Here’s a top five, since I can’t really commit to ten without having seen a lot of the movies now on awards lists.

5. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

I’ll never get this title right. It’s been the only roadblock to recommending the movie, though. Everything about it is impressive, and I’m not sure where to start. It’s about a girl who runs away from a cult and joins up with her older sister and her sister’s husband. She leaves one “family” for another, but can’t seem to reconcile what happened to her. There are flashbacks to her time at the “compound” which is actually a pretty legimate looking place you could hardly call a cult. It’s one of those “sustainable” places where people live off the land. Its leader is played by John Hawkes as a really tender villain. He will drug you, rape you, then sing you a song and try to make you fall in love with him. He seems like just the type of person who could start a cultish movement and get away with heinous sick, weird things that ruin other people’s lives.

This movie felt completely plausible and unpredictable. I can’t remember the last time I saw something that left me with so much anxiety about where it was heading. It felt like a really well done horror film.

It’s the debut of Elizabeth Olson, the third Olson sister, if you’re counting. It’s also the debut film for director Sean Durkin. Expect good things to come from both.

I also have a hard time comparing the film to any other. The closest genre I could compare it to would be the home-invasion thriller. But instead of a physical home invasion, it’s completely psychological.

4. THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN

Give Spielberg motion cap technology and about 170 million dollars, and he’ll do something amazing. When it comes to adventure films you can’t bet against the man. Here’s a high rollicking story filled with “derring-do” based on a comic almost no Americans have heard of. I knew of it when I was kid because there was a cartoon series on HBO, but obviously never picked up the comic books. No matter – it’s not a hard mythology to get behind. It’s about an intrepid red haired journalist and his dog. That’s really it. The rest is just adventure, adventure, and more adventure. I loved the epic sweep of this movie, taking us from place to place and doing it pretty smoothly. Even its flashbacks to swash-buckling pirates made total sense. I often hear the word “set piece” to describe action sequences in a movie. This movie is almost one giant set piece. Towards the end there’s a 3 minute set piece where the camera doesn’t cut away once. It’s painstakingly choreographed and perfectly executed, and it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve without mo-cap technology. Once you see that, you’ll understand what compelled Speilberg to finally embrace this technology. Because with The Beard, it has to be something special. And I think this is finally the movie that takes the technology to its highest level. It doesn’t hurt that the “uncanny valley” effect is gone here. Finally! No more dead doll eyes.

3. MONEYBALL

This is on a lot of best of lists and with good reason. Adapting books is hard. Adapting them when there’s no central main character can be especially hard. And when that book is about baseball statistics, what does that leave you with? This is a really compelling study about a game most of us love and some of us hate. I fall in the middle. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s like watching paint dry. A movie about baseball might be a turn off for you but fear not! This is about something bigger. It’s about the Davids of the world trying to outsmart the Goliaths, with less money.

I could see something like this getting a ton of awards around Oscar time. It seems like a perfect shoe-in for Best Screenplay, Best Film, Best Director. Who knows if that will happen. This is a pretty small movie playing its own version of moneyball against the bigger dramas this year.

I take that back. Apparently its budget was $50,000,000. You don’t put that kind of money into a movie about an Oakland A’s baseball manager. So they were definitely trying to swing for the awards fences. It’s kind of stupid they spent that much money on this, now that I think about it. That is some irony.

2. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

I would have never expected this to be so good. If a movie has talking CGI monkeys I will never feel okay about its chances. But here was a talking CGI monkey movie where the characters make you feel sympathy for their cause. You end up siding with the monkeys, instead of the humans. In the past the monkeys have been the villains and the humans were the “lesser” species who had to fight to reclaim their future. But I like the direction this story took, which is the “origin” movie that eventually leads to all those sequels. This film is just creative and inventive enough to take the series in a completely new direction if they decide on doing that. And I’ll be on board the train.

1. THE DESCENDANTS

My favorite film of 2011. Granted there’s still a lot I haven’t seen, like Tree of Life, The Artist, and others.

And to be honest, I’ve never liked Alexander Payne’s movies. They were always crushingly depressing, even with their comedic undertones. Here, they are comedic overtones. Payne just seems to keep on getting better in the “is this a drama or is this a dark comedy” saga that he keeps playing out in each of his films.

The Descendants may be his bleakest yet in terms of subject matter, but it’s also his most realistic and I think least crushingly depressing. It’s the story of a man (George Clooney) who loses his wife to a boating accident (she’s in a coma) and is forced to take care of his two daughters. Then he learns his wife was cheating on him, and his feelings about her become incredibly confused.There’s also a subplot involving his stake in some Hawaiian land.

It’s not a comedy. But it’s honest, and that makes it okay for us to laugh in spite of all the strange and terrible things that plight this unique family. That is also what I really admired about the film. I felt like I was seeing a real family, not a movie family. For an example of a movie family, see the movie “Spanglish”.

Here’s a film that will make you appreciate your family. A rural psychotic husband/father takes in a feral woman from the woods and tries to civilize her. In the process he alienates his wife and daughter, but forms a strange bond with his son.

I would have given the film higher marks if it didn’t go into self-destruct mode in the last twenty minutes. The film is quiet and restrained for the majority of its running time before it goes completely crazy. Usually I like crazy in my films, especially when they test my patience the way this did. It’s got a two hour running time and honestly this would have been a much more effective short film had the director condensed its best elements. The stuff at the end just nullifies everything that preceded it. It makes watching this movie feel like a waste of time.

But hey – it happens. Sometimes when you make movies about abducted feral women you have to fly off the handle a little. Spoilers the rest of the way.

I was buying the idea of this crazy father trying to “civilize” the woman – until the discovery that he’s also got a feral daughter in his barn. That is what plummets the whole movie into irrelevancy. Because the whole family is involved with that one – not just the father. And we know so little of the backstory to it, that it’s pointless having it in there. You might as well keep a giant monster in your barn. It will have identical implications for your story. All that says to me is, this whole family is sick and they have bigger issues than just a sociopath for a father.

For awhile you think that’s where the story is headed. How will they deal with this crazy father figure ruling the roost? But if everyone is to blame for keeping a family member in the barn, then which member of this family can we identify  with? They have a little 5-7 year old girl who’s just about as innocent as they get, so there is some hope for the future of this family. But it’s not looking good.

On top of it all, it’s just not fun watching abusive families in movies. Especially when the outcome is so uncertain, as it is here. The son is in alliance with the father. He’s as sick as his old man. The older daughter is as spineless as her mother. It’s all so sad and hopeless. I was surprised by the tone of this film – I anticipated something more entertaining. It just became a big downer of a movie.

TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL

A good antidote to the sad tone of The Woman are the two best characters in horror to come around in a long time: Tucker and Dale!

This movie meshes funny characters with a great concept to create a gory and wildly entertaining time in the woods. I feel like this is the movie that’s been missing from the horror genre. Even though it is a comedy with horror movie conventions, even down to a climactic third act chase. This is a real clever spin on the genre, where the “killers” are actually just bumbling hillbillies who are mistaken to be more dangerous than they are. Brilliant concept! This is funnier than Scary Movie, more intelligent with its gags, and bloodier too. So why isn’t this a major release?

It’s not a perfect movie by any means. But this is the first feature from Eli Craig. It’s still competently made, the comedic timing is perfect, and the casting was excellent. So I am pretty confused why it didn’t get more love in theaters. I suppose like with many movies it will find its audience on video and on demand. I have no doubts about that. This is just too good to pass up. See it immediately.

The danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has mentioned the impetus for “Drive” in many interviews. He met with Ryan Gosling, who wanted him to be the director. The meeting didn’t go so well. They get in a car, listen to an REO Speedwagon song, and suddenly Refn has it: “Drive” is a movie about a guy who drives in his car and listens to songs. He tells Ryan this, weeping with relief or joy or some combination of both. They both agreed, and went to make the movie.

With the exception of one or two sequences depicting Gosling in his car, chewing on his toothpick, with gloved hands clutching the steering wheel a little too tightly, I thought Nicolas was full of crap when he told that story. Don’t be fooled. This is not a minimalist low key movie about a getaway driver. I think the first third may be a decent argument for that, but the rest of the story is generic, grade B mobster movie stuff that left me wondering what movie Nicolas set out to make.

There’s a scene towards the end where Ryan’s character stalks a mobster on a dark beach, wearing a mask. The whole concept looks like it was taken out of a John Carpenter movie. It was evocative, and very effective, but completely incongruous with everything that preceded it.

I felt there were several kinds of movies here, with all different styles at play. Refn references Michael Mann with his overhead night time LA shots. He references Tarantino with his overt violence. He calls up Carpenter at the end, on the beach. Under different circumstances I would have appreciated everything mashed up like that. Refn is singling himself out by pushing style over substance. But it is not a singular vision. It’s muddled. Here’s a movie where that experiment falls short of the goal line.

Style is what a director brings. Story is what a screenwriter brings. Let the former serve the latter under most circumstances. Unless you are David Lynch, or Refn’s older counterpart, Lars Von Trier. Then you may have some room to maneuver around the script because of pedigree. Generally Refn’s style is to subsume dialogue in favor of silent storytelling. Visually that is probably the most interesting thing you can try to do. Difficult, but ultimately rewarding, right? Let a look between two people say more than words ever can.

A lot of those moments come between Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams and Oscar Isaac. It’s a dramatic triangle that shows the most interesting directions that the movie can go. But after a heist gone wrong, it’s cut far too short (about 1/3 into the movie), leaving us with nothing else as interesting, except generic B movie mobster movie boredom.

The mobsters in this movie talk as if their dialogue was written by a screenwriter who just watched Pulp Fiction and set out to write his own version of that movie. Frankly I was surprised by the generic level of mobster-speak. I was surprised by the generic story choices, eschewing a compelling love story in favor of a routine mob plot.

There is nothing less interesting to me than bad mobster movies. I just don’t relate to guys who act like hardasses going around stabbing and shooting their way through an arcane underworld.  They are caricatures I have seen one hundred times before. I’m not super intrigued by intense violence either, unless it is driven by a dramatic context that feels emotional. (yes, Tarantino is the master of it)

The violence in this movie is not emotional. I was laughing during the most egregious violence. Probably not the intended effect, I am guessing. The violence comes with a certain fetishism. It would probably exist in this movie whether the script dictated it or not.

In the end, “Drive” is just another bad mob movie. Set aside the new wave (or is it new new wave if it’s made today) soundtrack, and the deep, penetrating looks from Ryan Gosling, and I don’t really know how entertained I would have been otherwise. While I am glad to see Albert Brooks on screen, I don’t really think playing a violent mobster was anything inspired. Brooks is a charming guy. He charmed his way through the 80s and 90s. Here it’s just a variation on the mobster character. Mobsters are always charming. They always pretend to be a good friend and then they do something violent that contradicts their character. Not a big surprise. At first I thought Refn made a smart choice casting Brooks, and in retrospect I resent that he was even used.

The first time I saw All The President’s Men in high school I kept thinking, how is this a movie? Two guys fumble around Washington, talk to a bunch of people on the phone. I didn’t get it. I was mad at my English teacher for showing it to us.

Years later, I was more sensitive to the milieu of the time and place. The verisimilitude of these two journalists, unraveling this conspiracy with some phones and cracker jack investigative reporting. I liked the cool emotion exhibited from Woodward and Bernstein. I liked watching the procedure, the chase. I’m not particularly in love with the film, but I think it’s hell of a lot more interesting than Chinatown, where I really didn’t give a shit about the story at all.

Zodiac is very much similar to these films in style and tone but with a much–much more interesting screenplay.

You know the script is working when you’re still trying to find “clues” to the murderer within the movie, knowing full well in reality the case was never solved. You so badly want that moment where Graysmith comes up to Arthur Lee Allen and says, “I know it was you, motherfucker.” By Graysmith’s account something like it happened, but it was more tasteful. Graysmith walks into the Ace Hardware where Allen works, and he just stares him down. It’s an unspoken message: “I know it was you, motherfucker.”

And it’s in the movie. It’s the only moment of reconciliation we can get. But boy I’m glad it was in there.

It takes a special kind of fucked up person to go as deep into the case as Robert Graysmith did. He came out the other end without his wife, and a broken family–but he did get the book deal, which ended up being turned into a movie. He was played by Jake Gyllenhaal. It wasn’t all in vain.

Just recently, a codebreaker claims to have solved the Z-340, one of the unsolved ciphers. He was inspired to try it after watching this movie. And he in turn hopes others will try to solve it if his solution turns out to be wrong.

I don’t know what it is about people who love police procedurals like CSI, or the people that do the Sunday Times crosswords. But god love them. They seemed to be the demographic for the Zodiac, who became infamous through his ciphers with the San Francisco Chronicle. Even if they only say things like “I like killing people”, we have some bizarre fixation on unlocking codes, solving things. Whether it’s sodoku or the Z-340, our brains are wired to correct things. Find meanings, especially when they’re hidden.  We all have a little bit of that inside us. The obsessive compulsion.

That’s why it’s fun to watch Graysmith comb over every detail of the case. We want him to get it right. Especially with so much on the line for him. But the time line is also eerie. Each subtitle takes us further into the future, two days later here, four years later there.

If momentum is lost by police, it’s picked right back up again by Graysmith. Someone is always carrying the torch forward, like a demented version of the opening Olympics ceremony.

I think that is what stands out structurally. In most films when you keep widening the time line the audience begins to lose the heart of the story. In Zodiac it works just the opposite. The heart of the story lies in the time it takes to tell it. We start on the minute simple details of the case and start zooming out until the bigger picture comes into focus. Characters drop the case and leave. Some are very prominent early in the story and drop off never to be seen from again.

And of course, it’s made to look effortless. The script by James Vanderbilt is extraordinary. You meet so many characters who end up holding space in your head. It never gets confusing or muddled. The dialogue crackles. You can plow through the script just reading the dialogue and still make sense of the story.

This goes down as one of the finest films of Fincher’s career. Probably one of the best films of the 00′s. And easily one of the best screenplays ever written.

I’ve heard that any aspiring chef would do well to learn how to cook an egg first. Master the egg, and then you can move on to bigger and more complicated dishes. But no so fast there, amateur chefs in the making: you can screw up an egg too, if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that making A Nightmare on Elm Street is the equivalent to cooking a good egg. It isn’t that complicated to get it right, but you can easily screw it up. And like any egg, you can make it in different ways. Over easy, scrambled, soft boiled, hard boiled. According to http://panlasangpinoy.com/2011/02/25/10-ways-to-cook-an-egg/ there are 10 ways to cook an egg. There have been 8 movies about having nightmares on that fabled Elm Street, if you include Freddy Vs Jason, so this makes number 9. They all have various differences, and some (like part 2) don’t even follow the rules laid out by Wes Craven in the original. So there is still one more Elm Street movie you can make that’s different from the other ones already in the canon.

I think what’s interesting about the Nightmare series, which you can say for a lot of horror franchises especially Friday the 13th, is that no single film is the “standard” by which to measure the series by. Part one has Freddy at his most dream-like, usually hunkered in the shadows of an alleyway or in the boiler room. But that isn’t exactly the Freddy we came to know. His personality didn’t open up until part 4, where we began to see the wise cracking version of Wes Craven’s creation. I think Freddy’s Dead is where everything sort of came together, combining his flair for humor with his flair for toying with his victims. You could argue that the series went in the wrong direction, but I don’t think so. I think if we continued to have straight scares without any humor to them, we would have never known just how talented Robert Englund really was. It’s his charm and his personality that puts life into Freddy, and gives him iconic power. Wes successfully pulled that plug in New Nightmare, by making Freddy more archaic. And I guess that was the admission Platinum Dunes needed to argue that the role of Freddy could still work without Englund’s weight behind it.

I didn’t see this remake in theaters, because I was discouraged by the negative press it received, and by every Platinum Dunes and Michael Bay release that came before it. It’s just an amazing traincar of failed remake after failed remake, pulled forward by our nostalgia and our fondness for the movies we grew up watching as kids. We had no idea the tracks were laid down years ago. It just took a couple incompetent doofuses to put it to use (Brad Fuller and the other guy).

NOES wasn’t a killer at the box office, but it did pull in an average return the first weekend, about what they expected. It made its money back in a few days. And then it was followed by a steep drop off in sales which you could argue made the production  a waste of time for everybody involved. The diehard Freddy fans came out to see it, but no one else was really interested. And now these Platinum douches are finally learning that it’s not enough just to appeal to the hardcore base. Their next film is supposed to be “original”.

I am sure Brad and Andrew actually admire the NOES films. I saw hints of it visually. You can pick any scene and usually find an earlier incarnation of it in the series. Some are obvious, like the tub or Nancy’s bedroom, and some are less obvious, like the diner in the opening, or the swimming practice at the pool. But the feeling we get is that we’ve seen it all before, which is why the remake doesn’t work.

I’m not saying it isn’t a justified remake. Like I said, you can cook an egg 10 times and they can all taste delicious in their own special way. For instance, this egg has some interesting differences that the previous films do not have.

Pedophilia.

There is some ambiguity about whether Freddy was a pedophile but it’s no spoiler to say that instead of maybe being a pedophile he just was. Then some angry parents burned him into oblivion.

Now, the myth has circled around Freddy since the first film. He’s always had that rabid, sexual pervert quality, but it was really a relationship based around his yearning for Nancy. She might have been underage, but it was still a legitimate contest of strength. Nancy could overpower Freddy if she wanted. The screenwriters follow that thread here, but go one step further. They decide there is one thing worse than being killed in your dream. It’s being molested in it! By a guy with knives on his hand. There’s a scene where Freddy lies on top of Nancy in her dream, and doesn’t make much of an effort to kill her. He seems more interested in undressing her. There is another scene where Freddy kills a guy, but in the dream he tells him the brain doesn’t die for 7 minutes. So they have 6 minutes “left to play.”

That was a clever spin on things. Of course we don’t see what kinds of games he plays, something much worse than cards or Monopoly is my guess. There are always hints of sexual perverse things that could happen between Freddy and his victims. It’s all very dark, and very serious business.

Like we learn Freddy used to be the gardener at a preschool and he’d take kids to his “secret place”. What he did with the kids we cannot say, except that these are all memories the kids of Springfield have suppressed and which their parents tried to keep secret. But once Freddy comes back…so do the secrets. Of course if you question why Freddy waited until they were teenagers to have another go at them, and bring back all these painful memories, you would have to ask the screenwriters that one. It’s a leap in logic I don’t have an answer for.

The goose chase-then murder structure was pretty rigidly followed the entire series, so it’s a welcome shift to see Freddy using the power of sexual tension in his dreams, rather than just going for the kill.

So I liked those little changes.

The biggest change though, and the one I liked the least, was moving Jackie Earle Haley into real estate occupied by Robert Englund. This is not a character you can change out like a new pair of clothes when the old pair gets too old. We got an imitation of Freddy but the character was obsolete. Not a big surprise to anyone who saw even the first hint of what this remake looked like from the trailers, but it’s worth stating the facts of the case:

Englund brought something permanent to the role you cannot cover up with different makeup. And failing to see that is why we can call Andrew Form and his buddy the Platinum douches.

P.S. One of my favorite touches to this was the search engine name they used in place of “Google”, called “DigiBlast”. Instead of a button that says “Search” it says “Blast off!” It made me like this movie just a little bit more than it should have.

A big reason we have darker projection today is because of 3D.  Here you’ll see exactly what to look for so you can avoid making the mistake of seeing a film that’s too dark.

Roger Ebert advises that if it happens you should ask for a refund.

This is in theory very strong advice. But in reality it’s much harder to do, especially when you are on a date. Date night films usually come on the heels of having a nice dinner somewhere. Then you lift up those arm rests, cozy up together, and try not to move too much for the next couple of hours.

Asking for a refund and leaving–which is a two part combination of raising your voice at the manager, then walking away–is more hassle than it’s worth. Even if your refund is in the same theater.

Your date will think you are inconsiderate, and a total a-hole.

So I waited until after the movie to complain. When I approached the manager, who I noticed looked too young to be managing anything, I asked him (calmly, respectfully) why the picture was a tad darker than usual. Knowing the answer ahead of time helps in these kinds of situations. It provides you with a tactical advantage, if he happens to give you a bullshit answer.

“Maybe that’s just the way they shot it,” he said.

My bullshit detection light turned on. I almost told him that it made perfect sense; the filmmakers spent $50-80 million dollars to make it look dark. Of course!

I had to check his badge again, just to verify that it was still the manager in front of me.

“I think it’s because of the 3D projector,” I replied.

“It’s not in 3D.”

“I know, but it’s still a Sony 3D projector you’re using. Haven’t you had any other complaints?”

“Nope. You’re the first one.”

Translation: I’m the crazy one.

I wanted to tell him this was the film’s opening day. It would be reasonable to assume I was the first to complain. But based on his reaction it seemed very clear he didn’t have a clue about my complaint. And what’s worse, he didn’t think it was interesting enough to check for himself. He just stood there, as if he had better things to be doing.

But I looked back at the exit doors, where my date was standing, and didn’t want to stretch her patience any further.  I turned back to the manager and thanked him for his time and left.

The next day, I saw the film again, in a theater I knew had better projection. Instead of feeling vindicated, I was bummed out. Why of all movies did I go see this one again? I never see movies twice in theaters. All of the little flaws of the film seemed to grow bigger. I knew Abrams was no Spielberg but this confirmed it.

There are brighter days at the theater ahead, but at ones that boast about their look and sound. The costs of a ticket are too expensive to take any risks. If the drive is ten minutes longer so be it.

While I was in New York City, I saw the musical “Book of Mormon” from the South Park creators, and the creator of Avenue Q.

I  bought my kid’s sippy cup filled with OJ and Ketel One, and proceeded to enjoy, for the most part, a musical that is filled with references to AIDS, baby rape, Star Wars, and Mormonism.

Before the show began, there were rumors circulating from the audience in front of me that Hugh Jackman was in the house. Hugh Jackman?? And during intermission, I saw Tony Hawke walk (versus skate) past.

The stars came out for this Wednesday evening showing. I was predicting a different audience for a mid-week show. But I guess stars and celebs like to hit the town on Weds night and just stay inside on the weekends. As Hawke passed me by at the concessions line, I looked at him and pretended like I didn’t who he was. If this was on a Friday or a Saturday night, I might have said hello. But it’s a Wednesday. He probably didn’t want to be bothered.

The audience I saw this with was a healthy mix of younger people and older, seasoned veterans of Broadway musicals. You could tell who they were by their forced, really loud laughter (“I get that joke!”) and the ones who just stared at the stage, marveling at how the hell something like this was even conceived for public consumption.

But let’s not forget it was nominated for 14 Tonys. That’s the highest of any other show this year. You can bet your bottom dollar people bought their tickets when they found out. I think I bought mine before that, since I had to plan the trip months in advance. So I am in the clear getting on the Book of Mormon bandwagon, okay. I lead the pilgrimage as far as I’m concerned.

So how was this musical, which won 14 nominations and garnered the interest of both Hugh Jackman and Tony Hawke?

A little overrated, to be honest.

I feel like musicals can sometimes be their own worst enemy, by the sheer fact there is music and dancing in them.

I like music, and I like dancing. But musicals are overwhelming combinations of both, and it’s their duty to be as obnoxious as they possibly can. You paid fucking good money to see them, so they better be! I feel like Matt and Trey enjoy the theatricality of musicals, and you can see it in their films. The South Park movie, Cannibal!, and Team America all have characters that break out into song and dance midway through the story.

In the back of my mind I kind of thought the allusions to musicals were tongue in cheek to be ironic. But after seeing this, I think they just genuinely like them. They seem to have an unlimited love for them, actually. Cannibal!, and the South Park movie both feature musical numbers that kind of start wear on you. Team America is not as bad, probably because puppets are singing and the songs are actually really catchy.

Book of Mormon has a couple of catchy tunes. But I would say on the whole, we’re just getting funny lyrics sung to traditional, vanilla show tunes. And hey, no problem right. It’s a musical, after all. But after two and a half hours of it, the show tunes start to wear you down.

Part of the problem is that musicals are divided into two parts. You have a 15 minute intermission to hang out with Tony Hawke at the concessions line, but then the musical has to invite you back for more, and keep the momentum up. I’d say the first half was right on the money with laughs, set design, story, and music. You get into it. It’s fun.

The second half feels more repetitive. By the last act (if we’re to look at musicals in three acts, although that’s probably not accurate), we feel like we’ve been there, done that. The jokes don’t land as hard (with the exception of one of the Uganda characters singing about worms in his scrotum), and the songs aren’t memorable.

I think it deserved a few Tonys. The set design was amazing. The actors, particularly Josh Gad, held their own for the entire performance and gave the show huge life and energy. And it bravely tackled topics that you don’t see tackled on Broadway, let alone in movies, songs, or any other form of art.

One complaint I do have concerns the use of the Mormon religion in the play. If I was a Mormon, and I watched interviews about the show, I’d feel okay seeing it. But in the presence of other non-Mormons watching it, I think the experience would be mostly negative. I’d probably feel people were laughing at my religion.

And that’s fine. I’m not about to condemn musicals for blasting on Mormons. It’s every Americans right to get a bollocking, to use the English expression. However – if you read interviews with Matt or Trey, they clearly suggest Mormons will love it. And that simply can’t be the case if you’re a self respecting Mormon. They do get made fun of, and they are exploited for laughs. I’d like a little more honesty from the creators but after all they are capitalists, and they are trying to sell tickets.

Mormons be warned. People who only mildly enjoy musicals should be warned as well. Oh, and people who love musicals but the traditional kind only, without references to things that could make them uncomfortable.

B- is my grade.

I saw a movie called “Shredder” several months ago. It is an independent film made by a friend of mine, Cody Clarke. I am one of the few people who have seen the film, and of the people who have seen it, one of the few who are qualified to blog about it.

The film defies many conventional techniques in a manner that is stubborn and ritualistic. I would compare it to something like “Brown Bunny”, if only because I know Clarke adores that movie, and I can’t stand it. Our varying reactions to that film indicate a love-it or hate-it degree of separation with no place for discussion in the middle. Either the film succeeds wildly or fails miserably.

And that is what Clarke is going for here. There’s no interest on his part in going straight for middle of the road. Your reaction will be based on an absolute love for what he’s doing, or complete unmitigated hatred. In either case it’s good to have his email address handy to tell him what you thought of it.

In my amazing ability for objective analysis I’ll share why someone could hate the film, and then reasons why someone could love it with equal fervor.

Before I do that I should probably go through the plot outline, if only briefly. An anonymous posting on IMDB indicates the film is centrally focused on “Travis, a High School senior who has fallen out of love with writing comedy songs on guitar and in love with practicing heavy metal. Through a fly-on-the-wall filmmaking approach in which static shots are utilized exclusively, we follow Travis’ ups and downs with friends, love interests, and his instrument.”

I would say that is a fairly accurate description of the film, so kudos to “Anonymous” for posting that. I don’t think the plot is open to a lot of different interpretations, either. That description is verifiable and there isn’t a lot of ambiguity about it.

So stylistically, Clarke is not going for David Lynch territory, although Clarke and Lynch share a similarity. Both of their first films were shot in black and white. Clarke may have shot his in color first, and then transferred it to black and white, but with digital filmmaking today, you can do whatever you like and nobody will hold it against you. So don’t worry about it, Cody. If it’s black and white it’s easy to convince me you shot it that way first.

Before we get too far into this, let’s get one thing straight first. There is no mention of anyone named Shredder in the film. You can coast on advertising your film as a spin off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for only so long before Shredder must make an appearance. I haven’t read any interviews with Clarke that confirms nor denies this is a TMNT spin off. But if you are a TMNT fan, proceed at your own risk.

However, a guitar does make an appearance. Often guitar players in heavy metal bands like to “shred”, or play on their guitar very quickly, so that might be a more accurate indication of what the title is referring to.

The main character Travis (Cody Clarke) spends some time shredding, albeit rather slowly. An observer could hardly call it shredding. There is not much heavy metal music found in the film, either. So heavy metal fans may watch the film with a heavy heart, too.

But there is music. Some of it is quite good, too. There is a sequence in the middle of the film where Travis invites his friends to play songs. Just like in the film “Sex and the City”, where a plot is interrupted by a shopping sequence, here there is a plot interrupted by people playing music. It’s intimate, and feels like some of your friends came over just to belt a couple tunes before you finished watching your movie.

I think where haters and lovers will differ on the film has everything to do with style. The plot is mercilessly slow. The camera is mercilessly still. The sound is mercilessly quiet. The photography is mercilessly black and white. The actors are mercilessly unaware there is a camera recording them. Those are the building blocks of a contained little movie that will try your patience, but also reward a close viewing.

Because despite how minimalist, and “fly on the wall” the film is, Travis is a character we’re trying to figure out for 87 minutes. His pillow talk conversations with his girlfriend are ones I think viewers can relate to. Beneath his empty words and casual, laissez faire demeanor, is a guy afraid of taking any risks with his life. He’s comfortable sitting in his apartment with the windows shut, and getting reprimanded by his mom. If Travis wore a blanket all the time, and grew a huge beard, it would be a similar lifestyle to the one Osama bin Laden was enjoying in that compound for so long. I don’t know if bid Laden was practicing how to shred, and I don’t think his mom was around, but his wives sure were. I bet once in awhile they poked their head in his room and told him to keep it down so their 25 kids wouldn’t wake up.

Comparing Travis to bin Laden might be a reach. But there is a fine line between a high school kid practicing on his guitar alone in his New York City bedroom, and a jihadist in the making. Just give him a reason. His boredom is a good foundation.

Because Clarke is the main actor in the film, and he directed the film in his home state of New York City, allow me to be the first critic who compares Clarke to Woody Allen. Clarke intends to make one film every year, like Allen. I want this comparison to be true. Because I want Clarke to marry his step daughter, and I want Clarke to make solid, memorable films about New York for years to come.

Cody has posted a link to his movie, which you can watch here:

http://www.codyclarke.com/shredder/

Why was Wes Craven talking about more Scream sequels, when Scream 4 was such an obvious final nail in the coffin of his beloved horror franchise?

Another trilogy is planned. Nothing from the ending suggested a direction this could go. Nothing in the film itself suggested there was new life in the series. It was a retread, almost as bad as a remake would have been. But usually with remakes, there is some notable difference in the visual quality. Look at the Texas Chainsaw remakes. They have that gold plated, over produced sheen to them. Those movies have a “glimmer” about them, shiny and neat.

I always liked the look of the Scream movies. It was almost like a TV show, something you would see on CW (or back when they came out, WB). The killings and general grim storylines were a fun contrast to the commercial look. It’s as if they kept the fun, sunny style of “Clueless”, kept a few of its dullard characters around, and then proceeded to dispatch them in gruesome violent ways. It was a formula that succeeded.

Writer Kevin Williamson is largely responsible for bridging old school horror films from the 80s into the 90s, and the same is attempted again by bridging the 90s into the 10s. Scream is very much a 90s franchise. The noughts are reserved for Japanese horror, home invasion horror, and horror remakes. But nothing in the years between Scream 3 and Scream 4 has indicated that the franchise deserves to be revisited. The trailers had Ghostface talking about remakes, and how since it’s a new decade, there are new rules.

But the new rules aren’t very obvious. If you just watched the trailer, there’s no “aha!” moment where you feel totally compelled to dip a toe back into the murky waters of the franchise. Sure, we have cell phones. We have facebook and twitter. Add it all up, and what does it mean?

After seeing this film my suspicions were confirmed: nobody really has any idea.

Lets start with one of the weirdest details of the film. The characters still use land lines.

Second weird detail. Everyone still lives in the suburbs! How simple is it to move Ghostface to New York, like they did with Jason? Does moving Ghostface into an urban setting change the film? Absolutely not. It keeps in the tradition of following the same pattern of every slasher film every made. And since this film isn’t trying to “reinvent” slasher films, common sense tells me to move Ghostface. So if it’s a new decade, and there are new rules, the easiest way to sell that concept is to get Ghostface the fuck out of Woodsboro.

Keeping it there meant the writers got lazy with the premise. One of the survivors returns to Woodsboro on a book tour. Killings resume.

I had a lot of issue with it, because it seemed so obvious. Even the actors who reprised their roles seemed to phone it in, implying they thought it was too obvious as well. It leaves a stale, dull taste in everybody’s mouth. Especially for the audience.

So already the film had an uphill battle. The only way to make things less dull was to spice up the killings, which was my third problem with the film. Most of the killings were done with a knife, and CGI was used this time around. Wes Craven said they would look more real. And he was right about that – the stabbings look more real. But as a result of looking more real, they are harder to enjoy. I like blood and guts as much as the next guy, but stabbings seem to have more real world weight associated with them. People get stabbed in real life all the time. There’s nothing really too fun about it. Watching someone get stabbed in the movie is kind of a downer. I never really thought the killings were too fun in the earlier movies, either. The elaborate design leading up to the killings were great, and the opening scene of Scream is a perfect example of that. But there’s nothing nearly as inventive in this film. It’s safe to say there is gore here that is just gratuitous, without the enjoyment factor typically associated with that kind of violence.

What they meant by “new rules” was actually “new, younger cast”. They are pivotal to the success of the film, especially the third act which I actually enjoyed the most. That’s because we get removed from the “original cast” and stay on the “new cast” a little, and get a feel for their character dynamics for the first time in the film. Just think about that. We don’t really know who these brats are until the last, oh, twenty minutes. That makes the finale fun, and I think the script does a decent job of bringing the younger cast and the older cast together at the end.

But this film says nothing about new rules, and the new decade. The writers don’t know. Craven doesn’t know. Which explains why there is absolutely no direction for this “second trilogy” to take.

My advice? Take Ghostface to Manhattan.

The tagline for this horror film by Adam Green is, “Old School American Horror”. So there are tits all over the place, tons of gory scenes, and cameos by Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees and the Candyman.

I guess this is like what Pepsi is doing now with their Pepsi Throwback sodas, using real sugar instead of that “unhealthy” corn syrup. Instead of CGI effects, Adam Green wanted to go back to the practical days of horror, using makeup and prosthesis to tear off people’s limbs. Overall it’s a pretty decent look. Most of the film is shot at night, in the woods, and that deters from some of the fun – but there’s a reason the old school horror works better than the new school horror. As consumers, we want real stuff. Not the artificial crap.

But even if you say your movie is “old school”, that’s not entirely possible. You aren’t really old school unless you’re completely sincere with your audience. If you’re winking at them, you can’t be that old school. It’s the problem horror films have today – specifically slashers. The audience is several steps ahead already, so winking at them constantly alleviates some of the crushing burden you have as a filmmaker to deliver the goods.

“Hatchet” is not the most creative, or original slasher film. But it tries to have fun, almost to a point where it’s vigourous about it. Saying this was boring could be the worst criticism against the film. The dialogue is what keeps it going. The cast they put together – the band of “survivors” that get knocked off  – is mildly entertaining to watch. None of it is scary, or suspenseful. That is the major issue with the film, since it’s hard to call something a horror film when it’s just trying to make you laugh. Every time Victor Crowley shows up, it’s like watching an oversized kid terrorize a bunch of grown ups. I appreciated the backstory to his character, where we get the flashback to his crappy childhood, and eventually, the cause of his “death”. But things like Victor never really die. They live on as legends, like Jason, Freddy, and the Candyman.

It’s what’s so interesting about slasher movies. They start with a legend. A campfire tale. Something is buried. Or sitting at the bottom of a lake. And then it comes to life, so the legend can live on.

“Hatchet” doesn’t re-invigorate the genre. But it is a successful franchise in its own right. It spawned a sequel and a third one is coming. Viewed together as a trilogy it is one big tip of the hat to the slashers we grew up on. But it feels more like a fan of those movies made his movie to commemorate those movies. Will Adam Green make 7 more sequels, just to pay homage to the fact those movies spawned that many too? It’s the only reason I could see him making more sequels.