Review: Oculus

Image courtesy of Relativity Media.

Mike Flanagan's "Oculus" is much scarier than any movie about a haunted mirror has the right to be. It's not exactly the best horror movie of the past couple of years as has been suggested by a handful of critics, but it is pretty inventive and often spooky.

The picture opens with a young man named Tim (Brenton Thwaites) who is released from a mental hospital some years after his father murdered his mother and he, in turn, shot his father. Tim's sister, Kaylie (Karen Gillan), picks him up from the hospital and from the moment we see her, we can tell she is on a mission.

Kaylie is convinced that a mirror owned by she and Tim's parents - as well as numerous others who owned the creepy old looking glass throughout the ages who met untimely demises - is haunted and that it played a role in the family's tragedy. This might sound silly, but Flanagan takes great pains to avoid absurdity, delivering a surreal atmosphere that leaves viewers unsettled and, often, purposefully confused.

Tim naturally wonders whether his sister is as delusional as he once possibly was and, clearly, this turn of events is the last thing he needs after being let out of the hospital. Kaylie and her brother travel to their former home, where she has the mirror on loan from the antique auction house where it is being held. This is the only slightly unbelievable element in the film, which is funny considering that the picture is about a haunted mirror.

Kaylie warns Tim that the mirror plays tricks on the imagination. You may think you are speaking to someone on the phone in the home's front yard, for instance, when in fact you are talking to no one on your phone in the kitchen. And so forth. This is used for maximum effect in two particular scenes - one involving an apple that will make most viewers cringe and, another, involving a pendulum-type of object that would likely force some revision to Chekhov's gun theory.

There are, of course, a few of the type of jump scares that have become increasingly prevalent in horror films. You know what I'm talking about. A person looks around and there's nothing there. They look around again and suddenly some sort of creepy being is standing right behind them and accompanied by a loud clang on the soundtrack. "Oculus" is at its weakest when relying upon this device.

But mostly, it's a clever horror picture with some genuinely creepy moments, a sinister tone of doom throughout and fine performances not only by its two leads, but also by Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff as Kaylie and Tim's parents.

So, while "Oculus" may not reinvent or reinvigorate the horror genre, it's a pretty decent entry.

Review: Only Lovers Left Alive

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Jim Jarmusch has dabbled in a variety of genres, including samurai crime dramas ("Ghost Dog") and westerns ("Dead Man"), but rather than adapting to the various requirements of the genres, each of his films feels distinctly Jarmuschian.

So, essentially, the director's latest - "Only Lovers Left Alive" - happens to be a movie about vampires, but it's far from a horror movie. Rather, the film is set in the rules of Jarmusch's world - from the downbeat characters to the eclectic choices of music - and just happens to have two bloodsuckers as its protagonists.

These two vampires are not your garden variety - in fact, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) have not taken human victims in several centuries, but rather pick up their blood supplies from a lab assistant (Jeffrey Wright) and none other than Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), who bemoans how William Shakespeare received credit for all of his written works, respectively.

Adam and Eve are married, but unexplainably live on opposite sides of the world - he in a dusty old mansion in Detroit and she in Tangier. She decides to visit him after he goes through a round of suicidal depression and the two spend much of their time cooped up on Adam's house, decrying the state of humankind (they refer to them as "zombies") and how man has destroyed the earth and ruined its culture. Adam is a musician whose wall of sound-style of music is composed and mostly unheard by anyone, although his one human pal (Anton Yelchin) attempts to convince him to get it out into the world.

If anything, "Only Lovers Left Alive" is the story of two - well, not quite - people viewing our present time as a world on the downslide. It is simultaneously a romance, of sorts, about these two - let's call them - beings who are lonely and a little lost in the world, but grounded by each other.

On the one hand, this is a solid picture - moody, witty and strangely moving at certain points. And yet, it's not among my favorites of Jarmusch's work, which include "Stranger Than Paradise," "Dead Man," "Mystery Train" and "Broken Flowers."

Both Hiddleston and Swinton have magnetic presences - he, morose but good hearted and in need of inspiration, and she, still able to find joy in life after several hundred years of existence. There are a few additional plot lines here - Eve's troublesome sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up unexpectedly and throws a monkey wrench in the lovers' plans, but it's mostly a minor diversion. The duo then later heads off to Tangier and the picture ends with a curiously funny, but slightly difficult to read, act.

Jarmusch is a true original, one of American cinema's most distinct voices. "Only Lovers Left Alive" has a purposefully languid pace, but I don't mean this as a critique. If you find yourself on its wavelength - as I did - you'll be duly rewarded.

Review: Nymphomaniac Vol. II

Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

And so Joe's (Charlotte Gainsbourg) tale of debauchery and downfall continues as she relays her various conquests to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), the philosophical - as it were - virgin who discovered her beaten in an alleyway and brought her into his home, where she narrates - throughout the course of Lars Von Trier's two-part movie - her occasionally sordid tale.

The first film, which is the slight better of the two, followed young Joe (Stacy Martin), whose sexual adventurousness included picking up men on trains and sleeping with her boss (Shia LaBeouf), with whom she now has a young child at the beginning of the second film.

At the climax - sorry, couldn't help myself - of part one, Joe has lost her capacity for sexual sensation and, at the beginning of volume two, Jerome (LaBeouf) has encouraged her to engage in some extracurriculars to get her groove back. This leads to one of the first of the film's awkward scenes as Joe and two African men - completely nude with the camera placed just so - negotiate the terms of a "sandwich," which I'll leave to your imagination. This scene then leads to a discussion of the word "Negro" between Joe and Seligman that is forced and uncomfortable, not because of its subject matter but in how it is handled.

Even more uncomfortable is a later scene during which Joe encounters a pedophile, prompting her to tell Seligman that the 95 percent of people who are born with tendencies of pedophilia, but do not act on them, should receive a medal. She goes further to compare her sexual "outlaw" status with the pedophile's. Von Trier is a great filmmaker ("Melancholia" or "Breaking the Waves," for instance) who occasionally peddles in provocation ("The Idiots") just to shake up the bourgeois. In the case of these two aforementioned scenes, he misses the mark and comes off as too obvious.

However, many of the film's other scenes are provocative and manage to get under the skin. Joe's sexual adventures first began as a method to seek pleasure, but soon devolve into a need for pain. During a series of sequences, Joe meets with K (Jaime Bell, giving this film the much needed jolt delivered by Uma Thurman in the first volume), a masochist who ties up his "clients" and delivers brutal spankings and slaps, but does not have sex with them. During one absurdly funny scene, he gives a wrapped Christmas present to Joe that turns out to be... well, I wouldn't give that away.

During the film's final third, before which Von Trier toys with audience expectations during a scene involving a baby and a window that recalls his 2009 film "Antichrist," Joe gets involved with criminal activity, brings on a protege who becomes a lover and a reunion, of sorts, with Jerome occurs. While these sequences are perfectly well executed, they feel a little out of place with the rest of the film. However, Joe's comparing herself to a deformed tree leaning on a mountain, which is seen during one of the film's more beautifully shot scenes, rings poignantly true. This being a Von Trier movie, the film ends on a cynical and bleak note that most will not likely see coming.

So, while the film earns points for its ambition, daring and courage from its actors, "Nymphomaniac Vols. I and II" are not among Von Trier's best films. Rather, I'd put the two movies alongside second tier entries such as "Antichrist," which was gorgeously shot and truly shocking, and "Zentropa." I liked these films, but didn't feel quite as spellbound as I did during "Melancholia," "Dogville," "Breaking the Waves" or "Dancer in the Dark." That being said, anyone with a serious interest in cinema will not want to skip out on them.

Review: Under the Skin

Image courtesy of A24.

It's a sentiment I am rarely able to express, but I can say without much doubt that Jonathan Glazer's absorbing, haunting and flat-out strange "Under the Skin" is surely unlike any other film you've seen before.

Sure, some of its themes - should we agree on them, that is - resemble everything from Nicolas Roeg's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" to Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" and the mesmerizingly confounding opening sequence, perhaps, pays homage to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." And yet, there's really no other film to which I can say this one is similar.

This should come as no surprise as Glazer's previous two features included a gangster movie - "Sexy Beast" - quite unlike any you'd probably come across and the bizarrely moving "Birth," the 2004 film in which a young boy tells Nicole Kidman that he is the reincarnation - or something to that effect - of her dead husband.

In "Under the Skin," Scarlett Johansson - in a performance quite unlike any other in her body of work - plays a nameless being that we can assume is not from this planet who drives around Scotland, picks up men who believe they are heading back to her place to have sex and then, well, let's just say these men - or their flesh, bodies, something - serve some higher purpose unknown to us. Much like David Bowie's water-seeking alien in "The Man Who Fell to Earth," Johansson's extraterrestrial figure is serving some sort of mission here on Earth.

The film kicks off with an obelisk-type structure and a shot of outer space. We then hear words being formed as if for the first time and the opening of an eye. Our alien is being created - or something along those lines. Once on our planet, she takes the figure of a woman and picks out some clothes, which include tight-fitting jeans and a fur coat. She commences to drive her van around, picking up Scottish men who follow her back to her creepy shack in the middle of nowhere, strip naked and end up in a pool of liquid, in which they are unable to move. During one particularly imaginative - and horrific - sequence, one of the men in the pool of goo finds out what happens once you have been submerged in it too long.

Johansson's alien observes all things without feeling human emotions. This is most strikingly observed as she watches a tragic scene unfold on a beach where a young child is drowning. A baby left alone on the sand will most likely unnerve you long after the movie is over.

But slowly, this extraterrestrial begins to seemingly long for the experience of being human or, at least, sympathize with it. This occurs first after she picks up a horribly deformed man who, when realizing that she intends to take him back to her place, pinches himself and asks if he is dreaming. Later, the alien is assisted by a man on a bus who senses that she is in some sort of trouble.

But just as our otherworldly being witnesses the good in mankind, she also comes into contact with its potential for evil during an ironically horrifying sequence toward the film's end in which the alien, a sexual predator by all accounts, meets the wrong man.

"Under the Skin" is a strange, but unforgettable, movie. Its visual style, narrative rhythms, use of dialogue or the lack thereof, sound and eerie score, modest but striking visual effects and overall tone make for a hypnotic, creepy and occasionally even moving picture. This is certainly not a movie for everybody - but the adventurous, who crave offbeat and unique moviegoing experiences, should drop what they are doing and seek this out. Glazer's dreamy - or is it nightmarish - ode to the human experience, but from an outsider's perspective, is one of the year's must-see movies.

Review: Cesar Chavez

Image courtesy of Lionsgate.

Diego Luna's "Cesar Chavez" proves that Michael Pena is ready for leading man status, but the film itself is merely a respectable, but by-the-numbers, biopic.

Chavez was a key figure for the labor movement of the 1960s, fighting for the rights of farmworkers - most notably, grape pickers in California - and butting heads with exploitative farm owners and aggressive police.

Much of Luna's film focuses on Chavez's attempt to unionize the farmworkers of Delano, Calif. and the grape strike of the mid-1960s. The film does little to portray Chavez's personal life, outside of throwing in a subplot about how his older son grows to resent him, due to the fact that he spends more time with the striking workers than he does with his family.

The inclusion of this plot device is similar to depicting Ray Charles in the 2004 film of his life as a womanizer in that it attempts to show the flaws of its central character. In the case of Chavez, this is done primarily to prevent the film from becoming a hagiography.

There's enough stirring material here - from the mistreatment of the workers by the farm owners and police - and enough to get you riled up - documentary footage of Ronald Reagan referring to workers striking for their rights as "immoral" - to nearly make the film work.

And Pena gives a strong performance as the civil and labor rights leader, proving that he is ready to break out of the supporting actor category in which he has primarily been working for more than a decade.

But "Cesar Chavez" is a bio movie that mostly plays by the rules. In other words, we see filmed depictions of all the major historic events of its character's life and career without really diving deeper into who he was as a person. This is far from a bad film - in fact, it's well-performed, frequently riveting and obviously well-intentioned. It's just that a heroic figure like Chavez probably deserved a little more than a biopic that plays too closely by the rules of the genre.

Review: Noah

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

It should come as no surprise to those familiar with the work of director Darren Aronofsky, but "Noah" is certainly not your grandfather's King James Bible.

The picture is one of those type of mad visions that Hollywood once embraced, but is now typically too frightened to come near with a 10-foot pole. And yet, somehow, this film was made.

For starters, this is not a movie aiming for the faithful, nor does it provide much fodder for the doubtful. Much like Aronofsky's other works, the picture is a story of a character who pushes himself beyond a limit - in this case, physical and psychological - in order to reach his goal.

In the case of Noah, that goal is to please The Creator - the name repeatedly spoken, rather than God, during the film - whereas the characters populating Aronofsky's previous movies worshipped at the altar of success ("Black Swan"), discovery ("Pi") and drugs ("Requiem for a Dream"). "Noah" will probably be likened to "The Fountain," the director's 2006 critical and financial misfire (that I sorta liked, though I agree it's his weakest film) due to the religious themes that are frequently played out as fantasy or science fiction.

Russell Crowe gives his finest performance in some time as the titular figure, a decent man and environmentalist who is repulsed at how his fellow human beings have soiled the earth and mistreated its animals. He has visions from The Creator in the form of several dreams, during which flowers "grow from nothing" and the world is engulfed by water.

He discusses this vision with his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins, having a grand old time hamming it up), and decides to build an ark that will house all of God's creatures and only a few humans - he, his wife (Jennifer Connelly), their three sons and the orphaned girl whom they raised (Emma Watson, great as always).

Noah is assisted in building the ark and protected by a group of gigantic stone creatures known as The Watchers that seemed to have wandered away from a Guillermo del Toro picture on a Hollywood lot and accidentally ended up in this film, As special effects, The Watchers are impressive, but they feel more than slightly out of place in this movie.

Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), a descendant of that famous fratricidal maniac, shows up with a large, unwashed army of violent men in tow who decide they want a ride on the ark as well, but Noah makes it clear that he ain't selling tickets. Drama ensues.

I've gotta admit, the series of sequences during which the ark is populated with creatures big and small - - especially a knockout scene with all shape and size of birds - are dazzling to watch. And Aronofsky's portrayal of The Great Flood is just as epic as it needs to be.

There are a few twists and turns in the film, including a stowaway on the ark and the thought-to-be barren Ila (Watson) becoming pregnant and leading Noah to go off the deep end, so to speak. The biblical story of Noah is played out in this film, but there's a fair amount of fantastical elements added and liberties taken, most of which work pretty well (for example, Ila's character did not appear in The Bible), while a few others not as much (the stone creatures).

All in all, "Noah" is well worth your time. It's an expensive, special effects-heavy Hollywood picture that leaves you with more to think about than most of the other blockbusters released during any given year combined. It has its flaws, but they are mostly of the excusable type that occur when a great director makes an attempt at an insane vision.

And while I wouldn't rank "Noah" with Aronofsky's best films - "Black Swan" or "Requiem for a Dream" - I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to have directed this movie. This is a film where big risks were taken and they mostly pay off.

Review: Jodorowsky's Dune

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

"Jodorowsky's Dune" tells the story of one of the greatest movies never made - or, at least, never filmed. For those not familiar with the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean filmmaker who, along with David Lynch and several others, gave birth to the midnight cult movie with his completely insane and brilliant 1970 film "El Topo." I'd also highly recommend his "Santa Sangre" and, for those willing to go completely off the deep end, "The Holy Mountain."

In the mid 1970s, Jodorowsky was told by a producer with whom he worked that he would be able to get funding for any movie he wanted to make following the cult success of "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain," which he made with money donated by John Lennon.

Jodorowsky decided he did not just want to make a film, but a life changing spiritual experience that would alter the course of humanity. I'm not being snide here - the director himself said his ambitions and, very likely, his experience with mind altering drugs helped to convince him that Frank Herbert's "Dune" was just the project to do such a thing. Those unfamiliar with Herbert's epic sci-fi tome, "Dune" follows an interplanetary feud over a precious spice. The novel was written in the 1960s, so take that as you will.

So, for several years, the filmmaker put together a dream team of collaborators and crafted a shot-by-shot book of the film in its entirety that blew the minds of all in Hollywood who got their hands on it. And yet, the picture was too ambitious, too strange and too expensive. The storyboards created for the film suggest that it could have been lightyears ahead of its time and that, by comparison, "Star Wars" or "Alien," which would come just a few years later, would have technologically been no match for it.

Much of the documentary, which is directed by Frank Pavich, is in a talking-head format with Jodorowsky, now 84 years old, and some of the talent involved in the crafting of the never-made 1975 film. These scenes are interspersed with animated shots of the storyboards in action and clips from other Jodorowsky films. The documentary remains riveting first and foremost because it seems clear that Jodorowsky's "Dune" would have been a remarkable picture. Also, it helps that the director is such a character - funny, passionate and quirky in all the best ways. "We were raping Frank Herbert," he says of his fated production, "but with love."

Jodorowsky's team included Dan O'Bannon, who did the visual effects for John Carpenter's "Dark Star" and would go on to work on "Alien," as well as surrealist H.R. Giger and acclaimed artist Jean Giraud for set and character design. The cast of the film was to include Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, while the music was to be handled by Pink Floyd and Magma.

Much like last year's entrancing "Room 237," which offered various conspiracy theories to explain the true meaning behind Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," "Jodorowsky's Dune" is a documentary about cinematic myth-making. In this case, however, the mythical film was never actually made - at least, not Jodorowsky's. Lynch went on to direct the film, resulting in the only true flop of his career, although even his film had more than a few memorable visuals (f.e., those worms). It's a shame that Jodorowsky's vision never made it to the screen - but, at least, we now have Pavich's fascinating documentary.