Upstream Color (2013)

The Edict of Worms

Am I the last movie geek to hop aboard the Shane Carruth bandwagon? Possibly. Until a few days ago, I hadn't seen Primer, a film my film-loving friends have begged me to watch for years. It's a good thing I waited, because in doing my homework for the writer/director's new picture, Upstream Color, I discovered that the best way to experience his movies is back-to-back.'

Primer was a low-budget indie whose ideas, dialogue, and editing went a long way in masking its meager production values. Watching Upstream Color, it appears Carruth spent the nine years between projects raising money, studying Terrence Malick, and communing with whatever hundredth-level consciousness controls our vast, wacky universe. His second film is far more professional-looking and coherent, and also emotionally engaging in a way that his first was not. Primer was all about tickling the brain; Upstream Color stops the heart and massages it tenderly back to life.

Not that I'd call this a "feel-good" film. It may end on a hopeful note, but you'll have to wade past rape metaphors, New Age drug addictions, a brittle co-dependent relationship, and the world's most sadistic pig farmer before the warm fuzzies kick in. And, true to Carruth's style, none of the answers come easily.

Despite the weight of its message, Upstream Color is a deceptively breezy messenger, peeling back layer after layer after layer of significance by intersecting three disparate storylines--two of which don't don't feel like stories at all. As with the grisly murders in David Fincher's Se7en, much of Upstream Color's story is filled in between scenes or in events that occurred before the movie even began.

"Four paragraphs in, and no description of this allegedly wonderful plot? Bad form, Simmons. Bad form..."

Yes, I usually pull out the slobbering praise as a closer. In this case, I'm struggling not to turn my review into a spoilerific essay of theories; you need to discover for yourself what makes Upstream Color great. But I also realize we live in an unjust world, one in which my endorsement and an image of two people lying in a bathtub are not motivation enough to push you out the door in search of an art house theatre. So I'll be brief.

A movie-effects supervisor named Kris (Amy Seimetz) falls victim to a savage and unnamed new drug. The effects are as weird as the delivery system: after ingesting a maggot (the raw form of the narcotic, which is typically nested inside a capsule), Kris experiences a complete loss of free will and, later, the curse of sharing past experiences with other users as if they are her own. In short order, her life is ruined and she takes a print-shop job to get by.

Sometime in the future, she meets Jeff (Carruth), also a damaged survivor of the bug drug. They get together, mostly because only the select few who've been through their particular horrors can understand them. The greatest tension in Kris and Jeff's nasty, sad reality is that the effects never truly wear off: they subside and mutate into other unpleasant sensations that suggest a cellular-level thirst in need of spiritual-level quenching.

Like Primer, Upstream Color doesn't bother with hand-holding while skipping around time and space. The narrative often appears to stop and smell the roses, but as Carruth's camera lingers on, say, a professional audio sampler scraping large rocks along a drainage pipe, or gives us a stunning Nature's-eye-view of the maggot's life cycle, the answers come rich and rapid-fire (assuming you're strapped in and paying attention).

I'll leave it to you to discover how a pig farmer factors into all this. I will say that the eerily wonderful Andrew Sensenig reminded me of Jean Dujardin in The Artist. He has, I think, three lines of dialogue, yet conveys more complexity, intimidation, and odd empathy than you're likely to find in the most dialogue-heavy of Oscar-bait dramas.

He's in good company. Here's a good example of how enamored I am with Seimetz's performance: before today, I had no interest in seeing the upcoming home-invasion horror movie You're Next. But in researching this review, I found out Seimetz is part of the cast--which means there will at least be something to enjoy on August 23rd. The actress creates a fully realized character of privilege who, through no fault of her own, is brought down to a near emotional and physical flatline. Upstream Color is Kris's years-long struggle back to square one, and she had my sympathy from beginning to end.

Carruth fares well as Jeff, but his character is mostly there to support Kris on her journey. He has a great look and tremendous presence as a mysterious background player, but as Jeff's role comes to the narrative forefront, Carruth's relative weakness as an actor (compared to his considerable gifts as a writer, director, co-editor, and composer) comes out. His performance is good, but it can only squint at the stratospheric greatness of Seimetz and Sensenig's.

The journey from Primer to Upstream Color reminded me of Darren Aronofsky's early career. The much-acclaimed Pi, which I didn't appreciate at the time, and which I should probably watch again, was a micro-budget calling card of crazy imagery and crazier ideas. He followed up with Requiem for a Dream, which proved he could handle stars and a bigger budget without losing his unique voice as a storyteller. Carruth is on a similar trajectory, and I wouldn't be surprised if he comes roaring back in another ten years with the film to end all cinema.

Sure, that's hyperbole. But I'm a staunch believer in this auteur's passion and imagination. Filmmakers rarely give us rich, heady novels anymore, and it's refreshing to have great themes to chew on, married to images both melodic and horrifying in their poetry.

Attention Chicagoans! Remember my opening line about seeing Upstream Color and Primer back-to-back (scroll up if you don't)? Well, here's your chance! On Friday, April 12th, The Music Box Theatre celebrates Upstream Color's Windy City premiere with a trippy double feature. If that's not reason enough to come out, the event will feature a special live introduction and Q&A with Shane Carruth, hosted by The Onion AV Club's Scott Tobias! Click here for details and ticket info!

Evil Dead (2013)

Narcolepticon Ex Mucus

By the way, if anyone here is in Marketing or Advertising: kill yourself. Thank you.

--Bill Hicks

Half-way into Evil Dead, Fede Alvarez's big-budget remake of Sam Raimi's couch-change horror classic, I gave up all hope of being entertained. The movie had become an endurance test, and my reward for wading through buckets of sinew and uninspired plotting would be the much-talked-about post-credits stinger--a delightful tease for fans of the original franchise that allegedly ties two cinematic universes together.

Fair warning: Turn back now if you don't wish to read about the best part of the movie.

Mia (Jane Levy) wanders dazedly down a long country road, battered and bloody from her showdown with the Kandarian demon. Following a series of time-lapse edits, she winds up in the parking lot of a sparsely patronized retail store.

Inside, a bored customer-service desk clerk (Ted Raimi) smacks his gum loudly while reading an entertainment magazine with the headline, "Are Remakes Killing Horror Movies?". His back is turned to the out-of-focus main entrance, but we can just make out Mia shambling through the automatic doors.

She collapses with a loud, wet thud. Someone shrieks off-camera. We switch focus for a moment as the clerk swivels around and considers the state of his newest customer.

Coming back into focus, he sighs heavily, picks up the phone and activates the PA system. We're looking up at him now, from the desk's point of view, and can clearly see a bright red S-Mart sign on the wall. With as little enthusiasm as the employee handbook allows, he announces, "Code Green in 1A, please. Code Green in 1A."

We track along S-Mart's main aisle as customers wander out from the clothing racks to see what all the commotion is about. The shot cross-fades and pans up on a dirty wheeled, bucket and the worn plastic mop rising from it like a retail Excalibur. In an instant, a gleaming metallic hand (which fans will recognize instantly from Army of Darkness) pops into frame and grabs the handle. Cut to black.

Pretty sweet, right?

It was, and I had a great time inventing this sequence on the drive home. I had to do something to get the actual stinger out of my head, which consisted of a two-second Bruce Campbell close-up. Standing in near total darkness, he turns to the camera and says "Groovy". Cut to black.

Some mouth-breathing cretins may think this is an awesome enough reason to not evacuate a truly awful movie, but their lack of self-respect is astonishing and should not be encouraged. It's the like waiting around after a Cars movie in anticipation of Mater saying "Git 'er done! Beep-beep!" in Larry the Cable Guy's obnoxious voice.

Yes, my intro was a cruel joke, but so is this movie. Those who are new to horror (or who are pre-disposed to like absolutely everything they see) may find lots to love in Evil Dead. For the rest of us, this tired exercise offers a painful lesson in the power of marketing and the purchasability of the nerd press.

Despite decades of fan requests for a new Evil Dead sequel, Raimi and Campbell slapped their name on a sub-par retread--all the while unscrupulously promoting it as being better than even what their supporters claimed they wanted. Sadly, the public appears to have convinced itself that this steaming pile of garbage is what it had asked for all along. It's the cinematic equivalent of Obamacare.

Worse than the fact that all the new material is unnecessary filler--from the opening attempted exorcism to the conceit that a group of friends have traveled to a secluded, wooded cabin to help one of their own kick heroin--is Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues' refusal to let Raimi's original trilogy go. Evil Dead isn't a remake or a re-imagining so much as it's a Greatest Hits mash-up of parts one and two:

The kids find the Book of the Dead; one of them reads it aloud; a forest-full of demons is unleashed.

Fine. But we also get endless call-backs to the glass necklace, three severed hand gags, multiple trips to the work shed, and, of course, a climactic showdown featuring a chainsaw. Along the way, Alvarez keeps cutting to illustrations from the book, which show gruesome things happening to people. Wouldn't you know it? Seconds later, the highlighted awful fate befalls one of the kids in the cabin.

Rinse. Repeat.

By constantly grafting elements of Evil Dead 2, which is a comedy, into an allegedly serious, dark horror movie, the filmmakers wind up with something neither humorous nor horrific. In this way--and only in this way--Evil Dead is the perfect spiritual successor to the original, which was also plagued by repetitive "Look at Me!" gore scenes and zero reason to invest emotionally.

What's worse, Alvarez doesn't at all try to improve on Raimi's films' problems--in fact, he makes them worse. I never understood how demons with the ability to possess people, levitate, warp reality, and grow into horrific multi-headed monsters were so easily defeated by chainsaws and guns. At least Raimi established a rule that reading different Book of the Dead passages could restore the cosmic order.

Alvarez just goes to town on his meat puppets (who are invincible--until they're conveniently not) and gives us more drawn-out false endings than Return of the King. None of them work, by the way, and serve only to highlight the perfect, escalating weirdness of Evil Dead 2's climax.

I was very hopeful for this remake, and even called off the hounds of skepticism a few months ago. But it turns out the naysayers were right--just not for the reasons they thought. I believe a quality update of The Evil Dead is possible, but whatever I watched yesterday doesn't qualify. Shot in a competent but wholly generic style,* and cast mostly with what I can only assume are slightly tousled Abercrombie models, Evil Dead 2013 plays like a late-afternoon test the scientists from The Cabin in the Woods would rush through ahead of a three-day weekend.

I can't help but wonder if this was Sam Raimi's plan all along: a hearty "Fuck You" to his fans for not appreciating the Evil Dead films he'd already given them. I'd like to think that's the case, even if it is a bit cruel. For my part, I'm going to violate a very strong, very personal policy and suggest that you avoid this movie at all costs. Just don't watch it. There's nothing here that wasn't done better over twenty years ago, and therefore no reason for you to waste your time, money, or gas. Contrary to all the overblown Internet chatter, Alvarez's movie won't give you nightmares--but it may just put you to sleep.

A Note About the Famous "No CGI" Controversy: Computer-generated imagery rears its unconvincing head within the first three minutes of this film. It's not as egregious as, say, the Resident Evil movies, but there's no more or less "old school, practical horror" here than was evident in Saw II. Once again, bullshit hype and manufactured drama win the day.

*Pay close attention to the specific "Raimi-isms" Alvarez tries to re-create and stand in awe of the mediocrity.

Primer (2004)

Payday Clones

I rarely fall so far behind a movie's plot that I feel like an idiot for not keeping up, but Primer lost me after twenty minutes. This is a good thing. A very, very good thing.

Writer/director/star Shane Carruth's $7,000 debut is a frustrating, fascinating, and ultimately exhilarating time-travel picture that explores the mysteries of the universe through the eyes of the genre's least compelling protagonists. Aaron (Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) aren't Marty McFly and Doc Brown by any stretch; nor are they sexy, clever wonks like Seth Brundle--they're monotone, early-thirties office workers who dream of gamed stock markets and tight margins. That their garage-grown side business winds up destroying chronology as we know it is perhaps the universe's greatest prank: What's more heartbreaking than two low-level executives being given the keys to rip-roaring sci-fi adventure?

That, I suppose, is the movie's big joke. Aaron and Abe are so greedy and distrustful of each other, so obsessed with commoditizing their discovery, that they completely upend the world before even partially examining what it is they've built. I'm being deliberately vague here, as much of the movie's fun comes from watching the boys' grand plans unravel in unexpected ways. Thanks to some really clever editing, the dialogue-driven story goes on seemingly inconsequential walkabouts; drops some huge bombs here and there; and then wanders off again--leaving the audience to yell, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up a minute!"

But Carruth soldiers on, and as Aaron and Abe continue to screw up the time/space continuum, Primer's narrative fabric wears thinner and thinner. Like its characters, the movie feels confused, unsure of what day it is, or which version of itself might be considered "real" (and in which dimension that reality exists). In lesser hands, this confusion might come off as a lazy artist's way of not admitting he's painted himself into a corner. But because Carruth doesn't care about traditional story resolution--indeed, because his story is about the inability to find resolution after so severely fudging the facts--his characters simply march through the freshly set paint, leaving gaudy footprints all over a floor the cosmos didn't want colored in the first place.

The first detail I mentioned about this film was its budget, which is a big key to appreciating what Carruth has done here. I've spent a lot of time lately lamenting the state of low-budget cinema, and had begun to think I was losing my mind. Thankfully, I discovered Primer, a movie whose larger-than-life themes aren't under-served by limited finances. Aaron and Abe's story involves paradoxes, doppelgangers, and a handful of other unique problems that don't require special effects, period costumes, or exotic locales to pull off. Like a great novel, the action (such as it is) is merely an offshoot of the ideas, and not a stand-in for them.

Primer's only downside is its casting. Granted, we're dealing with an independent movie, so I shouldn't expect Julliard-trained professionals. But in early scenes involving the leads' initial business partners, the actors are ill-equipped to deal with the dense corporate and scientific jargon gushing from their mouths. Perhaps Carruth and company went Method on us, imbuing their characters with the same dry, mumbling stiffness one might expect from people who've built careers on a lack of imagination. Or maybe they just weren't up to the task. Fortunately, Primer becomes a two-man show soon enough, and Carruth and Sullivan (mostly) smooth out the rough beginnings.

At some point soon, I'll have to watch this movie again. Like its characters, I have a feeling I'll make several return trips in the hopes of understanding just what the hell is going on. I get that many bad things happened on Aaron and Abe's not-so-excellent adventure; I'm just not sure why or how much of it came to be. The answers are all there, I think. Or maybe the answer is that there is no answer--that, as some have theorized, the consequences for mucking around with time travel are so severe as to be indecipherable and irreversible. Either way, I'd be an idiot not to try.

Room 237 (2012)

Easter Eggs and Basket Cases

What better day than Easter to write about America's religion? I'm not talking about Christianity or the worship of money, though they certainly have their place in the canon. No, we Yanks love conspiracy theories. Roll your eyes if you will. But chances are, even the most dyed-in-the-wool anti-Truthers accept as a matter of historical record one or two stories whose facts are muddy at best--purposefully so at worst.

Of course, the last twelve years have seen a decidedly anti-conspiracy shift in the cultural narrative. Bring up the JFK assassination in mixed company and you'll either get sideways glances or some enthusiastic new takes on the case. Stray from the official narratives of 9/11 or the bin Laden raid in that same group, and it's fat-lip city. The abruptness with which such conversations are shut down is so keen as to be almost...orchestrated.

I kid, of course.* But the point is, conspiracy theorists have been given a bad name--which is why Rodney Ascher's bold and endlessly entertaining documentary Room 237 is so important. Devoted entirely to five obsessed fans' ideas about Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, The Shining, Ascher forces his audience to not just revisit a classic horror movie, but to reconsider everything they know about history, the media, and possibly the nature of consciousness.

The movie is comprised of nine sections, each covering a different aspect of The Shining that has confounded devotees for decades. From the recurrence of the number 42; to seemingly coded messages about the Holocaust and the slaughter of Native Americans at the hands of the settlers; to my personal favorite: the idea that Kubrick used the film as a public apology for helping to fake the Apollo moon landing. Some of the theorists' ideas are outright silly, such as an alleged minotaur construct based entirely on the fact that The Shining features a maze and a blurry skiing poster with a distorted figure on it, who drunks might mistake for a mythological Greek villain--as well as Kubrick's fascination with shooting closeups of his male leads in downward-brow, upward-gaze compositions (you know, the way bulls look right before they charge!).

That sounds weird, but the genius of Ascher's technique is that he uses visuals from Kubrick's filmography exclusively to illustrate his commenters' points (it's also a major detriment to the narrative; more on that in a minute). So even though we must endure a droning narrative about the significance of bullshit bull imagery, beautifully restored footage of A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket give us a mental "out"; for those inclined to side with this theory, it's also as close to hard evidence as one can get, I suppose. Some of that footage is used to comedic effect, as when Tom Cruise's numerous pensive-walking scenes from Eyes Wide Shut stand in for the narrators' deep struggles with cryptic clues (and, I imagine, depression and social awkwardness).

The downside of this unique presentation is that because we never see the theorists, their voices all run together after awhile. One is clearly a woman; one sounds like a stoned Kinkos night manager; the rest are a mish-mash of pseudo-scholarly types who became a composite of The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy in my head. By Room 237's halfway mark, I'd given up trying to piece together a narrative through-line for any of these folks, and focused on the minutiae and crazy coincidences they'd dredged up.

Conspiracy theories aside, Room 237's big selling point is the way it highlights film as an art form. Just as painters and composers don't allow for errant strokes and notes in their masterpieces, Ascher and company posit that the best filmmakers make moving works of loving, precise beauty whose every detail means something--if not to the story then to the director. Consider one commenter's wacky idea to double-project the film onto a single screen, studying forward and reverse versions of The Shining and keying in on details that may just be too weird to be coincidence.

I'll never watch The Shining in the same way again, but neither will I be able to breeze past seemingly meaningless tracking shots in big, dumb blockbusters. Not that I expect Stephen Sommers or Michael Bay to slip subconscious keys to social upheaval into their next CGI vomit-fest, but no one thought Kubrick would do anything special in adapting Stephen King's haunted hotel novel, either.

And what if there is something to these theories? As I said before, I love the Apollo 11 stuff. I have no reason to believe the wild notions presented here, outside of the ideas expressed in the film. But I've also never left the Earth's atmosphere, either. Nor have ninety-nine percent of the people, I'd wager, who think it "impossible" and "ridiculous" that anyone could perpetrate a hoax of that scale on the world.

Besides, which is the crazier story to believe: Kubrick's veiled confession that he helped fake the moon landing, or ancient reports of a magician walking around town three days after dying on the cross? Both theories have die-hard defenders whose sketchy "supporting evidence" requires a huge amount of faith in order to stomach. At least the moon landing guys have photographic proof that their master manipulator existed.

Or do they?

A Note for Chicagoans: If you'd like to see Room 237 on the big-screen (which I highly recommend), it opens on Friday, April 5th at The Music Box Theatre on Southport.

*Not really.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Daze in the Military

You don't need to have seen G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in order to understand its sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation. I saw the original in 2009, and it wasn't until a few minutes ago (following a quick scan of IMDb for research) that I remembered Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring in that film. I paid to see Rise of Cobra in a theatre, and had some definite, not-so-nice opinions of it. But I went into the sequel recalling only three things: Channing Tatum's involvement; Cobra Commander's (Luke Bracey) voice sounding nothing like it did in the animated 1980s series on which the movies are based; and Christopher Eccleston's ridiculously fun performance as metal-faced supervillain, Destro.

You may have guessed by the scarcity of bold highlights that most of the original cast (and the characters they played) don't return for part two. Like a new product line rolling off the mega-blockbuster conveyor belt, Retaliation banks on the audience's bad memory/lack of interest to essentially re-start the franchise's story. In this way (and many, many others), the movie is like a compilation of TV show episodes. If you were a fan of the cartoons, there's no excuse for not loving the movies: both are colorful, loud, boring, and best appreciated by children.*

Having said that, I recommend checking this one out--probably not in 3D, and likely only when it hits Netflix. It's not what you'd call a "good movie", but a few legitimately great performances and a solid lesson in killing off characters (actually, a solid lesson in how notto do so) are reason enough to give this thing a go. The plot is definitely not the selling point here, centering on a master of disguise named Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) assuming the identity of the U.S. President (Jonathan Pryce) in order to wipe out America's elite special forces branch and take over the world (Spoiler?). And that's okay: looking for story in G.I. Joe: Retaliation is like looking for nutrition at Stake 'n Shake.

Let's begin with those awesome performances. Pryce; barely a presence in the first movie, is a full-on star in Retaliation. In his dual role as homicidal egomaniac and leader of the free world,** he walks a fine line of hamming it up and forgetting that he's not in a serious movie. In a climactic scene that will evoke both Dr. Strangelove and your gag reflex, he toys with world leaders by launching the entirety of the United States' nuclear arsenal--all the while playing Angry Birds on his phone. He's a Bond villain playing President, and Pryce acts as if that's been his career objective all along.

Next up is Dwayne Johnson, an actor who makes me smile no matter how high-brow or low-brow the projects he appears in. Like Nicholson, Pacino, DeNiro, and Cruise, I have a feeling Johnson will be canonized someday for his inexplicable talent for playing a version of himself in every film--while also appearing to bring something new to the table. When his character, Roadblock, shares macho banter with Tatum's Duke, he might as well be delivering lines from Fast Five or Faster. But he's so damned good at playing the jovial brick shithouse that it's impossible not to fall in love (and yes, I mean that kind of love).

The last, best mention in Retaliation's surprisingly awesome acting stable is Walton Goggins. He plays the head of what amounts to the CIA black site in which Cobra Commander and Destro were detained following the events of the last movie. He greets his newest inmate (whose identity I won't divulge--not so much out of concern for spoilers, but because it's too complicated and uninteresting to mention) with a boisterous, devilish sales pitch for his facility of doom. He's a classic Lovable Prick who, thanks to some uncharacteristically clever writing by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, gets to play both sides of the audience's sympathy. Goggins deserves his own spin-off. And probably an Oscar.

The rest of the cast isn't worth mentioning. Bruce Willis, who's turned his tough-guy smirk into the equivalent of Derek Zoolander's "Blue Steel", shows up as the original G.I. Joe. He manages to stay awake long enough to deliver his lines, but just barely. Hey, at least he's a discernable personality. Between Abercrombie Model with Daddy Issues, Ninja Man, Ninja Girl, and Not John Stamos (sorry, the actual code names escape me), Retaliation overflows with characters I couldn't care less about, going on missions that make moderate to zero sense, and blowing up three times the national debt in property in the process. They are Team America: World Police, complete with visible strings and wooden delivery.

And don't get me started on RZA as Ninja Man's rival. Jesus fucking Christ...

Sorry.

Earlier, I alluded to a poorly executed character death. Turn back now if you don't want to know that Channing Tatum's character dies ten minutes in. Ha! See what I did there?*** Anyway, in a better film, offing the previous movie's hero would be a really big deal. Unfortunately, when Duke bites it in a fire fight, Retaliation's audience instinctively goes into "Comic-Book-Movie Mode" (I realize we're technically talking about an Action-Figure Movie, but the same rules apply).

The logic of these movies dictates a false death, followed by a reprise during the final moments of the climax--wherein the supposedly fallen hero swoops in to save our heroes in their darkest hour. You won't find that here. Duke is as dead as Dahmer before the plot fully kicks in, and I can thank the boldness of the script and the clumsiness of John M. Chu's direction for giving me..."hope" is a weird word to use in describing the return of Tanning Channing, but I guess it works.

For as much railing against vapidity as I do on this site, you're fully within your rights to call me a hypocrite. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is patriotic, 3D machismo that's too dull to make it even as a summer blockbuster. But the handful of oddities I've described in annoying detail are enough for me to highly recommend it--but not in the way Chu and company would likely prefer. This is high trash, a glossy distraction that will never be anyone's favorite movie. It exists to fill a calendar slot in a release slate, and to keep a revered toy brand relevant with new tie-in figures.

I can't wait for part three.

*I feel the same way about Michael Bay's Transformers franchise, which, for some reason, is still maligned as an empty, over-long effects spectacle--almost like it was rooted in thinly plotted, poorly disguised toy commercials or something.

**It's a cartoon movie, so I'll allow the fanciful distinction.

***Yeah, I hate that cutesy cliche, too.