Monthly Archives: October 2012

Until you are ready to shove popcorn in your ears: Seven Psychopaths

21 October 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image source: Wikipedia]

I should preface this review of director Martin McDonagh’s latest film Seven Psychopaths by admitting that I have never given into the cult of actor Sam Rockwell. He has bubbled under the radar in a number of indie films over the past 15 years, and many have succumbed to his smarmy, winky, “isn’t life ridiculous,” Gen X charms. Alas, I am not one of those fawning fans. (The first time I ever suffered through him was in his shuffling, toothpick-chewing, pseudo-villain role in Charlie’s Angels ten years ago, and, to my mind, he has been recycling the same schtick ever since.)

Conversely, I long ago gave into the cult of Christopher Walken, who, like Rockwell, also pretty much gives the same performance in every film. In Walken’s case, though, it is a wide-eyed, acerbic, halting, wackadoodle, “life. is. ridiculous” delivery that I find charming. Why the hypocrisy on my part? I can only ascribe it to this: Rockwell’s self-indulgence is always in service to Rockwell; Walken’s self-indulgence is in service to the script.

With that paradigm in mind, it should come as no surprise that Seven Psychopaths worked best for me in those quiet, gentle moments when Walken – playing a reformed, Quaker (!) revenge killer who now kidnaps/returns dogs for reward money – interacts with his dear, cancer-stricken wife or his criminal cohorts as mayhem otherwise ensues. And, similarly unsurprising, the film falls apart for me in the final act when it is all about Rockwell’s character staging some sort of zany cinematic gunfight standoff with Woody Harrelson, a gangland thug who just wants his Shih Tzu returned. (This is all done while Rockwell sports an ever-so-dear, bear-shaped knit hat…and THAT would be the kind of twee, self-indulgent touch I mean.)

What is the film about exactly? I’m not sure. I suspect it was meant to be some kind of postmodern meditation on a culture whose warped idea of manhood is all about guns and violence and posturing to the detriment of meaningful human interaction. There are some fine and funny moments throughout with a great supporting cast. Harrelson is a joy as he continues to ride a career resurgence as a witty character-actor, and Tom Waits is spectacular as one of the psychopaths in question, who simply pines for the return of his long, lost love while petting his white fluffy rabbit (literally). However, the script seems to have been written by committee as if every goofy Quentin Tarantino-esque cliche was tossed into a blender, and I guess I just didn’t quite understand the point.

A few final observations. First, I didn’t know how I would stand the dog kidnapping angle, but I will say the film/actors were so sweet-natured about it and Walken is so heartfelt and dear that it ended up oddly charming.  Second, I’m not sure when Colin Farrell crossed over to achieving a likable, decent acting presence, but I enjoyed him and his reactions to the film’s random acts of absurdity. He kept the shenanigans nicely grounded. Finally, my mom once said about the theme song to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, “It has such a pretty melody…but it is ruined by the need to shoehorn the words ‘beauty’ and ‘beast’ into the chorus.” The same is true of this movie – by the fifth time the word “psychopath” is invoked by one of the characters, it just sounds silly…by the twentieth, if not thirtieth, you are ready to shove popcorn in your ears.

They don’t like the questions science asks: Frankenweenie

7 October 2012

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Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image source: Wikipedia]

Around the mid-way mark of Tim Burton’s new stop-motion Disney animated feature Frankenweenie, a suitably creepy but charming, Vincent Price-esque public school science teacher observes, “People like what science gives them…they don’t like the questions it asks.” Pretty heady, philosophical stuff for a kids’ feature.

Tim Burton seems to run on two speeds – 1) cold-blooded yet warm-hearted, allegorical goth fairy tales that offer finely spun, darkly whimsical takes on the human condition (see: Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Ed Wood, even Sweeney Todd) or 2) sophomoric, recklessly morbid, crassly violent, meandering cinematic sketches that may start vigorously but skid to flat conclusions, running on their own self-satisfied fumes (see: Alice in Wonderland, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, and, the worst of all, Mars Attacks). His other films fall somewhere along that continuum, with Beetlejuice, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and Batman Returns being the other standouts. I admit a soft spot in my heart for this past summer’s box office misfire Dark Shadows. It wasn’t really very good, but I kinda loved it.

So where does Frankenweenie fit in? Unfortunately, the film squanders a beautiful and loving and elegiac first two thirds with a third act that devolves into borderline hateful, truly unpleasant movie monster cliché (no doubt aspiring, rather, to cheeky b-movie homage…and failing). The movie tells the story of a kind but forlorn, science-obsessed boy who loses his beloved dog (and only friend) while being forced to “fit in” and play a game of baseball. By the way, I found that a telling autobiographical moment for the self-professed, long-time outcast Burton. This boy, a typical Burton anti-hero, is inspired by the aforementioned science teacher and resurrects said pooch a la Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein.

The dynamic between the boy (named Victor) and his devoted pup Sparky is completely engaging and fun. Further, the supporting characters, from Victor’s next door neighbor girl (voiced by Burton mainstay Winona Ryder) to Victor’s parents (voiced by two more Burton regulars Catherine O’Hara and Martin Short) are likable and interesting. As  all Burton productions do, the movie borrows its aesthetic and left-of-center worldview from Edward Gorey. All of that works beautifully, reinforcing the importance of family, animals, and open-mindedness in a world that is often quick to judge and demean. The film cleverly works in conceits from the original Frankenstein and other genre works, from a villainous mayor named Van Helsing to a gloomy windmill that dominates the town’s landscape to angry villagers who are intolerant to difference of any kind…that last part added a spooky parallel to life in post-millennial America.

HOWEVER, and this is a BIG however. The film takes such a strange tonal shift in its last third that it ruins the promise of the kind-natured, delicate story-telling it had achieved to that point. Suddenly, the film veers into Godzilla/Gremlins/Pet Sematary-lite ugliness and loses the good will it engendered…for this viewer at least. Such a shame. Imagine the first hour of Edward Scissorhands jumping to the last half hour of Mars Attacks, and you will understand my disappointment.