As the latest Twilight fan-fic opens nationwide, it seems only fitting that I finally get around to writing something about a South Korean vampire film I watched a few weeks ago at The Uptown Theatre. Now most people know director Park Chan-wook for his Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) or possibly for his segment from the horror film Three Extremes making him one of the better known foreign language film makers in the US. So when I heard he’d be making a vampire film, I was excited at the possibilities, but I got something I never expected.
Thirst follows the story of a priest who undergoes an experimental treatment, during the course of which a blood transfusion transforms him into a vampire. Soon he discovers that if he doesn’t feed, that his disease will return, thus he must soon abandon his morality in order to survive. But that is scarcely his furthest fall.
You see, our priest has a secret, he’s in love with his friend’s wife. And his hunger isn’t simply for blood, but for other things just as carnal. Thus, our intrepid hero must slowly abandon his faith in order to satiate his growing desires. And that’s when Thirst truly blossoms into a modern masterpiece of film making.
While Thirst is a morality play to be sure, and it is full of horror elements, at its heart it is a romance, though a very twisted and dysfunctional one to be sure. As our priest falls deeper in love with the woman of his desires, he makes a rather foolish step that propels the two of them into an unending struggle for dominance of their lives, their relationship and of their hunger.
Following in the footsteps of last year’s outstanding vampire film Let the Right One In, Thirst creates complex and realistic characters that are thrust into worlds they can scarcely imagine let alone control, try as they might. These are people with faults and flaws, and simply craving the taste of blood won’t change that, but it just might amplify their flaws. Thirst simply isn’t just the best vampire movie of the year, its one of the year’s best movies, period.
Going in to Youth in Revolt I knew next to nothing about the books that the film was adapted from. Evidently they must have been somewhat popular, as the adventures of Nick Twisp have become somewhat of a cottage industry. But going in blind I had no idea what to expect, though the trailer at lease gave me a hint that the film would be a bit of a satire on the standard romantic comedy.
What I didn’t expect was the film to be a scathing rebuke of teenagers. According to Youth in Revolt, teenagers are self-aggrandizing, narcissistic douche bags of the highest order, who also operate under the false assumption that they are intellectuals and romantics of the highest order. And adults, they simply stand in the way of their happiness. As does responsibility and accountability. To say I ate this premise up would be a major understatement.
And while Cera doesn’t get to display as much acting range as the trailer might hint at, he does finally get a chance to have a character go through a full fledged arc, evolving and changing through the course of the film. Though that may not exactly be for the better for Twisp, though he’s far too ignorant to realize that anyways, which is exactly why Youth in Revolt is so damn entertaining.
With just a cursory glance it would appear that Jared Hess’ career is in decline. After hitting it big with Napoleon Dynamite, his next film, Nacho Libre, struggled to gain a following as it garnered mixed reviews. Their certainly seem to be a certain group of devoted fans, but it had no where near the mainstream appeal of Napoleon Dynamite. Now along comes Gentlemen Broncos, and its stunningly poor 15% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
So when I went to a screening of Gentlemen Broncos I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Napoleon Dynamite had certainly grown on me, but I loved Nacho Libre. Was I just one of those people who simply clicked with Jared Hess? As I sat through the film, quite early on the answer became quite clear, yes I am.
Gentlemen Broncos seals the fact that no one truly gets what being an awkward nerd is like Jared Hess does. His protagonists are strange, uncomfortable and surprisingly sweet. These are naive and gentle characters that know what they like, and understand that that makes them very different from everyone else. And while they might not always be comfortable with that, they accept it.
This is what I thinks makes watching his Hess’ films so difficult for most people. His “nerds” truly are nerds. Not simply some pretty face made ugly with one weird personality trait, but people who just can’t ever make that step to being acceptable to the mainstream. Hess portrays these personalities both accurately and lovingly, and the cool kids hate his films for it. These films don’t just have a facile appreciation for the un-hip, they saturate ever fiber of their being with oddities.
Is Gentlemen Broncos a great film? No, but its filled with sold performances, as well as Sam Rockwell’s second monster performance of the year, and it is wildly entertaining with its spastic and unconventional humor. It’s an incredibly sweet film, filled with awkward moments and subtle humor, and it does a remarkable job of capturing just how awkward teenage passion can be. Sure I’m in the minority, but I have been much of my life, and I am quite comfortable enjoying Gentlemen Broncos while the cool kids go watch something more comfortable.
I’ve never been so stressed out for a movie. It should be noted that at the moment I started writing this I hadn’t even seen the film yet, though I am sitting in the theatre waiting for it to start. It all started this morning. I’d known a few days earlier that Paranormal Activity had finally been booked to play in Minneapolis, but I had foolishly assumed that it would get a standard run. Instead, the film had been booked for just two midnight shows on Friday and Saturday night, making Anna’s and my plans to watch it on Sunday morning totally meaningless. So when I woke up this morning I didn’t know how frantic my day was about to become.
Luckily for me I discovered early on that their would be no Sunday screening. Knowing that Anna would kill me if I didn’t get tickets I did what any man would do, I called her at work and got permission for us to go out past our bedtime.
The conversation that followed was rather strange, as Anna assured me that her sister had told her the 7:30 show had sold out so I must be mistaken. After assuring her that their was no such show I was finally given the go ahead to order tickets and that was that. Or so I thought.
A few short hours later, as I drove to work, I received a frantic phone call from Anna. She had just talked to her sister who had assured her that the Friday show was sold out and that I couldn’t have possibly ordered tickets.
“Well it might be sold out now but I bought tickets.”
“But Lindsey said the show was sold out before today.”
“That’s great. But I bought tickets.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you want me to show you the confirmation?”
“But Lindsey said it was sold out.”
“She also said the show was at 7 o’clock.”
“I don’t know why you are getting frustrated.”
“I don’t know why you are questioning me about tickets I bought on your orders.”
“I don’t trust online ticketing.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t want us to show up and find out the ticket you bought were already sold.”
“Good lord, you sound like my parents.”
Sure enough, over the next few hours I would receive a few more phone calls questioning whether the tickets I ought had actually been bought. By the time I finally got home from work I was exasperated by the onslaught of disbelief that it was actually possible to buy tickets online. Even once we showed up for the movie, over an hour early based on Anna’s demands, I was still being questioned on whether the tickets were actually purchased. So by the time we finally got seated I had had about all I wanted from Paranormal Activity.
So as for my thoughts? Paranormal Activity is a nice little film. The actors (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) both do a good job and the effects are very good, but the film suffers from some gaping plot holes and inconsistencies. Its not a movie that will hold up well to any sort of analysis or scrutiny, but the film is fun to watch and it does offer plenty of scares. Its not as good nor scary as it is billed, but for a bare bones true Indie film its is top notch entertainment. The good news is it scared the socks off of Anna, meaning I have all sorts of ways that I can enact my revenge for the hell she put me through all day. And don’t feel sorry for her, she’s earned it.
I’ve got a secret to tell you, I watched A Serious Man over a week ago. When I went to go see it I assumed I would rush home to write something about it and get it online before any other doink could beat me. Then, due to circumstances beyond my control, I simply didn’t have the time due to watching a few other screenings over the next two days. Which is a good thing, as it allowed me a bit more time to think about the film, and make no mistake, this is a film that will force you to think.
Now, I’m going to do my best to not go into any specific spoilers about A Serious Man, but their are things that I think one should know going in. A Serious Man is a dark comedy, and while it has plenty of comedy the film is incredibly dark. Like most of the Coen’s films this one makes sure to put its characters through the ringer, and in a few cases they are downright unrelenting. I’ve heard people complain that they don’t like the Coen’s films because they get the feeling that the Coen’s don’t like their characters and A Serious Man isn’t going to change their minds, and most likely reinforce that idea, but to me A Serious Man is the one clear instance where the Coen’s are playing God. They are working in mysterious ways and tempting their characters to see if they will sin, and sinning results in consequences, rigorous and immediate consequences.
While Burn After Reading, a better film then most will have you believe, came across as a palette cleansing after the grim No Country For Old Men, A Serious Man dives right back into those murky and dangerous waters where every decision is fraught with risk and their are no easy answers.
Where No Country for Old Men saw a simple man come across a stroke of luck that he couldn’t possibly understand, A Serious Man provides the flip of a coin, where a simple man runs across a stroke of bad luck at the worst possible time, leaving him to question the nature of his life and his faith. And while good luck hardly favored Llewlyn Moss, bad luck provides some hope for Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) to have a better life, if only he finds it in himself to make the right choices. God doesn’t hate Larry Gopnik, he loves him. But he wants him to be a better, stronger more serious man, and he is going to put him through hell so that he can finally reach his potential.
A few other final notes, Stuhlburg has turned in a monster performance in a year filled with them. Not to be out done, Richard Kind follows him step for step in a fantastic supporting turn as Uncle Arthur, Gopnik’s troubled but brilliant brother.
For those wondering, the rather flashy trailer for the film actually does have a tie-in to the film, with many of the scenes having an almost orchestral flow to them as players slowly enter into a scene and interact until it crescendos. For such a dark and subdued comedy, the script comes off almost downright showy with how its structure is so flowery.
As for the ending, its going to perplex people as much, if not more then No Country for Old Men’s ending. Perhaps because it offers far more clues on to what was really going on while providing far fewer answers. I’ve got my theories on to what was actually happening in the film, and I’m quite certain it will take multiple viewings to truly grasp the multitude of events that were transpiring before me.
As the latest Twilight fan-fic opens nationwide, it seems only fitting that I finally get around to writing something about a South Korean vampire film I watched a few weeks ago at The Uptown Theatre. Now most people know director Park Chan-wook for his Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) or possibly for his segment from the horror film Three Extremes making him one of the better known foreign language film makers in the US. So when I heard he’d be making a vampire film, I was excited at the possibilities, but I got something I never expected.
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