directives to gain it. You know the beats: they’re all slipped a card to be at a certain place at a certain time, where more mysterious directives are placed before them, which they will blindly follow because apparently, and ironically, they’re gullible idiots.

Atlas finds his card just before sex with a groupie. As he kicks her out, promising to call, she wails, “You don’t have my number.” His reply, “I’m magic. I’ll find you.” He doesn’t say, “I’m a magician” or “I’m magical.” He says “magic.” As a noun. That’s so funny!

Each of the four have some damaged past, and only in uniting – begrudgingly at first – do they find overwhelming success, as a Vegas act called The Four Horsemen. Michael Caine is Arthur Tressler, who funds the Horsemen, and is taken for a horsey ride when the magicians turn on him for owning an insurance company that doesn’t pay its claims. (One would think he’d know better after warning us of The Turn in THE PRESTIGE). And Morgan Freeman, smugly smirking in the middle background as former magician Thaddeus Bradley, is a James Randi-type skeptic who cannot quite figure the Horsemen, except that he’s having a smirking good time watching them make asshats of everyone trying to catch them. You’d think that two of Batman’s pals would know better.

Ruffled Mark Ruffalo is the lead detective tailing the Horsemen, with the boy-model name of Dylan Rhodes, with a smokin’ hot Interpol detective in tow – Mélanie Laurent (Shoshanna from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS) – who is only here for eye candy, exposition and forced romantic resolution. For coolness, Michael Kelly (Frank Underwood’s “Al Neary” in HOUSE OF CARDS) is Dylan’s partner.

Shades of THE ILLUSIONIST and THE PRESTIGE and any Michael Bay movie where the tracking cameras hijack the action. At first, we are intrigued by The Pledge (the premise of what is going to transpire in the realm of misdirection), and we are always taken aback at The Turn, but our interest soon wanes when The Prestige of each act reveals results too impossible to achieve without REAL magic, the insufferable Harry Potter kind. During one show, Henley swooshes open a big scarf, and we realize – it is CGI, as it swooshes around against the laws of physics. Why? I doubt the professional scarf-twirler was out of your budget as a practical effect. You people are just hooked on bullshit for the sake of it.

Ironically, in cheating their own audience, writers Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt spoil the illusion of the movie itself. For example, to heist an armored car, we are told the magicians are already inside it. Well… how’d they get there? Is it that easy to build a fake floor in an armored van? To heist a vault in faraway Paris, we are told there is an exact replica of the Paris vault under the stage. Well… who built this? Are the Horsemen master contractors as well? (By the way, the French bank director whom they heist – Jose Garcia – is the French Robert Downey Jr.)

How is Wilder playing with a deck of cards in the interrogation room? (You mean they removed all his personal belongings when they arrested him, and let him keep a deck of cards?) How did Atlas have his phone on him in the interrogation room, to be able to switch with the boy-band-named Dylan Rhodes? (Again, they frisked him and said, “Okay, you can keep the phone”?) And Rhodes only realizes his phone has been switched days after the fact, and only because the phone screen glitches. But anyone would know in an INSTANT if their phone was switched, the moment they tried to use it. Do I even need to explain why? A dummy phone contains none of your personalization or history. Later, we discover a logical reason why the detective didn’t realize his phone had been switched, but then we look back at the moment he “realized” and it becomes even more of a pointless plot point.

Like its subject matter, NOW YOU SEE ME is fast-paced because it needs to be, to misdirect, and make us think it’s doing something interesting while really doing something sneaky. Only for the gullible.

END

Dawn of the Golden Age of Superhero Movies.

…if Jesus was alive today and walked on water, it would be instantly on YouTube… And the first Comment would be: “Fag.”
— Bill Maher.

There is a scene in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE where Batman turns a corner in his Batmobile and runs headlong into Superman blocking him in the street. Superman stands calmly, not moved one iota as the Batmobile slams into him and ricochets to a halt. All is quiet, somber, dark, as Batman slowly rises from the cockpit, to confront a grim Superman now standing on the Batmobile’s hood. There it is — a scene envisioned from all our childhoods: the two greatest superheroes the world has ever known, face to face in living, breathing, shining reality.

“Sorry for hitting you buddy. I’m guessing you’re not standing on my hood to exchange insurance information?”

These are the First Heroes, the OG’s, from the Golden Age of Comics. Supers, which were paper and colored ink, now flesh and sinew – incarnate after 80 years of expectancy. At last on the big screen in darkness and badassery. These were never just cartoon characters – they were archetypes; historical memes that represented the highest aspirations of humankind; ultimately, they were more than just brains and brawn, but the epitome of each. These beings guided us through the uncertainty of puberty, forged our visions of adulthood, infected our notions of morality. Like the God of Abraham breathing life into the mud of Adam, DC Comics and director Zack Snyder have hewn from the pages of past summers, the gods who made us the men we are today.

And instead of delving into this sincere movie’s deeper layers, the uneducated, short-attention-span lunkheads have chosen to knee-jerk and bitch-fit in ignorant spasm, focusing on the obvious lesser faults in this fantasy script, like it’s an historical document that needs to conform to real world rules. They’re all just JELLY that they didn’t make this movie first!

And I wept as my childhood slapped me in the face. I wept for all the times I tied a towel around my neck and swished around the backyard. I wept as this cinematic tableau authentically depicted what was buried under the rubble of my adult brain. And I wept because, no matter the quality, no matter the blood and bone expended in the cauldron of creation, the first Comment will always be – “fag.”

Superpoff V Batpoff: Dawn of Salad
“Hi pal! Wanna wrestle?”

Batman battles Superman for destroying Metropolis while he was trying to save it, and destroys Metropolis while he’s trying to save it by battling Superman.

Uh…

It’s the darkest superhero movie ever made. DC Comics has outdone Marvel and any other contenders (like HANCOCK, DARKMAN, THE CROW, et al) in creating an almost disturbing adventure that delves deep into the minds of two distraught men. The gravitas here stems not from the usual childish punching between good and evil, but in that age-old adage about great power spawning great responsibility. And it goes further, into the Shakespearean, “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown.” (Henry The Fourth Part 2, Act 3:1.)

We’ve all grown up with the notion that having super powers (or being in Batman’s realm of tasty gadgets and optimum training) would be peachy keen. But the abilities of these two men are a curse, a burden, and weigh on them morally for their limitations. For all his seemingly limitless abilities, Superman knows his power is finite. He cannot save everyone; he is not omniscient. In messianic scenes, we see him performing incredible feats of strength and bravery, yet behind his furrowed brow, he mourns for those he could not save; he does not embrace the joyous/evangelical reaching out to touch the hem of his cape; his visage is steeped in sadness and self-doubt.

And Batman, who donned the cowl of a bat to strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers, realizes the new top dog is far more fearful, for his capacity to “burn down the world” in an eyeblink. To put it simply: it’s a dick thing. In a world where Gotham and Metropolis are across the bay from each other, Batman is so threatened by Superman, he steps over the moral lines he set for himself, just to match that terrifying killing power – resorting to branding criminals like cattle, then outright murdering them. When Alfred muses to Bruce about “everything changing” and “the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel”, he is not talking about super criminals – he is talking about Bruce!

Also, just before Alfred subtly chides him, Bruce says, “We’re criminals, Alfred! We’ve always been criminals.” Did we hear that correctly?! Batman admits openly he is an outlaw, and is not self-deluding that his righteousness outweighs his illegality!

These pathological insecurities are woven so deep into the fabric of this tale that it totally loses the lunkheads. Where’s the colorful quipping? Where’s the simplistic punching of bad guys? Where’s the “fun” in being super? I don’t get it. I know, I’ll whine like every other beanstem on social media because I’m not used to a superhero movie forcing me to use my brain that’s been turned to pulp by Reality TV.

I think I’ll type “fag” in the Comments section…

There are real world repercussions. This movie addresses the massive collateral damage in its predecessor, MAN OF STEEL (2013). The city of Metropolis won’t stand for Superman’s decisions on how he wields his powers, and the plot foreshadows the dilemma in the upcoming Marvel production, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR – on how to regulate superheroes and their deeds. Batman, battling his own demons and critics in pushing his vigilantism to murder, takes it upon himself to regulate Superman.

A friend of mine is always reminding me superhero movies are, in essence, “kid’s movies.” Not any more. When we see a clothed Clark Kent climb into a tub playfully with a naked Lois Lane (living together like a well-adjusted couple), we realize – this is an adult rendering. (There are also rumors of an R-rated version of the film, available only on Blu-Ray – which is not, disappointingly, for the purpose of revealing more tey-tey, but to include more violence). So put on your thinking cap and your big boy pants or get the fuck out.

Even you got too old to die young.
— Alfred, to Bruce Wayne.

Affleck: Bat to the bone.

Ben Affleck is Batman. First comment: fag.

After the internet explodes due to this casting choice, Affleck turns out to be nothing short of brilliant! Bringing a grizzled, cynical brutality to his Batman, even closer to Frank Miller’s envisioning of the Dark Knight than Christian Bale’s interpretation; a rugged, unapologetic continuance of this character. (We even see the voice modulator that makes Batman’s voice raspy – which might explain why Christian Bale said, “So that’s how it feels” in that rasp, when he didn’t need to because no one was listening).

Affleck (who was Superman in HOLLYWOODLAND! – where he dated Diane Lane, Superman’s mother here!) embodies exactly the type of vicious vigilante we saw in KICK-ASS. Remember that scene in the warehouse where Nic Cage’s Big Daddy – looking decidedly like the caped crusader – kicks and kills his way through a bunch of henchmen? And I yearned for DC to step up and make the Batman look as dynamic and lethal. Here is that dance of death. It’s thrilling to see such real world violence at last in these “kid’s movies.” Our heroes are back, and badder than ever. This ain’t your granddaddy’s Batusi, this ain’t your daddy’s Mr. Mom, Hell, this ain’t even Christian Bale’s Dark Knight. It’s Frank Miller’s nightmare vision realized in murderous Bat-Kwon-Do.

We probably know better, as an audience, the death of Batman’s parents, than the death of loved ones we know.
— Kevin Smith, director.

And in Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, Affleck brings a sadness and resignation. We feel that child who witnessed his parents being slain. And – lest we forget – here’s that origin story YET AGAIN! But it’s recreated for a very important plot jolt later, as we see Bruce’s father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) utter his wife’s name with his dying breath, “Martha…”

Lois, Clark and Perry discuss how to benefit Mankind, by firing the guy who eats everyone else’s food in the office fridge.

Henry Cavill is Superman/Clark Kent. And he can do no wrong, as actor or character, embodying the perfection of Nietzsche’s Űbermensch (the “over-man,” the next step in human evolution, acting as his own god, without the constraints of religion, giving himself morality and value as he sees fit. Ironically, the opposite of the Űbermensch is Jesus Christ – but that’s who Superman is modeled after!). Is there some kind of physics law that states a man can’t possibly be that handsome? So flawless he’s swaying the evolutionary scales so that us natchell-born cucumbers can never mate again and pass on our genes…

Amy Adams is Lois Lane, lubricious hairstyle and a voice like she’s speaking through the finest Baccarat crystal; Supe’s live-in girlfriend and Daily Planet reporter, who earns her paycheck here not reporting one single thing. Laurence Fishburne is hilarious in a few key moments as editor Perry White: “‘Crime Wave in Gotham’! Other breaking news: ‘Water, wet’!”

Jeremy: Iron man.

Jeremy Irons is impertinent and sarcastic as Bruce’s faithful liege; the best Alfred yet, not only for his imperiousness and biting wit, but for the content of his discourse.

Diane Lane is Martha Kent, Supe’s strong mother, who rescinds Glenn Ford’s bullshit from SUPERMAN (“You’ve got a purpose, and it ain’t scoring touchdowns”), with her own advice on Clark’s duty to humanity, “You don’t owe these people anything!” I LOVE this contravening of maudlin canon! It’s all these small concepts that add up to this movie being better than its small faults.

And Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent makes a cameo so moving, it reduces us to tears in five minutes screentime. It’s a wonder the government aren’t using him as a lethal weapon on the front lines in Afghanistan, making the enemy weep themselves to surrender. In a quasi-dream, he advises doubtful Clark on the cruel kindness of saving one thing at the expense of another; that something must die for something else to live. And he caps it with, “I miss you, son.” Clark: “I miss you too, dad.” Oh sweet Jesus, I am a blithering wreck! If I ever take a Method Acting class, I’ll know what to think about when I need to cry like a baby-man.

Costner, Fishburne and Irons prove that adage, “There are no small roles, only small actors.” These three GIANTS overwhelm their few minutes screentime with depth, personality, humor and empathy, as if they were the focus of the tale!

“Am I losing my touch? I can’t seem to top facebook with any greater evil…”

And in another stunt-casting coup – Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Superman’s nemesis since comic books were invented. Eisenberg ain’t your daddy’s Luthor; he’s Zuckerberg-as-Joker, a shifty-limbed, loquacious super-genius, who is practically an ally to Batman here, in that he wants a preemptive strike on Superman before Superman can destroy the world. It is his Machiavellian plan that sets in motion “Son of Krypton versus Bat of Gotham.”

A senate committee (led by Holly Hunter) wants to bore Superman into submission with hearings and edicts (red tape v red cape?), and won’t grant Luthor permission to build kryptonite weapons fused with the DNA of the deceased Zod (Michael Shannon), for fear it might get interesting. “Don’t build a weapon of assassination, and call it deterrence.”

Luthor discovers that Zod’s cells degenerate when exposed to kryptonite – a scientific reason for Superman’s weakness, rather than just, “Pieces of his home planet make him weak.”

Cameos aplenty: Andrew Sullivan, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, Neil deGrasse Tyson (oh yes!), with Charlie Rose asking the right question of the committee, “Are you comfortable saying to a grieving parent, ‘Superman could’ve saved your child but on principle, we did not want him to act’? Senator: “I’m saying he shouldn’t act unilaterally.” Typical politician asshat. (When that building is falling on you, Senator, I hope your red tape is all in order before Superman can be granted a senatorial injunction to save you.) When weighing the pros and cons, Superman’s deeds – unlike any god’s – are demonstrably beneficial. How can anyone mistake his averting tragedies as enmity? One word: Republicans.

When Luthor masterminds an explosion that destroys that committee, I’m not cheering for eeevil, or for the deaths of the innocents in the courtroom, but I am sure as shit cheering for the deaths of those politicians.

Title card: Mankind is introduced to the Superman.

Opening scenes of BATMAN V SUPERMAN draw on the last scenes of MAN OF STEEL, during the destruction of Metropolis. This time, as seen from the ground. Two small figures battle in the thundering skies (Superman and General Zod), as buildings topple around them. We see a man desperately navigating the shuddering streets, and we mark the true measure of heroism as he runs toward the danger to save others. The man is Bruce Wayne, trying to save people in his crumbling Wayne Foundation building. He looks up at the inhuman figures rending the world, pure hatred in his eyes.

Thus the plot is set in motion, and the reasons why these two heroes fight is quite compelling. Batman plots to preemptively destroy “the alien”: “If there is a one percent chance he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty…” And Superman, who can admittedly crush Batman easily, enhanced suit and all (with the gentlemen’s agreement that he never lasers Batty’s mouth opening), doesn’t do so because he was only blackmailed into fighting Batman over the life of his mother. The script is well crafted by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, each line of delicious dialogue heavy with portent. [See POFFY SEZ: The writers behind the stories that other writers take credit for.]

As everyone knows by now, the reason they STOP fighting seems weak at first blush. Batman, with his various kryptonite tchotchkes, has brought Superman down, and is about to spear him through the heart with a krypto-spear when Superman – with his dying breath – just like Bruce’s father – mumbles “…Martha…”

And the Bat pauses: “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?!”

One would think the viewers best suited to understand this reversal would be the truest fans; those who know Batman’s OCD; the ones who understand how driven/damaged a soul must be to dress as a bat to combat crime; the viewers who would comprehend how something as small as his mother’s name would adversely affect the fearful Bat Man. Nope. First comment: fag.

Like the movie, this plot point is not as simplistic as the lunkheads would have us believe. “Martha” is the wedge that opens a broader cave-in for Batman. With that plea from the man of steel to “save Martha,” Batman realizes Superman is an empathetic being, with family and human values. After all, Batman was driven to destroy Superman because he believed Superman lacked humanity; that the coldness of his alien heart might cause him to destroy Earth without even the barest moral twinge, not through malignancy, but because he was incapable of feeling at all. Hearing that Superman cared for someone else – with the added jolt of her name being Martha! – stayed Batman’s hand. This alien could discern; this being had a moral compass, this man was human after all.

Heated talk of devils falling from the sky, gods ascending from the depths. “Maybe he’s not a devil or Jesus character; maybe he’s just a guy trying to do the right thing.” Messianic, magisterial, epic in darkness, pain, moral ambiguity. Our Heroes are born anew, Movie Maniacs! Cherish them.

It is no secret BATMAN V SUPERMAN is opening up the DC Universe to spinoffs and sequels, thus the teases of The Flash (a time-travel mishap), Aquaman (mighty Jason Momoa wielding a trident underwater!), some guy whose symbol I don’t recognize and–

The Father, The Son and the Holy Wet Dream.

Wonder Woman! If the sight of bulked-up Ben Batman and square-jawed Super Cavill isn’t enough to keep everyone’s panties pouting, here comes the smooth-skinned Amazonian princess to finish the job. Her superhero name is never mentioned, and she is teased in an ominous old photo from 1918 Belgium – yet we all know who the luscious Gal Gadot is playing. An immortal warrior from a distant past, moving amongst modern mortals like a wet dream.

Luthor forges a Kryptonian abomination called Doomsday (we know him best from that limited 1992 comic series, The Death Of Superman), and in a lightning strike of mini-skirted glory, the enigmatic Wonder Woman appears, thighs akimbo, shield aloft, “W” symbol placed discreetly over her vagina, flanked by Superman and Batman.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The Holy Trinity of DC! Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman Wagina. Together on the silver screen at long last. Once again, step outside your social media clique of closeted dipshittery and bear witness! How many decades have we waited for this?! When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream…” he might just have been talking about this moment in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE.

And if this scene doesn’t move you to slapping yourself with your childhood towel —

fag

END

“Okay kids, repress your true feelings to experience this rare moment of familial joy.”

Flocking dork and deceitful bitch road trip.

Jesse Eisenberg has two speeds: superdork nebbish and fast-taking schemer. In RIO 2, he’s phoning it in as the former.

Eisenberg returns as rare macaw parrot Blu, who is now married to his parrot love interest from RIO, Jewel (voice of Anne Hathaway), so there is a noticeable lack of the romantic frisson that drove the last movie; rather, the defining emotion here is jealousy and deceit, as Blu meets Jewel’s old boyfriends from the old ‘hood, and Jewel deceives Blu into her-way-or-the-highway. Also, he and Jewel are parents to three annoying young birds, such clichéd devices they might as well be humans in a White American Sitcom (i.e. the most homogenized banal pablum on Earth). Blu’s constant advice to his rare family is not to adventure too far from the nest, “Birds of blue feathers – flock together!” Makes no difference to the misbehaving kids, a grating element painted as “cute” and “independent” rather than the impertinent snots they would truly be in real life.

RIO 2 is not off to a good start. And it only gets more polly-want-a-cracker…

The theme of this sequel is still about finding oneself, but the dynamics have changed dramatically, not for the better: whereas once a prospective sexy mate led Blu to discovering his powers; now Blu is henpecked into accepting one culture over another, the henpecking euphemized as “Happy wife, happy life.”

All the cast return to play their dutiful roles (Jamie Foxx, George Lopez and Will.i.am as three comedy relief bird sidekicks, Leslie Mann and Rodrigo Santoro as Linda and Tulio, the two human biologists who own Blu and Jewel), all seemingly unaware of the contradictory messages RIO 2 is sending.

Blu and Jewel decide to fly from their home in Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon rainforest, to help their owners locate a rare flock of blue macaws like themselves, whereupon they discover Jewel’s old flock, including her tough old dad Eduardo (Andy Garcia, replete with flat top and militant attitude), and Jewel’s previous suitors (including a parrot with Bruno Mars‘ voice), which makes Blu even more stuttery and irritating.

Their plan was to locate the flock, then return home, but unbeknownst to Blu, the discovery of Jewel’s father prompts her to change her mind about leaving. Double standards kick in as Blu is made to look like he is wrong for wanting to leave this paradise – when that was the plan all along. And Jewel is made to look like a tragic lost child returning home. Jewel deceives Blu into thinking she will eventually fly home with him, when she has every intention to stay in the Amazon, and is hoping her father will indoctrinate Blu to the jungle before he realizes it. Jewel is more of a villain than the actual comic relief villain of this movie! But that angle is never even hinted at. Because apparently – in any species – you’re blameless if you’re hot.

The animation (by Blue Sky Studios) is remarkable, and the story is kinetic enough to keep it mildly interesting: Nigel the Shakespearean cockatoo (Jemaine Clement) is the wannabe thespian from the last movie that Blu injured, seeking revenge for his flightlessness. (He performs an eclectic version of I Will Survive that draws on so many cultural refs your head will spin.) And an illegal group of loggers is clearing the rainforest, which the biologists battle. And a flock of red macaws is moving in on Eduardo’s territory. So a lot is happening. But I just don’t care. Maybe it’s my aversion to small birds – chickens and ducks and parrots – and their icky ass feathers.

RIO 2’s frenetic story concludes with another big carnival dance number, that forces a happy ending on us, pretending that Jewel’s deceit didn’t exist, and that Brazilian carnivals solve everything, as blue and red macaws become friends because the script says so, as loggers stop logging and, we presume, the contracts authorizing that logging were all ripped up by avaricious politicians turned environmentalists.

And we have achieved White American Sitcom.

END

Mythed it by that much.

Somewhere between expectancy and deliverance – lies M. Night Shyamalan‘s THE VILLAGE.

The people of an Amish-styled village share an uneasy truce with the mysterious beasts that haunt the surrounding woods – until a blind girl courageously braves the woods on a mission of mercy.

The people of Covington lead an idyllic Old World existence, yet are constantly reminded of the red-hooded beasts that stalk the surrounding Covington Woods by the occasional small animal found gutted near the tree line. The color red is banned in the village, as it attracts “Those we do not speak of”; yellow repels them.

But THE VILLAGE is not about the beasts – it’s about the village people. (Oh no I di’int.)

The beauty of THE VILLAGE lies in its quietude. Though it is a mystery thriller, the thrills come not from running and screaming and jump-scares, but rather from shading in each character right before our eyes; quiet scenes of how each person is affected by the indoctrination to their bucolic lifestyle and its underlying menace, how each character yet finds someone to love within that frame, and how each is longing for something which their repressed existence keeps tantalizingly just out of their reach. The beasts and twists are just gravy.

At this juncture in writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s career, he was already being irrationally vilified for making crap movies – and he wasn’t making crap movies yet! (That would come later, with THE HAPPENING (2008) and THE LAST AIRBENDER (2010), where we could almost see Night throwing up his hands in frustration: “You people just don’t appreciate what I’m trying to do! Okay – here’s some REAL shit!”) Here, Night is still adroitly creating a unique moviegoing experience, albeit with less of a surprise jolt than his opening stunner THE SIXTH SENSE, but with as much cinematic power.

The problem with THE VILLAGE lies not in THE VILLAGE, but in jaded humanity.

Night is a storyteller for another age – THE VILLAGE is unhurried, controlled, lovingly constructed from whole cloth, with brilliant staging, intriguing storyline, poignancy, humor, moving soundtrack, layers of chills, and many surprises along the way. But you just can’t please some people…

The village is led by elders Walker (William Hurt, gracefully underplaying), Alice (Sigourney Weaver, manly alluring), August (Brendan Gleeson, somber fortitude) and others, who impose strict Old World ethics on the young-folk, that include Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard, in an Oscar-worthy performance as a powerful blind girl), and a Village Idiot, dribbled poignantly by Adrien Brody.

Ivy’s blindness necessitates her hands being held out. Thus, there is always the visual cue of hands thrusting out for different reasons, grasping for friendship, for enlightenment, for safety. The hand motif is extended to romance: When Ivy tells Lucius, “We used to hold hands all the time, and you stopped,” he replies, “Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do, so that others won’t know we want to do them.”

Later, Lucius would tell his mother Alice (Sigourney) how Walker (Hurt) feels about her: “He hides his feelings for you.”

Alice: “What makes you think he has feelings for me?”
Lucius: “He never touches you.”

Lucius is proven right at a wedding, when Alice puts out her hand to shake Walker’s and he pointedly doesn’t take it, while talking to distract. She walks away, looks back; he is shaking the next woman’s hand. Whereas most would come away from this encounter rejected – Alice is beaming!

One night the warning bell sounds: the beasts are in the village. Ivy waits in her open doorway, her sister (Judy Greer) fearfully calls her to the cellar – but Ivy believes wholeheartedly that Lucius will “come back to make sure we’re safe.” We see her hand reaching into the darkness. In the distance, out-of-focus, a red-hooded beast approaches. From out of frame, Lucius’s hand! Crash to slomo, cue baroque violin, romantic desperation, as he runs with her to the cellar one step ahead of the beasts. A shot of their hands clasped tightly. In the cellar, she notices their hands are still entwined. Well, that’s his left hand. Where’s his right hand? Oh, you beast!

Later, at the wedding, when the warning bell clangs, though Ivy is amidst the dancing throng, though she is with a stranger, though Lucius is nowhere to be seen, she throws out her hand again – this time, we share her confidence, knowing Lucius will always be there to take it and lead her to safety.

On a quiet night, ominous fog in the distance, Ivy joins Lucius as he sits on her porch, protectively. She tells him she can “see his color” when he is near. The simple question, “Why are you on this porch?” opens a floodgate of emotions from both of them. Keep in mind, neither of them have admitted to loving each other, they have not yet even shared a kiss, yet she boldly asks in a crystalline whisper, her unseeing eyes in his direction, “Will you dance with me at our wedding, I find dancing very agreeable.”

When shy Lucius circuitously avoids the answer, Ivy asks, “Why can’t you say what is in your mind?” He retorts, “Why can’t you stop saying what is in yours?” Yet his long tirade ends with, “That is why I am on this porch – because I fear for your safety above all others,” and “Yes, I will dance with you on our wedding night.” An exquisite roundabout exposing cautious love. When they lean in to kiss, the camera pans slowly to a rocking chair on the porch, as if affording them privacy.

Now you might be thinking, Has Poffy lost his mind dwelling on this inane chickflickery? It’s not the content, it is the creative way it is revealed to us – like a flower opening, rather than an anchor dropping. This scene’s ultimate aim is to provide motivation for Ivy in her quest (and to make young girls swoon), but few moviemakers would take the time to build this temple so sweetly.

And when it comes to more somber fare – like stabbing – Shyamalan proves he doesn’t need any scuffling or screeching violins to once again craft a thing of cinematic beauty. Village Idiot appears at Lucius’s door the next day, looking sad. Lucius is in a state of bliss (last night – first base – woohoo!), yet sorry for Idiot, because he knows of his childlike infatuation with Ivy. Lucius leads Idiot in, trying to console him with talk of “There are different types of love–” He turns while he talks, stops, looks down. A bloodied knife is being extracted slowly from his belly, held by Idiot in soundless tears. His eyes glaze. He falls. Idiot flees in anguish.

As if the magnificent construction of that scene was not enough, Ivy’s discovery of the wounded Lucius is just as meticulous. Night’s regular composer, James Newton Howard, scars the soundtrack with a noisome subliminal drone as blind Ivy appears at Lucius’s door. All we see is Ivy in the distance, out of focus, camera mounted above a table in the foreground, Lucius’s body at the foot of this table. She clambers closer, hands out, calling his name desperately. As she comes into focus, her goal is also coming into focus. When her foot hits his body, the drone ceases – and she is in total focus. Everything is clear. She screams that she “cannot see his color!”…

The whole movie is made with this same stunning eye for direction. Even if you do not like the man or his movies, there is no doubt the movie-crafting gene is somersaulting through his veins.

This is why it takes me longer to review good movies than execrable ones – because I must convey the art-maker’s intent faithfully to the loveless masses. Whereas when moviemakers don’t give a fuck, it doesn’t matter in the least how or why I write about their movie, because I know they care even less about whether they’re being represented faithfully than about the haphazard slapping together of their shite in the first place.

All is not as it seems with the beasts, all is not as it seems with the elders, and all is not as it seems with the outside world.

We learn that these people are modern (that is, they’re not from the 1800s and they’re not Amish). Their exile is self-imposed by the elders after searing tragedies befell them in outside society – loved ones meeting their deaths for unnecessary reasons. Their disavowal of the complications of modernity has its price, as the story opens with the burial of August’s baby; a baby that might have been saved had it received the correct modern treatment. We meet Lucius as a quiet, sober young man, regarded well amongst the townsfolk, requesting to go into “the towns” to retrieve “medicines” so that this might not happen again. The council, headed by Walker, refuses.

When Lucius is struck down, Walker rationalizes that it was not a natural order of things, so when Ivy requests to do the same thing for Lucius, she is allowed to go. And the blind shall lead…

Walker then exposes the secret of the beasts to Ivy… A secret that will allow her to make the journey through the forest – but the dangers are not those that she feared. They are much more real and much more urgent – brought to life by human desire.

The elders are forced into compromising their way of life. But Walker is right: the elders cannot live forever; Lucius and Ivy will be the ones to continue the village ruse. He goes to Alice as her son Lucius lies in a coma: “It is all that I can give you.” He moves closer by repeating the line. “It is all that I can give you.” She moves to him… and they… don’t… touch.

The performances in this movie made Night’s later movies unbearable. They are – that – damn – good. How could the one-note Mark Wahlberg or the bug-eyed, half-trick pony Zooey ever hope to compete?

The perfect metaphor for audiences missing the point of this movie is contained within the movie itself: Lucius confesses to the council that he experimented and crossed the tree line into Covington Woods. Walker comes to him, tears edging both their eyes: “Do not fret. You are fearless in ways I can never know.” And he’s NOT talking about going into the woods – he’s referring to the CONFESSION. In other words, the same William Hurt dialogue carries two meanings: a prosaic meaning for the Great Unwashed, and a deeper meaning for those who can think and spell.

So too, we all go into this movie believing the same myth of the beasts as the village people (even the Macho Men), but as the elegant tale progresses, the need for the beasts is negated – yet there are some doughboys still waiting for blood gouts like Bellagio fountains. They’re watching the same movie and not hearing what William Hurt is really saying. (It doesn’t help that all the sensationalistic trailers scream monster slasher Jason Freddie Halloween.)

THE VILLAGE is not about roaring, serial killing, hillbilly beasts. It’s a story about courage. The courage to make a thoughtful movie amidst roaring, serial killing, hillbilly beasts.

END

Rio de Generic.

Named RIO, one would expect a flashy, exuberant, carnivale dance-a-vale rainbow spectacle. One would be wrong. Rather, an uninvolving tale of a rare blue macaw and his intended mate on the run from poachers, while his owner and her soon-to-be mate try to track them down. Cue seen-it-a-million-times face.

Jesse Eisenberg voices Blu the parrot, abandoned at birth, raised in a Minnesota bookstore by over-protective Linda (Leslie Mann), so never had the need to fly (a plot point more annoying than adorable). Linda is asked to bring Blu to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a rare female of the species, but she’s an untamed forest macaw named Jewel (voice of Anne Hathaway) who despises the domesticated ineptitude of Blu. Both macaws are subsequently stolen. So begins a fish-out-of-water meets rugged hottie road tale, as Blu and Jewel attempt to escape the poachers the hard way – without flying, due to being shackled together. “Animated kid’s movie” flow chart informs us that rugged hottie will inexplicably fall for the inept male even after he proves himself an embarrassing and inefficient mate. Happens.

Meanwhile, a cavalcade of ancillary characters try to provide the much-needed comedy that Blu is not providing by being so annoying, and that Jewel is not providing by being so annoyed with Blu. Jamie Foxx and Will i am are two little sidekick birds, Jemaine Clement is the poachers’ mercenary cockatoo, George Lopez is a friendly frenetic toucan, and Tracy Morgan is a bulldog who won’t stop grossly drooling. Rodrigo Santoro is Jewel’s owner Tulio, the human male set up as analogous mate for the human female Linda. Happens.

Flow chart tells us that the poachers will be busted and that Blu will learn to fly when it is most needed (maybe to save his chick’s life?), and that the cockatoo will get his comeuppance and that we’re in for a big embarrassing song and dance number that portends no poaching will ever happen again until the world ends. Happens.

Parrot being so ugly doesn’t help, Eisenberg’s faux Woody Allen stammer is grating, bulldog’s spit is nauseating, and obvious join-the-dots plot is mind-numbing. The under-10s are gonna love this colorful crap.

END

Revenge of the Nerd.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK officially makes Jesse Eisenberg the male version of Michael Cera.

Eisenberg is boy-genius Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the most insidious computer virus since electricity was invented – Facebook.

Let’s face it: the internet – for all its proven utility as an advertising forum, a business device and knowledge repository – is just a faster better cheaper porn delivery vehicle. Likewise, Facebook, for all its vaunted connectivity to old school friends and promotional tool for your mundane esoterica – is just a faster better cheaper porn delivery vehicle.

Don’t believe me? How come every hot chick has ten thousand more “friends” than any given average joe?

That’s why Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in 2003 on his Harvard college server in the first place (according to this movie and, I hazard a guess, in reality) – for horny college kids to keep track of who was boning who.

Why else does Facebook have a Relationship Status field dealing solely with whether you’re Single, In A Relationship, Divorced, Married or It’s Complicated?

It seems “facebook” was a generic name for the index of students’ pictures online at every college. If that was the case, Zuckerberg’s genius was to trademark the name. (As canny as Gene Simmons trademarking the ‘$’ sign – as David St. Hubbins sagely advises, “There’s a fine line between stupid and clever.”)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK does for computer programming nerds what STAR WARS did for action figure geeks. Mark Zuckerberg – through Eisenberg’s scathing, forceful characterization – comes off as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Batman.

Written by Ben Mezrich and Aaron Sorkin, with the same intelligent vernacular Sorkin employed in A FEW GOOD MEN (1992); directed by David Fincher with the same verve he directed FIGHT CLUB (1999), THE SOCIAL NETWORK is apparently not an accurate depiction of Zuckerberg or the events surrounding Facebook’s political controversies (according to the subject himself and many associates), but it pulls off a great dramatic punch and, like IMMORTAL BELOVED (the fact-challenged Beethoven biopic), the movie captures the charging spirit of someone who has entrenched himself in the history of the world. The controversy over this social phenomenon only proves the point that any person who attains such hedonistic power will always become more sexy myth than nerdy flesh.

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
–from THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, 1962.

The opening scene’s shotgun dialogue dives into Zuckerberg’s character headlong, foreshadowing his ultimate treatment of people – coldly calculating, cynical, brash, contemptuous and condescending. And he’s just talking to his girl. It’s almost as if he was born to communicate via the clinical efficiency of a computer monitor. She angrily tells him, “All your life you’re gonna think girls are rejecting you because you’re a nerd. But let me tell you from the bottom of my heart – it’s because you’re an asshole!” And the problem is…? Isn’t it the nervous daydream of every nerd to actually become an asshole? Wouldn’t we all – assholes and nerds alike – rather be assholes than nerds?

Score one for The Zuck. Chicks love assholes.

Justin Timberlake is Sean Parker, the inventor of Napster, who inserts himself into the Facebook juggernaut when it is still in baby pants, with his smooth talk and language of largesse. He hits the sociological sea change on the head when he tells Zuckerberg “It used to be if you had a good idea, they’d say, ‘Good job, kid! The grownups will take it from here,’ but not this time!” He’s right – the whole idiom is a young person’s game. The grownups couldn’t’ve taken over even if they wanted to.

The last time I saw Andrew Garfield he was being overpowered charisma-wise and character-wise by Heath Ledger in THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS; here he holds a prominent position as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg’s best friend and co-founder of Facebook, one of the three male co-leads with Eisenberg and Timberlake; next, he’s Spider-Man. Gee, turn your head for one second. They grow up so fast…

Armie Hammer plays the Winklevoss twins, who try to sue Zuckerberg over Facebook being their idea. And I never picked it; the “twin” special effects are that seamless. In BACHELOR PARTY (1984) the Indian pimp tells Gary, “These are twins of pleasure!” Sorry, but that’s all I can think of when I look at the 6’4″, 225-lb, blond and built rowing champions, the Winklevosses. Ladies, can I get an Amen?

Story flits between Harvard 2003 and a “present-day” hearing over Zuckerberg’s ownership rights. Like Monty Python’s classic “Bicycle Tour” sketch, there is an integral Scene Missing from the story. From being staunchly against allowing advertisements on his “cool” website, where did Zuckerberg make that leap to commercialism and more importantly, how did he get so rich so quickly? It is clear that Parker steered Zuckerberg towards commercialism, but we never actually see “how” it’s done.

Daniel Lyons writing in Newsweek comments on facebook, zynga and all those companies that don’t “do” anything or make products, just being repositories for ads – which is a turnaround on Zuckerberg’s original concept of an ad-free playzone.

In the hearing scenes, Zuckerberg is already the world’s youngest billionaire, reminding his interrogators with diabolical intellectual cool that he can buy them many times over. From humble asshole to antagonistic asshole, his business cards simply state, “I’m CEO, bitch!”

I love the guy!

Feeling betrayed, Eduardo laments to Zuckerberg during the hearing, “I was your only friend. You had one friend.” The irony is not lost on us, who are being beaten to death with Facebook currently crowing of 500 million “friends” on its network.

The greatest irony is that a forum calling itself a “social network” is one of the largest contributors to humans becoming more ANTI-social. The themes of this movie – betrayal, power, revenge – only bear out that scarring, anti-social truth. When I take a break from that lonely desert called REALITY and make bi-annual visits to my own Facebook page, I see people holding conversations without me on my personal wall, planting farms, riding unicorns and having pillow fights with flat-bellied damsels in low cut panties they could never hope to meet in real life. What the hell is wrong with you people? Don’t call me your “friend” just because you add a jpg of pixels that resembles my face to your page – pick up the phone or knock on my door. Preferably wearing low cut panties.

But poke me and pull back a bloody stump.

END

Fun for the whole (undead) family.

ZOMBIELAND is no classic comedy like SHAUN OF THE DEAD (which it emulates in small snatches), but it still gives veteran zombie auteur George A. Romero a lesson in how to insert all that “black humor” and “satire” that he never puts into his movies yet that he is famous for.

Directed by video nobody Ruben Fleischer (written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick), ZOMBIELAND also addresses a deeper theme that Romero could never envision: that of its characters running FROM zombies but running ever towards the past that they lost; the “innocent” time before Zombieland.

Surface story follows four people with guns that never run of bullets, traveling across country while trying to remain un-undead. Guns, guts and gore, hero shots, geek-gets-girl, blood-spattered undead end to end. ‘Nuff said for most rednecks, and a subtle character study for normal-colored necks.

Woody Harrelson brings his NATURAL BORN KILLERS, as laconic cowboy loner, Tallahassee, who picks up Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus (doing such a good Michael Cera homage, I feel like beating him up for his lunch money); Emma Stone wearing enough mascara to embarrass a prostitute dressed as Jack Sparrow; and Abigail Breslin growing up onscreen in front of our eyes.

Once again, the “realistic” reason behind the zombie epidemic is updated. In the ’50s and ’60s – radiation; the ’80s and ’90s – genetics; 2000s – now a virus, spawned from mad cow disease.

Amber Heard cameo – not naked. Waste of skin. Bill Murray cameo, admits his one regret in life was “GARFIELD, maybe.”

END